Julie led Demetrius outside by the hand. His hand was oddly unresisting, and he seemed to shuffle along with her, furtively frowning at his right shoulder. Outside, she turned to him and said, “Did you live at the University your whole life?”
Demetrius had been staring at his right shoulder, and looked startled when she spoke, “Well, not my whole life.”
It was full dark now, the only light cast by glowing stones that wrapped around the border of the inn’s sign. The inn was on the outskirts of Two Lanes, well away from the light of the city, and it was a moonless night. Julie seemed to be considering something, and then finally rummaged in her bag and produced the goggles she had tried to show Wendel, “That must have been very exciting, growing up at the University,” she said.
Demetrius stared at the goggles in her hands, “What do those do?” He asked, sounding excited.
“Oh these!” Julie’s heart bloomed as she looked at them. Strange though they made her look when she wore them, they had already become her most prized possession, “They detect enchantments, and let me see in the dark, and all sorts of things.”
Julie thought that he was going to ask her if he could try them on, but instead he asked, “Really? Can you put them on?”
She had been planning on putting them on anyway, to better see into the darkness. They slipped over her face easily, and through the goggles at Demetrius was outlined by the now familiar green overlay. It wrapped around his face, which was clear as if they had been standing in the sun. Below the green circle, it said UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: OCCUPATION UNKNOWN, and then off to the side it said ‘Update?’ Julie felt herself smile and said, “What’s your last name, Demetrius?”
He kept stealing looks at his right shoulder, and seemed to be growing agitated, “Wha? Erm, last name? Demetrius is my only name.”
“You don’t have a last name?” Julie was beginning to wonder if it was a tic, and decided that she shouldn’t draw attention to it, as he might be self conscious about it.
“Erm, no.” He looked right again, and mouthed something, then said, “Are you sure you don’t see anything else?”
“Well, let me try a few things,” She looked at the word ‘Update’ that was still hovering below his face and said, “Demetrius?”
“Yes?”
“No, I was talking to the goggles,” She was very pleased to see that where before it had said UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: OCCUPATION UNKNOWN, it now read ‘Demetrius?: OCCUPATION UNKNOWN’.
“Er, sorry to interrupt,” He made a shushing sound at his shoulder.
Julie had not had much time to practice, but she had learned to control a few things with the goggles. They were very intuitive, seemingly controlled by her needs. She focused on cycling through a few of the functions. First Demetrius became bright red and orange, and everything around him was dark blue and green, then she was able to see right through him, and through the door behind him, into the inn. “Oh!” She squeaked excitedly.
“You can see her?” Demetrius sounded very exhilarated, “Tell me you can see her!”
“The waitress? I mean, yeah, I can see everyone in the common room!” Some of the figures seemed vaguely transparent, but if she focused she could make them solidify. It took a moment for her to make the bar visible, but not the wall she was looking through, and when she did it, it seemed like quite an accomplishment. “How did you know they could do that?” Julie was beginning to feel like this young man was much more knowledgeable than he was leading her to believe.
Julie allowed the goggles to focus back on Demetrius again, and was momentarily shocked to see his bare chest. He was somewhat muscular, but very ropy and his skin though dark had a very sickly color to it. She felt herself flush at invading his privacy, and quickly averted her eyes, “Sorry,” she said, “For a moment there I could see through your clothes.”
Demetrius’ shoulder slouched even more than normal, and he sat down on the wooden stairs of the inn’s porch, “I was really hoping you would be able to see her.”
Julie thought she must have offended him, “I didn’t mean to look through your clothes! Anyway, I have five brothers, you don’t have anything I’ve never seen before.”
Demetrius looked up at her, through the black curtains of his hair and said, “Er? What? I don’t care about that, I was just really hoping you could see her. Dr. Mendes seemed to be able to, but I don’t know if she was just humoring me.”
