“Yes. There was nothing unusual. He was a recent
college graduate who wanted to fix cars before he started his real career.”
“The man in the dream said that Shio was the one to
kill the Guardian, so if Ronez was on Earth, and Shio’s name was not in his
book, then he is either human, or the god has found a way for his servants to
travel.”
He sighed. “The gods are sure the answer is simple,
but they speak very little of it to the Guardians. It’s your book; you must
follow your instincts. If you feel it’s not safe, you must do whatever you have
to in order to make it so.” He reached into his bag and pulled my book out.
It looked so innocent, which was ironic because it
could kill me, Edward, everyone on my world, and everyone who’s ever signed it.
He handed the book to me.
It’s very light for something that could do more
damage than an atomic bomb.
“What do your instincts tell you to do with it?” he
asked.
I thought about it, lightly rubbing my fingers over
the soft black leather. “My instincts say to trust you.” I handed it back to
him, surprised by how much I didn’t want to let it go, and he put it back next
to his.
He went to his bed, pulled out the potato-sack-thing
of clothes, and then paused, frowning. “Do you need to eat?”
“I can’t eat when I first wake up; I don’t get hungry
for several hours. How come I can’t feel the magic? You said a Guardian can
feel his magic. I can’t.”
“You can, you just aren’t trying. You may be a
Guardian, but you’re also an untrained wizard with potential. When you learn
what magic feels like, you will learn to be aware of it at all times.”
“How come Vretial and the child were speaking
English?”
“They weren’t; you just heard it as if they were
because your book made you hear it that way.” He carried the bag up the stairs.
I tested my legs before getting up and found they
were sore, but not too badly. The rest of my body’s pain took some of the focus
away. I moaned when I reached the stairs.
He expects me to walk up every one
of those steps?
I crawled up the stairs, trying desperately to get up there
before he could see my method. I made it through the door and saw Edward was
already heading out for the forest. I hurried after him, shutting the front
door behind me.
I was
not
a good runner. Edward slowed after
the third time I tripped. “Lift your feet around the weeds. Don’t stomp.”
I tried to do as he said, I really did. The monstrous
rattle weeds, like prehistoric ferns, wrapped around my feet and every time I
moved, they got worse. I fell with a grunt.
Edward sighed, picked me up by the back of the shirt,
and yanked me out of the weeds’ grasp. “At least learn to fall right. If you
fall on your hands, you will injure your wrists. You need to fall on your arm.”
He indicated from his elbow to his wrist.
“Down…” I choked. He released me and I somehow landed
on my feet. I coughed and rubbed my neck. “You can’t do that to me in this kind
of clothing.”
“You’ll need a lot of new clothes until you stop
tripping. You must ruin a lot of clothing.”
“I’m not really used to walking through the woods and
weighing two hundred something pounds. I’m usually not this klutzy. Do you have
any bark left?” I asked.
He pulled a particularly large piece out of his bag
and handed it to me. “You’re not swallowing it, are you? It could be too strong
for you.”
“I’m not as weak as I seem to be. I think I’m
adapting well. But no, I haven’t been eating it.” It had a peculiar texture
because when the fibers broke apart by my chewing, they became spongy and fused
together like sticky gum. I figured it was some kind of sap, and it was
definitely not something I wanted sticking to my stomach lining.
Edward shrugged and looked at me. “You’re adapting
fast. At least you’re walking up right now. I suppose if you feel well enough,
we can go to Anoshii tomorrow. That is, if you think you can control yourself
around Divina.”
“You can; I’m sure I can find a way to.”
“When I first met her, I found myself in a death duel
with another wizard who, at the time, was not easy to fight. Ronez had to fight
me himself to get me to act rational. She tends to make it hard to think, and
her behavior only makes it worse. You would fall less without those things on
your feet,” he advised, looking at my shoes.
I would have no choice, soon. “You talk about Divina
as if you’ve known her for a long time.”
“I have. I’ve known her for about seventy years now.”
He smirked at my disbelief. “She is so powerful that I have not seen her age a
day since I met her. Actually, it’s potions that she is exceptional at. If
there are three things that woman is never without, they are a plan, a potion,
and an alibi.”
