by Oxford, Rain
Her eyes went wide and she stopped pacing. “What does the dark god have to do with anything? I thought he was… asleep or something for all eternity. Exiled by the other gods.”
“Erono told me that Vretial had sent servants to take Ronez’s book. When Ronez was killed, I volunteered to find the book and assign a new Guardian to Earth. Erono was very insistent that it not fall into Vretial’s hands.”
“What does Erono have to do with Earth? Shouldn’t it be the god of Earth who assigns a new Guardian?” she asked.
“Erono decided it was more important to keep the book safe from Vretial than argue with Tiamat over who did what. I just followed his orders to get the book and find a Guardian. However, the book found its own Guardian.”
She studied me. “The book couldn’t have found an experienced wizard? No offense, sweetie.”
“My instincts tell me it found him for a reason, and when I realized how much potential he had, I couldn’t argue.”
“If Vretial is responsible, we have serious problems.”
“If Vretial has been suppressed for so long, why are you afraid of him? I mean, how do you even know about him?” I asked her.
“Duran has stories about him. I thought every world did,” Divina answered.
One thought popped into my head and made me want to puke. If Divina was right and humans did have stories about Vretial, then Mother was also correct. Satan. I shuddered at the possibility. “He isn’t red-skinned with horns, by any chance, is he?” I asked. Or a psychology teacher?
Edward snorted and Divina rolled her eyes. “He is a god; he can appear any way he wants to. Gods have no corporeal form,” Edward explained. “If he wanted to appear frightening, that sounds like a good way to do it.” He looked at Divina. “That doesn’t explain why you thought I had killed the person responsible for Ronez’s death.”
“You said you were going to Earth because Ronez died. I thought you were going to get revenge. You should have gotten revenge,” she growled, but it sounded strangled as if she was trying to conceal another emotion.
“I don’t think I ever heard you show any desire for vengeance.”
“Ronez was a great man and the one that killed him should suffer an eternity of misery.” Her eyes watered. “As his brother, I thought you of all people would agree.” She nearly broke the door with the force she used to open it and slam it shut behind her.
Edward gaped. “I had no idea she cared about him so much.”
“Can I see my book?” I asked. Edward pulled it out of his bag and handed it to me. I sprawled back on the bed and held my book to my chest. The book was warm. Edward was still sitting there, deep in his own thoughts, when I fell asleep.
* * *
When I woke, the room had a warm glow from the lit lantern on the table. Outside, the larger moon cast an eerie glow over the ocean. Edward was sitting beside the bed and Divina was still gone. “Are you okay?” I asked.
He sighed and stared out at the moon. “Really, it’s none of my business what relationship they had. I think I’m more concerned with her desire for revenge; she has always seemed rather naïve to me. I don’t know how much she cared about him, but I wonder how much he returned her feelings. I didn’t think they really even knew each other all that well. What do you think of her?”
“Pulchritudinous,” I answered.
He smirked and proved his mastery of the English language. “Yes, she is quite beautiful. I supposed it’s no surprise if he did like her. Everyone likes her. Come with me, I’ll give you another lesson.”
“What time is it?” I asked, climbing clumsily out of bed as he stood gracefully. I handed my book, which had slipped to my side in my sleep, to Edward, who slid it into his bag.
“Between sunset and sunrise. Most of the crew is asleep and the others should not need to come up to the deck.”
I followed him back out and onto the deck, where the two moons cast a spooky glow. The history of my childhood suggested it was a very bad idea to get near the edge of the ship, but that was exactly what Edward made me do. I wasn’t prepared for how windy it was, so I held onto the rail with everything I had. “We’re playing with wind this time?” I asked.
“Yes. Remember that wind it the hardest to use for most wizards.”
That was exactly what I needed to hear to boost my confidence.
“You’ll start by simply bending it. Gather your energy, but not too much because air is delicate and too much energy can cause loss of control.” I gathered about half as much as I did with the water before Edward told me it was enough.
“Is it like controlling water?”
“Not exactly. Clear your mind and close your eyes.” I did. “Imagine the wind as something you can see. See it whip around artistically and bend it to do as you want. Make walls and tunnels around it to shape it. Give it energy gently and focus.”
It felt like hours passed. I could imagine controlling the air all I wanted, but the wind kept coming at me. Even if I was able to control it, to bend it out of the way, there was more coming. But if I can use the wind to block the wind… So I imagined the wind swirling around just before it reached me and smashing into the oncoming wind. I imagined it as flowing light, almost like colorful, glowing water with a black background.
To my surprise, I could feel the wind jerk wildly before breaking off. Though the sound of whipping wind grew louder, I could only feel a fraction of the gust that it was before. I tried hold on as it started slipping, but the more energy I put into it, the more winds slipped through and the faster I became drained.
“Enough,” Edward said.
His voice broke my concentration and the wind fell back into its previous pattern. Opening my eyes, I saw him sitting at the dinner table. I joined him, surprised to find how wobbly my legs were, and laid my head down on the cool wood.
“You have a lot of power, but not nearly enough control over it. You learn quickly and you improvise very well. How are you adapting to the gravity?”
