Wayward Magic (Magic Underground Anthologies Book 2)

by Melinda Kucsera

  “Easy Brandur, easy. Remember your form? Your shape when you were alive?” The voice coughed a deep, chest-rattling series of hacks.

  Alive. I was alive? Slowly the memories came back. My childhood, a boy that ran around the village as fearless as could be who cowered from his grandfather. Orm, my friend who fought by my side when we went viking in our youth, who helped bring me back from my berserker rages on the field of battle, who witnessed my marriage to... Torhild. My love. My shieldmaiden. My wife. The mother of the child that I never had a chance to be a father too because of...

  “Heliodoro,” I rasped weakly.

  “You sound so weak, but I can feel the vibrancy of your soul through your pendant. Come here, please.”

  I slowly stretched into myself, the effort took a huge amount of effort on my part. I would get a foot manifested and then work on a leg, only to have the foot slip away and flow back into me. My sight was the last thing to come back to me, my normal sight and my Odin’s sight. Once I was whole again it took another bit of time to be able to move and stay whole.

  The room had a high domed ceiling, the doorway and windows were stone arches, and the windows were filled with detailed, multicolored mosaics that would have been absolutely captivating if I were in any other situation. In the middle of all the extravagance was a shrunken Heliodoro on a bed of cream and gold silks with his crazed hair, all white and sparse now, and sunken in cheeks with a shaggy brown fur on him. A bearskin blanket. Heliodoro had always been lean, but he had been healthy-looking. Now lines of his face looked like they were carved into his skin, his ruddy tone had bleached, and his pallor made the age spots that had appeared since I last saw him stand out.

  What shocked me the most was his aura.

  His aura has always been thin, weak, nut now it was barely a yellow film over him, with a black stain which webbed out from the center of his chest.

  “I’ve missed you, Brandur,” Heliodoro said with a hand outstretched toward me. “I’ve missed our talks, our teaching to each other. My children and grandchildren don’t know that I secreted you out, but I needed to see my favorite student!”

  “What happened to you?” I asked quietly, my hands balled into fists.

  “Your attack, which I always understood, and I forgave long ago, caused me a severely damaged sanguine humor. The family forced me to return to al-Andalus to see what could be done, but other than rest and tonics for the pain there is no help. My comfort can be maintained, but I never ventured again.

  “Brandur, I read through my journals regarding you over and over! I did not want you locked away for these past two and a half decades, I needed to put you in a box to recover myself, but my soul has always been too weak to shield myself properly. Please, stay with me, your presence comforts me. We can talk like old times!”

  I felt the red-hot coals of my anger slowly burning within me, but that’s how they staid. The rage didn’t consume me, but I still was stronger for it. It was slow, deliberate, and the ability to control it was delicious.

  “Of course, Heliodoro,” I walked towards the old man and smiled down at him. “I shall stay with you until you take your last breath.”

  Then I drove my fist into his chest.

  I almost welcomed going back into my box. It was on a table a few feet away from the bed among books and other patras. I could feel the various ghosts from them, though if any could help it they weren’t in this room and the ones that couldn’t leave stayed buried within their vessels. A ring and a pendant felt different, each of their gems blazed with aura as any patra did, but there were no cords that came out to attach them to a ghost. I used my Odin’s sight like a hand and pierced the two pieces with my senses, only to back out of them quickly.

  Heliodoro did it. Not exactly the way he wanted to, the soul was still attached to its energy, but these ghosts were locked inside of their patras. And they screamed.

  Sickened, weary of the world all over again, I let go of my living outline and condensed myself back into my box. I knew eventually one of Heliodoro’s descendants would find his dead body, take my valknut off his neck, and lock me away. Maybe for good this time.

  I couldn’t find it within me to care.

  “Martillo, this is the worst idea you have had yet!”

