The Magic Goes Away by Larry Niven
Fantasy assumes that magic works. Logical fantasy assumes it works according to consistent, discoverable laws. These laws have been traditionally formulated as Contagion and Similarity. Contagious magic works through objects that have touched or been a part of one another: one makes a love charm from a lock of the beloved’s hair. Sympathetic magic, on the other hand, relies on models or symbols: one pricks a mannikin to harm a man. To these, Niven adds a third law—Poetry. This subjective principle says that enchantments depend on belief and symbolic appropriateness: the Moon is magical because everyone agrees that it is.
Niven goes beyond most fantasists and explains why magic works. He postulates that magical work requires “mana” just as physical work requires energy. Mana is the Melanesian term for the inner essence of things, the intangible quality that makes them “really real.” As Mircea Eliade describes it, “Everything that is supremely, possesses mana; everything, in fact, that seems to men effective, dynamic, creative or perfect.” Historically, the same concept occurs under other names (orenda, wakan, megbe, ngai, etc.) throughout Oceania, North America, and Africa. Andre Norton calls mana “power” and puts it to authentic use in her Witch World series.
Niven may have encountered the earlier definition of mana as “an impersonal force.” This may have influenced him to think of mana in measurable terms. “‘Mana can be used for good or evil; it can be drained, or transferred from one object to another, or from one man to another. Some men seem to carry mana with them. You can find concentrations in oddly shaped stones, or in objects of reverence or in meteoroids.’”
He sees mana as the preternatural analog of energy. This allows him to speak of it quantitatively as well as qualitatively, with a considerable gain in plausibility. But if mana corresponds to energy, then it, too, can be added or subtracted from a system. The idea of mana as a finite, exhaustible resource is Niven’s unique contribution to fantasy. Magical and physical powers have conventionally been seen as having a reciprocal relationship: one waxes, the other wanes but neither totally extinguishes the other. Negative factors like cold iron block rather than annihilate magic.
Then Niven draws the realistic conclusion that mana’s disappearance is inevitable. Since the supply can be depleted, it will be depleted. Conservation can postpone the day of reckoning, but not indefinitely. Thus the Warlock’s world is threatened by a “mana crisis” comparable to our own energy crisis and its response is as inadequate as ours.
The existence of this crisis is first revealed in “Not Long Before the End,” more than a century after its discovery by the Warlock. “‘The power behind magic is a natural resource, like the fertility of the soil. When you use it up, it’s gone.’” He had not intended to disclose his findings but no secret can be kept forever, no knowledge can be permanently suppressed. A duel to the death wrecks his secrecy.
“Not Long Before the End” is a droll reworking of heroic fantasy ingredients: luscious lady, doomsword, demon servant, and, of course, the requisite thick-headed barbarian. The last is described as “powerfully muscled and profusely scarred…It seemed strange that so young a man should have found time to acquire so many scars.” But the wise, honorable wizard is the hero here, not the dumb, treacherous warrior. He prevails through superior intelligence instead of superior power. The Warlock destroys Glirendree, an invincible demon masquerading as a sword, by exhausting the mana on which its existence depends. Then he slays the barbarian with an ordinary, unenchanted steel knife, the last kind of weapon his foe expected.
But the victory was costly, as “What Good is a Glass Dagger?” shows. “Now it was out, spreading like ripples on a pond. The battle between Glirendree and the Warlock was too good a tale not to tell.” People react to the Warlock’s secret in various ways—none of them prudent. The greedy master sorcerer Wavyhill is determined to prosper whatever the cost, even if it means inventing necromancy and practicing the mystical equivalent of slash-and-burn agriculture. The Warlock must stop him, not only to save lives but to preserve the dwindling mana supply. Dead areas already exist which are as fatal to magical beings as our own oil slicks are to seabirds.
The Warlock’s other problem is to make an Atlantean werewolf named Aran appreciate the magnitude of the common peril and the urgency of meeting it instead of scheming to save the world from war by cancelling military spells. Aran’s transformation from a naive student Peacemonger (“‘We want to change Atlantis, not destroy it’”) to cautious paterfamilias is a neat parable of maturation. The folly of pacifism is gorily exposed when Aran in wolf form has to savage Wavyhill in order to save himself and the Warlock. Even the most peace-loving being can be driven to violence when threatened: if he “could work on and on, stripping the living flesh from a man in agony, taking a stab wound for every bite…then neither the end of magic nor anything else, would ever persuade men to give up war.”
The answer to the question posed in the story’s title is this: a glass dagger, whether imaginary or actual, is as dangerous as any other kind. A dagger in the mind can; compel behavior as effectively as a dagger at the breast.
