The Demon’s Cantos
Part 18
Byron, Korbius, Tilda, and Faustus all stared down at a single small stone on the white sand.
The smoldering remains of the scorched forest painted a smoky backdrop behind them all. After channeling the Unmaker’s own flame the day before, Byron had barely been able to walk and everyone’s nerves had been totally shot. Byron slept nearly seventeen hours, straight through to the next morning.
For the second day of training, Tilda decided to tone things down a bit.
“We’ll start with something I know well,” she had said, but Byron heard the unspoken truth underneath her words, “something I can control.”
After a heaping breakfast – Byron was starved – during which Faustus blessedly ate on the porch, the four of them made their way onto the beach, Byron with the Cantos, Tilda holding the small rock in her hand.
She tossed it haphazardly onto the sand and now all four of them stood there staring at it.
Tilda nodded dutifully, “OK, today we’re going to work with Gravity. Open the Cantos and find the page for Gravity Manipulation.”
Byron eyed the Cantos a little nervously – after yesterday’s outburst, he felt a new respect for the tome and the power it enabled. Respect and a healthy dose of fear. With a deep breath, Byron obliged her, flipping through Manipulations until he got to Gravity. He scanned the page and noted that only the letters of the channeling words glowed vibrantly, while the “description” and “advanced technique” sections seemed to be a more normal black ink, albeit beautifully handwritten. Byron struggled through the description section, running his finger below each word so he could focus on it individually.
Gravity, the attraction of objects with mass to one another. At its simplest, Manipulating Gravity allows the Cantor to increase or decrease Gravity’s force, either broadly or upon a specific object. Direction can also be changed, so that up becomes down or down becomes up, for one object or many. Further . . .
Tilda cleared her throat. Byron looked up and blushed, embarrassed.
“Sorry,” he said, looking down abashedly at the page, “it takes me a long time to read,” then he added, “Dyslexia,” as though it were a dirty word.
Tilda gave him a warm, understanding look. “I see,” she considered for a moment and came to a realization, “actually, that makes perfect sense.”
“What does?”
“You have Dyslexia,” Tilda said and pointed at the Cantos, “and the Cantos manifested itself a book.” She raised her hand as if she’d unveiled something obvious.
Byron was not catching on. “So I guess the Almighty has a messed up sense of humor?”
Tilda chuckled, “The purpose of the Cantos is to unlock your potential Byron. It appears to each Cantor differently, but it always takes the form of a weakness, never a strength.”
Byron gave the book a disgruntled look. “Why would the Cantos purposefully make it harder for me to learn?”
Tilda shrugged, “The things most worth learning are hard, Byron,” she said. Then she gestured toward the destroyed forest, “and maybe some things shouldn’t be rushed.”
Byron considered the desolation he’d created in the blink of an eye and shuddered.
“But don’t feel bad,” Tilda continued, “I had a tough time with reading myself – reading and math – not my strong points. I never got beyond simple arithmetic, but reading I really worked hard on.”
Byron suddenly felt terribly insensitive, sitting there complaining about Dyslexia to Tilda of all people as though she couldn’t possibly understand. “Did it get easier?” he asked.
Tilda smiled, “it did – I’m still not the fastest reader, but I can make it through most things at a steady pace. Well worth the effort,” she paused and then smiled to herself and added, “’A thing of beauty is a joy forever.’”
Byron gave her a small look of confusion but Tilda just pointed at the Cantos firmly, changing the subject. “Read the channeling words and keep your mind blank.”
Byron swallowed a lump in his throat and nodded, looking down at the page. He read each channeling word carefully, sounding them out with his finger beneath each one in turn.
“Gra-vih-tas. May-ihp-sum. Im-pee-ree-uhm.”
Byron began to glow with white energy. He peered at his right hand and remembered how Tilda had glowed when she used her abilities. He turned to Korbius. “Are my eyes glowing?”
Korbius in a bundle on the sand and nodded his central mass gently.
Yes, Master Byron. It is most disconcerting.
Tilda broke in, “Good, now, here’s your task,” she pointed at the rock, “don’t let me pick up that rock.”
Byron’s bright white eyes flicked down toward the rock and then back at Tilda, “How do I do that?”
“I can think of several options, but why don’t we start with making it heavier.”
“Alright, I can do that,” Byron said uncertainly, “I think.”
Byron rubbed the fingers of his right hand together anxiously, reached out and touched the stone. As he touched he tried to will it to be heavier. He literally thought the words at the rock: be heavier.
