Thornbear (Book 1)

by Michael G. Manning

  Moira paused, “Grace? What do you mean?”

  Gram’s face felt hot, but he hoped it didn’t show. “She didn’t say anything to you?”

  The young wizard frowned, “I talked to her this morning. Was there some message she was supposed to give me?”

  “Err, no,” said Gram, fumbling to figure a way to gracefully erase his blunder. “Not really, don’t worry about it.”

  Moira smiled wickedly, “Did she overhear something she shouldn’t have?”

  “No, I—uh—I don’t think so.”

  Moira Illeniel pursed her lips into a brief pout, “Well if she did, she didn’t repeat any of it. Despite what some think, she isn’t a gossip, or a spy. She speaks her mind, but she doesn’t eavesdrop for me.”

  “What did you want to talk about?” said Gram, hoping to leave the subject.

  His friend narrowed her eyes, “It’s a girl isn’t it?”

  “What?!”

  “I knew it!” she declared.

  “No! It isn’t a girl. I—just stop!” he told her.

  She watched him carefully for a moment, “No, I suppose not. But if there were to be someone, you should come talk to me.”

  “I’m not interested in anyone,” he responded immediately. “And why would I talk to you about it anyway?”

  Moira sighed, “So I could give you advice, and find out what she thinks, or maybe even help you avoid making mistakes.”

  Exasperated, Gram started walking, “If this is all you wanted to tell me, then you should have saved your breath.”

  “Matthew wanted to ask you about something,” she replied.

  “About what?”

  “Who knows?” she answered. “He hardly talks to me at all. He’s always cooped up in his workshop. It’s a miracle he gets any sun.”

  “You could have told me that from the beginning,” complained Gram.

  “It wouldn’t have been as much fun,” she admitted with a smirk.

  “Do you know where he is now?”

  Her eyes unfocused for a second before she replied, “In the workshop again, as usual.”

  Gram thanked her and left, heading toward the entry hall. There were two workshops now; the old one that had once been the Matthew’s grandfather’s smithy, and the more secluded one beside the Count’s secret mountain home. Mordecai had switched to working in the shop beside his home over the past few years, and Matthew had begun using the older shop in the castle yard. He claimed it was so that he would have his own space, but Gram knew it was more for privacy. Matthew’s father was sometimes too overbearing when it came to safety.

  He found his friend there, sitting at a table and scratching something into a heavy leather-bound journal. Glancing at it from across the room, Gram wasn’t surprised that he couldn’t decipher it. His eyes were more than sharp enough, but Matthew’s handwriting was famously deplorable. That, along with the fact that most of what he was writing was in a different language, punctuated by strange symbols, made it impossible to guess at its meaning.

  “Hey,” he said, announcing himself.

  Matthew grunted, acknowledging Gram’s arrival without looking up. He continued to scribble in the journal.

  He looks just like his dad, noted Gram mentally, for probably the hundredth time. He knew his friend well enough to know that he was in the middle of something important, or he would have set the book aside already. Leaving Matthew to finish whatever he was doing, he wandered over to the right side of the room where a long shelf beneath a window held a collection of oddities.

  Most of the objects there were odds and ends that Mordecai, or in some cases Matthew, had created as amusements. Gram picked up one of his favorites, two wooden balls that, while physically unconnected, were nevertheless incapable of moving more than a foot and a half apart. They were heavy, roughly a pound each when held in the hand, but as soon as you released one it would hover in the air, as though weightless.

  Gram placed them in the air in front of himself and began gently batting at them with a small paddle. The first ball flew away in one direction until it reached the end of its invisible tether. At that point it jerked the other ball into motion, and they began circling one another while drifting at half the speed of the original. Stepping around them, Gram struck one hard, causing it to fly violently in the other direction, yanking its partner out of its previous path.

  He distracted himself in that fashion for several minutes, until he heard Matthew’s voice, “You ought to keep those. They were always your favorite.” The two of them had frequently shared the odd toys that Matthew received.

