The Circles of Magic

by Gabriela Fišerová

  Oh, Goddess, why hadn’t he been more careful? He would, of course, go check the road once the mist cleared away, but what was he supposed to do if the stone wasn’t there? The only thing he could think of would be to retrace their steps as they headed back and hope that the stone would be somewhere to be found.

  If Edwyr were here, they would be leaving already—assuming whoever had summoned the mist would let them leave. But even if Feyrith decided to throw away all of his morals and leave without Edwyr, he knew the two humans wouldn’t. Above all, he was supposed to protect them, and so even though the information he had for the Council was important, he would never leave them behind

  They would simply need to find Edwyr quickly and leave as soon as possible. Assuming it wasn’t too late already.

  He looked back over at Lanna and Arbane, who were still arguing, judging by their dramatic arm movements, though their voices were kept to harsh whispers, and so Feyrith couldn’t make out what they were saying. His eyes soon drifted off to the wall of mist again, quickly noticing that he could see the silhouette of a rock statue through it.

  Feyrith walked closer, watching as the mist became less and less thick as he went until it seemed to disappear entirely, leaving behind a clear view of the road, the trees, and the ruins adjacent to it. Finally being able to see how far they were from where the mist had enveloped them, Feyrith was shocked how large of an area the mist had covered up. But because their surroundings were mostly flat, it was easy to tell now that Edwyr was nowhere to be seen.

  That didn’t stop Arbane and Lanna from running to where the mist had been as soon as they realized it had disappeared, though. But this time Feyrith didn’t mind as it gave him a chance to look for his lost communication stone.

  His already waning hope fizzled out very quickly though as he walked up the road and noticed that there were small pieces of rock everywhere. They didn’t look exactly like the one he was looking for of course, but they were similar enough that it took him a moment to tell the difference. And the idea of doing this with every step was terrible.

  But this entire thing felt off to him. His satchel was made in a way that ensured nothing would fall out of it, even in combat. And there wasn’t any hole in it, either.

  Still, he wouldn’t forgive himself if he didn’t check, and so he continued walking up the road, alternating between looking around to spot potential danger, and staring at the ground as his heart sunk more and more with every step because deep down, he knew he would find nothing. And that fear was confirmed fairly quickly once he reached the place he was thought he’d fallen and found absolutely nothing. He searched around, going up and down the road just to make sure, but there was nothing.

  Feyrith swallowed, throwing around a nervous look. Something about being in this spot again was making him uneasy. But that feeling only lasted for a moment as exhaustion from casting spells so much finally hit him with full force. There was nothing he could do here. He needed to go back to Arbane and Lanna before he lost track of them, too.

  Unfortunately, they hadn’t managed to find Edwyr anywhere as Feyrith learned as soon as he saw the two humans in the distance. Although he hadn’t had high hopes that Edwyr would be found here to begin with, Feyrith couldn’t help but feel disappointed. There were really only two possibilities now—either Edwyr had turned around and gone back, which made no sense as he would be leaving his friends behind, or Edwyr had gone ahead, and he was somewhere within the ruins.

  Or he had been taken there against his will by whoever had created the mist, but Feyrith decided not to think about that possibility, as it didn’t help things and they had no evidence to suggest that.

  “So what now?” Arbane asked as they met up again. Both of the humans looked even more worried now, which Feyrith hadn’t thought was possible. They must have really cared about Edwyr. Of course, Feyrith had already suspected as much, but it was odd to him to see so much concern over anyone.

  “Edwyr has to be around here somewhere, right?” Lanna said, nodding to herself. “He couldn’t have just disappeared.”

  The two humans looked at Feyrith after that, clearly wanting him to confirm that. “No, magic cannot simply make someone disappear.”

  “All right, great,” Arbane said, running his hands through his hair. “So where is he?”

  The question hung in the air as none of them said a word. Feyrith was sure that a more experienced magic-user could think of a spell to use in this specific situation, but he couldn’t. He knew nothing that would help search for him Edwyr.

