Gregorio looked around and found a tree he liked.
He went over to it and put his hand on it.
And like the tree was butter, he pushed out a hand-shaped piece.
Inside, he must have thought, "Oops," but he didn't vocalize it; instead, he gave a "hm" and pushed on it again, toppling it over with a great fall, leaving behind a stump.
He wiped his hand on the stump and sheared it clean like his hand was a saw - leaving behind a nice, smooth surface.
And then he finally sat down on it.
"Caleb," he said, and then gestured to the ground in front of him, "sit."
I sat on the dirt.
And then he began talking, as if reciting something to the wind.
"You should know who is teaching you. You should know where your blood comes from."
He began:
"I was born into the Hollowstar family when they were already soaring. A small household, no fancy titles, just a bit of land. But we were strong, and like my father and his grandfather before him, I was clever. Too clever, some said. That tends to irritate some, and I suppose I still irritate many. I joined the Acomet Academy at fifteen. You and your siblings are most likely going to join there too when you come of age. I graduated top of my class at twenty. Joined the Mage Corps. And when I was twenty-five - miraculously - I became the Royal Archmage."
He didn't sound very proud of that fact.
"Before you ask, yes, I was the youngest archmage in history. And yes, the record still holds. The current one - whatever his name is - must be around fifty by now."
He waved a hand dismissively.
"I quit after five years. The politics bored me. Too many idiots who liked to hear their own voices and not enough real work getting done. I tell you this so you understand: talent matters, but so does clarity. And I had clarity enough to walk away from power everyone else worshiped. In my late twenties, as you see me right now, I made the discovery that changed my life. Chaos magic, as I like to call it - though it doesn't have an official name as far as I know. You could call it dark magic, or entropy, or arcane magic. It doesn't really matter. It is pure, unshaped power. Dangerous, volatile, beautiful. I had spent years searching for something beyond the limits of the order of coherence magic - the one that everyone knows and uses - and its predictable little rules. And there it was. Some would've locked it away. Others would've written papers and chased fame. I… experimented. On myself."
That was something Grandpa and I had in common.
Then he crouched down so I could see his face clearly.
He pulled down his lower eyelid and looked up.
Inside, where the flesh of the eyeball should have been white, were black, swirling fragments - tiny lines of script, I assumed.
There were actually spells written 'on' him.
"Yes," Gregorio said calmly. "My runes. A result of chaos magic. Coherent magic can't be inscribed on the skin. Chaos can. On bone. On organs. It's not permanent, but really hard to get rid of once written, so you'll have to be careful."
He let go of his eyelid.
"I do not recommend this path to anyone. And after I ran out of institutions to aggravate and discoveries to publish - of which I wanted the public to know - I traveled. Not as a scholar. Not as an archmage. Just… as me. That is when I met my wife. Your grandmother. She was remarkable. Ordinary in talent, extraordinary in will. We wandered the continents for years together. She died ten years ago. That is how marriage tends to go, when one spouse has cheated death and the other has not. Your mother was… a fire, that girl. Rosa was born with three times the strength of anyone around her. She demanded I train her, and when I refused, she learned anyway. She inherited all my stubbornness." He exhaled. "It infuriated me. And it made me proud. And then she met your father. I have no quarrel with your father Alarick. He is a decent man. I simply cannot see what Rosa saw in him. But that is the nature of love; it rarely obeys logic. And now he has a… warrior woman beside him. Sera. Guard-captain, is she? Wonder how much time she can spend away from the king. Life rearranges itself whether we approve or not. So. That's it. You may be wondering where I'm going with this. I will tell you stories of my life and our traditions, all the while teaching you how to use chaos magic. Simple, right?"
I nodded.
"It would kill anyone without talent," Gregorio said casually. "You, however - I can literally see an aura around you. I'm not sure what it is. It is unlike anything I have seen before. I've observed you long before your fourth birthday and deliberated on teaching you. But I'd rather shape your talent before it is squandered by anyone else. At first just the basics, of course. You won't actually use the magic until you're grown and ready. Perhaps not even then."
I nodded again.
He paused. "No questions?"
"I don't know what to ask," I said.
"Fair enough. Now," he said, leveling his gaze, "let's talk about magic."
He traced a simple circle in the air and said, "Sol." It glowed faintly in a pure white light.
"This is what I call coherence, or coherent. You've heard me mention it before. The magic everyone uses. It listens to instructions - words. Follows rules. And your body and the world react."
The circle rotated slowly and dissolved.
"Textbook magic. Predictable. Safe."
Gregorio lifted a finger and flicked it toward the air.
A faint spark of something else was there. I could barely see it, but I knew it was there.
It wasn't a ball or a flame or anything like that.
He looked at me.
"I can see it in your eyes - you can see it. Tell me what you see."
I squinted. "It's something dark," I said.
Gregorio nodded approvingly. "Good. Most people wouldn't see anything. Adults and children. If you can notice it in this form… it's a great sign. You have strong Hollowstar blood in you. And if you can see it…"
Then he opened his hand fully. The power was so great I was almost blown away. My hair swayed in the wind, and leaves and dirt were strewn around.
When things settled, a raw shimmer of nothingness floated in his hand - no shape, no color, just nothing. The air trembled. It strangely reminded me of the dark goo in the trunks.
"You can withstand it."
He held his hand closer to my face and regulated its power so that it wouldn't throw me off my feet.
"This," he said, "is what I call chaos."
Gregorio closed his hand, and the energy vanished instantly.
"Do not misunderstand," he said. "Chaotic energy is not evil. Not corrupt. It is simply… unshaped. But even in the years I had to experiment, there was nothing I could do except take that power and apply it to the structure I already know."
He made another clean, white circle and pushed a tiny fragment of nothingness into it.
The circle blazed into a radiance that hummed through the clearing.
The ground warmed.
The air brightened to such a degree I think I got a sunburn.
He snapped his fingers.
"Combining the two, I call the prismatic point. I want to break out of it. Break out of the years of structure that had been forced on me. There is no way for me to change how I see the world. I've seen it with my eyes too long. That's why I need new eyes. Yours."
I tried to keep up with everything he told me.
"Don't worry too much," Gregorio said. "You're only four. You're not meant to fully understand. You're meant to absorb."
He knelt to my height - not playing gentle, but leveling with me.
"Caleb," he said, "most mages never learn that chaos exists, let alone the prism. Even fewer survive it. That is something no one else can teach you, especially not Orrin. …You know, your mother would have liked this. She always wanted to learn magic, but women cannot grasp the higher arcane. They're stronger than us, yes, but the deeper arts remain hidden from them. It's simply the way things are. I've wondered why for decades, and I doubt I'll ever find an answer. Still, Rosa had a hunger for understanding."
There was something unreadable in his eyes - grief, maybe.
"You have that same hunger. I see it in you. But yours… it's different. No less reckless or dangerous - but there, simmering."
Gregorio straightened, brushing a bit of dust from his sleeve. For a moment he said nothing.
"Oh, and there's one more thing," he finally said. "Everything I tell you, everything I show you… you will keep it secret. From your father, your siblings, and from everyone. You understand?"
I nodded one last time.