Bonus Story:
My Fourth World:
Meeting the Magician Siblings
“HEY, WILL…do you think that’ll do it?” a girl asked, her voice echoing through the empty basement.
The boy named Will ignored the girl, instead focusing on the complex patterns he was drawing on the stone floor. His fingertips had turned white with chalk. They were both in their mid-teens.
“Hey, Will! Listen to me!”
“Can it,” he finally replied irritably.
The girl’s cheeks puffed up at her brother’s indifference. She carefully lifted the hem of her robe so it wouldn’t drag and erase the lines she had drawn. Then, poised on the tips of her toes, she carefully stepped to a corner of the room.
Her brother was usually decent toward her, but not when he was immersed in the arcane arts. At times like these, even the slightest impediment was enough to make him snap. To make matters worse, both his master and his fellow pupils saw this kind of intensity as a good thing for mages to possess, so no one
scolded him about it. Still, his sister felt this was why he would always be alone.
At this rate, my brother will be joining their ranks in no time, the girl thought as she took a seat.
All the junk that had formerly filled the basement had been moved outside the day before. This alone had been an arduous undertaking for the both of them. Now the floor was covered with bizarre and convoluted symbols—the fruits of their labor. These were not merely decorative designs; each symbol had its own meaning and purpose, and together they formed a magic circle. Not even a single line of it could be off, or else the whole of the drawing would lose its effect…or worse, run of control.
If the latter happened, and they lost control of the magic circle, God only knew what might occur. One of the senior pupils had once made a minor mistake, and thereafter, he had been forced to live with an uncanny flower blooming from his head. No matter how many times he pruned it, it would be back the next day, and he would be assailed by unimaginable pain should he try to uproot it.
Many saw her brother as some genius magician. He had been scouted by Imall the Archmagus, and in only a few years, he would go on to shock everyone for having picked up many of the master’s secrets. Every magician who knew of him also knew that the day he would stand shoulder to shoulder with Master Imall was not far away.
At the moment, Will was attempting to summon a form of spirit known as a helper demon. It was the most elementary summoning spell. The girl had often observed these small, humanoid figures assisting the senior disciples. Will intended to use the demon to search for his master’s precious ring, which he had secretly made off with the other night and then lost.
One would think completing a spell of this type would be no problem at all for her genius brother. However, even after he had finished his work, Will checked it over again and again. There was a reason he was being so cautious—summoning arts were the only thing Master Imall wasn’t prepared to teach him. Will’s level of magical knowledge and ability was still growing and constantly in flux, making for a kind of instability. If he attempted a summoning in such a state, there was no telling what might be called forth.
But Will wasn’t one to back down just because he was told to. He’d sneaked into the library without being seen, flipped through the books on summoning, and studied the techniques on his own. With the master and all the other apprentices away today, it was the perfect opportunity for him to put his knowledge to the test.
Once she felt he was done reviewing his own work, his sister called, “Hey, Will, make sure you check my part too.”
“Yeah, sorry about that, Marie. I’ll be right over.”
His tone was softer than before, but Marie still sullenly turned her face from him.
Paying her attitude no mind, Will stooped down and began inspecting the sections of the composition she had been tasked with drawing. Marie watched him from the corner of her eye.
“Thank you,” he said. “It’s perfect.”
Once he’d finished his inspection, he stepped carefully to Marie and ruffled her hair.
“Stop it! You’re making a mess of it. Oh, I won’t forget this!”
Ignoring her protests, Will made his way to the center of the magic circle.
“Now, let’s begin. Marie, could you move back more?” As he said this, his face was not that of a teenage boy, but of a true magician.
Will placed his hands on the central chalk lines and began to chant a spell. His palms exuded a pale blue luminescence, which slowly spread across the floor along the many lines that formed the circle. When the uncanny light had fully outlined the drawing, he chanted the last section of the spell that would complete the ritual.
“Come to me, my tiny servant! Heed my words, and find what was lost in the woods!”
All the circle’s light concentrated at a point before his eyes, flickering as it formed into a small humanoid shape. His tense posture relaxed somewhat as he became convinced of his success. The next moment, though, something seemed off.
The glowing figure, nearly fully constructed, began to waver and grow larger. Something had gone wrong, and Marie knew it. What was manifesting in this world was definitely not a helper demon, but something more powerful, more sinister.
“Will! You have to stop the ritual!”
“I can’t—it’s already taking form!”
What had once been a hazy outline of light now floated before them with definitive physical form.
“Marie! Run!”
But it was too late. By the time her brother screamed, the being was already there in the room with them.
Appearance-wise, it was simply a boy barely older than themselves, yet the figure carried a thick aura of death.
Will had to squeeze out every last drop of courage to ask, “Wh-who are you?”
The boy answered, “I am a hero. I am here to save the world.”
That proclamation couldn’t have sounded further from the truth. In the first place, they hadn’t heard that the world was in some great danger. In Marie’s eyes, it looked like this boy himself was the calamity.