‘As for the Egypt side of things, I think that the Demon had been imprisoned in that tomb and the dig was just unlucky in waking it up. I’m not sure how the Sand Stone Artefact ties in, but at a guess, maybe it has some sort of binding spell on it and it was that which bound the Demon to that tomb. When it was removed from the tomb, the Demon was freed.’
‘OK, that sounds reasonable, so what would you suggest as the next line of investigation?’
‘I think we should follow up the Egypt dig line a little further at least. I think there’s more to find out there yet and the missing Artefact might prove to be important in some way. The link to Yasmin alone makes it worth a little more attention. So with your approval I will continue with that for the time being, but I will also keep an eye on the Amanda angle just in case she surfaces again. I get the feeling we haven’t seen the last of her yet.’
Mary nodded slowly. ‘I agree. I don’t think this Amanda is a high priority and if she is then I’m sure she will turn up. This Artefact interests me though and might be useful to the Vatican. Follow it up and see if you can’t get hold of it somehow. Thank you Vito.’
I don’t believe a word of this girls story. She says these injuries were an accident and self-inflicted, but she just doesn’t seem the type to do this. The psych evaluation came back healthy and she seems in good spirits, although a little scared of something. I’m pretty sure she’s a regular drug user, and I wonder if she missed a payment or something.
I think these wounds were done to her, as punishment or torture maybe, I don’t know, but you would need to be pretty insane to pull out most of your own nails with a pair of pliers.
- Doctors personal notes on Jades medical evaluation
Apprenticeship
Donegal, Ireland.
Late October.
He came in fast at her, stepping forward like a big cat going in for the kill, his fists flew through the air, punctuated with a few kicks for good measure, but Amanda was ready for it and being quite fast herself now, she parried each blow, using her forearms and shins to skilfully deflect the scything attacks as they came thick and fast. She had learnt how to deflect strikes properly and was beginning to lessen the damage and bruising it was causing her.
She was on her back foot, forced off balance by this swift offensive, pushing her back, trying to trick her into making a mistake and leave an opening, but Amanda was aware of this tactic from her training and although she felt a little shocked, she handled this lightning attack well and defended herself admirably. She knew Gentle Water would be proud.
Learning Martial Arts had changed her life. Just before she met Gentle Water, the loss of Georgina, Stuart and the nightmarish attack in the alleyway had almost pushed her over the edge. Looking back, she knew she had been pretty close to a nervous breakdown, but Gentle Water changed all that. Amanda had learnt to focus herself, channel her stress and emotions, and to release them in a healthy and safe way, through the practice of Martial Arts, specifically, the Art of the Phoenix that he’d been teaching her.
As she defended herself she slowly got her feet back under her and waited for a slight pause in the attacks, which inevitably came, and she seized the moment instantly, grabbing onto it and forcing herself forward and on the offensive. Now she was the one attacking, her fists and feet flying. Fit and agile, she moved like a fearsome ballerina as she spun and twisted, her arms and legs flying out in spontaneous attacks, which would have been crippling if they had connected, but he was just as skilful as she, dodging and parrying the strikes just as well as she had been.
He also wasn’t on his back foot so much and was able to fight back better than Amanda had been, so that she found herself striking out with one hand and deflecting one of his attacks with her other hand.
Really hitting her rhythm now, their attack, feint, dodge, strike, parry, counter strike, parry again, punch, kick, kick and thrust was nothing but a blur of limbs moving between the two bodies as they moved about, spinning, ducking, jumping and cart wheeling as they went. It would be incredibly graceful to watch and almost looked beautiful if it hadn’t been so violent.
Amanda’s new found Magical abilities were standing her in good stead and were finding use in her fighting now that they felt like second nature. That first day of learning to see Essentia felt an age ago, and she had progressed to such a degree that seeing the Magical energy seemed so easy to do now.
It had been three days after Gentle Water had revealed his Magical ability that she finally saw something, and she wasn’t really expecting too. She’d been wandering back from the village store along the dirt track, the day felt a little cooler than it had been recently, the sky was blue but filled with fluffy white clouds that kept passing before the sun, but it still felt very pleasant. Amanda had been for a jog around the valley that morning and ended up in Commeen, the nearby village to the cottage. It was little more than a few houses with white washed walls dotted here and there amongst fields and hills, located on the northern edge of the Blue Stack Mountains with Donegal town on the other side of the range. Amanda was walking back towards the valley that her cottage nestled within, a little further into the hilly area on the edge of the mountains.
She had been thinking about something the Shop Keeper, Mr Buckley, had said. He had said she looked different today, that there was a glow to her, but she had denied any difference in her since she had last seen him. She felt no different really, she just knew that the world was not quite as it seemed, she knew that there was magic in the world, in fact it was all around us, floating in the air, invisible but there, and Magi, such as herself, could see it if they wanted too.
