by Colt, K. J.
“Gala, this is Blaise. I am thinking of you. Please listen to Esther when she asks you to go to a different area and try to be discreet.
Yours, Blaise.”
Thus happy with both notes, Blaise fed the cards into the Interpreter Stone. Combining spells like this was efficient, since some of the code for both messages would be shared.
Getting up, he was about to leave the room when he felt something unusual—something he hadn’t experienced in two years.
It was the mildly invasive sensation of another sorcerer sending him a Contact spell.
Surprised, Blaise nonetheless relaxed and let the message come to him, curious to learn who could be reaching out to him.
To his shock, it was Gala.
“Blaise, it’s great to hear from you.” Like all Contact spells, her words came in the form of a voice in his head—a voice that was really his inner voice, but that somehow took on a different tone. “I can’t believe you are speaking in my mind. I miss you, and I hope to see you soon. I have so much I want to talk to you about.
Yours, Gala.”
Blaise listened to her message with awe. How had she managed to do this? When he saw her last, her magical abilities had been virtually nonexistent, and now she was able to do a complex bit of sorcery in less time than it would take to write a basic spell. It could only mean one thing: she was starting to do magic directly, as he’d hoped she would be able to do.
Excited, he sat down to compose a response to Gala. It took him several minutes to prepare the spell. He wrote:
“Gala, I’m so excited you’ve mastered this form of communication. I miss you. How is your time in the village so far? Did Esther explain to you about the trip to Neumanngrad?”
There was no response back. Disappointed, Blaise waited several minutes before admitting to himself that none was coming.
Getting up, he decided to occupy himself by putting his house to rights while he figured out what to do next.
He would not let Augusta and the Council wreck his life again, not if he could help it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Gala
GALA WAS ALMOST BACK AT Esther and Maya’s house when she heard a strange voice in her head. It was as though she was speaking to herself in some strange way. As she listened, however, she realized it was a message from Blaise.
After she heard everything, she grinned in excitement. Blaise wanted her to travel and see more of the world. And the best part was that he was thinking of her! Filled with delight, Gala felt an overwhelming urge to talk to him, to reach out to him in the same way he had just contacted her. And suddenly, she felt herself responding, even though she didn’t understand how she was doing it.
“Blaise, it is great to hear from you,” she began, her excitement spilling out into the mental message.
To her disappointment, he didn’t respond right away. But she noticed Esther staring at her intently. “Did he get in touch with you too?” the older woman asked.
“If you mean Blaise, then yes,” Gala said, smiling.
“Good,” Esther said. “Then I hopefully don’t need to convince you that we must go.”
“Oh, you don’t have to convince me,” Gala told her earnestly. “I would love to see more of the world.”
And by the time Esther explained to them where they were going, Blaise came back to Gala with his response.
Smiling, she began to think of the answers to his questions, but whatever it was that helped her do this before was no longer there. She couldn’t seem to tap into the part of her mind that made mental communication so easy and effortless before. After several fruitless attempts, Gala gave up in frustration.
“Come, help us pack, child,” Esther said, leading Gala into the house. “We need to get going right away.”
The trip to Kelvin’s territory took a couple of days, with Gala enjoying every moment of their travels—unlike Esther and Maya, who grumbled about how uncomfortable it was to be stuck on a buggy for such a long time. The two women complained about roadside food (which Gala loved), the scenery (which Gala found most fascinating), the chill at night (which Gala found refreshing), and the heat of the sun during the day (which Gala found pleasant on her skin). Most of all, however, they complained about Gala’s boundless energy and enthusiasm for the simplest things—something they could not even begin to understand, much less relate to.
Unlike her first eventful day at the village, the trip passed without any further incidents. Maya and Esther did their best to keep Gala out of sight of the passersby, and Gala did her best to occupy herself with observing the world around her—and with surreptitious attempts to do magic.
To her great disappointment, she couldn’t replicate anything she’d done before. She couldn’t even get in touch with Blaise. He had contacted her a couple more times, saying how much he missed her, but she had been unable to respond—a form of muteness she found extremely unpleasant. The lack of control over her magical abilities drove her crazy, but there was nothing she could do about it now. She was hoping, however, that her creator would ultimately be able to teach her how to tap into that hidden part of herself. When she saw Blaise again, she was not about to let him out of her sight until she learned to do sorcery at will.
As they left Blaise’s territory and entered Kelvin’s, Gala began to notice a number of differences between the villages and towns belonging to the two sorcerers. The houses they passed now were smaller and shabbier, with signs of neglect everywhere, and the people were leaner and less friendly. Even the plants and animals seemed weaker and more weathered somehow.
When they rode by a large open field with sad-looking remnants of wheat, Gala asked Esther about the differences in their surroundings.
“Master Blaise has enhanced our crops,” Esther explained, “so that we wouldn’t suffer as much in this drought. He’s a great sorcerer, and he cares about helping his people—unlike Kelvin, who doesn’t give a rat’s ass.” That last bit was added in a tone of obvious disgust.
