Chapter two
Shelley spent a few days preparing before performing her show, when she was ready she summoned me to the amphitheater.
The show was not too elaborate and lasted about twenty five minutes. Her final illusion was making a large inflatable elephant appear behind a curtain.
“I would have used a real one but the pet store was out,” she said smiling.
I clapped my hands together when she was finished, “very good, no obvious mistakes and a confident stage presence. You are now ready for the real thing.”
Shelley blushed a little and then smiled an embarrassed smile.
“Come with me I have something to show you,” I said.
I left the amphitheater and walked down the corridor while flipping the small wooden squares on my sorcerer’s bracelet.
I stopped in front of a short hallway that ended with a solid looking bronze door.
“Where did that come from? I never noticed that hallway before,” Shelley asked.
I smiled at her, “It’s a secret place, be observant you will not see it often.”
I reached up and felt along the top of the doors frame. My fingers closed around a large key and I took it down.
I put the key into a square hole in the bronze door and lifted it up, I then grabbed a protruding lever and slid it back.
“That’s and odd looking key, it looks like a toothbrush” Shelley said pointing to the keys protruding handle.
“It’s an ancient lock, the principle is the same except you lift up the key instead of rotating it.”
I pushed open the heavy bronze door revealing an enormous well lit room with a high ceiling. The room’s floor, ceiling, and walls were constructed of brilliant white marble, on the floor there were numerous long wooden table like structures arranged in parallel. The tables tops where tilted at forty five degrees.
I grabbed Shelley’s hand and led her to one of the nearest tables it was about twenty feet long and had an equally long sheet of papyrus about two feet wide sitting on top of it. The papyrus was covered with columns of writing.
“This is a spell,” I pointed to the papyrus.
Shelley tried to touch it with her index finger but was met with resistance about an inch from the surface.
“It’s a time gradient, time moves so slow above the papyrus it would take years to move your finger to its surface.” I said.
“Why?”
“I had to do it to stop the papyrus from rotting.”
Shelley suddenly had an expression of enlightenment, “that’s the same thing you used on your sarcophagus to preserve your body.”
I smiled, “very observant.”
“What does this spell do?” Shelley said.
“Believe it or not it’s the cities plumbing system, it is in sore need of updating now that I know of the existence of infectious micro-organisms.”
I walked over to another table as Shelley followed me. This table had a long sheet of paper lying on it instead of papyrus.
Shelley cautiously tried touching it and was surprised when she was able to.
“It feels like paper money,” she said.
“It’s the same type of paper they use to print bills.”
“How did you get it? I thought only governments could buy this.”
I smiled at her, “you have to ask?”
“Oh...”
Shelley studied the paper closely, “The ink is different too, it looks familiar.”
“High quality magic marker, I do the preliminary spell in pencil then trace over it with the marker,” I said.
“What is it for?”
“It’s kind of a secret, it’s not done yet anyway. Do you see any other differences between this spell and one of the older ones?”
Shelley studied one of the papyrus spells then looked at the paper one, “The symbols, the new spell doesn’t have those weird symbols at each end.”
I conjured up a pad of paper and a pencil and gave it to Shelley.
“This is your first lesson, copy down the symbols, make sure they are exact,” I said.
“What are they?”
“They are each a geometric representation of a number.”
“Can’t you just write out the numbers?”
“Yes you can but the symbols are much easier to remember.”
Shelley painstakingly copied both the symbols it took her about ten minutes.
“Never ever show those symbols to anyone, they are the biggest secret in sorcery. In order for a spell to work you must put these symbols at the top and the bottom of the script.”
I pulled a sheet of folded paper out of my pocket and handed it to Shelley. She unfolded it and looked at the writing on it.
“What does it mean?” She asked.
“Write the symbols on the top and bottom.”
Shelley did as I asked, as she finished the last symbol a snapping sound caused her to jump back startled.
“What is it?” she asked breathlessly, her gaze locked on to the magic fissure floating above the ground.
“The building block of magic, its most basic element.”
Shelley reached out to touch it. I had anticipated her curiosity and quickly grabbed her arm.
“No don’t touch, it has no thickness it will slice your finger off.”
I pulled a pencil out of my pocket and pressed it against the fissure, it was sliced in two without any resistance.
“This is just one of the many reasons why sorcery is so dangerous,” I said.
I picked up the sheet of paper and carefully ripped the symbols off the top and the bottom leaving the just the script. The fissure disappeared.
I put the paper down on a table and began to explain the first basic principles of sorcery to Shelley.
After thirty minutes of explanation I turned and asked if she had any questions.
“What about the molding it with your hands stuff... you know... strong knuckles.”
