Measureless Magic 1: Ch. 6, 7

Chapter 6

Mages, mages: guard the land!

Mages, mages: Marynth’s hand!

Mages, mages: guide the skies!

Mages, mages: truth from lies!

• Except from popular jump rope rhyme

There was a pause following the Urchin girl’s announcement, a hesitation.

The glowing text pulsed, brightening enough that Ravel had to shut his eyes for a moment.

A moment later, it pulsed again.

“Right,” said Raza. The girl took a deep breath and then marched boldly into the darkness, her body disappearing as she moved through the arch, as if she’d plunged into still, opaque water.

She didn’t even stick a hand in first! Ravel thought. She’s a madwoman. Brave, though. Should… should I follow? He glanced around the room. From the furrowed brows he saw, a number of others were asking themselves the same question, and a few had moved closer to the arch to peer inside.

No one seemed in a hurry to follow Raza.

A moment later, the wall opened a temporary gateway into that same impenetrable darkness.

Raza’s body tumbled out.

For one horrible second, Ravel was horrified.

Then, Raza groaned and pushed herself off the ground. “That hurt!”

“What happened to you?” Ravel asked.

Raza shook her head. “Just… darkness. I kept walking, but I didn’t see anything. Then a kind of stinging pain, like a slap across my whole body, and I was on the floor out here.”

“There wasn’t anything on the other side of the archway?” Ravel asked.

“Not that I could see,” Raza said.  She turned to glare at the Urchin girl. “Guess that word didn’t say ‘Enter.’”

“It does. You’re missing something.” The Urchin girl’s words were fierce.

Raza stiffened at the criticism.“Then you go in!”

The Urchin girl’s head shook slightly. Ravel thought she was refusing, but then the girl rose unsteadily to her feet. She lurched over to the archway and caught herself on the doorframe, peering upward. “It says ‘Enter. It does.” A deep breath. “I’ll prove it.”

She vanished into darkness.

Ravel waited, holding his breath, scanning the wall to see where she reappeared.

Over a minute passed and she didn’t return.

Two minutes.

Three.

“Did it kill her?” Anna asked nervously. She had come over near Ravel. Almost everyone had, forming a crowd around the archway. Only a few stragglers remained on the outskirts of the room, curled into balls, crying, or staring blankly into space.

“Maybe she made it through,” Ravel offered.

“To where?” Anna asked.

Ravel shrugged helplessly. “She seemed to think she knew what it said; maybe she figured out what was going on inside.”

“What is going on inside?” Raza snapped. She directed the question at Koby.

He shrank back, looking aghast. “I don’t know. Why would I know?”

Raza snorted. “Because you knew we were going to be betrayed. Because you knew about the danger. Because you knew the people locking us in here and they knew you.”

Koby looked around the room nervously. Raza wasn’t the only one glaring.“Yeah, but… We’re in the castle now! No one comes out of the castle. How would I know anything about what’s in it?”

Raza stabbed a finger into his sternum. “Someone’s been lying to us all. Someone who cares about you. If you know anything else and you’re holding out on us, you’d better spill it right now.”

“I don’t… It’s not…” Koby was hyperventilating, tears in his eyes. “I didn’t talk to my dad for very long. I don’t know a lot. I was shocked too. I… I don’t think I really believed him.”

“You don’t know anything else?” Raza said.

Koby gulped and closed his eyes. “Uh, let me think. He… said it had to be this way? He wouldn’t tell me why. He said it was a secret. He said… he said he didn’t want to lose me…”

“So we’re dead?!” Raza snapped. 

Koby shrugged.

Raza shoved him away, turning to the crowd. “Is a little one-inch razor blade really the best we can do? There’s got to be some way to damage these walls. Kicking it sure wasn’t doing it.”

Her words got people moving, shrugging backpacks off and pawing through their belongings. 

Ravel didn’t bother taking his off. He knew what he’d brought: clothes, a toothbrush, a comb, a tiny sewing kit, a spool of all-purpose thread, and a few skeins of embroidery thread. Where was the bag from Aunt Fi? Oh! There, against the wall where he’d entered. He must have dropped it.  

