SPELLMARK
By John J Ernest.
The swirling mass of arcane energy filled the shaking chamber, protective glyphs, bright, iridescent green, flared along the walls and ceiling as a shower of dust cascaded down.
In the centre of the multi coloured maelstrom of energy, surrounded by silver ritual lines, stood Oscariou, his youthful face set in concentration, sweat dripping from his brow, arms outstretched and fingers gesturing as he incanted under his breath.
He had prepared a simple ritual, to get his first spellmark, the culmination of his training over the past three years.
Years spent learning how to manifest arcane energy, how to focus that energy along set patterns, channelling his will into it, to create the spellmark. A spellmark would allow him to use that spell whenever he wanted, without a long-winded ritual, also he needed to pass this exam to continue his studies.
A true mage had at least four spellmarks, one for each level of study in the Lithing Well, Coridan’s centre for magical learning. As an apprentice this exam was his chance to prove he could handle arcane energy, and this was his second attempt at it.
Oscariou breathed in deep, something had gone wrong, again, and he was desperate to remedy the situation without his master stepping in to clean up his mess, again.
He retraced the lines of the ritual one more time, the convoluted silver markings arrayed on the floor showed how he wanted the arcane energy to manifest and combine, but wait, here, he may have mixed up his spells, it was supposed to be a simple manifest light, but somehow he had put a move object symbol in amongst the ritual glyphs, from there it looked like he had duplicated some more symbols as well.
“Damn it,” he cursed to himself, the lapse in the incanting sent a purple wave of energy through the chamber. Why was he so easily distracted, jumping from one thing to the next? Even now, when it was of utmost importance, he had been distracted, restarting a different spell halfway through the preparations. Resisting the urge to berate himself further, he refocused on the mess laid around him, resuming the incantation at a slower pace. Frantically he tried to figure out how he could move the energies around the ritual, avoiding certain parts of the obviously faulty spell. The worst thing that could happen would be that the spell failed to work, his master would step in to nullify the magic, but Oscariou had failed once before, so he desperately grappled with the energies, contorting them along the silver lines.
Seeing no way not to include the rogue glyphs, panic, a breath away, his mind raced, he paid scant attention to the words coming out of his mouth. Most of the time he embraced his ability to jump from topic to topic, enthusiastically chasing titbits of information from book to book. Now his eclectic nature was going to hurt, he had no idea what would happen when he concluded the ritual, and, right now, he was just going with the flow, it bordered on chaos magic, for which he could be banned from the Well.
He slowed his breathing again, like his master had shown him on many occasions, and tried to reign in the energy around him, taking a second to plan his next step. It was then he realised the room held way too much energy, much more than a simple light spell needed, his thoughtless babbling had raised too much magic, if it wasn’t channelled correctly the results could be devastating.
Nervously he glanced over to the slit in the wall from where his master watched, accompanied by two of his peers. They would soon realise this was not going to plan, if they hadn’t already, panic threatened to engulf him again, his eyes darted around the chamber.
Then he saw it, a gap in the ritual, a space where something was missing, but a glorious opportunity to insert something that could process the excess energy.
Without thinking he mentally drew the glyph for self, spells on living creatures used up a lot more energy than spells on inanimate objects, and he inserted the pattern into the ritual. A complex mosaic of silver lines appeared within the gap on the floor, and the glyphs were complete. All the energies swirled around him, a vortex of blue, gold and silver as they flooded along the patterns, engulfing the chamber, obscuring everything from view.
He had no idea what the new spell did, if it didn’t kill him, anything would do. Maybe he got a useless spellmark, but it had to count towards something.
Oscariou stopped incanting, sending a final push of will power out into the surrounding glyphs, finalising the ritual, and, possibly sealing his fate in the Lithing-well.
Everything flooded with arcane light, a deep azure blue, which shimmered as it engulfed both the ritual symbols, and Oscariou. The chamber appeared to expand in size, as if the magical energies pushed the walls away, for the briefest of moments, before returning to their normal proportions.
And then it was gone, the dull stone walls reflected nothing, the silver on the floor had disappeared and the contrast was disorientating.
Oscariou stood quietly, rubbing his eyes, his left shoulder hurt, his legs were shaking, and he was incredibly hungry. He stood patiently, waiting for his master to enter the chamber.
Phalian Henlow, first level tutor of the Lithing-well, and head of all apprentice mages, stood in the doorway, surveying the walls and floor. He nodded with satisfaction and entered, followed by two other robed masters, neither of which Oscariou recognised, one was adorned in a red velvet robe, the other shrouded in deep green.
“It appears that did not go exactly as planned, but all the energies have been consumed, nobody was burned to a crisp, and, you do appear to have obtained a spellmark.”
He strode confidently towards Oscariou, an infectious smile on his face, they often joked that if Oscariou could keep his attention on one thing for any amount of time he could be a teacher himself, and Oscariou liked that idea, more accurately, he liked Phalian. He was a fair master, who had tolerated Oscariou’s incessant questioning and energetic nature with good humour and patience.
“Do you know what it does Oscariou?” Phalian asked, walking slowly around his apprentice, and placing a hand on his right shoulder.
“Let me have a look, see if I can…” The mage stopped talking, squeezing his apprentice’s shoulder for a second before laughing loudly.
“I see you have made up for your last failure Oscariou, Oh my.” He said between laughs. Oscariou, unable to see the mark, reached out carefully with his mind, following his inner energies until he found the sore spot on his shoulder. The mark was much bigger than it should have been, lesser marks were normally small, no bigger than the palm of your hand.
“Master, I set out to make a lesser mark of light, but I must admit to not laying down the correct ritual lines. I had to improvise, I’m sorry. Does this mean I failed?” Oscariou felt a cold weight in his stomach, they could turn him away from the Well if he failed repeatedly.
“No, I think my colleagues will agree this gets a passing mark, although you should double, no, triple check any ritual lines in future.” Oscariou breathed out a huge sigh of relief and smiled at his master.
“Then, what is wrong with the mark? I dare not use it if it is broken.” He asked, the other two masters, now stood behind him, were also examining the mark. The first to speak addressed Phalian with a soft tone, inquisitive yet conversational.
“It appears to be a hybrid of the move-self spell, a greater mark. Although usually transportation references air, earth, or water as the element through which you move?” The mage was tracing her finger around the mark, Oscariou could now tell it covered most of his left shoulder, did she say greater mark?
“What made you think of using light instead? Very interesting, I see no flaw, or adverse condition in the mark, it should be safe to use, but I would stand a little closer to a light source when you do.” She leaned around Oscariou to look him in the face, her eyes were a deep green, her smile was comforting, framed as it was in the hood of her red velvet robe.
“Please document the results, I would be very interested to see how this spell manifests.” She patted Oscariou on the shoulder before turning to leave the chamber with a slight bow towards Phalian as she passed.
The other robed mage was muttering something into Phalian’s ear, who bowed in turn, as the mage followed his colleague out of the chamber.
“Well, Oscariou, you get some rest, in the morning we will chat about your spellmark, and your training moving forward. I have some advanced exercises I can now share with you, to help you focus before starting a ritual?” Phalian steered his tired and weary apprentice out of the chamber, Oscariou’s feet moved sluggishly as exhaustion started to set in.
“Transportation?” he muttered shaking his head, Phalian chuckled quietly behind him.