I lifted my head slowly to look at him. “I’ve been better.” I laid my head back down too hard. “But I can take it.”
“You need to learn to take in energy as you use it. A few spells allow you to draw energy into something directly, but they are usually very dangerous.” He stood. “Right now, you should sleep.” I stood as gracefully as I could manage it.
“I want to practice more.”
“In the morning. Go to bed now.”
I stifled the first response that came to mind. I wanted to refuse just because I didn’t like to be told what to do, but this man wasn’t paid to teach me, and he wasn’t on a power trip. He was telling me for my own good; he knew more about magic’s effect on the body. He wasn’t just telling me what to do because he wanted to control me.
I nodded. “All right.” So I went back to bed and Edward stayed up to read a book. Divina didn’t return before I fell asleep.
* * *
I awoke to the sound of wind and the glorious aroma of Divina. Before I even opened my eyes, I felt the serenity of early morning. Dim light spilled across the room through the open window.
I hated early mornings. On the other hand…
Divina was sitting on the floor, her body leaning next to me against the bed with her head touching my pillow. She’d changed into a really nice shirt. The thin, black shirt had no sleeves and went around her collar like a turtle-neck. While most of the shirt was made of a satin texture, the span of her stomach consisted of a black fish net material.
Her breathing was deep and her lips were slightly open. I forced the images from my head of kissing her, but instead thought of Ronez. If she had true feelings for him…
“She wouldn’t like it if you get your kiss without her even knowing it.” Edward’s voice shattered my thoughts and it took everything I had not to jump out of my skin. While he wasn’t whispering, his voice was low and quiet.
Although his presence had entirely escaped my notice, he was still sitting in the same spo
t that he had been when I fell asleep. It also escaped my notice that I had been slowly leaning closer to Divina. “Don’t you ever sleep?” I whispered.
“Yes.”
“Was Divina here long? Did you talk to her any last night?”
He shook his head. “She came in after I fell asleep. I’ve decided I don’t need to talk to her about it unless she brings it up again. We’ll be arriving at Mijii in a few hours. You should practice your magic because I won’t want to stop when we get there,” he said and then left.
I couldn’t play with the wind while the crew was awake, so I improvised. He didn’t say what magic to practice.
I hunted down my tattered shoes, which were not nearly as heavy as the rocks I had used, and then repeated my exercise from the previous morning. It took surprisingly little time to focus my mind and gather energy. I held out my arms with my eyes closed and imagined the shoes lifting into the air with the torn shoelaces dangling. At the same time, I tried to push the energy into them through my hands. After a few minutes, though I could still feel the leather in my palms, I closed my hands into fists. My shoes floated about two feet above me.
I lowered my arms, careful to keep my mind focused. They wavered, but remained airborne. I imagined them moving in front of me. Not just imagined… I could see it happening. They would obey me because I was a wizard and they were just shoes. Getting them into the air was easy; now I needed to turn the potential energy into kinetic…
Wait… wrong idea.
The shoes wavered.
Stop.
They did.
Okay. I breathed in, drawing energy into myself, and breathed out, letting the energy out, too. My hypothesis was that if I stopped pouring my energy into them, or didn’t give them enough, they would fall. But that didn’t necessarily mean I needed to give them more than I already was to make them move. After all, I was continuously acting against gravity. I lightened up on how much energy I gave the shoes until they started to dip.
Giving them just enough energy to keep them suspended, I concentrated on envisioning them moving. For the first few tries they did nothing, but then they slowly obeyed. It did in fact take more energy to move them in midair than just holding them up. Interesting.
I was putting a lot of energy into it just to move the shoes in slow side-to-side motions and it was already wearing me out, but when I tried to hold back, they sunk and wobbled.
Different tactic. I imagined myself like a little stream. I let the energy flow into me through my left hand and out my right. It felt surprisingly natural. The shoes dithered dangerously for my moment of distraction. I have to control them so I won’t be eaten in the Aradlin. With that thought, the shoes froze. After a few minutes of almost perfect control, I knew I could do more, so I visualized them very slowly circling each other.
Within a few more minutes, they started to move, very slowly. I willed them to pick up speed and they did. About ten minutes later, both shoes were evenly revolving without any hint of weakness.
Then the door slid open and before I could react, Edward told me to stop. I froze along with my shoes as he entered the room. He observed my shoes, but his face revealed nothing.
“Did you practice last night?” he finally asked my shoes.
“No, I slept last night. I’ve only practiced when you told me to.”
He nodded slowly to himself, then looked at me. “I’m right that you have more raw power than you can control, though I’m beginning to think I have seriously underestimated both your power and control. You’re learning and developing faster than any apprentice I’ve ever had. And this,” he indicated my shoes, still stationary, “will save your life someday. Don’t think that you can protect your book on your own yet, but you should understand that how quickly and accurately you’re developing is nearly astonishing. A wizard can naturally feel magic energy. You seem to be able to naturally control it. Also, your imagination must be very well developed.”
