Arcane (The Arinthian Line Book 1)

by Sever Bronny

  He changed into the nightshirt, hung both his robes in the wardrobe, and jumped into the softest bed he had ever lain in. Getting comfortable, he once again wondered how Mrs. Stone managed to bring all those things home—the basket of food, the clothing, the sheets and duvet; until his thoughts drifted further—to a castle, a knight, a whiteness; and through-out, a lingering, bitter-sweet song …

  Telekinesis

  Augum woke from a deep sleep to a sharp knocking at the door.

  “Get dressed and come to breakfast,” Mrs. Stone said before shuffling off.

  He was grateful she had not woken him as she used to—with the butt end of her staff. Then he remembered it had smashed while saving his life and he suddenly felt bad for wanting to throw it down Mt. Barrow.

  Yawning and stretching, he stumbled out of bed and dressed in his new burgundy robe. Bright morning sun streamed in through the windows, the rays defined by slowly tumbling particles of dust. The fire in the hearth had gone out overnight, yet it had remained warm due to their runeword-finding adventure of the previous day. After securing his new yellow leather belt, he made his way to the grand dining room, stomach grumbling.

  Mrs. Stone, Bridget and Leera already sat, chatting idly. Bacon, eggs, bread, apples, milk and honey sat on the table. The girls wore their new apprentice robes while Mrs. Stone was dressed in a plain off-white robe that had no embroidery or ornamentation of any kind.

  Augum bid them good morning as he sat down in his usual chair. He noted how the circles under everyone’s eyes had disappeared and the smiles came easily. They too must have slept well.

  They ate mostly in silence, occasionally exchanging pleasantries and making light conversation. After breakfast, Mrs. Stone dabbed at her lips with a cloth and fixed them with a measured look.

  “Let us begin the day’s lessons. Who can tell me the qualifications for the 1st degree?”

  Bridget spoke first. “One must show one has learned the three standard spells as well as the single spell of one’s element.”

  “Correct. And the three standard spells are …?”

  This time Leera spoke up. “Telekinesis, Repair and, um … Unconceal?”

  “Correct again. Thus far I believe you have only practiced your elemental spell, Shine, is that accurate?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Stone,” they chorused.

  “And I am aware I covered Telekinesis a bit with Augum, but how about you girls, have you had a chance to learn the spell yet?”

  They shook their heads.

  “A ‘No, Mrs. Stone’ or a ‘Yes, Mrs. Stone’ will do.”

  “No, Mrs. Stone,” the girls said.

  “Very well then, that is what we shall practice this morning.” Mrs. Stone folded her cloth napkin. “Telekinesis is the movement of an item using your mind. It is the first standard spell because it is a most apt introduction to standard arcanery. Allow me to demonstrate.”

  She beckoned at Leera’s fork; it flew into her hand.

  “It is a non-verbal spell, meaning you cast it without an arcane word. When you excel with it, you may even be able to cast it without gesturing.” Mrs. Stone placed her hands in her lap. Augum’s fork suddenly moved over to Leera’s side. Leera squealed in surprise, her chair tipping backwards. She clawed at the table like a frantic cat, just managing to hold on. Red-faced, she cleared her throat and settled in as if nothing had happened.

  Mrs. Stone ignored her. “Should you remain studious in your craft and master this spell, you will be able to do it over ever larger distances and to ever larger things, eventually even being able to move people around.”

  He imagined throwing Robin from one end of the room to the other.

  “Augum, you know how to perform the basics of this spell. I would like you to teach it to Bridget and Leera until midday. You can practice on the large pile of rocks at the entrance to the castle, which I want cleared by lunch. In the afternoon, we shall move on to the Repair spell. Am I making myself understood?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Stone.”

  “So be it. Off with you now.”

  The trio excused themselves from the table, descended to the foyer and exited through the two massive entranceway doors, stopping at the foot of the rubble pile in the vestibule.

  Leera scoffed. “She wants us to move this mountain when we hadn’t even cast the spell before?”