Such is the background to the situation in The Magic Goes Away. Niven repeats and expands the themes of his earlier stories, this time avoiding intrusive terms like hula hoop and telephone. To begin with, he replays the wizard-warrior rivalry which he had previously likened to “the natural antipathy…between cats and small birds or between rats and men.” This antagonism is ancient and perennial. Scholar-priests are ever at odds with fighting men. Indo-European myth and history are filled with examples, from the bickering between Thor and Odin to the medieval political struggles between Empire and Papacy. Nor are tensions confined to any one culture: the book prevailed in China, but in Japan the sword.
Niven repeatedly demonstrates that “‘magicians and swordsmen go together like foxes and rabbits.’” Atlantis drowns, conquerors preen, questers quarrel. The currents of jealousy and condescension swirling around the protagonists are vividly traced, but perhaps the cleverest touch is having Nordik youths rebel against their parents by dabbling in magic.
One prime arena of conflict between the two parties is bed. That women, even witches, find swordsmen attractive irritates magicians: “‘Would you tell me what the hell Mirandee sees in that bloody-handed mundane?’” asks Clubfoot. The Warlock knows there is no rational answer. But he also realizes it is no evidence for the natural superiority of warriors. His wife’s regret over the barbarian’s death in “Not Long Before the End” is merely sentimental foolishness. Mirandee is influenced by pity and lust: Orolandes’ neediness helps make him desirable. Yet sorcerers should not try to imitate their rivals. Wavyhill’s idiom in “What Good is a Glass Dagger?” is an admission of impotence.
Niven sides with the wizards, even to the extent of transforming them into storytellers, but he does not ignore their ruthlessness (Wavyhill) and selfishness (Piranther). Wavyhill’s crimes are worse than Orolandes’ although the latter caused more deaths. (“‘Murder and war are not the same. The intent is different and the intent counts for a good deal.’”) The arrogance of power is deadly whether the basis of that power be one’s right arm or right grimoire.
The wizards deplore the coming triumph of the warriors (as much for its boredom as its barbarism). Warriors likewise fear a resurgence by the wizards. (Where would the Nordiks be in a world full of magic?) Nevertheless, Orolandes and the sorcerers are able to overcome their resentments and make common cause when the fate of humanity hangs in the balance. They are people before they are functional roles.
Niven’s other recurring theme is the fading of wonder, a traditional concern of fantasy writers (for example, Tolkien, Anderson and Swann). The prevalence of this subject reflects one of the world’s oldest myths, what Eliade calls “nostalgia for Paradise.” In every era and culture, men have mourned for some vanished Golden Age. Whether it is an Australian aborigine recalling the splendors of the Long-Ago Dream Time or a middle-aged American yearning for the Good Old Days,
Myths usually explain the change from glorious Then to grubby Now as the result of some specific mistake, accident, or sin (e.g., the Biblical Fall of Man). But Niven makes it a long-term, gradual process, a foreshadowing of the eventual heat death of the physical universe.
The dearth of mana affects life at all levels: Atlantis sinks, dream castles decay, guardian devices falter, fabulous creatures “go mythical,” amoebae shrink from monstrous towards microscopic size. Even “mundanes” remember better days: “‘My grandfather used to fly half around the world to attend a banquet…Poor old man, none of his spells worked, there at the end. He kept going over and over the same rejuvenation spell until he died.’” Mirandee envies the mana-rich Australians. “‘I watched apprentice magicians duel for sport, with adepts standing by to throw ward spells. It was like stepping two hundred years into the past. I watched a castle shape itself out of solid rock…’”The surviving magicians will soon be reduced to performing stage magic, telling tales, or shaping metal.
Most people would prefer to ignore the mana crisis gripping their world. A few urge conservation. (Aran gets laws passed to restrict the use of magic in his home town.) Piranther and his followers try to build a secure enclave for themselves. Their efforts are destined to fail. Eventually “‘the swordsmen will come to find small black people in the barren center of the continent, starving and powerless, making magic with pointing-bones that no longer work.’”
Only the Warlock thinks of a positive solution. His grand scheme to tap the Moon’s mana bears more than a passing resemblance to the current space program with its potential for alleviating energy shortages. The cautious arguments used by the Warlock’s associates sound much like those raised against space. (And to which Wavyhill replies: “‘You think too small’”) Notice that cloud-walking and real Moon-walking require a similar modification of stride. The analogy is further reinforced by the novel’s planetary models. Sadly, the Moon remains beyond their grasp—and they make sure it remains beyond Roze-Kattee’s as well. Their decision to halt the project is brave and responsible. (What if orbiting solar collectors or the like prove to be intolerably dangerous and therefore unusable power sources?) Better a world impoverished than no world at all.
However, the most important implications of the mana crisis are theological. Basically, The Magic Goes Away is the battle report of a theomachy, a war against the gods. Niven discusses the nature of his world’s gods and weighs the merits of worshipping them. He concludes that their nature is vicious and their worship vain.
