Welcome To The Age of Magic

by C M Raymond et al.

  “Yeah, never mind. OK, focusing again.” She made sure her back was as straight as his.

  They sat like that for what felt like an hour. Hannah was starting to wish they were doing a history lesson.

  After some time, her mouth disobeyed. “Hey, Zeke?”

  “Mm hmm?”

  “Pretty sure I’m focused enough to blow fireballs out of my ass.”

  “That would be a very unorthodox style,” Ezekiel snapped. “Now be quiet.”

  After what felt like another eternity of waiting, the man finally stirred.

  “All right. Come with me,” he said as he stood.

  She wasn’t going to admit that her back seemed to have a little kink in it. If someone as old as Zeke wasn’t complaining, she wouldn’t either.

  At least, not yet. She would reserve her final decision until later.

  Hannah followed the magician to a room that had been locked since her arrival. She expected to find something marvelous waiting behind the door—glowing goblets, strange creatures, mystical tablets—but there was nothing. Well, almost nothing. In the middle of the room was a rock the size of a large potato.

  “Thrilling,” she told him, staring at the rock.

  “You will start with physical magic. It is the easiest of the arts. Well, at least I found it to be. It is the one that humans are most naturally connected to. And, after the Age of Madness, it was the one we discovered first.”

  Hannah thought of the men in the alley and their fireballs. She felt sweat gather across her body, and the now-familiar feel of the magic danced inside of her. This was why she was here. It was her reason for being.

  She would be a magician. Unless everything Ezekiel said was no more than a crock of shit. Then she would merely be pissed.

  Ezekiel continued explaining. He was either ignorant of her concerns or unbothered by them. “Physical magic gives you the ability to control and even change non-living matter. The better you get at it, the more complex your magic can be.”

  He looked at her, making sure he had her attention, and said, “I’ve seen physical magicians do powerful things. Raise towers and create rockslides. The confluence of physical magic and a healthy imagination could allow you to do things that would blow your children’s stories away.”

  She looked from him to the potato rock. “Got it. So what do I do?” she asked, thinking how she might blow it to bits.

  He laughed at her assumption while enjoying her gumption. “Not that simple, Hannah. Magic doesn’t work because of an action taken or a spell spoken by you. The only thing you need to do to cast magic is to focus your energy out and direct it to do the work. But we found early on this was more easily said than done. So, as we developed the art of physical magic,” he moved his arms around, his hands held certain ways, “we created routines and practices, each one connected to a different kind of spell.”

  He stopped and looked at her, a mischievous gleam under his bushy eyebrows. “There is no power in the ritual. It’s all within you.”

  She pressed her lips together, head cocked to the side. “The man in the alley and the fireballs. He swung his arms across his chest,” she exclaimed as she mimicked his action.

  “Impressive, right?” Ezekiel asked, beaming.

  “Um, not exactly. I was about to get gang-raped and killed, which kind of dampened the mood,” she answered.

  He ignored her. “I invented that one.” His smile remained. “Magicians don’t require the same motions to focus the magic, but the rituals are passed down through generations from teacher to student. I taught Adrien that move over forty years ago. He taught one of his students, who became a faculty member.”

  “And she taught the monsters with an appetite for barely legal girls.”

  He nodded. “Which is why you must learn it, too. Those barely legal girls will need someone like you to protect them as we take back Arcadia.”

  The mention of reclaiming Arcadia caused the energy inside of her to churn. But the idea of wiping the streets with the asses of the men who assaulted her was downright captivating. “OK, let’s get started.”

  Ezekiel nodded toward the stone in the middle of the room. “Move it.”

  Hannah took a step toward the rock, and the magician grabbed her arm. “With magic.” His steel-gray eyes sparkled. “OK. I’ve got this.” Hannah stared at the rock, thinking about it moving. Nothing. She pictured it hovering over the ground. Nothing. Raising her right arm out before her, she flicked her fingers. Nothing. Finally, she gave up. “How the hell?”

  “It’s much harder when you are trying.” He answered, cryptically.

