Mixing Magic [Draft 2]: Chapter 5.1

Ayda was woken just after dawn by a beautiful, bittersweet melody that seemed to be coming from everywhere and nowhere at once. She sat up, glancing around the small room she had been given, high in the branches of one of the great-trees, looking for the source. Then she put her hand against the curved inner layer of the branch. The tree itself was vibrating, ever so slightly. It’s singing!

It was hard to make out the words — a lot of the time it was lilting notes. Before Ayda could get any real sense of the song or its meaning, the tree had faded into silence. She sat there, still, for several minutes, feeling unexpectedly as if something solemn had just happened, but that feeling was shattered when something tapped on her window.

Startled out of bed, Ayda flew over and saw that it was an inky tendril. It tapped on her window again.

“What are you?” she murmured. Obviously magical, but she figured it was harmless. She had a hard time believing anything dangerous could get into Crescent Moon.

She opened the window, and the tendril wrapped around her hand, coating it in blackness. Ayda gasped and tried to shake it off. It felt as if she had dipped her hand in an ink jar. A moment later, though, the magic slid off her hand of its own accord and twisted into words in the air before her.

Ayda,

I’m sorry if this message alarmed you. It did occur to me that you might not have seen one of these before, but it was the easiest way to contact you.

Take the stairs down to the larger levels. One of the members of my research team will be there to greet you. His name is Cinder. He’ll show you what you’ll be doing.

Remember, Madeline’s presence here is a top-level secret. Both of you are only allowed in History Oak and the grounds surrounding it, and take care only to speak about Madeline with the other members of the research team. You’ll take your meals with them as well.

We have sent a letter to your parents explaining what we can of the situation. You can expect a response from them in a few days

-Xaniphe

P.S. The singing you heard is a farewell to the moon. Every morning, the dryads face the moonset and sing with the trees.

Ayda finished reading the note, then reached out to touch one of the words. Immediately, the whole message faded, its magic spent, until all that remained of the letter was a slight afterimage. How did they know who to find? she wondered.

She moved to get dressed. What would her parents’ letter say? It would depend on how much Xaniphe told them, which she imagined wouldn’t be much. Would she be allowed to write back?

And as for not being allowed out of History Oak… well, she wasn’t going to go blabbing about Madeline to just anybody, and she needed to enter that contest. She’d have to find a time to slip away.

A short while later, she left her room and flew down the hallway to the trunk of the tree, then down a few more levels until she emerged onto a Big Folk-sized balcony that ran around the inside of the tree. Doors were set all along the walls, and far below Ayda the main library’s many bookshelves stretched up to meet her.

Where was her guide? She scanned the floor she was on, and when she looked at the top of the stairwell leading down, her heart skipped a beat.

A Shade sat there, tail curled nonchalantly around his paws. Covered with short fur that was a deep ash grey, he had a short snout, a sharp ridge along his back, and two small horns that poked out behind his ears. Ayda checked his eyes, but they were a deep blue, not red at all.

At that moment, the Shade saw her and lifted his tail in greeting. “Are you Ayda?” he called.

She swallowed, her mind darting back to the night before. This Shade definitely wasn’t being controlled by Nadra now. But if what Lord Elerian said was true, he could be seized at any moment.

But there was nothing she could do about that, and so she flew forward. “Yeah, I’m Ayda. Are you Cinder?”

He nodded. “That’s me. Not a very inventive name, I know.”

Ayda smiled — Cinder really was a fitting name for a Shade of his color. “So you’re going to show me the ropes?”

He sprang to his paws. “Consider me your personal tour guide,” he said with a dramatic flourish.

This time Ayda laughed. “Lead the way.”

Cinder led her down a dozen flights of stairs, all the way back to the very bottom of the tree. “I thought we should start with the library,” he explained. “We’re having the books brought up, but it’s good for you to know where they’re all coming from.”

Enormous didn’t begin to cover the size of the library, and they only walked through the first floor. Cinder told her there were five more underground, including an entire two floors for Little Folk books. “You can see why we need one of you to help read them,” he said.

After a tutorial in the cataloguing system that flew so fast Ayda’s head spun, Cinder took her up to the fourth floor.

“This is where we’re doing the work,” he said, pushing the door open with his paw. Ayda was presented with a long, low-ceilinged room that stretched past the tree trunk and into the east wing. About half a dozen centaurs were lying beside the tables, and two dryads sat on the only chairs in the room. Every one of them looked up as Ayda flew in.

