The Young Magician (The Legacy Trilogy) (17 page)

A new light then began to creep from in-between Samuel’s slightly parted palms. There was a strange discomfort in Samuel’s head, but he ignored it, intent on perfecting this creation. The light grew in intensity until it had surpassed any previous attempt in size and strength. Still, however, Samuel could not coax it to become a self-sustaining ball. He kept pressing his efforts between his hands, and sweat dropped from his brow and sizzled into vapour as it touched the burning light he had summoned. An audible crackling and popping came from the air all around as if things were spontaneously coming into existence. Slowly, as Samuel shook with the strain, he managed to draw his hands apart and the light wobbled and spun on its own, finally settling into a well-formed sphere.

Samuel relaxed and wiped his face dry with his arm. He was sure he had never used so much effort before, and Samuel was completely pleased with himself. With a fingertip, he nudged the ball up above his head. He could feel that this ball was much stronger than the others. It would probably last all night long before fading away. He just hoped no one came before it did, for he had not yet discovered how to make his glow-balls disappear at will. They merely faded after a time or when they felt like it, so it seemed.

Strangely, the new glow-ball hovered back down from the ceiling and refused to be sent back up, no matter how Samuel coaxed it. He examined it closely with one eyebrow raised in curiosity. It was such a strange-looking glow-ball.

‘Oosoo ahn...’ came a long, dry whisper and Samuel nearly jumped out of his skin with fright.

Two dark circles appeared on the orb, followed by a third beneath, which smiled. The orb had a face! Two long, pale arms unfolded from the central mass, and a long, legless torso tapered down behind. Samuel was both curious and unsure and he stared at the thing with eyes wide. A long-fingered hand stretched out and touched Samuel on the shoulder. Its touch was needle-sharp and icy cold.

‘Oosoo ahn...’ again it called, soft and dry.

Samuel backed away, bumping into the wall, as the spirit began examining his room. It looked at his bed and his desk, pausing to view the notes that lay all over it, seeming to read them and smiling with satisfaction. It then noticed Samuel edging for the door and was at once on him, covering the distance between them in a heartbeat. It slapped his chest with its claw-like hand and knocked Samuel down without effort. In an instant, it was over him and gone out the door. Samuel was horrified, but leapt up in pursuit.

The spirit danced around the garden, disappearing into hollows, and moving around the inn at a frightening speed, as if investigating every cranny. It spied Samuel once more and raced towards him. Samuel ducked and covered his head with his hands, squeezing his eyes tightly shut. When he opened his eyes again, the spirit thing was nose to nose with him. It cocked its head sideways and repeated the words.

‘Oosoo ahn.’

In its outstretched claw, it held a handful of dirt. The pieces of soil ran between its bon,y white fingers and dropped to the ground as it cocked its head sideways and watched on as if fascinated.

‘Er...’ Samuel began to speak, but the spirit tossed the dirt down and turned its face to the starry sky, mouth agape in silent wonder.

It then shot away like an arrow and vanished into the darkness over the inn wall. The sound of the front door being unbolted sent Samuel scurrying back into the stables where the wide-eyed horses regarded him nervously. He leapt into his bed as voices came from outside. Footsteps approached the stable and a solid knock came at the door.

‘Samuel, are you awake?’ came the voice of Mr Kelvin.

‘Ah, yes, Mr Kelvin,’ Samuel replied, trying to sound tired, and Mr Kelvin opened the door and came in, bearing a lantern.

‘Did you hear anything just now?’ he asked, peering into the corners of Samuel’s room.

‘Why, yes, Mr Kelvin. Just now I thought I heard someone walking in the garden, but I thought it was one of the guests.’

Mr Kelvin nodded. ‘I thought I heard someone, too. Well, I’ll have Kans keep an eye out. Good night, Samuel.’

‘Good night, Mr Kelvin,’ he called after his employer.

Far off from the direction of the town came the faint noise of a woman’s scream. Samuel swallowed and hoped it had nothing to do with him.

