I helped Christian in the shop while Mr. MacLean worked on a way to conceal the magic of Danu's Tear so it could be studied in relative safety. Christian and I planned on meeting up here tomorrow to discuss my "training regimen," but didn't talk further about any of the things that hung so heavily on my mind. Work felt... strange. I was in possession of a book that was going to begin teaching me actual magic sitting in my bag behind the counter, but here I was, adding a new shipment of books to our inventory program and putting them on the shelves. It seemed inane in comparison.
I couldn't stop my imagination from drifting. There were so many possibilities floating in front of me. I daydreamed about what new things I would learn from that leather journal, what kind of adventures we would go on in search of Atlantis. I wondered why there might be people out there who didn't want it to be found. Who wouldn't want to find the remains of a lost civilization? More than once I thought about the crash of United Flight 427, and wondered if magic would be able to help me learn what had happened to it. More than once Christian caught me staring out a window with a stack of books in my arms, eyes half lidded and unfocused. Thankfully he didn't ridicule me, only raised an eyebrow and continued with his work.
After we closed the store for the evening, Christian followed me home and made sure I got inside safely before giving a curt nod and exiting the large driveway. I ignored any and all attempts at conversation, besides asking if one of the staff could please bring three mugs of hot coffee, and sat down at the long studying table in my library with the door locked and the curtains drawn. Once I was sure I was completely alone, I stared at the journal on the table for a brief moment, drinking in the sight of it... then slowly opened the cover.
The text was written in a beautifully clear, precise hand. The ink was crisp and the pages were clean, despite how old the book appeared to be. I wondered absently if it had been scrawled with a quill as I scanned the words. It was written differently than I'd imagined. I had thought it would be like a witch's grimoire from a fantasy novel, filled with incantations and symbols, with lists of items needed for each spell. Instead, it was laid out like Creative Writing for Dummies, but for magic instead. The first page held a table of contents, displaying the following chapter titles; "Discovering Your Magic," "An Introduction to Verbal Spells," "An Introduction to Runic Spells," "An Introduction to Energy," and "An Introduction to Weaves and Their Patterns."
Discovering Your Magic spoke about how it was the application of the magic that beginners find to be the most difficult part, as opposed to memorizing magic words, patterns, or runes. It claimed that willpower and imagination were the key to combining one's knowledge with their intent. It offered suggestions on how to meditate to find the well of magic inside of your own body. It guided me to think about my own magic with questions like, "What color is it? What does it smell like? How does it move from your core throughout your body?"
I contemplated it for some time as I thought back to the way I'd made the pebble glow at the bookstore. Concentrating on that 'energy' part of my body, I sat cross-legged in my chair with my hands on my knees and breathed deeply, as the book had instructed. I imagined that my magic was a pretty, scarlet light. It shimmered as if it were a liquid mixed with fine golden glitter. The longer I concentrated on it, the more new information seemed to offer itself up to my mind. Some of what I found surprised me. It had a grace to it that flowed and ebbed like water. It smelled of waxflower and jasmine; citrusy and sweet. It felt like the softest of silk, and almost as if it would be warm to the touch. Part of me wondered why I'd never noticed its presence before. Looking for it wasn't all that hard, once I knew what to look for. Christian had said that not everyone could cast magic. I wondered what percentage of the human population could.
When I felt satisfied with my inner search I opened my eyes to glance at the clock on the wall and found that nearly two hours had passed while I'd been meditating. I stretched out my legs and spent several minutes regretting that I'd been so lost in thought, because the pins-and-needles feeling of blood flow returning to my limbs assaulted me vigorously. I did my best to distract myself from the unpleasant feeling by starting the next chapter, "An Introduction to Verbal Spells."
