by Sever Bronny
“—so don’t expect some pansy quest,” Leera finished for him.
“Exactly.”
The block soon hovered nearby, revealing the runic cavity within.
“Well, at least this’ll get our minds off things,” Leera muttered. “Better be worth skipping training though …”
Augum agreed. Sure, he could fend for himself and knew how to duel, but training for a specific opponent was important. He had no doubt Katrina was poring over notes and strategizing on how to defeat him, perhaps with the aid of an entire retinue of expert warlocks.
The cavity the block left was around three feet wide, two feet high and two feet deep. Augum pointed at the interior runes painted in silver. “This is as far as I got …” He explained the runes he had deciphered thus far. “What’s interesting is these runes here are parts of a word.” He pointed to a series of crude and ancient runes. “When you mix and match them, you come up with a word we’ve already learned. Shynaliteraturga.”
“The ancient name for Shine,” Bridget whispered, curling a lock of hair around her ear. “The first elemental spell every warlock learns …”
“I think it’s a clue,” Augum said. “At first I thought the remaining runes would spell out the ancient names of the rest of the 1st degree, but then this rune here—” He tapped a more complex-looking rune. “—indicates there’s a lot more to it. I couldn’t find anything even resembling this rune in the research materials. My theory is the old Arcaner masters expected a certain degree of intuition based on knowledge only Arcaners would know.”
“So what’s a 1st degree warlock wanting to become an Arcaner required to know, then?” Leera asked.
“Well, as far as I understand it, these tests were designed to weed out poor character. And any degree could try out, not just 1st degree students. Age and gender didn’t matter either, obviously. But here’s the thing. Every test is personal, but the first step is figuring out the way to trigger it. The problem is the knowledge is lost. I doubt even the arcanists could trigger this test unless they were familiar with the runes.”
Bridget did the usual thing when she was faced with a difficult problem: she began pacing to and fro.
“There she goes again,” Leera murmured. “Want to bug her by pacing alongside and staring at her?”
Augum smirked. “Maybe another time.”
“Anyway, so you’re saying it’s knowledge only an Arcaner would know …”
“The test, yes. Not sure about the runes.”
“There’s something familiar about this,” Bridget interrupted, and withdrew the class book for Runes from her satchel and flipped through the large tome while she paced. It wasn’t long before she stopped to glance between the book and the cavity. She strolled over to the painted runes. “I think it might be a kargeyasnara.”
Leera crinkled her nose. “A what now?”
“That’s the ancient word for what the book describes as a ‘slip rune sequence puzzle.’ It was one of the first things we learned when we began cramming for Runes class.”
“You remember that?” Leera asked. She smacked one side of her head while miming a small explosion from the other side. “All that cramming … in one ear and out the other.”
“Well, it just sounded so familiar.” Bridget raised the book. “I knew this would come in handy.”
“Refresh us,” Augum said, leaning against the floating block, which did not budge.
“All right, so if it is a kargeyasnara, then these runes somehow move. Not sure if you remember your history—”
“We don’t,” Leera threw in.
Bridget ignored her. “—but kargeyasnaras went out of style a few centuries ago, mostly because they’re extremely complicated.” She licked her thumb and flipped a page. “Here.” She tapped a section and Augum and Leera leaned in to read it.
“Whoa, so essentially they could all be parts of one rune!” Augum said.
“Exactly. A huge mess of a complicated rune that, when activated …”
“When activated, then what?” Leera pressed.
“That’s the thing. We have no idea. I’m guessing that’s when the trial begins.”
Leera examined the inside of the cavity. The runes ran along the entire interior, the silver paint glinting in the torchlight. “So … an Arcaner was expected to know and manipulate these … slip runes?”
“Apparently,” Augum said. There was a lot of literature on Arcaners using runes for various purposes, but in his quest to find the more adventurous parts, he had skipped the denser sections.
Bridget shook her head. “Well, I’ll be …”
“Figured it out?” Leera said. She snapped her fingers. “Then let’s begin already. Come on, chop-chop, missy. Time is a wastin’.”
