Katrina looked up at the bewildered look on her father’s face. She took his hand. “We take them one at a time. In order.”
He looked down at her, and his brow relaxed. “Yes. One at a time.”
They looked down at the parchment. Spherical robin’s eggs. The rumor upon the 1000 soldiers’ return was that they had found such an egg in the deep forest. “Deep,” to the residents of the Glass-Walled Empire, did not mean far inside a large forest. It was used literally. It was somewhere underground, in a cavern that must be well enough hidden that its magic was still the stuff of legend.
“I have more than a couple of useful spells up my sleeve,” the daughter encouraged.
The two walked up to the wall near the hole where the tree had been lifted out. “Would you mind hurrying? I’m getting tired of keeping this tree afloat.”
The baker stomped one of his feet on the floor, and a ladder appeared. The baker climbed out followed by his daughter.
With a sigh of relief, Katrina put down the tree then collapsed onto the ground herself. After she managed to regenerate her power, she cast a spell of seeking. Eventually, she found traces of strange magic coming from deep below the ground. “I’ve found it,” she said.
The baker looked at the ground. “Now how do we get there?”
“I’m going to try to call to the magic there. It speaks in a voice I’ve never heard, but I think that I can communicate with it.” She closed her eyes and remained silent for a while. “Hold on to my hand, father.” And so the baker did. Katrina’s eyes shot open, and they seemed to be glowing. “The magic of the jungle has opened its doors to us.” Then, with some sort of invisible pencil, a gate of bronze drew itself in the air and opened itself to reveal infinite light. A second later, the baker and his daughter were inside not a deep forest but a deep jungle with hanging vines and what the baker could have sworn was a toucan hopping past a bank of orchids.
After a moment of disorientation, he realized where he was, and a grin spread over his face. He grabbed his daughter’s shoulders, looked into her eyes, and laughed. “You did it, Katrina! You’ve worked magic that no one has ever used before!”
“Okay. Now we have to find robin’s eggs,” said Katrina, getting straight to business. They looked around. The stone ceiling of the cavern stretched in every direction, lit by small specks of gold sprinkled among the leaves and roots of the vast dirt floor. To their left was a ruined temple surrounded by a thick weave of trees.
“Temples often represent some form of magic or power,” Katrina thought aloud. “Maybe whatever this one was may help us.” Katrina cast a powerful divination spell, and the temple seemed to complete itself. Whatever wasn’t there was filled in in a transparent construct. Katrina walked inside. At first glance, it seemed that they had stumbled upon some ancient library. They saw a writer writing on pages of a glowing notepad.
“Holy paper?” asked the baker. “That’s what the most sacred books are written on!”
“This isn’t a library!” Katrina exclaimed. “This is a temple of knowledge.” She stopped the spell. She walked over to one of the ruined bookshelves and cast a spell of reparation. The bookshelf completed itself.
A deep voice echoed through the cavern. “Thank you for helping me restore my temple. Of all the knowledge I have gained, I have never known how to repair the fallen structures of the past.”
“The Keeper of Knowledge,” Katrina whispered.
“Yes, I am. And I have a spell that you might find both useful and entertaining. Let me grant some of my vast knowledge to you.” A book slid from the shelf and flew into Katrina’s hands, open before it landed. The spell on the page made any animal repeat an action that the caster had seen it perform.
“I understand,” said Katrina. Now we just need to see a robin laying an egg.”
“Go west,” the voice said.
The baker pulled a compass from his leather satchel and started to head west. Katrina followed. After walking a while in silence, Katrina ventured in a small voice, “Father? Am I old enough that I can know your name?”
The baker stopped and said without turning around, “Katrina, you know that to say my name is a curse by any magic. Do not ask again, and do not try to discover it.” He turned and reached out to touch her cheek. “Promise me.”
His daughter nodded, and they continued along the root-knotted path.
Finally they came to a clutch of trees dotted with robins’ nests. A few tiny heads peeked out and sang a song that was answered by more robins further into the thicket. Some flew around them for a closer look, their coral breasts flashed in the golden light. The compass took them to a tree full of robins just finishing their nests. “That one’s about to lay an egg.” The baker pointed and smiled. Katrina knew that her father loved bird watching when he wasn’t busy in the shop.
As soon as the robin laid an egg, Katrina cast the first part of the spell with stored the action. She then cast the second part of the spell which repeated it. The robin laid another egg. Katrina chanted the final word of the spell then began again. The robin kept laying eggs. When the nest was near to overflowing, the robin laid a spherical egg. It rolled off the pile. The baker caught it. “We only got one, but I don’t think that we should keep doing this anymore. The robin has to be exhausted.”
The book that taught Katrina the spell lifted itself up. It’s pages started to turn. The baker read, “It says here that it will be as though the animal performed the action only once. It’s like using your replay event spell over and over again, except this time each action has a lasting effect.” They looked at the robin who was standing on top of the great hill of eggs, chirping happily.
Katrina uttered a few words, and every egg except the spherical one hatched. The robin fluttered up in surprise. Each chick but one flew clumsily to a nest in the tree as Katrina whispered. The new parents all around the tree snuggled their chicks. Katrina stopped whispering. The robin who had laid the eggs spread her wing over the chick that remained.
Katrina took the egg from her father. Unlike the robin, she felt weak with fatigue. She had never performed so much magic in a day, and so much difficult magic, but there was one thing left to do. Most things mass produced in the Glass-Walled Empire, plus coins, had an enchantment to prevent duplication spells, but since Katrina and the baker grew their own ingredients they never ran out. One last simple, familiar spell was all that she needed to do. She lifted the egg and between panting breaths cast a duplication spell. The egg glowed in her trembling palm. The baker ran to her side, putting one hand beneath hers and wrapping his other arm around her waist as she collapsed. He gently lowered her to the ground.
When they looked down into Katrina’s cupped palm, there were four perfectly spherical, speckled blue eggs.
Story kaBOOM! 