The Spell Realm (14 page)

“Because you’re wonderful,” Blaise said softly, “and because I wanted to do something nice for you.”

“Oh, thank you—”

“First experience the gift, then decide if you want to thank me,” Blaise interrupted, smiling.

Taking a batch of cards, he loaded them into the Stone. He had conceived of this gift on the lake, when he was holding Gala in his arms. As the first strains of music sounded and Gala’s face took on a rapturous expression, he knew it had been a good idea. The spell was designed to vibrate the air in exactly the right way, to imitate the sound of instruments playing a tune.

“I wrote this melody for you,” he explained, watching as Gala closed her eyes, swaying to the music.

“It’s so beautiful,” she breathed after a few moments, opening her eyes to meet his gaze. “I heard your music before, in the village, but it was played with instruments. This seems more pure, somehow, and moves me even more. Can we dance to it?”

“Of course,” Blaise said, walking up to her. He had to agree with her in regard to the purity of the music. It was as though the dry yellow mountains decided to sing for them, as if nature itself wanted to express its love. The melody he created was meant to show how Gala made him feel, but it transcended something as simple as human feelings, resembling no earthly instruments.

Putting his hands on Gala’s waist, he slowly began moving to the tune. The beats of low frequency sounds echoed his racing heartbeat. She seemed to melt in his arms, their movement perfectly matching the slow, careful turns of the melody. It was as if they were attuned to each other, their bodies moving as one.

As the music reached a crescendo and started winding down, he leaned down and kissed her again, his breathing quickening as he felt the softness of her lips. His hands encircled her waist, pulling her even closer, when he heard something behind him.

Turning swiftly, he stared at the intruder, instinctively holding Gala pressed against his side.

“I am truly sorry to interrupt such a lovely dance, but we must talk, now,” the Council Leader said, looking directly at Blaise.

Chapter 18: Gala

“Gala, run. It’s Ganir, from the Council,” Blaise told her, pushing her behind him. His face was tight with anger. “Teleport away if you can. He might be the first of many.” As he was speaking, he pulled out his Stone and several cards, beginning to write on them with incredible speed.

The old man stepped toward them. “I am here by myself and with only peaceful intentions,” he said, opening his hands to show that they were empty. He sounded genuine to her, but she could see that Blaise was not convinced.

Deciding to humor Blaise and, at the same time, do something she’d wanted to do for a while, Gala looked inside herself. Learning to do sorcery using the code had indeed changed things for her, enabling her to better understand how she had accidentally been doing magic before—and, more importantly, how she might be able to control it. This was her chance to try a simple spell. If it didn’t work, then she intended to do as Blaise asked.

The spell she had in mind was quite different from anything she’d seen before, but it seemed fairly intuitive to her. She would be here, but neither man would know it—and for that, she needed to bend all the light around her in the right way.

She focused on the mathematics of the task, pretending that she was about to cast a spell using one of the methods Blaise had taught her today. It was a sham, though; deep inside, she knew that she had a direct route to achieving her goal. Going through the training made her realize that she didn’t need the cumbersome spoken word or its slightly more elegant written cousin. In a way, something like the Interpreter Stone was already built into her mind, and she could now sense it.

She took a deep breath, letting her mind clear. This time it happened quicker than when she had practiced at the lake. Then she focused on what she was hoping to achieve, mentally running through the proper calculations. A second later, everything went dark, as though she’d lost her vision. For a moment, Gala panicked, sure that she’d done something wrong, but then she realized what happened.

She had done too thorough of a job of bending light. The inner workings of her eyes needed to reflect some light in order to see. To fix this problem, she needed to make her eyes exempt from this spell, but that would probably result in a strange visual of eyeballs floating in the air, defeating the purpose of the invisibility spell. Oh well, Gala decided, maybe she didn’t need to see—hearing should be enough.

“She teleported?” Ganir asked, his voice penetrating the cocoon of darkness that encased Gala. “Just like that?”

“How did you find me?” Blaise demanded in a hard voice. Gala flinched, startled by the bitter anger she heard there. She’d never heard Blaise speak like that before, not even at the lake when he confronted the hunters.

“I used a locator spell on you,” Ganir answered calmly. “I placed it on you during our last encounter. You know how those things are pretty much unnoticeable.”

“You must’ve embedded it in the pacifying spell,” Blaise said, his voice sounding strained. Gala thought that, mixed with anger, she could hear a slight undertone of admiration.

“Yes, of course I did.” Ganir’s voice sounded like he was smiling. “You always were bright, my son.”

“Don’t call me that.” Blaise’s voice turned hard again. “Why are you here? Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t kill you on the spot.”

“Because I’m here to tell you something important.” Ganir paused, and Gala heard him take a deep breath. “The Council voted to move against you and your creation. They are preparing now, and it’s only a matter of time until they find you.”

Gala felt an unpleasant sensation that she identified as fear and resentment. Why couldn’t people leave her alone? She didn’t intend to harm anyone, not even those soldiers who’d attacked her before.

“Of course they’ll find me now,” Blaise said bitterly. “You’re here, aren’t you?”

“I have no intention of telling the Council anything,” Ganir said. “Isn’t it clear to you by now that I’m on your side?”

“Nothing is clear to me,” Blaise said harshly. “If you think I’m going to trust you this easily, you’ve got another thing coming.”

“Blaise . . . there’s something you should know.” Ganir’s voice sounded heavy now. “I have strong reason to believe that the vote during Louie’s trial—and on many other occasions—may have been subverted.”

“Subverted? What are you talking about?”

“Can you tell me how you learned about the vote being unanimous? Who told you that the entire Council, except you, voted in favor of Louie’s execution?”

Blaise snorted. “You think I’m going to tell you my source?”

