The Consumption of Magic

by T. J. Klune

  “Because I have to be,” I said honestly. “It’s the only way that I stand a chance—that we stand a chance. You and Morgan have told me that a wizard is supposed to have his secrets. But I don’t know if I can do that anymore. They’re heavy, Randall. The weight of them. And I’m tired of carrying them on my own. Aren’t you?”

  He smiled sadly at me. “More than you could possibly know.”

  I nodded as I moved forward. I didn’t stop until he was within arm’s reach. I could feel the heat of the fire. I hesitated, but it was only for a moment.

  Then I held out my Grimoire.

  He looked at it for a moment, then back up at me. “Is this what you’ve been working on in your room?”

  “Yes.”

  “And in it are your secrets?”

  “Yes.”

  “All of them?”

  “Yes.”

  “I will ask you one last time, Sam of Wilds. Are you sure?”

  My answer was pressing the corner of the Grimoire into the side of his face. It slid until it squished against his nose.

  He frowned at me.

  “C’mon,” I muttered, poking him with it again. “Take it. Take it.”

  “You always were a child,” he grumbled at me, snapping it out of my hand.

  I shrugged, trying to quell my nerves. “You wouldn’t expect me to behave any other way.”

  “I suppose I wouldn’t.”

  I sat in the chair opposite him, fighting the urge to flee the room and quite possibly the castle itself.

  He watched me, momentarily ignoring the Grimoire in his lap. Then, “I am sorry.”

  And that… well. That had never happened before. I didn’t think I’d ever heard Randall apologize for anything before. “Okay?” I said, seriously freaked the fuck out. I thought it possible the world was about to end.

  He rolled his eyes, clearly picking up on what was going through my head. “About tricking you with the mirage.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Um. Okay. Dude, I’ll be honest. That was a fucking shitty thing to do.”

  “I wanted—”

  “I know what you wanted,” I said. “But still, not cool.”

  “Not cool,” he agreed. “Definitely not cool.”

  I winced. “Maybe don’t talk like that. You’re old. You shouldn’t speak the language of youth, especially since it’s been literally centuries since you were my age.”

  “I am old,” he said irritably. “But I do believe that gives me the right to do whatever the hell I want.”

  “Great,” I said with a sigh. “I’m having so much fun already. I regret nothing about this morning so far.”

  “Where should I begin?” he asked, caressing the cover of my Grimoire.

  “Oh,” I said, suddenly nervous again. “Um. Here. Let me, uh—” And I leaned forward, flipping the Grimoire open on his lap, riffling through the pages, reading them upside down until I found the one I wanted. My hands were shaking, and I had to force myself to calm down when I sat back in my seat.

  “There,” I said quietly. “There’s where you start.”

  “All right. I will ask for absolute silence. I find that words upon a page tend to speak more than anything from a mouth. No need to clarify unless I ask. Understood?”

  I nodded.

  He waited a beat before lowering his eyes, beginning to read.

  I knew the first words he’d see.

  I sank down in the chair and began to wait.

  I—

  —CUPPED MY hands together, hiding the little bird away.

  I didn’t think of anything else.

  No wishes upon the stars.

  No ancient words in the tongue of those that came before me.

  And there was this pulse, and I thought maybe I cracked, just a little, the pieces jagged and sharp. There was green and gold, the colors of the forest around me. It was almost effortless, really, more so than magic had ever been before. It started in my heart; I knew that for a fact. It felt lightning-struck, the beat erratic and heavy.

  The colors whirled around me, a spinning corona of light that pooled between my cupped hands, so bright I almost had to look away. It began to cascade downward, like a waterfall, the drops of light spreading along the ground, pulsating slowly. The forest disappeared around me. The sky above darkened. Everything else faded away.

  I thought, It isn’t fair.

  And then something hooked itself into my head and heart and pulled.

  The air sizzled around me.

  The lights grew brighter and I had to—

  There was a flutter of wings against my palm, the barest of touches.

  I took in a great, gasping breath.

  The magic around me began to weaken, the light and sounds of the Dark Woods returning as if they’d never been silenced at all.

  And from my closed hands came the smallest of chirps.

  I looked down as I lifted my fingers away.

  The bird blinked slowly up at me.

  Its feet opened and closed.

  The crooked wing moved back into place even as I watched, the feathers scraping against my fingers.

  It took a moment, maybe two, before it righted itself, the talons digging lightly into my skin. There was a little smear of blood across my palm. The bird hopped around, looked up and down, to the left and the right. As it turned its head, I saw the ruffled feathers on its neck, but the skin looked intact. It chirped again.

  And then it flew away into the trees, lost amongst the branches and leaves.

  I sat there for a long time, in those Dark Woods.

  Eventually I decided to head for home. My heart was still heavy, but it no longer felt shattered in my chest. I could do this. I could be who everyone wanted me to be. I didn’t need the knight. He had the Prince, and I… well. One day I’d find someone made for me. And I would show them why I was made for them. It was going to be okay.

  I put my hands in the grass to push myself up and—

  I stopped, because the grass crunched under my fingers.

  I looked down.

