Firebrand

Chapter 371: Bridging a Gap

Chapter 371: Bridging a Gap

Bridging a Gap

Solday morning passed as usual, work keeping Martel occupied; before he knew it, the afternoon had arrived along with his regular get-together in the library with Eleanor. Both of them had their drawings of runes with them, which they spread out across the table.

"Does any of them stand out to you? In the way that Master Fenrick mentioned yesterday, I mean." She looked up at him.

Martel reached out a finger to place it against the rune of warmth and slide the parchment towards himself.

"That one is… Heat, right?" Eleanor chuckled. "Predictable, one might say."

The fire acolyte shrugged. "I am an acrobat with one trick to perform. How about you? Any of them feel right?"

"No. They are all the same to me. But let us focus on you first," she suggested. "It seems you stand the best chance of making it work. Maybe I will learn something from watching your success."

"Let's not get too confident," Martel warned. "Even if I feel certain I'm more – attuned to this symbol, I still couldn't get it to work yesterday." He held out his hand, hovering above the parchment, and spoke the activating word. Magic power glowed, but only around his hand. It felt more frustrating than his failed attempts with the other runes because he could almost feel the symbol calling out to him. It wanted to connect; he just did not know how to bridge the gap.

"Maybe our approach is wrong," Eleanor considered. "You told me of how it is to create potions using the Sindhian arts. That the magic is used differently. This is not Asterian spellcraft, where we simply keep pressing on until it eventually works for us."

She had a point. Martel scratched the back of his head. "What did Master Fenrick say about Tyrians? How do they use magic?"

"They do not see a difference between the soul, mind, and the body. It is a whole to them. That is all I remember in this moment, which admittedly, I'm not sure is relevant for these symbols." She glanced up at the surrounding shells. "Maybe there is a book that delves into the topic."

"Maybe." Martel thought about when he had learned the Sindhian way to awaken the magic in reagents. Trained in Asterian magic, Martel was used to thinking of that elusive power as always residing in himself, emanating from the same point to affect the world around him. But if dried herbs and animal parts ground to dust could be awakened, perhaps even a charcoal scribble on a piece of parchment might possess the potential for magic as well. Maybe he felt there was a gap between him and the rune because he thought the magic only came from himself. A bridge over a gap needed two anchoring points, after all. "Vermi."

The Tyrian symbol glowed. Although faint, Martel's sensitivity to heat told him that it became warm.

Eleanor looked up from the rune to Martel with a surprised look. "How did you do it?"

"I thought about it in a different way." He smiled and began to explain.

***

It took a while before Eleanor had the same breakthrough. None of the runes seemed to have the same powerful affinity for her as Martel had with his, but she eventually settled on the symbol for repulsion, given how important spells of shielding were to a mageknight. Under Martel's guidance, she finally managed to activate the rune, and the parchment slid across the table to land on the floor, pushing itself away from her hand.

She looked up with a big smile. "It worked! I can scarcely believe it."

Martel was about to congratulate her when the bell rang.

"Oh, I have class." Despite her words, Eleanor remained seated. "I wanted to ask you something. Even though this course is finishing, would you be willing to help me continue studying these runes? I tried before on my own, before we had this class, but I did not really understand."

"Sure," Martel replied. "Why do you want to continue though?"

"Genevieve. My sister." Eleanor hesitated a bit. "Tyrian magic is just about the last thing we have yet to try."

"I'll help you all I can," Martel promised; nobody understood this motivation better than he did. Still, he felt he had to point out the truth. "I'm not sure, even if we do find something useful, that we'll ever be able to make it work. It seems like very advanced magic in a tradition that is foreign to us."

She nodded a little. "I already suggested to my father that we find a Tyrian skáld. He said a legate cannot be seen purchasing the magic of our barbarian enemies, and it would break my mother's heart if we tried and failed yet again." She looked out the window. "That last part may have been as much about himself, though."

Martel could not believe this response – he would have leapt at any chance, however small. But he did not wish to insult Eleanor's father in front of her. "I'm sorry he didn't trust you."

"He regards anyone claiming to have a cure to be a charlatan. But if I am the one who has found the cure," she considered," if I can explain to him that I have studied this magic myself and verified the solution, perhaps he will be persuaded to let a skáld try."

Martel had his doubts; although he barely knew the legate, Richard Fontaine did not seem a man who changed his mind. But he would never deprive Eleanor of hope or refuse to help her, however frail the chance. "Next Solday, we will start to go through any book or manuscript dealing with Tyrian magic."

She gave a smile that almost looked sad. "Thank you, Martel. Stars, I must get to training." She stood up and looked down at the table with their scattered notes.

"I'll gather this up and bring it next time. You go on," Martel told her. She smiled again and hurried away.

***

Once all his notes had been safely deposited back in his room, Martel considered how to spend the remainder of his Solday. It was late afternoon; he could go into the city, but he had no pressing reason to do so. It seemed too soon to visit Sparrow again; better to let her have a few more days of practising magic before he examined her progress. As for Julia, tomorrow was the beginning of a new month, so it made more sense to wait until then that he might pay the rent for her room, while he was at the insula anyway.

He did feel a tad hungry though, and supper was one bell away. Digging up some coins, Martel went out onto the square in front of the Lyceum. He did not have to go far; plenty of vendors with little stalls sold a variety of food. An old crone baked delicious honey cakes, and Martel bought two; one for now and one to have in a dire situation, such as later tonight. As he turned around and walked back towards the Lyceum, he took the first bite and wondered at the strange powder Mistress Rana had shown him. Sindhian honey, or sugar; he wondered if one might use that for baking as well. Might even taste as good as honey.

Across the square, a hooded figure waited. Seeing the tall acolyte appear from the Lyceum, the man had begun to set into motion. Yet he walked slowly along the edge of the square rather than cross it directly, where he would be easily visible. Before he reached the old woman with the cakes, Martel had already made his purchases and returned to the castle.