by Dima Zales
“No, it’s my fault,” Barson said. “I shouldn’t have taken on so many of you. Like a rookie, I couldn’t control where I aimed my thrust.”
At that point, he seemed to notice Augusta’s presence, and she knew what Barson was going to ask before he even said it.
“Can you help him?” he said, looking up at her.
Augusta nodded and walked back to the chaise, where she’d left her bag. Strictly speaking, using sorcery on non-sorcerers was frowned upon. However, these were special circumstances. Now that she wasn’t so panicked, Augusta recognized the boy. Kiam was the son of Moriner, a Council member from the north. She remembered the Councilor saying that his youngest son didn’t seem to have any aptitude for magic, only for fighting. But even if Kiam had been a nobody, she would’ve still helped him as a favor to Barson.
Grabbing her Interpreter Stone, Augusta carefully chose the cards she needed. The boy was lucky that she and Blaise had come up with this invention. If she’d had to rely on the old oral spells, Kiam would’ve likely bled to death while she planned and chanted something of this complexity. Even Moriner, who was considered the foremost expert on verbal spell casting, would’ve been unable to help his son in time.
Written sorcery was much quicker, especially since Augusta already had some of the components of the spell in her bag. All she had to do now was tailor those components to Kiam’s body weight, height, and the specifics of his injury. When she was ready, she walked back and set the Stone next to Kiam, loading the paper cards into it on the way.
The flow of blood from Kiam’s thigh slowed to a trickle, then stopped. Within a minute, no trace of the injury remained, and Kiam’s face lost its pallor, looking healthy again. The young man got up, as though nothing had happened, and Augusta could see the looks of awe and admiration on the soldiers’ faces. She smiled, glowing with pride at her accomplishment.
Without saying a word, Barson squeezed her shoulder with rough affection, and she grinned at him, looking forward to the night to come.
Practice was over for the day.
Chapter 6: Barson
Barson watched Augusta as she walked away, her hips swaying with the seductive grace that was as much a part of her as her golden brown eyes. She was a beautiful woman, and he was glad she’d chosen him to be her lover. She still pined for that exiled sorcerer, he knew, but not when she was in Barson’s bed. He’d made certain of that.
“That was not particularly smooth, I have to say,” a voice drawled next to him, interrupting his musings.
Turning his head, Barson saw his right-hand man and soon-to-be brother-in-law. “Shut up, Larn,” he said without much heat. “Kiam will be fine, and he’ll know better than to jump under my sword the next time.”
Larn shook his head. “I don’t know, Barson. That kid is a hothead; I’ve warned you about him before—”
“Yeah, yeah, look who’s talking. You think I don’t remember all the trouble you got into when you were his age?”
Larn snorted. “Oh please, you’re a fine one to talk. How many times did Dara have to plead your case? If it weren’t for your sister, you’d still be grounded to this day.”
Barson grinned at his friend, remembering all the mishaps they’d gotten into as children.
“He reminds me of you quite a bit actually,” Larn said, glancing in the direction of Kiam, who had picked up his sword again, apparently getting ready to practice on his own time. Then, lowering his voice, he said in a more serious tone, “Can she hear us?”
“I don’t think so,” Barson said, though he wasn’t entirely sure. One could never be certain with sorcerers; they were sneaky and had spells that could enhance their eavesdropping abilities. However, Augusta would have no reason to do such a spell right now—not when she was getting ready for bed in his tent. “In any case, it’s far safer to talk here than anywhere in the vicinity of the Tower.”
“That’s probably true,” Larn agreed, still keeping his voice low. “Why did she come along, anyway?”
Barson shrugged.
“Oh, the legendary Barson strikes again.” Larn wiggled his eyebrows lasciviously.
Barson’s hand shot out with the speed of a striking cobra, grabbing Larn’s throat. “You will show her respect,” he ordered, filled with sudden anger.
“Of course, I’m sorry . . .” Larn sounded choked. “I didn’t realize—”
“Well, now you do,” Barson muttered, releasing his friend. “And you better hope she didn’t hear any of this.”
Larn paled. “You said she couldn’t—”
“And she probably can’t,” Barson agreed. “The fact that you’re still alive is evidence of that.” Like all members of the Council, Augusta could be quite dangerous if provoked.
Larn stepped back, rubbing his throat. “Your sorceress aside,” he said in a low, raspy voice, “we have some business to discuss.”
Barson nodded, feeling a small measure of guilt at his lack of control. “Tell me,” he said curtly. Larn was his best friend and his most trusted soldier; soon, he would be family as well. Barson shouldn’t have reacted so strongly to his good-natured ribbing. What did it matter what anyone thought of his relationship with Augusta? He must be feeling particularly violent after the practice fight, he decided, not wanting to analyze his actions too much.
“I made a list of the most likely candidates.” Larn pulled out a small scroll and handed it to Barson. “Before, I could’ve sworn that none of these men could do this, but now I’m not so sure.”
Barson unrolled the scroll and studied the eleven names written on there, his anger growing again. Lifting his head, he pinned Larn with an icy stare. “They all fit the behavior pattern?”
