PANIX: Magician Spy

by Guy Antibes

  “Let’s try to see what we can do in the lab.” The instructor walked out expecting the students to follow her into a brightly lit room filled with tables. Plants in pots littered the tops.

  “These are plants that have wilted. We watered them just as you assembled in the hall. I want you to coax them to accept water. Remember Heart to Hands.”

  “Heart to hands,” muttered Merra as the pair walked to a couple of the plants. She put her fist to her chest then put out her hand and concentrated on her pot. Panix could see the plant perk up a little.

  The instructor walked by. “That’s exactly what we expect. You’ve shown me that you can interest the plant in a sip or two. That’s great work and all we ask at this stage.” She continued on.

  Closing his eyes, he sensed the closed veins and the lack of water in the cells. Panix envisioned the roots and could see them shriveling, barely accepting the water that had just been poured in the pot.

  His did use his hand as a focus, but hovered it over the plant as he concentrated on the roots giving them the energy and motivation to draw in the water. He worked on the cells, broadcasting his own power to pull water from the sap and engorge. Standing there he could feel the plant fill. Panix was surprised at how little energy he had to expend. That was the only way he could describe it.

  He heard mutterings and came out of his trance. He opened his eyes and the plant appeared fully recovered—not just a stem showing signs of stiffening like Merra’s effort.

  The instructor stood with her mouth open. “What did you do?”

  Panix shrugged. “I sort of told it to take a drink. It wanted more than a sip.” He gave the instructor a sheepish smile. Walking out of the greenhouse, Panix noted the classmates quietly talking to the instructor. By a furtive look or two, he could tell he was the subject. The way Merra looked at him with worshipful eyes made him forget about all of the jealous looks.

  ~

  “Corlee, I think I have a problem,” he said, meeting his sister for lunch in the common refectory after the Levitation seminar. “I feel that I’m bound to do my best and exercise my ability to find out what I’m good at.” Panix needed to talk to someone about his problems and he didn’t know Merra well enough. She might not understand issues that only his sister might understand.

  “I’ve heard. Your exploits are a topic of conversation among the Junior Fellows. My fears of envy have been realized. I think there is a faction that feels threatened.”

  “How can I threaten them? I’m just a beginner still going through the assessments.” Panix pulled over a bowl of fruit and levitated an apple and left it floating. “Because I can do that and the others need training?”

  Corlee looked at the apple with her mouth open. “How did you learn to do that? Before I left home five years ago, you didn’t have the ability.”

  “I’m afraid I did. I just didn’t know how to use it.” Panix gave his sister a crooked smile. “In the last year or so I came up with my own method of practicing magic at the Military College. I think about magic differently than others. The Heart-to-Hand method doesn’t work for me. I use my whole body as a power source and then use my hand as my eyes to see inside of things so I can manipulate them.”

  “But you’re not supposed to do that until you’ve practiced enough to become a Senior Fellow.” Corlee looked at her brother with new eyes.

  “Ah, that’s my problem, after just about every seminar, the same students talk to the instructor and then they all give me dirty looks. I am afraid my talents are making some of my fellow students jealous and now you tell me there are others.” Panix hadn’t confronted this kind of dislike at the Military College, but then he wasn’t that much more talented than anyone else. Well, that wasn’t quite true, but there were plenty who could outshine him. Why did he have to have such talent?

  Corlee looked off into the large room, filled with magicians of all kinds and abilities. “Can you suppress your talents?” She wrung her hands. “Oh, Panix, I didn’t expect this when I encouraged you to come.”

  “You know me better than that, Corlee. I’ve got to do my best. If I don’t, how can I find out what I can do well? I’ve got to admit, I’m having a hard time handling this place.” Panix got up and lifted the apple up high enough so he could grab it. He took a bite. Others looked at him, some in wonder, some with resentment. Flaunting power wasn’t polite at the Academy. Panix put the apple down on his plate. He didn’t want to perform—he came here to learn.

