by P. D. Kalnay
“Gran, should my hands hurt?” I asked, not looking away from the candle.
“Focus on the candle, Jack!”
So I focused on making the candle burn. My hands became increasingly painful, until they hurt as much as they’d done when I’d grabbed the shining rings. Then, as had happened months back in the smithy, I lost consciousness. I woke later, stretched-out on the sofa.
***
“I’m uncertain what happened,” Gran said. “That shouldn’t be possible, for anyone.”
“He seems to be doing a good deal of the impossible lately,” Mr. Ryan said.
I kept my eyes shut and listened.
“But, so much power here? I was tapping the portal just to light a candle. How could he…”
“Consider the things he’s made—with no instruction. Do you plan to continue these lessons?”
“No. It took all I had to contain this. If the pain from his hands hadn’t rendered him unconscious, Jakalain would’ve destroyed everything. He didn’t even draw on the portal or the wards…”
“Jack absorbed the Blood into himself. Perhaps that’s where his power comes from.”
“Possibly, but if he can command so much raw power here… what will become of him on the First World?”
“Things will be, what they will be,” Mr. Ryan said. “Neither of us is very good at leaving matters to fate, but I see no other choice. He has travelled down the Tree.”
“The outcome was less positive than it might have been. It has forced us to move ahead at a hurried pace.”
“My point,” Mr. Ryan said, “was he didn’t explode at the other end of the journey, full of the Blood or not. That has to be considered hopeful.”
Then Mr. Ryan laughed.
“What can you possibly find funny about all of this?” Gran asked. I heard a frown in her voice.
“I don’t know what he’ll do back on the First World,” Mr. Ryan said, still laughing, “but the boy is certainly hard on coffee tables!”
I heard them leave the sitting room and walk off down the hallway. When they were gone, I sat up. I could only gape at the coffee table. I’d built it for Gran to replace the one I’d broken the year before. My ‘new’ coffee table was ruined. All traces of the candle had vanished. A solidified puddle of molten silver spread out across the charred top of the table. The surface wasn’t just blackened. Deep crevasses were scorched into the wood. The table looked as though it had spent an hour, upside-down, on top of a bonfire.
My hands felt extra tender, as though I’d moved a few weeks of healing back in time. When Ms. Mopat showed up to collect the ruined table, I made a hasty retreat up to my room. Gran’s first lesson in enchantment was also the last. I fell asleep on my bed and napped until it was dinnertime.
***
“Sorry about the coffee table,” I told my grandmother.
It was just the three of us for dinner.
“The fault is mine,” she said. “I should’ve taken greater precautions, or left well enough alone. You must begin your studies anew on the First World.”
“On my own?”
I was a do-it-yourself kind of guy, but…
“I still have a few allies on the First World,” Gran said, “and some who owe me debts. I shall make arrangements for qualified instructors to journey to Knight’s Haven. Normally, the Houses would’ve dealt with your education, out of their own self-interest, but that won’t happen if you bar them from the island.”
“It’ll be easier there,” Mr. Ryan said. “You’ll be able to sense things that are faint or non-existent here.”
Gran nodded.
“What kinds of things?”
“It will depend on you, and your talents,” Gran said. “Until qualified instructors arrive, you’d be wise to look, but not touch.”
Caution wasn’t among my desirable qualities, but the pain in my hands made it easy to agree.
***
My last weeks on Earth were mainly spent reading. I read until my eyes hurt, but there was no way I could put a significant dent in the library’s collected knowledge. The things I learned seemed random and less than useful. I learned more concerning the peoples and creatures of the First World, some geography, and a bit of history. The history was disjointed because I rarely understood the references. Disappointingly, I learned no more about Mopats, my grandmother, or the Order. The first two I was leaving behind anyway, so it probably wouldn’t matter, but I felt that knowing what the Knights of the Order actually did might prove important.
