by P. D. Kalnay
“If that’s true,” I said. “Can’t you use it to get home?”
“Yes,” Mr. Ryan said softly, “I could cut a hole between the First and Seventh worlds, and step through, right now.”
“Then why haven’t you?” I asked. If I had a way to go straight to Ivy, I’d use it.
“There’s always a price,” Gran said.
Sir Andriel nodded his agreement.
“What sort of price?” I asked.
Mr. Ryan gave me a sad smile, and took a sip of his coffee, before answering.
“The price, of forcing my way home, might be the destruction of one of the five worlds in between… or all of them.”
“Do you know that?” I asked.
“Not for certain,” Mr. Ryan said. “The sword doesn’t have an instruction manual, but I don’t think I’m wrong. Would you take that risk to see Ivy again?”
I knew the right answer to his question was no, but a part of me (if I’m being honest) thought, maybe. I shrugged.
“Jack!” Gran said. She looked torn between shock and anger. “That you’d even consider such a thing is reprehensible.”
“I didn’t say I’d do it,” I said. It made me think though. I wondered if Marielain had given Janik the sword because he knew he himself couldn’t be trusted with it. “How would sending me back through this crack thing work?”
“I don’t know,” Gran said. “I’ve never tried it before. You should understand that travelling through an old gate is a very different experience from the one you had last summer. Much of the journey will depend on you.”
“Have you decided against coming back with me?” Sir Andriel asked.
“The old gate is time dependent, right?” I asked Gran. She nodded. “Will I be able to use it to get to Ivy in time, before the raiders and Sirean arrive?”
“I’d have to send you at mid-summer,” Gran said. “That would be optimal at this end.”
“Which will leave Ivangelain alone on the island for months,” Sir Andriel said, “but she’s a smart girl and skilled in woodcraft. I believe she’ll be able to hide for that time. You’d likely arrive in the midst of the pillaging of the island.”
“I’d still get there sooner than if I went back with you and took a boat, wouldn’t I?” I asked.
“Possibly by a full month,” Sir Andriel said. “You can also hide in Marielain’s workshop. If, you can open the doors. Of course, if you can’t… you’ll be stuck inside it.”
“I’ll figure something out,” I said. Doors were always easier to open from the inside in my experience. “I guess you can go back and tell them I’m not coming—and that the deal is off. That might buy us time.”
“Time for what?” Sir Andriel asked.
“To secure the island, shut the gates, and to convince Sirean not to burn it. That kind of stuff.” I was sure it’d be harder than that, but I attempted to sound confident.
“You will return and gather those who remain of the Order,” Mr. Ryan told Sir Andriel.
“I don’t doubt you,” Sir Andriel said, “but my words will carry more weight if I could see the sword in your hands and can swear to my brothers that you have been found at long last.”
“Easily accomplished,” Mr. Ryan said. “You can come to my rooms after dinner. Jack and Ivy will need help holding the island.”
“How many Knights are there?” I asked. Ivy said the Order had never been very large, even in Janik’s day.
“There are less than one hundred of us. We’re spread thin across the First World,” Sir Andriel said. “It will take many months for most to heed the call. I am the oldest, but few of us could be considered young. I must also send the summons discretely… if you hope to maintain an element of surprise.”
“Do the chapter houses still stand?” Mr. Ryan asked.
“Nine remain in operation,” Sir Andriel said. “With the loss of Knight’s Haven, the Order has largely depended on the charity of old allies.”
“That any remain is reason for optimism,” Mr. Ryan said. He looked to Gran. “What about your allies?”
“I’ll send word.” She gave me an appraising look I didn’t like. “The time of hiding in shadows is coming to an end.”
Looking around at the three adults, I felt certain there was more to the situation than control of an island… however valuable and strategic its location might be.
Chapter 7 – Summer School
Sir Andriel returned to the First World after three days. He’d spent the majority of his time at Gran’s closeted with Mr. Ryan. I had no doubt that Mr. Ryan had spent the time learning what he’d missed over the last fifteen hundred years and giving instruction to his junior knight. The awe that Sir Andriel held Mr. Ryan in was almost comical, given their apparent age differences. That said, the old knight also gave me more respect than I’d managed to earn in my lifetime. Seeing the older men together, I discovered something new about my friend—Mr. Ryan was a natural leader. I’d known he’d been a military officer, a job which (presumably) involved plenty of leadership, but I’d never really seen him interact with anybody other than Gran and Ivy. With Sir Andriel, he displayed a charisma, and a natural command that I hadn’t noticed before. Mr. Ryan made you want to follow him, to trust him, and to make him proud. Sir Andriel seemed younger by the time he left.
I had to wait half a summer before I could go to Ivy. My hands were in rough shape, meaning that making anything else was out of the question. I’d used up the Blood of World Tree, which meant that almost anything I did make would stay behind when I left anyway. With only the limited things I could do, and my hands so painful that everyday tasks were difficult, I found myself with a significant amount of free time. That wasn’t a big deal while school lasted, with high school filling my weekdays, but on the first morning of summer vacation, I realised that I had far too much time for brooding, and for worrying over Ivy.
