The Jade Mage: The Becoming: Volume 1 (5 page)

With the pain mostly gone, and the world not spinning around him anymore, Tartum opened his eyes. It was early afternoon, so he hadn’t been out too long. Good, he was getting better at taking a hit at least. Usually a blow like that would have knocked him out for the better part of the day. As it was, he was probably only out for an hour or two.

“You going to be ok if I leave you alone for a while? I have to go and put on my show for the week.
Someone
here has to earn a living.” Isidor said in mock anger.

Tartum knew he was kidding, but the words struck a nerve. “Hey now, I gave you a large portion of the money from the sale of my old home. I would have given all of it to you but you were the one saying you didn’t want me borrowing money from you! Losing your memory in your old age,
Master
?” Tartum chided.

Giving Tartum’s head a shove that resulted in a groan of discomfort, Isidor laughed. “That you did my friend, that you did. Mind the old man joke though. Remember, it was this old man that just put you on your ass,
again
! Next time maybe I’ll forget to hold back. You never know with us old guys and our memories.” Isidor said with a laugh. With his final comment, and seeing that Tartum was too dizzy to respond, Isidor left, leaving Tartum to his own devices for the rest of the day.

CHAPTER 4

The pain was gone and the dizzness could be ignored. Tartum sat with his spell book in his lap. His staff was against the wall behind him, within easy reach if for some reason he decided to try his hand at walking. Concentrating on a new page that made no sense to him, Tartum let the magic flow through him. As it almost always was, the book yielded no new secrets. No new magic was to be his today, Tartum knew. Frustrated, disappointed, and in pain, Tartum leaned back against the wall. Bumping into his staff, it fell over him and onto his spell book. Just as his staff hit the open book, there was a flash of blue light that dazed Tartum’s already reeling mind. When he could focus again, Tartum looked down to see what had happened. What he saw shocked him, as much as it delighted him. The page he had just been trying to unlock, that only moments ago was nothing more than gibberish and scribbles, made perfect sense! Somehow, when the staff touched the page, it unlocked another spell! Frantically, Tartum saw this as an oppurtunity and flipped to the next page. As he suspected, it was unintelligible, and he touched his staff to the page. Nothing happened. No blue flash, no new spell. After trying multiple pages and even placeing the staff on top of the binding of the book, he gave up. Apparently, the staff was only good for unlocking a single page. Deflated but not deterred, Tartum opened his book to his newest unlocked secret.

To his further amazement, the newly unlocked page wasn’t a spell, exactly. To be sure it was magic, and like a spell, it required components, but it wasnt like his petrification spell at all. This was an enchantment! A spell that was used to make something more useful, or improve an attribute of a mundane item. Tartum couldn’t believe his luck! The page read like a recipe, and hungrily, Tartum read its requirements.

Lightning bug lights, chicken blood, a metal of any type to contain the enchantment, sulfur, and green flame. There were further details and pictures about how to arrange the components, and where to place the item receiving the enchantment, it also showed the way to draw the glyphs required to conduct the enchantment and the gestures. The words of magic were right below the name of the spell.

Light, his new spell caused the enchanted item to light up when a specific word was uttered. It also dimmed when another word was spoken, both chosen during the enchanting process. The material to be enchanted had to be a metal of any sort, and it seemed to Tartum that he wouldn’t have any trouble doing it. In fact, most of the compenents were already in the wagon that he and Isidor shared! Grabbing his staff and groggily standing up, Tartum retrieved his purse and gathered up his cloak. He headed out to the butcher’s stall, to buy himself a gallon of chicken’s blood.

As Tartum was walking to the market, he started thinking about the various components he’d need to try out his new spell. The bugs, he could catch tonight, when the sun went down. The blood, he was on his way to get. The metal could be whatever he wanted it to be. The sulfur, he knew was on one of Isidor’s old bookshelves, in a wooden box marked “
SULFUR
” and the green flame. Tartum had no idea where he could obtain green flame. As he was thinking about how he could turn flame to different colors, he almost passed the butcher’s stall.

