Enchantress Awakening: Part One of the Book of Water (The Elemental Cycle 1) (19 page)

“He was very kind. Neither of us is talented in the way you or Gideon is but he could see how hard things were for us and offered us shelter here at once.”

“I’ve no doubt he would offer aid to people less gifted than you. Yet you must see that your gifts are not so small. Tovrik finds you invaluable Rosamund, in many ways you’re more of a direct apprentice to him than Gideon and even Gideon concedes you are a worthy wizard.”

“He does?”

“Yes, and I doubt he would say that unless he truly believed so.”

“She’s not lying.” Aethelbald agreed. “He hasn’t once praised me in three years.”

“Well, you are very lazy.” Rosamund said with a lighter tone than before.

“And you are very hard-working and have rightly earned your praise.” Caleigh added.

“I’ve little doubt that in three months here you’ll surpass what I’ve done in three years.”

“Nonsense. If I can learn any of what you are capable of I shall be most pleased. Indeed you must show me more of your work.”

Rosamund responded with a shy smile and Caleigh knew she would need to be pressed on this. In amongst all her studies and future concerns the plight of Rosamund and Aethelbald stayed in her mind. Though both were happy in Elevered it seemed to her that something should be done to raise their spirits further and for no reason she could account for this seemed like an important task. Finally Caleigh persuaded Rosamund to let her look at the pictures she kept in her room and while she did so she came upon a ledger of sketches tucked away under all else.

“What is in here?” She asked.

“Old work. Pictures I haven’t worked on since I came to Elevered.” Caleigh opened up the volume and her eyebrows shot up right away.

“Oh.” She said seeing the nude form of a lady staring back at her. Rosamund looked both embarrassed and proud of what was there.

“Sometimes, ladies would ask me to draw them in this way. I did not mean to show that to you.”

“Why not, these pictures are beautiful.”

“Do you really think so?”

“Of course.” Rosamund cheeks cooled down a fraction and her boldness appeared to grow.

“I must admit, I used to love making them particularly if the woman was beautiful.” Caleigh leafed through the pages finding the best examples.

“Like her.”

“Yes. It is hard to explain, men move my heart and excite me but simply to look at and appreciate as art, I much prefer a beautiful woman. Does that sound strange to you?” Caleigh thought on it, it was not something she’d considered before. She thought to Robin and Penric’s toned bodies and then her mind turned to Ellie at bath time and then just as suddenly the image of Loreliath in her sheer robe appeared.

“It is not a thought I had entertained afore yet now I do, I think I quite agree with you. Women are more beautiful. Men have other virtues though.” The pair of them giggled at this.

“Indeed they do.”

“Rosamund, do you find me beautiful?”

“Oh Caleigh, you are so beautiful, in so many ways. I can think of no one I’ve ever met who is so gifted with such a pretty face and body at once.”

“Would you like to draw me then?”

“I would love to.”

“Would you like to draw me like those ladies? Would you like me to be naked?”

“Would you be perturbed?”

“No, I think I’d like it.”

“Then so would I.”

“Then let us start.” Caleigh suggested unfastening the sash that tied her robe. Rosamund turned over a fresh leaf of parchment and put her wand to her hand. Smiling, Caleigh stood up and let the robe fall away from her shoulders then started to work on her underdress. She did not know why but her excitement grew so that afore she had fully unbuttoned her nipples stood stiff against the cloth. She continued, pulling the undergarments away from her flesh and revealing her abdomen then her torso in full. Rosamund gasped slightly when Caleigh’s breasts came free and she was able to see them properly for the first time.

“So big and so beautiful.”

“Do you want to touch them?” Caleigh offered to her own surprise. Rosamund said naught but slowly reached out and cupped their weight from below. Caleigh closed her eyes and tried not to sigh too loudly as Rosamund gave her bosom a gently squeeze. This was most definitely enjoyable and Caleigh no longer cared why.

“And so very firm.” Rosamund commented when she finally let them rest. “You are so blessed.” 

At Rosamund’s bidding Caleigh assumed a reclining position on Rosamund’s bed while she set up a stool and easel opposite. There she remained completely exposed as stroke by stroke Rosamund traced the outline of her form. Though she was utterly exposed Caleigh felt neither shame nor embarrassment. On the contrary, she felt a kind of excitement at the daring and pleasure in the admiration of her new friend the combination of which was nothing short of erotic. There was further pleasure to be had too in self-discovery, confirming once and for all that exhibiting herself was something she could take immense enjoyment from. 

