Dagger of Bone

by R. K. Thorne

  There was uncharacteristic anger in her brow, and he couldn’t say he blamed her. Many believed that magic interfered with the magic of child bearing. Few had really tested it out, though. His mother had carried a blade and borne a child, and she’d been no less powerful while pregnant with him, but her death hadn’t exactly helped matters. Many saw the choice of a blade as a literal choice not to bear children.

  And that was not an option for a clan leader’s wife. He blew out a breath. The world was so damn unfair. And there wasn’t a single thing he could do about it.

  He thought of the book on clan traditions he hoped to study later. Now was that really true? Not a single thing he could do about it?

  She frowned at her lap, then waved it all off in irritation. “I’m stuck with practice blades and ambient magic. Lucky me. Nothing new.” She shrugged again and drew the water charm from her chain and handed it to him. “Don’t go losing that. Apparently Water Float charms are at a premium.”

  “I would never.” He placed it carefully on the table.

  “And since we’re not going anywhere,” Cerivil said, “losing it seems exceedingly unlikely. But I guess you never know.” He gestured at the tests he’d set up before them on the table. “Here we’ve got some simple spell mediums. The Ignite charm can catch safely on these wood shavings, if you can manage it. Water Float can be used to move the liquid to this bowl from a pitcher— Oh, I forgot the pitcher.” He paused as he bustled into the next room and returned with a large pitcher full of water. “And you can shine light into the box. Usually these spells are the easiest to start. And we’re all out of Shape Sand charms.” He gave an apologetic shrug.

  “I’ll be perfectly happy if anything happens at all. It hasn’t before, so…”

  Lara cleared her throat. “Do you want the measuring amulet, Da?”

  “Oh, yes.” Cerivil pointed a thumb at his daughter as she headed for the shelves. “She could really do this by herself, but I need something to amuse me.”

  “And a witness that isn’t me,” Lara muttered.

  Cerivil pursed his lips. “Because you’ve already seen Nyalin’s magic. Now we need to up that group of people to two.” He slanted a glance at Nyalin again. “Not even your brother Grel?”

  Nyalin shook his head. “We’re close, but no. And he’s tried. Believe me.” Should he point out the eyes-glowing act he’d put on in the hall? Did Faytou count? But then he’d sound crazy—and pointing out Andius and his friends had already ganged up on him once didn’t seem like the way to make a good impression.

  Lara returned with a round, clear lens encircled in silver and hanging on a silver chain, which she promptly hung around his neck before sitting down again. The thing hung on his chest against the crossover like it was any other piece of glass and metal.

  “All right, then.” Cerivil propped his hands on his hips and surveyed the table. “Have I forgotten anything else?”

  “I don’t think so, Da.”

  “Then let us begin.”

  Nyalin cleared his throat. “Um, pardon me, Clan Leader, but what are we beginning again?”

  “Oh! Yes, of course. Well, the first thing is to see if your magic might still be asleep. About half of mages have dormant magic that needs to be awakened with a gentle prodding.”

  “Uh, prodding?” He shifted in his seat. That didn’t sound… comfortable.

  “Yes, it’s quite mild. Now this is very unlikely for you because I’m certain any reasonable Obsidian would have tried this, including your brother Grel, so unless they’ve all been lying to you—”

  “Which is entirely possible,” Lara muttered.

  “Lara! Don’t say such things. Anyway, chances are good that this is not the issue. Although it’d be delightfully simple if it was!”

  “I’m trying not to get my hopes up,” Nyalin said, although what he really wanted was for Cerivil not to get his hopes up.

  “Right. Good. Okay. Let us begin. I’ll start by gradually feeding energy to you and—”

  “Da, do you want me to do it?” Lara asked.

  “Oh?”

  “Well, I know it can take some time, and what else am I going to do? Just watch?”

  “Hmm. Let’s take turns.” Cerivil smiled in Nyalin’s direction, no doubt attempting to be reassuring.

  What exactly did he need reassuring for? Nyalin shifted in his uncomfortable seat again. Here went nothing.

