Magnus sighed. “I told you, Ayden, I will inform you
the moment I hear anything.”
“Well, that’s not good enough! He should have been
back by now!”
“Wizards are solitary people. I’m sure he has broken
his curse and is taking the opportunity to use his magic excessively.”
“Not without telling me! Something is wrong!”
“Merlin is even older than me; he knows how to defend
himself.”
I felt energy surge through me and had just enough
time to pull my wand out of my pocket before the tip flared. It had set my
pants on fire the last time I got upset, which was actually the previous night
over dinner. I stood up, pushed my breakfast plate away, and stormed out of the
room. I couldn’t eat when I was so upset. Halfway to my bedroom, I changed
directions and headed outside.
Merlin had been gone too long. I knew something was
wrong. It was the wizard’s nonchalance about Merlin’s life that bothered me so
much. No one else could hear Merlin, so I had to speak for him. Magnus didn’t
know Merlin like I did. To the old wizard, Merlin was just a wolf.
I wanted to go after Merlin, but Magnus refused,
insisting that I wouldn’t last a day on another world without help. I didn’t
appreciate his opinion at all. I may not have been a half decent sorcerer, but
I survived my brothers for years, and I highly doubted there was anyone more
dangerous than my family.
Magnus and Merlin told me I was only safe inside the
castle grounds, but I hated being cooped up. Although the old wizard had magic
in place to warn him if someone was trying to sneak into the castle, his wards
failed to inform him when I was sneaking out. Getting over the stone wall
surrounding the castle was easy. The first time I left the castle on my own,
which was only a few days into my stay, I found a peaceful stream right in the
middle of the forest. Since then, one of my favorite things to do was come out
here and practice whatever magic I felt like practicing.
Merlin was no longer concerned with teaching me only
dark magic, but he was now anxious to teach me magic to defend myself from my
mother. I didn’t believe there was such magic. I had hoped by defeating Magnus,
I would make my mother proud and she would change her mind about killing me.
Since I teamed up with Magnus against my brothers, I didn’t stand a chance.
When my mother came after me, it would not be an idle, half-hearted threat. In
fact, I expected to be tortured before I was killed, and no amount of wizard
magic would save me.
Merlin had suggested that we go after my mother
first, though he didn’t understand my mother like I did. Although she was
well-known throughout my homelands, she happily sent her sons out to do her
bidding, so she was actually a lot more powerful than people knew.
As I sat on the grass with my feet in the water, I
waved my wand around randomly. I had intended to practice the warding spell
Magnus had taught me, but that just made me irritated again. I didn’t like
being unable to help Merlin.
I set my wand aside and started to loosen the ties of
my shirt. It was a perfect afternoon for a swim. Movement right beside me was
my only warning before my wand was taken by a fluffy orange blur. I turned just
as the small fox stopped to glance back at me. He had my wand in his mouth, and
he darted into the woods before I could even think of what to do. So I ran
after him. My wand was dangerous in the wrong hands.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t used to being barefoot
outside and I hadn’t taken the time to grab my boots, so I couldn’t keep up with
the fox. Thus, I was surprised when the fox would halt just before he was out
of sight and wait until I nearly caught up to him. Then he would dash off again
before I could grab my wand. Either he was playing with me, or he was leading
me somewhere.
Since I hadn’t been able to explore much because of
Magnus’s concerns, I hadn’t learned the area and I was completely lost. The fox
clearly knew where he was going and dodged the trees and rocks easily. I, on
the other hand, managed to scrape my knees and stub my toes on almost
everything.
I was out of breath by the time I realized there was
the sound of rushing water ahead of us. The fox was heading right for a river.
He
knows these woods; he must be going for a hidden den or something
. But no,
he wasn’t. As we emerged from the forest, I saw the wide river cutting across
the clearing before the mountain. The fox ran right for it.
“Stop! No one can jump that far!” I yelled. I only
meant to warn the creature, but somehow, the magic inside me called to my wand.
I felt energy heat up in my blood like anger, and my wand flashed with a
violent red light in the fox’s mouth. Suddenly, the fox stumbled and rolled.
To my horror, the animal made no move to stop himself
from rolling right off the ledge and into the water. I didn’t think before
jumping into the rushing water after him. Fortunately, I didn’t have my
sorcerer’s robe, or it would have been impossible. As often as I had to swim
for my life from my brothers, I was a decent swimmer, although I had never
tried to swim in such violent water. I swam with the stream towards the fox
that was bobbing up and down in the water without thrashing or even struggling
to breathe.
