Caster's Spell (A Mage Tale Book 1) Page 19
Slowly but surely, the other students found their courage, or something else, and agreed to come along.
"Very well then, let us continue," said the old master, his smile never leaving. "This should be interesting."
The Labyrinth
Determining that staying at the head of the group might lead the others to the idea that he thought himself better than them, Wesley let the students pass him. Liam, with an alternative motive of ensuring that no one tried to turn back, a motive that he loudly proclaimed, also went to the back of the lines.
The catacombs weren’t dark and dank as Wesley might have assumed. Rather than a fierce cartoonish cold, it had a comfortable temperature, and it was well lit with torches. The walls and floor were entirely made up of granite, making it far more pleasing to the eye than the dungeon-like damp bricks that he had imagined.
“Hey,” he heard Liam from his side. "It'd be a shame to find you done in by the minotaur. I mean no one wants to clean up that mess."
Wesley ignored his attempts to hurt his feelings. "Just don't expect me to hold your hand, stick boy."
"I'm getting real tired of your gabbing, knuckle-dragger." Liam took hold of his scepter, but it remained pen-sized. "Either you cut it, or—"
"What, you'll lose control of another spell," Wesley said sarcastically. "I'm not afraid of you anymore."
Master Prasad turned a corner, with the group close behind him.
"Well you should be," Liam said like his words could kill. "That minger, Sri, isn't here to protect you, this time."
Wesley could handle people making fun of him, but his friends were another story. He shoved the Wizard.
"You don’t get to call her names! Take it back or I'll beat you silly," he threatened, with no idea of the meaning of "minger", but he knew it couldn't have been good.
For a second, Liam seemed too surprised to react and just stared, befuddled. Then after regaining his bearings, he took the Warlock by his shirt and slammed him into the wall of the narrow corridor. "Keep your monkey hands to yourself."
Wesley grabbed the noble's arms and drove him into the wall opposite of him. "I said take it back!"
"Wait, wait, wait, back off for sec. Something's not right."
"Don't try to change the subject."
"No, you moron, look around."
Wesley did and saw nothing, leaving him less than tempted to release the Wizard.
"We've been left behind," Liam said slowly, before shoving free.
Wesley looked around again. The class was nowhere to be found. He groaned, more upset by the fact that he may get in more trouble than anything else.
"I think they turned right, up here."
"Quit talking," said the Wizard as he ran around the corner.
When Wesley rounded it, he only saw Liam standing in an empty hallway and was compelled to groan again.
"They can't be too far," Liam said.
"I know that," Wesley said and chased after the other boy.
"Then hurry up, ponce," the Wizard called back.
But it was after turning two more corners that the realization settled upon them. They were lost in the labyrinth! Still they continued to run aimlessly, until they came to a fork in the road.
"Okay, we gotta stop running," suggested Wesley. "Somewhere along the way we made a wrong turn. And there's no telling how many wrong turns we made from there."
"About six," said Liam.
"You remember?"
"Yeah, I'm not an idiot like you," the Wizard shot between breaths, before returning to their current problem. "But even if we did retrace our steps, it wouldn't help. There are too many possible directions. Plus, if we turn back, it may just take us longer to get to the barrier."
"Then what should we do?"
"I'm going this way." Liam pointed to the left. "You can drop dead, for all I care."
"So you think we should split up?"
"I'd have the same chances alone as I would teamed up with an excuse for a mage, like you," the noble insulted.
"Fine, I'll go this way." Wesley stepped to the right. "Be careful; there's a monster out there."
"Do you think a simple ogre like that stands a chance against a real mage?"
"Whatever." Wesley started down his path. But before he could put any real distance between them, he heard a far off, yet too close for comfort, roar. The roar of a beast!
Immediately, he and Liam turned back to face each other.
"Maybe we should stick together," proposed the Wizard.
"Good idea," Wesley agreed.
"But we're going my way."
"I don't care. Let's just go."
They walked through the corridors of the maze, with no sense of direction, for what felt like several minutes of silence, before Wesley noticed even the slightest bit of change. Until then, everything was frighteningly similar. Every turn was just like the last, revealing a bare hall just like the one before it. However at that point, there was a change in the environment, but not of a physical nature. It was something only Wesley could know. He felt a hint of source that wasn't Liam's.
"Master Prasad," He whispered to himself, sure that only his source was powerful enough to be felt from so far away.
"What?" Liam asked him.
"Nothing. I think we should go this way," he said pointing in the direction of the source.
"Why?"
"Why not?"
"Because you're an idiot."
Wesley sighed and stopped walking. "Okay, Caldwell, like it or not, we're stuck in this together. We gotta make some kind of truce."
"A truce? With you?" Liam turned back and laughed.
"Yes. We're lost in a labyrinth that was made to trap people forever—with a monster. We can't waste time fighting each other."
The noble looked down, internally arguing with himself, until finally, after finding that Wesley's words were true, he raised his hand to the Warlock. Wesley looked down at it, wanting to shake in acceptance—after all, a truce was his idea—but even so, there was something in him that irked at the idea of forming an alliance, even a temporary one, with Liam Caldwell. Eventually he managed to force his hand to the Wizard’s and shook firmly.
