A Champion Falls, page 3
“Don’t go putting words into my mouth.”
“I would not put anything into your mouth.”
Gaspar glowered at him. “I’ll just find you at the Dragon.”
It didn’t take long for Gaspar to disappear into the crowd.
Gavin made his way through the rows of wagons at the market. He slowed, enjoying the chaos around him. It felt so familiar. Then again, he had spent quite a bit of time in Yoran, far more than he had in many places over the years. The city had become home to him.
And now he was talking about leaving once again. Of course, he needed to leave.
He passed stalls where people were bargaining and ignored a few merchants who tried to call him in to buy their wares. He reached the far side of the market, then paused.
The enchanters’ fortress was not far. Gavin gradually made his way toward it, weaving through the streets and watching for signs of anything unusual, though he didn’t really expect to find much. Not out here, and not given the current situation with the city.
By the time he neared his destination, he had figured out what he wanted to talk to Zella about and how to approach her for what he needed. It was more than just enchantments. It was the help that she could offer him.
“I saw you coming,” a voice said from an alley near the wall surrounding the fortress.
Gavin turned. A dark-haired girl stepped forward out of the shadows. He hadn’t seen her in several months, which, now that he thought about it, was probably too long.
“It’s good to see you, Alana.”
“I felt what you were doing to my enchantments.”
“I wasn’t hurting them,” Gavin said.
Alana chuckled. “I didn’t think you would. I don’t know that you could.”
“I was just trying to link to them so that I could use them better.”
“Did it work?” she asked.
“I think so.”
She stepped closer. Alana was probably no more than twelve years old, but she was one of the most powerful enchanters he’d ever been around.
“I have others,” she offered.
Knowing what he did now about the enchantments, and how the power was linked, Gavin didn’t know if he felt comfortable taking enchantments from her. He had the paper dragon, which could fold down small enough to fit into his pocket, or it could expand to an enormous size.
“Don’t know if I should,” Gavin said.
“You don’t have to worry about me. It doesn’t hurt, if that’s what you’re concerned about.”
“It doesn’t hurt when I use the enchantment, but what about if it gets damaged?”
Alana frowned. “Do you think it could be?”
“Any enchantment can be destroyed,” he said.
“Even ones that you work with?”
Gavin almost said that they could, but he didn’t really know. The kinds of enchantments he influenced were different now. He had some familiarity with them, but it was more than just that. His experience with them was tied to how he added his own connection to them.
“I still think that any enchantment can be destroyed.”
“Anything can be destroyed, Gavin, but that’s not what you want to do. I know what your nickname is,” she said, smiling at him. “But you aren’t the Enchantment Breaker, are you?”
Gavin shook his head. “I’m not. I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you.”
She laughed and glanced toward the fortress. “You must be getting ready to go again.”
“Why do you say that?”
“It’s the only time you come visit her. She doesn’t mind. She knows you mean well.”
“Has Zella said something about that?” he asked.
“Oh, she says things about a lot of things. Most of the time, she complains, but I think she means well.” Alana let out a small laugh. “Sort of like you. You complain, but you mean well.”
“I didn’t realize I complain so much,” Gavin said.
“Oh.”
“What is that about?”
“Well, if you didn’t know, that just means you are like that,” Alana said.
He chuckled. “I suppose I can be cranky.”
“More than some, not as much as others. But given the things you’ve been doing, I suppose that can be forgiven.”
He smiled at her. “Thanks.”
“Do you want to see what I’ve been working on?”
Gavin did, but he also felt a sense of urgency to what he needed to be doing, and staying here with Alana wasn’t necessarily the right use of his time. Now that he had decided to try to draw the nihilar away from the city, Gavin felt as if he needed to get moving on that and then prepare for what else he might have to do.
But Alana looked at him with an earnestness that reminded him of how much she had helped him. Not only with the paper dragon, but with the ravens she had made as well. What if she had a new enchantment that might also be useful?
“I would love that,” Gavin said.
“You can visit with her when she gets back, anyway. She isn’t here.”
Gavin laughed as Alana strode past him and up to the gate. She tapped on the stone, and it slid open. Nobody stood guard the way they had the last time he’d been here, and he realized that it wasn’t stone that slid away. It looked to be paper.
“Yours?” he asked.
“It helps,” Alana said. “It’s more useful than you realize.”
“Oh, I have no doubt about that.”
He followed her into the garden outside the fortress. The smells of the flowers around him assaulted his nose. The dozens of different flowers and animal-shaped shrubs left him wondering if they were enchantments or just plants that had been groomed. Gavin was quite certain that the sculptures he saw were enchantments. Given their size, he had little doubt that they would be dangerous creatures. Was there an element of sorcery here as well? The enchanters had denied having any ability with that kind of magic.
The most recent time he’d come here had been in the darkness, and he had seen none of it. He didn’t even remember the flowers.
“How much of this is enchanted?” Gavin asked as they approached the front door.
“Everything is.”