Samuel did not dare practise for a long time. He felt that Mr Kelvin suspected him of something, and he was also petrified of a recurrence of the event with the frightful spirit. Samuel noticed that the guests threw occasional glances towards him as he worked, which he was sure they never did before. More than once, movement caught his eye and he thought he saw something, like smoke, vanishing around a corner. It could have been his imagination, but thoughts of the ghoulish spirit kept returning to him.

Samuel soon found himself unable to sleep and he craved to practise his movements and meditation with a hunger. His mind was a riddle of confusion and he found concentration on any task at hand difficult. Mr Kelvin was constantly finding errors in his studies. He awoke in the middle of one night to find a glow just fading from his hands, and a string of words still on his lips.

‘Sohm pad e`num-toh jio-toh varnay
,’ he whispered to himself. Those had been the words he had been repeating in his sleep and those had been the words the old man, the Grand Master, had recited softly as he meditated. He had never heard them spoken aloud, but somehow he knew these words by heart, as if he had written them down and studied them.

Waking again and again, night after night, Samuel finally could not resist and sat up in his cot and closed his eyes and crossed his legs and the words sprang from his lips as naturally as the next breath. At first, he spoke them over and over again, repeating twice as he exhaled and then taking in a deep breath again. It was as if someone else was moving him like a puppet, yet it felt to him that this was exactly what he was supposed to be doing. His lips soon barely moved at all as the words echoed over and over seamlessly in his mind, until he lost all consciousness of himself and the words were all that remained.
The universe and I; everything and nothing
.

Kans dressed and walked down the wide hall to the kitchen, his footsteps echoing after him. After speaking briefly with Cook, who was well underway preparing breakfast for the Masters, he went about taking tea to Master Kelvin. Kans entered silently and, as usual, Master Kelvin was tangled up with only his bed sheets; the blankets being all on the floor. Kans placed the tray on the bedside table and carefully added the milk and sugar from the tiny pots, just as Master Kelvin preferred.

‘Master Kelvin,’ Kans called softly. ‘Master Kelvin, it’s time to wake up.’

With a snort, Master Kelvin opened his eyes and sat up. ‘What! Oh, good morning, Kans,’ he said as he oriented himself and began a great, gaping yawn.

‘Tea?’ Kans offered.

‘Oh, good. Yes, thank you,’ Master Kelvin replied, smacking his lips. He took the tea, blowing on it and sipping carefully.

Master Kelvin then did something quite curious, something he had not done before. He put his tea back down before finishing it and began getting dressed, oblivious to Kan’s presence. He seemed to be examining the air around him as if looking for an irritating insect.

‘Master Kelvin?’ Kans enquired, a little unsure of his master’s behaviour.

Master Kelvin looked about himself once more, but then stopped, as if coming upon a vital realisation. ‘Quickly!’ Master Kelvin instructed. ‘Go check on the guests.’

Kans hurried out, spurred on by Master Kelvin’s concern and, knocking on each Master’s door, made sure they were awake and readying themselves for the day. It took a few minutes and by the time Kans returned to Master Kelvin’s chamber, Master Kelvin was bursting out into the hall.

‘Well?’ he demanded brusquely.

‘They’re fine, Master Kelvin.’

Master Kelvin stopped still, thoughtful a moment. ‘Go check on the boy!’ he urged. ‘The boy, I say! See to Samuel!’

‘Yes, Master Kelvin!’ Kans declared and hurried down the polished hallway and out the great main doors, spurred on by Master Kelvin’s alarm.

Kans returned after a short time in an even greater hurry and with even greater alarm written clear across his face.

‘Master Kelvin!’ he called out. ‘
Master Kelvin!
’

All the Masters were gathered in the dining room, picking at their food, talking over each other and creating an excited hubbub.

‘Master Kelvin!’ Kans called again as he pushed his way into the room. ‘Master Kelvin,
come quickly!
’ he yelled.

The procession of black-clothed men scurried down the main steps and around the side of the building to the stable. Master Kelvin hurried in and threw open Samuel’s door without a pause. His own dismay was echoed by the gasps from those all pushing and clustered behind him in the doorway.

