Marsh twisted the ornate fitting on the wall to his right and a small panel slid back to reveal an empty cubbyhole about six inches square. It had been a while since the panel had been opened but there was not a speck of dust to be seen. Marsh placed his hand in the space and felt the magic of the ward wash over his skin. The hairs on the back of his hand stood up and a slight tingling sensation surrounded his wrist. A split second later the wall opposite him opened to reveal a hidden room. Just as it should.
However, had any other hand other than that of Marsh’s been placed in the cubbyhole, the ward would have precipitated a very different outcome. The not opening of the door being the least of the hand owner’s problems.
Marsh strode across his office towards the secret room, his eyes catching a glimpse of his reflection in the huge elaborate mirror on the way. It showed a large Terron man, broad shouldered with a well kept beard. Strong facial features without being overly large, perhaps excluding the wide mouth hidden beneath the quaffed jet black beard. A man approaching middle age, carrying himself with the confidence and assuredness of someone who had experienced much much more. Which, of course, Marsh had.
He paused at the entrance to the secret room and looked from the opulence of his office into the plain, practically empty room that had appeared before him. The hidden room had nothing in it at all except for a square shaped pedestal rising from the centre of the space. Marsh hadn’t felt the need to decorate this room. He was the only one who ever saw it.
On top of the pedestal was a metal bowl and Marsh could already see Medhi’s accuracy spark pulsing with its yellowish hue at the bottom of the bowl. He had known it would be there. The wards he had put in and around the bowl had detected the arrival of the affinity spark yesterday. They had even detected whose spark it was, such was the intricacy of Marsh’s enchantments.
Each spark pulsed with its own distinct energy and colour. Marsh’s own spark was a dark grey or silver colour. Bolo’s was purplish, Alona’s dark green, Tiel’s turquoise and Medhi’s spark which rested in the bowl before him was yellowish. Marsh sighed a long and thoughtful sigh. Medhi was the first sparked affine to die. Ever. And his death complicated things.
“Medhi you idiot,” Marsh whispered to no-one in particular, unless of course Medhi was listening somewhere.
Medhi had been a highly skilled Seeker, loyal and trustworthy. Such loyalty took time to foster and having to start all over again with someone new was very frustrating. He could ill afford the time but what else could he do? Leaving something as powerful as an affinity spark unbonded was not an option and asking for trouble.
Marsh, walked over to the pedestal and picked up the small orb and tossed it up and down in his hand. It was useless to him. It might as well be any old pebble he’d just picked up from the beach for the benefit it would give to him. But to an accuracy affine, well, to one of them, it would be invaluable.
“Medhi, you idiot,” Marsh whispered again.
The bowl, the spark was in, didn’t look anything special. Perhaps, not something you might eat soup out of, but there was nothing particularly magical looking about it. Certainly nothing to indicate it was a very powerful Celestial artifact. In fact, the homing device, as Marsh thought of it, was probably the single most important artifact he owned, thus why he kept it hidden away.
It didn’t do anything flashy or spectacular, in fact, the magic used to activate it was quite simple, but what it did do was extremely important. It created a link between the bowl and a spark. The link was incredibly faint but sufficient to do two things:
Firstly, it allowed Marsh to use the bowl to identify the whereabouts of the spark. It would be impossible for an affine carrying a linked spark to hide from Marsh. Once he had tapped into the magic of the bowl, it would reveal the location of all linked sparks.
Secondly, and this was what made the artifact so valuable to Marsh, the link caused the spark to return to the bowl should it ever become unbonded from its carrier. The only way this could happen, of course, was if the carrier died. The bond between the spark and its carrier was extremely strong and could only be broken by the carrier’s death. However, once the bond was broken, the spark would detect the much fainter link with the homing device and magically materialise in the bowl. This explained why Medhi’s spark rested at the bottom of the bowl and not at the bottom of a cliff in the middle of nowhere.
These two little magical operations made the artifact bowl incredibly powerful to Marsh. It basically meant he could never really lose track of the sparks once it had been linked and if he wanted the spark for some reason, he had only to locate its carrier, kill them, and the spark would be his.
Suffice to say, Marsh had linked all the sparks to the bowl before giving them to the Seekers, including his own son, Tiel.
“Medhi you idiot,” he whispered for the final time before flipping the spark over in his hand and tucking it safely away under his cloak.
Finished here, Marsh resecured the hidden room and made his way towards the main hall.
“Gel,” he said quietly, as he arrived.
The little Caver appeared from behind a pillar at the side of the room.
“Always around when I need you,” Marsh complimented. “I’m heading out and would like some cover.”
Gel nodded, “Where?”
“The Fest,” Marsh said.
Gel just nodded again. He wasn't a man of many words.
YOU ARE READING
Chasing Sparks
Fantasy[Completed] [The Affinity Series: Book 1] The affinities are echoes of magic from a time long past, giving enhanced powers to those that have them. And for any affines that bond with a spark, their powers are increased. One such sparked affine is Ti...