“Was it Jandison?” Ganir persisted. “Blaise, please, this is very important. I think Jandison has been manipulating the Council vote for years. Ever since you and I spoke about Louie’s trial and you told me you thought I voted to kill him—when I knew full well that I hadn’t—I have been deeply suspicious of the voting procedure. And then I got a letter, an anonymous letter claiming that the vote during Louie’s trial had been rigged.”

“You think Jandison rigged the vote?” Blaise sounded incredulous. “Why? What would he have to gain by it?”

“Was it he?” Ganir sounded frustrated. “Blaise, was it Jandison who spoke to you after the vote?”

“What proof do I have that you’re not lying to me right now, trying to get me to betray something that I was told in confidence?” Blaise asked, and Gala could hear the simmering anger his voice.

“I can give you proof,” Ganir said. “I had a thorough look through my Life Capture archives, and I want you to take this.” Gala heard shuffling footsteps as Ganir presumably approached Blaise.

“If I take that droplet, I will be at your mercy,” Blaise said, still sounding uncompromising. Gala wished she could see what was happening, to better understand her creator’s emotional state.

“You are welcome to use it later to verify my words,” Ganir said. “This droplet contains my recollections of Louie’s trial, including my memory of voting against the execution.”

For a few moments, there was silence. Then Blaise spoke again. “All right, I will watch this later. But tell me one thing. If this is true, why haven’t you gone to the Council with this information?”

“Because at this point, all I have are your words, my suspicions, and this anonymous letter,” Ganir explained. “It’s not enough to publicly accuse one of our own, let alone call for a trial.”

“So what do you plan to do?”

“I have some ideas of how I can prove this,” the old man said. “The next time we hold a vote, I will know more about the breakdown, and I will record it as proof.”

“How can you do that?” Blaise sounded curious now. “The process is designed to be anonymous.”

“I wrote an intricate spell, similar to the locator one, which would be embedded in my voting stone. This should show me where my stone is after I place it into the voting box. I plan to vote in a way that would not suit Jandison. If he is indeed behind this, then my stone will shift, and I will have my proof.”

“That would be proof indeed,” Blaise said, sounding thoughtful.

“If you could replicate the droplet when you take it, I would be grateful,” Ganir said, sounding mildly relieved. Gala guessed he was glad Blaise was less angry now, though she had no idea what the man meant by his request.

“What do you mean, replicate?” Blaise voiced Gala’s unspoken question.

She listened in fascination as Ganir explained how one could preserve the information contained in Droplets. Blaise appeared quite interested too, asking several questions to clarify the simple process. “So promise me you will take the droplet as soon as you can,” Ganir said finally, concluding the Life Capture lecture.

“How do I know you didn’t tamper with the droplet itself?” Blaise asked. “If anyone could manipulate Life Capture, that would be you, its creator.”

“I am honored you think so highly of me.” Ganir sounded amused now. “But I assure you, what you describe is impossible.”

“Nothing is impossible if you come up with the right code,” Blaise said derisively.

“You’re right. It would be theoretically possible, but extremely difficult in practice. So much so, it might as well be impossible,” Ganir responded. “Ask yourself this: even if I could do it, why would I go through that much trouble?”

“Because you want Gala for your own purposes.” There was renewed anger in Blaise’s voice.

She could hear the old man sighing. “It’s true that I’m curious about her,” Ganir admitted, “but all I want is to learn about her. She’s important to you, and because of that, I want to help you save her.” The old man sounded so sincere that Gala felt touched by his words.

“Is that why you sent the Sorcerer Guard after her?” Blaise said sarcastically. “So they could save her with their swords and arrows?”

Gala shuddered, remembering the fight. Maybe Blaise was right to distrust Ganir; those soldiers certainly hadn’t had peaceful intentions.

“I only sent a few men after her so they could bring her to Turingrad.” Ganir sounded defensive now. “I don’t know how the entire Sorcerer Guard ended up going—I certainly didn’t authorize it.”

“Right, of course. They acted on their own.”

“They did,” Ganir insisted. “Either that, or your former fiancée had a hand in it. You do know she was seeing the Captain of the Guard, right?”

“Augusta?” Blaise sounded surprised. “She was with Barson? No, I didn’t know that. Are you saying she got the Guard to come after Gala?”

Ganir let out a heavy sigh. “I can’t say for sure, since I don’t know the depth of her involvement with the plot. It’s possible that Barson was responsible for this himself.”

“What plot?” Blaise sounded as confused as Gala felt.

Another sigh from Ganir. “It doesn’t matter now. They’re all dead, thanks to you and your creation.”

Gala bit her lip to remain silent. Everything inside her wanted to protest the unfair accusation. The soldiers were not all dead—she’d healed many of them.

“All dead?” Blaise echoed her thoughts. “What do you mean, all dead? The majority were alive and well when I last saw them.”

There was dead silence. “I see,” Ganir said after a few moments. “Barson is smarter than I thought. Is he alive too?”

“I don’t know,” Blaise replied coldly. “I was more concerned with helping Gala than paying attention to the individual soldiers trying to kill her.”

“Well, it’s my problem now,” Ganir said with resignation. “I guess I will have to deal with them directly after all.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Blaise, my son, come back to Turingrad, please.” Ganir’s voice turned cajoling as he issued his request. “There’s trouble brewing, and I could use your help . . . your help and that of your creation—”

“Her name is Gala,” Blaise said icily, “and trouble for the Council sounds like good news for me. I wish you all the best in dealing with Augusta and her Captain. It sounds like she finally found someone ruthless enough for her tastes.”

Gala frowned, detecting an unfamiliar note in Blaise’s voice. He sounded angry with Augusta, and Gala could tell that the news that she was with someone else bothered him—and that bothered Gala for some reason.