“Yeah, I have ADHD. Most my childhood was spent daydreaming things that would never happen. When I was three, I had a bunch of tiny Dalmatian puppies that were too small for anyone except me to see. I mean, they were imaginary and all, but I preferred to believe they were just too small for anyone else to see them. Then one died and they all went to the funeral. They were so grief-stricken that they all ran away and I never saw them again. I was miserable for months.”
I understood the look he gave me very well. “You know that’s not normal, right?”
“More normal than when I went two years not touching my hands together. In fact, I would only touch certain things with certain hands. Do you know how hard it is to shampoo your hair with one hand?”
“Yes. I once broke my arm so badly it took an entire day to heal,” he answered.
I rolled my eyes and focused on the shoes which, amazingly, were still immobile. Unfortunately, the floating shoes were less remarkable than the fact that I was actually halfway good at something.
“Let them go and release your energy.”
I stopped pouring my energy into them and let the energy flow out of me, not out of my hand but out the old fashioned way. At least my old fashioned way. The shoes immediately dropped.
“You’re going to need to teach him faster,” Divina said. I almost jumped in response to her beautiful, gentle voice. She climbed to her feet and sat on the bed, pushing the pillow aside.
“It appears so. Do you have any dragon blood?”
“Only dried dragon blood. That stuff is hard to come by.”
“Do you think you can teach him your sun charm?” Edward asked her. She nodded. “Okay. I’ll be back.” He left and Divina started shuffling around in her backpack. She pulled out a white cloth and several clouded jars.
“What’s a sun charm?” I asked. I figured it couldn’t be anything bad or dangerous with its name.
After setting her supplies on the bed, she gave me her most inviting smile.
Alarms went off in my head.
“Most of the creatures in the Aradlin fear sunlight. We’re going to take some of it with us. You know, for protection.”
Bottled sunlight. That didn’t sound too bad. She brought a jar and the cloth over to the window, then laid the cloth flat on the wide sill and gently shook some of the jar’s contents onto it. It was dark red powder with an offensive odor somewhere between a pile of dead animals and rotten food.
“What is that?” I gagged.
“Dragon’s blood. It isn’t the blood of a real dragon, but a mixture of blood from different magical creatures. Don’t inhale any of it; it’ll burn your insides out like acid, hence the name.”
I grabbed the pillow and put it to my mouth and nose as a filter. She put the lid back on the jar and held it out for me to take, but I had better sense than that. “It’s not a good idea to hand me anything acidic. Or poisonous. Or that can eat me. I’m not good around that stuff.”
Her smile brightened the room. “You’re really one of the unlucky types?” she asked. I nodded. “Well maybe my luck will rub off on you.” With that encouragement, I took the jar as if it would explode any second, since I expected it to. “Hand me the small red jar.”
I set the acid blood down and picked up the small, round, red glass jar and quickly handed it to her. “Wait, what if my unluckiness rubs off on you?”
“I should still be covered; I happen to be extremely resilient.” She popped the lid off the jar and pulled out a few tiny sticks. “Sandalwood,” she said before I could ask. She dropped it in the dragon’s blood, screwed the lid back on, and handed it to me. “The tan one,” she requested.
I set the sandalwood down and picked up the tan, round jar. As I handed it over, I stepped closer… and tripped over my shoe. I fell against the table and the jar slipped out of my hand. Quicker than my eyes could track, Divina reached out and caught it. She winced, her eyes closed and body tensed, for a few seconds before relaxing. Then she started laughing.
“What?” I was completely lost
as to what just happened.
“This stuff is highly explosive. The blood mixture is not dangerous unless it’s wet or it’s inhaled; a jar of this stuff would blow up the ship.”
My eyes must have been the size of baseballs. “That’s not funny! Do not ask me to touch things that can blow up a ship!”
She turned back to the cloth, still with a smile on her face. “I’ll remember that next time.”
I wondered if she found it funny because she didn’t think of death the normal way. Or maybe it was relief. Whatever the case, it was a wonderful smile that went a long way in calming my nerves.
She cautiously unscrewed the jar, reached in, pulled out a pinch, and carefully put it in the pile of the dragon blood and sandalwood. She then screwed the lid on and slipped it warily back in her backpack.
“Isn’t that unsafe?”
“My bag is very well insulated and I’m extremely careful with it. Come over here,” she said. I stood next to her and tried to ignore her sweet scent. “I’m going to have you set this up, but I will reinforce it if it’s not powerful enough.” She pulled the sides of the cloth together and clenched it closed. It stayed closed as if she had tied a string around it- which she didn’t. “Clear your mind and gather your energy.”
I did so. Clearing my mind was still difficult, especially with Divina standing so close to me, but gathering energy was easier each time I did it.
“Can you feel the hot sunlight?”
Sunlight streamed through the window. “Yeah.”
“Imagine that all the sunlight you feel is coming from the bag. Imagine that the bag is so hot it should be in flames, but it isn’t. Have you ever felt intense heat?” I nodded. “Try to remember what it felt like, and put that heat into the bag. Don’t let it fade, though, keep putting more heat into the bag. Every kind of heat you can think of.”
Desperately trying to drag my mind off of the heat from her body so close to mine, I focused on the most unsexy memories I possibly could.