The water was so fast and rough that I could barely
see. Finally, and quite unexpectedly, I caught the little fox, only to realize
why he was so motionless. It was my fault! My magic had frozen the fox and he
couldn’t swim.
I held him to my chest and kept his head above the
water. He was as still as a stone. I tried to retrieve my wand, but it would
have broken his teeth and a fox needed his teeth. That was when I heard the
waterfall. I struggled to see over the crashing waves and sure enough, we were
heading right for a drop. I stopped trying to retrieve my wand and instead swam
with all my strength and speed to dry land.
Although we weren’t that far away, the current was
pushing us to the middle and I couldn’t swim very well one-handed. Keeping the
fox’s head out of the water was impossible. I focused on my wand in the fox’s
mouth and imagined us floating out of the water. I had levitated a massive
pirate ship, so this should have been easy.
It wasn’t. I tried with everything I could to do the
spell, only to be dragged under the water’s surface.
And then, suddenly, the ground was gone and we were
falling. I didn’t have time to do magic or worry about being splattered on the
rocks below. All I could do was close my eyes, clutch the fox, and wait for it.
Protect us
.
After a moment, I still heard the crashing of water
all around me. I was still alive. Furthermore, I wasn’t drowning. I opened my
eyes just a tiny crack at first, then fully when I saw what was happening. I
was floating above the river inside a huge bubble. Water beat against the
bubble and was reflected. It was a ward, but not even Magnus could create a
ward against the elements. The only one I knew who was powerful enough to do
this was my mother.
As the bubble slowly floated to the shore, I glanced
around for my mother, but there was no one in sight, and it was my own wand
that was glowing with glittery, blue light. I had unintentionally created a
ward much more powerful than the ones I was taught.
I always thought wizard magic was as powerful as
sorcerer magic, and it was only a combination of motive and experience that
made one person more powerful than others. According to Merlin, my neutral
magic was theoretically supposed to mean I could do both sorcery and wizardry,
not that I was good at either of them.
Deciding that I could worry about that later, I laid
the fox on the ground gently and tried to wake him. Although I still couldn’t
get my wand out of his mouth, plenty of the handle stuck out the side of his
mouth. I took hold of it, closed my eyes, and focused.
Heal
.
The magic inside me stirred, but the fox did not. Healing
was mage magic.
I concentrated harder on healing. My mother had never
taught me how to help people, but breaking curses was something I had learned
to do on my own. I let my magic pour through my wand into the fox and
encountered my own spell. Healing the fox over my curse wouldn’t work; I had to
break it. Since the curse had been created out of desperation, I knew exactly
how to go about it.
The danger for me and my wand was over; all that was
left was to save the fox that had never intended to harm my wand. My internal
peace and the desire to help him guided my magic as I focused on freeing the
fox and imagined the fox moving again. I felt the curse start to unravel.
And then I realized that there was another curse
underneath it.
Before I could work on it, the fox bounced up, licked
my face, and dashed off my lap. He still had my wand. “Please give that back!”
I said, keeping a firm hold on my magic.
The fox bounded towards me until I reached out to
him, and then he jumped back when I tried to reach for my wand. With a sigh, I
stood and followed him. I didn’t run this time as he ran into the woods, and he
didn’t run out of sight. He stayed just out of reach, obviously leading me
somewhere.
I considered using magic, but I already felt
extremely guilty for what I did. When we broke from the forest again, I
groaned. “This can’t be good.” There was a cabin right in the middle of a small
clearing. The fox went right up to the front door and turned to me. “Whose cabin
is this?” I asked. There were several trees around the house that were dead,
indicating the presence of sorcery. Even more bothersome were the glittering
rainbow flowers surrounding the cabin, because that meant there were fairies
about.
Fairies were known enemies of sorcerers and if a
cluster of them caught me in their territory, my wizard magic would mean
nothing. I was a sorcerer by blood.
The fox pawed the door lightly, as if it wanted me to
open it and let him in. “I’m not going in there.” I didn’t even cross the
threshold of dead trees. The fox sat and a moment later, the door opened… to a
bear. The sound I uttered was as embarrassing as it was involuntary.
