The Sorcery Code

by Dima Zales

  “I am Blaise, son of Dasbraw. You would just call me Blaise.”

  “Blaise,” she said slowly, as though tasting his name. Her voice was soft and sensual, innocently seductive. It made Blaise painfully aware that it had been two years since he had been this close to a woman.

  “Yes, that’s right,” he managed to say calmly. “And we should come up with a name for you as well.”

  “Do you have any ideas?” she asked curiously.

  “Well, my grandmother’s name was Galina. Would you like to honor my family by taking her name? You can be Galina, daughter of the Spell Realm. I would call you ‘Gala’ for short.” The indomitable old lady had been nothing like the girl sitting in front of him, yet something about the bright intelligence on this woman’s face reminded him of her. He smiled fondly at the memories.

  “Gala,” she tried saying. He could see that she liked it because she smiled back at him, showing even white teeth. The smile lit her entire face, making her glow.

  “Yes.” Blaise couldn’t tear his eyes away from her luminous beauty. “Gala. It suits you.”

  “Gala,” she repeated softly. “Gala. Yes, I agree. It does suit me. But you said that I am daughter of the Spell Realm. Is that my mother or father?” She gave him a hopeful look.

  Blaise shook his head. “Not in the traditional sense, no. The Spell Realm is where you developed into what you are now. Do you know anything about the place?” He paused, looking at his unexpected creation. “In general, how much do you recall before you showed up here, on the floor of my study?”

  Chapter 2: Augusta

  Augusta slid out of bed and smiled seductively at her lover, enjoying the heated gleam in his eyes as she bent down to pick up her magenta-colored dress from the floor. The beautifully made garment had only one small rip in it—nothing that she wouldn’t be able to fix with a simple verbal spell. Her clothes rarely survived her visits to Barson’s house intact; if there was one thing she enjoyed about the leader of the Sorcerer Guard, it was the rough, urgent hunger with which he always greeted her arrival.

  “Is it already time to go?” he asked, propping himself up on one elbow to watch her get dressed.

  “Aren’t your men waiting for you?” Augusta wriggled into the dress and reached up to gather her long brown hair into a smooth knot at the back of her neck.

  “Let them wait.” He sounded arrogant, as usual. Augusta liked that about Barson—the unshakable confidence that permeated everything he did. He might not be a sorcerer, but he wielded quite a bit of power as the leader of the elite military force that kept law and order in their society.

  “The rebels won’t wait, though,” Augusta reminded him. “We need to intercept them before they get any closer to Turingrad.”

  “We?” His thick eyebrows arched in surprise. With his short dark hair and olive-toned skin, he was one of the most attractive men she knew—with the possible exception of her former fiancé.

  No, don’t think about Blaise now. “Oh yes,” Augusta said nonchalantly. “Did I forget to mention that I’m coming with you?”

  Barson sat up in bed, the muscles in his large frame flexing and rippling with each movement. “You know you did,” he growled, but Augusta could tell he was pleased with this development. He had been trying to get her to spend more time with him, to get their relationship out in the open, and Augusta thought it might be time to start giving in a little.

  After her painful breakup with Blaise two years ago, all she’d wanted was an uncomplicated affair—an arrangement of mutual desire and nothing more. Her eight-year relationship with Blaise had ended six months before their wedding was to take place, and at the time, she didn’t know if she would ever be able to trust another man again. She’d thought that all she needed was a bed companion, a warm body to make her forget the emptiness within—and she’d chosen the Captain of the Guard for that role.

  To her surprise, what started off as a simple dalliance grew and evolved. Over time, Augusta found herself both liking and admiring her new lover. He was not an intellectual, like Blaise, but he was quite intelligent in his own way—and she found that she enjoyed his company outside of the bedroom as well. As a result, when she’d heard about the rebellion in the north, she decided it was the perfect opportunity to witness Barson in action, doing what he did best—protecting their way of life and keeping the peasants in check.

  Getting up, he pulled on his armor and turned to face her. “Did the Council ask you to come with us?”

  “No,” Augusta reassured him. “I’m coming of my own initiative.” It would be an insult to the Guard if the Council thought them incapable of quelling a minor uprising and asked her to aid them. She was accompanying them solely because she wanted to spend some time with Barson—and because she wanted to see the rebels crushed like the vermin they were.

  “In that case,” he said, his dark eyes glittering with anticipation, “let’s go.”

  * * *

  Augusta rode beside Barson, feeling the rhythmic movements of the horse beneath her. She could see the curious looks she was getting from the other soldiers, but she didn’t care. As a sorceress of the Council, she was used to the attention; she even craved it on some level.

  It was strange riding an actual living horse. She had gotten used to the flying chaise—her recent invention that had revolutionized travel for sorcerers—and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d gone somewhere the old-fashioned way. The only reason why she was doing so now was because Barson refused to get on the chaise with her while on duty, and she didn’t want to hover in the air above the guards all by herself.

  “How many rebels are there?” she asked Barson, surprised that there were only about fifty men accompanying them.

