Ooooops… That wasn’t me… God help me… I swear on my ass! Too late…
3. This is for those who tried to practice (as true theorists) both step 1 and step 2 and, cussing and swaying on their feet, said “Hell, somebody shoulda given me a warning. They don’t make these pants anymore – what am I gonna wear now?”
It’s worth giving a gentle reminder that putting a spell based on your own power is a little exhausting and that nobody does it that way anymore, except maybe when they’re in battle and all staffs and wands are already gone but the enemy in your rifle sight keeps coming out the woodwork, a situation you can’t describe without cussing.
And, as a matter of fact, in magic academies you can hear people on the sidelines say that everything good is done not by the magician but on behalf of their astral roof (or their astral basement if their design preferences lie that way).
And, scratching their noggins, still smoking from steps 1 and 2, they leaf rapidly through a catalogue of astral roofs, basements, and oh so tiny mezzanines.
Those still in a position to stay in position pick what they want and then (feeling something bad about to come up after they practiced yelling the name of the roof and put on their least favorite pants and, come to think of it, slippers) proceed to step… proceed…
4. Well, they don’t anymore – they used to but… boy does it drag you all over the pentacle!
Those who said it couldn’t get any worse than step 3 are SNOT-NOSED KIDS!
It’s quite another thing under the astral roof: when it comes crushing down on you, once and for all,
you understand you not only realized but are dead sure now that, hell, even though you were wrong about step 2 and – especially so – step 1, you were saying all those things about… which step was it? Well, go find it yourselves – I’m just fine as I am, lying here on the blood-soaked mat like a meat pancake…
When you’re boxing with the floor, the ceiling, and the asphalt (what’s the asphalt doing here? whatever, never mind), you begin to suspect vaguely that you forgot something – something is missing, but there’s nothing you can do so you move on to step
5. But the body takes its toll. The bastard wants to live so you understand that you ain’t never gonna drivethat clunker again… or almost never. And even if you do jump in, you won’t jump out – the earth punches hard when it hits your face.
Perhaps you’ll lie down instead… And why did they hang me out to dry?
We’re a team here, right? Why am I the only one on the grind?
Look how many slackers we have – c’mon, get your ass in gear (don’t go over the top with foul language; after all, we’re making a spell for the posterity – what do you think they will make of it?)
Lay ‘em here…
They look just fine lying here. Not moving a muscle! They’re real pros, looking alive the way they do. Their pictures oughta be in the textbooknext to “Where it is thin, there it breaks.”
After twenty or so passes (you were dying to cast a love-spell on the princess of a shabby empire; everyone was – at least when they were still alive), it occurs to you that, just to be on the safe side, you should back up each system component and stabilize the channel, starting, while the going is good, with some three courp… I mean, magicians.
…………………
Hurray, at least some folks survived the spell-casting.
True, half the mountain range is gone after all, and the island sits at a tilt, but what does matter is that the princess is in love… yes, with everybody at once, but that’s just a trifling side effect.
But now we can move on to step…
…Boy, I still remember how to count!
6. If you think about it – thinking is something you need to do at step 6—the clay tablets say the same… written.. I mean carved… two thousand years ago before AD… before people came along… dragons… those that were left …because they didn’t get enough training and couldn’t fly to otherworlds…
Hell, I’m so confused.
Never mind, you get the idea. Why make an apple when there’s plenty around?
Just make sure it’s the right time and the right
place… There’s a princess crossing the road… dig those legs, right in front of a speeding truck, and here I come, on my white dra… I mean, white hor…
turns out I’m a paramedic in white… no, it’s too late to be a paramedic, the princess will never be the same now that she’s just a heap of bones… white, white – white what? Got it – a Mercedes. I wedged it in with a flourish between the truck and her, now she’s indebted to me till the day she days, but what does she owe me? We’re talking five years here, no less. No, it’s not a rape, guardian angels are supposed to…
All right, a white truck. I swung the wheel with all might, directing the truck to a wall, a white one… that’s why the truck is white… but the princess… it’s all love… mission complete… and there’s no backlash to speak of, although the truck thinks otherwise… but hey, who’s asking the truck?
After you practice step 6, changing the princess about a dozen times, step 7 logically follows.
7. Stay away from spell-casting – there’s a bunch of princesses out there, and at least one of them is yours… especially if you…
or she is your …basically, it’s all the same – all you have to do is give one of her sidesa polish…
That’s how magicians get to be stalkers.
At least, those of them who survive, of course.
The key difference between magicians as we know them and stalkers is that stalkers don’t reinvent the wheel or break through the tunnel of probabilities but take the existing paths and upward streams to go, with the greatest of ease, to the place the world needs them to be at the moment, playing the part the world needs them to play.
…And the Traveler has enough roles and scenes…
Chapter 3.
Don’t youget smart with me – show mewith your finger where it is
Just kidding… Here’s one you might know
The Arctic Ocean… The weather is windy, snowy, and the sky hangs cloudy 100 yards above. A Chukchi man bobs in a kayak on the lead-colored waves. He sits hunched up over the water, fishing for something that has no compass to migrate to Sochi or Turkey.
All of a sudden, the water gets all rough and bubbling, and a US submarine comes up and swings a hatch open. The captain climbs out, wearing a black coat, produces a phrasebook, and starts saying “I’m a second-rank captain, and who are you?” in the dialects of Extreme North peoples. The Chukchi squints at him shortsightedly and, trying in vain to lift his head up, something he’d never done because he’d never had to, looks at him askance like a regular Russian pop singer and asks him, in perfect English, the same question geologists ask when someone comes upon them on the third day of their search for oil in bottle crates.
“What the f – do you want, soldier?”
The captain replies, bewildered, trying to speak English as well as the Chukchi, “Would Sir Chukchi be so kind as to tell me the way to God-blessed America?”
The Chukchi says, “Course south-southeast, 250 miles, and be careful with those jars near the shore.” The flabbergasted