Draggah (25 page)

Quntah secured the animals downstream from the camp, and the tribe set up their shelters again.  The first night of a new camp was always a joyous one.  Tiberius
’
ability to lead the tribe to a new source of water only increased his legend among the Hoskali.  What he considered a simple spell seemed like powerful magic to the people of the plains.  Life seemed to slow down once they were settled.  The Hoskali had work to do and Tiberius marveled at watching them do it.  They stretched out the hides of the Tamakas and the sections of the thick skin they had harvested from the huge creature Rafe had slain.  They scrapped the fat off the hides, used foul smelling mixtures to treat the leather, then built tiny fires and used the longer marshy grass that grew next to the stream to smoke the hides and give them color.

Everyone in the camp had specialized skills and after a few days, Tiberius felt it was time that he focused on his own talents.  Packed deep in the bag he
’
d hidden in Avondale, and that Lexi had brought when she left the city to join Tiberius in banishment, were the fragments of the book he
’
d bought from the vendor.  Tiberius had already memorized the first section and felt he was becoming proficient as a healer.  He considered himself a Wizard of the First Order, but he knew the wizards who had written the book would not look favorably on the spells he
’
d learned from Princess Ariel.  Still, there were references to the Wizards of the Four Orders using other spells and his limited information didn
’
t allow him to work carefully through each of the orders.  He needed practical magic and while he was a little afraid of losing control, he felt he had to dive back into the lessons that made up the Fourth Order of Magic.

He spent most of his time on a slight rise away from the camp.  He enjoyed the solitude being outside the camp gave him.  When he was among the Hoskali, they were constantly vying for his attention.  They liked to show off their handiwork and share little gifts with him.  His harem, no matter how much he asked them to stop, were constantly striving to please him.  Lexi had begun giving them tasks to keep them busy whenever Tiberius was around.  Rafe enjoyed spending time with the Rogu, who often set out on long hunts.  They came back the first day with loads of dried Tamaka dung, and on the fourth day they had succeeded in bringing down several large creatures that resembled deer, but with thicker, heavier horns.

Tiberius would often slip away.  He liked being able to watch the activity of the camp from a distance.  He knew that Rafe was anxious to set out for Sparlan Citadel, and Tiberius was equally anxious to help his friend, but he knew the tribe wasn
’
t ready to move.  They had found a camp with enough natural resources to exceed their needs and they would want to stay there as long as those resources were available.  Tiberius set the book fragment on his legs and closed his eyes.  One of his favorite pastimes now was simply feeling the magic around him.  He did his best to sense it without conjuring it or stirring it up.  He simply wanted to be able to sense it as keenly as possible.

He slowly unwrapped the bundle that held his precious book.  He laid the pieces out on the soft grass in front of him.  He couldn
’
t help but wish he had the whole book.  It was such a loss to only have the first and last sections, but he couldn
’
t let his mind dwell on that.  The destruction of anything having to do with magic was a colossal waste in Tiberius
’
opinion, but that
’
s exactly what had happened during the purge.  The people who had fled to the high places, forming the nine fortified cities of Valana, had gathered everything that related to magic and destroyed it.  It had taken Tiberius months of combing through Avondale
’
s seedy places and black markets just to find the fragments he had.  If not for Lexi
’
s help, Tiberius doubted that he would have ever found them.  Perhaps there were more, but it was doubtful.  The only place that he had ever heard of that might contain writings on magic were in the archives of Sparlan Citadel.  Princess Ariel had promised him access to those writings if he could travel through the blighted lands to the mighty fortress that housed the King
’
s own palace.

Tiberius found the idea that certain forbidden books had been saved almost laughable.  The order to purge Valana of magic had come from the King himself, after the Nine Cities had been subdued following the war for supremacy.  At first, after the cataclysm that had driven the people up into the highlands in an effort to survive the devastating aftermath of the Great Wizard War, each city had been independent.  In time, the cities grew powerful, with airships using the Hylum gas found and mined in Avondale to cross the blighted lands high above the mists.  It was inevitable each city would see itself as the seat of Valana
’
s power, and of course that those cities would fight for supremacy.  Sparlan Citadel had won that war, and brought the other eight cities under the control of one king.  His first decree had been to destroy all traces of magic from the Nine Cities and thus the Great Purge had begun.

Princess Ariel claimed that in her father
’
s fortress there was a hidden collection of books, many of which contained the secrets of magic.  It seemed implausible, but Princess Ariel knew magic and had even exercised a degree of power that baffled Tiberius.  She had levitated him and then snapped his leg like it was a dry twig, just to his test his own magical abilities.  He
’
d healed his leg, but the pain had been the most terrible experience of his life.  She had learned those powers somewhere, even giving Tiberius a list of spells that were in many ways more practical than the magic found in his own book.  He longed to dive into the rich trove she had alluded to.  He felt he could spend the rest of his life studying the secrets of magic, but first he had to get there.

He looked again at his own ragged remnants of magical knowledge.  He
’
d memorized the spells, but he
’
d yet to really practice them.  In an act of desperation, he
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d conjured lightning during the Tuscogee, but he
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d been completely unprepared for the sheer power of the spell.  He
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d been lucky once, but he knew if he ever wanted to grow beyond the First Order of Magic he
’
d learned from the book, he
’
d need to practice his spells and hone his skills.

He decided to read back over the three elementary spells laid out as the beginning of the Forth Order of Magic.  The book
’
s pages were yellow and stiff, but the words were still clear.

