Rune Service

by J. B. Garner

  I ignored the Drake as s/he moved on down the hall, scratching out some more notes. I was already feeling a bit stumped. How did runes involve motion? Maybe there was some crazy gesture I couldn’t remember to make them work. Siofra was waylaid by an unassuming man in Post Office blues, dropping off a pile of mail at the desk, so I tried to puzzle it out, idly scribbling in the margins of the paper.

  My eyes locked on the twitching end of the pen as I scrawled and it hit me: the act of writing the runes or etching them or however you did it was motion. Sure, it might not have been motion at the exact moment the runeword was triggered but it was motion all the same. The realization put a smile on my face. Maybe I could figure this out after all.

  “Smiles suit you far more than frowns, Lady Stone,” Siofra said, snapping me out of my thoughts. “I do apologize for the interruptions. Perhaps this was not the best idea after all.”

  “Oh no, it’s perfectly fine,” I reassured her. “I think we are really getting somewhere.”

  She shrugged slightly and nodded. “Oh, well, as you wish. So, that was principle two. Now for the third, intention.”

  “Well, I suppose that one is straight forward on the surface. I mean, you have to want to do the thing you’re using the magic for, right?”

  Siofra giggled with delight. “Precisely! See? I told you that I could help you with this.” She calmed her enthusiasm a hair. “If magic was only based on talent and motion, think of all the accidental spells would be woven every day. Cockroaches would be incinerated by fireballs, holograms would be flashed in front of cars as they were driven … it would be madness!”

  I almost facepalmed as the knowledge seeped through my thick skull. Of course none of the runewords I had scribbled down in my book did anything. I was throwing shots in the dark; I wasn’t focused on doing anything in specific. As for my art, well, I figured that in trying to recapture my dream images, I was bringing emotional context and intent into them. The one that Aelfread had triggered, for instance, had come from trying to recapture a dream about an ancient castle. Maybe it wasn’t a dream, I was starting to think. Maybe it had been yet another of these ancient memories.

  “Are you all right?” Siofra asked softly. I blinked at her; how long had I been silently roasting my lack of insight? “You look consternated.”

  I let out a short bark of a laugh. “Oh, I was just beating myself up for not seeing something obvious.” I smiled at her, stroking my braids. “I am good as gold now. Let’s keep going.”

  Her perfect, ruby lips pursed for a moment but she relented. “Oh, well, all right then.” She opened her mouth to silence, then her brow wrinkled. “Wait, where were we? Three or four?” It really must have been a minute or two at least of me kicking myself.

  “Four, Siofra.”

  “Ah, yes!” She started sorting some paperwork. “Release then!” She caught my gaze sidelong. “So, what does ‘release’ mean to you?” There was a flash in her eyes and a bit of a teasing smirk graced her lips. I don’t know exactly why but I found myself starting to blush, as if her very gaze was dirty … and let me make sure to say that I’m no virginal maiden.

  I rolled my eyes. “Well, I certainly don’t think it’s what you’re insinuating right now.”

  Siofra’s smirk widened as she snatched up one of the chained desk pens. “I’ve always heard Dwarves were a bit restrained in their social lives so I am a bit surprised you would be able to follow those insinuations.”

  Clearing my throat, I forced myself to stare at my notebook. I definitely prefer men, yes, but Siofra, much like Aelfread, was flawlessly beautiful. Her come-hither smirk and her body, arched over the desk as she scribbled with the pen, accentuated every soft, perfect curve through her tight skirt and partly unbuttoned blouse. It would be enough to tempt Joan of Arc and she was a saint!

  “Okay, well, release. In a magical sense.” I drummed my fingers on the paper. “I guess that’s the actual ‘zap’ of the magic, right? When you point the intent at the target?”

  The Elf laughed merrily. “Oh, well, I was hoping I could make you take the bait. You are so adorably cute, you know!” I tried to make myself not blush in the least and failed, but at least I could force myself to think about Aelfread, making my flush feel more natural. “Oh, yes, magical release. Again, in essence, you are correct. The talent, motion, and intent create the potential energy of the spell and shape the effect. It is the final release that unleashes the energy and directs it.”

