“Some constructed spells have fail-safes built into them that can kill you if you do the wrong thing at the wrong time. I will need to study it some more, first, before I can say for certain exactly what we are dealing with, here.”
Vika looked at the stone and then back to him. “But if it really is the language of Creation, you should be able to understand it, shouldn’t you?”
“I believe that the language of Creation may have different dialects. The markings here might simply be one of those different dialects, and that’s why I’m having trouble understanding it. That makes it a little more difficult to translate all these symbols. It won’t prevent me from translating what they say, but I first need to be sure of what some of the more familiar ones mean. Once I’m sure of the meaning of the symbols in those, that will help me translate others. That’s going to take me some time. I don’t know how much time, but I need to be left to it.”
She shrugged. “All right, so study it.”
He gave her a meaningful look. “I would appreciate it if you went over there and watched the Glee to keep them from getting too curious so I can concentrate in this.”
“Oh. All right. Well, why didn’t you just say so? But if you really think it is a constructed spell, wouldn’t that mean this thing is powered by magic?”
Richard shook his head, feeling frustration that he had a hard time explaining all the technicalities. “I don’t know. Maybe. I understand constructed spells, and I know how they function. I’ve even made a number of them myself. This looks in many ways like it could very well be a constructed spell, but in other ways it’s different, so I’m not yet entirely sure.
“It may simply share some aspects with a constructed spell. It may be a coincidence that it looks like one to me in part because I’m not able to read all the symbols. I might also be reading too much into it. I just don’t know yet. But these symbols are the key to learning how this thing functions, and if it actually is a constructed spell, so that’s why I need to study it. Got it now?”
“What difference could that make?” She frowned at him. “If you simply reset it so they can’t use it, that’s all you really need to do, right?”
“Sure, unless someone comes along who can recognize the symbols or figure them out and then reset it for themselves so they could use the gateway. I’m trying to figure out if there is a way to lock in the reset, or better yet, use a fail-safe. So, unless you know how to work a constructed spell or you understand the language of Creation, would you please go over there and watch those Glee? And be prepared in case something happens.”
Vika glanced to the Glee and then back at him. “Something like what?”
“Are you going to ask questions all the time for the rest of our lives in this awful world?”
Vika only smiled.
Richard looked over at the Glee out of the corner of one eye. “I don’t know for sure what might happen, but if this thing really is a constructed spell powered by magic and something happens, they may become alarmed.”
“What should I be prepared for?”
Richard let out a weary sigh. “Vika, Sang is going to soon grow impatient that I am not destroying this thing. I don’t know what the other Glee will do if this stone starts making noises or something. After all, they seem to regard this thing as some sort of sacred object given to them by gods.”
Vika finally relented. “All right. That makes sense. But if I have to start using my Agiel on them, things could get messy.”
“Well, I don’t want you to do that. Just keep your eye on them. Strike up a conversation or something. Divert their attention. Ask them about their offspring. Parents love to talk about that.”
As soon as he said that, he wished he hadn’t.
“I’m not all that experienced at small talk, but I’ll give it a try.”
“Is life with you in this world always going to be this difficult?”
Vika smiled again. “You wouldn’t want life here to be boring, would you?”
Richard shook his head before turning back to the stone as Vika walked over to Sang.
70
Richard glanced over to check and saw Vika talking to the Glee. Things seemed peaceful enough. They looked interested in whatever she was telling them. He turned his attention back to what he was doing, bending close to continue studying the series of symbols and emblems on the stone, trying to figure out what the parts he didn’t recognize meant.
He rubbed a temple with a finger as he worked to understand the connecting links. They were in fact different in a number of ways from the language of Creation he had learned, but he hadn’t told Vika everything he already knew about them. He wasn’t sure she could understand it—or would care to. Mord-Sith were famous for their dislike of anything to do with magic. Richard wasn’t yet positive that this gateway stone really did possess magic, but the symbols certainly did have a lot of the characteristic elements of magic as expressed through constructed spells. He almost had a hard time believing it could be something other than magic.
In large part, they did comply with the precepts of a constructed spell. And yet, in some ways, they didn’t.
He had created constructed spells before, and in his studies, he had learned a great deal about their complexities and how they functioned through principles of magic, both Additive and Subtractive. He knew a number of their key provisions. But that hardly meant he knew everything about them.
While this was in many ways the same element he knew, and understood, there were differences he couldn’t yet fathom. He traced components of things he knew, struggling to identify exactly how this was different so he could fill in the blanks.
In his studies of books of magic and in working with constructed spells he had access to, he had also learned a lot about his own gift. For reasons that eluded him, he had an easier time using his gift with constructed spells, perhaps because they were so technical, and the steps made sense. When he followed the steps in constructed spells in the proper way, the spell came to life. In other situations when he needed his gift, it didn’t always respond, so he naturally gravitated toward the type of magic with structure he could analyze.
He also suspected that those technical aspects that required him to concentrate distracted him enough to call upon his gift without really thinking about it when his magic was needed in procedures along the way. When he was relieved of the conscious pressure to call forth his gift, it simply naturally worked as required to assist him. Importantly, one of the things he had learned in his studies was that it took his gift not only to work with constructed spells, but to understand them.
It had always been difficult for him to call up his gift consciously, except in a certain kind of crisis, but here, with these emblems, he could sense them with his gift. It seemed like here, in this world, with this complicated spell he was able to touch his gift in order to understand elements in ways that were difficult or impossible to do back in his home world.
He realized that it felt to him like he was having much the same kind of ease with using his gift as he had experienced before, only in the underworld.
Because constructed spells were so rare, he hadn’t been able to study a lot of them. Having seen only a relative few, that left a lot of questions in his mind with the gateway.
He came to realize that, rather than trying to decipher every element of every symbol along the way to understand all of the language of Creation the way it was written on the stone, if he simply assumed it was a constructed spell and treated it as such, that very well might be the best way for him to come to grasp the entirety of what all the writing meant.