Caster's Spell (A Mage Tale Book 1) Read online

  Liam shuffled back as Wesley looked up to his friend.

  "What?"

  Cameron reached down to help him up. "The Orb is gathering power as we speak. Once that thing drops," he pointed up at a growing yellow sphere, "we're all dead."

  "What do you mean 'we're all dead'?" Liam asked from Cameron's side.

  The Wind Sorcerer turned sharply and took Liam by his shirt. "I mean that you doomed us all; that the Orb of Genesis was created to destroy entire populations, NOT to be used in a dual! That thanks to you, every living creature within twenty-five square miles is going to die." Cameron shoved the young mage to the ground. "That is what the Orb of Genesis is for."

  Savage vs. Caster

  Everyone was going to be obliterated! It was why Caster forged this forbidden relic. A barrier spell kept them all trapped within, as the floating orb grew more powerful. Upon its descent, everything would be vaporized and there was nothing anyone could do about it. That was what he was to understand. Everyone!

  Liam had run from the stadium minutes earlier, screaming, "I want to live!"

  Axel and Sri had also come down to Wesley's side by then.

  "Is that what I think it is?" asked the petite Sorceress.

  "I-I," Wesley didn't know what to say. How do you tell your closest friends that they're going to be vaporized? Luckily Cameron took control.

  "It's the Orb," the older one answered. Then he turned his attention away for a moment. "Hang on."

  When he turned back, there was a scream of urgency in his eyes.

  "The masters are gathering their power and putting up as many barrier spells as time allows. They're out in the courtyard. Let's go!" he said and turned to run.

  The others followed, but Wesley didn't budge. Knowing better and unable to take his eyes from the glowing sphere in the sky, he stood almost absolutely still. Relics and incantations are considered forbidden when the High Council finds them too powerful or too dangerous to be used. And this particular one was made by someone whose mere mention was forbidden.

  His friends soon realized that he wasn't fleeing with them and turned back.

  "Wes! C'mon, we gotta get to the masters," Axel called, waving for him to join.

  Cameron shouted over the surrounding screams, "It's our only hope."

  Feeling insane even as he did it, Wesley laughed at the idea. "We both know that there's no..."

  He finally looked away from the relic.

  "Benjamin Caster created the Orb of Genesis," Wesley said to his friends. "And if this is what it was made for, there's no way to escape. His source levels were off the charts. By my age, he was an SP Deputy. A year later, and he was more powerful than Master Conley." He looked back up at the swelling second sun in the sky. "If this is what he wanted... there's nothing we can do—"

  His last word was slapped out of his mouth.

  "How can you say that!" he heard a little voice holler.

  "Sri?"

  "You of all people!?" She was in tears. "A Warlock! An outcast! No matter what anyone ever said, you keep going, you try. You never give up." Sri stopped for a sniffle. “You always find a way, Wesley." She turned away. "How can you quit?"

  "I," Wesley reached out as if to grab her. Then he let his hand fall back down to his side and balled his fists. "You're right."

  "Well what can you do?" asked Axel in a yelp. "We're just G-classes."

  "No," Wesley disagreed, forming his first hand-sign. "I'm a mage."

  He made the second. This spell was the highest number he had ever attempted.

  Cameron nodded. "Go for it."

  The third and fourth were practiced often and easily rehearsed.

  Sri turned back to him with a smile, her eyes still red from weeping.

  Five. Six.

  The final signs had to be perfect. Last time he was off by a fraction, his source, a hair out of place, and it ended in disaster. This time, no mistakes. He had to save his friends, his parents, everyone. This spell had to be perfect.

  He formed the last three, which he learned were possible only with Cameron's insight. Light shone from his palms as he threw caution to the wind and activated the ancient spell.

  "Spirit of Gaia!"

  Once again, Wesley could see the source as it raced about the arena like a twisted spinning rainbow. He noticed that Cameron was protected by his porcupine-like power and Axel was enclosed in a rock. Sri's source, however, was much less defensive, wafting over him like a soothing massage, as if to encourage him.

