Shadow Magic Page 6

  Julietta watched in frank amazement and disapproval as Asmara drew a crowd of men around her at their inn that night. They had been in Anseville, the ducal city of Julius Sontmor, the Third Duke of Sontmor, for but an hour and a half and already Asmara had flirted with and discarded a handful of men. Anseville was more of a town than a city, though curiously entirely built from stone and brick.

  ‘Julietta, don’t look so offended.’ Dorian said over the noises of the inn. ‘She does this whenever we finish a job, just get used to it.’

  ‘Otherwise you’ll get wrinkles.’ Bo interjected and burst out laughing.

  Julietta, giving Bo a cold stare, because that wasn’t funny, turned her attention to her food. Which was cold. When she complained Dorian replied, ‘fires are a little touchy here, Julietta. If you want to get hot food it’s going to cost you.’

  ‘Touchy how?’

  ‘You’ll see.’

  ‘You keep saying that-’

  ‘I don’t want to argue with you about it.’

  Later that night Julietta was woken by Asmara returning to the room they had taken together.

  ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.’ Asmara whispered quietly.

  Julietta sat up and watched as Asmara pulled her boots off. ‘What criteria do you use to choose your partners?’

  ‘What?’ Asmara looked up.

  ‘What criteria-’

  ‘Why do you want to know?’ she sighed. ‘Where’s your notebook?’

  ‘I don’t think this is appropriate material for my notes.’ Besides, she doubted it had anything to do with Asmara’s shadow magic. This was not the sort of behaviour that she had read about in the manuscripts on shadow magic.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. If there’s a... a spark. If I feel something for them.’

  Julietta frowned in the darkness. ‘I thought you just chose them at random.’

  ‘No! It’s because I like them!’

  Julietta had been watching closely, despite Dorian’s advice. It was impossible to look away, Asmara was shameless. ‘How come they’re all ugly?’

  ‘Are they?’ she seemed surprised. ‘Well, I’m trying to fall in love!’ Asmara had finished undressing and flopped down onto her bed.

  ‘Surely it would be easier just to use your shadow magic.’

  ‘No, not at all.’ Asmara pulled the covers up over her. ‘Ems was very lucky, that usually doesn’t happen...’

  It took Julietta a moment to realise she must be talking about Emerré Albier. Did Asmara know her?

  ‘...mostly, once you lose your hold on your body you just... float away. Do you know how many people there are in the world? If you don’t know who you’re looking for it’s really hard to find someone... Besides, it wouldn’t make sense for me to use my shadow magic to find an anchor. Every time I use it it gets harder to resist... No, it’s better for me to do it the way normal people do-’

  ‘Normal people don’t do it like that!’

  ‘I’ll be more quiet next time. Goodnight, Etta.’

  CHAPTER 6

  15 Fevror, 1352

  The next morning they departed Anseville on foot. The sky was grey and the day was windy and cold. The area around Anseville had been cleared of trees, but the forest sprung up again with a vengeance within half an hours walk from the town. Julietta did not mind the walking, or the heavy pack on her back. No, what she minded was the little sparkly flies that constantly clouded around her. She swatted at the creatures, which flew into nearby bushes, only to return again. They didn’t seem to be bothering anyone else!

  Dorian dropped back to walk beside her and tilted his hat up over his eyes. He frowned and said, ‘I don’t know if there’s anything you can do about it, if you have to constantly draw magic in. It’s nice for the rest of us at any rate.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ she panted, waving her hands around her face.

  ‘They feed on magic. Usually they’d be landing on Bo or Asmara’s inscriptions and feeding off them. They never seem to actually attack Asmara though. Perhaps they don’t like shadow magic.’

  Julietta stopped and focussed her attention on one of the sparkling, buzzing monstrosities. She drew it to her, and it came with more ease than she had expected, as if it was intentionally flying at her. It was with some difficulty she managed to stop it in front of her eyes, and she had to concentrate on keeping it still. ‘I see... these are sparkle wasps. They have these in the gardens in Manus during summer, but these are bigger... hm, I never have any trouble controlling the ones in Manus... I wouldn’t have expected to find them in Sontmor, I would have thought it too cold.’