And that’s when the golden mist like haze slowly came into view again all around her. It shimmered and almost twinkled in the light as she watched it swirl and move about her. A nearby bird sat in a tree and she could see the Essentia being absorbed into it while at the same time surging out from it too, its life force being fuelled by the invisible energy that hung all around her. Amanda had stopped walking and just stood where she was, amazed that she had finally been able to see something, and what she saw looked beautiful.
She didn’t know how she did it, and for the moment she didn’t care, she just felt filled with awe at the vision before her.
She didn’t know how long she had been stood there for when a car horn sounded and shocked her from the trance, making the Essentia disappear. Amanda jumped to one side of the road and apologetically waved to the driver of the passing Land Rover.
Moments later she continued on her way thinking just how she had managed to do it. How had she finally been able to see the Essentia all about her. In the end she couldn’t be sure and ended up heading back to the cottage in a bit of a daze. She told Gentle Water, who seemed slightly impressed and congratulated her on being able to do it.
It would be a few days later, back in the clearing, before Amanda would see Essentia once more, this time under the tutelage of her Mentor.
But before he started to teach her the practical aspects of using Magic, Gentle Water spoke some more about the Magi community. Amanda listened, fascinated by now about everything to do with this new world, but deep down, she was itching to use Magic again.
Finally, after what seemed to Amanda like forever, Gentle Water was ready, the moment had come, and she would try to see Essentia once more.
‘So, we try to see Essentia again, OK?’ Gentle Water said.
Amanda nodded, maybe a little too vigorously because Gentle Water seemed to smirk.
‘Amanda, Magic is knowledge, is truth. If you know truth, you see truth. So, all you need to do to see Essentia is realise truth, and Magic will follow. Understand?’
‘I understand, I believe it’s real all right, after what I’ve seen.’
‘Then this will be easy. Empty your mind, think about Essentia, realise truth, and you will see.’
As Gentle Water spoke, Amanda closed her eyes and calmed her thoughts down, clearing her mind of everything and tryi
ng to visualise nothingness. Then, as she relaxed into this state, she let the idea of Essentia form in her mind’s eye, the golden misty glow that existed all about them. She knew it was there, she had seen it herself already, mix that with everything she had seen over the past few months and you got a pretty solid idea of how the world really worked.
She opened her eyes and waited, waited for the mist to appear before her. It was an odd sensation, trying to see this Essence, and she could only really relate it to one thing. Back in the Orphanage when one of the other children got hold of one of those Magic Eye Pictures where in a scrambled up mess of colour you should be able to see a Boat or a car. Amanda remembered that she had looked at that picture for what seemed like hours and saw nothing but a bunch of colours, although Alicia swore blind there was an image in there somewhere that looked amazing. Alicia’s wonder at this image only made Amanda more frustrated and the harder she tried, the less likely it seemed that she would be able to see anything at all.
This felt somehow similar to that, but this time she had seen it before and knew she could do it again. As she watched the world around her, the golden mist seemed to gently materialise before her. Not quite as bright as it had been that morning on the road, but there it was.
It only lasted a few moments before she lost it. But she could see straight away that this area had a more concentrated amount of Essentia then out in the village, just as Gentle Water had explained it would because it was a Pooling, an area of concentrated Essentia. He had told her that Pooling’s usually occurred where two Ley Lines crossed, but they did occur elsewhere as well, such as here, often for no reason the Magi could explain. He had also told her that Magic would be easier in Pooling’s as there was more Essentia to fuel it, so it would be a good place to teach her.
It felt wondrous to see the golden mist once more for the few seconds it lasted, and she whooped for joy once the image had gone.
Gentle Water smiled, as Amanda thrust two fists into the air in triumph.
‘Yes!’ She exclaimed. ‘I saw it, it was faint, but I saw it. The golden sparkling mist was there, and it looks more concentrated here then when I saw it on the path. Which I guess must be from the Pooling.’
‘Congratulations. Do you want to try again?’
‘I do,’ she said.
The rest of the day she spent practicing seeing Essentia, until she could do it almost without thinking about it, she also learnt that Magi glow - a golden colour to her, but often different colours to different Magi - more than Mundanes when seen through Essentia, although that could be hidden.
Amanda’s new found Magical abilities were standing her in good stead and were finding use in her fighting now that she was finding them second nature. That first day of learning to see Essentia seemed an age ago, and she had progressed to such a degree that seeing Essentia seemed like such a minor thing.
Once she had become so familiar with reaching out through her connection to Essentia that she could do it anywhere and anytime, Gentle Water had moved onto teaching her to see other things through the Essentia. It was only a few days on from that first lesson that he started doing this and within a few more days she was starting to make some great progress.
Before long she was seeing all sorts through her Magically perceptive senses, and each day she was surprised by the things she was able to do. They would look at trees around the clearing and she could see the life force within it, she could see the roots as they extended into the earth. She looked again and she could see the myriad life forms that lived and moved throughout its branches and canopy. Everything from the tiniest insects buried deep within the bark to the birds and insects above her. Even though she could not see them with her eyes normally, she could now see their life force, their connection to Essentia. As she looked upon these animals she could see their health and any illnesses they had, or wounds upon their tiny forms, and after this, she picked up on their psychic emanations, their thoughts, as basic as they were. She couldn’t read them yet, but she could see the mind within them.
