Fletcher Read online

“Depak Sona, ladies I don’t wish to interrupt… We could reschedule the testing you wished me to do? I should be available tomorrow for that, if it would be more convenient?” The words were a lie, since there had been no real plans for that kind of thing. He was simply there to pick up messages. If the man needed a way out, that could give him one.

  On the other hand, he could be handed a pile of letters to pass around, which would work as well. Then he could leave and allow the man to do whatever it was he had planned. There was risk in doing it that way. Especially if he was simply called out and told that he should learn his place and not demand the time of someone powerful.

  The Magician grabbed his forehead.

  “Ah! The hour has come for that, hasn’t it? Please forgive me ladies. It is very inconsiderate of me to end our pleasant conversation thusly. I noticed this morning that Anders here has some sensitivity to magical forces and mentioned that it would be best to test him for that as soon as possible. I rather insisted, I’m afraid, so it would be poor of me to not handle that now. I do wish…” He seemed a bit upset to see the ladies go, though they stood instantly.

  Their leader smiled at him as she walked past.

  “Amazing. I do hope you do well, boy. If he shows any skill at all, please do send him past my rooms later? We do try to know who the competition is as soon as possible.” The words could have been taken as being sinister or upset for his interruption. Instead they felt off for a different reason.

  They were so bland that it was as if they hadn’t been spoken at all.

  He was still bowing, having held the move, trying to be extra polite. He did it until the women were out of the space, then holding a smile on his face, he closed the door.

  From the other side of the room, there was a loud exhalation.

  “Thank you for the rescue, Anders. They are nice seeming women. It is just that they took my unmarried status for a sign that I am open to companionship of a certain type. I’m not. After my third wife died, I’ve not sought that sort of thing, focusing on my magics for entertainment instead. I know it is strange here…”

  Interestingly, Anders knew what to do then, which came out quickly.

  “I’m sorry to hear of your loss. When was she taken?”

  “Oh… I’d say twenty years ago now? Her name was Entia. We were married for… I think it was fifty years? After her passing, a certain spark left me. I should probably consider taking another wife. It’s just so much work.”

  Nodding at the man, he didn’t speak then. Not until he was further into the room. Then, before he could do anything, the Magician brought both of his hands together.

  “En-ar-barto-fen-ot-un bah.”

  As the words were spoken the two hands, above their copper and red sleeves were pulled apart. Not far. A tickle of magic buzzed in the room. It was strongest there, where the man was standing. There was a light glow, in the air between his fingers and palms.

  Which the man saw him looking at.

  “What is there, do you think?”

  “Um… It’s a light blue glow. In the air. The shape is mostly round. There is a scent in here… as if lightning had struck or is about to? A buzzing that seems to happen when magic is taking place. That’s all that I’m getting right now.” If he were supposed to get more, he didn't know what it was yet.

  “Very good. Now, the phrase I used means energy, air, between, now to one moment. Can you repeat what I said, do you think? As you do, imagine a tingle of power on the first word, then think of the air in front of you between your hands, while wanting the effect to last from now until one moment later. It’s a vague time frame, though perhaps the most useful. It will stop when your hands drop.”

  That was done, making the tingle diminish a lot.

  It was a test, so he did it, trying to follow along as best he could. The words and even the instructions weren’t that hard to follow, truly. Even if they did seem a bit like nonsense syllables to him, instead of actual words.

  Focusing, he recalled the phrase and did his best on the mental side of things.

  “En-ar-barto-fen-ot-un bah.” He even pulled his hands away from each other, trying to feel the same tingle of magic the other man had produced. What came was a mere flash of blue light, that shocked him painfully, instead of hovering in the space between his fingers.

  The thing was not, at all, dramatic or powerful. In fact, it didn’t even hurt that much as it dissipated. He felt a bit silly, really. The other man…

  Smiled. A huge and honest thing that seemed to light up half the room.

  “Ah! You produced an actual effect on your first try! That is a very good sign. Most incredible, in fact. It was mainly a test to see if you had the mind to recall words just spoken. Very few manage to do anything like you did. Even those who end up being most learned and powerful.” There was a grin then. It seemed pleasant. Then it turned wry.

  He held it, looking at Anders closely for a long while.

  “Which truly, means very little. One third of all people can use magic at will. Another third make good hosts for those beings that ride the body. These can act for the summoner or take control of them. The last third is weak in producing forces and change in the world, while strong against magical properties and grounded. It does not give immunity to magic, instead blunting the effects when used on them. No one is born stronger than the other, if the truth is to be known.”

  Anders looked at his hands and nodded. It made a certain amount of sense. This was a test to see if he could, possibly, have a skill in that area at all.

  “So… this was a test of my mind, rather than one of power or innate nature? You knew that I could feel magic already.”

  Pausing the man start to breathe heavily for a few moments. Then closed his eyes.

