Broken Rule | Chapter 16
This post is chapter sixteen of my not-previously-published epic fantasy novel Broken Rule, which I'm serializing here on Steemit.
The story so far:
Chapters: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
Master Jonas Terra dropped his saddlebags next to a crumbling stone wall and then slumped down next to them as if he was nothing but a lumpy sack himself. Jonas and Rurik had been traveling at a punishing pace, and Jonas was an exceptional horseman only in the negative sense. His whole body ached from exertion. Rurik tied their horse to a tree branch overhanging the wall, leaving enough slack for the animal to get to a thin patch of grass. Jonas hadn't planned his escape in advance and discovered shortly after they left the castle that they had no supplies to speak of. They traded one of their horses for some food at the first town they came to, but they had to ration carefully since it wasn't clear where they would get any more. Jonas was always hungry now, but these lean times seemed to have counteracted his previous overindulgence and his clothes fit him again. Anyone meeting him on the road was likely to see a weary traveler, but unlikely to suspect that he was a fugitive criminal.
Jonas hadn't considered the consequences of his actions before he had engaged in them, and now realized that everyone at Thornwood must think he had simply kidnapped the boy. At the time it had seemed the wisest course of action. The Black Circle was the deadliest organization in the world, and they had clearly circumvented whatever security they had in the castle. Out on the road, where no one even knew who they were, Jonas could protect the boy. An assassin needed to find you before he could kill you. Jonas had considered sending a note to the duke explaining the reality of the situation, but had decided it was not worth the risk. There was no telling how deeply the Black Circle had infiltrated the duke's organization, and the confusion he had left behind them would be helpful in evading any pursuit. Rurik was unaware of the wizard's fugitive status. Jonas had encouraged him to believe that solitude and travel were essential parts of becoming a wizard's apprentice, and the boy thought he was on an exciting adventure, not a grueling trek.
“Master, you said yesterday that I had mastered enough Minauran that you could begin to teach me real magic today. Is it time for my lesson?”
The hope in the boy's voice lifted Jonas spirits. Beginning Rurik's training had been the only enjoyable part of the weeks they'd spent on the road. Jonas pulled a large, rounded rock from the wall he was leaning against. “Yes. Today we will discuss magic more directly. The magic of stone.” Rurik sat down cross-legged in front of the wizard and stared at him with rapt attention. “Do you remember the first day we met, when we took the stones to the blacksmith, and he smashed them for us on his anvil?”
“Of course, Master.”
“When the smith was finished with his work, some of the stone had been ground down to nothing but powder. Close your eyes and try to remember how it looked, how it felt in your hands. Can you do that?”
“I think so, Master.”
“Good. Now keep that in your mind, but take this.” Jonas hefted the rock and placed it in the boy's hands. “Open your eyes and observe this. Feel the weight of it, the hardness, the color. In some ways, this rock and the powder are different, and in some ways they are the same. Try to imagine what it would be like if we had a hammer and anvil of our own and were to smash this stone to powder.”
“All right master.” The boy stared at the stone for several minutes, scrunching up his face in concentration. Jonas leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. After he judged that he'd had sufficient rest, and that the boy had been concentrating sufficiently long, he resumed the lesson.
“Now, it is true that what you have in your hands is a stone. And it is a lie to say that it is powder. But the lie that it is powder is almost true. If we were to apply a hammer, the lie would become the truth and the truth would become the lie. Do you understand that?”
“I guess I do, Master, but I don't see what that has to do with magic. A blacksmith isn't magic.”
“Part of magic is understanding things that are almost true and almost false, and how little difference there is between them. The difference for most people is that that stone believes that one is more true than the other. But as a wizard, if you hold in your mind the image of what you believe to be true, you can sway the stone to your way of thinking.”
“But Master, a stone has no mind. How can you convince it of anything?”
“I believe you'll find that the stronger a mind is, the harder it is to convince. If we follow that line of thinking backwards, then something with no mind at all should be the easiest to convince.”
“I guess,” the boy conceded.
Jonas chuckled. “I'm not asking you to convince the rock with words, like you would convince men. Or rather, not words as you know them. You must use a spell. First we must find the pitch that the rock will hear.” Jonas began a low hum in the back of his throat, and varied its pitch up and down for a moment before settling on a deep bass. He spoke again, through the humming, maintaining the same pitch. “Eventually you will learn to find the pitch on your own, but for now can you match me?”
Rurik began a comical duet with the older man, trying to match and keep his pitch. Eventually Jonas's voice gave out, and he needed a long drink from the water skin before beginning again. Although it seemed to Jonas that it took forever, the boy finally found the right note.
“Now, you must hold both ideas in your mind, the solid stone and the fine powder. We will speak syllables in the Minauran tongue, the language of magic. We will speak a spell, as it was taught to me by my master many years ago.” A thought occurred to Jonas then that made him stop suddenly. If the pitch can be found to match the stone, perhaps the words can as well. “No, forget that,” the wizard said, getting the proper pitch back. “We will recite the Minauran alphabet. As we speak the syllables, you should feel that some syllables feel more like stone, and some feel more like powder. Begin.”
They held the stone from the wall between them. Maintaining the low pitched hum, they recited the Minauran alphabet together seven times, breaking in the middle for more water, and for Rurik to get back in tune.
“Did you feel the difference between the syllables on your tongue and in your mind?” the wizard asked.
“I don't know, master. Maybe.”
“Don't worry about that for now, just follow me.” The wizard started his humming, and then recited the alphabet again, this time dropping some syllables and repeating others, out of sequence. He kept speaking in the same pitch, reciting the syllables more forcefully, eventually going faster and combining them into words and silence that would have sounded like gibberish even to someone who spoke Minauran, but which had a profound effect on the rock. He spoke faster and faster, and Rurik tried to keep up and repeat what the older man was saying. Suddenly the wizard stopped and twisted the rock in his hand. It broke apart like a loaf of stale bread. The wizard passed the pieces over to the boy, who watched in fascination as he was able to crush them further with nothing but his fingers.
“This is fantastic, master!” Rurik said, a smile of amazement stuck on his face.
“That's why they call it magic, boy,” the wizard answered with a satisfied smile. But he had his own element of fascination to consider. The words of the spell that he had settled on were similar to those that his master had taught him when he was a boy, but they were slightly different. And the new spell had worked better.