by B. T. Narro
“Thank you.”
She murmured a sound of agreement as she got back to work on the enchantment.
I was glad the purchase of the chart seemed to be included with the twenty-five buckles. I unrolled it for a look.
Marvelous. It seemed to have everything I had already heard about mana, except for dteria, of course, but it helped tremendously to have it all laid out in front in me.
I had just taken it to the other corner of the room for a better look when a city guard stepped into the shop.
“Greda Waxler?”
“Yes?” she said with large eyes.
“Your mother was found on the street, unconscious.”
“Oh god!”
“We took her to a healer who needs to be paid for his service. I think she will be all right. Will you come with me?”
“Yes, of course.” She grabbed the moonstone and claw off the counter and rushed over to the guard. He led her out of the shop. Both of them had just begun to run when I had the thought to step out of the shop and shout after her.
“Greda, what about your shop?”
She jerked to a stop, then spun around and ran back. “I have to lock it up. I’m sorry. I have to go.”
“I understand.”
“Your ward, though.” She stopped and looked down at her hand holding the stone and claw. She took my hand with her free one. “Come with me. We’ll figure something out.”
But the guard pushed out his palm. “Only family.”
“And your shop still needs to be locked,” I reminded her.
Her head whipped back. “Of course!” Through her panic, she closed the door and inserted and turned a key from her pocket. “I will come back in an hour and give you the ward.”
“Are you sure? I’ll understand if you can’t.”
“I can do it.”
“All right, I’ll meet you back here. Thank you.”
“Thank you, I’m sorry. Let’s go,” she told the guard.
They rushed down the street.
It took a few breaths for me to calm down. I hoped her mother would be all right. I wondered what had happened. I knew I was new in the city, but a guard coming to tell someone their loved one was found unconscious in the street had to be a significantly rare and alarming experience for anyone.
My thoughts started to return, and so did my worries. She wouldn’t be back for a while, if at all today. I’d better find a meal, a cheap one, and figure out what to do next.
Fortunately, this area of the city didn’t seem as expensive as some of the others I’d passed through to get here. Greda’s shop was close to the wall surrounding the city, far from the castle at the center. Most of the places here were on the smaller side. I found the nearest tavern after a short walk and asked about a meal. They were offering salted pork and roasted potatoes for four copper, a good deal where I came from. I gladly paid and used my own water rather than purchase an ale for an extra copper.
I ate quickly, as I often did. Soon my empty plate was taken away and I set down the vibmtaer and color chart in its place. I was very glad to have purchased them before the guard had come.
The tavern was mostly empty, and I was graciously left alone. I looked closer at the ranges displayed on the bottom of the color chart. Fire and water overlapped evenly. They had the same range. Dvinia and wind overlapped as well, but not evenly, as dvinia extended farther toward the higher notes than wind did, requiring a higher frequency than wind.
I was shocked as I noticed something. My range was lC to uuD, which meant that I had access to not only wind, fire, water, and ice…but to ordia as well. I could learn it after all.
My heart sank as I realized, however, that both earth and mtalia were below my range. That meant I never would be able to use ordia to enchant metal or gems. I didn’t know what else I might be able to do with it, create magical contracts perhaps? I wasn’t very interested in taking the time to learn how, at least right now.
I was getting ahead of myself. My plan was simple and possibly foolish, but I was determined to make it work. Rather than buying an essence and spending two days trying to mimic it so that I could cast one spell of water or fire, I decided to learn the frequencies of dvinia one by one. Once I mastered them, I should be able to cast the spell easily.
In theory, this would work if I could learn to manipulate my mana as quickly as I learned most other things. Neither Leon nor Barrett had wanted to give me the chance to prove myself, but I knew I could do it. One spell—one spell of dvinia—that’s all I had to show Leon after I returned from my time in the mountains. They wouldn’t force me to mimic an essence of an element after that, and I could move on to other spells.
Unfortunately, the one spell of dvinia that Leon shared with me required four frequencies, not three. The lowest one was my natural vibration of mana, uF. I didn’t have to learn that one. The other three were all higher: uG, uuC, and uuD—the last one being the highest frequency I could reach.
Of these three notes that I had to learn, I soon found that the highest note was actually the easiest one to cast because I just had to exert my mana to its limit. But it was the hardest one to maintain. Everything between my natural mana and the highest I could reach took less of my stamina, but I found it impossible to discern the difference between these notes.
I decided to experiment, a method of learning that usually helped me. I wanted to see how slowly I could push my mana to vibrate faster. It became tense, resistant to my will as I excited it. I watched the color on the vibmtaer’s panel shift from purple to pink, and then to orange as I pushed harder. I tried to continue increasing the frequency gradually, but it was strenuous to adjust my mana evenly when it took so much out of me to maintain it at this high frequency. Doing so felt like trying to change the pitch of a shriek. After another little push, the colors on the panel jumped through light green, blue, and purple in a blink, just to land on pale yellow, my limit.