  Sal, who had followed them into the room, stood up and turned in a complete circle, then laid down again, ignoring the two of them.

  She blew out a breath. “Zeke, you are one confusing whitehaired son of a bitch.”

  He nodded in agreement; he’d heard it all before. “Think about sitting on the mat in the great hall. Empty your mind first. When all is gone, don’t focus on the rock. It’s not about the rock. It’s about what’s in here.” He leaned forward and tapped her chest, and Hannah could swear she felt the tingle of magic come through his fingertips.

  She nodded and tried to clear her mind.

  The thought of failure rushed over her. Hannah pushed the fear away as if her life depended on it.

  Images of the men in the alley appeared. She struck them away.

  William. Parker. Her father. The tower. The lizard. As each thought came, she pushed it away, and soon there was nothing.

  Breathing slowly, she turned her mind inward, toward the power that had become a part of her existence and awareness. Once in tune with the energy within, she felt like she could slow her heart to a stop if she wanted to. Then she tried to direct the internal flow outward toward the rock, an excited smile on her face.

  Nothing happened. Anger rose in her frustration.

  “Shit bucket!” she shouted.

  Ezekiel stepped up next to her and spoke quickly. “You’re frustrated. Good. Channel that frustration now. Let it build, Hannah, without holding onto it. We’re going to use it. Now, do what I do. Copy me.”

  Ezekiel spread his feet shoulder-width apart and slid his right foot out a few inches further than the other. Raising his right hand, he kept a flat palm up, and his elbow bent at ninety degrees.

  Hannah mirrored his every move.

  “Good. Just like that.”

  Extending his arm, he turned his palm down toward the floor. He pulled his fingers back, and then quickly extended two, like he was trying to flick away an invisible object. The rock in the middle of the room shot toward the opposite wall. He turned his hand over and pulled his fingers back toward him, slowly this time.

  The rock slid back into the middle of the room.

  “Do that,” he told her.

  Hannah laughed. “Really simple.”

  The old man stepped away, giving Hannah her space to work. She went through the process of clearing her mind again, focused inward, and made the motion exactly as he had shown her. Power surged through her body and then burst free. The rock didn’t fly across the room, but it did roll over once and come to rest five whole inches further away.

  “Did you see that?” she called out, excited. “I’m a bloody magician!” She exhaled. “Whoa!” She wavered, then dropped to her knees, a little lightheaded.

  Ezekiel chuckled. “That’s right. Foul mouth and all. You’ll fit right in with the physical magicians. Now practice. I’ll be back, and I want to see progress. And be sure to rest between attempts. Energy is energy, and when you shoot some of yourself and out into the world, you need to recuperate.”

  “Like the teleportation?” She looked over her shoulder at him.

  Ezekiel nodded. “Just like that.”

  She heard him leave, and Sal moved around in a circle again and plop his lizard hide right back down in the same spot.

  Hannah eyed the rock and enjoyed the feeling of triumph after throwing her first spe
ll, well, on purpose. She realized that taking down the Hunters would be a hell of a lot harder than nudging a rock, and take a thousand times more energy.

  Her eyes narrowed. “Let’s do this,” she said as she stood back up and got into position.

  12

  Ezekiel puttered around in the area he had designated as a kitchen.

  The smartass girl was special, there was no doubt in that, but seeing the amount of energy that it took her to move the tiny rock, he started to wonder just how long the training would take.

  She was old—to start in the arts, that is. Hannah had learned how to be normal. Her body, for the sake of self-preservation, had taught itself to withhold her magic since she was born.

  A body would go to extraordinary lengths keep itself from implosion. It always amazed him.

  Students in the Academy didn’t start fresh. That’s why Adrien had created a prep school in Arcadia. While the younger children weren’t taught magic proper, they were trained in the arts of meditation and mindfulness. By the time they got to the Academy, they were ready for what it had to teach them.

  Hannah had none of that.

  Her body had naturally developed defenses against itself. Now Ezekiel had to breach the self-control the girl never knew she had. Aware that she would need some food to replenish the energy her body was using, he grabbed a tray with his right hand.

