Chapter 10: Gala
Back in Blaise’s study, Gala examined the Life Capture Sphere. It looked like a large round diamond, and the rest of the room was reflected in it, as though in a mirror. Gala was mesmerized by the elegant mathematics that warped the image of the laboratory, with its arcane bottles and instruments. There was only a single flaw in the spherical shape—an opening with a couple of clear beads inside it.
“Those are the Life Capture droplets,” Blaise explained, walking up to it. ”They are the physical shape Life Captures take when entering this world.”
Taking one of the beads, he put it in her hand. When their hands touched lightly, Gala felt a pleasantly warm sensation in her body—the same strange feeling she experienced every time she was near Blaise. She would have to touch him more when an opportune moment arose, Gala decided, liking the way her body seemed to react to him.
“These appear when the cycle of recording is compete,” he said. “To start the cycle, I touched the Sphere with the blood from my finger, and to stop it, I did it again. See that needle there? That’s what I used to prick my finger. Droplets show up shortly after.”
Gala pricked her finger. The sensation she felt now was most unpleasant. It was pain, she realized. The red substance—blood—started slowly oozing out of the small opening in her finger. She knew that pain was something humans avoided, and she could now understand why.
Reaching out with her bloody finger, she touched the Sphere, waiting for something to happen. When nothing did, she touched it again, wondering what she was doing wrong.
“It’s not working for you, is it?” Blaise asked, watching her efforts. “That’s not surprising.”
“Because I am not human?”
He nodded. “Yes. With time, I suspect you’ll be able to create your own droplets or do anything else you wished without the use of the Sphere.”
Gala examined herself and saw no evidence to support what he said. If she could create these Life Capture droplets, she did not know how. In the meantime, her pricked finger had already healed.
“Why did Ganir tie pain to this?” she asked.
“I think he wanted a small cost to be associated with this part. Also, it must help functionally with the spell. I suspect something small enters the body through the wound, going to the brain and capturing something important there. When you touch the Sphere again, it leaves your body. Ganir is very secretive about this process, but that’s how my brother explained it to me. He was hypothesizing, of course, since only Ganir understands his invention fully.”
Gala focused on her body, wanting to try again. She pricked her other finger. The pain was much less unpleasant this time, since she knew what to expect. When she touched the Sphere, now that she knew what to look for, she actually felt something extremely small entering her flesh through her blood. She could also feel how her body immediately attacked the tiny invaders, preventing them from going further in her bloodstream. And her finger healed again, as quickly as before.
“Why don’t you try just taking one of the droplets?” Blaise said. “Put it under your tongue and see what happens.”
Gala did as he said, and felt like she was being invaded again. It was as though something wanted to take over her brain. This time, she tried to get her body to allow this invasion, but it still didn’t work. Sighing, she looked at Blaise and shook her head. “I didn’t succeed, but I would like to try again,” she said apologetically. “I’m sorry if I’m wasting your precious droplets—”
“It’s quite all right. These ones I made myself in order to document the completion of my spell. It doesn’t matter if you use them up—I can still recall that time quite clearly and write it all up in my journal, if necessary.” He smiled at her reassuringly.
Gala smiled back at him. Knowing that these were Blaise’s Life Captures—that they would allow her to view the world through his eyes—was a very powerful incentive. Closing her eyes, she willed her body not to fight the invasion and focused on letting the substance of the droplets travel through her veins. Suddenly, something within her yielded, and she felt the stuff go up to her head and then into her brain. To her annoyance, however, what worked for the human mind didn’t seem to work for hers. She felt some hint of foreign emotions, but no visions of any kind.
Frustrated, she opened her eyes. “It failed again, but I think I am close,” she told Blaise. “Do you have any less valuable Life Captures?”
“Sure. They’re in storage,” he said, walking out of his study. Gala followed him, and they went into one of the rooms she remembered seeing on her earlier tour of Blaise’s house. Every wall of that room seemed to be covered with wooden furniture—furniture that seemed to consist of dozens of little doors. Cabinets, Gala realized. These were cabinets—miniature closets used for storage purposes.
Bending down, Blaise opened one of the cabinet doors and took out a jar with a few droplets in it. “These are Life Captures of my less important work,” he explained, handing her one of the clear beads. “You should feel free to use up as many of these as you want. I document anything particularly important in writing.” He waved toward another set of doors, indicating where he kept his written legacy.
Taking one droplet from his hand, Gala put it under her tongue. With all her being, she willed the ability to see what was contained in the Life Capture. She thought of her time back in the Spell Realm and how she was able to get visions. Then she tapped into the part of her mind that was able to do this before. After what felt like hours of concentration, she felt something finally giving and a vision coming on . . .
* * *
Blaise was sitting in his study writing code. At times like these, he didn’t mind his self-imposed solitude. Preparing spells required concentration, and distractions could result in significant setbacks. Thankfully, Maya and Esther knew better than to approach his study while he was working. They would simply come, drop off the Life Captures he needed, and quietly leave if he was busy.