  “She doesn’t fool around,” Augum said, taking a deep breath. He was not feeling particularly confident about his ability to teach, seeing as he had never taught anyone anything before—and Telekinesis was a hard spell; he recalled how difficult it was just to move a small stone back on Mt. Barrow.

  Bridget began climbing. “She has high expectations for us. All we have to do is work hard. Besides, we’ve seen our parents use this spell plenty of times; I’m sure we’ll manage.”

  The three apprentice warlocks gathered at the bottom of the pile outside the castle, shielding their eyes with their hands. It was a bright yet cold day, the snow particularly brittle underfoot. The sky remained clear except for a distant haze of cloud that peeked over snow-encrusted evergreens. The occasional tweet of a winter bird sounded from the Ravenwood, which otherwise stood tall and silent. The pile of rubble glistened in the sunlight, the occasional boulder peeking through the snow.

  Leera folded her arms and smirked. “All right, Teacher—teach.”

  Augum rubbed the back of his neck. “Um … okay, you have to, uh … to visualize, um … moving the uh, thing … and you use your hand to, um … to get it to … you know … to move … and stuff.” He felt dumber than a toad, and for some reason his tongue was not working properly.

  Bridget placed her hands on her hips. “So you mean we have to concentrate on moving the object while we gesture at it with our hand?”

  “Yes exactly—couldn’t have said it better myself.”

  “No, you certainly couldn’t,” Leera muttered.

  Augum ignored the remark. “So yeah, focus on the object and think about it moving—” and he raised his arm and beckoned for a small rock to move.

  Except the stupid thing did not obey.

  “Um, hold on …” Red-faced, he beckoned again, yet the rock stubbornly refused to budge. He gestured frantically. “Dumb rock—move!”

  Nothing happened.

  The girls exchanged amused looks. He checked the six stained glass windows of Mrs. Stone’s room and discovered her staring down at him, a sour look on her face.

  Great …

  He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, resolving to concentrate. An enemy with a clear and focused mind is a fearsome one, he heard Sir Westwood say. He then recalled successfully moving objects before, especially the lost rope at Hangman’s Rock. He had to still his mind, that was all there was to it.

  He slowly expelled his breath, let the thoughts slide away to emptiness, opened his eyes, and beckoned.

  The stone flew into his hand. He expelled a breath in relief.

  Leera uncrossed her arms. She took the rock from his hand and examined it, as if hoping to find a string attached. “All right, not bad …”

  Augum stole a peek at the windows, but they were empty. “Clear your mind,” he said. “That’s the key—clear your mind.”

  Bridget nodded. “All right, what else do we need to know?”

  Confidence regained, he repeated what Mrs. Stone taught him back on the mountain, explaining the three principles and how rocks had a tendency to want to roll downhill.

  Leera’s face scrunched skeptically. “‘Downhill’?”

  “Yeah, like if I tried to move that rock up there at the top of the pile—” he pointed to a small boulder, “it helps to know which way the rock wants to go, making the spell easier. At least, I think that’s what Mrs. Stone was getting at …”

  “Makes sense,” Bridget said.

  Leera rolled her eyes. “Kind of obvious too.”

  Bridget gave her an elbow. “Stop being grumpy, Robin.”

  “Sorry, I’ll play nice.”
>
  Augum raised his arm, focusing on the top of the pile. “All right, let’s begin,” and so they practiced for hours, Augum instructing as best he could, a new pile forming behind them. It was not long until Leera and Bridget were summoning small rocks. After pushing himself, he too progressed with the spell, now able to move slightly heavier stones.

  The hours of casting took their toll on them, however—heads hurt, attention spans and tempers were short, and nausea prevailed.

  Glancing at the sun, Augum noted it would soon be lunchtime, yet most of the pile sat untouched. An idea came to him. “This is taking too long, we have to work together. You two go for the small stones and I’ll go for the larger ones. When rocks tumble from higher up we’ll use their momentum and push them along with the spell—”

  “—that way we can move stones that are far heavier than we otherwise could—brilliant, Augum!” Bridget said, beaming.

