by Clayton Wood
“Yes sir,” Kyle replied, feeling a bit of the wind come out of his sails.
“You've sensed magic outside of you,” Kalibar continued. “The next step is to sense your own magic...the magic inside of your brain. This will be much harder to sense than the magic I streamed to you.”
“What do I do?” Kyle asked.
“We'll sensitize you to smaller and smaller amounts of magic over time,” Kalibar answered. “I'll send a magic stream to you, then send a weaker and weaker stream, until you can't feel it anymore. When that happens, let me know. Eventually, you'll become attuned to even minute amounts of magic – including your own.”
“Got it.”
“Lay back in the water then,” Kalibar ordered. Kyle complied, and waited for Kalibar to start. He felt a vibration directly above him.
“I feel it,” he called out.
The sensation began to fade, becoming dimmer and dimmer, until he wasn't sure if he was still feeling it or not.
“I think maybe I lost it,” he admitted, swinging forward onto his feet. Kalibar nodded.
“Not bad,” he said. “Now I know where your limit is. We'll do it over and over again, and see how you improve.”
They did just that, repeating the process again and again. For a while there was no change – he was still losing the sensation at the same amount of magic. But, after the umpteenth time, Kalibar said he noted improvement...a little. Kyle couldn't help but feel frustrated and a little dismayed. Kalibar must have noticed.
“Don't worry,” he reassured. “Sensing magic takes time. It's like a muscle,” he added. “Even with a great deal of exercise, it takes time to grow.”
Kyle nodded, feeling only a little better. He held his arms against his chest, realizing that he was shivering. The water had become a bit chilly; he looked up, spotting the sun hovering just above the horizon. They must have been practicing for hours; indeed, his stomach grumbled at him, complaining bitterly at his neglect.
“I'm starving,” he admitted. “Can we take a break?”
“Of course,” Kalibar answered, gesturing for Kyle to get out of the water. “It's time for dinner anyway.” Kyle stepped out of the water, and they both walked back to the carriage. They both looked around for Darius, but the bodyguard was nowhere to be found. Kalibar cooked up a meal of spinach-like leaves in a hot soup, with small pieces of meat mixed in. Kyle ate his food greedily, slurping every last drop of the soup up, then asking for seconds. By the time the two of them finished their meals, the sun had kissed the horizon, sending brilliant swathes of orange and red across the twilight sky.
“I think we've had enough training for today,” Kalibar decided. He yawned, stretching his arms out to the sides. “I'm going to turn in for the night.” He walked up to the carriage, pulling two sleeping bags from it and handing one to Kyle. Just then, they heard footsteps approaching in the darkness. It was Darius, back from wherever he'd been all day.
“Welcome back,” Kalibar greeted. “Any signs we've been followed?” Darius shook his head.
“Nope.”
“Good,” Kalibar replied. “We're going to turn in,” he continued. He gestured at the metallic, stake-like wards he'd hammered into the ground in a loose circle around the camp. “Once I activate these wards, you'll have to stay inside their circle until I deactivate them.” He smirked. “I suggest you...relieve yourselves before then.”
Darius declined the advice, but Kyle took it, walking a short distance into the woods to do his duty. Then he returned, curling up inside of his sleeping bag. Kalibar did something with the wards, and suddenly the entire camp was surrounded by a faint blue gravity shield, easily fifty feet in diameter. Kalibar and Darius went into their respective sleeping bags, and with that, the day was done.
Kyle yawned, then closed his eyes, feeling absolutely exhausted. He'd never had trouble sleeping after a day filled with exertions, and he'd rarely exerted himself more strenuously than he had today. Within moments, sleep claimed him.
Chapter 11
Kyle jerked himself awake, opening his eyes. The sun hovered just above the tree line in the distance, its rays peeking between dark, ominous-looking clouds approaching slowly from the east. Kyle squinted against the light, rolling over onto his belly in his sleeping bag. He rubbed his eyes, then crawled slowly out of the bag, his legs and lower back terribly sore and stiff from yesterday's hike. The gravity shield protecting the camp had vanished, the stake-like wards still stuck in the ground in a wide circle around them, their runes glowing a faint blue. Kalibar and Darius were already up; Kalibar was sitting on the edge of his own levitating sleeping bag, an open book floating in the air in front of him. Darius, on the other hand, was sitting cross-legged on the ground, eating some bread and soup.
