The Enchanter (Journals of Evander Tailor Book 1), page 1
The Enchanter
The Journals of Evan Tailor: Book One
Tobias Begley
© 2022 Tobias Begley
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
To my mother, who’s been with me through thick and thin
Contents:
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
EPILOGUE
PROLOGUE
The first rip in reality pulsed like an open wound, glowering with a black and violet light, and then a monster emerged.
The monster was roughly orb-shaped with a massive, bloodshot eye in the center. In the middle of the eye, where a pupil would have normally been, a sharp beak filled with hooked teeth jutted out from the soft flesh. The teeth seemed to grow and shrink as the creature rose into the air. A dozen tentacles spiraled out of the eye in an unearthly pattern, and each tentacle was lined with sharp teeth. The teeth on the tentacles chewed at the air, letting out a high-pitched squeal.
It was smaller than what was to come, only the size of a rabbit, but that wasn’t an issue.
These were just a herald of what was to follow.
The man—who had spent weeks wresting control of the ley energies needed to access the foreign realm from which these monsters came—looked to his master.
The master smiled. “You’ve done well. How long will it take for you to open the gates wide enough to call forth one of the children?”
The summoner lowered his head in a slight bow. “I believe it should be done by the equinox.”
The master opened his mouth to respond, but the monster they had brought into the world screamed and shot towards the summoner.
With a simple effort of will and Aura, the master ripped the monster to shreds. The foul black ichor slowly spread and seeped into the wood of the floor.
The master frowned. “That took more of my power than it should have. What is that?”
“It’s called a consumer,” the summoner responded.
“Bond one to yourself. Even as weak as that was, the effect was noticeable. If you bond a stronger one, it should help you push forward your own power.”
The summoner bowed his head again. “Of course.”
The master looked at the sky and frowned. “I need to go. I can’t be away too long. The others will have already noticed my absence, and they would not understand. I’ll return when it’s time for me to bind the child to myself. Until then, keep this a secret. Nobody must find out about this.”
The summoner straightened with pride. “You have my word.”
The master looked at the summoner one more time, then flew away. As the great academy of Yesgol faded into the distance behind him, the only thoughts in the master’s head were those of the future.
One day soon, one of the most powerful beings in all the realms would be bound to him.
Soon, nobody would stand in the way of him or his home.
CHAPTER ONE
Awakening
I was nineteen years old when my magic manifested for the very first time. It had been a hectic day at work for us since my adoptive father, Aldvarri, had received a rather large order for suiting up a group of the King’s Golden Fox Battlemages with a full uniform of cloaks, pants, shirts, and more. Aldvarri had set me to hemming the pants for the battlemages while he worked on their cloaks in the back room.
The event that caused my magic to appear wasn’t dramatic, I didn’t call up lightning or turn myself into a mole. I merely pricked my thumb with the needle. As a drop of crimson swelled on my thumb, I sighed and stood.
“Aldvarri,” I called out, my voice echoing in the quiet of the shop, “can you bring me a tissue?”
A few moments later, there was a soft thumping of the old elf’s cane against the wood floor. As he emerged into the main part of the shop, where I had been working at the counter, he froze, staring at me with wide eyes.
“Well,” he said, “I… I suppose you won’t be my apprentice any longer now, will you?”
“Pardon?” I questioned as I blinked in confusion.
The old man shook his head and merely said, “Wait.”
With that, he went into the back room again, returning a moment later with a hand mirror, which he held up to me. In the mirror, I saw myself. I, unlike Aldvarri, was of average height for a human. Where Aldvarri was tan, I was pale, my skin nearly the color of milk. My shoulders were fairly narrow for my frame, making me look smaller than I was, and with my plain brown hair and hazel eyes, I looked utterly unremarkable.
Utterly unremarkable, that was, except for the swirling emerald Aura that coated my body. It was an inch thick and encased me like a viridescent fire.
A few minutes later, we were sitting at our dining room table, and Aldvarri took a deep, steadying breath.
“You have an Aura,” he said. “You have magic.”
I nodded slowly, looking down at my hand, where the emerald of my Aura was slowly fading back into invisibility.
“I… I guess I do.”
I looked up at Aldvarri, completely unsure of what I should do. He gave me a soft smile that was equal parts pride and sorrow.
“Well, do you want to study magic?” he asked, and his voice was full of trepidation. “It can be a dangerous thing indeed.”
I nodded at that, wracking my brain to try and remember whatever scraps I’d learned in school about magic. One in every two or three hundred people had an Aura, if I remembered correctly, though I’d never really expected to be one of them. But of those, only about one in every ten bothered to follow magic as a career path, and most of those who did were from noble houses or descendants of great warriors or mages.
