The Land of Broken Roads

He wanted light. A flood of light, a lake of it, surrounding the whole tower, and it had to be ready by nightfall or he wasn’t getting any sleep.

He walked faster and faster as he thought. He peeked into windows and memorized the floorplan, thinking of where walls would be in the way of sigils and what he would have to do about it.

The spell would have to be engraved in the stone, because the dirt and snow would never be accurate enough to hold something that size. It had to be perfect, or close to it. The magic only had two jobs—store mana and use it at an even rate to create light.

He’d been awfully proud of himself as Avitus, when he enchanted his villa to manage the temperature in each room. This would be ten times more complicated; the tower’s main floor had twice as many rooms and was at least double the size overall, and it needed light everywhere.

Dirt stopped and counted on his fingers. Forty… fifty lights? Something like that? He walked the perimeter of the tower yet again, counting his steps this time. Every three steps, another light. He calculated one final time, muttering to himself. Around twenty-five. Twenty-two or three. Close enough. Then all the ones inside, so around forty. Forty lights, at even intervals outside and uneven intervals inside. It made his brain hurt just thinking about it.

He gazed up at the blue sky, not really seeing it, or anything else. What would the general shape of the sigil need to be, for one? A circle with crossing lines? A square containing star shapes? How many corners did he… If he put twenty-four lights, then he could have six along each side of the tower.

Well, that was a start. He traced out several ideas in the snow with his finger, until he got smarter and found a stick.

“Hey, Dirt,” said Antelmu.

Dirt nearly jumped out of his shoes. He was so startled he squeaked.

“Dirt,” said Antelmu, “One day a talking goat showed up at the elder’s tent, and the elder said, Wow, a talking goat! I’ll have to send you to the Great Lord to be in his menagerie.”

“Huh?” said Dirt. He turned and stared at Antelmu, but he was so lost in his own thoughts that it took him two more breaths to be at full attention. All his plans flew to pieces, except the ones in the snow.

“Guess what the goat said?”

“Guess what the goat said?” Dirt repeated, completely off balance. What was going on?

He said, ‘Why would the Great Lord need another tailor?’” said Antelmu, with a mischievous air to him.

Dirt grew more confused and asked, “The goat talked? Like Socks, or like a human?”

“Like a human. But the goat was a… never mind. Do you know what a joke is?”

“Sort of. I tell lots of jokes with Socks, and sometimes with the other humans. But not like that,” said Dirt.

“Okay, why does a fish need a tent when it rains?” said Antelmu.

“Fishes have tents? Wait, oh, um…”

“To keep dry!” The boy’s eyes lit up with humor and he eagerly stared at Dirt, hoping for the same reaction. He didn’t get one quick enough, and jumped right to another joke, “Did you know I killed a ragnuli wearing just my pants?”

Dirt just stared, not sure how to reply to that.

“I did. I don’t know how it got them on, though.”

Dirt snorted out a chuckle, a sincere one. Antelmu was so intent and thought he was so funny that Dirt couldn’t help but giggle, his prior concentration fleeing completely. “Okay, that one was funny. It reminds me of jokes Socks makes about the same thing. Stuff like, ‘Do you think they’d know I was a wolf if I put a hat on?’ or ‘Should I be worried I’m the only one without pants?’”

“Do you know any jokes?” asked Antelmu.

“Not like that. I only know the kind where you say something funny based on what the other person is saying. I never heard one like that before,” said Dirt.

Antelmu nodded and said, “What are two things you can’t have for breakfast?”

“I don’t know, what?” said Dirt.

“Did you forget what I sent you out here for?” said Biandina, coming up from behind.

Antelmu pretended she hadn’t spoken and said, “Lunch and dinner.”

“Nope, to ask about water,” said Biandina.

“No, that was the… um…”

“It’s okay, I got it,” said Dirt, giggling again. That was clever.

“Looks like it,” said Biandina. She gave her little brother’s head a gentle flick with her finger, but her smile was friendly instead of mocking. “All right, tell him the mouse one. We all know it’s coming.”