  ‘These are different, they’re in the forests all year round. You’ll find a lot of creatures in Sontmor that at first glance seem similar to what you find in the rest of Mance-Jolune.’

  ‘How come they aren’t bothering you?’ Julietta asked.

  ‘Practice. Besides, with you drawing magic in all the time they probably have trouble flying away from you. Don’t worry, they won’t do any real damage. They’re just annoying.’

  Julietta watched in disbelief as he walked away.

  That night Julietta grumpily pulled out her lenses to investigate one of the wasps she had caught. She had altered the flow of magic she drew from the world several times throughout the day, but nothing seemed to work. Late summer in Sontmor was cool enough that she’d started out the day in thick, warm clothes. Once the exertion of walking had started to warm her up, she’d suffered the discomfort of keeping all her layers on to avoid being bitten everywhere by the horrible things. At least, with her magic, she’d been able to cool herself (though perhaps that just made the wasps worse). By the end of the day, the wasps had only managed to attack her face and neck. They left little red marks that faded quickly, and she knew they were only taking minute amounts of her magic. What annoyed her most though was that she’d failed to figure out how to stop them.

  After examining the creature Julietta came to several interesting conclusions. The creature seemed to be entirely formed of magic, unlike the bugs in the rest of Mance-Jolune which were creatures with a physical form that had a store of magical power within them. Thus, whenever she tried to draw on magic instead of taking magic from them, she simply drew them closer to her as they were entirely magical. It was a curious difference, and she wondered how it had come about. Was it simply because of the presence of human civilization in Mance-Jolune that the magical creatures had dwindled in number and changed? She looked up to see Dorian cooking dinner over a low fire. Next to him were plates and a big bucket of water.

  Hurriedly she put her things away and approached.

  Dorian looked up briefly before turning his attention back to the pan he held in his bare hand.

  ‘When does the fire get touchy?’ she asked. ‘I didn’t know you could cook.’

  He sighed. ‘I do all the cooking in Sontmor, so when we aren’t here the others take turns. We’ll have to put the fire out once I’m done, it’s too dangerous to leave it.’

  ‘Why?’ Eying the fire curiously, she saw the flames taking on human shapes and then flickering back.

  ‘If I let you try you’ll get burnt, Julietta.’

  ‘I’m sure I can manage.’ she said haughtily, not letting him see her doubt. Even though he had never been trained, Dorian had proven he had a solid grasp of the practice of magic, and she did not discount his opinion. But if she wanted to learn and understand she’d have to try things on her own. Learning magic was full of risks, and she wasn’t overly concerned. Besides, she had handled fire spirits before.

  Frowning darkly he hesitated a good while before tipping the contents of the pan into a bowl and swivelling the pan around so she could grasp it. Immediately the flames flared up and licked against her hand. Biting back a surprised yelp, she directed her magic and forced them away. The flames surged into the pan and curled against the protection she had summoned, trying to reach her. It looked as though hundreds of little people made out of flame were scrambling over each other to climb up the handle of the pan to reach her. As she forced the flames away they seemed to increase in intensity. As she increased the force of her magic the flames edged down, but then jumped onto the dirt and started crawling along the ground towards her.

  At that point Dorian took the pan from her and poured a bucket of water over the fire. It went out in a cloud of steam which quickly dissipated in the cold air.

  Julietta stared at him in shock, for once silent.

  ‘Fire spirits.’ he said. ‘Power isn’t important, you need to apply it with the right attitude if you want to have a fire in Sontmor. I’ll restart the fire. It’s probably best if you stay back. Is your hand ok?’

  Julietta looked down at her red and blistered hand. She’d been so focussed on controlling the fire spirits she hadn’t noticed the pain. Looking at her hand, it suddenly hit her, and she blinked back startled tears of pain. ‘Oh, certainly, I’ll fix it now...’ unless healing magic worked differently in Sontmor too. She retreated some distance and worked on her hand, watching Dorian as he restarted the fire and began cooking dinner again. As the fire started flames curled around the pan and started licking at his hand, but he behaved as if he didn’t notice and did not alter the constant pressure he was exerting on the fire with his magic. After a little while the flames subsided. When he finished cooking he spoke to the fire, which grudgingly subsided until it was just glowing embers. With an irritated look on his face he covered the embers with dirt and said something else, which she didn’t catch.

