The Conservation of Magic

by Michael W. Layne

  Jabo rushed to Elissa’s side while his mother warily picked up the baby.

  “What is this boy to be called?” his mother asked.

  “She wanted to name him Gregor,” Jabo said through his tears.

  “Jabo’s mother held Gregor in front of her face and started to say his name, but the baby kicked and screamed, and the world outside shook and trembled. Jabo looked out the window and saw that there were waves already over one hundred feet tall crashing against the side of the cliff. Moments later, they heard the sounds of rocks hitting the outside walls of the house and anything of the earth inside the house suddenly flew across the room, causing everyone to seek cover.

  “Jabo and his mother knew immediately that Gregor was somehow causing this madness, even though no newborn before him had ever awoken from birth with such immediate power.

  “They used all of their magic and all of the words they knew from the Earth Dragon’s tongue in an attempt to mute Gregor’s magic, but the child was unstoppable. Jabo continued trying to calm the earth under the house while his mother went outside to ask Lagu to cease her onslaught. While looking down at the tumultuous sea below, his mother slipped on the muddy cliff’s edge and fell into the white spray, never to be seen again.

  “Suddenly, the weather outside calmed itself, and the assault on the house stopped. Jabo looked down at Gregor who was now lying on his back, no longer crying, but wagging his hands and feet in the air joyfully.

  “Even though Jabo loved his son, when he learned that his mother had died, he knew that he had to take Gregor before the Earth Council to seek its wisdom. In the council chambers, young Gregor started to throw another tantrum, spewing magic that was even stronger than before. The council members used their combined powers to silence the baby without doing him harm, but in the end, the leader of the council and three of the Keepers had to silence young Gregor…forever.

  “Jabo watched as his son died so soon after his birth. He was overcome by grief, even though he knew that Gregor could not have been allowed to live, for the safety of the clan and for that of the world itself.

  “As I said, Gregor was the first of his kind, but not the last. Similar stories soon began circulating among all of the families. In each instance, the child was of mixed parents and was either born with uncontrollable powers or was born still. In all cases, the mother had not survived.

  “Shortly thereafter, the leaders of the four families met and decreed that intra-family breeding would be forbidden. It was the only thing they had agreed on in a long while, although it was obvious to all that the King of the Fire Tribe did not share the concerns of the other rulers. The Fire Tribe believed that these children were gifts from the dragons, wielding great power that made them closer in likeness to the dragons than any other Drayoom since Abred himself.”

  The storyteller took a heavy breath and put his hands on his knees. He looked directly at Merrick.

  “It is believed that the prophesized Sons of Earth and Fire will be children from mixed lineage and with uncontrollable power as well…with enough magic to rescue their beloved Sigela from her banishment in the sky and to return her to this world.”

  The storyteller continued to stare at Merrick while the crowd grew more agitated.

  Several people turned around to look at Merrick—some out of curiosity, but more of them did so with fear and anger in their eyes. Merrick and Balach slowly stood and made their way through the crowd to its outskirts. Isolated shouts filled the air behind them. Some howled for Merrick’s death, while others demanded imprisonment. Cara had warned him that some of the Earth Clan would feel this way toward him, but the reality of the emotions behind the voices caused his stomach to heave. He and Balach continued on, only slowing their pace when the noise of the crowd had faded completely behind them.

  Just as the immediate threat of the mob vanished, Merrick felt a presence nearby, as if a familiar evil was stalking him. He and Balach turned down a side street, and he glimpsed a dark, robed figure darting into the woods. Merrick sprinted to where the figure had entered the tree line. He hollered at Balach to go home and that he would meet him there later. Without waiting for a response, Merrick burst through the thick flora and entered the glowing green world of the subterranean forest. He struggled through the dense foliage, trying to follow the trail of broken branches left in the robed figure’s wake. As he caught a flash of the figures exposed ankle in the distance, he knew that it was a woman he chased. Suddenly, a strange sensation overwhelmed him—not one of fear or excitement, but one of lust and passion as if he were now running toward a lover instead of chasing a fiend.

  #

  Balach knew that true love was selfless and forgiving and not jealous. He also knew the power of Firefly’s charms. He had only seen her foot before she vanished completely into the forest, but he knew immediately that his own Firefly was the stalker Merrick was chasing. Balach closed his eyes, trying to calm his heart. It was wrong to be jealous. Merrick didn’t even know that Firefly was the one he was running after. When Merrick caught up with her, maybe they would just talk. Then again, she had been asking a lot of questions about Merrick. Balach had thought that she was interested in him because of his ties to her own Fire Tribe, but now he wasn’t so sure.

  Balach calmed himself again.

  Firefly had proclaimed her undying love for Balach many times even as recently as the day before. And she was the reason he was able to remember his creation name. She was the reason he believed in true love in the first place. And if he was to be true to his own name, then he had to trust her.

  But he was also supposed to look out for Merrick’s safety, and even though he knew that Firefly wouldn’t harm Merrick, she was still a member of the Fire Tribe, and it was possible that Eudroch could figure out a way to use her without her knowing about it.

