Novel Monday: Transplant of War – Chapter 17

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Adane barely escaped war in his homeland. He wanted nothing more than to hide in this new city with his adopted child Chisa by his side. But every choice he makes risks their quiet lives and every day brings the war that Adane fled closer to their doorstep. Soon Adane will have to choose between running away again or taking a stand against an enemy that can’t be seen and cannot be fought.

Transplant of War
by Meyari McFarland

17. Teaching

“But…”

Adane sighed as Balqis, the oldest of the minor mages, started and stopped. She frowned at the cobblestone with The Spell, as Adane had taken to calling it, her fingers gently tracing the surface of the stone where the spell had settled. They all clustered around, even the twins who sat on either side of Chisa as if they’d adopted him as their older brother.

“You can do it,” Adane said for the fourth time. “Not as strongly as me but that doesn’t matter. Not for this.”

“Must matter,” Balqis insisted, twisting her head so that she could glare into his eyes. “We don’t have the power. We don’t.”

Adane shook his head. Teaching them what to do had been simple enough. He’d already cast the spells, created the framework. Getting them to believe that their spells layered on top of his spells, that their charms passed hand to hand to hand, would make a difference was a completely different thing.

Father and Mother had never had to deal with that in their teaching. Their students had always been bright, smart and as strong as possible. Of course, every mage in existence wanted to have the strongest apprentices. It made them look better, gave them more magic to call up on when they did major spells.

But he knew that all of the minor mages could make a difference, too. It was so obvious. They just had to combine their efforts and they would be able to do what Adane couldn’t by himself. One grain of sand was nothing. A sandstorm could kill.

“Let me explain again,” Adane said. “You make a charm. You spell it with this spell, The Spell. Then you give it to Nasir who spells it and then gives it to Nur who spells it, who gives it to Basilah who spells it, too. All of you use the same spell, reinforcing it over and over. None of you have to be strong. It’s the combination of your spells that makes the charm effective.”

“But your walls are all your work,” Basilah protested. She tugged at the shawl draped over her hair, embarrassed that everyone had looked at her.

“No, it’s not,” Adane said, surprised. “The top layer is, certainly, but the wall had spells before I ever got here. The Shiraida didn’t eat through the stone specifically because of the spells worked into the wall. I think every single brick in the walls had spells when it was made. It felt to me as though all the bricks in all the buildings in the old quarter were spelled originally. There are hundreds of years’ worth of spells wrapped up in my spell that united them all. Any one of my murals has at least half a dozen spells in it that work together to create the full effect.”

Both Basilah and Balqis frowned. Nur was the one who got up and went to the sun symbol beside the oven. He traced the rays, shoulders going tighter and tighter as he slowly felt out the actual spells cast on it. After a couple very silent minutes Nur turned around and stared at Adane.

“Are separate,” Nur said.

“No,” Basilah gasped.

She got up and Nur helped her trace out the spells on each ray, then the spell at the center of the sun symbol that tied them all together. Pretty soon everyone other than Balqis had gotten up to check that or another of his murals. Balqis stared at them and then looked at the stone again.

“Could do it,” Balqis murmured but it was a question more than a statement.

“Yes,” Adane said. “Would be like… getting hit by a curtain in the wind, not a rock, but could.”

He took some of the ribbon that Ghadir had dug out of her precious sewing supplies, carefully braiding and knotting it together. When Adane passed it to Balqis, she sighed and shook her head but she still cast The Spell on the rough charm. Adane caught little Rafi and Sami as they ran past with Chisa, giving them the charm.

“Cast same spell,” Adane told them. “Just like Balqis did.”

“Okay,” Rafi said while Sami hid behind Chisa, sucking on its thumb. Rafi’s spell was a little stronger than Balqis’ but not by much. “You try, Sami! Is easy.”

“Is safe?” Sami asked. They looked at Adane, Balqis, Chisa, before taking the charm from Rafi’s hand.

“Very safe,” Adane promised. “Will help save people.”

“Want to do that,” Sami mumbled around their thumb.

Sami cast the spell, thumb still firmly in their mouth. Sami’s version of the spell was stronger than either Rafi or Balqis’, strong enough that the little charm seemed to glow for a second. Adane took it, ruffled both of the twins’ hair and then sent them on their way. Then he went to each of the other mages and asked them to do just the same thing.

By the time he got to Basilah the charm glowed and shimmered even in the bright morning light. Basilah took it, gasped and nearly dropped the charm. She stared at it and then at Adane, mouth open, something very like awe radiating from her.

“We did this,” Basilah said. “Us, not you.”

“Yes,” Adane said. “Cast it, The Spell.”

Basilah did, head bowed. She whispered a prayer to the Hunter’s God at the same time. Her faith was strong enough that it wrapped power into the prayer and added something to the charm. Adane hummed as he took it back, nodding thoughtfully.

“Prayers are good,” Adane said, raising his eyebrows at just how much the prayer added to the charm. “See, Balqis? All of you together and this is much more powerful than my stone. One mage is just one mage. Many mages is like the sandstorm in the dead of winter. Nothing can stand in your way.”

