Emergence: Return of Magic book 1 (3 page)

Katie stared at the pile of splinters that used to be her
house, the light of the morning sun harshly illuminating the wreckage. 
She held the staff in her right hand, but the buzzing energy that ran through
it last night was gone, though she could still feel that energy lightly running
through everything around her.  It was a constant awareness, like another
sense.

She could feel the bird stirring in its nest fifty yards
behind her.  The energy… magic?  The world was alive with it, like a
blanket laid over everything.  When the twister had died out, and she’d
fallen to the ground, protected in a strange bubbled nimbus of light, she’d
made her way to the cellar doors.  She’d tried that word again, a
spell?  It had done nothing.

She wasn’t sure why, but she was missing something. 
She’d examined the staff, there were some glyphs of some kind on it, small and
subtle in the scrollwork by the bulbous tip.  The house had already been
completely gone, along with all of her clothes.  She’d frowned down at
what she was wearing, a night t-shirt tight enough to make it apparent she was
braless, and sweat shorts.

So she’d dug through the storage boxes in the cellar, and
found her mother’s clothes.  They weren’t a perfect fit, a little too
tight around the chest, but it fit.  She was dressed in a pair of sandals,
and a yellow summer dress that had built in shorts below the flowing skirt, so
she could ride.  She also had some jeans, loose shirts, and some
underclothes in an old backpack.  She’d packed some water, and a number of
trail bars as well.

She’d even managed to clean herself up in the barn that was
left untouched, there was running water.  Cold water, but better than
nothing.

This all felt a little insane to her, she didn’t know where
she was going, but she could look to the North West and feel a pull.  The
energy… the magic wanted her to go that way.  It made very little sense in
her own mind.  She was also sure the old man was dead, he could neither
tell her anything, nor explain anything else.  She felt a weight on her
shoulders she didn’t quite understand, and absolutely no direction to go along
with it.

Still, it had weight to it, the feeling.  It was better
than staying at the farm and waiting to die.

A few minutes ago, she’d chased the horses out of the barn,
she wouldn’t be around to care for them anymore.  Now… she just stood
there standing nearby where her house had stood, it was gone.  A few weeks
ago she’d been a relatively carefree woman waiting to go to her third year of
college, now… she had no idea.

She felt movement in the magic, and turned and looked up the
road, two people were approaching on horseback.  Even with this new sense,
she recognized one of them.  Her neighbor that lived two miles up the
road, John Billings.  John had been two years ahead of her in high
school.  He was a big kid, and now a large man.  He played on the
football team, linebacker, and she’d had a large crush on him back then, but
being two years behind him, nothing had ever come of it.

He was six foot two, all muscle, with black hair and gray
eyes.

She didn’t recognize the second person at all.  She
turned her gaze away and went to her own horse, and mounted up.  She’d
tried to start the car earlier, but it was dead.  The same with the truck,
and she’d even tried the tractor which sparked, but didn’t turn over.  It
took her a while to figure out that it was the magic blanket over the land
stopping it from working, when she turned the key she could
feel
it
interact.

When combustion failed, she’d tried the shotgun.  The
first two times she cocked and pulled the trigger nothing happened.  The
third time the bullet exploded so violently, that it threw her onto her back,
and deformed the chamber.  She was lucky the damn thing hadn’t exploded in
her face.  She’d decided then, magic and technology just didn’t play nice.

She shook her head and rode to meet them.  When she got
close enough she looked at John’s companion.  The woman was someone she’d
never met before, looked about her age, maybe even a little younger.  She felt
a small surge of jealousy, she was an attractive girl and knew it, but the
woman riding with John was exquisite.  So much so she felt a little
attracted to her herself, and her feelings hardly ever went that way with
another woman.

The woman had long raven black hair, dark gray eyes, and
flawless lightly tanned skin.  She also had an aura of power about her,
the blanket of magic… clung to her as she moved, almost as if she was a part of
it.  She was wearing a long flowing white dress, that clung in the right
places to reveal her curvy body.  The woman was perfect, at least in
Katie’s eyes, she had a body that fell somewhere between athletic and
voluptuous, in shape, thin waist, but all alluringly womanly curves.