Kyle yawned, stretching his arms up and out. His stomach growled at him, and he eyed Darius's meal, walking up to the bodyguard.
“Morning,” Kyle greeted. Darius didn't respond...he didn't even look up.
Jerk, Kyle thought, doing his best to hide his irritation.
“Can I have some too?” Kyle asked, gesturing at Darius's food. Darius brought his bowl of soup to his lips, slurping loudly.
“Go ahead,” he replied tersely.
Kyle paused, waiting for Darius to get up and grab him some, but the bodyguard didn't budge.
“Uh, where is the...stuff?” Kyle asked. Again, Darius didn't reply, biting a hunk out of his piece of bread and chewing it leisurely. Kyle stood there for a moment, staring down at the armored meat-head, and briefly entertained kicking the man's bowl right out of his hands. He resisted the urge, more out of self-preservation than anything else, and stomped off to the carriage in the middle of the camp instead. A few of the packs from the trunk had been set on the ground beside the carriage, and Kyle squatted before these, rummaging through them. Within moments, he found a bowl, a canteen filled with water, a packet of dried soup base, and a loaf of bread wrapped in wax paper. He retrieved these, mixing the soup base with the water inside of his bowl, then soaking the bread in his concoction. Cold and soggy, it was far from appetizing, but it settled his complaining belly.
When he'd finished, he rinsed his bowl with leftover water from the canteen, then put each item back where it belonged. He glanced back at Kalibar – still engrossed in his book – then turned to gaze across Crescent Lake. Sunlight glittered off of its waters like tiny diamonds, fluffy clouds hovering far above overhead, pleasant puffs of white floating in the infinite blue. He spotted a flock of birds flying in a loose ring above, and followed them with his gaze as they crossed the sky, disappearing beyond the cliffs and the waterfall at the far end of the lake. He glanced down at his left thumb, feeling suddenly naked without his father's ring there.
Not just my dad's ring, he reminded himself. It had been Ampir's ring, after all, long ago. A ring filled with the long-dead man's memories, and with the power to send Kyle here, to this world. And maybe – just maybe – to send him back home.
He gazed up at the sky, into that endless expanse of blue.
Where am I?
He sighed, walking across the camp – pointedly ignoring Darius – and stepping beyond the ring of wards. He walked all the way up to the edge of the lake, then sat down on the coarse, damp sand there. He felt a sudden pang of sadness, wondering how long it'd been since he'd been away from home. Seven days? Eight? Either way, his parents had to be fearing the worst now. That wherever he was, he wasn't coming back...ever.
That he was dead.
Kyle took a deep breath in, letting it out slowly. A wave of grief threatened to overtake him, and he clenched his teeth, forcing it down. There was no point in wallowing in his misery, after all...and he sure as hell wasn't about to let Darius see him cry. He grabbed a pebble, standing up and winding his arm back, then whipping the stone over the lake. It skipped off the glittering water, once, twice, and then a third time before sinking below the surface, leaving a string of expanding ripples in its wake.
“Good mo
rning, Kyle,” a voice behind him said.
Kyle jumped, whirling around to find Kalibar standing there behind him. Kalibar gave him a rueful smile.
“Didn't mean to startle you,” he apologized. “Did you sleep well?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“Any dreams?” Kalibar pressed. Kyle shook his head.
“Not that I can remember,” he admitted. He was thankful for the reprieve from his usual nightmares, but Kalibar seemed disappointed.
“Ah well,” Kalibar said. He scratched the side of his face, where white stubble was already starting to grow. “I had a hard time getting to sleep myself,” he confessed. “I couldn't help but think of all the things we could do if we learned to store our memories like Ampir did, in his ring.” He shook his head, staring across the water. “Imagine...to be able to hand down your experiences to your children, to let them learn from your mistakes without ever having to make them themselves! That,” he added, pausing for a moment. “That would change everything.”
