The Way Into Magic: Book Two of The Great Way

by Harry Connolly

  Still, whatever the truth about their religion, it was not impossible that they had been tricked into an invasion. The only question was, if it was not their make-believe gods, who had fooled them?

  Switch. “How did they trick you?” Cazia asked. “What happened?”

  Switch. “Voices from nothing,” Mother said. “Voices from the deep above and below. Does it matter? The gods play their games. We are the stones they drop and the targets they aim for.” Mother changed the subject. “My people will be fascinated by you when I tell them. They will want to know about your world-breaking.” Cazia lifted her face to the sky. “Are you refusing to answer?”

  Cazia lifted her hand and let Mother touch the gem. “Sometimes the gem will translate words literally and I can only understand their meaning by the way you say them. When you say ‘touch the ground’ you mean ‘die,’ don’t you? Well, you won’t be surprised to hear that my people don’t talk about death as touching the ground. So, I have to ask you what you mean by ‘world-breaking.’ We don’t use that term.”

  Switch. “You can make fire come from your hands. You created this gem. You make magic. That is what we mean by ‘breaking the world.’ Magic comes from outside, and you must break through boundaries to bring it here. We long believed that the only creatures capable of world-breaking were lower beasts, like sand diggers and belly crawlers. Magic, we assumed, took the place of intellect.”

  Cazia’s hand jolted back from the gem. Mother fluttered her wings, then touched the stone. “Magic is controlled by intellect, by abstract thought and visualization. We don’t need to be able to fly to do that.”

  Switch. “There is much we need to learn. What can I offer you in trade for the translation gem? I will need it to speak to and control the bugs. If they also have language as you say, there are arrangements to be made.”

  Cazia felt a little chill at that. Switch. “The gem is not for barter. However, in exchange for the information I have already given you, plus the general location of the Tilkilit queen’s burrow, there’s something I want from you.” Mother bowed her head. Cazia assumed that meant she was open to a bargain, rather than agreeing to perform an unspecified service. “I want you to provide us transport down from the cliff to the outside of a human structure that I designate.”

  “What?” Ivy gaped at her. “Cazia, you--”

  Kinz laid her hand on the princess’s elbow. “No, Ivy. No, it is all right. I knew she was making to this and I think she is correct. What is more, if I can bear it, you can. Assuming the bird is willing and can keep her promises.”

  Mother withdrew her foot and Cazia touched the stone. “The bird would never break a promise, no matter how much weight it carried. I would not be leader of my people if I broke my word. What’s more, I suspect I am not speaking to the leader of your group, correct? Your companions openly question your decisions. Worse, what use is the location of the leader of the bugs if I do not have the stone that would let us parley?”

  Switch. “That’s a lot of questions,” Cazia said. “First, the queen has a way of speaking without words or language. When you’re close enough, you will understand. Second, our group has no leader; each of us comes from a different nation... Do you understand nation?” Mother fluttered her wings. “A nation is a very large group of people, usually made up of hundreds or thousands of different families.”

  Switch. “And you represent these different nations?” There was something careful in the way Mother said that.

  Switch. “Three of the nearest,” Cazia said.

  Mother did not take her foot off the stone while she exchanged calls with Auntie, who was still hovering on the updrafts just beyond the edge of the cliff. It was so strange to hear those screeches and shrieks and know there was complex meaning there. Finally, they switched. “I will fly you out into the valley to the location of the bug queen, then my sister and I will carry you down into your own lands.”

  Cazia didn’t like that idea very much; she tried to introduce the idea of a map to Mother, but the concept of a pictorial representation of the landscape was utterly alien to her and she seemed to actively resist any explanation of the idea. It was only when Kinz stepped forward to explain the drawings were another kind of language that it began to make sense. Even Auntie flew closer and settled on a rock to watch the herder draw a map of the landscape of the Sweeps directly in front of them.

