The other thing that terrible memory revealed was his and his mother’s use of magic, years before. Along with woodworking, she also knew how to cast spells. Magic was in his blood, apparently. Perhaps that was why he was so good at it? He washed his face as he thought about that.
After another tight hug and more reassurances for Anaya, he got dressed, pulling on pants and a short-sleeved tunic. He then put away his riding gear, placing the riding shirt in the laundry bin and the cap in the wardrobe. There was some blood on the gloves and jacket, so he left them out to clean later. Right now he wanted to write down the spells he remembered from last night.
He opened the door and walked to his desk in his study. Anaya stuck her head in from the door to her den and lay down, watching him. Aeron smiled at her, sent a mental hug to her, and sat down. He grabbed a pencil and a few small sheets of paper and started writing. He transcribed Gone Like a Ghost, the two spells that the nahual-ton cast, and finally, the portal spell. He was absolutely certain Master Doronal would want to see them all.
He was just finishing off the last spell when he heard voices without. He stood and grabbed the sheets of paper just as Willem, Master Doronal and Millinith walked in.
“Aeron!” Master Doronal said, relief evident on his face. “It’s good to see you awake and looking much less gray.”
“It’s good to be able to stay on my legs again,” Aeron said, wryly.
“You took a very dangerous risk, Aeron.” Millinith’s eyes flashed as she looked him over. She was actually angry at him!
“I know, but I really didn’t have time to do anything else. The nahual-ton might have injured more or even killed some, if I had delayed.”
“Still, it was very dangerous.” She wasn’t mollified one bit by his reasons.
“And how is Jessip?” Aeron asked Master Doronal as they removed their coats and gloves and hung them on the wall hooks. He hoped there would be good news, but prepared himself for the worst.
“He’s resting. It was a very close call. Master Inndrus told me that if you had arrived even five minutes later, the outcome could have been very different. Jessip will need a few days to recover from the blood loss and to let the wounds mend, but he will be fine.”
Aeron breathed a large sigh of relief. “Good.” His stomach rumbled.
Willem chuckled. “I stopped by the dorms before I went to get Master Doronal to let Sharrah know you were up,” he said to Aeron. “She said she would stop by the Dinning Hall and get you something to eat on her way here.” Then, to Master Doronal, he quickly explained, “Sharrah would have killed me if I hadn’t told her Aeron was awake.”
“Of course,” the magic master said, waving away Willem’s concern. “Don’t worry on that account.”
“That will be great,” Aeron said, “I’m very hungry.”
“I can imagine,” Master Doronal remarked. “You’ve been abed quite some time. You missed breakfast and lunch.”
“I’m sorry I slept so late,” Aeron said. “If someone had just set the chronometer . . .”
“No, lad, you needed the rest. You were exhausted.” Master Doronal smiled gently. “If you feel you can, I’d like to hear what happened last night at the Farm and at the infirmary.”
Aeron was happy to explain. They moved to the investigation office, where there was more seating, and sat around the large table. Aeron thought about the best way to cover everything that had happened. After a moment, he began recounting the events as best he remembered them, starting with the odd light his friends had seen from the strange bands above his and Anaya’s wrists.
Everyone listened intently, Master Doronal and Millinith interrupting every now and then with questions and wanting clarifications of various points.
“So you and Anaya both sensed the nahual?” Master Doronal asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“And what did this sense feel like?”
“It’s hard to say.” Aeron twisted his mouth and squinted an eye as he thought back. “Do you know how you can tell where your arms are, your hands, the parts of your body? You can just tell where they are?”
Everyone nodded.
“That’s close to how it feels. Except, different.” Aeron sighed in frustration. “Sorry, sir, but that’s the best I can describe it.”
He explained how he suspected that this sense wasn’t new. Instead, he was certain it was a result of the Bond, which had also linked him to Anaya. The ability just hadn’t manifested until last night.
