The Foundling (The Hidden Realm)

by A. Giannetti

  Tullius shrugged. “You are young and have all the time you need at your disposal. You did not learn to use a sword or knife in an hour. Why do you expect magic to be any different?”

  “Why indeed?” Elerian asked himself, and the source of much of his frustration and impatience suddenly became clear to him. He had begun his training with the foolish notion that because he could already perform some magic, everything would come easily to him. Obviously, he had been badly mistaken. Magic was a far more complex craft than he had ever imagined. Elerian suddenly realized that he might spend the next ten years trying to master just this one spell. What made it even worse was that he still did not see the point of spending all this time learning a spell which he was certain he would never use. He looked into Tullius’s stern face and saw no hope there of persuading the mage to abandon this part of his training. He had only two choices, to quit and never realize his desire to become a mage, or to go on and accept, without complaint, the years of effort it might take for him to complete his training.

  “Let us go on then,” said Elerian resignedly, and Tullius actually smiled a little and clapped him on the shoulder to encourage him. After their talk, Elerian felt his frustration at his slow progress vanish, to be replaced by a dogged patience. He was now determined to spend as much time as necessary to learn the skills which would make him a mage. Disregarding Tullius’s advice, Elerian began to throw his whole strength into his defensive spells. Because of this wasteful use of his power, Tullius was able to wear him down, but Elerian began to hold his own in some of the matches.

  Almost before Elerian realized it, winter had passed and it was summer again. As his fifteenth birthday approached, he found that most of his duels with Tullius were now ending in a draw. He had also learned to gage the strength of Tullius’s offensive spells to a nicety so that he no longer had to waste power to block them. Even at the end of a long day of duels, Tullius was no longer able to wear him down and overcome his defenses. His third eye had also become more reliable. During each duel, it now showed him the golden orb which flashed from the end of Tullius’s staff each time he cast a spell as well as the bright flare of golden light that resulted when the orb struck Elerian’s shield spell.

  Oddly enough, success brought boredom with it. Now that he had mastered the shield spell, Elerian felt that he was ready to move on to other spells, but Tullius seemed content to continue practicing the same spell day after day. Elerian had to force himself to concentrate during each duel now, but he dared not let his thoughts wander. One moment of inattention would allow Tullius to put him to sleep. Tenaciously, he continued to defend himself, determined to outlast Tullius no matter how long it took.

  A week after Elerian’s fifteenth birthday, Tullius suddenly put down his staff after Elerian had successfully defended himself a number of times. “You have now mastered the most important spell that I can teach you, Elerian,” he said quietly. “It is time now to go on to other spells.”

  The unexpected announcement took Elerian by surprise as did the undisguised weariness and relief in Tullius’s voice. Suddenly, he felt guilty for all the resentment he had felt against Tullius for forcing him to learn the shield spell. He realized, suddenly, that the tedious duels must have been nearly as difficult for Tullius to endure as they had been for him.

  “Thank you for your patience, Tullius,” said Elerian awkwardly. “I know I have been difficult at times.”

  A rare smile lit up Tullius’s face. “Most of the spells which will follow will be far easier,” he said in an encouraging voice. The perseverance Elerian had displayed in mastering a difficult task had impressed Tullius and had finally dispelled any doubts he felt about Elerian’s qualifications to become a mage. Driven by the thought that the shield spell might save the boy’s life someday, he had taken a risk. He had pushed Elerian relentlessly to learn a spell that would have taxed an apprentice far older and more skilled than himself, despite the chance that the boy might become discouraged and quit. Tullius knew that Elerian thought he had taken an unusually long time to learn this one spell, but in actual fact, the boy had made remarkable progress in just one year. “He has the talent to go far,” thought Tullius to himself. “Farther than I can take him,” was his bitter afterthought. “He should have come to a better teacher.” A dark mood suddenly descended over the mage, and he abruptly dismissed Elerian without any explanation, telling him to return in two days.

