Mana Mirror: The First Gate, page 14
By the time she’d finished, Ed had wandered outside and flopped onto the grass next to me, wiping the sleep from his eyes.
“Ah, good, good,” Meadow said, smiling at him. “Now that you’re both awake, we can begin.”
Meadow had me invest most of my power into my new plant before I did simple exercises – running, jumping jacks, pushups, and more. Ed was made to practice with his spear and join me in the exercises. Before she left to make lunch, Meadow had me spread some nutrients over the burgeoning clover, as well as prepare some patches of the garden for other plants. When she turned to go, I finally spoke up, asking something on my mind.
“Why do you have me do so much physical training?”
“Other than the fact that it’s good for the heart? I’ve spoken with your mentor about his plans for you, and it should help quite a bit for when you open your second gate life mana.”
I frowned. Orykson had promised that I’d be able to start the medical parts of transitioning within a year. I thought that I’d need to be third gate for it, but maybe I’d be able to get away with being second gate for a few basic body spells? Ed’s Skin of Stone spell was second gate, if I remembered correctly.
Meadow came back a while later with a peanut curry, and we spent the rest of the day enriching the garden with mana. As dinnertime began to approach, and Ed left to visit Liz in her home, Meadow gestured for me to sit.
“I believe that I owe you a spell,” she said. “Two, actually.”
“Two?” I asked, scratching the scab on my arm.
“Yes. The second one is crucial to your training, but I think you’ll find the first one quite useful.”
She reached into her pocket and withdrew a pen and notepad and drew two spells on it.
One of them was clearly a life spell of some sort, though I didn’t really understand what it was. It didn’t resemble in the slightest.
The other… I had never seen a spell like it. It didn’t resemble any of the spells I’d seen or heard of, and none of the core elements of spells that would let me at least recognize the mana type were there. It was too complex to be an ungated spell, but I didn’t know what else it could be.
“What’s that?” I asked, pointing to the weird spell.
“That is a spell in the Elohi style,” she said. “It’s an ungated spell that helps to reduce or eliminate aches and pains in the body or mana-garden. It doesn’t actually fix anything, mind you, it merely reduces the impact.”
I stared at her for a second, then let out a long breath. I could think of a lot of ways I could use a spell like that, and I wondered why Mossford’s spell traditions had never created something like it. I could get pain-reducing alchemical pills, but an ungated spell was far more useful.
I released my ungated mana around me and shaped it into the new spell. It was harder than I thought it’d be, not because of the complexity or power of the spell, but simply because it was shaped so… weird. It was like trying to write with my right hand, instead of my dominant left.
After a bit, I wrangled it into the right shape and cast the spell. A cool relief washed over my mana-garden and body. It didn’t fix my pains, exactly, but it was like the best parts of a heatpack and icepack at once.
“Thank you,” I said seriously. She smiled and pushed the other paper towards me.
“This is the Harvest Plant Life spell. It allows you to drain some of the energy from a plant. Not enough to do any serious harm – you won’t be withering any trees, though you may shorten the lifespan of a grass – but it will still convert it to mana and refill your life mana, as well as any other aspects that the plant happens to have. I wouldn’t advise you use it on your carnations for at least another week, but after that, you should be able to draw mana from it. Just use your instincts; don’t overdraw it.”
I studied the spell and nodded.
“Thanks. Is there a death version?”
She smiled and patted my hand.
“You’ll learn one from Orykson before too horribly long, don’t worry. For now, I’d advise you to just continue working. If you really want to help your death mana, ignore it for now and convert everything you don’t feed your carnations into life mana, then Master your Analyze Life spell and convert your life mana into death, and work on Analyze Death.”
I considered her words for a moment. I’d been splitting my focus between Analyze Life and Death, even though converting from death to life mana meant that I’d lost most of the mana in the transition. But even still, I’d essentially be adding a large amount of life mana into my training, and I could do it in reverse like she said.
“Thank you again,” I said, rising and offering her a hand up. She took it and smiled.
“Of course. Helping people’s just what any decent person would do.”
I didn’t necessarily agree with that, and I thought that there were a lot of people in the world who weren’t decent. But as Meadow headed off to do… whatever Meadow did when she wasn’t teaching me, I banished those thoughts and went to go make dinner.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The next several days flew by, with me working at the butcher’s shop, practicing sketching the Analyze Life spell whenever I could, converting all my death mana into life. When Temsday finally rolled around, it was time for me to pick up my new broom. I met the broom mechanic at her store, and she smiled broadly at me.
“Malachi, right?”
“Yep,” I said, smiling back at her. She waved her hand, and with a surge of mana, the broom I’d selected flew off the wall and over to her, and she extended it to me.
“There you go!” she said. “Paperwork went through last night. Ever flown before?”
“Not much,” I admitted. She nodded seriously and thought for a moment before she responded.
“Visit a park first and start by flying low to the ground. Trust me, you’re going to appreciate the softer landings – I speak from experience when I say that the last thing you want to do is slam into a building at thirty miles an hour.”
