Siege of Pailtar (13 page)

Lilliana gave a small chuckle and with a wave of her hand the ring changed, from a clunky discolored bronze to a shiny gold with a silver setting that showed off the diamond to its full glory. “It has a built in illusion spell, and works as a magical energy store. You will learn more about that in Applied Magic, but now that you are embracing magic, it is time you had some of the tools of the trade.”

Kiana put on the ring. The ring fit her perfectly and was gorgeous, when not covered in illusion to make it appear old and gross. “How do I change it?” Having a pretty ring was nice, but for a thief having a ring that did not stand out or draw attention was more valuable. Most of the time, Kiana would wear the ring with its illusion in place. An old discolored bronze ring would attract no attention.

“Nope, I am not telling you. It is time for you to start learning how to use your magical powers. You inherited magic blood from me, now you need to learn how to draw on your own power.”

Kiana looked at her mother carefully, “Magic blood?”

Lilliana sighed in exasperation. “I swear you are the most selective hearing child ever, you get that trait from your father. Yes, magic blood, your great grandmother was a’kil. That is why magic comes easier to me than for most people, it should be the same for you, if you made any attempt to find out.”

Kiana was surprised, she knew who the a’kil were, an ancient race with strong magical powers, but had never paid much attention when her mother discussed magic. “So there is a chance I won’t totally suck at magic?”

Lilliana shook her head, “That is entirely up to you. You have magical bloodlines, but that means nothing if you don’t learn to harness the magic. If you don’t study and train hard to grow your magical powers then yes you will totally suck at it. If you apply yourself you have very strong magical potential. I have told you this many times, it’s the first time it has actually sunk into that stubborn brain of yours.”

Kiana was almost insulted; if it hadn’t been true she might have taken offense. “Ya, pretty much. I think any time you talked about magic all I heard was blah blah blah….”

Lilliana laughed at her child, she was stubborn to a fault, but her honesty was, at times, very refreshing. “Well, at least you are listening to me now. You start school tomorrow, but I would suggest reading some of the Applied Magic text I bought you
last year
tonight. There is information in the first couple chapters that will get you started on how to use your ring.”

Kiana blushed at her mother’s words. She didn’t miss the significance of her mother’s comment. She could have been studying this for a year and not needed to take the first-year courses. Kiana brushed this off, she would just make the best of the situation. It wasn’t like she was doing nothing the last year, her sneak, pickpocket, and cat burglar skills were pretty awesome. She just needed to catch up on magic.

After two hours of trudging through the lessons on magic, Kiana found something interesting, an entire section on magical imbued gems and jewelry.

Gems are exceptionally good holders of magical energy, with very little wasted during transfer. When a spell, such as an illusion, has been placed on the gem, simply focus on what you want the gem to do. In the case of illusions imagine the item looking the way the illusion is supposed to look. With practice this will become easy and the illusion will take focus immediately.

Simply focus on what you want the gem to do. That sounded easy enough. Kiana looked at her diamond ring, then closed her eyes and imagined it being the bronze junky version. She opened her eyes to see the shine of the diamond still brightly encased in silver and gold. She groaned, perhaps simple and easy wasn’t quite that easy. Kiana re-read the paragraph, this time noting the last sentence
. With practice this will become easy…
Okay, let’s try this again. She stared at the ring imagining it’d change, again nothing happened.

After an hour of focusing on the ring and getting nothing more than a flicker of what might have been a start of a change, Kiana was fed up and exasperated. “Mom,” she yelled.

Lilliana came to her door and replied, “You bellowed?”

“I read about imbued gems, and how to activate the illusion, but it doesn’t matter how hard I focus I can’t get it to change, not even a little bit.”

“That doesn’t surprise me, your stubborn willpower is strong, but it is not stronger than magic. You need to think of it differently, right now you are pushing your will on the ring and it is resisting. Think of the ring as an extension of yourself. You are not fighting a battle of wills with it. You are simply asking it to do something. Gems are a storage device, like a magic vault. You can try yanking on the handle all day, or you can figure out the combination and get in whenever you want.”