“This is Ayda,” Cinder said, gesturing with his tail. “She brought Madeline here, and now she’ll be helping with the research.”

Several of the centaurs looked relieved, and from the fairy-sized books surrounding them Ayda guessed they had been the unlucky ones tasked with reading the small print.

She followed Cinder to the table and landed on a clearing in the midst of the stacks of books. “I have to read all of these?” she asked, looking around in dismay.

“Not thoroughly. Just scan and take notes according to the categorization system,” Cinder said, sliding a stack of parchment and a quill towards her with his tail.

“Take notes on what?”

“We’re mostly looking for any information about Nadra or about human magic,” he explained. “Particularly mentions of how to control or affect other’s dynamic magic. She has to be getting all that power from somewhere.”

“Dynamic magic?” Ayda asked, confused.

“I know it’s supposed to be impossible, but that’s one of the only explanations we can think of, and the unicorns have dropped some hints — “

“No,” Ayda interrupted. “What do you mean, dynamic magic?”

Cinder’s tail twitched. “You know. The magic in a sentient being. The opposite of static magic?”

Ayda just shook her head. She’d never heard of any of those terms.

His pace faltered. “Haven’t you ever had training? Can you even see magic?”

“Um… no?” You didn’t see magic, you felt it.

Cinder shook his head in frustration. “I should have asked in the first place. You won’t understand what to look for unless you at least know the basics. Besides, you can do so much more with magic once you can work with it directly. Really, the things you’re missing…”

Ayda’s curiosity was piqued. Seeing magic? What more was there that she had never explored, never imagined she could do?

Cinder thought for a moment. “I’ll send you to Xaniphe. He should be explaining all this to Madeline right now. No reason to have two lessons where one will do.”

Ayda almost laughed at the Shade’s simple efficiency. “Where are they?”

“In the gardens, he said, pointing with his tail. “Come back here when you can tell me what color human magic is.” He winked at her, and she turned to go.

Magic has color? she thought as she flew.

The gardens wrapped around three quarters of the History Oak and were almost like a hedge maze, with hedges lining a dozen different paths that led to a dozen different flowerbeds, ponds, and groves.

Every plant radiated health, and it invigorated Ayda. Here, among the dryads whose magic was so close to hers, so in tune with living things, it was like soaking in a warm bath. The magic was different, more wild, but the plants lapped it up and lived with appetite unlike any Ayda had felt before.

She found Madeline and Xaniphe fairly fast by flying up and up until the whole gardens were sprawled out before her. She scanned the hedges to pinpoint the grove they were in and dived. She came in at a blazing speed, Madeline glancing up as Ayda shot past her. She slowed and landed neatly on a stone bench. The bench sat under a cherry tree, and a few paces away was a rock-lined pond surrounded by flowers.

“Ayda! What are you doing here?” Madeline asked.

“Apparently I don’t know enough about magic to be useful,” Ayda said, addressing Xaniphe as well. “Cinder figured you were teaching Madeline the basics, so he sent me over here to learn.”

Xaniphe snorted in amusement. “Of course he did. I’m guessing you can’t see magic?”

Ayda nodded.

“We’ll fix that, he said. “Magic is largely intuitive, but working with it directly lets you be more subtle.”

“But I don’t know any intuitive magic,” Madeline protested.

“You have already done one act of intuitive magic,” Xaniphe said. “The stick protected you when you were attacked. I’ve been doing some research. We can explore the rest together.

“But first,” he said, stepping forward. “The two categories of magic. All magic is at its core the same, but we divide magic into two essential types: ambient and dynamic magic. Dynamic magic is simply magic inside of or being used by a sentient being. Usually once that being uses the magic, it is released and becomes ambient magic. Ambient magic is also the magic found in plants, ley lines. There are even wisps of it in the air.”

Xaniphe’s body relaxed and his tail swished contentedly as he spoke. “You, Ayda, will know very well that every species’ magic is very different. In addition to producing certain effects, there is somewhat of a scale of both power and intuition — just as some species’ magic is concerned with smaller things, some species find the transition to working magic directly more natural than others.”

“What do you mean ‘working magic directly?’” Madeline asked.

“Can you just teach us how to see magic already?” Ayda blurted. That had been by far the most interesting thing Cinder had spoken of.

Xaniphe’s beard twitched. “Very well. But only because Madeline’s question will answer itself when she can see.”

“What do we do?” Madeline asked.

“Close your eyes,” Xaniphe instructed.

