Earth Magic
Part VII.
Lesson Four:
Beware of magic on Earth. It always comes at a cost.
“Here on Earth,” Goat began, “Magic is evil and deceptive. Fortune tellers will tell you anything for a fortune. Riddlers will talk you out of your inheritance to relieve themselves of boredom. Witches and warlocks will sacrifice your firstborn for their beauty. Magicians will sell you cheap tricks for cheap amusement. But the most deceptive magic of all is love.”
I knew of the word, but more so in its altruistic, agape form. “I am an all-powerful being, a descendant of death itself,” I bragged, unbothered by the goat’s warning. “This human love you speak of cannot overpower me.”
With this reassurance, Goat decided it was time for me to meet more humans. Apparently, if I spent all my time talking to a goat, rumors were bound to spread, which would inevitably earn me the wretched title of the village outcast—a placement in the social hierarchy just below village idiot.
As soon as I stepped foot in the human village, a foul odor smacked me in the face. It smelled like piss, metallic and jarring, and it struck my senses like a glass wall, slamming up against me with an impudent need to be acknowledged. The scent lingered, for a time, as I walked the streets and took in the sights, but within minutes, or perhaps just seconds, it was gone. Forgotten. I was the stench and the stench was me. Where one ended, the other began, and with the inevitable immersion complete, I yearned for more, now addicted to its ripe scent.
The nearest village was a mini metropolis—big and busy, brash and bustling. Everything happened all at once. Shopkeepers meticulously kept their shops. Street magicians performed their magic in the streets. Pickpockets picked the pockets of passersby. It was beautiful in its chaos, a sort of mayhem I hadn’t witnessed since the sacred battlefields I once called home. As soon as one sight drew my eye, I was distracted by another. And then another. And another.
Goat trotted along beside me, leading us down a cobblestone path and into the heart of town where a crowd of humans gathered around a dried-up fountain. Upon the fountain, a gabby storyteller entertained his listeners. Over his face, he wore a red mask with fangs, its trimming decorated with black fur around the edges. While the children looked frightened at the sight of him, the adults just looked bored and restless.
“A billion years ago, Cerulean, the Angel of Death, came across an uninhabited village in our quaint little home on the edge of space. Only, this village was not as vacant as he originally presumed. There was one other occupant and her name was Glasstone.” The storyteller spun in place, revealing a blue mask on the back of his head. This mask had smiling white lips with a pretty pink blush on its cheeks. “Glasstone lived in the village alone and was keeper of an ancient power source called the Crown Jewel. When Cerulean realized they were the only two entities in the world, he hated that Glasstone had all of that power to herself, and so he sought to make it his own. ‘Mine, mine, mine,’ Cerulean shrieked, ‘Mine, mine, mine!’ When Glasstone heard his cries, she locked the Crown Jewel within an impenetrable force field, and for centuries, the two collided in a fierce battle over its power. Some say their violent feud continues to this day.”
“I heard the Crown Jewel is just the sun,” a drunken patron interrupted, sloshing his ale as he stumbled over his own feet. “If you catch it at the right time of day, it hovers just above the highest peak in the world!”
“Right you are, Eldrah.” The storyteller didn’t seem bothered by Eldrah’s disruption. In fact, he welcomed the discussion, adding, “That mountain is said to reside on the other side of the Umoni Desert. Nothing but stories have ever made it out alive. Only the birds tell the tales of the dead.”
“If only stories make it out alive,” Eldrah started, slurring his words, “how can the birds tell these tales? Wouldn’t they be dead too?”
“Hush up, Eldrah!” came an angry voice from out of the crowd. I turned but couldn’t see who had yelled. Goat shuffled in place, looking antsy. A nervous energy permeated the air.
“That’s because birds don’t count, Eldrah,” the storyteller said, jumping down from his pedestal. “The birds are angels—fallen angels who flew just a little too close to the sun, lost all their glory to the heat of its flames, and came crashing down with warnings of its untouchable power.”
“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”
This time, it wasn’t Eldrah who slung the insult; it was the same voice that had told the drunken fool to shut up. The crowd parted like sliced ham as a woman with fiery red hair and warm olive skin made a beeline to the center of attention. Her footsteps were sure, full of a confidence I could only hope to possess. She held a thick book in her right hand and a dragon smoke pipe in her left. And around her neck, a shimmering sapphire hung.
I pushed in closer for a better look, squeezing between sweaty bodies and noisy children. Reluctantly, Goat trailed close behind. Once I got a good look at the woman, at her freckled face and cat-like eyes, I couldn’t tear my own eyes away. I didn’t know much about the women of Earth. I didn’t know much about anything then.
While the storyteller seemed to be a calm and pleasant man, his mask dropped when he set his eyes on the approaching woman. Literally. His devil mask fell right off, revealing an old man with a nasty scar split down the middle of his face.
“S’cuse me?” the old storyteller sneered.
“I said that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” the woman repeated, holding up her book for all to see. “Birds aren’t angels, Taleweaver.”
“Then what are they?” someone yelled out. I, too, wanted to know.
“They’re just birds,” the woman answered in kind. “And there’s no way they can fly to the sun. It’s far too high.”
“How would you know?” another voice shouted.
The woman smiled. “I’ve followed them.”
The storyteller crossed his arms. He looked amused, just another mask behind the mask. “Are you saying you’ve somehow defied the odds of gravity and learned to fly?”
“No, I can’t fly,” the woman amended graciously. “But I was born with a sightless sort of vision granted to me by the seraph blood that flows through my veins.”
“Liar!” Eldrah drunkenly hollered. He swayed to the left, only finding his footing when a little girl pushed him off of her. “An angel on Earth? Pshh. They wouldn’t survive a fortnight before losing their wings!”
