Bridgebreaker (The Echo Worlds Book 2) (10 page)

They walked on in silence as Cendan took in the surrounding forest.  It seemed a nice quiet place, though every now and then he’d remind himself that each tree he passed held the soul and mind of a departed Elder of the Shrouded, and he’d get creeped out a bit.  His mind would, as they walked, wonder if that tree hated him, or had that trees branches moved against the breeze a bit?  As they approached a clearing, he could feel his tension rising, and it was somewhat a relief to walk out of the trees.

Heather turned to face him, still somewhat unexpressive.

“This will do to learn some basics.  This is going to be a crash course, Cendan.  The Elders don’t know how long we have until Grellnot makes its move on the Slyph.  Because of that, I’m going to give you a rundown on the rules of magic, and how to shape it in a basic form.  Normally this is taught to kids over several weeks.  With you, I’m going to do it in an afternoon.”  A slight smile cracked her face, but to Cendan’s mind, it wasn’t a particularly pleasant one.

“Open yourself to your sight, Cendan, see the magic flowing around us.  Do not turn back and look at the wood; not yet at any rate.  But see the flow here in the clearing.”  Heather held up her fetish.  “And get the thing you call a focus out of your pocket and into your hand.”

Cendan sighed and grabbed the Key, welcoming the feel of the metal in his hand as he opened his mind up to see the magic.

The points of light that reflected the magic of his world were strong here, and for once not as randomly placed as he’d seen before.  A pattern existed, more of one than he expected.

“What do you see, Cendan?” Heather asked.

“I see magic, but... they are laid out, organized,” Cendan responded, his eyes locked on to the pattern.  He knew patterns were important from what he had read in the Maker wing and trying to figure out systems was something he enjoyed long before any of this magic world stuff intruded into his life.  Figuring this out took his mind off everything else, at least for a moment.

“Good.  Yes, the magic here is structured a bit by the nature of its location, and what it’s used for.  This is a teaching field, so we keep the magic here a bit simpler to deal with.”

Heather continued.  “Look at my fetish, using your sight, what do you see?”  Cendan looked up, but made sure he kept his eyes on her fetish, that twisted wooden hoop she held up high.  The points of magic were circling it, flowing around it like tiny living ants, in a line, ordered.

“I can tell by your face you see the pattern.  What I’m doing is charging my fetish.  It’s a simple basic skill.  There are places in the world where the magic is weak, or places where it can be hard to force the magic to do what you want.  Having a store of magic tied to your fetish can be a good thing.  It allows you to have a well to tap into so you don’t get caught unawares.”  Heather motioned Cendan to try.  “You try.  You call to the magic, form a mental image for it to follow.  It’s easy, though as you’ll see…”

Cendan reached out to the magic, feeling it with his mind.  At first he reached out strong, forcefully.  The points seemed caught at first, but slid away from his mind.  Almost like magnets repelling away from each other, the points didn’t want to seem to go anywhere together.

“Not so easy is it?” Heather asked.  “Magic doesn’t like to be forced to do anything.  This is the first lesson.  You must be careful, but firm.  A light touch will get you farther than a strong one, at least at first.  You should get it though.  You use magic in your scrying though you don’t even know it.  What you need to learn is how to do it consciously, and for more than one thing.”

Cendan nodded.  Again he reached out, and with less force, gently reached out and almost plucked the points up, one, and then another, until he had a rather large collection of points.  But how to get them moving into his focus?  Slowly, he placed the points into a pattern.  It was difficult, the points reacted sort of like magnets repelling each other, but they also seemed as fragile and light as a soap bubble.  It wasn’t easy to get them to move in the way he wanted.

Sweat formed on his head as he could feel his face scrunch up a bit.  How did Heather keep her face straight like that?  This was hard.  But slowly, the points fell in line.  And to his surprise, once the pattern formed, it stayed and started flowing on its own.

