Chapter3

  Magic and all its stupid curves.

  When I got back to my room, I quickly hid them in my secret compartment under my wardrobe and climbed in bed, because I heard footsteps (my mother’s, judging by the soft pad and shuffle release) coming. My door opened, I heard her hold her breath and then sigh a long breath of relief, “oh well, must have imagined it.” She turned back around and closed the door as softly as possible and walked back down the hall. My heart hammered in my chest, it felt as though it would explode.

  I fell asleep almost immediately after I got my heart to slow down enough, and my dreams were strange, as though seeing it through the magic sight spell. I saw 4 beautiful girls and a bunch of men I did not know, I dreamt of monsters and weird squid like creatures. The next morning I awoke to the sound of shouting and a door slamming and running footsteps that faded away.

  I lay there, eyes open, staring at the dust motes as the sun hit them through the window. When I stood up, I noticed I was already dressed and had forgotten to change into my pyjamas last night. I went down and saw everyone sitting at the breakfast table, that is everyone except Hurial, who seemed to have been angered at something my parents had said, and stormed of.

  My dream was completely forgotten, when I found out why he was angry, he felt he was the right age to find himself a woman and father refused saying that he was way too much of a child. I realized he was older at that point than Brandon was when he married Adena. I then understood his predicament; he wanted what Brandon and Adena had. It was a strange thing. Brandon and Adena had not yet had a child. Brandon looked at dad and motioned his head to the living room. I sneaked in after them and hid behind a couch.

  “Dad, listen, he is past the right age and asrial is almost there, please consider this carefully, I know you do not think he can handle that sort of responsibility but give him a chance dad. If not, I fear he may never marry,” said Brandon.

  “Well … alright maybe I just might, but he must show me he is ready to live a married man’s life. I shudder to think what he would do if his wife so much as talked back at him,” said dad.

  “As do I, but what would happen if you refuse, he might decide to do it anyway and not in a place you can somewhat control him, and who knows maybe teach him right.”

  “Speaking of teaching, why don’t I and your mother have grandchildren yet? We do not want to be ancient before we see them,” said dad with a slight smile. “Uhm well, look the thing is dad, I have been trying, but I don’t know if I am doing it right,’ said Brandon and his face was bloodred.

  “Oh, why did not you just say so, I must give you more advice it seems. “I quickly jumped up and ran to the window and jumped out of it. I was confident they did not see me. I was already out of the window by the time they noticed the sound of me scrambling, I was around the corner of the house before they checked out the window.

  I already knew about procreation of course, but my new young mind still found it a bit embarrassing. I decided to go and get my new reading material and study it, I was confident in my capabilities, but I still remembered from one the books I had read, that one must speak the words and imbue it with the amount of energy you wish it to use. Or rather, that was what a beginners guide to magica had said. Another had said that it was not the words you imbue with energy but rather the spell, the words are just the key to the sort of energy you want to use.

  I decided to start reading. I took my books to my attic hideout and started reading, it was not easy to understand in many places, in some ways the beginning was easy. It explained what magic was, (just the manipulation of all sorts of energy, and the type of element depended on the type of energy you use, although that part was very vague,) but in others like the spell itself, which was hard to read because the spelling of it made it seem out of place. And then you also had the one on energy manipulation talk about the 5th element. I was not aware of a fifth element. At first, I did not understand, as it was just referred to as energy, I later learned it meant the aetherial energy not the normal energy.

  When I decided to cast my first element spell, I decided not to do it in or near the house, just in case. I also avoided fire, especially because I did not want to cause mass destruction. So, I went on a little escapade and walked to my favourite tree down near the stream. I had a choice between air, earth, or water (I decided to leave aetherial for later). I decided on earth, because I had read a nice spell, which made things float midair and stay aloft, as long as the object had something to do with earth. I got myself ready, picked up a stone and focusing all my might on it, I shouted PLORT BOONTO which meant earth up … nothing happened, I shouted again, nothing happened, I looked down at the book.

  “Maybe I am pronouncing it wrong.’ I spent the better half of an hour trying to work out the correct pronunciation of the spell but alas I still could not even move it, it sat there stubborn as a rock, which it was, I got incredibly angry, and was about to throw it, when something occurred to me.

  The last time I used magic; I did not much care for spelling and pronunciation. I looked at the stone and then thinking of that yellow light I had seen imagined a tendril of it touching it and then shouted in my mind the word BOONTO with such force that I knew I would not even have been able to shout it that loud.

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  What happened next was astonishing and something I would never forget. The stone emitted an emerald shimmer for a 50th of a second before shooting upwards so fast it made a sonic boom as it left my palm, burning and stinging my hand afterwards. It went about 10 meters high and struck a branch, it tore right through and then came to a stop another 10 meters higher. I then remembered the book saying that in order to move an object, you had to reduce or make the energy more, so I then thought about the tendril, and there it was right in front of me.

  A very thick long affair, and I thought about it becoming thinner, which it did. Immediately I no longer felt so weary, the stone only sagged a bit, when I thought about it lifting the stone, I felt the energy that it was consuming out of me become lesser at a faster rate. The stone went up and stopped at where I had thought it to go.