  HIDDEN REALMS

  When Elerian returned to Tullius’s house again, he found that the mage’s dark mood had lifted, and he was his old testy self again. Elerian was hoping that the worst part of his training was over, but Tullius soon disabused him of that notion at the start of their next lesson. He began with another lecture which Elerian took as a bad sign.

  “Most of the spells I will teach you now will be less difficult to execute than the shield spell,” began Tullius. “The amount of power needed to cast the various spells will differ, but you must always make sure that you have enough power to see each spell you attempt through to the end. All of them, as you have already learned, will present a danger to you if not performed properly.”

  “How can I measure how much power I have if I can’t see it?” asked Elerian, as his misgivings were confirmed. Although Tullius had assured him that things were about to become easier, it seemed to him that they were quickly becoming complicated again.

  “For now, that will be my task,” said Tullius soberly. “I will try to make sure that you do not over reach yourself while I am instructing you. Until you become more accomplished, do not perform any spells, even the simpler ones, out of my sight,” he said sternly. “Eventually, through constant practice, you will develop a sense of your own power, hopefully without destroying one or both of us in the process.”

  When he heard these last words, Elerian began to smile, thinking that Tullius was joking, but his smile quickly vanished when he saw that the mage was deadly serious. He began to appreciate more and more what a dangerous task Tullius had taken on himself by overseeing his magical training.

  “I must not try his patience as much,” thought Elerian to himself. “He is taking on a huge risk for no reward that I can see.”

  “Now then,” continued Tullius, interrupting his thoughts, “it is time for you to learn how to call your spell book and also, how to send it away.” He opened his right hand, and Elerian’s book appeared on his upturned palm. Even this simple spell delighted Elerian after the tedious business of learning the difficult and, in his opinion, useless shield spell. He watched carefully as Tullius, after handing over Elerian’s book, caused his own book to appear, after which he brought the quill pen and the bottle of ink from the shelf across the room to the table.

  “Will you also show me how to bring objects from across the room?” asked Elerian, promptly forgetting his promise to himself not to try Tullius’s patience so much.

  “In a moment, I shall freeze you into immobility,” threatened Tullius. “Perhaps then, you will listen and not interrupt me.”

  “I wonder if my shield spell would protect me if he tried that?” wondered Elerian, but wisely, he kept his thoughts to himself. Tullius opened his book, and Elerian hastily prepared to copy the spells the mage was about to give him. As Tullius slowly read the words of both the calling spell and the sending spell, Elerian carefully recorded them on the blank page in front of him. As Tullius had promised, neither spell was very long or complicated. Tullius also added the words of a third spell.

  “This last spell will enchant a spell book,” he said solemnly, “just in case you live long enough to have an apprentice of your own.” Elerian glanced at Tullius’s face which remained impassive, but this time there was a twinkle in his eye which made Elerian feel better. “Perhaps he expects me to survive my training after all,” thought Elerian to himself as he carefully recorded the last spell.

  Elerian committed the first two spells to memory, and then, under Tullius’s watchful eyes, made his spell book appe
ar and disappear for the first time. As he repeated the two spells over and over, however, the novelty of it soon faded, and it became another tedious task which he must perform until Tullius gave him leave to stop. After a time, Elerian lost track of the number of times he had performed the spell, and his mind began to wander a little. As he watched his book vanish with disinterested eyes, he suddenly asked, without thinking, “Where does the book go Tullius? Does it become invisible? If it does, then how does it follow me around?”

  Tullius, who had dragged his chair by the fire after Elerian showed his mastery of the spells, was almost asleep in his chair, but the questions startled him into wakefulness. Elerian braced himself for another reprimand as Tullius turned his chair to face the table. To Elerian’s surprise, however, Tullius did not seem upset for once.

  “Our understanding of how many spells perform their function is limited, Elerian,” said Tullius patiently. “Since it is difficult to study something you cannot see, much of what we know about magic is based on conjecture. Some of the great mages of the past believed that other realms exist which touch upon our own world but are separated from it by invisible barriers. According to their thought, one of the spells I have taught you sends the book into another realm, and the reverse spell brings it back.”

