Chosen (9781742844657)

by Morgansen, Shayla

  ‘That’s correct. Pure energy is the whitest white, but I don’t expect anyone here to be capable of producing pure and untainted energy from within yourselves. Inexperience inhibits your abilities, but with practice and clarity of mind, you will improve.’

  That sounded like meditation. Damn, I sucked at any kind of meditation. I hoped my other subjects didn’t require much of this.

  ‘You just wrote down the theory behind the “orthodox” method – the method I’m meant to teach you, because this is how you cast spells. You’ve all done magic before, and the first time you cast a spell it was probably more a reflex than any conscious effort. Essentially, this is what happens each time you cast a spell: you draw magic inside you; you decide what you want done with it; you channel it and it comes out, hopefully as the spell you’d intended. Put like that, it sounds very simple. Give it a go. Try to transfer energy into those crystals.’

  Looking at him dubiously, most of us had a go, to no success, of course.

  ‘You need to mean it,’ our teacher reminded us.

  Jadon closed his hand and reopened it, a few glowing balls of light suddenly in his palm. He tossed them into the air, and, while we all looked on enthralled, began to juggle them. Very quickly, though, all three little lights faded to nothing, and Jadon dropped his hands.

  ‘No energy or emotion can remain forever unless made to. Like everything, it moves on. The stronger the intent and power of the transference, the better the effect. For example, in order to transport energy from a healthy person to a sick person, as is often required in healing, you need to really mean it. Without a strong intention, the energy dissipates too quickly. The same applies for any spell or transference.’

  I examined the crystal in my hand for a moment. My failed attempt to push energy inside it had stirred a question in my head. How much energy could a little thing like this hold? How much energy could my body hold? As I thought this over, Jadon said my name. I blinked and looked up.

  ‘Aristea, you read my mind – or, more correctly, I read yours, and you were thinking just what I wanted to talk about next,’ Jadon said with a smile. I tried to smile back, but felt slightly shaken.

  ‘Oh,’ was all I said at first, then, stupidly, ‘how did you read my mind?’

  ‘I’m a Telepath by trade,’ he said jokingly. He sat down on the edge of his desk. He was so, so young, I noticed then. He must have been only days past twenty when the White Elm had brought him on. I tried to stop thinking about it; clearly he could read my thoughts and I didn’t want him overhearing that, but he seemed not to notice, or at least said nothing about it.

  ‘Essentially, Aristea was wondering about capacity. How much power can an item hold? How much can you hold?’

  Jadon reached for the jug of water on his desk and placed an empty plastic cup on the desk of a girl in the front row.

  ‘Imagine this cup is you. You are a vessel, capable of channelling “x” amount of energy at once. You draw power to you,’ he poured water in until it was about a third full, ‘and expel energy in your desired form, perhaps a spell or an effort to heal a cut,’ he picked up the cup and poured it back into the jug, ‘hence returning the power to the universe. You borrow and direct magic; you are not a creator of magic. Magic is only energy; it cannot be made nor destroyed, only manipulated. The idea behind spell-casting is that you manipulate the power you draw in to suit your purpose.’

  He had poured water back into the cup; now he haphazardly tipped the cup over the jug, swirling the cup as the water trickled out. The thin stream glowed and sparkled and ignored gravity, falling slowly and pausing in the delicate spiral in which it had been poured. We all stared, mesmerised by the glass-like mobile he’d created. Then the spell broke, the water fell back into the jug and a murmur of appreciation ran through the class.

  ‘Now, I mentioned capacity,’ Jadon went on, arranging a line of ten plastic cups on his desk, in order of smallest to biggest. ‘Every vessel has its limitations. A rowboat can only carry so many people, and you can only channel so much magic.’ With the cups arranged, he began pouring water into each one, filling them to their brims. ‘Capacity for energy is often historically referred to as a sorcerer’s “strength”. In the 1700s a magical theorist called Emile Trefzer devised a widely popular scale which identified a sorcerer’s capacity for energy, from one being barely psychic to ten being unstoppable. The factors and algorithms behind the Trefzer Scale are incredibly complex, so I won’t try to explain exactly how it’s worked out, but really, once you start getting a true sense of others’ abilities and of your own, you don’t really need a big, confusing scale to work out whether or not someone is stronger than you. These days the Trefzer Scale is considered quite politically incorrect in academic circles anyway, because it labels people, but I still think it’s worth learning.’