"Good," Wesley said. "Now trust me. I have a good feeling about this."
To his surprise, Liam made no more objections, and instead reluctantly agreed, "Okay."
Following the trail of source was no small task. It was difficult and outright confusing and at some points, Wesley even lost Master Prasad's power. But what was more stressful was convincing his disinclined partner to follow him, without revealing his secret noble trait. In and of itself, their one true hope happened to be one of Wesley's biggest burdens.
"I'm pretty sure we're getting close," Wesley said in an attempt to make it seem like he was guessing.
"How do you know?" came Liam’s reply, his tone soaked in suspicion.
"Just a hunch really," he masked.
"Hm. I don't know. You've been turning corners like you know where you're going. And since our little handshake, we haven't doubled back at all."
"What are you getting at?" Wesley asked defensively.
"I'm just saying..." Liam's voice vanished as they noticed a sound behind them. Then there was another. A thump.
Wesley stared into Liam’s eyes and Liam stared right back, both boys crippled with fear.
Then after seconds of inaction and with shaky breaths, they agreed to look back without the use of words. Simultaneously, the young magi turned around to see that their nightmarish minds’ image had become a reality.
Standing at a morale-crushing ten feet tall, the monstrous minotaur turned his bull's head to face them. Its sinister red eyes pierced through the dim light of the corridor and seemed like they could kill just as easily as its claws. It took a few loud huffs, like a disturbed horse, its breath hung visibly in the air. Then the creature roared, a sound the boys had heard once before. Only this time in its closer proximity the sound became tangible, with Wesl
ey certain that he felt it in his bones.
He and Liam turned to each other and screamed.
The minotaur leaned forward, aiming its enormous sharp horns. Then with another huff, it launched for them, charging like a furious ram.
"RUN!" The boys shouted in unison.
They dashed to the end of the corridor, which split into two paths, with the monster's clacking hooves beating the ground behind them. In no time, Wesley could hear it no more than a few yards from his back. At the end of the hall, the boys separated into their own respective directions, shouting, "This way!"
Narrowly missing the rivaling magi, the minotaur buried its horns into an adjacent wall. It pulled back and shook its head, crumbling granite like dried soil. Wesley heard the monster huff again, and gave in to the temptation to look back.
As luck would have it, the minotaur's back was him, preparing to charge for Liam. The beast scraped the ground with its hoof once. Twice. Three times and let out another roar.
Initially excited to survive, Wesley briskly turned to run, but then his conscience took a hold of his mind and forced him to turn for the beast.
"Aghh!!!" the Wizard ran as the monster took its first steps towards him. He was so terrified, he didn't realize that the corridor was quickly coming to an end and that he was trapped, until it was too late. Thump! He blindly ran into a wall and fell back, but too afraid to feel pain, Liam bounced up to his feet. He banged on the wall as if to break through futilely. "No! This can't be!"
The noble turned around and pressed his back against the wall, failing to sink away. But then he saw a sight that left him dumbfound.
"Rosier!" Wesley shouted and a flower jumped out of the ground and into his hand. He reached his arm back over his head and the stem lengthened into a thorn-covered rope. He swung forward and his conjure ensnared the minotaur's legs, tripping it.
Wesley looked over to Liam. "Don't just stand there, stick-boy! Hel—"
The monster took the whip in its gargantuan, meaty hand and tugged, yanking Wesley into the air. The boy slid along the floor until he stopped just a couple feet from the minotaur. It huffed and tore the plant away. Then, standing again, it reached down for Wesley, but was smacked in the back by something unseen. It turned to Liam, who was facing it with an aimed scepter.
"Puls!" shouted the boy. This time, expecting the blow, the minotaur wasn't pushed off balance, but rather, it would seem, was slightly inconvenienced. The boy stepped forward and tried again. "Puls!"
The monster was smacked in the chest.
"Puls!"
Wesley shuffled back and got to his feet, watching as Liam progressively strengthened his spell. Then, knowing that he had to help, Wesley ran over near the monster's hooves and put his hands to the ground. "Maleza!"
The twisting vines wrapped the minotaur like they once did Ashlyn's golems. Wesley leaned to see his classmate around the behemoth.
"Liam, c'mon! Follow me."
Already, the bull-headed guardian of the labyrinth was starting to break loose.
Liam squeezed past the entangled beast and together the boys ran down the corridor that Wesley had originally chosen. It wasn't yet five seconds later that they heard the monster thumping after them.
"Got any spells that can take this thing down?" Wesley said in a panicked squeak.
"Ugh." Liam hesitated
Wesley shouted, madly, "Do you!?"
"Um... no, I don't think so," Liam finally admitted. "But I think I can hurt it."
"Okay—um—I think I got a plan."
"Let's hear it then?"
"We gotta stop at the end of the hall and you use whatever you have, to hurt him."
"This better work, Warty."
They slowed down and came to a halt.
"Well if it doesn't," said Wesley, "neither of us will live to regret it."
They turned to see the minotaur's shadow growing from just one turn away.
Then, anticipating a very real potential problem, Wesley said, "Please tell me you have control over this one."
