“Because that’s not all they did,” Marcone said. It was bizarre hearing the man’s phlegmy voice echo past Marcella’s lips. He shifted his cloudy eyes from her work up to her face.
“Then what else is there?” Leaghan asked.
“You do know who wizards were, right?” He quirked an eyebrow.
“Not really,” Leaghan said. She let her gaze wander around the laboratory. Somehow all of this worked together—the number of dusty books lining the right wall, the bottles of liquids, inks, and powders lining the left. There were shimmering stones in baskets, dragon scales, lumps of wooden-like, wrinkled pods on the left wall as well. “I know they had some kind of magic, or I wouldn’t have had such a hard time getting free of it when it first woke within me.”
In fact, if it hadn’t been for the yellow wyverns working mental bindings and wards over her magic, Leaghan might simply have burned out from the force of the magic. It was a thought that made her shiver.
He nodded. “But that’s not all they could do. Wizards often relied on magic as a last resort. The kind of powers we deal with grow stronger as they’re preserved. Our power resides in learning how to best use them. We study theories and philosophy, and as we learn, we understand how best to use our powers. Much of our power comes from this—learning the herbs, runes, and theories. We learn the subtle powers inherent in all of those things. The more we learn the powers, study the powers, the easier it is for us to work our own. By working with the powers of the rose dust, it’s much easier to augment the power of the rose for magic, rather than burning up all of our own magic to do the job. Tell me, what are the magical properties of the rose?”
Leaghan groaned inwardly. “The powers inherent to the rose are love, divination of love, psychism, healing, and protection.”
“So given all that you know of the powers of the rose, what spells would you work best with it?”
“Well, working love magic seems beneath a wizard. So, protection and healing mostly.”
“Why is working love magic beneath a wizard?” Marcone wondered, arching a perfectly sculpted eyebrow.
“Why would a wizard work love magic?” Leaghan wondered, making an ambiguous gesture at all the powerful trappings around the room.
“Love doesn’t have to be romantic. Say two cities are fighting, couldn’t you augment their love? Increase the love they feel for one another so they can see their similarities instead of the differences?”
Leaghan frowned. She hadn’t thought of that.
“Since you seem to despise love—”
“I don’t despise love.”
“Since you seem to hate love, let’s work with that. If you were going to do such a spell, using your own powers to accomplish this task would take a lot out of you. However, if you were to augment your spell with the rose, the proper rune, and maybe a gemstone, wouldn’t that be the smarter use of magic?”
Leaghan nodded.
“So by studying these things, learning the feel of their energies and what their powers do best, you’re learning how best to conserve your own magic, by using these items to augment your work.”
Leaghan nodded. It made sense.
“But wizards weren’t just scholars. We were often called upon to settle disputes between kingdoms. We were judges in high courts. We were teachers, counselors, healers, and wise people to many rural villages. We didn’t just toss about magic willy-nilly.”
Leaghan almost laughed when the ghostly voice of the stuffy wizard used the term. “But you had magic.”
“Of course we did. That’s what people feared about us. They thought all of our knowledge was gleaned from demons, spirits, and elementals, when really it was from long hours of study.” The lack of movement from Marcella still chilled Leaghan to the bone. Marcella was normally a very expressive person, but Marcone wasn’t. Maybe lack of movement was also something she was going to have to learn. The subtle art and power in being completely still. She nearly rolled her eyes. Marcone continued, “you also have to remember that you’ve come to your power late. Typically, wizards start learning at a very young age. By the age you are now, they would have already started working on applying magics to what they’ve learned.”
“But I’ve worked magic before,” Leaghan argued. To be sure, she hadn’t worked magic lately. The last time she’d worked magic, she wasn’t even fully in control of her body, and she wasn’t in control of her magic either. She’d been a pawn for the magic, and to tell the truth, it had worked her instead of the other way around.
“Wizardry of the sort you’ve worked before relies on wild magic. It can be done, but at great cost to the wizard. If you use it too often, then you will be held whim to the magic.” No truer words had been spoken.
“But wizards of old were said to use magic without these circles, potions, powders and…stuff.” She waved a dismissive hand at the scales, stones, and herbs she had yet to grind. She let out a sigh. She’d be lucky if her hands didn’t permanently cripple into talons that were only good for holding a pestle. The wooden shelves that lined the left wall of the long laboratory were only a quarter full, and while that had been a lot of work, she worried at how much more work she had ahead of her.
“But those wizards also carried staves, wands, rods, robes, and had tattoos.” Marcone said it as if it meant anything to her. It didn’t.
“So?” Leaghan said with a shrug. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Bindings in the weapons. Runes of power along the lengths of those tools. Once activated, those runes allow a quick release of power that can be used in place of ritual.” Marcone leaned forward, his fingers trailing through the roses Leaghan had been grinding to fine powder. “Runes embroidered on hemlines to act as protective circles of power to conjure energies, or to keep harm from the wizard.”
The chair creaked as Leaghan slumped back into it. She crossed her arms over her slim chest and sighed. “Then you will teach me these things?”