”Oh... yes... that comes much later. That is for the very advanced sorcerer.”
Shelley’s eyes narrowed in suspicion.
“You now know enough to write a spell, the first spell every sorcerer learns, the copier.”
“It creates a copy of something?” Shelley asked.
“Yes, do you think you can do it?”
“I think so,” Shelley took out her note pad and began to write. It took her about twenty minutes to finish the script. She then wrote the magic symbols on the top and bottom of her spell.
Shelley took a ring off her finger and put it beside her note pad. We both waited for a few seconds then we both heard a snapping sound as a second ring appeared six inches above the first and fell beside it.
A few seconds passed and another ring fell, then another. Shelley picked up the note pad and ripped the bottom symbol from the spell sheet. No more rings appeared.
“You did it! You wrote your first spell!” I clapped my hands together.
Shelley had an expression of profound accomplishment on her face.
“Ok now I will give you some homework, I want you to write five variations of the copier spell, I will check them tomorrow,” I said.
I picked up the rings on the table and put them in my pocket, “let’s go,” I followed Shelley out of the spell room then turned and locked the door. When we had left the small corridor I used my bracelet to make it disappear again.
Shelley walked over to the now featureless wall that stood in place of the corridor and put her hands against it.
“It’s solid, it’s not an illusion,” she said to me.
“Everything is an illusion,” I replied.
The next day Shelley met me in the amphitheater as usual, she handed me the five variations of the spell she had created, I looked them all over and was happy to see they all showed effort and imagination.
“Very good, I said as I put them through a paper shredder.
“We’re not going to try them?” Shelley asked.
“Experimenting
with spells is always dangerous, I only do it when I need a new one. I have lots of copier spells. Come I have another room to show you,” I said.
Shelley followed me down another one of the buildings numerous corridors. I stopped in front of a large wooden door, It was made of heavy oak bound together with thick bronze straps.
“This hasn’t been opened in six thousand years,” I said.
“What is it,” Shelley asked her eyes wide with excitement.
“It’s my research library.”
I conjured up a small bronze sword and gave it to Shelley, “Just in case there’s something in there, don’t be afraid to run like hell.”
“Why would there be something in there?”
“My original library was pretty pathetic, all It had was my notes on magic and some mathematics and religious texts, so I came up with a plan to make it grow on its own. I enchanted several scrolls that contained the sorts of writings that other scholars would find irresistible. I then gave these scrolls away.
When these scrolls are placed in another library they copy all the books in that library and transport them back here, this room has a spell that catalogues the books and enlarges the shelf space for each new delivery.”
“So why should there be anybody here?” Shelley asked.
“Well some spells have little mistakes in them that make them do unexpected things, I never really had a chance to thoroughly test this one.”
“Wouldn’t the enchanted scrolls eventually be lost?”
“They were basically indestructible and if they stayed in one place too long they would disappear then reappear high in the sky and then fall to earth for someone else to find.”
I lifted up the small wooden beam that held the door closed, it sat in two heavy bronze hooks. Shelley and I grabbed the doors large wooden handle and pulled as hard as we could. The door resisted our efforts for a few seconds then flew open.
We both cautiously walked over the threshold and emerged into a large open area that had a number of wooden tables and chairs. Beyond the open area as far as the eye could see there were shelves and shelves of books, scrolls, tablets, and every other conceivable medium for writing.
“Holy crap!” Shelley said.
“Holy crap indeed,” I replied.
I walked over to one of the large shelves, there was a small wooded sign that jutted out with a name written on it in a language I didn’t recognize.
“It’s ancient Greek I think, it looks familiar. Ar... Archimedes!” Shelley yelped.
She took one of the scrolls out and unrolled it, “Oh my god Kem, I think you’ve got all his writings here.”
We walked through the shelves trying to discern how big the room had become, after twenty minutes of walking we feared getting lost. The shelves appeared to be endless.
The books were catalogued in every conceivable method I could think of and some I hadn’t thought of, there was no common system throughout the library. We even stumbled on a huge modern section that appeared to be using the Dewey decimal system.
There were some sections that appeared to be from technical libraries, I found a row of handwritten notebooks on the enrichment of uranium the dates were all in the early nineteen forties.
“Wow, now this is a research library, I’ll bet the contents of the library of Alexandria in in here somewhere,” Shelley said.
“Yes but how can you find anything?” I replied.
“I thought you had a cataloguing spell?”
“My original library had maybe fifty scrolls, I never thought this would happen.”
We walked back to the open section by the rooms entrance door, I grabbed Shelley’s hand and led her to the rooms very first set of shelves. I pointed to a meager group of papyrus scrolls.