  “You’re just chicken, you’ve been cowed by the elders, Efi! We’ve been trained our entire lives to capture the ghost when it leaves a person’s body, how to deal with disgruntled ghosts, and different ways to protect ourselves from magical assaults. Don’t you want to go to the new world with the best you can have?”

  “But... Martillo, this one killed the Delgado Patriarch!”

  “The old coot deserved to die, didn’t you read his accounts? By his own hand and by others? He was a genius, but he was as crazed as the worst of the family put together, then doubled. Probably more!”

  I stayed buried within my valknut in case either of these two could see if I left, but while I could hear I couldn’t see. How am I hearing them? Maybe... Can I use just my Odin’s sight? It’s worth a try.

  The one who was holding me, the voice that I took to be Martillo’s bright, confident tones, had a bright, glowing green aura. The spot above his eyes had a faint lavender hint to it, and his throat had a gentle blue glow. Interesting... Maybe I should just use my Odin’s sight more often. The other voice, Efi, had a gentle orange smolder to his aura, and it didn’t radiate out as Martillo’s did. Efi’s aura was more like Heliodoro was, just not as severe. He also had a dark, sticky mud red-colored splotch in his aura just to the right of the center of his upper stomach, below the ribs, but the spot on his forehead positively glowed with a purple light. Is that because his aura is so thin, or is that because he is stronger with that point?

  “Patriarch Heliodoro may have had his issues, but he is the reason why we even have the opportunities that we do!” Efi argued. “We should respect the wishes of the elders that locked the Viking away. He has proven to be a problem, uncontrollable, and unpredictable. He murdered multiple members of our family and set back Patriarch Heliodoro’s research by decades between his pranks and his attacks on Patriarch Heliodoro himself.”

  “You don’t have to be so obnoxiously formal, Efi,” Martillo teased. “There is no one here to smack your knuckles with a switch for not using proper titles! Besides, Heliodoro was funded by The Golden Cup Society. It’s because of them that our family has become the power that it is today. Not that most of the people within the society even have a clue as to what one of its most influential and supportive families does with the society’s history and wealth of knowledge.”

  Were they talking about Iceland? I visited there in my youth; it was hardly a new world. Maybe they were talking about the other land that a few of the expert navigators said they had evidence of existing, even though they had never seen it or stepped foot upon its shores. My curiosity piqued so I listened further to the two bickering back and forth.

  “You never know who’s listening!” Efi countered, and the comment made me laugh. “This is an extremely rare and powerful ghost that has been locked away for almost six hundred years. We have read the results of ghosts being locked into the lead boxes for long...”

  Six. Hundred. Years. I’ve been locked in that box for nearly six centuries?! Too much, everything was just too much. Too much information, too much stimulus after being in the darkness for so long, too many people.

  I withdrew into my mind, into the place I built for myself mentally after I knew I was going to be placed in the box again. It was my knörr, Silver Storm, with her full sails and her dragon-headed bow, and the sea rocked her gently as she sailed through the vast open waters that were matched by the clear sky above. Each detail in my mind was as precise and perfect as if I was standing on her myself. On her center mast, I hung my valknut next to Torhild’s. Mine glowed a gentle blue and hers had a seafoam green glow to it. I took a valknut in each hand, pressed them to my forehead, and wept.

  I watched the two from my val
knut, which the daring one, Martillo, had taken to wearing. He always hid it under his strange clothing, so many layers upon layers to create a square billow of a silhouette. Martillo and Efi both had the dominating features that marked them members of the Delgado family; sparse frames, impossible to tame dark hair, and sharp facial structures. None of these were the desirable physical traits of this place or era from what I observed of other people while Martillo and Efi were on their outings, though the two young men handled the discrepancy differently. Martillo’s fashion choices were as light-hearted and flamboyant as he was; all gold embroidery, lace, and bright colors. Efi wore more somber colors, less lace, and little gold. Martillo topped his look with strangely pointed felt hats with large, billowing capes, where Efi often would forgo a hat altogether and wear a simple cloak.

