The Chronicles of Brendan Earle, Apprentice Mage.

The Beginnings of Magic

Phoebe

Kayley didn’t really want to talk about the scrying lessons. She just needed some help unpacking the crystals and to gossip about the new Chosen of the Land in my cohort. The conversation came straight out of the book and I was word perfect on it, ‘til we got to the subject of Brendan. Then it went all freak.

I was telling her exactly what Malaika does say – it’s in Book One, but they weren’t in the scrying room - while I unwrapped cloth from a crystal ball. We’d already done about ten of them– it wasn’t hard, but they were well wrapped, so it took time.

This one, though, felt warm in my hand and sort of tingled. When I got it out I looked at it. And somehow I couldn’t look away. It clouded up and I began to see… it’s hard to explain.

Some of them were images, but I knew the things I saw weren’t the things I was supposed to see. They were sort of symbols of them. There were colours, but they were just giving me the moods I needed to have. You need to do it to know what it's like. Kayley saw what was happening. “What is it child? What do you see?”

“Something has started. There will be… not war, not yet, but fighting. It… Something…He… He needs to grow and he needs to confuse and weaken us. The Vere are spreading and all of his allies are preparing to try their strength. Brendan and I are targets; he’ll strike against us, especially Brendan. He has a great hate for Brendan. His coming has made something begin.

These things I can see, but I can’t see where he is or what his plans are. He’s hidden in a place that’s almost not there. His mind is… strange. His powers are unreadable, but great. He wants…’ And the next word was going to be 'me'. But I didn’t understand that.

Then it was gone and I was standing, looking at the empty glass ball in my hand, nothing more. Wondering about the dirty feeling that had gone with the word ‘me’.

“You sure of all of this? The Vere are on the move?”

“They’re all doing things, the Vere, the Warg, the Sand Giants, the others. There’s no sign of them attacking anything. I don’t think they’ve been ordered to do that. Not yet anyway. The image was someone moving pieces on a chessboard. I think he wants things in place. They’re… they’re assembling. Yes, that’s it. There’s a power that’s… I dunno, it’s the same as before, but it’s different too. I don’t understand how I know, but I’m sure of it.”

And that was the truth, mecha sure. I’d seen these images, sort of growing out of the mist in the crystal. Each of them had been very foggy, so I was almost guessing what they were at first, but by the time I could see them clearly I knew what it meant. Like I’d seen that image of the chessboard and just known it meant Maldon was positioning his forces for something else. And I’d seen the faces on the chess pieces. One of them was winking and tapping her nose, like she knew a secret I didn’t, and I knew that meant there was some sort of trick behind it. I didn’t work it out like a crossword or anything, it just made sense it all meant what I’d said to Kayley. It had to be that, ‘cos it couldn’t be anything else.

“We need to get this word to Niall, girl. Go speak to him, tell him all you have seen, all you understand from it. We need others to scry and find out what is happening immediately. What we see may well be some trick. That would be expected, but still, we must be ready for any attacks. If he kills us by tricking us, it doesn’t mean we aren’t dead. Go quick.”

I didn’t need telling. I ran. It scared me. Another time, if someone’d told me I could scry like Malaika does and I’d done it, I’d’ve been wai wai for a week. I just had for really and it wasn’t a game. Some people were going to die, I’d felt it in the images. That was dead like my mum. That was too real. And the thought of how he wanted me had cut off too quick for me to really get a feel of what that meant, but there was something there… I didn’t want to think about it.