The Legends of Ithan Book 1: Ghosts & Fire

6

Down the long corridor from King Venes’ counsel room, you must take a left turn at the large pillar of the first king of Ithan and then turn right at the large wooden doors that lead to the library. Then left and right a few more times before you finally come to Master Dominic’s study. Here the door was slightly ajar and a few faint murmurs could be heard.

            Kala sat with her back to the door studying the new spell book Master Dominic had given her. She had been his apprentice since she was ten and sometimes she felt she was no more closer to being a sage then she had been even though she had been studying diligently all these six years. She was impatient and rash, or at least that’s what Master Dominic said all the time. She felt she had been quite patient these long years and yet she seemed to be getting nowhere fast. She was still considered a level four apprentice and she was nearly seventeen. She oftentimes wondered if she would ever be as wise and knowledgeable as Master Dominic. She twirled one of her red haired pigtails around her white gloved finger and mumbled again the words used for the calling forth of fire. She wondered if it was warm outside and if Dusty, her sparrow friend, was waiting for her. She sighed a heavy sigh and continued to read the book. She found the words to call forth water but wasn’t interested in them. She wanted words with a little more action to them, she decided, as she flipped faster and further into the aged book. She found one set that called forth lighting but that could be too dangerous indoors, she cringed. She wanted to try one right now. Impatience flared up inside her but she flipped a few more pages and found words to call forth wind. She smiled and nodded. This was exactly what she has been looking for.

            She stood up and began to mumble them softly at first then to chant them louder in her “sage” voice as she called it. She liked to make her voice deep and rough sounding like Master Dominic’s when she called things forth. He hated it when she mimicked him so she never used the voice unless she was alone. Yet using the deep voice made her feel like she was an actual sage, rather than just an apprentice in training.

            Suddenly a great wind began to groan inside the room. Kala’s soft teal colored cape whipped around her short leather boots and her legs that were covered with fishnet stockings. She knew her brother didn’t approve of her wearing them but she didn’t see any harm in them. She turned her attention back to the words. She kept them flowing in order to get the full force of the wind. Her red pigtails whipped her neck as her teal colored shirt and short skirt began to billow with the force of the gusts. Suddenly she felt like she was losing control of the wind. “Concentrate. Concentrate,” she could remember Master Dominic’s chiding voice in her head. Then she heard a loud crash as one of the bookshelves was toppled over by the wind. The candle chandelier above her was swaying out of control and hot wax was falling like rain down upon the open books in Master Dominic’s study. Then the torch on the wall was blown out of its place and landed in the center of the fallen books. Flames began to leap high and Kala stopped chanting. She tore her cape off and began to dowse the flames. She suddenly heard the door slam open and there Master Dominic stood with a scowl on his face. She looked around the room and saw the books and loose papers that had flown across the room or had been spilled onto the floor. She then noticed the wax rain that had spotted everything. She looked down at the fire she had just put out and the blackened books that she had saved. She quickly hid her now blackened cape behind her back. She cast her eyes down.           

            “Uh, Master Dominic…. I was practicing the new book you gave me…..I didn’t mean to lose control….I was concentrating really hard too. I don’t know what went wrong….uh…I’m sorry,” she said with the most pitiful look Master Dominic had ever seen.