According to the author, verbal spells are created by a combination of imagination, willpower, magical energy, and the sound pattern of the words; all languages could carry magical intent, although certain languages have been found more effective than others in producing a strong outcome. The most common language families used for casting spells today are Celtic, Scandinavian, Romantic and Sino-Tibetan languages. I would be learning Gaelic with this book. I learned that failing to pronounce a word correctly, or to imagine the effect clearly enough, could result in the spell failing, or going haywire. The end of the chapter introduced simple, single word spells for the reader to practice, the first of which was a protection spell that would conjure a spherical shield around the caster.
"The first spell any sensible mage should learn is a protection spell. Try practicing applying your magic to the word, 'dìon,' pronounced "dee-yon." If you find yourself having trouble, imagine that the word begins at the center of your being, rather than in your throat. Begin the word in your core of magic, then push it through your vocal chords and out of your mouth."
I sat back, closed by eyes, and took a deep breath. I brought myself back to that flowing, glittering warm place inside of me and imagined that the word itself was spelled out of the energy. I tried to push it, but only succeeded in losing the shape of the word back into the shifting mass. Frowning, I tried again in a different way. Since my magic seemed to act like water, perhaps attempting to control the natural flow of the energy through my body would help it maintain its shape? I visualized the word again and this time it held its shape, but rushed up faster than I expected it to, like a geyser. I tried to form the right sounds as it jumped out of my mouth, leaving a strange sweet and tangy flavor it its wake, but I choked on it and felt a burning in my nostrils that caused me to sneeze.
Worried, I looked around the room to see if anything had happened from my mistake. Everything appeared to be fine, save for the lingering tingle in my throat and nose. "Okay," I breathed. "I need to slow it down."
I tried it again, this time pretending as if there was a small valve that I allowed to open just wide enough to let the energy-word slip through before closing again. It traveled the same path as it did before, this time with much less pressure behind it, and allowed me to speak the word as it exited my lips.
"Dìon."
A soft glow appeared behind my closed eyelids. When I opened them, I saw the same warm crimson glow that I'd pictured so clearly in my mind, except it was surrounding me like a transparent bubble. Parts of it was thinner than others, giving it a mottled tie-dye appearance. A short moment later, it faded completely. I jumped out of my chair with an excited squeak. It may not have lasted very long, but for a brief time I had been surrounded by a protection spell that I'd conjured all by myself. It was in no way a lasting effect, nor would it protect me from anything more than a fly, but... I did it!
I practiced that single spell for about fifteen minutes, and it seemed to grow more stable the more I practiced. It felt like working out a muscle I didn't know I had, strange and freeing at the same time. I experimented with other methods, testing out the differences between the amount of magic I let out of the "valve," and leaving the valve open a little bit to try to feed the spell a continuous stream of magic. I found that if I left the valve closed and stopped focusing on the shield that it faded away, but if I left the valve open and stopped concentrating on the shield, it stayed solid with little focus needed.
Since the rest of this chapter held verbal spell examples, I decided to move on to the chapter about runes to try out one of those next. I skipped over the history of them for now and went right to the information about how they worked. I learned that runes can be written, carved, or even traced in temporary substances like dirt or sand. It didn't matter how the symbol was created, so long as it could hold its shape, because if the shape of the rune was distorted, the spell attached to it would end. In order to cast the spell as opposed to simply drawing the symbol, the caster needed to focus their magic through whatever utensil they were using to create the symbol for the duration of the symbol's creation. If there was a weak spot in the creation of the symbol, it would cause weak spots in the spell.
The first example rune given was a sort of anti-eavesdropping spell that would create a barrier around an area and keep sound from exiting that space.
I stared at the rune drawn below the paragraph as a feeling of unease crawled over me. How easy would it have been for Christian to put up this spell when he cornered me in the restaurant to make sure our conversation, and the screams I'd threatened, were never heard? In fact, he may have done it without my noticing. Mr. MacLean had been right. If another interested party had gotten to me first, especially those people interested in ensuring Atlantis remained hidden, the situation could have been much, much worse. I made a mental note to be a little nicer to my coworker in the future.
I shook my head to clear it of the unpleasant thoughts and studied the rune I was about to try out. It didn't look like any sort of symbol that I'd seen before. It looked like a mashup of geometric shapes and letters; an isosceles triangle, a "T", and a "G".
