ELEVEN

At first glance, the cover looked almost the same as it had last time. Almost. A creature hid in the bushes, its strangely shaped head hardly more than an outline. Thomas looked closer, wondering how he had missed it before. The creature looked back, one eye peering through the bushes.

Thomas shook his head. Pictures don’t look at people. Of course not.

He looked away from the eye. Were there other differences, too? A shift in the position of the tree? A rotation in the angle of a vine? He stared, his eyes picking up dozens of tiny, almost invisible differences—but differences shouldn’t be possible. Even invisible ink didn’t change position. Nothing did. Except magic. Thomas quieted the whisper and rotated the book, trying to figure out the trick.

It would have been easy to keep staring, but his mom’s timing was a wildcard. She could be home any minute or not for two hours. Thomas flipped forward with a grunt, skipping past the map and star chart to his place at the start of the third chapter.

He read the entire chapter in detail, then started again, skimming past Isham’s prolonged withdrawal from village life and obsessive struggle to make the crystals work. All that stuff was a warmup.

And behold! the dark stranger appeareth in a dream, speaking softly of that which must be done; and in the dream light blazeth forth, shewing unto Isham the pattern whereby the power of the curious stones might be awakened.

Isham then riseth, his mind alight with strange fire, and gathereth unto himself the crystals. Hour upon hour his hands shape the pattern he hath seen, a pattern visible to his inner eye alone. At last the red crystal waketh, the symbols thereof burning with furious light, and a second pattern shineth suddenly forth. This, too, Isham traceth.

Then behold! the crystals lock together, red upon black, black upon clear, unmoving and unmovable. A sudden light burneth within the dark crystal, faint at first, growing ever greater in strength and power. The light increaseth, moment upon moment, then shineth forth with the brilliance of seven thousand suns.

The storyteller crieth out and shieldeth his eyes. The light burneth a moment longer, and though the crystals then return to their natural luster, sight returneth not to the eyes of Isham. Yea, scorched to the core are the eyes of the storyteller, never again to glimpse the light and color of this world.

And though his outer sight hath ceased to be, Isham rejoiceth with great joy, and laughter spilleth forth from his tent, for more hast changed than that which can be seen without. Yea, the greater work hath happened within, and the light thereof continueth to increase in measure.

Isham unlocked the power of the crystals but lost his sight. Why would anyone rejoice about blindness? What could possibly be worth that price?

Thomas flipped the book shut. He shook his head and put the book away, his mind spinning with questions and possibilities. Power versus eyesight? No way it could be worth it.

Could it?