I nodded and thanked her for the advice, then headed out to the park. The nearest one wasn’t too far away, but it had too many trees, so I actually wound up heading to one closer to my home.
When I finally arrived in the park and opened the brown paper packaging around the broom, I was surprised to feel it resonating with my ungated mana. I’d known that it had been attuned to the sample of my mana that I’d turned over, but I’d never owned a magic item of my own before – my suits didn’t count. Those didn’t have any connection to my mana, and anyway, I hadn’t bought them myself.
I ran my ungated mana into the broom and could instantly feel the two modes that I’d been told about. It was currently on the charging mode, with the spell array that had been built into it draining power from the energy in the air. But it seemed like it was almost entirely charged, so I used a spark of mana to change it to flight mode.
Instantly, third gate mana began to hum through the broom, tingling at my fingers. I’d never been connected to third gate mana before, since I’d only started using first gate a few weeks ago. It was harder than I’d expected. If my first gate mana was like moving my hand through water, this was like trying to run my hand through syrup – something I’d done in the bakery when I was a kid by accident, and which I don’t recommend.
But I didn’t need to shape the mana, and I wouldn’t have been able to even if I’d wanted to. I just needed to direct the output of the spell.
The mana began to stream into the flight spell built into the broom, and the tingling of the energy at my fingertips stopped. The broom shuddered once and then went motionless.
I frowned at it, willing it to move forwards.
The broom shot forwards out of my grip, where it abruptly came to a halt and fell to the ground.
I waved my hand, trying to imitate the gesture that the broom mechanic had used, but nothing happened. She’d probably been using an active bit of tempest spellcraft, then.
I walked over and picked up the broom, and this time, I straddled it. I felt it reconnect to my mana, shudder, and then go still. This time, I willed myself to rise off the ground just a few inches, hovering.
I shot several feet up in the air and my arms and legs shot out, trying to find balance on a wind stream that had no footing. I fell off the broom and smacked into the ground.
I let out a long groan of pain, then drew the spell Meadow had taught me. Once I was feeling better, I sat on the broom again.
I was dealing with third gate mana, the highest level that most professionals in their field ever reached, and I had to remember that. I used the tiniest bit of effort to guide the spell.
This time I rose a few inches off the ground. I used a similar amount of effort to nudge myself forwards, and inched forwards slowly.
Progress!
I spent the rest of the morning, and well into the afternoon, practicing with the broom, only taking breaks to sketch out spells with my mana.
I was also surprised with how comfortable it was. The wind and pressure magic in the broom lifted my weight quite a bit, so the broom acted more to aim than to support my wait.
By the time the broom ran out of charge, I wasn’t confident enough to use it at full speed yet, but I was able to hover above the rooftops, and to fly around faster than I could run when I was close to the ground.
A part of me was a bit disgruntled that I wasn’t making any progress on a Wyldwatch or Spiritwatch mission, but I reassured myself that I’d be able to make up for that lost time in the long run.
There was still a bit of time left in the day, so I figured I may as well look at the Wyldwatch and Spiritwatch missions. I set the broom to charging mode, laid it over my shoulders, and started the walk.
On the way, I popped open a can of Mana Shock and drank it, sketching the Analyze Life spell. When I was almost to the building, something changed.
I’d mastered ungated spells before. There was an odd sort of snapping sensation in the spirit when it happened, and then the spells just… worked.
This felt similar, but many times more intense. It wasn’t painful, not exactly, but it was strange. It was almost like the feeling of digging out a scab – annoying, yet somehow satisfying, and then a freshness to it. Inside my mana-garden, I could feel the sapling of the tree had grown into a young tree, even if I couldn’t see it without the spells. I took in a slow breath, then channeled my power into that part of my spirit.
Without even needing to shape the spell, the world around me changed, the light of life energy welling up in the grass, the biological structure interwoven with it, the skeletons and muscles and blood and life of everyone passing by.
I stopped funneling mana into the spell and my vision returned to normal. I felt a grin spread across my face and I thrust my fist into the air.
“Yes!”
I’d gotten the Analyze Life spell down faster than Orykson’s deadline. I still had eleven days until the month of Suns-Birth. I wasn’t entirely sure I’d be able to Master my Analyze Death spell before then, but I was hopeful that I’d be able to and claim whatever reward Orykson had in store for me.
I walked into the offices with a spring in my step and made my way to the bounty board. There were a few missions that I could do in the city that seemed somewhat interesting to me, but nothing really seemed to stand out. Eventually, I shifted to the next board and looked over them. I was mainly looking for missions that offered a reward that would either increase my death mana or grow my Analyze Death spell.
One of the missions offered me a two thousand silver reward, and I stared at it in shock.
All it wanted me to do was capture a handful of loose death crows trapped in a manor. I frowned and shook my head, looking for a catch.
I found it. The manor in question was in the backend of nowhere, easily an entire day’s flight, and away from any sort of town that would let me stay there. The manor might let me stay there, but I wasn’t sure.