  “We have to search the ruins.”

  Lanna was right, but her words left a sour taste in Feyrith’s mouth.

  “Yeah, we do,” Arbane agreed, nodding at her. “Let’s split up and—”

  “That is incredibly unwise,” Feyrith cut in, unable to help himself and wait for Arbane to finish. “Someone has summoned that mist for unknown, but likely hostile reasons. They could ambush us at any moment.”

  “Yeah, but if the person ambushing us is an elf, I don’t think we stand much more of a chance together,” Arbane said before Feyrith could continue. The elf frowned, having no good argument against this logic.

  “Hey, that’s not true,” Lanna argued, though from her halfhearted tone, it was clear she didn’t believe what she was saying. Humans were such strange creatures.

  “Look, if we split up, we can cover much more ground than if we go together. And the less time we spend here, the less dangerous it will be, right?”

  Feyrith disliked how hard it was to find fault in this argument. Splitting up simply felt like a bad idea, but so was spending more time here than necessary. He sighed. He supposed if they rode the quasir through these ruins, searching through them would be relatively quick, especially if they did split up.

  “Very well.”

  Arbane gave Feyrith a firm nod, steely resolve in his eyes, so unlike the constantly joking man Feyrith had come to expect. “Good. Then let’s go. While we still have sunlight.”

  Feyrith still couldn’t shake the feeling that staying here was a bad idea, but he kept it to himself as was told to go check the western part of the ruins. He hadn’t exactly been ordered by Lanna—it had been more of a suggestion—but it still felt incredibly strange to have a human tell him what to do. Still, Feyrith decided not to comment on that either as he set off.

  He was a little paranoid that the quasir would throw him off again, but the beast seemed perfectly calm now that the mist was gone. Perhaps it had merely gotten scared by it earlier, though even as he thought that, Feyrith was doubtful.

  He rode down the road, trying his best not to gawk at the ruins too much. The sandy stone structures would be fascinating to explore under normal circumstances, but these were anything but that. He wished he had the time to look at the houses more closely at least and to perhaps add to some of the research that was already collected in the libraries on Aendor. But all of that would have to wait.

  The thing bothering him the most right now anyway was that he’d lost the communication stone. He still couldn’t believe that. He had been careful with it—he just hadn’t checked on it specifically in a while to confirm he still had it, but it hadn’t even occurred to him that he might have lost it.

  Feyrith shook his head, trying to ignore the shame filling his heart. There was nothing to be done about this now, and he needed to focus.

  He pushed the quasir to go faster, running between the various broken houses and statues row after row, slowly but surely confirming that Edwyr was nowhere to be found in this part of the ruins. As Feyrith reached the end of the ruins, he sighed as he looked up to see the sun already setting. He truly hoped the humans had been more successful. If they left now, they might still make it far enough to get to a safe distance before it was too dark to continue.

  But as he was about to leave, turning the quasir around, he froze, his eyes widening. In front of him stood an elven woman. Even with the dark cloak and cowl she was wearing covering most
of her, he could easily tell this wasn’t a human.

  He knew he needed to run. To get away before she managed to cast anything. But all he could do at that moment was to stare at her, frozen in place with shock and fear. This must have been the person who had summoned the mist. And now she was standing here, before him, definitely about to attack him.

  As Feyrith finally regained the ability to move, he barely managed to drag the quasir to the side before she yelled a spell he didn’t know, purple energy flying past him. Feyrith scrambled to try to get his alarmed, squawking quasir to calm down as he guided it to run between the broken buildings, using their walls as cover to give himself some time to defend himself, no matter how pointless it might be.

  Feyrith jumped off his quasir, taking his staff off his back and pressing his back against the wall. Riding the quasir made him too tall to fully hide behind a lot of these broken structures, so he had no choice but to try to run away on foot. But he doubted that he would be able to simply ride out of here before the other elf managed to hit him with whatever spell she’d throw at him, so he would have to be ready to cast a shield spell.