“I don’t think she’s the kind of person that would do that, but you know her better than I do.” Julie focused with the goggles, trying to see if she could get three things to work at once. It was difficult, but she was able to see through all the walls of the inn as if it wasn’t there. Then reddish outlines of the animals in the surrounding swamplands appeared and finally the land itself illuminated in shades of green. As she surveryed the land, a bright glowing orange circle came into focus, surrounding the inn. At the bottom right, in the familiar green script she read, WARNING: ADVANCED DEFENSIVE WARD, CASTER UNKNOWN, POTENTIALLY DANGEROUS.
“I’m really starting to figure these out!”
Demetrius was invisible now, When she looked down at him. His disembodied voice made her feel odd, “Are there any people out there?”
“Nope, just animals. I think either the doctor or Sevil put up a ward though.” She sat down next to him on the narrow stair, their shoulders touching. “Or maybe it was Wendel,” she felt a fresh wave of disdain thinking about the pompous, ginger mage.
“That makes me feel a little better, I guess,” He sounded vaguely sad, “I wonder if they would be able to discern between real animals and wizards in animal form or their familiars.” He spoke offhandedly of such things. Julie was reminded of how much more he knew about the world of wizards than she did.
“Wizards can turn into animals, then?” She was trying not to sound ignorant, and but the thought of Wendel had reminded her that he had referred to her as a ‘hick.’ Hot blood rushed to her face.
Demetrius, however, didn’t sound at all condescending when he answered, “Only the very powerful ones. Historically speaking, there have not been very many that possessed an aptitude for it, but yes, there were enough with that level of power that left the school that I wouldn’t rule it out.” He turned and looked at her, “Dr. Mendes wanting to post a watch made me a little nervous.” Then he added in a murmur, “You’re probably not scared at all though.”
Julie had not been scared until Demetrius said that, now her mind was beginning to race. She decided it might be better to change the subject, “You were telling me about enchanting.”
Demetrius looked over his right shoulder again for a long moment, and then frowned. He turned back to face Julie again, “I was, wasn’t I? Well, I mean, it’s not like what I’m explaining will actually let you do enchanting. The books I read were all full of diagrams and incantations and the like. I had to read the Properties of Enchantment book several times before I was even able to grasp it.” Julie frowned, she was worried he wasn’t going to continue his explanation. He must have noticed, and quickly added, “I just want you to know that this, er, just how I understand it.”
She patted him on the back, and said, “I just want a general idea. Every time I’ve asked Sevil to explain things, he uses words I don’t even understand. You said enchanting takes three things, and you said the first two were a base element and casting the spell.”
“Almost casting the spell,” he corrected her kindly, “That’s the trick of it. They cast almost the whole spell. As far as actually casting it goes, the words are only a very small part of it, from what I’ve read anyway. The rest is mostly willpower. There’s whole books dedicated to study of the language, obviously, and there are books about theories about the origin of the language and its connection to the gods. I really don’t understand any of it,” he sounded very forlorn and added, “That’s why I never took the dean up on his offer of a scholarship, well that and the students.”
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
Julie gasped, “You were offered a scholarship! To the University!” It was hard to wrap her mind around it, especially since the way he phrased it, it sounded like a standing offer he had refused. Ignorant as the people of Chalkstone were about the world outside their little village, even they knew that tuition at the University was worth more than the value of all their lands, “Why wouldn’t enroll?”
Demetrius looked away from her, and stared out into the darkness for a long time before he answered, “Well, two things really. The first might just be easier to show you, stand up please.” Julie stood up, and followed Demetrius back to the door to the inn, he held up his hand to the sign depicting a wizard holding a long staff that seemed to be drooping comically at the top. It was illuminated by lightstones inlaid into the border, “Put your hand on one of the stones, and try to convince the stone that it isn’t glowing.”
