Born of Magic (Channeler Series) Page 17

  I sat on a log next to a small pond in my dream. I was alone, looking at the water as small groups of fish swam around in rhythmic circles. The water was dark blue and reminded me of the flooring in the dining hall. That comparison reminded me that I was dreaming and that I was here to find Maaryn. I stood up from the log and called out her name.

  To my horror, it wasn't Maaryn that appeared when I called. Instead, it was the red eyed man. He now had several scratches across his face, and blood trickled down from the places where the skin had been broken. He glared at me. “She’s unavailable right now.”

  I walked over to him and stood with my hands on my waist, trying to look as intimidating as my small body would allow. “Where is she?”

  He laughed at my empty attempt at appearing tough. “What can you do?”

  Acting entirely on instinct—and anger—I clenched my fists together, my fingernails digging into my palms, ready to lash out at him. Red Eye took a step back and brought his fists up near his chin in a defensive stance. “Go ahead and try,” he said with a confident smile. “This will be amusing, a mighty channeler beaten so easily.”

  “If you know what I am, then you know what I can do,” I said in another attempt at threatening him.

  “I don’t need magic to fight you, and you don’t have any to fight me with.”

  There was a very faint hint of uncertainty hidden within his words. Maybe things worked differently in the dream world—this was my dream he was in, after all. Maybe I was in control her. I was dangerous here.

  I lunged forward with a well-aimed blow to his nose. His nose shattered under my fist and blood shot out onto his mouth and chest and he cringed in pain. I followed with a powerful left jab to his chest. The wincing sound of a rib cracking ruptured from his chest as my fist made contact.

  “Here I’m strong.”

  He struggled to regain his stance and looked at with doubt in his eyes. He lashed out at me, swinging at my jaw. I pulled back just in time and he narrowly missed. He had over extended his swing and was thrown off balance when he missed. I took advantage of this and kicked at his legs, knocking him to the ground. He fell hard on his back on a rock I had dreamed up, knocking the wind from his lungs.

  He lay there in crippling pain, gasping for air. I walked up to him and kicked him in the chest once more. Terror filled me at the thought of how ruthless I was, but I had to save Maaryn, if she was even okay. There was no telling what this monster had done to her, but I would make him tell me.

  I kicked him again, hitting the area with the broken rib again. “Where is she?” I asked. He didn’t answer, so I kicked him again, this time in the stomach. He let out an excruciating cry. His tolerance of pain was frightening. I pulled my foot back for another strike.

  “I knocked her out,” he cried out as he shielded his face with his arms. “She’s in the dream world, somewhere.”

  I knew this wouldn’t be the end of him, he would continue haunting people’s dreams and sending fear out there. He had to be stopped. I had to send the messenger home with a message from us, I decided.

  I kneeled down next to his head and whispered into his ear with a dark cold tone. “Go back to your people and tell them we are a force to be feared. Tell them it isn’t wise to come here, a channeler watches over these lands.” I closed my eyes as I planted my foot in the face. It chilled my heart to be so ruthless, but I had to send a clear message to them, for the sake of everyone.

  He rolled around in pain for a moment then started to use his magic to leave the dream world. It took him a couple attempts to leave because I stole some of his magic and used it to break out of my dream. The dream world was filled with nothing but a thin layer of water that coated an endless sea of small black rocks. The sky was dark like night, but there were no stars, only a single full moon.

  There was Maaryn, twenty yards away from me. She was struggling to stand, with blood splattering out of her mouth as she coughed. I ran to her and helped her up.

  “Jas, is that you?” She stared into my eyes and could see that it was me. “How did you get here?”

  “I had some help. I’m sorry, but I had to tell the faculty about your power. It was the only way I could help you.”

  There was a brief look of betrayal and dread in her eyes. Tears filled her eyes and she fell forward, wrapping her arms around me. “Thank you for saving me. We need to get out of here before he comes back, now.”

  “He is gone, and probably won’t be coming back.”

  “What? How?”

  “He came into my dream, and in there I was in control.”

  “You catch on quick. When you enter the dream world as I do, you can control it as if you were dreaming. But when you enter someone else’s, they’re in control.”

  “I know.” I said with a bit of pride. I was unsure how I had figured it out, other than the fact that the man showed a hint of uncertainty in his eyes. The only reason he would have was if there was some way I could beat him, and there was. “Let’s go back now.”

  I took some of her magic and awoke back in Helendra’s chambers, where she and Tevon were staring down at me. They both smiled as I opened my eyes.

  “What happened? Is Maaryn all right?” Helendra asked.

  “Maaryn’s safe, and the messenger has a little bad news to take back to his people.”

  Tevon sat down next to me on the edge of the bed. “A bundle of surprises is what you are.”

  The three of us laughed, but then I stopped and looked over at Helendra, “Maaryn needs—”

  “Already on the way,” Helendra interrupted.

  Maaryn and I were given the rest of the day to recover, with Tevon watching over us. The three of us had a table to ourselves in the dining hall as we scarfed down at the heaping plates of mashed potatoes, gravy, and baked vegetables.