  Wesley looked down at the majestic swirling green that danced around his feet. With no other option, nothing to lose, everything to gain, he grabbed his right wrist, squatted, and aimed that hand down. Once again, the Earth's source lifted into an upside-down funnel.

  Wesley remembered the power that he felt before and hoped that it would be enough. His lip began to quiver as he inched the small side of the funnel to his hand. No more than two seconds later, the Earth's life-source took his hand and poured into him.

  He felt a strong breeze blowing off his back, but as if it were originating from him. Although, again, he felt amazingly invincible, something in him told him that a few seconds wouldn't suffice, that he'd have to wait and pull more. But even if the spell was performed correctly, if he continued for too long, he risked being sucked down to the core of the planet.

  His friends gawked at him as the power they couldn't see rushed into his hand. While it entered him undetected by the rest of the world, its partial releases, a testament to his lack of control, were easily observable by the whole of the stadium. Light's shot off is neck into the sky, fire exploded from his shoulders, wind raged from his chest, lightning jumped between his legs, a vine even grew from his back, only to be destroyed by the other bits of escaping power.

  Wesley's feet dug two inches into the ground, but still he held the funnel.

  "Whoa!" shouted Cameron. "Wes, you gotta stop!"

  "Not... yet," he struggled to say through clenched teeth.

  "It's gonna take you in!"

  He couldn't chance replying. He needed every ounce of focus he could muster dedicated to the spell.

  "Ax, try to keep him up!"

  "Are you kidding?" Axel shouted, protecting his face. "I got nothin' on that!"

  Just a little longer, Wesley thought knowing that he was coming close to his limit. His legs stabbed a foot deep into the ground, but then suddenly slowed to a crawling sink.

  "Gotcha!" he heard a man's voice.

  Only able to move his eyes, Wesley glanced fleetingly in the direction of the voice. Axel and Cameron's father were yanking at invisible ropes tethered to the earth beneath him.

  "Don't worry," he heard his old Earth Sorcery master from his other side.

  "We have you." He looked forward to see a boy that he didn't recognize, an upperclassman by the look of his emblem. In almost an instant there were Earth Sorcerers all around him, straining to keep him topside.

  Just after his knees were enveloped, he heard the shrieking of a G-class Witch. "It's coming down!!!"

  Here goes nothing! thought Wesley as he pulled away from the funnel that only he could see and raised his hand over his head. Oh please let this work.

  "Kai!"

  A thick beam of power, erupted from his palm and raced up to the falling star-like Orb of Genesis.

  His power—his spell—verses his dead, criminal, genius, mentor, rival's. They collided in blinding light, with a boom that shook the school. The Orb came to a halt but continued to press against his beam.

  "Wesley!" he heard Master Rosen's voice. "You must hold it until the Orb runs out of power! It's the only way to stop it!" Then the teacher stumbled back as the ground quaked, a consequence of Wesley's slight movement to brace himself. "I have faith in you!"

  "You can do it, Wes!" he heard Cameron's encouraging shout.

  "Yeah, give it hell, bro!" Axel shouted with him.

  He couldn't let them get hurt. His friends, his family, his teachers, even his
enemies, their lives were in his hands. He had to protect them and hold the relic as long as possible. There was only one major problem:

  The power from Gaia was nearing depletion.

  The possibility of failing was an option that he couldn't accept, especially after making it so far, after trying so hard. He pressed on, pushing his own source along with that of the Earth in hopes of extending its time limit.

  Then disaster struck.

  "Agh!!" Wesley bellowed in pain as a bone in his forearm cracked under the force of both the beam and the relic.

  "Wesley, what is the matter!?" He heard the dean.

  "I can't... hold it." a second bone cracked down the middle.

  "His arm is breaking!" called Master Rosen, undoubtedly feeling it through Wesley's source.

  He wanted to keep his hand up, to save them, but the pain was too much and his shoulder began to relax. He squeezed his eyes closed, unable to bear watching himself give up. His heart dropped as his legs began to retreat from the pressure. The Orb slowly continued its descent.

