Magi Saga 1: Epic Calling (13 page)

Amanda imagined that he looked like what Bruce Lee might have looked like if he had made it to fifty in good health and fitness. Gentle Water looked toned and clearly very fit himself, despite being over twice Amanda’s age.

All their training sessions were done bare foot, something Amanda had found weird at first but soon learnt to prefer. There had been the odd time she had stood on something with prickly thorns, but over all she much preferred it now.

The open ground to the tree line was warm and the sun beat down on her shoulders making them shine until she reached the shelter of the woods and proceeded up the hill towards the waiting clearing.

All the way up there, the sight of that spinning pencil remained fixed in her mind, and she wondered if she could do it again sometime. It had been a hell of a trick.

Over the past few weeks, there had been times when Amanda had thought she might mention her concerns about the things she saw to Gentle Water. He seemed interested in all things mystical and maybe he might try to help her with it. She wasn’t sure what he would do, as it was all a bit strange really. She wasn’t even sure if she could explain it to him, or where she would even begin.

There had been a few times when she had seen something or something had moved and Gentle Water had been in the room when it had happened. He never saw it, as far as she knew, and she had very nearly brought it to his attention, but had pulled back at the last instant.

She felt scared about what he might think, scared of his reaction in case he mocked her or blamed her imagination. Maybe he might even laugh at her, she wasn’t sure and she didn’t want that to happen. She had just met him after all, if she went to him and told him she’d been seeing things and could make things move with her mind, although not when she wanted it to happen, he might think he’d moved in with some sort of mad woman and run for the hills. After just having made a friend out of him, she really didn’t want that to happen.

So she had kept it to herself, hoping someday that he might see it or the conversation might get onto that sort of topic and the moment seemed right to mention it. Whatever it might be that made her finally tell him, she wanted it to happen before too long. It had started to bug her a little bit and now she had made a pencil float, and seen it clearly for a good few seconds, she once again thought over the pros and cons of telling him as she moved through the trees.

By the time she reached the clearing, she hadn’t really come to any sort of conclusion about what she should do and had still been turning it over in her mind as she crossed the grass towards where Gentle Water sat meditating. She wasn’t really concentrating on him or the world around her, instead she twisted a length of grass about her fingers and walked in a bit of a daze caused by her thoughts on the floating pencil.

When she looked up she saw that Gentle Water sat meditating in his Lotus Position. But it looked weird, the proportions were off. He looked like he was sat much further back, but he seemed bigger, or maybe closer to her, she stared for a good moment or two, and then the scene before her suddenly made sense.

She felt her legs go very weak beneath her and dropped to the grass, with a slight dull pain in her bum from hitting the ground so suddenly.

She stared up at her friend, jaw slack and her eyes wide from the shock of the impossible feat before her. There he sat, her friend and teacher, meditating and hovering two feet in the air.

For a moment, she just sat there, Gentle Water apparently oblivious to her presence, and she just gawked up at him. Her mind went blank and all thoughts of the pencil were gone, blown away by this revelation. Although she wasn’t sure what it might be a revelation of exactly. One thing was for sure, it seemed to be a day for floating stuff.

As she watched, slowly he sank back to the ground in front of her and relaxed. Opening his eyes, Gentle Water gazed serenely at Amanda, a kind and warm expression on his face. She turned over in her mind what she had just seen, thinking it through. It could be a trick, she’d seen levitating tricks before on TV, but this seemed different, it seemed so much more real.

‘Sorry for the shock, it is time you know,’ he said.

Amanda felt bewildered, and for a second it didn’t register what he had said, then as she digested it, she answered him.

‘I’m sorry, but, knew what? In fact, wait a minute, were you floating just then.’

‘It is time you know truth. Truth of you, and of world.’

Amanda backed up a bit on the grass. ‘Whoa there, wait a feckin’ moment, what are you going on about? No, on second thoughts, answer my question, you were hovering just then, weren’t you?’ She stood up, pointing her finger at him. ‘Don’t deny it, I saw ye. I’m not seeing things here am I? I’m no ejit, and don’t change the subject.’

