Michael Foster - The Young Magician

It was all Samuel could hope for. He threw his hands up and called his own magic blazing forth. Ash began to cackle at the pitiful amount of energy that Samuel had brought into being, for it paled in comparison to what he had summoned. The young magician did not have a fraction of the power he needed to defend himself against Ash, let alone defeat him, but Samuel did not intend on attacking Ash at all.

The storm raged above, now covering the sky from horizon to horizon. It was a sea of raw power, caught up overhead, and it craved to be unleashed. Samuel’s last desperate surges of magic were not directed at Ash, but directly up into the heart of the raging skies. The storm had reached its threshold, filled with incredible, unspeakable power in reflection of all the energy gathered below, and Samuel gave it all the magic he had to offer-and he gave it a path of release.

Ash’s gaze followed Samuel’s gesture towards the clouds and his rattling laughter stopped abruptly.

The air sighed, then a silver bolt blazed forth and speared Ash to the tower. A clap of thunder, violent beyond belief, fell behind it and struck them like the end of the world. It shook the earth and made the tower sway and groan as if to fall. Samuel dropped to his hands and knees and hung on with all his might lest he be thrown from the tower altogether. Stones shattered and burst away from its edges, raining down below. Every man, woman and child in the city would have dived under their tables or run screaming from the streets. The air was full of shrieks and moans and deafening crashes-perhaps from Ash, or perhaps from the tower or the storm itself. When it was done, the sky was silent and the thunder faded to distant echoes.

The stones around Ash smoked and his remaining scraps of clothing had burst into flames. He opened his mouth to make some kind of utterance and a second bolt fell, just before a boom that felt like a hammer blow to the side of Samuel’s head. A brilliant, glowing streak scarred his dazzled eyes before he could look away.

The storm then spoke one final time but, this time, it launched a flurry of lightning rods that streamed from the clouds and set Ash dancing and fitting like a puppet, threading him to the sky with incandescent copper lacing. The noise was deafening-a continuous shrieking and banging that had Samuel lying flat and covering his ears for all he was worth. He could feel his skin tightening and the hairs on his arms smouldered, but he dared not cast any spell to protect himself lest he also attracted the sky’s wrath.

When the lightning had finally abated, only the wind and the soft crackling of Ash’s skin then remained to be heard.

Ash was still breathing; a wet and laboured sound that sounded close to death, and he was still on his feet. He rocked forwards and back, ready to fall, and Samuel could not believe there was any kind of life still in him at all, whatever form it took. The man had truly become some kind of monster.

Then, Ash’s right hand slowly opened and the Argum Stone dropped out, falling towards the scarred and blackened stones.

At this, Samuel found some uncanny reserve of energy. He gained his feet and dived, catching the ring before it could bounce to the floor. Climbing back onto his legs, he could feel the relic nestled firmly in his clenched palm, safely away from Ash.

Ash took an unsteady step, his mouth agape in frozen pain. ‘What was it that made you so powerful, Samuel?’ he then asked, pinning Samuel with his steaming, eyeless sockets. His voice was like tearing parchment. ‘Even with all the magic of the Ancients at my beckoning, you still managed to defy me. What filled you with such power, boy? What force made you into this unspeakable creature that has defeated me?’

‘You did,’ Samuel said, feeling the icy ring tight within his fist. ‘Each time you tried to destroy me, you set me an obstacle to climb, a goal to reach, a new strength to find. Each time you tried to kill me, I was born anew. Each time you destroyed something I loved, a seed of vengeance grew in its place. If it weren’t for you, I would still be picking apples in my father’s orchard. You made me everything I am, Ash, and I will utterly destroy you for what you have done, as I have so vowed.’

Ash raised the Staff of Elders once more with trembling arms and Samuel could feel him reaching for the power within it. Incredibly, a trickle of magic began to seep out of the ancient wood and into Ash. The magic of the Ancients had changed Ash altogether. His body had all but been destroyed. It was now merely a smouldering carcass, a vehicle for carrying his maddened soul and somehow he had ceased being human altogether. The fury of the storm had stunned him, but it had not killed him. Now he had found some way of reaching into the Staff of Elders directly. The magic began coming faster, leaping in ever-growing bursts into him. It was not nearly as much power as before, but it was growing greater at an alarming rate. Ash began laughing-a sickening and loathsome sound that could never emit from something human.

‘I have learnt such things as you would scarcely believe, Magician,’ the creature facing Samuel growled. ‘I have seen the secrets of this world and I will not be cast aside so easily.’

Samuel was spent. The storm was spent. There was only one more thing he could do.

There, clutched tightly in his palm, Samuel held the key to unimaginable power. He opened his hand and looked upon it, seeing the flickering light of Ash’s flaming cloak reflected on its silvery surface. He picked it up and slowly turned his right hand over, spreading his quivering fingers as wide as he could. His hands were shaking and he had to bite at his lip in concentration, but with the greatest of care, he managed to thread an outstretched finger into its centre and he felt its coolness sliding against his skin. He pushed the glimmering ring firmly up to his last knuckle and then he opened himself to whatever lay waiting there within.

A lone figure found himself hanging high in the air, far above a vast stormy ocean of magic. Almost at once, he began plummeting down. Faster and faster the person fell, rushing towards the roaring waters, accelerating at an incredible rate and without limit. He smashed into the freezing seas and pierced deep beneath the tumultuous surface, crushed on all sides by the cold and heaving power. The strength of the magic all around him squeezed the air from his lungs and pushed the blood from his palpitating heart-making his thoughts formless and nonsensical.

He paled before the incredible strength the relic kept pushing into him and he struggled to keep it all from washing over him and smothering him, as it had done with Ash. Its weight was incredible and it pushed in at him from every side, trying to force its way inside him, trying to invade every particle of his existence.

Then, something wonderful happened-an epiphany of sorts-as if some divine presence, in one sweeping gesture of its arms, had parted all the pain and anguish and confusion that now surrounded him and everything he had ever sensed or learned or experienced then coalesced into an atomic mote of clarity, and from this single fleeting point of omniscience, sprang a simple train of thought:

Magic is a strange and wonderful thing. When pressed to describe or define magic, most Masters have a different opinion. Master Sanctus had expressed it as simply a form of energy, while Master Glim called it ‘the manifestation of the will’. Others believed it was the essence of our spirit and some even said it was a gift of the gods. Of all the opinions he had heard, Samuel now recalled what his friend Lomar had once told him and, strangely, he could recollect the man’s words precisely, as if reliving that very moment in time. He could almost feel the great branches of the oak tree from the School of Magic reaching up above them, lending them both its shade.