Once upon a time there was a kingdom of magic and wonder. In this kingdom lived a princess adored by everyone. Of all the lands, and all the people, she was the most gifted of them all. Her name – Marigold.
With teachers of magic and tomes of wonder Marigold took to magic like a child to their mother’s hold. In lieu of a childhood Marigold lived her younger years immersed in these feelings, each day closing the gap between teacher and student until one day their roles reversed.
With no-one left to challenge her Marigold was given the freedom of exploration and she became like a bird given wings, her passion growing ever deeper as she explored magic beyond her bounds. But all youthful joys face their trials as the years grow.
On the year of her eighteenth birthday, after going through her magical tomes, Marigold realised a strange fact. All of the books she touched with her fair hands spoke of an age far before her time. Finding a question she had no answer too, Marigold sought an old tutor to answer her thoughts and came away with a fact that disturbed her heart.
Magic, they told her, was complete. New magic did not exist. ‘Impossible’, Marigold answered. But with each tutor she asked, and each answer the same, Marigold’s heart grew restless.
Magic was her life. What is a world without new magic? Is she to repeat what always has been, to never escape from what was? For all her work and all her passion, is it truly worth so little?
Marigold refused to believe their answer true. “If there is no new magic’, she exclaimed, ‘then I will make some myself’. Marigold was answered with patronising looks and scornful mouths. But she did not care. With eyes anew she sought out not just what magic had done, but what it could do.
Marigold went through all sorts of magic in her quest. Magic that made delicious food, magic that healed wounds both seen and unseen. Marigold performed magic that lit the night sky with fake fire, and magic that drew the wonders of a child’s imagination into reality. Magic of all sorts and shapes she found in her journey. Each one snuffing out another spark of her imagination.
‘Even if I find new magic,’ Marigold found herself asking her heart, ‘is it truly new magic? Or something simply forgotten or unfound?’. She once again sought the experience of her tutors, but came back with no answer to sate her.
The question was poisonous, cutting deeper into her heart the more she tried to ignore it. Finally Marigold’s eyes grew fierce and a decision was made. ‘If I cannot find answers here then I will seek them elsewhere’.
Marigold gathered herself up and spoke to her mother, the Queen, to be granted safe passage. ‘I will visit all the lands and all the magicians and see their magic with my own eyes, hear their answers with my own ears, and find what is new with my own heart’. The Queen, moved by her determination, granted her request. With steady steps Marigold left the castle that once made her life and sought out the world for answers.
There were many missteps on her journey. A sheltered princess found herself tricked and befuddled, led this way and that by strangers with kind and ill intentions alike. But with her magic she assailed each difficulty with a clumsy flourish and trod on. Soon she made it to her first destination. The Twin Peaks of Savoury and Sweet.
The two grand mountains that stood in her view were a dazzling sight. The savoury mountain on the left extended out in waves and spirals, pastry and poultry moulded into many shapes and forms. The sweet mountain on the right flowed and twirled, chocolate springs and candied land assailing a would-be connoisseur with scents both sickly and sweet. Each, it is said, holds a trial for those who want to meet the masters of the mountains.
So when Marigold ascended the savoury mountain, a trial she faced upon the door of the great mansion that stood at the peaks top. A pastry door, one filled with all manner of poultry and vegetables. It spoke coldly in its grumpy voice, ‘I am beholden to the master of this great mountain. The two masters of the two peaks have always fought to see whose cooking is superior, and whose is less. Tell me, why is it that savoury is greater than sweet?’
Marigold thought long and hard to find an answer to the question. She knew little about cooking beyond its magic. What could she say when she found neither savoury nor sweet to be to her interest? So she felt she could only say what is to be expected. ‘Sweet, while great, cannot be indulged on too much for fear that one grows sickly, and one grows big. It is savoury that dwells in our lives where sweet fails to, and savoury that we look to when sweet becomes too much.’
The pastry door fell silent at her words, and stayed silent as its doors opened. Marigold entered the mansion and soon found herself facing a large man, eyes glistening with mischief and wonder alike. ‘I see you have made it past my grumpy door. Tell me, what have you come here for?’
‘It is like this,’ Marigold spoke, and told of her tale and woe. ‘Tell me, oh master of food, is there no new magic to be found?’
‘It is true that there is no new magic here’, he spoke, his words offering no comfort. ‘But what is new magic? I find, when I fail to see what could be with my food, it is because I believe what has been is complete, and what could be is unseen.’
‘What on earth does that mean?’ the confused princess answered, her mind only more clouded then before she arrived.
‘Perhaps you need another perspective,’ he said. ‘Go see my twin brother on the other peak. Let him speak too, of what is new and what is old.’
With a nod and a curtsy, Marigold followed his advice and left to ascend the peak that held only sweets. The journey was short and she soon found herself across a door made of candy and chocolate and sweets galore. With the same question asked, Marigold repeated her words and was met with the same silent response.
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The sweet door opened and Marigold encountered a man similar in nature. ‘I see you have made it past my joyful door. Tell me, what have you come here for?’
‘It is like this,’ Marigold spoke, and told of her tale and woe. ‘Tell me, oh master of food, is there no new magic to be found?’
‘It is true that there is no new magic here,’ he spoke. ‘But what is new magic-‘
‘Not this again!’ Marigold cried, her face scrunched into frustration. ‘I just heard this from your brother. Can you not answer differently?’
‘Of course’ he says, his eyes aglint with humour. ‘But the better question is, have you asked differently?’
Marigold found herself stuck on his words, finding no answer. ‘Whatever do you mean?’