Samuel was sitting cross-legged—a scrawny and knobbly-kneed young scrap of a lad, caught at the turning of his youth— with his palms together and his eyes closed. He looked quite peaceful at first glance, but the obvious source of everyone’s surprise was the fact that he was floating halfway to the ceiling. The boy was bathed in a soft blue light that grew from all around him and cascaded up towards the ceiling, where it slowly splashed and dissipated. Samuel’s body glistened with sweat and shook dreadfully, as if beyond exhaustion, yet his face held utter bliss and contentment. His lips moved incessantly, muttering the words of some powerful mantra over and over again.

‘Oh, my,’ was all Master Kelvin could say.

Samuel opened his eyes. His body hurt as if he had done an extra hard day’s work and then, to finish, had thrown himself down a long flight of stairs. He was not in his own room, but instead found himself lying upon a large, soft bed with posts standing at each corner, within a finely polished timber bedchamber. It was still dark outside, but a small lamp was lit upon the wall, lending its soft, golden glow to the room.

He managed to sit up and pushed a pillow into the small of his back so he was resting against the bedhead. A low, hollow ringing droned in his skull and, along with the aching in his body, he thought he knew how his father must have felt on mornings after drinking.

Beside him, on a small bedside table, a glass and pitcher waited, so Samuel drank, refilled the glass and then drank again, quenching his parched, sore throat. His bedclothes had been removed and a neatly folded pair of his trousers and shirt waited on a chest next to a shining new set of boots. From the size of them, Samuel guessed they were meant for him.

There was a knocking at the door and Samuel groaned a feeble ‘come in’. The knob turned and Mr Kelvin came in quietly, almost cautiously. He drew a chair to the bedside and took a sip from the steaming mug in his hand, before setting it on the floor by his heel.

‘How are you, Samuel?’ he asked with concern.

‘I’m aching all over, Mr Kelvin,’ Samuel managed to moan back.

Mr Kelvin nodded and picked up his mug and sipped carefully from it before placing it down again. He peered long and thoughtfully out through the window into the still night. ‘Do you remember what happened three evenings ago?’

Samuel thought for a time and then his memory started coming back to him, although somewhat dimly. ‘The last thing I remember is checking on the horses and getting into bed. Why am I in here? Have I been sick?’

Mr Kelvin took another long, thoughtful sip. ‘We found you in a catatonic state. It seems you have learned more during your stay here than we would have guessed; much more than you should have.’

Samuel was surprised and did not know what to say. He had finally been discovered.

‘Have you been watching the guests?’ Mr Kelvin asked soberly.

Samuel nodded, feeling small.

‘You know it is forbidden to do so, for your own safety. It took hours to bring you back from the state you were in. If we had not been fortuitous in our efforts, you would have spent the rest of your life being fed pre-chewed food through a funnel.’ Samuel gulped and Mr Kelvin was again silent for a time. ‘Lomar suspected that you had learned something, but I dismissed the fact as the normal curiosity of a young boy. It now seems evident that you do, indeed, have some talent in the ways of magic. Such talent, now tapped, but raw and untrained as it is, can be very dangerous, indeed.’ He again paused and looked thoughtful for a moment, even slightly pursing his lips. ‘I think it is time you realised your potential and learned the ways of a magician.’

‘A magician?’ Samuel repeated, bewildered in his feeble state.

Mr Kelvin nodded. ‘Magic is no childhood story, such as frogfolk and badgermen. This is an inn for magicians, and all of us here, and everyone who ever sets foot within these walls, are magicians. We only allow common folk to enter when we haven’t the time to attend to something for ourselves, such as with Cook and yourself.’

‘Even Kans?’

‘Even Kans. It is my wish that you, too, should attend the School of Magic in Cintar. You’re about the right age and it would be a sorry waste if you did not at least try. But I reach too far ahead of us both. I will talk to you of this again tomorrow, for it is late and you need more sleep if your body is to recover from the strains it has suffered.’