Tak

Experiments - Part 6

     To his delight (although he did his best to hide it), Gannlow didn't know the Mend spell, and neither did Chilgrone. Learning a new magic spell, of any kind, was an expensive and labour intensive undertaking, after all, and to go to all that effort merely to mend the odd broken pot, when it was usually much simpler and easier to just get a new one, was a little ridiculous. When Tak explained the reason for his interest in this spell, though, the rak looked interested and agreed it was certainly worth a try.

     "This approach would never have occurred to me," he admitted. "Maybe my decision to bring you here is about to bear fruit."

     The rak's praise warmed Tak's heart, but also made him feel terribly guilty. Gannlow wasn't acting at all like an evil being. In fact, he'd been acting decently and honourably, the perfect employer, and the knowledge that he was likely to turn evil as more years passed didn't change the way he was now. Gannlow had placed his trust in him, and Tak was planning to betray that trust. Tak didn't want to be that kind of person. He liked to think of himself as a nice person. A pretty decent sort of guy. Was he really going to go through with this act of betrayal? Was he really going to throw Gannlow's hospitality and trust back in his face?

     He didn't have a choice, of course, and he reminded himself that he wasn't doing it for his own gain. He was doing it to free himself and the other gemthralls from servitude to Khalkedon. To remove a great evil from the world. Once Khalkedon had been destroyed, Barl and Sheena and the others would take over the ruling of the city, and they would rule fairly and wisely. They would turn Domandropolis into a place where decent people could raise their families in safety and security.

     Under their rule, the city would grow wealthy and prosperous, and the example they set would inspire the inhabitants of other cities to do the same. The good that would be done would far outweigh the rather minor sin of betraying Gannlow's trust, and anyway, they'd find a way to make it up to him later. Make recompense. And when the young rak discovered why he'd done it, the good and fair reasons he'd had for doing it, he would forgive him. He was sure of it.

     Who am I kidding? he thought, however. He'll be furious, and rightly so, just as furious as I would be if someone broke into my castle and stole all my secrets. Well, I'll just have to make sure he doesn't find out, won't I? This is something I've just got to do, so stop agonising about it and do it!

     As luck would have it, Gannlow had a collection of spellbooks that had once belonged to other wizards. "They've got no further use for them," he'd explained, the fiery points of light that served him as eyes brightening with amusement. To their delight they found that one of them did indeed contain the Mend spell. Otherwise, they would have had to research it from scratch, a process that might have taken months. Tak, once he'd cast an Intellectus spell on it to make it readable, managed to read it in just a couple of hours, scanning the ornate lettering with his eyes while his body absorbed raw, ambient magic from the air around him. His thoughts shaping it to form the dormant spell that lay ready inside him, waiting to be cast.

     He pretended to have difficulty with it, however, until Gannlow finally left the room to attend to an experiment he was running in another of his workrooms. As soon as the rak was out of the room, Tak acted fast. He'd already identified the rock shaping spell in the rak's spellbooks, cast Intellectus on it and read it, so all he had to do now was copy it into his own spellbook.

     It was a fairly high level spell, though, and would cover several pages. It would take several hours to get it all down, taking care to get every letter and symbol exactly right. If he allowed his raging sense of haste to rush him, if he made the slightest slip or blur on even a single letter, the spell would not work. Worse, it might misfire on him, with possibly fatal effects. He had to take his time, therefore. He had to take each and every single letter one at a time and make sure he got it perfect, while trying not to think that the rak might return at any moment.

     Might he be able to bluff his way out of it if Gannlow returned early and caught him at it? Well, like any other wizard, Gannlow wouldn't be able to read what he was writing unless he cast his own Intellectus spell on it, so maybe Tak would be able to say that it was the Mend spell he was writing. Gannlow might be surprised that such a simple spell was taking up so many pages of his book, but magic was unpredictable like that. Every wizard's magical writing differed from every others, and a spell that took up only two pages in one wizard's spellbook might take up three or four in another's. But a Mend spell that covered six pages? Could he make Gannlow believe that? Better if he didn't have to try. Don't come back yet! he prayed therefore as he wrote with excruciating care and patience. Please, all you mighty Gods, please don't let him come back yet!

     It was with a mighty gasp of relief that he finally finished the last character and blotted it, and then he looked back over everything he'd written, searching for any evidence that his anxiety had caused him to make a mistake. He couldn't find anything, but there was no way of knowing for sure until he saw whether the Magister had accepted it. He couldn't even say whether or not the writing looked right, because what he'd eventually written bore no resemblance to the spell as Gannlow had written it. Oh well, he'd done the best he could. Only time would tell.

     He heard footsteps out in the corridor and hurriedly turned the page, praying that the still damp ink wouldn't smudge. Then he snapped the cockatrice quill in two, the randomised magic remaining on it making it useless and dangerous for further use. He was cutting another with his penknife when the rak strode back in.

     His fiery eyes immediately took in the broken quill and he glared dangerously at the living wizard. "Those are expensive and dangerous to come by," he hissed, looming over him until Tak began to shiver with the soulfreezing cold radiating from him. "You show a deplorable lack of respect for my property."

     Tak found himself growing afraid for the first time in many months. Despite the rak's fearsome appearance, the amiable camaraderie that had developed between them had led him to think of Gannlow as merely an older wizard. Suddenly, though, he was once again aware that this was a rak he was dealing with. A rak! This was the first time Gannlow had ever made an open display of anger towards him. Was he finally beginning to lose his humanity, turning into a monster as all raks inevitably did?

     The possibility brought a rising tide of fear that made him shiver uncontrollably. "I'm sorry," he said, hanging his head and trying to look sheepish rather than guilty. "I accidentally contaminated it. It won’t happen again, I promise."

     "See that it does not," snarled the rak, moving away, to Tak's great relief. His experiment must have gone wrong, he thought. That's why he's upset. Any normal, living man might react the same way. Even so, though, it was a worrying development. It was high time he did what he came to do and got out of there.

     "You succeeded in reading the spell, then," said Gannlow, looking back at him.

     "Yes, I think so," replied Tak nervously. "I was just about to copy it into my spellbook, as you can see."

     "Indeed, as I can see. Then get on with it."

     The rak then swept out of the room, leaving Tak to breathe a huge and heartfelt sigh of relief.

☆☆☆

     Copying a new spell requires a great deal of mental effort, and under normal circumstances only a foolhardy wizard would attempt to copy two in the same day. Tak had no choice, though. Copying the first had already given him a bit of a headache, and it got steadily worse as he worked, trying to give the second spell the same care and attention as the first. A few minutes to rest his eyes would have been welcome, but he didn't dare take the risk of breaking his concentration. He had to keep plugging away and praying he could get to the end without making a stupid, careless mistake.

     When he did finally get to the end of it, he rose from his seat and stretched his arms, refusing to look back down at what he'd written until he'd had a chance to rest. If he'd made a mistake, then that was just too bad. It was only to cover up his learning of the stone shaping spell, after all, and so, in a way, it had already served its purpose even if he never cast it. He grinned to himself as he left the laboratory and went in search of something to eat.