Spellslinger (Spellslinger #1)(28)
Looking up at her was like staring into the face of an angry goddess. Her hat had come off and her red hair floated in the breeze like flames rising from a wildfire. In each of her hands she held several cards, sharp edges shining in the light of the nearby braziers. She was smiling, but not with her eyes. ‘You keep talking about magic, kid,’ she said to me. ‘You keep talking about power. You want to know what real power looks like?’
‘If you kill us you’ll start a war,’ Ra’fan said defiantly, though with his injured hands buried in his armpits he didn’t look very impressive. Tennat was on his knees, crawling towards his older brother.
With her boot still on Ra’dir’s neck, Ferius snapped both her wrists out and I watched in horror as the cards flew from her hands towards Ra’fan and Tennat. She’s killed them, I thought. They misjudged her. I misjudged her. She’s … I hadn’t realised that I’d closed my eyes until the sound of Tennat crying forced me to open them again. Five metal cards were stuck in the dirt just inches from each of the brothers.
‘Now that,’ Ferius said, removing her boot from Ra’dir’s neck and setting off towards the entrance to the square where the initiates were already scattering, ‘that’s magic.’
THE SECOND TRIAL
A mage’s power either grows or weakens. Power never remains still and neither does the strength of a nation. Only those who can find new sources of strength may earn a mage’s name. Those who cannot have no value to our people.
12
Outcast
When Shalla and I used to get into one of our interminable fights as children, my father would wait patiently until one of us had won or we’d both simply run out of energy and then he’d look at each of us in turn and say, ‘So, done then?’
One of us – usually the one my mother had commanded to sit down so that she could place a cold compress on a swollen eye or bruised cheek – would take note of my father’s tone and mumble, ‘I suppose.’
‘Good,’ my father would say, and clap his hands once as if he were banishing a spell. ‘Then we’re all friends again.’
Most times we were too exhausted to question his rather dubious logic, but on the one occasion when I challenged him on it he took me aside and said, ‘You fought. Victor and vanquished were decided. Whatever began the dispute is now resolved.’
‘I’m supposed to be friends with her? She—’
‘She won this time. Next time perhaps she will lose. Either way, there is no virtue in continued hostility. The Jan’Tep do not hold grudges.’
At the time the idea was inconceivable to me. Every fight, whether with Shalla or someone else, felt like a life-or-death struggle waged over the greatest of causes, even if that cause was merely determining the rightful owner of a toy. But Shalla would do just as our father requested and act as if nothing had happened. ‘Just a little game Kellen and I were playing,’ she would say when Abydos asked why one of us had an arm in a sling. Not knowing what else to do, I would just nod and agree, convinced that Shalla was somehow mentally defective for being able to so convincingly pretend a fight had never happened.
It wasn’t until the day after my fellow initiates had tried to cripple Ferius Parfax and myself that I realised Shalla was the normal one.
‘Will you be joining us today, Kellen?’ Master Osia’phest asked. I looked up to see him standing a few feet away from where I sat on a bench between two of the columns. The other initiates, waiting around the oasis, pretended I wasn’t there.
Osia’phest’s question was stupid of course. He’d seen my magic fail – everyone had. I wasn’t going to be able to draw a soul symbol, or craft a spellstone, or summon a power animal, or perform any of the other tasks that could be used as proof of passing the second test. So the old man already knew I wouldn’t be participating in the trials today. But – and here’s the ridiculous thing – for him not to have asked the question might have implied that there was some other cause for my present weakness, such as having got involved in an unsanctioned duel on the side of a suspected Daroman spy. By now the whole town must have heard about it, but legally I hadn’t done anything worse than anyone else who’d been there. So now, just as my father used to do after Shalla and I got into a spat, we were all going to pretend nothing had happened.
‘No, master,’ I replied. ‘I’ll just watch from here for today. I’ll continue the trials when …’ When what? When the insane dowager magus decides to give me an object of power so I can fake my way through the test? No, don’t think like that. I was going to find a way to make my magic work again. If I could convince Panahsi and a couple of others to help me, there were still things I could try to get my bands to spark. In the meantime I’d be damned if I was going to let Tennat or anyone else think I’d given up. ‘I’ll be coming here every day to observe,’ I said defiantly.
He nodded sagely, and then came closer and quietly asked, ‘Have you tried casting one of the simpler forms, perhaps one of the evocations of breath? Perhaps here in the oasis you can—’
‘You know I can’t,’ I said, practically growling under my breath. I felt immediately guilty for my outburst. Master Osia’phest had been the most understanding of my situation out of everyone. And yet I still couldn’t keep the anger down. ‘Even if I could, what good is casting a stupid breath spell? It’s the weakest form of magic.’