  Looking around to make sure that no one was watching, Balach slipped into the woods, snaking his way along the path that Merrick and Firefly had just recently blazed.

  CHAPTER 23

  MERRICK EMERGED into a small clearing in the woods, where the tall grass had recently been flattened, probably from the girl’s feet. He rushed through a bank of trees and onto an empty side street lined with homes that were integrated seamlessly with the woods around them.

  He looked down the street in both directions, but he saw no sign of the girl he had followed here. He turned again to his left, and a chill ran through his body. A tall, hooded figure, like the one in his dream, stood in the middle of the road about fifty meters away. The man remained perfectly still, and it felt to Merrick like the stranger was examining him as minutely as if he had been standing only an inch away.

  As Merrick was trying to decide whether or not to confront the man, he heard leaves rustling behind him, and the girl he had been chasing revealed herself from behind a tree.

  She smiled and motioned for him to join her.

  When Merrick turned back to look, the hooded man was gone. He tentatively walked over to the girl, whom he could see, for the first time, clearly in the light of day.

  Together, they stood, neither saying anything to the other, both still breathing hard from their recent chase. She was younger than he had first thought, probably in her late teens.

  He looked at her skin. He had forgotten that skin could look that soft and untarnished before being eroded by years of living. He wanted nothing more than to touch it—to soak up its magic—to reclaim some of his own youth that was slipping through his fingers like sand.

  He noticed that her hair was jet black, and that he had not seen another female with her features since he had arrived in the Earth City. In fact, if anything, she looked more South American than Scottish.

  The girl gazed at him with her emerald green eyes, and she gently held a glass jar in her hand. The top of the jar was covered with a piece of burlap tied off with a leather cord wrapped around its lip. Inside, dozens of fireflies flew about, their tails lighting up randomly, even in the simulated daylig
ht of the cave. Their glowing bodies formed new constellations with each passing second, mesmerizing Merrick as he watched.

  The girl looked at her jar, then up at Merrick, and smiled again. Each time she smiled, he felt as if some unseen force was pulling at his heart.

  “I’m Firefly, and I’ve been waiting for you for a very long time.”

  Merrick felt warm like he had been touched by love itself, but in his head, he knew that something was wrong. The feeling inside him was closer to compulsion than love, and he felt almost powerless to resist it. Despite this realization, he took the girl’s outstretched hand in his and disappeared with her into the tangled wood.

  After a few minutes of walking, they came to a circular area where the forest floor had been cleared of all leaves and branches. They stood on a large slab of exposed stone that reminded Merrick that they were inside an immense mountain cavern, and not in an outdoor forest at all.

  She looked up at him with a tear in her eye. He thought that he could smell the faint scent of salt water as he looked at her face that was as beautiful as a tanned cherub. She set her jar of fireflies on the ground at her feet, the tails blinking even quicker now. Then she stood up and looked around before leaning closer to him. Her slender young body grazed his arms. Neither of them attempted to withdraw from the other’s touch.

  “I want you to come away with me. They won’t let you live, you know. They are too afraid of you.”

  She brought her hand up to softly stroke his shoulder.

  “My people are not afraid of your power. I’m not afraid of your power, either.”

  Firefly pressed her torso lightly but fully against his body. He felt lightheaded as he involuntarily inhaled the scent of her jet-black hair and the natural oils secreted from her glistening dark skin.

  She placed her cheek against his.

  “If you want to live, you must come with me, to the Fire Tribe, to your brother. He is the only true family you have left.”

  Merrick tried to catch his breath and found that his throat was too dry to even swallow. He was torn between his desire for this beautiful woman and his fear that his evil brother had found him so quickly.

  “I want to go with you,” he said, “but I have too much to learn before I meet my brother.”

  Firefly withdrew from him slightly, taking his shoulders forcibly in her hands. Her sweet face transformed into one of intense seriousness.

  “Have you looked at yourself recently? How much older do you feel? If the Keepers don’t get to you first, this place will still kill you. You and I could be so happy together, in my tribe, where you would be worshiped instead of feared or hated.”

  She moved in closer again and held her lips partly opened, a hair’s breadth from his. Merrick’s thoughts blurred like a reel of film gone haywire. He thought of Cara and how they had almost kissed back in Alexandria—how he had felt when she had agreed to stay with him through the night back at Rune Corp. He also remembered Mona and his time with her.

  Then he refocused on Firefly’s face. Nothing about Mona or Cara would stop him from going with Firefly, but he also knew that if he gave in now, he would never be able to turn away from her again. He closed his eyes, still hovering just beyond the reach of her lips, fighting the clouds of desire that filled his mind. He was being bewitched. There was no other explanation for it, but even so, he was unable to break her spell.

  He sought out his own internal magic, then remembered that Fenton had taken his divinium pendant. His magic hung like a sword of salvation just out of reach. He opened his eyes. His body was frozen, unable to move, but his eyes shifted frantically, searching the surrounding area for any object that he already knew by its creation name—anything that he could command to help him break Firefly’s spell.

