Enchantress Awakening: Part One of the Book of Water (The Elemental Cycle 1)

Home > Other > Enchantress Awakening: Part One of the Book of Water (The Elemental Cycle 1) > Page 19
Enchantress Awakening: Part One of the Book of Water (The Elemental Cycle 1) Page 19

by Whitmarsh, J. W.


  "This is amazing." Caleigh gasped, inspecting the tiny image of Elevered sticking out from the relief and then casting her eyes to the beautifully detailed multi-coloured buildings spilling down from the hills to bridge the river, representing the town of Minerva. Caleigh gasped again when the map changed and Minerva grew in size before her making greater and greater detail evident, until she could actually follow the current of the river Afon passing beneath the grey stone bridge at its centre.

  "That is what you wished to look at, is it not?" Spoke a voice from behind the picture. Caleigh stood up with a start and the speaker moved out into view. "You must be Caleigh, I am Rosamund. I've looked forward to meeting you." The woman said by way of introduction.

  "I'm pleased to meet you Rosamund." Rosamund was blonde with her coiled up around the back of her head. She had an open face with fair features that were, if not immediately eye-catching, certainly pleasant to look upon. She stood about an inch shorter than Caleigh and had the expected proportions of a slim woman of her age, which Caleigh judged to be within five years of her own. Just as noticeable as her physical form was the apparel in which she had donned herself. She wore and outer robe of sky blue like the cloaks of the librarians that was left open at the middle so it covered only her sleeves and shoulders from the front. Underneath was a long dress that was shades of midnight blue arrayed with silver stars that seemed to sparkle on the cloth. Whilst in her hand she clutched the most intriguing item. At first Caleigh had taken it to be an artist's brush until she realised that Rosamund was holding it the wrong way round and there was no nib of any kind. In a moment it dawned on her that it was in fact a long wand and that all that was wrought with it was by spell work rather than that of oils and paste.

  Glancing at the picture board Caleigh noticed a detailed sketch of Minerva more intricate still than the scale town shimmering beneath her. "I've been attempting to add more detail to our map. It is no easy labour."

  "You are an extraordinary artist."

  "Oh no, it is all but illusion for which the honour belongs to Master Tovrik. I am simply adding a touch here and there."

  "You will have to excuse Rosamund, she is another victim of humility, although in her case it is sadly genuine." Tovrik commented. "You are quite right to call her an artist for her creativity is no less than that of those who work without spells. Rosamund, we shall gather for lunch shortly, would you please fetch your errant brother and inform him."

  "He is not in the charms study?"

  "Not at present."

  "I apologise on his behalf. I will find him at once."

  "Now Caleigh, are you ready for some refreshment. I dare say I have kept you on your feet quite long enough. I at least require a chance to rest."

  Tovrik led her up the stairs by which earlier they had climbed to his study but rather than turn up the second set of stairs they carried on along the corridor and with two right turns arrived in a large rectangular room above the library. Directly ahead as they entered was a large fireplace that seemed to hollow through to the room behind. Either side of the fireplace were two doorways through which daylight spilled into the room in wide strips. To the sides there was a single door at each end of the room though what lay beyond was less clear. Around the floor there were a number of low, circular, wooden tables accompanied by a mixture of similarly low stools and more comfortable padded chairs. Upon one of the stools sat a blond youth on the verge of adulthood laying out a set of oblong-shaped wooden chips with differing runic symbols carved on one side, now tutting, now grinning as he ordered them in a fashion that made sense to him. Caleigh made to step forward and greet him and Tovrik waved her back. From out of the light of the left-hand of the two doorways ahead Rosamund streamed into the room with visible annoyance and went straight to the youth. "You promised you would help. Thus far your efforts have been absent."

  "I shall be with you forthwith. Is this not a task for the servants?"

  "No, the servants bring what we need up to us. It is our part to array it accordingly."

  "We gather in full in the evenings. Otherwise, the kitchen uses a pulley system to bring our food and drink to us and we distribute it according to our appetites." Tovrik explained to Caleigh. Hearing a third voice commenting on their dialogue Rosamund and the youth looked up.