He went to pick it up, double-checking its contents and frowning. No, this was no help either: the wooden sticks were short and thin, individually. They might work as a kind of armor, but they wouldn’t bust down a wall. Still… He sat down and began slotting them into the pockets on the long vest. With the way the day had gone, he no longer had any hesitation about wearing an unfinished garment. 

Suddenly a crackle of red energy ripped through the room. Ravel had just enough time to notice the flash before it was on him, making his body convulse in pain.

The room erupted in screams and panic.

“What was that?”

“Are you okay?”

“That hurt!”

Eventually, the panic started to recede as the light didn’t recur and the pain faded, but everyone drew closer together. Those who’d been sitting against the walls, paralyzed in fear or grief had mostly abandoned them, dashing into the crowd.

Not that they’ll be any safer here, Ravel noted. We haven’t been able to protect each other from anything that’s happened.

Still, he wasn’t in a hurry to leave the group. It felt safer. 

Even if it wasn’t.

“That… that red stuff hurt you guys, right? It didn’t hurt me.” Raza said quietly.

It took Ravel a few moments to process this. Then, he nodded. “And you’re the only one who went through the arch. The only one to follow directions?”

Raza made a disgusted noise. “Maybe those letters really do say ‘Enter’ after all.”

“And you’re the only one who entered, so you’re the only one who wasn’t punished.” 

“Maybe.” She stared at the arch and bit her lower lip. Then, she took a step toward it.

“Are you going back in?” he asked.

“It seems like I should, doesn’t it?”

“You should wait,” Ravel said. 

“Why?” All her attention was on him now.

Ravel shrugged. “Well, it didn’t take you too long to go in the first time. Everyone who didn’t go in got hit after… I’m not sure. Ten minutes or so of ignoring the sign? Anyway, you did it. Maybe that’s enough. You ‘entered.’”

“I went in once, and now it’s fine for me to be trapped in here forever?” Raza waved a hand in irritation, taking another step toward the door. “Even if I’m not going to be punished for staying, I want out of here.”

In a fit of bravery, Ravel caught her sleeve. “Just wait! I agree that it probably won’t let you stay here forever, but how often do we need to try going in? Every few minutes? Every hour? Every day? If the red stuff hits you a minute from now, we’ll learn something. Anyway, it’s just pain. You can handle that, right?”

“Already did when it kicked me out,” Raza said, casting a thoughtful glance back to the arch. “You’re not still hurting? That red light didn’t injure you?”

Ravel wiggled his fingers, thinking. “No… It feels better now. It was only bad for a few seconds.”

Raza frowned. “You should go in, Threads.”

“Me?”

Raza shrugged. “Probably everyone. But… you already said you don’t think that’s the end of the punishments. What if it gets worse next time it comes? If you go in, it’ll happen to someone else before it happens to you. Plus, I’ve seen what you’re doing. You’ll be more protected than almost anyone else.”

Ravel looked down. He was still holding the vest in one hand and a bundle of sticks in the other. A much smaller bundle, now: he only had ten or so left. Nothing Raza had said was wrong, but… “What if I disappear?”

“I don’t think you will. Just… run straight? That’s what I did. It hurt when I got kicked out, but it wasn’t too bad. It just stung.” It would have been nice if Raza had spoken with the same aggressive confidence she’d brought to most things, but apparently her bravado didn’t quite extend to “mysterious doorways that ate people or spat them back out for unknowable reasons.”

Still, what she had said seemed logical. Scary? Absolutely. But… Ravel couldn’t help but think she’d been onto something about the punishment. Now that the room had hurt him once, he was confident it would do it again. The fact that it hadn’t hurt Raza suggested that she had done something “right” in the castle’s eyes.

What would the castle do to someone who insisted on disobeying?

Did he really want to find out personally?

Ravel took a deep breath. “Yeah. Yeah. Sure.” He flipped the vest over and methodically slotted the last few sticks in, then shrugged it over his head. 

“Argh!” Raza grunted.

He pulled the vest past his face and peered at her. 

“It got me after all,” she said, rubbing the back of her wrist. “The red stuff. You going in? If not, get out of the way.”

Ravel finished shrugging his arms through and adjusted the vest until it fit comfortably. If Raza’s bravery had only bought her a few extra minutes… there wasn’t much choice, was there? “I’m going.” 

