by B. T. Narro
“You really don’t know me.”
“That’s not my fault,” I told him bitterly.
“Shut your mouth, Jon. Remember what I told you earlier? Shut your mouth more around your superiors or you’re really going to piss me off.”
I held my tongue.
I was wrong earlier. This was the old Leon. If this was the only kind of instruction he could offer, I was better off on my own.
“It’s impossible for you to get what you want,” Leon lectured. “There is no spell or even group of spells that can ensure your safety along with the destruction of your enemies. The strongest sorcerers are the ones who can get the most out of a few spells. No one needs to learn them all. You’re wasting your time with every note of mana. You are going to have to trust me on that.”
“All right, fine. So now what?”
Leon took a slow breath and seemed a little more relaxed after. “Now, what is the next spell you want to learn?”
“Another spell of dvinia, besides Expel.”
Leon opened his mouth just to close it again.
Anger spoke for me. “See? That’s why I must learn the notes individually. Because no one else can help me but me, because no one else can cast with dvinia. There aren’t any other spells that are known. I’m going to have to figure them out!”
Leon shook his head. “That’s not true. I might not know other spells of dvinia in practice, but I should be able to figure some out in theory. But there’s risk in that, Jon. That’s why I’m hesitant to continue down this path. Experimental casting is dangerous, especially if you accidentally use a rev after initiating the spell. This is not something you should do on your own. Well, you can heal now…” He hummed as he seemed to be in thought.
It was my turn to calm down with a breath. “How are you going to help me?”
Leon rolled up his sleeves. “Does this mean you’re ready to begin? Or do you need another nap?”
“I am read—oh. You knew?”
“Of course I figured out Michael was covering for you. Candlestick in his shoe? Please. There’s a damn candlestick right there behind you. But I knew even before that. You want to know how?”
“How?”
“Because you actually laughed at his joke.”
“Well, please don’t punish Michael. He just came in while I was asleep and woke me later.”
“I’m just glad someone else didn’t catch you. Now are you really ready?”
“What exactly are we going to do?”
“Empower your dvinia. You are finally ready for this lesson.”
Now we’re talking.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Leon asked me how much I knew about dvinia by now. After I told him that he already knew how much I knew, which was just one spell, he specified the question.
“No, how much do you know about dvinia. Not about casting a spell.”
“Nothing.”
He then insulted me as being a poor student. I insulted him back as being a poor instructor. We both went down a few tangents, but eventually we were ready to begin.
“Dvinia has essential notes, like all the other specializations,” Leon explained. “But no one knows the essential notes of dvinia.”
“What are you talking about? You’re the one who told me the four notes of dvinia.”
“Yes, but not all of them are essential. When will you learn to shut your damn mouth and let me speak? Airinold’s taint, I should just come back after you’re better rested.” He started to turn around.
Leon was right. I had completely lost all ability to censor myself. “Wait,” I said as he neared the stairs. “I’ll control myself.”
“Last chance.”
“Got it.”
He walked back to me. “I will explain essential notes if you pay attention. Take water, for example. The essential notes are clear to everyone who understands mana. Do you want to take a guess as to what they are?”
I didn’t reply.
“Go ahead. Guessing will help you learn.”
I shrugged. “C, E, and G.”
He showed me a disappointed look. “You just listed all three notes of the Water spell.”
“I don’t know, all right? What are the essential notes?”
“The first and the third, C and E. Now can you guess why?”
Frustrated, I had too many questions to guess anything. “No. There are already so many things that don’t make sense. The spell Water has three notes. Three.” I made sure to keep my tone civil. “Why are you calling the second note of the spell the third note? E is the second note. C, E, G. The third is G. I’m sorry for my tone, but it’s irritating.”
“It’s not irritating. You just don’t understand it. You’re thinking about the third of the spell when you should be thinking about the third of water.”
“What? Water has numbers?”
“No, it has notes.” Leon sighed. “You make it really easy to forget that you hadn’t had a single lesson about mana before coming here. You are well ahead of everyone else in so many ways yet far behind in others.”
I didn’t catch most of what he said because I was too busy figuring something out. “Wait, I think I know what you mean. You’re talking about water like a range of mana, and that range has a set of notes to it. I’m guessing it starts with C?”
Leon looked surprised. “Yes, that’s exactly what I mean.”
“And fire and water have the same range, right?”
“They do, though I wouldn’t say they ‘have’ the same range. It’s more accurate to say that all the water and fire spells fall under the same range of mana, no matter how simple or complicated the spells are. You already said what that range of mana starts with, C. Can you guess where it ends?”
I knew a variety of spells, so I should be able to figure this out. Ice was one octave lower, starting with Lower C, but wind was higher, starting with Upper C. I doubted water and fire would overlap with the starting range of wind. So they probably ended right before wind started.
“It has to be one note before Upper C, which is…” I wanted to say Upper B, but I knew that was wrong. Upper B was too high to be below Upper C. Wait, was that right? I had the color chart on the other table, with my vibmtaer. I walked over for a glance.
