The Final Redemption by Michael Manning (little red riding hood ebook free .txt) 📕

After we returned home I threw myselfinto my new project with an energy I hadn’t felt since I firstbegan working on the World Road. That had been a project that wouldchange the world and reshape the future of Lothion, if not theentire world. This one would be just as grand, and while possiblynot as important it would likely be what history would remember mefor.

No one gets excited talking about whobuilt a road, even a magical one, but this, this would light a firein the imagination of generations to come!

If I could figure out how to do theimpossible. I knew what I wanted, but the enchantment to accomplishit didn’t exist. There were several that did parts of what Ineeded, but none that came remotely close to the entire thing.Worse, some of the functions were things that had never been donewith an enchantment at all.

At first Penny was pleased to see methrow myself into my work, but as days ran into weeks and the weeksran into a month she began to worry. I rarely showed myself outsideof my workshop except to eat and sleep; and I did precious littleof those. My only trips beyond Cameron in all that time were shortjaunts to our house in Albamarl to raid the Illeniel library ofbooks on runes and mathematics.

What really frustrated her was myrefusal to discuss my plans. A year living as an undead monsterhadn’t cured me of my flaws. I told no one my entire plan, not evenGareth.

My children however, refused to becompletely shut out. They were almost as stubborn as their motherand far too clever for their own good. Eventually I let them joinme for short periods, partly to satisfy their curiosity and partlyso I could question my daughter about her specialability.

“How exactly do you mold thepersonality?” I asked again. Her previous answer had been toovague.

She gave me a look that told me I wastoo slow to properly understand, but she tried to explain again. “Idon’t do anything in particular. I just imagine them, as a bardimagines a story, whole and complete. Their traits are just a partof that.”

“How long does it take?”

“The first ones, like little Grace,sprang from my dreams, while I was sleeping,” she told me. “That’swhy she’s so smart.”

Again, she didn’t seem to be able toanswer my question directly. ‘Grace’ was the name of her first andfavorite animated toy, a cute teddy bear with a red bow. The two ofthem were almost inseparable, and the toy was uncannily sharp.Talking to it was much like talking to my daughter—except I feltsilly talking to a stuffed animal.

“You’re saying she’s smart because shecame from a dream?”

“Not exactly,” said Moira. “It’sbecause I took my time, and my conscious mind didn’t get in theway. Doing it while awake is harder, because I have to learn how tokeep my waking thoughts from interfering with the process. At leastthat’s what my other mother told me.”

‘Other mother’ was the shorthand sheused to refer to the other Moira. It helped us to avoid confusion,both with her name and with Penny. “So are you able to make onelike her while awake now?”

“Yes,” she said, “but I can’t be surehow long it will take. Sometimes it’s quick and other times ittakes hours. The simple ones are always fast, though.”

Eventually my questions grew toospecific, and I began to share the larger details of what Iintended with her, as well as with Matthew. I knew the idea wouldexcite them, I only hoped they could keep quiet about it until itwas finished. The last thing I wanted was for word to get out,especially when I wasn’t entirely sure I could succeed.

Once I had included them, Moira beganworking on her portion of my project in earnest and soon she wasbringing new ‘toys’ to talk to me daily. In each case, we woulddiscuss their strengths and weaknesses, along with their quirks.Most of them I rejected, but gradually she began to create more ofthe intensely complex and intelligent ones, like her original toy,Grace.

After several weeks, her room hadbecome a veritable zoo of talking toys. Luckily she let most of theones that were too flawed fade out, so while she kept creating newones, our home was never quite overrun with them.

I suspected there was a limit to howmany of them she could sustain at one time without me using theimmortality enchantment on them, and of course that was something Iwould never do. That was how the Shining Gods had been created, andI wanted no part in recreating that mistake.

As it was, Celior was still loosesomewhere in the world. He had been freed when the shield aroundCastle Cameron had been shattered by Mal’goroth. The feedback haddestroyed the God-Stone, and he had wasted no time escaping. I hadthe keys needed to bind him, but I had to locate him before I coulddo that.

Another big surprise that came to mewhile I worked was my son’s insight into enchanting. Not being aCentyr like his sister, he couldn’t help her with her ‘pet’project, so he spent more time watching me struggle to figure out amethod to make my potential new enchantment do all the things Irequired of it.

He had never studied the subjectbefore, and while he would also have access to the knowledge of theloshti someday, he couldn’t reach it yet. Even so, he proved to bea natural when it came to understanding the mathematics thatunderlay the rune structures.

His eyes were always watching me, andthough his questions often seemed to stray into areas that seemedoff topic, they often led me to a far better knowledge of what Iwas trying to do than I had possessed previously.

If you want to learnsomething really well, teach it to someone else,I said to myself.

Matthew’s lack of preconceptionsproved to be a valuable asset in sorting out how to do theimpossible.

“Why do you want it to repeat anyway?”he asked me after I had explained what the portion of theenchantment I was working on was supposed to do.

“I have to have a way forthis thing to restart itself at particular times, otherwise…” I letthe words trail off. How do