  "I was poised to aid my sister, Master Tovrik I..."

  "Well, if you can stay your efforts for but a moment Master Aethelbald I should like to introduce you to our newly and well come friend, Caleigh."

  "Glad to meet you Aethelbald." Aethelbald looked at Caleigh, taking in her face and figure and at once coloured.

  "You, you came." Was as much as he could muster.

  "Aethelbald shall be your contemporary, Caleigh, not just in terms of age but in art too."

  "Ahh, so you are the other Enchanter. I am sure there is much I can learn from you."

  "Not so, I am not much of an Enchanter...I...I think it is I who will learn."

  "Shall we go through?" Tovrik gestured. Passing through the doorway that Rosamund had used Caleigh came into a room with a long table and many tall windows around a central door leading out onto an open veranda where a small patch of lawn had been planted along with rows of flowers beneath three sets of stairs leading up onto what was the battlements of the southern wall. There amid the tiny garden stood Dana talking animatedly to a dark-haired and bearded man in weathered robes. She hadn’t seen Dana like this with anyone but her in a long time and decided not to interrupt.

  Aethelbald and Rosamund had laid out several plates along with the bread and cheese and were seated at the end of the table where Tovrik took the head. Caleigh noticed that Aethelbald had opted to sit on the other side of his sister rather than take the empty place next to Tovrik. Rosamund looked a little more relaxed but even she seemed unaccustomed to this proximity to their...Caleigh could not find the exact word and settled on master, though it seemed not quite fitting to describe Tovrik’s position to everyone else but then no word did. Elevered was theoretically a fortress and library of the Order of Librarians yet everyone here seemed to defer to Tovrik as the unofficial lord of the castle.

  Caleigh sat in the vacant spot and watched as the others filed in to join them. Mabon was first and he took the seat opposite her, obviously at ease at this end of the table. Dana and the man she was talking to walked in soon after taking their places opposite the siblings. He introduced himself as Diarmund, nominal head of the art of Druidry in Elevered. The arrival of the two last diners prevented Caleigh from learning more. One she knew, Gideon, and with him was a man with short brown curly hair tinged with grey at the temples which seemed to belie the younger face it stood up from.

  “I’m glad to see you have found company, Caleigh.” Gideon greeted. “This is my friend, Vaughn, sometimes called the artless bard.”

  “An honour and a pleasure to meet you Caleigh.” Vaughn spoke with an accent that was new to her ears.

  Once Gideon and Vaughn took their places facing each other there was still ample room at the far end of the table causing Caleigh to wonder whose absence they represented.

  “Are the rest of my companions not joining us?” She asked Tovrik.

  “They will eat with their fellow warriors. Likewise, the scholars and archivists will eat together as will the household servants.”

  “Why do we divide ourselves so? You said wizards should not consider themselves apart from other men. At least I understood as much.”

  “Indeed we should not separate ourselves. We dine as one in the evenings; this arrangement over lunch is simply for mutual ease. Our working day is not over and there seems to me some logic in gathering those who work in the same field together at a point so that they may discuss queries with each other.”

  “Forgive me this is still unfamiliar to me.”

  “No forgiveness needed. Your concerns are quite valid and you are right to question things. It is a sign of an active mind.” Tovrik said with a flicker of a smile and then a
fter a moment added. “And there is so much to question about Elevered.”

  “So, is your head spinning yet?” Caleigh set down her empty plate on the sideboard and looked round at Vaughn.

  “A little.” Caleigh confessed with a laugh.

  “Of course it is. The first day at Elvered is always a bit confusing. When I first got here I thought that the drink and magic had got together and done something to my head.”

  “How long have you been here?”

  “Nigh on seven years. Course, it was a bit different back then.”

  “How so?”

