The Phoenix Ring (The Thunderheart Chronicles Book 1) (8 page)

             
The boy has gone too far this time.

              Edwin stood behind the boys’ quarters in a heap of ash that had once been the storage facility for the recently deceased, his robe billowing around him in the wind. 

              He knew the boy had done it.  A wizard that had arrived at the scene not more than a minute after the fire had started claimed he had seen a pair of footprints leading to and from the cottage.  The old building had burned in just three minutes, yet all the wizards had seen the plume of smoke.

              Edwin's position was in more jeopardy than it had been in years.  None of the wizards in the camp were very happy with him, and, though no one knew it, his standing with the council was not very good either.

              The warlock had not known that the Gerangs’ father worked directly for king Lief.  Both he and the dwarven warlords were willing to remove him from his position, only the Elven Chief had not cast his vote, though Edwin was willing to bet that if something did not happen soon, he would be discharged within the quarter.

             
This can't happen, I've worked far too hard to disappoint the master now.

              Edwin began to walk as quickly as he could towards the adult quarters, yelling at two of the apprentices that had begun to follow him.

             
Ignorant little whelps, I can't wait for the day I get rid of them.

              Edwin muttered a spell as he approached his door and it opened without a sound.  As soon as he was through, it shut with a bang and the candles lit automatically.

             
Powerless?  I'll show that boy powerless.  No one can keep me from my magic for long.

              Edwin's rooms only had one window, in the living area.  The warlock preferred that people not see what he was doing.  He walked to his fire place, which was as empty as always, and muttered a quick spell. 

              The bottom of the fireplace dropped out, revealing a long, dark hole into the ground, with a ladder on the side facing Edwin.

              It was a tight squeeze, slightly tighter than the last time, but somehow the old man managed it.  After twenty long rungs, Edwin finally fell in a heap onto a floor of cold, wet cobbles.   He knew the room was exactly fifteen feet long and wide, and seven feet high.  There was only one piece of furniture in the room, a stout wooden table, upon which sat a candle and a rock the size of a fist.

              Edwin hesitantly walked to the table.

              "
Ingo
," he whispered.

              The candle lit up, casting a beautiful haze of light across the room.  The only part of the room that stayed dark was the rock.

              It was hard to tell whether the rock was purple or black, since it seemed to suck up the light around it.  Edwin really didn't care. 

              "Master?"  he said, hesitantly.

              There was about a full minute of silence as the message was transported to the other end and the reply came back.

              "What is it, Edwin?  You had better have a good reason for contacting me."

              And so the warlock related to him all that had happened in the past few weeks, starting with the death of Gerang.

              Edwin finally finished and leaned against the table to wait for the reply.

              It came after only forty seconds, his master must have started before he was done.

              "You fool!  Do you know what you have just done?"

              Edwin had no reply.

              "You have ruined everything!  The army would have been ready in five years, and would have been large enough to destroy your council within a month.  It would have been swift and painless, with very little bloodshed.  But now you have forced my hand."

              The stone was silent for a moment, and then began to speak in a much quieter, deadlier tone.

              "Can you keep your position for three more months?"

              "Yes master,"  Edwin said, trembling.

              "Good, because if not, your head will be held up by a sharp stick.  Now go, do whatever you have to do."

              "Yes master," Edwin said, bowing to the rock and running to the ladder.

              "Oh and Edwin, one more thing.  I am still in control."

              The fourth rung, which Edwin happened to be standing on, cracked in half.  He fell to the floor amongst the laughter of his master, and then saw no more.

              Aidan barely remembered anything about the three months after his evaluation.   Unlike in the first month, Aidan now had to attend a "group session," in the library every day.

              There were four different group sessions, and each day Aidan went to a different one.  No session was ever taught by the same wizard twice.

              The first session was probably Aidan's favorite, spells.  The very first words he learned were
akae
, which meant water, 
terrack
, which meant earth,
herrakai,
which meant air, and of course,
ingo
.  With just these four words, Aidan's world became almost unlimited.  He could change a rock into water, put heat under it until it became air, and then turn it back into a rock again.

              The second session was curses.  Aidan was still a little nervous about using curses, though they came most easily to him.  Curses were generally far more complex than spells, but once you mastered the leeching curse they became more simple.

              The most intriguing session for Aidan was antimagic.  There were only two known substances that defied the laws of magic, dragon scales and amoghs.  Dragon scales were metallic, not at all like a snake's.  They could be melted and, more importantly, mixed with other metals.  When blended with iron, they would create a metal called Rakka steel, which had the same antimagic properties as dragon scales, but was not as strong and could be impure.  Most wizard rings were made of Rakka steel, though  Marcus Thunderheart's had been made of pure dragon scales.

              Amoghs were a curious, secretive group of people about which little was known.  They mostly resided at a camp not unlike Fort Pheonix. 

