The Phoenix Ring (The Thunderheart Chronicles Book 1) (9 page)

              "Uh, no, I can't reach."

              "Great, we're gonna be stuck like this forever.  How could this possibly get worse?"

              "Uh, guys, that's just wrong."  said a female voice.

              "Never mind, it just got worse."  said Timothy.

              "Hi Eleanor,"  Aidan said, his face pressed to the floor.

              "Hi Aidan.  What did you do this time?"

              "The idiot managed to stick us together! What does it look like?"

              "Do you really want me to answer that?  What spell did he use exactly?"

              "Just
Yok
."  Aidan mumbled.

              "Ok, I'll try to fix it. 
Eslang.
"  Eleanor said.

              The two boys fell apart, the last of the papers falling to the floor.  Timothy jumped to his feet, brushing himself off, and Aidan slowly stood up.

              "Thank you
so
much." Timothy said to Eleanor, who was trying not to smile.

              "What's all of this?"  Aidan asked, picking up some of the papers.

              "It
was
our mail.  We get the day off so we can read through it. These are for you."

              Timothy handed Aidan two envelopes.  The first was a golden color, with a red seal stamped with an R on the back. 

              Aidan was more than a little surprised, and so opened that one first.

              Inside was a piece of parchment with long, wavy handwriting.  It read:

            
 
Aidan Rune,

              We all hope that you managed to escape the fire without any injuries.  Don't worry, no one else was hurt, though there were a few singed eyebrows.  We are glad to hear that you were accepted into Fort Phoenix, though you will be greatly missed.  You would have made a great Ranger.

              If you ever need our help, feel free to put out the word.  We'll hear about it.

              Good luck,

              The King's Rangers

              Aidan put that letter down and picked up the other envelope.  It was far less extravagant, there was no seal at all.

              Aidan pulled out the parchment inside and began to read the familiar handwriting:

            
 
Aidan,

              I am so glad to hear that you are doing so well.  You had me worried for a while.  They sent someone from the castle to explain that you were going to learn how to use magic.

              The orphanage is doing fine, we got four more boys this month.  We have also started to receive a bit of money from the castle, since you are doing something so important.  When will I get to see you again?

              I'll always love you,

              Your Mother

P.S. I know you are still angry, and now probably wondering who your father was.  I have many regrets about him, but you are not one of them.  I wish I had more information for you.

              Aidan felt more than a little homesick when he smelled the familiar, implacable, scent that meant his mother had been cooking, though it was quickly replaced by the usual rage.

              He gently put the letters under his cot and turned to Timothy.

              "What else are we going to do today?"

              "Well, I hope you're going to prepare yourself, I know I am."  Timothy said.

              "Why?"  Aidan asked, puzzled.

              "Because," Eleanor answered, her voice tense, "Tomorrow's your calling ceremony."

6

              Aidan stood in front of the entire assembly of Fort Phoenix.  Many of the wizards were winking at him. Almost all of them had come to him before the ceremony to ask for his apprenticeship.  Aidan had not guaranteed any of them.

              Now he stood before everyone, right outside the entrance to the vault, which looked eerily like a tomb in the morning mists.  Timothy was next to him, with Edwin standing behind them both.  The younger boy's knees were trembling slightly, and Aidan saw him clenching a rowan ring in his robe’s sleeve.

              The robes were white, with gold stars aligned so perfectly they could only have been made by magic.  The boys wore matching white (slightly girlish) shoes.

              Timothy was up first.  As Edwin began to read the list of ancestors, he kept looking distractedly up at the sky, as if he was expecting something.  Aidan noticed the old warlock had a bandage on his head and his leg was propped up with a stick.

             
He probably fell up the steps trying to get to dinner
, Aidan thought, with a little more malice than was necessary. 

              "Do you, Timothy Ashdown, agree to use your magic only to serve Sortiledge, to never harm those weaker than yourself, and to treat all the races fairly and without bias?" Edwin asked.

              Timothy stepped forward and said, in a surprisingly strong voice, "I do."

              "Then go, fulfill your destiny as a King’s Sorcerer, for the good of Sortiledge!"

              The vault opened, and Timothy slowly walked into the dark hole.

