by B. T. Narro
I had been intent on learning dvinia no matter the cost, but my mind was starting to waver. Some of my peers, like Aliana, had been disappointed at their results. She said the only class she could be was a ranger, and she didn’t seem sure that she would ever be a good one.
I was still getting used to all of the terminology. A magical art was something like dvinia or ordia. A class, like a ranger, mage, or wizard, seemed to be a specialization within a magical art. For example, I had come to learn that there were many classes available for people with a very low frequency of mana, like enchanters, harbingers, and rangers. I wished I could’ve spent the rest of the day asking Leon every question I had, but all of us had gone off to prepare for our first real test. It could be the last one for me if I failed to show any progress—another reason I was considering giving up on dvinia, at least for now.
I felt like a storm was coming and I only had a few hours to prepare. All of us would spend the next two and a half days in solitude, and then we needed to report back to Leon. I was looking forward to the time alone as long as I had everything I needed.
The king, through Leon, had given all of us our weekly stipend. Leon had explained that we would continue to be paid each week unless we proved we weren’t worth the coin anymore. We had each received a whopping four gold creds in the form of the most used currency: silver buckles. The forty buckles, combined with my six, had made me feel rich until I realized my predicament.
Everyone who needed an essence was to use their coin to purchase the essence they wanted. I still hadn’t understood the concept of the essence, so after everyone else had left, I had been forced to stay behind and put up with Leon belittling me during his explanation of it. What’s worse was that I was the only one who needed to purchase an essence. Everyone else who needed one already had one. There were other people, like Charlie and Aliana, who couldn’t reach a high enough frequency with their mana to match any essence, so there was no point in trying. I didn’t know what they would be doing during these days of solitude, or how they were supposed to prove themselves when it came time. All I could do was hope they would make it, because I had my own problems to worry about.
Not only did I have to buy everything I lacked to keep me alive while I was on my own, but I had to use some of my newly acquired forty buckles to pick out an essence. I had hoped to save some money for new clothing, but I didn’t know how much I would have left after picking one out. I might just choose the cheapest one when I visited Enchanted Devices again. I was on my way there now as I remembered what Leon had told me about essences.
I found the concept, of how they helped a sorcerer in training, simple to understand, even if Leon wouldn’t tell me exactly how an essence worked. He’d said that first I had to understand spells better. A spell was made up of three or four notes, he’d reminded me. Leon then explained that the similarity between mana and music was why magic was written out in the way it was, like uF for Upper F. It was like the high pitch of a musical note, and lC, my lowest range, was like a low note—Lower C, for example. I hadn’t even known that musical notes were labeled like F and C. Leon had lectured me as if I’d learned them a while ago and stupidly forgotten. It was pretty much how he spoke about most things, it seemed.
Each note of mana did something on its own. Leon had told me something miraculous after that introduction. I still had trouble believing it.
“You’re natural mana, for example, is uF. I sincerely hope you remember that by now, or you’re even more hopeless than I think.”
“I remember,” I’d told him.
“Upper F is a very powerful note of mana. It even has its own name: vtalia. Almost all notes of F work in harmony with each other. There are spells that involve a combination of lF, F, and uF. I might teach you one of them one day, but I’d have to see you greatly improve first or my time would be wasted.”
“Can you give me an example of what one of the spells can do?”
“Vtalia can manipulate life itself.”
The more I learned, the more questions I had. But after explaining the essences, Leon had sent me off.
“Take the essence of water, for example,” he’d explained. “It is a combination of three notes that are trapped in a moonstone: C, E, G. Together they form a chord, an easy one to reproduce. Most spells require a combination of notes like this.”
“So a spell is just a chord?” I asked.
“No, some spells are just one note, like mtalia. But most spells are a chord, yes—a combination of notes.”
I reminded myself that a note was just a frequency of mana, like my uF. So a spell was just multiple frequencies of mana used at the same time. However, I still had no idea how to produce more than one frequency at a time, and I had better learn soon.
I’d almost made it to the shop. I figured I would buy food afterward, as it felt like the least important thing right now.
Leon had gone on to explain that an essence was like listening to the right sound for the spell. Imitating the sound was incredibly easy—his words—while forming the sound without any reference was impossible for someone like me.
His advice, and first real instruction, was that the first thing I needed to learn was to feel mana. I was to use my mind to hold my mana carefully in front of me, without exerting myself too hard, until I could recognize the differences between one note and another. After I spent enough time familiarizing myself with specific notes, I would be able to feel the three simultaneous notes emanating from the essence that I was to keep near me during my entire time of solitude. Then it would be up to me to imitate these notes with my own mana.
Leon recommended that I start with one note at a time until I could mimic all three of the essence. Only then should I start attempting to split my mana in half in order to mimic two at a time.
