Chapter 90: How You Say It
The grimoire’s cover was burned badly enough to be unrecognizable, but the pages were barely singed at the edges, so the whole thing was readable. Simon breathed a sigh of relief at that, and using the minor word of light, he briefly inspected a few passages to see if anything had changed, but it looked the same as he remembered it.
Once he was satisfied with that, he investigated the golem’s runes. And found them to be largely readable but not completely comprehensible. The thing seemed to be powered by a large compound word that he didn’t truly understand and couldn’t quite bring himself to pronounce. It was very similar in that respect to the unidentified rune that powered the icy sword on his hip.
They weren’t the same, though. Simon spent several minutes comparing the two to make sure that was the case. Both of them were several times larger than any of the other runes on either object and resembled a knot that was like a long compound word, but it was hard to say for sure. He just…
Simon shook his head to clear it. Then he looked through the smaller runes for any words he didn’t already know. There was Zyvon, which was what transferred the power from whatever the large rune was to the spell itself, and there were connecting runes that didn’t have a direct literary meaning. This one he couldn’t say, but he knew it regulated the strength of the mana going through it. It was a mess. He would have thought that something this complicated would use much different pieces than he was used to, but instead, it seemed to use the same parts in a much more complex way.
The part that he found most interesting was the Hyakk rune, though. It was central to the whole thing, but in his experience, it had always meant healing. Here, though, in the context it was being used, the rune meant life more literally.
“Just how much are these things open to interpretation?” he asked himself in annoyance. “A circuit board or a line of code doesn’t need to be read in context, but if these things are more like a haiku, then I’m fucked.”
Every time he felt like he was starting to understand the magic system of this place more, he came across some new wrinkle that had put him back on his heels. Now, at least one rune in his collection could be used in multiple ways but were there more lessons to be learned here?
Apparently so, he decided. After going through the larger chunks of rocks he’d shattered off of the golem’s rune circuit on the floor, he found an entirely new rune he didn’t have in his collection. Vosden, huh? An earth rune? That’s interesting.
He traced it several times in the dust to be sure he was getting it right from the three chunks of limestone, and it was only then that he whispered, “Aufvarum Vosden,” as he touched his drawing of the rune. It instantly carved itself into the floor like it had been done by a craftsman with finger paints. It wasn’t the cleanest, and he could have probably done a better job with a chisel, but it was interesting, that was for sure.