“But didn’t I just apply…” Then I recalled what Destry had just said about my midterm. “The line you’d exposed for me…that’s not how I’ll find things in the real world.”
“Correct. Those who wield a sorcerer’s powers can gain amazing abilities, but they cannot bestow them upon others. Wizardry is much the opposite, which is why mages can heal others, dominate their minds, or transport groups of people across worlds.
“The second limitation is more important. Sorcery can unleash the natural powers of the universe, so long as they can be channeled and absorbed. But they cannot generate massive amounts on their own. Imagine a duel between a wizard and a sorcerer. Both can throw bolts of energy at each other. But the wizard can easily outlast the sorcerer if the latter does not expend their spellcraft wisely.”
“Those sound like major speed bumps to me.”
Destry smiled. “Only to the untutored. Remember what I said about sorcery being ‘strange’. Adaptif.”
I thought about that for a while. “So, what you’re saying is that a smart sorceress might be able to figure out ways around some of the limits?”
A chuckle. “Perhaps. But that depends on how much finesse they are able to exercise.”
I got the message loud and clear.
It was time to buckle down and really get to work.
Chapter Fifty-Three
It took me a solid month to lift the first object to eye level and place it back upon the sand. Three more to do the rest. But I found that after I’d practiced with items as small as a marble, that I could easily lift large rocks to the top of Destry’s tower.
From there, he had me stop with the rock lifting and move into the movement of energy. I never got brave (or stupid) enough to try anything with lightning. But I did learn how to absorb and channel energy from sources as diverse as the waves, the sun, even by placing my hands upon the warm rocks at the edge of a hot spring.
Absorbing or channeling energy wasn’t as fun as releasing it, though.
Once I’d gotten used to the ‘full’ feeling of holding energy inside my body, Destry showed me how to unleash a concentrated ‘bolt’ of it with a simple gesture. Of course, like anyone who’s watched a fantasy movie, I took to this type of casting with a will.
Too much of a will, at one point. My mentor called over to me one morning while I was at target practice. I’d set up a row of coconuts and was busy zapping them until they sparked and then shattered with a squelch-crack of boiling coconut milk and smoking fiber.
“Dayna,” he said, “you only need to gesture for your Will to manifest. You do not need to pretend you are drawing a pistol from your hip like a Western gunslinger!”
“You handle your varmints your way,” I drawled, in my best impression of Shelly’s Texan twang. “And I’ll handle ‘em mine!”
“Je ne peux pas le croire!” Destry muttered, as he walked away, shaking his head.
Luckily, Destry was in a better mood on the evening of my second anniversary on the island. He’d decided to prepare a special Polynesian dish to celebrate, and I volunteered to help him in the kitchen. I nicked the tip of my index finger as I sliced passionfruit for dessert. It wasn’t serious, but I winced as I washed the acidic juice out of the cut.
“One moment,” he said, as I turned to go find a bandage. “This is a useful trick to know. Hold up your injured hand before you.”
Puzzled, I did as he asked.
“Use your sight,” he instructed me, as he placed a heap of mung bean noodles in water to soak. “Visualize the cut with your mind.”
“All right.” I said. “I’m not sure what I should be looking for, though.”
I gazed down at the back of my hand. A little smear of red welled at the tip. It felt foolish staring at nothing for a moment, but then what Destry called the lignes snapped into focus. My skin was a flickering, colorful network of lines indicating body heat, life, the pulse of blood.
Then I saw it. A little ragged line of red shone out like a beacon. I let out a gasp of surprise.
“Now that you have seen it,” Destry said, “go ahead and seal it.”
A squint, and I drew upon my energy. I pictured a swaged needle attached to a length of suture thread. Next, I visualized doing a quick lace-up job, and the red line faded away. I suddenly felt winded, but I quickly steadied myself.
I turned my hand to look at the cut. It had vanished.
“That’s…” I said, as I tried to catch my breath, “simply amazing! I had no idea!”