  Nine cups were now full, and the jug almost empty.

  ‘Every person in this room weighs in as level six or above on the Trefzer Scale, making you all reasonably powerful sorcerers,’ Jadon said, pouring water into the last, and biggest, glass. ‘While it’s great to know your own awesomeness, it’s also wise to know your limitations. Your body, though strong and amazing, can only hold so much power. Attempting to channel more than one’s capacity…’ He kept pouring, and the water level reached the brim. The water’s tension held it together for an instant as it raised above the edge, and then it spilled over the edge and onto the desk.

  ‘How anticlimactic,’ Jadon commented, still holding the now empty jug above the overflowing cup. ‘That doesn’t illustrate my point properly at all.’

  He flicked a finger, and the spilling water paused, then, impossibly, began moving backwards like it was on rewind. Trickles slid back up the sides of the cup, and a stream flowed up from the cup back to the jug until the cup was only just full. Another wave of his hand, and a thin, glassy film spread across the top of the cup like a lid.

  ‘This should be a more impressive and accurate representation,’ he said, pouring once again. The water fell through the film of energy (maybe a ward of some sort) but did not spill back out. It continued to fill, and overfill, and the cup shook with strain, but there was no outlet…

  There was a collective cry of shock from the class as the cup exploded, shards of sharp plastic and huge blobs of water bursting outwards across the room. I ducked, closing my eyes to protect them, but nothing touched me.

  ‘As I was saying, you can only hold so much power,’ Jadon said, and I looked up to see the explosion frozen in the air like a special effect from a film, water droplets floating alongside suspended chunks of plastic. ‘You are not a cup, with a hole in your head where dangerous excess power can slip out. If you draw it in, you need to expel it. If you take in more than you’re capable of expelling…’ He gestured to his impressive floating demonstration. ‘Well, I’ve never heard of anyone actually exploding, but people have died from trying to overextend themselves and “burning out”.’

  There was a quiet moment of sombre reflection as everyone let this sink in.

  ‘When you say “burning out”…?’ one boy asked in a tone of morbid curiosity. A few girls shot him disgusted looks.

  ‘I mean, not much left, Miguel,’ Jadon confirmed. ‘Charred remains.’

  ‘So it’s true you can catch on fire?’ another boy asked excitedly, receiving his own dark looks.

  ‘There’re no recent reports of that, but some historical eye-witnesses claim it, yes. And it makes sense. The excess energy would burn its way out of the overfilled vessel.’

  This lesson seemed geared towards telling us not to attempt big magic on our own. I was convinced. I glanced silently at Hiroko, sufficiently horrified for one day.

  ‘People aren’t the only things that can hold energy,’ Jadon said, turning his finger lazily in a “rewind” gesture. The still-suspended explosion began to reverse itself, droplets joining together to create larger droplets and plastic shards fitting themse
lves together. ‘With control and intention, energy can be channelled into objects, such as crystals or jewellery, for storage and later use. Normally this would just transform and fade over time as it leaks out through natural outlets, but with appropriate spells, objects can be made to hold power for years, decades…maybe centuries.’

  I turned the quartz over in my hands. How much could this little crystal hold? Could I learn to transfer my energy into it, and ask it to hold onto it for me, to use it later to stay up late cramming for an exam or watching a movie marathon?

  ‘Aristea, I’m certain you can demonstrate active transference to the rest of the class,’ Jadon said with a smile.

  ‘I’ve never done it,’ I admitted, hoping everyone wasn’t staring at me. Jadon’s smile widened.

  ‘Give it a try,’ he suggested. ‘Here, stand up.’ I did. ‘Think about this, Aristea,’ Jadon continued, looking at me directly. ‘Emotion is made up of energy, like all things – it is like a mask, something that can be peeled away to reveal something pure. All I’m asking of you today is a transference of your feelings. Easy as.’