“Could I even afford to do it?” I asked. “School has to cost a lot of money, and I really doubt I can afford it with what I’ve saved up.”
“Money may not be the issue you expect. There are ways to get loans and scholarships. I’ve no doubt you could go there. Paying for your materials is a bit more, but the loans may help with that? My main concern is that magic is risky. I don’t want to see you hurt or dead because of it. My…”
He paused for a moment, the words seemingly stuck in his throat, and I didn’t pressure the old man to continue.
“Is it worth the risk?” I asked him, and I saw his face scrunch up in what looked like contemplation before he answered.
“I don’t have an Aura. I don’t have magic. But”—Aldvarri took a deep breath to steady himself before he continued—“my wife did before she passed.”
I blinked in surprise at that. Though Aldvarri had been nothing but kind to me, he’d very rarely spoken about his wife. I knew she’d died about seventy years prior, and she’d been a human, like me, rather than an elf.
“She loved magic,” Aldvarri continued. “As much as life itself. She was a Witch —and a skilled one as far as I could tell. She wasn’t ever a battlemage, but she’d weave enchantments and charms, and she would hand them out to anyone she thought would need the help. Lots of mages get rich, but she didn’t do it for that. She did it to help people and out of a love of doing magic.”
I was surprised to hear Aldvarri bring up his wife. He rarely spoke about her, though he did occasionally take out a painting of the two of them to look at. I didn’t want to force him to talk more, though I appreciated him sharing.
“If I were to study magic,” I said, “is that what you’d want me to do?”
His gaze focused on me, quiet and contemplative. It took him nearly a full minute before he responded.
“Perhaps,” he said, “if that was what you wanted. But if you wanted to live another life, be it as a tailor, a Witch, or any of the other types of magic or mundane that you could walk, I would do what I could to assist you. For now, you need to think about it. You shouldn’t make a choice based on what I want. Even if I disagree with your choice, I’ll still try to help you.”
I could definitely agree to think before I made any sort of hasty decision.
We ate a quiet dinner of mushroom and barley stew. Al dvarri didn’t speak much through the meal, though he briefly commented on the border skirmishes with the nearby nation of Zheren. I was thankful for the silence as it gave me time to think, and I needed it.
On one hand, this opened paths I never would have thought possible. Even a weak magic-user could make far more than a tailor—if that was their goal. But I didn’t dislike being a tailor. I liked my quiet life. And, more importantly, I owed Aldvarri. He had given me the option to pursue a life outside of the factories.
As I cleaned the dishes and he sat, reading the paper, I asked him, “Aldvarri, if I were to pursue magic, what would you do? What would happen to the shop? You’ve spent almost ten years of your life teaching me, and I wouldn’t be able to work at the shop anymore.”
He lowered his paper and answered, apparently having already thought about it.
“To you, ten years is a very long time, but you’ve not quite lived double that. To the elves, the aster, giant-kin, or any of the others that can live for a few centuries, a decade is not so long. But the second point is true. I am getting older, and while I hoped to turn the shop over to you, if not? Well, I may simply retire. I have maybe thirty years left, and I’d like to spend them in peace. I have the money.”
I felt a stab of guilt at that. I didn’t want to end my teacher’s legacy just because I wanted to follow magic. But at the same time, I DID want to follow magic. I would be able to change my life as a mage more than I ever could as a tailor. The life of a noble had never been something that I’d been overly interested in, but I didn’t even need that. I could easily set myself up to be like one of the merchant families that we bought our supplies from. That level of comfortable wealth did appeal to me.
And, if I was to be honest with myself, magic interested me. I mean, who wouldn’t want to be able to trap a storm in a bottle or blast fire from their fingertips?
I frowned contemplatively as I finished up the dishes and lit the fireplace in the living room. I sat back in a chair and thought. Aldvarri always took his time thinking about things, and I could do the same.
As he read, I slowly asked a question, “What if I didn’t completely abandon being your apprentice? Could that work? I mean, I’d be doing a lot of studying and a lot of work, but I could come here during breaks to work, and I could try and come during the weekends as well.”
The old elf looked up at me and sighed, putting his paper down in his lap as he did so.
“Perhaps, yes, during your breaks. But you’ll have to study during the school year. And more than that, you’ll be fairly far away from the capital since mages in training need their space to set up and practice magic. It’s a few days travel by train and carriage, from my understanding.”