“Yeah,” Kyle mumbled. They both stared at the lake silently for a bit. Then Kalibar stirred.
“We don't know everything about the Ancients,” he said, “...but we have a good handle on the extent of their runic technology. Storing one's memories in a ring is far beyond even their capabilities, but somehow Ampir managed to do it.”
“He was that good?” Kyle asked.
“He was,” Kalibar confirmed. “Even his worst critics knew that he was the very best at what he did...that no one before him, or since, even came close.” He shook his head again. “I have no doubt that it was Ampir who invented teleportation, and that his mentor Renval was only along for the ride.”
Kyle nodded absently, staring down at his left thumb. He heard Kalibar sigh.
“As much as I hate Ampir for what he did, I can't help being fascinated by him,” he murmured. ““What I wouldn't give to meet the man,” he added wistfully. “Or to have lived in Ancient times.”
Kyle heard footsteps behind him, and turned around to see Darius walking across the camp to one of the packs in the trunk of the carriage. The bodyguard retrieved a small, flat stone, then sat down on the ground, pulling out a huge sword from a scabbard at his hip. It looked like a cross between a machete and a standard sword, and had a sharp, wicked-looking edge. Darius began sliding the stone over the edge of the blade, making a metallic ringing sound with each scrape. The sun, now rising above the dark clouds on the horizon, made the man's golden armor shimmer with every movement.
“Well then,” Kalibar stated, clearing his throat. “We should continue your training. No point in wasting daylight.” Kyle nodded eagerly, feeling positively giddy about the prospect, and started taking off his shirt, but Kalibar stopped him. “We'll get back to the lake in a bit,” he stated. “First, I'd like to go over some magic theory.”
“Okay...” Kyle replied, pulling his shirt back on. Kalibar led Kyle back to the camp.
“Before we begin, do you have any questions?” Kalibar asked. Kyle frowned, mulling it over.
“Those shields you make with your staff,” Kyle answered. “How do they work?”
“Good question,” Kalibar replied. “Magic can do many things, but they all come down to manipulating substances and forces. Gravity is a type of force, and magic can create it, strengthen it, or weaken it.” He smiled. “It can even reverse it.”
“Like make things fall up?” Kyle asked. Kalibar nodded.
“Sort of,” he agreed. “Gravity shields are reverse-polarity gravitational fields...meaning they shove things away instead of attracting them. They're usually less than an inch thick, and shaped into a sphere...but they're not blue, they're clear,” he corrected. “In any case, using them can get tricky if you don't know what you're doing.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, can you imagine what might happen if you surround yourself with a force that pushes everything outward?”
“Um...you'd get pushed out too?”
“Well possibly,” Kalibar replied. “But more importantly, the air around you would get sucked out, leaving you in a relative vacuum...and you would suffocate.”
“Oh.”
“That's why most gravity shields have two layers,” Kalibar explained. “An outer layer that pushes outward, and an inner layer that pushes inward. If they're the same strength – exactly the same strength – air won't get pulled out.”
“Makes sense,” Kyle conceded.
“And you'd still die,” Kalibar continued.
“Huh?”
“You'd be breathing the same air over and over again, until you suffocated,” Kalibar explained. “And no one would be able to hear you, since sound wouldn't be able to escape the inner gravity field. Can you think of a way to solve that problem?”
Kyle thought it over for a bit, then shrugged helplessly.
“I dunno,” he admitted, feeling a familiar sense of despair come over him. He'd figured that magic would just...well, work. It was sounding more and more like science.
“You'll figure it out,” Kalibar replied, patting Kyle on the shoulder. “Did you have any other questions?”
“No,” Kyle mumbled. He heard a dull thunk, and turned to see Darius standing at the edge of the camp, unlatching his golden armor piece by piece, until it lay in a heap at his feet. Underneath his armor, he wore a simple black shirt and a pair of shorts. He removed his shirt, revealing a heavily muscled torso and chest. The sun shone on his well-tanned skin as he strode leisurely toward the lake, wading, then diving into the water. Within a remarkably short period of time, the bodyguard had swam half the length of the lake, his head barely visible in the mist formed by the waterfall.