Bridget gave her an annoyed look before running a finger down the page. “It’s not just Shine that’s in the old tongue … I think all of it is!”
Augum and Leera groaned. The old tongue was a pain to decipher. Augum had been struggling with it in the Arcaner research material. The trio knew some of it, mostly because they had been forced to learn it in the war to decipher old mysteries. The rest they had picked up randomly around the academy.
“They stopped offering the class that taught the old tongue,” Bridget continued, flipping a page. “Canceled it around a hundred years ago.”
“The same time they stopped training Arcaners,” Augum noted.
“Exactly. Very few speak the language fluently.”
Bridget raised a finger and froze in thought.
Augum raised an eyebrow. “Bridge?”
“I just recalled an Arcaneology class in which they taught the Eldriticus principle, named after Retus Eldriticus, the famous arcaneologist who pioneered many of the principles of arcanery, including the founding three principles. He was a theorist, philosopher, arithmetician, deep thinker—”
Leera made a circular move-it-along motion with her hand. “Sometime this century, Bridge.”
“Right, anyway,” Bridget continued, “the principle basically says that any one group of arcanely crafted patterns will have the same arcane tracings that can be spotted within the whole.”
Augum and Leera exchanged bewildered looks.
“Are you talking about individual arcane casting signatures?” Augum asked.
“Not quite.”
“Come on, Bridge,” Leera said. “You know we simpletons can’t understand all that fancy jargon. Just lay it all out in the common tongue.”
“Well, what I mean to say is that, without knowing the runes, we may be able to find the groups of symbols that belong together by analyzing their tendril patterns. Normally, this would be out of bounds for lower-degree pupils, of course, but we just so happen to know a particular spell—”
“—that can show us those tendrils!” Augum concluded for her, feeling a rush of excitement plow through his veins. “What are we waiting for? Let’s get to it—”
“It’s not so simple,” Bridget said. “We don’t have a template to work from for an originating—” She froze. “Wait, we do have a template. You’ve already figured out one of the runes.”
“Shynaliteraturga,” Augum said with a proud smile. “I recognized it from Runes class. Can I try, then?”
“Be my guest.” Bridget grabbed her book and stepped out of the way.
Augum took her place.
“Shall we kick him in the butt?” he heard Leera whisper.
“Hey, I can hear you!”
“Eep.”
Augum readied his mind for an illegal casting of the highly complicated 11th degree spell Reveal. “Nobody better walk in,” he muttered as he placed a hand into the center of the cavity. He splayed his fingers and calmed his mind, connecting to the unfathomable arcane ether while readying the complexities of the spell. “Un vun asperio aurum enchantus.”
The inside of the box lit up with breathtaking beauty. The arcane tendrils were as thin as needles and as colorful as a rainbow quilt.
“Long sunk to permanence,” he noted in a whisper, careful not to disturb his fragile casting.
He hunted down the various runic components of the Shynaliteraturga rune. There were five: shyna, lite, ra, tur, ga. He examined each component as a whole and then compared them to each other. After detailed study, he shook his head.
“It all looks the same to me,” he concluded, fizzling the spell instantly, for his words had crashed through his concentration like a bull charging through a porcelain shop.
“Let me try,” Leera said.
She took a long turn, but she too eventually pulled her head out and sighed. “All looks like the same complicated mess. Even the colors of the tendrils are confusing me. It’s an old casting too, so it’s got a bunch of handcrafts I’ve never studied before.”
Bridget gave it a shot next. She took the longest, combing over each runic portion as if in search of fine flecks of gold.
“I see something!” she exclaimed, only to hit her head on the rather small cavity. She groaned, straightening and rubbing her head while wincing.
“Try getting whipped,” Augum muttered as he stuck his head inside after her. “What am I looking for?”
“Second order unifying geometric color variances on the leading edges of the tendrils.”
“In common, please. I don’t take Arcaneology class, remember?” Though he was glad one of them had enrolled in the difficult elective.