‘Calm your thoughts Amanda, yes, you are right, I can levitate, and I did it for you to see.’

‘What? You
wanted
me to see it? This is madness.’

‘Please, calm yourself. I explain. It is…complicated.’

‘You can feckin’ say that again.’ Amanda felt like she stood in a whirl wind. Her whole world was being slowly tipped upside down as suddenly the laws of nature didn’t apply any more. It seemed crazy, what on earth was going on here, with things levitating and hovering with total disregard for gravity and the laws of physics. Her thoughts where all over the place as Gentle Water guided her to a rug and gently sat her down and gave her a bottle of water. She took a sip and looked over at her friend, who now sat opposite her waiting for her to relax.

Amanda closed her eyes and calmed herself down. Sweeping the chaotic mess of questions with no answers from her mind she forced herself to take a few deep breaths and let her cares wash away. After a few moments, she opened her eyes and looked at Gentle Water. ‘Okay, grand, I accept what I saw, I accept that it seemed real, and that’s all I need to know about that for the moment. You said I need to know the truth, what truth?’ She figured the floating pencil could wait, for the moment.

He smiled, ‘Thank you Amanda. I will try to explain. If you have question, please ask.’

‘I will,’ she replied. She sat there, tensed up, ready for a bomb shell to hit her.

‘Amanda. You are Magi,’ he said, pronouncing it with a hard G so it sounded similar to “Ma-Guy”. He paused for a moment, letting it hang in the air for a second.

Amanda looked at him confused, she’d never heard that word before in her life and had no idea what it meant. She frowned at him, ‘Excuse me?’ she said.

‘You are Magi, ah Magic user, Mage, Magician, ah Wizard, or Witch, or Warlock. It has many names, but they mean same thing, you can use Magic.’

‘Magic,’ Amanda said flatly, sounding unimpressed.

‘Magic. Not card tricks, not sawing woman in half, and no rabbits out of hats, but real Magic. Magic that can make me float, let me read people’s minds, shoot lightning from my hand. Anything, if you are powerful enough.’

Amanda sat there a little dumbfounded, one eyebrow raised as she listened to what Gentle Water was saying and enjoying his soft Chinese accent. “Lightning from my hands” he’d said, almost as if he’d known. But no, it was banjaxed, utterly crazy, and yet, something rang true here, something sounded right, like a jigsaw piece in her mind moving slowly into place, but it had a way to go yet.

‘Are you ok?’ Gentle Water asked.

‘Yeah, I’m ok. But Magic? Magic! Now this is madness so it is.’

‘Is it? Thank about it, Amanda. You have just made Pencil float.’

‘Feck?’ She answered, ‘I didn’t tell you that.’

Gentle Water smiled at his apprentice. ‘No, you did not. You did not need to tell me. I can read your mind and I can see over great distances.’

‘This is ridiculous,’ Amanda cried, trying to dismiss it

‘Then how do you explain the hovering pencil, or hovering teacher, or lightening you threw from your hands in New York alleyway?’

‘How do you…no, it’s a trick, it’s…not real.’

Gentle Water didn’t reply right away, he seemed to be thinking things through for a second as Amanda watched.

‘Then explain this, my apprentice,’ he said, and flicked his hands up to either side of his head, fingers pointed up, and on the end of each one there appeared a candle flame. Amanda felt her eyes widen in slight shock as she watched while her stomach did a back flip.

‘Or this,’ her teacher said again, and flicked one arm through a gesture in front of him, the candle flames gone, but now his whole right arm had caught fire. He held it there clearly unaffected by the heat Amanda could feel that it generated.

‘Now, let me show you many things,’ he said as the fire went out, then he looked deep into her eyes, and without moving his lips, she heard his voice in her mind quite clearly say, ‘I think you will be impressed Amanda.’

The sensation of suddenly not being on the ground felt odd. She had lifted several feet off the ground, but nothing pulled her up, or held her aloft. Her first instinct was to struggle as she panicked that she would fall. Her legs cycled, her arms went straight out to balance herself, even though she didn’t need to. After a moment, she regained control of herself as she realised she didn’t need to do these things, Gentle Waters Magic held her securely in place.