Gentle Water went on to explain that by being able to look into the minds of animals and read their thoughts, then also being able to influence them too, Magi were able to have pets which they grew to know on a level unknown to any Mundane. They could channel into the animals brain waves and issue orders, ask questions, and be able to treat them more as allies then pets. A sufficiently advanced Magi would be able to even enhance their animal’s brain and mind, make it more intelligent give it much more complicated thought processes. These intelligent animals became the familiars of legend, the black cats of Witches and such were very much a possibility within the Magi community.
Amanda also began to read lines of fate and chance, she could see the most likely outcome of any given event and profit from this knowledge by being able to see what would happen. It wasn’t looking into the future and seeing what would actually happen, but it was the next best thing and had already becoming one of her favourite tricks. After learning this little trick she found a dice and practiced being able to see how the dice would land. While she held the die in her hand, the fates were difficult to read, but not impossible, she was still able to get a pretty high hit rate, but once the dice was thrown, the threads were much more certain and she knew what the outcome would be almost every time.
This ability made all sorts of things much easier and more fun too. She could anticipate the toast leaping from the toaster, the moment the post arrived and even the flight path of a fly that she wanted to swat. She found she no longer needed to wear a watch as she knew to the second what time it was and how long it was between events, and she could be at the right place at the right time every time if she wanted to, including walking up the door to the local shop the second it opened.
For the moment, it was something she had to concentrate on to achieve, but she knew that as she advanced in ability, it would eventually become something that was happening all around her all the time. But that wasn’t going to be for a long time yet.
Gentle Water had also taught her the basics of Essentia shaping and how to conjure an Aegis, the Magical shield that all Magi needed to know how to do. As she learnt how to do this, Gentle Water would begin to try and use his Magic on her in different ways, from trying to read her mind to make minor changes such as a colour change of her clothes.
This fascinated Amanda because as she tuned into the local Essentia and Gentle Water tried to break through her Aegis, she found she could feel the Magic that Gentle Water had cast. It was like a slight tingling sensation, as if something is nearly touching you. You know it’s there, you know something is trying to reach you and effect you in some way, it’s close by, trying to break in, to get past that shield that surrounds you and do whatever the magic was created to do.
It was a little freaky to feel that all about you, to feel that effect trying to push its way onto you, but not being able to see it, not unless you looked into the local Essentia.
Amanda would sit and watch Gentle Water cast a spell and be utterly fascinated as the Essentia all about him reacted to his Magic.
Magic seemed to have all sorts of effects on the surrounding Essentia. Most commonly there was a glittering and glowing of the mist around you when you pulled on Essentia and used your Magic, like a reacting magnesium strip. This also seemed to sometimes cause swirls and eddies around the Magi in the local, mist like Essentia, the stronger the Magic, the stronger the eddies. Also, if the Magi’s was casting Magic that would affect something at a short distance, there was a swirling and glowing about the casting Magi which shot out almost instantaneously in a streak of glittering Essentia to effect the target. The only exception to this being Teleportation that created an effect around the Magus both where they were, and where they appeared, but with no visible link between the two.
As Gentle Water tested her Aegis defences, this is exactly what was happening as she gazed out into the glowing Essentia, twinkling and swirling around her, outside her Aegis, and also
around Gentle Water as he cast the effect.
Gentle Water seemed to be very pleased with her progress as she learnt these Magical staples and even seemed a little bewildered by how quick she was picking it up. He often said she was a natural, gifted with a natural ability to use Magic, but Amanda didn’t know if this was just flattery from Gentle Water as she didn’t have a scale to measure it against. Instead she put it down to Gentle Water himself, saying he was just a great teacher and much better at being a mentor then even he suspected he might be. He explained things clearly and in a manner she could easily understand and it seemed to pay off as she picked it up almost as quick as he could teach it to her. She also suspected the Pooling of Essentia in the Clearing had a part to play, although she didn’t know how much, it could be a huge part, or having no effect at all.
She found working Magic a touch harder beyond the clearing, but not too difficult, however, that could be because she had usually already done the hard work in the clearing, learning the basics and how it works, taking it outside the Pooling was easier once you knew what you were doing.
In recent weeks Gentle Water then moved on from the basics of Magic and started to teach her the theory of higher Magic. He said that she was now of sufficient ability to move beyond the Initiate level workings and to learn the beginnings of Adept Magic.
As she continued to practice the Perception Magic she had been learning Gentle Water slowly introduced her into thinking a little bigger, and started by introducing her into reading peoples thoughts. It started with simple tasks such as Amanda trying to read single words from Gentle Waters mind, at first with him sat before her and facing her. Then he began to face away, then she did as well, so neither of them could see each other while she continued to pluck thoughts from his mind.
Magi Saga 1: Epic Calling Page 17