Gala frowned in confusion. “Why don’t all sorcerers do this for their people? Enhance their crops, I mean?”
Esther snorted.“Why not, indeed.”
“They just don’t care enough,” Maya said bitterly. “They’re so out of touch with their people, they might not even understand the concept of hunger. They probably think we can just subsist on spells and air, the way they do.”
“Also,” Esther said, “I don’t know much about sorcery, but I think Master Blaise came up with some very complicated spells to do this for us. I don’t know if every sorcerer could replicate them, even if they were inclined to try.”
“Couldn’t Blaise teach them?” Gala asked.
“He probably could, if those fools would listen to him.” Esther’s nostrils flared with anger. “But they’ve tarred him with the same brush as his brother, and he’s already on thin ice in the Tower. Enhancing crops could be potentially interpreted as giving magic to the people, and that’s the last thing the Council wants.”
“But that’s so unfair.” Gala looked at Esther and Maya in dismay. “People are hungry. They can die from that, right?”
Maya gave her a strange look. “Yes, people can definitely die from hunger—which is something all sorcerers need to realize.”
Gala blinked, taken aback. Was Maya lumping her in with the other sorcerers? It didn’t sound like she meant the word as a compliment, either.
Esther glared at Maya. “Stop it. You know the girl cares—she’s just been sheltered, that’s all.”
“More like born yesterday,” Maya muttered, and Esther purposefully stepped on her foot, eliciting an annoyed grunt from the other woman.
“In any case, child,” Esther said, addressing Gala this time, “Blaise has a plan when it comes to getting his crops to the other territories. He’s letting us trade the seeds in exchange for other necessities. He knows these seeds will take and will provide others with good crops just like our own, since the improvements he made are here
ditary.”
Leaving the dying wheat field behind them, they finally reached the inn where Blaise told them to stay. Before they went in, Maya made Gala cover her head with a thick woolen shawl. “So we don’t get attacked by some amorous ruffians at night,” she explained. “The fewer people who know a pretty girl is staying here, the safer it’ll be for us.”
The brown inn building was small and rundown, just like the houses they’d passed on the way. It was difficult to believe it could house more than a dozen travelers. Their room upstairs was dirty, cramped, hot, and disgusting—at least according to Maya. According to Esther, they were also being robbed blind.
Gala didn’t care; she was just excited to be some place new. When they went downstairs for dinner, she asked the innkeeper about the local attractions, being careful to keep the shawl wrapped around her head.
“Oh, you’re lucky,” the burly man told her. “Later this week, we have games at the Coliseum. You’ve heard of our Coliseum, right?”
Gala nodded, not wanting to seem ignorant. In the last couple of days, she’d learned it was best not to ask strangers any questions that could be posed to Maya and Esther instead.
He gave a satisfied grunt. “That’s what I thought. If you want to do something today, the market should still be open.” His eyes went to Maya’s large bosom, and he added, “Be sure to keep your money in hard-to-reach places. Lots of thieves around these days.”
“Thanks,” Maya said caustically, turning away from the innkeeper’s roving gaze. Esther huffed in disdain, shooting him a deadly glare before grabbing Gala’s arm and towing her away.
As soon as they were out of the innkeeper’s earshot, Esther turned to her and said firmly, “No.”
“No way,” Maya added, crossing her arms in front of her chest.
Gala stared at them in confusion. “But I didn’t ask the question yet—”
“Can we go to the Coliseum?” Esther said in a higher-pitched voice, mimicking Gala’s typically enthusiastic tones.
“Yes, can we, please?” Maya mocked, her imitation attempt even better than Esther’s.
Gala burst out laughing. She knew she should probably take offense, but she found the whole thing funny instead. The older women were watching her with stoic expressions on their faces, and she finally managed to stop laughing long enough to say, “Why don’t we talk about it tomorrow?”
“The answer is going to be the same tomorrow,” Esther said, giving Gala a narrow-eyed look.
Gala grinned at her, barely able to contain her excitement at the thought of the upcoming event. “Don’t worry about it, Esther—we’ll just wait and see. For now, let’s go to the market.”
And without waiting for their response, she walked out of the inn, going up the road to where she saw a cluster of buildings that typically signified a town center.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Blaise
ONCE HIS HOUSE WAS RESTORED, Blaise found himself at loose ends, alternating between being furious with Augusta and worrying about Gala. By now, the Council undoubtedly knew about Gala, and they were probably taking measures to find her. Hopefully, Kelvin’s territory would be the last place they would look—assuming Gala did as he asked and kept a low profile.
Still, this was not a sustainable situation. Blaise had to do something to protect her in a more permanent way, and he had to do it soon, before those scared fools mobilized fully. The fact that Gala was not answering his Contact messages worried him a bit, although he guessed that she was not fully in control of her magical abilities yet—something he found mildly reassuring, since it minimized her chances of exposing herself to the world. Nonetheless, he missed her with an intensity he found deeply unsettling. It was as if a bright light had left his life when he dropped her off at the village.