  I put my pen down and turned fully towards her. “So how do you do that?” I had thought the trigger had been my problem before but the intention deal was not clear to me. That didn’t mean I didn’t need to know this too. Just because I missed a step didn’t mean I hadn’t missed two.

  “Oh, well, it is like the motion component.” Siofra spun her fingers in a slow circle, her thin fingers tracing green light in the air. The magical energy built up until she snapped her hand shut as if she were grasping a bug out of the air. The green glow flared brighter through her clenched fingers and then she opened her hand, revealing an emerald orb identical the one Aelfread had conjured in the tunnels. “Did you catch the release, Mary?”

  My brows knit together. “Was it when you clenched your hand?” It was the only difference in her motion and attitude that I could tell.

  “Very astute, Lady Stone!” For a second, I thought she was going to bounce in place and start clapping. Instead, she simply smiled. “But it was the mindset and focus more than the actual motion that was the trigger for the release. The body simply followed the mind’s intention.”

  It sounded simple, like something a child could do. For all I knew, maybe children raised in Figment homes did do magic like that. “So, it all comes down to keeping your brain on task, then?”

  “Oh yes! Above everything else, concentration and focus are the most important factors to making magic happen in the correct fashion.” She waggled a finger as the orb dissipated. “The last thing you ever want to do is distract someone when they’re using magic of any kind! All sorts of disasters can happen from misapplied spells!”

  I added that admonishment, underlining it twice in my notes. My imagination was alive with the possible screw-ups a misfired bit of magic could cause. Those were a better deterrent than any horror stories that Siofra could ever conjure up.

  As I finished, I closed my notebook with purpose. “I may not know if this will solve all of my problems, Siofra, but you have helped considerably.” With a smile, I stuck a hand out toward her over the counter. “You have my deep thanks, especially as you were under no obligation to spend your time doing this for me.”

  She took my hand, her fingers as silky soft as Aelfread’s, and for a split second, I thought she was going to kiss the back of my hand. Fortunately, instead of that awkward (for me, at any rate) gesture, she squeezed and shook my hand once. “Oh, you are most welcome. Your company is better than most and I’ve never been graced to know a Dwarf before, especially a wonderful lady such as yourself.” As I pulled my hand back, her smile widened. “Please, call the moment you need anything else. An evening meal perhaps? Or even just my company. I would be honored and pleased to be of service.”

  I nervously ran my left hand through my beard, snatching up notes and pen with my right. As before, Siofra’s implications were as obvious as a neon billboard. “Ah, well, I will be quite busy preparing for my second interview with Master Sinclair but I will certainly let you know if I need anything, all right?”

  She nodded perkily as she picked up the stack of paperwork she had been working on. “Of course, do not hesitate in the least! Good luck, Mary.”

  I returned the smile for politeness’ sake and retreated quickly before the unnatural perfection of Siofra’s smile could lure me back in. Thinking about Aelfread and his plight helped and by the time I made it back to my suite, I was focused back on what needed to be done if I were going to have any shot for my newly-birthed plan to work.

  Chapter 18

>   I FELT LIKE a kid again, hiding beneath a quilt and reading comic books past my bedtime with a flashlight. Well, if the quilt were a comforter, the comic book was my now well-used notebook, and the flashlight was the flash of my cell phone’s camera. Oh, and I wasn’t hiding from a mild chastisement by Mr. Genovo but the continual gaze of the suite’s security cameras.

  No, I had yet to actually see one but I wasn’t a fool. I don’t think I was being too cautious or paranoid.

  Siofra’s elementary school lesson had opened my eyes up to things beyond the insights on how magic worked. The biggest takeaway was the fact that, while Dwarves might be the best at it and might have the knowledge of the runes, anyone could try to use them. Even if I didn’t give Sinclair the Cornerstone on a silver platter, he could learn enough from anything I showed him to … well … I wasn’t entirely sure.