  “I’ll start,” Cerivil said as he slid into a seat across from Nyalin. “This will take time. How about you go get us some tea?”

  Lara stared at him for a beat. She wasn’t too happy about that request, was she? Nevertheless, she rose and left. He tried not to stare after her. He couldn’t exactly blame her; in Elix’s house, there had been servants to do menial chores, although Nyalin wasn’t so sure that was preferable. He supposed it was any clan member’s duty to do the bidding of the clan leader.

  Still, he missed her.

  “All right, lean back, close your eyes, whatever you like. We’ll be lucky if we see any progress before dinner.”

  Nyalin leaned back and raised his eyebrows. “And if we don’t see any progress?” He could already see Cerivil frowning with concentration, so the clan leader must have started something, but he felt no different yet.

  “We’ll try for a few days. It’s hard, unglamorous work.” The man paused, frowning, then looked up and grinned. “But rewarding if you get a new mage out of it.”

  “And if you don’t?”

  Cerivil waved him off. “That’s not the attitude to have. We’re going to figure this out. You’ll see! Lara saw something, so there must be something. We just have to find it.”

  Nyalin was a little afraid those words were more the clan leader reassuring himself than Nyalin. But he shrugged and shut his eyes.

  Silence settled around them but for the wind stirring a wind chime, ruffling the wood shavings. He started to doze off, then inched up in the chair a bit. Amazing he could fall asleep on such a hard, unyielding piece of furniture.

  The door opened and shut. Something soft, possibly wooden sat down on the table not far away. Cerivil murmured something unintelligible.

  “Anything?” Lara’s whisper.

  “Not yet.” Cerivil’s voice sounded strained.

  “Let me try.”

  “It’s only been a few minutes. Have some tea.”

  Of course, he hadn’t really asked them what he should expect, what ought to be happening. Would he suddenly be so filled with magic that he’d bolt upright, shout “By Dala’s light!” and set fire to everything in the room?

  He hoped not.

  Behind his closed eyelids, any noise seemed loud, distinct, the room’s silence punctured by giant’s footsteps, one by one as loud as gongs. Time seemed to slip and stretch and almost stand still. In spite of the breeze, the heat was enough to coat his entire body with sweat. Or was he exerting some kind of effort he didn’t know about?

  A few minutes or a few hours later, he was entirely unsure, Cerivil sighed. “Your turn.”

  Nyalin opened his eyes. “Anything?”

  Cerivil waved him off. “A little. Nothing significant yet. Let’s see if Lara fares better.”

  Nyalin glanced at her. She was already looking at him, and their gazes locked for a beat, another. Too long.

  “Uh, you can shut your eyes again,” muttered Cerivil.

  Nyalin complied and leaned back in the chair.

  Except this time, he didn’t have the endless, boundless stretching of time or the sea of giant sounds. For a moment or two, there was nothing, and then…

  Like that morning, the weird shifts and flickers of the world returned, even though his eyes were closed. And gradually—there was the grass, the trees.

  Except they were several dozen feet below him.

  He looked back from the expanse of air below him to the place where Lara had been, where he’d last met her gaze. And in the exact same spot waited the wild-haired man.

 
“Welcome back.” The man grinned, bending in a little seated bow. He was sitting, but there was no chair.

  “You again.” That was an entirely inane thing to say, but the insane height and the disoriented nausea weren’t helping him think clearly.

  “Me again, indeed.”

  Nyalin cleared his throat. “We can’t keep meeting this way.”

  The man smirked. “Sure we can.”

  Nyalin shook his head and looked around.

  “You want to know where you are.”

  “I guess.” Or if I’ve gone crazy…

  The man spread his arms wide. “This is the plane of spirits. Or one of them. This is the next world, the soft world, the mirror world of the one you just came from, before the next hard world in the sequence.”

  “You mean the series of worlds and all that—it’s real?”

  “It is.”

  If he could believe a talking hallucination. “Am I dead?”

  The man grinned, and it was more friendly than creepy, thank the goddesses. “No… and yes.”