I needn’t have worried. Gran was all over it. I wasn’t able to do much of the training that I’d previously done with Mr. Ryan, or work in her garden, but my grandmother had given my free time her consideration. She informed me of this at breakfast. I’d gone running with Mr. Ryan, and was just settling into my cereal, when Gran dropped a thick leather-bound book on the table next to me. The book looked old and handmade.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“A book.”
“What kind of book?”
“The first of many that you will read,” Gran said. “If you have questions, I will answer them.”
“Why?” I asked. Not answering my questions had always been one of my grandmother’s things.
“You’ve shown yourself to be too reckless, to put off your education any longer. This would have begun when you moved to the First World permanently. Teaching you about enchantment would normally be pointless here—with the general lack of available magic. However, based on the things you’ve already done, this instruction now seems, if anything, too late. I have a modest collection of translated works here. I expect you to give this the same level of dedication that you’ve given to your other pursuits.”
And then Gran was gone, leaving me with my cereal and her book. If you’re now looking forward to hearing of the book of spells I read, and the magic I next cast… prepare yourself to be disappointed. I know I was. I opened Gran’s book as I shovelled in another mouthful of cereal. The book was beautiful, handwritten, illuminated, and thick. The title was The Book of Cautionary Tales. I flipped through a few pages and found it contained around one third illustrations. Most of those depicted assorted fairy-tale creatures, some of whom I recognised as fae, in various stages of dying horrible deaths. It looked to be a what-not-to-do type of book. Maybe, Magic for Dummies. I don’t have a weak stomach, but the pictures were putting me off my breakfast, so I closed it again, returning to daydreams of Ivy.
***
I went to my room with the book, stretched out on my bed in warm sunshine, and began to read. I flipped to the last five stories, remembering
something Mr. Ryan had said. Those were the ones that dealt with the Blood of the World Tree. I spent the morning reading those five stories—twice. I won’t bore you with all of the gruesome details, but the stories were about people who’d been careless in handling the Blood. Not the condensed, super-powerful version I’d used either. One guy spilled a single drop on his hand, and he grew larger and larger until he exploded. He lasted a full week. Another guy miscalculated the amount of Blood needed for an enchantment. The enchantment (some sort of life-extending spell) called for six drops of the Blood. That guy had gone with seven, on the theory that a little more is always better. The effect was spectacularly rapid ageing, general disintegration into dust, followed by a bit of blowing away on the evening breeze. His assistant had recorded the events, since the enchanter really didn’t have the time to do so. Apparently, even for the long-lived, ageing a year every second adds up. The other three stories were less pleasant: one of them involved an entire town disappearing, another was the stomach turning tale of a woman who was actually turned inside out, and the final story I won’t mention (in case you’re snacking as you read this). To sum up, that I wasn’t dead, from my careless handling of the distilled Blood, was miraculous. Only the fact that I’d been dealing with the stuff in the Seventh World had kept me alive. The people in the book, even the guy who destroyed a whole town, had been working with a fraction of a fraction of what I’d used to clean the pool. Had I any more the reddish metal available, I don’t know if I could’ve brought myself to use it. I expect that’s why Gran gave me the book.
***
I joined Mr. Ryan at lunch in the little dining room. He was already halfway through his food by the time I arrived. I filled a plate with steaming macaroni and cheese, added a little salad along one edge (to be healthy), and joined him at the table.
“How’s the reading going?” he asked.
“All right… a little scary.”
“Well, that book is meant to teach caution, and inspire a healthy dose of fear, in newly minted enchanters.”
“Mission accomplished then, I guess.”
“How far did you get?”
“I started at the end, with the stories about the Blood.”
Mr. Ryan nodded like that’s what he’d expected me to say.
“Went right to the ones that interested you most, eh?”
“I thought of it as starting with those most relevant to my situation,” I said, showing him the palms of my burnt hands. Even holding a fork hurt. “I’ll start at the beginning, when I go back to it.”
“Never my area of expertise, but that book is a useful read for anyone from the First World—even if all they take from it is… be careful what you touch.”
“At this point, I’m pretty happy about not exploding or being turned inside out.”
“Always good to look on the bright side.” Mr. Ryan shovelled in a huge spoonful of macaroni and grinned at me as he chewed it.
“You said that… Marielain Blackhammer made some of the distilled Blood?” Talking about a dead guy, who was supposed to be me, was pretty weird.
Mr. Ryan gave me an affirmative grunt and nodded.
“What did he use it for? Based on the stories I’ve read, even the one with the town disappearing, very little of the regular stuff is required for powerful enchantments. What did he make that needed the distilled Blood?”
Mr. Ryan finished chewing before he answered.
“No idea,” he said. “He never told me. He just showed me a flake of it once, when I went to see him for another reason. It was a tiny flake compared to the amounts you’ve used, but I felt incredible power emanating from it. Then Marielain put it inside a metal box, and I couldn’t sense it anymore. He might have just made it to see if he could. My old friend often made things for no other reason than to see if they were possible. I never understood that… but maybe you do?”