  “Fewer people, for a start. Forgetting your soldiers and scholars, of which there were about half as many as now, there was only Gideon and Mabon with Tovrik. He, Tovrik that is, knew Diarmund from before but he was sojourning in the wild when I got here. The biggest change has been the castle itself. It grows every time Tovrik has a bit of coin to throw at it. And the village has got bigger too, we trade more than we used to.”

  “How long have wizards come to Elevered?”

  “Not sure, myself. Mabon came here twenty years ago expecting to find the ruins of Caerddyn’s old library and found Tovrik rebuilding it. I guess Sir Edgar and Diarmund came by a few years after that. Then as far as I know nobody else came until Tovrik happened upon Gideon ten years ago. It was really after finding Gideon that he got the idea of gathering all the remaining wizards here. I think before he, like all of us, thought that the time of wizards had gone.”

  “How did Tovrik find you?”

  “I was brought here by Gideon. Tovrik sent him to the town I was staying in as a kind of test. Who can say what would have happened if Gideon had not noticed my little act was helped with magic.”

  “What did you do?” Both she and Vaughn had started to grin.

  “Well, I was a bard, you see. Not a very good one to tell the truth. My playing was never as good as my words and not all folks liked my voice. Danarians are not so loved in some places. So I needed something more and I found out that I could do a few tricks to make the tales come to life a bit. Say a shining light would glow at the right time or the tables would shake as I told of the giant’s footsteps. Thankfully, in most taverns and inns I went to folk were drunk enough to think it was just my telling that took them in so much. Though more than once I had to flee before they could get the rope or start the fire. Anyway, that’s how Gideon found me.”

  “Why did Gideon say you were an artless bard? To my ears it sounds that you were quite an imaginative one.”

  “I am artless in the sense that though I be magical I have no art. I am no charmer, as you can tell no doubt.” Caleigh smirked appreciatively. “I am not an Illusionist, nor am I good with herbs and such and I would not even wish for a talent in sorcery. Therefore I am artless. Some see that as a curse I prefer to think of it as freedom. I am not tethered to any post.”

  “Is that common amongst wizards?”

  “I think the words ‘common’ and ‘wizards’ make for very uneasy friends at any time. A wizard’s power is as individual as the person.”

  Tovrik and everyone else had long since departed the room and Caleigh and Vaughn followed suit wandering in no apparent direction back to the common area. Aethelbald had resumed his game with the wooden chips, oblivious to the room around him. Vaughn eyed him calculatingly for a moment. “So, now I’ve told you I have no art you might question what my role here is.” In truth no such thought had occurred to Caleigh but she let it pass to avoid interruption. “Not all magic fits into one of the four arts. Has Gideon told you this?”

  “Yes, he said that elemental magic was possible for all wizards though your art would make you favour some elements more than others.”

  “Ah good, so you know this already? Well, being artless myself you could say that elemental magic was my art. But don’t think the elementals of magic stop with water, fire, air and earth. There is energy and substance and the flow of time as well, but before I start sounding like Gideon I’ll just say there’s plenty to wizardry even without an art.”

  “I doubt it not.”

  “I’m also responsible for training in battle magic. At least I would be if any initiates ever came to practice.” Vaughn was speaking at Aethelbald now and slowly he began to notice.

  “Something wrong?”

  “I thought you could aid me in demonstrating the finer points of battle magic to Caleigh.”

  “Me? Now?”

  “Not now, shall we say tomorrow after lunch?” Vaughn said turning to Caleigh.

  “Yes, of course though I’m not sure how I am meant to pass my days here yet.”

  “Let me explain that to you as I show you the rest of Elevered then.”

  “I would be most grateful.”

  “Remember, tomorrow after lunch.” Vaughn repeated as they left.

  Caleigh sat with Ceol throughout the evening meal, which was nearly as busy an occasion as at Crowbridge. The air of it was quite different there was not the heady, ribald, high spirits of Cynric’s hall. The conversation was at both a lower pitch and a higher level and for the most part Caleigh did not involve herself with it. She felt the need instead to stay close to those with whom she had travelled and barely a day ago had faced terrible danger. So much had filled her head since then that the events seemed farther removed than they were. One look at Ceol’s heavy brow was a sharp reminder of how close it still was.