  It was blackened. Burned.

  All around me. In a large circle. And everything in that circle was charred. The ground. The shrubbery. The trees. Everything. It was as if I’d burned the life out of it. To… to give—

  I stood, my legs shaking, breathing hitching. I took a step back. And another. And another. And then I turned and ran toward home.

  I was seventeen years old when I brought a bird back to life.

  I had taken life from the earth to do it.

  And I never breathed a word of it to anyone.

  UNTIL NOW.

  Chapter 10: Randall’s Great Love

  IT DIDN’T take him as long as I thought it would. I tried not to focus on how many times he turned the page so I wouldn’t be able to figure out specifically what he was reading in any given moment. I almost grabbed the damn thing out of his hands once or twice, intent on throwing it in the fire so he couldn’t read any more.

  Because it was all there.

  Everything I’d learned since this started. All my secrets.

  And the bird.

  My biggest secret of all.

  It felt almost… wrong that it was him and not Morgan. Or Ryan. Or Gary and Tiggy. There were so many people who deserved to know everything more than Randall did.

  Was that fair?

  I didn’t know.

  But somehow I stayed where I was.

  Randall, for his part, kept a mostly blank look on his face the four hours it took for him to get through what I’d spent the past few days writing. Once, an eyebrow rose, and his mouth thinned a little somewhere around hour two, but I didn’t try to sneak a peek at what he was reading, absolutely sure that I didn’t want to know.

  The fire kept up as it always had. I didn’t know if it was Randall’s magic or Castle Freesias that kept it going. Maybe I’d find out the answer one day.

  Finally he closed my Grimoire, keeping it in his lap. He shut his eyes fo
r a little while, and I thought maybe he’d fallen asleep. Which, of course, I tried desperately not to feel disappointed by, seeing as how I’d just essentially bared everything and Randall’s response was to take a fucking nap? How dare he, that old asshole—

  “The bird,” he said.

  I started choking.

  He opened his eyes, glaring at me.

  “Sorry,” I gasped. “Swallowed spit.”

  “Must you always be awkward at everything you do?”

  I nodded furiously. “Probably. It’s my gift. It’s also my curse. Sorry.”

  He waited until I’d gained at least some semblance of control again before continuing. “Have you done anything similar since?”

  “Bringing something back to life?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  I shook my head.

  “And any time before.”

  “No. That… that was it. The one time.”

  “And the earth. The grass, the trees. The Dark Woods. That spot. Have you been back there since?”

  I hesitated, considering lying about that. But I’d come this far already. Might as well go all-in. “Yes.”

  “And?”

  “And it looks the same.”

  “Meaning the forest has regrown or it’s still black?”

  “Black.”

  “Do you know why?”

  I shrugged nervously. “Maybe? I get why more than the how.”

  “We’ll get to that. Tell me why.”

  “I took life to give life. Once taken, it can’t be given back unless I take from something else.”

  “And had there been someone with you, what do you think would have happened?”

  “I don’t… know?”

  He sighed. “It’s resurrection.”

  “What?”

  “What you did. Like the consumption of magic, it is… theory. Nothing more. Many have tried, at the cost of their lives or the lives of others. None have succeeded.”

  “Until me.”

  “Until you,” he agreed. “Always you. Do you know what death is, Sam?”

  “Is that a trick question?”

  “No.”

  “It’s the end.”

  “Is it? You don’t believe in something after death?”

  “Honestly? I’ve… never really thought about it.”

  That made him smile, and it was startling to see. “Ah, youth. How I remember being the same. Death is a cleansing. It breaks you free of the shackles of life and all its burdens.”

  “You’ve been shackled a long time.” Then, “That came out wrong. I’m—”

  He waved my apology away. “It’s true. I have.”

  “Why?” I asked, feeling brave. “You’ve done things more remarkable than any other wizard in existence. The things you must have seen. Everything you’ve been through. Why do you…”

  “Persist?” he asked, arching an eyebrow at me.

  “Uh. Sure.”

  “Because I have to. Because I’m not done with what I’ve set out to do. I am not yet able to be free of my shackles. Why do you think that is?”

  “Myrin?”

  “Partially. Maybe even a large part. But then there’s Morgan. And you.”

  “Me? Why me?”

  He shook his head. “Surely you don’t even have to ask that after everything you’ve shown me in your Grimoire, Sam of Wilds. You know why. I must admit I did not expect to read what you have written here. I—you’re more than what you show. I don’t know why I fail to see that.”

  “That sounded dangerously close to a compliment.”

  “The bird.”

  “What about it?”

  “You said that you took life to give it life.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you think it was the same, after?”

  I frowned. “I don’t understand.”

  He was strangely patient. “The bird had died. Either it moved on to wherever birds go after they die, or if you’d rather believe, it was snuffed out like a candle in the dark, leaving behind only a wisp of its former self. In this case, a body. But then you took life to give it life. Was the bird the same?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I don’t either, Sam. I am learning that even after all these centuries, I don’t know many, many things. And most of them have to do with you.”

  “Oops?” I said, chuckling weakly. “My bad.”

  “I loved him.”