Gathering the stuff I’d take with me, and packing for the rest of my life, was a ten minute job. Nothing that didn’t originate further down the Tree would travel. That narrowed it down to my knife, shield, the butterfly hair clips, and the second half of the ring. A collection of camping gear and food would’ve been nice. Mr. Ryan assured me that I’d find many useful things in Marielain’s home. I tried not to worry.
My grandmother and Mr. Ryan gave me nothing in the way of a send-off. Gran had told me that you travelled old gates using instinct, and that no training would aid me. That wasn’t super reassuring.
Chapter 13 – Back Down the Tree
After what felt like two summers of waiting, midsummer finally arrived. I’d see Ivy again soon, I hoped. There were a hundred things I would have liked to bring with me. Some books from the library, and a boxed lunch, were among them. Unfortunately, anything not originating lower down on the Tree could only go in the upwards direction. Gran said she thought the stuff I’d made with the Blood of the World Tree would travel, but there was only one way to find out. Dinner, on my last night at Glastonbury Manor, was a quiet affair. Neither my grandmother nor Mr. Ryan had any last-minute advice to give. As nervous as I felt, I asked no questions. Instead, I focused on the chocolate cake that the maid, slash cook, slash housekeeper, slash monster had baked. The last thing I did before we left the house that evening was borrow Mr. Ryan’s laptop to send emails to my parents. I’m not sure why I bothered saying goodbye. Neither had contacted me in over a year, but I sent short messages anyway.
***
Mr. Ryan led the way into the forest, followed by my grandmother, and, bringing up the rear, me. Mr. Ryan wore a headlamp, and I was sporting my ever-trusty, club-like Mag Lite. Gran had no such aid, and she appeared not to require any assistance in navigating the dark forest. We walked a slightly winding trail in silence. Unlike my wild scramble through those same woods, two summers before, no branches reached out to grab at my clothing. The walk lasted less than fifteen minutes, I’d guess (I hadn’t brought a watch). Then we passed between two tall standing stones of the circle, and stood, once more in the open, under the light of the moon. It was a nice night: clear, cool, and not too buggy. The place hadn’t changed any from what I remembered. If you’d added the demonic wolves, it could have been the same night. I wasn’t the least bit afraid this time. The differences being that I’d come well-armed and accompanied by the two scariest people I’d ever met. If new monsters showed up… I liked my chances.
Nobody else showed up.
“Stand in the very centre,” Gran said. “Try to remain as still as possible and focus your thoughts on Merielain’s Forge and Knight’s Haven.”
“OK,” I said, moving to the middle.
I tried to imagine a place I’d never been, and to remember the details from Mr. Ryan’s descriptions. Hoping, it would be enough.
“Good luck, Jack,” Mr. Ryan added.
We shared a tight grin as Gran took seven little stone statues from the satchel she carried. She placed them on the ground in a circle around me. A circle… within a circle. Then she moved back, and Mr. Ryan joined her. Gran looked up at the moon for a moment before speaking.
“It’s time,” she said. “Focus.”
I did my best, but I lost all focus when my grandmother pulled a knife from the satchel and sliced open her left palm. She moved quickly from little statue to little statue, letting a few drops blood drip down on each. Gran hadn’t me
ntioned any blood being involved.
“Gran?”
“Focus, Jack,” she said. “The oldest magics always require sacrifice. Focus on your destination.”
I tried to imagine the island of Knight’s Haven and a dim, fire-lit room under it. That was again interrupted as Gran opened her hand and flung her blood into the circle. The blood never reached me. As the dark droplets crossed the circle of statues, they caught fire and burned with white-hot intensity. She hadn’t mentioned that either.
“Focus, Jack!” Gran shouted. She sounded winded.
I did try, really. It’s just that, with the nervousness of travelling alone to another world and whatnot, I struggled to maintain the visualisation. The burning blood, and the whirlwind of light that had sprung up around my feet, weren’t helping. Then an unfortunate thought occurred to me. Had I forgotten something? It was a one-way trip; there’d be no coming back for anything. I patted my pockets, checking my inventory: magic half-ring—check, Ivy’s hair clips—check, knife on belt—check, what else had I meant to bring…
“Jack! You must focus!”