  “It can’t be both.”

  He laughed now, which was a little creepy. “Can’t it? Are you sure? What is death, really? If only your question were easy to answer. Listen—we haven’t much time, and there’s something more important than philosophizing or naming this place.”

  Nyalin frowned. “And that would be…?”

  “You are in danger.”

  “Of course I am. I’ve been in danger every day of my life.” From Raelt, from Elix and Vanae. From everything.

  The young man smirked, his eyes twinkling. “What about from a demon?”

  Nyalin froze. “Excuse me?”

  “A demon from six worlds lower than yours has crossed onto your plane. The world you just came from.”

  “And you’re trying to say he cares about me?” Nyalin rolled his eyes. “I am never taking any bread from that baker again. Or eggs.”

  Snorting, the spirit said, “What do you think this is, a dream?”

  “Or a hallucination? What else could it be?” Nyalin brushed off his clean crossover again. What a day to discover nervous habits. “Or, I know, I’ve gone mad.”

  His companion grinned. “Not a believer in the series of worlds, eh?”

  “I always thought it was just a way of guilting people into behaving themselves. I certainly didn’t tell the monks that, but you know, if I can’t see it with my own eyes—” He broke off as the world abruptly flickered again, sickly green fading and surging.

  “That’s rich. Really. You’re one of the few who can. Look, the demon is…”

  The voice faded out. Where the young man had been looking at him, Lara’s face reappeared, turned to the side now, brow furrowed and shining with sweat.

  Nyalin groped for the greenish world again before he lost it completely. Was it something he could control?

  Immediately, the world flickered back to the young man. The resemblance to Lara was uncanny—not just the wildness of their hair and manner, but a similarity around the eyes, the smile, especially when he saw them this way.

  “Who are you?” Nyalin said quickly. “How can I find you again? Was that you in the library?” Are you who I think you are? But he couldn’t say that—it was too far into madness.

  “Learn to come here at will, and you’ll find me most of the time. I can only talk to you here. Not from the library.”

  The world wobbled, and Nyalin closed his grip around this strange place as hard as he could for one last moment. “You didn’t answer my question—your name?”

  “My name is Myandrin.”

  With that, his strength ran out, and he was propelled back into the normal world with all the gentleness of a whiplash. He hadn’t moved from the chair, but he felt like he’d tumbled head over heels down the stairs. His head spun. Was it always going to be this disorienting?

  “Nyalin! Nyalin—it happened! Try something!” Lara was standing up beside the chair now. She looked down at him as his head lolled back. “Hey, are you all right? You look a little green.”

  Oh, goddesses, no. He was not throwing up right here, right now. In front of her.

  “Uh—I think I’m fine.” But he leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and put his head in his hands. The amulet swung forward and dangled in the air.

  “Just when my father left, of course, of all times.” She fell back down into the chair.

  He mustered the energy to look over at her. “What? What happened?”

  “Right when he walked out—you did the thing they said your mother did.”

  He frowned. Again? Maybe it wasn’t a hallucination after all.

  “Listen, can you try one of the spells?”

  He shrugged. “Sure, I’ll try.” He wasn’t sure why, but he picked up the water charm, circled it once with his thumb, concentrating as he’d read how to do in many magical manuals. He tried to imagine funneling some imaginary force that’d come from Lara into the charm, then on into the bowl. Then he tried again—

  He stopped when Lara gasped, dropping his charm into the water that poured over the edge of the table and into his lap.

  He backed up automatically, as had she. The forgotten practice blade clattered to the floor, and he hastily picked it back up. The table was glistening like someone had poured fifty pitchers of water into the center and then disappeared. The rugs below were darkening where thin streams hit them, and both his and Lara’s crossovers were half soaked. The bowl was filled to the brim.

  The pitcher he had been supposed to use as a source was also full to the brim, even more so than when Cerivil had left it.

  His eyes widened as strands of Lara’s hair slowly rose into the thin, static-charged air.

  She grinned at the spectacle and then at him. “You did it! Look, you did it! You took it out of the air!”