  The group had dinner away from where the fire’s cold embers lay. Despite the incident with the spirits, they were all in a good mood. Bo told jokes, which Julietta still didn’t get but Asmara seemed to find very funny from the way she was howling. Ignoring the two, Julietta said to Dorian, ‘perhaps I should have a look at your hand too.’ She noticed his wrist was red, but it did not look badly burnt.

  Dorian shook his head. ‘No. Those spirits will probably follow us around, it’s better not to let them know they bothered me.’

  ‘What did you say to them?’ she asked curiously. She knew of spirits from her study at the Collegium, and had conversed with a few. Spirits were not a major part of sorcerous magic however, and most of her training had been on how to avoid them and greet them politely.

  ‘They were unhappy I poured water on them-’

  ‘I would have thought them injured...’

  He shook his head. ‘We’re not seeing the full collection of the fire spirits, and you need to hurt all of them otherwise they just draw energy from each other... like a fire spreading. Trust me, the water didn’t hurt them. There aren’t as many spirits in Mance and they gather in much smaller numbers... it might have worked there.’

  ‘Are they very upset?’

  ‘They wouldn’t go out fully when I asked them too, but that’s normal. Once they get bored of us we might be able to have a normal fire, and maybe you could try again, if you really feel the need. It would be safest if you didn’t though.’

  ‘I need to learn.’ she replied, frowning.

  ‘It’s not a big deal.’ Asmara replied, surprising Julietta who hadn’t noticed she was listening, ‘you can just eat cold food. Arnaud wasn’t as good with the fire spirits as Dorian, remember, Bo?’

  ‘He’d start out ok, and then get into big fights with them.’ he chuckled. ‘Those were warm nights! Remember when he drew on the water spirits?’

  ‘Perhaps you’d like cold food tomorrow then, Asmara.’ Dorian replied in irritation.

  ‘Only if you’re going to prepare it, Dore, you’re so much better at cooking than I!’ to Bo she said, ‘remember when we had to run to the lake and he had to ask the air spirits to help us breathe?’

  ‘Yes, and they weren’t going to! That was a close shave!’

  That night they had no fire. Julietta was glad Dorian had pressed her to buy warmer clothes, as the night was colder than the day. With her layers of warm blankets Julietta had no trouble drifting off to sleep.

  The next day the forest got thicker and darker. It got so dark the sparkle wasps lit up the forest interior like stars. Julietta might have found them beautiful if she wasn’t too busy trying to keep them away from her! Around midday she reluctantly stopped drawing magic in and instead held on to her current store of borrowed power. The sparkle wasps’ assault lessened, but she could not go on like that forever. To her, it felt like she was holding her breath. She could do it, but it felt unnatural and made her feel vulnerable. An hour later she decided to quickly draw in more power. The wasps, which were scattered about the rest of the party (who had been complaining loudly all this time) suddenly all sped towards her.

  ‘Thank you, Julietta!’ Bo declared, ‘Dorian will make you something yummy for dinner tonight!’

  ‘What?’ the red-haired sorcerer demanded.

  ‘We all appreciate it, Dorian, Julietta!’ Asmara piped up.

  The banter was interrupted by a loud scream from Julietta. They all turned as one to see her flailing her arm wildly, a white worm the length of her forearm attached by its mouth to her arm.

  ‘Getitoffgetitoffgetitoff!’

  Bo started laughing. ‘Oh, look, a baby humoran!’

  ‘Julietta, hold still.’ Dorian ordered. ‘It won’t hurt you, you’re too big for it to eat.’

  Julietta froze, her face a mask of fear. ‘It’s sucking on my arm.’

  ‘It’s trying to eat you, trying, Julietta, don’t worry. Besides, your clothes are in the way.’ Dorian said as he approached.

  ‘It’s eating them!’

