Manifest
The candle flame beneath the shallow basin flickered. Without glancing up from his work Will said, “If you’re going to do that, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.” He continued turning the dials that lined the edge of the basin, manipulating the delicate gears that controlled the height of the stand it hung suspended from, the concavity of the bowl, the height of the rim. His hands weren’t what they’d been in his twenties, or even his thirties, but they were steady enough.
His audience sank his bearded chin back down to his hands, which rested on the counter. As soon as he stopped blowing the flickering ceased, and he flashed a lopsided, conciliatory grin.
“I mean it Chuck,” Will warned, forestalling the second prank that was the other man’s usual modus operandi. The liquid in the basin stirred and began to steam gently as he took detailed notes about the new setting measurements. “I’m very close this time, and I do not want to have to start over.”
“You always say that.” But Chuck sat up straight, leaning back in an exaggerated over-correction that almost sent him tipping backwards. He caught himself on the edge of the counter and reached for his drink.
Like the little bursts of mischief, this was all to familiar to Will. Sometimes he wondered how it had come to this — furthering his experiments in alchemy in the far frozen north, observed only by the town drunk and, as far as these things went, Will’s only friend. Not that the town was an unfriendly one, it was just that he tended to keep to himself. Chuck, unlike most people who had better things to do with their time, had hung around for long enough, talking cheerfully into Will’s distracted silenced and generally keeping himself entertained, that after a while they’d gotten familiar with each other’s company. Then, when Chuck had worn out his welcome at his old lodging, he’d moved into Will’s room, and Will had never really bothered to object. After all, sometimes it was nice to have company.
But that was far from the forefront of Will’s mind as his fingers, large for the minute dials as they were, made one last delicate correction. A fraction of a turn too short or too far would ruin the experiment and he would have to begin again. He let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, and adjusted his notes as well.
The basin’s contents were simmering now. Vapor rose from the murky gray liquid. It curled and twined in the air yet stayed contained beneath the supporting frame. And then—
Chuck put his cup back down on the counter and peered at the basin with sudden interest. More, in fact, than any Will had ever seen him show in anything besides his distillery equipment.
“Now that,” Chuck said with a a wide grin that crinkled the laugh lines around his eyes, “is a classic manifest. Well done!”
In the vapor above the basin, a steady band of glow twined around itself in a quicker and more convoluted knot than the air currents of the room could explain. It changed color as it moved but the predominant color was a pale, translucent green. Threads of blues, reds, purples, and yellows flickered to life and passed almost as quickly as they’d come. The spectacle was accompanied by a faint, ghostly hum.
A perfect aurora magicalus in miniature.
Will sat back, wiping the perspiration from his temples without quite noticing that it was there. It had taken him over a decade to manage this. Even turning lead into gold had been easier, and that was, officially, the highest test of achievement to become a Master of alchemy. No one in his home region had thought that an artificial magicalus could be possible, but he had finally, finally proven them all wrong.
“Do you know what this means?” he murmured. The hushed tone wasn’t intentional, but he was too stunned by the spectacle above the basin to speak with anything less than respectful reverence. It occurred to Will that although he’d been conducting these experiments for years, making minute adjustment after minute adjustment and endlessly trying again, but deep down, beneath the bravado he’d donned like armor as a young man and never taken off, he had never really expected to succeed.
Chuck nodded. “Yeah, it means we can save some oil tonight.” He leaned over, stretching and tilting his stool precariously onto two legs, and tamped down the nearest lamp.
“This directly upsets at least half the magical theory I’ve ever heard,” Will continued, ignoring this.
“Sure, sure. So aren’t you going to touch it and see what happens?”
Later, Will wondered why he had listened to that suggestion. For all intents and purposes Chuck had little magical knowledge beyond basic ward repair and a few odd hedgewitch’s tricks. His fermented concoctions always turned out rather stronger than Will expected, but that probably wasn’t magic. Yet, there were moments. Moments like these when he reached a new stage in his experiments and Chuck already seemed to half anticipate the next step. Chuck, who when Will had first told him about the aurora magicalus had said “Shouldn’t you cover your nose when you sneeze?” and gone to take a nap under a table.
Touch it and see what happens, indeed. When put like that, coming from a drunk, it seemed like advice only an idiot would follow. But there were documented cases of human contact with the magicalus as a natural phenomenon, and in order to be sure he really had just created one...
Will reached out his hand.