Katie had to admit though, she wasn’t that far behind in
that area.  The farm kept her in great shape, and her breasts were perky
and she wore a thirty-six C bra.  Still, she dismissed those thoughts as
petty, she’d gotten over John a long time ago, and since the world as they knew
it had ended, this was certainly not the time or place to compete for a man,
even if it was a natural reaction.

John smiled, and despite her words she couldn’t help but to
sit up a little straighter in her saddle when his eyes looked at her
approvingly.  Her girlish crush might be gone, but he was still a handsome
man, and the sincerity of his smile came out in his light gray eyes.  She
also noticed he had a sword… on his back.  She could barely see the hilt,
but she could feel it there, it had a large concentration of magic in it.

John said, “Hey Katie, this is Nim, who I met this
morning.  Nim, meet Katie.”

Even the woman’s voice was entrancing as she said, “Hello
Katie, it’s a real pleasure to meet you.  I bet your confused, but we’re
here to help.”

She looked over at John, but he just winked and shrugged,
apparently content to be along for the ride.

“Help how,” she asked a little suspiciously.

Nim’s smile grew wider, “I’ll be able to answer some of your
questions.  Also, John and I will be coming with you, I have some small
talent with magic, and I bestowed a sword on John.  A lot has happened,
and your predecessor, your ancestor, left you with nothing but questions.”

She frowned, she’d been alone and hating that fact, and she
did have a lot of questions, but this seemed awfully convenient.

“Why?” she asked suspiciously, as she waved and they started
going west along the road.

Nim laughed lightly, “You don’t trust easy, perhaps a good
trait to have right now.  Why?  Because I worked with your ancestor
Merlin in the past, and I am a servant of Gaea, whose mantle you now
bear.  As far as John, I chose him for many reasons, not least of which is
that I believe you already know and trust him?  I do as well.”

She wanted to laugh, Merlin?  Right… pass some of those
drugs this way.

John didn’t even bat an eye, so something must have happened
to convince him… like a magic sword.

But she really couldn’t disbelieve, even though she wanted
to, it had been his name in the dream that the queen elf called the old man.

She asked, “Why can’t I get a spell to work, like I did last
night when my house was torn into splinters?”

Nim looked thoughtful for a moment, “When Merlin lay dying
after releasing the spell separating the realms, and sent the staff to you, it
was… charged with magic.  That woke up your own magic and connected you to
the staff.  In other words, that you may understand better, he handed you
a loaded gun, all you had to do was pull the trigger.”

Nim shrugged, “You feel the magic yes?  You need to
learn to channel it, control it, feed it to the words and intent of the
spell.  The staff… enables you to cast more magic than you normally would
be able to.  Magic is natural, like air, like the oxygen you need to live,
or the food from the ground.  But anything in excess is bad.

“I tell you this because you need to know, you must learn to
do magic, but you must not use it for everything.  It will prematurely age
you, and force you to go into the long sleep to regenerate.  When you do
that, you’ll be out of touch for the world for a century or two, so it is a
balance.  Do not hesitate to use it if you must, but never use it if you
don’t have to.

“You are a sorceress, and more than that.  You have
within you the ability to pull magic directly into yourself and cast, but you
don’t want to do that if it can be avoided.  The more magic that runs
through your body, the more risk of going too far and aging.  It is both
cumulative, and something that wears off.  As long as you don’t overdo
it… 

“That was Merlin’s mistake, he was so enamored of the
advances of the last two centuries he did not sleep when he should have. 
So when it came to pass that he had to cast a great working last night, his
body was too worn out to cast the spell of sleep, and he died, passing the
staff to his descendent.”

She frowned, that was a lot of information jumping around in
her head, but it still hadn’t answered her question, “Okay, so how do I use the
staff then?”

Nim seemed to search her eyes a moment, and then she answered,
“You need to pull in a wisp of magic, and channel it into the staff, into the
glyphs at the head.  Those are spells that will cause the staff to absorb
a great amount of magic, and enable you to cast a spell directly from the
staff.”