That night when she attended to herself it was to the thought of her nakedness being displayed in the main hall, open to all the eyes of Elevered who passed it by. The next day she sat for Rosamund again and a short way into the session the adjoining door to the next chamber opened with a start and Aethelbald walked through. For a moment he didn’t see her, it was only when Rosamund began to shriek that he looked up properly and saw with bulged eyes what his sister was shooing him away from. Caleigh for her part made no attempt to cover herself and merely smiled at his intrusion. Rosamund bustled him out of the room and then sat down in a huff.

“Forgive me. I’ve told him a thousand times to knock before coming in.”

“I am untroubled.” Caleigh told in truth letting her head rock back against the headboard of the bed. Closing her eyes she could perceive Aethelbald in the next room as clearly as if the wall was no divide. For a moment he sat on his bed in disbelief then tried to readjust his robes around his crotch. In her head Caleigh willed him on and before he knew it he was fumbling under his loincloth and tugging his stiff prick into the open. Like in a waking dream Caleigh could at once see him pumping away and see his fantasies of her lying as she was. So too could she feel his rising excitement as he sped to his release and searched frantically for a cloth to soak up his seed.

“Are you in discomfort?” Rosamund asked snapping Caleigh back to where she was. “You look a little flustered.” Caleigh looked down in with relief saw that her moistening sex had left no mark on the sheets. 

“I’m fine.” She answered composing herself. “I think felt some swell of magic but it has passed now.”

“I’m not so sure.” Rosamund said staring at her sheet. “I’ve never been able to work this kind of illusion so easily as this afore. Mayhap some of your talent is affecting me to greater ends.” At first, Caleigh thought to deny this suggestion yet it had a ring of sense to it. From all she had read on the art of Enchantment it seemed a perfectly reasonable theory. If the desires of others could make her yearn to play the nymph, could not her good intentions make her a muse to others?

20. Aldred

Aethelbald did not interrupt any further sessions, indeed Caleigh saw him little over the following days and on those few occasions he quickly reddened and found an excuse to depart. Sitting in the Enchantment wing deeply imbedded in a pile of parchment one quiet afternoon, Caleigh suddenly caught sight of her colleague darting into the study completely oblivious to her in her obscured position. When at last he noticed her smiling up at him he paled and made to retreat. “Wait.” Caleigh bid, causing an eerie silence to fall over the room. Aethelbald stopped so suddenly that he seemed to almost bump into himself. The two young wizards rapidly looked at each other neither sure who was more surprised by this effect.

“Was that intended?”

“No, I mean, yes. I meant for you to wait but I did not mean to command it.” Aethelbald relaxed and appeared ready to leave again. “No, do tarry. I wish to speak with you.”

“On what matter?” Aethelbald asked taking a seat.

“I wished to ask about your gift. You can bring luck, can you not?”

“In a way. I have only a little control over it. My talent is fairly slight.”

“Do not underestimate yourself. From what I can glean your skill is in Fatalism; the hardest of all the disciplines of Enchantment.”

“Is it?”

“Have you not read as much?”

“My studies have been limited. Rosamund is the one with the real talent. I am only here for her sake.”

“Be not so sure of that. I doubt Tovrik shares that opinion. Can you show me what you can do?” Aethelbald shrugged in agreement and produced a six-sided die from one of his robe pockets and a pale beach wand from another. The die he placed on a table then pulled a seat up next to it. Once settled he rolled the die sending it into a long spin. At the same time he tapped the underside of the table, which seemed to bring the die to a stop with six dots showing on the upward face.

“That is some skill to have. You can do that every time?”

“The effect does not last so I need to pick the right moment. Sometimes in games of chance the odds are in your favour and little luck is needed. Other times luck is your only way out.”

“And it always comes as a six?”

“By the Gods no, people would notice that at once and think I was using a trick die. No, it shows what I need it to show. Sometimes that is on my roll sometimes against my opponents.”

“Do people suspect magic?”

“Now and then, although I’d never use the wand outside of the castle.” Caleigh looked at the wand critically.

“I think it is time I had one of those. How do you get one?”

“Rosamund gifted mine to me.”

“Is there not a store of them in this castle?”

“There might be but if you want a good one you need to get it made and for that you need to speak to someone who can enchant items.”

“Who here can do that?”