“What kind of mouse can jump higher than a wall?” said Antelmu. He pushed her arm away to prevent another flick.

Dirt said, “A magic one?”

“No, any kind of mouse. A wall can’t jump,” said Antelmu.

Dirt snorted and shook his head, grinning. These were pretty good! How many more did he know?

Biandina just rolled her eyes, having heard it plenty of times before. She said, “Stop there before you start on the ones that aren’t for children. Dirt, would you mind—”

“What ones aren’t for children?” interrupted Dirt.

“—Would you mind making a basin for water storage, and a bucket to fill it with? We should have a supply of water in the tower in case we can’t come out,” said Biandina.

Dirt glanced at their minds, wondering what jokes he wasn’t supposed to hear. He didn’t get anything clear, just a sense of obscenity. Not any images themselves, just the feeling. Oh well. They couldn’t hide from him forever. He nodded and said, “That’s a good idea. I don’t think of stuff like that sometimes, since I’m used to relying on Home.”

“What home?” asked Antelmu. “Huh?”

Dirt pulled his sleeve back from the wooden bracer on his arm. “This is part of a tree, the first one I ever talked to. Her name is Home, and now that I think about it, I wonder if she’ll be upset I covered this with a sleeve.”

“Of course it was part of a tree. It’s made of wood,” said Antelmu. “What does that have to do with water?”

“Oh, no, I mean, it’s still part of a tree. She watches me through it, and if I weren’t so far from the forest right now, I could just ask her for water and it would pour out. Same with food. Which was nice, because raw meat gets old after a while. You need to have a mix. Home, can you still see me? Sorry I haven’t been talking to you much. You’re not close enough to make water, are you?” said Dirt.

The bracer only gave the hint of a vibration and remained still. Shortly after, another one. Was it a little stronger?

Biandina and Antelmu gave him looks like they thought he was crazy, but didn’t want to let on, which he found amusing. He rolled up the sleeve on his left arm to keep the bracer exposed just in case, and said, “Okay, a bucket and a bigger bucket to store water in? How high up do you want it to be?”

“All the way at the top,” said Antelmu.

“Highest floor of the tower,” said Biandina, flicking her brother again. He dodged. “If the thing you saw came and surrounded the whole tower, then we won’t be jumping out to get away.”

“Okay. I’ll do that now, and then you have to leave me alone for a little while. Okay?” said Dirt.

“Why, what are you doing?” asked Biandina.

“You’ll see if it works. And if not, then I wasn’t really doing anything, was I?” said Dirt.

They picked a suitable room at the top, one near a corner with only one window, by the end of a hallway. He wondered whether they should take turns watching the gray mound tonight, which was right over there, silent and unmoving.

Dirt spoke to the exposed wooden beams in the ceiling, and despite being so ancient that their source was forgotten, the wood slowly responded and let him shape it. He removed a chunk, leaving most of the beam intact, and grew it into a basin shape with gentle coaxing, a foot deep and ovular. If only all magic was this simple.

Then he shaped three buckets—one for each hand the children had—and said, “Just pack the snow in tightly and bring it up. I can melt it later. I’ll help, too, if I finish in time.”

On his way down, he found the butchered deer leaning across a windowsill, with the guts missing. He wondered where they went and found them packed in snow just outside. That was good. He’d have some liver later, he decided.

Dirt paced off the inside of the tower until he was sure he knew the exact brick that marked the center, and even counted to be sure. Then he stood, staring at the ground while he decided how to proceed.

Before long, Biandina and Antelmu headed up the stairs, carrying their buckets of packed snow. They gave him curious looks, but he returned only a blank little nod and ignored them. Forty or more lights, all part of one great sigil. One spell, enchanting the whole place. Maybe he should make one very bright light and have it hover over the building like a sun?

Or perhaps he could just do four large lights, one on each side of the building, and have four sigils. It wouldn’t be that much more work charging four spells than one. He’d already have to wake up during the night, so what difference did it make?

Unless one went out, and the darkness got in on that side of the building. That might be a problem.