  But could he concentrate enough to run away from her, dragging the quasir with him through the maze of ruined houses, and still pay enough attention to know when to cast the spell?

  “Come out, whelp, and face me,” she hissed, the sound of her boots scraping against the stones and rocks much too loud. Feyrith swallowed. While it was true that he was bringing shame to his people by hiding from danger like this, he was fairly certain that the Council would agree the other elf was doing a much worse job of honoring elves by attacking him. Besides, this was clearly a taunt to get him to act bravely but stupidly and face her, and there was nothing to gain, so Feyrith was going to stay hidden.

  He began to move, pulling the quasir along and desperately hoping it was going to stay quiet as he ran between the two houses in front of him, zigzagging through the ruins between the buildings and not looking back. His heart was beating hard enough that it almost felt as if it would leap out of his chest at any moment as he continued running, going faster and faster while trying not to trip on rubble. Feyrith was starting to worry about stumbling and falling with how fast he was going, but he couldn’t stop, his legs as if having a mind of their own.

  And suddenly, a word he recognized as a telekinetic spell was yelled behind him, and he was falling, hitting the ground with a cry, and barely managing to catch himself with his hands in time. He rolled onto his back, only getting enough time to notice the rope which was now firmly tied around his ankles before his attacker was towering above him, glaring down at him fiercely.

  He didn’t wait for even a split second, yelling a shield spell immediately as he did his best to scoot away. He wished he could get up, but that wasn’t an option right now.

  His quasir ran at the other elf, about to slash her with its claws, but the elf simply shouted another spell. The quasir froze in its tracks, staggering before falling down, its eyes closing.

  Feyrith stared at the scene in horror, for a second thinking that she’d killed the beast, but then he noticed its sides moving as it breathed. The fact that it was still alive brought little comfort to him, though, as he didn’t doubt a much worse fate awaited him.

  The female elf cocked her head to the side, watching him struggle to keep up the shield with all his strength while he used his own spell for telekinesis to untie the rope. He was still tired from summoning wind earlier, and he wasn’t sure how long he would be able to maintain the shield, but he still dragged himself back to his feet, his teeth gritted in determination.

  He flinched as the female elf yelled another spell, sending another wave of purple energy at him. Her magic crashed into Feyrith’s shield with a horrible, loud crackle, but still he held on, raising his staff to channel the shield better as he did his best to run away again, breathing hard.

  The other elf proceeded to throw more spells at Feyrith, each impact almost making his knees buckle and making the staff in his hands feel heavier and heavier. His resolve finally crumbled as he threw a look over his shoulder, only to see the other elf smirk and throw yet another blast of magic at him. And at that Feyrith finally fell to his knees as his shield disappeared.

  He didn’t have the strength to look back at the female elf when he heard her repeat what he thought was the same spell she’s used on the quasir, making Feyrith fall forward as all of his muscles grew too tired to even keep him kneeling.

  He felt the tears of frustration and terror pricked at his eyes as he weakly clutched his staff in hopes of doing anything at all to defend himself. But it was hopeless. He could barely keep his eyes open, let alone pull together the strength to summon a shield again. He was too tired to even feel properly horrified and helpless as he struggled not to fall asleep.

  “Good. You’ll do fine,” he heard her say. And finally, his eyes slid closed as everything went dark.

  21

  “It won’t be long now,” Wyn said, trying to assure Edwyr for what felt like the tenth time. And Edwyr wasn’t exactly worried in the first place. He was actually glad that they had to wait before that device was ready, as it gave him time to think.

  And it also gave him time to try to digest everything Wyn had been telling him so far. It had been a lot, and yet Edwyr’s brain never failed to come up with more follow-up questions, which even to him was starting to feel grating. At least Wyn seemed understanding, though.

  “How do you even know about this…thing?”

  “We call it a Magic Infuser.”

  Edwyr frowned, leaning onto the small table they were sitting at as he repeated the device’s full name in his head a few times. It sounded strangely ominous to him

  “Right.”

