My training began that night. I pushed away the doubts and the haunting image of that shadow around the Pigeon King. I resigned myself to the fact that, whatever the Pigeon King was, whatever his intentions were, he was the only creature that could help me gain the power I needed to take on the Syndicate.

  The Pigeon King had flown back to Grandad’s flat. I was now sitting cross-legged on the floor, the Codex in my lap, and all my journals opened in a circle around me. The Pigeon King seemed hesitant to come anywhere near the Codex. It was his idea to arrange my books in a circle, and I noticed that he wouldn't cross the threshold of that circle but paced around the outside of it, looking at my notes and pecking at pages, while tutting and rolling his eyes.

  Every now and again, he instructed me simply to read the book, and when I protested and told him that I didn't know how, he just told me to look at it. I had been doing so for at least half an hour now, just staring at the pages, flicking backwards and forwards, recognizing the odd Rune and snatch of text from my translations, but unable to piece together any real meaning.

  "This is a waste of time," I snapped at the Pigeon King for perhaps the third or fourth time that night. "I can't read it. I don't speak the language. I need it translated."

  The Pigeon King tutted and sighed.

  "You see, your problem, mortal, is that you're applying an entirely human solution to something far beyond the comprehension of humans. Why don't you go off for 20 years and design a computer system that can do the thinking for you and then come back and have it translate these words? And you know what you'll find? The words are entirely meaningless to you still.”

  "At least I would know what it says," I muttered sullenly. "Can't you just tell me?”

  The Pigeon King snorted.

  "Mageling knowledge given is worth nothing. Only knowledge that's sought and fought for can be understood and kept. Anything I tell you about the Craft would be as meaningless as your translations are. The reason you can't read that book is because you don't know what you're looking for.”

  "Well, obviously," I snapped. "I don't speak ancient Swedish or whatever this is.”

  "Norse," the Pigeon King said. "And besides, the language it's written in is incidental; it's inconsequential. You think the Craft can be contained by the tongues of man, the guttural utterances of your wet flapping organ? The Craft is ancient, powerful enough to destroy worlds, do you think that little bit of flesh between your teeth gives it meaning?” The Pigeon King huffed, flapped his wings, and landed on my desk, staring down at me as he was wont to do. "As I said, there is no way I can take such a talent-less lump as you and give you power. But I suppose your goals are rather mundane. It's not as if you're trying to slay some ancient entity or shackle the conscious. What are you trying to do, beat up some other mortals? We should be able to put together something that could help you with that.”

  I stayed quiet and looked back down at the book, not reading but not wanting to argue with the Pigeon King either, lest he flap his wings and leave, and then I was really well and truly stuffed.

  "Let's work from what you do know," the Pigeon King said after a haughty silence. "You are familiar with some Runes, yes?”

  "Yeah some," I replied.

  "Runecraft is elementary at best, but it's a good starting point.” The Pigeon King said thoughtfully as he stalked around my desk. "I especially like that little trick you did with the ward. How did you create those Runes and apply them so swiftly?"

  "Well, I figured out the word in the book for sound and then kind of worked from there" I said to him. "I figured out that I could use a similar base with a few alterations in the code.”

  "The what?" the Pigeon King stopped me.

  "The code, the matrix—that's what I call it," I said to him. "I mean the chain of Runes.”

  "I see," the Pigeon King said. "So in your mind, the Runes are like a language.”

  "Exactly," I said to him. "Like we human beings call it coding when you use a computer language. But yeah, I guess it works kind of the same as any language. You know, you take different letters and you make words, and then from words, you make sentences.”

  "I see," the Pigeon King muttered. "And so you take these individual Runes and apply them together to create an effect.”

  "Yeah, pretty much," I said to him.

  "Fascinating," the Pigeon King said. "More than fascinating, it's like watching a monkey drive a car. How wonderful your primitive understanding of the Craft is.” The Pigeon King said, actually looking genuinely interested for the first time that evening. "How did you apply the rune so quickly, then?”

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  "I printed labels," I said to him.

  "Excuse me?" the Pigeon King replied, cocking his head.

  "I used that label printing machine," I said pointing at the ancient label machine on my desk.

  The Pigeon King looked at the little innocuous white printing machine about the size of a small book. He flapped over to it and then gave it a few pecks.

  "How did they get in there?" he asked.

  "I uploaded them to my lazertop," I said to him. “And then from there, it prints the labels.”

  The Pigeon King just cocked his head quizzically at me.

  "Look, I'll show you." I booted up my lazertop computer and opened the file containing the warding runes, then printed them.

