The Chronicles of Brendan Earle, Apprentice Mage.

A Short Rest

Adam

I spent a relaxing day in bed, dozing half of the time, wishing I had something to read the rest. I tried thinking about the situation I was in…we were in, but it was like doing a jigsaw puzzle with a headache. I kept looking at pieces and not being able to work out how they fitted together.

Somehow I knew if I could hold it all together in my head I’d have something important, something very, very important about being still here. But it wandered off every time I got near. It had to do with numbers as well, but I didn’t know how.

Later in the day, when lessons had finished, I got a visit from Miya, Jade and Hatim. Were they Brendan’s mates in the books, I wondered?

Jacob

“Funny thing about that new cohort today.” I told Niall.

“What? Have they managed to do something amazing without Earle there?”

“No. Not exactly. Just that, well, last few sessions with weapons training they’ve all been good. He’s been exceptional, but they’ve all been good –far better than normal. Good rhythm to the movements, good flow. Not quite like the finals of Come Dancing, but good. They picked stuff up quick, remembered it well and were smooth.”

“They’ve lost it today?”

“Well, mebbes you’d have to see it. Looks like they’ve got an image of what they’ve done, but they’d same sense of rhythm as a ward full of pregnant Catholics. You know how some of the young uns who’re training like to think they’re working wonders with their group and rush ‘em? Lot’s o’ moves, none of them secure? Well, hasn’t been that way with them. If anything they’d been held back a bit, making sure they’d really got it. And they had, but today they hadn’t.”

“You think it’s something to do with Earle not being there?”

“Like they say, next thing I see around that lad that’s normal’ll be the first. I don’t want him back in the weapons training, less he’s instructing, but I’d be right curious to see how they go on when he is around ‘em again.”

Rebecca

While the house and bedding were growing, Ali had a check with the mission book about what we needed to do next. It advised that we leave two of our number on stag while the rest moved up to the MSR to decide where we’d designate our LUP and ERV and do a CTR.

Then it told us what that all meant.

Once we’d got it, we did it. That took up a lot of the rest of the morning. We scryed for movement on the road and realized that we’d get a small food train passing early the next morning, so Ali ran us over plans for how to deal with it. We checked them with the book and were impressed with ourselves that it said they’d do.

Adam

“So how did the session go after I passed out of it?”

“Oh, well interesting. It was all higher level magic. Jinnie took over while they were looking after you. I think she showed us some stuff that’d get our minds off you being carried out, ‘cos, like natch, no one was concentrating very well. But she showed us how you could store energy in things and then use them for spells. Like, she had this sword, see, and she showed us how magic had been stored in it and a fighting spell put on it so it’d do all the fencing for you. All you had to do was hold it while it used your eyes and arm. We were in groups, like one against six and the one with the sword could take on the others and just dance through ‘em. Really made your arm hurt mind.”

“So why are we learning how to fight with weapons when the weapons already know how to do it better?”

“Well, it’s not much cop if you get halfway through a battle and your batteries run out, is it? Jinnie said that some Mages do carry weapons that they’ve charged up themselves, but they only trigger the spell if they have to. She reckoned that the weapons training mostly sets you up to use your own power and, once you can do that, well, you’re a Mage and you can outfight a magic sword, ‘cos you’re a magic person. Like, you can recharge magic by sort of plugging into the universe or having a cup of coffee, but once the sword has used up its store, it’s finished. They give ‘em as presents to non-Mages, mostly.”