He stepped forward into darkness.

Chapter 7

There are two types of magic, commonly referred to as pragmatic magic and perceptual magic.

• Magical Theory, age 13 textbook

Ravel stood stock-still, waiting for his eyes to adjust.

They didn’t.

The archway had appeared completely dark, and Raza had said it was dark, but he’d assumed they’d been in too much of a rush, too panicked to let their eyes adjust. Even when the lights were off in an interior room of the nursery, there was some light. Not much, no, but if you held your hand in front of your face you’d see a difference eventually.

That wasn’t the case here. There wasn’t the faintest hint of difference anywhere, and even the archway behind him didn’t seem to be letting any light through. 

Wait. Was the archway still behind him?

The thought alarmed him. He almost turned around to step back through, but stopped himself: Raza didn’t do that, and she’s the only one who’s made it back safely. Who knows? Maybe that’s what the other girl tried. Maybe she was punished for it.

He took a deep breath. The air here seemed fine, but something struck him as odd. After a moment, he realized that he couldn’t hear himself breathing.

“Hello?” he shouted.

Well, tried to shout. He could feel the vibration of the word in his throat and mouth, and he could sort of hear it, but… it was weird. Quiet. Muffled. Like the word had been snatched away the moment it had left his mouth.

He slid a foot over the floor, moving forward cautiously. The ground beneath him was perfectly smooth: no texture, no rugs, no tiles. Nothing he could use to figure out his position or gauge his progress.

Straight forward, she said. Of course, she said she ran. No way! What if there’s a… a ledge or… or something sharp? 

Ravel held his hands out in front of him as he counted his paces. He’d just gotten to fourteen and was starting to relax slightly, when something hit him, smarting pain across his whole body like he’d bellyflopped into the pool. Then, light, blessed light. 

Ravel rolled onto his back, gasping in shock. He raised a hand to run it through his hair and was vaguely surprised when he didn’t feel any moisture. It had felt so much like a bellyflop, but there was no water to be seen.

“Threads!” Raza said. She sounded surprised, and maybe a little relieved.

He frowned at her. “You seemed sure I’d be safe going in a minute ago.”

Her face grew tight. “Sure, but two others got kicked out before you did. You must have been really moving if they didn’t run into you.”

“I wasn’t.” Ravel said. “I kind of froze after I walked in, honestly.

“They were right behind you. That’s imposs-” Raza started, then stopped. “Oh.”

Impossible, Ravel’s mind echoed. Who knows what’s impossible now?

He cleared his throat. “I made it about fourteen paces before I got kicked out. Straight forward. Maybe it’s like… a maze, and we need to find the right route? What did everyone else do? Who else went in?”

“I did!” A girl with a pixie cut waved a hand. Ravel had seen her amidst the party group at the back of the bus, but he didn’t know her name. “Fourteen steps? Are you sure? I didn’t count mine, but it was less than that. Were you taking really small steps?”

Ravel frowned. “I don’t think so.”

Raza shook her head. “If those others didn’t run into you, there’s no guarantee that going through the archway takes you to the same place.”

Ravel frowned. “Well… that’s true… but… it still might. Right? If it does, maybe we can work together.”

The girl with the pixie cut nudged Koby with a foot. “What about you? What did you do?”

Koby put his face in his hands. When he responded, his voice was muffled. “I don’t know. Panicked. I’ll do better next time.”

Next time. The words hit Ravel almost as hard as the slap that had knocked him clear of the darkness. Of course. We already know going in once doesn’t mean I get to stop. Raza was punished for not going back in. “We have to figure this out,” he said.

“Do we?” Anna asked. “I mean, the red light hurts, but it’s better than… Well…”

“That’s going to get worse,” said Raza.

“You don’t know that,” Anna said. 

“I don’t.” Raza said. “But everything I’ve seen in the past hour? Expecting the worst seems pretty smart, don’t you think?”

Anna’s mouth worked uselessly for a moment, then she looked away. “Why do you think going in will help? Why does it want us to go into the darkness? It can clearly shove us around. If it actually wants us there, it can just shove us in, can’t it?”