She tilted her head, “So I’ll only be using a little magic,
so it won’t age me as quickly?”

Nim grinned, “Exactly.”

“John, how did you get roped into this?”

He shrugged, “She told me I’d get to follow you around and
stab things.”

She snorted and gave him a look, and he laughed.

He said lightly, “She asked me if I would guard you, and
something about a balance, and saving the world.  I figured that was
better than lying around and waiting to die.  The world has changed,
especially last night.  If I can really make a difference… plus, it
doesn’t hurt that it’s you.  You look… really good Katie, and there’s
always been something special about you.”

She tilted her head trying to figure out if he was serious
or not, he sounded very serious at least.  They’d barely spoken the last two
years, and he could have asked her out earlier in the summer, or even last
summer after her freshman year of college.  She decided she’d deal with it
later and turned back to Nim.

“Gaea?  Mantle?  And since you look nineteen, but
used to work with a man that has lived millennia, what exactly are you? 
You don’t have to answer that last one I guess…”

She hoped she hadn’t put her foot in her mouth, but she was
curious, and the young woman didn’t look offended at least, so she relaxed a
little.

Nim smiled, “Gaea is… the major deity of Nature.  She
encompasses all nature, down to the center of the Earth, and all the
elements.  The Magic around us, the atmosphere, the oceans, lakes of fire
in the core of the earth, and the very ground you stand on.  She gives us
free will, so cannot stop us when mortals do something stupid, like disturb the
balance, and threaten the very world we live on.  There is a harmony to
the races, Humans, Dragons, and Elves.  There are many other races as well,
but ones of magic.

“The magical races were separated from man, because man was
destroying the races necessary for this world to live.  Humanity too, has
an integral part.  There will always be some antagonism and even
skirmishes between the races, but humanity was going too far, risking genocide
with their holy wars.  Unfortunately, Merlin had to put the realms back
together before humans were really ready.”

She nodded, “The aliens.”

John grunted, “The aliens?”

Katie smiled at him, she’d worked it out this morning when nothing
had worked for her, “Technology doesn’t work alongside magic.  I imagine
there were some unhappy aliens when their ships stopped working last night… or
blew up.  But back to the story?”

Nim grinned, “So free will, she restricts herself from
taking sides, or interfering, but she grants the power to one human, a sorcerer
or sorceress, to feel the balance, and help maintain it.”

Katie frowned, “What if I don’t want to.  You just said
I have free will right.”

Nim shrugged, “Then you don’t do it.  Yet, here you are
riding alongside us, ready to leave by yourself just a little while ago, to go
northwest, where the balance of things guides you to go.  That’s all it
is, Gaea will not be giving orders, or telling you what you can or can’t do,
just a sense of the balance, and you will do what you feel you must when you
get there.

“You have free will, but you are also someone who freely
believes in a balance, and wants to help others.  The staff would not have
come to you otherwise.”

She… had to admit that was kind of right.  She didn’t
have a clue where they were going, or why.  There were no instructions,
apparently all she had to do was… follow her own heart and instincts.  She
wasn’t a slave to Gaea, but more so to her own morality.

“Alright, and you?” she asked, Nim still hadn’t answered
that last question.

Nim looked thoughtful, “The more powerful a god, the less
they can interfere, it’s a paradox I suppose to ensure free will.  Gaea as
I said, is limited to one that carries the mantel of balance.  The other
gods, such as the Elven god Charites for instance, is a lesser nature
goddess.  She can do more, because her domain is smaller.  Elven
priestesses can receive limited guidance from their deity, and she can do magic
through her priestesses if they wish it.  The goddess is also responsible
for the innate nature magic Elves can do based on wildlife.

“They can heal, grow a plant, shape a tree into a house, or
a fortress, increase stamina and speed of a mount, tame a wild animal, and many
other things.  They have no control over the elements, because only
natural life is within Charites power.  The Dragons on the other hand,
only control elements.  That’s another thing that is different about you,
holding the mantle of Gaea, you have access to all nature, not just life.”