  Well, the knowledge in my head wasn’t meant for him and I would do everything I could to keep it away from him.

  To do that, I figured I would be forced to dangle a little bit of that knowledge in front of him and show that it worked. It was critical to my plan, which I was actively trying to avoid thinking about in too much detail. Partially because I didn’t want to get too wedded to one course of action, there were too many things that could change at a moment’s notice, but a small part of me worried that there was magic out there that could read minds. Of course, if that were happening, we were already screwed.

  Pushing that disturbing thought out of my head, I focused on the notebook and the rumbling volcano of memories threatening to go off in my brain. I had poked the fundament in a manner of speaking and as my own insights grew, the power contained in that volcano wanted to be released. Taking a deep breath, I went over the steps of magic in my mind.

  Talent was, by every outside estimation, taken care of. Motion was also going to be done for me by the writing of the runes. It was intention, my first stumbling block, that I had to ponder a moment.

  I wanted to do this little test of magic as covertly as possible so whatever word I pulled out of my brain had to be something small, subtle. Big, glowing walls of light were out of the picture. But if I could write a runeword to make light like a flashlight, it would be a fine proof of concept and save my poor phone’s remaining charge. Now I had to find the right runeword to use.

  That was a bit more problematic than it first seemed. See, Dwarven runes are like Nordic runes in that each rune not only represents sounds and letters but also represent concepts, like other pictographic languages. What that meant in terms of the magic end of things is that the normal word for ‘light’ might not be the best choice for a magical runeword, as each rune in the word might have starkly different conceptual meanings.

  This was getting more complicated by the second. I nervously tugged at my beard as I mulled over the swirl of words in my brain. I felt like my eyes were going to cross and sweat was beading on my brow. I forgot just how warm it could get swaddled up with a blanket over my head.

  “Come on, Mary, you’re being an idiot,” I muttered under my breath. I was indeed being an idiot and I knew it, letting my brain get worked up into a constant cycle of second guessing. I was worrying so much about the motion, the writing in this case, I was losing track of the intention.

  That’s when the spark went off in my brain. Siofra had taught me what she had been taught about magic … by her Elven kin. Both Aelfie and Siofra had both mentioned ‘high magic’, which wasn’t what I was trying to do here. While I didn’t doubt that the rules she told me were universal, maybe the steps were out of order when it came to the runes.

  I closed my eyes, put my pen to the paper, and focused on the idea of light. The warm glow of a fire, the caress of sunbeams, and the even light of fluorescent bulbs all rolled through my mind’s eye. It was easier than I thought, like slipping into a dream, which made a great deal of sense when I look back on it. After all, the first runewords I had inscribed had come to me in my dreams. After the idea became clear, a simple inscription of three runes burned white-hot in my brain and my fingers itched to write it down.

  I opened my eyes and scratched that itch, drawing the runes with clean, precise strokes. As I finished the last flourish, I can’t say I felt anything particularly different than when I was practicing earlier that day outside of a faint weakness in my fingers. Not that I had time to consider it as that was when my phone decided to give up the ghost.

  Well, it made for a perfect test bed. I’d know if the runes worked now. With three steps down, all that was left was the moment of truth: the trigger. Siofra said this was all mental, that all I had to do was focus, so I closed my eyes and did just that. When it came down to it, now that I knew the basics, it wound up being surprisingly easy.

  I had expected something like electricity or a great warmth to swell up, like the tingle of other Figments on a larger scale, but a glacial cold suffused my body as my free hand instinctively gestured toward the page, my fingers open with palm outward. The iciness came from the depth of my gut and spread before concentrating at that palm and then it was gone, pushed out of my body. In its place, there was a mild shiver and a very faint ache.

  Had it worked, though?

  I cracked open an eye hesitantly. I half-expected to see more inky blackness, a big slap in the face to my slowly growing sense of self-worth.

  What I did see was a molten glow filling the space under the comforter. The three runes writ on the page spilled out that light, almost as if they were made of gold leaf that was somehow set on fire. Faintly warm and steady, the magical light brought a stupidly large smile to my face, more than making up for the chill of the spell itself.