Marcone nodded. “I will. But first, you have to understand the basics. However, for homework, you will find yourself a suitable length of sturdy wood for a staff.”
“What kind of wood?”
Marcone shrugged. “You will know the staff when you find it.”
“And these runes can be used time and time again?” Leaghan sat forward once more, happy that homework would finally take her out of the keep for something other than picking flowers or sifting through stones to find gems.
“The magic within the runes will deplete, but they can be recharged with the proper circles and rituals to charge them.”
“All right. Finding a staff.”
“I will teach you how to engrave the staff, one spell at a time. But we have to learn those spells first. Not learn how to cast the spells, but learn the theory of them. Have you found the library yet?”
She’d been there for several months! The library was the first thing she’d sought out, hoping it would somehow unlock her abilities and allow her to use her magic. It hadn’t. But Marcone asking her if she’d found the library told her that he didn’t know she’d been studying spells when he wasn’t around. Of course she hadn’t practiced any of the spells, no matter how much she wanted to. She was still afraid of working magic unsupervised. Marcone would have to guide her on that, so there was little worry that she would work magic without his supervision. But the bigger fear that somehow just looking at the spells would allow the magic to gain control of her once more, had stopped her short of actually working any magic…or trying to.
“I have,” she said.
“And I assume you’ve been pouring over books of spells,” Marcone gave her a sidelong glance, as if he was searching her soul to see just how much spell work she might have been doing.
She shifted uneasily under his intense gaze. “Some.”
“But no casting?”
She shook her head. “None.”
“So much like students of old, and yet so different from them too. It’s probably a go
od thing you didn’t cast any spells. In the old days, students that cast before they were ready to often caused a lot of issues. At least in those days we had teachers to set their blunders to rights. At this point, you’d be on your own.
“All right, second homework for today,” Marcone straightened. “Find a simple spell that you want to engrave on your staff first. Something like causing illumination would do well. Takes very little power, very little ritual. Illumination is a great learning spell. Few components, little power from the wizard.”
Leaghan nodded. They had worked with feeling her magic, and the control of the power that ran through her. While she hadn’t actually cast any magic yet, she had worked with letting it flow through her body, getting a feel for it, and directing where it went through her. Calling it to work her will would likely not be an issue since she’d learned that control already, but manifesting it in the physical world…that was something else entirely.
She hoped the mental wards held.
“All right,” Leaghan nodded. She pushed out of her chair, and stretched her back, splaying her arms wide above her. “I better get looking for this staff.”
Marcone held up a hand to stop her. “Those rose buds aren’t going to grind themselves, and Marcella has a bit more strength left in her before I have to go. What was the first rule of being a wizard?”
There had been many “first rules” according to Marcone, and they seemed to change daily, but she always knew what he meant because the “first rule” always ran in opposites of what she was feeling. If she was angry, the first rule was serenity; if she was hungry, the first rule was to not let physical needs dictate how she worked. And if she was excited, the first rule was—
“Patience,” she sighed.
“Patience.” Marcone nodded and closed his eyes. “Continue.”
Leaghan’s studies didn’t end when Marcella got tired and the ancient wizard vacated her body. While Marcone left the wyvern, and she went to rest, Leaghan was sure he was likely to linger in the keep for a time before he left to whatever otherworldly business he might have. Even if he didn’t, she didn’t want to chance that he had stuck around to see her run off as soon as he’d departed Marcella.
She finished the last bit of grinding, poured the rose dust into a large jar, and corked the lid. She’d made it through the rest of the basket, and had been told they had enough powdered roses to last until the following year. While she hated gathering the components and preparing them for storage, the fact that Marcone said things like “that’s enough to last you the year” excited her because it spoke to the fact that soon she’d be learning how to use all the things she was gathering.
Unless he’s talking about potency. She scowled at the thought. Some herbs had a shelf life as far as magic was concerned. The longer the herb sat, the more the magic inherent in the plant dissipated.
Leaghan pushed the troubling thought away, stretched her cramped legs, and balled her fists into her back to ease her screaming muscles. She took a deep breath of the sun-warmed air billowing through the large window at the end of the room and was grateful that she would soon be out in it.
Her eyes lingered on the baskets at the end of the table that held numerous dragon scales. While most of the components she gathered had a definite shelf life, the scales didn’t. Herbs seemed to retain their magical powers for a year, most gems for two years, three at the longest, but the scales never depleted.
She’d managed to gather scales from three draconians—the name the good dragons called the bad ones—that had been slain in the Fire Fruit Forest in the last couple months. She had the common colors—red, blue, and green. She knew what kinds of powers the dragons typically carried, but she didn’t think the scales retained any of the fire, water, or poison powers the dragons did. There were such things as scale wraiths who became intoxicated with the dragon scales. They were said to grind them down and use them as all kinds of depressant drugs, causing addiction to the magic of the scales. Leaghan figured the scales would be great for potion work, but she wasn’t sure what Marcone had planned.