I reached for a blank sheet of notebook paper and a pen and began to copy it, imagining as the journal had suggested that my magic was flowing from my core, to my hand, through the pen, and into the rune. I let my mental control valve stay open similar to how I had with the shield, willing it to fill the pen, mixing with its ink and coming out nice and smooth on the pap-
I jerked as the pen exploded in my hand. My eyes went wide as I saw the splotches of dark blue ink covering the surface of the table, the nearby lamp and chairs, and the journal's pages. "Oh no... no, no, no..." I looked around the room frantically, trying to figure out how I was going to clean the ink off of the pages knowing full well that if I tried I'd just make the mess worse. A gentle sigh came from the table that made me jump. My gaze snapped back to the journal and I watched in mild shock as it shook itself, like a bird ruffling its feathers, and flung the stray ink off of its pages before settling back into stillness.
"Oh thank God." At least I didn't have to worry about explaining how the book got ruined to Mr. MacLean. As for the rest of the study area.... I retrieved a soapy washcloth from a nearby bathroom and did my best to clean up the mess. There wasn't much that could be done about the lampshade or my sweater, but the ink didn't stain the wood too much. It did, however, stain my face and my hands. I was going to have to scrub forever to get that to go away, but that could wait until later.
With a small sigh, I picked up a pencil to keep from repeating my previous mistake, fetched a new sheet of paper, and started again. This time I only let a tiny trickle of magic through the valve, reducing it as much as I could. It took several tries before I got the right flow. The graphite etched onto the pages without a problem, but getting the proper amount of magical energy into it was tough. In the gray, I could see a faint trace of crimson light when there was enough magic, and gaps where there wasn't enough. But I decided to err on the side of caution. Blowing up the pencil probably wouldn't be as messy as the pen, but I was willing to bet it would be quite a bit more painful. When I got it right, on my ninth attempt, I lifted the pencil from the page and felt a bubble of energy expand from the rune to cover about a two meter radius around me. I couldn't see any light or shimmering like I could from the shield spell, but since it was supposed to be a spell to aid secrecy, it made sense that the barrier was invisible. "Alright, time to test it I suppose," I murmured. My voice sounded normal to my own ears, which was nice, I'd half expected any sounds inside of the bubble to be distorted.
I started playing some music on my phone, which I left on the table before stepping outside the area I'd felt the spell expand to. The music cut off abruptly as I passed the invisible barrier. I walked back inside of the bubble, pausing to poke my head in and out of it a few times to hear the difference between the two, then picked up my phone and put it outside of the bubble to see if I could hear it from inside. I could. That was nice, as it would be harder for things to sneak up on anyone inside. I decided that I should use this spell for the foreseeable future while practicing magic here at home.
I walked back over to the piece of paper and struck a diagonal line through the rune. The halt of the magic's current through the symbol made the bubble pop inaudibly. Next to the lines of test-runes I wrote down a few questions that had come to mind. Was it possible to put a rune somewhere without imbuing it with magic first, then give it power to activate it later? How do people sense magic? Can only magic users sense it, or could everyone? Would someone be able to sense magic made by the silence spell, or was it stealthy? I'd make sure to ask Christian when I saw him tomorrow, along with my other long list of questions. Then I jumped ahead to the next chapter, eager to continue learning about the different types of magic.
In An Introduction to Energy I discovered that the manipulation of the caster's inner energy, or the energy of nature, was a force of pure will and imagination. Certain body motions could aid the mind in wrangling each element by acting as that element did, helping to solidify the caster's intentions. Mentally I linked it to a cartoon I'd grown up with, and the more I learned about the different stances, the more I wondered if the creators of Avatar: The Last Airbender were mages. Perhaps certain martial arts styles had been adopted to manipulate the elements? Or maybe martial arts styles came from elemental manipulation styles?