“Very good, Cendan.  Very.  Normally that can take a week alone to get working for most students.  And you’ve learned lesson two too: once a pattern starts, he naturally wants to keep moving that way.  The hard part is getting it started.”

“The pattern determines what happens.  The key is learning how to get magic into that pattern and quickly.  You can’t stand around trying to concentrate and get everything setup if Grellnot is trying to eat you, literally,” Heather added.

Cendan could see that she was attempting to put a happy face on the situation though his feelings about it all were still highly mixed.

“So is there a trick to that?” Cendan asked, keeping his attention on the lessons.  “I mean, you do it fairly quickly from what I’ve seen.”

Heather shrugged.  “Not really.  There are a few shortcuts, but the number one way is practice.  Lots and lots of practice.  Which takes time.  Which you don’t really have.”

Cendan could feel the sigh rising up and squelched it.  Practice always takes time.

“Shortcuts?  Anything would be helpful.”

“Once you’ve got a pattern down, you can store it in your fetish.  I assume it would work the same way for yours, but then again, to me your Key feels... wrong.”

Cendan started at that.  This was the first time she had mentioned it since they met.

“What do you mean wrong?”  His key felt right to him.  In fact, since he’d been holding it, he realized his stress levels were down; way down.

“It’s just so… cold.  Hard.  I can see the magic flowing through it, but its mechanical.  Can you see the difference?”

Cendan looked at her fetish, and then at his key.  In truth, she was onto something, though neither felt wrong to him.  The magic flowed and moved in an almost organic living way on her fetish.  In contrast, his followed the same pattern every time.  His moved faster, but kept the same path.  Odd, he thought.  But more detail on the natural versus manmade split between the Bridgefinders and the Shrouded.

“I can, but yours doesn’t feel wrong to me.  Maybe inefficient, but not wrong,” he answered without thinking.  Inefficient?  Think before you say things, Cendan, he berated himself.

Heather didn’t answer, but her face once again went blank.

“Storing a pattern in the object in your hand isn’t hard.  And you still have to gather the magic, but it makes starting the working a bit faster.”  Cendan nodded.  He didn’t remark on his passing comment.  Better to let it go.

“But how do I store it?  I mean, I understand the reasons, and idea sounds understandable, but how?” Cendan asked.

Holding her fetish forward, Heather instructed him.

“You have the pattern for charging right?  You need to take that pattern and force it into the fetish.  Right now, it’s on the outside.  You must push it inside.  Just for a moment.  The object will, for the lack of a better term, save the pattern.”

Cendan nodded.  Sort of like how Oakheart had saved his memories and information onto the key, patterns of magic could be saved as-well.  That made sense.  Taking a breath, Cendan firmly but carefully pushed the pattern into the key.  The points of light felt slippery still to him, and he found himself working hard to keep the pattern together.  But slowly, it finally sunk into the key, just for a moment.  He released his mental hold, and the pattern sprung back to the surface as if he’d never touched it.

“Good.  Very good,” Heather said out loud watching him.  “You truly are gifted, Cendan.  Now to access a pattern you have saved.  First, we need to cancel the current pattern.  This is lesson three.  All magic, unless it’s the permanent kind, needs to be unraveled when you’re done.  There are several reasons for this.  One, it’s very hard for another user of magic to unravel a pattern they didn’t create.  Doable, but not easy.  The more complicated the pattern, the harder it is for someone else to undo.”

“Also, leaving magic doing something, making it permanent, has a price.  Part of you becomes the spell.  That part never comes back unless somehow the permanence is undone.  The more of you that becomes part of the magic, the less there is that is you.  Until you can no longer be considered a person; your mind will be gone.  Here in the Rivenwood, the permanent spells are actually few.  The binding of an Elder to a tree is one of the exceptions.  That spell sacrifices the body to save the mind.”  Heather pointed behind him.  “Look now.”

Cendan turned to look at the woods and caught his breath.  The woods were alive in a pattern of lights.  Thick and close, the pattern was a detailed as it was stunningly beautiful.  The flow alone, the movement; the only word Cendan could place to it was a dance.  A crazy, beautiful dance of light.  Of pure magic.  His logic and detachment failed him at the sight.  How could they have created that?

