Free Under the Shadow of Darkness: Book 1 of the Apprentice Series by James Cardona, Issa Cardona Page B

blew up in your face anyway!”
    Bel wanted to respond but he knew it was true. Sometimes Bel couldn’t stand Kerlith and his mouth and his arrogant, in-your-face attitude. It was stupid of Bel to respond to him; he knew it, but Kerlith caught him on a bad day. School was tough; there had been a few difficult tests and one of Bel’s friends dropped out. So when Kerlith started another one of his verbal barrages, Bel lost it. Before he knew it he had agreed to a challenge, off the grounds, at midnight, away from the eyes of the masters. It was forbidden. They battled long and hard, all of their friends watching, each spell more complicated, more delicate, more risky. Finally Bel did something he hadn’t done before. He used stone magic. It shouldn’t have worked. He was holding mage-wood in his hand; he shouldn’t have been able to wield the words of crystal. But it worked. And then he lost control of it. The others ran for help. It took four masters to subdue the magic run amok. No one was hurt, but the damage was done. He wasn’t kicked out of the school, thankfully, but he was not permitted to graduate for another year.
    Bel sat in silence watching as the large hawk mounted the wind. Kerlith asked the lad, “Okay, kid. Any other questions? Looks like wiggle-farts here doesn’t want to talk about school.”
    “Yes, sir. If you please? I noticed that you use a stone while he uses a stick? Why is that?”
    “You want to take this one?” Kerlith said with a smirk.
    “You go ahead. Idiot.”
    “Kid, it’s like this. There are different forms of magic. In school we were all taught the common stuff, the magic that any magician can do, but there are other forms that are specific, different forms that only specialized wizards can do. There is one form based upon crystals and minerals, from the mountain lands, the land of the stonecutters. We call it stone magic. There is a magic of the desert-lands and one of the tundra-lands. Another is based upon plant life, like trees and such, from the forest-lands. That’s the form that the kid here is learning. In the end they are all the same in one way. The source of all power is life. Everyone knows this. Magic is merely a manipulation of the life-force in all of us and in all living things.”
    “But rocks are not living,” the young boy stated.
    Nes’egrinon interrupted, “Well said, young man. Well said.” Bel and Kerlith quickly turned their heads back to the master. Neither knew he was there listening. The mage continued, “Myself, I cannot understand this magic of rocks and crystals. It makes no sense to me. How could it work? There is no life in rock. How can a wizard call forth power from it? It’s dead. Baah. Makes no sense.”
    Kerlith replied, “Master, certainly you know that crystal, while not alive, can act as a sort of prism, bending the light that is already in the world, focusing it, concentrating it into a pinpoint.”
    “Yes, of course I knew that. But it would be much easier to just go to the source of life instead of bending it, don’t you think? Here feel this.” The old wizard held out his staff. “This staff was cut from a one thousand year old mage-wood tree that still stands today. That tree’s roots go long and deep, thousands of feet down into the ground. I wouldn’t be surprised if all mage-wood trees were not part of the same one tree; its roots go out so far. And this staff, this piece of wood, still contains the form of life of that tree, the body that was full of light, the casing, if you will. The great wizard Lucretius called them atoms and said that they are in all of us and in all things living. Can you feel it? Can you feel the power? I don’t have to search for light to bend and focus. This mage-wood, this casing in my hand is the natural home of light; it feels comfortable there. It wants to be there. When I call for light with mage-wood in my hand it comes readily, even eagerly. But a stone? Light does not belong there.