Fate’s Pawn

A knock at one of the doors let him break free of those thoughts. The guard looked through the window before opening it. Hoeru stepped out. Raziel could see relief on his face when Hoeru spotted him. They gave each other a nod, and Hoeru headed for the exit.

"Raziel?" the guard said, looking at him and Miles. He gestured to the door. Walking straight was harder than ever, but Raziel wasn't going to ask for help.

Duriel was standing beside a table with two chairs on either side of it. It would have been difficult for anyone else to see on the old man's hard face, but Raziel picked up the traces of relief that came over him as he laid eyes on his grandson. He could also see exhaustion and frustration there.

"Are you okay?" Duriel asked, as the guard shut and locked the door behind them. He pulled out a chair for Raziel and looked like he wanted to help him into it, but Raziel wasn't ready to accept help with sitting in a chair.

"I broke my hand. Dietrich did some magic. I forget what he said, but I guess it'll probably only be in the cast for about a week. That's what it was the last time I broke a hand."

"I wish you would stop breaking bones. It's expensive."

"And uncomfortable."

"Mm. How do you feel now? Any pain?"

"No pain. Just weird."

"Weird how?"

Raziel held up his arm in front of his face. His fingers and arm trembled visibly no matter how he tried to still them. Duriel nodded.

"I can't stop shaking and my body feels... I don't know. Slow?"

"Disconnected?"

"Yeah. Am I going to be okay?"

Duriel nodded. "I think so. How long was it between when you broke your hand and when Alban found you?"

Raziel shrugged. "Maybe six hours?"

"And did your hand hurt during that time?"

"No. At least not as much as I would have expected."

"Well, I'm not a doctor, but we saw that in the military fairly often. Most likely, you were drawing on your magic to tamp down the pain. It's not uncommon for people to do it unconsciously when there is something they feel a strong need to do. Especially among stubborn people."

"Oh. That makes sense."

Duriel nodded and was quiet for a moment before he took a deep breath and moved to his own chair. Once he was seated, he looked at Raziel directly in the eye. It was his "no nonsense" look. It was his way of telling Raziel not to play around with whatever he was going to say next. "Tell me what happened."

"What did Hoeru tell you?"

"I want to hear your story."

Raziel sighed. There'd be no wriggling out of this. But he'd already known that.

He tried not to embellish it much. Duriel wouldn't like that and besides, talking still wasn't easy. He'd expected some reaction when he said that they'd been planning to escape, but Duriel's face didn't show anything. Raziel had hoped to figure out if Hoeru had told Duriel about that from the old man's reaction. Either way, he wanted to make sure any blame for that came to him and not Hoeru or the others. Duriel listened quietly to everything up until he punched the gremlin.

"Stop. You put a dent in its skull?"

"Yeah."

"And I'm guessing that's when you broke your hand?" Raziel nodded. "Tell me exactly what was going on in your mind just before you attacked."

"Well, I was concentrating really hard, and I sort of started to sense things, the way you taught me to sense magic? And I knew it was trying to eat me so I tried to knock the gremlin out."

"Knock it out?"

"Yeah, I didn't think that I could kill it. I guess I probably did." That was an odd realization. It was a monster but still. He didn't know how to feel about having killed something sentient even if it had been trying to eat him.

"Keep going. We'll talk about that in a moment," Duriel said with a kind firmness.

"Yeah. Okay. So right when I was about to attack, something exploded, but it didn't break my concentration. I just sort of pushed forward while the gremlin was off-balance and hit it. I was trying to hit it as hard as I could, but I don't think I'm strong enough to do that. I don't know what happened."

"It should be obvious to you."

"Magic? I didn't know you could do it like that."

"There are many ways of doing magic," Duriel said with a nod. "Most of the more powerful effects that can be caused by magic require some kind of ritual to channel the energies properly, but really you only need two things to do magic: energy and intention."

"I thought you needed magic words or something to do real magic."

"I assume that by 'real magic' you mean powerful magic. Words can help with that. In fact, just naming a spell can make it more powerful. Can you guess why?"

Raziel frowned and thought for a moment. "Well, I don't see how that would bring more energy to a spell so I guess it has to do with intention."

Duriel nodded. "Good. Yes. The stronger your intention is, the stronger the spell will be. Most people who do magic regularly have specific phrases they associate with specific spells. The more your mind associates certain words with certain concepts, the more powerful the channel between your mind and the energy of the spell can be. A few people use nonsense words or words in unfamiliar languages to create their spells for that reason. If you don't have any associations with the sounds besides the spell you're trying to do, the channel is that much purer."

"Is that why Dominic was singing when he did magic?" Raziel asked. Duriel nodded again and gave Raziel a slight smile. Raziel only saw that smile when his grandfather was particularly proud of him.

