Magic, page 15
The dragon said, “It won’t last long. I just gave you a little dose. In a way, I suppose it’s better. Yuh can dodge the flame; yuh can’t dodge dis. All de knights leave quick, when I breathe out. So do all the lady dragons. Wotta life.”
The dragon shook its head sadly.
Prince Delightful got shakily to his feet. The forest still smelled, but it was bearable.
He said, “Bernie, how would you like to come back to Poictesme with me and be introduced to King Faraday?”
“What? And have a million knights sticking their spears into me?”
“No, believe me. You’ll be treated like a king yourself. You’ll have all the bunny rabbits you can eat, and grass, too.”
“How come?”
“You’ll see. Trust me. I have to ride you back, though. I haven’t got a horse anymore.”
Prince Delightful came back on Bernie, sitting just behind his head, and viewing the world from thirty feet in the air.
At first everyone fled screaming, but Prince Delightful kept calling out, “Friends, this is a tame dragon, a good dragon. Its name is Bernie. Speak to them, Bernie.”
And the dragon called out, “Hi, guys. It’s just me and my friend, duh prince.”
Eventually, some peasants and workmen and varlets of varying degree, braver than the rest, followed along as the dragon took his huge steps carefully, making sure it treaded on no one by accident. Its great head turned on its long neck from side to side and the prince waved majestically first to the right and then to the left.
Then, as the news spread, the populace began to line the road and by the time Bernie moved into the capital city and up the main boulevard to the castle, the cheering populace had turned it all into a triumphant procession.
The dragon said, “Hey, de human people ain’t so bad when yuh get to know dem, Prince.”
“They’re almost civilized,” said Prince Delightful.
King Faraday came out to greet them and so did Laurelene, who shouted, “Greetings, my brave Prince Delightful.”
The sorcerer came out, too, and rubbed his eyes and said, “Of all things, an apatosaurus.” But he often spoke gibberish and no one paid attention.
Bernie was housed in a stable as far removed from the palace as possible and King Faraday, having overseen that, returned to his throne room and said to Prince Delightful, “I admit that bringing back the monster was quite a feat, but it was not what I engaged you to do. You were supposed to kill it.”
“Ah, but a tame dragon is far better than a dead one, if you’ll let me explain matters to Your Majesty.”
“I’m listening.”
“To begin with, I assume that, as a respectable monarch, you have a neighbor who is an enemy of yours and whom you have been fighting for generations. You have laid his lands waste and he has laid your lands waste, and many people have died in agony on both sides.”
“Well, of course. This is a civilized land, and we would not think of behaving in any other way. There is war between myself and the faithless, barbarous land of Lotharingia to our east.”
“And at the moment, is your army attacking them, or is theirs attacking yours?”
King Faraday coughed. “At the moment, Lotharingia has contrived to attain a slight advantage over us and has advanced to within ten miles of our provincial town of Papeete.”
“Would you like to destroy their forces and impose a peace of your choosing upon them?”
“Without doubt, but who would bring about such destruction?”
“Why, Bernie and I. Alone.”
“The Lotharingian forces include a thousand brave knights, armed cap-a-pie. Your dragon might kill some but it will be killed itself and our people would be greatly cast down at our failure.”
“There’ll be no failure. Let there be a saddle designed for Bernie’s neck, and a pair of reins so that I won’t fall off. Ask the sorcerer to design something that I may place over my head that will purify air, and have a small force escort me to the Lotharingian army.”
“A small force?”
“They may move off when Bernie and I reach the Lotharingians. Bernie and I will face the enemy alone. However, have an army waiting on the flanks, ready to move in behind the enemy forces to cut off their retreat.”
King Faraday said, “It is mad, but I will do as you say. After all, you brought back the dragon, when all the others merely fled.”
Saddle and reins were prepared. The sorcerer brought a device of peculiar shape that fitted over Prince Delightful’s head.
The sorcerer said, “This will keep the air pure. It is a gas mask.” But, as usual, no one was impressed with the words he used.
Prince Delightful and Bernard appeared before the lines of the Lotharingian army. The Lotharingians were in brave array and they bristled with spear points.
There was a tremor, however, that shook the ranks at the first sight of the dragon, with its rider high in the air and with his face hidden by some device that made him seem more fearsome than the monster he bestrode.
After all, every Lotharingian had seen pictures of dragons, but none had ever seen a gas mask, either in books or in real life.
The Lotharingian general called out bravely, however, and said, “It is only one beast upon another, my brave Lotharingians. Stand firm, acquit yourself like men. Circle the dragon, avoid its flames and hack at its tail. The pain will cause it to run.”
The Lotharingians took heart and made their stand, waiting for the dragon to advance. It did not, however, but kept its distance.
Prince Delightful said, “Did you hear them? They’re going to hack at your beautiful tail.”
“Dat’s what I hoid,” rumbled the dragon, “but dey ain’t gonna, because what dey said went an’ got me real mad.”
He opened his gigantic maw and, with a roar of thunder, there emerged a vast cloud of turbid, putrid gas. It rolled down upon the Lotharingian forces and where it struck and spread out, the armed men broke and ran, throwing away their weapons as they did so, concerned only to get away from the incredibly foul odor.
