Making Magic

  In what was an unlikely coincidence, the very next spell on Taylor's list to learn from Art and Practice was for shaping stone. It was basic utility magic as far as he was concerned, intended to shape amorphous substances like granite, silver, or glass. With some adjustments, it could even be used for fibrous or crystalline material. In his last life, he used to build major infrastructure using similar magic.

  But here in Aarden, in the body of the late Bilius d'Mourne? He had to give up shaping stone on his first day and resort to working with mud to get the hang of the spell. He once walked shoulder-to-shoulder with the greatest road-builder in his world and laid down highways at a brisk walking pace. Now, he was a child, splashing near the washing station, struggling to turn cold mud into diminutive mud-men.

  "Playing in the dirt now? Who do you think has to clean your clothes?" He'd forgotten the schedule and crossed paths with the grieving maid.

  "Good afternoon, Chambers. I'm practicing magic. When I get good enough, I'll clean my clothes with magic, and you won't have to wash them anymore." He grunted with effort as the lump of soggy earth became a miniature obelisk. "Until then, please soldier on."

  The maid didn't look at him, but neither did she move away. "Don't track it in the house."

  "Of course."

  The maid set down her basket at a station and started to wash.

  "Miss Chambers," he ventured, knowing she would listen without looking at him. "I'm sorry about Karla, and for your loss. She must have been special to you." He couldn't tell if his motives were considerate or selfish, so maybe he was asking for trouble. But he needed to say it. Though she wrongly laid the blame on him, she had lost someone. He knew how much that hurt. His last decade of his previous life was full of losses, balanced somewhat by potential he would never see fulfilled.

  "The concerns of us servants are beneath the notice of legates and their sons." She went on scrubbing, hands red in the soapy water. The washing came clean suspiciously fast, like there was more than soap at work in the basin.

  "I should therefore mind my own business. Is that your meaning?"

  "Young Master has his training, and his maid has her scrubbing."

  He watched her push, rub, and twist clothes and set them aside for rinsing. With every motion, she longed to be somewhere else, with somebody else. Her pain was so obvious it became hard to watch.

  "Well, I am going to interfere. You will take your meals with the other servants. No one should have to grieve alone."

  The scrubbing stopped, but Chambers' eyes didn't stray from her station. "Is that what the legate's son commands?"

  "It is."

  "Then I will obey." She dumped her wash water and pumped fresh water into her little basin. "You don't seem like the same child. Not since the day she left."

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  "I've learned I can't depend on others for my whole life." He was thinking of Bilius, dead and abandoned in a cold room, his clothes stolen.

  They each worked their tasks for a while longer. "It's not right for the master to eat with his servants. It's more than improper. They can't be themselves with him around."

  "Then I'll eat separately. You need their company more than I do."

  Chambers looked like she had more to say, but whatever it was, she held it back. She returned to rubbing grievances into linens while Bilius thought about where he should eat. The dining room was too absurdly large for him alone. He didn't want to risk the books by eating in the library. Father's office was rather large and empty, except for a desk. He could have a table and chair brought in. And it was conveniently on the first floor, so nobody would need to carry his meals up a flight of stairs.

  He progressed from simple mud shapes to lumps recognizable as mud people. There were two ways to work a shaping. With enough focus, clear visualization, and a high mana output, an object could be shaped all at once. He was doing it the other way, molding his objects gradually. On a whim, he tried to copy the general outline of Shitukan, the God of Mysteries. He carried a lantern in one hand and went about in a greatcloak with a hood.

  Every ounce of mana went out of Taylor's body in an instant, and he blacked out.

  When he came to, Taylor discovered he'd been face down in the mud. Judging from the sun's position and the frozen numbness of his skin, he'd been there for at least an hour. Chambers had finished her laundry, hung it up to dry in what was left of the day's sunlight, and left him with a washtub and a bar of soap next to his napping spot. Taking the hint, he stripped to his underwear and washed his body and clothes before entering the house.

  It was strange how willing they were to leave him to his own devices. The Blakes were kindly disposed toward him as long as he didn't stick around for more than a minute. Chambers seemed a lot less angry at him in the days after their talk. But they let a seven-year-old child wander around forested hills in the cold all day and never concerned themselves about his safety. Their worry was he'd be seen or might interact with someone from the nearby town of Mourne. He was constantly reminded to stay away from people.

  It took weeks to make a proper figure of Shitukan, the God of Mysteries and a subordinate of the God of Magic. First, he had to progress from mud to stone. Then, he had to get better at making humanoid figures. He had a faint idea there were more than just humans populating the world, elves and such, but his Bilius brain didn't know the details. So, he made a lot of human figures from his three closest models: Cook, Blake, and Chambers.

  For his statue of Shitukan, he chose obsidian as his material, which he procured by asking Blake for it. As a kind of glass, obsidian was remarkably easy to shape, and the shiny black surface matched his subject's character. Also, a light enchantment cast on obsidian shined a fascinating anti-light that darkened some colors but revealed others. It wasn't very expensive, but it took two weeks to arrive with the town's regular shipment of goods.

  As research, Taylor tried revisiting the shrine on his property, but the gods didn't want to talk to him.

  Eventually, he was ready to try again, with additional precautions in case he fell unconscious. He sat on the floor, indoors, with a small fire in the hearth and pillows to either side of him. Once everything was prepared, Taylor spent a meditative hour recalling not only Shitukan's appearance but the sense of him, his tenacity and fearlessness in the face of the unknown and his judgment when weighing dangerous knowledge. Some mysteries were meant to be revealed, and others were meant to be kept.

  When he was thoroughly prepared, Taylor imposed Shitukan's shape into the obsidian. His six-inch form emerged in high relief from the little block, spilling shards of razor-sharp blackness all around. The background was matte, while the foreground figure shone. The Seeker looked like he had just emerged from a mist to light someone's way, an artistic touch not of Taylor's choosing.

  He got one decent look at it, then collapsed onto his pillows.