Wise One

Tiro and Pierce were watching the wizard gardening.  He didn't use magic for planting.  He didn't bring the flowers immediately to full bloom with a fertility spell, either.  Instead, he sprinkled them with water, then stood and walked inside.

"This is boring," Tiro groused.  He flicked through a basic teleportation spell and disappeared.

Pierce crept down.  The old man cracked his door at Pierce's hesitant knock. 

"Why do you not use magic," Pierce asked, "when it is so easy?"

"Wisdom has a price," said the wizard.  "I have seen the true shape of the world, and can bend it no longer."

Engage

"Scotty," said the captain. "A moment of your time."

"Aye, sir?" The engineer looked wary.

"I've been reading up on warp engines recently. I just can't seem to wrap my head around it. I was hoping you could give me a little... tutoring, I suppose? Practical demonstrations?"

Scotty cast his gaze down. "Well, sir, I'm afraid I've got to come clean with you. There's no such thing as warp engines."

"Come again?"

"It's magic, sir. Sacrificial goats and black rites. Engineers are all wizards." He shrugged. "Didn't you ever notice the explanations don't hang together from one crisis to another?"

Not What He Expected

"Well, it's magic," said Archmage Trefortius. He scooped up a bucket of ice cubes and watched them turn instantly to water. He poured it out; the renewed cubes clattered as they rejoined their brethren. "Only the lake is affected, and only at certain unpredictable times. There's no rational scientific explanation for this; it's supernatural and unrepeatable."

Apprentice Fitz took a few experimental steps onto the surface, then wobbled hastily back. "Cold. The locals use it to chill beer. The fish thaw out fine afterward, too."

"Magic," Trefortius said again. He sighed and shook his head. "We found it at last."

The Machine That Made Clothes

He put the dog into the machine that made clothes and turned her into a jacket. When he wore it to work, everyone found themselves smiling at him and patting him on the back.

The next day, he put his daughter in the machine. The shirt she became was as pale as innocence and just a little sad, and he spent the day collecting ancient confessions and secret regrets.

Eventually, he ran out of things to put in the machine. He stood in front of it, wearing all of his new clothes, and he thought for a long, long time.

Tiny Plastic People, Melting

"Tyson, dinner."

Tyson ignored her. He added a dab of glue to the plastic fuselage in his hands.

"Tyson!"

"I am working on my model, Mom!" he shouted. He pressed the piece into place and held it there. It would soon be time for the painting.

"Your model can wait. Come downstairs now."

"'Model' means more than one thing." Tyson muttered. "It can also be a projection. A model is the shape of the future." He held the tiny jet and its miniature weaponry tightly. On his desk, his toothpick building was taking on the first resemblance to his house.

And the Delicate Gossamer of Their Wings

The man in the clown suit produces a quarter, seemingly from nowhere. He is in a run-down apartment, before a white-plaster wall. There is no furniture.

He sweats beneath his makeup, and his body is gaunt with deprivation. He smells abominable. The floor swarms with roaches, a brown-shelled carpet.

The clown vanishes the coin with a deft finger movement, spreads his hands to show they are empty. The room fills with applause, a susurration of brown wings.

After a short time, the applause dies down. The silence is heavy, expectant.

The man chokes back a sob, and the show continues.

Magic Lesson

"Restraint is important," said Pembrose. "You're smarter than to try something truly blatant, I know, but you're too clever by half. You'll think it can't hurt to try a little something, knowing everyone will assume it was prestidigitation. This you must not do. Always prepare a secret, a trick to explain it away."

"But why?" asked Cherie. "Why not actually use our power?"

Pembrose stroked his mustache. "Why can we do magic, apprentice?"

"We're wizards. Wise ones. We know the secrets."

"Wrong!" Pembrose snapped. "They believe even though they know it is not true. That is why the magic works."

Health Inspection at the 'Crimson Bullock' Factory

Inspector Sapor turned and glanced at the muffled figure of the Witchfinder. The man held up his dual wands, checking for magical auras. "Clean," he said, his voice a robotic buzz through his mask.

Sapor frowned and stroked his mustaches. "All is... in order, Mister Rapqi. But we'll keep our eye on you. No normal herbal brew has had the... stimulating effects your 'soft drink' claims."

"Of course, sir," said Rapqi. And thank the gods they didn't think to check the bottlecaps, he thought, more sweat trickling down his brow than could be explained by the heat of the brewery.

The Fundamental Equivalence of Pixie Dust, an Electrical Socket, and the New Baco-Splosion Deluxe

Larry watched the elf blithely hand over a twenty-dollar bill. He didn’t even wait for change, but sashayed into the food court, plunking his tray down on a spindly-legged table. Larry followed more slowly.

“How did you do that?” he asked, sitting down as the elf bit into his Baco-Splosion Deluxe.

“Do what?” the elf mumbled, tiny mouth full.

“Pay for the food. You don’t have pockets. You don’t even have pants!”

“Oh, that,” the elf waved a thin-fingered hand. “It’s all the same. Magic is money, money is potential, potential is energy. I just manipulate the rates of exchange.”