Gran’s voice sounded faint now, as if she were yelling from across a canyon. I seemed to have everything I’d meant to bring. What was I forgetting? Oh yeah… I was supposed to focus on my destination. Before I had a chance to return to my visualisation, the light of the World Tree filled me up and tore me apart. Gran had been right. Travelling through an old gate had nothing in common with travelling a newer one.
The first time I’d travelled the World Tree it had been strange, but quick and painless. It had been like being swept down a river, floating and bobbing, until I’d finally washed ashore. This wasn’t like that. It felt as if every piece of me was torn from every other piece, and those parts were spreading out like an expanding universe named Jack. The farther apart the pieces got, the less like Jack I felt. Even as my consciousness faded, and I slipped toward oblivion, I heard my grandmother’s voice one last time.
FOCUS JACK!
And that’s what I did. It’s hard to explain with words, but I called back the countless pieces of the boy named Jack and gathered them into a single entity. The task may have taken an instant, or an eternity. I don’t know, but it took all of my will to do it. The pieces of me really seemed to desire a return to (joining with?) the greater cosmos. The part at the centre that makes me me wasn’t ready for oblivion. I still had too much to do.
When I’d made myself whole again (more or less) I began sensing other things. I say sensing, because I didn’t have eyes at that point, but I could feel things about myself and the space around me. The first things I sensed were those closest to me. I sensed the things I’d made almost as strongly as my own existence. The half-ring blazed like a miniature sun. It burned so hot/brightly that I could feel the heat (or something). The butterfly hair clips and my shield also burned, but with far less intensity. With my knife, it was the opposite. My knife felt cold and dark. If the half-ring was a sun, then the knife was a black hole, a stealer of light rather than a giver. These things distracted me from focusing on my destination, which might well have been the end of me. The half-ring became my salvation.
As I grew more accustomed to the strangeness around me, I sensed the conduits between the worlds. The paths that Gran had told me to watch for. Like golden tubes or branches on a tree, they led back to a central way. That way was wider, and brighter than the rest. The trunk of the Tree, I supposed. The half-ring connected to something at the base of the trunk and to branches at the highest tips. I knew instinctively that those connections were portals to the first and seventh worlds. I floated far closer to the top than the bottom, but just the idea of going downward, set me in motion. Then, I was speeding along the Tree. Desperately, I tried to picture a dark crack under the island of Knight’s Haven.
Everything changed again.
The First World spread below me, as though I was an astronaut hanging above the atmosphere. I saw the Endless Sea, and the ring of the Barrier Mountains, just as Ivy had described. More importantly, I sensed the gates, little pinpricks of light, spread around the shores of the vast ocean. I knew they were the portals of the Tree. I couldn’t see Knight’s Haven, but I could sense a far tinier speck of golden light in the middle of the ocean. That had to be it. I focused on the speck. I don’t know if I drew that speck of golden light to me, or propelled myself forward, but soon I plunged towards a crescent-shaped island at unmeasurable speed.
Then the bright pieces that made up my existence were smashed back together into a Jack-sized whole. I wish I could give you a poetic description, but it was like being mashed together by some cosmic trash compactor. I stood in total darkness, reached over, and squeezed my left arm. That I had an arm again, let me know I’d arrived. I followed that up by taking a deep breath. Then I coughed, instantly regretting the breath. The air was thick, hot, and stank of sulfur. I was blind and a bit scared. Slowly, my eyes adjusted to the darkness. The first thing I saw was my shield; it emitted the very slightest golden glow. Looking at my waist, I saw that the sheath of my knife glowed gently in the same fashion. I swung my shield back and forth. It didn’t weigh more than an ounce now, and it was like swishing an umbrella around. I felt only the air resistance. At least one of the enchantments I’d added to the shield was a complete success. Alone in the darkness, I grinned like a madman.
