Gemworld

by Jeremy Bullard

  He glanced quickly at Marissa, then shrugged. He’d much rather ask Marissa to dinner again, maybe gain a mutual understanding—the kind that generally involves chocolates, suggestive winks, gossip across backyard fences—but there was something curious about Jaren’s invitation. “Sure, what’s up?”

  The emerald started to glance at the cloudless sky, then caught himself, shaking his head with a wry smile. “I’m having Menkal of the Sapphire Order over for dinner, as well as our young granite friend. I’d like for you to join us.”

  “Keth? I met him just a little while ago. Nice kid, a little strange though. Not too talkative. Got rocks in his head.”

  Jaren chuckled at the observation. “So I can expect you to be in attendance?”

  “Yeah, sure, I’ll be there.”

  “Excellent,” Jaren said with a hungry gleam in his eye, which gave Sal pause. He hadn’t thought much about magic since Jaren had took him through his paces that morning. If he was as unique as everyone claimed, it could be weeks—even months—before he could use magic with any proficiency, to say nothing of the years that Jaren, Menkal, and others had spent in mastery of their own, common soulgems. But seeing that hunger in Jaren’s eye stirred his soul, if ever so slightly. Perhaps he wasn’t as alone in this as he thought.

  Jaren seemed to have a knack for thinking outside the box, for understanding and accepting things that tended toward the extraordinary, something that seemed to be lacking in the world he now found himself in. Or if not lacking, perhaps underdeveloped. Sal wasn’t sure how he felt about playing lab rat for his friend, but he guessed that if anyone could help him figure out how to use his own unique brand of magic, it would be the emerald.

  ***

  That same hunger was in Menkal’s eye when Sal greeted the sapphire that night. Both mages welcomed Sal warmly, and directed him to the open-walled tent that stood near Jaren’s wagon. Keth was already inside, seated near the fire pit. The elder mages—or more experienced, in any case—took their leave of Sal and Keth, ostensibly to prepare the evening repast. Sal knew better. They wanted to see how he and Keth got on, and maybe how two unique and untaught mages reacted to one another. Sal understood the logic. Jaren and Menkal, however abstract their thinking, were still biased by their experience and working knowledge of magic. Sal and Keth’s perspectives concerning magic were fresh, unbiased, and the elder mages wanted to take advantage of that.

  Sal sat down across the fire pit from Keth. Some of the earlier awkwardness had returned, though Sal chalked it up mostly to Keth’s brooding nature.

  “So their going to teach us how to shape the world to our whim, eh?” Keth said lightly, his eyes still trained on the fire pit.

  Sal could hardly miss the granite’s wry tone of voice, and answered with a smirk of his own. “That’s the plan, Stan.”

  “Stan?”

  “Never mind.”

  Sal noted that Keth spoke with the woodsy accent not all that different from the twins, possibly indicating that he was from to same corner of the world that Jaren and the twins were from, if not necessarily the same country. He hadn’t noticed the accent before—he’d have sworn it was Scottish, had he been back home—but Sal clearly heard a keen intelligence, possibly a formal education hidden within the drawl. Well, what education was allowed the general population, anyway. Either way, he was definitely not your garden variety redneck farm boy.

  “I saw you change, by the way,” the granite said softly. “I came to help when I saw you on the ground. Your eye—” he glanced at Sal for the first time, then returned his attention to the fire “—it hardened. It took on an aura I’d never seen before, sorta white streaked through with colors. It was actually fairly interesting to watch.”

  “I’m sure it was,” said Sal, his mouth going dry. He’d never stopped to consider what had happened to his eye that day. He could only imagine what a sight it must have been, to watch living flesh petrifying while you watched...

  He cleared his throat. “About the guard... thanks, if I didn’t mention it before.”

  Keth only shrugged. “It had to be done. I could hardly let him murder a man who’d stuck out his neck for me—a total stranger. Not enough of that kind left in the world as it is.” The granite looked askance at Sal and winked. “Besides, it’s not as if I could get in any worse trouble.”

  Sal chuckled. “You don’t exactly share the average granite’s value of life.”