“Need to cheat?” Leon teased.
“Yes.”
Looking at it again, I could see that I was right to second-guess myself.
“B is the note just below Upper C,” I said as I walked back to Leon. “That’s frustrating also. So the range of fire and water is C to B? It sounds like it’s going backward.” I put up my hand as he started to interrupt. “But I remember now it’s because octaves start with C, not A, and I’m just figuring out why that is. All spells of erto start with notes of C.”
“Not spells of erto, ranges of erto.”
“I understand. But I gave my answer already. Water and fire should be C to B.”
“Maybe they should be to you, but they are not.”
“What are they then?”
“C to uD. Now can you guess why?”
I was getting a headache. “I’d really rather not at this point.”
“Because some water spells have been discovered that require uD for them to be casted.”
I waited for him to continue, but that was it.
“That’s not a reason!” I said.
“I know it’s not, but it’s the best you’re going to get. You’ll just have to accept that some ranges overlap. Ice overlaps with water and fire. Water and fire overlap with wind. Wind overlaps with dvinia.”
“But that’s just wrong.”
“Saying it’s wrong isn’t going to help you accept it.”
“No, I really mean you are wrong, Leon. You’re wrong.”
“What!? How could you possibly dare to assert that? You know nothing about mana!”
I grabbed the color chart from the other table and held it up in front of him. “You can see here that nothing overlaps except for wind and dvinia,
and ordia with fire and water.”
He started to reach for it, but I pulled it back.
“Don’t you dare destroy this,” I said.
“I won’t. Just set the damn thing down. I can’t read it with you flapping your arm around.”
I watched his eyes scan the large chart, but I wasn’t sure what he was looking for.
“Where did you get this?” he asked without taking his eyes away from it.
“From Greda.”
“Who’s that?”
“Pamela’s daughter. She works at the Enchanted Devices shop you sent me to when we first met.”
“Oh, right. Well, where did Pamela’s daughter get it? Who made it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Exactly! You don’t know, and you do know me…and I’m telling you something. But you’d rather believe this color chart made by who-knows-who? Why? Because it’s made up all fancy with some pretty colors? You can’t take lessons from this. Color charts and vibmtaers are designed to supplement training, not to teach you anything about mana.”
“Oh,” I said, deflated.
“Oh is right.”
“So this is wrong?” I gestured at the chart I had spent so much time staring at.
“No, it’s actually very well done. If I was to make my own color chart, it would look exactly like this. The ranges displayed here at the bottom don’t encompass every spell available for each specialization, but they do tell a sorcerer what specializations are within their range, and that’s more important for someone like yourself who is trying to learn what he might be capable of. But ignore the chart for now. Going back to before—thirds—do you understand that the third of water’s magic school is E?”
“Yes, I have accepted that. C is the first. I’m guessing D is the second. So E is third. And this is the case for all water spells?”
“Exactly, and the third is just as important as the first for all water spells. Together, the first and the third determine the nature of any spell. If you take the same spell of Water but you lower E to E min, you get Fire instead.”
Kataleya had explained that to me some time ago. But even she hadn’t known the answer to the question I’d asked after, which I would now pose to Leon.
“Why doesn’t dvinia have a third?”
Leon raised an eyebrow. “Did you figure that out somehow, or did Kataleya tell you?”
“She told me a while ago,” I lied. I had actually first read it from a scroll the princess had fetched for me in secret, but I didn’t like how that might sound to Leon’s ears.
“Technically, dvinia does have a third, like every school of magic.”
“Is a school of magic the same as a magical art?”
“School of magic, magical art, specialization—they’re all the same. They are a range of mana that has been named, and every note in the school has been numbered. You know them as ordia, ice, water, fire, wind, and dvinia.”
“What about mtalia, earth, and vtalia? What are they called?”
“Those are just notes of mana with special properties. Every note of mana does something when used individually, but those three seem to work the strongest alone without the combination of others. And when using them alone, they create their own spells. These spells need names: mtalia, earth, and vtalia.”
Charlie specialized in mtalia. As far as I knew, it was the only note he could cast. With it, he could melt or harden metal at will. I had seen him use it to dissolve the head of an ax, which had saved Grufaeragar’s life, but I’d also seen him shape and harden metal into rings that Eden had enchanted. One, a callring, I still wore on my finger.
Earth was Aliana’s specialty. More accurately than her choosing to specialize in it, though, it was the only spell she could cast that I was aware of. She didn’t have the range to reach anything else. But having someone in the castle who had skill with earth was like having someone here who knew how to cook. We would’ve survived without one, but it didn’t take long for it to become a necessity to all of us.
I was the only one who had access to vtalia, besides Leon, with my wide range of mana that mostly gravitated toward the high frequencies. I hadn’t been aware that I had been using vtalia for years when I was a young teenager. It was the natural frequency of my mana, Upper F. I’d spent a long while trying to use my mana to cast something, but I had known nothing about it.