  “How can a spell send a book to another realm?” asked Elerian, more than half convinced that Tullius was having a joke at his expense.

  “Both the sending and the fetching spell are thought to create an opening, a small portal if you will have the proper name,” replied Tullius. “They then carry the book back and forth through this opening according to the mage’s command. Whether this is what actually occurs, I cannot say, for there is no way to see what is happening to the book. That is as much as I know about it,” he said with an air of finality, and Elerian knew that he would have to be satisfied with this explanation. Soon after, Tullius dismissed him for the rest of the day. “No sense in overdoing it,” he said with a smile. “Come back in two days, and we will try something new.”

  Elerian rose from his chair and a wave of exhaustion swept over him. The two simple spells he had practiced all day had taken far more of his strength than he had realized. He wearily set off for home, but tired as he was, the spells he had learned that day remained fixed in his mind. “Do they really open portals into other worlds?” Elerian wondered to himself as he traveled home through the forest.

  Although Tullius had warned him against performing unsupervised magic, that night, after Balbus had gone up to bed, Elerian sat downstairs by the fireplace and, a trifle guiltily, whispered the spell that would bring him his spell book. The book appeared in his hand, and he smiled, a trifle smugly it must be said. It had occurred to Elerian that he had an advantage not possessed by other mages, an advantage that might help him solve the mystery of where his spell book went when it vanished. As he spoke the words that sent his book away, he called on his mage sight. His third eye opened, and he saw two small golden spheres spring from his right hand. One expanded to envelope his spell book in a golden glow. The second orb both flattened and spread, turning into a golden circle whose center shimmered and then turned dark, leaving only a thin rim of gold, just large enough for the spell book to pass through, hanging in the air. With a suddenness that made Elerian jump, the spell book flew through the circle, and both the book and the portal vanished.

  Elerian tried the spell several more times, but each time, everything progressed in the blink of an eye, leaving him no opportunity to look through the portal which was only visible for an instant. At last, no longer feeling quite so superior, he gave up trying to see what was on the other side of the circle of light. “There must be some other way I can do this,” he thought to himself in frustration, for he badly wanted to get a glimpse of what lay on the other side of the portal.

  Suddenly, Elerian thought of Balbus’s magic purse which they had gotten from the Goblins so long ago. He had forgotten it up to now, for Balbus had used the silver coins it yielded in a sparing manner. Elerian was now sure he knew where the silver was coming from. Excitedly, he took the purse from its hiding place, a loose stone in the floor near the fireplace, and opened it.

  With his mage sight, he saw a golden light envelop the leather purse at the touch of his fingers. When Elerian opened the silver clasp and looked inside, he saw only the empty bottom of the purse. The moment he reached into the purse with the fingers of his right hand, however, a thin circle of golden light appeared in the depths of the dark leather. Elerian thrust his fingers through the circle and immediately felt the round, cool shapes of several silver coins. He withdrew his fingers so that he could look through the circle, but it promptly disappeared, and he saw only the empty bottom of the purse again. With a sigh of disappointment, Elerian returned the purse to its hiding place.

  “The purse must also open up into another realm,” thought Elerian to himself. “That is why it can hold such a large quantity of coins even though it is very small.”

  He fell asleep that night wondering what that other realm was like, unaware that his guesses were only half right. His book did indeed travel to another realm, but the purse led to a remote part of the treasury of the Goblin King himself. Only Balbus’s lack of greed and his sparing use of the purse had kept his and Elerian’s most terrible enemy from discovering them.