Through the goggles, each of the stones was accompanied by tiny green text that read PRIMITIVE LIGHT ENCHANTMENT: LIMITED DURATION: 5:45:33 The last number must have been seconds, for it was constantly falling. Julie did as she was instructed, placing her hand over one of the stones on the bottom of the border. Something shifted in her mind as she touched it, and she could tell that the stone was convinced it was glowing with light. Very little effort was required to convince the stone that it was, in fact, inert. Orange light streamed from the stone into her hand, and the stone was dark as she removed it, the text around that stone was replaced with PRIMITIVE LIGHT ENCHANTMENT: DEACTIVATED.
“Impressive,” Demetrius said, smiling wanly, “Now watch.” He put one finger on the stone, and seemed to be concentrating. Nothing happened, and then the tiniest bit of orange light streamed from his hand, through his finger, into the stone. It flickered faintly for a moment, and then went dark again. “Perhaps you should turn it back on, wouldn’t want to offend Big John.”
Julie looked from Demetrius to the stone, confused, but she complied. One finger on the stone, she willed it to shine again. It burst into light much brighter than all of the other stones in the frame. The text she saw through the goggles changed once more, PRIMITIVE LIGHT ENCHANTMENT: LIMITED DURATION: 2:17:33:17, “Oh!” She was very surprised by how bright the stone was compared to all the others.
“You seem to be a natural,” Demetrius returned to the stairs of the porch and sat down again, “but as you can see, I am not.”
Julie stared at the stone that she had touched. It’s so much brighter than the others! She reached her hand out, and touched the stone with one finger like Demetrius did, and concentrated carefully, on trying to match the stone’s brightness with the others. Orange light streamed into her hand, and the counter began rapidly falling. Once it was within a few minutes of the other stones, she focused on the brightness, and was able to carefully adjust it to match the other stones.
Smiling wide, she turned back to Demetrius, and noticed that he seemed to be talking to himself. She cleared her throat, and he looked up at her, and his jaw dropped. “That’s incredible! You say you have no formal training?”
Jule felt herself blush, “Well, no, but I think that the goggles help a lot. I wish that I could go to the University.” It was too late when she realized what she had said, “I mean, before what happened.”
Demetrius shook his head, “The other reason that I refused the dean’s offer was the students.”
Julie sat down next to him again, willing the green circle and his name to disappear as it was annoying her, “What do you mean?”
“At the University, Wendel was one of the nice kids. I think that that is why he’s like that now. He didn’t have any friends there.” Julie was taken aback at the kindness in Demetrius’ voice.
“You aren’t mad at him at all for how he treated you in there?”
Demetrius looked wistful, “I don’t like what he said to you, but I didn’t think he was being particularly cruel towards me, no,” then he added as an afterthought, “I know what cruelty feels like. I think he’s just scared. I don’t think he was giving either of us much thought. Cruelty is wanting to hurt a homeless child because you’re bored and you enjoy it.” It sounded as though he knew this child.
Julie thought of some of the stories that Tertius had told her. Stories of malicious villains who terrorized people just for fun, and wicked stepmothers that beat the beautiful girls that always turned out to be princesses in the end. But there are no secret princesses in real life, and she’d always thought that meant there were no real villains either. There were people like Robert Two Eyes, but he was a thief. Not a monster. Meryl Jones was cruel.
A long silence drew itself between them, and the night seemed darker somehow, even with the goggles. Demetrius said, “Did you still want to hear about enchanting?” He sounded as anxious to be talking as Julie felt.
“Yes!” She blurted out, and then felt self conscious at the eagerness in her voice, “I mean, if you still want to tell me,” she added quickly.
“The third thing is a lock, a means of binding the enchantment to the object. The lock is basically a potion, as far as I understand it,” he smiled, and his face lit up. Julie realised that he was actually quite handsome, “Madam Druce would certainly disagree with the word ‘potion’ but that is how I think of it.”
Julie felt herself smiling with him, the fear from only a few moments ago evaporating, “Do you have big cauldrons? That you chant over, shaking bones and skulls? That’s what I was always told wizards did to make potions.”