“What I think,” Aeron said as he worked it out in his mind, “is that this sense has a limited reach. A live nahual had simply never been within range of us before. Last night was the first time one was close enough, and alive, to trigger our sense.”
“That’s entirely possible,” Master Doronal said, glancing at the marks on Aeron’s wrists. “And a blessing, I suppose. If you were able to sense every nahual and nahual-ton on the planet, it might drive you mad.”
“So,” Millinith began, “after you and Anaya sensed the nahual-ton, you two just left for the Farm?”
Aeron nodded, choosing to ignore the implicit rebuke. “Well, we weren’t sure it was the Farm we were going to. We flew east, following the sense we had of the creature. But it eventually did lead us to Baronel Farm.”
He explained their search of the Farm, how focusing on the sense made the creature’s location clearer, and their eventual discovery of the tracks, which then lead them to Jessip and the nahual-ton.
“Like blown glass?” Master Doronal interrupted, brows raised.
“Similar, sir, but much more detailed. And it didn’t reflect light. It wasn’t shiny. It looked very odd. And apparently they are not visible to others.”
“Just as Trader Dellia said,” Willem murmured.
“It used at least two spells while it was attacking. I wrote them down, here.” Aeron handed a sheet of paper to the magic master, who pored over the spells. Millinith leaned over to study them.
“I was able to see those two spells during its attack on me, for some reason. Like we were wearing training bracelets.”
“A spell anchored in any way to you will be visible to you,” Master Doronal said distractedly as he continued to scan the spells.
“Ah,” Aeron said, “I see. Well, one spell, the first one there, drains animus, and the other calms and subdues the victim. A person can fight against the calming spell, but it is very difficult. The creature also removed a spell that I had cast on it, so I assume all nahual can.”
Master Doronal looked at Aeron sharply. “They know how to counter spells?”
“Counter? Yes, I guess that is what you could call it. I tried to use Safisha’s Flame on the thing, and it was able to remove the spell mere seconds after it began to burn. That’s when it attacked Jessip.”
“This is disturbing news,” Millinith said. “If they can counter spells, it will make it that much harder to fight them.”
Just then Sharrah arrived with food and drink for Aeron. “Oh, you’re all down there,” she said, as she headed down the walkway. “I got here as quick as I could.”
“Thank you!” Aeron said enthusiastically after she placed the food on the table. He grabbed one of the sandwiches she had brought, apologized to Master Doronal for the interruption, and dug in.
“Not at all,” the magic master said. “We can wait while you eat. You need to replenish your reserves after last night.”
When he finished the sandwich, Aeron grabbed the second one and resumed where he had left off. “After it attacked Jessip, it came after me. It used those spells, the draining spell and the submission spell.” He took a bite and, around a mouthful of the roast beef sandwich, said, “It is quite frightening how effective that calming spell is in getting you to want to just give up and lie there while the nahual drains you.”
“Can you explain,” Master Doronal asked, “exactly how it made you feel?”
Aeron thought back. “It puts a glamour on your mind, makes you think everyt
hing is fine. I just wanted to lie down. I felt very happy, very content. I even remember hearing myself moaning from the pain of the draining and not caring. It was as if that was someone else. I just lay down and enjoyed the peacefulness I was feeling. It was very serene, very restful. I felt no discomfort at all, except for some kind of . . . coiled up tangle in my mind I had never noticed before.”
“A tangle?” Willem glanced at Sharrah before looking back at Aeron. “What do you mean?”
He swallowed the last of the sandwich, shoved the empty plate aside, and replied, “Well, I remember thinking how I had not a care in the world. I didn’t have to think about anything. I felt completely relaxed, except for this one area in my mind. It felt tight, bound up, blocked. It wasn’t right. So I twisted it, and it broke free. And I remembered.”
“What did you remember?” Master Doronal asked.
