Stone of Tears

“You were being reckless. Using magic is dangerous, not only to others, but to the one who calls it forth as well.”

Richard winced as she drew the edge across one of the bites, first one way, then the other, cutting an X on it. The sting made his eyes water.

“How can it be dangerous to me?”

She concentrated as she leaned over his leg, whispering an incantation while stroking the knife across his swollen flesh. He tried not to jump when she cut the next bite. She was only making light cuts, but they stung fiercely.

“It is like starting a fire in the center of a tinder dry wood. You find yourself in the center of the fire, in the center of what you have started. What you did was foolish and dangerous.”

“Sister Verna, I was trying to stay alive.”

She jabbed a finger at one of the painful bites. “And look what happened! If I don’t heal you, you’ll die.” She finished with his legs and turned her attention to his arm. “When we were being attacked by those beasts, you thought to save us, but everything you did only increased the danger.”

When she finished, she held the knife blade over the fire. A thin stream of white flame roared up from the steel, consuming the remaining paste. She held the blade to the fire until the paste, and the white flame, were gone.

“If I hadn’t acted, Sister, we would be dead.”

She shook the hot blade at him. “I did not say you were wrong to act! I said you acted in the wrong way! You used the wrong kind of magic!”

“I used the only thing I had! The sword!”

She pitched the knife. With a thunk, it stuck solidly in a piece of firewood. “Acting without knowing the consequences of the magic you call forth is perilous behavior!”

“Well, nothing you were doing was helping!”

Sister Verna rocked back on her heels, stared at him for a moment, and then turned to busy herself with replacing the bottles in the green bag.

“I’m sorry, Sister. I didn’t really mean that. It didn’t come out the way I intended. I only meant that you weren’t able to sense the way, and I knew if we stayed, we would be killed.”

The bottles clinked together as she moved them around in the bag. She seemed to be having difficulty getting them packed the way she wanted. “Richard, you think that controlling the gift, using magic, is what you are to learn with us… That is the easy part. Knowing what kind of magic to use, how much to use, when to use it, and the consequences of using it, that is the hard part. That is the meaning of everything. How, how much, when, and what if—just like the magic I have put on your bites.”

She fixed him with a deadly serious expression. “Without that knowledge, you are a blind man swinging an axe in a crowd of children. You have no idea of the danger you invoke when you use magic. We try to give you sight, and some sense, before you swing that axe.”

Richard picked at a clump of grass at his feet. “I never thought about it that way.”

“Perhaps, if anything, I should be angry with myself for being foolish. I didn’t think there was anything powerful enough to tempt me into a trap. I was wrong. Thank you, Richard, for saving me.”

He wrapped a long stalk of grass around his finger. “I was so relieved to find you… I thought you were dead. I’m glad you’re not.”

She had pulled all the little bottles out of the bag and set them on the ground. “I could have been lost in that spell for all time. I should have been.”

“What do you mean?”

There seemed to him to be more bottles than would fit into the bag, but then, he had seen them all come out. “We have tried to rescue Sisters before. We have seen some, and their charges, lost in those enchantment spells. I saw one, the first time I went through. We have never been able to get them out. Sisters have died trying.” She started replacing the bottles. “You used magic.”

“I used the sword. The sword has magic, you know.”

“No. You didn’t use the sword’s magic. You used your Han, even though you didn’t realize it. Using your Han through desire, without wisdom, is the most dangerous thing you can do.”

“Sister, I think it was just the sword’s magic.”

“When you called to me, I heard you. We have tried to call to others, and they have never heard us. Not once.”

“You just didn’t know how. You couldn’t hear me either, until I stepped through some sort of sparkling wall around you. Then you could hear me. You just have to step through that wall first.”

She pushed bottles to each side to make more room as she spoke softly. “We know that, Richard. We have tried every sort of magic, and have never been able to pass through or break the wall of one of these spells, or been able to get the attention of one captured by it. No one has ever been brought out of an enchantment spell before.” She replaced the last bottle and finally turned to face him. “Thank you, Richard.”

He shrugged as he pulled the grass off his finger. “Well, it was the least I could do to make up for what I did.”

“For what you did?”