Kiana absorbed her mother’s words; they made much more sense than anything she had read in the book so far. Okay, think of it as a vault, listen to the tumbler and it will give you its secrets. Kiana once again closed her eyes, this time instead of focusing on making the ring change shape, she imagined what she would like the ring to look like and asked it to happen.

This time when she opened her eyes, the ring had changed. The gold was now bronze, but the diamond itself was still very visible. The spell had worked, but not as well as it should have. Kiana looked to her mother for an explanation.

“That is a good start,” said Lilliana in encouragement. “You just need to have a clearer picture of the illusion in your head. Remember how the setting covered the diamond and the bronze was badly discolored? You want to make sure you have a clear picture in your mind when you activate the illusion. As you get better at using it, you can change the image in your mind and the ring will use that image, but for now practice the old ugly ring. It will be the one you want to use the most often.

Kiana nodded, “Okay, that makes sense.” She closed her eyes again, and pictured the ring the way she first saw it; ugly and old. When she opened her eyes the ring was exactly the same as when her mother had given it to her. She had successfully used an illusion for the first time. She smiled brightly. This wasn’t so bad after all.

Lilliana chuckled, she could see that Kiana was going to take to magic the same way she has traditional thief lessons. Now that she was focused on magic, she would dive in head first and devour magical knowledge. Kiana was not a half way kind of girl. Once she applied herself, she wanted to be the best. “Good job Kiana, keep practicing. You should be able to switch the illusion on and off without focusing very hard once, or closing your eyes. With practice it will be as easy as breathing.”

“How much magical energy does the illusion take?” asked Kiana.

“Simple little illusions like that one, take almost none. You can leave that illusion on all the time and it will never wear the ring’s power fully down. A more elaborate spell would draw more energy and the ring would have to be recharged often. “

“How do I recharge the ring?”

Lilliana smiled, “Keep reading, you will learn. But right now your magical energy is very low. You won’t even be able to fully charge the ring. It has more magical energy in it right now than you could cast in a month. As you practice more and draw more on your own magical energies, they will expand. Almost like a muscle, you can train your magical supply to be bigger and stronger, but if you don’t use it, it will get weak again. “

“So I am a magical wimp, is what you are saying?”

Lilliana laughed, “Well, that is one way of putting it. I wouldn’t recommend getting into any magic fights at school just yet.”

Magic fights?
That sounded like something to be avoided all together.

“Now, one hour more and then it's candles snuffed out, you have your first day at school tomorrow,” said Lilliana as she closed the door Kiana’s room.

Kiana looked at ring, making it go back to being new and shiny. She smirked as it worked in one try. Magic is fun.

Pailtar 8

First Day of School

IT HAD BEEN A WEEK since Kiana helped break into the Trollope Vault, completing her admissions testing. She was back at the Guild school today  for the first time since those eventful couple of days. it seemed like longer. Looking around, Kiana noted that of the original dozen or so students, only eight were left. Her new friends: Aldwin, Aspen, and Osmond, two older boys, rude boy who wanted to wrestle a girl and winker, the boy who finished his tests first. Kiana knew only a few students would make the cut, but only eight new students? The entire Guild school must not have more than a couple dozen students, she surmised.

As the eight of the new students sat in the classroom chatting and waiting for a teacher to come in, Kiana talked with her new friends. “How’s it going guys? What classes are you taking?”

Just before any of her friends could answer her, the teacher walked into the classroom. The students all stopped talking and sat down.

“Good morning, for those of you who don’t remember me, I am Morvin Springfield. I am the illusions instructor and first year Applied Magic. Some of you will have me for a teacher this year, the rest are more fortunate.” Morvin smiled as he said this. Morvin Springfield started walking around the classroom handing each student a sheet of paper. “Now I know you all are anxious to learn what courses you have this year, so I will give you your course list. You will find the text books and supplies list is included in each course description.”

