The Spell Crafter

Prologue

Regius Elath paced behind the earthen ramparts of the camp, his eyes furiously scanning the ground, although he saw nothing of the soft mossy carpet underfoot. The background din of the soldiers behind him, preparing breakfast, joking and laughing with one another felt far away as though it was coming from underwater.

Instead, symbols and runes for spells blazed through his mind as he walked, and occasionally his fingers would twitch, to aid in the tracing of a particularly complex set of characters in the spell.

He was sure no mage had ever dreamed of a spell with such destructive power, but it was such a complex piece of magic that any mis-carved rune or slight mistake could end in disaster. Perhaps if he could see the runes again, just to double check...

A tall wiry young man strode towards him, down the main alleyway of white canvas tents. He wore tight, fitted robes, over a hauberk of scaled armour, marking him out as a battlemage. The casual grin on the man's face was at odds with his, sharp harsh features. The smile didn't quite reach the young man's eyes.

On his shoulders he carried two satchels, each bag resting on one hip. Kanick, the other half of the impossible plan, had arrived.

"Do you have them?" Asked Regius with a tense snap.

Kanick laughed and gestured to the satchels. "I'm not lugging these around for fun!" When he saw Regius's expression was unchanged his voice softened to a more serious tone. "I have them."

"Sorry," apologised Regius. "I'm anxious, that is all." Kanick nodded. "May I see them, one more time?"

"Very well," Kanick replied with a sigh, "but they haven't changed." The battlemage shrugged off both satchels, laying them to rest on the damp earth. Kanick flicked a bag open to reveal a hinged mahogany box about the size and dimensions of a large book; inside was a rectangular plate made of a strange reflective but dull metal. Regius took the first in his hands and began to examine it while Kanick opened the second bag.

The tablet was densely etched with circular runes and magical characters, so that almost not an inch was untouched. Going from left to right, Regius examined the marks, stopping at the jagged far edge, the mirror of its counterpart. When he was satisfied his carving had been correct, he handed it back to Kanick and took the next.

"Well?" Kanick asked.

"They look correct, though I worry that the seam between the plates will interfere with the spell."

"It didn't in the tests," Kanick reminded him.

"That's true" Regius conceded, his mind struggling to find the words for his misgiving. "Well, almost true. I observed some deviations from the expected efficacy on the spells I tested. This spell is much more powerful, it's on a different scale, and I don't know if that relationship I observed is predictive..." Regius trailed off as Kanick hefted the satchels back onto his shoulders.

"Why even use two plates?" Kanick asked, the question taking Regius by surprise. "Surely the rune is the same either way?"

"I can sense the power in the two halves myself," Regius explained. The rationale was simple to him, but this spell had been his life for the past year. All the problems he had encountered, and their solutions were simply self-evident. "If the runes were whole, the power contained within would mean that any mage who sensed the spell might be able to activate it – inadvertently or otherwise."

Kanick let out a long, slow breath and glanced nervously at the tablets and the camp around them.

"Are you saying Palregon could sense and activate the spell here?" Kanick whispered.