Untitled

B’s eyes widened, even as he stepped back, well away from her flashing knife. “She
cast the spell while we were in another universe,” B said. “So it didn’t affect you!”
“Oh, it gets better,” Marla said, producing another dagger (this one was simple steel and
wood, but weighted to match her dagger of office) and beginning a more complex twoknife
kata, weaving a net of glittering steel. “Did Rondeau mention what Susan’s spell
was supposed to do to me?”
“No.”
“Because he didn’t know. I keep secrets. It’s a habit. Sorcerers need secrets the way
fishmongers need fish. But there’s no good reason not to tell you, and it’s funny, so:
Susan’s spell is supposed to delete me from this universe.” That phrase—“delete me”—
was the one her consiglieri, Hamil, had used when warning Marla of Susan’s plot, but
now it reminded Marla of mad Dalton’s notion of the world as computer simulation.
Maybe the other worlds they’d traveled to were other simulations, running on vastly
powerful networked computers. After a moment, Marla decided that the idea wasn’t
really all that interesting. Whether the universe was a computer simulation or not, it was
still a world of concrete, sewage, and unexpected moments of grace—debating the
nature of reality didn’t change the fact that she had to live in it.
“Delete you?” B said.
“Erase me,” Marla said, tossing her knives up and catching them before starting another
routine. “Snip me out of the tapestry of reality like a snagged thread. See, even if she
killed me—assuming she could, which she couldn’t—that wouldn’t necessarily help her
take over the city, even though she’s the strongest sorcerer there, apart from me. She’d
have to deal with my vengeful associates, and possibly my very psychotic ghost, so
instead she wants to cast a spell to cut me out of the world entirely. It’s big bad magic,
subtle and strange. First, the real, physical me will vanish, poof. Then, slowly, the other
proofs of my existence will fade away. Within two weeks my friends will forget about
me; within three weeks my enemies will. The things I’ve done in my life won’t be
undone, but every record and memory of who did those things will grow vague and
eventually disappear. Soon I’ll even drift out of people’s dreams. And I won’t even
have a ghost, because I won’t die, I’ll just stop being alive. And if, gods forbid, there’s
an afterlife, I won’t see it. I’ll just be gone.”
B stared at her as she spoke. “Marla,” he said. “You really deal with hard people, don’t
you?”
“Yeah,” she said, thinking, And I’m the hardest one of all. “So Susan tried to wipe me
away, break my ties to the world, but since I’d already left this world, there was nothing
for the spell to work on, so it just…fizzled.”
“Has anyone ever done this spell before? No, never mind—you don’t know, right? How
could you know?” He laughed, harshly. “That’s the whole point.”
Marla wondered what would happen to B’s movies if someone cast an erasure on him.
Would they be unchanged? Would he be replaced in all footage by a star of a similar
age, or some forgettable character actor?