  Then he felt release, but not in the form of total failure. A hand wrapped around his wrist.

  Wesley opened his eyes. "Sri?"

  "What are friends for," she said with a pitiable smile before looking up.

  Another hand took him by the arm, near the elbow. "Yeah, man, we got your back."

  Axel?

  Cameron took his upper arm. "We won't let you fall."

  Then a long, spider-like pale hand squeezed around his wrist, completely overtaking Sri's little mitt. Wesley looked up to see his fear-inspiring, sharp-faced second period master, Conley. "Don' call it quits just yet, kid."

  One by one, everyone that could, placed a hand on him. They held him up. His friends, his masters, braced his shoulders and gave his legs support.

  He couldn't let it all end, not while they still had such faith in him. He had to surpass his absent rival, to step out of Caster's shadow. He had to be better!

  The Orb of Genesis froze again as Wesley dumped all of his remaining source into the kai. He held the it, with the aid of his friends, for another agonizing, eternity-like seven seconds. Then the end of Gaia's power flushed out with a boom, forcing everyone around Wesley to fall to their backs. The spell ended, the last of the beam leaving his hand and rushing up to the relic.

  Wesley closed his eyes, standing frozen in position with his open hand in the air. Then suddenly rather than obliteration, he felt a small sting at the center of his palm.

  "The barrier's gone!" he heard somebody shout and there were cheers everywhere.

  He stood, afraid that if he'd opened his eyes all of the cheers would go away, to be replaced by the reality that everything was destroyed, but whatever hit his hand was hot and round.

  "Wes, open your eyes," he heard Sri's little voice.

  "Uh-uh," he protested.

  "You did it." Axel smacked his back.

  Wesley stumbled forward, his eyelids peeling back in response to the pain. He looked down at his hand to see the object resting peacefully on his palm, a small golden marble.

  "I did it."

  He heard a few more cheers before nothing.

  Darkness.

  Changes

  "… up, Wes," he heard a distant calling, like a voice at the opposite end of a tunnel. It sounded akin to Cameron's, but he couldn't tell. Then it called again, this time sounding closer. "Please wake up. It's almost too late."

  He reached out towards it and the light suddenly returned.

  "Wes!" Sri Ranuka snatched him up in a hug with the strength of someone twice her size, without realizing that his broken arm was between their bodies.

  "Ouch," complained the still disorientated boy. "When did you get so strong?"

  "I'm so happy you're okay," she said with her eyes closed, still holding tightly.

  "So," Axel's voice sounded from a few feet away. "Should we come back later? Or..." He motioned toward himself and his cousin.

  The embracing two quickly shoved back from each other and looked away. Cameron pushed past the Earth Sorcerer and said, "Don't worry about him—he's just jealous. Now, quick, put these on."

  Wesley caught a set of his uniforms before he knew it. "Why the rush?"

  "Ceremony's about to start," answered the older teen in a hurry. "Dean Sinclair decided that if you didn't wake up by today, then—"

  "By today?" repeated Wesley. "Why am I always getting knocked out? How long this time?"

  "Just for the rest of the Final Exams." Cameron looked up at the white, rectangular slabs of the ceiling. "And the day after," he said under his breath.

  "What!"

  "Listen, you used ninety-nine percent of your source. Most people would have died. Luckily Grandmaster Povlow was there. He knows how to Sourcebleed."

  "Yeah," said Axel. "I heard he brought you back from the dead."

  "From the dead?" Wesley repeated.

  "Probably just a rumor," said Cameron. "But that doesn't matter now. Hurry and get dressed."

  "Ugh," Wesley hesitated and tilted his head toward Sri.

  "Oh," said the girl. "Right."

  She pulled back the curtain that was around his uncomfortable, plastic wrapped bed just enough for her shoulders to pass through, and headed for the exit. Cameron grabbed the curtain not quite two seconds later.

  "We'll meet you in the hall," he said to before signaling Axel to follow him. "And be quick about it. We're cutting it close as it is."

