“And what exactly… are these gifts?” asked Arvid. “I mean, what can people do with them?”
“I’m getting to that,” Thoke said.
At a small shack he stopped and bought some candles, then they went on through the noisy crowd that moved tightly between the stands. Again and again Arvid was shoved, and she had to make every effort not to lose Thoke. A short time later they found themselves in a quieter corner of the market, where several fires were burning in flat fire bowls. A loud, regular knocking could be heard.
“I know the blacksmith over there,” Thoke said, pointing in one direction. Between people Arvid could see a covered place where a bearded man struck a hammer against a mighty anvil. It was the source of the droning noise they had heard from afar.
“A blacksmith?” said Arvid. “Weren’t we just at…”
“He’s a black mage,” Thoke interrupted her, grabbed her wrist and pulled her with him through a group of people, who had stopped in the already narrow alley between the stalls, talking and laughing.
Arvid could not avoid a certain nervousness when Thoke approached the blacksmith and greeted him. The burly man seemed to be happy about Thoke’s unexpected visit and lowered his hammer. Arvid noticed with some amazement that she was able to understand parts of their conversation, although she only had come into contact with the Jördish language recently. The blacksmith repeatedly gave her attentive glances, while Thoke obviously explained to him who Arvid was and that he was going to show her everything.
Eventually the blacksmith put his hammer aside and began to rummage in a pool filled with small metal parts.
“His name is Alf,” Thoke said to Arvid. “He was born and raised here in Black Castle. He is a very talented mage. I asked him to show you a few things.”
Arvid watched as Alf placed a couple of long, narrow pieces of metal on the anvil.
“I don’t understand,” she said. “He’s a blacksmith, why…?”
“You’ll see in a moment,” he said with a fleeting smile.
Alf waved Arvid closer. “Come and watch,” he said in Jördish.
Arvid hesitantly stepped closer and looked at the small metal tube he pointed at. Arvid couldn’t understand the next thing he said, but Thoke translated it for her. “To heat larger pieces, he uses a forge, but smaller parts can easily be heated and formed with black magic.”
With a large pliers Alf held the tube. He simply looked at it, and slowly the dark metal began to glow. First it was just a dark red glow, but then it became orange and finally bright yellow. Arvid couldn’t believe her own eyes and instinctively took a step back when she felt the burning heat on her skin. Alf laughed loudly. He said something that Arvid did not understand, but Thoke started grinning, too.
“He says you look like a little kid that’s watching a blacksmith for the first time,” he explained.
Although such a remark would usually annoy Arvid, she was still so stunned that she could not speak, but just continued staring at the glowing metal.
Using the forceps, Alf turned the tube into a kind of spiral. The in-turned stump stretched on its own and became a perfect, pointy tip. Finally he dipped the hot metal in a pool of water next to him. Arvid was allowed to keep the cooled spiral and did, in fact, feel a bit like a little child who just had been handed some candy.
While Thoke continued talking to Alf, Arvid stared spellbound at the perfectly shaped metal structure in her hands. She had firmly resolved not to let anything she heard or saw throw her off track but after what she just had witnessed, it became harder and harder. She could think about it all she wanted, but she found no logical, physical explanation for what Alf had done with the metal tube. How could you heat something so fast and high without exposing it to a strong fire, without even touching it at all? How could he form the tip without working the metal with a tool?
After Thoke finally had said goodbye to Alf and they slowly moved away from the market, Arvid was silent and thoughtful. She was still turning the small metal spiral in her hand pondering. Was it really possible that there was such a thing as magic? Was that what she had just witnessed?
“Are you very cold?” asked Thoke, pulling Arvid from her musings.
“Just a little,” Arvid said. Her feet were cold, but the blanket was thick and warm, and between the fires of the forge it had not been as cold.
“Then I have two more things I want to show you,” Thoke said.
He led her along a slightly sloping road, where the noise of the market slowly faded behind them. At one point a narrow staircase between two houses started, and for a while it seemed as if they were moving through a tunnel. The rooftops of the surrounding buildings were almost touching, and the stone steps were only illuminated by the dim light of the star lamps above them.
As they left the passage, Arvid felt as if they stepped directly into a starry sky. They stood on a semicircular terrace, which was overgrown with tall grass, but all around them there were small, glowing dots. They were so numerous that it looked like a carpet of tiny, colored lights.
“Wow,” Arvid said softly. “What’s that?”
“Lightning bugs,” Thoke answered. “Don’t worry, they are absolutely harmless.”
He grabbed her hand and pulled her farther. Arvid was so enchanted by the sight that she just let it happen. The bugs flew into the air left and right of them when they began moving through the grass. Suddenly the air around them was filled with brightly colored sparks that floated away in a swirling motion.
“That’s awesome,” marveled Arvid while she looked up and observed the buzzing lights that mingled with the glow of the stars. Of course she had seen fireflies, but the dance of these beetles was much more intense and magnificent.
