The Life Of A Magician

August 13 2015

     I woke with a start. I was half propped up on my elbows. I instantly felt dizzy and lowered myself back down.
     "What was it about?" someone off to the side asked. I looked over. It was the girl who came out last night. It was last night right? Whatever.
     "What?" I asked. Quite stupidly I might add.
     "Well you looked so startled you had to be dreaming about something. What was it about?" Oh. That made sense.
     "It was a memory. How I got this," I pointed at my healed shoulder. Wait. Healed?
     "Potion?" I asked. She smiled.
     "My best. I'm Jaz, the healer at Brooklyn House." She held out her hand.
     "Max. Random person." We shook.
     "So. Soon either Carter or Sadie will help you find your path." She handed me a veil. "Drink this within the hour and you'll be just fine. As for me, I need to get to my class now that your awake." She began to walk away.
     "Wait. Where's my pack?" I asked. She pointed to a chair. On it was my pack questions skates.
     "Nice sword by the way." And with that she left.

     After a few minutes I downed the potion and lie down. I must have fell asleep because soon I felt a bucket of cold water crash down on me. Without flinching I groaned thinking my mom somehow found out where I was. I flipped over on top my back. To this day I still don't which was worse. Who I thought was standing over me or actually was. Because peering down at me was Sadie Kane.
     "Really? Get up would you? We have stuff to do," she said.
     "We'd have one less thing to do without all the water," I shot back. She smiled.
     "Come on. Let's go." I got up and grabbed my pack and skates. Sadie led me out of the infirmary room and down a hall in to an enormous room.
     "This is the Great Room." She pointed at a statue. "That is Thoth." She then pointed to a door on the wall in front of the statue. That's the main balcony and buffet. Lovely food, really." She pointed to the right of the statue. "That door there leads to the combat training area and basketball court. Speaking of which are you any good at basketball?"
     "I'm more of a hockey kind of guy," I replied holding up my skates.
     "Well there's a first for everything I suppose. Good look with Khufu. Anyway," she pointed to the iron double doors. "That's the library. Lots of books, perfect for Carter." She led me up two sets of stairs to a white door.
     "This is your room. Enjoy." She threw open the door revealing what nearly looked like my room back home. A flat screen HD TV hung on the left wall. A bed, waist high, facing the TV was against the right. In the wall with the door was a regular linen type closet, filled with the same clothes I'd usually wear.
     I walked in while Sadie hung back by the door.
     "I don't think we've been properly introduced. I'm Sadie Kane."
     "Maxwell Filtwater. Call me Max."
     "Wonderful. Now, you go ahead settled in and Carter will be here soon to help you find your path."
     "Alright. Thanks." She left and I took off my wet clothes. I picked out blue jeans and a white t-shirt. My usual smithy clothes. I also found a smithy apron in the closet. How convenient. I looked through my pack to see if anything was missing. Everything was there but there was a chip in my sword. It looked like I could grind it out without taking too much meat off but it look touchy. If only I had my tools. . . I heard a soft knock at the door as I was inspecting the blade. I looked up and saw Carter Kane standing at the door.
     "Max?" He called.
     "That's me." I said.
     "Perfect. Let's get started." He noticed the blade in my hands. "Where'd you get that?" he asked.
     "Made it myself at my forge back home. One of my best blades that I kept." Carter looked impressed.
     "Nice. Did you just take a shower?" He asked.
     "No. . ." I touched my hair. It was still wet.
     "Oh. Your sister dumped a bucket of water on me," I said like it happens every day.
     "Because you were sleeping even though there where multiple ways to wake wake you up that did not involve water, magic, fire or glass?" he asked.
     "Yep."
     Carter sighed. "That's her sadly. Let's go find your path." He led me down the stairs to the combat training area. The two sun disk basketball hoops were a either end.
     "Ok. So to determine what path you take, there has to be a connection, a good connection emotionally. Think of some of your greatest times. Some of your best moments."
     "Honestly the only good moments in my life are in the forge. I can only seem to feel good when I'm pounding a block of metal.
     "You're pretty much surrounded by heat, flames, and sparks in a forge, right?
     "More or less." Carter handed me a wrought iron rod.
     "This," he said "is your staff. It's used mainly for offense. Summon a flame on the top of it." I imagined a large flame at the top. A single candle flame came to life. Suddenly I was leaning on my staff. The flame went out.
     "That was great for a first time. Now here is your wand." He handed me a piece of curved ivory. "This is used mostly to defense." He handed me a block of wax. "This will be used to make figurines which you'll be taught soon enough." He showed me a rope finally. "This is your twine. You throw it at your target, speak the command word and it will track it down until it's either captures the enemy or gets cut." Carter brought out a dummy and showed me how.
     "Ok. There might be one last thing to discuss with Sadie. Do you want to enter the Brooklyn Academy of the Gifted?
     "Depends. Do they have metal working?" I asked
     "I don't know. I don't even go there." He replied.
     "Sadie?"
     "Sadie." The two of us walked out of the court groaning.
     "What's up with you two?" Sadie said as we walked in.
     "BAG. Tell me about it." I said. And she did. Every tiny little detail. Completely, unnecessarily tiny detail. At least I know there's metal working class.
     "That's great," I said once Sadie finished "but we left out one thing. What path am I following?" Sadie and I looked at Carter.
     "Max," he said "you are the second person to follow the paths of Ra.