              The only session that Aidan understood more than Timothy was “The Magic Around Us”.  As well as drawing magic from oneself, a sorcerer could also draw magic from the things around him.  Naturally, different things and creatures had varying amounts of magic, as well as different types.

              It was about one month after Jonathan's murder that Aidan began to really understand his power.  He was in the back of the spells session, behind Timothy and Eleanor, who always sat next to each other.  He was the only one in the back row, the other mages seemed to have been avoiding him since the "Mages’ Final Resting Place" went up in flames.

              A fairly young large woman was teaching the session.  She wore a large bracelet with a yellow Soulrock imbedded in it.  As she moved, it constantly jiggled around, bouncing light into the students’ eyes.

              She had been going on about how to combine different bits of magic, like
akae
and
ingo
to make steam, when she tried to give a demonstration.

              "Now you'll have to excuse me, my attribute is earth, so I don't have much in the way of water and fire," she said.

              Aidan raised his hand tentatively. 

              She turned toward him, and her bracelet reflected light into his eye.

              "Uh," He said, flinching back, "What is an attribute?"

              There was muffled laughter from the other mages, and Timothy and Eleanor both bit their lips.  The instructor let it go on for a few seconds before she slammed her fist down on the table.

              "Jed, you were laughing pretty loud there.  Since you like speaking up so much, why don't you come on up here?"

              The unfortunate Jed went red in the face and slowly stood and walked to the front of the library.

              The instructor turned to look at Aidan again, flashing light in everyone's eyes.

              "An attribute is something in nature that your magic is connected to.  Jed, what's your attribute?"

              "Uh, plants," he said, staring at his feet.

              "Why don't you give the new students a little demonstration?" the instructor said, pulling her wand out from somewhere in her robe.

              She pointed it at the floor and said something incomprehensible, and a table appeared.  Then she murmured three more words and a candle, jug of water, and a jar of dirt appeared on the table.

              Finally, she summoned a chair for herself and sat down, leaving Jed standing alone.

              "Go ahead Jed, I'm not gonna be using any more magic for a while."

              "Er, right.  What do I do again?"

              There was another murmur of laughter, this time directed at Jed.

              "Put the same amount of magic into each of the items, see what happens."

              Jed pulled a staff out of the back of his robe and clenched it tightly.

`              "Now, make the water expand till the jug explodes."

              Jed lifted his staff at the jug of water and muttered a few phrases under his breath.  Water began to slosh at the top of the jug.  He began to break out in a sweat, right as the jar cracked in half, spilling water everywhere.

              The instructor didn't seem to care very much.

              "Alright, now fire should be real hard for you since you do plants.  Make the flame bigger," The wizard said.

              Jed held out his scepter towards the flame.

              "
Ingo
."

              The flame rose maybe three inches.

              Timothy leaned back in his chair.  "They should let you have a shot," he whispered.  Eleanor bit her lip to keep from laughing.

              "Alright," the instructor said, "Let's see what you can do with the green thing."

              "Listen, I don't have very much control over it," Jed said.

              "Well it's time for you to learn.  Start growing my flower."

              Jed sighed.  Instead of pointing his scepter at it, he leaned in really close and whispered something to the jar of dirt. 

              A green shoot flung itself out of the jar and wrapped around Jed's neck.

              Eleanor gasped, and some of Jed's friends stood up.

              "Don't worry, he'll be fine," the instructor said, taking a bite out of an apple that had appeared out of nowhere.  "The plant won't harm something of the same type of magic.  But it will get personal."

              The shoot grew and was joined by others, they wrapped around his face, then his body.  His screams were muffled into silence by tendrils growing around his face, into his clothes, and eventually turning him into a cocoon of green.

              "So, as you can see," the instructor said, standing up, "Your attribute is dangerous."

              A large lily sprouted over Jed's head, which the wizard picked and put behind her ear.

              "But it can be your most powerful asset."

              One day, Aidan woke up to the sun, just like he always did, and rolled out of his cot.  It was his morning ritual to wake Timothy, since the other boy could sleep through an explosion, literally.  Aidan had tested it.

              But today Timothy was absent. 

             
I am so late.

              Aidan rummaged under his cot and threw a cloak over his head, then grabbed his rowan staff. and pointed it at the door.

              "
Yok
"  he said.

             
Yok
was a simple word, it just meant come, and it was a great spell for opening a door.  Unfortunately, it was at that moment that Timothy decided to open the door, and the spell caught him instead. 

              The two boys slammed into each other halfway across the room, staffs and papers flying everywhere.
              "Uh, hi?"  Aidan said, trying to push himself away from Timothy.

              "I swear, one day you’re gonna kill me with your stupid spells."  Timothy said.  "We're going to be stuck like this until someone fixes it.  Can you reach my rowan wand?"

              Aidan stretched his left hand, which was the only part of him not stuck to Timothy, towards the wand.