Magi Legend

by Andrew Dobell

  However, she had been taught some history growing up, and although she never really enjoyed the subject, there were people she’d heard of who were legends in the modern-day, that she would love to meet.

  Keeping to herself these past few years was something she needed to do for her own sanity, but she didn’t really want to stay here for a thousand years. That would be mind-numbingly boring.

  She needed to see the world and travel without engaging in the Magi community too much. She doubted she’d be able to avoid them entirely, but if she could keep her impact on the Magi world low, that would probably be beneficial.

  All in good time, though. For now, she had training to do. Amanda left her room and made her way outside, enjoying the crisp, clean air of the mountains. Monks in robes walked back and forth, going about their business. Those she caught the eye of greeted her briefly before passing her by as she made her way through the grounds to her usual practice area.

  Perched on the side of the mountain, the whole structure was on many different levels with steps leading up and down throughout the complex. There were no handrails, and some of the many courtyards and ledges ended in sheer drops that could be lethal to the unwary.

  There was a large open courtyard near the bottom of the temple close to the main gates, where most of the trainees would go to run-through their routines, either alone or in groups.

  Pan Mei waited for her in her usual spot with another, younger monk, standing close by.

  When she’d first met Pan Mei, she had been in her thirties. She wasn’t a Magus though, and as the years had passed, she had aged a lot. Seeing her teacher grow old was alarming but served to only reinforce the idea in Amanda’s head that she would be around for a good long while yet.

  Some Magi aged at the same rate as a normal human, and some were fully immortal, but the largest group were merely long-lived, and not really ageless. They aged slowly and gradually, living for hundreds of years or longer, and Amanda had already known Magi who fit into each of these groups. Her own mentor, for example, Gentle Water, was not long-lived at all and aged as a typical human would.

  These days, Pan Mei didn’t teach Amanda by example. Instead, she observed and commented, and worked with Amanda as someone who could spar with younger, less experienced monks in order to teach them.

  Over the last few decades, Pan Mei had taken Amanda beyond what she’d already learned, pushing her harder than ever before.

  These days, it wasn’t really about learning new skills. Instead, it was more about refining and perfecting the moves. Every time she thought she’d finally mastered it, Pan seemed to notice and pick out one or two things that she could work on.

  Pan had told her that no one ever really mastered an art such as this, not really. However, the criticisms were much less frequent now than they were in years gone by.

  “Good morning to you,” Amanda said, speaking in Tibetan.

  Pan bowed, and Amanda did the same. “Good morning, Amanda,” Pan said, stepping up to her and leaving the other pupil a short distance behind. “I trust you slept well?”

  “I did, thank you,” Amanda answered. As well as can be expected, given the hard bed, she thought. “Am I training with Tenzin again today?” she asked, glancing up at the young man behind Pan.

  Pan nodded. “You are. Come, join us,” she said and led Amanda over.

  She’d been used as a surrogate for Pan for a while now and enjoyed training the younger monks. She’d sparred with Tenzin plenty of times already and waited while Pan spoke with Tenzin, giving him instructions and telling him what he needed to do. Eventually, they faced off and started to spar, with Pan stopping the action every so often to offer advice to Tenzin. They practised moves, kicks, and blocks, with Amanda alternately playing the attacker or defender, depending on what Pan was trying to teach.

  This went on for a while, until later that morning when Amanda noticed Master Hau Cheng standing under a tree nearby, watching. He smiled at her when she noticed him. A little while later, Pan stopped the training and thanked Tenzin, giving him some things to practice before the next session.

  Amanda said goodbye to Tenzin as he left before Hau walked over to them both.

  “Impressive,” Hau said. “You have come a long way since you first arrived here. You are surely one of our best students,” Hau said.

  “Thank you, Master,” Amanda said, feeling a little embarrassed as she bowed. It wasn’t often that Hau paid compliments.

  “I agree, you are the best student I have ever trained,” Pan agreed. “You should be very proud.”

  Amanda smiled. “I’m humbled that you think so highly of me.”

  “As you know, when a student reaches a high level of achievement, we bestow upon them a new name, a temple name, and it is time for yours,” Hau explained.

  “Thank you, Master,” Amanda said.

  “It is with great pleasure that I name you, Graceful Phoenix,” Hau said.

  Amanda smiled and bowed low, feeling thrilled that they would honour her with such a name.

  Halfway through the bow, she hesitated, before slowly returning to standing fully upright as the realisation of what this meant dawned on her.

  She remembered Gentle Water telling her his mentor’s name way back when he was training her in the Irish countryside. He’d called his mentor, Graceful Phoenix, and the inventor of The Art of the Phoenix.

  Did that mean she’d trained him? Was she her own mentor’s mentor? The coincidence was too high for it not to be the case. She knew that each name was usually unique to the person who had been given the name, or at least, only used on one living person at a time.

  Once again, time travel messed with her mind as the enormity of it hit her.

  “Are you alright, Amanda?” Hau asked.

  She realised she was probably looking somewhat shocked, and quickly brought her face under control and smiled at Hau. “Yes. Yes, everything’s alright,” she said with a smile. “I am honoured that you have given me this name, thank you, and I gratefully accept it.”