That cooled the desire a bit. Leave the capital? I’d only been outside of the city once or twice, and that was only on short trips for work. Not that I was agoraphobic, exactly—or at least, I’d never admit it out loud. I was a city boy. I’d been born in the city, grown up here, and I’d fully expected to die here. The idea of waltzing off into the countryside to study was a bit strange to me. Not to mention, it meant leaving my job altogether.
But once again, I came back to the money—not to sound greedy, but there was a lot of money to be made in magic. And I could use it, not just for me but for Aldvarri, too. It could allow him to live out his years in comfort. And the magic. I mean…
I wasn’t special. But the idea that I could make myself into someone special? That did sound appealing, even if I didn’t love the idea of having to be put in front of a bunch of people to talk. So maybe I was a bit agoraphobic. But I still functioned, so I had it better than plenty of others.
That night, when I went to bed, I resolved to gather more information. I still needed to learn more before I dove into doing one thing or another, and I also needed to see when the semester would begin. Then I would know what time frame I was working in.
CHAPTER TWO
Research
That Saturday, I got my chance to go out and research. On weekends, we closed the shop at the noonday bell, so I was left with plenty of time to try and figure out more about Yesgol, magic, and what I would be getting myself into. So, as soon as I had finished sweeping, I buttoned up my coat, said my goodbyes to Aldvarri, and departed.
The first place that I decided that I would visit was the library. I was betting that there would be at least one magic-user there since the Royal Library of Paerús had a magic section—a section I’d never hoped to be able to enter, but I may be able to now.
The Royal Library of Paerús is an imposing sight, made of thick white marble and nearly three stories tall, but it was a sight I was well used to. I spent plenty of time here, but the last time I had attempted to enter the section that housed the magical texts had been when I was a daydreaming kid. I walked past the shelves of dozens of novels that I’d read and the thousands more that I hadn’t and headed up the white marble staircase to the third floor.
On the landing of the staircase to the third level was a massive slab of steel that was covered in dozens upon dozens of strange runes and markings the size of my hand. I stared at the steel slab and willed it to open, staring intently at it. Nothing happened. I hesitantly reached out and touched the steel slab with my index finger. Instantly, the symbol in the center of the steel slab that was closest to me lit up with a green light the same color that my Aura had been, and I yanked my hand back.
Should I keep touching the door? What if it bit me or something? I didn’t know if it could do that, but I’d heard stories about terrible things happening to people who tried to break into the home of a mage.
Then again, this was the library. They couldn’t have anything dangerous enough to melt the flesh from my bones.
I hesitantly put my pinkie on the center glyph, figuring that if anything would happen, it would at least be to a finger that was a little less important. Again, the glyph lit up, but this time I didn’t pull away. The light continued to leak from the center outwards, and the other glyphs began to glow as well until eventually, every glyph on the slab was glowing emerald. But nothing else happened.
I had an Aura, but that didn’t make me a mage. I must have stood there lost in my own head for ages because I didn’t hear the footsteps of someone else coming up behind me. There was a cough, and I whirled around to see a woman about my age standing there.
A quick glance at her three shadows and four-fingered hands revealed her as an aster—a cousin to elves and humans. She was tall, taller than me, and she had short, cropped black hair with coffee-colored skin and eyes that glimmered a light green like spring grass. Given that elves and aster only slowed down aging at about forty, she couldn’t have been much older than she looked. She arched an eyebrow at me, her grimace displaying her shark-like teeth.
Judging by her high-quality cotton trousers and her silken shirt, I took that she had to have some money. But the trousers also meant that her family likely had strong enough military ties that they wouldn’t care about having her dress in skirts and dresses.
“Well,” she asked, “are you going to open the door? Or are you just going to stand there like a fish?”
I blinked. Like a fish? Fish weren’t land animals, and they certainly didn’t have legs that could allow them to stand. Besides, this wasn’t a door. It was a slab of metal.
Apparently, silence was not the answer that she was looking for because she rolled her eyes so hard that they nearly vanished into her head, and then she pointed a finger at the steel slab. An Aura that extended four inches from her body lit up with a dark purple, and then it coiled around her finger and shot towards the steel slab like a bullet from a pistol. The glyphs lit up with the amethyst color, and she spoke.
“Patentibus,” she said, and her voice rang down the hallway like the clear chime of a gong. There was a soft cracking sound like tearing open a crunchy bite of bread, and abruptly, there was an open passageway in the steel.
“Haven’t you learned your glyphs yet?” she asked as she entered the third floor, and I stepped in after her. I shook my head, and she pressed her lips together, mouth thinning in annoyance.
“Ah. So, you’re one of the ones who wasn’t born into a magical family, then?”