  “Aye, but I’m not exactly your average granite. Seriously though, my thanks for the kind word this morn. It was... useful.”

  “I see that you two are well met,” came Jaren’s voice as he returned with a basket of cold meats and cheeses, followed by Menkal with an armful of mugs and some bread. “And though our cooking leaves something to be desired, I hope master Keth shall accept us as readily.” Jaren offered the granite a cheery nod, who received it pleasantly, if somewhat reserved.

  The basket made its first circuit around the fire as everyone took a few hunks of food. Sal watched as Keth combined his rations into a sandwich, and he was reminded of the tendency granites have toward practicality.

  “My Da is a farmer,” Keth said as if reading Sal’s mind. Jaren’s and Menkal’s as well, by their expressions. “That means making as little work for yourself as possible, in order to finish whatever else needs doing as well.”

  “I’ve always thought so myself,” Jaren responded. “Which is actually the reason I invited you both here tonight. You, Keth, are of a magical Tile that is extremely reclusive. As Sal alluded a moment ago, granites are not normally a very social group. Thus, the knowledge we have of how granite magic works is scant, to say the least. In trying to help you develop your skills, we hope to change that.”

  “Why?” Keth said neutrally, though clearly interested.

  “Magic changes all of us, but most dramatically those who are attuned to Granite,” Jaren explained. “When a mage ascends, his eyes are imbued with the characteristics of the soulgem. They receive a secondary form of sight, a magical one that is specific to their soulgem. This generally does not replace primary sight. Since most soulgems are translucent, a dual-sighted mage can still see normally, though his primary vision is tinted the color of his gemstone.

  “Granite, however, is not translucent. Light cannot pierce it. Thus, when a granite mage ascends, he loses his primary sight altogether, leaving him fully dependent on his magical substitute. We believe that this conditions the mage to think that instead of supplementing his way of life, the magic actually supplants it.”

  “For us hicks, that means that we see magic as a tool for be used, where granites might see it as a handicap to overcome,” Menkal drawled.

  “Precisely,” Jaren said enthusiastically. “It is our hope that by working with you, we may be able to better understand granites and help them to see that they are not alone in their struggles with the magic, and that they, in fact, rule their power, not the other way around.”

  Keth was silent for a long time, seemingly lost in the fire pit’s flame. When he spoke, his words were carefully measured. “I can remember when I was a child, my Da would camp out with me under the stars. We would pop corn in a kettle over the fire pit, and he would tell me of the days of his youth.” A single tear welled in Keth’s eye, then fell, coursing its way through a small patch of soot that he’d missed while washing for dinner. “For hours after he fell asleep, I would stare into the flames of the fire pit and dream of those days, almost seein’ the battles he fought against the Highest—on the Northern Plains, in the foothills of the Icebreaks, the Tarkesien Flats Massacre, the Battle of Blood Fields. Part of the reason I took to smithing was because the forge fire put me in mind of those nights with my Da. Now when I look at a fire, all I see are the tiny cracks forming in the wood as it is consumed by some invisible force.” He looked up, searching Jaren’s face, his voice both despondent and hopeful. “Will your studies me give me back the flames?”

  “I don’t know,” Jaren answered
softly, sympathetic and yet driven. “But we’ll never know if we don’t try. At the very least, we may be able to help you discover talents you didn’t know you had.”

  Keth nodded to himself as he considered. “Let me think on it. The Highest’s offer of forced servitude sounded rather tempting.”

  Jaren let that pass, ceding Keth’s right to a little cynicism, then turned his attention to Sal. “You, my friend, are even more of a mystery. You are attuned to a soulgem previously unknown to the realm of magic. That makes you a very unique asset, and undoubtedly a powerful one. But that power is useless if we don’t know how to access it.”

  “Well, weirdo factor aside, I’ve always believed in taking advantage of an opportunity. And I think that being the only diamond mage in the world qualifies as an opportunity.”

  “Indeed it does,” the emerald chuckled.

  “Settled, then,” Menkal announced, passing his mugs around the circle. He raised his mug for a toast, urging the others to do the same.

  Looking in his mug, Keth hesitated. “But the mugs are empty,” he objected. Still, at Menkal’s continued insistence, Keth raised his mug as well.