              There seemed to be an eternity of silence for Aidan as he waited for some sign that his friend was alive. 

              Finally, there was a shout at the door.

              Edwin waved his hand, and Timothy stepped into the light.

              He seemed to radiate power, the bottom of his robe was torn and singed, his hands were smoking, and there was a smile on his face.  A large blue Soulrock hung from a glistening silver chain around his neck.

              Then he ruined the affect by blacking out in front of everyone.

              Malachi was at his side faster than any man could run, checking for a pulse.

              "He's ok!"  The warlock shouted.

              The crowd slowly began to settle down as Timothy was carried away.

              "Aidan Rune," Edwin yelled, "Ancestors:  unknown." 

              Aidan ground his teeth together.

              "Do you, Aidan Rune, agree to use your magic only to serve Sortiledge, to never harm those weaker than yourself, and to treat all the races fairly and without bias?"

              "I do!"  Aidan yelled, trying to release some anger.

              "Then go, fulfill your destiny as a King’s Sorcerer."  He spit out the last two words like they had a bad taste, and Aidan began to feel a red haze.

              The vault opened, and Aidan stepped down into the darkness.

              As soon as the boulder rolled over the entrance, the cave was thrust into darkness.    Aidan instinctively put a hand up to his face, but he couldn't see a single finger.

              Then, somewhere ahead, Aidan saw a faint purple glow.  He began to walk towards, it, using the rough wall to guide him. 

              The tunnel curved left, then right, and finally, Aidan came to it.

              The first one he saw was just lying on the ground.  It was a small, orange Soulrock, perfect in its own way.

              Then he saw another, laying in a shelf hollowed out in a rock. Then another, and another.

              Finally, he came to a hollowed out room in the rock and stopped dead.

              There were thousands, maybe millions of Soulrocks.  They were in every nook and cranny, atop the stone and on shelves, there were even some hanging on the ceiling.  They came in every size, shape and color, on every type of jewelry imaginable.  And the cave!  The cave was massive, something that Aidan had never even dreamed of.  It could have easily held twenty people, plus all the Soulrocks anyone could ever want.  The walls were rough hewn, as if someone had just used a pickaxe and decided to make a giant room, there were even stalagmites hanging from the ceiling.

              Aidan stood speechless for a few minutes, just staring at the Soulrocks, feeling the power course through the room into him.

             
If this ever got into the wrong hands…

              After about a minute of staring, Aidan finally pulled the stick of rowan wood that he had been provided out of his sleeve.

              He had to perform one spell.  It was simple, just
yok
. Come.  However, his mind had to communicate to the magic in the room exactly what he wanted to come to him.  It was an exercise that Aidan had been practicing for a little while using pieces of rowan wood, but they couldn’t even begin to replace the raw power of a Soulrock.

              If it was performed right, then all the Soulrocks with the same or close to the same amount of magic as him would come to him.  He would then have to master the Soulrock, which would be an excruciating process, as Eleanor had told him.

              He raised his hand and felt the waves of magic coming from the room in front of him.  He had always felt a little bit of magic, though he had never known how to identify it from anything else.  Now, in this room, the magic was so strong he was almost overwhelmed by it.

              Aidan closed his eyes and was about to say the spell when he realized something.  If he tried to perform any spell in this room, the results would be multiplied tenfold.  He had to rethink the entire magic process, cutting back most of his power. 

              He closed his eyes again, feeling the magic flow around him and into him.

             
"Yok."

              He only let a little bit of magic out, but he felt it go into the air around him anyways.

              He imagined the Soulrock he might retrieve, he was thinking it would probably be red, or orange.

              Then, butterflies in his stomach, he opened his eyes.

              There was nothing.

              Not the nothing as in emptiness, just a complete lack of change in the magic of the room.

              Aidan stepped back, surprised.

             
Did I do it wrong?  Is there more to the spell?

              Aidan knew that Soulrocks did not have a name in The Sorcerer’s Tongue, which was why young mages simply used the word
yok.

              He closed his eyes and put some more power into the spell.

             
"Yok!"

              He opened his eyes.

              Again, nothing.

              Aidan began trying each spell he knew, starting with adding things to his base spell and finally trying elementals.