“Be careful with that bit of craft,” Destry cautioned. “Notice how out-of-breath you are? It takes a tremendous amount of energy to heal one’s self. It is ironique, but sorcerers have depleted their life energy and died, all while trying to heal a wound they could have recovered from naturally in time.”
“Okay, I get it. You need to be careful, but it could help so many people–”
He shook his head. “Remember the first limitation of sorcery?”
I groaned. “One can’t apply magical energy outside one’s self.”
“Even so.” He motioned to the pile of still unpeeled fruit. “Finish that, as dessert is a worthy goal. At least for tonight.”
“And tomorrow?” I asked, sensing more to his words.
“Tomorrow, you shall start learning a most important lesson. In fact, it is the closest your school of magic can come to stepping outside one’s self.”
I thought about what that might be during a ballast-worthy dinner of laulau prepared in a taro leaf wrap. Even when I went to bed early on account of the resulting food coma, it played on my mind. Also, I couldn’t help but keep rubbing my finger where the cut had been.
The next morning, Destry sat next to me and put a new tome on my desk. I picked it up and stared at the title emblazoned on the dusty cover.
“Ving-lad-a-hir,” I said, sounding out the title as I read it. I gave him a skeptical look. “Sounds like a Norwegian rock band more than a bit of spellcraft.”
“It’s an appropriate term,” he said. “Vingladahir comes from an old root word that meant ‘to splice the ropes and mend the fishing nets’. But it really means sympathiser. That is, to sympathize.”
I raised my eyebrow. “Couldn’t I just buy someone a greeting card for that?”
A chuckle. “Sympathy is when you share the feelings of another, often to provide comfort. But in sorcery, it literally means ‘seeing through the eyes of another’. To delve into their thoughts.”
“I thought that wizardry was the only school that could dominate someone else’s mind.”
“Not dominate. Gaze into. And that happens to be what I want you to do with this book.”
I sighed and turned to the first page.
Actually, vingladahir turned out to be pretty interesting. It emphasized the notion of ‘mental projection’. A projection of one’s Will would allow you to walk in the mind of another person.
Destry proved how potent this could be with another lesson later that month. He led me along a series of steep trails to the western side of the island, where we came across a noisy nesting colony of sooty terns. We found a spot in the brush to observe the tuxedo-colored birds, and then he brought out the ruby ring he’d taken from me on the day I’d woken up on the beach.
“Slip this on. Until you learn the most delicate touch with your magic, one must be careful when walking through another’s mind. Croyez-moi, I should be knowing this, of all people.”
“Okay,” I said. “What next?”
“Select one of the terns out there. Recall the techniques you studied and apply them. That is straight and forward enough, no?”
I picked an especially healthy-looking individual at the edge of the colony and focused my will on it as I’d read. My concentrated Will reached out, boosted by the magic embedded in the ring. I gingerly touched the bird’s mind–
–suddenly I was running across the rocky shore. The scents of brine, of newly hatched chicks, even a deep thrum I recognized as the plane
t’s magnetic field burned their way into my senses. An unfurling of wings, and the ground fell effortlessly away below.
I grinned as I watched through the tern’s eyes. This was one perk of learning sorcery that I hadn’t anticipated. Most of what I took in was sensory detail. What thoughts flitted through the bird’s mind were flashes of instinct. Home. Food. Mate. Chick. Basic, but clear and understandable.
Later, on the way back home, I couldn’t help but chat giddily about those sensations. The ‘flight’ had been utterly different than the ones I’d taken with Holly. Instead of being a passenger, I’d been in the pilot’s seat. Even if I was just watching instead of touching the controls.
I decided to ask Destry more about this type of spellcraft.
“I’m guessing that I should stick to animals for a while,” I said, as I kept pace at his side. “But what if I wanted to try this with Perrin, Holly, or you? Would it be possible?”