But she still had her ongoing homework to do, which was translating old stories from ancient runes to modern language. It wasn’t necessary as far as literacy was concerned, but Marcone felt the best way for her to understand the language wizards used, and how best to use that language herself, was to translate old stories.
While she wanted nothing more than to be out in the sun and away from the dusty tomes that had recently become her life, Leaghan would rather be out in the day without the stress of unfinished work to hurry back to. She sat down with her cipher—a slender old book—and her new journal of fresh, crisp parchment, and started her studies.
It was mind-numbing work, and it tired her more than any of her other chores. She couldn’t deny that she was gaining a command of the ancient language, but she wished there was some other way to do it. She thought being a wizard meant that she could just magically zap this knowledge into her head, but if there was it wasn’t a system of education Marcone used.
Her hand trailed over the page, dictating the earliest myths she’d ever seen. In fact, some of the myths were so old that she hadn’t ever seen them in modern script. It was educational in more than understanding the language. Leaghan was certain that by studying the stories and runes she was privy to knowledge no one had learned in many years.
While she was intent on finishing her studies, her mind wasn’t with it. She was going to get her staff today. The thought alone made her stomach churn with excitement, and more than once she almost called her studies finished. The thought of Marcone’s disproving eyes when he learned she’d skipped out on studies was the only thing that kept her glued to the chair. Her eyes kept slipping to the bottle of oil she’d pulled off the shelf at Marcone’s insistence. It was a bottle of several types of oils that he said would help preserve her staff and store magic energies within it better.
Time dragged on, minutes seeming like hours, and hours like days, until she finished transcribing the myth she’d been working on. Transcribing was getting easier, and her command of the wizards’ ancient language was strong enough that she could read most of the old texts without translating them.
She closed up her books, cleaned her pen, stoppered the bottle of ink, and readied herself for the voyage. All she would need was herself, and whatever snacks she wanted to take in case it took longer than expected to find the right staff. She wasn’t hungry, so she skipped packing food.
The laboratory was in one of the upper rooms of the keep, and the winding stairs that led to the bottom floor were uneven and scuffed from years of use. No matter how many times she’d taken a broom to the stairs, or how many times the servants cleaned, the stairway always seemed to be coated in dust with heavy cobwebs in the upper reaches of the ceiling where a broom couldn’t reach. Still, she raced down the stairs, her yellow dress creating a cloud of cotton around her, and barely took the time to switch from her house shoes to her outdoor shoes. The slippers she slipped into had a hard sole for the road outside. She slung a bag over her shoulder in case she found anything of interest along the way, and let her eyes slip over the entrance room to make sure she wasn’t forgetting anything.
The entrance hall was more like a living room. It was huge, littered with chairs and couches in small clusters here and there so people could find a secluded place to chat or read. The farthest wall from the entrance was devoted to books, while the wall across from the stairs was largely dominated by a fireplace that wasn’t often used. It spoke of ancient times when the Wizard’s Keep was home to more than just Leaghan, Marcella, and the few citizens that volunteered to work in the keep as servants. It made her sad thinking of how many wizards used to call this keep home, and how they were now all gone.
She shook her head to clear the thought from her mind, and opened one of the double oak doors that led to the twilight streets beyond. Leaghan grumbled that she’d missed the sun and had fewer hours to devote to staff huntin
g. She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to be looking for, but she wasn’t likely to see it well at night, even if elf eyes were better at night.
It was that time of day where the world was caught between sunlight and moonlight, and raised havoc with elven eyes, but she could see well enough to know where she was going. The keep was close to the cliff, and she wanted to go to the Fire Fruit Forest to find a staff made of that legendary wood.
She closed the door behind her, and wound her way through the hardened streets until she reached the earthen ramp that led to the top of the mountains. Wing spun motes of dust around on the wide ramp. She didn’t look forward to the hike, but she really wanted a neat looking staff, and the whitened wood of the fire fruit trees would give her just that.
“Windstar!” a voice rumbled before she’d made it more than three steps up the ramp. She sighed, and turned to see Drex, a young dwarf, motioning to her from the shadows of a tall building across the streets. “Another dragon attack this morning. Need more scales?”
“How many are left?” Leaghan asked.
“Five or six,” he said.
Drex was short, even for a dwarf. His hair was short, and his face looked oddly bald without a beard. He winced when he motioned the small package at her. Leaghan wasn’t sure why he hadn’t grown a beard yet. Typically, dwarves started as soon as they could grow facial hair—which started at a very young age—and didn’t stop until they died.
“Already packaged for you,” he said, crossing the street toward her in halting motions. “There might be a dram of blood in there for you also.”
Her eyes sparkled at the thought, and she felt a giddy flutter in her stomach. She hadn’t been able to get any blood from dragons yet. It was something Marcone told her to be on the lookout for, but when the infirmary found they could use it for all kinds of potions, poultices, and tinctures, the blood went to them.
Dragon Forged: Chronicles of Dragon Aerie Young Adult Fantasy Fiction (Plague Born Book 3) Page 6