Leon said I still knew nothing about mana, but he was wrong. To him I might know very little, but that little bit of knowledge had been revolutionary to me.
“Are you paying attention?” Leon asked, scowling.
“Can you repeat what you said?” I asked as I realized that no, I hadn’t been.
“Listen to me. There is a third note in the dvinia school, but there also isn’t. The first note is your natural mana, Upper F. Then Upper G is the second. Upper A, that’s the third note in the dvinia school. But there is no Upper A in Expel. It’s just uF—one, uG—two, uuC—four, and uuD—five. Do you understand? The core of dvinia is one, two, four, five. In contrast, the core of every erto school is one, three, five.”
“Yeah, I understand. But could there be another spell of dvinia that uses the third?”
“Maybe, but also maybe not. As far as we know, there is no third used in dvinia. We can assume this is the case because dvinia appears to be the same as ordia, only two octaves higher, and there is no third used in any known ordia spell. And like ordia, there’s probably only one general spell of dvinia.”
“Couldn’t there be others that people haven’t discovered yet?”
“There certainly are, but the difference between one spell and another is not going to be as vast as, say, the difference between wind and water.”
“Like Cason’s dteria spell that he used to suspend the guards in the air?” I asked. “Was that a different spell than the normal Dislodge?”
“Yes, that is probably not just Dislodge. He most likely did something with dteria, added another note to it, which told the mana to encircle and hold.”
“He didn’t even have to aim the spell?”
“Aiming was required, I’m sure. But even a sorcerer as strong as him can’t bend dteria completely to his will. He has to give dteria the message to bend on its own as he aims it at his target.”
“I’m starting to get what you are saying, but there’s something I want to understand before we go on.”
“What?”
“Ordia has many different spells that are cast with the same notes,” I said. “So if ordia and dvinia are so similar, why doesn’t dvinia have many different spells that can be cast with the same notes?”
“Perhaps it does.”
“That’s what I was getting at. If I understand how ordia works, I might be able to understand dvinia better. So how does ordia work? How does Barrett use ordia to bind someone to a magical contract and then use the same ordia spell later to identify an enchantment on a ring?”
“You’d have to ask him. Actually, don’t bother the councilman. Ask Jennava. I specialize in erto, if you are too dim to have realized. I’ve never had a grasp on ordia. All I know is some people take the spell of ordia and can only enchant with it, while others can only seem to create contracts. There must be something in their mind that decides one from the other, but I don’t know what it is.”
“Jennava is strong with ordia?” I asked.
“She can’t reach the notes, but she’s spent a lot more time researching it than I have. She might know even more than Barrett, who uses it frequently.”
I wondered if it might be better to speak with Eden and then Reuben, who both specialized in ordia but used it differently.
“I can tell your mind is starting to drift again,” Leon said. “Let me make a point.”
I gave him my full attention, though I was finding it harder the longer this went on, and we had only just begun.
“The interesting thing about ordia,” he continued, “is that combining the basic spell with other notes leads to different r
esults.”
“Enchanting,” I said to show I understood.
“Yes, by adding a fifth note to the spell of ordia, enchanters can enchant metal, gems, or leather. However, you’re probably never going to meet an enchanter who enchants leather because leather requires your natural range, Upper F, and you know how low-range ordia is.”
“But both are within my range.”
Leon rolled his eyes. “Yes, if you practiced for weeks straight, you might be able to enchant some leather, congratulations. But you’re not going to meet any others who can. No one I’ve met has your range of mana except Cason. Now back to what’s important.”
I almost stopped him to ask how he knew this about Cason, but I was already feeling overwhelmed with all this information. I didn’t want to go down another tangent.
Leon continued, “I have some ideas of a fifth note you might be able to add to dvinia that will change the way the spell functions.” He lifted his hands. “Let me make sure I’m not wasting my time first. Are you actually capable of adding a fifth note?”
“Definitely.”
“Good. Each note of mana seems to have its own properties. We’ve already discussed mtalia, earth and vtalia. The other notes aren’t as strong on their own, but they still alter the state of mana.”
“How do you know?”
“When you’ve been using mana for as long as I have, you start to notice patterns. It’s easiest to see what these notes do when you tack them onto an existing spell that you’re familiar with. Let me show you with water, for example.”
Leon walked over to the large window and opened it.
“You’ve seen Kataleya cast Water enough times to recognize it,” he said as he faced the open window. “You don’t need to see me do it again now. Instead, I’m going to show you what happens if I take the normal spell of water, C, E, G, and I add uD as a fourth note. Remember earlier? I said the school of water goes up to uD. I’m about to show you proof.”
I was a little excited as I took my place at his side.
He breathed deeply as he lifted his hands and contorted his fingers. A wall of water grew outward from the size of a brick. It hovered outside, with perfect square edges and enough density to stop an arrow.