  ”Maaryn, the faculty is grateful for what you did today. You don’t need to hide your magic from them, they trust you,” Tevon said. “We can assign you a new color, if you want.”

  “I’d actually like to keep my current color,” she said with a grin that spanned from ear to ear. She looked over at me and then back at Tevon. “Jas and I belong in the same color.”

  “I figured that would be your response,” Tevon said and then chuckled, the bellowing of his stomach shook the table slightly.

  We were both given the day off and told we could catch up from our missed classes later. Maaryn declared that she wanted to go get some rest now, as it had been a while for her. The fear of the man returning paled in comparison to her exhaustion. We parted ways and I decided it was time to try and find Denarah. Hopefully this time there would be no interruptions.

  It was not difficult to find her since she was under the same tree again. She had a block of clay setting in the dirt, with several pieces of metal setting on top of it. She heated the metal and it melted into the creases that she had carved into the clay.

  I greeted her with a hug and then we sat down next to her red-hot creation. “What are you working on?” I asked. It was too hard to make out the shape of whatever it was she was making.

  “I’m creating something,” Denarah said coyly.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s a necklace,” she said with a grin.

  “Can I see it?”

  Her cheeks blushed a dark shade of rose as she looked around. “It isn’t for me.”

  “Who is it for?” I knew the answer, but I wanted to see how red she would turn.

  Sure enough, she glowed like a cherry. “Yurios.”

  The way she lit up for him reminded me of how I sometimes felt about Edgar. Whenever I used to feel that way for him I would push it away, knowing our friendship was too important to risk. Now that he was nowhere near, I felt safe to let those feelings run rampant in my mind and heart.

  Denarah could apparently read me like a book. “Who is he?”

  I had never materialized my feelings for Edgar—making them real, confessing them—before. “Edgar.”
<
br />   “And? What else?”

  “Well, we grew up on the streets together. He’s always been a really close friend to me. He’s still back in Saltren, far from here.” I grew a little sad as I realized just how far he was from here, and how I wouldn’t have any time to go see him any time soon, based on how things were going.

  She placed an arm over my shoulders. “I’m sure you’ll see him again.”

  I wanted to change the topic to take my mind off of Edgar and how far he was from me. “In speaking of which, when will you see Yurios again?”

  “I’m not sure. I was hoping to see him later tonight. I’m sorry he isn’t nice to you—he just resents the fact that you took his place. He worked hard to get there.”

  I shrugged. “I never intended for that to happen.”

  “I know. He’ll get over it, I’ll make sure of that,” she said with a devious grin. “Who’s that girl I keep seeing you with, by the way?”

  “That’s Maaryn, she’s a friend. You should meet her.”

  Denarah shrugged. “I’m not really in the mood to meet someone else, just you and Yurios are enough for me right now.”

  Her eyes drifted towards the ground and she fell silent and I was suddenly reminded of what she was like when we first met, cold and disconnected. She had come from an abusive environment with the constant fear of death or punishment looming over her. She couldn’t trust anyone for so long that the idea of doing so now must still be difficult for her. I dropped the topic and sat down next to her.

  She pulled her pendant out from the clay molding she had used to make it with. I could feel heat radiating from it still, but it didn’t seem to bother Denarah. The pendant was shiny and silver, and in the shape of a bird singing as water rained down on it. I then realized the humorous relation between their two powers. Yurios power was water, and Denarah could produce heat. Later I would have to come up with something funny about that.

  She pulled a small white string from her pocket and laced it through a hole in the pendant. “I'll give that to him later,” she said as she placed it back into her pocket.

  “Jasminis, can you come back to the tower first thing tomorrow morning? There is much to discuss and I would like you involved.” Helendra's voice surprised me.

  “All right,” I replied, still a little caught off guard. I was too tired to bother asking what it was regarding.

  “I'm going to go get some dinner and then am probably going to bed,” I told Denarah.

  "I'll join you."

  Together we walked over to the dining hall. The daunting rumbling in my stomach, even though I had eaten not that long ago, made me realize just how much my appetite had increased. As I justified reasons why I should eat now I admitted to myself that Tevon’s plan had worked.

  The dining hall was much more crowded than it had been any other time I had been there before. It was probably because this was the first time I had come during an appropriate time. Denarah and I stuck together, not caring to start a conversation with anyone else just yet.

  We sat down at an empty section of one of the tables in the back. Denarah was surprised at the amount of food I had grabbed. “A little hungry?”

  I could tell that she had trouble expressing when something was intended as a joke, though I was able to tell.

  “Tevon makes me eat a lot.”

  Denarah nodded, as though that cured her curiosity.

  Dinner was uneventful for us, just as we preferred it, and at the end we left, happy to have full stomachs. I had eaten nearly five times what I would in a week back on the streets in a single sitting. As I realized this, the urge to help Edgar and the others became overwhelming.

  "I'm going to bed, I think," I told Denarah. I wasn't tired yet, but I was desperate to be alone while I dwelled on Edgar and the others.

  I waved to Denarah and decided to let my day come to an end. Good riddance to this day, I thought to myself. She walked me to my house and hugged me, we said goodnight, and I went to bed.