  I stopped the thought of the tendril no longer touching the stone and immediately it disappeared. The stone dropped and landed in front of me. It made a little crater in the dirt. I felt an immediate relief, as I no longer had the spell pulling on my energy reserves. Excitement coursed through me. “I did magic!! Without speaking it aloud.’

  I decided to immediately packed everything up and went back to my attic room.

  ***

  After that I trained for 3 years on my own, I trained myself with my makeshift kendo sword. I trained my young body to handle heavy loads and I trained my new body with my old martial arts training, to hone it into shape. I also trained my elemental magic and found that I no longer had to shout the words in my head and that all I had to do was envision what I wanted done with the element and think the word or words. Although magic training left me completely tired, hungry, and slightly drained, but after I ate, I usually found my strength returning.

  I noticed that each time I used magic I could hold out a lot longer than before. I learned a spell for continues movement that controlled speed was by the amount of energy.

  I had accidently launched the first globule of water I was trying to use into the washing of a neighbouring farm, but the neighbours did not find out, they just wondered why there was tears in their bed sheets. My father had, in another point in time taken me to his study and told me he had to teach me my letters. I surprised him by already knowing them, and already being able to read. “Saves me a lot of hassle then, don’t it?’ he said, smiling and turned around.

  I heard him mutter something that sounded almost like, wish all the others were that easy. Brandon finally fathered a child, and it was a daughter, little Siean. “She was a cute one, and she had a very nice smile, even if a little gummy at first. Now, mother liked to spoil her when she came to visit, which was a lot of the times.

  Hurial had been allowed to go and find himself a wife, so we had not seen him for a while, and as such Asrial had become a lot more pleasant. Father still drilled me every day to practiced his sword style. I complied, but thought it dumb. I realized people did not easily get very old in this world. As such they married early to get as much as possible out of life.

  That knowledge sobered me a bit, and I wondered why Asrial had not yet gone looking for a wife. Then I thought about the fact that in about four years from now they would expect me to find a wife as well, maybe even sooner. I dismissed the thought, I was never good with talking to girls, and as such I used to stick to my computer games and e-rogue games and books to help me in my solitude, my thoughts were dashed aside as my father lunged at me.

  “Keep your head in the fight! Clear your mind of distraction, and learn to see the fight play out!’ he bellowed at me as he had charged and knocked me on my behind with a low swing. He turned around, padding back to his start up spot and I felt my hand on a long straight branch of slightly larger than I trained with in my spare time. As he turned around and bounded back, pulling his arms higher to swing, I grabbed the branch and left the sword, anger spurring me on.

  As my father swung the sword down, I lurched up, planting my feet in the correct stance and used the impromptu staff as a bow staff and pushed upwards, tilting to the right so that the sword bounced and slid off the length of the staff harmlessly and landed in the dirt. In the spur of braveness, I turned more sideways and struck my dad on the back with the other end. Making him yelp in surprise, I stood back slightly panting, with my father on his hands and knees.

  My dad was out of breath, he looked up, evident surprise in his eyes and said, “looks like you got lucky, probably won’t happen again, don’t think you have got me.’’ He stood up and dusted his leggings off, grabbed his sword from the ground, turned, and said, “Well, let’s head back.” and he smiled at me. I could see the discomfort in his eyes and the slight shift of his weight as he tried to ignore the pain in his back.

  As we walked back, I looked at him and apologized. He looked at me and smiled “it is the first time I have had my butt kicked by a little boy, with just a stick nonetheless. You might be better with the staff than the sword. And there is nothing wrong with that after all, some people use swords others use magic and some use other weapons. Some can utilize more than one but not everyone, your mother is a magician and she can wield a spear quite well, I can use the sword, the staff, and the holy lance.” Few could use the holy lance, so it was a rare ability.

  “We are just gonna have to switch up our weapon when teaching you.” I looked at him, wished I could tell him he did not know that his technique was very flawed, but I just said “Yeah, although I think I might be able to use magic.” We were about to walk into the house when he turned around and said “are you sure?” with eyebrows raised. “Yes, I think so.” We walked inside and smelled a very tasty smell wafting from the dining room.

  The table was decked with varying delicacies and we hungrily took a seat, as we ate my dad started talking about what happened and when he mentioned what I had done they all laughed. “I think I shall teach him the staff; he must have a good knack for it.” My father said.

  “Yes maybe, and a good one if he got a whack on you.” My mother said laughing. After we finished eating, we cleared the table and went to our rooms. I waited a while before climbing out my window and scaling up to my secret little practice room.

  I took the advanced book on energy out, ‘I wondered whether would be able to understand it now.’ As I started reading again, something became very apparent. Their concept of magic was flawed, but the aetherial energy was in truth the manipulation of science. Although they did not know.

  For instance, if you use the correct spell you can put a type of aetherial energy into something to make it move, which I figured out meant put energy into something and turn it into kinetic energy.

  So, they had cracked basic science, yet did not know it. I had taken physics in my old life, so I was easily able to master it.

  ***