Magi Saga 1: Epic Calling (21 page)

But for now, Amanda found herself on her ass once more in the cool morning air, panting to try and catch her breath from the sparing fight she had just lost against Gentle Water. She had lost count of the number of times she had fought him by now, but could count the times she had won on her fingers. He was leagues ahead of her in his ability and it wasn’t at all surprising she ended up on her back or face down in the grass at the end of each sparing match following another twist and tumble. He never really hurt her, much as she didn’t hurt him, but both of them had the bruises and grazes that inevitably came from such intense training. Both accepted them as a part and parcel of the training regime they were going through. Amanda sometimes saw them as little trophies when she got one from a mile stone fight, especially if it was one of the very few fights she had won.

Gentle Water reached down and taking her hand lifted her to her feet where she stood stooped over for a moment catching her breath.

‘Well done Amanda, you held your own well.’

‘Thank you, but it wasn’t enough was it,’ she gasped as she slowly caught her breath. ‘Can you teach me Magic that stops me getting tired, or out of breath,’ she said, and inspected the growing red welt on her arm where that last punch had landed, ‘or from getting bruised for that matter.’ She wiggled her fore arm out in front of her face to indicate the mark there. ‘That was one hell of a final punch. It felt like an electric shock, I’m going to have an ugly bruise there later on so I am.’

Gentle Water nodded solemnly, ‘Yes, you will. It is the Magic you learn next, it is basically Essentia, concentrated and released in a strike.’

Amanda winced slightly as she flexed her hand at the end of the bruised arm, she sucked in breath through her teeth as it stung slightly. ‘I thought Essentia fuelled life, you’re saying it can hurt it too?’

‘That is correct. If concentrated and released suddenly, it can cause pain, like in your arm. You are not hurt too badly I hope?’

‘No, it just feckin’ stings a little, I’m being a wimp really.’ She flexed her hand once more and then let the arm drop to her side. Both where still hot from the fight and in the cool air there was a slight haze of steam rising from them as they talked. Amanda’s thermal leggings were thick and dark, like her top and gloves, and, despite the slight wetness from her fall, she felt very warm in herself. Her face, exposed to the morning air was both hot and cold, her cheeks and nose were flushed crimson while the rest of her face had already lost its tan and was looking quite pale. She had her hair tied back in a ponytail, it was still a little wet from the shower earlier and was now full of morning due and clung to her back and shoulders. Amanda thought Gentle Water looked flushed from the fight as well, a film of sweat covered his bald head and his cheeks were full of colour. He wore black loose fitting garments, and as with most of his clothing, it was tailored in a traditional Oriental fashion that conjured images of Tibetan Monks and forgotten mountain top monasteries.

Gentle Water looked up and waited for Amanda to finish drying her face with a towel she had hung from a nearby branch. ‘I will now teach you about channelling Essentia so you can strike in a way that is much more powerful than normal.’

‘Sounds grand to me GW.’ Amanda smiled at him. She didn’t feel humiliated by the fall she had taken at all, and by now apart from a few muscle aches and pains she felt ready to learn. Her arm still hurt, there was a dull throbbing where the strike had landed and her blood was being pumped into and through it.

One thing Gentle Water was very keen to hammer into Amanda was that Magic could be a great tool to have, and could do wonderful things, but it could also come to rule your life, something which must never happen. He had told her on a few occasions about how Magic and the abilities it gave you can all too easily go to your head, lead you into thinking your better than anyone else and make you very egotistical. The powers it gives you are seductive; they make your life easier, and can quickly turn a well-adjusted person into a monster. In the history of the Magi there have been far too many Magi than would be possible to count who have burnt themselves out or who have succumbed to their darker, baser emotions and thoughts because of their Magical Ability. Magi who have set themselves up as figure heads of cults, leaders of Magically successful businesses or criminal empires, or Magi who have gone slightly off the rails and have gone on killing sprees in their madness. In the end it’s up to the Magi community at large to bring them down before they either kill people, or expose the Magi to the world and destroy the Magi community in the process.

He told her that Magi tend to get like this if they come to rely on Magic to do everything for them. Magi can make Magic do whatever they like, and it’s tempting to just
think
your teeth clean and to
think
your clothes on. It’s tempting to float everywhere and never walk but to remain in the peak of physical fitness no matter how much of a slob you are. But to do that is to step out onto a very slippery slope which is very difficult to get off of.

It was for this reason that Amanda said nothing about the bruises and the aches to Gentle Water. She had chosen to let them heal naturally, to let the magic of Mother Nature do its thing. She wasn’t dying after all, it was only a few twinges and pulled muscles, she would survive them all and be stronger for it.

‘As I say, Essentia can make people feel pain. All life has Essentia passing through it, feeding it, if you disrupt that flow you can cause much pain. So, you need to draw Essentia into you, through concentrating and realising the truth of what you are doing. You store that energy inside you like battery, ready for it to be used. This stored energy can be used to fuel your Magic, making it stronger, but for today we will just learn how to release it. Remember to keep your thoughts strong but calm, like water in lake. Are you ready to try?’

So Amanda gave it a go and focused her mind on gathering in the local Essentia into herself and imagining herself as a giant battery. It took a few goes for her to ease herself into doing it but before long she managed to suck in her first amount of excess Essentia and felt the rush and intense feeling of energy that swept over her. It caught her by surprise and she gasped as she did it, these intense sensations were unlike anything she had felt before.

The feeling wasn’t an unpleasant one, it was just a surprise to her as she wasn’t expecting such a thing, so it made her catch her breath somewhat so that she couldn’t hold onto the energy. She glanced over at Gentle Water who was watching and she caught him smiling to himself upon seeing this reaction in her. Amanda smiled back and went back to the task in hand. She concentrated again and imagined herself sucking in the Essentia all around her, and once more she felt the rush and the surging of energy that came with it, her heart rate jumped and she imagined it might be a feeling akin to the rush of taking a hit of some kind of drug. Except this drug was life itself.