  “Yes. You are clever. That, in part is due to what you were in life, so long ago, as well as the body you are merged with here, thanks to the crystal of memory. There is danger in such things. Most of those are damned. The minds captured inside of them corrupted and evil, seeking only not to die. To return and live another’s fair portion. I cannot know if that was what you did. Is it? Can I trust one such as you, if you tell me that you are an innocent?” The man seemed sad about the whole thing. Which Anders understood.

  “Not if the common path of such things is for them to be creatures of evil. That sort might say anything to trick or fool you. It was not my way. I lived a life of solitude, reflection and collecting the tales of old. I suppose I could demonstrate that for you? Which will prove nothing, except that I can recount stories very well. How do we proceed, given that? I do not need an extra portion of life. It was my apprentice, my old student, Ganges that placed me here. He’d become a great Wizard and did not want to see his old teacher fade, as all men must.”

  Instead of chanting a spell with which to destroy Anders Brolly, or even to remove the invader within, Depak Sona moved to his book shelf. After a moment he pulled a slender tome.

  “This is in Scara. My own hand wrote it, long ago. If you read the pages and commit them to memory, you will have the basic language of my people’s main magic. There are many types and styles, each with their own weakness and strengths. Ours is versatile and very quick. There is a payment in concentration and learning, if you wish to be good at it. Constant practice as well. What you learn must never be spoken, unless you are casting magic. Do you understand?” There was a grimness to the man that hadn’t been there before.

  “To… keep it secret? If so, isn’t it too great a risk to allow one such as me to know it? I could misuse it, if I’m lying to you about who and what I am.”

  The man rallied a bit then, managing a more honest smile.

  “Truly, that is so. I sense in you a good heart. Still, you tell me that Ganges the Great and Terrible was the one who placed you inside that crystal. You were his teacher. That means you are either what you claim or so learned already that we have probably lost our world to another high darkness. If it is the latter, then letting you
learn my people’s way changes little to nothing. If you are what you claim, then I am merely aiding my room servant in a way that might help him later in life.”

  Which made a certain kind of dark sense. Anders took the book, looking at it. The title was in the strange blocky text of Scara.

  “Of Magic.” It wasn’t a large tome at all, being covered in leather, with heavy pages inside. No more than fifty of them, from the feel of the thing.

  Instead of sending him away, the Magician sat, gesturing for him to do the same.

  “Each word has a symbol related to it. A sense that you must learn to couple with the spoken word, as well. Do this inside your head. Once you begin to learn, you cannot go around yelling fire or they will spring out, without being under your control. That is why you cannot speak the words. No one can, once they learn them. On the good side, if you mispronounce them, that matters not. The words are only powerful, because you will be teaching yourself to make them so. If you memorize each word and symbol, they can be written as well. Placed on objects to be read later. The power rests in you, each time. That is finite.”

  The knowledge was a lot to take in and both Anders and Farad felt their intertwined being stretch and become tight in places, even considering the idea. The old man truly did not wish the burden and made it clear. The boy inside of him hungered for talent, skill and power. Something to make him more special than he knew himself to truly be.

  After some moments, their new being nodded.

  “I’ll learn this, as you suggest. I think that the boy that was would have jumped at a chance to learn this kind of thing. If it is his wish and harms none, I must try to fulfill his path.”

  Even if the idea left him quaking inside. Not enough to show. Just enough that real fear tried to take him for a moment. The name that had been spoken, Ganges the Great and Terrible… That was not how he’d known his student.

  “Ganges was a troubled boy when he came to me to learn the ways of the memory hall. He yearned for many things. Still, he was a good soul. When I knew him. Yet, he was called Ganges of Istel, the Great Wizard Ganges… Not the Terrible. That sounds wrong, though I think I can see the path that might have been followed, after my death. He came to me, in my cell, at the hermitage, as I lay dying. I was so old that I’d lost track of the years since my birth. Nearing ninety, I believe. Maybe more. The crystal was pressed to my forehead. I told him it was my time. That I should go… I don’t even know how long ago that was. There was no place called Istlan then. I was a man of Barquenna… The named changed after my passing?”

  Across from him, sitting in the same chair as before, Depak placed the tips of his fingers together, making a triangle of them. There was little sound from him for a long time.

  Anders just sat, feeling the weight of loss. Both for a home that the boy inside had never known and for the life that had been stripped away, in order to save it. A happening that was, as far as both could tell, done without malice or darkness.

  When the Magician spoke, his eyes were a bit brighter.

  “That… The time of Ganges was a little over fifteen hundred years before this time. Istlan is named after the tales of Istel, as you have no doubt guessed. That place stopped existing well over a thousand years ago. Ganges ruled over it for hundreds of years, taking the land for his own purposes and destroying its people. Breaking both beyond repair. Now that is simply the Red Desert. Barquea came into being in the lands next to where that place once stood. I fear you were away for a very long time. In many ways this is not the world you knew.”

  Clearly that was true. Anders stood then, the book coming up in his hand a bit.

  “I should have this back to you in a few days? Less perhaps. After that, I don’t know what to do.”

  That got spread hands.