The author encouraged me to learn how to control my own energy before learning how to manipulate other elements, and the only spells in this chapter were magical energy manipulation spells, so I didn't have much of a choice if I wanted to get any practice in right now. The first example spell was called spreadhadh lùth, which translated to "energy blast," and was an offensive spell for magical combat. I wondered why this was any safer to learn than manipulating the elements, until I considered the damage that could be caused by uncontrolled elements and decided that the author probably knew what was safer to start with than I did.
"Defenses will not always be enough to protect oneself in a tough situation. Do not be afraid to act offensively. Where physical attacks are not always the best suited for a fight, magical attacks can be used. The easiest of these is a ball of energy that can be shot at a target. This method is called 'spreadhadh lùth' in Gaelic, loosely translated to "energy blast" in English. To start the action, hold one's dominant arm outstretched in front, thumb pointed toward the sky, palm and fingers held flat and firm. Envision raw, damaging magic energy gathering around the outstretched hand. Be sure to concentrate on holding all of the energy in a sphere. Once you feel ready, will it to shoot from your hand toward your target."
Below the paragraph was a drawing of someone standing in the described stance and a diagram of the magical energy flowing out of the core, up the arm, and gathering in the hand. It looked easy enough. I looked around my library warily, not willing to be throwing balls of destructive energy around my precious books. I decided that the best place I could practice this would be the base of the south tower, the same that held my bedroom.
I gathered up my things and made my way to the ground level of the tower where there was an open common room decorated in royal blues and golds, with various copies of famous paintings adorning the walls. It was empty of guests, although someone had left the wall mounted flat screen on a nature channel where a documentary about panthers was playing. I paused to turn it off before continuing toward the stone stairwell, which was blocked off from guest access by a thick, arched top walnut door with a smart lock that would open when it sensed one of the family's cell phones. There was also a keypad to the lock in case one of us was without our phone, which was hidden behind a golden framed copy of the Garden at Sainte-Adresse which hung next to the door. It had a hinge at the top that allowed it to swing sideways, revealing a small alcove with a keypad. Going right up the stone staircase would lead to various floors that housed my cousins' rooms, as well as my own. I turned left to go down the stairs instead, which led to another locked walnut door that guarded a basement-level storage room. It held all sorts of miscellaneous things from Christmas decorations to our old toys from childhood. Spatially speaking, the storage room shared a wall with other storage rooms in the castle, like the pantry for the kitchen and the external tool sheds for the landscaping equipment. Aside from those two, the rest of the walls were surrounded by solid dirt. It was the best place I could think of to practice magic without risking prying eyes and damage where others would easily see it before I could clean it up. Despite my confidence that no one was around, I couldn't help the shiver that crept up my spine. I still felt as though I was being watched. As I turned on the lights and double checked between the floor to ceiling shelves in the room to make sure I was truly alone, I had to admit to myself that the runes appearing on the library window had shaken me.
I made my way to the second half of the room, which was dedicated to the things that were too big to fit on shelves. Wooden crates, carboard boxes, taxidermied animals and unused furniture covered in dust sheets occupied the area, but there was a straight row of empty space about two meters wide that stretched down the middle of the whole room from the door to the back wall, intentionally kept clear as a walking space. I swept the dust cover off of a green love seat and sat down with my materials to practice the silencing rune once more, attempting to get it to cover the entire room. Between experimenting and referencing the journal a few more times, I found that I needed to visualize the area I wanted to cover and will the spell do to so, not add more magic or make the rune bigger. Once I was satisfied that I'd sufficiently sound-proofed the room, I placed the notebook I'd written the rune on onto a nearby wooden crate. I studied the diagram for the energy blast spell once more, then moved to stand in the middle of the walkway, facing the rear wall.