  The two monks smiled and bowed to her, apparently happy with her answer.

  ***

  Amanda walked along the deserted mountain path, holding her robe tight to her body to help ward off the cold. She could banish it entirely with a thought, but sometimes she needed to feel that biting air as it whipped about her.

  So, she was Graceful Phoenix. She was Gentle Water’s mentor. She smiled to herself. That meant Gentle Water knew her history, knew her past. He’d probably been sent to find and train her, knowing that he would, in fact, be teaching himself for all intents and purposes.

  She wondered who else knew. Who else was aware that her younger-self would one day travel back in time? Did Royston know? Raven? Israel? Maria? Maybe Trevelyan, too?

  She smiled to herself as she looked out over the vista before her, soaking up the view and laughing at the friendly deception of her friends.

  Crazy, she thought.

  She couldn’t help but look forward to meeting a younger Gentle Water for the first time and becoming his mentor. She felt a little impatient to get there, but knew it was a long way off yet.

  “Probably,” said a voice behind her.

  Everything had gone silent all of a sudden. The bushes had stopped moving. A bird hung motionless in the sky, and powerful Temporal Magic filled the air around her. She turned to face the voice, knowing what she would see, and sure enough, there it was. The Weaver hung in the air, its black body a hole in reality while the under-lit humanoid face gazed at her.

  “Weaver,” Amanda said in greeting.

  “You could potentially live through to the modern-day, but your destiny is not set, your path not predetermined,” the deep, strange voice of the Weaver paused. “You still can die.”

  “You don’t want to make life too easy, do you?” Amanda said.

  “I won’t intervene to save your life should you put yourself in that situation,” the Weaver said.

  “But..
. won’t that cause a paradox?” Amanda asked.

  “The time stream is a complex thing, and such a discrepancy would not necessarily mean the end of all things,” the Weaver answered her, as enigmatically as ever.

  Amanda smiled at the Weaver’s non-answer. She got the feeling he, if such a being could even have a gender, wanted to say more, but couldn’t for some reason. She chose not to pursue it and merely nodded. She didn’t really know what to believe, but the gist of it was clear. It was a warning that although she might not grow old, she was not invulnerable.

  “I understand,” Amanda said.

  The Weaver twisted its mouth up in a slight smile before it appeared to collapse in on itself, shrinking to a pinprick of black light before winking out of existence. At the same moment, time restarted.

  The bird flew past her, calling out over the mountain peaks.

  He, she, it, whatever it was, at least seemed to be on her side, so that was something, she guessed as she mulled over what he’d said and what that would mean going forward. She guessed that the Weaver didn’t want her thinking she could do anything she wanted, thinking that he would step in and save her.

  Stepping off the path, Amanda walked up to the cliff edge and looked back down to the complex of buildings below her. The temple’s red rooftops stood out in sharp relief against the rocky backdrop. She’d spent nearly thirty years at the temple, and as she took in the view below her, she wondered if her time here was nearing its end. She felt much more confident in herself now, much more settled in this era, and ready to explore the world around her.

  There was so much to see, so much to do, and so many people to meet. She’d loved her time here with the monks of the Red Temple, but there were other people she could learn from as well.

  She liked the idea of travelling around, finding masters of other fighting styles and learning from them, adding their knowledge to her own and getting a more rounded understanding of martial arts. She loved learning the art of self-defence. She enjoyed the exercise and the feeling of empowerment it gave her. Plus, she could find Riven masters and avoid the Magi. It would give her something to focus on as she continued to live through the centuries.

  Not today, though. Today, she would just enjoy the mountains.

  989 AD – Japan

  The wind caught the pink cherry blossoms of the nearby tree, making them flutter down around her to the ground of the well-kept courtyard. She watched as her latest mentor, Izumi Kimura, a Japanese swordswoman, stepped out onto the grass, looking at her from beneath her long black hair, holding her sheathed katana in her hand.

  Since her time in the Red Temple, Amanda had travelled widely through China, Thailand, and Mongolia, finding masters of the various eastern fighting styles and learning from them before finally moving on to Japan.

  “Are you just going to stand there, daydreaming, Westerner?” Izumi asked as she drew her blade in one smooth motion.

  Amanda looked back at her teacher and eased her own sword from its scabbard before standing en garde.

  “Today is the day I best you, Izumi,” Amanda said with a smile. Izumi was a Riven with no knowledge of Magic, so Amanda didn’t use it during her training because that would be cheating. It also meant that she was on more of an even footing with her teachers, and they would often beat her during her early lessons.

  But failure and defeat were a part of learning.

  Amanda rushed in, swinging her sword.

  The Apprentice

  1142 AD

  Amanda swept the last of the dust out through the back door of the house before closing it against the cool air and turning to look at her work.

  She smiled to herself and shook her head in slight exasperation. The things she did in the pursuit of learning all she could about the fighting styles of the world. She wondered what would happen when she found her next teacher after this one.

  Seconds after putting the broom down, the front door to the house opened and her current teacher, Eric Paget walked in, trailing in more mud and dirt from outside. Amanda shook her head again and rolled her eyes, planting her hands on her hips. Eric spotted her and looked down at the mess he’d walked in with him.