  “I’ll talk to Jin. He’s such a dear and I love him so much, but I have to admit, he has the ability to become part of the furniture at times. Sometimes he is so silent, I think it’s a magical ability.” She smiled. Panix enjoyed seeing her eyes light up. After their mother died, Corlee didn’t smile very much. She seemed much more at home at the Academy. “I’ll have him keep his ears open around the Junior Fellows. They all know I’m your sister, so they’ll clam up when I’m around.” She gave her brother another smile. “Now how is your romance going with the golden-haired girl?”

  “I feel badly for Merra. She doesn’t seem to have as much talent as she thought. Whoever suggested that she come to the University, misread her potential. Other than the Agricultural seminar, her efforts have all been at the low end of the spectrum. She’s got talent, just not enough of it to certify in anything other than plants.

  “In Tool Manipulation, she succeeded in making a blade sharper, but it took her twice as long as the others and her efforts drained her energy. That was the first time I realized that magic drew power from the wielder. But she is kind and friendly and I think she is as smitten with me as I am with her.” Panix couldn’t help but smile.

  “Not to mention the most beautiful magician at the Academy,” Corlee said.

  “Present company excluded.” Panix smiled at his sister, relieved he had finally talked to someone about his situation. “Please let me know if Jin finds out anything.”

  ~

  The weather had turned warm and dry, so the mining seminar turned into a field trip. The class assembled in the back of the Academy for a hike into the hills above the Academy.

  As the trail began to get stepper on the trek, Merra began to slow down and Panix found them at the end of the line. The last students went around a turn in the trail, leaving them alone. The trail just went up and up and Merra was not in the kind of shape for such an outing.

  “You go on ahead. I don’t want to hold you up. I’m just not used to all of this.” Merra sat down to take off her sandals and wipe away a tiny rock that was bothering her. The day was getting warm. “I’ll rest here for a bit, and then catch up.”

  Panix didn’t want to leave her, but he felt driven to attend this particular assessment. “I’ll be waiting for you,” he said, as he trotted along the trail to catch up. The class stopped a mile further up the trail. Panix kept looking back for Merra, but she didn’t appear.

  “Mineral, gem and ore extraction use basically the same technique. You must develop a sense of what the gem or mineral is, and determine if there is enough of it to process. The most powerful magicians can take a fist-sized rock and pulverize it, separating the mineral from the rest.”

  The instructor stood in front of a rock face. “I want you all to walk up to the wall. Close your eyes and point to where the ore is. It’s copper.” She held up a vial filled with turquoise colored powder. “You can hold this first, to try and get a sense for the ore, and then we will blindfold you and see if you can identify it in the wall. Remember Heart to Hand.”

  Panix noticed most of the stragglers joining the group. Merra wasn’t among them. He worked his hands with anxiety and turned his attention back to the class.

  The students made their attempts. Only a quarter of the students were able to detect the coppery veins. They all put their hand to their heart then used their hand to sense the ore. Panix held back waiting for Merra, but his turn finally came up.

  He put his hand over the vial and closed his eyes to concentrat
e. He could sense the ore as having an aura that he thought of as a smell. When the instructor placed the blindfold over his eyes and pointed him to the rock face, Panix opened his inner eyes. The rock face exploded with colors and those smells. He couldn’t help but smile at the new sensation.

  He ran his hands over the rock. “The vein here, it is thin and on the surface.” Panix traced the vein with his finger. He concentrated harder and found he could see more materials he didn’t recognize embedded in the rock. “The largest vein of copper that I can see is here, is just below the surface.” He took off his blindfold with his finger touching the face of the rock.

  One of the perennial complainers spoke up. “He’s just showing off. There’s nothing there I could see.”

  The instructor pulled out a metal hammer and tapped on the spot Panix pointed out. “Here?” she asked.

  Panix nodded.

  She continued to break down the surface until a shard broke off revealing the turquoise color of the ore. Students clapped. The one who complained gave Panix a shove when the instructor turned to walk to a table set up along the trail.