  “Like all mages, farmers, and teenagers around the world, I’m lazy by nature,” the sapphire said proudly. “I’m not afraid of work, but if there’s an easier way to do something—and still do it right—then you can bet I’ll find it.”

  With that, Menkal’s eyes flashed with power, and the mugs frosted over. Sal’s head buzzed lightly in the eddy of wielded magics, and he almost dropped his mug as he watched it fill with icy water.

  “Here’s to finding the easy way,” Menkal saluted.

  Chapter 12

  The dinner was a simple one, but the conversation gave it flavor. The benefits and responsibilities of magic were carefully laid out for the novices, so that not even Keth could deny that he’d been given a precious gift. He was still wary of the magic—”As right you should be,” Jaren said—but at least he came to accept it. It seemed only logical that he would never truly be at peace with his new-found abilities until he had mastered them.

  Sal, on the other hand, was just plain curious.

  So as they gathered the scraps from the meal, Menkal refilled their mugs, and the foursome got down to business.

  “Please bear with me,” Jaren began. “This may sound very oversimplified, but I don’t want to muddy your perceptions of magic until we have an understanding of how each of your soulgems approach mana. For us to be able to teach you how to control your magics, we need to establish a common ground. That common ground is mana itself. It is the energy that our soulgems tap into, giving us the ability to shape our world. Legend has it that our world was not always magical, that the Highest brought controlled magic into being.”

  Menkal snorted at this, but said nothing.

  “Whether the legends are true or not,” Jaren continued, “one thing is certain—somewhere down the endless corridors of time, mankind had to learn from scratch how to wield. Thus, it is possible for you to teach yourselves how to tap into your soulgems. It will be much more difficult than if you had a learned mentor of your own Tile—more dangerous, even—but it is nonetheless possible.

  “Alright,” the emerald continued, rubbing his hands eagerly as he got into his subject matter. “Each soulgem wields mana in a different way, from a different perspective. The special qualities of each soulgem determines that perspective. Knowing those qualities is one of the keys to unlocking your full potential.

  “Most often, complex ideas are used to ‘build’ a spell, so to speak. These ideas are unique to their soulgem. But as no one here has any real experience with Granite or Diamond, I’m afraid we will have to ‘fly it’.”

  “Umm, Jaren?”

  “Yes?”

  “That’s ‘wing it’.”

  “Quite right,” the emerald said absently.

  The emerald looked around the dinner fire briefly, searching for something to use as a focus. His eyes fell on the basket containing the leftover scraps of the meal. “Keth,” he said suddenly, reaching for a half-eaten roll, then tossing it to the granite. “Since we already know something of the granite’s perspective, we’ll begin with you. Tell us exactly what you did to the guard that attacked Sal.”

  Holding the hunk of bread up, Keth turned it, studying it. “Well,” he said, thinking aloud. “When I saw him standing over Sal, I thought only of saving Sal’s life, which to me meant that the guard had to die. It came easy to me, since I’d done it before,” he said quietly, his face shadowing at the memory. He quickly pressed on.

  “First, I saw the axer’s strengths and weaknesses. I saw his bones, his joints, his soft tissues. I saw the patterns that made his bones and tissues. I saw how they fit together. Sort of my stock in trade I guess, being a blacksmith,” he commented offhandedly. As the granite talked, the bread faded from golden brown to grey. “I willed those patterns to break down, to snap apart. I made his soft, springy flesh turn hard, and his bones brittle. And then...” He crushed the petrified bread easily in his hand, dust falling from between his fingers.

  Jaren nodded thoughtfully to himself, carefully analyzing the exhibition of granite magic. One could almost see him turning the experiment over and over in his mind. Menkal, wanting another example to work with, handed Keth another piece of bread. “Try this... make the bread hard, but strong.”

  Keth’s brows furrowed as he turned his gaze upon his new target, trying to think along new lines. Everyone was silent as they waited patiently on the granite. A moment later, he gave a satisfied smile and tossed the hunk to Menkal. It sounded loudly as it slapped into the sapphire’s palm. The mage held the hunk of bread up close to his eyes, examining it thoughtfully.