  Mother did understand the concept at last, although she seemed to think it was poor coin to offer in trade. Cazia thought Auntie was more enthusiastic about it, although it was hard to judge tone from the way the birds squawked. Still, Kinz drew the river that they had floated down to escape, the fallen tree, and a few other landmarks that Cazia hadn’t noticed, finishing with the meadow where they’d spent so many idle days. Kinz was certain the hole to the queen’s chamber was just beyond the northern edge.

  After that, Cazia explained where she wanted to be taken.

  Night had fallen. “We should stop using the gem soon,” Cazia interrupted to say. “The magic is dangerous if we overuse it.”

  “It is time,” Mother said once they’d switched. “We can drop you close to your destination in the darkness where we will be safe from the tiny darts your people shoot at us, and you will be well outside the hunting range of the belly crawlers. At the sunrise gathering, I will forbid the hunting of your kind. I suspect the discussion will be...complicated. But no matter. Someday, we will have to parley again. I suspect there is much we could learn from each other.”

  Switch. “I would like that, too. Thank you.” Cazia pocketed the jewel.

  Mother carried Kinz and Ivy while Cazia had to fly alone with Auntie. At first, the huge eagles wanted to grab the girls in their talons, but they would have none of it. Kinz thought it would be better to ride on their backs the way her people rode okshim, but Ivy absolutely refused to ride clinging to their slippery feathers.

  In the end, the girls wrapped their arms and legs around the birds’ ankles and sat on their curled feet. It was uncomfortable for everyone, but the birds did not complain aloud and Cazia managed, somehow, not to scream in terror when Auntie plunged off the side of the cliff and spread her wings wide.

  Chapter 15

  They plummeted a terrifying distance. Wrapping her arms tightly around Auntie’s lower leg, Cazia shut her eyes and prayed to Monument to help her endure the terror of knowing that they had been betrayed and that these two huge creatures were about to shake them loose and smash their bodies into the mud.

  Then Auntie began to level out. It was a strain, but Cazia managed to hold on to the bird’s leg, and soon they were gliding out over the Sweeps, the dark lands below flitting by so fast that she couldn’t make out any details.

  All they had to go by was bare starlight—the moon had not risen yet—but the gnarled tree branches swept below her like giants reaching up to snatch her out of the sky. She knew that, if she fell, not even soft mud or water would be cushion enough to give her safe landing.

  Fire and Fury, it was the most exhilarating thing she’d ever done.

  Mother, Ivy, and Kinz were ahead of them, barely more than a dark shape moving against the starlit landscape. Cazia tried to see if the girls were still holding on, but it was impossible to tell. She tried to convince herself that she should assume the best.

  Grateful am I to be permitted to travel The Way.

  They flew, on and on. Cazia’s terror faded quickly but so did her strength. Her arms began to ache, her butt became sore, and her leg muscles started to cramp. She was tempted to shout for the birds to land right away, but they had made a bargain and she thought they might take it as an insult if she changed their terms.

  Besides, there was something about the birds that did not invite talk. They were utterly silent as they glided over the Sweeps. It was a marked difference from the back-and-forth squawking and cooing they had made on the cliff top. Was this their hunting behavior? It seemed so.

  On and on it went. Cazia felt a slig
ht tingle in her hands and legs and it only took a moment to realize that she was sensing magic. Auntie had magic inside of her, somehow. For all their talk about “world-breaking,” Mother and her people were creatures of magic themselves, even if they didn’t know it.

  Cazia’s eyes quickly adjusted to the dark, but she still wished they could have made this trip during the day. What sights she could have seen! It couldn’t have been easy for Auntie to carry a weight on only one leg, and Mother didn’t exactly have a balanced load, either, but they didn’t slow until they came within sight of the torchlight above the Alliance watchtowers.

  Mother widened her wings and slowed herself, dropping down onto a patch of dry ground bristling with clumps of tall grass. As soon as she touched down, Ivy and Kinz fell off of her legs and rolled away; the older girl kept silent but Ivy let out a moan of relief.

  When Auntie did the same, Cazia unwrapped her legs before they even touched the ground. She had to drop a few feet because Auntie had no intention of actually landing. As determined as she was to stand upright, her legs buckled.