Some miles back, the army, reduced to a disorderly mob, met the waiting forces of Poictesme and few escaped either death or capture.
“You may have my beautiful and virginal daughter, Prince Delightful,” said King Faraday, “and since I have no son, you will inherit my kingdom when I die and the conquered land of Lotharingia as well and your own father’s kingdom, too. As for your dragon, he will be a hero to us for as long as he wishes to remain here. He shall live on the finest hay and we shall catch small animals for him when he feels the need for some.”
“He would like a lady dragon or two,” said Prince Delightful, diffidently.
“Even that might be arranged,” said the king, “if he learns to control his passions to some extent.”
Prince Delightful tripped on his train only twice during the marriage ceremony, but, as he said to Bernie in his stable afterward, “It doesn’t matter. Actually, the fairy Misaprop, made it all possible. My clumsiness landed me on your neck and your noxious breath destroyed the enemy army. —And now I must go to my fair wife.”
As it turned out, he was not unduly clumsy on his wedding night and he and the Princess Laurelene lived happily ever after.
PART TWO
ON FANTASY
MAGIC
ARTHUR CLARKE, IN ONE OF HIS NOTABLE oft-quoted comments, said that technology, sufficiently advanced, was indistinguishable from magic.
That’s clear enough. If a medieval peasant, or even a reasonably educated medieval merchant, were presented with the sight of a super-jet streaking through the sky, or with a working television set, or with a pocket computer, he would be quite convinced that he was witnessing sorcery of the most potent sort. He might also be pretty certain that the sorcery was the devil’s work. Consequently if a person from the present (his future) were to go back in time with a pocket computer, for instance, and were to demonstrate its workings, the result might well be exorcism, and perhaps even the torture chamber.
The question in my mind, though, is whether the proposition can be reversed. Is magic necessarily indistinguishable from sufficiently advanced technology? If so, you see, all the tricks of the trade of fantasy could be transferred to science fiction. After all, you don’t have to describe the advanced technology in detail (if you could, you would build a working model, patent it, and become very rich, perhaps).
For instance, as a child, I found Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves fascinating. Imagine coming up to a blank mountain wall, saying “Open sesame,” having the wall split in two, and having the halves move apart to reveal the entrance to a cave. Now that’s magic!
My wonder and bemusement at such a thing continued undiminished even after I had grown accustomed to approaching doors and having them open automatically at my approach. That wasn’t magic; that was just a photo cell and therefore no cause for wonder at all (even though I would agree that a medieval merchant, presented with such an automatically opening door, would surely consider it magic).
Perhaps it is the “Open sesame” that is the real wonder of it. After all, a door that opens at the mere approach of anyone at any time shows no discretion. If there is a code word that only you know then you control the door; you have power.
But then, it is easy to imagine a computer which will only allow the door to open at some appropriate code word punched onto its keyboard. Indeed, the time may well come when such a computer may be designed to respond to the spoken command. In that case, it is inevitable that some jokester will have the computer open the door at the command “Open sesame!”
We might go even further and outdo the story. After all, in the tale the door opens to anyone’s command of “Open sesame!” and because Ali Baba overhears it, he gains entrance to the cave and grows rich. A computer may be designed to respond only to the typical sound pattern of a particular voice and then only you may open the door, even if the whole world knows the code word.
Next, how about Snow White’s stepmother, the wicked queen, who asks her mirror who is the fairest of them all and has the mirror assure her that she is. Well, we don’t have talking mirrors, but we do have talking television screens, and the medieval merchant would see no distinction.
Some day, when it will become routine to have conversations under conditions of closed-circuit television, a fair young maid can phone her boyfriend and say, sentimentally, “Who is the fairest in the land?” and heaven help the boyfriend if his image in the mirror doesn’t say, “You are the fairest in the land.”
A third example that I always found impressive as a child is that of the giant who finds he must chase the hero who has gotten away with one or more of said giant’s ill-gotten treasures. The giant promptly puts on his “seven-league boots” and is off on a chase. No matter how great a lead our young hero has, we may be sure he will be quickly overtaken.
Now what are seven-league boots? It is usually explained that the giant can traverse seven leagues (twenty-one miles) at every stride. The stories never explain how long it takes him to make one stride, but children always assume (at least I did) that the giant makes as many strides per minute as a man ordinarily does.
The stride of a walking man is about one yard. This is, when a foot moves from its rear position to its fore position in ordinary walking, it moves through a distance of a yard. In the same time the much huger stride of the giant moves through twenty-one miles or 36,960 yards.
A man walking in an unhurried manner travels at a speed of three miles per hour. The giant walking in an unhurried manner, travels at 36,960 times this speed, or 110,880 miles an hour. This is indeed fast; much faster than I had imagined as a child; or (I am sure) than the tale spinner who first spoke of seven-league boots imagined.
Someone equipped with seven-league boots can travel from New York to Los Angeles in 1.6 minutes, and can go around the world in 13.5 minutes.
That is astonishing even as an example of high technology. It is faster than any present-day airplane, and is even faster than the rocket ships carrying our astronauts to the Moon.