  This might not work, he thought as he turned the knob of the door to the training room.

  But as Ezekiel stepped through the doorway, the rock launched toward his face at lightspeed. Hannah screamed a warning at him. Raising a finger, he stopped the rock a foot from his face and let it float in the air. When he snapped his fingers, the rock burst into a thousand pieces inside a glowing, three-foot sphere of his own design.

  Hannah gawked at the little tiny pieces enveloped within the perfect globe before he waved his hand again and the magical orb vanished, dropping the bits of rock to the floor.

  He managed to do all of this without dropping the food tray in his hand. There was a small smile on his face.

  My doubts were ill-founded. She’s ready for the fire.

  “Making some progress, I see,” the old man said, raising his brows.

  “Shit,” Hannah sighed. “I didn’t—” she started.

  Ezekiel put a finger in the air. “No apologizing for your magic. Now let’s go. It’s time for the next lesson.”

  He led her to another locked door. Behind it was a room identical to the last, only this one had a pile of wood and a bucket in the middle. A leather couch was shoved against the far wall. A small table at its end held bowls and a plate of crusty bread. “Let’s sit. Why don’t you eat something while I tell you what’s next?”

  Hannah sat back on the couch and dove into the meal—a meaty soup to accompany the sourdough. Crumbs rained from her mouth as she tore into the bread. Ezekiel sat on the edge and told her about fire magic.

  While it was part of the physical arts, it had been years before Ezekiel had discovered fire magic, and even longer until he mastered it. His first use was completely by accident. His ability to manipulate matter had grown, and he had begun to teach Adrien all that he knew. The boy, not much younger at the time than Hannah was now, had shown marvelous potential.

  Ezekiel had welcomed him, an orphan, into their community early on. He demonstrated great skill, particularly in the way he could easily channel his power with simple mechanics. Ezekiel had realized that the orphan would be his protégé.

  One night he took the boy beyond their little village that would one day be Arcadia. They walked for miles, telling stories and talking magic. The boy didn’t realize that the trip was a lesson, something Ezekiel had planned for days.

  Once deep into the forest, the magician feigned confusion, claiming they were lost. The warmth from the sun passed as the night grew dark. They huddled at the base of a giant oak.

  “Looks like we’ll have to spend the night out here. It’s been awhile since I’ve slept outside a proper house,” Ezekiel had said. “Though, years ago, the forest was the only home I knew.”

  Ezekiel had laughed, but the boy was not happy about the situation. Adrien kept complaining about the cold and how his cloak was just too thin.

  Finally, the wizard said, “You’re a magician now. Do something about it.”

  The boy’s eyes turned black, and he rubbed his hands together as if he were warming them. A moment later, the twigs at their feet burst into flames.

  “By the Matriarch,” Ezekiel had shouted. “How the hell did you do that, Adrien?” It was the first time that the student had become the teacher.

  As Ezekiel watched Hannah eat her lunch, he expected that the young girl would have much to teach him—like that trick with the lizard.

  That was something he had never seen before.

  “It didn’t take me long to understand and even master fire magic once I had seen it. However, until someone pointed out the path, I was ignorant,” he admitted.

  “They all love fire magic,” Hannah told him. “All the bastard students running around Arcadia. It’s the most impressive.”

  Ezekiel laughed. “Yes, well, it’s useful as well. But certainly not the most useful.”

  “How does it work?” she asked around a spoonful of meat.

  “All magic comes from within you, including the fire magic. The more passion, the hotter the flame. Remember the man from the alley?”

  “How could I forget that asshat?” she grumped.

  “He was actually quite good with it. The way he taunted you. Throwing the balls in the air and then over your head. Now, that was some magic.”

  “No, that was a jackass.”

  Ezekiel smiled as he watched the girl’s face tighten with anger. He just needed to push a little harder.

  “Yes, but his form was really quite beautiful,” he mused.