His laugh was a fragile thing, and it made her feel safer as if a bird hand landed on her hand, he said, “No, I’ve never seen anything like that. Witch women in the woods might use something like that for effect, but basic Alchemy is mostly it’s just a matter of mixing the right herbs and distillation. The most advanced work involves the use of spectroscopy.”
“What’s spectroscopy?” Julie asked pronouncing each syllable slowly and carefully though she had the feeling that Demetrius was enjoying the questions.
“It means to shine a light on something, to see what it is,” Julie frowned and tilted her head to one side, “Like something you wouldn’t know about otherwise. Like if you had a droplet of water or a droplet of oil. If we were at the U, I think Madam Druce might be able to tell you what sort of oil it was, and when it was made.” He smiled warmly again at the mention of Madam Druce.
“Who is she?”
“She’s the head of the Alchemy department. She’s a really nice woman, very old, and very smart,” then he added, “very kind to me.”
Julie said, “Well that didn’t take hours to explain! I don’t know why Sevil acted like it would.”
“Well learning how to do it, is quite a different thing.”
They spent the rest of their watch talking amiably to pass the time, and paying very little attention to their surroundings. Neither realised how tired they were until Ravenhair, Toby, and Emile appeared, apparently to relieve them. Emile was anxious about where Gypsum was, and was having trouble resting. Ravenhair told them that they should get their rest. Julie found it almost impossible to sleep. She replayed the conversation over and over in her mind, analyzing everything she said, until all of a sudden it was morning, and she was certain that Demetrius chased her all the way into her dreams.
Julie was rummaging through her pack for the third time, trying to make something appear that wasn’t so dirty or ridiculous as all this. Delila was the only one left in the room, waiting for Julie to get dressed.
“Delila?” Julie still felt proud at being able to use the secret name, she asked tentatively, “Do you have anything else that I could wear?”
Delila looked over her appraisingly, “I might be able to scrounge something up,” she produced from her pack the shimmering bag, and started rummaging inside it. Several weapons were produced, including a halberd, “I really need to organize this!” Delila kept pulling out bits of armor until she finally got to clothing. Several outfits were produced, and she said, “Try some of these on, but hurry. I can smell breakfast!”
Julie took her time trying on the clothes, grateful to be wearing something other than the hodgepodge she had been in for the last two days. The black dress that she had been wearing was an ugly shade of grey now, and though she still appreciated her armor, without the chest piece it made her feel ridiculous.
“What do you think of this one?” She was wearing a dark green tunic, and brown leather leggings.
“The tunic is great, but don’t you think that the pants are a little loose?”
“Well, I don’t want to wear a dress.”
Ravenhair started digging in the shimmering bag again, and produced a pair of white slacks and tossed them to Julie, “Here, I was wearing these last time we were in the desert.”
Julie quickly changed, and handed Delila the leather leggings back, “This is great!” She turned in a circle, and Delila grabbed the back of the tunic.
“Give me a second, need to lace this up.” Julie felt a little like a doll, waiting to have her clothes put on her, and then gasped a little when she felt the wool tighten around her waist.
Julie looked down at the handiwork, and felt very pleased with what she saw. There was no mirror in the room, but what she could see of herself seemed much better. She hugged Delila and started helping her put everything back in the shimmering bag.
“You certainly seem cheerful this morning!” Ravenhair proclaimed.
Julie realised she had been humming while they were cleaning up, “Oh, I was just thinking of something that Demetrius said last night. He’s so clever.”
Ms. Ravenhair smiled knowingly, “Yes, I s’pose he is, growing up at the University and all. Cute too.”
“So!” Julie called back, handing her the heavy halberd, “Anyone could see that! He’s also a very interesting person, and so kind. You should have heard how nicely he talked about Wendel.”
“Yeah, that one’s a real catch too, huh?” Delila said, in a mocking tone.
“Who says I’m trying to catch anyone?” Julie was surprised at her defensive tone, and turned quickly starting towards the door.
She had her hand on the handle when Delila called back, “You forgot your pack,” when Julie turned around, Delila was grinning.
----------------------------------------