AUTHORS NOTE:
Thanks so much for the reviews Drouppi and Archer1eye, they mean so much to me! I love getting feedback and queries about where the story will be going!
Anyone interested in the book diagram should look up 'Elemental planes' in google and check out the pictures, they are the basics of the planes.
Chapter 2211th Day of Late Winter 768 n.c
I opened my eyes.
With disappointment I noted that my hand still contained an intact firefly wing. I let out a huff of frustration.
"I don't understand what's going wrong," I said as I looked Malkarov in the eyes.
He looked frozen, as if he had begun to rush towards me but couldn't actually move from his spot. He wasn't looking me in the eyes, he was looking down at my hands with eyes that were wide with fear.
I looked down, myself. Hand with firefly wings. Hand with black glowing crystal…. Black glowing crystal?
"What?" I said out loud. "What happened?"
"Are…" Malkarov stuttered, visibly relaxing but still seeming to be prepared to rush towards me. "Are you all right? Are you hurt, are you feeling faint?"
I took a mental stock of myself, "I'm alright. I'm not hurting anywhere, I feel all right."
I looked back down at the glowing crystal ball in my hand. It was actually glowing, but not with any sort of light I had ever seen before. The crystal, that was earlier clear, was now pitch black. Black light, if such a thing were naturally possible was projected from it. Tinges of purple ghosted over the surface of the ball, like purple smoke.
"What happened?" I asked.
"I… I don't know." He replied. "Your material component wasn't consumed, you didn't speak the words aloud. Nothing should have happened, except that it did. I felt it. The only thing it could be is if you did exactly what I told you not to do, except that just beginning with magic you shouldn't have been able to. And don't get me started on your seeming!"
"What do you mean, I shouldn't have been able to? Why did you warn me about it, if I shouldn't have been able to?" I asked, speaking much more rudely than I intended. I was obviously panicking, just like he was.
"It's an important warning that's given to every apprentice before they cast their first spell. But there are blocks to prevent you from actually doing it until you are much more experienced." He explained, "You… I think… I believe that you may have just cast a light spell without using ANY components. It's something that I've seen before, but that was by the Grand-Master Wizard. He underwent multiple rituals to be able to do it without the material components and even more again to be able to do it without speaking the words!"
"What does that mean?" I asked, confused.
He stopped and looked thoughtful for a few moments, "I… I don't know."
He physically deflated, "I don't know. I don't have a clue. This shouldn't even be possible. Why don't we get ourselves another hot drink and head down to the ground floor?"
He turned and started to walk towards the landing and I went to stand up but realised that I still had my hands full.
"Malkarov?" I asked, and he turned, "What do I do with these?"
He hesitated for a moment, then strode towards me. He took the glowing orb from my hand, tentatively, and inspected it for a moment before extending his other hand to help me stand.
Once I was standing he said, "Put the wing back into the jar and the jar on the shelf then come down to the kitchen."
As I went to the cupboard I looked back at him and he was walking slowly towards the landing, inspecting the black glowing orb in his hands. I put the wing back into the jar and replaced the jar on the shelf then took myself down to the kitchen.
Malkarov was sitting on a chair at the table with the crystal ball resting in front of him. He looked puzzled by it. I stood on the landing, for some reason afraid to walk any closer. I didn't fully understand what I had done, but I knew that it was forbidden, it was something bad. It was something… different.
Suddenly, Malkarov sat back and slapped himself on the forehead. I jumped a little at the aggressive suddenness of his movements. He jumped up quickly and started running towards me until he caught sight of me on the landing. He stopped then, almost skidded to a halt and looked a little ashamed of himself.
"Oh! Sorry Sharein," he apologised, "I'm such an idiot sometimes. Identify should tell me some of what we need to know, it can be done either through divination or ritual. The divination should tell me everything I need to know. I'll just head upstairs to grab the components. Why don't you pour us both a drink and I'll be back down in a moment."
I prepared our drinks, keeping an eye on the orb from out of the corner of my eye. Malkarov hadn't come back down yet and curiosity gave me an idea. I placed the drinks down onto the table and walked over towards the landing. The light from the crystals about the room were obviously interfering with the light from my crystal ball and I wanted to know what it would look like with the other lights off.
I held the rune to dim the lights and watched as the white light from the crystals faded, there was still a bit of light from the fireplace and the windows, but it made the light from my globe even more obvious and strange.
The colours on the tapestries appeared muted, darker. The stone of the roof, while I could easily make out the roughness of it's 'terrain', It all appeared much darker. While I could see very clearly, just as clearly as with any other light it was obviously a 'black' light. It was almost as if the entire room had been smothered with shadow. I was just about to turn the crystal lights back on when Malkarov came down the stairs carrying a large clear bowl and his staff. These, he almost dropped in surprise. The bowl seemed to be made of crystal and his staff was long and straight, dark wood with runes engraved all down it's length. The staff's base was capped with metal and had his expression not being one of such urgent surprise I would have asked him about it.