The woman shrugged, coolly lighting a fire by dragging a match down her jean-clad thigh. “Oh, but they could,” she said, inhaling a drag from her pipe. “With magic.”
Eldrah stiffened. But not just him. The whole crowd seemed to go numb at the mention of magic. “You’re the one they call Angel Eyes,” the drunken man whispered. His voice held a mixture of fascination and fear, a finicky pair that often lived and died together.
The woman’s lip curled in disgust at the sexist label. “My name is Chapter,” she corrected him, taking another drag from her pipe, “And this powerful entity you speak of is the very sort of magic that can cure an ailment like molting wings. It can fix anything, in fact—heal a broken heart, resurrect a dying realm, reverse a curse, right a wrong, restore a life, even grant a wish.”
Eldrah still looked skeptical. “And what’s the catch?”
Chapter circled the crowd. “Judgment.”
“Care to elaborate?” the storyteller asked, hands on his hip replacement.
“In the wrong hands, magic can be deadly.” As Chapter passed by, her eyes met mine. I hung onto her every word, ears hungrier than famine. “With a power as immense as the Crown Jewel, you will be judged, and the price that equals the virtue of your spirit shall be left to the entire realm to pay.”
It was quiet.
Very quiet.
But then, as loud and boisterous as ever, Eldrah shouted, “What a bunch of hogwash!”
The crowd laughed with the village idiot as everyone went back to their folly. I, however, couldn’t peel my eyes away from Chapter as she pulled from her dragon pipe and blew a puff of smoke into Eldrah’s face. The two elbowed each other, not in an unfriendly manner, as the crowd slowly dispersed and returned to their boring day.
Once again, Goat warned me to remember his lessons, but I shooed off his concerns. “You heard the story, Goat. The Crown Jewel isn’t Earth magic. It comes from the angels. This is my chance to go home!” I pointed at Chapter, eyeing the glowing sapphire around her neck. “All we need is her as our guide.”
One day later…
“Burn, burn, burn!”
The rhythmic chant echoed as it bounced off the trees. Sharp voices called out from every corner of the jungle, urging me on in my panicked escape.
It seemed as though I was always fleeing some horrendous fate.
I cut through the dampness of the earthy swamp, groaning in agony as I ran. I didn’t stop, and I didn’t look behind me, not at the angry mob with their pitchforks and their rage and their hatred, nor at the blood that trickled down my leg, leaving a bright red trail behind me.
A black cloak rested heavy on my shoulders, its heaviness slowing down my pace as the rowdy group of villagers lessened the distance between us. But I kept it on, grasping on tight to its strings so that it was secure around my neck.
Earth at night is a dark place, its shadows starkly contrasting my pale, white terror.
If they were to see, they’d follow.
If they followed, they’d catch me.
Vicious cries of “Freak!” and “Monster!” chased me further into the darkness, and their resentment wounded me. Emotional pain is a funny thing. The humans call it heartbreak—that’s what Chapter called it, at least. I had thought she was being facetious. A heart couldn’t possibly break, could it?
As it turned out, she meant it quite literally.
The reminder of Chapter struck me like lightning, jolting through my body, from my head to my heart, all the way down to my bloody feet. I stumbled, falling into the mud and tumbling down a hill, over meaty roots, plucky branches, and behind a thick tree trunk.
“Flaming hell.” I pressed my lips together to suppress a whine. Nothing but a whimper seeped through, a hitched cry in the silence of the jungle.
As the trees rustled with the wind, I breathed with the breeze, catching each gasp of air as it escaped my wheezing lungs. Squinting, I tried to make out my surroundings and figure out where I was so that I could focus on where to go next. But my stupid, human eyes betrayed the details of the jungle. I couldn’t see a damn thing.
Sweat trickled down my hair and icicled against my temples. I curled my fingers into the folds of my cloak and pulled it over my head. A small part of me would rather burst into flames than freeze to death. I couldn’t endure this sick game of cat and mouse for much longer.
A branch snapped. I crouched even lower, side-eyeing the gaps in the jungle. Red shadows illuminated the darkness as the approaching mob clawed their way through, chopping down branches and vines with their machetes and axes.
Something hot tickled my nostrils. The raw stench of burning wood crackled into the cool, night air. In the distance, sparks of ember floated to the sky. It was almost pretty in its horror, like lightning bugs yearning for the moonlight.
“Stop!” Eldrah cried, waiting as the others halted behind him. “It stopped running.” I held my breath. Light footsteps crept through the brush. “Where..are…you?” the village idiot sang, twirling a piece of black thread between his dirty fingers.
I looked down at my cloak. It had torn down the side. Along with my trail of blood, I certainly made their witchhunt easy.
“It went that way,” said one of the men.
“No, it went that way,” said another.
They fought over it in hushed whispers as Eldrah scanned the clearing for prints. “Shut up, you two,” he scolded, a hairy finger to his lips. “I can’t hear a damn thing over your bickering.”
The villagers did as instructed and shut their traps. I quietly watched them from behind the tree. The smallest of the mob, his big belly happy with ale, nudged the tallest one in the shoulder with his elbow. The tallest one nudged him back with a grimace that revealed rotten teeth, blacker than tar. All together, they carefully scanned the brush, and like glory seeking damnation, their eyes found me.
Eldrah flinched in terror at the sight of me, a fear I knew he’d never admit to the other men. “There it is!” he cried, raising his pitchfork.
I dug my heels in and sprinted off. I wasn’t even two steps away when I crashed into a hard body. The collision knocked the wind out of my chest as I fell back to the ground. The other body fell too. As soon as I sat up and saw her violet eyes with specks of blue, I knew I had to have pissed off the wrong god in a past life.
“Seraph,” I said.
“Demon,” she spat.
And the humans thought hell was torture.
