2024 Story Collection

The Wizard Starweaver & His Apprentice IV

"You'll need a new name," is the first thing he says to her that morning when she sits down for breakfast.

"What?" she asks with the spoon full of oatmeal halfway to her mouth.

"A name you'll be called that reflects you power." Abel explains. "Do you think I was born with the name Starweaver? No. My name was Abel Roach."

She can't help the laugh that comes from her at that, her spoon falling back into her bowl.

"I'm glad you delight in my suffering," he jokes, but quickly joins in her laughter. His laugh sounded like chimes in the wind. It was strange.

Did things like that change due to immortality or to the use of magic overtime?

"A mix of both," he answers her thoughts. "You don't have to worry. It takes a millennium before you begin to see even the smallest changes."

She nods. Maybe she should worry that he could hear her thoughts, but she didn't. It's not like worrying would change anything.

He smiles at that.

"What name do you suggest?" she asks, trying to pull the conversation away from her thoughts.

"How does Jane Shadowdancer sound?" he suggests.

"Not bad," she replies right away and after thinking for a moment, her smile grows. "Actually, I quite like it."

"Me too. I think it suits you," he says before taking a big bite of oatmeal and lifting up that notebook from yesterday to read.

"Was your name really Roach?" she asks, unable to stop herself.

"I should've never told you that," he grumbles. "Hurry up and eat. We have a long day ahead." After breakfast, he leads her into the main room.

"Can you help me carry these," he says, piling up a few scrolls, journals, books, and stones into her arms before she can answer.

"Sure," she offers, not that it matters.

He picks up a box full of stones, herbs, and a few liquids in some vials before leading the way to the door. He flicks an index finder, and the door opens for them.

That's handy.

She follows him out the door and carefully down the stone steps. The last things she needed was to make a fool of herself by falling face first into a large slab of stone.

He leads her through the forest in an odd way. Around this tree twice, another three times, backwards around this other, wait 15 counts before circling another and so on until eventually a clearing opens up ahead of them. One that was not there a few minutes ago.

He walks up to a perfectly round patch of sand where the sunlight hits through the tree canopy. Around it is a plethora of flowers and plants.

"This is where you will learn to practice your magic," he says. "It is where I learned and every other student before you learned."

She nods and follows his lead as he sets down the materials carefully on a large stone nearby.

He walks into the sand and gestures for her to follow. She does and once she steps inside; she realizes just how large of a space it is.

"So the first step is to understand how magic itself works, is to understand where it is, what it is and how to access it."

"It is the thing that flows through everything and everyone. It does not know of time, nor is it bound by the limitations of space. It is a living, breathing force that allows our world to function in thee ways it does."

"You can access magic in many different ways. Some will come more naturally to you than others. Only a select few can access it. Even fewer can manipulate it and use it how they please. 

Fewer still can use all types of magic, not just their innate skill."

"The oldest type of magic is expectedly fire magic." He opens his fist and from it explodes a flame.

"What I did just then is called summoning. It is the easiest way to use and manipulate magic." He closes his fist, putting out the fire. "Basically, I just stole a little bit of fire from somewhere else."

"So just picture a place a flame is likely to be and then imagine a part of that flame in your hand, then open it and you should see the flame there."

"That sounds too easy," she says warily.

"Summoning in its most basic form is easy," he says. "It's just that mastering it takes lifetimes. Try it."

She closes her eyes, holding out a fist. She pictures the stove in her mother's old house. She remembers her mother opening the iron door to add some more wood and the heat that poured out and the bright flames that cast light over the dark room.

Then, she opened her fist and imagined the fire in her hand. Her eyes fly open as a huge fire erupts from her hand. It rises up almost to the trees. She quickly closes her fist, stumbling back and falling to the ground. Her heart pounds in her ears.

"Are you trying to burn down my forest?" he asks, offering her a hand to help her stand up. "I told you to take a part of the fire, not the entire thing. What did you even imagine? That was huge."

She takes his hand.

"My mother used to make her jams and preserves at night, so she could heat the house with the stove and not overheat during the day," she explains, trying to catch her breath. "I remembered the fire that burned in the stove-"

"You pulled that from a memory?" he asks, surprised.

She nods.

"You're more powerful than I thought." he rakes a hand through his hair. "Alright, let's try that again and this time take only a small bit of the fire."

She takes a deep breath before nodding.

She repeats the same thing as last time, but this time only takes a small amount. When she opens her eyes, a small flame appears from her palm. She smiles wide, looking up at Abel.

"I did it!"

"Good job," he tells her, patting her head.

To be continued...

April 9, 2024