“So these are all defensive measures?”
“For the most part. Zella doesn’t want to be surprised,” Alana explained.
“What does she think might happen?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I think she’s been through a few things that are hard for her to overlook. She wants to be ready.”
Which meant that she was ready for either sorcery or the constables. Not that Gavin was terribly surprised by that. Zella had seen the enchanters through a difficult time, and she needed to be ready to defend them.
They entered through the front door. The inside of the fortress was quiet, and the place was decorated differently than it had been when the Captain lived here. The plush carpets, the paintings on the walls, and the sculptures decorating the halls gave the interior a sense of warmth. Though Gavin suspected most of the sculptures were enchantments of one sort or another. The entire fortress was well lit with enchanted lights, pushing back shadows and giving a comfortable atmosphere to the whole building.
The air was cool, and it seemed drier than it had been before. Alana hurried forward, and Gavin was forced to chase after her to keep up, but she paused every so often to glance back at him. By the time she reached the massive staircase leading up to the second level, she had scarcely slowed. She looked back, motioning for him to hurry along.
While Gavin followed, he scanned for signs of anybody else within the fortress. As far as he could tell, it was empty.
“No one is coming.”
He reached the top of the stairs. It had been a while since Gavin had been this deep inside the building. The last time was when he had chased Tristan, though he hadn’t known it was him at the time. The upper level was decorated quite a bit differently now than it had been before. When the Captain had occupied the fortress, it had been sparse, with only plain stone walls. Similar to the entrance, this part now had paintings, which Gavin suspected were enchantments, as well as sculptures, which he knew were enchantments. Several flower-filled vases were set into alcoves along the wall, though he didn’t know if those were also enchanted. The air had a floral fragrance that was more potent than he expected it to be.
“The flowers,” Gavin said.
Alana looked back. “Aren’t they wonderful? They don’t do much except smell pretty.”
“Somebody enchanted flowers to be… more fragrant?”
“Not all enchantments have to be violent, silly.”
“I realize that,” he said, though he usually spent time thinking otherwise. “It’s just that they happen to be the kinds of enchantments I have the most experience with.”
“You have the wrong kinds of experience, then,” she said, her tone serious.
Alana stopped at a door, and she tapped on it. Much like with the gate, it seemed to slide away, though he realized that it rolled more than slid. She stepped inside, and Gavin paused at the doorway to run his fingers along the door that had opened.
It was paper too.
“My enchantments are a little different than others,” Alana said. “Zella doesn’t really understand it. She tries to explain it to me, but when she does, I sort of get lost.” She waved a hand as if to dismiss the idea. “And I don’t always care. She does, and she wants to try to help me understand, but…” Alana shrugged. “It doesn’t really matter. Don’t tell her I said that. All I know is that things work for me. I focus on what I want, I push it out, and it takes hold.”
It was the closest Gavin had gotten to understanding how an enchantment worked. Nobody really spoke about it, and he didn’t know that it even mattered. His type of magic would be different than that of the enchanters, who created something that was different than what the sorcerers did. Anna had demonstrated that the El’aras could create enchantments similar to those made from sorcery, but even in that, Gavin didn’t know if the method was so distinct that it made a difference.
He stood in the doorway and looked into the room. Alana’s bedroom, he realized. A large four-poster bed had what looked to be a massive piece of paper draped over it. Symbols decorated the paper, which he suspected were enchantments. Pale butterflies circled in the air. With a start, he realized that they were all enchantments as well.
A stack of paper rested in the corner of her room, and Alana plopped down next to it.
“How do you command it to take hold?” he asked.
“You have magic, Gavin. You should be able to do this too.”
“I don’t have your kind of magic,” he said as he continued to study the butterflies. They were lovely, and they likely served no function other than to look nice. That wasn’t to say they didn’t have other purposes, though. He wouldn’t put it past Alana to add a hint of danger to those butterflies if it came down to it.
“You just have to think about what you want,” she said. “It’s about as basic as that.”
“I don’t think mine works that way.”
“Why not?”
She grabbed a piece of paper and set it on her lap. She quickly began to fold it, turning it into a familiar shape—a raven. Those were incredibly useful enchantments. Once she finished folding it, she cupped it in her hands.
“You just have to think about what you want,” Alana said again. “I want this to be a raven that can talk to you.”
As she said it, she closed her eyes, pressed her mouth into a tight line, and squeezed. Gavin could practically imagine the magic coming out of her. She looked as if she were trying to focus on the power within the enchantment, then pouring it out of herself and into the paper.
“See?” she said.
The folded paper had shrunk down into a smaller form, but it wasn’t just that. Gavin could feel something from it that he hadn’t been able to feel before.
“What else did you do to it?” he asked.
“I told you, silly. I was just talking to it. I told it what I wanted, and it listened. That’s what you have to do.”
“I don’t think I can use enchantments the same way you do.”
Alana grabbed another piece of paper and started folding. “You could, but you just have to find what you want and how it fits with you.”