“Yes. All of them. Of course, there could always be some other reason for their actions—a mistress or some such thing.”
“Yes,” Barson agreed. “For ten of them, it’s probably something like that.” His hands clenched into fists, and he forced himself to relax. Every one of the eleven men on that list was like a brother to him, and the thought that one of them could’ve betrayed him was like poison in Barson’s veins.
Taking a deep breath, he glanced at the list again, mentally running through each of the names. One name in particular jumped out at him. “Siur is on there,” he said slowly.
“Yes,” Larn said. “I noticed that, too. He didn’t come with us this time. Did he tell you why?”
“No. He said he needed to stay in Turingrad. It’s Siur, not some rookie, so I didn’t press him for explanations.”
Larn nodded thoughtfully. “All right. I’ll continue working on this list and keeping an eye on the ones already there.”
“Good,” Barson said, turning away to hide the fury on his face.
No matter what it took, he would get to the bottom of this matter—and when he did, the man who betrayed him would pay.
Chapter 7: Blaise
Wrapping up the Life Capture recording, Blaise came back to the library to check on Gala. To his surprise, he saw her lying on the floor unconscious, in the middle of a huge pile of books.
Worried, he ran to her and crouched down to take a closer look. To his relief, he saw that she looked quite peaceful, her breathing slow and even. She was simply sleeping.
Without thinking too much about it, Blaise picked her up and carried her to one of the guest bedrooms. She was light in his arms, her body soft and feminine, and he found himself enjoying the experience. Reaching the room, he gently placed her on the bed, and as he was covering her with a blanket, she opened her eyes.
For a moment, she seemed confused, then her gaze cleared. “I think I fell asleep,” she said in astonishment.
Blaise smiled. “I would’ve thought you wouldn’t know what sleep was like.”
“I didn’t before, but I learned quite a bit from your books.”
He studied her with fascination, wondering if she’d read all those hundreds of books that were lying on the library floor. “How many books did you get thro
ugh?” he asked.
She sat up in bed, brushing a few strands of long blond hair off her face. “Three hundred and forty nine.”
Blaise blinked. “That’s very precise. Are you sure it wasn’t three hundred and forty eight?”
“Yes, I’m sure,” she said seriously, then smiled. “In fact, it was 138,902 pages and 32,453,383 words.”
“Are those the exact figures?” He could hardly believe his ears.
Gala nodded, still smiling. In a flash of intuition, Blaise realized that she knew just how much she had impressed him—and that she was enjoying his reaction tremendously.
“All right,” Blaise said slowly. “How do you know this?”
She shrugged. “I just know. As soon as I wanted to tell you, the numbers came to me. I guess I must’ve counted as I was reading, but I don’t remember doing it.”
“I see,” Blaise said, watching her closely. On a hunch, he asked, “What is 2,682 times 5?”
“13,410,” Gala said without hesitation.
Blaise concentrated for a few seconds, doing the calculations in his head. She was right. He was one of the few people he knew who could do this kind of multiplication quickly, but Gala had known the answer almost instantaneously.
“How did you do this so quickly?” he asked, curious about the way her mind worked.
“I took 2,682, halved it to get 1,341, and then multiplied it by 10.”
Blaise thought about it for a second and realized that her method was indeed the easiest way to solve the problem. He was surprised he hadn’t come up with it himself. He would definitely use this shortcut the next time he needed to do some quick calculations for a spell.
Given the purpose of her creation, Gala’s analytical and math skills shouldn’t have surprised him, but still, Blaise was amazed. He couldn’t wait any longer to see what she was capable of. “Gala, can you try to do some magic for me?” he asked, staring at her beautiful face.
She looked surprised by his request. “You mean, like you did earlier, in the gardens?”
“Yes, like that,” Blaise confirmed.
“But I don’t know how you did what you did.” She seemed a little bewildered. “I don’t know all those spells you used.”
“You don’t have to know them,” Blaise explained. “You should be able to do magic directly, without having to learn our methods. Magic should come as easily and naturally to you as breathing does to me.”
She appeared to consider that for a second. “I also breathe,” she said, as though reaching that conclusion after examining herself.
“Of course you do.” Amused, Blaise smiled at her. “I didn’t mean to imply that you don’t.”
Her soft lips curved in an answering smile. “All right,” she murmured, “let me try doing magic.” She closed her eyes, and Blaise could see a look of intense concentration on her face.
He held his breath, waiting, but nothing happened. After a minute, she opened her eyes, looking at Blaise expectantly.
He shook his head regretfully. “I don’t think it worked. What did you try to do?”
“I wanted to make my own version of that beautiful flower you created in the garden.”
“I see. And how did you go about doing it?”
She lifted her shoulders in a graceful shrug. “I don’t know. I replayed the memory of you doing it earlier in my mind and tried to picture myself in your place, but I don’t think it works like that.”
“No, you’re right, that’s probably not how it would work for you.” Frustrated, Blaise ran his fingers through his hair. “The problem is I don’t know exactly how it would work for you. I was hoping you would simply be able to do it, just like you did the math problem earlier.”
Gala closed her eyes again, and that same look of concentration appeared on her face.
Again nothing happened.