  Leera only groaned, massaging her temples.

  Augum blushed with pride and went to work. However, pushing falling rocks with Telekinesis proved difficult and took some getting used to. The snow certainly did not help and the rocks they missed on the way down were too heavy to begin moving anew—those they would have to manually push later. Nonetheless, stone by stone, they weeded the pile down. To make things easier, they separated the wood and iron.

  By the time the sun shone directly overheard, the once small hole above the pile was now a giant maw. The trio was becoming quite practiced, Bridget and Leera even managing to move rocks closer in weight to Augum’s. Unfortunately, the side effects forced them to take frequent breaks.

  Augum, panting, gestured at a large rock. “All together on the big ones now.” With Leera and Bridget’s help, he managed to arcanely roll it to the new pile. Time was running out, yet there remained some large rocks in the hallway, not to mention a cluster of boulders outside that required brute strength to move. He glanced at the heap of wood. Well, at least they had completed that part of it …

  They worked at a frantic pace now, expecting Mrs. Stone’s arrival at any moment. There were a few narrow escapes as the stones came hurtling past, reminding them to remain alert. When they could no longer move anything with Telekinesis, they put their backs into it and pushed the remaining boulders, yet even that was not enough for the last few, which required their combined strength and Telekinesis to move.

  Finally, the entranceway cleared, the trio collapsed at the foot of the new rock pile, completely spent, heads splitting from the arcane effort—just in time too, for a shadow came between them and the sun.

  “I see you have accomplished the task.”

  Augum wondered if that was surprise or disappointment in Mrs. Stone’s voice.

  “Lunch is ready.” She walked off.

  They were too exhausted to reply. Augum stood up, helping Leera.

  Leera winced. “Feet … refusing … to budge …”

  He and Bridget each took a hand and hoisted her to her feet. She pretended to fall back, tongue rolling out in defeat.

  The trio eventually lumbered through the now gaping hole in the castle and staggered up the stairs to lunch.

  Repair

  Lunch consisted of leftover chicken, stale journey bread and boiled beans. Mrs. Stone chewed the bread and hacked at the chicken, oblivious to the trio mutely prodding their food. For Augum, every bite brought a new round of throbbing in his brain. Thankfully the side effects were subsiding, though he was not sure he could do another round of casting today.

  “This afternoon you shall be learning the Repair spell,” Mrs. Stone said once they had consumed everything but the beans. “Repair is verbal and a little more complex.” She swept the room with her eyes. “The spirits know how much there is to fix around here.”

  Augum remembered her using the spell on a mug he had broken back in her cave. He hoped it was not as difficult as Telekinesis.

  Mrs. Stone seemed to be waiting for some kind of response, yet the trio only stared at their plates.

  “Mmm, yes, it is difficult, is it not? That is the way of it; the path you have chosen. I advise you to acclimatize yourselves to the pain, the nausea, the exhaustion. In order to advance in your studies you must learn the art of suffering. That is how you grow and develop fortitude. You must harden yourselves as it only gets more difficult.”

  She paused and leaned back in the queen’s chair, letting the silence drive home the point, the frown lines on her face creasing sharply. “I shall allow one hour of rest this one time. Then I will expect you in the foyer where we will continue your training. You are excused.”

  “Yes, Mrs. Stone,” the trio said without enthusiasm. They trudged off.

  “I’m exhausted,” Augum said in the dim hallway, almost tripping over a large tear in the faded carpet.

  Leera managed a groan. “That food was so bland … at least compared to when Mrs. Stone teleported some in.”

  “I think it’s part of the experience,” Bridget said.

  Leera made a face at her but said nothing.

  They stopped before the girls’ room.

  “Your room the same as mine?” Augum asked.

  “You tell us.” Leera opened the door, revealing a room that was a mirror image of his own. “We share the bed.”

  Augum stepped inside. “Yup, it’s the same.”