Perhaps instead of one large enchantment that created many lights, he could nest them. Have one spell whose only purpose was to lend mana to other spells, and each of those could be lights where he wanted them.

That was an idea worth testing. He hadn’t seen anything of the sort laid out in the texts, but that didn’t mean they never tried it, or that it wouldn’t work. Dirt made another bucket, a small one, and went back to the butchered deer. The blood outside pooled and melted the snow, watering it down to keep it from coagulating quickly. Dirt scooped some into his little bucket, then wandered over the field and into the ruins until he found a bare section of pavement that looked big enough.

He lifted a sphere of blood from his bucket with his mind, about half the size of his finger, and carefully drew the enchantment on the stone. He nodded, pleased with himself when he saw how much quicker it was than carving it with his knife. His drawing wasn’t perfect, but it didn’t need to be, not for a test like this. Over here was the spell to create a simple hovering light, and over here was a spell whose purpose was simply to hold mana. Then he drew a connection between them, empowering with sigils that indicated transference, and stood back to make sure everything was right.

Dirt leaned down and touched the drying blood of the storage spell and infused it with power. He felt the mana leave him, but saw no light appear. He paced around the enchantment, wondering where it was failing. He rubbed some snow on the connection between the two to break it up, then made a larger one right next to it, and used just one sigil—pass between separate segments. Except he closed that sigil off, changing its meaning from segments to, he hoped, separate effects or spells. It didn’t work.

Where was an elemental when you needed one? He needed an expert to ask.

He tried one more connection between the two, and this one he composed from emit, intake, and transfer, as well as the sigil for mana itself.

It did not work either. So how were you supposed to link separate spells, anyway? It was one thing to see magic as a process of patterns, like the elementals when they spoke. One thing after another, always morphing and shaping and moving. Many effects from one spell, a world of significance in a single series of patterns. But two separate spells at once, linked and cooperating? That’d have to be something like the process of speaking with an elemental itself. How could you write that down to use?

Well, four big lights it was, then. He doubted he had time to carve much magic into the stone anyway, even with most of the day left.

He glanced up at the tower and found Biandina and Antelmu staring down at him. When they saw they’d been caught, they waved and retreated back inside, as if it had been incidental. Something about their behavior seemed guilty, though, which made him smile to himself.

Dirt drank the rest of the blood in his little bucket, and it tasted old and watered down and the flavor was off. He’d never had it cold before and hoped he never would again. The aftertaste reminded him of mud, so he washed it down with three handfuls of snow.

He didn’t really need his knife back for this. He spoke magic into the brick exterior of the tower to soften it, then traced his finger to draw the sigils. The spell kept it from crumbling away, and he found himself humming a song Hèctor had taught him as he worked. One, a nest to make a home, two, a pair of birds to mate, three, the eggs they watch with care, four, the worms the birds bring back…

Dirt worked slow and careful, doing his best to make the curves circular instead of lumpy, and the lines straight instead of wobbly. The more accurate it was, the more efficiently it would use the mana. Actually…

He stood back and asked the entire wall to soften, and when he was satisfied that it did, he pressed part of a sigil into its place with his mind like a stamp. It worked marvelously, aligned and drawn exactly how he wanted it. It was nearly trivial after that, and the first light spell was engraved in the tower far faster than he’d hoped.

Dirt pressed mana into the enchantment and a bright ball of light appeared just over his head, right in the center of the wall. He watched, keeping a steady trickle of mana from his finger into the spell, to see how fast it would drain. Better than expected! Still probably wouldn’t last the whole night, but he had another plan for that.

He moved to the next wall. Before he started, he calmed himself down lest his excitement lead to mistakes. Discipline and sincerity, Dirt, he told himself. Discipline. With his emotions schooled back into their places, he began. He spoke the magic into the wall to make it pliable, then shaped the enchantment piece by piece with his mind. It took only a few moments and would have been faster if mortar and brick behaved the same.