  “Didn’t your dad give you these?” asked Gram.

  “Nah, I made those. One of my first projects. I can make more,” explained his friend.

  Gram was sorely tempted. “Thanks, but I think we’ve both outgrown ‘em.”

  “Screw you then,” said Matthew with a half-grin. “I was going to make another set immediately. I still like to mess with a lot of that junk.”

  “Fine, I’ll take them,” announced Gram. “If only to make you work more.” He caught one of the balls in his hand and watched the other spin in circles around it for a moment, and then he stopped it as well and put both of them in the pocket of his waistcoat. “What did you want?” he asked.

  Matthew’s face became more serious, “About the other day…”

  “Forget it,” said Gram. “I was just cross.”

  “Yeah, I understand, but I had an idea…,” said his friend.

  Gram gave Matt a sidelong look.

  “…about what you said the other day…” began the young wizard. Matthew’s arms moved as he spoke, always seeming to be in danger of knocking something over, though they never quite did. “…about how you thought a wizard could do anything…”

  Gram shook his head, “Well, I know that wasn’t quite true…”

  “That’s not it,” interrupted Matt. “It got me to thinking about you—and your dad.”

  “And?”

  “Well, Dad always said your father was a stoic. It was a kind of miracle he ever managed to form the earthbond to begin with, but somehow he did. But that’s not what I’m wondering. Your mother was normal, so it’s anyone’s guess whether you’re a stoic like your dad, or whether you have some emittance like your mother.”

  As usual, Matthew was beginning the conversation in the middle of what had probably been a long chain of thought. It didn’t help that although Gram had grown up around wizards, he didn’t really understand magic, much less what ‘emittance’ was. Gram didn’t bother asking for an explanation, he’d been down that road before. “I’m assuming you have a point here,” he said instead.

  “We should find out whether you’re a stoic or not, and if not, how much emittance and capacitance you possess,” continued Matthew.

  “I don’t have a damned clue what you’re talking about.”

  “Whether or not you can use magic,” said Matthew.

  “I’m not a wizard,” reminded Gram.

  Matt shook his head, “That’s not what I mean. There’s more to it than that. There’s a lot of variation, even among ordinary people. Some, like your dad, are almost completely dead to aythar, while most others have varying degrees of emittance and capacitance. For example, Marcus Lancaster had a normal, low capacitance, but he had a rather high emittance, which made him an ideal channeler for Millicenth.”

  “I wish you could hear yourself,” commented Gram.

  “Would you like to know what it’s like to be a wizard, for just a minute?”

  That caught Gram’s attention, “You can do that?”

  “Maybe,” shrugged his friend. “If you aren’t a stoic…mostly I want to know for a project.”

  “What project?” asked Gram suspiciously. He could tell by the way Matthew’s eyes shifted suddenly that he was planning something that might lead to trouble.

  “Your sword.”

  He gave Matthew a strange look, “What sword?”

  “Your dad�
��s sword,” replied Matt with a smug look.

  “The one in Albamarl, on display?” Gram was referring to his father’s longsword. That sword had originally belonged to his grandfather, whom he had inherited his name from, and was one of the first swords Mordecai had enchanted. The main chapterhouse for the Order of the Thorn kept it on display in the capital. They had asked Lady Rose to gift them with the broken great sword, Thorn, but she had refused to relinquish it for sentimental reasons.

  “Nope. Thorn, the broken one…”

  “Whatever you’re thinking, it’s a stupid idea. I’ve had thoughts about secretly buying a sword, but she would never let that pass. She keeps it on the wall in her bedroom, in plain view. If I tried to sneak it out, she would know immediately…”

  Matthew waved his hands dismissively, “I’ve already thought about that. She can’t do anything if she doesn’t know it’s gone.”

  “She’s going to know, Matt! She looks at it every time she thinks of him. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out she was taking it off the wall and sleeping with it. She’s obsessed.”

  “Wizards can do anything, remember?”

