Short Story: The Touch of the Eternal

• Magical amulet
• dangerous subterfuge
• A father's desperate try to save his family

The topaz in Renault’s gloved hand trembled as he set the teeth of the jeweler’s saw against the amber surface. He blew out a long breath, trying to quell his nerves and relax his hands. When the gem stilled, he scritched a hair-thin groove across it. From the neatly arranged tray on the side of his desk, he selected a copper disque no larger than a coin, carved with an intricate set of runes. He set the metal against the gem and pressed his thumb onto the rune. The cold of the copper seeped through his silk gloves with a hungry, gnawing feel.

He held his other hand near the flame of his candle and drew the adych out of it. The breath. The energy that flowed through living things and poured out of fires. The flame shrank, and the adych blazed a path through him as he fed it into the disque. The rune forged the power into a blade of light and sliced it into the gem. Keeping the movement controlled and precise, he drove the knife forward, deepening the fissure.

With a quiet snick, a shard of rough topaz split off, leaving a smooth facet. He held the stone toward the bright window across the room, and the topaz glowed like honey in the sun. It still needed polishing, but not a single flaw marred the interior, and he allowed himself a small satisfied smile.

“Not done yet,” he said, as though the quiet words could rein in his simmering excitement.

The final uncut side was still clouded and jagged. He marked the last cutting plane with the saw, then set the gem in a shallow dish, positioning the rough side up.

He skimmed the neatly penned steps in the open book beside him. Every stroke was etched in his memory. The shapes of his words, the flow of the magic, the selection of runes and disques required. And the small gaps between his words that left space for the other, hidden, magic.

He took a steadying breath as his eyes landed on his final step. The past year of painstaking research lay heavy in the room, ripe with expectation and apprehension.

A distant bell tolled a single peal, and he looked out the window. Four hours until the ceremony. That was more than enough time. Another smile crossed his lips. If the topaz did what it should, four hours was almost limitless time.
Envy swelled in him at the thought, but he tamped it down. The topaz would do infinitely more for him in the hands of the emperor than kept for himself.

He rose and crossed his study, stepping around crates and stacks of books and the curled-up fur of Misty, his sleeping cat, to reach the window. The curtains fluttered in the breeze rolling off the sea, bringing with it fresh air and the sounds of distant music and voices. In the streets beyond the ramparts of the sprawling palace, the fourth and final day of celebrations for the emperor’s twenty-fifth anniversary was underway.

Past the vast stretch of city and the rolling farmland, the hazy impressions of hills marched north, marking the western horizon until they faded out of sight. From that unseen corner of the realm, the elven woods called to him with voices from an equally distant, equally faded past.

He dragged his eyes back to the palace itself, where battlements kept the common people of the Kalesh Empire outside and in their place. Today, the black-clad Dragon Guard patrolled the wall as well, moving through the regular sentries like warships parting the busy waters of the bay.

The nobility celebrated in the palace courtyards, as confined by the iron hierarchy of the throne as the commoners who envied them.

A flutter of blood red caught Renault’s eye from a balcony along the white marble of the royal wing, and he shrank back out of the sunlight. He froze until the figure in crimson disappeared inside, clamping down on the lingering thoughts of the far north as though they could be plucked from his head. With a breath that was half laugh, half self-disgust at his paranoia, he pushed the window closed, and the study fell into stuffy stillness. Even Vrestous couldn’t read thoughts. Renault spun the copper ring on his finger and looked calculatingly at the far balcony. Perhaps it was better to be safe than sorry.

The quiet of the tower room wrapped around him as he returned to the desk centered in the clutter of shelves and books and scrolls. Glassware of all shapes and sizes clustered on every open surface, some full of liquids, some empty and waiting for tasks. Sitting, he rubbed his thumbs over his fingertips, trying to banish his tingling nerves before picking up the nearby vial of shimmering blue liquid. He worked out the cork with a pop and poised the vial over the topaz.

A muffled scuff behind him made him flinch, and a drop of fluid sloshed out uselessly onto his desk. He swore under his breath and set the vial down carefully before closing his eyes and pushing out a questioning wave. The candle next to him burst into a light he could see without his eyes. The vial burned even brighter. A round beetle lit up, crawling among the books on the far side of his desk. Misty glowed like hot coals. His wave filled the small room, leaving the books and papers and most of the vials dark, but occasionally causing a small enchanted gem or a bit of magical fluid to flash with brightness.

His wave weakened as it passed through the door, but in the hall, the thin hurried shape of a maid burst into bright light.
He waited until she’d scurried around the next corner before picking up the vial again.

“Well, Your Imperial Majesty,” he said under his breath, “let’s see if we can get you that extra time to think you always wanted.”

Slowly, he dribbled the liquid onto the uncut surface of the topaz.