Anna hadn’t shouting, but the question emerged into a lull in discussion, making her seem louder than she was. It didn’t help that the possibility of being pushed into the darkness was both plausible and frightening, and the silence lingered for several seconds. Even Anna looked surprised by what she’d said, her brows drawing together in worry.

A few people began offering guesses, but their suggestions were so tentative and uncertain that Ravel soon lost patience. Not enough information. It could be anything, at this point. “It.” Hah. We don’t even know what’s hurting us. Koby said we’d been put into the castle, but we only have his word for that right now. For all we know this is how everyone starts their magic training. It’s some kind of insane test by the teachers, like in novels. Maybe that girl in the first chamber didn’t really die, and the Urchin girl lied about her pulse. Maybe those two and Koby are part of the test. Maybe we’re being watched right now, for like… character or… or something. 

Ravel lifted his eyes to the ceiling in sudden hope, searching for little windows spyholes that would vindicate his suspicions. Nothing. Still, maybe it’s possible? Magic, right?

He thought about voicing his suspicion, but decided against it. If this is a trick, someone important went to a lot of trouble to trick us. I won’t get on their good side by exposing them. If… if it’s real… and I suggest that it’s not… and someone believes it... Ravel swallowed.  I don’t want to be responsible for that. Okay.  Treat it like it’s real, but keep in mind that someone might be watching and grading us.

That sounded right to Ravel, and the possibility that this had all been staged helped him calm down, at least a little. 

I mean, really, what’s more believable? Some kind of citywide prank on graduates to scare us into taking training seriously, or a vast conspiracy to… I don’t even know. What would be the point of shoving graduates into the castle?

He couldn’t think of any, and that calmed him further. Right then. This is a problem. How can I solve it? 

One idea occurred to him. He fumbled at the straps of his backpack, opening a side pocket and pulling out a small object: a lump of chalk he used for marking out patterns. He nicked it against the far wall of the room and began pacing, closing his eyes and sweeping his feet along the floor the way he had done in the darkness. One… two… three… When he got to fourteen, he made another mark. When he got done, he looked behind him. About twenty feet, or a little less. Not quite as far as I thought. Keeping my feet on the ground made my steps smaller.

“Aargh!” A furious scream distracted Ravel from his calculations and he spun to see Raza flat against the floor. 

“That… really hurt you that time, didn’t it?” he asked.

“No.” How could she look down on him while she was lying on her back? “Why would you say that?”

“You yelled pretty loudly…”

“I was yelling the whole time I was in there!” Raza sat up and tensed her arm as if she was going to punch the wall, then seemed to think better of it. “This whole situation is driving me crazy.”

“Did you just run straight again?”

“Yeah.”

“How far did you go?”

“I don’t know. Not far.”

“Farther than this?” Ravel indicated his chalk markings.

Raza scrambled to her feet. “You think this is how far you went? That’s right, you said you counted your steps. Huh. You’re really thinking, Threads.”

“That’s-”  Ravel caught himself just before he finished his sentence. That’s the nicest thing I’ve heard you say! Aloud, he continued. “That’s, um, what I’m trying to do. Maybe it’s a maze? Maybe that other girl just found her way through.”

“Maybe she’s just sitting in the dark, too scared to move,” Raza said. 

And we’re back to being a jerk again, Ravel thought. It’s your fault she went in! She was clearly terrified, and you goaded her. He was glad Raza wasn’t looking at him, because he was sure his thoughts were showing on his face. She had turned away and was pacing out his chalk marks: walking, then jogging, then running. When she finished, she moved over to a few of the other people. “Hey! You in the orange shirt. With the ruffles. You went in, and you haven’t reported yet what you did. Get over here. Tell Threads! He’s making a map. You too, red boots!”

Ravel quickly found himself in the center of a small group of people who were pacing out his markings or trying to explain to him that they didn’t know where they’d gone, except one lanky boy who’d gone in and turned around immediately. 

“I wanted to get out! I hate the dark. But the doorway was gone! It wasn’t behind me! I thought I was going to be trapped in there forever!”

“How long were you in there?”

He had shaken his head. “I’d tell you an hour, but Misket said it was the longest minute of her life. So… Probably a minute?”

Probably less, Ravel thought, but he made a dot on the wall to signify the archway and added long lines going forward and backward. 