The rock did not appear to change and Tilda bent down and picked it up easily, even tossing it lightly in the air as the light faded from Byron’s eyes. “Nope, try again.”
She tossed the rock back down on the sand and Byron read the words. The glow returned and again Byron leaned forward and touched the stone, this time insisting, quite strongly he thought, that it become heavier. Get Heavier, Byron thought and then even mumbled the word out-loud, “heavier.”
Once again there was no glow and Tilda picked up the rock with no difficulty. She tossed it down and gave Byron an appraising look. “Again,” she said, “and don’t try to convince the rock. The rock has no say in the matter.”
Byron considered that for a second and read the words again. This time, he didn’t try to command the rock, instead, he held the rock in his mind’s eye and imagined it was twice its actual size. He held that image and touched the rock.
It glowed very faintly.
Tilda bent down and wrapped her hand around the rock. She could still pick it up quite easily – it was a small rock – but after gently weighing it in her hand she nodded in approval. “Good,” she said, “definitely heavier. What did you do differently?”
“I imagined the rock was bigger,” he said, his eyes fading back to normal, “twice as big.”
“That’s a good starting point,” she said, “visualization can be a crutch, but its a great place to begin. With enough practice, you won’t need it,” she pointed down at the Cantos, “or the words for that matter.” She tossed the rock down onto the sand, draining it of its glow first. “Anyway, I still picked it up. Try again.”
Byron licked his lips, tasting the salt from the ocean there, and was suddenly eager. He read the words, faster this time, and the glow returned. He eyed the small stone intensely, considering his options. After a moment he settled on one image in particular, held it firm in his mind and touched the stone.
The small rock began to glow with a bright white light and, at the same moment, exploded downward into the sand, kicking up a plume at tall as a palm tree, shaking the ground and causing all four of them to leap backward in surprise. Korbius gurgled in astonishment and Faustus clicked his mandibles excitedly. When the dust settled there was no stone in sight.
The face of calm, Tilda leaned forward and looked at the spot where the stone had been. “Hm,” she said and began to dig with her hands.
It took almost ten minutes to find it. Faustus and Byron joined in but it was Korbius who dug the bulk of the hole. In the end, they dug almost six feet down, until the pit looked like the site of a small archaeological excavation. Finally, the small rock was revealed, glowing brightly even in the midday sun.
Tilda turned to look at Byron and raised her eyebrows expectantly. Then she got her fingers around the edges of the stone and tried to lift it. She struggled for a couple of seconds before giving up.
Tilda gave Byron a suspicious look and turned toward Korbius. “Korbius, can you lift that for me?”
Korbius’s giant eye recoiled at the mere suggestion. He fed derisive laughter into both Tilda and Byron’s minds at once.
Can Korbius lift a small stone?! Tiny human, Korbius can lift ten thousand such stones. This small stone is as insignificant to Korbius as a mote of dust upon the tide of the Nethersea!
Tilda smirked, “great, so it shouldn’t be a problem.”
Korbius stood up proudly on all eight of his tentacles, rising to the implicit challenge.
A problem! It shall be less than an afterthought. Less than the speck of a consideration. Behold!
Everyone watched as Korbius reached down into the pit, wrapped the end of one tentacle around the stone tightly and tried to lift.
Nothing happened.
Korbius’s single eye widened in amazement. But, unwilling to even begin contemplating defeat, Korbius loosed a loud gurgling roar and reached down with two more tentacles, wrapping them all around each other and hefting with all his might. As he struggled to lift the tiny stone, the sheer effort of his pulling slowly dragged his five stationary tentacles down into the sand. The harder Korbius pulled, the further down he was dragged until finally, only his eyeball protruded above ground level.
Looking totally absurd, Korbius’s skin changed color to a vibrant pinkish red. When Korbius spoke, he was clearly abashed.
This . . . is no normal stone.
Byron looked from the bested octopus down to the tiny stone. Just looking at it Byron could feel the change he’d wrought there, still influencing the stone. Intrigued, Byron jumped down into the pit they’d dug and leaned down to touch the stone again, visualizing the stone as it was naturally. The white glow faded and Byron lifted the stone easily, holding it up for everyone to see.
Korbius closed his eye resignedly and allowed himself to remain buried.
Tilda laughed out loud and looked down at Byron with a broad smile from the edge of the pit. “What did you do that time?”
Byron held the rock in the palm of his hand. “I imagined the Statue of Liberty,’ he said and flicked the rock into the air, catching it easily.
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