  Curious, Sal snatched the bread from Menkal, and immediately became a believer. The former bread was as hard as a rock!

  Possibilities ran wild in his head as he caught on to the concept. These possibilities birthed new ideas, each beating one against the other chaotically, struggling for attention. So many questions... Sal screwed his eyes shut and forced a long, calming breath, and slowly he brought things back into focus. Aloud but to himself, he counted off on his fingers what he’d been told about the Granite, plugging them into his mental equation one by one.

  “Granite sees strength and weakness. Granite is the embodiment of Matter. If Granite is the embodiment of Matter, then Granite must have access to all matter. If Granite has access to all matter, then it can manipulate one form of matter into another at an atomic level. If Granite can manipulate matter at the atomic level, it can give properties to a target that the target did not originally have, hence rock-hard or powdered bread.”

  He paused for breath as he fit the pieces together. Finally, he whispered, “Alchemy.”

  “Al’kemy?” Jaren asked, turning the unfamiliar word over in his mouth, but Sal didn’t hear him. The gears in his head were grinding too hard and fast to hear anything but his own racing thoughts.

  His eyes had fallen to his moccasins as he was thinking. Now, an idea bubbled to the surface. But he had to be sure of something first. Asking Menkal for his whittling knife, Sal held it out before him, and tossed the hardened bread to Keth. “Trust me,” Sal said as Keth looked sideways at him. “I have an idea. And if this works, you just might have yourself a new trade.

  “First, let’s start with something easy. Look at the knife. Study it. Don’t just see its strength. See what it’s made up of—the ‘patterns’ you were talking about. Then look at the bread and make those patterns identical.”

  A faint flicker of understanding began to dawn on Jaren and Menkal’s faces as he laid his idea out, but Keth was still lost. Uncertain, the granite did as he was told. Sal watch in awe as the bread took on a metallic gleam.

  Keth’s eyes went wide as the once-bread went cold in his hand. “Blessed Crafter!” he breathed, dropping the steely hunk in surprise.

  His suspicions confirmed, Sal just grinned. When he spoke, he couldn’t keep
the excitement out of his voice. “Hold on a second, me bucko, we ain’t done yet.” Stripping off his boot, he handed it to Keth. “We’re gonna do almost the same thing with this doeskin, but not quite. I want you to make these patterns similar to the steel patterns, but I want it to stay doeskin, see? Look at the patterns in the leather, and kinda tighten them up. Make the leather strong, but keep it flexible.”

  The granite frowned, more than a little confused at how he would actually do this. He stared long and hard at the boot, concentrating on what he saw there. Moments passed, then Sal felt the buzzing of mana being wielded, softly at first, then growing stronger as Keth grew more confident. Finally, he handed the boot back to Sal, unsure if he’d even completed his task. “What do you have in mind?” he asked.

  Foregoing an immediate answer, Sal plunged the razor-sharp knife into the moccasin. Or rather, he tried to.

  Just as he suspected, the leather, though pliable as ever, remained unmarred by the knife. Try as he might, he could not pierce the soft doeskin.

  Jaren and Keth both looked on in wonder. Menkal, however, glowered, muttering something about a sandy-haired sissy, and he snatched both knife and boot, prepared to defend the blade’s honor. Again and again, the sapphire relentlessly drove the knife into the boot, making as little headway as Sal had. Unwilling to admit defeat, he pulled on the end of the boot with one hand, and pushed on the knife with the other.

  The sapphire strained until his face turned beet red beneath his white beard, but was unable to punch more than a pinprick in the soft leather. Ungraciously, Menkal threw the boot at Sal’s feet, his lungs heaving.

  “Gentlemen,” Sal said, cheerfully fingering the meager rip in the doeskin, “I believe we’ve just invented Kevlar.”

  ***

  They spent much of the evening exploring new ideas, most of them supplied by Sal. Jaren was absolutely elated. Truly, Keth’s only limit was his imagination which, having been raised a farmer and apprenticed a blacksmith, was somewhat more lacking than normal. Life had taught him little beyond the hog pen and the hammer. Still, it was a start. He was a smart boy. He caught on quick.