by Eric Vall
“You can have that one,” he told the half-elf. “My father’s guards don’t need swords anyways.”
Aurora grinned and happily snatched the new weapon from the bloody floor.
“What does your father want?” I asked.
“Just Shoshanne,” Dragir said.
All of us turned in confusion, and Shoshanne looked up from where she was cleaning her syringe by the stone table.
“Me?” she asked. “Why?”
“No way,” I shook my head, “I’m not sending any of my women off to an elven house alone.” I glanced at Dragir. “No offense.”
“My father hates you,” he said frankly, “I would not send her alone either.”
“I’ll go with you,” Deya decided. “My father probably needs assistance with his Naticea treatment. He mentioned he was concerned about his dosage.”
I reluctantly allowed the two women to head off to House Quyn, and Dragir assured us his father would be on his best behavior with Deya present.
So, the rest of us followed Dragir while he strolled back to the vaulted chamber of the fortress, and then down another hall that led to the same room the two of us had used to work on the bazookas. This time, there were various metalsmithing tools arranged on the shelves carved into the walls, and the three iron tables had several sketches of weapons scattered across them.
Dragir swiped the drawings into stacks and stored them on the shelves, and then he pulled a few iron rods from the shelves. One of them was clearly a branding rod, because I could see the casting of a rune mounted to one end. It was formed with carefully twisted iron, and the lines were incredibly intricate as they looped all around each other. Judging by theses curving formations, I knew the rune relied on a tricky balance between several elements that needed to work together, and I gestured to the design when Dragir dropped the rod on the iron table in front of me.
“Accelerated healing?” I guessed.
“How’d you know that?” Haragh asked, and he stooped to get a closer look at the rod.
“The curved lines are drawn last to bring cohesion to the degrees markers,” I explained. “See all these straight lines? They’re probably various systems of the body, and since they all have to heal at the same rate, I figured more cohesion lines made sense to bring it all together.”
Haragh looked at me like I’d spoken in gibberish, but Dragir chuckled from where he was gathering materials from the shelf.
“You pay attention,” the elf acknowledged. “That is the rune for accelerated healing. I made it ahead of time in case I died. It seemed fair.”
“Yeah, but I never would have known it was in here,” I pointed out.
“Deya knew,” Dragir assured me, and he returned to the table to lay two more branding irons down. There were no runes mounted on these ones, though, and I was about to point this out when Dragir pulled a slip of parchment out of his pocket.
It was the same one he’d shown me when he first presented his bargain to have his own rune removed, and the two runes for acute hearing and sharp sight were sketched at the top.
“I didn’t have time to create these,” Dragir explained, “so you will do it now.”
A grin spread across my face.
“Are you serious?” I asked. “I’m making my own runes?”
“Yes, I do not think it would be wise for me to do it just now,” Dragir said. “I see a lot of lines trailing behind things. My arms have tails.”
The elf waved lazily in front of himself, and I saw his serpentine eyes following some invisible thing just behind his elbow.
I raised my brows and exchanged a glance with Haragh.
“Yeah, that doesn’t sound like a good idea,” I agreed.
Cayla casually posted herself close beside me and I could tell she was getting uneasy about the idea of the branding. She generally had rock solid nerves, but she always clamped her teeth tightly together whenever she was worried.
When I peeked over my shoulder, the muscles in her jaw were twitching lightly.
“You doing alright?” I asked Cayla, and the princess forced an unaffected smile.
“Of course,” she lied.
I nodded slowly, and a light blush bloomed on Cayla’s pale cheeks as she swiftly looked away.
“Here is iron,” Dragir said, and a lump of metal clanged to the table in front of me. “The metal of your branding stick must be the same as the rune you form and attach to the end. This is so the etching at the base of the handle works properly.”
I turned one of the branding rods around, and the same etching I’d seen on Dragir’s engraving tool was there on the handle as well.
“Is this the rune that lets you access the elements?” I asked.
“It is,” Dragir said as he sat down on one of the stone stools beside the table. “With engraving, you are harnessing elements while you draw with the tool. If you are branding, you must harness them as the iron connects to the rod. Which means, nothing will be summoned until the metal is formed exactly as it should be. Do it wrong, and you’ve only stuck a piece of metal to the end of a stick.”
“How do I know where to put the iron, then?”
“This.” Dragir had a piece of parchment in his hand, and when he laid it out on the table, I saw that he’d drawn out the full runic degree mapping with every known elemental line labeled.
“Holy shit,” I muttered as I read through the several elements. “This is every one of them. They’re just … right here.”
“The ones I know,” Dragir corrected. “Which is why this parchment is being burned as soon as we are done. You said you can imprint images into your mind, yes?”
I grinned. “Hell yeah I can.”
“Good,” the elf said. “Take as much time as you need to memorize this. Do not get even one detail wrong or you will risk your life every time you attempt to form a rune. This is very important. Every degree line must be completely precise.”
