Blackwater Canyon, Chapter One
A Curious Notebook
Image: Açık Saray (Open Palace), Turkey About
Disclaimer: Blackwater Canyon is posted in first draft form. There are likely to be irregularities in the narrative and details that go missing as the story develops. If things do not make sense, please feel free to call them out and I will integrate feedback into the second draft.
James
The carved stone statue of Saint Wystan, the patron Saint of Battle, had always left an acidic impression on James. Centered between two open doorways, the robed Saints wings extended their full length equally above each door at a height that all who entered his Temple must bow. His right hand rested flat upon the pommel of a long sword, half sunk into a desiccated clay plinth that cracked from the sword’s point of entry to the Temple floor.
The Temple of Stone, constructed of clay, sand, and desiccated plant fibers, was the only structure in the village not adorned with spirited accessories. Uneven piles of coins littered the Saints sandaled feet, spilling over onto the swept vestibule. Offerings of appeasement to Saint Wystan always increased this time of year, for the spring was no place for states of conflict.
The yearly Spring Festival, which brought in a caravan of merchants from the far north and far east, was one of the few things everyone in the village looked forward to. It was a time when the desert did not look like itself, when the silt was cleared away and replaced by a littering of dried cacti confetti and vibrant fabrics, strung between dull brown clay structures, rustled in the southerly winds.
The Spring Festival transformed the village into an altar of its own.
“I love the spring,” Mina said, twirling before the Temple of Stone in a colorful, hand-woven tunic. Copper chain jewelry chimed in her gentle sway, her frizzed hair plumed at her shoulders, and her radiant smile…
“Green suits you,” James wrapped his arm around his betrothed and they walked towards the village center, guided to the festivities by the steady beat of drums. “I am hoping the dried squid stall is here this year.”
Not only was the dried seafood merchant present, he came with various small fry preserved in oil.
“Can I interest you in a sardine sample?” The merchant offered, holding out the slimy severed midsection of a small fish on a toothpick.
Mina grimaced, but James took a taste.
“It pairs nicely with crackers and pickled vegetables,” the merchant motioned to the ensemble of preserved packaged goods at the end of the table.
“Oh, he is good,” Mina leaned in and whispered.
“I will take two jars and a sleeve of crackers,” James said as he handed the man his used toothpick.
“Three pounds of dried squid, two jars of sardine preserved in oil. I’ll throw in the sleeve of crackers as a thank you.” The merchant packaged everything neatly into the basket Mina brought along. “Twenty-two coppers.”
James exchanged the coins.
“Mina!” A voice screeched from behind. A grouping of her friends huddled around her. “There is a stall here from Solvana with the latest perfumes and dresses! Come with us.”
Mina peeked up at him. “But I am here with—”
“Go along, we can catch up later,” James said, taking the basket. “I have plenty squid to keep me occupied.”
Mina planted a kiss on his cheek and skipped off, giggling with her friends. James munched on his chewy squid as he walked between stalls of crystals, potions, soaps, and herbs. He reminded himself to loop back and grab Mina a bouquet of pluming red flowers.
At the furthest end of the stalls, tucked in a lonely corner, a messy gray-haired man stood between crates and stacks of books. Unlike most stalls, he did not have a name plate, nor any visitors.
James waited until the merchant retreated to the cabin of his wagon before approaching the stall. Books littered the ground beneath the table, some decorated with pristine gold inlays, others heavily weathered, lettering rendered illegible. He glanced over a few titles, Village on the Red Sea, Spirits of the Wind, Dictionary of Sacred Symbols…
“Into esoterica, are you, young man?”
James startled at the sudden reappearance of the merchant. “We do not get many texts on such ramblings this far south.”
“Reserved only for practicing mages, they say.” The merchant took a seat on a stool at the table. “Cruel to keep such texts from the common folk. There may be a talented mage in this village, who may never reach their full potential unless introduced to such ramblings.”
“Where did you study?” James mentioned to a spiraling D-shape insignia pinned on the merchan’t lapel.
“Darrington Magus Academy, but that was many, many moons ago.”
James set down the basket to review a stack of texts, picking through several titles at a time. “Are some of these your old text books?”
“Some, sure, but most of them have been dispersed through time,” the merchant said with a hint of nostalgia.
James stopped rummaging. Near the bottom of the stack was a thin, inconspicuous, hide bound pocket notebook. He set the other books aside.
“A curious item, that,” the merchant pointed. “The pages appear to be cemented shut.” The merchant gestured for him to hand it over. He unraveled the hide binding, but the cover would not separate from the pages. “It won’t budge, and believe me, I have cast many unbinding spells upon it. There must be something to knock the wards off that I have forgotten with age.”
The man handed the small bound note book back to him. Tanned hide with no markings, only a thin, useless wrap to keep the otherwise loose pages from unfirling.
“Difficult wards and locks are typically indicative of danger,” James said.
“Or secrets.” The merchant looked at him sternly.
James began to set the book back in the stack. “Such an item must fetch a high price.”
“Five coppers.”
James blinked several times over. “Five coppers?” He had just paid four times as much for dried fish.
“I’ve had it for some time now,” he said with a shrug. “Should you take it off my hands, five coppers.”
James cautiously looked over the notebook. “And if I take the Dictionary of Symbols, too?”
“Eh, I’ll throw it in there as a roadmap.” The merchant handed the text to him. “It will come in handy for more than just that stubborn thing.”
James retrieved the five coppers from his pouch in exchange for the texts. No sooner than he let a ‘thank you’ roll off his tongue, had the merchant rolled his wrist in the air, sending all of the books into respective crates.
“I should warn you though,” the merchant said with books zipping around him. “That notebook was acquired from a man who stole it from a robed mage in Solvana. I am glad to have it off my hands.”
