Name Magic (The Wise Ones Book 5) - Lisa Lowell

Epic Fantasy Novel With Demons And Magic

Name Magic (The Wise Ones Book 5) by Lisa Lowell

Book excerpt

After some coaxing Patha returned to the table and sat stiffly like she had to carefully balance, or she would fall. She kept her eyes downcast, trying to concentrate on not getting emotional. Lar retained a slight vacuum around her hands, not because he feared she would set the place afire, but because he knew her worry of doing just that. He didn't want her concerns to become self-fulfilling prophecies. Certainly, Rashel and Yeolani weren't worried about being turned into kindling. They waited patiently while her story, such as she remembered it, slowly came out in spits and sparks, as if she were stirring at embers long since banked.

“I was about five the last time I was…normal.” Patha kept her hands under the table and made no eye contact, worried about sparks, but Lar dampened enough that they weren't noticeable. “My mother, she was bad. She wanted…I don't have the word for it. She wanted power, is that the word? She spoke with someone…something. She bought the power from the something, but the power didn't come to her. It came to me instead. I don't know why. The house caught on fire. My mother died. I ran away…to the inn. Every time I talked, fires started, so I didn't talk anymore.”

It sounded as if she had a five-year-old's vocabulary and understanding of what had happened, but Lar was grateful for the explanation. “Your mother made a bargain with a demon,” he explained. “A demon is a magical being that takes over your body and makes you do bad things. The demon was supposed to give your mother magic. Instead, it came to you. That was what was making the fire, not you. When I found you at the inn, you were possessed by this demon. I think your mother made a bad deal. She wanted the demon's power for herself, but when the demon came, it knew you were already magical. It took over you instead of your mother. Then it started the fire so your mother was killed, and it would be safe inside you. Then it scared you into not speaking to anyone so they would not know what had happened.”

“So, I didn't cause the fire? I didn't kill my mother?” Patha looked up finally in surprise.

“Oh, no, honey,” Rashel protested. “You didn't have that power back then. The demon did that to hurt you, to frighten you. Your mother simply didn't know what evil she had called on. I think that if she had known how the demon would hurt you, she never would have called on it.”

Finally, Patha managed to make direct eye contact with Lar, making his heart lurch with wonder at the gold he saw there. “So why do I spark? You said you took the demon out of me.” Patha emphasized her doubt with a lick of instinctive flame in her hands.

“Because you are magical, even without the demon,” Lar replied carefully, stifling the worry he knew intuitively lurked here. If he did this explanation incorrectly, she might be forever inhibited in her magic.

“Do you remember the Heart Stone you took from me?” He brought out the two Heart Stones that had been in his satchel. She watched them pulsing, as if to the beat of someone's heart…two different someones.

“One of them was yours. I came to the inn looking for you to give it to you. The demon knew you had the potential to be magical and that’s why it possessed you over your mother. It could sense the key to great magic in you. The Heart Stone is what activates that magic. It's yours by right.” Carefully he reached out to her and gave her the glowing orb. It shimmered in her hands where flames licked at it.

“If I had a chance,” he continued, “I would have explained this to you before you ever touched it, but the demon interfered. You see, you are now one of …now nine Wise Ones, the guardians of magic in the Land. Usually, I would not give it to you until you understood what that means. Then you could decide for yourself whether you wanted to be a Wise One. But the demon made you steal it and now whether you want it or not, you are a Wise One, the Queen of Fire.”

“And I am Rashel, Queen of Growing Things.”

“And I am Yeolani, King of the Plains.”

“And I am Lar, King of the Dead.”

Surprisingly, Patha did not balk at anything they had revealed. Lar listened in on her unshielded thoughts and realized to his great pleasure, she was not afraid of the title, King of the Dead. Most of the Wise Ones weren't yet comfortable with someone having power over the dead. In the twelve years since he first touched his Heart Stone, Lar had struggled to help his peers understand that death was not a bad thing. Instead, death was an expansion of understanding. Yes, the people left behind might grieve, but everyone would eventually learn what death was like…everyone but the Wise Ones. And it didn't apparently disturb Patha, for which he was grateful.

“I have a question then,” she asked, now pursuing more understanding of what had happened to her. “Why do you call me Patha? My name is…”

Lar stopped her with a magical clamp on her mind before she could say it aloud. “There are other evils, over and above demons, who will use Name Magic against you. They will poison your magic, take over or even kill you, using your true name. In fact, it's one of the few ways to kill a Seated Wise One. So, we never use your real name. I decided to call you Patha until you come to a point where you can select a name for yourself.”

“Seated?” Patha asked, bouncing in her chair like a little girl would, to add emphasis to her words.

“It takes time to learn the skills to be a Wise One,” Lar explained. “While we are learning those skills, gathering Talismans of our power, mastering magic, we are called Seeking. One of the things I was Seeking was you. Now I only have one more thing more to do and then I will be Seated, like Rashel and Yeolani.”

“And what do you do once you are Seated?”