I nodded diligently and took the parchment, and then I laid it out perfectly straight in front of me to study it closely for a long moment while the others waited. Excitement welled up in me as I read through the hundreds of elements it was possible to harness with runic magic, and I couldn’t decide if the systems of the body or the various toxic elements were more intriguing. I never dreamed something like hydrogen cyanide could be harnessed with a single line, but the fact that it was only one degree off from plain water was pretty unsettling.
So, I committed another minute to making absolutely sure the spacing of the degrees in my mind were correct before I sat back and nodded.
“I think I’ve got it.”
“You think?” Dragir asked as he furrowed his brow. “No. You work on this for five more minutes, then you will know.”
I smirked and did as he instructed, and when I’d finally finished, Dragir was explaining to the others their presence in the room could easily disrupt the elements and make my work very difficult.
“Not during the branding, that is fine for you,” he explained, “but while the runes are being formed, even your breathing can interrupt the connection to the elements.”
Cayla nodded curtly and pushed herself from the table she was leaning on beside me, but she bent over my shoulder to leave a kiss on my neck before she left.
“Tell us when it’s time for the branding,” she murmured. “I hate the idea of you having your skin scalded like this. We’ll be with you.”
I assured Cayla and Aurora I’d let them know, and then I split a small piece of iron off to begin with.
Dragir looked at Haragh, though, and the half-ogre hadn’t moved an inch since his speech.
“You are very big,” Dragir informed Haragh, and he dragged his hazy eyes up his giant form. “Just … huge.”
“Aye.” Haragh nodded. “Pretty fucking strong, too. You gonna try and make me leave as well?”
Dragir sighed and looked at me rather than argue with the man.
“I am very tired,” he informed me. “Begin your work
. If this one is disrupting things, it is your problem. Not my ogre, not my rune.”
“Damn,” I said with a smirk. “I’m proud of you. You could’ve threatened him or pulled out a sword … you’re pretty chill without that rune.”
“He still disgusts me,” Dragir said bluntly, “but I don’t feel like killing him, so I don’t care very much about it. It’s nice.”
“You’re gonna be much happier,” I decided as I considered the elf. “Really, this no rune thing is working for you.”
“The drugs are working pretty well, too,” he assured me. “Now, you will have to listen closely to my instructions, so the lines are not too thick or too thin, but pay attention to the elements as they are summoned. You must become fully aware of their presence. I do not know how your magery works, but I am curious to see if you can harness the elements and infuse them into the metal while you form it. If not, I have the tools you will need.”
“Sounds good to me,” I replied.
Then the elf gestured to the iron rod and lazily propped his elbows on the table to rest his head in his hands.
“Begin.”
I took a deep breath and pulled the iron rod over, and then I melted a piece of iron into a thin sprig before I melded it to the tip of the rod. Next, I studied the sketch of the rune Dragir had drawn for adjusting my hearing abilities, and once I had it memorized, I closed my eyes.
The image of the degree mapping blazed in perfect detail in my mind, and as I aligned the two images on top of one another, I could tell which line was meant to harness which element.
I focused on the eighty-seventh degree, which was labeled “Ossicles” on Dragir’s map, and as I summoned my metal magic, I reformed the line I’d fused to the rod until it corresponded to the proper degree.
Nothing happened, though, and I glanced at Dragir.
“Concentrate,” the elf instructed. “A piece of metal is just metal, but you know what you are connecting to by placing it just so. Keep your focus on that while you work. You must strive to hold your intentions at the forefront of your mind. Rune magic is nothing without intention. Recognize the weight of what you are doing, and the element will make itself known. Then become familiar with its presence and work to infuse the power of it into the metal. Not the entire rod though, be specific. Keep it contained to that one slip of iron.”
“Yeah, but I’m already focusing on my metal magic, the mapping, and the sketch,” I pointed out. “How am I supposed to do all that while I’m only focusing on the element?”
“Focus better,” Dragir said with a shrug.
“Great teacher,” Haragh snorted from behind us.
I sighed and turned back to the rod, and as I closed my eyes and zeroed in on the images in my mind, I sparked my magic again. Once I double checked the placement of the slip of iron against the mapping, I let go of the images completely and concentrated all of my attention on the strip of metal instead.
I imagined the inner makeup of my ear since I knew the ossicles were the bones responsible for transmitting sound waves into the inner ear, and as I seeped into the slip of metal, I felt a distinct pull on my consciousness. It was as if the metal pointed me directly to a spot just beyond my auditory canal, and as I held on to this awareness, the air slowly began to feel heavier around me.
I leaned into the sensation, and the presence of the line I’d harnessed was undeniable now. It spiraled around me while a soft murmuring filled the chamber, and I took a moment to become familiar with the tone and cadence of the words. Even though they were in Elvish, I began to recognize a pattern in the phrasing that reminded me of mantras I’d heard monks chanting back on Earth.
The mantra cycled around my brain and grew louder while the air became dense with it, and with my metal magic sparked, I could tell the iron rod was connecting with the element in the air. The metal drew it in like a magnet, and when it seemed like the slender sprig of iron couldn’t absorb any more, I finally opened my eyes again.
“I think it’s done.”
Dragir grinned. “I believe this is going to work.”
I grinned back, and then I eagerly split off another small slip of iron.