“Now hold on a moment,” James stepped forward, but the now empty table flipped on its side and began to fold itself into a small cube.
“No refunds, no returns,” he pointed to a sign on his wagon.
“You mean this was stolen from a robed mage? You can’t mean the Ministry, that makes this—”
The merchant rushed up to him, pressing his hand over James’ mouth. “Shush! If you know what’s good for you, you’ll pawn it off or trade it with another fiend. Be gone.”
James protested, but the man loaded onto his wagon, kicked at his horse, and left the village in a whirlwind of dust. James was just barely able to save his basket of dried fish from the sudden upheaval.
/ / /
“What was that all about?” Mina appeared beside him with a hand on her hip.
James quickly concealed the thin notebook in his pocket. “I told the old man his prices were outrageous and he packed up and stormed off.”
Mina pulled at his hand, which held the dictionary. “What’s this then?”
James watched as the plume of dust shifted in the wind past the village wall. “Must have forgotten I was holding on to it.”
Mina shrugged. “It is the spring caravan, what do you expect? The city folk always overprice their goods. At least now you’ve got a Ministry issued book you can read in your spare time.”
James looked down at the dictionary. Indeed, a Mercovian Ministry of Magic and Sainthood issued text, the Ministry’s symbol, the magic hexagram, stamped on the spine.
Stolen as well? James wondered. Was the merchant even a registered mage?
Mina took his arm. James sniffed the air, delicate and floral, he followed the scent to her neck. “What is this?”
“Just a bit of perfume. Passionflower and white wood, it is all the rave in the capital city,” Mina said, fluffing her hair.
“A silver hair clip too? It looks great,” James kissed the top of her head.
“Thank you, I thought it would pair well with my dress for our special day,” Mina said with a blush. “Um, the girls said there is a play about to start in the amphitheater, The Blessings of Saint Wystan, a theatrical performance on Governor Ostuary’s upbringing. Do you–?”
James watched the upturned dust cloud as the wagon of curiosities made its way further out into the distance. As the grains of sand collided with each other in the air, sparks of light made out a dancing mirage on the plane, an image of a canyon. James squinted, watching as the imagery shifted to a winding ravine.
Mina waved her hand in front of his face. “James? Did you hear me?”
“Oh, yeah, sure.” James looked down at his hands. He was able to summon the same sparks to his finger tips from the dry desert air. Never had he witnessed vibrant sparks of static arise from dust in such a way. Was it just his imagination? The presence of the curious journal burned into his thigh.
Mina pulled him along by the wrist.
“Actually, I am going to head home for the evening.” James held his hand over his stomach. “I ate some squid and it’s not sitting well with me. I will run your basket to you tomorrow.”
Mina looked over at him with disappointment. “I always tell you not to get overzealous on your snacking, you have paid the price once again. I will let your friends know you went home.” She placed a short kiss on his cheek and walked off with a half-hearted wave. “See you tomorrow.”
James did not go home. Rather, he retreated to a quiet corner of the village, to an abandoned shack along the edge of the stone wards.
He sat upon the sandy floor and laid the thin notebook in front of him. He stared at it for a long while, then unbound the hide wrapping. He took a knife to the pages, trying to pry the cover to no avail. He thought of how the saltating grains emanated light behind the merchant’s wagon and summoned crackling static to his fingertips, directing it into the notebook, but yielded no change.
The suspicious merchant suggested that the pages were ‘cemented together’. Were the wards on the notebook similar to that of the stone barrier around the village? A ‘stone’ could be broken with force… no, intuitively it felt more than that. The journal was almost colder to the touch than the shaded sand.
The depictions in the dust clouds must have been an omen, he saw no explanation for the appearance of such images, of which Mina did not seem to catch. Was it that he was projecting his own curiosity of Blackwater Canyon into the dust—no, those images had been there. Could it be, rather, that only he could see them because his natural affinity was to summon static from the air?
James retrieved the roadmap dictionary and flipped through the alphabetized symbols. He started with sand; a symbol of quests, multitude, flows and adopts to that which contains it, burns as fire. There was nothing present on static, however he found lightning. A spark of life, terrifying and swift. Enlightenment and destruction, a two-fold sense of purification, as water and fire.
Fire…
James retrieved a discarded cloth swept into the corner of the shack. He summoned a stream of purple static to the tip of his finger, lit the cloth, and held the notebook up to the edge of the flame. Liquid wax dripped from the pages, slow and steady.
James sat the warm journal back upon the ground and flipped open the cover with ease. The notebook expanded ten times its size. He shuffled across the floor, parting silt in his wake.
He rubbed his eyes. That merchant hadn’t laced the squid with… no, no. James quickly shut the Tome, watching from an arms length as it shrunk back to the concealable hide bound notebook.
The merchant said he had cast numerous unbinding spells upon it, James thought. A trained mage, bearing the emblem of an academy... the solution could not be something as simple as fire…
James cautiously opened the notebook again. Again, the small pocket book unfurled into a proper Tome. He flipped to the first page.
The Tome of Paradise: Visions of Saint Akyl.
Like what you read? Blackwater Canyon Table of Contents
Very vivid opening description of the Temple and the Saint.
I like the use of "mentioned to" with an object of attention. It's an interesting narrative tool.
saltating! -- never seen that word before. It's a good one.
The Tome merchant's exit was FAST. What has James gotten himself into??
The magic system is intriguing. Thank you for showing it being used instead of explaining it. Much more interesting this way.
If I were fighting James, I'd bring several boxes of Bounce...
Hmm -- I don't think using fire on a book is as obvious as James thinks it is. Its pretty counter-intuitive, so he may be the only one whose thought of it.
Tome of Paradise? Okay I'm hooked.
Liked and subbed!