A persistent idea kept nagging at the back of his mind—that of mastering the route to the Spell Realm. It was possible he was obsessing about it as a way to keep his thoughts occupied, he admitted to himself. In a way, that’s what he had done after Louie’s death: he’d focused on his work—on creating the intelligent object that turned out to be Gala—in order to keep himself busy. At the same time, however, he suspected that understanding the Spell Realm better could lead to unimaginable advances in sorcery, potentially enabling him to become powerful enough to protect Gala from the entire Council.
Tired of thinking about it, he began planning. Although Augusta had burned many of his notes, Blaise didn’t feel particularly discouraged. He had frequently used Life Captures over the past year to record many of his particularly useful experiments, and he still had a lot of those droplets. More importantly, however, it seemed as if his mind had been working on the problem of getting to the Spell Realm ever since Gala had first described it to him, and he had some ideas he wanted to try out.
It was time for action.
He decided to start with a small, inanimate object. If he succeeded in sending that to the Spell Realm and having it come back, it would be an important step toward sending an actual person there.
Thus motivated, Blaise headed to his study, eager to take on a new challenge.
The spells were finally ready.
Blaise had chosen a needle as the object he would send to the Spell Realm. The spell would examine the needle at its deepest level and break it into its most elemental parts. That would destroy the physical needle, causing it to disappear, but those parts would become information, a message that would go to the Spell Realm and come back to change something in the Physical Realm, like all spells did. In this particular case, however, if Blaise succeeded, the manifestation in the Physical Realm should be identical to the original object.
Cognizant of the danger of new, untested spells and not wishing to suffer his mother’s fate, Blaise took precautions. He used the same spell that had protected him during Augusta’s attack—the spell that wrapped him in a shimmering bubble. The protection it granted would not last long, but it should be long enough to shield him from whatever havoc the experiment might cause.
Taking a slow, calming breath, he loaded the cards into his Interpreter Stone and watched the needle disappear, as it was supposed to.
Then he waited.
At first nothing happened. He could see the familiar shimmer of the protection spell, but there was no sign of the needle coming back. Frustrated, Blaise tried to figure out if he had made a mistake. The coming-back part of the spell was the trickiest. He assumed the needle would come back to its original location, but the spot remained empty.
All of a sudden, he heard a loud noise downstairs. It seemed to be coming from the storage room.
Blaise ran there, nearly tripping on the stairs in excitement.
And when he entered the room, he froze, staring at the sight in front of him in disbelief.
The needle had come back . . . in a way. It had returned not to the spot where it lay in his lab, but to the box where he had kept it originally. This return location actually made some sense, unlike the object he was staring at.
Among the shattered pieces of the box and scattered needles on the floor, he saw what he assumed was the original needle—except that now it was more like a sword. A strange, thick sword made of some kind of crystalline material that emitted a faint green glow. Instead of a hilt, this particular sword had a hole at the top.
Blaise carefully picked up the thing that used to be the needle, putting his hand through the hole at the top. It was actually comfortable to hold that way. Despite its size, the sword-like object was impossibly light, no heavier than the original needle. Lifting it, Blaise tried swinging it around the room and discovered that it was both sharp and strong. He was able to cut through his old sofa with ridiculous ease, and the sword-needle didn’t break when he banged it on the stone floor.
Both amused and discouraged, Blaise decided to place the needle as a decoration in his hall downstairs. It would work well with the new furniture he had gotten after the fire, as well as some other trinkets he had on di
splay there.
Heading back to his study, Blaise wondered what he had actually learned from this. On the one hand, he’d been able to do something to the needle—something that had obviously involved the Spell Realm. However, the needle had not come back as the same object. It had changed quite drastically. Would the same thing happen if a person went there? Would the person come back as some kind of a monstrosity, assuming he even survived the spell?
It seemed obvious Blaise had made an error in the spell. He had more work to do.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Augusta
“AUGUSTA, THIS IS COLIN. HE is a blacksmith’s apprentice from Blaise’s territory,” Ganir told her, gesturing toward the young man standing in the middle of the room. The man was a peasant; it was obvious both from his appearance and from the deferential way he held himself.
Augusta raised her eyebrows in surprise. What was this commoner doing in Ganir’s chambers? When the Council Leader summoned her this morning, she had gone eagerly, knowing he likely had news about Blaise’s creation.
“Tell her what you told me,” said Ganir to the young man. As usual, the Council Leader was sitting behind his desk, observing everything with his sharp gaze.
“I was dancing with her, as I told his lordship,” the man said obediently, staring at Augusta with awe and admiration. “Then she just disappeared.”
“The ‘she’ in question sounds like the one we’re looking for,” Ganir told Augusta. “Physically, she’s just as you described—blond, blue-eyed, and quite beautiful. Isn’t that right, Colin?”