“My mother.” Aeron looked down at the sheets of paper on the table with the remaining spells and straightened their edges needlessly. “All this time, I thought she had died of a heart attack. That’s what my father had told me. But I remembered.” He looked up at Willem, then turned to Master Doronal. “She died not seven feet in front of me. A nahual killed her.”
“What?” Sharrah exclaimed, shocked.
Willem was aghast, eyes wide.
“How?” Millinith asked.
“She must have felt the same pain from the draining, the same induced peacefulness that I did. She must have known it was not right. And she fought it and saved me.”
The eyes of everyone around the table were upon him, waiting for him to continue. He took a breath and went on. “There was a game we used to play, she called it ‘Gone Like a Ghost.’ One of us would wrap ourselves in a hiding spell, and the other would try to find them. We played it all the time.” He glanced at Master Doronal and handed him the sheet with the spell. “After the terrible memory of the nahual was freed, everything else came with it. I remember that I never thought there was anything unusual in us playing games like that one, in casting spells. And after what happened, I guess she had her reasons for teaching me.”
Aeron looked at the table in front of him, at the remaining slip of paper under his hands. “She made me play the game that night. Made me hide in a wooden trunk and play it as she lay on the floor, fighting off the effects of both spells. She had me promise not to look out the keyhole. But there was the merest crack on the side of the trunk near the bottom, where two of the wood planks didn’t quite meet flush. I could see through it as I lay there weaving the spell, breathing as quietly as I could, playing the game.”
A pained expression on his face, Aeron continued. “When I finished the spell, I saw her smile and lay her head down on the floor. A minute later the nahual crept into the room from the hallway. I saw it come in. I wanted to yell at her to look out, to run. But I had promised to play the game better than I ever had and to not make a sound. So I just lay there quietly, breathing slowly, watching, hoping she would get up and run, screaming at her in my mind to run away. But she never did.
“It killed her. And . . . something happened to me. Though my eyes were open, I couldn’t see anymore. I couldn’t hear. I couldn’t think. I guess I blacked out. My father found me some time later.” Aeron stared at his glass of juice.
“Oh, Aeron. I’m so sorry.” Willem’s eyes were dark with sorrow.
“You have my deepest sympathies, Aeron,” Master Doronal said.
Aeron nodded. He shook his head, throwing off the bitter memory for now. “I was trapped there, in the memory, until Anaya talked me out of it, pulled me from it, and told me to fight the nahual-ton’s spells. I recalled how it had, ah, countered the flame spell, and I reviewed its steps. I used the same kinds of actions to counter the numbing spell. It must have realized what I had done, because it then charged at me, leaping into the air. I used Xing’s Levitation on it, hoping that the effect of being hung in the air spinning would distract it long enough to get the guards to come kill it. And it worked. The nahual-ton was so focused on trying to stop flipping head over heels that it wasn’t paying attention to anything else. I countered the draining spell and was about to try to get the guards to help, though they didn’t seem to be able to see the beast. That’s when Anaya killed it. With fire.”
Millinith raised her brows. “Fire?”
“She breathed out fire on it, burning it to a crisp. The guards could see the nahual-ton then.”
“She breathed fire? How so?” Master Doronal was sitting up in his chair, intensely interested.
“I’m not sure. I felt a very fast cast of a spell very much like Safisha’s Flame, which winked out almost as soon as it was finished, and then she was spewing out fire.”
“Do you think she would show us this ability?”
“I think so, sir. Let me ask her.”
Would you mind showing Master Doronal how you breathe fire?
Not at all. It is fun. I did not even know I could do it until I did!
“She says she will.” Aeron stood and lead the way back to his study, and everyone donned their coats.
Willem helped him open the large doors, and Anaya followed them all outside where they stood around her in a rough half circle. Her gaze passed over everyone, resting briefly on Aeron, before she faced away from them. Aeron felt the brief pulse of the spell and flame erupted from her mouth. She focused the flame, as she had last night, and about a minute later, the flame died out.