I passed over it for now. I wanted to do a short mission first, and eventually I found something. I had skipped over it initially, but went back to it when I noticed the seal of the librarians on it. Alvaro had mentioned potentially becoming a friend of the library, so I figured that doing a mission for them couldn’t hurt. The posting was vague, though, simply asking for help with live capture of paperbeetles, and asking to visit the library for more specifics.
I pulled the paper off the wall and headed over to the desk to have it marked. I headed home to leave my broom in the backyard to charge, then walked to the library. When I finally arrived, the huge doors had been thrown open to let the spring light stream through, and the solar light spells were diminished. I wandered over to the help desk, where a middle-aged woman with a bald head and glasses almost the size of her entire face peered down at me.
“Oh, hello young lady…”
“Man,” I supplied, grimacing. It stung – I’d gotten better at passing, or at least, so I thought, but it seemed like every time I got closer, some people would move the goalposts. Short hair wasn’t enough. A binder wasn’t enough. A packer wasn’t enough.
Ugh.
“Yes… What are you here for?”
I held up the slip of paper with the mission, and she took it from me and examined it for a moment, then I felt a flicker of mana. I wasn’t able to estimate its gate, and that caught me by surprise. Even when Orykson had released his staggering seventh gate mana, I’d been able to feel the power and quality.
It wasn’t that this power exceeded his. If anything, it most reminded me of ungated mana, but… off. It was like a spell was using ungated mana as a mask to hide itself.
She must have noticed me staring, because she gave me a frown.
“It’s an obfuscation spell. If you had abnegation, lunar, or knowledge mana, you could cast it. Or you could just learn to veil your spells well. Wait, someone will be here soon.”
I took a seat in a chair for a while, until I saw Alvaro approaching. He smiled brightly when he saw me.
“Malachi!”
“Hey,” I said as I nodded back at him. “I’m here to help with the paperbeetles?”
“Oh, great, come on up then,” he said, unlocking the stairs and waving me up. I stepped into the stairwell and froze. There was a… creature… on the stairs.
I wasn’t sure what to call it. It looked like a frog, but its limbs were longer, and structured more like a cat’s than a frog’s, complete with a tail. There was no fur, only slimy, froglike skin. It looked up at me as I stepped into the stairwell.
“Why do you call it a sandwich, when it contains no sand?” the creature asked in a shockingly deep voice.
I stared at it even harder. Alvaro paused halfway up the stairs and turned around.
“What is that?” I asked.
“What is anything?” the frog-cat asked. “Are we all everything?”
“A frinx,” Alvaro said. “They show up in libraries sometimes. They’re generally harmless, though a few have grown powerful enough to completely brainkill people. Those are thankfully rare, though. This one’s harmless.”
“What is the worst part of the color orange?” the frinx asked.
I ignored the creature and moved up the stairs after Alvaro, ready to start my mission.
CHAPTER TWENTY
“What do you know about paperbeetles?” Alvaro asked as we arrived on the first gate floor of the library.
“They’re beetles that eat paper?” I guessed.
“Right,” he said. “Like a choruk, it uses death mana to break things down in its stomach and convert the death energies in what it ate into more mana for itself. Unlike choruk, they come in swarms of twenty-two, and also are able to turn invisible. Not so well a detection spell can’t find them, but…”
“Twenty-two?” I asked. “And should I use Analyze Life, or Analyze Death?”
“Twenty-two,” he confirmed. “That’s the size of a colony. They share a single mana-garden, and any outside of the twenty-second dies. And they’re technically classified as a type of undead, so death for sure.”
“Wait, but how do they reproduce?” I asked.
“They don’t,” he said, “they spawn as a natural condition of mana flux.”
“Huh,” was all I had to say to that.
“They’re fairly weak, but since they eat books, they’re a pain. They’re also rather slippery, and when captured alive, they’re honestly pretty useful.”
“Does the library not have anyone who can capture them?” I asked curiously. “Not that I’m not thankful for the opportunity, but…”
“We do, but most of our employees have knowledge, mental, or both. We of course have some with other mana types, but most of the people who have the power to easily capture them aren’t interested in spending hours hunting down bugs,” he said, looking almost ashamed.
“That’s fair,” I said.
Alvaro stopped in the middle of the room and gave me a nervous smile.
“So, um, for the next part, I need you to close your eyes. The area they got in is one of the secret areas, and you’re not friendly enough with the library to know how to get in yet.”
“Okay…” I said warily. I didn’t think the public library system was going to do anything too weird to me, but I couldn’t help the spark of nerves that ran through me.
I closed my eyes and felt Alvaro put a bag over my head, then gently take the sleeve of my suit and lead me… wherever we were going. The walk was long – too long for the library, or at least for this floor of it.
Sure, the library was built in a castle, but we had to be way out of the section about death mana now.
Eventually, however, Alvaro let go of my sleeve and took the bag off.
“Ok, you can open your eyes,” he said.
I did, and found myself in a room about twice the size of the bakery, with rows of shelves. Several of the books on the shelves looked new, but plenty looked worn out as well. Near me was a large reading table with a glass bug cage in it. I glanced around. There were no windows at all, and…
