5 – The Spell Thief

“You said I wasn’t in trouble,” Arielle accused, taking a step back and getting ready to run. Her brother also lifted himself off the mantle, moving closer, her sister’s hand moving toward her ankle for the dagger she kept there, her mother subtly angling her body like a coiled panther.

Ari knew that if the mage made even one move towards her, her family would attack without question.

“No, you’re not in trouble,” Elric rushed to clarify, still brushing his chin in thought. “But I think I might be.”

“What do you mean?”

He sighed. “First, I must make sure. It might still be a fluke or…” He shook his head, eyebrows ruffled. “Of course, it has to be a fluke. I can’t see how it wouldn’t be. I’m not even sure how to explain this to anyone…but if it is true, I’m going to get the gallows for this.”

Ari and her brother shared alarmed looks. Her mother stood, turning to face Elric with an arched brow and a careful tone.

“Perhaps, you should explain exactly what the problem is, Archmage Elric,” Thessa said.

“Of course. But first I have to check,” He took a breath. “Arielle, can you do a simple wind gust spell. Just a mild tier one. You can draw essences from my reservoir.” He uncorked it from his belt and handed it over.

Areille took it, excitement bubbling up. She still had the one he’d given her all those years ago, kept tucked in her box full of all her other priceless treasures.

She recalled that [Wind Gust] was one of the spells in the beginner’s manual. She remembered the glyph, and it was one of the simplest spells she’d attempted.

The balanced equation was 2(Calor𝞪+2) + 4(Massa𝞪-1). The sigil was a straight chain of red, bordered on both sides by the brown massa orbs.

She kept the image in her head as she held out her hand, arranging the glyph as she recalled it.

Once the spell was complete, she directed it at his face, and it blew his hair back.

Now it was time for her family to freeze in shock.

“Merciful Celestial,” the other mage exclaimed. “She didn’t even need to say the spell.”

Ari nodded. She’d never had to say the spell to get it to work. Once she’d built enough off a link between her and the spirit orbs, all she needed to do was telepathically move them in place.

She’d done it enough times with his reservoir before it had run out of essence.

Now, she stared at Elric again, wondering if he’d be proud of her progress.

Far from it, he looked pale, like he’d seen a ghost.

“What about [Flashblind], a Tier 2 spell?” he asked.

“I don’t know that one,” she admitted. “But I can do it if you show me.”

“How?”

“I can see the spirit orbs.”

He blinked slowly, his lips parting slightly. “You were telling the truth?”

“Yes. I don’t lie, I’m not good at it.”

“So you can visualize the spell and…copy it?”

She nodded.

Without another word, he used his hand to arrange the orbs (gold and brown) into a glyph that appeared to be a star geometric structure within a ring.

Then a controlled flash of light emerged, but it was contained within the parameters of the ring.

She nodded and waved her hand, repeating his hand motions and copying the geometric shapes. It was slightly more complex than the first, but within a second, she released her own flash of light, feeling a sharp intake of breath echo around the room.

“Okay,” Elric looked even paler. “Tier 3. [Root Bind].”

This one also involved green, gold, and brown orbs; the brown orbs and green were arranged in a tree formation, while the golden orbs were arranged in an arrow pointed at her feet.

After it activated, roots burst out of the ground and wrapped around her ankles.

Wow. Cool.

She repeated the spell, directing it back at Elric.

After it worked, the mage once again made a noisy sound.

Without stopping, Elric said, “Tier 4. [Rapid Healing].” This time, it was a combination of four different orbs that collected together. The green orbs sat in the middle of the brown and the red, forming a matrix structure that twisted around eachother.

Then another step began, as an additional gold and brown lattice drifted along with the point of his finger, an arrow towards her face.

Suddenly, she felt the relief around her bruised eye

“Now you do me,” he said.

“You don’t have an injury.”

He glanced around, his eyes zeroing in on a kitchen knife.

He held out his hand, and it flew in. With no further preamble, he sliced his forearm, and blood dripped out.

“Archmage…” His companion murmured, but Elric stared hard at Ari with a nod.