I took up the stance, holding my right arm in front of me, and placing my left hand on the inside of my elbow to support my aim, like it suggested in the diagram. I took a deep breath and reached for that swirling current of energy in the center of my torso, willing a damaging energy to travel along my arm and gather around my open hand. I watched with raised eyebrows as a little blood red sphere laced with golden glitter began to grow from the center of my palm. It swirled like it was made of liquid and my skin tingled where it touched me. The longer I held it there, the larger it grew. I began to panic a little, not sure how big it was supposed to get before I should shoot it away from me, and its growth seemed to quicken in response to my emotions. I sucked in a breath through my teeth as the tingling turned to needlelike stabbing, and I tried to force it away from me to free myself of the pain. Instead it exploded with a loud pop as if an electrical socket had blown, the resulting wave of heat and force threw me backwards several feet to the cold stone floor. I groaned as I sat back up. A single black spot dominated my vision from the bright light the ball had produced and the smell of ozone burned my nostrils.
Mr. MacLean gave this book to Christian when he was a kid?!
I blinked several times before the black spot in my vision faded enough for me to start checking for damage. The right sleeve of my turtleneck was shredded up to my elbow, and the skin on my right hand was a concerning sight; blackened skin still splotched with ink stains was marred by a single spot of angry red flesh in the center of my palm, front and back, that slowly oozed blood. My whole body vibrated from the adrenaline pumping through my veins. I took several deep breaths as I opened and closed my fist to make sure I hadn't damaged any tendons or broken bones. It stung, but it didn't move awkwardly. I clenched my jaw as I mentally analyzed what went wrong, and wanted to smack myself on the forehead when I came to the likely answer. I hadn't focused on where I'd wanted the energy to go, only that I wanted it gone. I needed to will it to go toward a target, and should have shot it away before it got as large as it did. Maybe I also needed to focus on the energy not touching my skin.... I stood up with a grunt and moved back to where I'd been standing before. "Focus harder, Rae. Don't be a chicken," I muttered to myself as I raised my arm once more.
She picked herself up off of the ground. A delicate v creased the skin between her dark brows. Her jaw was tight. Her full, rosy lips tilted down in a contemplative frown. I relaxed. She wasn't hurt, merely scuffed. Nearly blowing her hand off didn't appear to scare her away from learning the spell. I appreciated the woman's determination, but if she wasn't careful it would be the end of her.
I let my eyes wander over the rest of her, appreciating the curves of her body, but paying more attention to her body language. She held herself with more confidence than she had the last time I'd seen her. There was a new spark in her turquoise eyes that spoke of ancient knowledge awakening within her. She released another bolt and was knocked on her ass again. This time the maroon ball of energy she conjured traveled a meter or so before it hit the stone floor and left a scorch mark.
Progress.
I'd not planned on seeing her again so soon. I tried to keep these one sided visits to a single day a year, my yearning to see her be damned. Projecting this great of a distance was taxing. I had already visited her twice since this year's anniversary, but I'd been unable to help myself. When I watched her pick up Danu's Tear from the sand everything changed. I was no longer wasting resources to feed an addiction. She had happened across the one item that could save me from this eternal hell, and I needed all the information I could get.
I couldn't deny the excitement I'd felt at the thought of being physically near her, either. My eyes wandered back over her again of their own accord, drinking in every detail. She was correcting her stance little by little, standing with her legs farther apart, trying to brace for the recoil of the shot. Her raven hair tumbled down her back in loose curls that brushed the base of her spine. Her ivory skin looked softer than silk. I'd watched her romanticize me when she was a teenager and had thought of it as a frivolous juvenile fantasy. But as the years went by I'd watched her mature, and caught myself fantasizing about her in turn. I'd often wondered if it was the deprivation of any sort of pleasure that had lured me into lusting after her, or if I'd begun to fall in love with the idea of being her knight in shining armor. That perhaps that one good deed was enough to make me a hero. I snorted. It was a delusion of grandeur.