“Well, Tovrik...maybe Gideon too but they are not craftsmen. I do not think they carve their own tools.” 

After the afternoon practise Caleigh decided to go straight to Tovrik to find the answer to her query. Upon reaching the door to his offices she was brought short by an authoritarian voice calling out “Who goes there?” This was most confusing as this voice came not from beyond the door or from down the stairs. It was close to hand and yet she was alone in the corridor. “Who goes there?” The voice called again. This time Caleigh looked up and saw the golden eagle figurine that perched atop the archway turning its head to her with a meaningful expression.

“Err...Caleigh.” She answered uncertainly. There was a long pause then the eagle bowed its beak forward and the door swung slowly inward. “Umm...my thanks.” Into the antechamber Tovrik emerged from the left most of the three doorways. A twinge of remembrance pricked Caleigh’s mind as one who sees a thing in waking life is put in mind of a previously forgotten dream. Just as suddenly the sensation passed leaving her looking into Tovrik’s cool grey eyes.

“Caleigh, to what do I owe the pleasure? I hear your training is going exceptionally well.”

“Really?”

“Very much so. Vaughn tells me that you are now able to produce a fully formed shield spell as well as a shuddering spark.”

“He is being kind. I have a long way to go with those spells.”

“Maybe.” Tovrik conceded in a thoughtful tone. “I wonder, perhaps, if you have noticed your effect on the other wizards here.” Caleigh furrowed her brow trying to fathom the meaning of this. She knew that she was the subject of fantasies amongst some of those she had met. Tovrik would not be referring to that, surely.

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

“Rosamund has recently been able to take her skills a step further and Aethelbald is consciously using spell work for the first time.”

“Surely that is their own doing?”

“In part, yes, and in part helped by your influence upon them. And it is well that such is so for now, with help from Gideon, Mabon and Rosamund we have been able to finish something of great import to us all here.” Tovrik stopped himself. “Ah, but I am getting ahead of myself. I had not summoned you yet, you came to me. What is it that you wished to know?”

“I was curious about wands and staffs and the like, how they work and who crafts them.”

“I see, well you are certainly ready to start using the tools of magic. As for who makes them, that is a pertinent question and one that is tied to the work I spoke of afore. Caleigh, would you indulge me for a moment and allow me to answer your question thereafter?”

“Of course.” Tovrik beckoned her to follow him through the door he had emerged from leading into the room where before the glowing spiders had appeared. The room was not empty this time, however, in the centre of the room standing on a circular pedestal was the living map she had seen in the Illusion wing of the library. Next to it were a chair and a stand bearing a conventional map, which Tovrik took position beside.

“Please, sit.” Caleigh did as bidden. “We are here.” Tovrik said, pointing to Elevered on the standing map. The living map below immediately honed in on Elevered showing the tower looming up from the cluster of houses at its feet. While this was happening Caleigh also felt a tug on her mind and a slight warmth from beneath her ears. “Please, close your eyes and tell me what you see.” The room disappeared and Caleigh found herself looking down and the castle from above like through the eyes of a hovering bird of prey.

“I can see Elevered from above.”

“Good, now look deeper. Feel for what is there.” Unsure of the precise meaning of his words Caleigh opted to latch onto the feelings that Elevered inspired in her and this at once brought her to her friends. Penric appeared in the training yard packing away the equipment at the end of a session. At this point she remembered she was supposed to speak. “I can see Penric and, ah, now it is Ellie, she’s climbing the stairs to our quarters, no, it’s Dana and Diarmund now, they are in the garden taking cuttings and...Wait, it is Vaughn now, he’s in his quarters, he’s packing – is he going somewhere – I cannot say, oh that’s the common room and I think Rosamund is saying something to Aethelbald and...”

“You can open your eyes.” Caleigh blinked wide to see all that she was describing appearing in place of the living map. She was reminded of the spy holes, the sense of observing something from close without being involved in it.

“What were you thinking about?” Tovrik asked curiously.

“The people I know here. When you asked me to think about Elevered it made me think about them.”

“Interesting. This time I want you to think about wizards but not in Elevered, cast your mind away from these walls and into places where the undiscovered gifted may be.” Once again, Caleigh was not sure how to interpret this instruction. She thought first of wizards, great and powerful. Loreliath appeared in her mind for a fraction of a moment then slipped away from her replaced by an image of a grey haired and bearded rider, flanked by Secret Keeper knights and followed by two small children huddled among blankets sitting on the saddles in front of two further knights. “Caerddyn”

“Look away from Elevered.” Tovrik instructed causing her to lose grip on this vision too. Caleigh concentrated once more and though she saw many snatches of great buildings and towns new to her she could not fix on a single person. Failure followed failure each time she tried until she began to feel she was letting Tovrik down.