  As tired as I was, it was difficult to get to sleep, having experienced too much of the dream world. I tossed and turned in my bed for a while, but I finally had to get up as I had become wrapped up in my blanket. The urge came over me; I had been dealing with my feelings for Edgar all day, and I needed to do something about it.

  I snuck between the span of student homes as almost everyone was already asleep for the night. I made my way over to Maaryn’s home, my path lit by nothing but the moon and countless stars that twinkled overhead. When I reached her home I knocked on the rough bark on the side of her doorway. It took a while for her to answer. Her eyes were bloodshot and half closed.

  “Jas? What is it?” She asked, slurring her words, and almost missing the wall as she tried to lean against it.

  “I need to go to the dream world,” I said, sounding almost desperate.

  “Why?”

  “There’s someone I need to see.”

  She waved me inside and closed the door behind me. Her place was decorated with many dream catchers. They were made of sticks that were tied together to form a circle, then a web made of string in the center with various items placed within. They all had several tails coming out of the bottom with feathers at the end. I recognized them from some of the fortune tellers that would come to Saltren on occasion. I found her choice in wall decorations amusing.

  “I’m really tired and don’t know about coming in there with you, let alone feel safe about it. Can you just wake me in my dream when you are ready to come out?”

  “Okay,” I said, already taking the magic I needed from her. I waved as I entered the dream world. I was in a bit of a hurry to see Edgar before the night was over and he woke up.

  Once inside, I realized I was not entirely familiar enough with the dream world to easily trace down Edgar, or Saltren for that matter. I could shape this world to be whatever I wanted, so maybe I could just make it look like the real world, and start at the school. I concentrated on Maaryn’s home, and a hazy version of it appeared before me.

  “Not bad,” I told myself. “Now time to find my way back to Saltren.”

  The world outside the school was somewhat obscure due to my fuzzy memory of its finer details, only the areas I had spent a lot of time at were clear. I manifested the horse Maaryn had shown me before and mounted her and we rode off to the trail I had taken when I first arrived at the academy.

  I imagined it was daytime too, making it easier to find my way through the forest. I knew the rough direction to go, and used the mountain range to the North to track my rough distance. The ice-peaked giant mountain just North of Saltren was coming into view in the distance. I applied a little more pressure to the horse with my heels and her gallop increased to a furious gait. Trees blazed by us as she soared through the forests with an unrivaled grace.

  The world around us became a blur as she traveled; her pace so swift it blew my hair straight back, trailing behind me as I struggled to stay on. The forest became more familiar the further I went, until I recognized where I was.

  I pulled back on the horse's reigns as we reached the walls of Saltren, and she slowed her pace to a trot as I did. We entered the city gate and I dismounted. I started sorting through all the smoke stacks from people’s dreams in search of Edgar. I looked for all the ones that originated from the streets rather than houses, knowing the rough area to look around. I came upon four dreams coming from an alleyway we had often called home.

  I used great caution as I peered into the dreams, the first one was Ralphs. I cringed and pulled away as fast as I could. The second one I tried was, fortunately, Edgar’s. His dream was a peaceful setting, outside of a small farm house just outside the walls of Saltren. The flickering of candles shone through the dirt-encrusted windows.

  From inside I could hear shouting. I crept towards the house, remaining as quiet as a mouse, taking slow steady paces up to one of the windows and listened in. There was an older man shouting.

  “You worthless brat! Why can�
�t you be more like your brother?”

  Then I heard the violent sound of an open palm slapping skin that reverberated in my heart. The door burst open and Edgar went running out past me, sprinting off into the forest. I chased after him. No one followed us from the house. I must have stumbled into the nightmares Edgar lived, and hoped he wouldn't be upset with me for seeing into his inner torments like this.

  I chased after Edgar. He was quick and hard to catch up to. In his dream it seemed as though I was forced to live by his standards. It became apparent that movement was harder than normal here, and no matter how hard I strained, I couldn’t seem to keep up with Edgar.

  After what felt like a lifetime, he stopped and sat down beneath the cover of a tree, tucking his legs into his chest. I cautiously approached him; I didn't want to frighten him. I sat down next to him, but he didn’t move. I wrapped my arm around his shoulder and pulled him over to me.

  “It’s just a nightmare,” I whispered.

  His eyes were watery as he looked up at me, “Jas?”

  “Yes, I'm here. You're dreaming, but I really am here.”

  He looked at me confused, “What?”

  “You’re having a dream. A nightmare, actually. I didn't mean to interrupt, but I really wanted to see you.”

  I could tell he did not believe it was the real me. He wrapped his arms around me and gave me a kiss on the cheek. It tickled my skin, like a butterfly resting on my arm, and set my heart a flutter.

  “Thanks for being here for me. You always are,” he said.

  I realized my appearance as a shoulder to cry on in his nightmares was a regular occurrence, and I would have to find another way to convince him that I was really here, in a realm of existence where I can enter his dreams. This probably won’t be very easy.

  “Edgar, I'm not lying, it's the real me. I'm at the mage academy now.”

  “What? It can’t be you. The mages academy is so far away from here.”

  I found it curious he knew about it at all. “How did you know that?”