“This type of magic does allow you to see through the eyes of others,” he replied. “Yet I do not want you trying this on any but animals that are natif to this island.”
“What if I was extra careful, the way I was with that bird? If all I can do is observe, then how could I harm any of you?”
Destry’s normally easy-going voice took on a serious tone. “My thoughts and your friends’ pasts should remain private, chére. Not only because it would be impolite. But because the act of observing itself can change how a memory is perceived. Besides, I think you’ve had an experience most joyeux today. Be happy with it, for it is good enough.”
I couldn’t help but agree. That evening, when I returned to the château, I threw my arms about Holly and gave her a big hug. I followed it up with a much gentler one for Perrin.
“What was that for?” Holly inquired.
I shrugged, helpless to explain for a moment.
“Just…because I understand a little better now. You and Perrin are so lucky!”
Perrin blinked, looked at me strangely, and then turned to Hollyhock.
The reeve shrugged as if to say, she’s happy, let’s go with it.
And that was good enough.
Chapter Fifty-Four
Days melted into weeks, weeks into months. I continued practicing all that Destry required of me, and the calendar responded by dissolving in a flurry of holidays. Memorial Day faded into Independence Day which faded into Thanksgiving which faded into Christmas. The lack of seasons might have played tricks on my mind. Or the simple fact that I was too busy to notice, even outside of my studies.
Where Destry may have been my magical mentor, Hollyhock took over as my physical one.
“Whatever he has in mind for you,” she asserted one morning, “surely it cannot hurt to face it with more than a shapeless olive-colored body.”
“Round is a shape,” I countered. “Besides, I can still fit into a swimsuit, so I can’t be that badly overweight.”
“Mayhap. But to my eyes, you appear a bit soft. I think some exertion would do you good.”
I argued a bit more on that point, but there was no winning against an insistent griffin.
We started out with simple jogs on the beach. That progressed to rowing a small boat that Destry provided. Holly would follow along, dog-paddling along just beyond the surf line while Perrin perched at the bow, gleefully calling out the strokes for me with little ‘hoos’.
Swimming and hiking came next. Sweat beaded along my brow during one particularly tough climb, and I heartily cursed myself for letting my exercise club membership expire.
“Being soft…really isn’t that bad,” I protested between breaths.
“Certainly, if one is a hare, a hart, or any other animal that can fit down a griffin’s gullet,” Holly teased. “Yet at the end, that would be an unworthy death.”
“I thought griffins considered death as something ‘glorious’ and ‘honorable’!”
“Not all death,” she corrected me, as we reached a rest stop alongside the trail. She pointed out a nearby stump for me to sit on and catch my breath. I collapsed on it gratefully. “If one has entered battle and fought like a griffin, there is glory. If one fights for one they love, there is honor.”
I nodded wearily. “I would hope that I could fight at all. My world doesn’t teach how to fight with a sword or a lance much anymore. Let alone magic.”
“Then it is time we address that, too.” Holly went into the woods just downslope of us and let out a chirp of pleasure as she found what she was looking for. She returned and dropped a length of fallen tree branch into my hands. “We griffins have thirty-six different Martial Schools. You, however need something simple to learn.”
Great, I thought. Everyone’s picking the easiest stuff for me to learn. It’s starting to make me feel like the kid that got held back a grade in school.
“Do not look that way,” the reeve chided me. “Clubs as useful for those with less strength than a mature griffin. While a club cannot bring down any but the clumsiest attacker, it can stun, and it can certainly beat off a talon that is grasping for one’s throat.”
I got up and considered the makeshift club for a moment. Then I brought it down against the stump with a smash. The sound echoed off the peak above. Yes, that would do.
Starting the very next morning, we swapped our morning exercise session for sparring. Holly was obviously an experienced instructor, but she adapted as I learned. A human grip was a lot different than a griffin’s. Battle stances worked quite differently for bipeds than quadrupeds.