  Wesley waited for Axel to close the curtain behind them before rushing on his pants, which was exceptionally difficult, being that his arm was still in a sling. He carefully slid a sleeve over his cast and struggled through buttoning his shirt with one hand for a few seconds before racing out of the room, deciding that he'd do it on the way.

  "Close enough," Cameron said at first sight of him. "Let's go."

  Wesley followed his friends almost blindly, preoccupied with the tedious job of fixing his shirt. By the time they were halfway through the courtyard, he thought of himself with pride, having secured most of the buttons. All but the one on the collar, which he still wasn't a fan of, were in place.

  "What is that?" Wesley asked, after finally looking up from his shirt. The Coliseum had been replaced by an equally impressive building.

  Axel answered with a smile, "That's us, bro. Promotion."

  Wesley prepared to reply with something positive, but his attention was stolen by someone wearing traditional robes who seemed to have appeared at his side out of thin air. The Warlock stopped abruptly and turned to face the walking young man.

  "Hey, it's you again!" Wesley said.

  "Yo, Wes!" he heard Axel calling. The group had gotten as far as thirty meters from him. "You comin', or what?"

  "I'll catch up," Wesley called back. "Save me a seat."

  Axel looked around before answering slowly, "Okay."

  The three dashed away as Wesley turned back to the guy with the black glove. "Remember me?"

  "Of course," said the young man, his remarkably dark eyes fixed on Wesley. "How have you been?"

  "Um, all things considered..."

  To this the young master laughed. "Congratulations. You've done quite well this year, markedly when it comes to interpersonal relationships."

  "Hm?"

  "Never mind."

  "Ugh thanks, I guess," Wesley said scratching at the back of his head.

  "I understand that you saved many lives a few days ago and overpowered the Orb of Genesis, no less," said the stranger as he looked over at the altered stadium as if peering right into the past to see the event. "That's quite a feat to accomplish, especially at your age."

  "You were there?"

  "No, but our whole world knows now." The young man turned back to Wesley. "You are definitely going to make a great mage... some day."

  "Thank you, master," Wesley said with a quick bow.

  "Come here." He waved with his black glove.

  Assuming that if this person wanted t
o hurt him, he would have done it by then, Wesley neared without an ounce of suspicion.

  "You can't walk across the stage looking like that. You'll embarrass your mother," the dark eyed man said and fixed Wesley's top button at the side of his neck.

  "Thanks," the boy said but didn't mean—he truly didn't like the collar. "But that's only if I passed."

  "Yes, of course."

  "Hey can I ask you—"

  "I'm sorry, but I'm scheduled to meet with a colleague soon. And you, too, must be on your way. It'd be improper if you weren't there when your name is called. Goodbye for now."

  "Wait, what's your name?"

  The young man with the black glove paused. "Never much liked my given name. My mother called me Bumblebee because of my first initial, but I go by Killer-B these days. Now go, you'll be late."

  "Right." Wesley turned and ran a few steps before sliding to a halt, realizing what his initial could be short for. He twisted around without a moment’s pause to see nothing but the school. The master had vanished again. Then he grunted as if to convince himself, "Can't be."

  "Hey, what took you so long?" asked his roommate when Wesley belatedly found the seat that they had been saving for him.

  "Nothing," Wesley said. "I just saw someone I sorta know."

  Cameron grunted with the concerned drop of his brow that Wesley knew to be his face of concentration.

  "Can you believe it!" Sri said with animated enthusiasm. "We may only have a few minutes left as G-class magi."

  “That's if I passed, Wesley worried. “You guys proved that you were all around better, but I just used things I already knew about Liam.”

  He fell silent, and wondered if the master's knew that he didn't just do everything on instinct. His reasoning skills weren't strong enough to figure out a surprise opponent and create a strategy that perfect. He was just lucky.

  "Hey." Axel reached over Cameron and punched Wesley's shoulder. "Quit thinking. School's out. All we have to worry about now are which parties to go to."

  "Yeah, just wait for your name, man," added the Wind Sorcerer, throwing Axel's arm back on him.

  Wesley laughed, "Yeah, you're right." But still. "What ever happened to Liam by the way?"