  “Why, then we begin the real learning. There are four hundred and twenty-four words and symbols to commit to your mind. A feeling for each. Each must be driven into you so deeply that simply uttering the word will bring forth the entirety of its being, empowered to make change happen. The only real way to do that it to practice until the words want to seep from your soul. Most magic is far slower than this. It can take days or weeks to bring it into being properly. That or you may summon a rider. There is power in that as well. Mainly for the rider.”

  Anders Brolly stood then, stopping after taking several steps toward the door. He blinked then.

  “I’m sorry! I came to make certain you’re doing all right, not to drop my troubles onto your shoulders. Do you need anything? Food, tea? To have your quarters scrubbed clean?”

  That was the task he’d said he’d do.

  Smiling, seeming nearly happy again, the man’s mustache, which was deep black and came down past his mouth on both side by nearly an inch, twitched. The top of his head was shining in the sunlight that came through the open window.

  “I do have some messages? I fear I was side tracked by the ladies who arrived to visit me. By you as well. Of course, if you are what you claim and I admit that is all I have seen so far from you, then seeking to make certain young Anders has a good life is a powerful thing. Not that you have to impress me, in particular.”

  Holding the book in his right hand, since it wasn’t being delivered, he bowed, going very low, in the second courtly bow position. The move was returned, arms out and palms up this time.

  “Oh… Last time your palms were down. Was that meant as a signal to me? I took it that way. Also, is there a list of things you like? Two people have asked after that today and if we don’t tell them something, you’re probably going to have women thrown at you until you smother.” There had been nearly enough in there already to set that into motion.

  The Magician dropped his head, his face cast downward.

  “Ah, yes. That is the bow one uses when meeting a being of the unknown, or of great power. I should be using it now. I’d forgotten that you were not what you seem. It is too easy to look into the eyes of a young boy and to forget what has become of him. It is, perhaps not a bad thing, if you make it worth his while?”

  “I see. Best to use the other bow then. Otherwise people will think that you don’t like me or something. I should get those letters.” That got the man to move, quickly, pulling the small stack from the side table.

  One was for Princess Aisla. The next for Prince Robarts and the last for Master Mandel. That was, if Anders had the right being, the castle vintner. It seemed a strange list of names. Also, he could deliver each of the things without issue, he had to figure. The hard one would be the vintner, since that meant going behind the castle to the outer section. Outside the wall. Meaning he needed to do that before darkness fell.

  “I’ll see to these directly. Oh, a list of things you enjoy?” He tried to look hopeful, only to get a rueful face that seemed slightly annoyed looking back at him.

  “It’s always difficult when asked things like that. Each day I fill my hours to completeness. Yet when asked to think about it, all that comes up is that I need a new pair of socks. Which isn’t true. Just the only thing I can think of at the moment.”

  Anders could get that one. Farad more so.

  “Well… You like books, right? About magic? Only the kind you know or…”

  He beamed then, looking over at the folding book shelf that he’d brought with him across an entire ocean just to keep his treasures with him.

  “I do love books. Right now, I’m spending a lot of time on herbology and the lore of healing for such things. Magical tomes work as well. Really, I’m more interested in other types of magic than my own. I already have good command of that one. I also like pictures? Paintings and drawings. That sort of thing. There are some interesting magics that can be done there, if you know the way of it. Things that are painted as still can be made to move and come to life, showing a window on a different place and time.”

  He nodded.

  “That should be enough to start with. So I should tell them to bring you books and pictures? Do you like music
at all? Jugglers maybe?”

  “Certainly. Who doesn’t like those things?”

  Anders didn’t know. Still, taking the book and the missives, he bowed himself out of the room. Then, moving quickly he walked to his room, to secure the magical tome. After that he decided to try for the vintner first. He was the furthest away and after darkness fell, the hardest to find. In the castle halls there would be lamps.

  Chapter seven

  Anders was sitting at the small reading table in his room, the light of a single lamp casting glare onto the page of the sacred tome that had been lent to him. The words were hand written and the script used for it wasn’t that well executed. It was legible however, even in a language that he struggled to understand at times. It had changed a lot since he’d last read in it, after all.

  That portion of things tried to overwhelm the Farad portion of his being. That everything he was and had ever been had not only been stored inside of a rock but that it had been for so great a time. An expanse of ages. True, it may have been some other Ganges the Great that had existed and set him inside of the stone.

  Only, if that were the case he would have known of the first Wizard of that name and from the sound of it, his friend and student would have changed his own, to avoid such confusion. There had been no mention of a Wizard by that name, before that time. Meaning that if it was a different Ganges, then he existed from a time before the advent of the second one, time being even greater between the two points.

  A thing that, he did have to allow, would hardly matter.

  “After all, one hundred, one thousand, ten thousand years… Those do not make much of a difference for me now. Except that I am woefully behind in my task of learning it all.” The muttering was in Istlan, since he was a boy of that place now.

  Not the old historian. His task wasn’t to learn the story of time any longer. It was to be a man of his new people. One that did what was expected of him, no matter how strange and uncomfortable such things could and likely would, end up making him.