Yeolani began chuckling, “Shoveling snow, sleeping in tents, digging in the ground.”

“Be nice,” Rashel chided. “He's joking. He means going out to help people. Just yesterday he was out investigating some earthquakes that have been happening down by Too and decided that it was too interesting to come home to sleep in a warm bed, so he chose to sleep in a tent and complain about it afterward. With my talent to work with plants, I help farmers diagnose their fields and help with seeds and such. Winter is my time to relax a bit and help with things like this, training farmers and new Wise Ones.”

“And I get to prevent murders, like a certain innkeeper I know,” Lar added, turning back to the comment Yeolani had made. “Speaking of which, no one died in that earthquake. Was there any damage?” he asked Yeolani.

“That's what made me curious. It was shallow and they seldom have earthquakes in this area. Nothing was damaged and no one was hurt. And it traveled, almost like tunneling rather than a true earthquake,” Yeolani commented.

“Have you spoken with Vamilion?” Lar asked and then added for Patha's benefit, “He's the King of Mountains and so he's the true expert on earthquakes.”

“No,” Yeolani admitted. “For all that digging, I wasn't able to find where it was centered. As I said, it moved around and grew difficult to trace. The people in town I spoke to all had different reports of where it started. And then Lar, you called for our help here, so I set it aside. Are you thinking of investigating it?”

Lar looked over at Patha, recognizing that she was now growing a little overwhelmed with what she had learned today, and he needed to judge her capacity to keep up. “I was thinking it might be an opportunity to teach some magical skills, especially since the tremors started about the time that Patha touched her Heart Stone. It might be hers to investigate. Your failure to find the source might be because it isn't yours to solve. But not right now. I think being human is the lesson of the day.”

Patha looked over at him with a silent look of thanks. Rather than pursue the teaching more, Lar rose and went to the bookshelf where his grandfather's precious books resided and picked one of his favorites off the shelf. When his grandfather's ghost materialized, as if called by the movement of a page, Lar introduced everyone to the ghost. He didn't comment on the fact that as magical beings they could all see him when a normal person would not be able to see his ghost. Grandfather joined them around the table as if he were still alive and enjoyed every minute of it. Lar opened the book and then began reading the story of how Vamilion, King of Mountains, and Owailion, King of Creating had built the Wall to protect the Land from an invasion of magicians. It was a child's story, almost a fairytale. The vocabulary would not strain Patha, and the tale met the dual task of introducing her to the magic of the Wise Ones as well as the mystical skill of reading. And so, they passed the afternoon with pleasant tasks best suited for a frigid winter day.

***

Over the next few days, with Rashel demonstrating hygiene and normal household skills, Lar teaching reading and writing, and Yeolani training her in basic magical education like reading minds, shielding, and conjuring things, the three of them kept Patha very busy. In many very frightening ways, Patha remained an abused five-year-old girl. Her temper to match her red hair, flared when she was frustrated or impatient with her progress. Her negative emotions expressed in sparks or flaming hands.

Too often the resident ghost popped out of a wall, startling her, and the resulting fire required magical intervention. Fortunately, Lar seemed to have a sixth sense to know when Patha could endure nothing more. He usually would call a break and they would go on a walk in the snow or change activities in time to prevent a disaster.

“Why does he stay here?” Patha asked as she and Lar walked down to the main road and back after she had been startled one too many times by Grandfather. “He seems to delight in frightening me. I know he's a ghost, and that's probably what ghosts do, but why just me? He never leaps out at Rashel or Yeolani. Yeolani would probably curse him into the next century if he did.”

Lar tried not to chuckle at the kind of curse Yeolani was likely to invoke, but she had a legitimate complaint. “I think Grandfather’s a little worried about me. You see, as a ghost, he still sees me as a thirteen-year-old boy, like on the day he died. I've brought home a pretty lady, and he doesn't think it's right, so he's trying to get rid of you.”

The puzzled look on Patha's face witnessed that she too had some gaps in understanding. It never occurred to her that Lar was an adult, and she was a beautiful woman that he found endlessly fascinating. She hadn’t looked at Lar as anything more than her rescuer and teacher. Part of him wanted to try to explain it by kissing her or flat out telling her of his love, but a more sensible and cautious part of him didn't want to overwhelm her. Patha had spent at least fifteen years frozen in a demon haze. Some things could not be taught from a book or a formal lesson. Perhaps he could ask Rashel and Yeolani to be more demonstrative with their couple relationship as an example. Or maybe they could depart and Patha would be stuck with only Lar for companionship and there wouldn't be anyone else to which to turn. Intimacy and attraction remained problematic in Lar’s mind. He grew restless and undecided on how to develop a relationship with Patha.

“Well,” he continued by changing the subject slightly, “I think ghosts stay where they're bound because they have unfinished business there. I've got to convince him that I'm grown up and I don't need him to protect me anymore. Then hopefully he'll move on.”

Patha looked up the pathway in silent unrest. “Or you could just leave. You haven't lived there for years and only came back to help me. Eventually, you can move on and leave the house to him again,” she suggested.

