First and foremost, for those who missed it:

An Overdue Apology

This is the final part to this section. As is the case anytime I finish a section, there is no voting on the next part, however there will be a question in order to define an event taking place in the next section. There might also be a slight branch into a small mini story related to this one, where I lay out some backstory happening to someone Vaik will meet very soon.

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Previous Part: Part 15

Introduction: Prelude

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--Vaik's Story - Part Sixteen--

It seemed pointless to me to try and push my magic in. After all, forcing more into a jar didn't remove what was already there. I figured if I pulled the wrongness out then somehow her body could heal itself. I wasn't quite sure how, but I figured it was similar to when my mother would give me bark tea in order to bring my fever down.

Closing my eyes I tried to reach out and grab the wrongness but I couldn't seem to do it like I did with the magic. The magic...of course. I puzzled for a moment and then imagined the magic flowing through me forming into a hand to grasp the wrongness. To my amazement it actually worked. The magic flowed out of my arms and I could almost see it grab hold of the wrongness in Aine.

With a mental heave I tried to pull the wrongness out of her body. It wouldn't budge. I frowned as I probed around the edges. To my shock I found that not only could I now 'see' the wrongness I could sense things about it. For example it was not stationary, it seemed to be flowing through her body, focusing as a red hot point at certain sections.

I pushed at one spot and again my magic forced it down only to have it pop back up as I let go. I started to get the feeling that I couldn't just toss the wrongness aside. It felt kind of like lifting a heavy weight with an arm fully outstretched. The body just didn't have the strength for it. I decided to pull the wrongness out the way it seemed to want to, back along the path of my magic.

Once again grasping it with my magic I took a deep breath and pulled. It resisted, but I could sense it moving. It would indeed move along my magic but I needed more strength. So I drew even more into myself until I felt as if I was standing in a blizzard in my smallclothes. When I thought my fingers would surely fall off of magical frostbite I focused on the wrongness and pulled with every shred of magic I had.

Once again it resisted me until without warning, it came free and flooded into my body. I think I might have screamed as the pain hit me, but truth be told, I can barely remember what happened in the next few seconds. All I recall is pain, such pain as cannot be imagined, only felt.

I slammed into the wall behind me and then slid to the ground as every muscle convulsed. I curled up into a ball as I tried to cope with the sensation flooding through me. My insides felt as if I was on fire.

Then I recall then the eerie sensation of my body not being my own. There was pain, but the places were odd in ways I somehow knew were wrong. I recall a burning on my upper chest that somehow felt larger, and a burning in my loins that was alien to any experience. There was a tiny tight pain in the pit of my stomach. It was when I felt like my throat was being choked that some part of me understood it was not my pain I was feeling. I had taken on the pain from Aine.

Only one spot remained cool, a tight knot of magic somehow 'centered' in my being. Reacting more on instinct then thought I retreated into that cool refuge. But as the world grew dimmer I had a terrible moment of clarity where I knew if I completely retreated into the pool of magic I would never come back.

So I once again grasped it and this time I pushed out. With every shred of will I had I forced the pain away from my body. Slowly, like stripping out of wet clothes I started to succeed. The air around me seemed to grow warm and then burning hot as the pain was thrust out. Then it was gone.

I lay there on the floor, shivering in the sudden cold of the magic. I barely had the presence of mind to release it before blackness swept me into blissful emptiness.

I awoke some time later and there was a moment of amusement where I wondered if I would ever again wake up under normal circumstances. I felt utterly drained, as if I had spent a week working in the fields without pause. Strangely I didn't feel ill like I would have thought, just...tired. My skin felt raw however.

I was not surprised to see Fern sitting on the edge of the bed looking down at me. Somehow I had sensed her presence before I had even opened my eyes.

“Drink.” She said firmly, holding a bowl to my mouth.

I sipped a bit and almost choked at the chalky taste.