He enjoyed coding because it was so exact, so precise. The sorcery code did what you asked it to do. As long as you wrote out the logic of the spell properly, then it was a simple dynamic of ‘if variable A is set to such and such value, action B happens.’ There was something reassuring about it. A certainty in an uncertain world. His mind liked the predictability of it all. He frequently re-used certain patterns, and they produced the same outcome each time.
The spell he was working on now was different, much more challenging than usual. It was based on the work of Lenard the Great himself, and Blaise didn’t fully understand all of its components—and thus couldn’t predict the results. All he knew was that it was his gateway to the Spell Realm—and that it should enable him to send his Life Captures there, shaping the intelligent object he was creating.
Stopping for a second, Blaise wrote down a few things in his journal.
* * *
Gala suddenly became aware that she was Gala and not Blaise. Just a moment ago, she had been him. She had been thinking about sending Life Captures into the Spell Realm to feed the object—the object that was herself. The strangeness of that—of having thoughts about herself prior to her existence—had been jarring. Opening her eyes, Gala looked at Blaise.
“You’re out of it already?” He seemed surprised.
“I stopped it,” she explained. “I didn’t like it. I was not myself. It was the way it had been in the Spell Realm, before I became aware of myself. I felt lost in your mind, and I didn’t like that feeling—although I liked your mind quite a bit.”
Blaise grinned at her, looking pleased. “Thank you. But just so you know, I’ve never heard of anybody being able to exit a Life Capture before it ends. I guess there’s no point in being surprised with you.”
“I am different,” Gala agreed.
“Life Captures tend to be all-consuming,” Blaise said. “That’s what most people like about them. Some are even addicted to the experience. When your own life is lacking, being someone else provides a powerful escape. I, like you, don’t enjoy the feeling of losing myself, but I embrace the chance to learn more about people by seeing life from their perspective.”
“Yes, I could see that. I must admit, I got a chance to learn that you have a beautiful mind,” she told him honestly. “So different, yet similar to my own.” It had been enlightening to witness his thought processes, and Gala felt like she understood her creator better now.
He gave her a warm smile, his blue eyes crinkling at the corners. “Thank you.”
She felt a sudden urge to touch his smiling lips, but she fought the impulse, having gleaned from books that uninvited touches were not socially acceptable. “I would like to see another Life Capture,” she said instead. “From someone who is not you.” As strange as the experience had been, Blaise was right: it gave her a chance to learn.
Blaise gave her an approving look. “I have some left over from the batch that was meant for your learning while you were in the Spell Realm.” Taking out a droplet from a different cabinet, he handed it to Gala.
She put it under her tongue and tried to get her body to use it, like it did the last time. Only this time she focused on not letting it consume her completely, as it did before.
* * *
She was a village girl, working in a garden near a large field of grass. The day was sunny, and the field was beautiful, with wildflowers that were just beginning to bloom. All of this grass would be gone soon, making way for wheat and other grains.
Looking down, she flexed her arms, noticing the play of muscle underneath her smooth skin. She was strong for a girl, her body toned from laboring on the farm her entire life. She enjoyed that part of her life, the endless cycle of planting and harvesting. Now that the spring was here, her family would soon be hard at work—
* * *
Gala stopped the vision. It was difficult to stay detached. For a brief moment, she had been that girl, and the experience was as disorienting as before.
“This person seems familiar,” she told Blaise. “I think I’ve been inside her mind before, in the Spell Realm.”
He smiled at her, no longer startled by her quick exit. “Yes, I’m not surprised you recognize her. I’ve gotten most of my droplets from Maya and Esther, my friends in the village. They have many talents, including natural healing and midwifery. And in exchange for their services, they’ve been requesting Life Captures from women that they help. A payment of sorts, which they’ve been passing on to me . . .” His voice trailed off, and there was now a thoughtful look on his face.
“What is it?” Gala asked, intrigued.
“It just occurred to me why you might have taken that shape,” he said, studying her as though seeing her for the first time.
“What shape?” Gala gave him a questioning look.
“That of a girl.”
“You don’t like it?” she asked, feeling inexplicably disappointed.
“Oh, no,” he reassured her. “I do. Believe me, I like it a little too much.” His eyes darkened, color appearing high on his cheekbones, and Gala smiled, delighted that he liked her appearance. Looks were important to people; she knew that also from her readings.
He cleared his throat, still looking a little uncomfortable. “What I meant to say earlier is I think you look like a girl because so many of the Life Captures I sent to you were from the village women—the majority of them, in fact.”
Gala nodded. That made sense to her. Her subconscious mind had likely chosen the female form based on the visions she experienced through the Life Captures. And since most of the Life Captures were from women, it was only logical that her mind had decided to take that shape.
“So would you like to see one more Life Capture?” Blaise asked. “I smuggled this one from the Tower of Sorcery.”