  I nodded, turning the quartz slowly in my hand.

  ‘Concentrate on a happy feeling, Aristea,’ Jadon said. ‘Just do whatever you need to do.’

  Jadon let me think in silence for a few moments. I searched my memory for a time when I was truly happy. I came to the conclusion that I hadn’t been truly happy since my parents were alive, and after extensive digging through my cluttered memory, I selected a fleeting memory of Christmas when I was nine. Aidan and Angela were both in high school and I was dying to go. They always seemed to get everything better than me. But this Christmas, I got the most beautiful present in the world – a tiny silver locket with a diamond set into the front. At the time I was incredibly overjoyed to receive that locket. It was so delicate and beautiful – I’d never felt so entrusted. I was so happy to see that my parents loved me and trusted me with something so lovely.

  ‘You’ve got it,’ Jadon said quietly. ‘Now…’

  I closed my eyes tightly and remembered that Christmas, the pride I felt about getting the beautiful necklace, the colourful presents, the warmth and love from my family – and mentally shoved it all out of my mind and into the quartz. I opened my eyes and smiled when I saw it was glowing green.

  ‘That was quick. How long will that stay green?’ a boy asked. I sat down.

  ‘It depends on the intensity of Aristea’s emotions and her intent,’ Jadon explained. ‘Intent is a powerful force.’

  I studied my glowing green stone. Mum, Dad, my whole family, the necklace, that Christmas…It might be in the past but it was still very real, right here in my hand.

  ‘True, untainted energy is white, as Hiroko told us, so when an emotion masks energy, it takes on a colour to signify the intent,’ Jadon was saying. ‘Positive and benevolent emotion is green. Negative and often harmful emotion is red.’

  A girl near the front tentatively raised her hand. She had shiny, straight black hair and very fair skin.

  ‘Yes, Willow?’ Jadon asked, turning to her.

  ‘If someone did a spell, with a wand…and there was, like, a beam of light,’ she added quickly, sounding nervous. She was British. ‘Does that mean that the light would be either green or red?’

  ‘That’s an interesting question, Willow.’ Jadon entwined his fingers and cracked his knuckles. I was one of the people who shuddered. ‘As with most everything in the world, magic has evolved over the centuries. Old magic could take on many colours, but with recent regulations and changes in methods, modern magic is more or less restricted to three possibilities – good, neutral, or negative intent. Most of the older forms of magic have been lost throughout the years.’

  ‘Does that mean we’ll never see a stone glowing purple?’ Miguel asked.

  ‘You misunderstand. Your emotions are not the same as magical energy. Emotions have not changed over time, and emotions are also not restricted by laws or modern society to a range of good, bad and neutral. At first, during your studies, you will not be able to differentiate emotion from energy, and most of your spells will be tainted with feeling. But soon you will learn.’

  I silently took all this in, wondering whether that last statement was true. There seemed so, so much to learn that I couldn’t imagine ever getting through it all.

  Considering the sheer dullness of the first half of Jadon’s lesson, it was a total and complete success, inspiring a lot of excited dialogue between classmates on the way out. I’d loved it, mostly for Jadon’s fun little tricks. What level of control did one need to be able to manipulate magic like that? They were just party tricks, really, nothing of real use, but so showy and well-done that I couldn’t wait to progress through his subject and juggle my own specks of light.

  My excitement didn’t fade – I knew that I had a telepathy lesson next with Glen as my instructor. I’d noticed that Hiroko and the twins were in my class with me, so thankfully, I wouldn’t be alone.

  ‘Have you ever read anyone’s mind with telepathy?’ Hiroko asked us, sitting cross-legged on the floor beside her bed and picking through her things. I glanced at Sterling, hoping that I wasn’t going to be the only one who couldn’t even mind-read my own sister. Thankfully, she shook her head.

  ‘Once I thought I mind-read my stepmom’s thoughts, but then I realised she was just talking to herself about what she needed to get in the groceries,’ she answered ruefully. I smiled.

  ‘I can’t do it either,’ I agreed. To my surprise, Sterling giggled.