  “Oh, sorry. Had you just swept up? Good girl.”

  Amanda gritted her teeth slightly but made little outward show of her dislike of his sexist attitude. She often had to remind herself that she wasn’t living in modern cosmopolitan New York anymore and behaviour like this was a lot more common and was seen as normal at this time.

  She wouldn’t roll over and do whatever a tutor wanted though, as there were always others out there who could teach her just as well. Eric had started off being a little too familiar with her, but Amanda quickly put an end to that, making sure he knew she just wasn’t interested in him in that way, and that she wouldn’t put up with his shite. She was here because Eric was one of the most skilled fighters she’d seen in France so far. He was someone she wanted to learn from, but that meant she had to put up with his misogynistic view of women. Frankly, she was surprised he’d agreed to teach her at all given her gender, and yet, he had, and she was happy to put up with his comments and views for the time being.

  Of course, he’d put her straight to work when he wasn’t teaching her—cooking, cleaning, and general housekeeping. But she didn’t mind too much. Many of her masters over the years would have her do various menial tasks as partial payment for teaching her. It also served as a way to keep herself grounded and humble, something she knew from experience was incredibly important. Besides, it would only be until she’d learned what she needed from him, and then she’d disappear.

  “That’s alright, I’ll clean it up,” she said, walking over and taking his coat.

  “Thank you, what would I do without you?”

  “I do not know,” she said, although the thought that he would end up living in a pigsty passed through her mind. She placed his coat in its usual spot and grabbed the broom again. It was two minutes’ worth of work as Eric moved to the table, unrolled a few sheets of parchment and looked them over.

  “Raynaud has struck again,” he said.

  “Oh, really?” Amanda answered. “Where this time?”

  “Two villages over to the east. He killed a few people there, him and his apprentice,” he said.

  “Damn,” Amanda cursed. “We really need to find out where his Sepulchre is.” The other difference with Eric, as opposed to her previous martial arts mentors, was that Eric was a Magus, and knew that Amanda was one too.

  Eric smiled at her. “Well, I think I know,” he said. “I’ve had a breakthrough.”

  “Go on,” she urged.

  “I got some information from a coven north of here that they heard of some disappearances in a forest not too far from them. I did some digging and there used to be a family that lived there, but they’ve not been heard from for a while. Looking at the map of attacks and encounters with Raynaud, it’s fairly central, so I think I might be onto something. It’s the best lead I’ve had so far, anyway,” he said.

  “Sounds good,” Amanda said. “So, are we going to head up there and have a look?”

  “Are you sure you’re up to it? This is going to be dangerous. No place for a woman.”

  Inside, unseen and unheard by Eric, she screamed in frustration. She wanted to slap him, and yet, she resisted. He was still teaching her, and until she’d learned all she could from him, she would put up with his ignorance.

  “I’m sure. Besides, Raynaud has an apprentice we’ve not seen yet, so you might need some backup.”

  Eric nodded thoughtfully. “Well, yes, you’re right, he does. I think she’s an Adept, too, like you.”

  Amanda nodded. If only he knew how powerful she really was, she thought to herself. “That fits with what I’ve heard, too.”

  “Alright, that’s settled then. Get your things, we’re heading out.”

  Amanda nodded with a smile and moved to find another layer of clothing before making herself ready. She wasn
’t wearing the most practical of outfits, with her long skirts down to her ankles, but she knew that Eric preferred her like this. He nearly didn’t take her on as an apprentice when they’d first met because she’d been wearing trousers rather than skirts. He was such an ignoramus.

  She hoped she wouldn’t be doing too much fighting in this, she thought to herself.

  “Don’t forget your Aegis, will you?” he asked.

  “Of course not,” Amanda replied, having deliberately waited for him to notice that it wasn’t active and ask her to put it in place. She pulled on the local threads of Essentia as gently as she could, hiding her full power and ability from Eric’s keen Magical senses. It was all a mask, a way of keeping a low profile when she met Magi, and she’d grown quite good at it.

  Her Aegis snapped into place as she smiled at him.

  “Good girl,” he said. The comment sounded like nails down a chalkboard to her modern sensibilities. “Come on, let’s get outside and Port over there, I want to have a look around before the end of the day.”

  Amanda followed him out of the house and into the secluded area out back, outside of the house’s Aegis. He didn’t really need to move outside his own Aegis to Port, but she wasn’t going to correct him.

  He stood, concealed by bushes from anyone passing by on the road out front, and held his hand out to her. He didn’t need to do this to Port her, but again, she didn’t question it, taking his hand in hers and waiting the half-second before his Magic flared. The world flashed and changed before her. Suddenly, they were in a wooded area, surrounded by trees, although there wasn’t much shrubbery lower to the ground. The thin trunks rose into the sky above, and as Amanda scanned around with her keen Magical sight and senses, she got the feeling that they were on the right track. Something wasn’t right here.

  “I don’t like this place,” she said, playing up the scared woman idea for him, purely for her own amusement.

  “You didn’t have to come.”