I nodded. I totally understood that.
***
The Book of Cautionary Tales had to wait until after dinner. Historically, I watched movies, or TV, before going to bed, but with Ivy missing, I wasn’t in the mood. I also wanted to figure out how the magical enchanting thing actually worked. The book Gran gave me was more warning than instruction manual, but the stories I read contained snippets of background information regarding casting enchantments on items and people. Stretched out again on my bed, I opened the thick tome and started at the beginning. The illustration on the first page, of the first story, showed a Florathen man who was missing a number of his body parts. That tale outlined the dangerous nature of trying to cast enchantments on one’s self. Apparently, enchanting was a bit like medical treatment—yes a person can diagnose and treat themselves—but it’s generally a bad idea. What I took from that (fairly horrific) tale was that casting enchantments changes a person. Casting them on yourself changes your perspective, making you less able to accurately assess any given situation as the enchanting goes on. Which will likely lead to very unexpected results. The guy in the story had vanished piece after piece of his body. He’d been trying to magically excise a wart.
I stayed up later that night than was normal for me. The book was as fascinating as it was horrific. I learned a lot of other things concerning the First World, and its people that I’m sure the authors hadn’t included as instruction. I made it over halfway through before it occurred to me to check the time on the clock radio. Shutting the book with a sigh, I changed into my pajamas and got right under the covers. It was only a few hours until Mr. Ryan expected me out front, ready to run.
Chapter 8 – High Expectations
I’d learned a fair bit about magic, and the First World, in a backhanded way, from the book Gran gave me. Now, I was ready to get information that I might put to use. My grandmother had made an unprecedented offer to answer my questions. I figured I’d better take her up on it before she changed her mind. I met up with her, in the front hall, between lunch and an afternoon workout with Mr. Ryan. He’d be a few more minutes, so I gave the asking-Gran-questions-thing a go. I just stared at her, unable to make a sound.
“Did you want something, Jack?”
“Yeah, I wanted to ask about how magic and enchanting stuff actually works.”
“Did Ivy explain how enchantments are effected?” Gran asked.
“No. She said enchanting objects wasn’t something she had a talent for.”
“I expect that’s true, but, at their roots, all enchantments are fundamentally the same. All magic requires three components. You should have been able to discern them from the stories in the book.”
Gran waited for my answer. I had considered it, and I’d formed a theory, based on the stories and what I’d seen.
“You need power, right? A source of power to fuel the enchantment. Either internal, using your own strength, or from an external source—or other person.”
From what I’d read, sacrifices were possible, and cooperation wasn’t necessary.
“Correct, power is one of the three corners of the triangle. What else?”
“Focus. You need a plan or formula, to direct the form of the enchantment.”
“Yes, what was the focus of the necklace you crafted for Ivy?”
“The words and symbols that I engraved on it. Maybe the shapes of the pieces themselves… and possibly, their number and combination.”
I hadn’t considered it in such detail. Gran stared at me for a moment before speaking.
“The words, the form, and the number?” she asked softly.
“Yeah, I never thought about it, but the design elements sort of… accentuated each other. It felt right. None of the stories in the book had anything like that.”
“No, the book tells of people who made careless errors. Enchanters with the skill to interweave three levels of focus are rare, and they don’t make those kinds of mistakes. What is the last corner of the triangle?”
“Talent?” I wasn’t sure about that one, but I guessed it was either talent or desire.
&nb
sp; “Yes, talent combined with the will to complete the enchantment. Both are part of the same whole, and both are necessary.”
“So the distilled Blood of the World Tree provided the power, my design and words created the focus, and my talent, and or desire, made it work?”
“I’d say that’s an accurate description. The Blood is versatile. It bends to the will of anyone talented—and determined—enough to use it. You were able to handle a massive amount because of its diminished vitality in the Seventh World.”
“What about the pool cleaning? And the first metal that I changed? I didn’t have an intentional plan for either of those things.”
“Most simple magic requires little organised focus. In the First World, I could summon a breeze, or Ivy could grow a flower, with no more than an idle thought. When you changed the metal, and cleaned the pool, you were doing simple things… with an enormous amount of power to facilitate your desires. The power of a chainsaw isn’t necessary to cut a blade of grass, but it will most certainly accomplish the task.”
I looked down at my pain-filled hands and at the pattern swirling under the skin. Diminished or not, the power I’d used to make the gold ring had been enough to teach me my own cautionary tale.
“Sometimes, a price must be paid to realise an enchantment,” Gran said, as though she’d read my thoughts. “Well beyond the power that is poured into it. With the most powerful enchantments—that price is typically high. Do you regret making the rings?”
“No, I’d do it again… even knowing about my hands.” It was true. Although, I’d try to figure out a different method.
“That’s something that you should give thought to. It’s as important to know when magic should be used as it is if it can be. The consequences of seemingly small enchantments can be far reaching. A rule which is even more significant when non-living things are enchanted. Do you understand why?”
I considered that.