"Good. Yes. That's exactly why. Now, there's another reason that intention is important when you're doing magic. This is something that you aren't supposed to need to learn yet, and I don't like telling you now. There is a reason we are strict about when and where students are allowed to do magic. The simple act of doing magic can change you."

Duriel locked eyes with Raziel as he said this, making sure to have the boy's full, undivided attention.

"What do you mean?"

"Magic, the way we've taught you to do it, is a type of energy flowing through your mind. Do you know how rivers are formed?"

"Water flows through a place and it rubs away some of the ground and forms a... channel. Wait, you're telling me that magic does the same thing to my brain?"

"In some ways, yes. Each spell you do is affected by your intentions. Whatever your intention is when you perform any piece of magic will reinforce those intentions in your mind. That's why we try to ensure that students only do magic at first with the intention of learning. It's not perfect, but it does cause a student to have a desire to learn and understand magic."

"So, it matters that I was trying to knock out the gremlin...?"

"As opposed to trying to kill it."

"Oh."

"It's always important to consider why you are doing magic. If you turn to it to make things easier on yourself, you'll become lazier. If you use it to take things for yourself, you become greedier. The more you use it to kill, the quicker killing seems like an easy solution. You have to be careful with magic. The reasons you use magic will show you who you really are."

Duriel let Raziel think about that for a little while in silence, then he gently suggested that Raziel tell him the rest of what happened. Raziel didn't want to go on, to think about the rest. But he told him about the fort, how they'd explored, what they'd seen. Duriel asked a few questions here and there. Raziel worked hard to keep tears from coming to his eyes as he got closer and closer to when he lost Azariel's book. Raziel's voice broke when he described the book coming to pieces. He put his arms on the table then and rested his head on them, not wanting Duriel to see him cry.

Duriel sat for a while, saying nothing. Eventually he stood and came over to Raziel and put a hand on his back. The old man had never been good at comforting. He stood at Raziel's side for a few moments, patting his back awkwardly. Then Raziel heard Duriel's knees pop as he knelt down beside him. Raziel looked at him and, though his grandfather didn't meet his eyes, he wrapped his heavy arms around Raziel and pulled him close in a warm, if somewhat clumsy, hug.

"I'm so sorry, son," he said softly. Raziel hugged Duriel back and for a moment thought he was done crying. Then a wave of emotion crashed into him and carried him away.

"I lost it. I lost it, and it's gone, and it's all that I had. And, and—" The rest of the words were lost in a torrent of sobs. Duriel held him through it all, patting his back but not shushing him.

It took a while but eventually Raziel brought himself back under control. His grandfather released him, maybe a little too quickly but handed him a handkerchief, and Raziel gratefully used it to wipe his face off. He needed to blow his nose too, and his grandfather told him to hold onto it when he offered it back to him.

"I know how much that book meant to you. But maybe it's for the best," Duriel said gently. Raziel gave him a sidelong look.

"How do you mean?" he asked, the tone in his voice indicating that he already knew the answer.

"Your father... Azariel had a lot of ideas. They weren't all good ones."

Raziel didn't answer. He held himself very still, but already felt his grief being replaced with irritation that bordered on anger. He stared at his grandfather, almost daring him to continue.

"The things in that book, well, obviously it wasn't all wrong, but your father wanted to be right so badly. He never listened to more moderate ideas. Truth be told, no one in our family has ever been terribly good at listening. It might be good if you aren't preoccupied with what he was looking for."

"You're saying I'm crazy," Raziel said, his voice flat. They had only ever talked briefly about what had happened the night Raziel's parents had disappeared. Duriel had always seemed uncomfortable talking about it, always changing the subject when Raziel brought it up.

"No. I think you're unruly and don't always think things through, but I don't think you're crazy."

"I saw the city, Grandpa. I saw it. It was there, and it took them away."

"Razi—"

"No. Don't do that. Not you. Everyone else can talk down to me and tell me I'm just a kid, that I'm too dumb to know what I saw. That I hit my head and I'm not remembering things right. But not you."

The silence in the room was long and heavy. It hung in the air like smoke from a burned meal. Duriel didn't look at him for a long time, and Raziel wasn't sure if he was giving him time to cool off or was just unsure what to say.

"Tell me again about this circle that the book fell in," Duriel said at last.

"It was... it was just a big circle. It was really complicated. If I had the book, I could show you what it looked like. Dad drew it as best he could."

"And you say the book came apart in little pieces?"

"Yeah. They just sort of peeled off of it and floated into the air. Then they disappeared."

"I see." Duriel was quiet for a few moments, seeming to weigh his words carefully. "It will be a while before this can happen, but eventually, when you are ready," he locked eyes with Raziel to be sure those particular last words sunk in, "when you are ready, I'll take you back to the fort."

"What? Why?"

"Do you not want to go back?"

"Of course I do!"

"Then I will take you. I just wish you had asked me first."

