The Sorcery Code

by Dima Zales

  “I understand,” Gala said soothingly. “But trust me, I have considered all the positives and negatives, and I strongly feel that it will be worth it for me to go there. This kind of event is a rare opportunity, and I must see it for myself since it’s the last time the games are taking place.”

  Esther shook her head in resignation. “Arguing with you is like arguing with Blaise,” she muttered, putting on her own shawl. “You two are impossible with all your smooth talk and reason. I don’t know what all those positives and negatives are, but I do know it’s a bad idea to go. Obviously, I can’t stop you any more than I can stop a force of nature.”

  Gala just smiled in response, knowing she’d gotten her way.

  As the three of them were walking out of the inn, she wondered how one would literally stop a force of nature. She’d read about the horrible ocean storms that surrounded Koldun, and now she was curious if those could be stopped. The mainland was protected from these storms by a ridge of mountains all around, but on rare occasions, the storms still crossed the mountains and caused many deaths. Of course, if the mountains could stop the storms, a proper—if complex—spell could likely do the same.

  “So far, so good,” Maya said as they passed by a crowd of young people and no one paid them any attention. “Maybe you were right, Gala. Just keep your shawl on at all times.”

  Gala nodded, pulling the shawl tighter around her head. She didn’t like the feel of the scratchy material, but she accepted the necessity of wearing it. After all, if it hadn’t been for her own actions at the market, she wouldn’t have needed the disguise outside the inn at all.

  * * *

  The Coliseum was the most majestic structure Gala had ever seen. Maya had managed to get them seats toward the bottom of the huge amphitheater, closer to the stage, and Gala could barely contain her excitement as the start of the games approached.

  A drumbeat began at first, followed by some strange, wonderfully energetic music. Gala was mesmerized. A gate slowly opened at the bottom of the amphitheater, and a dozen barrels rolled out, with people balancing on top of them, gripping the barrels with their bare feet. The crowd cheered, and Gala watched in fascination as the acrobats began to perform incredible feats on top of those barrels, coordinating their actions with stunning precision.

  More performers came out of the gate, carrying large baskets of fruit that Gala recognized as melons. They threw the melons at the acrobats, and the performers caught the fruit and started juggling it, all the while moving in precise circles all around the arena.

  Staring at the intricate flight path of the juggled fruit, Gala felt her mind going into an unusual half-absent, half-euphoric state. She was seeing the exact mathematical patterns that governed the trajectories of the flying melons, along with ones required to keep the barrels balanced, all the while the musical beat and melody had its own harmonious set of vibrations that the jugglers were in sync with. It was so amazing she almost felt like she was one with the acrobats—like she could walk out there, ride a barrel, and juggle a dozen fruits herself to the music.

  Grinning, she watched the acrobats performing their tricks, happy that she hadn’t listened to Maya and Esther about attending the event. If she hadn’t seen this, she was sure she would’ve regretted it for life.

  By the time the next act came out, Gala was laughing and thoroughly enjoying herself like the rest of the crowd. To her surprise, instead of people, the next performers were bears—wild animals she’d read about in one of Blaise’s books.

  Two large beasts rolled out on barrels. It was amusing, and at first, Gala continued laughing—until she saw a man with a thick mustache standing in the middle of the stage. He was cracking a long whip all around the bears, and every time he did so, the animals seemed to flinch, reacting to the sharp sound.

  Frowning, Gala realized that the bears didn’t enjoy being there—that, unlike the acrobats, they didn’t thrive on the attention of the crowd. In fact, from what she could tell, all they wanted was to get off those silly barrels and rest, but every time one of them faltered, the ugly crack of the whip sounded, and the animals continued rolling around on stage.

  “Why do they make those bears do that?” she whispered to Esther.

  “Because it is fun to watch?” Esther whispered back.

  “I don’t like it,” Gala muttered under her breath, unhappy that the animals were forced to do something that clearly went against their nature.

  “Should we leave then?” Maya asked hopefully.

  “No.” Gala shook her head. “I want to see what happens next.”

  After the bears left the arena, the next act was that of a man swallowing fire, followed by a group of young women dancing in skimpy, colorful costumes. Gala greatly enjoyed all of it, relieved that no more animals were involved.

  And just as she was about to decide that the Coliseum games were the best entertainment she could imagine, a voice echoed throughout the arena, cutting through the excited chatter of the crowd. “Ladies and Gentlemen, now is the moment you have all been waiting for.” There was a drumroll. “I give you . . . the lions!”

  The crowd went silent, all their attention focused on the stage. Gala waited to see what would emerge as well, some intuition making her stomach tighten unpleasantly.

  The gate opened again, and a dozen men dressed in heavy armor came out, dragging heavy chains behind them. At the other end of those chains were the lions—the most beautiful creatures Gala had ever seen.

  The chains were hooked to choking collars with spikes that were digging deeply into the animals’ necks. In obvious pain, roaring and screaming, the lions were forced to walk toward the middle of the arena. Once more than a dozen lions were there, the armored men attached the chains to the hooks in the ground and hurried away, poking the lions with long spears to keep the animals from attacking them. This seemed to infuriate the beasts even more, and their roars grew in volume, causing some women in the crowd to squeal in excitement.

