Magic Lies

Chapter One: A History Lesson

Marissa could not sit still. Excitement flooded her as the instructor in the front of the room confirmed her greatest hope, validated the stories that her grandmother had told her every night before bed: Magic was real. Because humans had lost the ability to see the other realms, there could be a dwarf sitting right beside her. An elf could be making faces at the instructor. She laughed at that.

"Marissa Marigold, are you paying attention?" Her short chuckle had drawn his attention. She was paying attention, she assured him.

"Well, then come to the board and write out the names of each creature that represents the realms we cannot see."

Confident, Marissa brought her pen to the board and began to write:

Humans, first realm
Dwarves, second realm
Elves, third realm
Fairies, fourth realm

Her memory faltered, thinking again about the image of a fairy teasing the instructor invisibly. An uncomfortable silence prompted her to continue. She was shorter than her classmates, so she had written to the bottom of the board. She started again in a neat line across from the Humans.

Ents, fifth realm
Chameleons, sixth realm

Again, her memory faltered, but searching its depths as hard as she could, she could not retreive the information she needed from her scattered brain. She put the pen down. "I don't remember the rest." Before he could reprimand her memory, she spoke quickly, "Wait! Dragons, dragons are on the ninth one."

"Okay, sit back down." As she did, he continued his lecture. "After all your schooling is over, you're probably all going to forget which creature belongs to which realm, thinking it doesn't matter now that there are no mages to tell us of their adventures with the creature realms. Those stories are our history, not our future.

But, one thing I hope you remember is that behind the curtain there are certain creatures that have personalities of their own, some of them aligned closely to their master, Cort Lywiss. And these creatures are perhaps responsible for what we call "bad balance," that overshadowing thing that we blame for someone who has more accidents, more failures, or more negative experiences in general than the average. Beware of these creatures."

Then, eight fully-armored men, members of the king's army, entered and stood in a line in front of the class.

"Which of these is the Head of the Guard?" The instructor asked.

It was difficult to tell which guardsman was which behind their full helmets and suits of armor. One by one, the students were called to inspect and guess where in the line the Head was hiding. Marissa wrote her answer before she stood for her turn. Her dad wasn't wearing any traditional badges that would make him stand apart, but she recognized his boots. They had a dent where he was hit by a falling tree, moving out of the way just in time not to be crushed completely. She was one of two students who was correct when the answer was given, when her father took off his helmet.

First, the instructor asked Gret, "Could you identify the Head, or were you just guessing?" Gret was one of her least favorite people. He lived in the village of Strand, just outside the kingdom, with his mother, the princess, Divona. He was the grandson of the king, and his pride made him rude and confrontational. Although she was the daughter of the head of the guard, she considered herself the opposite of Greg and tried to be kind.

"Marissa," the instructor called. "Could you identify the Head, or were you just guessing?"

"I recognized his shoes," she said, without explanation.

After class, she helped her mother cook dinner -- roast lamb and vegetables from the large kingdom garden. Her family seemed to have Good Balance, and their garden was always ripe with something in season, though Marissa intuited that wealth could be a cheap substitute for balance.

That night, she dreamed of the fairy that might greet her tomorrow as she went into Stanley's cave, and though to herself that magic wouldn't always just be the kingdom's history. She dreamed of a future with magic.

-- Kurtis Ray