“Yes, I would love to,” Gala told him.
* * *
The young sorceress was sitting in one of the study rooms in the Tower of Sorcery. For the first time ever, she was writing the sorcery code for her own spell. It was a tremendous milestone in her education, and she wanted to make Master Kelvin proud of her achievements.
This spell was of the more difficult verbal variety, since all students had to learn the old-fashioned way before they could get access to the simpler magical language and the Interpreter Stone. To reduce the possibility of errors, she went over the logic of the spell and verified that everything seemed correct. Of course, she knew that the only way to be certain was to say the spell out loud.
Gathering her courage, she spoke the sentences that she’d prepared, following them up with the arcane words of the Interpreter Spell. Then she watched as a small floating fire sphere appeared in front of her, just as she had coded. She laughed with excitement and exhilaration, feeling like she had just conquered the world.
All of a sudden, there was a flash of bright light in the room and the sphere exploded, shards of glass and burning wood raining everywhere.
The explosion knocked the young woman off her feet, but she managed to remain conscious. The room, however, was nearly destroyed.
Her spell had failed.
* * *
Gala stopped the Life Capture and decided not to do any more for the time being. It was just too unsettling for her. This last girl’s mind had been filled with such deep negative emotions of disappointment and fear that Gala was still feeling some residual effects of that.
“You’re out of it again?” Blaise asked as soon as Gala’s eyes opened.
“I don’t think I want to learn about the world this way,” she told him. “I want to experience everything myself, not through someone else’s eyes.”
“Gala . . .” Blaise sounded unhappy again, his brow furrowing in a frown. “That’s not a good idea. I already explained. If we go out there, everybody is going to be curious about you. The only thing you’ll get to experience is their stares. They’ll want to know where you come from and who you are—”
“Because of you,” Gala said, recalling what he’d told her earlier. “Because you’re an outcast.”
“Yes, exactly.”
“All right,” Gala said, coming to a decision. “Then I’ll go by myself. I don’t want everybody to watch me just because I’m with you. I want to blend in, to live as your regular people.” That last part was important to her. She was different, but she didn’t want to feel different.
“You want to pretend to be one of the peasants?” Blaise gave her an incredulous look.
“Yes,” Gala said firmly. “That’s what I want.”
“That’s not a good idea—” Blaise started again, but Gala held up her hand, interrupting him mid-sentence.
“Am I your prisoner?” she asked quietly, feeling herself starting to get upset again.
“Of course not!”
“Am I your property, a magical object that is yours?”
Blaise shook his head, looking frustrated. “No, Gala, of course you’re not. You’re a thinking being—”
“Yes, I am.” Gala was glad he accepted that fact. “And I know what I want, Blaise. I want to go out there and see the world, to live as a normal person.”
He sighed and ran his hand through his dark hair. “Gala . . .”
She just stared at him, not saying anything. She had made her wishes clear. She was not an object or a pet to be kept in his house—not when there was so much to see and experience here in the Physical Realm.
“All right,” he finally said. “Remember Maya and Esther, the friends I mentioned to you before? They live in the village where I grew up. Esther was my nanny, and I think of her and her friend Maya as my aunts, even though we’re not related by blood. I want them to watch over you, if you don’t mind, to help guide you until you’re more familiar with our world.”
“That sounds like a great idea,” Gala said, all negative emotions vanishing in an instant. “I would love to meet both of them.” In general, she wanted to meet more people, and she liked the idea of getting to know those who were important to Blaise.
“One thing, though,” Blaise said, staring at her intently, “you can’t tell anybody about your origins. It could get both of us in trouble.”
Gala nodded. “I understand.” She would do as Blaise asked, especially since she wanted others to see her as a regular human being, not some curiosity of nature.
Her creator looked somewhat reassured. “Good. Then I will take you to the village.”
“Is that a village that’s part of your holdings?” Gala asked, remembering from her readings that most of the land surrounding Turingrad was divided into territories—and that each territory belonged to some sorcerer.
“Yes.” Blaise looked uncomfortable with this topic. “It’s part of my territory.”
“And the people living there belong to you, right?”
Blaise frowned. “Only by the strictest letter of the law. It’s an archaic custom that’s an unfortunate leftover from the feudal times. The Sorcery Revolution was supposed to eradicate it, but it failed in that, as it did in so many other things. Despite the Enlightenment, we still live in the Age of Darkness in some ways. This aspect of our society is something that I would very much like to change.”
Gala nodded again. She’d gathered that much from the fact that he was so focused on helping the common people. “I understand,” she said. “So when can I go there, to your village?”
“How about tomorrow?” Blaise suggested, still looking less than pleased with the idea.
“Tomorrow would be great.” Gala gave him a big smile. And then, unable to contain her excitement, she did something she’d only read about.
She came up to him, wrapped her arms around his neck, and pulled his head down to her for a kiss.