  Her horror and disgust growing with every moment, Gala watched as the gates opened yet again, letting in a group of men into the arena. Unlike the guards before, these men were armed with nothing more than a few short, rusty-looking swords. They stumbled out into the arena, several of them tripping over their own feet, and Gala realized that they had been pushed out—that they didn’t want to be there any more than the poor lions. The expressions on the men’s faces were those of fear and panic.

  Gala’s heart jumped into her throat as two lions began to stalk one of the men in the arena. He was backing away, waving his sword at them, his motions desperate and clumsy—and Gala realized that this was the entertainment.

  The lions and the people were about to fight to the death.

  A rage more powerful than anything Gala had ever felt before started building inside her. It filled her until all she could see, all she could focus on, was the terrifying scene about to unfold.

  “Stop,” she whispered, barely knowing what she was saying. With the corner of her eye, she could see Maya and Esther looking at her worriedly, feel them tugging at her sleeve, trying to lead her away, but it was as though her feet grew roots. She was frozen in place, unable to do anything but watch the hideous spectacle below.

  A loud roar, then a blur of yellow . . . A lion pounced, tackling a man to the ground, and Gala felt the now-familiar sensation of losing control, of letting that other, unknown part of herself take over. She was vaguely aware that something inside her was calculating the distance from her seat to the middle of the arena—and then she was out of her seat, floating toward her destination.

  Everything seemed to grow silent. Even the lions stopped roaring, turning their heads to watch the amazing sight of a human girl flying through the air. It was so quiet, Gala could hear the clinking of chains as the lions moved toward the center of the arena where she was about to land, leaving their prey without a second glance.

  And then Gala was among them, surrounded by the beautiful, fierce creatures.
She knew they could be dangerous, but she didn’t feel any fear. Instead, all she felt was wonder. Without conscious thought, she reached out and touched the gorgeous animal closest to her. His fur felt rough, almost bristly, but underneath, the lion was warm—as warm as Gala herself. In that moment, she knew that they were one and the same—both flesh and bone, a manifestation of thought and matter in the Physical Realm.

  Reaching out to the lion with her mind, she tried to reassure him, to tell him she was a friend, here to help them. And the lion seemed to understand. Purring, the beast lay down in front of her, his long whiskers pleasantly tickling her ankle.

  Bending down, Gala touched the chocker around the lion’s neck. The animal whimpered, and she willed the chains and the chocker removed, desperate to free the majestic creature. With a loud clang, all the instruments of feline torture came off, not just on the lion next to her but on all of them.

  The lions roared as one, and then the biggest one came up to her. Still dazed and feeling no fear, Gala extended her hand to him, smiling as he licked her palm with his rough tongue.

  Slowly beginning to calm down, she became aware of murmuring in the crowd. Looking up, she saw everyone watching her—and realized what she had done. She had lost control again, and she had done it in the most public venue possible.

  Her hand instinctively rose to touch her shawl, but she felt her hair blowing in the breeze instead. Her disguise was gone, the shawl lying in a heap on the floor of the arena. It must’ve fallen off at some point without her noticing.

  Gala’s breathing quickened. Thousands of eyes were staring at her right now. Blaise had asked her to be discreet, and she’d failed him again and again, in the most spectacular fashion. Her discomfort growing with every moment, Gala cast a frantic glance around her. The lions were calmly standing there, like a wall of animal flesh, and at the far side of the arena were the men who were supposed to fight them, all huddling together and watching her with shock and disbelief.

  And Gala knew what she had to do. Her mind went to that place inside herself that she was now beginning to recognize—the place that had enabled her to do sorcery before. It was a far cry from being able to control her abilities, but at least now she recognized when she was about to use them.

  As though from a distance, she felt she was about to do exactly what she’d done the other day at the dance. Focusing with all her might on Esther, Maya, and the lions, Gala let the desire to be away overwhelm her. Closing her eyes, she willed them all back to the place that had served as home for the past several days.

  She willed them back to the inn.

  And when she opened her eyes, that was exactly where they were all standing—she, the lions, and the two elderly women.

  Unfortunately, in front of them, on the dead field of wheat, were hundreds of heavily armed soldiers.

  They were headed for the inn, and seeing Gala materializing with her strange entourage gave them only the briefest of pauses. Their faces were hard, expressionless, and Gala suddenly knew that they were there for her—that what Blaise had feared had come to pass.

  Her heart jumped, and in her desperate panic, her mind succeeded in doing something she had been futilely trying to do for the past several days: it reached out to Gala’s creator.

  “Blaise, I think we have been found.”

  Chapter 39: Blaise

  Rubbing his eyes, Blaise fought his exhaustion in order to write yet another line of code. His brain was barely functioning, but he was only a few hours away from completing the spell that would take him to Gala in a series of teleporting leaps. His task was complicated by the fact that he’d only had a couple of pre-written spell cards with teleportation code, and that the code would have only applied to one person—not a person and his chaise flying in the air, as Blaise was planning to do. That meant that he was essentially doing the spell from scratch, which always took much longer.