Ayda shut them. What — was she just supposed to believe she could do it, and then it happened?

“Try to feel your magic and the magic around you,” Xaniphe continued. “Sense it in as much detail asyou can — build yourself a picture of it. It will be like an optical illusion, looking and looking until your perspective shifts. The key is to look below the surface. We are magical beings. We need only to let our eyes see what we already know is there.”

Ayda concentrated fiercely, cataloguing each bit of magic she could feel. Xaniphe’s and Madeline’s. Her own, bubbling inside her. The magic in the plants. But there was just so much of it, and as soon as her eyes flew open her mental picture slid away. She closed them again and rebuilt her mental map, holding both that map of magic and the actual image of the grove, trying to superimpose on upon the other.

Something clicked, and Ayda knew she had succeeded. She opened her eyes slowly and gasped at the new kaleidoscope of colors.

There was the ambient magic, floating along here and there, wispy and translucent and a multitude of muted colors that somehow didn’t clash. Plants glowed a deep green, that varied slightly from bush to flower, as if their stalks had turned to clouded glass and let an inner light shine through, somewhere between a liquid and a gas. Ayda spun and looked at the great tree behind her. Its natural magic glowed a deep green, but woven through the trunk in stunning patterns was a deep brown magic. Dryad magic, she realized with wonder.

Xaniphe’s magic was a crimson red. And Madeline’s — Ayda couldn’t help but laugh. Madeline’s magic was a soft pink.

At the sound of Ayda’s mirth, Madeline’s eyes flew open. “I can’t do it!” she said. “I can hardly feel anything.”

“Keep trying,” Xaniphe encouraged.

“You’ve only been sensing magic for what, a week?” Ayda said. “Of course it’s harder for you, but you’ll get it. If it helps, try matching the magic you feel with what you know the area looks like.”

Ayda looked down at herself, straining to see through her skin, and was delighted to see that her own magic was the color of spring leaves. She flew over to a spring violet and fed it some of her magic. A strand of magic coalesced down her arm and flowed into the violet. It mingled with the violet’s own magic, two brilliant shades of green, and then it faded as the violet used the energy to stretch just a bit closer to the sun.

“I did it!” came Madeline’s cry, and Ayda spun around in time to see Madeline’s own gasp of wonder. Ayda let her look around for a moment, and then called to her.

“Watch this,” she said, and gave magic to a different violet.

“There’s so much magic here… I never realized,” she said. “And it’s so easy to tell what’s happening.”

“Exactly, Xaniphe said, clopping over to stand beside them. “Watch this.”

And he wove an illusion with his hands, the same one of Nadra that he had shown them the night before. But this time they could see, first how he pulled the magic from inside him and then shaped it in the air, weaving complex patterns so fast his hands blurred. And as they watched, the illusion began to shimmer into view, first the broad strokes, outlined with a flick of the hand, and then the details, built one by one as the pattern became more complex.

He finished with a flourish and the image was complete, three-dimensional and rendered in even more detail than the night before. And at its heart glowed Xaniphe’s crimson magic, holding its pattern even as it drew more magic from inside him at a slow but steady rate through the line of magic connected to his chest.

He was breathing slightly rapidly as he spoke. “While our basic illusions are intuitive, this is not. This level of detail would be impossible without the fine control that seeing magic allows. This is what we mean by working magic directly. And Madeline, I hope for both our sakes that your magic lends itself to direct work. If not, I may be able to teach you very little.”

Madeline only nodded, still staring at the image. Ayda twitched her wings uncomfortably at the reminder that an enemy of the Kingdoms was out there, amassing an army.

“So what can I do with this?” Ayda finally asked.

“Earth magic is a more intuitive branch,” Xaniphe admitted. “However, you’ll find that you can make cleansing patterns in greater detail, or set a prescriptive pattern of growth for a small plant — you would be able to leave it to grow without regular adjustments.”

Ayda’s first thought was how helpful that would be for her parents’ work. “I want to learn it all,” she insisted.

Xaniphe frowned, but at last he shook his head. “There is much I could teach you, but I am sorry Ayda, I do not have the time to focus on both you and Madeline. You will have to find another teacher, or experiment on your own.”

Ayda landed back on the bench, disappointed. Where was she supposed to find a teacher? Especially if she couldn’t even leave History Oak.

There was a pause broken only by the chirping of birds overhead. “But,” Xaniphe finally said, “there are a few more things to cover before your path and Madeline’s diverge.”