  “Nothing beautiful happened in the alley that night,” she told him, stabbing harder at the bowl with her spoon.

  “Oh, don’t be a closed-minded little—” he started, his eyes half closed, watching her.

  Hannah shot to her feet and the bowl went flying, but Ezekiel caught it off to the side. She hardly noticed as she spun her hands across her chest, just as the man in the alley had done. When she completed the rotation, the logs burst into flames.

  “Yes!” Ezekiel screamed, watching her eyes fade from red. “That is it. Passion! Directed anger and rage. Truly extraordinary.”

  Hannah extended her hand, as she had with the rock, and lifted the bucket into the air. She twisted her wrist, and water drenched the wood, smothering the fire to nothing. Steam and the smell of burned oak spread throughout the room.

  She collapsed back on the couch and looked at the smiling geezer. “That was a shit trick.”

  Ezekiel winked. “I am full of them. And the trick worked. The magic is there and it’s ready. We just have to get you to direct it. Soon, fire will be yours. Second nature. But you need to be careful, control both your desires and passions. Like your friend back in the Boulevard.”

  Hannah’s cheeks grew warm as Ezekiel mentioned Parker. “What do you mean?” she snapped.

  “It is a balancing act. Like his trick with the pushups. You need to be able to balance your emotions with your desire for control.”

  “Or what?”

  “Or the world will go up in flames, and you will be the fire-starter. The Patriarch knows the last thing I need on Irth is another Adrien to deal with. If you unleash passion without control, you could blow up this whole damn tower if you feel it too much in your core.” Ezekiel tilted his head. “That said, the negative consequences aren't always so drastic.”

  “Oh?” She looked over at him. In the corner, Sal’s little tongue went in and out, tasting the air. The lizard got up to study the logs.

  Ezekiel shrugged his shoulders. “No, sometimes the effects are a bit more local. I’ve seen magicians burst into flames or sever bones. Once a hothead just disintegrated into
oblivion—doing no harm to anyone or anything around him.”

  Hannah swallowed hard. “Well, uh, that’s comforting.”

  Karl walked beside the cart, watching the rough road shake the hell out of Falken and Stirling. They were his employers for his journey to Arcadia and back to the Heights. They had offered him a ride in the back, since their load of precious gems had been sold inside the city walls, but he refused.

  Rearick were meant to walk on solid ground—even if the two lazy bastards never learned that lesson.

  Karl had taken to Falken, the son of his closest friends. He’d watched the young rearick grow up on the streets of Craigston, their mountain home. Since the trade with Arcadia had increased, and coin flowed freely through the community, Falken’s mother insisted on keeping her baby out of the mines.

  “Live a damned proper life,” he’d heard the old woman insist more than once.

  But a proper life bred softness. And Karl couldn’t exactly complain about the weakness of these traders. He was a bodyguard after all, and the boys’ timidity ultimately led to a major part of Karl’s gainful employment. These two could barely lift a sword—so they paid better than most.

  Unlike Falken, Stirling had the personality of a rabid boar and the face to match. He insisted, at every chance he got, to inform people that his name, in the old tongue, meant pure in heart.

  A pure pain in the ass, Karl thought to himself each time.

  “Aye, Karl, why don’t ya get in the cart?” Stirling asked his escort for the third time since they had left the city. “Yer gonna tire yerself out.”

  “Thank ya, kid. But I’ve been walkin’ fine fer over half a century now.” Karl twisted at his waist. “Me ol’ rearick back can’t take all of that jostlin’. I’m better just usin’ what the gods gave me. Not to mention, I don’t want me ass to spread as wide as the bar at Ophelia’s.” He glanced over at the young rearick’s expanding waistline.

  Stirling grinned and patted his stomach. “Aye, ya might have a point, but I’d rather die with a smile on me face and a full figure, ya cranky old bastard.”

  Falken laughed at his friend, as was his custom, but Karl just kept his eyes fixed on the woods off to their left. His last half-dozen trips had gone off without a hitch, and though the rearick held no superstitions, he couldn’t help but wonder when his luck would wane.