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More pointless mental meandering. She usually kept her thoughts in better order than
that, especially in times of crisis, but she supposed she was just trying to avoid thinking
about Rondeau being tied up somewhere—though not at the sorcerer’s shop, not yet.
Nowhere Marla would be able to find him. She returned her attention to B. “We assume
the spell has been done before. It’s tough to perform, but no harder than half a dozen
other spells of such magnitude. It takes about a year of steady prep work—I’m talking
hours of meditation every day—which is why my spies had time to discover that Susan
was planning it. Even so, I cut it close.”
“Will it be another year before Susan can try again?”
Marla flipped a dagger in the air and caught it. “I wish. No, she can do it again in a day
or so, once she replaces the spell components that were consumed in the casting, and
gives herself over to more meditation.” So that was what the Possible Witch had meant.
If Susan had eaten a bit of bad fish, spent the night puking, and delayed her spell until
this morning, Marla would have been back in this world, and the spell would have
worked on her. “So I’ve got to move fast to get the Cornerstone.”
“And the Cornerstone is useful because…?”
“Good to see Rondeau exercised some discretion. The stone is an artifact, a sort
of…magnifying glass and industrial-strength fixative for spells. It makes magic
stronger, and it’s especially useful for binding spells, and making things last forever.
It’s also handy for overcoming the inertia of reality.”
B looked at her blankly.
Marla made a vague hand motion. “Reality is pretty resilient. You can bend it, but it
always snaps back into shape. That’s why magical gold turns back into leaves and cow
patties after a while—magic bends the rules of the world, but it can’t break them. With
the Cornerstone, you can bend reality to the breaking point, and do all sorts of things.
Like make yourself live forever. Really forever, not just a long time, like my friend Lao
Tsung lived. Fortunately, most people who are powerful enough to brew up magic like
that are smart enough not to try it. The ones who do go for eternal life usually get about
a century past their normal life span and then go bat-shit crazy. They’ll still be floating
around in space when all the stars have burned out, poor bastards. You can do other
things with a Cornerstone, in theory.”
“Like bring a god back to life?”
Marla nodded. “Unfortunately. You have to bend reality a lot to get it to accept a giant
frog-monster whose mouth opens onto the Land of the Dead. But Mutex can push things
that far, with the Cornerstone.”
“So what are you planning to do with it?”
“I’m going to use the Cornerstone to bind myself to this world, and I mean bind. Hell,
after I cast the binding, I doubt even a visit to the Possible Witch would be able to shift
me. I probably couldn’t even get to her temple, since it’s outside of this reality—so
yeah, there are drawbacks. It’s a hell of a sacrifice, actually. I won’t be able to enter