“Drink.” She commanded in a more forceful tone, her lips pressed tight with concern and anger. “You have depleted massive amounts of your vitality. This will help replace that.”

I managed to get down a few more sips and then coughed. “Aine?” I rasped.

Fern hesitated and for a moment and I feared the worse. “She is completely better.” She said, but she did not smile. “I felt an incredible surge of magical force and when we found you...you were on the floor, naked and without a shred of hair on your body, and Aine cradling your head and crying.”

“No hair?” I asked shocked, and managed to raise a hand to feel my face. My eyebrows were gone and I now noticed my head was chillier then usual. It seemed that last flash of heat had been more real then I thought.

“What did you do?” Fern asked sharply, but in the new strange sense I was becoming aware of I could tell that she was more worried then mad.

“I...I tried to help with her pain.” I said. “I saw how you did it with the boy and I tried to copy it.”

“You tried to copy...you...fool!” She spat, her eyes flashing with anger. “What would every induce you to try something so pig-headed without one iota of magical understanding! You could have killed yourself! Or her!”

“When I touched her I had felt her pain.” I was too drained to raise my voice, but I managed a bite to the words. “I couldn't leave her like that, not after feeling it.”

“You felt her pain?” She seemed shocked now. “You shouldn't be able to sense like that yet. You have had no training.”

“I can't explain it. When I touched her skin I could feel the wrongness inside her.”

“And so you risked killing her before talking to me?” She was not about to be placated. “Magic isn't something you can just jump into without training! Tell me how you cured her!”

I struggled to recall what had happened. I told her of the feeling of wrongness everywhere and how I had grabbed it with my magic and pulled it out. I also managed a slightly more jumbled account of what came after. She sat through it all with a face pale with shock.

“You are telling the truth?” She asked at the end.

“Why would I lie?” I replied tartly.

She set the bowl down and gently took my hand. “I'm sorry Vaik. I did not mean to doubt you. But what you describe is impossible. What I did with the boy was take away the feeling of pain so he could sleep. The sickness inside him was still is there. Sometimes we can use magic to cause a wound to cure more quickly although we rarely do so because a person will feel all the pain that comes with the normal healing compressed into the space of a few seconds.”

She hesitated and then went on. “ I saw to Aine after we brought you up here. There is not a mark on her! She was as healthy as the day she was born! According to her there was no pain, no suffering, just a sudden feeling of wholeness. You somehow took not only the pain but the actual injuries from her!”

I thought of how I had felt pain in parts of a phantom body that I now could guess were probably Aine's breasts and...other parts. “I think I did.” I told her. “But I didn't mean to. I just was trying to pull the pain out and it all came at once. Then there was this burning sensation and I used magic to force it out.”

She shook her head. “I have read of this in books, but no mage has ever had the power to heal more then a small wound this way.” Her face paled again. “I know intellectually that a sorcerer will have great power, but to see it for myself is terrifying. You have drawn more power in one night then I could in a month. We need to get you to the Ulln as soon as possible so you can learn how to control this power you have.”

“How long will we be here?” I asked, glad to change the subject.

“I'm not sure.” She told me. “First you must rest from this. Even as powerful as you are no mortal person can channel that much magic without cost. Then we must find a caravan heading towards the Ulln.”

I could feel my eyelids drooping. “I think I'm about to fall asleep.” I said groggily.

She smiled for the first time since entering the room. “I would hope so, there was enough herbs in there to make any man sleep.” She leaned forward to kiss me on the forehead. “Sleep well Vaik. I am truly glad you healed the woman, but I would prefer you didn't use any more magic until you are trained. You are too strong to bully your way without causing hurt.”

It took me several days to be recovered enough to even stand, and by then I was thoroughly ready to get out of that room. Aine had come to see me the first day after I woke up again, but I could see the fear in her eyes. Fern explained that many people did not trust magic and while Aine was whole in her body, the scars on her soul would take a great deal of time to heal. At least she no longer acted as if she wanted to die.