We made it to the springs without too much falling;
but still, my arms were red and scraped. I realized that we weren’t in the
usual spot. This part looked rougher, the water was faster, and there was a
natural rock bridge across it. Edward was headed for the bridge but I waited
back to watch him pull a washboard out of the bag. It was a panel of glass, one
side corrugated, with a wooded frame. He stuck it halfway into the water to
rest on a rock, took one of his shirts out of the bag, and started scrubbing it
against the ribbed side. It wasn’t difficult to figure out how it worked.
“Shouldn’t I do that seeing as how you’re teaching me
magic and stuff?” I asked. He looked up, his frown worried and unsure.
“This is hard to break, but I’m sure you could manage
it. Either you’ll break it or you’ll fall into the water… or both.”
I rolled my eyes. “I could burn myself while lighting
a fire. I could chop my head open while chopping firewood. Tibbit could eat me
while I clean his cage. I could try not to go near the woods for fear of
injury, trip over a hole in the ground, and bust my head open. I know how bad
my luck is, but I can’t fear everything forever. It would be pointless.”
He sighed, but gave in and I took over washing the
clothes while he hung them up. There was a long line Edward had strung between
two trees to hang clothes on for drying. He insisted on tying it higher so it
wouldn’t be at my neck height. It was frustrating mostly because I understood
his point in doing it; he wouldn’t have bothered had I not been so clumsy in
the woods. It wasn’t my fault there was so much ridiculous gravity. Still, I
sat back while I scrubbed so I didn’t fall in because of the gravity.
I
don’t like gravity. Or water. Or cleaning.
After the clothes were all done, I looked around for
the little girl. Sure, she was a figment of my imagination, but that was no a
reason I shouldn’t introduce myself; I like to be familiar with every person in
my head.
“Edward?”
He sighed. “You do remember that isn’t my name,
right?”
“Kiwiyamiwhatever. Have any of the spirits around
here ever talked to you?”
He sat on a rock by the edge. “I’m not sure. I’ve
heard them talking, but it’s hard to be sure who they’re speaking to, or even
what they’re saying. Usually I hear only random words. Speaking of which…” he
said, looking at me expectantly.
“How do you say ‘yes’ in Sudo?”
“Mowa. ‘No’ is ‘labonora’, but is usually pronounced
‘laba’. ‘No, thank you’ is normally said ‘labayan’. ‘How much’ is ‘mitawa’.” He
went on and on with many different words and phrases, making my head hurt. I
could only remember a few of the words, but I hoped I would recognize the rest
when necessary.
After pounding my poor brain with words, he insisted
that I practice the water trick. It took a while to focus my mind and even
longer to feel the energy. When I did feel it, though, it felt so obvious. I
could feel it in me.
I didn’t imagine the water as fish pee, I just didn’t
want the water to touch me because I knew I could control it; I already did
once. Like Edward said, water was simple. I needed to do it in order to get
good with magic so I could protect my book.
So I did it. My feet were dry when I pulled them out
of the water. “Good. Now release the energy before you blow up something,”
Edward said.
I closed my eyes and focused on the energy in me.
“How?”
“Imagine it draining. However you imagine it is your
choice,” he said.
So I imagined it rising out of me like the little
stink lines on a cartoon character or like I was evaporating in the sun. I
could feel the energy in me grow thinner until it was mostly gone.
“That’s enough. If you rid yourself of all energy,
you won’t be ready if you’re attacked. You only have to get rid of enough so
that you won’t make the house shake when you have a Guardian dream or do
something stupid when you see Divina.”
“How do you know how much energy I have in me?”
“I can feel energy better than you, like a seventh
sense. I can feel it all around me well enough to know how much is in one area
or person and when it’s being gathered.”
“A seventh sense? What’s the sixth?” I asked.
“The books and their wellbeing. Do it again.”
I rolled my eyes and started again. It was quicker
the third time. Afterwards, Edward told me to do it again and I did a fourth
and fifth time, both faster than the time before. After I made my feet dry for
the fifth time, I found it harder to drain myself of the energy. I had to work
much harder for less of an effect.