  In the months which followed his lesson on portals, Elerian forgot about the Goblins’ purse once more and even ceased to wonder about other realms, for Tullius kept him much too busy for idle thoughts. As soon as Elerian mastered one spell, Tullius gave him another one. Each new spell had to be written in his book and then memorized. Once he could recite the new spell flawlessly, Elerian cast the spell under Tullius’s watchful eye until the mage was satisfied that he had mastered it. Occasionally, when Elerian worked with the simpler, less dangerous spells, Tullius would try to distract him with noises or pokes from his staff. After several painful experiences, Elerian learned to focus on completing his spell no matter what distractions Tullius imposed on him.

  “Why not just read a spell from my book instead of memorizing it?” Elerian asked Tullius one day, as he struggled to memorize a spell that was particularly long. He knew by now that Tullius would have an explanation, but the interruption was still welcome, no matter how brief.

  “When you complete your apprenticeship that will be allowed,” answered Tullius, “but for now, you are training your memory. There will be many occasions where you will not have the leisure of opening your book and searching through it for a spell. The more spells you can carry around in your head, the better off you will be.”

  With a sigh, Elerian returned to his memorization. He found, however, that he could only retain a limited number of spells in his memory at one time. At a certain point, it was as if each new spell he committed to memory pushed out an old one.

  “I am forgetting some of my early spells,” he said worriedly to Tullius one day.

  “It happens,” said Tullius unconcernedly. “The number of spells a mage can memorize will vary. Some can only hold one or two in their heads at one time while others are able to retain dozens of spells in their memory. When you have completed your apprenticeship, you can choose which spells are most useful for you to commit to memory. The rest of them will remain safely stored in your spell book until you need them.”

  As Elerian grew more proficient, Tullius let him attempt more difficult spells, like the destruction spell. Elerian found this part of his training quite entertaining. In order to allow him to practice, Tullius lined up stones or pieces of wood along the edge of the clearing behind his garden. From a safe distance, he had Elerian destroy them one by one. Elerian found the sharp cracking sounds and the flying fragments emitted by the objects he destroyed most satisfactory. He then had to restore each piece so that he could destroy it again which was not quite as much fun. Elerian discovered that he was especially tired at the end of these sessions because of the power he expended, and sometimes, it was a
ll he could do to drag himself home at the end of his lessons.

  “Is there no way I can increase my power?” he asked Tullius after one particularly trying day that left him unusually exhausted. Tullius’s face immediately darkened at the question, and Elerian wondered what he had done to anger the mage now.

  “Each person,” admonished Tullius as if he were weighing each word, “is born with a fixed amount of power which will increase each year until he achieves his full growth. Beyond that, a mage cannot increase his power by any natural means.” There was an air of finality to his voice, but Elerian was not yet willing to let the subject drop.

  “Can it be done by magic?” he asked.

  “It can,” said Tullius grimly, “but only one mage in all the Middle Realm possesses that knowledge.”

  “Who is he?” asked Elerian eagerly, wondering why Tullius had never mentioned him before.

  “His name is Torquatus, the king of the Goblins,” said Tullius soberly. “Long ago, he was able to make a ring that would steal power from other mages and store it until it was needed. His dungeons are full of miserable prisoners whose power is fed into his ring, bit by bit, until they finally weaken and die. Year after year, he increases his strength through the death and misery of others. Is that the path you wish to take?” asked Tullius sternly of Elerian.

  “Of course not,” replied Elerian in a shocked voice. “I would never steal from anyone for any reason, let alone to gain power.”

  Elerian did not bring up the subject again, for Tullius obviously disapproved of it, but the thought of the Goblin king’s magic ring remained in Elerian’s mind. “Perhaps there is some other way to gain power to store in such a ring besides stealing it from others,” he often thought to himself.

  A RASH OF MISCHIEF

  Time passed in a blur of hard work after Elerian learned to send his book away and bring it back. Then, without any explanation, Tullius slowed the pace of Elerian’s training. He was now only required to visit the mage once or twice a week, leaving him with unaccustomed free time on his hands. For the first time in months, Elerian took notice of the season and realized that almost another year of his apprenticeship had gone by. In just a few weeks, he would be sixteen.