Raziel fell silent. He stared at the table, suddenly overwhelmed by how tired he was.

"Me too."

Duriel started to say something else, but there was a knock at the door. Raziel and Duriel both turned to see one of the guards poking his head in.

"Sir? Alban wants to talk to you, and your time is up anyway. I let you stay longer than I probably should have."

"Ah. Thank you, Lionel. Just give us a moment to say goodbye and we'll be on our way."

Lionel nodded and shut the door. Duriel stood and Raziel did the same. Raziel wasn't sure what to do, and it didn't seem that Duriel had any better idea. Eventually the old man moved to his side and put a hand on Raziel's shoulder.

"I miss your father and your mother too. I'd do anything to have them back. I don't blame you for what you did," he said with a depth of emotion that Raziel knew was difficult for him to express. Raziel didn't answer.

Raziel was exhausted by the time he returned to his room. Dietrich had been there waiting as promised, but climbing the stairs had still been torturous. He desperately needed to collapse on his bed and be anywhere between a nap and comatose as quickly as possible. Dietrich was patient with him, but that somehow made it worse. When they finally reached the third floor, Raziel had to all but beg Dietrich to leave him there. He was sure he could make it to his room on his own, and he couldn't stand to lean on the old dwarf any longer.

Dietrich reluctantly agreed, but Raziel walked all the way to his door before he heard the dwarf start to leave. It had taken every ounce of concentration and will Raziel had to make it to the door without leaning on a wall. He couldn't possibly have been more ready for his bed's embrace. When he walked in, however, he saw Keira sitting on the edge of one of the beds, a troubled look on her face. She jumped as if he'd surprised her. Raziel forced himself to stand as straight as he could. If he'd been determined not to need Dietrich's help, he was a thousand times more determined not to need Keira's.

"What are you doing in here?" he asked, trying to cover that he was resting at the door to summon up the strength he'd need to walk the final stretch to his bed.

"What do you mean? We have to stay here."

"Oh. They had you sleep in here, too?"

"I didn't want to, but they said it would be easier to keep an eye on us if we were all in one room."

"Ah, I see."

Raziel tried not to grit his teeth or drag his feet as he walked to his bed. He couldn't help but release a groan of contented relief as he finally sank down onto the mattress. The pillow enveloped his head, and he had a few blissful moments of sweet rest. But he could feel Keira's eyes on him. He returned her look.

"What?" he asked.

"You look better. Yesterday you... Well, you didn't look so good."

"Worried about me?" Raziel asked in a wry tone. Keira snorted and looked away.

"Yeah. A little."

"Oh. Thanks," Raziel said, surprised to hear a tinge of relief in her voice.

She hesitated, her mouth slightly open before she said, "I'm sorry about your book. My dad's gone too. I don't have much to remind me of him, either."

"Oh," Raziel said. After a pause, "I'm sorry."

"Me too."

The silence after that wasn't pleasant, and Raziel didn't want to leave it at that.

"Did something happen?" he asked cautiously.

She took so long in answering that Raziel didn't think she was going to. She wasn't looking at him, just staring at her hands. He wasn't sure if he should look away or not.

"Yes... and no," she said to her hands. "One day he just disappeared. He didn't leave a note, didn't say anything. He just left."

"He didn't say a word? To you or your mom?"

"My mom died pretty soon after I was born. There were complications with her pregnancy."

Mentally, Raziel kicked himself. How many stupid questions could he ask in one conversation?

"That's awful," he said.

"It's not so bad. It's hard to miss someone you never knew." She shrugged. "What was your mom like?"

"Strong. She could be a little scary sometimes. She had to take care of me on her own a lot, since Dad was gone so often. I was kind of a handful."

"I can't imagine," Keira said sardonically.

Raziel smiled at that. "Yeah, I suppose not much has changed there. But I always knew she loved me. I think it was hard for her to contain sometimes. I don't mean that she was out of control or anything. Just intense. I don't think she made friends easily, but the people and things she did care about, she was on fire for."

"She sounds like a good mom."

"She was. I miss her a lot. Probably more than my dad, if I'm honest. But I knew her as well as I could. I have so many memories of her. But Dad, he wasn't around a lot. Without the pictures I have—I mean had, in the book—I don't know if I'd really be able to remember what he looked like."

They were quiet again after that but it wasn't uncomfortable. A few moments later, Roland and Hoeru walked in carrying trays stacked with what would have been a mountain of food for Raziel but probably only qualified as a snack for their prodigious appetites. They didn't say anything, but their presence changed the feeling of the room, and the conversation ended. Miles came in a little while later carrying a pile of books that Dominic had apparently brought him. It wasn't long before Miles was babbling excitedly about the different subjects with Keira while Roland and Hoeru sat together playing a card game. Raziel tried to talk some, but his still-recovering body betrayed him, and before long he fell asleep.