“That pattern, that working you see, Cendan Key, is the work of both the Elder who is being bound into their tree, and a creator.  I said making something permanent takes something away from you, remember.  Creators, like you, have slightly different rules.  You still need to learn the unraveling, but for you, knowing what a creator is capable of is important.”  Heather’s voice came to him as he watched the pattern.

Cendan nodded absently, still trying to absorb the pattern he was seeing.  The more he looked at it, the more it made sense to him, though it was still a breath-stopping sight.

“Cendan, pay attention.”  Heather’s voice once again came from behind him.  Reluctantly, he turned away from the forest to face her.

“That was incredible.  I need to understand that; I need to know,” Cendan said out loud.  “Let me talk to a creator or Maker, or whatever you want to call it.”

“In time!”  Heather responded, holding up a hand to stop his protest.  “First, you must learn how to unravel.  This is too important to not teach you.”

Holding up her fetish again, he could see the same flow as before, still interesting to look at, though nothing compared to the masterpiece behind him.

“Every spell, every working, has a soft point.  Finding this point allows you to unravel the pattern.  Feel the pattern on your key, Cendan.  Each point.  There will be one that feels different in your mind.  It’s a subtle difference.  While the magic can be elusive, slippery in your mind, the one point will feel almost as if it’s wrapped in something.  Not slippery, but soft.  For me, I always think that it feels like it’s wrapped in a cotton ball.”

Cendan concentrated.  “Does it look any different?  I’m not feeling…”  There.  That one green light, it didn’t slip away like the others.

“No, it looks the same, but it just feels different.  It’s hard to describe,” Heather answered.

“I think I may have found it,” Cendan replied.  “Maybe.”

Heather nodded.  “Here’s another important point.  Unless it’s a permanent spell, one user of magic, be they Shrouded or Bridgefinder, cannot unravel someone else’s spell.”

Cendan frowned a bit at that.  “Why should that make a difference?”

“I was always told because the pattern was tied to the creator.  Only a permanent spell is tied to an object, not a person.  Spells tied to a person can’t be permanent.”  Heather held up a finger.  “Now, you in your mind, reach for that soft light, and grab it, and remove it from the pattern.  Like this.”

With no other sign, Cendan saw the lights that denote the magic of the world fall away like water, leaving the fetish in her hand uncovered.

“There’s still magic here, but now it’s inside the fetish.  But the spell to recharge that well is gone.”

Heather motioned for Cendan to try.  Cendan reached out, but the soft spot was hard to find again.  He’d get a flash of it, but then it would be gone.  Teeth gritted, Cendan furrowed his brow in concentration.

“Relax Cendan.  You’re trying to force it.  Remember the touch, the first lesson.  The same thing holds true for unraveling the spell.  Forcing anything just makes it harder.”

A long stream of breath later, Cendan nodded and tried again.  This light touch stuff wasn’t easy, he thought to himself.  He wondered if there was a better way, one that would come easier to him.  This wasn’t the time to experiment, though, he reminded himself.  There!  That point was it.  Lightly, he drew his concentration to that point and pulled.

The pattern fell apart, the points of light showering down to join the pattern on the ground.  In moments, there was no sign he’d even cast a spell.  A grin broke over his face.  Casting a spell!  Marcus would blow a gasket over that if he knew, not that he hadn’t already.  Jasmine wouldn’t know what to do.  Sal would have cheered up a storm, sadly.  He felt a slight wave of regret pass over him.  He hadn’t known Sal well, but still, it would have been a help and nice to have someone else in the Bridgefinders, who would actually listen to him.

“Now... Practice.”  Heather paced around the clearing.  “The three basics need to become second nature to you.  Practice takes time.  Something that is running out.”

Heather looked around.  The shadows had gained some length around them, but there was plenty of daylight left.