“I failed,” she said, opening her eyes. She didn’t seem particularly concerned about that fact.
“What did you try to do?”
“I wanted to raise the temperature in this room by a couple of degrees, but I could feel that it didn’t work.”
Blaise lifted his eyebrows. Her unusual temperature sensitivity aside, it seemed that Gala did have a good intuition for sorcery. Changing the temperature of an object was a very basic spell, something that Blaise could do just by saying a few sentences in the old magical language.
While he was pondering this, Gala jumped off the bed and came up to one of the windows. “I want to go out there,” she said, turning her head to look at him. “I want to see more of this world.”
Blaise tried to hide his disappointment. “You don’t want to try any more magic?”
“No,” Gala said stubbornly. “I don’t. I want to go out and explore.”
Blaise took a deep breath. “Maybe just one more try?”
Her expression darkened, a crease appearing on her smooth forehead. “Blaise,” she said quietly, “you’re making me feel bad right now.”
“What?” Blaise couldn’t keep the shock out of his voice. “Why?”
“Because you’re making me feel used, like that object that you intended me to be,” she said, sounding upset. “What do you want from me? Am I to be some tool that people use to do magic? Is that my purpose in life?”
“No, of course not!” Blaise protested, pushing away an unwelcome tendril of guilt. In a way, that had been exactly what he had originally intended for Gala, but she wasn’t supposed to be a person, with the feelings and emotions of a human being. He had been trying to build an intelligence, yes, but it wasn’t supposed to turn out this way. It was to be a means to an end, a way to address the worst of the inequality in their society. All he had thought about was getting the object to understand regular human language, and he hadn’t considered the fact that anything with that level of intelligence might have its—or her—own thoughts and opinions.
And now he was a victim of his own success. Gala could certainly understand language—maybe even better than Blaise, given her reading prowess. However, she was no more an object to be used than he was. His original plan of creating enough intelligent magical objects for everyone was sheer folly; if successful, it would just transfer the burden of inequality from one group of thinking beings to another—provided that Gala or others of her kind would even go along with something like that.
Besides, it wasn’t like she could even do magic at this point. Or maybe she just didn’t want to, Blaise thought wryly. He would certainly be hesitant to display any kind of magical ability in her situation.
She was still looking upset, so he tried to reassure her, “Gala, listen to me, I didn’t mean to make you feel like an object. What I told you about my original intentions for you is obviously out of the question now. I know you’re not a thing to be used. I’m sorry. It was thoughtless of me not to realize how you felt.” He hoped she could see the truth of his words; the last thing he wanted was for Gala to be afraid of him or to resent him.
She looked away for a second, then turned to meet his gaze. “Well, now you know,” she said softly. “All I want to do right now is learn more about this world. I want to experience everything about it. I want to see for myself what I just read about in your books, and I want to witness those injustices you’re trying to fix. I want to live like a human being, Blaise. Can you understand that?”
Chapter 8: Gala
Gala watched the play of emotions on her creator’s expressive face. He was disappointed, she could see that, and it hurt, but she needed him to understand that she was a person with her own needs and desires. She wasn’t something to be used to better the lives of people she didn’t know and didn’t care about.
She could see his internal struggle, and then he seemed to come to a conclusion of some kind. “Gala,” he said quietly, looking at her, “I understand what you’re saying, but you don’t know what you’re asking. If anyone found out about you—about what you are—I don’t know what they would do. People fear what they don’t understand
—and even I don’t fully understand what you are and what you’re capable of. I can’t let you go out there, not until we know more about you.”
As he spoke, Gala felt the beginnings of something she had never experienced before. It was a strange churning sensation that started low in her stomach and spread upward, making her chest feel unpleasantly tight. She could feel her blood rushing faster in her veins, heating up her face, and she wanted to scream, to lash out in some way. It was anger, she realized, real anger. She hated not being able to do exactly what she wanted.
“Blaise,” she managed to say through tightly clenched teeth, “I. Want. To Go. Out. There.” Her voice seemed to rise with every word.
He appeared taken aback by her temper. “Gala, it’s just too dangerous, can’t you understand that?”
“Too dangerous? Why?” she demanded furiously. “I look human, don’t I? How would anybody guess that I’m not?”
She could see him considering her point. “You’re right,” he said after a moment. “You do appear completely human. But if we go out there together, we’ll attract a lot of attention—mostly because of me, not you.”
“You? Why?” Gala could feel her anger cooling now that Blaise was no longer being so unreasonable.
“Because I quit the Sorcerer Council two years ago,” he explained, “and I’ve been an outcast ever since.”
“An outcast? Why?” Gala had just finished reading about the Sorcerer Council and the power wielded by those who had the aptitude for magic. Blaise seemed to be an unusually good sorcerer—he had to be, in order to create something like herself—and it didn’t make sense to her that he would be an outcast in a world that valued those kinds of skills so much.
“It’s a long story,” Blaise said, and she could hear the bitterness in his voice. “Suffice it to say, I don’t share the views of most on the Council—and neither did my brother.”
“Your brother?” She’d also read about siblings, and she was fascinated by the idea of Blaise having one.