Alliance for Antrim Read online

  Chapter 8

  New magic

  Anson’s mouth dropped upon seeing the tiny moving images on the glass. He pointed in astonishment and fell back in his seat. “By the powers! What kind of magic is this?”

  That was quite a reaction, Nevin thought, as he pondered an explanation. It was practically impossible that an adult in today’s world could be unfamiliar with television; the most underdeveloped countries have mass availability of TV and videos on personal cellular devices. It seemed unlikely that Anson was play-acting or carrying out a prank, and his delusion was too finely detailed to be drug-induced. And what would explain the spellcasting demonstration? Nevin decided to go along with Anson’s story for the time being, which was getting easier to do because this strange little fellow was so believable and authentic in his astonishment. Nevin acknowledged that it was getting interesting to pull all the pieces of this mystery together. At least it was a temporary diversion from losing his job and facing an uncertain future. “Don’t you have anything like TV in Antrim?”

  Anson shook his head, still wide-eyed with wonder. Finally, he found his voice and blurted several questions, “Are these pictures of real humans in this window? Are they sprites? Or spirits? Is it their own voices we hear? Where are they? Is it only necessary for you to point that thing with buttons to make the pictures appear? Why do you not consider yourself a mage with such an extraordinary display?”

  “Well, if you have never seen television before I guess this could seem like magic. A hundred years ago, people here would have thought that about TV. Same for computers and pocket phones.” Nevin was not overwhelmed by this barrage of questions; he had experienced similar amazement many times by naive students learning about the latest scientific marvels. He replied as he often did when explaining a miraculous new scientific invention to an awed student: He drew a picture. Grabbing a sheet of paper from the printer near his computer, he sketched the basics of a camera, transmitter, and receiver powered by electricity. “Radio waves travelling from a central transmitter are received by devices inside this TV. Once the waves are received, you have several choices for programs at any one time which you select by using this remote control.” Nevin used the remote to rapidly flip through a selection of channels. He offered the remote control to Anson, who declined to touch it.

  “Can you see these ‘radio waves’ received by the box?” Anson asked.

  “No. The waves are invisible. An electronic component in the TV—behind its ‘window’—senses the waves and turns them into light pulses which form the pictures you see on the screen.”

  Anson looked bewildered. “Invisible waves that travel through the air and get changed into pictures? My goodness, Sir Nevin, this is magery of the highest order. The magic of my land is child’s play compared with these things you do.” Anson shook his head in disbelief. Leaning forward in his seat, he asked if he could see more.

  “Sure. What would you like to see?” Nevin flipped through several channels, but the abrupt sequence of pictures was too confusing for Anson to make a selection. After picking a channel for him, Nevin set the remote control back on the end table, and said with a grin, “If this is the first time you’ve seen television, I’ll leave it on the public channel for you. That way you won’t get disillusioned by too many commercials. This particular program is a documentary on World War II.”

  Anson was keenly interested in the documentary and asked Nevin questions continuously throughout the program. The idea of persons flying in machines that could travel at incredible speeds was hard to comprehend, but two parts of the program especially interested him. After the program was over and Nevin turned off the set, the first thing Anson asked about was gas warfare. Nevin explained how chlorine, mustard gas and tear gas were developed and used. When Anson said he had experienced something like that prior to the Gilsum attack on his village, Nevin was immediately struck by the first inconsistency in the delusion. Gas warfare would not occur if “Antrim” was the pre-industrial, agrarian society as he described. This may be a sign that the delusion was beginning to break apart. Yet he did recall that Anson’s eyes were quite red and irritated when they first met. That could be a coincidence. There are many possible explanations for acute eye irritation.

  The other part of the documentary which made a deep impression on Anson was the bombing of Hiroshima. When he realized that the mushroom-shaped cloud was the result of a bomb of immense power dropped on a civilian population, he hid his face and seemed deeply moved. Eventually he turned back toward Nevin with a look of bewilderment, as though he had just learned the most terrible secret.

  “Why, Sir Nevin? Why would someone knowingly create a device which serves no purpose other than to kill vast numbers of their own kind, most of whom are not soldiers and many who are children?”

  Nevin did not respond. He had no answer for that question.

  “From what you say, Sir Nevin, thousands of the people who lived in this place called ‘Hiroshima’ were killed instantly and many more thousands died afterwards or suffered for years with horrible disfigurement and injury. How could such a thing be allowed to happen?”

  Nevin reminded himself that Anson’s heartfelt reaction could stem from labile emotion leaking through psychological instability—although he had asked himself these same questions many times. His own feelings aside, Nevin explained that Hiroshima was bombed decades ago and only two “nukes” had ever been used in war. Besides, many people became pacifists afterwards and would actively protest any impending use of such weapons.

  Nevin got up and suggested that he make some sandwiches to go with cookies and tea. He called back as he walked into the kitchen, “I’m going to heat up a cheese sandwich. You want me to nuke one for you?”

  Anson responded with a wide-eyed look of terror.

  “You are going to nuke something?”

  Right away Nevin knew he made a bad choice of words. “That’s just a harmless expression. I just mean I can heat them up in the microwave oven. Just so the cheese will melt.”

  Anson relaxed at the assurance that a microwave oven was as cooking device and not a weapon of destruction.

  Both men sat at the kitchen table until they finished eating. Anson remained deep in thought for some time until he practically blurted out, “Sir Nevin, you say that only two nuke bombs have ever been used in a war, and that none have been used in many decades even though your army has ‘stockpiled’ thousands of them. Does this mean that the presence of these powerful weapons has been a way to cause peace? If your Kings are afraid of these bombs, does this fear force them to live peacefully and not provoke their use?”

  Nevin, still the teacher, replied, “A lot of people think these high powered weapons are a deterrent, except that we’ve still had some kind of conventional war or armed conflict every decade since atomic bombs were used. In fact, it looks like we are about to get involved in another one. I’d have to say the evidence shows that a nuclear arsenal is not much of a deterrent for war at some level.”

  Anson seemed deflated at this response. After a few more minutes of thought, his face brightened. “If the Kings of Gilsum and Antrim knew that weapons exist like your nukes, perhaps they might also fear the destruction that could befall them. They might choose to ally themselves to prevent the coming of any such weapons into their world. Sir Nevin, is there a way I can bring proof to the Kings of the existence of your nukes?”

  Nevin wrinkled his forehead at the naivety of these suggestions. There were several flaws with Anson’s thinking, some due to gaps in logic and others from historical contradictions. Concerned that the “mage” might overreact emotionally to a challenging argument, Nevin said he could show him photographs of the devastation in Hiroshima. Anson did not quite understand, but after a quick explanation of photography his face flared with excitement, “That is what I need! What you call, ‘photos!’ Please, take me to them.”

  Though he was still a little concerned about the man’s impulsiveness, Ne
vin said he could get some pictures. Since his printer was a cheap lo-res model, he offered to take Anson to the college library where they could get better quality photos. Before leaving, he suggested they save time by getting some book references by way of Nevin’s personal computer. Expecting Anson to claim ignorance about laptop computers, Nevin led him over to the desk and said, “If you liked TV, you ought to really get a kick out of this.”