  “Those of you who were able to see the copper ore—I’d like you to try if you can separate it from the rock. Does anyone want to give it a try?” No one volunteered. Merra still hadn’t shown up and the anxiety shortened Panix’s breath. He’d never worried about anyone before like this, so he would go first and head back down to see what happened to her.

  “I’ll give it a go. What am I looking for?” Panix went to the front, taking the rock from the instructor’s hand. He wanted to get this over so he could go back down the trail and find out happened to Merra.

  Panix studied the rock. He tried to see into the rock and was startled as it suddenly became semi-transparent as he sought out the mineral. “This has about a third of copper ore,” he said.

  He felt the boundaries between the copper ore and the rest of the rock. Concentrating on separating those boundaries, he mentally crumbled the rock into powder as he worked along the edges, moving the dross to one side and the ore to the other. When he felt he was done, he opened his eyes. There were two conical piles of powder barely touching. One of the piles shined turquoise in the noon sun. Panix dripped from the effort.

  Panix looked around for Merra but she hadn’t shown up yet. “Merra’s missing,” he said amidst the congratulations of the instructor and the announcement that Panix’s performance was exactly how magicians separated samples in the mines. “I have to go back and find her.”

  He trotted back down the dusty path, coming to a section of the trail that had a steep drop off. He spotted a snake sunning in the middle of the trail. Grabbing a dead branch, he quickly stripped off the smaller branches, making it more of a staff. The wood was dry and weak but Panix used magic to stiffen up the structure, using the same technique discussed in the masonry seminar for stiffening up a wall.

  He slammed the stick into the snake. It hissed. Panix struck again and again until it stopped moving. He hooked the snake’s body on the branch and flung it up the hill deep into the brush.

  “Help.” He heard a weak cry from Merra. It was from below the edge of the trail. He stopped and heard a moan. He put his hands to his knees and leaned over the edge. Far below, he saw Merra lying against a tree.

  “I’m coming,” Panix said as he grabbed the stick, using it for balance as he half-slid down the slope to Merra. His heart thrust itself into his throat. He felt responsible for leaving her by herself.

  “A snake. It bit me and I fell.” Tears flowed from her beautiful bright blue eyes. Panix feared for the girl.

  “Let me see.” He looked her over and didn’t see any obvious breaks. “Do you think anything is broken?”

  She could barely shake her head. Panix took a canteen out of his daypack and gave her a drink of water. Then he helped her lay down, seeing the snake bite on her foot, beginning to purple and swell.

  He poured a little water on the wound and used a cloth square from his pack to clean it. The healing seminar hadn’t been held yet. Panix had no idea what to do. He closed his eyes and sensed the wound.

  Seeing the blood and something else that was causing it to collect, he decided that something else must be the poison. He took a deep breath and tried to transform it into water. Something didn’t work right. Merra immediately went into shock. Panix’s eyes widened as she became pale, taking short and shallow breaths.

  “Don’t die, Merra. Don’t die.” His hands shook as he took the cloth square and wiped his face. By this time he heard other students yelling. He looked up at the trail fifty paces above to see the seminar class looking down at him.

  “She’s been bitten by a snake,” he yelled. He knew he couldn’t carry her up the slope.

  The instructor and a male student slid down to where he was. She said, “There is another trail just down the hill. We can make our way to the Academy that way. The students are starting back now and will get a healer started up the other trail.”

  “She’s in shock,” Panix said. He was silent about his failure. He looked at her while she labored to breathe. How could he be so stupid? For once his magical abilities had only served to make matters worse.

  “All the more need to worry. We’ll need to make a litter. Sometimes it would be nice if you could make a person float,” the instructor said. “Magicians can only levitate inanimate objects.”

  ~

  “Thanks for coming over on such short notice. How is your friend, Merra?” Corlee asked, letting Panix into her chambers. Single-paned windows let in the bright yellow light of the afternoon. Wood paneling gave the small room a warm feel, but there was little, it seemed, that could brighten Panix’s mood.