              The rocks didn't even twitch, though he did manage to knock down a stalagmite with an earth spell.

              Eventually, Aidan felt a hand on his shoulder and spun around, rowan wand at the ready.

              "Relax, it's just me."  Malachi said.  "What seems to be the problem?  We thought you might be… hurt."

             
In other words, you thought I might be dead
.  Aidan thought, feeling a little anger rise in the pit of his stomach.

              "I don't know, the magic won't work."

              "Show me."  The warlock said.

              And so Aidan did.  First he showed Malachi, then Edwin, who seemed to be almost happy, and each and every wizard that had agreed to take him on in the camp.  At one point, Timothy and Eleanor came down to see his failure.

              Finally, right as the sun began to set, Bartemus came down into the cave already packed with wizards and requested that he see what all the noise was about.

              Aidan finally lost it.

              "I can’t do it!" he yelled, “I’ve been trying all day, It isn’t going to word!”

              Everyone turned and stared at him, and he mentally began kicking himself.  In truth, he was more disappointed than anyone else in the room.  In his mind, he had failed to become a Ranger, and now he was failing to follow the path of a sorcerer. 

              Bartemus stepped forward.

              "Do it one more time, then you can be done."

              "Yes sir,"  Aidan said, greatly relieved.  "
Yok!
"

              To everyone's immense surprise, a large blue Soulrock attached to an expensive looking ring fell from a shelf.

              "Someone knocked that down!"  Timothy yelled, but his voice was lost among the excitement of the crowd.

             
This is just another bit of entertainment for them.
  Aidan thought. 
It's the same as sending young people into this stupid cave and gambling on their life.

              His hand clenched tighter around the rowan stick he had been holding.

              Somehow someone had brought him the Soulrock and laid it in front of him on the rocks.

              Aidan's felt his heart begin to defiantly hammer in his chest as the wizards began to yell for him to touch the rock.

              Then he actually felt heat at the tips of his fingers as the anger and magic within him sought an escape.

              The small part of his brain that was still thinking logically told him that he had to find something to cool himself off before he blew the cave and everyone in it into magical bits.  Then he realized that the outlet for his anger was the very thing that was causing it.

              He reached out his middle finger and just barely brushed the surface.

              He knew in a moment that the Soulrock was not his.  It felt foreign, weak, and so small.

              It was like trying to fit a horse into the little chicken coop back at the orphanage. 

              He opened his eyes and saw the rock lying in his hand, though he did not know how it got there.  It was vibrating, slowly at first, but then it began to move faster and faster.

              One of the wizards caught on faster than the rest.

              "Everybody duck!"

              Everyone fell to their knees except Aidan, who was still staring at the blue gem.

              He felt the power leave the crystal a moment before it threw him against the wall, smashing wizards into each other and knocking down at least half of the Soulrocks in the room. 

              "Is everyone okay?"  One of the wizards yelled.

              The others began to stand up and find their bearings, not without some cursing. 

              Bartemus walked to the front of the crowd and stood on a large rock so that everyone could see him.

              "Sorcerers!" he yelled.  "We have never seen anything like this before, so Malachi, myself, and three others are going to try attempt to understand what has happened here.   Aidan, you may return to your quarters until further notice."

              "Wait." said a voice at the top of the entrance.

              Everyone turned to see Edwin, awkwardly favoring one leg.

              "The boy has to have a master, Soulrock or no.  Any volunteers?"
              Aidan knew that almost every single one of these wizards would have gladly taken him on had he acquired a Soulrock.  Instead, they looked at the ground and shuffled their feet.

              Aidan's fury began to rise again.

              Edwin smiled.  "Well, then he will have to be sent home-"

              He was cut off by Bartemus.  "I'll take him."

              Edwin's smile faltered.

              "Are you sure, Barty? This is a daunting task for an elderly man who has never taken an apprentice."

              Bartemus’s eyes were steel as he answered. "I'm positive.  Follow me boy, we are going to need to talk."

              He brushed down the path past the speechless councilor and out the entrance.

              Aidan followed, "accidentally" knocking into Edwin as he passed.

              "The Soulrock exploded because you put so much power into it.  It never would have done that if you were weaker, or its true master. "