by R J Murray
The first meal she served convinced the others and that was that. For the next two days as they flew towards the mountains, Mia’s life settled into a routine. She would wake before the others and prepare a breakfast of eggs and toasted bread slices served with a rich, creamy, butter.
Then she would clean herself up in the private area and prepare herself for the trials she would have to face. She braided her hair and secured it with a leather thong before moving out to join the mage, Wynn, away from the others.
She would sit and listen to him speak of magic and explain again and again how to use it, with ever-increasing anger at her inability to do so before he would scream at her and send her scurrying away.
A short rest and then she would try again when he calmed himself, but to little effect. By the end of the day, she would be exhausted and one or more of her new companions would have stepped in before the fat mage could strike her in his fury, which was truly terrible to behold.
He was not, he explained, a teacher, and few on the ship would argue that.
After the evening meal she prepared, she would sit with the others as they talked of their lives and the things they had done. Often, they would speak of their time before they each left the company of the raven, but none would say why.
Mia had picked up enough bits and pieces to understand that it was something to do with an oath they had made and their missing companion, the woman called Amina, was a subject they avoided.
If her name was mentioned, the big warrior's face would darken, and he would storm off to sit by himself, while the others fell silent.
When she awoke on the third day of their journey, she decided that enough was enough. She would master the tasks Wynn set her and she would demand answers about where they were going and what was their purpose.
She cooked the eggs in an iron pan and served them on tin plates for the other members of the company, placing them on the sturdy wooden table that was bolted to the deck. She wiped the beaded sweat from her brow as she dumped the pan back onto the stove top.
They kept the fire low in the wood burning stove but even so, in the small space of the airship, the air soon grew uncomfortably hot. She took the time to wash, enjoying the coolness of the water and braided her thick hair.
Once ready, she steadied her resolve, set her jaw and headed out to seat herself in her customary place beside the port side hull. She crossed her legs and pulled out the stone she had been given that she had been keeping in a pouch on her belt, afraid to have it around her neck.
As before, the stone glowed with a silvery light as she held it and she closed her eyes, taking slow, deep breaths as she worked to clear her mind. Much as before, all it did was make her aware of all the sounds around her.
The distant flap of the canvas sails as the wind caught them, the coughing groaning of the engines as they laboured to keep the propellers moving. There was a creak of timber as the wind buffeted the airship and the cries of birds, angry at the intrusion into a world that had been entirely their own.
Amongst that was the sounds of her companions. A banging and thumping from the gnome as she did something in the engine room. The quiet humming of Syn as he sharpened the daggers he carried, again and again.
There was the soft pat of leather on the deck as Elva paced nervously. She was not entirely pleased with the idea of flying so high above the earth. While Mia had been the same on that first day, she had soon grown surprisingly accustomed to it.
In the forward cabin, Wynn was speaking quietly with Jochum. Their voices muted and words hot as they argued quietly over something or other. It didn’t matter what they were arguing about, should she ask they wouldn’t tell her.
She forced out a breath, hating the feeling of failing once again even if it were failing at something she didn’t particularly want to do.
“I can’t do it!”
Her voice sounded petulant even to her own ears, but she had spoken so quietly that she didn’t think anyone had heard. She was wrong.
“Can’t do what?” Syn asked, putting away his whetstone and sheathing his dagger.
His expression was one of genuine curiosity and she held up the softly glowing stone. “This! I can’t do what Wynn said and clear my mind!”
Syn smiled gently and crossed to where she sat, dropping gracefully to his knees before her and looking her straight in the eye.
“I am a thief by trade.”
She nodded slowly at that as she’d figured as much out for herself. While she didn’t agree with the idea of stealing another person’s belongings or hard-earned coin, she didn’t judge him for it.
“Part of my job is to open locks without the need of a key. Usually, when I do it, I have to work fast to avoid being caught.”
“Okay,” she said not quite knowing where he was going with his line of thought.
“Have you ever tried to do something in a hurry?” She grinned and nodded. Every job in the inn was needed to be done in a hurry. “How does that go? Do you make mistakes, stumble or mess things up?”
“Yes.” There were a number of times she had been in such a hurry that she dropped a tankard or forgot something and received a tongue lashing from a guest. “I suppose so.”
“Then imagine what it is like for me. I crouch there, in the darkness, working my pick-locking tools by feel and sound alone. My heart beating in my chest as the adrenaline surges through my limbs, my fear of a guard or watchman wandering past making my fingers fumble and sweat form on my brow.”
Mia smiled at the image that conjured.
“When you are new, this is how it goes,” he said. “As you get better, more experienced, you learn how to focus on your task alone and tune out everything else. All that worry, all the fear and excitement. There is just you, your picks and the lock to be opened.”
“But how!”
“It is not about clearing the mind. Trying to do that is pointless! The mind is never clear. There are always thoughts there. But perhaps, try this.”