  He found nothing, but he tried to remember what Fenton had told him about divinium—that it made siphoning magic from others easier, but that it was the person handling the divinium who made it possible.

  His power was there. He just didn’t know how to tap into it on his own, so it remained out of reach.

  His feet shuffled closer to Firefly. He was almost lost forever in his desire for her, and he had no control over his actions.

  Even as he lamented that he would never be able to summon his own magic, a familiar fire lit inside of him as his anger rose, inching its way to his surface. Instead of fighting it, he nurtured it, fanning his rage with thoughts of how it felt to be deceived by his father, by Ohman, by the Queen, by Cara, and now by Firefly. She didn’t love him. She was only trying to use him…and he did not like it.

  His face turned red, and the passion in his eyes was replaced by ire.

  He drew Firefly closer to him, but the temptation of her was gone. In her eyes, he could see his own distorted reflection—the one that always stared back at him inside mirrors. He felt his lips curl back in disgust. His passion for Firefly had turned to contempt. The familiar tingling in his stomach was like a torch he was barely able to contain. He didn’t need the divinium to tap into his magic…and he didn’t need Firefly and her lies.

  Firefly must have felt the change in him as it happened, because she suddenly released him and stumbled back several paces. She rubbed her arms as if trying to rid them of unseen spiders. Her eyes were wide open in fear, tears still glistening in them as she continued to back up farther and farther from his rage.

  As she receded into the woods, he felt her control over him wane. He had been only moments away from unleashing as much of his power as possible. If he had done so, while still not knowing his craft, he might have injured either himself or the girl. With the sudden realization of what he had almost done, he started to shake. His legs weakened, he dropped to his knees, and he touched his forehead to the stone street.

  It was his turn to cry.

  His anger was suddenly replaced with fear—fear of his own self and of what he was capable. Maybe the Keepers were right. If he had almost killed to avoid falling under the charms of a pretty young girl, then he had still not learned even the first of his lessons from Fenton. If he did not learn how to control his magic soon, he would continue to be a threat to everyone around him—maybe even to the entire world. One thing was for sure—he had a long way to go before he was ready to face Eudroch.

  He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. His head started to clear as he desperately tried to overlay some form of logic onto what had just happened. There was only one good thing that had come out of his encounter with Firefly—he was closer to understanding himself and therefore was hopefully that much closer to remembering his creation name. Unfortunately, he felt that he had also discovered yet another layer of anger and aggression that was still too easily ignited.

  A sense of dread washed over him as he began to fear for the first time that his creation name might not be one that he liked.

  #

  What bothered Balach the most was the fact that he had already told his father that he was ready for his naming ceremony. Any day, any hour, the Master Keeper and Balach’s father might start looking for him, ready to conduct his right of passage—a ceremony that he was beginning to doubt his ability to undertake.

  The way he was acting made him doubt that his creation name really meant true love. If it did, then he would not be overcome with doubt about Firefly’s love for him. Maybe the voice in his ear that whispered his creation name to him was simply his own wishful thinking and not the voice of Terrada, after all.

  He had been so sure when he had first approached his father, but now he wasn’t certain of anything. To go before the Master Keeper with a lie, or even a doubt, was guaranteed failure. If he knew that he had incorrectly remembered his creation name, then it was his duty of honor to cancel the ceremony and to not waste the time and energy of the Master Keeper and his followers.

  However, even though it was never said, the reality was that canceling a naming ceremony because of uncertainty was perceived as a sign of weakness. The next time he requested his ceremony, the
Master Keeper and even his own father would be reluctant to grant his request. He would be marked as someone who did not know himself, and it would take years longer than otherwise for him to have his creation name confirmed and to become a full member of the clan.

  As he debated his fate, he peered out through the branches in front of him. Merrick and Firefly were talking to one another on the other side of the road. Balach watched as she touched Merrick’s face.

  Even though he could only see Merrick in profile, he knew the look that must be on his new friend’s face—the fluttering feeling that must be in his stomach—because Balach himself had worn that same expression countless times standing in front of the same girl.

  Watching the two of them, he felt stupid and like a child for feeling jealous. More than anyone, he knew how easy it was to fall in love with Firefly. Whatever she was doing, he had to trust that she had a sound reason for talking with Merrick.

  Hand in hand, the two of them started moving through the thin strip of woods on the far side of the street. Balach quietly crossed the road and crouched down as he followed them.

  When Balach arrived at the edge of the woods, he looked out just in time to see them, still holding hands, as they disappeared into a large stretch of woods.

  Balach stayed where he was as he decided what to do next.

  Even though he did not doubt his and Firefly’s love, Balach’s stomach winced at that thought of Merrick and her escaping for a romantic interlude. Balach checked the light shining down from the cavern ceiling far above. From his best reckoning, they had about an hour before his father would start looking for them for their lesson.

  Balach set aside his unhealthy thoughts, took a deep breath, and tried to focus on his love for Firefly and to trust that her intentions with Merrick were pure. She was probably just curious like everyone else was when he or she met Merrick for the first time. Maybe they were talking about him. Maybe she was the one who was unsure that Balach loved her.