by B. T. Narro
“You are! You use D all the time.”
“I use uuD,” I told him.
“That’s what I mean by D. You use a variation of D all the time with dvinia. They’re all the same frequency as uuD just half, half, and half. Octaves are easy. I know you know this. It’s how you learned Heal with three F’s so quickly. You already knew uF.”
I supposed he had a point. “Still, it’s going to take me at least an hour or so, and you still haven’t explained why I should spend my time on this yet. lD, D, and uD is not a spell I’ve heard of.”
There was his mischievous smile again. “It’s not a spell anyone has heard of because it’s not a spell. It’s proof.”
“Proof of what?”
“You’ll seeeee!” he said as he ran off toward the great hall.
“Where are you going?”
He stopped and turned around. “Did you want me to stand here the whole time you practice? I have things to do.”
“Fine, go.”
I noticed Michael walking over to me. He was certainly close enough to have heard the conversation, but just as he was about to speak, Charlie yelled out, “Don’t distract him, Michael!”
Michael froze with his mouth open. Then he turned on his heels and walked away from me.
*****
I thought it would be difficult to learn to use the three notes without knowing why they mattered, but Charlie turned out to be right. It was easy for me to familiarize myself with them.
I had forgotten that I had been using D to learn Identify, as it was one of the four crucial notes of ordia. That meant I just had to familiarize myself with lD and uD.
I did so in about a half-hour. I spent the rest of the hour trying to cast all three notes at the same time. Charlie came back then.
“You still can’t cast it?” he asked with disappointment.
“Just wait,” I said, eager to see what this spell would turn my mana into.
I was used to splitting my mind four ways, which I had to do every time I casted Expel. Therefore, it was no longer a struggle to split my mind three ways like I had to here, even when using notes I was not accustomed to using.
Charlie folded his arms and tapped his foot impatiently before I finally managed to get all three notes right and push out my mana while holding them at the right frequencies.
The feeling was like ripping off a hangnail, but instead of physical pain it was more like a mental cramp. In a blink, my mana shredded off and clustered together, hardening before my eyes as I groaned from the discomfort.
I wanted to hold the spell longer to get a good look at what was happening before my eyes, but I couldn’t stand the mental anguish any longer. I collapsed to my hands and knees, straining just to keep my head up.
To my amazement, my mana didn’t disperse like it would when I finished casting any other spell. Instead, it had hardened and now floated to the ground like snowflakes.
“I knew it!” Charlie shouted. “I knew it! I knew it!”
I still didn’t understand what this proved. My mana looked like sheared ice on the ground. It felt delicate as I scooped some up, smooth and slippery, streaming down from the sides of my hand with a gentle sound. It was surprisingly warm to the touch, making me no longer think of sheared ice. This was hardened mana, and it was unlike anything I had felt before.
“The hell is that?” Michael asked as he came over.
The other sorcerers in the courtyard had gathered around us.
“It’s mana,” I said.
“It’s not just anyone’s mana,” Charlie specified. “It’s Jon’s mana. Oh, if only someone else could cast the same spell of three octaves, we could find out if all mana is the same color.”
Mine was a light grayish blue. I picked up one of the larger chips. It still felt odd to be holding my mana. It reminded me of when I was younger and would peel off a scab to inspect.
The mana was transparent, beautiful. It changed hue as I held it up and it caught the little bit of direct sunlight trying to break through the clouds. Glowing red, then orange, the mana changed somewhat drastically. Wait, too drastically for only the sunlight to be modifying it.
Then I realized it was the heat from my fingers that seemed to be causing the change in color, as it radiated brighter the longer I held it. I set it back down in the pile, and it slowly reverted back to the same grayish blue color as the smaller chips of mana around it.
“Marvelous,” Charlie whispered. “The change in color is not something I anticipated.”
“Why does it do that?” Aliana asked as she bent down and picked up the same piece I’d held. But the mana did not change color this time.
“Cold hands?” I asked her.
“Maybe.”
I hoped this wasn’t too forward as I took hold of her hand with mine to compare. I made sure to let go as soon as I had my answer.
“No, they feel warm.”
“Yeah, yours are colder,” she agreed, handing me the same piece of mana.
It changed color soon after I gripped it.
Charlie shook his wrist as he pointed at it. “That…that…”
We all stared at him, waiting for whatever he had to say, but it seemed like even he didn’t know how to express himself.
“Let me try,” Michael said as he picked up one of the larger pieces.
It did not change color.
But slowly, even the one I held faded back to the same hue as the others on the ground.
“Yes!” Charlie said. “Yes, I think we have proof. Quick, try another, Jon!”
I picked up two other pieces. They did not change color.
“Yes!” Charlie shouted this time. “Mana’s alive! Mana’s alive!”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
Leon’s voice interrupted us. “Did it happen as Charlie predicted?”
Aliana and Kataleya made room for him as we were all crouching around the pile of my mana. Leon’s eyes flashed wide.
He slapped Charlie on the back. “Looks like you were right after all,” he said as Charlie stumbled a bit.
