Ten more feet, she thought. Then, once ten feet passed and she was at forty, she thought it once more, her knees wobbly.
Until at twenty, she forced herself to jump off the edge, skidding onto the rock face.
Three seconds was all it took to zip down, her momentum from the slope carrying her so fast that the wind roared in her ears. Though no one watched, her face turned red, and she chided herself. She could have made the fifty foot jump, she should have made the fifty foot jump. What if the criminal had escaped in the time she had spent deliberating?
She kicked off the ground, huffing with each push and maintaining her velocity. The low wall of Downeytown loomed ahead, with no gate around this side. The terrain turned from rock to grass, jolting Lucille with deceleration as the plants blocked the runes on her soles. She funneled more power to them from her kernels, raising her height to glide once more, then fished in her pack as she regained speed. Still, she moved too slow, but the objects she pulled from her pack held runes that had lodged themselves into her memory long ago, those that were on the tops of the walls of Consuo, that she had spotted outside of Madrea’s house. Those that brought the wind.
They were simple objects; little more than a funnel painted with an air aurel, with a ring of kernels set into their widest point. She had designed them to power the horns atop the towers. Currently the horns relied upon the raising or sinking of the fabric, and inexperienced Keepers could pop the kernels at the base when sounding out messages. These funnels would draw air in powered by their own kernels, then expel it at higher speed at the exhaust tube. If an inexperienced Keeper mishandled it, then all that would be lost would be a handful of kernels, rather than an entire mound under the towers.
During testing, she’d laughed the first few times powering up the funnel, pushing too much power into them and causing them to leap from her hands and fly across the room. She even held them at arm's length while sitting on a swing, the flowing air pushing her in a smooth circle as long as she kept it slow.
But now, she needed more than slow air.
Gripping them tight, she connected the kernels to the runes, the air aurels blazing as she packed power into them. Those aurels were low quality—anything too intense would be beyond them. Lucille widened the connection in her mind, and in response wind rushed through the tubes to propel her forward.
The kernels threatened to pop, and she connected the runes to the extras at her belt pouch, the energy flowing down in a surge of power. Between the boots and the funnels, they were already running low, and Heaven One could only refill them at a slow rate—hours, compared to the seconds that she needed for the boost. As she came upon the wall, Lucille opened the kernels as far as she could, air blasting through the funnel with a whoosh and the severance runes on her soles blazing.
The wall stood eight feet tall, and Lucille leapt just as her boots slammed down with force against the stone below, launching her into the air. To say she soared would be generous; rather, she tumbled, the blasting air enough to keep her moving forward, while the pouch at her belt fizzed and popped as kernels died. Her power dimmed, but she cleared the bricks by over five feet before gravity claimed her once again, pulling her down toward the Downeytown streets.
With the last few kernels remaining in her pouch, Lucille gave a desperate push. They exploded with a crack, but the fresh downward flow of air broke her fall. Not enough to land gracefully, but enough to prevent her legs from breaking as she rolled onto the stone road, tucking her arms in until she came to a stop. She leapt to her feet, shaking herself off and checking for broken bones, then sprinted down the street. Kernelless, covered in dust, and her robe ripped in more places than she could count.
The iron strips of her sliders clacked as she stumbled to the front of the storefront, the kernels no longer available to power the runes. She knew of the businesses and their affairs in Downeytown. This was a smaller establishment that sold cakes for tourists, each imbued with a wonder of Heaven One in kernel dust. Dust too fragile and impotent for her to use, but a favorite of the tourists when their cakes caught fire, or the icing writhed into the shapes of famous Keepers, or the joke cakes that flowed away from the consumer’s mouth like water whenever they tried to take a bite.
Two large windows formed at the front, displaying the pastry varieties. A lone worker stood behind the countertop, staring straight ahead as if she couldn’t see Lucille. Her eyes flicked, but her head refused to turn, her hands in front of her kneading the dough as if it were about to attack her, standing stiff. Too stiff, as her hands worked, all the power coming from her arm muscles rather than her back or shoulders. Lucille reached forward, trying the door, but it stuck in place.
