TWO HUNDRED THIRTY-SIX: Preview (Patreon)

[Note: Full chapter and epub will be posted all together when I finish revising it tomorrow. ]

Shouldn’t I make a mistake or two?

“And then a loop like this extended out from his palm,” Alden explained.

Wouldn’t that be the smarter choice?

“About this far, I think.”

Maybe I just don’t mention the drape.

“The auriad wasn’t tight like it was pulling toward the spot where the loop floated. It was loose in between. Like this.”

“I see,” Stuart said, watching him avidly. “Those strands draped down.”

The Artonan had a green glow on his face as he leaned closer. The light came from an image of a hand and auriad being projected into the air by the tablet on the seat between them. The device was a small one Stuart used at school, not Alden’s own, and the hand and the auriad laced through its fingers were simple to position with a slender stylus. It was just the kind of thing a wizard might find helpful for learning new spells, so much more natural than a two-dimensional diagram. 

Alden wanted the tablet to accidentally fall off the seat into his bag, and then he wanted there to be some legitimate reason for him to keep it.

Oh, look at that! the Stuart of absurd daydreams would say. When a student wizard’s tablet falls into another person’s bag in a car traveling toward the tail of the diving num, custom demands a transfer of ownership.

“Could you see if this spot was twisted together or if the auriad was merely crossed over itself?” Stuart asked.

“How good do you think my vision is?”

He wasn’t being misleading, despite how many times that annoying, cautious voice in his head suggested he should be. He really hadn’t been able to see if the loop Stuart was pointing at was formed by a twist at the base. But everything Alden had seen, he remembered, and everything he remembered, he was replicating here.

Am I making it as flawless as I can because I’m crazy? he wondered, prodding a strand into a position higher up on the index finger, closer to the nail.

Or is it because I’m proud? 

He was kind of proud that he could do this after only seeing the auriad for a few seconds. It was easier because what he’d seen was similar to part of the spell he’d memorized for the flying triangle of force. The shape here looked more complicated to perform, but the auriad was still in a position he thought of as familiar.

He finished by animating it a little with Stuart’s assistance, so that four fingers were pinching inward.

“This is it. This is what I saw Olget-ovekondo doing before I turned away.”

He waited for Stuart to finish studying it. 

I just don’t want to lie to him when I can avoid it. Keeping secrets is bad enough.

“You’ve remembered so much after a single sighting! This looks like a modern dart symbol, and the motion could be the beginning of his transition to defining the cast-through. This is the kind of thing I suspected he’d used. Now, I’ll get a list of his proficiencies from his school, and if this dart is part of one of the auriad spells on it… I do not think we will even have to bother any of the villagers for <<testimony>>. Asking them to speak of his character, motives, and movements to the executioner was going to be painful.”

Alden was feeling glad he’d done something that might take days of work off Stuart’s plate, so he was a little slow to catch that one particular word and get concerned about it.

“Executioner?”

“The judges of the Lower Steps of Recompense don’t direct their expertise toward crimes committed by wizards.”

“But an executioner!” 

Stuart straightened and looked at him in surprise. “The crime is too simple to justify calling a Superior Executioner, don’t you think? And Olget-ovekondo isn’t currently hurting anyone, so a <<subduer>> isn’t necessary. I suppose…the insult to Bithe and his presence—and yours—in the house could be considered complications. But I’d rather not lead anyone to focus on the crime as if it was a threat to a hn’tyon and an Avowed. Requesting a higher executioner might imply the wrong thing.” 

Alden knew for a fact that punishments between wrist slap and beheading existed and were the norm, but it was a few more seconds before his heart slowed down and he realized “executioner” must be a broader role than it sounded like.

“Executioners…they don’t always behead people, correct?” He remembered to use the word for formal beheading.

“Is that why you look so appalled?” Stuart started adjusting the car’s route on the control panel. “Of course he won’t be beheaded. Unless he’d prefer that. I guess he might, but it would be quite extreme of him.”