In fact, so unexpectedly fast are seven-league boots that they defeat their own purpose. Any giant moving twenty-one miles at a stride, with strides coming as frequently as in an ordinary man’s ordinary walk, would be traveling with a speed some 4.4 times escape velocity. In short, he would, at his first stride, launch himself through the atmosphere, and, in a few more strides, find himself in outer space.
And yet there is nothing to keep us from developing seven-league-boot capacity. After all, that enormously speedy giant is still moving at only 1/6250 the speed of light.
I think I have shown then that magic can be indistinguishable from sufficiently advanced technology; but is that always so?
Obviously not, for it is common enough in tales of magic and sorcery to have people able to make themselves invisible, for instance; or to change a man into a frog and vice versa; or to be made capable of understanding the language of animals (and to then find that a horse can discourse as sensibly as Socrates). It is questionable whether such things are within the reasonable purview of technology, though with sufficient ingenuity, a science-fiction writer can think of a way of making such things sound technologically plausible.
However, consider that bit of magic that appeals to childhood most of all. There is no question in my mind that the most wonderful of all objects is Aladdin’s lamp. Tell the truth, now! Haven’t you ever dreamed of owning it?
Imagine having a jinn under your absolute control; one who answers “I hear and obey” to all requests, however unreasonable; one who can supply you with uncounted trays of jewels at the snap of a finger; one who can build you an elaborate and luxurious palace overnight and have it come ready-filled with beautiful and compliant damsels.
Ah! That’s what I call living.
Now we are ready to put our finger on the vital difference between magic and however-high technology. Presented with something so strange we cannot comprehend how it’s done, whether by some technological advance or some actually working magic, we have only to ask one question: “What are the limits within which the ability to do this must work?”
Magic need have no limits; technology must have.
Thus, the jinn of the lamp can build a palace overnight, or even in an instant, and it wouldn’t occur to the reader to ask, “But what was the source of the energy required to perform this task?” The jinn of the lamp could travel to Jupiter to obtain the rare egg of the dyk-dyk bird and be back in twenty seconds and no one would dream of pointing out that lo! he has traveled far faster than the speed of light.
I suspect that no technology, however advanced, will ever defy the law of conservation of energy, or of momentum, or of angular momentum, or of electric charge. I suspect that no technology, however advanced, will defy the laws of thermodynamics, or Maxwell’s equations, or the indeterminacy principle, or the tenets of relativity and quantum theory.
I say that I “suspect” this because I am perfectly ready to admit that we don’t yet know all there is to know about the Universe, that there may turn out to be special conditions, of which we as yet know nothing, in which any or all these limits can be bent or broken.
However, even if these limits are demolished, other limits, more basic and more unbreakable, will replace them. Some limit there will remain, as seems absolutely unavoidable to me.
Magic, however, is unlimited; that is its essence. When a science-fiction writer presents a tale of magic that must abide by rules and respect limits (as L. Sprague de Camp does in his wonderful “The Incomplete Enchanter”) then it is no longer magic; it is merely an exotic technology.
SWORD AND SORCERY
I DON’T REPRESENT MYSELF AS AN expert on the history of science fiction and its various sister fields and cousin fields, but I suspect I won’t be far wrong if I say that the contemporary sword-and-sorcery tale owes its existence to the imagination of Robert Howard and to his invention of the Conan stories.
Part of the success of this type of story lies in the fascination of the bulging muscles and incredible strength and fortitude of the hero. I imagine that almost any male would at least occasionally wish he had biceps as hard as chrome steel and could wield a fifty-pound sword as though it were a bamboo cane and could use it to cleave vile caitiffs to the chine. Imagine single-handedly putting fifty assailants to flight with a sword in one hand and a fainting damsel in the other?
Oddly enough, I shudder at such things. I have lived so thoroughly effete a life, and am such a failure at suspending some kinds of disbelief, that I remain too conscious of what a hero must smell like after having performed such feats and I’ve never read of one of them using a deodorant even once. It seems to me that the Conans of the world must rescue maidens from fates worse than death only to subject them to other fates worse than death.
Of course, maidens might like that sort of thing, and so might damsels—but I don’t really know. I’ve never put them to that particular test.
Heroes date back much farther than Conan, you may be sure. They are as old as literature, and the most consistently popular ones are notable for their muscles and not much else. As Anna Russell says of Siegfried, who is the hero of Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen, such heroes are “very brave, very strong, very handsome, and very, very stupid.”
You can find such heroes in almost every culture. The Sumerians had Gilgamesh, the Greeks had Heracles, the Hebrews had Samson, the Persians had Rustam, the Irish had Cuchulain, and so on. Each one of them would get into all kinds of trouble since any child could deceive and entrap them, and they then had to depend on their superhuman strength, and nothing else, to get out of the trouble.
It took the ancient Greeks to come up with something better. In the Iliad, the hero is Achilles, another killing machine. In the Odyssey, however, the hero is Odysseus, who is an efficient enough fighter (he wouldn’t have been allowed in any self-respecting epic, otherwise) but, in addition, he had brains.
