Chương 79: What Does the Fox Say?

Lira spent the next couple of days performing her usual duties around the library. The moth infestation had become its own small project after Collin and a gardener named Ramal showed up. A few servants had been assigned to help, including Marco, the footman who had helped find her when she collapsed from overusing magic for the first time. Lira leaned on her familiarity with the man to coerce him and his colleagues into doing some of the heavy lifting for her.

She had them get rid of damaged paper, carry away some of the old furniture, and haul out sacks of dust and debris. All of that was under the excuse of eliminating the moths' hiding places, of course. Rather than join in the hard work, she decided to supervise from a safe distance whenever necessary while continuing her normal responsibilities. She found specific books for readers, answered questions from visitors, and directed noble children toward suitable reading material.

Lira had even managed to casually add The Monster's Bride to Prince Lyth's reading list. She didn't hand it to him personally. That would have been far too obvious. Instead, she had left it among several books she had supposedly been considering for herself. When the prince asked about it, she naturally claimed that the book was probably too mature for him. Those were the magic words because they guaranteed he would want to read it to prove that he was mature enough.

Lira pretended to reluctantly hand the book to him, and Prince Lyth spent the entire afternoon engrossed in the novel. When he finally finished, he sat silently for several minutes, staring at the cover, thoughtful... maybe troubled even. Lira considered that a victory. If the boy learned early that power could poison relationships even when wielded with good intentions, then perhaps he would grow into a better man than his older brother. Other than that, Lira did a lot of reading.

Well, it was mostly magically absorbing books, but whenever the library became quiet, she continued researching sound. She read an instruction manual on vocal training written for singers performing for large crowds. It talked about vibrations in the tongue, the throat, and the lungs as sources of sound. Another book discussed the crafting of musical instruments, particularly the tension required for different strings and how changing the thickness of a string would alter its pitch.

She read several books on bells and bell-making. Then she found herself reading a children's encyclopedia of exotic animals. The book contained colorful illustrations accompanied by descriptions of the strange noises each creature made. Every small piece of information helped with her understanding and visualization. Unfortunately, understanding something intellectually and reproducing it magically were very different challenges.

Since she was still sleeping in the maid dormitory, Lira couldn't spend entire nights experimenting with spells as she normally would. As a result, she only had a few precious hours between dawn and when Prince Lyth showed up to practice. Even so, progress was made. By the end of the week, she had gained reasonable control over the volume of her spell. She had also mastered how to alter the spacing of the waves to deepen or sharpen the pitch. And her proudest achievement so far was mimicking the sound of a bird.

Specifically, a repeating tweet-tweet chirp of a canary she had heard outside the library window. The imitation wasn't perfect, as the bird's song became more complex after the initial tweets. Still, the fact that she could create something recognizable at all felt like a major breakthrough. This meant she was ready to create a couple more cantrips before attempting to copy Prince Aric's spell. The rule of thumb she found in her studies was three cantrips before attempting to learn a tier-one spell, after all.

The idea was simple. The first cantrip she learned was a manipulation spell, which meant it relied on Pika. Mind. which required her to actively direct the wave movement herself. She had to visualize it, shape it, and control its pitch, volume, and duration. The process worked, but it demanded constant concentration. Had she possessed the same mastery over the concept of sound that she had over ink, that spell would have been the only thing she needed.

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement. But things being what they were, she needed to remove the mind component entirely. Lira had learned long ago that incantations became easier when their scope was narrowed. A spell that could do one thing exceptionally well was often simpler to imprint than a spell capable of doing everything. So instead of controlling sound directly, she could create a spell that merely reproduced a predetermined sound.

That line of thought led her toward runic magic. Kisar. Kalaba. Hishar. Symbol. Life. Wave. A spell to mimic the sound of living things. Rather than manipulating sound through thought, she would use a rune as a set of instructions. Since she didn't have a magical word for cat, bird, or even "living creature", the word for life would do.

"Pika. Selan. Tureth." She entered meditation and focused on the interaction between life and sound. All living things make sound, whether through voice or movement. The correlation between life and sound could not be ignored. The dog goes "woof," the cat goes "meow," the bird goes "tweet," and the mouse goes "squeak." What does the fox say? It didn't matter. What mattered was that life created sound, mostly through vibrations of the throat and tongue.

She meditated on the books she had read on the subject, on her experimentation recreating the canary's song, and on how a targeted spell could do the same. Kisar. Kalaba. Hishar. Click. Lira settled into her chair and began sketching. First, she drew a simple silhouette of a cat. Then she filled the outline with repeating Kalaba runes. Then she drew three arrows extending outward from the cat's mouth, each one formed from tiny Hishar symbols. The result looked nice.

A cat drawn from life runes would work as a good substitute for a rune of "cat" itself. She activated the spell.

"Kisar. Kalaba. Hishar." For several seconds, nothing happened. Then she heard:"Meow." A minute later, another:"Meow." Another minute passed.

"Meow." A grin spread across her face. It worked. The sound wasn't perfect. The magical cat sounded exactly the same on each repetition, but it was undeniably a cat. Naturally, she immediately began experimenting. The cat was followed by a dog, then a bird, then a caricature of a laughing man. That resulting last sound was unsettling enough that she immediately regretted creating it. Still, the spell worked every time. But the sameness of the repeating pattern was uncanny. The limitation was obvious.

Runic spells were persistent. A heat rune remained active until the rune was damaged. The sounds also repeated at fixed intervals, completely ignoring timing or circumstance. The cat rune continued meowing endlessly, the barking dog continued barking, and so did the laughing man. Lira eventually found herself surrounded by a small pile of noisy papers and was forced to deactivate them before they attracted attention.

"There was definitely room for improvement." If she wanted greater control over when the sounds occurred, she would need additional magical words. Perhaps something related to timing, activation, or triggers. That was a problem for another day. For now, she considered the spell a success. Her second cantrip followed the same principles with only a single change. Instead of life, she substituted metal. Kisar. Milaga. Hishar. Symbol. Metal. Wave. This spell was much easier to imprint.

Its similarity to the previous spell, as well as her experimentation with the bell, made it click after only a few seconds of meditation. For her first test, she drew a small round bell, similar to the cat, but this time with repeating Milaga runes. The design chimed softly. A minute later, it chimed again. She changed the bell design into something bigger and obviously heavier. The sound grew louder and deeper. Finally, she drew a bucket falling onto the stone ground.

The bucket was made of repeating Milaga runes, while the ground was made of Terren runes. The resulting crash was so loud that it nearly made her jump from her chair. The sound echoed through the alcove before fading away. Lira stared at the paper, and she smiled. Unlike the life spell, this one had immediate practical applications. A hidden rune could create distractions. A crashing bucket could lure guards away from a doorway. Nothing flashy, but useful.

More importantly, those spells improved her understanding of sound magic, paving the way for more complex spells.