Ah yes… here we are again.
This chapter is a bit short but I need to press things forward a little.
Jade Dixon has in an earlier review asked about how I construct the magic
system. Remember that in Another life Janus counted up a series of words every
time somebody used a spell? Well, those words were translations of the
chanting, from old Zealan to English. Here are some of my notes for the spells
to help you understand them:
Na = (the) power (of).
Cure = Na matala sela, Water = matala, Healing = sela, but sela can also mean
purpose or intention.
Magic Wall = kell twandor. Kell = halting, twandor = protection.
Dark Matter = na sela uloro worch netal vonodra kchar. Na = power as I said
earlier, sela = here: intention, uluro = substance, worch = evil, vonodra kchar
= Shadow/Dark Matter.
Dark Mist = worch crahela krun shar retetack. Worch = evil (duh! ;) ), crahela
= cloud, krun = break, shar = corrode, retetack = tear apart.
Ice = keich
Lightning = shetader
Fire = farey (It can mean both fire and flame).
Light = liryla. Stronger Light = lateya.
Shadow = vonodra (can also mean darkness/dark).
I could of course have used Latin for the spells, as I have seen many do. Or
Swedish. But I don't know any Latin and Swedish have a few extra letters that
some browsers wouldn't be able to handle.
"Ugh…"
"You awake?"
"Ay… Ayla?"
"Ayla find you by mountain, all hurt. Carry you here, safe now."
We fought way too many monsters before we came here…
"Agh… Janus!?"
"Yummy frog… for Ayla eat?"
"P-perish the thought, lass! Where be the blue-haired one?"
"Ayla only find you. Blue-haired one more tasty?"
"Sorry Ayla, you can't eat Frog. He's a friend."
"No matter, got more frogs. You rest now."
And with that the chief of the Ioka tribe left her hut.
"Where art we?" Frog confusedly asked, tiredly rubbing the area between his eyes.
"We're at the start of human history," Marle mumbled, curling up on the furs she was lying on.
"Pardon?"
It's a long story… Crono muttered, exhaustedly watching the roof through half open eyes, let's take it later…
"Very well…"
Frog sighed and closed his eyes.
"But where be Janus…?" he bitterly muttered.
"I'm sure he's alive," Marle said, despite her fatigue trying to comfort her worried friend, "if we survived that trip then so did he."
"I dost pray for fate to be so kind upon him."
"Ngh…"
"Are you back with us now?" a faintly familiar voice said.
Eyelids weigh a ton each…
"Define back…" Janus grunted and groaned as he tried to move, getting a reminder of his injuries.
"You better keep still for a while longer, it'll take me a moment to heal those wounds. What have you been into?"
"Where…?"
Janus fought to force his eyes open, but it was literally impossible.
"Stay put for a while," the voice kindly demanded again.
It was so familiar… sounded like a man past his middle age.
'Nice to see you awake,' a more placeable voice said within the wizard's head.
'What happened?' Janus thought, even slurring a bit when thinking.
'We got thrown through time, Lavos woke up because of our and Flea's Shadow spells and caused a huge Gate,' the Pawn explained.
'Woke up in Guardia?!'
Janus almost sat straight up in shock.
'Don't worry, he went back to sleep,' the Prince said, calming the younger man.
"Does it hurt?" the familiar voice concernedly asked, misunderstanding Janus' sigh of relief.
"Not that much anymore, thanks," the wizard mumbled.
"Good to hear."
'When are we?' Janus wondered.
For a moment the two spirits were silent. Then the Prince sighed.
'It's the fourth day of the Sun's month, on the ninth year of queen Zeal's glorious reign,' he said, dryly and bitterly at the same time.
'What?!'
Janus' eyes exploded open and he blinked up at a middle-aged man dressed in a blue long jacket over a darkly green shirt. A yellow, smooth piece of cloth was hung over one of his shoulders and also caught by the belt around his waist. He also wore a peculiar hat that matched his jacket and a pair of sunglasses. For the moment he wasn't looking at the man lying in the bed, talking to a short creature with yellow skin and a drop-formed head, dressed in a simple tunic.
"Go get me the book with blue cover, Doreen, it was a while ago that I used healing magic."
"At once," the creature said and leaped over to a bookcase in a distant corner.
'We couldn't leave you out in the field in your state,' the Pawn pointed out, 'so we went and made someone we could trust and who was close enough find you.'
"Melchior?" Janus hoarsely said.
The guru of Life looked down and smiled a bit.
"Don't worry about it, I'll have you healed soon enough. Thank you Doreen."
"Anytime," the singing female voice said.
Melchior sat down in a chair beside the wizard's place of rest, starting to turn the pages of the book.
"Here we are…"
'I don't think this'll be pleasant…' the Prince warily said, causing Janus to fight not to cringe as he realized what his older possibility meant.
Melchior put his finger on a line on the page displayed before him.
"Great Lavos, lend me thy divine power…"
'Oh, no…'
"Nebal na matala tor sela," Melchior chanted.
Well, it worked like the healing magic the royal wizard used, just very clumsily. Instead of stroking the pain away the stars more squeezed it out along with the man's breath.
"Sorry, I'm not as used to this as I once was," the guru said and closed the book with an apologizing smile, "and bringing you to the spring of recovery would only earn us a ruckus."
Janus had to rub his forehead for a moment before he could reply.
"I see. Thanks."
'Did he say "cleave the power of water to heal" in the spell?' he bitterly thought.
'So he did,' the Pawn grunted, 'for once I give one point to my own education and Flea.'
'We still owe Flea one point for even doing what we asked of him and dissolve the tentacles,' the Prince muttered.
'I suppose he was either all too tired, confused, dizzy with our loaned strength or just believed Janus wouldn't survive that Gate. Or all of it,' the formerly enslaved one said.
'Probably.'
"So, who are you then, and how in the queen's name did you get such wounds?" Melchior concernedly asked.
"I'm…"
Janus realized that Melchior's gaze rested upon the strong fingers that had somehow crawled into the wizard's fringe. Or perhaps it was the hair that called for attention. Innovative hair color wasn't exactly unusual in the kingdom of Zeal, but this heaven-blue was the trademark of only one certain family.
'Just great…' Janus thought.
'He'll know in less than a week anyway,' the Prince pointed out, 'because then he'll be on his way to the future.'
'I second that,' the other warlock gravely nodded.
'Oh well, you're my teachers…' Janus muttered, only halfway ironic.
'Why this sudden respect?' the oldest one said with a little amusement.
'I think I finally hit my head somewhere along the way.'
'About time.'
Janus' fingers caught a longer strand of hair and then he raised his hand to hold it up for the guru's thoughtful gaze.
"I'm prince Janus, Melchior," he calmly said.
"I was starting to wonder about the hair color, but I do need a better explanation if I'm going to believe you," the guru replied, likewise calm.
"It's a very long story, and you won't like much of it."
"Very well, tell me," the guru said and leaned back in his chair.
"I think that first of all we seriously should discuss Lavos."