Then around to the third wall. Antelmu and Biandina were there, just finishing packing up their buckets, and he gave them a dignified nod and went to work. He allowed himself a hint of pride at how well this was working, and Avitus wondered whether this was a new skill for him, or something he had known in his old life.

This wall took him a little longer than the second, but only because its surface was more irregular, with weathering having eaten gouges in the bricks and a good portion of mortar crumbled away to nothing. But given time, it bent to his intentions.

There was something pleasing about it, something stately and grand about simply seeing his will manifested in the world right in front of him. He glided to the wall and pressed mana into the sigil, and it was even more efficient than the first, nearly as perfect as if he’d drawn it with rule and compass. The light was bright enough he felt heat on his hair.

The children said something to him, but he was busy and ignored them. For only an instant. Ah, Dirt, you are old Avitus no longer, and these are not your pupils, they are your friends. He turned and said, “Sorry, what?”

“I said, what is that?” asked Antelmu, repeating himself. “That… drawing.”

“That, dear child, is the form by which magic may be manifested into the world,” said Dirt, speaking like an old man. He scowled at himself and made himself shiver, as if to shake away his foolishness. “Sorry. I was really concentrating. But that’s magic. It’s how humans do it. Signs and sigils arranged into a spell, then given power. This one makes light and stores mana to keep it going for a long time. I’m doing them on all four sides.”

“Is that what the blood was?” said Biandina.

“Yep, I was thinking of a way to do it and wanted to try some things out. I don’t have any ink so I used what was available,” he said.

“Something about that looked really… wrong,” said Antelmu. “Those drawings with blood were, well, they made Biandina nervous.”

“And you,” she complained.

Antelmu didn’t concede.

“Those weren’t curses you drew, were they?” asked Biandina after a moment of silence.

Dirt shook his head. “Nope. That was real magic, not curses. Nothing like a witch or a sorcerer.” The very thought almost made him angry. Him, a sorcerer? A witch, chanting curses in a market for coin? Were they blind? No, but they were children. He pushed the thought away.

“So what’s the plan here, Dirt? Are these going to stay lit all night and keep the black stuff away?” said Biandina, stepping closer to the wall to examine the enchantment more closely.

“That’s the plan,” said Dirt. “Just one more, and then I’ll go check on them all just to make sure everything is fine, and then I can help carry snow up to melt.”

Biandina and Antelmu didn’t say anything, but they followed to watch. Dirt led them around to the final face of the tower, the one with the door they’d been using. He schooled his mind back into focus and spoke the magic of softness into the brick and mortar. Then, just as before, he pressed the enchantment into the wall, bit by bit, like a stamp. Gently, slowly, perfectly. Every action deliberate and measured.

It was perfect. He almost hated to let go of that feeling, but he did, and came back to himself. “There. That should be it for now. Let me go check the others real quick,” he said.

“We’ll come,” said Antelmu, stepping already.

What they found on the first side of the tower where Dirt had started was not a magical sigil, however, and not a glowing light hovering in the air. What he’d drawn was completely overwritten with a new drawing three stories tall.

The lines now drew a crude, mocking figure of a child, with a fat round belly and exaggerated facial features. Big ears, a big nose, and a long tongue sticking out at them. It was perfectly hideous.

The three of them stared in complete confusion.

Biandina spoke first. “Dirt, what is this supposed to be?”

“I didn’t…” he said, almost a whisper. How was this even possible? How could—

He was interrupted by laughter from the drawing. The wall itself laughed at them, high pitched but more mature than boyish. The other two children seemed unsure if Dirt was doing this himself, playing some sort of prank, and didn’t react as strongly. Another voice laughed from nearby, in the wall. Then a third, feminine, from the ground right in front of them. Then a fourth, right behind. All three children spun, and there was nothing there.

The laughter stopped, but one last chittering giggle drifted on the empty air and faded away. They turned back to the wall and found the crude drawing gone, and now the enchantment stood just how he’d left it. Only its lack of mana told him that anything had happened to it in the first place.

“What was that?” said Antelmu, dread clawing its way out of his throat and softening his voice.

“No idea,” said Dirt.