  The two couldn’t have been more different in personality and style, one the boisterous bear, the other the quiet sapling, yet the two were nearly inseparable. Martillo seemed hale of health, ate everything that he could get, while Efi had to be careful about what he ate, or he would get very sick. The two often would share food and Martillo ate the bread, fruit, and sweets that Efi couldn’t touch. Once Efi didn’t eat the right foods and he collapsed, his whole body shook and jerked out of his control.

  They both also wore matching medallions over top of whatever else they wore. Large golden disks with a bas relief of a cup in the center, with inscriptions in strange symbols that I recognized as related to what Heliodoro and his scribed used. I really should have taken the time to learn what the symbols meant. It seems like no one uses runes anymore.

  Often, they studied in a vaulted basement, their table lit by delicately worked oil lamps and candles, a plate of meats, cheeses, slices of bread, and fruits between them, and they were surrounded by rows upon rows of bookshelves with incalculable tomes on them. I enjoyed it when they spent their time there, the cool darkness made being around them more tolerable. I enjoyed being out, yet part of me yearned for the closed-off darkness of the box.

  “Listen to this, Efi,” Martillo said around a mouthful of bread. “‘Long term effects of the ghost being confined have similar negative impacts upon the ghost as it does the living. Seen in forced and accidental cases where the ghost was withdrawn and severed from all contact with other entities, living and dead, the ghosts displayed a variety of behaviors: refusal to communicate, loss of social skills, difficult time adjusting to new surroundings, easily overstimulated, and a proneness to hysterical outbursts, to name the most common.’ Brandur must still be here! I can feel his power, it all but radiates from his pendant! He studied with Heliodoro; he has to know the answers we are searching for.”

  “Señora Dolores also studied with Patriarch Heliodoro, and Señora Dolores wrote that Brandur had an unnatural hold on Heliodoro,” Efi countered while he slowly munched on a piece of cheese layered between two thin slices of roast beef. He wistfully eyed the fruit as he chewed. “She questioned what sort of influence Brandur had on him, noted in life that Brandur was a powerful warlock, and after Brandur’s failed attack Heliodoro acted as if possessed by the crazy Viking. Patriarch Heliodoro was recorded by many family members to have fits of rages, obsessions with bears, and experimented on living people in an attempt to get them to change shape.”

  “And her only issue is that Heliodoro experimented on the living, she had no qualms about killing people or abusing their ghosts after death.” Martillo huffed in disgust. “Our family has been using The Golden Cup’s archives under false pretenses, killing people, and torturing their souls for generations now. Prospering off their cruelty!”

  “Yet look at how you are decorated, you would put wealthy Jarls to shame,” I commented before I could stop myself. Both men jumped and searched around them at my remark. Efi half cowered and tried to control the contorted terror on his face while Martillo gave a wolfish grin of excitement.

  “Yes, I do enjoy my adornments, but I earned the money for these myself. I am a skilled scribe, and my illuminations are sought after widely. I’m one of the youngest with my skills and one of the few outside of a monastery. Please, show yourself. We only wish to help you and others.”

  “Help me how?”

  “Martillo, he is very powerful. This was a mistake!” Efi hissed as he slowly backed away. “He is the loudest ghost I’ve ever heard! Most can only whisper but he sounds as loud as a soft conversation. Where is his box? We should put him back before it’s too late!”

  “Efi, shush. Numerous people recorded Brandur’s volume, and his ability to make others be able to see and hear him, even when they lacked the talent or skill set to see the other world on their own.

  “Viking Brandur, we wish to free your ghost from its patra. We are trying to figure out how to undo the sambadda ritual that bound you to your pendant, undo the evils of our ancestors.”

  I stretched out from the valknut and flowed to the head of the table, forced my body to take shape step by step, detail by detail until I stood before the two in my full battle gear. The sight of the bear pelt over my helm and chain shirt made Martillo smile wider and Efi cower back further.