  Deep in thought, he got that sensation again, the one that preceded Contact.

  “Blaise, I think we have been found.”

  As though a glass of cold water had been thrown into his face. Blaise jumped up from his chair, his heart hammering. The voice had been Gala’s, and it had spoken clearly in his head. He was so shocked he didn’t even have a chance to ponder the fact that Gala had somehow altered the Contact spell enough that her actual voice had sounded in his mind.

  There was no more time to sit and finish the teleportation spell. He had to get to Gala, and he had to do it now.

  Grabbing his Interpreter Stone and the spell cards he had been painstakingly working on, Blaise ran out of the house. He had enough of the spell done by now that he would be able to tele-jump a good portion of the way to Neumanngrad. The rest of the way he would fly. It would be faster than finishing the spell right now.

  Jumping onto his chaise, Blaise rose up into the air and quickly fed one of the cards into the Stone. He didn’t even bother to look behind him to see if he was being followed. Now that Gala had been found, it didn’t matter anymore. All he cared about was getting to her as quickly as possible.

  When he materialized a few miles away, he looked ahead with his enhanced vision, making sure his path was clear, and quickly scribbled the next set of coordinates onto a pre-written card. Then he fed that into the Stone too.

  By the time he ran out of cards, he was still a distance away. Cursing, he tried to get his chaise to go faster, his blood running cold at the thought of Gala being there with only two old women to protect her. He had been a fool to let her go see the world on her own, and he would never make that mistake again. Whatever happened next, they would be together, he mentally vowed to himself.

  As he was getting closer to his destination, he heard thunder and saw large clouds forming. The first raindrops hit his skin soon thereafter, quickly turning into a torrential downpour. Below, Blaise could see the parched ground greedily absorbing the water—the first such rain since the drought had begun.

  Squinting, he peered through the wall of water, trying to see what lay ahead. And in the distance, he spotted the inn.

  What he saw there shook him to the very core of his being.

  Chapter 40: Gala

  Cornered. They were cornered.

  The word hammered inside Gala’s skull as she stared at the soldiers moving swiftly toward her. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Esther and Maya frozen in place, shock and fear reflected on their pale faces. Even the lions seemed dazed, disoriented by being teleported so suddenly from place to place.

  She had gotten them out of the Coliseum and brought them into a situation that seemed a thousand times worse.

  Closing her eyes, Gala tried to will herself and her companions away, but when she opened them, she was still standing there. Her magical abilities, never reliable, had apparently deserted her again. Though she felt that part of her mind churning, she couldn’t control it enough to teleport them this time.

  A surge of panic sharpened her vision. Gala could suddenly see everything, right down to each mole and scar on the soldiers’ faces. Instead of one big formation, they were organized into small groups, each one with archers in the middle and men with large two-handed shields standing in a semi-circle at the front. They looked grim and determined, the archers already drawing their arrows and the swordsmen holding the hilts of their weapons tightly, their muscular forearms tense in anticipation.

  They were ready for battle.

  No, Gala thought in desperation. She couldn’t let this happen. If the soldiers were there for her, then she needed to face them herself. She couldn’t allow Maya, Esther, or the lions to get pulled into this.

  Gathering her courage, she began walking toward the army.

  “Gala, wait!”

  She could hear Esther yelling behind her, and she picked up the pace, wanting to leave the old women far behind. “Stay there,” she yelled back, turning her head to see the lions following her and Maya and Esther trailing in their wake. Gala willed them to stop, to turn back, bu
t her magic was no more in her control than the dual emotions of fear and desperation that made her whole body shake.

  Not knowing what else to do, she began running—running straight at the armed men. It felt liberating in a strange way, to just run as fast as she could, and Gala felt her speed picking up with each step until she was almost flying toward the wheat field, leaving her entourage far behind.

  One of the small groups of soldiers stepped forward, putting up their shields as though expecting an attack. At the same time, the archers released their arrows, turning the sky black. Even with her mind in turmoil, Gala could estimate the current path of the deadly sticks, could calculate the trajectory adjusted for gravity and wind. She could tell that many arrows would hit her and a few would even reach her friends.

  Still running, she felt a growing fury. It exploded out of her in a blast of fire that covered the sky and the ground all around her. The deadly hail of arrows disintegrated, turning to ash in a matter of seconds, but the soldiers remained standing. Their shields were emitting a faint glow that somehow protected the men from the heat as a cloud of ash settled magnificently over the burning field.

  Unfazed, Gala kept running. She felt unstoppable, invincible, and when the group of soldiers loomed in front of her, she couldn’t slow down. Instead she slammed into them at full speed, not even feeling the impact of the metal shields hitting her body.

  The shields and the men holding them flew into the air, as though they were made of straw. Their bodies landed heavily several yards away and lay there in a heap of broken bones and bruised flesh.