  Dorian pulled out his dagger and poked the creature in the belly. Purple blood started leaking from the shallow wound and the creature reared up, disengaging from Julietta, and flopped to the ground with a wet thump. It lay on the ground, looking a little flat for just a moment and then started wiggling and jerking to the nearest tree. It soon disappeared into the dark branches.

  Julietta looked down at the wet and sticky stain on her sleeve where the creature had been and shuddered.

  ‘Don’t worry, there’s nothing in the saliva to hurt you.’ Dorian said, seeing her gaze. ‘It’s a good sign for us, really.’

  ‘What?’ Julietta replied, her voice very high, ‘a good sign that there are baby humorans falling from the sky!’

  ‘Where else would they come from?’ Bo asked. ‘It is good though, it means there shouldn’t be any full grown humorans around here. The adults tend to squash the babies, accidentally or on purpose, I don’t know how humoran parents view their children!’ and he laughed, ‘but the babies tend to stay away from the adults. We weren’t expecting any adults anyway, the trees are a bit too small for them.’

  Julietta stared, her voice a little weak she said, ‘but humorans are ground creatures, they dig holes and emerge to eat things...’

  Bo shook his head. ‘Ground humorans? Imagine one of those squishy things digging a hole!’

  ‘Humorans live in the trees.’ Dorian said with a sigh. ‘They jump down and engulf their prey. Sometimes they’ll stay on the ground to digest it, but if they’re in danger they’ll retreat to the trees.’

  ‘That’s how they got Arnaud.’ Asmara said. ‘Jumped right down and swallowed him. Don’t worry, me and Bo are experts now at getting people out of humorans.’

  ‘Trees? They live in trees? But how could they if they get big enough to swallow a man?’ Julietta demanded. ‘And they’re the wrong colour, they’d stand out! They’re supposed to be blind worms that live underground!’

  ‘This might take a while.’ Dorian said. ‘Let’s keep walking while we explain.’

  The group continued walking and Asmara explained to Julietta, ‘they usually live in the Moonlit Forests further south. The trees get huge there, and it’s all silvery so the humorans fit right in. The babies living here will probably head back there when they’re big enough. Better watch out though, there’s probably hundreds of baby humorans above us right now.’

  Julietta glanced up fearfully.

  ‘We should take you to the Moonlit Forests. They’re amazingly beautiful. The adult humorans aren’t so bad, you just need a humoran warder.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Julietta demanded, thinking she’d make one for herself right now.

  ‘Basically an array of spikes that you hold above your head. The humorans won’t bother you, and if they do... it gets a bit messy.’ Asmara shrugged and smiled.

  Julietta stared.

  ‘The mist is a bit troublesome, but Dore can handle that.’

  Dorian glanced back over his shoulder. ‘I wouldn’t call it a bit troublesome, Asmara. That stuff is damned dangerous. I can deal with it but it takes a lot out of me.’

  ‘The mist?’

  ‘Mmm... floats around and sucks up all the air so you suffocate. It kind of looks like a collection of air spirits, so you can usually recognize it once it gets close. It’s most dangerous at night, when you’re sleeping.’

  That night as Dorian was preparing dinner, Julietta wrote a strongly worded letter to the Collegium about the state of their knowledge regarding the beasts that inhabited Sontmor.

  ‘Oh, that’s useful.’ Bo said as she released the paper bird into the night.

  ‘I’ve included a tracker.’ Julietta said sourly. ‘In case something in Sontmor eats it. It should go high enough to be safe, but perhaps there are birds or clouds that the Collegium is unaware of that could catch it.’

  ‘Cloud birds?’ Asmara said from where she was lying on her back looking up at the forest canopy above. The sparkle wasps had all gathered in the branches above to sleep. With their shining bodies, dimmer than when they were awake, it looked as if they were in a cave lit only by the bugs. ‘Those are just air and water spirits that accumulate around the southern great-wing. Usually they dissipate once the great-wings get too far inland.’

  Julietta fetched her notebook. ‘I see there is much the sorcerers in Manus are very ill-informed about!’ She was starting to get excited though- she would be able to return to Manus with stories and observations of beasts her professors and fellow students had never even heard of!