Mind Forged: Book One of the Enchanters of Xarparion (4 page)

“
Primus Rosa, it’s good to see you again.” My head swung down to focus on a guard that I hadn’t even noticed approaching. He was in the same armor as the others but had a different patch on his shoulder. He snapped a quick salute to my companion and then glanced at me curiously, following my gaze up to the men on the wall. “Don’t worry; they’re here to protect you.”

“
I’m sorry, sir, but I wasn’t thinking that. I worked as a blacksmith, until a few hours ago, that is.”

The
corporal smiled. “Ah, so you’re looking at our gear? Fine stuff it is indeed; here take a look at this.” He drew his sword, flipped it over in the air, and handed me the hilt. Perhaps it was all this talk of magic or nervousness about being uprooted and sent away from home, but as soon as I touched it, I felt a surge through my body and a hot spark of light left my hand. Both the guard and I jumped back in surprise, as I nearly dropped the sword on the ground.

“
What the hell was that!” he growled, with a curious look at Rosa. I had no idea what to tell him. Rosa, on the other hand, smirked at our reactions and calmly walked over and took the blade.

She looked it over, turning it over in her palm
. “Not bad, Alex. It seems we found your affinity and you’re not technically even in the city yet.”

“
My what?”

She looked up from the blade
. “Your affinity! It means you are naturally better with metals than any other materials; mine is stone.”

The
corporal, on the other hand, wasn’t too happy. It was, after all, the weapon to which he entrusted his life. He took off his helmet, clipped it to a snap on his belt, and ran his fingers through his hair nervously. “With all due respect, Primus, but what the hell did he just do?”

Carefully
, Rosa handed him back his blade. “He accidently flash enchanted your sword.”

We both looked at her question
ingly. “I did what?”

She clarified
, her eyes changing to a light grey or white color for a second. “Flash enchanting sometimes happens when you don’t yet have the skills to control your powers. You send out a sort of pulse in the item you’re touching and your thoughts are transferred to the item. You did the same thing to that pot. That time you were probably thinking on how bad a cook she was. This time you probably were thinking of how you could sharpen it. A large part of magic is organizing your thoughts to fashion an outcome. Thoughts are power, my young apprentice. The result is that this blade will never need to be sharpened again. Really, it is quite fortunate that you got the desired effect on the first try. When I was still learning, I had to be very careful what I was thinking about when I worked, and frequently I didn’t get as good an outcome.”

The
corporal was still confused. “So he is an enchanter? I thought you were the only…”

“Yes, my first apprentice!” she interrupted nervously and her voice rose an entire octave. “And I’m already very proud of him! A warning, however, Corporal; be very careful with that sword, it’s a lot sharper than it was.”

The
corporal examined the edge of the sword up close and then tentatively ran a thumb across it, jerking back quickly as his eyes grew very wide. He whistled softly and looked from me to Rosa and back again, then bowed formally to me. “Many thanks, Apprentice. I’m Corporal Higs and I am in your debt. Please allow me to escort you through the rest of the process.”

True to his word, we were
ushered through the two walls. The open area between the walls looked like it was used primarily for livestock and the storing of hay and other open-air farm products. Once past the second wall, the scene changed dramatically as we finally walked into the central core of Xarparion. Corporal Higs wished us a good evening and returned to his post. Looking up at the towers, they looked immense from this angle.

Still
staring at the towers, I asked, “Which one are we in?”

Rosa hesitated for a bit
. “Um…I have my own hall, of sorts.”

I shrugged
“That’s fine, lead the way.”

She
smiled and took my hand. “You’re a sweet, young man. Let’s go, it’s getting late. By the way, you don’t happen to know the recipe for those apple dumplings, do you? They were magnificent!”

She
led me past many buildings and around the large central core area. Most were made out of cut stone and looked old enough for the limestone to be weathering in place, and many had ornately cut windows and doorways. Most had pretentious signs of some sort or another that held no meaning for me, but conveyed how much of an outsider I really was. Between the buildings were either stone pathways or, in some instances, nearly field-sized areas of groomed grasses. Here and there were small areas that appeared to be used for reflection and meditation, primarily small garden spots with stone benches and fountains. Even at this time of the evening, there were students of all colors of robes circulating back and forth between buildings. I noticed with some envy that most of them seemed happy to be here, but then they probably hadn’t woken up in their own beds, in their parents’ home, this morning either and were now struggling to figure out what the future might hold.

We walked on past the towers
until we reached a long whitewashed, two-story rectangular building. It looked like a normal building, nothing fancy, just a whitewashed wood building; it could have easily been a warehouse or a stables. The only thing that made it stand out at all was a sign above the door that said ‘Enchanters Hall’ on it.

“
This must be the place.”

She
stopped abruptly and sighed as if really looking at it for the first time in many years. “Yes, home sweet home. Look, I know it doesn’t look like much but it really is a nice place and it’s a lot bigger than it appears. But come on inside, we have much to talk about.”

She
walked up to the wooden door and said something in a language I didn’t understand. Immediately, low granite pins that I hadn’t noticed before retracted down into the stone threshold releasing the white painted front door. We breezed on through into the main hall; as she had promised, the inside was very nice. In fact, I hadn’t seen a place that was so clean or fancy before. There were paintings of outdoor scenes on the walls, overstuffed chairs arranged around a fireplace and thick rugs on the hardwood floor. Tables and bookshelves lined the walls and there were lanterns placed around the room that didn’t smell of burnt oil or waver with any lit flame I could see. All in all, I felt like I was in a comfortable old manor house.

“
Welcome to my reading room.” She pointed down the hall. “Down that way is the dining room as well as the kitchen. Upstairs are the living areas and in the basement is the lab where our classes will be, but for now please take a seat.”