After a few more minutes, the glow from my shield provided enough light for me to see that I stood at the dead-end of a narrow tunnel. More importantly, it allowed me to move slowly down that tunnel until a faint red glow appeared in the distance. I walked cautiously towards the light. The floor of the tunnel was rough, but not dangerously uneven. Soon, the reddish glow grew brighter. The tunnel ended at a wide domed cavern, about the size of a basketball court. At the centre lay the source of the reddish light. Magma bubbled and roiled, and somehow the heat of that molten pool had been channelled into an open forge. The stone of the forge was as black as night, but the forge itself glowed white-hot. Around the forge, set atop a massive iron gear, stood anvils of every shape and size. Some of them were so strangely formed that they in no way resembled anvils I’d seen before. But I knew that’s what they were, and, that the gear would turn to bring the appropriate anvil within reach of the forge’s fiery maw. I also knew that for the first time in my sixteen years… I was home.
No visions of another life flashed before my eyes, but a sense of rightness washed over me. This was the place I belonged. Ivy had told me that each of the Fae had a place in the First World—where they were strongest, at home, and at peace. Every fibre of my being screamed that this was my Place. It could use a little light though, I thought. My wishing for illumination lit the room as symbols carved into the walls of the cavern began glowing red. It wasn’t as bright as having electric lights, and it certainly wasn’t like sunshine, but I could see well enough in the cherry glow. The room was about as bright as you’d want a smithy, so that you’d still be able to judge a metal’s temperature by colour. I felt certain that wasn’t a coincidence. Hammers, tongs, and tools of every kind hung on racks. My first urge was to examine them, pick them up, and use them. Even as my hand reached out for a nearby hammer, I remembered that I had other tasks to accomplish. I had to find Ivy.
Only one other doorway opened onto the smithy, and through it waited a wide spiral staircase, cut from the black stone. The smithy sat at the very bottom. I started climbing. The glowing red symbols lit up ahead of me and faded away again behind. It was nothing that couldn’t have been done with motion sensors, but I was pretty sure it was magic. There were a ridiculous number of steps, and after an hour of climbing, I cursed my former self for not building an elevator. Over the next few hundred steps, I considered how I might do just that. Up and up I climbed, growing increasingly tired. At some point, I began looking at my feet—focusing on the next step. That’s how I missed the doorway to the main workshop level. All in all, I’d say I climbed those stairs for over four hours before I got to the
top. Not where I’d meant to go, but it was one heck of a view.
For the last dozen steps the air smelled salty, and then I stood on top of the world. That part of it. I knew I’d missed the way out, and that I’d have to go halfway back down the staircase, but, for a time, I could only stare open-mouthed at the scene below me. I knew exactly where I was. Mr. Ryan had told me that the stairs led up to a sheared-off peak at the highest point on the island. Salty wind tugged at the dark blue robes I’d arrived in, and I lowered my shield. Being virtually weightless, it acted like a sail. Knight’s Haven spread out, a dizzying distance below.
Chapter 14 – Knight’s Haven
The stairwell had ended at an irregularly shaped platform. It looked as though the tip of the mountain’s peak had been neatly lopped off. I couldn’t resist glancing around for the missing chunk of mountain, but saw no evidence of it. The platform’s surface was perfectly smooth, out to its irregular edges. No one had bothered to add a guardrail, or so as much as string rope, at the outer edge. With the gustiness of the wind, it seemed as if it would’ve been a reasonable precaution. It was one heck of a view. The platform sat at the back edge of the thickest part of the crescent making up Knight’s Haven. To my rear the mountainside plunged steeply to the sea. Ivy hadn’t been kidding when she’d told me that the outer rim of the island was unclimbable. Far below, waves crashed against the island’s outer shoreline. They were too distant for me to make out any sound. On either side of me the crescent descended, even as it swung outward, reaching forward before almost meeting again at two mighty towers. I knew they were mighty towers, because they looked substantial, miles away, across island and water. I moved closer to the inward edge of the platform, for a better look, but I didn’t get too close.