  Leera plopped down on the ironwood canopy bedstead curtained in the same sheer netting. “Can’t wait to explore the rest of the castle,” she said, glancing about as if hoping to find a secret door.

  Bridget slumped onto the bed beside her. “Maybe tonight …”

  Augum thought this would be a good time to talk about what he and Mrs. Stone discussed the day before. He paced to the windows, staring beyond the snow-covered Ravenwood. An angry bank of clouds approached, threatening to snuff the sunshine.

  “There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you two about my father.” He turned back to the girls and leaned against the windowsill. “Remember his horse?”

  “Yeah, we remember,” Bridget said.

  “Mrs. Stone thinks he’s practicing necromancy.”

  The girls exchanged looks.

  Bridget’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Come to think of it, remember the horses the Red Guard rode?”

  Leera stood and began pacing. “Hmm. Mrs. Stone defeated a necromancer once …”

  “That’s right—Narsus,” Augum said. “There’s more. He … he murdered my mother.”

  After seeing the look on their faces, he turned back to the window. Even though he did not know his mother, he found it hard to talk about her. “He murdered her when she said she was leaving him …” He went on to recount much of what Mrs. Stone said about his mother and father. “… and I think I was only born because he thought it would force Mrs. Stone to give my father the scion,” he concluded.

  For once, the girls were at a loss for words.

  “Think a storm’s coming,” he said after a while.

  Bridget placed a delicate hand on his shoulder. “Are you okay, Augum?”

  He shrugged. “I never knew my parents anyway. Besides, the memorial ceremony helped a lot.”

  “Helped us too,” Leera said. “I’m sorry about your mother …”

  He forced a smile.

  Bridget drew her robe close, nodding at the angry bank of clouds. “Ominous.”

  “Yeah, hope we don’t have to work outside.” Leera fell back on the bed. Suddenly she sat up. “Wait, why would he want to become a necromancer? Why would anyone?”

  “Mrs. Stone told me it’s a fascination with fear, death and power.”

  Leera smirked. “Wonder how he felt when she snuffed Narsus …”

  Augum grabbed the windowsill, which was as deep as the castle walls, and climbed on top.

  “What are you doing?” Bridget asked.

  “Resting my sore legs. Besides, I love watching storms.” At the Penderson farm, a storm meant he could spend quiet time in the barn with Meli. In Willowbroo
k, he would curl up beside the fire with a book and listen to rain pound the thatch and tap on the windows. Even after one nearly killed him, that love of storms had not diminished.

  “Rest … good idea.” Bridget lay down beside Leera and the girls stole a quick nap.

  Head leaning against the window, he watched the storm’s steady approach for the rest of that peaceful hour, until Mrs. Stone walked by in the corridor.

  “Time to go,” he said.

  They gathered themselves and descended to the foyer, dutifully lining up before her.

  Mrs. Stone surveyed them a moment before speaking. “Following this lesson, I was planning on assigning you the task of repairing the entire entranceway, to be completed by evening.”

  There was a better chance of them all learning how to fly without wings than repairing that entranceway in this weather, Augum thought.

  “But as you may have noticed, there is a storm heading our way. Therefore, I have decided to assist you.”

  The trio breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Since we do not have much time, I will skip some of the details, but I expect you to study the spell from the book this evening when I am gone. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Stone,” they chorused.

  Augum wondered where she was going but knew better than to ask.

  “The Repair spell is a bit more complicated,” Mrs. Stone began, clasping her hands behind her back, “because it requires immense and unbroken concentration.” She gazed at each of them in turn, as if to confirm they were paying attention.

  “The spell will not work on living things, arcane objects, or anything incinerated. In the beginning, you will be unable to repair anything more complex than a teacup, or perhaps a plank of wood. However, I daresay you shall find no shortage of things to practice on in this castle. Now, does anyone know the arcane word for this spell?”

  They gave her a blank look.

  Mrs. Stone’s brows sharpened. “The word is ‘apreyo’. Say it with me.”

  “APREEO.”

  She made them repeat it a few more times until their pronunciation was perfect.