The Phoenix Ring(21)

Timothy stepped forward and said, in a surprisingly strong voice, "I do."

"Then go, fulfill your destiny as a King’s Sorcerer, for the good of Sortiledge!"

The vault opened, and Timothy slowly walked into the dark hole.

There seemed to be an eternity of silence for Aidan as he waited for some sign that his friend was alive.

Finally, there was a shout at the door.

Edwin waved his hand, and Timothy stepped into the light.

He seemed to radiate power, the bottom of his robe was torn and singed, his hands were smoking, and there was a smile on his face. A large blue Soulrock hung from a glistening silver chain around his neck.

Then he ruined the affect by blacking out in front of everyone.

Malachi was at his side faster than any man could run, checking for a pulse.

"He's ok!" The warlock shouted.

The crowd slowly began to settle down as Timothy was carried away.

"Aidan Rune," Edwin yelled, "Ancestors: unknown."

Aidan ground his teeth together.

"Do you, Aidan Rune, agree to use your magic only to serve Sortiledge, to never harm those weaker than yourself, and to treat all the races fairly and without bias?"

"I do!" Aidan yelled, trying to release some anger.

"Then go, fulfill your destiny as a King’s Sorcerer." He spit out the last two words like they had a bad taste, and Aidan began to feel a red haze.

The vault opened, and Aidan stepped down into the darkness.

As soon as the boulder rolled over the entrance, the cave was thrust into darkness. Aidan instinctively put a hand up to his face, but he couldn't see a single finger.

Then, somewhere ahead, Aidan saw a faint purple glow. He began to walk towards, it, using the rough wall to guide him.

The tunnel curved left, then right, and finally, Aidan came to it.

The first one he saw was just lying on the ground. It was a small, orange Soulrock, perfect in its own way.

Then he saw another, laying in a shelf hollowed out in a rock. Then another, and another.

Finally, he came to a hollowed out room in the rock and stopped dead.

There were thousands, maybe millions of Soulrocks. They were in every nook and cranny, atop the stone and on shelves, there were even some hanging on the ceiling. They came in every size, shape and color, on every type of jewelry imaginable. And the cave! The cave was massive, something that Aidan had never even dreamed of. It could have easily held twenty people, plus all the Soulrocks anyone could ever want. The walls were rough hewn, as if someone had just used a pickaxe and decided to make a giant room, there were even stalagmites hanging from the ceiling.

Aidan stood speechless for a few minutes, just staring at the Soulrocks, feeling the power course through the room into him.

If this ever got into the wrong hands…

After about a minute of staring, Aidan finally pulled the stick of rowan wood that he had been provided out of his sleeve.

He had to perform one spell. It was simple, just yok. Come. However, his mind had to communicate to the magic in the room exactly what he wanted to come to him. It was an exercise that Aidan had been practicing for a little while using pieces of rowan wood, but they couldn’t even begin to replace the raw power of a Soulrock.

If it was performed right, then all the Soulrocks with the same or close to the same amount of magic as him would come to him. He would then have to master the Soulrock, which would be an excruciating process, as Eleanor had told him.

He raised his hand and felt the waves of magic coming from the room in front of him. He had always felt a little bit of magic, though he had never known how to identify it from anything else. Now, in this room, the magic was so strong he was almost overwhelmed by it.

Aidan closed his eyes and was about to say the spell when he realized something. If he tried to perform any spell in this room, the results would be multiplied tenfold. He had to rethink the entire magic process, cutting back most of his power.

He closed his eyes again, feeling the magic flow around him and into him.

"Yok."

He only let a little bit of magic out, but he felt it go into the air around him anyways.

He imagined the Soulrock he might retrieve, he was thinking it would probably be red, or orange.

Then, butterflies in his stomach, he opened his eyes.

There was nothing.

Not the nothing as in emptiness, just a complete lack of change in the magic of the room.

Aidan stepped back, surprised.

Did I do it wrong? Is there more to the spell?

Aidan knew that Soulrocks did not have a name in The Sorcerer’s Tongue, which was why young mages simply used the word yok.

He closed his eyes and put some more power into the spell.

"Yok!"

He opened his eyes.

Again, nothing.

Aidan began trying each spell he knew, starting with adding things to his base spell and finally trying elementals.