  ‘Can’t,’ she repeated, trying to imitate my speech. ‘Either. You talk so cute, Aristea. You sound so Irish.’

  For a moment I stared at her blankly, before bursting into uncontrollable laughter at her stupid comment.

  ‘That’s because I am Irish,’ I said, laughing. Hiroko shook her head, trying to hide her smile. After our laughter subsided, and we’d pulled ourselves together, I added, ‘There are people here from all over the world. Haven’t you met Irish people before?’

  Sterling spoke, but her response was broken by occasional leftover giggles.

  ‘Not really,’ she said. ‘I saw Irish people on MTV once, though. An interview.’

  Eventually the time came to go to our next class, by which time Sterling had managed to turn the conversation about Irish musicians into one about Renatus.

  ‘He’s Irish, too, you know,’ she said vaguely, collecting her things. Again, I stared at her incredulously.

  ‘I noticed,’ I said, trying not to laugh at her, ‘seeing as I am Irish, too, and seeing as we are in Ireland.’

  Sterling giggled.

  ‘I just wonder how a man that looks like him, with a home like this, manages to not be married!’ she commented as we left the dorm.

  ‘You don’t know he’s not,’ I said cheekily, and she stuck her tongue out at me.

  ‘I looked last night and he wasn’t wearing a ring, but I’m sure that if he had a wife, she would have made herself known by now to prevent students like me from gazing after her gorgeous husband,’ Sterling responded. We filed down the winding stairway. ‘I certainly wouldn’t want any young girls mistaking my hubby for a potential boyfriend.’

  ‘Even without a wife, he is not a potential boyfriend,’ Hiroko reminded Sterling. ‘He is headmaster of this school, and you are a student.’

  Sterling waved one hand dismissively, as if everything Hiroko had just said was as completely irrelevant and off-topic as a comment about starfish.

  ‘Besides, we would know if he was married,’ Sterling continued. ‘Emmanuelle would have said something yesterday.’ She stopped and looked back up the stairs. ‘Where am I going? I’m meant to be upstairs learning about history.’

  She said goodbye and hurried back upstairs. Hiroko and I looked at each other, and then continued outside.

  It was a beautiful day, with a somewhat clear blue sky and a warm yellow sun shining down on Renatus’s
rolling green grounds. Though it did seem odd to be having lessons outside, I couldn’t see any reason why not. Winter had been kind this year.

  ‘This place is so beautiful,’ Hiroko said, admiring the unspoilt land. ‘If it were mine, I would not make it a school.’

  ‘Me either,’ I agreed, waving as we rounded the side of the massive building and the twins came into view.

  ‘Kendra and I visited a farm like this when we were young,’ Sophia said when we repeated our sentiments to her. She turned to her sister, adding, ‘You remember, Uncle Joseph’s farm. We played with the baby chickens.’

  ‘I only remember the lambs,’ Kendra answered, looking distractedly through the small group of other students gathered around Glen. Her cute admirer wasn’t present. The White Elm sorcerer was kneeling on the soft green grass, stroking a small dove that he held in his cupped hand. He seemed not to notice the gaggle of young adult students at first; his attention was entirely devoted to the gentle creature in his hands. He was humming a soft, indistinct tune that I could barely make out, but the dove seemed to like the sound, blinking serenely and making no attempt to fly away. We all stood around in what might have been uncomfortable silence, except that we were all staring at the lovely scene of gentle Glen and his dove, and were all bathed in the aura of his kindliness.

  It occurred to me what good people the White Elm really were. These were people who cared. Good, honest, kind-hearted, real people. There had been complaints from the public in recent years about the White Elm and its “old-fashioned policies” and its “slipping grasp of political power”, but I had never heard anything actually bad about the council. A few of its members had turned bad, and left the council, but there had never been reports of the White Elm causing anybody harm. It made me wonder, quite suddenly, what the other side was like.

  ‘Thank you all for being on-time,’ Glen said pleasantly, patting the grass invitingly. ‘Take a seat, please, and make yourselves comfortable.’

  We did so; I settled myself on the squishy green grass between Hiroko and Kendra.