"What did you do?" he asked suddenly, quickly, afraid.
"I turned down the lights?" I said, "I just wanted to see what my light looked like."
"Why are you glowing?" he asked, unsure.
I looked down at my hand, and sure enough, my skin was glowing slightly. It wasn't extremely bright, but it was obvious.
"I… I don't know," I replied.
He came down a few steps, and moved onto the landing and he started glowing as well!
"Now you're glowing!" I exclaimed.
He stepped back up the steps and the glowing stopped!
"It's a reaction to the light," he said, "a side effect. Is it just us that glow?"
I looked around the room, nothing else was glowing like us, "It appears so."
"Curious," he murmured, "it gives me a thought, but one that identify should confirm."
"This should take but a moment," he said, striding into the room and placing the bowl onto the table, "turn the lights back on if you would and come over here."
I followed his instructions and looked into the bowl. Inside was a feather. Malkarov picked up the bowl and carried it over to the benchtop tub. He pushed the rune for cold water and let the bowl fill up a bit before he carried it back to the table.
"Time for a quick divination lesson, I suppose." He stated, "We don't have too much time before your spell ends, so I'll explain as I do."
He dipped one hand into the water, where the feather floated freely and with the other he held his staff such that the tip was touching the top of the orb, "Divinations all work differently and are similar to other schools of magic where you actually cast spells but the components are usually always crystal related. This bowl is made from a block of quartz, the owl's feather is the consumable component required for the spell."
He spoke the magical phrase required and I watched as the feather disintegrated into ash, I felt something coming from him as well; like the flash inside me but coming from him instead. It was fairly faint, an echo of an echo, but it was there. That must be what he meant by feeling the magic!
"Well, well," he said after a moment in a strange tone almost detached and talking to himself, "well, well indeed!"
He stepped back from the table and leant his staff against it, "let's leave this here for now. I need this drink and a seat, then I shall explain the impossible… or at least the extremely unlikely."
We left the bowl and the crystal ball where they were and carried our mugs downstairs to the ground floor. Taking our seats we sat sipping our drinks for a few moments. I waited patiently, expectantly for him to talk while he seemed to be in a state of continuous shock and disbelief. A couple of times he opened his mouth as if he were about to speak, but closed it abruptly.
Eventually he did say "I'm not sure what to do about this. We can't risk you practicing spell casting until we know better about what happened and I don't want to disclose your seeming as it will definitely cause a stir. But I can't consult anyone else without disclosing it."
"Answers, answers now." he muttered to himself then looked straight at me, "I told you that seemings almost always align to the main elements: fire, earth, air and water. These are the main elements."
Abruptly he raised his finger and jumped up out of his seat with great alacrity, rushing over to one of the bookshelves he quickly withdrew a book without even having to pause to look for it. This he opened straight to a page and put it down into my lap with a flourish. As I looked at the picture displayed on the page, he sat down again.
The picture showed a ring, segmented into four pieces, each containing the names of one of the elements. Between each segment was a wedge leading towards the centre. Between Fire and earth was 'magma'. Between fire and air was 'smoke'. Between air and water was 'ice' and between water and earth was 'marsh'. Inside the elemental ring was another ring, segmented into six pieces. Underneath air was 'lightning' and 'vacuum'. Underneath earth was 'mineral' and 'dust'. Underneath fire was 'ash' and underneath water was 'steam'. Finally, inside that ring was another segmented into two. These were labelled 'Positive' and 'Negative'. Finally the centre of these rings was labelled 'Prime'.
"As you can see," Malkarov explained, "Seemings almost always align to the four main elements. Very very rarely will someone appear with the seeming of a para element. The para elements are the combinations of two elements. Air and water combined, creates the para element of ice, for instance. Just as rarely will someone appear with the seeming of a quasi element. These are the ones underneath the main four elements. Those are the elements that everything is made from. Everything here that appears on what is called the Prime Material Plane, the bit in the centre."
I traced my finger to the centre of the rings, where 'Prime' was written. I noted that he hadn't mentioned the innermost rings yet.
"If the elements are all that are required to create… things, there are two other forces that directly affect us." Malkarov continued, "The Positive Material and the Negative Material. These are, to put it simply: Life and Death. Creation and destruction. Something and nothing."
He paused to sip his drink as I puzzled over the implications of what he has just said. None of the quasi or para elements seemed to match my seeming, except perhaps the smokiness of the purple that was running over the surface of the orb.
"The negative material Sharein," he said with finality, "The negative material is your seeming."