But for Lucille, a lock may as well have been a beckoning to enter.
She brushed her own lock against the outside door, and it opened with a click, the mechanism yielding immediately before her. Then she stepped inside. Her ears pricked as she shut the door with a bang behind her, and she smiled to the worker.
“Laura!” she exclaimed, using the name on the outside plate of the shop. “Laura, Laura, what a day it has been up on the cliffs! You wouldn’t believe what type of appetite can be generated up there. So, what do you have in terms of specials today? Payday doesn’t come for three more days, I’m a bit short on cash.”
Lucille walked to the counter, pretending to inspect the goods, but really looking in the reflection of the glass behind her. There were racks of shelves, but nothing else. Nowhere to hide, and aside from the oven with red hot runes in the corner, no enclosed spaces in the room. That left only behind the counter. So that only Laura could see, Lucille raised a finger to her lips, causing the shopkeeper’s eyes to widen. She couldn’t have been more than eighteen, her hair sprinkled with the same flour that ran down her shirt, and she struggled to keep her voice from shaking as she spoke.
“The honeycakes today, they’re half off,” she said, as Lucille pivoted, turning toward a mound of sweet smelling swirls.
“These ones?” Lucille asked, gesturing to them. As she spoke, she reached in her pack again, this time for her water bubble. She brought it to her lips for a casual drink, but at the same time, she felt the rune at the center, gauging it.
That rune was different from the others within and hidden by a layer of water around it, which distorted its shape and coloring. Few would recognize it without inspecting it further, and rarely would they ever need to do that, as water bubbles were nearly as common as spare kernels. Basic, as well, for who would take more than ten minutes to construct something so simple, and who would use anything else but the cheapest of water aurels?
But the water bubble in Lucille’s hand was no ordinary device; rather, it had taken her the better part of a month to create. And as she moved, she hid her lock behind her shirt and focused on her internal aurel. She concentrated as she opened herself up, revealing her strength to anyone of power. An action that, to most, was as simple as opening their hand.
“These?” Lucille asked, pointing to the mound. But Laura shook her head, gesturing to another.
“Too freshly baked,” said the shopkeeper. “I’m afraid I can’t part with those yet for a bargain.”
“These then?” asked Lucille, stepping to the right. Sure enough, from behind the counter she heard the barest of rustles, a shifting as the wood creaked and Laura stopped kneading. Lucille reached out, searching while holding the bubble, just as a figure stood from behind the counter.
Kernels ran up her arms—third level kernels glistening with a brightness too strong for Heaven One, each occupying the corner of a netted mesh sleeve. There must have been a hundred of them, but nearly a quarter had already popped, leaving ashen spots where the netting frayed and came apart. Their owner stood a full six inches taller than Lucille, her hair short and straight like a knife’s edge, and her eyes immediately focusing in upon her. In one hand, she held a dagger, a wicked thing, curved and serrated, the hilt dyed black to blend in with her clothes. And in the ot
her, she held the bag that Lucille had seen her companion hand off in the street outside.
With one look at Lucille, she laughed, an incredulous sound, a mixture of relief and haughtiness, as the kernels on her arms flashed.
“Are the Keepers so weak that they would send a mere knotted to hunt me out? The fools, you do not belong in Heaven One, nor any of the heavens.”
The woman leapt onto the countertop, bearing down upon Lucille and Laura, her voice cracking like a whip.
“I had feared that I would have one witness to my departure. Now, I have two.”
Her finger started to move in the air, red trailing after it and flames licking along its path. Not the low burning flames of Heaven One, but those with more intensity, more power.
“But I would prefer to have none,” she finished as she completed the rune, and violent fire burst from it into the bakery.
Chapter 32: Lucille
“Do you understand, girl, why you have been sent to me?”