He gestured for her to sit back and she did so as he leant forward, his hands reaching around to press against her back and gently adjust her position.
“Breathe,” he said softly, his voice a whisper beside her ear. “Don’t try to control it, just breathe naturally and observe your breath. In, out and in again, find the rhythm.”
His breath was warm on her neck and she could smell the leather he wore and the oils he rubbed into it to keep it supple. She did her best to ignore it and how close he was to her, as she breathed in and out as normally as she could.
In and out, in and out, the soft sound she made as she exhaled, the way her body moved, chest rising and falling with each breath. There was a rhythm to it, she realised, an almost soothing calm to the slow inhale and exhale of her breath.
The hammering from the engine room faded until it was no louder than the buzzing of an insect. All of the sounds around her that had so distracted her before, faded, as the simple act of breathing became all that she knew.
A voice sounded, distant, so very distant.
“In your hand is a wellspring of power, do you feel it?”
The question barely registered, there was nothing but the rise and fall of her chest, the soft exhalation of her breath. Without moving her focus from her breathing, she became distantly aware of a feeling of light somewhere close by.
“Imagine that in your hand is a ball of light,” Syn said, voice barely even a whisper, so soft it was. “What colour is it?”
“White, like ice,” she murmured.
“Good, good. Hold that image in your mind, your hand holding a ball of white light. Feel it there, in your hand. Do you feel it?”
Her brows drew down, a line forming between them, as her nose crinkled. It was difficult, her breathing took up almost all of her concentration but there, on the edge of her awareness she could see that image, the ball of glowing light pulsing in her hand.
“I-I feel it.”
“Then hold onto that image an
d imagine the light dropping into you, through the skin and into the flesh beneath. Feel it becoming part of you.”
That was a ridiculous idea, but in that calm state, she did as he asked. The ball of light was in her hand, white as the ice and snow that she had so loved to play in as a child. But unlike the snow, the ball of light was warm against her skin.
She imagined the light spreading, reaching out to touch her skin, moving over her hand, covering it entirely until it shone as white as the ball of light. Then, without conscious thought, the ball of light dropped into her hand, merging with the light she carried.
Her eyes opened wide, a gasp escaping her as she stared around in awe. Syn, settled back on his heels and smiled as Mia saw a world of wonder and magic before her very eyes.
“She has done it finally!” Wynn grumped, stomping over to her.
He lowered his bulk to the deck as he studied her face as she moved her head this way and that, staring at something only she could see. He grunted an acknowledgement and waved Syn aside.
“Tell me, girl. What do you see?”
“I-I see.. light, everywhere. All different colours and just, connected to everything.”
“That’s the energy that holds everything together, girl. Took you long enough.”
“Be kind,” Syn said. “Most novice magi would take months to reach this stage.”
“What would you know about it, thief?”
“I know plenty.”
“Pah.”
He waved the thief away again and leant forward, squinting as he reached for the stone hanging from his own neck. It began to glow with a malevolent green light as soon as he touched it.
“The stone is the source of your connection to the world you can now see, a world few even know of. Reach out, touch one of those lights.”
Mia did as instructed, reaching out and touching a glimmering strand that danced on the air before her eyes. It curled and twisted around her hand and she laughed aloud.
“A mage can manipulate those energies,” Wynn said, voice filled with a strange eagerness. “That light you see floating all around you is the magic of the air itself. Take some and hold it.”
She reached out once again, cupping her hand around a strand of light and grinning as it pooled in her palm. “Now what?”
“You can mould it, shape it to your will. Form it into a ball and hold it in your hand.”
That was easy enough to do, she found. With just a little coaxing, it responded to her desire and she soon held a glittering ball in her hand.
“Now, take this.”
He handed her a small pebble. It was nothing special, just a stone that could be found on any riverbed. She frowned down at it as she held it, seeing the dark brown web of light that seemed to hold it together.
“Take the essence of that stone, the weight, the solidness of it and transfer it to the ball of air you hold.”
Not quite understanding what he meant, she closed her hand over the pebble, imagining the web of brown light moving through her and into the glittering ball of air she held. She yelped and dropped the ball of air. It hit the wooden deck with a thud and rolled over to where Syn sat.
He picked it up with an amused smile, tossing it between one hand and the other where it faded back into just air.
Mia opened her hand, eyebrows rising at the dust she found where the pebble had been.
“There is much to learn of magic, girl, but let this be the first lesson. A mage can transfer the properties of one thing into another. They can construct an image out of light.”
In his hand a translucent image of a dagger appeared, hovering just above his open palm. He reached into his satchel and pulled out an iron nail, eyes narrowing as he concentrated. Before her eyes the nail crumbled to dust as the image of the dagger became solid.
“The more energy you put into it, the longer it will stay,” he said. “But it is little use to just create a construct such as this when it would be easier to use the dagger on your belt, no?”