Then instinctively it came to her. If her power was based on empathy then she needed to be able to understand the feeling she was looking for. She had no experience or understanding of what it was to be a great and powerful wizard; she only knew what it was to be a fearful beginner, someone for whom the journey was just beginning. Her thoughts turned to Connlad to the very field where she had bidden goodbye to all she had left behind, except in this imagining she was ten-years-old watching one of Tovrik’s shows being every bit as awed as everyone else. Next she saw herself sitting with Gideon receiving her first instructions then a scene from earlier this day as she read through sheaf after sheaf of lore.

The sight of a hammer hitting red hot metal atop an anvil and spitting yellow and orange sparks intruded; a canopy outside a small cottage where a forge had been set up and an old man, bald and bearded, looking on. “Where do you see this?” Her viewpoint shifted so that she was looking down from the air again flying over a glade amongst a small woodland towards the cottage in the middle of the clearing. “And here we have the answer to your question.” Caleigh opened her eyes and looked at Tovrik. Both maps now showed a point between Elevered and Minerva, a few miles away from the main road. “This is the home of Aldred, the artisan of artisans. It is he who, with our aid, makes all the wands and staffs we use at Elevered. A truly gifted man. It seems our God’s eye is able indeed to track those with magical power.”  

“I am not so sure.”

“Why do you say that?”

“My sight was drawn not to the artisan but to his assistant, a younger man.” Caleigh found herself looking again at the ‘god’s eye’, as Tovrik had called it. “This is Minerva?” Caleigh asked pointing to the nearby town.

“Yes.” Tovrik moved a wand on the upright map and the representation of Minerva loomed closer so that the buildings that clung to the hillside in carefully designed levels became individually distinguishable. In the centre of the town there was a large temple of Senatian design and to this Caleigh’s eyes were drawn before she closed them shut. Marble rooms built around steaming baths showed themselves to her, alternatively populated my naked men and women. Ignoring the jolt of arousal Caleigh’s mind drew away from the bathers to a serving girl moving between the baths then retreating to a side room storing cupboard that housed shelves filled with vials and salts. “That is most interesting.” The vision faded and Caleigh opened her eyes.

“Have I found another gifted person?”

“So it seems. Two in barely an hour...this is most encouraging. I have passed through Minerva many times and never felt the call of magic from the bath house. Likewise, I had not realised that Aldred had an apprentice. This is one of many reasons we needed you here Caleigh.”

“What should we do now?”

“I think the time has come for us to do something for our cause, or I should say it is time for you. Caleigh, I believe you are ready for your first task in the wider world.”

“You want me to bring them back to Elevered?”

“Ideally, yes. I doubt Aldred will move, yet he should be made aware at least of the Beast’s rising. I do not think only of strengthening us here.”

“I understand. We need to protect the gifted and we need to make ourselves stronger so that we may confront Argahan on even terms.”

“Argahan? Where did you hear this name?”

“I...it’s like I remember it from somewhere.”

“Well, you remember correctly if this is so. There are not many that know the right name for the one who styles himself the Sea God. And you are right too in your summation. We are not strong enough to face him yet and we must reach out to many afore we shall be ready to do as much. We should not restrict ourselves to wizards though. Many are gifted in other ways than with spells and can do our cause as much good as any mage as too can the ungifted, if any are truly without gifts. Caerddyn sometimes wondered if Albion was the more truly gifted of the two of them for he could achieve more through his example to other men than Caerddyn could with his spells. After all, Caerddyn survived the Kingdom but the Kingdom did not survive without Albion.”

“I should like to know more of how the Kingdom failed.”

“And I will be glad to tell all when you return. Do you feel ready?”

“I do not know. I have only studied my art for two months.”

“You will find that advancement in magic comes not only from time spend with letters. Time spent living aids our growth also. Besides, a visit to Aldred is what you sought in any case.”

“I shall make ready to leave at once.”

“Be not quite so hasty. This can wait till morn. Others need to make ready too.” Caleigh smiled with relief at this. Tovrik viewed her warmly. “You did not think I would send you out alone. Nay, I daren’t risk it even if such was your wish.”