“You’re looking for the same color pattern gradients on the edges of the tendrils. See how the Shynaliteraturga components have that exact same—”
But Augum was shaking his head. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. You’re yapping to me in a tongue I don’t understand.”
“Gibberish,” Leera said with a snicker. “It’s known as the gibberish tongue, and Bridge is fluent.”
“Ugh, I’m sick of you two constantly making fun.” Bridget yanked Augum’s robe. “Out, out!” she said, flapping her hands at him as if he were a fly. As Augum retreated to the safety of Leera’s embrace, Bridget stuck her head back inside the cavity, muttering to herself. Then there was a moment of deep concentration, followed by, “Un vun asperio aurum enchantus.”
Augum and Leera waited, him in her arms, feeling secure, as Bridget fiddled about, murmuring complexities under her breath.
Eventually, Augum and Leera got fidgety.
“She’s been in there a while,” Augum said, idly drumming his fingers on Leera’s arms.
Leera gave his waist an extra squeeze. “Hush, let her concentrate, fiend.”
He gave her the lightest elbow. She gave him one back, knocking the bottom of his arm. Then the pair quietly wrestled, play fighting like children until they each held one of the other’s wrists, with her behind him again, squeezing him tightly in an embrace.
“You just try this underwater, mister,” she whispered.
“I don’t have a death wish.” Augum vividly recalled how she had almost drowned him the last time they wrestled underwater. She was, after all, a water warlock and could practically breathe underwater.
“You going to behave?” she whispered.
“Maybe …”
“Then I’m not letting go—” But she abruptly did just that as Bridget, taking a deep breath, at last withdrew.
“Stuffy in there. Think I—” Bridget narrowed her eyes at them. “Were you two making out?”
“No,” they chorused simultaneously, though perhaps a little too quickly.
“We’re not fiends,” Leera said with a lofty head wag.
“Just a bit of harmless wrestling,” Augum said. “Anyway, what did you come up with?”
Bridget grimaced at them before stepping aside. “Have a peek.”
Augum and Leera stepped closer and leaned in. “Whoa, how did you move the runes around?”
“Turns out you can move the individual parts using Telekinesis. They slide around as if made of ice. Only thing is, if the match is wrong, the whole thing resets.”
“In other words, we’ve got our work cut out for us,” Leera muttered. She sighed. “All right, wise teacher, teach us how to help!”
And so Bridget did.
Best With What You Know
Using Bridget’s unorthodox method, it took a full hour for them to figure out the puzzle. The moment Augum telekinetically pieced together the final rune, a low rumble sounded behind him. He withdrew from the cavity and turned around in time to witness the lowest rung of bleachers slowly lifting. The rumbling stopped once the huge circle had completely detached from the floor, replaced by the gentle sound of sand spilling off stone. The single bleacher tilted in midair and came to rest in a perpendicular position, a giant ring floating on its edge.
“What’s it supposed to be?” Leera asked, gaping. “A portal?”
“Certainly looks like it,” Bridget said, and the trio bounded down the stone bleachers until they hit the sandy arena floor, throwing up a small cloud of dust. The ring of stone levitated in the center, almost directly above the dragon desk. If it was a portal, all they had to do was step onto the desk and launch themselves through the giant circle.
“Now what?” Leera asked.
“Wait, I made notes on this part,” Augum said, opening his satchel. “Hold on a moment.” He pilfered through his bag and withdrew a crumpled series of parchment notes, which he spread on the dragon desk.
Leera glanced at the notes. “And you say my writing’s awful.”
He shrugged. “I was excited and in a rush.”
“You really have put in some time here, haven’t you?” Bridget said.
Augum only gave a mysterious smile before scanning the pages, finally finding what he was looking for. “Here we go. By completing the runic puzzle, we jumped through the first hoop, so to speak.” He glanced up. “There’s the second hoop.”
“How eloquent,” Leera muttered.
“How many hoops in total?” Bridget asked.