  He frowned. “The water?”

  “This is great! See? I knew you could do it! I mean, it wasn’t exactly Water Float, which is odd. Almost more like Rain Storm, but—”

  “But isn’t that a second-order spell?”

  “Third actually, but— Da! Look!”

  The door opened and Cerivil strode in, eyes wide. “What have we here?”

  Lara rushed to him. “I saw it, just like you described used to happen to Linali.”

  Her father frowned at her, at Nyalin, then at the floor, looking decidedly less delighted.

  “His eyes, they were glowing! What is it, Da? Why aren’t you happy? It worked.”

  Cerivil let out a sigh. “Well, my dear dragonfly, this is… both good and bad. Clearly there was magic done here. Unfortunately, I didn’t see it. Or smell it. Did you catch a scent?”

  She frowned. “It’s there,” she insisted. “But so faint… That doesn’t make any sense. And mine is also muddying the waters.”

  “I can only smell a whiff of cedar. But I know you wouldn’t lie about this; it’s certainly your efforts at the awakening spell. Also, there’s much more water than there should be with Water Float.” He picked up the dropped water charm, eyed it almost as if the stone were to blame, then handed it dripping back to Lara. “But even worse, his magic clearly does not need to be awakened. If it was asleep, it’s awake now. And yet he still appears the same to me.”

  “The same how?” she asked weakly.

  “Hollow.”

  Nyalin flinched at the word. But it was how he felt—what he feared. Instead of a tree, he was a log. Hollow. Rotting.

  Dead. Myandrin’s words came back to mind. Who was this Myandrin anyway? Why was he helping—or was he even out to help? What had he meant, yes and no? He knew something Nyalin didn’t, that much was certain. But he’d have to ponder that later. Lara and her father were arguing.

  “Well, there’s the measuring amulet. Check that! That should be proof enough for you.”

  “You know I need to witness it.”

  “We can just do it again tomorrow.”

  “Of course. And yes, the amulet, of course.” Cerivil strode
over, and Nyalin bent down so the shorter man could reach around his neck.

  But Cerivil’s reassured features fell as he took the amulet, his mouth falling open. “How… That can’t be.”

  Lara was frowning too.

  “What?” Nyalin said slowly. “Does it say something bad?”

  Cerivil shook his head. “I can’t understand it.”

  Clearly they knew something he didn’t. “What? What is it?” he pushed.

  “It doesn’t say anything at all,” said Lara.

  Cerivil looked from the amulet to Nyalin. “It’s broken. Somehow you broke it. It’s just an ordinary pendant now. The Measure Magic enchantment is just… gone.”

  Lara looked pointedly at her feet. “And there’s water in its place.”

  Cerivil ran a hand over his features. “Well. We said we were up for a challenge, didn’t we, buttercup?”

  She nodded. “We did, Da.”

  “This has been… interesting. I need to think on this. Plot our next steps. Try to understand what might have happened. And also take a nap.” Cerivil grinned. “Let’s meet again at this time tomorrow, after class.”

  Nyalin nodded, realizing now that he was fine standing but walking might be another matter. He hadn’t thrown up—yet—but the effects of whatever had happened to him were not yet entirely gone. “Okay,” he muttered.

  “Nyalin, you look exhausted. You didn’t eat lunch, did you?” Lara said. Her voice said she knew more than that was going on but didn’t care to admit it to her father. He had to admit he was glad of that. It didn’t seem like the best impression to make, to just be weakening yourself to the point of exhaustion all the damn time. She took the practice blade and returned it to its shelf before returning to take his arm, steadying him. “Neither did I. Let’s go.”

  “See you both tomorrow.” Cerivil wandered out, staring at the amulet in his hand.

  Lara gripped Nyalin’s arm and ignored the little zing that came along with the feeling of his warm skin through the linen of the crossover. Things were weird enough without worrying about that. She guided him back to the chair.

  “I did eat lunch,” he muttered. “With Faytou.”

  “Making friends already?” That was admirable, if a little surprising that anyone had been so welcoming.