“But I didn’t predict the change in color.”
“What change in color?” Leon asked.
“Do it again, Jon,” Charlie said.
“Can you at least explain what this means first?”
“I still don’t really know. I think Leon might, however. Show him.”
I gave a look at Kataleya. I figured if anyone else would understand, it would be her. But she only shrugged at me.
I stood up and let out my breath. “The spell feels like it’s ripping off a piece of my mind.”
“Because your mind is connected to your mana,” Leon said.
“Could this be causing damage, then?” I asked. “I can’t heal whatever it’s doing.” I’d already tried, but the discomfort was over soon after the spell had ended. I was only left with fatigue.
“If casting octaves of D causes damage, then casting every spell causes damage,” Leon said. “You’re just using your mana in different ways. But rather than transforming your mana into an element or an energy, this spell just condenses your mana enough for us to see it.”
“So it doesn’t prove much after all,” I figured disappointedly.
“No, it does,” Charlie argued. “It proves many things. First, this proves that uD is the most powerful of all the D’s because it was the addition of uD that made the spell possible, and what a spell it was with uD! We can also come to this conclusion because adding uF to the healing spell of lF and F increases the power of the spell by the same magnitude—to a level unreachable by the other two notes. Secondly, it proves that notes of D add density to spells, and uD adds the most. But if you really want to densify as much as possible, one should add multiple octaves of D’s to their spell.
“Thirdly, it proves that spells that have D in them naturally, like spells of dvinia, are naturally denser than others that do not, like erto spells. It also might mean that dvinia doesn’t have the same opportunity to
densify with the addition of D notes, since it already needs one just to be cast at all: uuD. However, adding uD to any erto spell will greatly increase its density. Fourthly, if that is a word, it proves that mana is alive. Alive, Jon! And it only remains alive while it’s connected to your mind. I don’t understand exactly what that will come to mean yet, but it is exciting, isn’t it?”
“Very,” Kataleya agreed.
“Interesting indeed,” Leon said. “This gives me a lot to think about.”
It sounded a little exciting to me, but all I really got from it was that adding notes of D to a spell would make it denser. Besides using Water to slow arrows, as Kataleya had done, or Waterwall to block Cason’s shattering pillars of dteria, as Leon had done, I didn’t see how this knowledge was going to help everyone. Leon already knew that adding uD to a spell would make it denser.
“Was working with D all we were going to do today?” I asked Charlie.
“Oh, we’re not even close to being done, Jon,” he said with a smile.
*****
I spent the rest of the day practicing the next set of octaves for Charlie’s following experiment. It wasn’t until after supper that I finally felt like I could soon cast the next spell. I was even more excited about this one, for not even Leon knew what was going to happen.
Everyone gathered around me in the courtyard, as the spell I was working on had become common knowledge. Even Eden had come out of the great hall to watch. She looked tired, as Aliana had appeared the whole day, bags under their eyes. I was sure the curse had taken a toll on them, but I couldn’t let fears of the traitor distract me right now.
The reason this spell was so interesting was not just because Leon couldn’t predict what would happen. It was because I was about to use three octaves of G, specifically lG, G, and uG. It was variations of this note, G, that was in every erto spell. Water, for example was C, E, G. Ice, as another example, was composed of the same notes but lower by an octave: lC, lE, lG. Fire was similar to water, but the middle note was one lower than water, and Air was the same as water but one octave higher.
All of these spells required G. However, neither Charlie nor Leon could guess what G did for these spells. Leon had explained earlier that day, however, that the purpose of the first two notes listed in the spell was known by most sorcerers who understood mana. Charlie had read about this in the book that I had attempted to read a while ago, only to fall asleep.
The first note in every spell, erto spells included, told the mana what kind of spell to cast. Spells starting with lC were ice spells, while spells starting with C were either fire or water spells. The last erto spells, ones of air, started with uC. Apparently, it was impossible to cast any of these spells without starting with the appropriate variation of C. Leon had experimented many times and would’ve had the injuries to show for it had they not occurred many years ago, he claimed.
The next note—E—would be a mystery to even expert sorcerers like Leon if it wasn’t for the subtle difference between E and E min in water and fire. Because such a vast difference could be seen by just lowering E by one note to E min—or Em for short—it proved that notes of E also told the mana how it was going to be used, like the notes of C. So on their own, C’s and E’s didn’t do anything compared to D’s, for example, which clearly told the mana to harden. They just told the mana what kind of spell the caster was attempting.
I was still getting used to this idea of certain frequencies “telling” the mana to do anything, but this was the language Leon had used when he’d explained this, a language that Charlie used as well. It seemed wise to mimic them.
I was beginning to see more and more that mana really was alive, at least in some sense of the word, and it was notes that told it how to behave. In fact, notes were more powerful than our minds, which was only capable of changing the power and direction of the spells.
Ordia seemed to be an entirely different story, which was probably why Leon had so much trouble understanding it. He relied on others, like Jennava, to discuss the nuances of the magical art of order. I could see why. We were mostly just talking about the mana of erto, and I was already getting lost.