  All my thoughts of subtlety and secrecy were blown to the winds with the swell of pride in my chest. I had done it, I had done some honest-to-God magic! I threw off the comforter and sat back on my calves, letting the red-orange light out from its hidey hole. The whoop of victory felt good coming out of my lips.

  It was like the first time I juggled the kettlebells, had my first kiss, or slugged back my first beer. A milestone sense of accomplishment rushed through my heart and I felt like a stack of gold bars. I bounced off my bed like a little girl, breaking out into a jig as the runes continued to glow brightly, visible even in the lights of the bedroom.

  As I sang along with my jig in the old Dwarven tongue, my joy was only dimmed by the realization that this little victory was only the first step of a much bigger process. It was enough to sober the celebration down to a jolly hum but it wouldn’t stop me from getting the biggest and best dinner I could get out of Sinclair’s current hospitality.

  That meal didn’t turn out as to be as sweet as I thought it would be. As tasty and juicy as the thick Porterhouse steak was and as pleasant as Siofra’s smile was when she delivered the food, it was all a bit soured by the thoughts of what Aelfread had to be going through while I was living high on the hog.

  Chapter 19

  I SHOULD HAVE taken a long shower or maybe a luxurious bubble bath before proceeding to sleep. Yeah, it was way off my normal night-shift schedule but I would have been well-rested and ready to try to pull my con on Mr. Sinclair. To be fair, I did manage to get to the shower part but that’s when things went wrong.

  Well, wrong is too strong a term but visions of Aelfie languishing in a cell and bound in those gold chains beat at my brain a thousand times harder than the pulsing Super Massager Shower Head beat on my knotted shoulders and neck. As I meticulously shampooed my hair and beard, luxuriating in the steaming water flowing over my body, I was haunted by Aelfie’s plight.

  I had done a few days in a county jail or two in my time with the carnival, the result of my adolescent anger mixing with backwater prejudice and topped off by the strength to do something stupid about it. They were far from the nicest places, more about punishment than rehabilitation, and I doubted that Figment jail was any better. Aelfie was probably still stewing in his own juices, encased in all that tight leather, and I doubted that the fragil
e Elf could take that much hardship.

  Sure, I was no doubt imagining things far worse than they really were and I wasn’t giving Aelfread nearly enough credit. It didn’t change how I felt one lick. By the time I got out of the shower, I was clean but twice as tense as I had been when I went in. Shaking my head, I hopped up on the bathroom stool and tried to focus on getting my beard in order before bed.

  Every time I caught my own eyes in the mirror, I felt a gaze of accusation that was patently not there but I felt it all the same. You’ve got everything at your fingertips here, Mirror Me scolded. Including the tools to keep your word and get Aelfie out of this but here you are, soaking in the luxury of it all.

  Like a madwoman, I decided to debate myself while buck naked and dripping wet. “It’s not like I won’t be taking care of business in the morning. Best to do it rested and ready.”

  And you’re dancing like a puppet on Sinclair’s strings, doing things on his schedule and in his way! You can take the initiative here, put him off-balance for once. Don’t let the gorgeous idiot suffer more than he has!

  “Whoever’s listening to the stupid cameras must be laughing his butt off.” I ran my hands down my face, through the wet strands of hair, before hugging myself across my bare breasts and my freckled shoulders. “Fool’s gold, I’m my own worst enemy.”

  Yes, you are!

  I bit my tongue and didn’t offer up any more insanity for the guards to look at, taking up a brush and comb instead to get my curls under control before they dried into a tangled mess. The worst part was that I had started to get used to this kind of top-notch treatment after a mere day. Of course, if you’ve spent your entire life scraping by, doing circus acts for peanuts then moving from menial job to menial job, it’s easy to get drawn in with excellent food, soft beds, and everything you could want at your fingertips. Who knows how I might have felt tomorrow, how much of a possible backslide I might have taken?