If Aine was merely scared of me then Vanessa was absolutely terrified. She had been happy to have Fern under her roof, but she had discounted me as nothing more then an apprentice at best. In healing Aine I had shown myself stronger then Fern and while she was not able to touch magic herself she had learned her herb lore at the Terra Ulln and knew how much magic I had used. Since Fern had not diverged my hidden talents Vanessa was left terrified that I was an undercover mage. To her such a person was dangerous because their motives were never truly known.

Thankfully her husband had no such worries. Although to be honest I had the feeling he didn't really understand anything that happened under his roof. Well that is not quite correct. I think he could have known had he cared, but I discovered that he considered matters of healing the work of his wife and unless she brought him into it he stayed well out. As it was he came often to visit me when not at his work and told me stories to pass the time.

It also seemed that I had woken up a hidden power in my mind. The ability to sense things only grew stronger each day, especially when I focused, something I had many hours lying there to practice. I found that when people talked to me I could sense meaning under the words, and sometimes feel emotions their faces weren't showing. I could tell when someone was coming to my room, and I once managed to correctly count the number of people in the downstairs room by sense alone. Fern was both amazed and nervous at the strength of my sensing, as it was normally the sign of an Adept in magic, not an Apprentice.

“Can you train me then in magic?” I asked at last. “I do not want to blunder into something like that again.”

She shook her head. “I cannot.”

“Why?”

“Well for starters I am not a high-mage and therefore not allowed to teach.” She said. “Also there is the problem of you being male.”

“How could that be a problem?” I wondered.

She sighed. “While magic is the same for both you and me we each touch it in different ways. Tell me, how did you touch your magic at last?”

I frowned as I thought on it. “I sensed something somehow in the distance of my mind and managed to grab it and pull it towards me.”

She nodded. “That is how Mage Opal explains it is with him. I do not do that. When I want magic I still my thoughts and let it come to me, and it does. Men and women touch magic in different ways. I could attempt to teach you, but much of what I do would not work for you and the same goes from you to me.”

“Why is that?”

She laughed and I sensed mirth bubbling up from her. “Are men and women not different in other ways? Do we not all joke about how men think with their muscles and women think on their tears?”

I coughed into a fist. “Not quite how my mother usually put it to my father.”

She raised an eyebrow. “But I assume more appropriate for mixed company?”

I laughed for the first time in weeks.

A few days later Fern finally found a caravan that was heading in the general direction of the Terra Ulln. By that time I was almost jumping out of my skin. I didn't mind helping around the hospice, but Vanessa still seemed terrified of me, and Fern had forbidden me to touch magic again until she said too. I was used to the freedom of herding my shëdons and the relative inactivity was eating me away.

I found some relief in helping Fern shop for the basic supplies we'd need for the week trip to the Ulln. I still hated being seen without any hair on my head, but thankfully the brutal sun had many people covering themselves from head to toe in loose clothing and I gladly followed suit. Fern told me with a wink that it made me look more dangerous and would attract all the eligible girls in the town.

It was when we were packing the bags that disaster struck. There was a pounding on the door and before Vanessa could get there it was thrown open and several of the local guards marched in.

The man in front let his eyes wander over the room, before locking onto the two of us. Without a word he firmly pushed Vanessa to the side and approached.

“You two! From where do you hail?” He barked with a scowl.

“What is the meaning of this!” Vanessa demanded, marching right back up to him. “These are my guests!”

He ignored her. “Answer me now or it will not go well by you.” He told us.

“I am Fern. A trained healer.” The mage didn't look scared, but I could feel her tense next to me. “This is Vaik, he's apprenticing under me.”

The guard gave her a long level look. Like myself, Fern wasn't in her mage robes, it having been deemed too risky to be seen around town in them. Instead she wore a simple homespun work dress Vanessa had found somewhere.

“Your accent is Shesehina.” He said with a sneer. “Are you from that place?”