  Both of the birds turned westward into the wind and began flapping hard, gaining altitude quickly. One let out a piercing cry that seemed to echo off the Southern Barrier, but Cazia couldn’t tell whether it was a note of annoyance or a friendly “Until next time!”

  None of the girls wanted to be the last one on her feet, so they all stumbled out of the darkness toward each other. The moon had just begun to rise.

  “If we had made any sense, we would have waited until morning,” Kinz said. “I wish I had thought of it myself, but I did not. Normally, we would be made safe in the tree or in the cleft of the rock. But it is too late to camp now.”

  Ivy waved toward the glowing torches to the south. “I would rather sleep in a bed tonight. If we start now—and do not fall into a hole or something—we might reach the gate before the midnight. Do we really want to sleep on the ground without even a cloth to lie on?”

  No, in fact, they did not. The girls started their trek across the uneven terrain. It quickly became apparent that only the flat little hills actually offered dry footing; everything in between was full of squelching, boot-clutching mud.

  They traveled by hopping from one relatively solid bit of land to another; Cazia was the first to slip and fall in the mud, but her embarrassment evaporated when Kinz did the same not long after, then Ivy, then Cazia, then Kinz, and after that, she no longer kept track. It was dark and the ground was treacherous.

  Their progress was slowed by Kinz’s insistence that they stop often to check for predators. There were almost certainly eagles out there who hadn’t gotten word of a truce yet, and grass lions, while they usually hunted during the day, had been known to take prey at night.

  Cazia wished Kinz had been able to bring her pointed stick off the top of the cliff. The only protection they had was her spells, which would be useless in an ambush. Worse, she had no iron darts. The only spell she could fight with was her fire spell, which would be clearly visible for miles in this flat, open landscape.

  “Cazia,” Ivy said, interrupting her thoughts, “I wonder if you would let me borrow that little gem of yours.”

  The question caught her by surprise and her answer was sharper than she intended. “Why?”

  The little girl didn’t seem to notice her tone. “For more than fifty years, the people of Indrega have had an arrangement with the serpents of the northeast, but we have always dealt with them through crude sign language. We can not set treaty terms, can not negotiate borders, and we can not easily explain our laws. It has led to complications, as I am sure you can guess. A serpent nest on private farmland. Pets devoured without compensation. That sort of thing.”

  “Make to keep your voices low,” Kinz scolded.

  Ivy spoke in a whisper. “If my family had a gem like yours, we could simplify things.”

  “And it would strengthen your family’s status in the Alliance.”

  “Indeed it would.”

  “Is that safe?”

  Cazia’s question seemed to flummox her. “What do you mean? How could it not be safe?”

  Together, they looked over at the fires of the watchtowers. They were farther than Cazia had thought at first, but they were making progress toward them. “A whole bunch of okshim is one thing, but… How sturdy is your Alliance? The three of us trust each other a little bit--maybe things are not great between Kinz and me, but she saved my life and maybe I saved hers, too; I can’t remember.”

  “You did,” Kinz whispered. The moonlight lit her silhouette, but her expression was hidden in shadow.

  “Oh, good. So, we have our conflicts but when things get rough, we mostly trust each other, as long as I don’t overuse my magic. When Mother spoke to me--”

  The half moon showed enough light to see Ivy tilt her head. “Mother?”

  “Didn’t I say that out loud to you? Those two birds were Mother--the one with the nest--and Auntie. They never told me their real names, assuming they have names. Anyway, when Mother spoke to me, you couldn’t understand anything she said, but you trusted me to look after all of our interests.”

  “Ah!” Ivy’s exclamation brought a sharp hiss from Kinz, but she quickly lowered her voice. “I should have thought of that. I haven not lived among my people for more than a year, but as a member of the royal family, I should have considered this. The Winzoll have always been jealous of Ergoll power--in fact, the Winzoll king tried to offer the daughter to the Italgas in my place, but she vomited on his emissary. I hear she took a purgative right before she met him. I wish I had thought of that. Not that I, you know--”

  “I know,” Cazia said. “I know very well.”