I sighed. I really needed to have better control of mana at high frequency to have any chance of casting this spell, but I didn’t know the best way to improve. It wasn’t as if I had time to keep failing.
As I practiced longer, I was really starting to see how having a wide range of mana made this more difficult. If the note of my natural mana was right in the middle of dvinia, I could just lower it and raise it subtly to reach the notes I required. But three of the notes I needed were above my natural mana, and there were so many frequencies below that I sometimes slipped into when practicing.
I had nothing to show for my time after a half hour had passed. I figured Greda would probably not be returning to her shop anytime soon, but I needed a short break anyway because I was unusually fatigued. I decided to walk around.
It was a shock when I passed the shop to see Greda inside looking down at the counter as if she’d never left.
I walked inside. She didn’t look up. On the counter in front of her was the moonstone, no claw in sight.
“Greda?” I tried. “Is your mother all right?”
She nodded, barely looking up at me. She pushed the moonstone toward me.
I walked over to the counter. “You sure your mother’s all right?”
She nodded again, then nudged the moonstone closer to me.
I didn’t quite understand her mood. Perhaps her mother hadn’t recovered yet but was still alive? I didn’t want to push Greda to answer me if she didn’t want to speak, but I did need to know about the moonstone.
“You couldn’t have finished the enchantment yet, could you?”
She nodded again, clearly incensed now. She picked it up and dropped it into my hand.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “But I have to make sure of it. This is a finished ward against dteria?”
She finally looked up at me and nodded once more. Then she pointed at the door.
I was confused and irritated, but clearly something had happened involving her mother.
I walked to the door, then turned back. “I hope everything tur
ns out all right. Sorry for the trouble.”
She gestured, rather rudely, for me to leave.
I left the shop feeling more bewildered than insulted. I understood that worrying about a loved one could alter anyone’s mood severely, but her reaction didn’t quite make sense to me. Why not at least say something to clarify the situation? It was as if I was the one who had caused her mother to fall in the street unconscious.
I looked at the moonstone carefully when I was a street away. It was white, opaque. I didn’t know what to look for to determine if I had been cheated. I would show it to Leon when I returned, but first I had to purchase the food I would need for the entire duration of my solitude. By the time I was done, I probably wouldn’t have more than a few buckles left.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Everyone was waiting by the portcullis when I returned. They all had their packs and bedrolls. Leon was searching through each of their belongings. Was he checking to make sure they had their wards and essences? I would need to avoid the search somehow. He was not to catch me without an essence, or I could be expelled from the group without a chance to prove myself.
It didn’t seem as if everyone had been waiting long. No one made any remarks toward me about being late. Nonetheless, I rushed past them to fetch spare clothing from my room.
When I returned, they were already walking out of the castle. I hurried to catch up. I had decided against showing my ward to Leon in fear that he would ask me which essence I had chosen and possibly search my bag for it. What was even more likely was that he might find the ward to be faulty and send me back to purchase another, or worse, exclude me from the trip.
At noticing Michael toward the back of the group, I had a better idea. I came up on his side.
“Hey, Jon,” he said. “Glad you made it.”
“Thanks. I thought I might see you at the shop for an essence of wind.”
“Oh, no, I already knew that wind was my specialty. I’ve known for a year. I just thought it would be funny to make a jest out of it.”
“I see,” I said with a chuckle.
“Did you get everything you needed?” he asked.
“Actually, I have a question about that.”
“What is it?”
I looked ahead. Leon was at the front, the group of four girls behind him. Reuben was right behind Kataleya, but he didn’t seem to be speaking to her. Charlie was behind Reuben, a little space between him and Michael and me at the back.
“I had to buy a ward of dteria, but I’m not sure if it works.” I took it out of my pocket and showed it to him.
He took a look at it. “Honestly, I can’t tell. I can’t even tell you how these things are supposed to work, but I don’t blame you for not wanting to ask Leon.” He handed the ward back to me. “The man’s got a stick up his ass, and I mean deep in there.”
I put the ward back in my bag.
“Shouldn’t matter much if it doesn’t work,” Michael said. “Just focus on matching your mana to the essence and you’ll be fine. Which did you choose?”
I didn’t want to lie to him, but I wasn’t prepared to share the truth, either.
Leon was taking us south through the city. I could already spot the tops of the mountains not too far ahead of us. I’d heard something about the capital being close to both mountains and Curdith Forest, but I didn’t realize just how close Newhaven was to both until now.
I eventually came to the conclusion that Michael wouldn’t want to know what I had done because it would put him in a difficult position.
“Let’s pretend you didn’t ask,” I told him with a look from the sides of my eyes.
“Oh Jon, you play a dangerous game. I really hope you know what you’re doing.”
“I hope so as well.”
As we followed the group out of the city, Michael and I started to share our first impressions of the castle. It didn’t take long for Charlie to slow and listen in. It was a little odd that he didn’t say anything but also didn’t bother to hide that he was listening. He sometimes turned around and stared directly at whoever was speaking, his mop of blonde hair bouncing and swaying with each step.