The red light crackled through the room again, hitting about two-thirds of the people, but missing the group around Ravel, and leaving Ravel himself unscathed.

When the screams died down, Anna’s voice rose fearfully. “That was worse! That was definitely worse! Wasn’t it worse? I think it was. I… I don’t want to find out what comes next.” She took two nervous steps toward the archway, hesitated, then bolted inside.

Several others moved to follow, but Raza stepped into their path. “Hey, let’s not all charge in uselessly, okay? Threads is trying to make a map. We know straight forward and straight back don’t work. You, turn left as soon as you enter, and I want you to turn right. Keep track of your steps. You-”

The third kid Raza had pointed to stopped stepped back. “I’m not going in yet.”

The girl in front of him, notable for the spray of freckles that covered her cheeks, piped up. “You’ve only gone straight, haven’t you? If that’s safe, we should all just do that.”

Raza glared at her. “You- That’s- Aaargh!” She threw up her hands. “Fine! I’ll go right. Anyone who wants to get out of this place, go somewhere new, count your steps, and report your path to Threads. Anyone who wants to stay here forever? Follow Freckles straight into the sea!”

Raza marched into the archway for a third time and had barely disappeared before she was back again, knocked straight on her ass. She didn’t even get off the ground before she shouted. “Threads! You can’t go right. Took two steps and ended up right back out here.”

Ravel nodded and made a short line followed by an X on his little map.

He had barely finished before another boy called out to him. “Threads! Five big steps to the left before it kicked me out.”

“My name is Ravel,” Ravel called, but he added the line to his map, and a few seconds later another girl called out “Threads!” again and told him she’d tried going diagonally, straight but a little to the right, and made it eight steps.

When the fourth person called him “Threads,” Ravel stopped correcting them. It’s still better than Dolovan. Anyway, we have more important things to worry about. It’s hard to make sense of this. I wonder how close one person’s step is in size to another’s? It’s good that people are counting, anyway. 

Ravel was getting better at not reacting to the grunts, moans, and yells that came when people exited, but a sudden shriek drew his attention. 

“You lied to me!” 

Freckles was on her feet near the wall, absolutely furious at Raza. 

Raza was looking back at her with blank confusion.

“Don’t you give me that look! You just went straight again, didn’t you? You were trying to trick me into exploring the right-hand side. Well, good news for you: you succeeded! But there’s bad news too… you didn’t get me killed off and now I can tell everyone what a horrible, manipulative liar you are!”

Raza raised her hands, “Whoa, slow down. Are you sure you didn’t turn left or accidentally turn around or something?”

Freckles’ response was an incoherent noise of anger. 

Ravel blinked. Had she gone in right after Raza came back? If so, she’d been in there for… over a minute, he thought. Even if she’d been moving pretty slowly, she must have gone a long way. “Did you turn at all?” he asked Freckles.

“I’m not going to tell the evil wizard’s little minion!”

Ravel rubbed his forehead. “Raza. Are you sure you turned right?”

“Yes!”

Both Raza and Freckles were glaring at him. He raised his hands. “I’m just asking.”

“Asking if we know things a five-year-old would?” Raza growled. “‘Which way is right?’ Honestly.”

Ravel sighed, resting his hand against the wall where his little sketch was taking place. “I just want one of you to be wrong, okay? I want to be able to work together. I want to figure this out.”

“Well, I’m not wrong,” Raza said.

“Then maybe it’s different for everyone,” Ravel said.

“She could be wrong,” Raza said.

Freckles looked like she was ready to fight Raza. 

Ravel sighed and shoved between them, heading toward the archway. “I’ll check, okay?” Better than staying here while you two fight, he thought.

Without waiting for a response, he ducked through the archway and turned right. He didn’t wait this time, keeping his eyes shut tight. He didn’t try to speak or look, and that made it easier, a little less frightening. It was still wrong, not to hear the sounds of his own breathing, his own footsteps, but he could almost pretend he was just walking through a normal room.

One, two, three, four-

When he reached eight, he was kicked out again. 

He opened his eyes to see Raza and Freckles standing over him, watching him intently.

“Well?” Raza asked.

Ravel shook his head. “I think the maze is different for each of us.”