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“When does this become interesting?” Marla asked.
Finch sighed. “Do you know why the barley took root? Most people don’t. It was the
Cornerstone, Marla. Some sorcerer—we don’t know which one for sure, but it was
probably Sanford Cole, who later became the secret court magician to Emperor Joshua
Norton—wanted the park to succeed, and he sank the Cornerstone down in the sand in
the desert that would become the park. Then he spoke a simple binding spell—a spell
made incredibly effective and permanent by the Cornerstone—and the next thing that
got planted on the dunes took root. That just happened to be Hall’s barley. Cole was an
interesting fellow. You’ve heard of him?”
“Sure,” Marla said. “He’s the Ben Franklin of sorcerers. He’s responsible for our
foothold in America, according to some people.”
“True enough. By all accounts, he was a good man. Can you imagine? A sorcerer that
powerful, being described as good? That’s not the way you or I will be remembered, I
suspect. Perhaps it was a different time.”
Marla kept silent, watching buildings slide past outside the window. People who
thought things were fundamentally better or kinder in earlier times were clearly not true
students of history.
“There’s a legend that Cole will return in the hour of San Francisco’s greatest need, you
know,” Finch said.
“Huh. Like Merlin, the way he’s supposed to return to England?”
“In a few hundred years, Cole might be remembered the way Merlin is, at least among
our people.”
“You believe that story?” Marla said. “That he’ll come back?”
Finch shrugged. “Not really. Some do, of course. Some of the techno-mages thought he
would return when the dot-com bubble burst, but he failed to arrive, not surprisingly. I
suspect Cole is gone forever. Though if he had constant access to the Cornerstone, I
suppose anything’s possible. Even returning from the dead.”
“So this Cornerstone,” Rondeau said, “it makes spells last forever?”
“Among other things,” Finch said. “There are four known Cornerstones in the world—”
“Three, since Ballard ate one,” Marla said.
“Yes, three in the world, and their origins are unknown. They’re good for binding
spells, for making things last, for making improbable things likely, for anchoring things.
We’ve got the Golden Gate Bridge bound to the Cornerstone, so it won’t fall down in
the event of a catastrophic earthquake. Of course, the ordinaries don’t know that, and
they’re still retrofitting the bridge to make it earthquake-proof by more mechanical
means. But that’s all right. It keeps people busy. Fortunately, most sorcerers only have a
vague notion of what the Cornerstones are, and most of those don’t know where to find