But what did G do? That was the question at hand. There were theories in the texts Charlie and Leon had read, with additional information in the scrolls. Leon had admitted earlier that he had a wild guess about what was going to happen, but he didn’t want to possibly ruin the surprise for us if he was right.
No matter what happened when I casted the spell, it was nice to spend the day without worrying about Cason or the traitor. It reminded me that there was no point in stressing about the things I couldn’t control. I could only wait for something to happen, a feeling I was starting to get used to.
I found out recently that Leon’s range didn’t extend low enough for him to reach anything below C. He’d also shared that most of the powerful sorcerers he’d met through his long lifetime had eventually turned to dteria. It was part of the reason the king had no one to call upon to help in this war. Sure, there were more powerful sorcerers than us who had stayed away from dteria, but all of them were wealthy and selfish. They would only fight for coin; coin that Nykal didn’t have to spare. He had spent too much building an army to take out the last king, who had been building his own army of dark sorcerers.
Nykal wouldn’t know just how many of the men who fought to crown him would fight for him again if Lycast came under attack, because this time he wouldn’t be able to pay them all. All he knew was that he didn’t have the coin to employ them continuously, and he couldn’t impose a crisis tax without a reason that was plainly obvious to the people of Lycast. It wasn’t just hired mercenaries who had rebelled against the last king. Many were citizens sick of the constant taxing.
This had come out through conversations today, as Leon had been much more relaxed about our training. It was the first time in a while that I didn’t feel any weight on my shoulders. I wasn’t sure why that was, as nothing had really changed in the last few days. It was just that the attitude of my peers and instructor had a calming effect. I supposed it wasn’t too strange, considering that panic worked in the same way. I did appreciate this time. I wasn’t sure how many more days we would have like this.
“Get on with it!” Reuben urged me.
“I almost have it,” I said. “One moment.”
“It’s getting dark,” Eden commented. “We’re not going to be able to see whatever happens for much longer.”
It took me just a short while after that, but then I was ready.
“All right, I think I can do it now. Stand back.”
Everyone scooted away.
I casted the spell with as much force as I could.
A sorcerer could always tell when his spell came to fruition. There was a click in my mind, the notes blending in harmony like hearing a beautiful sound, only this was silent. The drain on my stamina was always more intense for new spells, and this was no exception. I could feel the weight on my mind like I was trying to keep a rock steady from an awkward position.
I didn’t see anything as I casted lG, G, and uG—no name for the spell yet. I pushed harder.
“Are you doing it or trying to pass gas?” Michael asked. “I can’t tell.”
“Shut up,” I groaned as I strained harder. “I’m casting it, dammit.”
“Are you sure?” Michael asked.
“Keep going Jon,” Leon said. “Everyone get back.”
“Wait, what are you—?”
“Keep it up!” he yelled as he tossed his boot at my face.
I didn’t know why I trusted him. Perhaps I was just too slow to react while I was focusing. Either way, I kept up the spell and did not duck.
CHAPTER TWENTY
I was on the ground, my hand covering the imprint of Leon’s boot on my forehead. “Why the hell did you do that?” I yelled at him.
“You couldn’t see it from your angle,” he said as he retrieved his boot. “It was going to work if you just held it
stronger. Or maybe if I didn’t throw it as hard.”
“Again, why the hell did you do that?”
Michael pulled me up. He was still chuckling a bit.
“We needed to test it,” Leon answered. “Hold still.” He slapped his hand on my forehead and healed my pain away. “All right, now one more time.”
“Did you see anything?” I asked Michael.
“I saw you get hit in the face with his boot. That’s about it.”
“Maybe I only felt your spell and imagined I saw it,” Leon said. “But I know your mana changed when the boot came in contact with it. I felt it.”
“I couldn’t hold it much stronger than that. If you insist on throwing your boot, at least toss it underhand.”
“Fine. Go again. There isn’t much daylight left.”
I lifted my hand as I split my mana three ways.
“This time,” Leon instructed, “try to catch the boot with your mana. Go.”
It was a hint, or more than just a hint perhaps, but he hadn’t given me time to think about it as he motioned like he would toss the boot.
I casted the spell, three octaves of G. I could feel the mana as a cluster in front of me. It wanted to do something but I couldn’t tell what.
Leon tossed his boot. I directed the mana I was holding to the path in front of it, instructing the mana to catch the boot.
It collided with my mana, and I felt the weight of the item threatening to pull my mana apart. It wasn’t that it was so heavy, but the tension was high, as if I was trying to catch a small pebble with a thin sheet of parchment. I felt that I had to bend my mana in the same way I would the parchment so it wouldn’t rupture.
Amazingly, the mana seemed to bend around the boot on its own. The energy that was connected to my mind seemed to truly come alive. It all happened in a blink, my mana enclosing around the boot and suspending it in the air.
It only lasted a breath before the boot tore through my mana and fell to the ground, but I had seen it. I had felt it. I had suspended Leon’s boot in the air.
“Oh my god,” I said as I started to realize the implication. “It grabbed the boot without me even telling it to.”