  Gram made a sour face, “I’m sorry. I was exaggerating, but there’s no way…”

  “There is a way.”

  “How?”

  Matt grinned, “You signal me the next time you all leave, like at dinnertime maybe. I’ll skip the meal, pretend I’m sick, and then I’ll sneak into her room and grab the sword. I’ll leave an illusion on the wall so she won’t…”

  “Not good enough,” countered Gram. “I told you, she touches it sometimes. She may even take it down.”

  “Let me finish,” said Matthew reproachfully. “I’ll bring it back here and create a close copy. It won’t be perfect, but with a bit of illusion attached, I can produce something she can touch and that will look exactly like the original. I’ll sneak in again and replace the simple illusion with the copy, and then she’ll never know the difference. All we need is a full twenty-four hours.”

  Gram was doubtful, “I think she probably touches it almost every day.”

  Matt nodded, “That’s fine. I’ll make sure the illusion has a tactile component. It will be alright so long as she doesn’t try to take it off the wall, at least until I get the copy in its place.”

  “So, assuming that your plan works, and I don’t wind up locked away for the rest of my youth, what does your magical testing have to do with any of this?” asked Gram.

  “You know the Sun-swords?” asked Matthew.

  “Yeah…”

  “Well, your dad couldn’t use them, because he was a stoic. I need to know whether you’re the same, otherwise I might make a sword you can’t use,” explained the young wizard.

  “It’s broken,” reminded Gram. “You have to fix it first. Do you even know how to enchant a sword?”

  “Are you kidding?” said Matt with a slightly wounded expression. “How long have you known me? I’m not just going to fix it, I’m going to make it into something worthy of your legend!”

  “You mean my father’s legend,” corrected Gram.

  “No, I mean yours,” reaffirmed Matt. “It’s going to be something fit for your father’s memory and strong enough to match your deeds as well.”

  Gram stared at his friend, transfixed. The words, coming from anyone else, would have been an obvious attempt at mockery, but he could see the sincerity in Matthew’s face. He felt a whirl of emotions rising within himself, things he didn’t want to deal with in front of his friend. He started for the door. “You’re crazy.”

  Matthew caught him by the shoulders. “I’m dead, damned serious.”

  Gram was growing more irritated, in part because his friend never seemed to clue in on when it was time to let go of something, and also because he secretly wanted to believe him. “What’s the point, Matt? Warriors, knights, protectors, whatever you want to call them, they aren’t needed anymore! The Knights of Stone, they don’t have the earthbond anymore. The Order of the Thorn, they don’t either. Do you know why? Because they’re obsolete! The good guys won, it’s over. We’re all living happily ever after.

  “The dark gods are gone, the shining gods dismissed, the Queen protects us from the capital, and she’s got wizards to see her will done. There won’t be any more wars, and if there are, your father will crush them. There’s no need for men to carry steel anymore.” Gram’s speech was one that he’d heard in various forms on many occasions from his mother. He’d hated hearing it then, but he used it now defensively.

  “I don’t think so,” said Matthew. “I’ve heard too many stories, and I’m sure you’ve heard them too—like when they sent assassins to kill my parents while they were visiting the old king. If it weren’t for your dad, both of my parents would be dead now, and that’s just one occasion. And that wasn’t gods or wizards, it was just ordinary men. No one is perfect, no one is safe, not completely, that’s why there are knights, that’s why there are soldiers! And you, you could be the greatest knight ever!”

  “Damnitt, just shut up!”

  “No,” said Matthew. “I won’t. I don’t care how stupid it sounds, it’s true! You wish you could be a wizard, don’t you? I’ve heard your remarks, don’t think I didn’t notice. But you know what? Sometimes I wish I could be you!”

  That brought Gram up short. “You what?”

  “I said, ‘Sometimes I wish I could be you’,” repeated Matthew.

  “You really are an idiot then.”

  “You just can’t see yourself the way everyone else does. Me, Conall, all the boys in the castle, hell even the adults, they all see it! The only thing you aren’t is a wizard.”