Accendo

Fire is universally known and used, from a cook using fire to roast meat, to a blacksmith manipulating fire in a forge.  Yet, very few truly understand fire, and as the second principle of magic states, Magic begins with knowledge.  Fire occurs when combustible matter loses its magical energy.  For instance, wood when heated will shed its inherent magical energy (the spark of life that causes it to grow), producing fire. Accendo summons that energy.  The Wizard should feel the pull of magic from the unseen, into the physical world as fire.

The focus of this spell must be control.  A novice wizard may conjure Accendo but depending on the wizard’s aptitude, they may summon a tiny flame, or send flames erupting all around them.  The wizard must will only as much flame as needed through the veil that separates the physical from mystical.  And just as a wizard’s will can bend and control magic, likewise when that magical energy enters the world of men, it can be bent and controlled by the conjuring wizard.

It is best to practice this spell in a confined area where combustible materials are not present, such as a cave, or a small room made of stone.  A wizard should be able to conjure both small and large flames, move them around in space, shape them, and extinguish them, before moving on to the next spell.

Tiberius closed his eyes and said
Accendo
in his mind.  Immediately, he felt the swirling wind of magic, but he was careful to control it.  He felt like he was trying to stop the water of a swiftly flowing stream, but somehow he was able to do it.  His mind was like a cork in an overturned bottle of wine.  He allowed only the tiniest trickle of magic to seep through, but he felt the pressure from the other side.  The other spells he
’
d cast felt like being in the middle of great magical storm.  He
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d learned through practice to identify the way the different types of spells felt, so that he could direct each element that he was using.  This time, it felt as if he could sense an entire world of magical energy just on the other side of the imaginary cork he
’
d become mentally.  The strain was much greater than he
’
d expected, but he didn
’
t give up.

Slowly, he opened his eyes.  The wide expanse of the great plain was still before him, the camp of Hoskali and his friends still busy, like ants tirelessly going from task to task, but Tiberius didn
’
t see any of them.  His eyes instead focused on the tiny flame that was dancing in midair right in front of him.  He could feel the magical power flowing into the flame, the fire consuming it like oil siphoned from the wick of a lamp.  He couldn
’
t help but smile as the flame burned.  He
’
d conjured fire before, but the fire had always consumed some physical object.  He could feel magical power being pulled from the disks of dried Tamaka dung when he set them ablaze.  The magic burst into flame once it separated from the object and then the fire fed off the thing; Tiberius
’
work was done.  But now, he controlled the magic completely.

He raised the flame higher in the air simply by imagining the flow of magic moving higher.  He dared to let a little more magic flow through, and the flame, which had been the size of a candle flame, roared to life.  At first the fire was as big as a torch, but the pressure of the magic grew so intense that Tiberius
’
control slipped for just a second.  A gush of magic raced past him before he could clamp his mind back over the flow.  The ball of fire raged into a huge wall of flame, the heat so intense it knocked Tiberius backward.

Just as suddenly as the flame had erupted, it vanished.  Tiberius lay on the ground shaking, sweat having broken out all over his body.  He was amazed and terrified at the same time.  The spell was broken and the strain was gone, but it reminded him of some of the physical training he
’
d done in his quest to become a Paladin in Avondale.  The novices were required to train with weapons, but also to exercise their bodies.  One such activity required Tiberius to jump up and grasp the top of a wall, then pull himself over the obstacle.  He could always grab the top of the wall, but in most cases he simply couldn
’
t pull himself over.  He always fell, but just before he would be hanging by his fingers, straining with all his might just to hang on.  That was exactly what controlling the fire felt like.

Tiberius couldn
’
t help but wonder if he could build his mental strength enough to ever feel comfortable trying to control the spell.  He didn
’
t want to give up, but the truth was the power he could tap into so easily terrified him.  He didn
’
t want to hurt the people around him, or repeat the mistakes that had led to the great cataclysm.  He always saw magic as a good thing. In fact, the first principle of magic was that it existed to benefit all mankind.  Yet it was a powerful force, one much too powerful to be dabbled with.  He lay on his back, trying to calm down, but he was already anxious to try the spell again.  He would have to work hard, he determined.  He couldn
’
t give up.  He was a wizard after all, and he didn
’
t know when or how, but he knew that in some way he needed to know the magic he was practicing.  He needed to master each spell and be able to use them with confidence.  People were depending on him, and he vowed to himself that he wouldn
’
t let them down.

Chapter 19

Olyva

She saw the fire like everyone else, but to Olyva it signified more than just the boy wizard trying some new trick.  To her it was an omen.  She was seeing many things differently now.  She was more attuned to the world around her than ever before.

She could taste things on the wind, like the smell of animals, even at great distances.  She could feel the earth moving under her feet.  She could close her eyes and sense the people all around her.  She had never noticed how much people moved before.  They never just sat still; even when they were trying to just relax, they were almost constantly moving.  And she could feel changes in the atmosphere.  She remembered hearing about people with wounds or old injuries that could tell when a storm was coming.  Elderly people who claimed that their joints ached when wet weather was on its way.  Now she understood that more than ever.  There was a pressure to the atmosphere, and it too could change.  She had felt the air pressure increase before the rainstorm several days earlier.  She hadn
’
t known what she was feeling or exactly what it foretold, but on a deep intrinsic level, she understood that rain was coming.