“That is astonishing!” Master Doronal was staring at Anaya.
I cannot make more flame. I guess I need time to recover?
“She says that she cannot make more flame right now. Maybe she needs time to recover?”
“The flame probably uses some sort of natural oil or other fuel that her body produces,” Sharrah remarked.
“Yes,” Master Doronal said, nodding thoughtfully. “And as such, it is finite and must be regenerated over time. Still, it is a remarkable ability.”
“Just when I thought dragons couldn’t be any more golden,” Willem murmured, awed.
“There was . . . something else.” Aeron glanced at the faces around him. “After we killed the nahual-ton, we found out that Jessip’s wound was serious. He needed surgery, and soon. The Farm’s surgeon was here at the Caer, so I had to think fast. I had the healer bind up Jessip’s wound as tight as he could and we loaded him on Anaya to fly back to the Caer, to the infirmary. A minute or two into the flight, the bandages came loose. He was unconscious and kept slumping around as we flew, and I guess that eventually worked them loose. Whatever the case, Jessip started bleeding badly again. That’s where all the blood on my pants came from. I knew that we wouldn’t make it back in time with him bleeding like he was, and I panicked. I wondered how I could reduce the distance between us and the Caer, make us get back home faster, get back in time to save his life.” He handed Master Doronal the sheet with the portal spell. “Somehow, in my desperation, I came up with that.”
Master Doronal looked over the spell, as did Millinith. “A little unorthodox to place the anchors before weaving the framework,” he said, “but okay. And what are these symbols? You use them on a few steps.”
Aeron looked at the sheet, which the magic master had turned to him. “Oh. Yes. Anaya helped with the spell, added a couple of steps and a . . . transformation. I used the same transformation in a few other places. When I wrote the spell down, I didn’t know how else to indicate that transformation. Well, at least I think it’s a transformation, but how it works is not like the ones I’ve learned so far.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I could show you with the training bracelets, but basically, it changes the focus indicated by making it . . . stronger, I guess. The spell felt unbalanced, you see, and I was trying to figure out a way to fix that when Anaya made her changes.”
“Unbalanced? And these transformations helped with that?” Millinith was staring intently at him.
Aeron wasn’t sure what to make of the
look she was giving him, but he nodded. “Yes. Because of the way I see magic, it looks like the transformation makes the focus, the color band, vibrate faster, like it is being tightened or something. Each color band has its own vibration, almost like a sound, and this transformation changes the vibration.” Aeron twisted his mouth as he thought about another way to explain the effect. “If you’ve ever learned music, it’s like playing the same note, but at a higher octave? My transformation symbol has a notation as to how many, ah, octaves higher to transform the focus.”
“Impossible,” Millinith murmured, looking back at the paper in Master Doronal’s hands. “Hyper-magic states?”
“What?” the magic master exclaimed, examining the sheet again. After a moment, he said, “You’re right,” and let out a short bark of laughter.
“Hyper . . . magic?” Aeron looked at Master Doronal.
Without taking his eyes off the sheet, the magic master replied, “Some spells can be made incredibly more powerful with one or more special magic support steps. Hyper-magic is one such special support type. It is used to cause its related focus to jump to a higher energy state, a higher magic power state. We call them hyper-magic states. It’s all very technical, so I won’t bore you any more with it, but it is covered in master-level training, where the correct symbol for it is taught. That Anaya knew about hyper-magic states, that you two knew how to apply them, is incredible. But I see what you mean. The spell would be unstable without these adjustments.”
Anaya nuzzled Aeron’s cheek. I do not understand why he is surprised. The change needed was obvious, was it not?
It was dear-heart, Aeron said, leaning into her, it was.
Master Doronal and Millinith continued to read over the spell, mumbling and nodding. “I still don’t understand the spell’s purpose, however. Where is the main magic focus? Ah, here—” His eyes widened and Millinith drew a sharp breath.
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