Kiana accepted her list excitedly; she had been waiting forever for this. Now what was she getting

Applied Magic Level One (required text: AM 1)

Surveillance Level  Three  (no text required)

Illusions Level One (required text: Ill  1 and one enchanted gem)

Combat Level Three (dagger or sword, one enchanted gem, one throwing knife)

Applied Magic and Illusions were the courses she had asked for, so no surprise there, and Surveillance wasn’t a bad mandatory course to get, it wasn’t her strongest skill. But the one that caught her eye, and made her read her list three times over was Combat. Who the heck decided she should do Combat? And level three no less. This was a disaster! Kiana could not think of a class that she wanted less.

Kiana’s fretting over her courses was soon interrupted by Morvin Springfield. “Those of you in Applied Magic Level One, or any of the Illusions classes can stay for a moment. The rest of you head off and get
your supplies. All books can be found at the bookstore on 5
^th
street. Other materials, you can figure out on your own or ask each instructor. Off you go.”

Kiana watched as everyone got up and headed out. When the rest of the students left, the only ones left in the classroom were Kiana, Osmond, Aldwin, one of the older boys that Kiana hadn’t met yet and winker.

Morvin Springfield looked at his list, then at the students. “Right, so Dylan and Jacob, you two are in my Level Two Illusions class, come back here this afternoon for one o’clock. Do you have a gem yet?”

The older boy, Jacob, nodded.

Dylan or winker, as she had taken to calling him answered, “Yes sir, I do. I also have my text book as well.”

“No need for sir with me, just Morvin, or Mr. Springfield when you have screwed up. I am not nearly as formal as some of the instructors,” replied Mr. Springfield. “Okay, Dylan, see you later.”

After Dylan was gone, only Aldwin and Osmond remained with Kiana.

“Okay, all three of you are enrolled in Applied Magic Level One, Osmond and Kiana, you are the Illusions Level One class. Aldwin, if you like I can include a little extra Illusions instruction into the Applied Magic course. It will help Kiana and Osmond and give you an opportunity to learn more Illusion skills than normal.”

Aldwin smiled brightly, “That would be excellent, Morvin.”

“Good, I thought you would like that. Now, Applied Magic Level One is an introduction to magic course. I know Aldwin has some knowledge of multiple areas of magic and young Osmond here has a solid grasp on telekinesis, and since his older sister is fairly strong in Illusion skills, I imagine he at the least knows the basics.” Morvin waited for Osmond to nod in confirmation, before continuing, “That leaves you, Kiana. Your test scores indicated an abysmal knowledge level that is frankly appalling. We will be studying as a group, so for Osmond and Aldwin to get the most out of this class you are going to have to keep up. Understood?”

Kiana blushed, she didn’t enjoy being called out as the weak link in the group. It was embarrassing, but true. “I will keep up, I promise.”

“Good, now maybe we should start by finding out what you do know … Do you know anything about magic?” asked Morvin.

Kiana’s face went from light blush to a full out red. This was getting worse by the minute. “I have a magic gem, rather it’s in a ring now, but I can use it to activate its illusion.” Kiana held out her hand and made the ring go from its ugly old setting to its true form.

Morvin inspected the ring. “Well, it would seem your mother hasn’t forgotten how to do magic then. Maybe there is hope for you after all. Now, that I know all three of you at least know what an illusion is and can use one, even if it’s someone else’s illusion, we have some place to start.       

An illusion, such as the one on Kiana’s ring, is a strong piece of magic. It takes little energy to sustain and is detailed enough to fool anyone seeing or touching it. Only someone using magic would be able to detect it. The next step, from being able to activate someone else’s illusion, is being able to create your own. That is your assignment for the week. Read the text book, work together if you like, but each of you will make your own illusions on one of these.” Morvin handed each of them a cloak. “These are absolutely normal boring dark grey cloaks. A perfectly good outfit, that every thief should own. I expect them to be much better by the end of the week. Any questions?”

Aldwin raised a hand.

“Yes?”