Augum consulted his notes. “Hard to say. I found a great book on the subject in the library, but it was so old I wasn’t allowed to borrow it. Okay, it was the only book I could find on the subject. Well, it’s more a journal than anything—”
“Spare us the details,” Leera said, repeating that circular move-it-along motion with her hand. “Just the meat.”
“Here’s a drawing of the huge circle over the arena. I ran across it and thought it might be important. This is what concerns me.” He pointed at two underlined words. “ ‘Extrema dargara.’ ”
“ ‘Extreme danger’ in the old tongue!” Leera said in surprise. “And I know that because those two words are all over the old alchemy recipes in Alchemy class.” Then she added in a mutter, “Gods, I hate that class,” and pretended to snore.
Bridget glanced up at the looming ring. “Well, that’s ominous.”
“Anyway, let me read you something I copied from that crusty old journal.” He cleared his throat. “ ‘It is difficult attempting to describe what the first Arcaner test shall behold for the aspirant, as each test is differa persona. Martin entered but was never heard from nor seen again. Dear Sara too. Her mother died of an attack of the heart upon the news. In totalus, three of this year’s aspirants failed to reemerge from the writhing vortex. Trati extremis dargarus. But seven of us, with newly minted shields, stood solemnly around the blue flame with bowed heads. We thus honored them in the old way and said elienen, lavos for the last time.’ ”
“ ‘Elienen’ means goodbye in the old tongue,” Bridget said. “And ‘lavos’ means loves.”
“ ‘Goodbye, loves,’ ” Leera whispered. “I mean, I knew death at the academy was the norm back then, but still … how tragic.” One sharp brow rose. “As an aside, this means Caireen’s last name, Lavo, means love in the old tongue. Think she knows?”
“Of course she knows,” Bridget said in a distracted voice, examining the notes.
“How do you know?”
“Because it’s an old name, even in Tiberra. I’m sure she knows.”
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“Oh, so you don’t know know. You just think she knows.”
“Ugh, does it really matter right now?”
Leera shrugged. “Guess not.”
Augum flipped over a parchment. “We know there’s three ranks to becoming an Arcaner—squire, dragoon, and dragon. From my research, nobody has attained the third rank of dragon in over nine hundred years.”
“That doesn’t mean they summoned or controlled dragons, Augum,” Bridget said.
“But it’s possible.”
“Look, I know you’re on about this dragon thing, but history doesn’t take their existence seriously. They mostly just show up in children’s tales like The Goose and the Flying Shield, and The Princess and the Serpent.”
“Don’t forget The Pauper’s Orb,” Leera added. “And then there’s all the songs …”
“Exactly. Dragons are a symbol of strength, nothing more. And if dragons had been around, they’d show up in the tapestries alongside our heroes. We’d read about them fighting Occulus or flying around Attyla the Mighty. But there’s hardly anything. Sure, they show up now and then in some tapestries and stories and carvings—” Bridget gestured at the desk. “But you have to be realistic here. You’re becoming an Arcaner for the chivalric code, not for flying lizards of old myths.”
Augum’s shoulders drooped as he averted his gaze, feeling a sting in the pit of his stomach.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”
“I know you don’t believe me. Nobody does. That’s fine. I accept that. But I’m determined to find out if they truly existed. And if they did, I’m going to find out if there’s some way to—”
“To what? Bring them back to help us in war or something?”
Augum looked at her. “You make it sound utterly ridiculous. Remember One Eye’s dragon tooth? The one he found in Shaftspur mine?”
“Who could forget, but that wasn’t a dragon’s tooth.”
“ ‘So shall ye giveth tooth or bone of ancient wings and death reborn.’ Remember that? That poem called for a dragon tooth to be smashed against Hangman’s Rock. And when I did just that, the spell enchantment triggered.” His hands became more animated as he grew more flustered. “One Eye—probably the last Arcaner alive, mind you—believed it was a dragon tooth. He also said the Orb of Orion could summon dragons—”