The Spell Crafter

Chapter Seven - The Lesson

Kanick tried to relax and enjoy the next few days at Dorran. Predictably, Bera had declared he would be ready to ride for Aaton after a day but Kanick simply told him to rest. Still, he could sympathise with his apprentice's restlessness and he was worried that there would be no point in investigating Regius's death by the time they arrived. If he had been murdered, whoever started the fire could already be long gone. He wondered why the Arch-Mage hadn't entrusted the investigation to the local enclave; if he had wanted to get Kanick out of his ways surely there were more immediate ways of going about it?

Despite his fears over the investigation, Dorran was a pleasant place to spend a few days recuperating. He spent his mornings at breakfast with the Lord, who, despite being Kanick's polar opposite, had proved entertaining company, in a slightly uncouth kind of way, as well as being a breath of fresh air compared to the diplomatic niceties of the Order.

If Dorran was a breath of fresh air, then Xixi was a hurricane. She was openly scornful of the order, and Kanick's attempts at teaching his apprentice anything.

"You could at least begin by showing him some more complex runes," she chided him over a cup of wine on the second evening, though her tone wasn't too harsh.

Kanick examined the contents of his own cup, thinking about his failed attempt to draw even the simplest rune. He took a swig, the cup loose in his grip, and placed it deliberately on the table, sighing. He brought a gloved hand to his mouth and pulled on the leather fingers, exposing the molten flesh beneath. He displayed his hand in the soft candlelight, attempting to wiggle his fingers but succeeding in only slowly closing his hand slightly.

"My rune-writing days are a long way behind me," he told her.

Xixi paused, the wine cup halfway between the table and her mouth. "The Scar?" She asked, her voice uncharacteristically hushed.

"The Scar," he confirmed. "The spell Regius crafted was powerful and revolutionary, like nothing before." Kanick thought back to those moments, the figure with wings of fire. "Well, nothing since the primordium, anyway."

"Do you believe that?" Xixi asked.

Kanick sucked on his teeth. He knew, but was debating what to tell her. Blast it, he thought.

"When I used the spell, there was a great glow, but everywhere," he told her. "Then a woman with fiery wings appeared, coiled together with fire from the light." He took another draught from his cup. Xixi hadn't moved. "She meant to kill me," Kanick was almost talking to himself now, unburdening. "I felt it.

"Instead, I begged for my life. She told me that no one could wield such power without cost, but I didn't care. I didn't want to die, I was afraid. Even before I woke up back in the Grand Temple, I knew my hands would be useless."

"The woman? You think she was Sanqia, the Pimordial spirit of fire?" There was more than a touch of scepticism in her tone. "You know the primordials destroyed themselves in the creating of the world?"

Kanick blinked and suddenly remembered that Xixi was there. The image of the winged firewoman had been so vivid.

"Not quite, they diffused themselves into the creation of the world... Or so the legends go. The Straits of Sunder were apparently created by the Primordial of Water, and that was only a few thousand years ago. You should read Creatures of Power," he told her with a grin. "Anyway, who knows what she was?" he waved his hand dismissively. "Perhaps she was Sanqia, or perhaps she was just a hallucination. She was right, though, you can't wield magic like that without a cost, and it cost me the use of my hands."