  “Ganir said there were about three hundred,” Barson replied, and Augusta wrinkled her nose at the mention of the Council Leader’s name. Ganir appeared to have his spies everywhere these days. Under the guise of protecting the Council, the old sorcerer seemed to be growing more and more powerful every day, a development that bothered Augusta. She had always gotten a sense that the old man didn’t like her, and she didn’t want to think about what could happen if he decided to turn on her for any reason.

  Bringing her attention back to the subject at hand, she gave Barson a questioning look. “And you took only fifty guards?”

  He chuckled. “Only fifty? That’s probably twenty too many. Any one of my men is worth at least ten of these peasants.” Then he added, more seriously, “Besides, given the unrest everywhere, I thought it best not to leave Turingrad and the Tower unprotected without a good reason—and believe me, three hundred peasants are not a good reason.”

  Augusta grinned at him, again charmed by his arrogance. “Right, of course. Plus you’ve got me.” Sorcerers rarely used their magic against the common population, but they could certainly do so, particularly if they were in danger. Augusta had no doubt that she could subdue all the rebels singlehandedly, but that wasn’t her job. That’s what the soldiers were for.

  This little rebellion, like so many others in the past couple of years, was no doubt motivated by the drought. It was an unfortunate occurrence, and Augusta could understand the peasants’ unhappiness with ruined crops and high food prices—but that didn’t make it acceptable for them to march on Turingrad like Ganir claimed they were doing.

  The north of Koldun—where these rebels were coming from—was particularly hard-hit. Augusta’s own territory was further south, but even her subjects were grumbling about the lack of food. They wouldn’t dare do any rioting, of course, but Augusta was not oblivious to the fact that they were unhappy. For almost two years, the rain had been sparse, and grain was becoming increasingly difficult to obtain. Augusta did her best to purchase whatever grain was available and send it to her people, but the ungrateful wretches still complained.

  “Who’s ruling over the territory of the rebels? Is it Jandison or Moriner?” she asked, wondering which sorcerer couldn’t control his own
peasants.

  “Jandison.”

  Jandison. Well, that explained it, Augusta thought. Despite his advanced age and position on the Council, Jandison was considered to be something of a weakling. He was good at teleportation (admittedly, a useful skill) and not much else. How he had ended up on the Council—a ruling body consisting of the most powerful sorcerers—Augusta would never understand.

  “Some of his peasants ran off to the mountains,” Barson said, looking annoyed with the situation. “And some decided to riot. It’s a mess over there.”

  “To the mountains?” Augusta couldn’t suppress her shock. The mountains surrounded the land of Koldun, serving as a natural barrier against the fierce storms that raged beyond them. Only the most intrepid explorers ever ventured out there, given the unpredictable weather and proximity to the dangerous ocean. And these peasants actually went there?

  “Yes,” Barson confirmed. “At least twenty of them from Jandison’s northernmost village fled there.”

  “They must be suicidal,” Augusta said, shaking her head. “Who in their right mind would do something like that?”

  “Someone desperate and hungry, I would imagine.” Her lover gave her an ironic look. “You don’t know hunger, do you?”

  “No,” Augusta admitted. Most sorcerers only ate for pleasure; spells to sustain the body’s energy were simple to do—and were one of the first things parents taught their children. Augusta had mastered those spells at the age of three, and she’d never felt hungry since.

  Barson smiled in response and reached over to squeeze her knee with his large callused hand.

  Chapter 3: Gala

  Gala stared at the tall, broad-shouldered man who was her creator, trying to figure out the best way to answer his question. She found it difficult to focus, her senses overwhelmed by being here, in this place Blaise called the Physical Realm. Her body was reacting to the different stimuli in strange and unpredictable ways, her mind attempting to process all the images, sounds, and smells so she could understand everything.

  One particularly strong distraction was Blaise himself. She couldn’t stop looking at him because he was unlike anything she had seen before. Something about the angular symmetry of his face appealed to her, resonating with her in a way she didn’t fully comprehend. She liked everything about it, from the blue color of his eyes to the darkness of the stubble shadowing his firm jaw. She wondered if it would be acceptable to reach out and touch his hair—those short, almost-black locks that looked so different from her own pale strands.

  First, though, she wanted to answer his question. Concentrating, she thought back to before, to what had happened prior to her experiencing reality for the first time. “I remember realizing that I exist,” she said slowly, trying to put into words the strange sensations at the beginning.

  “You mean you existed for a time without realizing it?” he asked, his dark eyebrows coming together slightly. Gala thought that expression likely meant confusion because her own eyebrows did the same thing when she didn’t understand something.

  “It’s like there were two ways I existed,” she tried to explain. “One way would just happen. This went on longer. When I say I realized that I exist—that’s when this other part of me first realized that I am me. These parts are not separate; in fact, they are the same thing. There is a strange looping arrangement between the two parts that I don’t fully understand and don’t know how to put into words—”

  “I think I do understand,” he said, leaning forward and staring at her intently. “You became self-aware. At first, you existed on a subconscious level, and then, at some critical threshold, you achieved a conscious state of being.” He appeared excited, Gala thought, somehow finding the right word to describe her creator’s emotional state.