We tried to include him a few times by asking him about himself, but he would only shake his head and say, “I just want to listen.”
Michael informed me that everyone else had met a half day before Reuben and I showed up. Leon had sent them out to purchase a variety of things after making them promise they wouldn’t speak about any of it to anyone. They had suspected since the beginning that they were being tested, but they’d been separated as well. There hadn’t been much time for them to discuss their tasks with each other.
Michael had been sent to purchase several moonstones from the same shop I had visited. Afterward, he’d been fed and sent to his room to sleep. In the morning, he was told to fetch hay for the stables. He had begun to fear that the guard who’d brought him here had lied. He’d been told that he would learn the magical arts from the best instructor in the world.
“Imagine my surprise after I met Leon,” he said, giving me a chuckle.
Like me, Michael had no guardians anymore. His father had died only a year ago, just like mine, but his father was killed by a thief during the night, not taken by an illness. And Michael’s mother didn’t die during childbirth, as mine had.
“She left me and my father when I was a baby,” Michael said. “She’d never wanted a child. I don’t know where she went, but if she’d stayed in Newhaven my father and I would’ve run into her at least once. He was a carpenter and worked everywhere.”
“How did you learn about the magical arts?” I asked.
“When I was thirteen, my father landed a big job for a sorcerer and found out a few things. He told them to me, and I was hooked like a fish.”
“Could your father ever cast anything?”
“He could feel his mana, but he never could do anything with it.”
It sounded like my experience, except I had been using my mana without knowing what it was. After I told him my tale, we fell silent for a little while. There was now a large gap between the three of us and the rest of the group, with Reuben still trailing close behind Kataleya and the other women.
“Tell us about your family, Charlie,” Michael tried.
“I grew up with a blacksmith,” he said without turning around.
Michael and I sped up until the three of us were walking abreast.
“He isn’t your father?” I asked.
“I don’t think so.”
“You don’t think so?” Michael said. “Why is that?”
“Because he found me in a barrel when I was a baby. Fathers don’t find their sons in barrels.” Charlie said it so matter-of-factly that it took a moment for me to realize what an extreme story of negligence it was.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“I don’t care. I don’t remember. I like Karl. I like the work I do at the blacksmith.”
“Wait, you said earlier that you know mtalia?” Michael asked, hinting at something.
“Yes.”
Michael slapped my shoulder with the back of his hand. “He’s the blacksmith’s apprentice I’ve heard about in Newhaven! Charlie’s actually pretty well known.”
“Yes, people talk about me.” If Charlie had an emotional reaction toward this, he didn’t show it.
“What do they say?” I asked.
Michael was silent for a while as Charlie looked at him.
“Well, um…” Michael stammered.
“They don’t like me,” Charlie admitted. “I’m not good with people. Karl has told me this often. It’s why he gave me to the king.”
“We like you, Charlie,” Michael said. “Don’t we, Jon?”
“We do,” I said and was glad to see Charlie smile.
“How did your father end up giving you to the king?” I asked.
“A guard came by and told Karl, ‘The king wants Charlie. He might be gone a long time, but he will be paid well. Do you accept?’ �
��
Michael and I waited, but Charlie seemed to be done.
“And what did you want?” I asked.
He looked at me with shock, as if I didn’t understand something. “It is very prestigious to work for the king. Of course I wanted to.”
“I didn’t know you cared about prestige,” I said.
“I do.”
Leon shouted from the front, “Get up here and pay attention!”
We hurried toward the rest of the halted group, our packs bouncing on our backs.
“All of you are going to split up now,” Leon explained. “There are a few hours of daylight left. Find somewhere among the hills and mountains—your own spot! There are plenty of caves. There are no bears here. Nothing is going to kill you, except me if I find out you wasted this time or spent it with anyone else in the group. You will meet back in the castle the morning after tomorrow. That means you have two full days to teach yourself something new.”
Charlie raised his hand. It was a shock when Leon pointed at him without yelling. “What?”
“Why do we have to stay here during this whole time?”
“That is an excellent question. Sometimes I forget how dumb all of you are and I need a reminder, so thank you for that, Charlie.”
Charlie lowered his head.
Leon explained, “The southern range of mountains ahead of you are close enough to Curdith Forest for them to give you a little bit of the benefit to your mana that can be found in the forest. But the mountains do not have the same dangers as the forest. In other words, the connection of your mana to your mind is better around here, and you won’t be so distracted or endangered to let it go to waste.”
I raised my hand. He pointed at me.
“How is it that the forest and these mountains have that effect?”
“No.” He shook his head at me. “I am not going to start a debate about something as complex as that. You can research it yourself later, whether you succeed or fail to show me that you can imitate whatever essence you chose. Anyone have a better question?”
I was certainly not going to take another risk by raising my hand. It seemed that no one else wanted to ask anything, either.