She nodded agreement and he grinned a particularly ugly grin.
“We speak of elements in the colleges. Earth, air, fire and water. That is simplistic, but it will do for this example. We created an image of light, which is just fire of a kind. We transfer the properties of the iron nail giving it solidity and powered it with enough of our magic for it to last a few minutes at least.”
“Then…” the dagger construct floated several inches up into the air as Wynn lowered his hand. “We float it on currents of air and then finally, we take the energy of the movement of our arm as we do…”
He pulled his arm back and thrust it forward, palm open as though pushing something along and the dagger construct whizzed past Mia’s ear and buried itself in the hull timbers. She turned to stare at it, eyes wide.
“Energy is everywhere. In every movement we make, and we can transfer that energy and magnify it by feeding it with magic, transferring it to the construct at the same time. The result is as you saw.”
“W-what about the words.”
“Words?”
“I’ve seen you speak as you cast a spell.”
He grinned and nodded. “A good question. What we have just seen is fairly basic. A mage will learn how to weave those strands of energy into shapes that form part of a greater spell. The words we speak are simply a memory aid.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Stalaz,” he said and in the air between them an intricate weaving of magic appeared, hanging in the air and glowing softly. “That complex weaving, far beyond you, girl, would take too long to weave every time I needed it to form a spell.”
“So, instead. I weave it and, in my mind, I connect it to a particular word. As I speak the word, it forms it for me from memory, must faster than I could weave it myself. Then…”
He spoke a handful of words in quick succession and more of the weavings appeared, floating together in the air. Mia tried to trace them with her eyes but soon became lost in the intricacies.
“These, combined together would create a fireball that would engulf this ship and send if flaming to the ground. There are weavings that will ignite the flame, one to form it into a ball, one to send it flying from my hand towards the target I choose. A final word spoken and my feeding it enough magic to form will have this ship afire.”
“But there’s no stone or nail,” she said waving her hands. “Or whatever it is that you would need to make fire.”
“Some things, like making fire are easy to do. Just add enough energy and it bursts to life and feeds on the magic you give it. Sparking a match will give you a ready-made flame and will require less magic.”
“So,” she said slowly, understanding coming to her. “With enough magic and time, you could have made the ball of air as solid as a stone.”
“Yes. Once you know the web of magic that is within the stone you can weave it yourself.”
“But it would cost more magic to create it from nothing. Transferring it is easier?”
“Aye, girl. That it is. A mage would soon exhaust himself if he were to make each and every thing himself. Transferring what already exists is far easier. A large part of a mages skill is knowing how much each spell will cost him and pacing himself so he does not run out of power at a vital moment.”
It made sense, but she could tell that there was a great deal more complexity to it than he was showing her. Which was understandable as it was quite literally her first day at actually being able to see and touch the magic he spoke of.
“What about…”
“No more.” He reached into his ever-present satchel and pulled out a small, leather-bound book about the size of her hand. “This will get you started.”
“What is it?”
“The book I was first given when I joined the college. It has the basics of spellcasting and a number of spells that any novice should learn. You can read, I presume?”
“Yes. I can read.”
“Good. Practice reaching for your mag
ic. In battle, you do not have the time to waste and sitting there, reaching for calm will see you killed. You need to have it to hand whenever you call for it.”
She nodded, opening the book and flipping through the pages as the mage lifted himself to his feet with a grunt. He didn’t say anything else, just turned and left.
Mia looked over to Syn who had been watching the exchange silently and smiled her thanks for his help. He returned it warmly.
“I’ll leave you to study.”
“Thank you.”
As he left she settled back and gave the stone in her hand a hard look. It hadn’t been scary or even felt wrong. It had been wondrous and exciting. She could start to believe what Elva had told her. Perhaps she wasn’t evil and magic could be used for something good.
With that thought uppermost in her mind, she set the book down and sucked in a deep breath, before closing her eyes and concentrating. She was determined that by the end of the voyage, she would be able to reach the magic whenever she needed it.
Chapter 14
On the fourth day, Mia was seated cross-legged, with the tip of her tongue protruding from her mouth as she attempted weaving a simple cantrip. She had been attempting it for almost a full hour according to the brass clock that Til, the gnomish engineer, had fixed to the hull.
“It’s time,” Jochum called out, his voice rough but commanding.
He pulled back on a lever, cutting power to the propellers and waited patiently for the airship to slow its forward momentum. The rest of the company all rose to their feet and moved forward to crowd behind him and stare out of the window.
Elva looked back and seeing the former serving girl staring at them in bewilderment, gestured for her to come forward and join them. More than a little curious, Mia did so. Jumping to her feet and practically running over to them, eager to finally learn something new.
“What is it?” Mia raised herself up onto the tips of her toes as she tried to see past the others.
Syn stepped aside, allowing her to push past him and gain a clear view out of the window. She stared for a moment, not sure what she was supposed to be seeing and then she did.