“I think that's the first time I've seen him enjoying himself,” Kalibar observed, watching as Darius swam right up to the waterfall, getting immediately shoved beneath the surface of the lake by the force of the falling water. The bodyguard emerged a few dozen feet away after a long moment, then swam up to the waterfall and did it again. Kalibar turned to Kyle. “Except of course when he's needling you,” the old man added with a wink.
“Great,” Kyle muttered.
Kalibar watched the bodyguard for a moment longer, then turned to Kyle.
“In any case, let's start your first lesson in magic theory,” Kalibar said. He strode up to his still-levitating sleeping bag, retrieving his staff from the ground beneath it. He handed it to Kyle, who grasped the cool metal with both hands. The staff was surprisingly light, with countless small symbols carved into the surface. The runes were all glowing a faint blue, and when Kyle looked up close, he could swear he saw something shimmering in each symbol's tiny furrows.
“Now,” Kalibar stated, “...what is a Weaver?”
“Uh...” Kyle began, then hesitated. “Someone who uses magic?”
“They do,” Kalibar agreed, “...but so do Runics.”
“Someone who uses magic to do things like make gravity shields?”
“True,” Kalibar said. “And many other things. Weavers use magic to make what we call 'patterns' in their minds. It's a little like weaving a thread of yarn into a pattern to make fabric, which is why we call it weaving magic.”
“And that's why you're called a Weaver?”
“Exactly,” Kalibar replied. “Different patterns do different things. One might create a gravity shield, while another creates fire.”
“Okay,” Kyle said. He looked down at Kalibar's staff. “So what exactly do Runics do?”
“Runics create objects – called 'runics' or 'runic devices' – to do the weaving for them,” Kalibar answered. “Now remember, you have to weave magic into particular patterns in order for it to do anything. The pattern determines the nature of the magic – how it will alter matter and energy. While a Weaver weaves magic patterns in his mind, a Runic weaves magic using runes,” he continued, gesturing at the runes carved into his staff.
“I don't get it,” Kyle admitted. “How do runes weave magic?”
“Runes ar
e essentially threads of minerals,” Kalibar explained. “When magic flows through these threads, it's the same as weaving magic in the mind. So the same pattern that makes fire when woven in the mind...”
“Makes fire when it flows through the rune,” Kyle finished. Kalibar nodded. “But wait,” Kyle protested. “Why make uh, runic devices if you can just weave in your mind?”
“Well, weaving takes time and effort,” Kalibar answered. “Remember the gravity shield I made with my staff, the one that protected us from the rain a couple days ago?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, my staff has magic stored within it,” Kalibar said. “And this was automatically sent to the runes that created the gravity shield. If it hadn't been for the staff, I would have had to stay awake all night to keep that shield up.”
“Oh, gotcha,” Kyle replied. It made perfect sense, now that he thought about it. “So Runics are just like Weavers, but they just let runes do the weaving for them?”
“It's a bit more complicated than that,” Kalibar admitted. “Runes can do more than just weave magic.” He frowned, tapping his chin. “For example, if I were to weave the pattern that makes fire in my mind, and I were anywhere near a type of rune with the same pattern, that rune would generate a small magical current.”
“What do you mean?” Kyle asked.
“Well, runes can 'sense' when patterns identical to them are being woven. No one is quite sure how or why, but nonetheless it is so...and it is extraordinarily useful.” He reached into his breast pocket then, retrieving a pair of sunglasses. They were, Kyle realized, the same glasses Kalibar had worn earlier, the night when their carriage had been attacked. He'd wondered why the man had worn his sunglasses at night.
“Put them on,” Kalibar urged. Kyle did so. They were too big for him, and he strongly suspected that they looked ridiculous on him. “Now, I'm going to weave the pattern that makes fire,” Kalibar explained. Almost immediately, a small flame danced in the air between them. Kyle saw a small red symbol start glowing at the left upper edge of the sunglasses on the left lens.