  “What is the difference between a conscious and a subconscious state?” she asked, hungering for more information.

  “In a human being, the subconscious parts of the mind are in charge of things like breathing or the heart beating,” he said, his eyes gleaming brightly. “When I run, my subconscious figures out the complex trajectories of how my limbs move. Some sorcerers also think dreams form in that part of our minds.”

  “I am not a human being,” Gala said, looking at him. That much she knew now. She was something different, and she needed to learn what that something was.

  He smiled—an expression that made his face even more fascinating to her. “No,” he said softly, “you’re not. But you definitely seem like one to me.”

  “But that was not your intention, right?”

  “Right,” he confirmed. “However, the parts of you that I designed are based on how I theorized human minds might work. Lenard the Great is the one who first discovered the conscious-subconscious dynamic, and I’ve always been fascinated by his work. I’ve done spells on people that gave me insight into their states of being, and that was my framework for you. Additionally, I had some help from Lenard’s writings. The spell that created you was supposed to make an interconnected structure of nodes—nodes that can learn. Billions and billions of nodes in the Spell Realm, all magically connected together—”

  How interesting, Gala thought, observing the way his face became more animated as he spoke.

  “And then, once I performed the spell,” he continued, “I sent dozens of Life Captures to the Spell Realm, as many Life Captures as I could get my hands on—”

  “Life Captures?” The term didn’t make sense to Gala.

  Blaise nodded, his expression darkening for some reason. “Yes. Life Captures are an example of a magical object. A sorcerer named Ganir recently invented these things. It’s a little hard to explain what they are. Basically, when you take a Life Capture, you see what someone else saw, you smell what they smelled, and you think you are them for the duration of the spell. You have to experience it to truly understand.”

  “I think I do understand,” Gala said, thinking back to the strange experiences she’d had prior to coming here. “This probably explains my visions.”

  “Your visions?”

  “I think I saw glimpses of the Physical Realm,” Gala told him, “and it was like I was in them.” The memories were not pleasant; for the longest time, she’d felt lost, not knowing that she was living other people’s lives.

  “Of course.” His eyes widened with understanding. “I should’ve realized that once your mind was sufficiently developed, you would simply experience the Life Captures like we do—except that you had never been in the real world and probably had no idea what was happening to you. I’m sorry about that. It must’ve been terribly confusing for you.”

  Gala shrugged, a gesture she’d seen used once or twice in her visions. She had deduced that it indicated uncertainty. She wasn’t sure how she felt about the Life Captures. Seeing the world through them had definitely been confusing, but she had gained a lot of knowledge about the Physical Realm that way. There was still a lot she didn’t know, of course, but she was not nearly as lost now as she would’ve been otherwise.

  Blaise smiled at her, and she thought again how much she liked his smile. Such a simple thing, just lips curving upwards and a flash of white teeth, and yet it had an effect on her, warming her on the inside and making her want to smile back at him in return. So she did, mimicking his expression. His eyes gleamed brighter, and Gala sensed that she’d done the right thing, that she’d pleased him in some way.

  “So what was the Spell Realm itself like?” he asked, still looking at her with that smile. “I can’t even imagine what it must be like there . . .” His voice trailed off, and Gala understood that he was hoping she’d tell him about it.

  She thought about it, trying to figure out the best way to explain. “It’s very . . . different,” she finally said. “I don’t really know how to describe it to you. There wasn’t a lot of time between visions, and when I wasn’t experiencing the visions, I couldn’t use human senses. It’s like there were flashes of light, sound, taste, and smell, but they were com
ing at me in some other way. I was never able to process them fully before I would get absorbed in another vision. And then I was pulled here—”

  “Pulled here?”

  “Yes, that’s what it felt like,” Gala said. “It was like something pulled me here, into this place you’re calling the Physical Realm.” She paused for a second. “Pulled me to you.”

  Chapter 4: Blaise

  Pulled to him. She had been pulled to him.

  It must’ve been that last spell he performed that brought Gala to his study, Blaise realized. He had been trying to do a physical manifestation of the magical object, and instead he’d ended up bringing Gala here, to the Physical Realm.

  She was looking at him with her large blue eyes, studying him with that odd mixture of childlike curiosity and sharp intelligence. Blaise wondered what she was thinking. Did she have the same emotions as a regular human being? Did she even understand the concept of emotions? Her reactions seemed to indicate that she did. She had smiled in response to his smile, so, at the very least, she knew facial expressions.

  “I want to see it,” she said suddenly, leaning forward. “Blaise, I want to experience more of this world. I want to learn about this place. Can you show it to me, please?”

  “Of course,” Blaise said, getting up. He had a million more questions for her, but she was probably even more eager for knowledge than he was. “Let me start by showing you my house.”

  He began the tour upstairs, where his study and the bedrooms were located. Gala trailed in his wake, listening attentively as he explained the purpose of each room. Everything seemed to fascinate her, from the closet filled with Augusta’s dresses to the glazed windows in Blaise’s bedroom.

  Approaching one particularly large window, she climbed onto the windowsill and stared outside, pressing her nose against the glass. Blaise couldn’t help smiling at that, charmed by the picture she presented.