‘You assailed our mountain with a mind already set. What is new magic you asked, but truthfully your question was ‘why is there no new magic?’. An answer already set in your heart cannot be found to be different. If you have already decided that there is no new magic, where will you find it?’
‘But…” Marigold wished to answer, yet found his words rang true. ‘But they all said it as true. Even if I wail and woe to sate my heart, can I truly say different?’
‘Who knows’ he answered with a boisterous laugh. ‘What is new and what is old? You spoke to our doors, and told them what they wanted to hear. But there was no right answer. Tell me, who told you which peak is savoury and which is sweet?’
‘But isn’t it obvious?’ Marigold answered. ‘This has to be sweet, and the other mountain savoury.’
The man smiled and leaned down to tear off a piece of his candied furniture. He handed it to her with a single word, ‘eat’. And eat she did, her tongue growing alight with the joy of good food, and her eyes growing befuddled with the its taste. ‘This is no sweet candy. This is savoury! But how?’
‘What is savoury and what is sweet?’ he asked instead, chewing on his own piece of the strange food. ‘It’s a flavour. A taste. But we associate it with appearance, with smell. It’s our understanding, our perspective and our knowledge that decides what we see as savoury, and what we see as sweet.’ He leans over to look at Marigold with a glint in his eyes. ‘Magic is no different.’
‘Wrong!’ Marigold said, her head shaking as her heart denied. ‘Magic is built on its foundations. Sweet is still sweet, it is no different because you trick and befuddle. Old magic is old magic, always and ever. I want to find new magic! Magic that has never existed. Not play pretend with old magic.’
With a shrug of his shoulders, and a turn of his head, he provided his parting words. ‘Then if it is new magic you so desire, head to the Old Tower where the great magician Pyre spends his days. It is located far away, at the end of your journey. He has mastered all that is old and created all that is new. If it is old and new you seek to understand, he will be your guide.’
Set with a new goal Marigold departed, leaving with both answers and questions. But not to the ones she sought. She descended the peaks and set on her journey to seek this master magician.
Marigold filled many an adventure tale on her travel and met many a magician. They each told her the same, grinding away her hope anew. ‘There is no new magic, and never will be’. Words spoken not harshly, but cutting still the same. She asked of this master magician with each one met and came away with many a scornful answer. A charlatan. A hypocrite. A master of nothing, but a trickster of all. None considered him a master magician and only cursed him, leaving Marigold’s mind to grow more troubled with the news.
After many months she reached the end of her journey and arrived at the Old Tower all the same, staring up at its giant yet decaying stone walls. ‘Is this the home of a master magician?’ Marigold asked herself, her heart growing more distrustful still. She ascended the tower one step at a time, seeing no books and no designs to indicate a magician at all.
Then, at the tippy top of this large and unassuming tower, she met this master magician. An old, frail man sickly in stature and covered by a wide robe and a brimming hat. Yet, while as old and decrepit as the tower itself, the man’s eyes spark alight in ways that even the youth would envy.
‘What has such a gifted magician come to me, an old frail man, for?’ the magician Pyre asked with a chuckle.
‘I had thought I had come for something important,’ Marigold answered, hesitating as she looks at him. ‘But I think I have come mistaken.’
‘Perhaps it is a mistake. But mistakes can be what leads us to the answers we seek.’ Pyre spoke.
‘Then, great magician, answer me this.’ Marigold gathered herself, her eyes set on this final spark of hope. ‘All the magicians in all the lands have told me an answer true. New magic is no more, and only old magic can exist – for magic is complete. Are we truly left to such a fate? Is there no way to make magic anew?’
‘Of course there is,’ Pyre answered with barely a breath between. ‘See for yourself magic anew.’ The old man clapped his hands together with a spryness in spite of his age. The air above Marigold’s head gathered into tiny sparks of waving, luminescent musical notes. They danced in the sky in a way that brought Marigold joy and hope. Then they fell softly on her body, taking away the weariness of her long travels. Marigold felt the magic and recognised its nature. And her eyes grew cold.
‘You lie!’ she cried out in anger, her heart crushed at seeing her hope ripped away. ‘This is merely the healing spell that takes away one’s weariness. You just added those musical notes in the air! How is this new magic? Do you find joy in tricking a sad and desperate mage?!’
‘And pray tell, what trick is there?’ Pyre answered with eyes both patient and kind. ‘You felt joy when I cast it, as if you had seen something new to alight your heart. Is that not what new can be? To evoke long forgotten emotions with magic not far different.’
‘That’s just twisting what is false and what is true. This is no new magic!” Marigold cried out.
‘A twist is what separates the known from the unknown. You have filled your heart with your version of what magic is, and it has narrowed and restricted your view of what magic can be.’ Pyre says as his hands flowed from one spell to another. All changed in some form or another, lighting up the world around them. ‘All magic can be said to be derived from another, with no source to claim it as new or old. Magic is magic. And magic that can bring new joy is what I call new.’
‘I…’ Marigold tried to respond but came up empty. She sought to refute but found no words. His words made sense in her heart, but it ate away at the foundations she had built in her mind. ‘This cannot be new magic.’ Marigold muttered to herself in a daze. ‘New magic cannot be old. Old and new are different.’
The old magician opened his mouth to speak, but was refuted before any words could come out. ‘They were right, you are a charlatan!’ Marigold cried, whipping her body around to leave. ‘Trickster. Fake magician. I will not let your words warp me. I know old magic is well and true, and new magic will not come from you.’ With those words said, Marigold left the Old Tower as Pyre’s eyes followed.
Her journey had ended, with a destination unwanted and a heart torn in two. Her mind had come away with an answer and her heart followed too. There is no new magic. After all, the magicians had said it true.
What is old is old. Magic is complete and can no longer be new.