“Those are my writings on magic,” I said feeling a bit embarrassed.
Shelley walked over and took one of the scrolls out and unrolled it.
“You must never take any books out of this room,” I said to Shelley.
“Why? Will something bad happen?”
“Yes... I will get very angry. This is very dangerous stuff especially if it gets into the wrong hands.”
“Do you think there are other magical writings here?” Shelley asked.
I thought for a moment, “I guess it’s possible.”
I started to think of some way of finding them, of finding anything in this place. The ceiling of the room was about twenty feet high, the shelves rose to about half that distance. I started flipping the squares on my bracelet, a small square wooded platform appeared hovering about six inches off the floor.
I stepped onto the platform motioning Shelley to step onto it as well. I flipped another square on my bracelet and the platform slowly started to rise. I stopped it when our heads were about a foot away from the ceiling.
The shelves looked like they extended into infinity, I could not see the far wall. The room also widened more and more as it lengthened. I lowered the platform to the floor and we both stepped off.
“We need some kind of search spell,” Shelley said.
“No such spell exists unfortunately, let’s go I have much more to teach you.”
I taught Shelley the basic laws and fundamentals of magic over the next few weeks. I had her write spells which would utilise each new principle so that her understanding would be complete.
She was an eager learner and I was always impressed by her solutions to the problems I gave her. It was soon evident to me that she was ready for the next big step in her journey to become a true sorcerer.
“Shelley I have a new project for you,” I said to her as she sat in the amphitheater taking notes.
“What?”
“I want you to write a spell.”
“What do you want it to do?”
“Whatever you want, it’s time for you to start being creative. Think of something you want to do, prepare the spell and then show me. You have two days, remember be careful, it’s more important that it works right then if it’s spectacular.”
For the next two days I seldom saw Shelley, and when I did she was very secretive and non-committal. She was obviously putting a lot of effort into her spell and wanted to surprise me.
The day came for her demonstration, she told me she wanted to perform the spell on the stage in the amphitheater.
We both walked to the amphitheater in silence, when we arrived I took a seat on one of the amphitheaters benches facing the stage. Shelley walked onto the stage and expression of excitement on her face.
“OK here goes, it’s a simple spell but I tried to incorporate a lot of different things into it.”
Shelley walked backwards until she was to the far left of the stage facing the middle. She raised her arms dramatically.
“ELEFANTE!!” she yelled.
There was a bright red flash and then a very large African elephant appeared in the middle of the stage.
The large beast stood stock still for a few seconds his eyes darting about as if panicked. The elephant then noticed Shelley standing in front of him, she was in the process of raising her arms again, I assumed to send the great beast back from where he came.
The elephant suddenly raised its trunk let out an enormous bellow and charged towards Shelley.
Shelley’s face turned as white as a sheet.
“Eek...” she said, then she turned and ran off the stage and out the room faster than I had ever seen anyone run.
The elephant stomped around the stage for a minute or two crashing into things while making a huge racket. He suddenly stopped and stared straight at me, I thought I could see an expression of smug satisfaction.
“Sobek?”
The elephant then turned, bellowed and smashed through the rear wall of the stage exiting the room.
I stared at the bright sunlight now streaming through the large hole he had created.
“Well that sure didn’t go well,” Shelley was back, peeking through the door.
“Nonsense, that was spe
ctacular,” I replied.
“He sure was a lot nicer when I met him at the zoo.”
“Well he’s free now.”
“Will he be all right?” Shelley asked a worried expression on her face.
“There’s a large river a mile from here and elephants can smell water, there are other elephants too. He should be fine.”
Shelley’s face brightened.
“He was so nice at the zoo, the handlers let me feed him peanuts. I guess getting transported here scared him.”
“I noticed you made an elephant appear in your magic show too,” I asked.
“I just like elephants... it’s a long story,” she replied.
“Well congratulations, you wrote your first original spell, I pronounce you a novice sorcerer.”
“Really... it’s not a particularly useful spell,” she said.
“I don’t know... I’m sure there are dozens of uses for a rampaging elephant... an unfaithful lover for instance.”
“Ya... or if I need the recycling compacted.”
“Or if there’s a long line at the movie theater.”
We both started laughing.
“We should celebrate, let’s go out. We’ll drink the hard wine from the little glasses,” I said.
“Do you think it’s safe? What about that investigator guy that questioned you?”
“Oh I’m sure he’s given up, as far as he knows we could be in Timbuktu. We’ve been gone for months.”
“Ok... let me get ready.”
After Shelley left I used my bracelet to fix the rear wall of the stage. I didn’t want any wild animals walking into the building.