After a short conversation and a puzzled look on the butcher’s face, Tartum walked away with a waterskin full of chicken’s blood. The butcher made a slight fuss, until Tartum laid down two gold coins. After that the questions stopped, and the chickens were bled. Walking back towards the wagon, Tartum decided to swing past Isidor’s show to see how it was going. Upon arriving, he saw him up to his same old tricks. He was currently juggling balls of flame, which Tartum had seen him do many times. Isidor’s ability with slight of hand and juggling was something Tartum had never cared to learn, and therefore, usually ignored Isidor when he practiced his act at home. The flames caught his attention today though, because he saw they were different colors! And one of the balls burned bright green! Tartum couldn’t believe it! Pushing his way through the crowd, Tartum managed to get to the back of the stage and waited for Isidor to take a break. After thirty minutes had passed, Isidor took a mighty bow, and his dancing girls took the stage, while Isidor went to the back to regain his strength. Even the small spells he was using took alot out of the man, when done in the quantity he was casting them.

Quickly, Tartum approached him. “Isidor! I have to know something, how do you make the flame burn green in your juggling act?”

Startled by seeing Tartum so unexpectedly at his show, Isidor stood up wearily. “Tartum, what are you doing here? Are you alright? Why are you here?” he asked confused.

“I’m fine, I unlocked a new spell, Isidor! It’s a light spell, and I’m getting the components together to try it out! I need green flame in order to make it work. How did you make the green flame in your act?”

Confused, but too tired from his show to think clearly, Isidor gave Tartum the answer, if only to make him leave. “Burn pinecones. It’s not magical at all. The sap in the pinecone causes the flame to burn green. There are some in the back of the wagon. Go home, and if you do attempt this spell don’t do it in the wagon. I don’t want my home burned to a cinder!” Isidor said, and then went off to his seclusion to regain his strength.

Beaming with excitement, Tartum thanked Isidor, but if he heard him or not Tartum didn’t care. He had the answer he was looking for and was in too much of a rush. Racing back home, Tartum was able to quickly find the pine cones in the back of the wagon. After throwing everything he needed into a sack, he went outside and started a small fire. He would need light to see what he was doing. Waiting for night to fall was taking forever, and so Tartum used the time to calm himself down. He took many deep breaths and forced himself to focus. It was then that he realized, he had no idea what he was going to enchant. A piece of cutlery from the kitchen? One of Isidor’s metal props he had in the back of the wagon? A rusty nail that he had seen in the road back towards town? Tartum sat in contemplation for hours, trying to decide what he would attempt to enchant, in his effort to cast his newest spell. After some time, he decided to attempt his spell on one of the gold coins from his pouch. That way, he figured, if he failed, the worst that could happen would be the coin didn’t illuminate. No big loss there, or so he hoped.

With the decision of what item he would enchant settled, Tartum studied the new spell intently. Now understanding more of what an enchantment required, Tartum began to realize this spell was going to be a bit more difficult than he first realized. The spell required precision and timing that Tartum wasn’t sure he possessed. “No!” Tartum forced the thought from his head. “This isn’t the time to start doubting myself.” Galvanizing his resolve, Tartum continued studying the spell. The item being enchanted had to be in the center of his enchantment area, encompassed by a circle of glyphs drawn with chicken blood. The components had to be placed around the object and encompassed in their own circle of glyphs. The individual circles were then connected together with another set of glyphs, all of which were written in chicken blood. Tartum was certainly glad he had gotten a lot of the blood. He had no idea it was going to take so much for such an enchantment. Tartum spent the rest of the afternoon, practicing writing the words of magic necessary for the spell, in the dirt with a stick. It didn’t take long for the lightning bugs to come out once night fell.