No matter the differences, she managed to drill me in a series of easily understandable moves. I ended up using the club more like a short staff, learning how to block and parry blows as well as deliver them. We lined up a series of bamboo targets for me to smash.
By the end of the week, I’d lost some of my inhibitions. I started letting the targets have it with a will. By the end of the month, my palms were hardening and my arms no longer stung when I hit things.
Perrin wasn’t idle during this time, either. If the owlet thought of me as his weird-looking monster friend, then Holly had become his big sister. When I slaved over my textbooks, she honed his flying skills.
One day, I put my work aside and came out to the front porch to watch Holly coach the little owl through an aerial obstacle course.
“Faster!” she urged, as he dived through a series of hoops made from dried vines that she’d hung from the nearby tree branches. “Make use of those flight feathers! Are we a hatchling or fledgling?”
“I’m no hatchling!” he proclaimed, as his wings thrashed the air.
Perrin did a barrel roll as he wove through a second set of branches and then made a high-arching loop. As a grand finale, he swooped down, talons extended, and nabbed a cloth mouse puppet I’d put together from scraps of terrycloth.
Hollyhock let out a griffin caw of approval as the owlet took off, target in his claws. I applauded as Perrin flitted over to me. He dropped the mouse puppet into my hand as he alighted upon the porch railing, horn feathers aquiver.
“What did you think? Did I do it? Am I a fledgling now?”
“I think you did marvelously!” I enthused, as Holly loped up to join us. “As for your title, I think that’s up to your trainer to decide.”
The reeve raised her head to look sternly down upon her pupil. “You have done well, fledgling. Go and fly like a griffin.”
The owlet let out a ‘hoo!’ and zoomed off once again.
I shook my head, but I had a grin on my face. “I think that you were just what that kid needed.”
Holly’s expression looked wistful. “I think that he was what I needed. In fact, I cannot help but feel something strange.”
“What might that be?”
“That I would have been proud indeed to call Perrin one of my brood,” she said, before looking to me. “I sense that I have you to thank for this.”
“Me? I was called here the same way as you.”
“Mayhap,” she allowed. “It is ha
rd to banish my doubts, Dayna.”
“Well, I know that I’m proud to call you both my friends,” I said, as I placed my hand on Holly’s warm furry shoulder. Her beak crooked in a griffin version of a smile. “That’s one thing you never have to doubt.”
My avian friends slept well that night.
So did I. In fact, I found myself sleeping well every night, until the third year of my living on the island drew close. The night that every creature on the island fell into a disturbing silence.
The night of the Blood Moon.
Chapter Fifty-Five
A Blood Moon was nothing more than the name given to our closest celestial neighbor during a lunar eclipse. I’d seen events like that before, where the moon took on a rust-red tinge for a few hours before brightening again.
This was different.
The normally pearl-white circle rose from the eastern ocean looking like a bruised eyeball. A scarlet haze hung close about the orb, sometimes forming bloody streaks across its face. And I could have sworn it looked larger in the heavens, as if swollen.
“It is of no consequence,” Destry said dismissively, over the next morning’s breakfast. “There has been some volcanic activity on Vanua Levu, in the Fijian archipelago. Doubtless this is the case of the strangeness.”
We all did our best to ignore the reappearance of the Blood Moon the next night. And the next. Yet it was to no avail.
My worry played tricks on my mind. Sometimes I would be studying, when a whiff of something sulfurous, like brimstone, would tickle my nostril. I would race to the window, convinced I’d see something on fire, or a tongue of lava approaching the château.
I never saw anything out of the ordinary.
On the third night, the moon rose above the horizon like a reddish scab crusted over the darkness. Hollyhock flew me up to a high, flat point just below the island peak to watch it. Perrin was already there. He let out worried ‘hoos!’ as the Blood Moon rose ever higher.
Holly paced back and forth like a restless cat. When she finally folded her wings and sat, her tail continued to thrash. I finally had to speak.
Dragon with a Deadly Weapon Page 27