Balqis took the charm, her breath catching in a little gasp that was half laugh, half sob. She turned it over and over in her hands, staring at it as tears welled up and then crept down her wrinkled cheeks. After a moment the twins crept close, tugging on her skirt.

“Grandma Balqis?” Rafi asked.

“Okay?” Sami finished.

“Yes, yes, children,” Balqis said, sobbed, laughed. She passed the charm back to Adane and then hugged both of them. “Fine. Just happy. Never believed could make a difference. Now I can. So late, so late, but… I can make a difference.”

“Yes,” Adane agreed. “You can. All of you can. If we make more charms like this, dozens of them, hundreds, we can give them to the people on the barricades. We can cast over and over again on the walls and streets leading into this quarter. It will be a wall that the soul riven won’t be able to cross.”

Balqis stood, wiping her face with one shaking hand while shaking her head no. Adane blinked at her, concerned, until she raised her head high enough to meet his eyes despite her twisted spine. Her eyes shown with determination that made Adane ashamed of himself.

“You think too small,” Balqis said in heavily accented Common. “We take back the city, the whole thing. We take back our country. We take back the world. We get every minor mage to work with us, teach them The Spell, improve it. Build it, make it stronger, make ourselves strong. And then we kick Them into the ocean and send Them home!”

“You’re general now,” Adane declared. “Better at it than me.”

Everyone laughed but Adane smiled at Balqis when she smirked and nodded once. Balqis thumped her cane on the paving stones before hobbling off to snap orders for more fabric, thread, beads and embroidery thread to Ghadir. To Adane’s amusement, Ghadir threw a sloppy salute at her and strode off to do exactly that.

Over the course of the next three hours they created over a hundred charms. Adane taught them all, one by one, simple healing spells, shield spells and one little ‘look away’ spell that made it harder to hit the person wearing the charm. Then he sat back and watched as they wove those simple little spells into incredible complex and wonderful charms that went so far beyond the sum of their parts.

Sami and Rafi started it, giggling together with Basilah as they took her charm, spelled only with The Spell, and then added wilder and wilder variations of The Spell on top of it. Adane came over and watched, eyes wide. By the time they pressed the charm into his hands it vibrated with power and a sort of giggling threat that reminded him strongly of the packs of bullies that used to beat him up during Egar’s slow slide into civil war.

Nur and Nasir took the charm, Nur gasping and then laughing as the twins giggled at him. Nasir frowned, cocked his head and then grabbed the latest charm that Basilah had braided, adding his version of The Spell plus a strange little quirk to it that made it send shivers of power outwards from the charm.

“I think… that would have an effect without having to be right on top of them,” Nasir murmured. He shrugged, passing it to Adane who whimpered.

“It’s brilliant,” Adane moaned. “It would, it absolutely would! We need to do that on the walls, the streets. Every single building needs this variation.”

That sent Adane in search of paint and brushes. He and Chisa led about half the mages out to scribble quick charms on the walls that each of them reinforced and elaborated on. By the time dinner rolled around, served to people in lines outside of Shiraida House because, of course, somehow, his home had become the center for all their efforts, the entire poor district of the city glowed ever so faintly.

“Do again tomorrow,” Balqis commented, sitting next to Adane and Chisa with her bowl of stew and hunk of flat bread. “And day after. And again. Can just… keep adding? Spelled and spelled and spelled.”

“Oh yes,” Adane agreed. “We can. And the more we do, the stronger it will be.”

Balqis nodded slowly. She set her bowl of stew down, picked up her cane and then leaned on it, hands folded loosely on top of the head, chin resting on hands. Adane frowned and then grinned as Balqis laughed quietly. Her laughter grew until it echoed, creaky as a rusty hinge, through the garden

Little Rafi and Sami ran over to stare at her, Sami’s thumb firmly in its mouth. She grinned at the children, exposing a similar lack of teeth to Rafi’s missing two front teeth. Rafi giggled and grinned back at her, bouncing on its toes.

“What funny?” Rafi asked. “What funny, Grandma Balqis?”

“Oh, everything, child,” Balqis answered, still chuckling. “Spent my whole life thinking weak and now, wonders. Can create magic the big mages can’t imagine.”

“Literally,” Adane said, grinning. “You’re all creating things I’d never have thought of and I was trained to be one of the big mages.”

“Will train you better, young man,” Balqis said, patting Adane’s thigh fondly. “Will get over it soon.”

Adane laughed. She might have meant it as a joke but she was right. In this battle his training, all the lessons his parents and brothers and all the other mages had given him, held him back. They needed new things, strange things, not the same old spells cast the same old ways. Ghadir’s mage army with Balqis at the head might just save their lives after all. He could only hope.

He did his best to smile and laugh with the others as they ate and then headed out to do more spells, create more charms. Chisa stayed by his side, hovering closer as if he expected Adane to have a panic attack soon. Once they were gone and Adane closed the door to the garden, he sighed.

“Afraid,” Chisa murmured.

“Oh yes,” Adane said. “Because they’ll feel all this. It’s obvious. Will strike back, Chisa. Will strike back hard.”

“Soon,” Chisa agreed. “Will beat them.”

Adane smiled and hugged Chisa, hoping that he was strong enough to handle whatever came their way and that Chisa wouldn’t be the target that their enemies chose.

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