The rune that would enhance my hearing had only three degree markings in it, and another three lines of cohesion looped across them. These cohesion lines were the most difficult to form because the other three elements were muttering over one another all around me. I couldn’t seem to focus enough to find a balancing point with them warring against each other, and I wavered with the next slip of iron in my hand.
Dragir gave careful instructions while I attempted to lay even one of the cohesion lines he’d sketched, but since the sketch was only a guess as to the right balances, I ended up having to wing it in the moment. After nearly twenty minutes of struggling with a single line, I heard a light pinging in my ear, and I abruptly paused my reforming of the iron.
The pinging had caused one element to quiet down just the slightest bit, and with it more subdued, there seemed to be a hole left somewhere in the design. I used my magic to connect one iron line to the spot where the ping had first occurred, and then I wove it into an S shape until I found the hole I’d sensed. The moment I fused this end in place, a tingling sifted across my skin, and balance was clearly restored.
I followed the same procedure two more times, and in less than twenty minutes, I managed to find the proper lines of cohesion to finish off the rune.
I was sweating by the time I was done, and I nervously held the iron rod out for Dragir to study.
The elf nodded to himself as he looked over it, and then he pointed to one of the degree markers.
“The longitudinal distance marker might need to be thicker,” he decided. “Only slightly.”
I added the smallest bit of iron to the slip of metal to make it denser, and then I did the same to the latitudinal distance line after Dragir decided this could use some tweaking as well.
“That should do.” The elf grinned. “Next rune.”
I had a dull headache behind my temples, and a strange sort of fatigue I hadn’t felt before ached in my limbs. Harnessing elements and trying to wrangle them into place was surprisingly exhausting, and it reminded me a lot of when I’d first started testing out my mage magic. Except this exhaustion wasn’t in every fiber of my being like it had been when I overused my Terra and Metal magic. It was more like my brain was picked apart into fragments, and my arms were tired from trying to piece them back together.
Still, it was pretty awesome toying with a new form of magic again, and I was just as eager to push through the final rune as I’d been as a newbie mage.
For the next rune, I didn’t struggle to harness any of the elements required to enhance my vision, and finding the lines of cohesion was a lot like checking the Mustang for any hindrance in functionality.
I realized it was easier to feel where the elements were out of balance if I focused on their effect on the metal itself rather than how the air felt, and this made it practically easy. With the iron sending all of the information I needed through my veins, the cohesion lines were in place in less than ten minutes.
After a little tweaking to the thickness of the elemental lines, Dragir nodded his approval, and I rubbed at the throbbing in my temples.
“Again,” Dragir said, “it is incredibly frustrating to watch you work, but it is impressive. To form a single branding rod can take an elf all day, if not longer. It is lucky you were not born an elf thousands of years ago. The great wars would have been even worse with a man like you around.”
“Who’s to say I wasn’t around?” I chuckled as I thought of Nemris. For all I knew, I’d been in this realm in some other lifetime and couldn’t even remember it.
Dragir furrowed his brow at me in confusion, and I quickly waved the conversation off.
“Nevermind,” I muttered. “It was a joke.”
The elf accepted this without question.
“It really is a shame Deya ate that crazy mage,” he mused.
“You said she had a rune to summon metal?”
“I don’t know if she could influence metal like I can,” I admitted, “but she definitely summoned it to her hand. Why?”
Dragir sighed. “It would have been nice to get a closer look at those runes.”
“You want some metal magic for yourself?” I asked with a grin.
“Yes,” he said and gave a decisive nod. “I do not think I will be happy until I figure out how to do it.”
I chuckled as the elf gathered the three branding rods from the table, and he swayed much less than he had done all day when he stood up. He still had the same hazy expression on his face, but it was a nice break from his usual tense scowl.
Haragh hadn’t moved a muscle since we’d started on the runes, and I was surprised his size and presence hadn’t disrupted anything. Part of me wondered if he’d just been that determined to prove to Dragir he wasn’t a nuisance. Now that we were finally done, the half-ogre cracked several stiff joints and sighed heavily before he motioned for the door.
“S’pose it’s time, then?” Haragh grunted.
I nodded my agreement and clapped a hand on the half-ogre’s shoulder as I passed, and the three of us headed out to the cove to let my women know we’d finished forming the runes.
Shoshanne and Deya hadn’t returned from House Quyn yet, but we could see Cayla and Aurora dangling their legs off the far end of the jetty.
They were laughing over something that made Cayla give the half-elf a playful nudge, and Dragir shook his head beside me.
“It will be interesting for you when you are able to hear the way these women carry on when you are not with them.”
I cocked a brow. “What do they talk about?”
The elf sent me a pointed look.
“I think the meaning would be misconstrued coming from me,” he assured me. “I will meet you inside.”
I let out a sharp whistle, and when the women looked over their shoulders, I beckoned them over to me.
Aurora trotted down the jetty to hop up and throw her arms around my neck, and she still had her tongue rolling against mine when Cayla sauntered over.
The princess left a light kiss on my cheek without interrupting us, but then Haragh cleared his throat loudly.
