The Mage Wars

The Spell

"AGH! That won't work either!"

I throw my small bottle of ink across the clearing. It sails past Galen as he walks toward me. He watches the ink's trail and makes a point to avoid the liquid. He stops a few feet from me. He remains in the sun, basking for a second before looking down at me.

"It certainly won't if you do it like that."

"What do you know about magical properties, or which words can be switched around to create the opposite!"

Galen ponders my statements. For a few seconds, he looks like he's going to say something, then he sighs in defeat. He shakes his head...he was going to argue. Why not? It's what we do best, aside from working together.

Unless it was going to be useful. If it was, why keep it to himself? He doesn't want to argue. He thinks I'm too riled up to think clearly. I don't know what makes me angrier, him thinking I'm too angry to argue clearly or him withholding information.

"Exactly. Now can you leave me be, so I can work?"

"No, you're under my tree."

What? His tree? I give him a puzzled look. Well, this is his home, so I guess anything is possible.

Sensing my confusion, Galen chucked and gestured to the large oak. He smiles wide and sighs blissfully. "I planted this tree when I was 5 with Da, and now it's fully grown thanks to magic. I like to read under it."

"You can read?"

Galen glares at me but takes a seat anyway. He holds up his book and gives it a small wave. "Yes, I can read, Da taught me when I was young."

"Gale, it's a joke." He raises an eyebrow and grins, damn prick, he knew.

"What's the spell your Uncle gave you?" I hand him the paper with the written spell scrawled across its surface.

"Spirits of old, new & young..hear my call. In this hour, come forth. Use my spirit, soul & power. Descend this kingdom into a watery tomb." He puts it down between us. Altair's gods, if only Uncle Carys had given this to me earlier. It would have saved us so much pain. Spirits, my brain feels like it's melting from overuse.

"My job is to transcribe it into a version where it rises Vanora from the sea."

"And your problem is?"

"I have to make it complex otherwise, it could fail."

"But do you have to reconfigure the Spell? Can't you just use the spell Kael used in the sanctum?" Galen questions, I groan at his stupidity and slightly cry on the inside.

"No! This is a different type of spell that one only works if the first spell was on living things created by magic."

"Oh... where are you stuck?"

"I'm stuck on the middle. Where Elysia says, 'In this hour come forth, use my power, spirit & soul.' What I don't get is how to reverse it." I'm met with silence, so I continue with my trail of thought.

"I only got so far, each time, but when I add another word, it just doesn't fit properly."

"Alright, what do you have so far?" I pick up my paper with scribbles of my thoughts, which happen to be in both Ancient and Modern Fae. Half of it Galen won't be able to decipher. I should translate it for him. "Divine essence of young, new & old, hear us now. Bring forth the...and that's where I get stuck."

"What if you switch out, bring with take. Would that help?" Galen suggests.

I take out another piece of paper and write out what I'm thinking. "Alright, how about I break the line into two And add in your suggestion,"