The Chronicles of Brendan Earle, Apprentice Mage.

East Gard

Phoebe

I could see from where I stood that something went wrong with the conversation between Brendan and Jess. They should’ve talked for a while where they stood and then gone off together, arguing. Somehow he’d finished the whole thing in only seconds and was going off by himself. How could he not know the way it was supposed to go?

 Well, it really didn’t matter much, I supposed. Those who hadn’t passed would go back to their Gates and the other world. The rest of us would go to the feast, then bed. I’d wake up back in my real world tomorrow. Maybe it was because I was emptied after the Initiation, but I felt like I’d won second prize.

Adam

I was led to a carriage pulled by one of the six-legged beasts. It took a group of us out to the east of the city at a walking pace. Not a comfortable trip. The carriage and the road were okay, they were smooth enough. The company. None of the kids in the carriage were from my boat. All of them were staring at me.

I should have tried to start a conversation, but the effects of the drink were wearing off. I’d had a long, long, bloody peculiar day of it. All I wanted to do was rest, so I leaned my head against the side of the carriage and pretended to sleep. I heard whispering going on through the trip, but not what was being said. After a while, I don’t think I was pretending about the sleep anymore. This place was leaving me punch-drunk most of the time. Why was that supposed to be fun?

When the carriage stopped, some long time later, we piled out in front of what looked like a Tudor manor house that’d married a castle and then had a large family. Big, obviously defendable and with a number of outbuildings. We went inside to a large hall with tables already set with food, and crowds of people already sitting down and ready for scran. The setting was familiar. I couldn't think where I'd seen this before – some film or other, but this was surely something he'd nicked as well. He'd never struck me as original in anything.

I spotted Miya and the other girl, whose name I’d already forgotten, and made my way over to them. “Hi, do you mind if I sit here?”

“Yeah, sure,” said the friend, “Wow, they’re all saying the light shone from you. Is it true?”

“Dunno,” was my best reply, “I passed out and don’t really know what was going on. What happened to you?”

“It was the same for both of us,” Miya said, giving me a measuring look. “The chanting started and we felt something going from our heads to our bums, not nice, but no big deal. I was looking at you when it happened though. You were shining like someone’d stuck a Christmas tree in you. You went all the colours of the rainbow. You’re one of the Chosen.”

“Is that good or bad?”

“What, you don’t know?”

“Start by thinking I’m completely ignorant, ok? You won’t be far wrong.”

“Well, it means you’re like some hyper strong Mage or something, or you’re gonna be. It’s well special. It hardly ever happens to anyone.”

“Really? Well it happened to two of us. There was a girl on a stretcher beside me asking about the light. She had it as well.”

“Oh yeah? Where’s she then?”

I looked around. “Ok. See the girl with the ‘I’m-it-and-you’re-not’ attitude, the one heading for the top table over there? That’s her.”

“You don’t like her, do you?” said Miya, a big schadenfreudish grin across her face.

“I’m honestly not planning on caring either way, but, since you ask, no, not much. I’ve a feeling if she found she wasn’t getting up your nose, then she’d just try harder.”