  “She’ll make it, barely. I have to confess to you Corlee—I caused it. She nearly died because of my arrogance.” Panix went to the window. Corlee saw it as an attempt to create distance from her.

  “How did you cause it? I heard she was bitten by a snake sunning in the middle of the trail.” Corlee was alarmed that Panix was so distraught.

  “I tried to heal her. I thought I was so smart and so powerful. I could see the poison in her veins, or what I thought was poison. I tried to turn it into water, then she went into shock.” He wrung his hands. Corlee could see how hard it was for him to come to her and confess. “Will they expel me?”

  “Did you tell anyone what you did?”

  Panix nodded. “I did. Any healer would know I tampered with her wound.”

  “Water in the blood stream won’t kill her. If you diluted the poison you might have saved her after all. But there is no way to tell now.” Corlee paused to let Panix stew.

  “I might have killed her.”

  “Healing isn’t like other magic, Panix. I’m a healer and I’m barely competent to clean a wound. It takes five years to be a certified Healer at the Academy. We have to learn more about how the body works. It’s medicine more than magic. So many things interact and we still know so little about how the body works. Promise me you won’t try healing again, unless you are trained.”

  “You don’t have to tell me. I feel terrible.” Panix turned. “Perhaps I’m not the master magician I thought I was.”

  “You have more power than is good for you, Panix. Being a successful magician is more than exercising power, it’s as much knowing how to use it and when.”

  Panix ran his hands through his short hair. “I need to slow down, huh?” he said, “but there are areas where I want to see what my potential can do. The mining seminar was really interesting. Separating the copper from the rock... I’ve never felt such accomplishment before.”

  Corlee nodded. “Yes, I heard about your exploits. You showed everybody up.” She wrung her hands, feeling bad for her brother. It was all so unfair to him. The only word that could describe his work was brilliant and yet, to her dismay, jealousy and envy colored more words about him than accolades.

  “You at least need to do what is required. After the initial assessments, you’ll b
e able to exercise as much power as you need.”

  Panix came back from the window and sat by his sister. “Now, why did you invite me to visit?”

  “Our stepmother is coming for the wedding, but Father is held up until early summer. The legislative session is scheduled to last until early spring, so he won’t be able to get to Helvanna and back until after we’ve wed. He’ll miss the wedding.” Corlee said, her eyes reddening, making her mad. She didn’t want to show him how distraught she was. “Polla mentioned she’s bringing our dear stepbrother, Aston, as her escort.”

  Panix snorted and said, “Why not put the wedding off until summer?”

  “Why don’t you put off seeing Merra for a few months?” Corlee nibbled on a knuckle. “Jin and I are committed to a spring wedding and it’s the only time his parents can make it.”

  “A family reunion without Father, eh?” Panix frowned. “You don’t appear to be any happier about it than I would be.” He started to levitate the table in front of him.

  “No. Could you put that down please?” Corlee said. Panix lowered it to the floor. “I received the letter from Polla this morning. I don’t want it to ruin my wedding day. There was just something about the tone. There was an undercurrent—a dismissal of Father. I felt it strongly. Something isn’t right with Polla. I don’t know what it is.”

  “Let’s not worry. You’re having a small wedding, anyway. Both of them will get bored and leave right after the ceremony. Without Father, they’ll spend only as much time here as necessary. I’ll be here to make your wedding a happy one.”

  Corlee took Panix’s hand and kissed it. “You’re such a good brother.” She smiled as she saw embarrassment redden his face.

  ~~~

  Chapter 3

  Moans and giggles, followed by a couple of long sighs, came from underneath scarlet silk sheets. The large single mound turned into two as the sheet was pulled down, revealing a blond middle-aged man and a brown-haired beauty of similar age with liquid brown eyes with disheveled hair. Sweat glistened on their foreheads and beads ran down their necks.