Lar looked down at the snow at his feet in frustration. He didn't want to admit to her that if Rashel and Yeolani were to leave, he would be content right where he was, living with her in a simple home with just enough magic to meet his needs. He didn’t want to move on Seeking.

But he couldn't do that. He still had so much to accomplish in his Seeking. He needed to fill in Patha's gaping ignorance and guide her powers. They hid dangerous repercussions if she didn't master them soon. He also continued failing to help his grandfather move on. It would be the cruelest fate to leave someone he loved in limbo when Lar enjoyed the specialty of dealing with the dead. That unsolved dilemma weighed on his soul. Finally, Lar acknowledged that petrifaction might be a danger inherent to being King of the Dead. If he allowed himself to give in and stop Seeking, he would never finish.

“Doesn’t Grandfather deserve to move on to some reward?” Lar weakly answered her forgotten point.

Patha frowned in discontent. “I don't know if your grandfather deserves your help. I wouldn’t want to, but I’m not nice like you. Besides, there's something for you to learn from this too. Maybe he stays because he's your challenge; what is it you called it…a trial of your Seeking,” Patha commented.

Abruptly Lar realized she had been listening in to his troubled thoughts. She never had done that before. Yeolani had tutored her on actively learning to listen in on thoughts and shielding others out of one’s mind, but not Lar. Patha was listening in almost instinctively.

He smiled at that more than her suggestion.

It wouldn't be long before she heard his attraction for her in his mind and began to explore love. He would be spared an awkward conversation he surely would botch if he planned it. So, Lar made a decision; he wouldn't start shielding her out. It would set a bad precedent in their relationship. Eventually, she would learn how much he was attracted to her, and then he would not have to try to talk to her about it.

“Maybe we should get away from Grandfather for a while,” Lar suggested. “We could go to Too…it's only a day's ride from here. We could investigate that earthquake. You work on your puzzle about the earthquake, and I'll work on mine about how to get Grandfather to move on. I don't think I can stay here in Reflection much longer. I'm neglecting some things.”

“Neglecting?” Patha asked. Often, she would ask about some of the larger words that hadn't made it into her vocabulary yet.

“Not paying proper attention to what I should be doing. We should both be on the road soon.”

“Should I go alone?” she asked carefully, assuming that Seeking was something a Wise One did on their own because Lar always had. He could hear her reluctance to be alone, for she didn't bother to shield her fears and anxieties from him either.

“No,” Lar reassured her and himself in the process. “No, you and I can travel for a long time together. I'm Seeking just my pendant …and getting rid of Grandfather, and then I'm done. You, there’s much to do in your Seeking. I can help speed the process. For example, how you travel, we can experiment when we're out on the road.”

“Travel? Won't we walk or ride, as you suggested?” Patha reminded him.

“Maybe for short distances, like going to Too, but eventually you're going to develop a means of travel based in magic. It's different for each Wise One. For me, I look for a death in the location I'm aiming at and reach toward the echo of that event and I'm there. Generally, it gets me to where I need to go.”

“But you didn't come to Halfway by doing that did you?”

Her observation surprised him, that she had paid so much attention to his actions. “No, I was following a scent. I could smell the demon magic and I knew a murder by magic might be happening. I cannot follow that scent by leaping clear across the Land. So, I had to walk in on that. I might hop to and fro to narrow it down, but I could never have narrowed down what building by doing that. It works best when I know where I want to go and then leap,” he explained. “It's not something you can learn studying in my grandfather's house.”

Patha nodded her understanding and then looked up the snowy path to the house that they'd almost reached again.

“Speaking of your grandfather's house, what would happen to his ghost if I burned it down… on accident, I mean.” Patha smiled to reassure him that she did not intend to fulfill the threat, but Lar was sure would not put it past her to daydream about the possibility.

“We would lose all those irreplaceable books. I doubt I could conjure them again. And Grandfather would probably still haunt me. Please don't think about it. You've no idea how nice it is to have someplace quiet to come and rest when you're Seeking.”

Patha abruptly stopped in the snow, not willing to go another step until she had said her fill. “Then yes, we should go to look into that earthquake because right now it's a good thing your grandfather is dead because I'm going to kill him if he wasn’t already dead.”

Lar chose to take her threat as a joke, though he was fairly sure she was deadly serious. Sometimes, with Patha’s fiery temper and childlike understanding, all trapped in an adult’s body, he found her mercurial thoughts hard to anticipate. “Then let's go tomorrow.”

They walked silently back to the house and Lar opened the door for her, but he also sent a silent prayer that Grandfather keep behind his bookcase. For her part, Patha reluctantly went back to her lessons with some very unpleasant thoughts of how to curse a ghost into another century running in the background of her thoughts.

Book Details

AUTHOR NAME: Lisa Lowell

BOOK TITLE: Name Magic (The Wise Ones Book 5)

GENRE: Fantasy

SUBGENRE: Epic Fantasy

PAGE COUNT: 258