I hadn’t appreciated how he’d laughed bitterly as he shook his head in a way that was becoming irritatingly typical. “And only after you can do that,” he’d said, “can you hope to split your mana into three notes at a time. There’s nothing more I can tell you right now. Everyone learns differently. Good luck. You’ll need it.”
I was hoping I might run into one of my peers at the shop—maybe someone had realized they wanted to purchase something they hadn’t thought of before—but none of them were there when I arrived. I was pleased to see Greda still there, though.
“Hi Jon,” she said. She had a long, elegant mouth that set her whole face smiling when she flashed her white teeth.
I returned the expression. “I said I would be back.”
“You did.”
I looked around the small shop as I made my way to the counter. There was so much to see, the shelves packed, everything unfamiliar. But then I spotted the four colorful gems I had seen earlier that I now knew to be essences. I would take a closer look at them in a moment.
“I need a ward of dteria, not that I know what it is,” I admitted. I suddenly had the sense that I wasn’t supposed to admit to anyone trying to sell me something that I knew nothing about it, but it was too late for that. I felt that I could trust Greda, though, and I usually had a good sense about people.
“You don’t know dteria?” she asked.
“Wait, is that the illegal magical art?”
She nodded with wide eyes as if in disbelief that I didn’t know this. I was somewhat shocked myself. How had I not pieced it together sooner? All Leon had said was that everyone who didn’t have a ward of dteria had to purchase one immediately. Of course I was the only one.
My head was full of so much new information that I could barely pass a thought about any of it. I had a brief moment of panic right there as I saw myself failing to improve in my two days of solitude and then being thrown out of the castle.
“It’s all right,” she said, reaching out as if to touch my hand resting on the counter but stopping short. “I was only surprised, was all. A dteria ward is eight buckles. It’s going to take me about an hour to make. I could begin now if you pay upfro
nt.”
I took eight of the small silver coins from my coin purse. “Of course,” I said.
“I’ll be right back.”
She opened the door to the room behind her. I had a small peek at a variety of animal paws, plants, gems, and raw metal on a large table before she entered the room and closed the door.
Greda returned a moment later holding a small polished stone in one hand, white and cloudy, and a single claw as if from a dog in the other. She set both on the counter between us, then went back to shut the door to the back room.
“I’ll need to concentrate during this time,” Greda said. “Would you like to come back later?”
“You’re going to make the ward right here with just that stone and claw?”
“I am.”
“How do you do it?”
“Oh, I…you really don’t know anything about the magical arts?”
“I just started learning today.”
“Why today?” she asked.
I wasn’t supposed to tell her about anything I was doing with Leon. “I’m beginning today as the apprentice for a sorcerer,” I lied. “He sent me here to pick up a few things.”
“What kind of sorcerer?” Greda asked.
“A mage.” I leaned closer and spoke softly. “He has quite the temper, so I’d much rather learn from you if you could take a moment to teach me.” I gestured at the stone and the claw.
“Of course,” she said. “It’s actually quite simple.” She picked up the small white stone. “This is a moonstone. It’s needed to make any ward. All I have to do is enchant it with something, like a claw from any Canidae, and it’s done.”
“How does the enchantment work?”
“It’s a spell that takes a while to set into the stone, but then the effect continues indefinitely. My mother can do it in half the time.”
“And that spell is done with which magical art?”
“Ordia is needed for any enchantment, but you also need mtalia to enchant metal or earth to enchant a gem like this one.”
“Is earth the same as erto?”
“No. Erto is a broader category for any natural element: earth, ice, water, fire, and wind. Erto is one of the few magical arts that is used more as a description than something a sorcerer chooses to specialize in. Most sorcerers who choose an element, like fire, focus only on that one because erto itself encompasses too wide a range. On the other hand, ordia is a small range. It’s easier to learn if your mana can reach a low enough frequency.”
“I was told that women usually have higher natural frequencies. Is this really true?”
“Yes, my mother and I are strange,” she said with a slight laugh. “Usually if a sorcerer has an irregular range of mana, they pass it on to their offspring.”
I wondered about my father. What if his mana could’ve reached uF, and he could’ve done something to help himself through his illness had he known how to use it? I had always figured that he would’ve survived had he fallen ill in a populated city. Someone would’ve known how to do something, or at least told me or my father how to help him with our own mana, if my father had some.
That prompted another question.
“Does everyone have mana?” I asked.
“They do, but most people never learn how to use it because it takes too much practice.”
A shadow fell over me. I truly believed my father could be alive today.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
I put on a false smile. “I am. Can I browse your shop while you work on the enchantment?”
“My mother’s shop. Certainly, but I won’t be able to talk much.”
“Not a problem.”
I went to look at the essences again. Nothing was labeled, no prices listed. I supposed most of the people who came here had some knowledge of sorcery already and had expectations about the cost of everything they might want. They probably haggled. Perhaps I should’ve tried to convince her to lower the price of the dteria ward. I looked back at her, a line across her forehead as she concentrated over the counter. Too late now.