  “You have my attention. And why do you call me ‘Viking’ Brandur? ‘Viking’ is something you do, not a title.”

  Efi soon lost his fear of me, and Martillo almost immediately became frustrated with me when he learned that I wasn’t a knowledgeable and skilled völva, or warlock as he called it, and my inability to have more than a short conversation without getting agitated. Efi was much more patient with my recovery process, even convinced Martillo to put my pendant in my lead box and leave the lid askew so I could come and go but could have the quiet darkness to calm myself and recharge.

  The two explained that they had been chosen by the current head of the “true” Delgado family as they called it (any members that had Odin’s sight and other völva talents) and the Golden Cup Society to be founding members of the New World chapter. They had worried about bringing me with them on the giant sea boat to get across what they call the At-lahn-tic Ocean, but I stayed on the bow of the ship almost the entire voyage with little ill effect. Whatever sustained my link to my valknut helped shield me from the thundering aura of the rolling sea, though it did take a large amount of effort and concentration to not be pushed back through my connection and into my valknut.

  I missed being able to feel the spray of the sea.

  The voyage did more to heal my mind from the centuries of confinement more than anything else, though the two friends did their best to help me. Efi taught me about the strange runes that they called “letters,” and Martillo asked questions about every sambadda ritual I had ever seen, no matter what stage it was in. Overall, I had a surprising amount of freedom. When the two were asked to adventure and learn about the new world by the Golden Cup Society before the other U-row-pee-han countries taint the cultures irrevocably, the Delgado family told the two to evaluate the power levels of the souls of these natives while they were there and establish a foothold for the family. The two men said they wanted to be the only gifted ones that traveled over, with the excuse that they didn’t want to risk more gifted than absolutely necessary; the new world was still a dangerous and uncivilized place. In reality, they didn’t want anyone to find out that they had stolen me from the family’s deepest vaults. The ship was still almost to a man sailed by members of the Delgado family, but these were “outer” members of lower standing, ones that weren’t born with Odin’s sight or other gifts.

  The new world was a strange and exciting land. The trees had a different energy to them than any I had seen back home, the earth’s aura had a different feel here, and the days were incredibly long. The two friends jokingly named their settlement Libertad, to hint at their true goal’ freedom for me and the other ghosts whose patras they managed to sneak out of Spay-n. It was nestled on a cliff that faced the sea to the east, grassland to the west, with the forest to the north close enough to make hauling logs manageable.

  So many new wo
rds!

  “Well, we followed Heliodoro’s missive: Sequere Solem Ad Scientiam!” Martillo joked one night around the dinner fire. We had been in the new world for a few months, and Libertad was starting to look like a real village.

  “I know that one! ‘Follow the sun to Knowledge,’“ I translated. “Though Heliodoro always viewed himself as the sun, and everyone else wandered in the darkness of stupidity.”

  “He wrote ‘ignorance’ in his book,” said Efi, “but I can imagine what he really meant. Sometimes he slipped up when writing and wrote what he really thought. Those gems are always wonderful and hilarious.”

  “We do need to figure out one thing; how do we stop the other people who came over with us from running away?” I said. “I’m useless for building and any sort of real defense, though thankfully the natives haven’t harassed us much.”

  “Nine people have abandoned us,” Efi remarked. “And we have no idea as to why. We have plenty of food to last us, fish have been plentiful, and our garden is small but productive. There has been no aggression with the natives. I can’t think of any reasons as to why some would seek to abandon us or their death overstaying at Libertad.”

  “Which leaves only about twenty-three, other than the three of us,” said Martillo.

  “When is the next ship due?” I asked.

  “In three more months, if they find us,” Martillo answered. “If they can’t, the next ship was given instructions to start a new settlement as we did.”

  “What if we had a signal fire when they are expected? That, and the ship anchored offshore, would help them find us,” I offered.

  The sentries yelled for people’s attention and everyone poured from their shacks to see what the alarm was about. There was a bright glow to the east, on the water.