Fragments of your Soul (The Mirror Worlds Book 1) by E. S. Erbsland Read Free Book Online Page A

really looked like a small music box. It was made of wood, but covered with a shiny black paint. In a circular depression at the top a ring of metal was embedded. Inside it there was another, slightly smaller ring. Both were densely covered with runes.
    “And how can you tell the time?” asked Arvid, after she had looked at the small cylinder from all sides.
    “The outer circle bears the runes for the spell; they’re not important for you,” said Thoke, pointing to the larger of the two rings. “The spell binds the inner ring to the rotation of the Earth, thus it also rotates once per day. This happens very slowly; maybe you won’t be able to see it right away.”
    Arvid stared at the small ring but was unable to detect any movement in the dark.
    “Are those numbers?” she asked with narrowed eyes.
    “Yes. The inner circle is inscribed with the hours. The day is divided into one hundred hours, but only one in five is recognizable. The mark,” he pointed to a long straight notch on one side of the cylinder, “indicates which hour it is.”
    Arvid wanted to touch the inner ring, then hesitated when she saw that the merchant was watching her closely.
    “Does it break, if I touch this?” she quietly asked Thoke, but he only smiled.
    “No,” he replied. “The inner ring floats. You could even take it out. It would automatically take its correct position again. But don’t, otherwise the merchant might expect us to buy it.”
    He took the clock and carefully put it back into the display. The dealer was now in a conversation with the woman next to them and no longer paid them any attention. Arvid looked at the other things sold. There was something like compasses and thermometers, spherical star lamps in different colors and sizes and a variety of other objects whose function Arvid could not recognize at first. However, she finally stopped in front of the watches again and took one, which was slightly larger and simpler. It was, as well as the two rings, entirely made of wood. It was increasingly difficult for Arvid to hide her astonishment. She had assumed that the rings in the watches had to be magnetic in some way. But how was that possible, if some were made of wood?
    At this moment Thoke gently pushed her on, because a whole group of new visitors approached the booth, and it got uncomfortably cramped.
    “I admit, that’s pretty amazing,” Arvid said after they had walked a few steps. “Can you do something like that?”
    Thoke laughed. “No, unfortunately not. Like I said, you have to have the gift.”
    “What exactly does that mean?”
    “People are born with different magical talents,” said Thoke while passing between the stalls. “Most of them, anyway. Some are born with the gift of being able to use the free energies of the earth, the stars, our environment. You can be trained in using runes to cast runic spells on objects. But the training is not easy.”
    “And there are other gifts?”
    “Yes,” replied Thoke. “There are quite a few, strictly speaking, but only four are common. The one that I’ve just explained is the most common. Then there are white mages, black mages and shapeshifters. White and black mages occur about equally often. Their skills are similar, too. Shapeshifters are rare. Approximately one in ten people is born a shapeshifter.”
    “And what exactly… are these gifts?” asked Arvid. “I mean, what can people do with them?”
    “I’m getting to that,” Thoke said.
    At a small shack he stopped and bought some candles, then they went on through the noisy crowd that moved tightly between the stands. Again and again Arvid was shoved, and she had to make every effort not to lose Thoke. A short time later they found themselves in a quieter corner of the market, where several fires were burning in flat fire bowls. A loud, regular knocking could be heard.
    “I know the blacksmith over there,” Thoke said, pointing in one direction. Between people Arvid could see a