“What do you mean, how it fits with me?” Gavin said.
“I suppose I wasn’t telling you all you needed to know to make them. It’s not just telling it what you want, but you have to feel it. It has to be felt deep within you.”
That fit with something he’d heard, though he couldn’t remember where he’d heard it. Emotion had something to do with the enchantments, and the more emotion that was poured into the enchantment, the easier it was for them to carry out what was asked of them.
“Maybe the way you do things is different,” she said as she pulled out another raven. She closed her eyes and set her jaw, and Gavin watched as she placed power into it. When she was done, she held it out to him.
“I thought you said you had something new.”
Alana grinned. “I do.”
She hurried to her feet and slipped the two paper ravens into his hand, before going to a trunk at the end of her bed. When she pulled it open and reached down, she did so carefully, almost as if whatever she was reaching for was dangerous. She stood up, and Gavin saw what looked to be a book, though it was oddly shaped.
“I used seven pieces with this one,” she said, her eyes glittering with excitement. “I’ve been trying more. It’s tricky, though. When you use more than one piece, you have to keep it held together. Two was hard, three was even harder, but Zella told me to stick with it. She thinks I can get as many as I want to. I just have to learn how to keep them sticky.”
“And what did you do to make this sticky?”
“It’s all in how you talk to it,” she said. “Well, that and how you fold it. If you fold it just the right way, paper doesn’t come apart. It’s sort of like what carpenters do. At least, that’s what Mekel tells me.”
“Is that right?”
Gavin hadn’t seen Mekel much since they had returned to the city. He needed him, as well, especially his enchantments. If Mekel was willing to come with him, then Gavin would feel better prepared for facing more of the nihilar.
“I don’t know how he knows that, though,” Alana said, taking a seat on the ground and motioning for Gavin to sit in front of her. “It’s not like he’s a carpenter. Maybe a sculptor, but his sculptures start off as rocks, and he just pushes his magic into the rocks to get them to take their shape.”
Gavin blinked. “Wait. Mekel doesn’t carve those himself?”
She looked up, and she smiled at him as if he were ridiculous. “Of course he doesn’t. You didn’t think he had time to make all of them that way, did you?”
He frowned, not entirely sure what he’d thought. “So his enchantments are carved with magic.”
“Mostly,” she said. “It’s all in how he talks to the stone. He tells it what he wants, and then it does it.”
She opened the book, and Gavin realized that it took on a three-dimensional shape as she began to separate what looked to be pages. But they were something else. As she unfolded the paper, it separated outward into wings, an enormous beak, and even a tail.
“I haven’t tried this one myself,” she said, “but there’s no reason it won’t work.”
“What is it?”
“I don’t know. I saw a picture in a book, and I wondered if I could make it. I talked to the paper, and it agreed. So we made it.”
She finished unfolding, and the creature looked like no bird Gavin had ever seen. It was blocky, and somehow the tail had taken on spikes. The wings were much larger than the dragon’s and seemed thicker than they needed to be.
“I’ve never seen something like this before,” he said.
“Me neither.” She folded up the bird, turning it back into a book again, and then handed it to him.
Gavin shook his head. “I can’t take this.”
“Why not? I made it for you.”
“You made it for me?”
Alana shrugged. “Well, this one seems like it might be able to help you in ways the dragon can’t. At least, that’s what I was telling it when I was making it.”
“You were telling it to help me?” he asked.
“I told the dragon to help you, so why wouldn’t I tell this to help you?”
“I guess I don’t know.”
She chuckled. “You can be kind of silly, you know that?”
Gavin smiled at her. “I guess I do.”
“There you go again. Guessing. Anyway, take it. You’ve got the two ravens. You can go ahead and link to them if you want. I can still feel them, but I can tell they don’t mind.”
Gavin realized that she had been aware of it when he’d linked to the dragon, though why wouldn’t she be?
“Gavin Lorren.”
He turned. Zella stood in the doorway, dressed in a deep blue cloak. Her black hair was pinned up, and she had a stern expression on her youthful face.
“Did you come to visit with Alana, or did you have another reason for your visit?” Zella asked.
Gavin flashed a grin at Alana, who had turned back to her paper and begun to fold more. He couldn’t imagine how many enchantments she could make at one time. Dozens? Hundreds? If it was limited to her folding ability and how she convinced the paper to take on the shape she wanted, it seemed like there would be no limit. But none of her enchantments had any real defensive technique to them. They were all useful for various reasons, but as far as he had seen, none of them could be used to attack.
“I came to see if you might have some enchantments you’d be willing to part with.”
“Another attack?” Zella asked.
“More like the possibility of another one,” he said. “We’re going to be leaving the city for a while. I’m hoping I won’t need them, but I also kind of hope I do.”
She frowned at him, flicking her gaze briefly to Alana before turning her attention back to him. “You don’t make much sense, Gavin Lorren.”
“I realize that,” he said. “But I’m needing enchantments so I can serve as bait, I suppose.”