"Tried it once before." Liam aimed the wooden lion's head.
The monster barged around the corner with its horns aimed, huffing like a locomotive, and angrier than ever.
"Well did it work!?" Wesley's left knee shook uncontrollably and his brow itched something fierce.
"Nope," Liam said clenching his teeth. "Here goes. Lopta Zmajem!"
Fire from all of the torches around them was sucked away from the walls and collected just before the gaping mouth of Liam's scepter. Then Wesley noticed flames flying around the corners and doing the same, until finally, the smoldering ball before them was the only source of light.
The minotaur was just five meters from impaling the two when Liam shouted, releasing the spell. "Hah!"
The blast shot with more force than anything Wesley had ever seen produced by an underclassman. It slammed into the monster and blew him all the way to the other end of the corridor, leaving it battered and burned and, in some places, on fire. This was the opening that Wesley needed.
"Terra Wall!" the boy slapped his palms to the ground and a wall shot up at the end of the corridor. Then another sprouted up, rubbing against the first, and then countless others until the hallway was completely blocked off, leaving the boys in utter darkness.
Drained by the number of spells elicited, Wesley panted, "It should take him a while to get around that."
"That must have been thirty or forty walls," said Liam also fatigued by his spell.
"Just about." If Wesley hadn't known better, he would have felt complimented. "What was that spell you used? It looked strong. Another C-class?"
"D," answered the Wizard. "I was planning to save it for the Final Exams: just in case I had to go up against a Fire Sorcerer."
"Good idea. But what are we gonna do now? There's no way we can figure out this maze without light."
"Then it's a good thing I'm not an idiot, like you," Liam returned to his hateful ways. "Luce."
His scepter lit up like a bulb, illuminating the hall.
"Alright, let's get outta this place," said Wesley as he started walking. He opened himself to feeling the pressure of Master Prasad's source and upon doing so, discovered that they were surprisingly close.
He returned to his pretend hunches and convincing Liam to follow what he knew to be the correct path. While still difficult, Liam proved to be too tired to put up much of a fuss. So the trip was easier than it had been before running into the minotaur.
"Hey, what's that?" asked Wesley, sure that he saw something.
"What?"
"Turn off your spell for a second."
Liam groaned as he let the light fade.
"Over there, do you see it?" asked Wesley pointing to the end of the hall. "It's light."
Without another word the noble ran towards the light. Wesley chased after him and they turned a final corner into another giant room.
"Well that wasn't so scary, was it?" Master Prasad said to the class, without addressing either of the late arrivals. "Now that we've finally made it, we can begin the source transfer. There it is students."
He pointed to a wall-sized red door at the far end of the room.
"Let's hope that that short walk didn't tire you," he laughed and glanced at the unlucky duo. All but two of the students of the detention class declared their readiness.
With the Right Will
"The procedure is relatively simple," Master Prasad began. "Please line up, at the shoulders, just before the door. I will activate a curse, and when I do, raise your right hands. My incantation will do the rest. Remember, if at any time, you feel faint, weak, or dizzy, lower your hand and back away. Does everyone understand?"
"Yes, master," the students answered.
"Then we should be finished within a few minutes."
"Do you think we can do it, after... you know?" Wesley asked Liam, as they stepped closer to the gargantuan red door.
"You'll probably hit the floor," rep
lied the noble. "And we're not in the labyrinth anymore, so quit talking to me."
Wesley was put off by the brash statement, but was tickled by it at the same time. There was something refreshing about returning to normalcy. "I bet you'll pass out before I do, stick-boy."
"You're on, knuckle-dragger, but whoever loses has to bow to his superior, i.e. me, in front of the entire class," Liam challenged.
"Are you sure you're ready for something like that?"
Master Prasad interrupted their bantering with the activation of three curses. The class watched the spectacle of red, glowing, rune-like writing as it appeared in the air just before the door. Then a blue circle of Sanskrit enclosed the red curse. And finally, a yellow hexagon of tiny Greek letters locked around the circle. The immense structure of lights slowly collided into the door and the transparent purple barrier surrounding the door became visible.
"Now, students, raise your hands and draw on your force," Master Prasad said.
Up until that moment, Wesley was sure that he wanted to charge the barrier, but when the time came, he found himself nervous. Nonetheless, with a gulp, he raised his shaky hand. Light jumped from the master's curse into his hand and he felt his heart jump into his throat. Although on a much safer level and completely painless, the feeling of the source leaving his body reminded him of Liam's Will of The Doomed.
Then he heard a slight whimper from his side and looked to see that one of his classmates had already backed away, holding his head. Then another fell back soon after.
"Are you alright, Bennie?" Wesley heard Master Prasad's concerned voice.
"Yeah, just a little..." She put her hand next to her head and drew circles in the air. "I'ma go sit."
The old Sorcerer smiled. "Please see that you do."
Just over a minute after starting, half of the class had already backed away.
Oh no, thought Wesley, at this rate...
He looked up and noticed that the master had a slightly stressed expression.
Taking a slow easy breath, Wesley tried to contain himself and focus. Then he flexed his source and increased the outflow of power. The tube of light connecting him to the door swelled.