Lucille started, looking up from where she sketched in charcoal at the kitchen table. The window was open, carrying with it the scents of the sea and Madrea’s garden, the breeze rustling the papers stacked in front of her. All that morning, Madrea had pointed out different objects in the interior of her home, insisting Lucille copy them from sight. Not just that morning, but that was how Lucille had spent the entire last week, hours upon hours of sketching, until the papers grew as thick as her hand on the tabletop.
Lucille put down her charcoal, looking to Madrea, who chewed the rolled-up leaves from a plant on the windowsill. That was part of her routine, Lucille had come to realize. Every morning, whether in her tea or in her hand, she ingested two. If she forgot, she’d become short with Lucille, but the time that Lucille had stolen a leaf for herself, she’d slept from before dinner until breakfast the next day.
“I was sent here because I can’t runecraft,” Lucille said, as Madrea spat out the window and looked longingly at the empty brandy bottle that now housed a flower.
“No, that is not why. That is what. I want you to tell me why. Why you cannot do.”
“I can’t draw–”
“No, before that. Why can you not draw, girl? What is it that a rune requires?”
“Well, that’s simple,” Lucille said, her voice irritated. “An aurel and a kernel, with a rune to connect them. A piece of heaven and earth.”
“Precisely. Heaven is the verb, the energy, and earth is the noun, the object. Without one, the other is useless. You, Lucille, cannot connect the two.”
“But I have both of them, don’t I?” Lucille said as a wave of fear rushed over her. Did she have an aurel inside her, like all the other Keepers? Could she have been born without one? Even the commoners were supposed to have aurels. Everyone was supposed to have aurels. Did that mean she was some sort of irreparable defect?
“Of course you have them both,” Madrea said, waving a dismissive hand with a snort. “You’re alive, aren’t you? Unless you are some creature of heaven sneaking under my nose, eh? No, Lucille, you cannot connect them. You cannot feel your internal aurel within you. As a mage advances, an aurel is part of her identity. It changes her, weaves its way into her very personality and actions. But you? No, not for you. You are numb to it, like a blind person who cannot see. And it would be ludicrous to expect a blind person to read.”
“So what’s the point of all this if I can’t actually do anything?” Lucille exclaimed, the charcoal trembling in her fingers before she dropped it to the floor with exasperation. “Am I just drawing to decorate your cabin with artwork?”
“Ah, well, I can afford better art than that. There’s no life in those pictures, you need more life. You must learn to draw what you feel, not what you see. That is the problem, Lucille. You cannot feel. That will make this very difficult for you.”
Madrea stood and fetched a pair of oven mitts from the countertop, bringing them before Lucille. Behind them, a timer dinged on the countertop, signaling that the fresh bread in the oven was complete.
“I shall give you an example. Put those on, girl. Go on, both hands.”
Lucille pulled the mitts up, the fabric long enough to reach her elbows, and stood to fetch the bread. But Madrea stopped her.
“No, I do not want you at the oven. The bread can wait. Rather, pick up the charcoal you just dropped.”
Lucille gave her a surprised look, then started to pull the gloves off as she spotted the thin charcoal rod under her chair. But Madrea stopped her, pushing her hand up against Lucille’s gloves.
“With the gloves, girl.”
“There’s no way I can pick that piece up with these on.”
“And the others say there is no way you can draw a rune. Go on, girl, before the bread is ruined.”
Muttering with defiance, Lucille dropped to her knees, then swept the cumbersome gloves over the floor to pull the rod toward her. The gloves had no dexterity, and she rolled the charcoal piece back and forth several times under the table before finally catching an edge. Carefully, her tongue sticking out the corner of her mouth, Lucille flipped the piece into her hand, where it rolled to a rest above her palm. She stood slowly to avoid dislodging it before presenting it to Madrea.
“Three minutes,” Madrea said. “If someone else tried with their hands, it would have taken three seconds. How come you didn’t just grip the charcoal between your fingers?”
“Because these are too clumsy! I can’t do that with them on.”