“Then you will like this, too,” Thoke said with a smile. They had reached the low wall, which enclosed the terrace, and Arvid saw that it fell several feet straight down. As she stepped closer and looked down, her breath almost stopped.
Down below them wide meadows spread out. The whole area was like an endless sea of glittering lights in every color imaginable. When the wind was blowing through the grass, the lights to seemed to form small, gentle waves, so everything was in constant, flowing motion.
“Unfortunately, the bugs will disappear soon, because winter is approaching and it will be very cold,” Thoke told her. “But every spring they return.”
“It looks beautiful,” whispered Arvid quietly.
“Do you see that line there?” asked Thoke and pointed to a spot somewhere below them. “It’s the city’s circle of protection.”
Arvid took a while before she finally discovered a thin, whitish shimmering line that kept disappearing between the lightning bugs.
“The entire city is surrounded by it,” said Thoke. “The circles are rune magic, too, but they’re extraordinarily powerful. A god has created this one.” He pointed to a flat boulder that was a few steps away. “Let’s sit down there. There’s one more thing I want to show you.”
After they were seated, Thoke pulled out the package of candles he had bought at the market.
“You want to show me candles?” Arvid said jokingly, but Thoke just laughed.
“Not really,” he said, taking one from the paper and handing it to Arvid. “I want to show you how to light it. Hold it away from you.”
Arvid frowned, but did as she was told.
“Look at the wick,” Thoke said, pointing at it with his index finger. As soon as he had done so, a tiny, intense white light appeared. A moment later, a narrow, orange flame flickered into the air.
With wide eyes Arvid stared at the candle in her hand. “How did you do that?” she asked.
“White magic,” Thoke replied. “This,” he gestured to the candle, “is one of the simplest things you can do with it.”
“So you ca
n… I mean… you’re a white mage?” said Arvid. After all she had learned about magic, she had been convinced that there was no way Thoke could have such powers.
“How is that possible?” she asked. “You’re not out of this world!”
“Like I said, only a copy of your body arrives here,” said Thoke. “Every time someone enters this world, whether by birth or through a world transition, there is the possibility that he has a magical gift. I wanted to show it to you because… well, you may also have a gift that will make itself noticeable one day.”
Arvid was speechless. The idea was monstrous. Suddenly her own body felt strange. Maybe there was something inside her, something completely unknown and inexplicable. Arvid didn’t know how to feel about it.
“Black and white mages can mostly do the same things, but in different ways,” Thoke said. “White mages can create light, manipulate it and convert it into other forms of energy. Black mages change what is already there: solid, tangible objects.”
Arvid asked Thoke to demonstrate it again, then again. At the end he had lighted and extinguished the candle five times. Arvid wanted to know exactly how he did it and how he had found out that he could, but Thoke’s explanations were vague and incomprehensible. Apparently he found it difficult to explain the process with words.
“It’s like an instinct,” Thoke finally said, shrugging. “At some point you… just understand it. It is such a natural part of you that you no longer think about it. It’s like reading: It was difficult once, but once you’ve learned it, you no longer see the single letters. You only think about it when you come across an unusual or very difficult word.”
They talked until Arvid was so thoroughly cold that they had to leave. The whole way back she was deep in thought, trying to fathom all the things she had learned. It was difficult, but she felt better. As confusing as much of it had been, it was suddenly easier to understand and accept her new environment.
Back in the house, they found Falla asleep in her armchair, her sewing on her lap. Thoke brought them beer, bread and a few slices of sausage. For several minutes they sat silently at the table and ate while Arvid felt the heat returning in her tingling hands, feet and the tip of her nose.
“Tell me about Asgard,” she said after a while. “You said it was the home of your gods, but… it’s not like they are real gods, right?”
Thoke hesitated. “Of course they are real gods, but… it’s hard to explain. First you have to understand all this about magic.”
“I do,” stated Arvid. “Well, I might not understand it, but I’ve seen some of it.”
“Yes, but… I mean, magic as a whole,” said Thoke, “as part of this world. It affects almost everything. The individual people, society, the craft… Just like science in the Light World.”
Arvid shrugged. “Explain it then.”
Thoke sighed. “All right, I’ll try.” He thought briefly, then said, “The gifts I told you about… they can be stronger or weaker. Usually you only have one. However, sometimes people are born with more than one gift.”
“You mean… you could be a black and white mage at the same time?” said Arvid.
“Yes, that happens sometimes. But it’s no good. The gifts are in conflict; they interfere with each other, most of the time with the result that both wither. But… in very rare cases it can also happen that the exact opposite occurs. For some reason, the gifts do not interfere, but harmonize so that they reinforce each other—a lot. This happens very rarely, but… when it happens, a new god is born.”
“So a god is nothing more than a person who… is particularly talented with magic?” Arvid asked skeptically.
“No,” Thoke said firmly. “I don’t think you understand how much more powerful their skills are,” he said. “With their gifts gods can do things an ordinary white or black mage could only dream about. Often they have very rare gifts, too.”
“And that’s why you pray to them?”