Looking down, she saw her mentor rise from the ground a few meters below and float up to her, when he reached her, he simply said, ‘Watch.’

Gentle Water turned and floated slightly to one side and gestured to the clearing. Suddenly, some grass rose from the ground, leaves fell from the trees and collapsed into a shape on the floor, it was done in a matter of seconds, before they changed into metal and plastic to form a car. Then it changed shape, becoming a Motor Bike, then a table and chairs, and then suddenly collapsing into about fifty footballs which bounced around. Seconds later Amanda noticed she was returning slowly to the ground, when she landed, she quickly picked up a football to check she wasn’t dreaming. The ball seemed real.. The football suddenly shifted in her hands grew soft and fluffy and before she realised what had happened, she found herself holding a chicken which struggled in her grasp.

Amanda yelped and dropped it, when it hit the ground, it exploded into hundreds of white butterflies which fluttered away around her.

Amanda looked up at her mentor, knowing a look of wonder and shock must be etched upon her face. Gentle Water just smiled, and suddenly it felt like her stomach had been left behind while a fleeting feeling of weightlessness passed over her. The change had been almost instantaneous, they were no longer in Ireland, but instead they were stood on the rooftop of Edinburgh Castle, the city spread out around them from their high vantage point. Amanda stepped over to the parapet and took hold of it. Solid cold stone beneath her fingers, it was real.

The scene shifted again, and this time they were in an empty pod on the London eye, shielded from the wind she felt on the castle roof a moment ago. From here she overlooked the Thames and the Houses of Parliament, a view she had never seen before. Seconds later they were in Paris, then Berlin, Rome, Monte Carlo, Madrid, Cardiff and finally back to the clearing.  In each place they stayed for no longer then a few seconds, long enough for Amanda to know they were actually there and that it wasn’t an hallucination.

She dropped to the floor, her breathing had sped up and she felt out of breath, she could feel her heart hammering away in her chest as her mind raced to make sense of what had just happened.

‘How you feel?’ Gentle Water asked.

‘I’m…I’m not sure. I…it was…I can’t…’

Gentle Water knelt down before her and put his hand on her shoulder, ‘It is lot to take in, I know, but I leave you in no doubt about reality of Magic.’

Amanda nodded, feeling utterly numbed by the experience.

Magic, it seemed, was real, really real. Everything Amanda knew of the world had just come crashing down around her, and that made her feel incredibly vulnerable, like a new-born child who knew nothing about life. She looked up at her Mentor as he continued to hold her, his face was serene, calm, caring.

She sighed to herself and looked down at the rug they were sat upon, focusing on the weave and the pattern, feeling the coarse threads beneath her fingers.

Slowly she calmed down, her thoughts ordered themselves and she took a grip on reality once more. Gentle Water seemed to sense her thoughts and moved a short distance away to give her some space.

As she sat there, thoughts and questions started to form in her mind. If magic existed, and Magi, there must be much more she didn’t know about. She looked up at Gentle Water, who now sat a few feet away on the rug.

‘You have questions,’ he said.

Amanda nodded.

‘Then ask.’

‘So, Magic is real, and those who, um, use it are called Magi?’

Gentle Water nodded once, slowly to her.

‘And you say I’m a Magi?’

Her mentor nodded once again.’

‘So, can you tell me a little more? I mean, what else is there out there which I don’t know about?’

‘I not tell you everything now, it is too much, you need time. So I will just tell you basics for now, which will be enough.’

‘Okay,’ Amanda said.

‘First, obviously, Magic is real, but it only be worked by those who by chance, have connection to it. You are born with connection, it not something anyone learn. But even if you born with connection, you still need to learn it. We are sure there are people in world who have connection and don’t know about Magic. But even if you know nothing of Magic, this connection to Essentia often manifests in day to day life of potential Magi, they often very lucky people who seem to nearly always do well. If you are born with connection, usually you will have Epiphany, moment of enlightenment where you realise your potential and use Magic for first time.’