Niven sews a crazy quilt of mythology—one rarely sees the Titans of Greece, Purusha of India, and Joshua of the Bible patched together as they are here, but the overall design of the myths is clear enough. At the beginning of time, when the mana supply was richest, the gods created themselves out of the primal chaos which they commemorated in their “children,” the amoebic goo. They made men and other creatures to provide them with the one thing they lacked—worship. They were divine tyrants who often tormented, even destroyed their creations. They rarely bothered to bless those who adored them for “‘a god’s wishes wouldn’t have anything to do with what human beings wanted.’” Roze-Kattee could not protect the Frost Giants although they succeeded in protecting it. Gods need men, not men gods. Not men but gods are doomed by mana depletion.
The Magic Goes Away dramatizes and applauds the extermination of the gods. (Extermination is the proper word here because the deities behave like parasites.) This process is scarcely novel, although historically it has most often been directed at other people’s pantheons. One culture’s god is another culture’s demon. (Medieval Christians viewed Christ as blotting out the living gods of their ancestors.) Clubfoot and the Warlock succeed in proving that men are well rid of their divine masters. They make cynical comments on temple ruins and preach a rationalist gospel to the Nordiks. They pointedly observe that only the enslaved are devout. Even before experiencing the full intensity of Roze-Kattee’s malice, they argue that the gods are cruel, fickle, and dependent on the subjective faith of their worshippers.
Men will be far better off without these dangerous beings. There can be no compromise. “‘The world belongs to the gods or it belongs to men.’” Final liberation from the gods compensates for the loss of magic. Men can manage their lives independently. The houses of Prissthil, “held up not by spells spoken over a cornerstone, but by their own strength” are models of the future.
Orolandes, the one mundane on the quest, lets go of both gods and enchantments. At the beginning of the story he fears both priests and magicians. Guilt drives him to surrender his own will. But he rejects magic implements (“Best to stick with the chain and the sword,”) attacks Roze-Kattee and thus regains his self-possession. As C.S. Lewis once said, “The process of growing up is to be valued for what we gain, not for what we lose.”
Men outlive the gods and outlast the mana. Human ties and traits survive the changing of the world. People are attached to their work, their homes, one another. Niven shows this by tracing patterns of relationships between equals (lovers and enemies) and unequals (local-foreigner, leader-follower, adept-incompetent, master-servant). The ability to form personal bonds of some kind is a precious human talent. All the gods understand is exploitation.
The questers are surprised that Roze-Kattee combines the attributes of love and madness. The two qualities are not necessarily opposed, for sometimes love is madness. Moreover, life needs a bit of both for seasoning. For instance, Clubfoot’s admirable devotion to the Warlock transcends self-centered rationality. The Frost Giants’ god can produce only negative effects. It can annul both love and madness. “Roze-Kattee’s power lay in the taking…But if the god himself had been impotent for hundreds of years…” Men, on the other hand, maintain courage, tenacity, loyalty, and mercy even under stress. These traits bring them victory over the last god.
The novel ends in sadness but not in tragedy. Niven’s message is never futility. His characters are strong, positive, adaptable people. As his friend and collaborator Jerry Pournelle observes, he never writes of “grey folk thinking grey thoughts” because he “finds this marvelous universe a place to have fun.” Ingenious situations and lively characters plus thoughtful content and crisply witty prose yield superior entertainment. Niven has plotted this function called a story upon our minds and hearts. Upward and outward flows the curve. Its magic does not go away.
Bibliography
Svetz Series (in logical order)
“The Flight of the Horse.” as “Get a Horse.” The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. October, 1969. (hereafter as F&SF)
“Bird in Hand.” F&SF. October, 1970.
“Leviathan.” Playboy. August, 1970.
“There’s a Wolf in My Time Machine.” F&SF. June, 1971.
“Death in a Cage.” The Flight of the Horse. Ballantine: New York, 1973. (This collection contains the entire series.)
Warlock Series (in order of publication)
“Not Long Before the End.” F&SF. April, 1969.
“Unfinished Story #1.” F&SF. December, 1970.
“What Good is a Glass Dagger?” F&SF. September, 1972.
* Niven and Jerry Pournelle reworked Dante in their 1975 novel Inferno.
About Larry Niven
Born April 30, 1938, Larry Niven took a BA. in mathematics at Washburn University. His first story was published in 1964, only a year after he began trying to write fiction professionally. His 1966 short story “Neutron Star” and 1970 novel Ringworld won the Hugo Award. Ringworld also won the Nebula Award. He has also received Hugos for the following short stories: “Inconstant Moon” (1971), “The Hole Man” (1974), and “The Borderland of Sol” (1975). At last count h
Larry Niven, The Magic Goes Away