  I fell silent.

  Randall looked toward the fire. “Myrin. I loved him. Maybe more than I’d ever loved anything in this world, before and after. He was… this light. This beautiful light that I thought I could be consumed by. That’s what he felt like anyway. Maybe it’s the old romantic in me that still thinks so. I’m sure anyone in love for the very first time feels the same way. Before him, I hadn’t time for something as trivial as love. I was young—well, younger—and on a set path to become the greatest wizard the world had ever known. Nothing was going to stop me. I took my time. I thought it would be better if I did. That way I could take a look at everything there was to see. I was an architect, and my magic would be my greatest work. And when I was ready, when I was ready to build, I would find my cornerstone and the world would be in awe of me.

  “I sowed my oats, sure. Men and women. It was easier to lie next to a stranger than to form attachments. I didn’t need more of those. I had my mentor. I had my studies. Those were all I needed.”

  His smile took on a melancholic curve. “I wasn’t ready when I met him. But it didn’t matter. He rolled in like a storm, and nothing I could have done would have stopped everything that followed. I didn’t want to stop him. He was devilishly handsome. He could charm anyone out of anything. He had this… this laugh that when you heard it, you would just stop and listen to it. It was loud and boisterous and oh-so contagious. Do you know what the first thing he ever said to me was?”

  I shook my head, unable to speak.

  “He said, ‘Well, well, well. What do we have here?’” Randall’s hands were trembling. “And I was just so perplexed as to why he was speaking to me at all in the first place. Everyone knew to leave me alone, but here he was, forcing his way in, brash and kinetic, and I just… let him.

  “If I could have you know one thing, Sam, it would be this: there was a time when he was good. There was good in him. I will always believe that. I saw it. For a long time, for many, many days, I saw it. He was good. But sometimes it’s not enough. Sometimes good can give way to the darkness in all of us until it blocks out all of the light.”

  He looked back to me. “To answer your question, yes. We did what we did in hopes that one day we would find a way to bring him back to the light. To banish the darkness that had consumed him. Maybe it was naïve, but when you love someone so completely, you tell yourself that you would do anything for them. That you would do what it took to keep them safe. And if they were lost to you, well. That you would find some way to bring them back home.”

  I saw where this was headed. “You called death a cleansing.”

  He waited for me to continue.

  “You think… that if he were to die, I could bring him back. And he would be… cleansed?”

  “Yes,” he said, voice cracking. “But I am wrong about that, Sam. We were wrong. To keep him trapped in the shadow realm, to not have ended this when we had the chance.”

  “You knew,” I said quietly. “About the bird. You already knew. And… what? You were going to use me?”

  Randall looked far older than I’d ever seen him. “The briefest of thoughts. But yes, Sam. It did cross my mind. Then I remembered the truth of all things. Myrin has chosen his path, and he will continue upon it, no matter what we do. And I realized that death is final. Death is the end. It is the cleansing of life, the breaking of the shackles. It is an ending. You cannot course-correct that ending, even though your heart is aching.”

  “I don’t understand,” I whispered. “What are you saying?”

  “This… end. This sa
crifice. Your vision.”

  Ryan.

  I hadn’t even—

  I could.

  Oh my gods, I could—

  “No,” he snapped, suddenly leaning forward, placing his gnarled hands on my knees, squeezing tightly. My Grimoire fell off his lap onto the ground. “You cannot, Sam. If that is to be his ending, then it must be the end. Should the Knight Commander fall, he will have had his shackles removed and he will be free. You cannot bind him to this life again. You cannot bring him back. The amount of energy for a bird destroyed part of the forest for good. What would it take to bring back a human with all his memories and all his thoughts, if that were even possible? What would the cost be?”

  Worth it, a little voice whispered. Any price. I would pay any price.

  “You can say that,” I said hoarsely. “You can say what I can and can’t do, because you’re not me. You can sit there and tell me what to do, resting easy in the knowledge that I am the one paying for your mistakes. That I have to be the one to kill Myrin or have him take everything. Not you. Yes, he’ll die. But I think for you, he died a long time ago. This man, he’s nothing but a shadow of what he once was. But Ryan… he—” My breath hitched in my chest. “—he would pay for your mistakes too. Only with his life. You can’t tell me that I can’t do anything to—”

  His fingers dug into my knees. I was sure there’d be bruises there tomorrow. “I am sorry for what we’ve done, for all the mistakes that we have made. But Sam, you must heed my warning. It would change him. He would not be the same person he was before.”

  “How do you know?” I asked. “You said that this was only ever theory before me. You don’t know what could happen.”

  “Think about it! A bird, the smallest of birds, burned the life out of the earth. If this were to be a human, if this were Ryan, what would the end result be? If it were to work, what would you burn in order to save him? Your parents? The King? Gary and Tiggy?”

  I recoiled away from him in shock. “Stop.”

  “Stone crumbles, Sam. A path may be set, but stone crumbles. Zero was right to tell you this. Vadoma can say what she will. The damn gods can write the future in the stars, but I am telling you right here and now that stone crumbles, and we will do everything we can to help you, to help all of us.”