  Wyn smiled, leaning back in his chair with his usual amount of elegance. Edwyr wondered if those chairs and the table had been in this small room prior to Wyn arriving here, or if he’d conjured them. Somehow Edwyr was willing to bet it was the latter.

  “Ruins like these were originally my field of study, actually,” Wyn replied, a spark of pride appearing in his eyes. Edwyr almost sighed. Why were most elves so interested in research and studying? Edwyr had always assumed that it was simply an expectation and obligation, but now that he thought about it, most of the elves he’d ever interacted with were genuinely excited about it.

  “I discovered the Infuser in a ruin in the south years ago, but I didn’t know what it was back then,” Wyn continued, sipping the strange, orange drink, which he’d also conjured up for Edwyr.

  Despite Wyn’s assurances that it was harmless, Edwyr was unwilling to touch it after his initial, unthinking sip. He wanted to trust Wyn, but accepting food from people he barely knew and whose intentions were not entirely clear didn’t seem like a good idea.

  Thankfully, Wyn didn’t seem to take offense.

  “I can only theorize about why the device was built,” Wyn said, putting the metal cup back on the table. “But I am fairly confident I understand how it works.”

  The elf paused as if expecting Edwyr to confirm that he was interested in hearing it. Was Wyn not used to having people listen to him ramble on? Or perhaps he was being polite. That was most likely it. Edwyr decided simply to wave his hand to indicate Wyn should continue, not voicing any of these thoughts.

  “Magic is a tangible thing, running through our veins. Quite literally. The Council likes not to mention that.”

  Edwyr grimaced, immediately looking down at his wrist. He had heard elves use that phrase before, but it had always been metaphorical. At least he had assumed so until now.

  “And before you say it—yes, you have magic in your blood as well,” Wyn continued with his explanation, once again surprising Edwyr enough to keep him from saying anything. “In fact, what research on the subject I did suggests that all humans seem to have small amounts of magic as well. As do animals, and plant life, and so on.”

  Edwyr frowned, tilting his head to the side as he tried t
o understand what he was being told. He could never seem to tell what exactly Wyn’s point was going to be, but he supposed it would be much more infuriating if Wyn never actually got to that point. “And what does that mean?”

  Wyn leaned against the table with an elbow, waving his hand in an overly dramatic way. “Well, much like magic is running through our veins, it is also running through the veins of the very land we live in. That’s why everything is infused with it.”

  Naturally, a dramatic pause followed, which Edwyr was realizing Wyn did often. He couldn’t help but feel like it was offensive to his intelligence, but he was also too confused about what he was supposed to think of all of this to get too annoyed.

  “As in…metaphorically?” Goddess, his head was starting to hurt.

  Wyn grinned. “Well, to some extent. A continent has no need for literal veins now, does it?”

  Edwyr scowled at him, which immediately wiped Wyn’s smile off his face.

  Now looking more serious, Wyn sighed. “I apologize. What I am trying to say is that there are rivers of magic beneath the ground. And these devices tap into them, albeit they only seem to be able to do it with very long pauses in between.”

  Edwyr had nothing to say to that. He’d never truly thought about where magic came from. He’d never taken the belief that the Goddess had given magic to them as fact, as it was a part of all of the Council’s propaganda, but he certainly hadn’t imagined that every living thing had it.

  Did this information change anything or not? Edwyr couldn’t decide, and he wasn’t sure how to feel about it all, either.

  “The Council likes to ignore that fact because it doesn’t fit into their narrative,” Wyn said in the meantime, scowling at his drink.

  “They could simply say that the Goddess created these underground magic rivers, no?”

  Wyn grinned at him once again. He looked genuinely happy whenever Edwyr asked things like this. Or perhaps he was finding Edwyr’s ignorance amusing. Edwyr hoped it was the first option. “Well, yes, of course, and maybe she did. But these rivers were discovered only around a hundred years ago, and the Council doesn’t like admitting mistakes.”