  “And the Toal,” the princess continued. “My uncle used to say that they like to think of themselves as eldest brother to the other nations of the Alliance. My own people... I hope you understand why I say this, but my own people are in some ways the weakest member of the Alliance. Our lands are in the west, you see, and while warriors come from all over to fend off Peradaini incursions, it is our lands where most of the fighting is done. We are a hard people, but not numerous.”

  “What then?” Kinz asked. She crouched beside them. “Will you make five gems?”

  Ivy gasped as though she was about to declare that a wonderful idea, but Cazia broke in. “What would happen to me if the Alliance found out I was a scholar?” Wizard. She wasn’t a scholar any more. She was a wizard. She just didn’t like to say the word aloud.

  “They would celebrate you,” Ivy answered. “They would feast you, then give you a comfortable house and a guard to win your favor.”

  Kinz shook her head. “You would be the prisoner. Maybe you would live in one of their houses, maybe it would be the cell, but you would never be permitted to cross the Straim again. This watch post is commanded by the Toal. They would spirit you away, and Ivy would be sent south to her people. Maybe I would be allowed to accompany her, but I would certainly not be allowed to help you.”

  “We would keep it a secret,” Ivy said, “until we reached my father. I would never allow you to be taken prisoner. I do not treat my friends in that way.”

  Cazia didn’t doubt her sincerity. What she doubted was Ivy’s ability to impose her will on her elders. As capable as she’d proven herself to be, she was still only a twelve-year-old girl. “What story do we tell about our trip into Qorr?”

  Kinz spoke up. “We do not tell them that Cazia can make magic. The tunnel we climbed up the cliff was already there, made by the Peradaini scholar sometime last winter. We saw the bug people but did not make to fight or speak to them.”

  “Oh! But I shot one with my bow.”

  Kinz laid her hand on Ivy’s shoulder. “You killed one, but only one. We found the Door in the Mountain but the bugs captured us. We escaped the same way we actually escaped, found the stone towers but not the magic lever, scaled the cliffs, and climbed back down the same tunnel.”

  Cazia nodded. “We leave out
anything we learned from Chik or Mother. We leave out the spell that the Tilkilit Queen wanted me to cast.”

  “We leave out the name of the Tilkilit.”

  “Yes. Exactly.” Cazia took a deep breath. “What about Alga?”

  Kinz’s younger brother Alga had accompanied them northward across the Sweeps, but the girls had sent him away before they started up the cliff. If he’d done as his sister told him, he would have already passed through these watchtowers; who knew what stories he might have told?

  “Gah,” Kinz said. “If he came this way, he might have told them you are one of the Cursed.”

  Cazia had forgotten about that pleasant little term. The herder people thought all magic was a curse.

  “You should simply lie,” Ivy said. “Say that he pinched your bottom and you punched him. We will say that you knocked him into the mud and he was furious about it. If he is there, I will mock him in front of the other warriors. He will be discredited. Definitely.”

  I can’t go into Indrega. Cazia couldn’t deny it any longer. Those fires atop the watchtowers meant cooked food, soft beds, and clean clothes, but she would be enjoying none of it.

  They’d gone into Qorr to find out whether the eagles were part of a coordinated attack with The Blessing, and the answer had been unclear and confusing. Mother said they’d been tricked by the gods into coming here. Obviously, they weren’t part of a coordinated assault on Kal-Maddum, but had they been driven here as part of a more subtle plot?

  Mother and Auntie would have fluttered their wings at the suggestion that they were someone else’s pawns in an invasion, but that was how it seemed to Cazia.

  What’s more, there was something at the back of Cazia’s mind that she knew she was missing—something important—but what was it? She tried to remember everything Mother, Chik, and the Tilkilit queen had said, but whatever was there, tickling her subconscious, she could not identify it.

  Still, Ivy and Kinz could bring the news of the Qorr to the Indregai people. She couldn’t risk passing through those gates and never emerging again. There would still be tyrs out in the empire who needed to know what she knew.