  The next morn he was gone and Caleigh’s new life at Elevered was to begin in earnest. From Vaughn she had gleaned how her study would progress. According to him most scholars used the morning, when the mind was fresh, to engage in research then after lunch, when the mind slowed but the body quickened, they found it helpful to do more practical activities. For those who served under Sir Edgar this meant physical training; for the wizards this often meant spell practice. The evenings were a time for review and reflection and it was at this time that the students decided which books to take from the library.

  Though Vaughn insisted that this was merely the typical pattern and that it was her choice how she filled her hours, it seemed like a good way to begin. This morning then was a time to research and study the ideas behind magic, time to consult one of the masters about their art. Caleigh wondered about this. Part of her was interested to know about other arts. Could she do any of what Gideon or Tovrik could? Would she be able to learn what Dana knew? The appeal was strong and she knew there would be a time for it, nonetheless, her instincts told her that for now her best path to success lay in consolidating the skills of her own art and thusly headed for the Enchantment wing of the great library.

  Aethelbald was not there. This in itself was not curious, it was relatively early and Aethelbald’s habits were firmly established. The strangeness in it was that Aethelbald had finished his breakfast before she and had told Rosamund that he was intending to go straight to the library. He certainly wasn’t to be seen in the common room or loitering about the sleeping chambers. This Caleigh knew because her quarters were on the same floor of the south-west tower, along with those of Ellie and Rosamund.

  Ignoring this thought, Caleigh set about the modest, by the library’s standard, collection of volumes and scrolls pertaining to Enchantments. She amassed a small pile of these and arranged them about one of the study tables. From this selection her eyes was drawn first to a sheaf of parchments with pictures as well as text. The first line read: When studying the mysteries of Enchantment it is first important to know what can and what cannot be learned by each scholar. This seemed an ideal place to start.

  Reading on, the piece went on to separate the Art into three distinct Disciplines or Paths. Few could master all three and even those who could, would struggle to make progress. This was less encouraging. On the other hand, with every Art there were some spells that many wizards could master. Where intuition was less important than study or a knowledge of magic the intricacy of the spell would yield itself to the right kind of mind. Did this mean she could learn some or most of Gi
deon’s tricks, she wondered, before reminding herself today was about Enchantment.

  Further in, the text revealed what it hinted about in the introduction. Enchantment as an Art contained the paths of Charisma, Elementalism and Fatalism. Of the three only Elementalism could be learned by all wizards, yet it required the most study to master. Charisma unveiled itself more easily but only to those who were born with that quality. An Enchanter who was not naturally charismatic would never get far along that path. Lastly, there was Fatalism, which while less intellectually demanding than Elementalism, required an intuitive power far greater. The text concluded that this was the most demanding of all the three paths.

  As she continued it became increasingly evident that the magic she had performed so far lay in the Charisma Discipline. This tallied too with what Gideon had told her and the observable effects of the spells she had cast. She found it interesting that this was also one of the Disciplines that many who did not think of themselves as wizards became well-versed in. The author even went on to speculate that many of history’s great heroes may well have unconsciously been invoking this magic in performing their famed deeds.

  What did this mean for her, Caleigh questioned. The positive side seemed to be that she had every reason to expect her swift progress to continue. The negative side was the nagging doubt that this might be the only kind of magic she was able to do. If so many great heroes had never shown any other kind of magical talent it seemed to follow that perhaps that a talent in Charisma did not translate into a talent for magic in general.

  Putting these thoughts aside, she ploughed on into the description of Elementalism Discipline. This path, unsurprisingly, related to the ability to charm and control the elements. Considering what both Gideon and Vaughn had told her about Elemental magic being a fundament shared by all wizards it made sense that this should be the aspect of her art that was accessible to most wizards. There was promise in this here at least was some part of her Art that she might not have to develop on her own.

 

‹ Prev