  Gram gave his friend a blank stare.

  “You’re the perfect son of the perfect knight and your mother is the most accomplished noblewoman in the entire kingdom. You dance better than anyone in the keep, your penmanship is immaculate, your archery is flawless, your riding—I could go on. You’re the best at everything you do, and people know it. They can see it. Even when you walk, your balance is so good it makes me feel like I’m just stumbling along.”

  “I’m not even close to being able to beat you at chess,” noted Gram.

  “As if anyone cares about that,” said Matthew. “Watch this.” Reaching over he picked up a wooden mallet from the worktable, and without warning he threw it at his friend’s face.

  Gram caught it in midair, “What’s that about?”

  Matthew gave him a lopsided grin, “If you did that to me I’d have a nasty bruise.”

  “You always have those shields up.”

  “The point is, I wouldn’t have caught it, and even accounting for my own clumsiness, most other people wouldn’t have either. But I knew you would,” responded the young wizard.

  “There’s nothing magic about catching a hammer.”

  “Someday, someone is probably going to throw something much worse than that at me, or someone we care about, and I’m hoping that you are there to catch it.” As he finished Matthew turned red, feeling embarrassed.

  Gram didn’t answer. He was dealing with his own embarrassment. His first instinct was to make a joke of things, or to poke fun at his friend’s sentiments, but something stopped him. After a while he replied, “Alright. What do you want me to do?”

  “First we test you, to see if you’re a stoic or not. If not, I can try to show you what it’s like to use aythar,” answered Matthew before adding, “Hold out your hand.”

  Gram stretched out his hand, and Matthew took it with his own.

  “I’m going to try channeling some of my aythar into you,” he explained. “If you’re a stoic, you won’t feel anything, but if you’re not, you’ll start to feel a sort of warmth, almost like heat. Tell me if that happens.”

  A few seconds passed, and Gram felt his hand heating up as something like liquid warmth began to flow from his arm into the center of his being. Startled, he spoke up, “I feel it!”

  “That’s good,” said Matt. �
�Don’t let go. I’m going to see if I can gauge your emittance and capacitance.”

  “Why is that good?” asked Gram. “Doesn’t that mean I’m not immune to magic the way my father was?”

  “He wasn’t immune to magic,” corrected Matthew. “He was personally immutable in certain ways, but most physical applications still affected him normally.” The look on Gram’s face told him that his explanation was wasted. “Anyway, no, for my purpose this is good. It means that some of the fancier things I’d like to do with your father’s sword will be possible.”

  “Such as?”

  “Let me concentrate. Tell me if your hand starts to burn, or if you feel like you’re going to explode.”

  “What?!”

  “Trust me.”

  “Fine,” said Gram. He waited as the warmth continued to grow and he began to have a tingling sensation throughout his body. After a couple of minutes, his hand began to feel as though it were on fire. “It’s starting to get painful.”

  “Just your hand, or all of you?” asked Matthew.

  “Just the hand,” replied Gram. The pain in his hand receded after that, but the tingling throughout his body continued to grow. Eventually he began to feel as though his entire body was vibrating with energy. He felt strong and quick, more so than ever before.

  “Are you still doing alright?” questioned his friend.

  “Yeah, but I feel really good, like I could run a hundred miles and not be tired,” said Gram.

  A quarter of an hour passed, and the sensation continued to build. “You still alright?” said Matthew, a worried look on his face.

  “I feel wonderful!” boomed Gram, “Don’t stop!”

  Matthew kept it up for another ten minutes before releasing his friend’s hand. “That’s enough.”

  “Why did you stop?”

  “Too dangerous. Whatever your capacitance is, it’s obviously very high, or you’re unable to judge how close you are to your limit,” answered Matthew.

  Gram laughed, “It doesn’t feel dangerous. I don’t think I’ve ever felt this good in my entire life.” His voice sounded louder than usual even to his own ears, but his mood was too good to worry about it.