  The Pigeon King watched me keenly and then squawked in surprise as the ancient label machine rattled to life and churned out a label. He flapped all the way to my bed and watched me suspiciously. I tore the label off and then held it up for him to see.

  "That is the ward?" he asked me.

  "Yeah, basically," I said to him. "Look, it's sticky." I peeled the back from the label and then slapped it against the wall where it stuck fast.

  The Pigeon King squawked again, this time seemingly in mirth. He flapped his wings and flew over to the label, looking at it curiously.

  "So, what did you say, you print these?"

  "That's right," I said to him.

  "So you print these and then you simply apply them. Fascinating. I've never seen Runecraft so limited but somehow ingenious. Well done, human." And for the first time, I felt like the Pigeon King had actually given me a genuine compliment. "I mean, these runes are a bizarre mixture. I'm fairly certain two or three of these do nothing whatsoever, but I see what you were trying to create. You've used the expulsion Rune and crossbred it with a sound frequency Rune of some description, and then, I'm assuming, you infused intention in this process."

  "I did what?" I said.

  "You..." the Pigeon King stopped and thought for a moment, settling down on my desk again. "The Craft is all about intention," he said. "Spells, wards, potions, Runes, they're all absolutely meaningless without intention. You must have absolute focus, like when we made the potion, and I told you to picture the results."

  "Oh, right, yeah I do that," I said excitedly. "I think and I imagine, and I picture exactly what I want to happen when I'm carving Runes or like printing them. And even when I was using them on the wall, I was imagining what would happen as soon as I stuck it to the wall.”

  "Good, good," the Pigeon King said. "You've figured out that much at least. That little mageling is what we call intention. It's the reason why creatures of good can very rarely ever do ill, and it's why creatures born of evil can very rarely ever do good. It's all about intention. If you intend to harm, you will. And if you intend to do good, you will.” The Pigeon King looked up at the label again and squawked, almost a sound that resembled a chuckle. "Oh, this is so primitively fascinating. I imagine this is what it felt like watching primitives discover fire. What else can you do, mageling?”

  “Not much” I sighed, my shoulders sagging. “I figured out the explosion Rune and a few sorts of defensive Runes that I've stitched into my jacket and my gloves.”

  “Nothing else?” The Pigeon King asked, and I shook my head. "Well, I suppose one could not expect much more of such an amateur without any instruction. But from looking at this mageling, I do believe you may have some talent for Runes.”

  "Really?" I said, brightening up.

  "Oh yes, after all, Runecrafting is the most neanderthalic of all the Crafts," the Pigeon King said.

  "Oh," I replied, deflating again.

  "But it can be used to harness immense power. Well, not immense, I suppose," the Pigeon King said, thinking about it. "After all, all things are relative. You couldn't destroy the world with a Rune, but for your needs, I think Runes will be adequate.”

  "So if I learn more Runes I can do more magic?" I asked him.

  "To an extent," the Pigeon King replied. "You see, you have to think of Runes as a physical anchor for the Craft. They allow energy to be stored and then to be used in very specific ways. It is very slow and your Craft will be severely limited. It's the reason why most practitioners tend to evolve beyond the need for Runes, chanting, and incantations, because such things simply become automatic once they reach a certain level. At that point, knowledge, intention, and will, are the true sources of power. But since you lack all three of those, I think Runes are a good place for you to begin.” The Pigeon King clacked his beak and then looked almost sideways at the book. "You will find what you seek in that book, that I have no doubt.”

  "But I can't read it," I said to him. "I've identified some Runes, but I don't know what they do.”

  "Well, don't you think it's about time that you started figuring it out?" the Pigeon King replied.

  "How?" I asked.

  "By using them, of course.”

  "What, just randomly writing Runes?"

  "Of course not!" The Pigeon King rolled his eyes. "Have you not been listening to what I said? Intention, boy. Without intention, the Runes are meaningless, but that does not mean you cannot create a very, very mild effect just from willing it to be so.”

  I thought about this for a moment.

  "Almost like testing voltage?" I said.

  "What?" the Pigeon King replied.

  "Like when you test wires to see which one has a voltage going through. You only need a very tiny charge to let you know that the wire is active, and I would only need a tiny bit of intention and will to figure out if the Rune does something."

  The Pigeon King thought about this for a moment, looking up at the ceiling, and then shrugged his shoulders.

  "It could work. You're speaking of Craft that's so low-level that I don't think I've ever considered it before. But it could possibly work. You could also end up killing yourself, summoning a demon, burning down this building… the possibilities are endless," the Pigeon King said.

  I looked back down at the book and then at the Pigeon King.

  "Yeah, endless.” I said.

  And by the sounds of it, potentially fatal.

  “Good. Let’s begin.”