Ari complied, holding her hand out and arranging the particles together. She made sure to go step by step as he did, and then when she was done, she directed them to his arm.

The wound healed in two seconds.

The companion mage swooned.

“Davenport,” Elric said. “Get a hold of yourself.”

“I don’t know that I can, Archmage,” was his shaky retort.

***

Nicolas Davenport had experienced many things in his short time working for mundane affairs. He’d seen a monster rip the head of a man, heard the call of a siren, leading sailors to their demise.

But he’d never seen anything like this little Mossborne girl using a Tier 4 spell with such ease. No script. No spell utterations. No wand.

Just a quick movement of the hand, as though she had been doing this for decades,

“That spell took me nearly a month to perfect,” Elric said, with a weak smile.

“You must not have been very good,” the girl responded, with no trace of mockery.

Davenport thought Elric might react negatively to the insult, but he merely laughed.

“Yeah.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I guess I wasn’t.”

The girl’s family watched the exchange silently, just as they watched their daughter copy a spell exactly right on her first try, looking almost bored at her own lack of effort.

Meanwhile, Archmate Elric shook his head.

“Tier 4. [Illusory Double].” He showed her that spell, doubling his image in the air.

She copied that spell, just as fast as he did.

“Tier 5. [Chamber of Secrets].”

She did that perfectly, too, automatically drawing forth the best hidden item in the home, which was a chest of silver coins.

“Tier 6. [Flame Shield Reverse Attack].”

That took her a second more to figure out, since it used a different isotope of the elements than she was used to.

But once she’d figured out the shape, she completed the spell in the same timespan as the Archmage, much to their shock.

Then, they finally landed on a Tier 8 spell, [Seismic Pulse].

Elric held out his hand, and the ground trembled beneath their feet, causing ripples even in the swamp below them for miles.

He’d simultaneously created a border in the home that precluded it from the tremors and reduced the power of the spell so it didn’t destroy the home.

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At its true level, it would blast everyone in the vicinity with eardrum-bursting force and sink this home into the swamp.

Davenport was about to warn Elric that the girl might not have as much control as he did and might not know enough how to reduce the power of the spell.

But then she shook her head.

Elric looked almost relieved. “You can’t do it?”

“No, I can do it,” she responded. “You just don’t have enough in your reserve.”

“How can she tell?” Nicolas wondered, as Mage Elric looked to him and said, “Give her your reserve.”

“What? Why?”

“Just do it. Don’t worry, I’ll get you a refill.”

Nicolas reluctantly handed it over.

She took it, and Elric repeated, “Now try.”

***

Ari took a deep breath and called it forward. This spell was more complex than the others because it involved multiple simultaneous reactions and multiple stages, the result of one leading to another.

There were five glyphs in total: a ring, an explosion, a flow of light, a bond, and an encompassing wheel of black.

It was the first spell she’d seen that used the black Vacu essences. It seemed to suppress the effect of the rest.

Ari went slowly, making sure she copied it exactly right. She released a tremor in the earth that reflected the exact intensity of the Archmage’s.

The room was deathly silent when it was done.

“That was a Master-level spell,” Davenport said in the hush.

“Yes,” Mage Elric concurred. “Yes, it was.”

Ari looked around, feeling quite proud of herself for managing to succeed at a Master-level spell. But no one else looked proud of her. Her family looked shocked. Archmage Elric looked positively pale, and his companion looked on the verge of fainting.

Elric took a deep breath. “There’s one more thing I need to see. Just to appease my own curiosity.”

“What is it?”

“One moment.” He held her shoulder, and before she knew it, the scene around her changed.

She didn’t know how or why, and the magic had been so quick she’d barely seen it.

“Did we just teleport?”

“Yes,” he said.

Ari pouted. She would have liked to learn how to do that.

They were in an empty field, with nothing for miles.

“Why are we here?” Ari asked.

“You’re going to do a fairly complicated spell,” he told her. “I’ll hold it for some time so that you can study it, and then you’ll try to repeat it.”