“We don’t pray to them,” Thoke said, frowning.
“But you call them gods,” said Arvid. “Aren’t gods something that you worship and pray to?”
“Maybe in the Light World, but not here. The gods are not different from us, only more powerful. Earlier, before the creation of Asgard, the gods played their power against each other and waged war upon one other for centuries, until finally everything was completely destroyed. When the giants from the northern Ice Wastes began to overrun the country, the gods realized that they would extinguish themselves if the wars went on. Odin, one of the few surviving gods, gathered the leftover gods around him, and Asgard was founded. Since then, the gods are our leaders and protectors.”
The longer they talked, the more Arvid began to understand. However, she could not claim that it made the gods more sympathetic. They seemed to have the status of nobles, and this country, Jördendheim, was just one of many of the Shadow World. It had once emerged from the many small countries around Asgard, but today it took up the whole western part of the continent—the only exception were the Ice Wastes in the Northeast.
“The giants in the Ice Wastes are a divided nation,” said Thoke. “They’ve never been able to stand united behind or against Asgard, and finally a compromise was found. The border of their country always ends where the White River is no longer frozen.”
As Arvid went to bed that night, her head was spinning from all the things she had seen and experienced during the day, but for the first time since she had arrived in the Shadow World, she was not crying. She felt she had reached a point where she could entirely grasp the reality of her absurd situation. Nevertheless, she was also afraid. She was afraid of all the new and incomprehensible things. She was afraid of what the next few weeks would bring, of the letter from Asgard, but most of all she was afraid to find out the truth about the world transitions.
Perhaps it was this fear that made Arvid feel the soothing darkness inside her again. It was reassuring to surrender to it.
From that day on Arvid began to speak Jördish with Falla, although half of it sounded completely wrong and she often had to improvise with two- or three-word sentences. Falla reacted with surprise but mostly seemed to understand her without any problems. Only now and then she repeated what had been said to correct Arvid’s mistakes, which proved to be of great help.
When Thoke came home, he was no less surprised at Arvid’s sudden decision, but after some back and forth relented to also change the language.
“You’re fast,” he said. “It only took me a few months myself, if I remember correctly. But you’ve only been here for three weeks.”
“Yes, it’s strange,” said Arvid. In fact, she was surprised about her own progress herself. She had never actually had a special talent for languages.
“I don’t think that’s ever been studied, but… small children learn languages incredibly fast. Your new body could be reconditioned the same way.”
In the evenings Thoke often took her with him and showed Arvid more of Black Castle. She noticed that people almost exclusively had light hair. She saw all sorts of shades, from almost white blond to beige to a fiery red. There were exceptions, but these were so rare that they stood out of the crowd like a goldfish in a pond with trout. Arvid herself was a part of this minority with her dark brown hair, and curious glances often followed her.
Thoke showed her the town hall, a large building made of solid stone, which greatly differed from the surrounding wooden houses. She learned that this type was only seen in this area since the merger of the surrounding countries.
Inside there was a large circular hall. The walls were covered with large wooden panels on which notices were hung. Arvid was still unable to read the runes, but Thoke explained to her that they were news of general interest, or official communications from Asgard. There were no newspapers, so the people came here and read the placards to find out wha
t was going on in the country.
“The building of Vero-Maghen looks almost the same,” Thoke said while Arvid looked at the imposing, colorfully painted dome above the hall, “but it’s much bigger. One day I’ll show you, but unfortunately it’s quite a bit outside of town, near the coast.”
“That will be a problem in these shoes,” Arvid said.
“I know. I wish I could buy you decent shoes, but unfortunately that’s very expensive. Money is tight, now that you’re staying with us.”
“Oh,” said Arvid, affected. “I’m sorry, I… If I can do something, then…”
“No, no,” Thoke parried hastily. “Don’t be sorry. Asgard will send Falla an indemnity. Falla’s son is a wealthy runesmith from the capital; he also pays for my studies. If he knew that you’re staying with us, he would have helped us, but it takes days for a letter to arrive in the capital.”
Arvid was suddenly pushed aside by a man who made his way to a small group of people. Slightly irritated, she turned around and saw that everyone was staring at an eye-catching poster with a red border. It was obvious that it was not one of the official notice boards, because it was very different in size and appearance.
“That must be extremely fascinating,” Arvid said.
Thoke slightly pulled her to one side, as more people approached. “A poster from the ‘Brotherhood of the Seeing’, as they call themselves,” he said. His face had darkened. “Utter nonsense. The City Guard constantly removes the posters, but new ones keep appearing.”
“What are they writing?” asked Arvid. The bystanders’ faces looked worried, almost fearful. Some talked in an excited tone.
“Oh, all kinds of things,” he sighed. “They are trying to scare people. Almost everything Asgard announces in the official notice boards is almost immediately followed by a negative interpretation of the brotherhood—supposedly with additional information Asgard keeps a secret from people.”
Fragments of your Soul (The Mirror Worlds Book 1) Page 5