“Precisely, girl. And if someone instructed you on how to pick up the charcoal, they would not understand that if they thought your hands were bare. Why is it that she cannot work her hands, they would think. Surely, something is broken with them. Maybe she does not have fingers, or maybe she is just too daft to work them. But you have gloves on, girl. And they would be mistaken to remove them. Now, fetch me my bread.
Lucille returned a moment later with the burning hot pan between her gloves, the heat already starting to push through the fabric.
“And if I had asked someone without gloves to do that, what would they have done?”
“They wouldn’t have been able to. At least, not without being burned.”
“Exactly. And they would marvel at you for doing so, if they could not see the gloves. Now, these gloves are your condition. You cannot do the simple, you cannot feel the aurel which should guide your fingers into the shape of runes with the proper accents. Instead, you must act without feeling. You must act blind. That is what I teach you. Mark my words, it is more dangerous than you know. While others are guided by their senses, you are only guided by your knowledge.
“That is why you must draw each morning, now and for the next two weeks. You must draw things as they are, not as you see them, for all others have this skill when making runes. The runes themselves are not in their memory, but rather the feeling of them. It is as if they trace their fingers through a rut, and are so guided. For you there is no rut, and a mistake in the rune can prove fatal.”
“So you’re saying I’m damaged? A cripple? I’ll never be like them?” asked Lucille, rubbing the charcoal on her thumbnail as she looked down. It would almost be better to have no magical talent than be extremely incapable. At the slightest whiff of development, her mother would push her to become an expert. But that could be like expecting a one-legged man to win a marathon, all the time put to waste when there were other areas Lucille could at least be respected in. Not by her mother, but as Madrea had said, there were more options than being a Keeper. Being a master at any of those would beat being a terrible Keeper.
“Different, not damaged,” said Madrea. But when Lucille did not respond, she took her hand, leading her outside and to the edge of the wall facing the sea.
“For others, they feel their aurels—their level one, that is. Everyone is born with that inside of them. Even you, though you cannot grasp it. It will take you time, and even then, I doubt you will truly feel it. That close bond with it gives them a natural ability, an
understanding of what should and should not be.
“For you, however, we shall not be focusing upon the aurel inside of you. We shall be focusing upon that which you can touch and see.”
Madrea produced a kernel from her pocket, and Lucille’s mouth fell open. That kernel was the type her mother wore in jewelry and kept locked up whenever it was not worn. A level four. Caught with that, Lucille would be arrested by the Keepers. It was far, far above her skill level, and dangerous for her to even touch. Yet here Madrea pulled it from her pocket as if it were little more than a piece of spare change. As Lucille’s eyes widened, Madrea continued, taking the expression as an affirmative.
“Because they have this tie with the aurel within, most Keepers rely upon their feelings when drawing runes. They are like their joints: They only bend in certain ways, and moving them incorrectly is unnatural. It allows them the knowledge to complete the intricacies unique to each aurel type, the subtle changes in the runes for each. With external aurels, there is no such restriction. Freedrawing in air is, therefore, quite illegal, because it’s too easy to harm yourself or others by neglecting these differences.
“But that’s exactly what I intend to teach you.”
“We’re breaking the rules?” said Lucille, taking a step back and glancing at the guards a few hundred yards away. In a moment’s notice, they could be there to arrest her and Madrea.
“Technically, the rules apply within the city walls, no? I think where we stand we have some liberty, considering we’re half outside the city. Consider this Madrealand, our own little country, for experimentation. For learning true magic, not that handicapped version taught to Keepers to keep them in line. Now, give me your hands. I shall guide them, but it shall be you who does the drawing.”
Madrea put the kernel in Lucille’s palm, where she could sense the power emanating from it. It was like warmth, in a way, but a completely different sensation. Like comparing a loud noise and a bright light, a new sense entirely, one that she had experienced on a lower level with other kernels. Pleasant, a tingling that almost tickled her, almost a weightedness. Madrea’s wrinkled fingers pushed Lucille’s hand closed, then in the other she placed the charcoal stick from earlier.
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