She prepared to release another projectile and I drifted closer, standing level with the last row of storage shelves. She managed to stay on her feet this time and the rosy ball of magic continued in a straight line until it fizzled out, the remains fluttering to the stone floor like flower petals before they faded away. She was getting tired; unsurprising considering how much she'd done on her first day of using magic. She aimed her fingers at the wall again. I moved closer still, reaching the boundary of how close I'd ever let myself get to her. She was muttering to herself, sounding frustrated, trying to find a way to improve. She needed to move her left foot back farther than her right to help her balance and let her elbow bend to absorb some of the recoil of the projectile. I closed the last few meters, cursing myself for breaking my own rules, until I was standing directly behind her. I stood in the proper form as if I were going to loose a shot myself and stooped to whisper in her ear, "You've nearly got it. Bring this foot back and relax your elbow." My hand hovered near her left hip as if I were actually able to do anything other than watch her like a ghost.
Her head was bent as if she were trying to muster the energy to continue. She took a deep breath and moved her body into the position I'd suggested as though she'd heard me, all but molding herself against my ephemeral body. Only a couple of centimeters separated us. I held very still as she charged up another shot and let it fly. She naturally reacted to absorb the impact this time rather than trying to fight it, but the force of the shot was still powerful enough to make her body rock back into mine. I felt a jolt of unexpected energy pulse through my body at her touch. I breathed in the sweet, floral, citrus scent of her and a groan of longing escaped my throat. It had been centuries since I felt anything besides pain and hunger, and the sudden wave of forgotten pleasure shocked me so thoroughly that I nearly lost concentration on the ritual holding my spirit here.
She spun around, startled. I stood still and silent as she called out, "Hello?" She looked right through my torso as she scanned the room before relaxing and rubbing her ink stained face with her uninjured hand. The need to comfort her caused my chest to ache.
"It's nothing, you're just exhausted. It's time to call it a night," she told herself.
She cleaned up the evidence that she'd been in the room, scrubbing at the burn mark on the floor with a rag stained with blue ink, before she collected her belongings and returned to her quarters. I trailed after her, but waited outside of the heavy walnut door to her room while she readied herself for sleep. Temptation tugged at me the whole time. Privacy was important, despite how I longed to see every inch of her satin skin. Now that I knew it was possible, I could wait to meet her face to face. Patience was a virtue I was well versed in. I stepped through the door well after I heard her settle down into her bed.
She slept on her back, limbs spread like a tossed rag doll. She had cleaned off the remains of the ink splatter on her face and her injured hand now sported a tan bandage wrap. She wore a maroon silk nightgown. The twin buds of her nipples peeked through the thin material. Her midnight hair was bound in a long braid that trailed over her scarred shoulder, through the valley between her ample breasts, reaching down to her stomach. One of her feet lay free of the soft blanket, which had somehow already become twisted around her small frame. She wore a tense expression on her face and her lips parted as she snored softly.
I stood by her sleeping form and contemplated the situation I was in, how I had arrived here. I could have easily let her drift away into the black of the ocean to join the countless other souls in that damned place. She hadn't meant any more to me than the other bodies that had been consumed there, but I'd been unable to bear the thought of letting her follow the other passengers to their deaths after her very soul had cried out for help. That it had also happened to be the once in a century occurrence when I was able to do more than simply watch was another matter. I used to wonder if fate had guided me there to save the woman who would eventually release me from my prison, but I knew better. Entropy neither helped nor hindered. It was simply a force in the world that people blamed or thanked as they went through their lives, but in that particular instance it had worked in both our favors.
My musings were interrupted when Rae's breathing became uneven and her legs twitched. A nightmare. I'd seen her have them before, but I'd never allowed myself to be close enough to pretend to comfort her. It wasn't that I was concerned she would sense my presence, it was an effort to keep myself detached. Tonight, though, I'd learned that she could sense my presence and that destroyed the last scrap of distance I clung to. I knelt beside her bed, reached out to place my incorporeal hand against the side of her head, and stroked her cheek gently with my thumb. I marveled at the thrum of energy that passed between us, almost making me feel as if I were really touching her. I wasn't sure how it was possible, but I planned to take advantage of it if it meant I could keep her alive. "Rest easy, Rae. You are safe. No harm will come to you tonight. I swear it."