Leaning closer to the gem, he whispered, “Kiriss.” The elven word rolled off his tongue with the citrus tang of pines and northern snow, connecting with something deep within him. Something long caged and stifled. The Kalesh cutting magic had sliced through the gem with an authoritative power. This elven word, though, wrapped around the liquid and the stone and drew them together. Coaxed them into becoming one object. Took the empty gaps that existed in the stone’s structure and infused them with the liquid.

Renault’s gloved fingers tightened on the gem as the blue disappeared and the heart of the topaz began to glimmer with an amber luminescence, swirling slowly and steadily like molten gold.

Barely daring to breathe, he set the stone down and peeled off one glove.

The sound of his pounding heart filled his ears as he brushed his finger ever so gently across one facet—

Everything disappeared.

He floated in velvety blackness. The sounds and sights and feel of the tower faded away in the face of the expanse. The thrill and fear of the day fluttered away like dandelion seeds on a breeze.

Boundless night sky stretched in every direction—until stars glittered into existence.

Not distant and flat and untouchable like the firmament at night. These stars surrounded him, moved past him. Enfolded him. Each one was both unimaginably far away and close enough to touch. A nearby star shrank and cooled, growing younger. Or maybe weaker. But somehow, at the same moment, it swelled and blazed brighter until it burst in a violent explosion of light.

Darting hair-thin trails like shattered rainbows shot in every direction, endlessly expanding and endlessly collapsing at the same time.

He was a speck among giants. A blink in a limitless eternity.
Each star and dash of light hummed like a bell, sending out notes that swelled and blended, rising and falling in a melody that imbued every speck of the cosmos with longing and delight and wonder.

And he rang with the song of it. Vibrated with the thrum of the light that spread from immeasurable pasts into immeasurable futures.

A fear inside Renault loosened, something so deep and foundational he’d never truly looked at it. The voice that continually wondered if his life, his very existence, was of any real value stilled in the embrace of the infinite.

This endless dance of light rippling through the black—he was part of it.

A pressure grew as it plied him away from the temporal and spooled the edges of him out into its vastness.

He pushed against the feeling, and the stars winked out. The stone-grey walls of his workshop enclosed him again.

Motes of dust hung motionless in the sunlight. The candle flame shifted so slowly he could barely see it move. Outside his window, a bird’s flight slowed to the pace of a snail.

He inhabited a ghostly version of himself, overlapping his physical body in his chair where it sat perfectly still.

He pulled his intangible hand up but could only lift it a hand’s breadth before it snapped back into place. He could rotate his head, though, and see everything around the room.

The vast peace of eternity lingered in his mind, calling him back, leaving him homesick for the place he’d barely glimpsed. He fought off the longing to return and dropped his eyes to the topaz. The light inside it was the only thing in the entire room that hadn’t slowed. He leaned closer and saw his physical finger moving almost imperceptibly along the side of the gem.

A thrill surged through him. It worked.

Possibilities poured into his mind, but he ignored them. There’d be time for that later, but only if today went well.

In the frozen room, his mind raced ahead with the day’s plans. The roughly made copper ring on his smallest finger glinted, and Renault’s insubstantial form smiled. The timing was perfect. The emperor was displeased with First Mage Vrestous. More displeased than he’d ever been. There would be no more opportune moment to unseat him. Yes, the Second Mage approaching the emperor without an invitation at his ceremony could go wrong—deadly wrong. But if Renault approached it the right way, he could pique the emperor’s curiosity long enough to fend off certain execution, and the emperor’s curiosity was all he needed.

His corporeal finger slid across the gem, and Renault forced himself to use this time to study it. Everything looked correct, and the final cut should be simple. A bit of polishing, and it would be perfect.

A nagging fear tickled his mind as he watched his finger slide until it only barely touched the stone. That was the danger. If someone picked the topaz up, would they ever be able to let go? He looked at the golden amulet tucked into the ornate white box. The amulet should solve that—

His finger slipped off the topaz.

Renault snapped back into his own body. The candle flickered into motion, the dust motes spun lazily in the sunlight, and the bird outside disappeared with a flash of feathers.

He sank back in his chair, letting a smile spread across his face.

A dribble of golden light trickled out of the uncut edge of the stone, and Renault pulled his glove back on. In moments, the final facet was cut, and a shard of topaz fell off, swirling with light. He brushed it aside and pulled out his polishing stone.

The sun sank lower, and the light moved closer, until the edge of it touched the books on his desk, by the time each facet was polished to a shine. He pulled the gold amulet closer, opening it like a locket. The topaz nestled snugly into the center, and he closed the amulet with a snap. An elegant net of gold caged the stone, keeping it untouchable except where a wire spiral spun in toward the central face of the topaz itself.

Renault pushed his finger gently against the spiral, and it gave slightly before pushing him back out.

“Perfect,” he said before setting his finger against the spiral again. A slightly stronger push should let his finger contact the stone for just an instant.

The click of a knob turning made him yank his finger back and spin to face the door.

• 50 pages