Fern took a slight breath as if to lie, but I caught a gleam in the guards eyes and gave her hand a slight squeeze as a warning.

“I have trained at the Terra Ulln in the arts of healing, as have many of my profession.” She replied instead.

He signaled to his men. “Search their bags.” He said gruffly.

“How dare you!” Vanessa was almost sputtering in outrage. “What gives you the right to harass my guests so?!”

“I am under orders from the Pauchen himself lady. All visitors in the city are to be checked. Take it up with him.” The guard said firmly.

“What ever could be the reason?” Fern asked as the other guards came forward and started pawing through our packs.

“This is why.” One of the guards snarled, holding aloft Fern's mage robes.

The head guard's eyes narrowed. “So indeed, the word from Hoilit was correct, you are a mage from the Terra Ulln.”

“Is there a crime in that?” Fern asked softly. “We were waylaid on our way back there and were offered room and board here until a suitable caravan could be found traveling that way.”

“I'm afraid no caravan will be heading that way for some time.” The guard spat on the ground. “Your cowardly Sheseha have provoked the Pauchen for the last time. Until we have beaten every one of you cursed sorcerers into the dust of the sands, no travel to or from those cursed cities is allowed.”

At his words Fern had gone deathly white. “What has happened?” She gasped.

Instead of answering the guards grabbed our arms at a signal from the head guard.

“By order of the Pauchen, all persons and people associated with from any lands of the Shesha are to be arrested immediately.” He told us, spitting this time in our direction. “Staking you two out would hardly satisfy the blood your tribe owes us, but it would be a start.”

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So the question I have for you guys is if you could had any sort of magical creature become Vaik's "spirit guide" to magic, what would it be? I'm partial to anything with cats myself, be they house-sized or panthers. I'm telling you right now that the creature can't be larger then a panther and shouldn't be able to GROW that large either, so most things like giant dragons are out. But barring that, let me know, and keep in mind the temperament of Vaik and the magic he will be learning. Since this will not have an immediate effect of the story, there's no limit yet for people to give their opinion, so keep the ideas coming! (note: Completely made up creatures are allowed too, provided they pass my personal awesome test)

Oh man, I thought someone bumped old thread again but here it goes! It's awesome to have you back, too bad I'm busy fixing snow at the moment

Nice to see you're writing again!

Welcome back Wizard! Nice to see you again in the forum. Well it would be better if the creature was made up. Something between a cat and a panther maybe... a feline...... I don't know..

I knew Vaik should try to heal her! That's my boy!

As for the animal guide, I have some ideas:

1. Sheldon - if that's only Vaik's imagination that gives the spirit a shape, then why not a sheldon, as he spent most time with this species?

2. Snake or spider - would make us think if the guide is indeed a guide, and not an evil misguide

3. Chameleon - is invisible to others, so why not chameleon

4. Llama

Yeah Ioanna, I'm partial to cats, which is why I'm trying to be nice and let others have ideas. Etherlord you know better then that! The more silly or ridiculous the animal, the more likely I'm going to laugh and do it. Be careful what you wish for.

Posted by Szczepan von KarmaYeah Ioanna, I'm partial to cats, which is why I'm trying to be nice and let others have ideas.Etherlord you know better then that! The more silly or ridiculous the animal, the more likely I'm going to laugh and do it. Be careful what you wish for.

I just thought these particular llamas look not only funny but also magical. I could imagine a technologically advanced race looking like this .

However, when you describe an animal just as a llama, people will rather have something like this in mind:

typical llama

Updated 11 December 2012 (15:24)

That's because the first picture is of two alpacas, which are much cuter.

Hahahaha... Llamas!! The picture is amazing!!! hahhaaaa... can't stop thinking about it now...

What about emus? C'mon. The word emu is fantastic. And they're the only animal which has ever won a war against humans -- true story!

what a nice story... thank you for sharing...

:3 nuff said