The Young Magician

find a few new deposits for them, I’m sure they’ll pay me handsomely, and then we’ll have easily enough money to buy some land of our own.’

‘You can do that?’ she asked, moving around behind him. She circled her arms around his waist and leant her chin upon his warm shoulder.

‘Yes,’ Samuel replied. ‘Easily.’

‘What’s it like being a magician? Do you feel special?’

Samuel thought for a moment. ‘Not really. It’s just what I do; what I am. It’s my skill-as a blacksmith or a baker has their skills, but I know I couldn’t be either of those. Instead, my skills are with magic. I can use it to do all sorts of things, but I accept it like anything else. It’s even rather mundane now. As I learn new things it is exciting, but once you’ve done anything enough times, it becomes matter-of-fact. It’s all I’ve practised for so long, I don’t know what else I could do with myself. I’d probably have to beg, or go back to being a stableboy.’

‘You were a stableboy!’ she laughed, but stopped herself abruptly. ‘What can you do with magic, Samuel?’ she asked, trying to undo her lack of tact. ‘Can you do anything you want?’

‘Who knows?’ Samuel responded. ‘We now know only a tiny fragment of the magic that was once known, but new discoveries are always being made. We have the power to heal; we can influence the rocks and the waters and the skies. Some can move objects. Perhaps in the future, we can make ourselves fly, or eradicate all disease and hardship, or even learn to live forever.’

‘But should you discover such things, Samuel?’

‘What do you mean?’ he asked, drawing her around to face him. The stream continued gurgling and washing by on its way.

‘Well, for all the power that the ancient peoples once had, for all the magic things they could do and for all the knowledge they once knew, what has happened to them? Where are they now? It cannot have served them too well.’

Samuel thought about this for the first time and realised that there was more than a speck of truth to her reasoning.

‘Do you know,’ Samuel began, musing half to himself, ‘someone once told me that I was going to kill the Emperor? Can you imagine that? Me?’

Leila laughed softly. ‘That doesn’t sound like you, Samuel. How could you kill anyone?’

‘I guess we never know quite what we are capable of until the situation arises.’

‘I have another idea!’ she announced, changing the topic altogether. ‘If my father does not take your offer to marry me, we can simply run away together. We’ll see how he likes that!’

‘Do you mean it?’ Samuel asked. ‘I thought you wouldn’t dare upset your father?’

‘Of course! He can’t run my life forever. We’ve a wedding to plan and a family to begin! He’ll forgive us eventually. He’ll have to!’

‘There’s just one more thing. When I first became a magician they told me I wouldn’t be able to have children-even that I wouldn’t be able to fall in love.’

‘I’m sure that’s not true, Samuel,’ she told him. ‘You can see it’s not.’

‘Me, too. I mean, I’m sure it is true for everyone else, but just not me. For some reason, I can still feel everything just the same as I did before. Being a magician hasn’t changed me the way it should have at all.’

‘Then that’s wonderful, Samuel. Don’t question such fortune. It’s a wonderful gift you have, and I have you- what more could either of us ask for?’

Samuel laughed and they hugged each other tightly once more. It was perhaps the happiest moment he had felt in all his life.

Evening found Samuel sitting at the table, reading over his notes yet again as Mrs Down sewed and absent- mindedly hummed a soft tune. Simpson was out on the hill, watching for dogs that had been prowling these recent nights. Samuel had been unable to keep his mind away from the strange artefact Ash had unearthed-the Argum Stone-and he scoured through all his notes from top to bottom and back again, desperate for any further hint as to the object.

‘Spring of clarity,’ he read from his tiny jottings, damning himself for making such brief and cryptic comments.

He kept flipping back to the diagram he had copied. He was sure it was the same object from Ash’s pit. Why else would the man work so hard at unearthing it? The Staff of Elders was the only known remaining artefact from the Age of the Ancients. Another such relic, whatever its power, would gain its owner considerable fortune or power. Whether Ash was working for Lord Jarrod or for the Circle or merely for himself, Samuel did not know, but any way it still smelt of a conspiracy. Shaking his head, Samuel finally closed his journal and thanked his stars he would not be returning to Cintar to involve himself in such a mess.

A knock came at the door and Samuel looked up, suddenly aware of another magician standing just outside the house. He should have felt the presence earlier, but he had been consumed in his notes and he damned himself for his mistake. A magician at his door in this part of the world could only signal misfortune.

Mrs Down put her bundle carefully on the table and pushed back her chair. ‘How strange for someone to call at such an hour.’

‘Don’t move,’ Samuel ordered and Mrs Down was stopped by the tone in his voice. ‘Go into your room and don’t make a sound unless I call for you,’ he instructed as he stood and carefully approached the door. Mrs Down hurried into her room and closed the door softy behind her without question.

There was definitely a magician standing just outside the door. Whoever it was, he was scanning the room with magic. Samuel could see the spell come floating across the room heedless of his presence. He crept up to the door and opened it wide.

‘Yes?’ he asked.

The mage was dressed in all black in the manner of the Order, with a thin cloak that hung down to his knees wrapped tightly around him. He appeared somewhat startled to have Samuel suddenly standing before him and had obviously been absorbed in his spell work.

‘I’m looking for the magician,’ he said humourlessly, quickly recovering his wits. ‘Where is he?’

Samuel felt a spell form. He recognised the spell from his own short experience with mind control, and quickly blocked it before it could take hold. The magician’s face showed puzzlement, then realisation and, lightning fast, a blade came up from under his cloak.

It was now Samuel’s turn to be surprised and he fell onto his backside as he desperately evaded the attack. The magician stepped into the house after him and Samuel spelled a barrier between them that ran from wall to wall.

The mage stopped short and put his hands up to feel the invisible barrier. He was thoughtful for a moment; then he stepped back and began channelling power with his hands held forth in the way of the Fourth Matrix. Magic burst forth and Samuel could feel the weaves of his barrier screaming as they were torn apart. He clambered to his feet before too much damage could be done and hurled himself at the mage, dropping his spell at the last instant and crashing into the man. Glinting steel skittered across the floor as they both tumbled outside and onto the ground. Before either could act, they both sprang away from each other and onto their feet, each surrounding themselves with a flurry of shielding spells and protections. Samuel could see at once that the magician’s defences were powerful and expertly constructed, making his own efforts seem outright amateurish in comparison. The spells would protect him from almost all direct magical assault and Samuel took quick mental note as to their design.

Realising his own shields would not outlast his opponent’s, Samuel sought inside himself for the raging magic he had used to slay the dark-skinned brigands. For some reason, it would not come, no matter how he beckoned or reached for it. ‘What good is such magic if it only comes when it chooses?’ Samuel thought to himself darkly.

The other magician had not been entirely idle in these few moments and had summoned himself a sizeable reservoir of energy, ready to begin his attacks.

The stars shone clearly above in the moonless night sky and the light from within the house cast the men in a ghoulish yellow light, one half of their faces lit, the other swathed in perfect darkness. As the magician took a cautious step, Samuel could feel his defences being tested and measured, and so he threw out a hissing sphere of magic at the man before his spells could be scrutinised too closely.