August 21, 2018

PodCastle 536: The Threadbare Magician — Part 2

49 minutes

* Author : Cat Rambo

* Narrator : Graeme Dunlop

* Host : Summer Fletcher

* Audio Producer : Graeme Dunlop

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Originally published in Genius Loci: Tales of the Spirit of Place.

Note that this is one part of a two-part episode. You can read and listen to the first part here.

Rated R, for cursing wizards and magical desires.

See below for links to Cat’s projects:

Cat’s Patreon.

The Rambo Academy for Wayward Writers, which offers live and on-demand classes aimed at fantasy and science fiction writers. Fun fact: co-editors Khaalidah and Jen met at one of Cat’s workshops. They are highly recommended!

Some books and collections for sale: Hearts of Tabat, Neither Here Nor There, Moving from Idea to Finished Draft.

The Threadbare Magician — Part 2

by Cat Rambo

[Continued from Part 1, available here]

I hadn’t consulted an oracle in years. Never in this area.

I went to a closet and took down the usual sorts of accumulated boxes before finding a box of cedarwood, holding a small red velvet pouch. I took out the contents and cast the runes.

And frowned at them. Had I been overly casual, insulted them?

I took the time to center myself and cast again.

The same result. Which couldn’t be right.

An Oracle here in Friendly Village itself? Pleasant, unmagical Friendly Village?

Only a few trailers away?

The singlewide trailer was small, and dowdy, but a profusion of flowers surrounded it. Hummingbirds clouded the standing fuchsia spilling blooms across the compact-sized driveway. Beside the door, a silver witch ball reflected everything around it, inverted and in miniature.

Before I could knock on the door, it jerked open. A long-nosed, wrinkled face above a solid body in an “Embrace Your Inner Crone” t-shirt said, “You don’t need me. Go see the god.”

“Beg pardon?” Behind her head, I glimpsed a living room decorated in white seashells and royal blue velvet.

“Go back to Osprey Lane. He’s at the end there.”

The door shut in my face.

I knocked again, but there was no answer. Very well. There’s nothing obliging an Oracle to help everyone that stops by. Some keep odd hours; others have odder restrictions, though the runes should have warned me of either.

And, technically, she had given me direction. A street name, even. And an idea about who lived there.

A god? One of the beings discarded by our age, living a prayer-to-prayer life in a forgotten corner of the world? Usually they were hard to find. But there was no reason why one might not have taken up residence here.

Jason had steered me to Friendly Village. Had he known of its double nature? Surely not, when I’d had no inkling. On the other hand, he’d been born in this area. He knew the history.

When you grow up someplace, you learn many of its secrets.

Perhaps not all. But certainly most.

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