Tartum didn’t know how many of the bugs he required for the spell, so he caught twelve, just to be certain. The spell instructions were surprisingly vague when it came to quantity, so Tartum had no other choice but to guess. He was fine with this. He was enjoying the experimentation, the fact that it was dangerous, and failure could mean death, never even crossed his mind. Taking his time,Tartum placed the coin on the ground, and drew the glyphs around it, the way the spell described. He placed the sulfur to the east of the coin, the lightning bugs to the north, and the pine cones to the west. He encircled them all with individual glyph circles, and then, with meticulous attention to detail, he conjoined the circles of glyphs together with another set of glyphs, exactly as the spell described. An hour passed, and he was just about finished, when he heard Isidor clear his throat.

“Isidor! Isn’t it wonderful, my first enchantment! What do you think?” Tartum said. Finishing the last few words, he stepped back to allow Isidor full access to his work. Isidor looked it all over with a scholar’s eye. At one point he leaned over one of the glyphs and fixed a small mistake. Handing the chicken blood back to Tartum, he nodded.

“Looks good...looks very good. It might just work. Give it a shot; let’s see if you can do it.” Isidor said. He was truly curious to see if Tartum would be able to make this enchantment work. Everything seemed correct as far as he could tell. It was a very simple spell, and the enchantment wouldn’t last much longer than a day, but it was a good practice enchantment. He hadn’t seen Tartum this excited since the day he had given him his staff. He hoped he would succeed and quietly said a prayer to any God that might be listening to make it so.

Swelling with pride at his master’s approval, Tartum took a deep breath. This was his moment of truth. Once he began the spell, there was no stopping until the spell was complete. His excitement at the prospect of success was close to overwhelming him. He fought it and forced himself to calm down. Bending over the pine cones, he set them on fire with a word. The flames that leapt from them were green, exactly what he needed. Finally, he was ready and opened himself further to the flow of magic. Standing to the south of his work, Tartum raised his staff over his head with one hand, and began the gesture with his second.

“
Yea-biegn ill-quith beyoontek-ilk. Boowaon tyeeyea newmuok!
” The magic coursed through him and flared into the glyphs surrounding the sulfur. The writing collapsed into the sulfur, changing them into a vapor that hung in the air, glowing with magic. Seeing the spell beginning to work, Tartum’s focus almost slipped as another wave of excitement tried to wash over him. Holding the spell in place by sheer will alone, Tartum re-focused and began the second verse of the spell.

“
Yea-tolloth yit-quick lalautoniy!
” This time the glyphs surrounding the pine cones collapsed, and the green flame went with it. The resulting smoke looked just like the smoke floating over the spot where the sulfur had been a moment ago.

Working quickly before something had a chance to go wrong, Tartum recited the third and final part of the spell. “
Yea-biegn-tolloth yit-quith Beyoon toniy. Vanoose
!” The glyphs surrounding the bugs collapsed, and the bugs inside changed not into smoke, but into light. Tartum made the gesture required to make the floating light of the bugs move over the coin. “SHINE!” Tartum half screamed in excitement. The light flickered over the coin and then melted into it. The coin shone with a brilliance reserved only for the stars, and then went back to its normal pallor.

Making the final gestures to bring the two puffs of smoke over the coin, Tartum screamed “DULL!” The two puffs of smoke combined into one and then melted into the coin. It appeared that as the coin soaked up the smoke, it became darker. As soon as Tartum thought he saw it, the vision was gone, and the coin looked normal again. With the spell complete, Tartum closed himself to the magic, and it flowed out of him leaving him feeling hollow and weak. He knew he needed to rest, but he had to know if his spell had been successful.

Leaning heavily on his staff, Tartum walked slowly towards the coin. He noticed that the blood that had surrounded the coin was gone, and there was nothing more than singed earth where it had been. He wondered why he hadn’t seen that happen during the casting, but decided it didn’t matter. Picking up the coin, he examined it. There was nothing different about it what-so-ever. No special feeling, no interesting characteristics, or weight adjustment. It was no different than any other coin he had ever seen. Frowning, Tartum looked up at his Mentor. Isidor smiled knowingly at the look Tartum gave him.

“Try it...”