The bear waved.
I squeaked and hid behind the tree.
After a moment, when I didn’t hear the running bear
or feel his claws trying to rip me open, I peeked around the tree. The fox and
bear hadn’t moved. In fact, they looked like they were frowning at me. Then,
thankfully, they both went into the cabin.
“Okay, something is definitely weird about this,” I
whispered to myself aloud. Foxes and bears didn’t live in cabins in the woods
together. It wasn’t natural. When I realized what I was thinking, I sighed. It
certainly wasn’t my place to judge them. I was a wizard/sorcerer. What right
did I have to judge a bear and a fox for living together in a cabin? “I think
I’m losing my mind.”
I turned and found myself face to face with a huge
jaguar. “You may very well be correct,” the cat said, her lips displaying sharp
fangs as they contorted for speech.
I did what any sensible person would do in my
situation; I screamed and climbed up the tree.
The jaguar sighed. “Oh, do come down. You are making
a fool of yourself.” Her words were clear and her voice was feminine, almost
with a purr.
I climbed higher, not even caring that I was scraping
every bit of exposed skin on me. Then I grabbed the wrong branch, which
snapped. Suddenly, I was falling, and every branch I could reach on the way
down barely slowed my fall. Using the very best of my survival skills, I
managed to land on my back instead of my head.
The jaguar sighed again. “Are you done?”
“Done what?!”
“Did you think you could escape me by climbing a dead
tree? Now, if you would calm down, I will explain why---”
“How are you talking to me?!” I screeched,
interrupting the jaguar.
She snarled. “I will explain that if you would calm
down.”
“How can I calm down?! You’re a talking jaguar!”
“I am not as I appear.”
That got through to me and I tried to control my
shock. “So you’re… like a shapeshifter? Are you a werecat?”
“Not hardly. My name is Eva. I was a mother and a
wife, until a sorceress cursed my family. We need your help.”
“A sorceress?”
“Why would a sorceress curse you?”
“Because they are evil.”
I tried to keep the scowl off my face. “You’re lying.
Curses are easy and sorcerers do them all the time, but not like this. The
amount of magic it would take to transform you would be taxing even to the best
sorcerers. You did something to anger her. I’m not helping you if you won’t
tell me what you did.”
She scowled for a moment before her expression
relaxed and she looked down at her paws. “My husband stole from her.”
“And you call me foolish.”
“We had to eat. He only stole some food. It was a
terrible winter. The sorceress tracked us here, killed my husband, and
transformed myself and my two children.”
“So the fox and the bear are…?”
“They are my children, yes. Hayla said she saw you a
few days ago practicing your wizardry by the creek. We had hoped you would be
willing to help us.”
I opened my mouth to explain that I wasn’t a wizard,
but instead asked, “Why are there fairies here?”
“There is only one fairy, and she only visits
occasionally. She protects us from sorcerers because Hayla became friends with
them when she was a small child.”
I considered my next words carefully. If I broke the
curse, at least it would make up for cursing the little fox. Of course, it was
just as much her fault for taking my wand in the first place. I had never been
good at sorcery, but I still had the blood of a sorcerer, so I couldn’t cross
the fairy barrier. “Have your children come outside and bring my wand back to
me and I will do what I can to break the curse.”
“Why not come into the house?”
“I never go into a stranger’s house, especially not
one in the middle of the woods. There are sorcerers around, after all,” I said.
That was a perfectly good excuse.
She looked like she was going to argue for a moment
before she finally nodded. “Very well. I understand the concern with things as
they are.” She started to walk away.
“Wait. What do you mean?”
“With the black star approaching.”
“The what?”
She frowned. “You don’t know what the black star is?
What wizard doesn’t know about the black star?” She shrugged. “If you weren’t
warned about it, I am sure it must be a myth. You would have to be the lousiest
wizard in history not to know about it.”
I opened my mouth to ask, but she was already walking
away. It was probably for the best. Eva entered the cabin and returned a short
time later followed by the bear and the fox. Eva had my wand in her mouth this
time, and when she reached me, I took it from her easily.
Having seen several fully grown bears in person, as
well as a werebear, I realized this bear was quite small. Even the fox was on
the small side. I studied my wand. Although there were a few nicks from the
fox’s fangs, it hadn’t been in perfect condition beforehand.