I was tired.
I started again without being told, but Edward stood.
“That’s enough of that. Rest quickly and I’ll show you something new. It’s not
good to practice something to the point of crippling yourself. You can destroy
your body by wearing it out with magic.”
“But I’m immortal. You’ve been at it forever and you
look healthy.”
“My strength came with age and wisdom, for I learned
to work myself without pushing too hard. Your own limit and how much you can
push it is something you’ll have to learn on your own. I can teach you spells
and how they work. Many spells have similar roots; you can apply what you know
of one spell to another. I don’t really like to call magic ‘spells’.”
“But you just gather magic energy and it makes things
happen? That sounds very easy.”
“Not quite. Nominal energy is controlled by your
spirit. You can control the four base elements by controlling nominal energy
directly. Other magic is used by controlling things through the energy.
Electricity is an element made with nominal and physical energies together.
There are some spells that need a physical root, like a ritual, and some that
can be controlled with the mind. What do you want to learn?”
I couldn’t help myself. “I want to blow stuff up with
my mind!”
“Something else.”
“I want to be able to turn invisible.”
“Something else.”
“I want to be able to choke someone by raising my
hand ten feet away and saying, ‘I find your lack of faith disturbing’.”
“Something else.”
“I want to…” I stopped myself when I saw his thinly
veiled frustration. He wasn’t going to teach me anything like that yet, but he
was giving me a choice. “I want to lift stuff. Like… telepathy.”
“You mean telekinesis?”
“Yeah, that too. That sounds good to know and easy to
learn.”
“I wouldn’t call it easy, but it is simple. All
right. Rest while we walk home. How are you adjusting to the gravity and air?”
“I’m adapting to the gravity, my muscles are sore is
all. The air is good; it feels very thick and very clean. I never really
considered Earth’s air to be polluted, but I lived in a big city, so I was used
to it.”
“It’s not as bad as some worlds I’ve heard of,” he
said. I opened my mouth to ask what worlds there were, but he interrupted me,
knowing what I would ask. “There is Duran and Earth, as you know, then there is
Dios, Mulo, Vaigda, Malta, Enep, Dayo, Kahún, and Skrev. Vaigda makes Earth
look positively stupid. It was easy to study Earth with Ronez, but other than
to Earth, I haven’t traveled much in a very long time. I like Duran.”
“You’d be the minority,” I said, referring to the
band. He gave me a sour look and I sighed as I started helping him pull down
clothes and bagging them. My shirt was sagging sadly; the fabric was not meant
for Duran. When we were done, Edward picked up the bag and we started off for
the house.
Nothing in the forest was noticeably distinguishable,
but Edward seemed to have no trouble navigating it. Even though I felt very
tired, I managed to stay on my feet through most of the journey.
When we got to the house, Edward told me to wait for
him, so I went to sit at the fireplace while he went inside. He came out a few
minutes later and sat three very large rocks in front of me. I frowned. “So,
Yoda, you keep rocks in your house?”
He rolled his eyes. “If you arrange these in a
certain way across your home, it brings luck, keeps out threatening forces, and
warns you when someone is being untrustworthy. Now, there are two ways to do
this; move the wind, or move the rock. I will not teach you to use wind on it
today because it takes too much control and wind really requires a larger
target.”
“I don’t have to---”
“No, you don’t have to stand on your head,” he
answered. My eyes were wide. “I’ve seen ‘Star Wars,’ and Ronez was crazy about
it. He once referred to it as man’s greatest idea. One of his greatest wishes
was to find his Padmé Amidala. He was too obsessive.”
“There’s no such thing as too obsessive over ‘Star
Wars’. Don’t get me wrong; I’m far from a star-nerd, and I’ve never been a
trekkie. I am a Whovian through and through.”
“Good for you. Now pay attention.” He held out one of
the rocks and I took it. “It’s not heavy,” he said.
I looked at him. “Uh… yeah it is.”
He sighed. “No, it’s not. Your hand is telling your
brain it is, and your hand is wrong. I’m trying to make this simple for you.
Your mind controls everything in your body, including your spirit, which
controls nominal energy, which controls everything. Got it?”