We both sat down in the chairs by the fireplace
. Rosa stoked the embers and it burst back to life as the room was filled with the warmth and crackle of the fire. She settled comfortably in her chair and looked at me expectantly.

“
Now that we’re here, why don’t you tell me about yourself, my dear sweet apprentice?” So I did and, for some reason, I didn’t hold anything back, well almost. I must have talked for hours but she just sat there smiling the entire time, nodding every now and then. What surprised me most of all was that I actually could talk for hours! In retrospect, I guess, there may have been more to my life than I had realized. When I was finally done, I felt rather tired and my throat was raw, but it was also like a load was off my mind and it was a very comfortable feeling. Rosa leaned forward and smiled.

“
Thank you for sharing everything with me. Now since you were very honest with me, I will be with you. This room is not called the reading room just because I like to read my many books here. It’s also been enchanted so that people in the room feel more relaxed and will tell their true feeling and not hold anything back. Now I’ll tell you a little about myself. My name is Primus Rosa. You may call me Primus, Master, or Rosa, whatever you chose. As you know, I’m an elf; technically, a green forest elf. I was born a little under seven hundred years ago. When I was still an infant, about the age you are now, my family’s farm was torched and sacked by an Uri-pai war party. I was playing near the river when it happened, and my older sister placed me on a log and pushed me out into the current to save my life. I never did find out if any of my kin survived. Separated from my family, I drifted for what seemed like days, too terrified to move. Suddenly, out of the blue, I heard a sweet woman’s voice telling me to get off the log, and I waded to the shore and walked a few hundred yards until I smelled food cooking. I was found by a little human girl who was playing in the forest, not far from where her parents camped. I can still remember her face and the song she would sing to me. The family took me in and raised me as one of their own, until I was twenty-seven. As I was living in a human village when the wizards came, I took the same test you did this past evening. Like you, my orb turned white, but the elders of the time had never seen that happen and didn’t know what it meant.”

As she told her story
, I found a teapot and tea leaves by the fireplace. Mother always told me that at times like this, it’s always good to have something warm to go with your memories. She continued, “The masters put me through every one of the five towers’ curriculum to see if I could do any of them. And in some ways they were right, enchanters are not restricted by type as the others are, but finding that out was a long hard task. I could see the flow of magic, I could channel it in myself, but I could never get it to manifest like the others could. The teachers in the tower of fire thought that if they put me in a duel where my life was on the line then maybe it would work. It didn’t work; time and time again they put me in that ring knowing I couldn’t fight back and each time I woke up in the Healer’s tower a week later.” She grimaced, remembering the pain.

The tea was ready so I got up again and poured two cups of tea for us
. I brought them over to the table between us and handed her one of the cups and then returned to my seat. She sipped her tea and finally smiled again.

“
Thank you, you’re very kind. No one has made tea for me in over five hundred years.”

She took another long sip and continued her story.

“After many years of trying, I finally found out what I was good at.” She smiled and chuckled to herself. “It’s funny looking back on it now, but I didn’t find my powers in battle or in the classroom. No, I found them at lunch! I still remember I really didn’t like what the school served for food and I remember wishing that my lunch would taste good. I was sitting at a table in the corner alone thinking of the home cooked meals that I had with that family that saved me. And silly me, I was mixing the stew around with my finger. Then, suddenly, I start to smell something really good! I looked around for the source of the smell and realized that it was coming from my bowl. So I tried it and discovered it was the best tasting thing I’ve ever tasted. I even went up for a second bowl! Soon, I was doing all sorts of things and my life had meaning once again. Many years later, they gave me this place to call my very own hall. And now I finally have someone to share everything with!” She looked like she was about to cry. “For almost seven hundred years, I’ve been alone thinking I was the only one.” She couldn’t hold it in any longer. As the tears started to fall, I got up and walked around the table to sit with her. She cried on my shoulder for a few minutes.

“
So you’re telling me we are the only two enchanters to be born in seven hundred years? Who makes all the magic weapons that the great heroes carry and the bards sing about? What about magic wands the wizards use?”

She put down her cup
and tucked her feet under her. “I’ll answer the last question first. Wands, staves, beads, etc. are just focus items, the power still comes from the wizard. The wand merely aids in casting the spell; certain items can be temporarily imbued with minor magic, but they are lesser works. Some races, like dwarves, gnomes and, to a lesser extent, elves are capable of creating fairly powerful magic items that work reliably, given the proper materials and exceptional skill of the crafter. These items utilize what Xarparion mages would call “wild magic” and are beyond the abilities of humans to duplicate. These make up the majority of the enchanted items in the world today. Most scholars do not believe the legendary weapons that heroes of past glory carried were created by mortal creatures at all, but were gifts of the gods, their agents or some other powerful benefactors.” She grew very solemn. “There is also another category, which I hesitate to even mention, but the enchantment on this room works on me too. Items of magic can also be created by the practitioners of death magic, by enslaving demonic entities and sealing them into the item. Needless to say, these are very, very dangerous pieces and should be avoided at all costs.”

“
Well, where does that leave us then…humans, I mean?” I wondered.

“
When humans and the human-minded races began to specialize in elemental magic - fire, water, wind, earth - they suddenly lost much of their ability to craft items. It’s like the part of their brains capable of imbuing an item shut down. Some claimed that the gods never intended for mankind to keep that gift and simply withdrew the ability until it is needed again for some future calamity or age of heroes. Without regard to the reason, you and I are the only known human-style enchanters in the world right now.” She yawned and sagged tiredly in the chair. “We should probably get you to bed; we have a lot of work to do.”