Daniel's Early Days: A Young Wizard's Story

Ch 28 Ball of Flames-Before Daniel became a powerful Mage, he was just a boy. Follow him from the beginning as he receives his powers, embarks on many adventures, and learns what true power really is.

 

“No, no, no,” Daniel whispered fiercely. Nobody warned him that the symbol might just melt right off the cover. Fortunately, the now liquid flame didn’t soak into his jeans; it beaded up and settled in a crease of the fabric.

He stared at it in disbelief. His mother’s spell book! What was he going to do? For the second time this morning, panic welled up in his chest. Frozen in fear, Daniel remained completely still. He was afraid if he moved the liquid would slip off his lap and disappear.

He opened his mouth to yell for his parents when he heard another familiar voice resonating within his mind. “I’ll be right there, Little One,” Pearl’s soothing voice echoed in his head.

Daniel took a deep breath, and tried to remain calm. Help was on the way. Although he remained absolutely motionless, the liquid appeared to shimmer and dance on his jeans. He watched in amazement. He had seen images jump off of spell books before, but nothing like this. It was surprising enough to discover that the candle’s blue flame was actually water impersonating fire, but to have it slide off the book and into his lap was shocking to say the least.

The shimmering water was mesmerizing, and Daniel resisted the urge to touch it. It wasn’t long though before the temptation was too much. Holding his breath to keep a steady hand, he gently prodded the liquid with his forefinger. It was warm and had a thick skin that wasn’t easily penetrated. Undeterred Daniel tried again; pushing even harder. Still, he couldn’t get through the thick outer layer of this peculiar opaque liquid. However, when he pulled his finger back, the liquid clung to it, every drop of it. It covered his fingertip and the overflow hung off in a large dangling drop before slowly pulling up and rejoining the rest; almost like it was magnetized.

 Enthralled by the bizarre behavior of this strange liquid, Daniel almost didn’t notice when Pearl appeared above the trees. Nevertheless, he was aware of her presence on some unconscious level, and he could sense her before his other senses caught up. He tore his eyes away from this strange phenomenon just as Pearl swooped down from the treetops. She landed on the stone wall in front of him with a small clink of metal against stone. She tilted her small metallic head to one side and eyes him curiously. “What’s wrong?” she inquired.

Daniel raised his finger, but to his astonishment it was now bare. He sputtered incoherently before turning his attention back to the spell book. The liquid flame was back atop the melting candle and everything was still.

“The flame...the water…” Daniel trailed off.

“The book responded to you,” Pearl nodded agreeably. “You have experienced it before, why are you surprised?”

“This was different. It slid right off the cover!”

Pearl eyed the book, and then turned her eyes back up to Daniel. “It is back now. What are you waiting for? Open the book,” she chided.

Daniel bit back a biting retort to her blasé manner. Instead, he carefully opened the book. As he suspected, the text was written in Latin. There were symbols that looked more like crude drawings on almost every page, but he couldn’t understand any of the writing. He thought his mother said that there would be some notes in English.

Frustrated but not dissuaded, Daniel kept leafing through the pages. His mother did say that magic was mostly about feeling and that he should feel out the book and identify something that spoke to him. The symbols gave him a rough idea about what kind of spell he was looking at.

Some of the symbols were obvious, like the lightning bolt, which intrigued him immediately. He skimmed the text hoping that something might look familiar from his brief experience with his grandfather’s spell book, but no such luck.

Daniel really wanted to be able to manipulate the weather like his father, but the longer he looked at that page, the more alien the words looked. Sighing, he looked up from the book and met Pearl’s shiny metal eyes. She nodded encouragingly and pushed her snout against the corner of the pages urging him to keep looking.

After the lightning, was some kind of spell for fire. Centered at the bottom of the page, was a ball of flame. He couldn’t say why exactly, but the symbol fascinated him. He had never been what he would consider a pyro; never really played with fire before, but now he desperately wanted to.

The fireball symbol consisted of blood red and burnt orange wavy lines that curled in upon themselves and rose from the northern most portion like forked tongues testing the air. This symbol spoke to him; it stirred something inside him.

Bit by bit, the waving lines began to twist and turn. The skinny lines of flames began to fill out until it really was a ball of flames. Burning brightly, the ball of fire seemed to jump right off the page. Not only did it look real now, but Daniel could swear he smelled smoke.

The flames rose; reaching out and wrapping around the lowest line of text. As mesmerizing and amazing as the writhing flame was, Daniel’s eyes flicked to the text in anticipation. The words were still unreadable, but something told Daniel to look harder. He flicked his eyes along the words, but nothing stood out to him. Determined, he stared at the words until his eyes began to water and his vision became blurry. He blinked the tears away and rubbed his eyes. When his vision finally cleared, the words were no longer Latin, and Daniel could understand every word.