This time she held it, as the feeling of energy subsided, she felt very aware that she was holding an excess amount of Essentia within her. She held it for a little while and once she felt sure she could do it again, she let it go, and the Life Essence flooded out of her. An act which came with its own feeling that was a little odd, but not totally unpleasant, it was like a chill going down your spine but a good bit stronger than that.

She relaxed herself and concentrating once more she pulled in the Essentia, held it, and let it go again. She did this a few times over, each time holding the Essence for a different amount of time and trying to release the Essentia in a big rush and direct it out of one hand. It was a little harder to do than she thought it might be but she kept on at it and cycled through the absorbing, holding and releasing over and over until it started to become almost like second nature to her.

It was early afternoon when Gentle Water returned to her side after leaving her to it to practice his Martial Arts on the other side of the clearing. The grass was still a little damp and the sky, although bright, was overcast and grey.

‘Now you are ready to focus energy into attack called Essentia Strike. The Strike is most powerful against living things, it is very painful, and causes a lot of damage. Most Magi will have an Aegis to defend against it, but Essentia Strike can be used to overload Aegis. Come, I show you.

Amanda nodded and followed Gentle Water a little way off towards a nearby tree. He stood next to it and turned to address Amanda.

I will use Strike against this tree to show you its power. I might add extra effect in too. Okay, stand back.’

Amanda did so, stepping off to one side to get a better vantage point and watch her Teacher at work. She concentrated a little and the golden glow of Essentia came into view around her, and as she watched, she could see the local Essence get drawn into Gentle Waters arm and fist, it was sucked into him and his arm gained a soft pulsating glow as Amanda watched. She was vaguely aware that he was also working some other kind of Magic, but she didn’t pay too much attention to it.

Gentle Water then entered into an attacking stance and tensed up as he drew back his fist, sucking in air through his teeth as he psyched himself up for the attack. With an ear piercing yell he thrust his balled fist forward and seemed to focus on hitting something on the other side of the tree. There was a loud wooden smashing and cracking sound as his fist struck the trunk, splinters of wood and bark, large and small, all of them jagged edged, exploded out from the point of impact as Gentle Waters fist passed through the trunk. At the same time as he hit the trunk, the glow in his arm flared brightly as the energy flowed from his arm into the tree as he released the stored Essentia. The sudden burst of energy and excitement dissipated just as suddenly as it had begun and the wooden splinters landed all about his feet. He stood there holding his stance at the end of his punch for a moment before straightening up and gently exhaling.

Amanda’s jaw had dropped, her mouth open in shock at the huge gouge that was bitten out the side of the tree trunk, bark hung limply and sap dripped from the ragged edges as she looked.

‘Feck me, that’s amazing,’ she marvelled.

Gentle Water stole a look at his fist and flexed the fingers, there didn’t seem to be a scratch on him. ‘It is just example, but it show you what Essentia Strike can do. I will fix tree later,’ he was saying, and he went on to say other things as he stepped away from the tree thinking Amanda would follow him.

But Amanda had not moved and was still looking at the chunk of missing tree. That was easily the most impressive thing she had seen in a while, and she was in awe of the idea of being able to summon all that power. She looked down at her own fist and then back at the tree trunk and had a crazy idea. It didn’t look all that difficult to do, in fact it looked fairly straight forward. She could do that easily, and she stepped up to the tree.

It was a spur of the moment action brought on by the confusion and adrenalin rush of what she had just seen, and later on she supposed she can’t have been thinking straight as she couldn’t remember her reasoning at the time and how she came to the conclusion that she could make this work. But that was over thinking it, because there wasn’t much of a thought process involved, it was a spur of the moment action that was over in a second. She simply didn’t think.

She stepped forward, drew in the Essence that was around her into her arm, and then punched the tree, above the place where Gentle Water had hit it, and slammed her fist into the bark as hard as she could, fully expecting the explosion of wood and her fist to pass through the trunk unharmed.

The Essentia in her arm was released, and there was a slight dint in the bark which she noticed much later on, but her hand had been brought to a sudden stop by the trunk. This stopping of her punch was accompanied by the sickening, stomach churning sound of several of the bones in her hand breaking with a loud layered cracking noise.

Amanda stood silent for a beat, her eyes went wide with shock and a look of utter horror fell over her face, a beat later, the pain shot up through her hand and arm, while tears welled in her eyes.

She pulled back from the tree and looked down at her hand as the scream grew in her throat.

Amanda’s hand looked a mess, it’s not often you get to see your own bones sprouting from your body at impossible angles, and this was the first time Amanda had ever seen her bones. They had ripped through her flesh and skin and jutted out of the top of her hand and down though her palm, deep crimson sticky blood welled up and flowed over her hand and fingers, dripping to the grass. She could also see that lots of her bones were out of joint as well as broken, her knuckles were in odd places and not where they should be.

Her hand felt burning hot, the pain lanced up into her head as she stared incredulously at the mess at the end of her arm. The scream came then, like a force of nature, unstoppable, it rose out of her body and sounded over the clearing for the entire world to hear. Her legs gave way beneath her and the land tipped as she dropped to the floor, her scream having now turned to pained sobbing.

Gentle Water was there then, holding her in his arms and telling her it’s all going to be alright, but she could barely hear him, the pain was blotting out everything else as her mind tried to deal with the intense pain. She felt woozy and hot, the blood drained from her face as she went white and began feeling dizzy. She was vaguely aware of Gentle Water holding her arm with one hand and holding his other hand over her shattered fist. That’s when the world went black and she slipped into oblivion.