The dog’s claw and the moonstone were pushed close together. Greda held her hand over them, but I didn’t see anything happening. I wondered if the claw would change in some way when she was done, perhaps even disintegrate. There was so much more to learn about sorcery. I wish I had begun years ago.
There were only four essences on the shelf, each in the form of a gem fused onto a bracelet. It was easy to assume what each one did. I pretty much had done that when I’d come in here earlier, before I knew a thing about mana. The red one glowed, a little heat emanating from it. Fire. The one without color was a little cloudy. It had to be wind. The last two were both blue, one the color of water and the other the color of ice.
I put my hand over the essence of water and closed my eyes. Ice was a little cold, but not this one.
I was shocked that I felt something. It was neither heat nor cold, nor did I feel it moving, but it was there like a sound I could barely hear. Mana.
I dissected it by pinpointing the invisible hand of my mind on one of its three parts. I could feel the mana. It seemed like I might be able to mimic it, but I didn’t know how. It was like trying to remember something that I was certain I knew. How should I begin? It almost seemed like beginning and ending would happen at the same time, and there was nothing in between.
I extended my own mana over the stone, the note I now knew to be uF. It was a high frequency, buzzing without sound. I held it close to the stone of water as I tried to determine the difference between the mana within the essence and my own mana. I knew mine was supposed to be higher, but I couldn’t feel just how much. I tried lowering the frequency of my note to match what I felt, but I couldn’t seem to get it, a tension building when I thought I was close.
It didn’t take long for me to start breathing hard. I took a break, feeling as tired as if I had just sprinted a medium distance. Using only my mind usually didn’t fatigue me physically like this. It had to be my use of mana. That was new.
I experimented with each essence. If I understood Leon’s lessons correctly, each of these essences was a spell trapped within a stone. That meant there were three frequencies of mana vibrating within each stone at the same time. I still had to figure out how to split my mana into more than one frequency, but that was pointless unless I learned how to match the different vibrations that a spell required.
I lost track of the time as I experimented. When I took another break, I checked on Greda to find that the dog’s claw had lost all its color, now white as snow.
Fascinating. I had spotted many animal parts in the backroom. I hoped they had only come from animals that had died naturally.
I would be alone in the mountains for two days to figure out how to cast a spell, but I was beginning to believe that I would need more time than that. Or perhaps I just needed an advantage of some kind.
A rather disobedient plan came to me.
I looked around the shop and recognized a vibmtaer. Greda or her mother must’ve made another to replace the one we’d purchased, or it had been in the back. Now this was exactly what I needed.
Leon would have a fit if he knew what I planned to do, but the device was small enough that I should be able to hide it from him when I returned to the castle. We were all to meet one last time before Leon took us to the mountains and left us in solitude.
I brought it to the counter. “How much for another vibmtaer?” I asked.
Her hand continued to hover over the stone and claw. “Two and a half creds,” she said, then looked down again.
Damn, it was expensive. “What about for the essences?” I asked.
“Depends on the essence,” she answered curtly.
“Which one is the cheapest?”
She looked up at me and didn’t bother to hide her irritation. “Fire and water. One cred, one buckle each.”
“Thank you,” I said and let her be.
I didn’t know exactly what dteria
did, but I had to assume the ward was necessary. I didn’t want to accidentally learn an illegal magical art during my trials and be thrown out of the castle. Or would I be put in the dungeon? Yeah, I had to get the ward. That left me with a little more than three creds worth of buckles.
I had been told that I would have to provide my own food during this time in solitude. I also needed to eat supper in town before I left. I was running out of time. The coin I had was supposed to last a week, and I had no idea what other purchases might be required. It was disappointing, to say the least, that food was not provided to us within the castle.
Would that change after we proved ourselves? The king seemed to need us for something. It didn’t seem likely that he would let us starve if we spent our weekly stipend on other things, though he might be a little peeved.
I couldn’t afford an essence and a vibmtaer unless I used all my coin here, which meant I couldn’t buy food or anything else. So I had to decide between one or the other.
I already knew which one I was going to pick. I spent the rest of the time thinking about how much trouble I might be in if it didn’t work out as I hoped.
A lot, I realized. A whole lot.
I took the vibmtaer to the counter. I already had twenty-five buckles counted out and ready. “Do you have a color chart for this vibmtaer?”
“In the back.”
“Could I purchase it with the color chart? I promise this will be the last time I bother you until you are finished.” I put the coins down on the counter.
“You want another vibmtaer?” she asked, confused.
“I do,” I confirmed.
“All right,” she said with a shrug as she collected the silver coins. She started toward the back room but stopped. “If you don’t know much about mana, you might want a color chart with ranges.”
“Absolutely.” I didn’t even know there were other color charts. “Whichever chart has the most information on it is best for me.”
“Let me see.”
Soon she returned with a rolled parchment. She handed it over. “This is as detailed as they come.”