“Master, I am sorry for interrupting your reading, but there is a matter that requires your attention,” the voice stated and Perdinar’s head rose from the pages of his book. “Hmm…” Perdinar inhaled and asked, “What is it?”

“Master, alarm spells between the sixth and seventh boundary to the east indicate an unusual magical phenomenon is ongoing as we speak. Should I send a shade to investigate the spot?”

Perdinar's glacial blue eyes narrowed. His alarms were very heavy on the triggers— made so on purpose so that he could conserve his limited resources, conceal the spells better, and frankly so that he didn't catch every disturbance that appeared. Perdinar knew that anything that captured the attention of the current alarms deserved at least a cursory glance from him. A small smile played on his lips. If he had made these kinds of alarms around the Pyramid, there would probably be a public outcry about his work. One of the many benefits of living away from other mages, be it among non-magi or entirely away from sentients, was that there was literally no one who could complain about the ethical use of spells and enchantments.

“Sixth and seventh boundary, you say?” Perdinar hummed thoughtfully and came to a decision. “No need, they are too slow. I will go personally,”

“Of course, Master,” The answer was momentary.

He closed the book he was reading, but not before he glanced at the spot where he stopped one last time. The fiction book he was currently reading was a… passable read, he had to say, even the second time around. That boy Tercius had always said that there was a certain quality to fiction, something that pulled you in and allowed you to visit a world full of possibilities, and Perdinar had come to agree with the boy— there was something there. There were a few problems he had with the work of this particular author he was reading, mostly issues with continuity and the slowness with which the author released the books, so Perdinar had put all of those grievances to paper and sent the letter along with a sizable sum of coins with the hope of solving the issues. Money was no problem for him, at any time he could just sell something he owned or something that he created for the coins the Empire used.

And what better use for that money than for getting more reading material?

With a momentary dread, he realized that he had made a possible oversight. What if something were to happen to this frail author and the books don’t get a proper conclusion? A shade or two as guards should do the trick… he concluded and relaxed.

Perdinar placed the book on the small table near him and stood up from his comfortable chair while stretching the kinks from his stiff back. A sigh escaped him as the stiffness receded and he felt ready to depart.

Umbra’s Melding, a self-created spell recently turned skill, came alive and Perdinar sank into the shadow of his chair, giving the shadow there a darker tinge similar to tar. After a moment, where Perdinar took a second to bask in the powerful feeling of his new skill, the shadow sped along the floor, up the long spiraling staircase, over the shelves filled with books, and within a moment he was slipping under the front door, the only relatively safe spot for a mage to cross the boundary of his home. Not even he was exempt from that restriction. The enchantments that protected his shop and the underground complex activated, just as he made it a dozen meters away from the building and, safe in the knowledge that all was well, Perdinar took to even greater speeds as he headed east. As mortals stepped on his shadow-form, he used their shadows to conserve his resources and he overheard people talking about thunder striking during a clear day and what might be the meaning of that. Mortals, he sighed. He was scaling the wall within a minute of his departure from his home and soon Perdinar traveled on the flat sun-burned lands.

He passed the first boundary of his alarms around the first kilometer, then the second and he was about five kilometers out when he sensed a glimmer of something above him. Something magical. Something that was trying to go unnoticed from plain senses.

His senses were anything but plain.

The shadow paused on a wide field of yellowing grass and low bushes, entirely ignoring the offended sun and the predatory wildlife, and Perdinar’s blonde head rose from the darkness. His skill pierced the veil of the flying sphere with the smallest of intentions and he saw two familiar faces hovering inside— Prim’s grand-Disciple, Kalina, and the boy, Tercius— along with two other unfamiliar passengers. So they came.

A rustle came from the dry grass to his left and he turned just in time to see a silent lioness jump his way, sharp claws and teeth flashing. Just before the claws sheared his nose off, the darkness below him engulfed his head like a hastily thrown blanket and the lioness missed her mark for a reason she couldn’t understand. A yowl of frustration attracted other predators of the same kind, but Perdinar didn’t care much for these animals. Hands of darkness rose from his black shadow and grasped the furry limbs of his lunch. The yowls turned to hisses of fear and pleas of panic and the ambusher lioness was promptly decapitated by a sword-shadow, then gutted from neck to tail as Perdinar pulled at the organs with his shadows and let them fall to the ground. He left the entrails of the lioness for her fellows to feast upon, should they desire such a thing, as he engulfed the head and the roughly processed carcass into his shadow and deposited it into storage.

When was the last time I had lion meat? Perdinar hummed as he sped after the flying sphere. He could barely contain the anticipation to see Kalina’s face when she finds out that particular tidbit. Let’s see how this unfolds…

***

“Wow,” Penelope whispered in disbelief and amazement, as she placed her hands to the sides of the bubble that held them aloft.

Tercius couldn’t blame her. He felt the same way.

Few things could compete with a spell that literally took them two time zones west and who knows how many lines of latitude south— all the way from the upper northern hemisphere to the middle of the southern one— but the flying spell that now transported them towards Nurium under a cover of illusion was somehow a serious competition. If he had to choose between the two… instant travel from hemispheres trumps flight, no matter the wow factor.

The spatial spell Mistress Kalina used to transport them was actually only a part of a larger whole, where each spell had joined with a general function of its own. When two or more spells were interlinked in such a way, they were called by a more common name— rituals.

The hierarchy of spellcraft was simple. At the bottom of the pyramid were spell components— a single function animated by a mage through the use of mana. Spell components consisted of two things: shapes and morphs.

The shapes of basic spell components were learned by all students who had Mana Manipulation via the path of their choosing. To allow faster learning speed and leveling of skills, the teacher recommended the use of mediums familiar to each student— Tercius, Eunim, and Euria drew using Runes, Penelope spoke using Rurds, Lomera played specific notes on a lute, while J'ro… Well, he had yet to gain Mana Manipulation.

Morphs were done with Mana Metamorphosis by the mage directly, using the knowledge a mage possessed, and this step was the stumbling stone even for the students that acquired the skill.

Spell components were significant for one more reason. They, or more precisely the number of shapes along with the number of morphs in a spell, the complexity of the morphs, along with the final result of the spell, gave the spells their tiers. Tiers, in turn, gave spells a certain price range at the Repository.

In the middle of the hierarchy of spellcraft came spells themselves— groupings of spell components two or more in number, they were the main staple of mages— and finally at the top of the pyramid were the rituals. The naming was a matter of size really, just like gigantic Runes were called Glyphs, gigantic spells were called Rituals.

A booklet named ‘General Introduction to Rituals’ that Tercius borrowed from Mistress Dea had stated that even minor Rituals require at least one Master or Mistress, for control of a Ritual, along with at least nine mages, for powering the ritual. But just as a student misused the word ‘spell’ when he should say ‘spell component’, Mistress Kalina could call a ‘Ritual’ a ‘spell’, should she wish it. After all, size was a relative concept.

After Mistress Kalina had made the necessary calculations for the transfer, she had used the enchantments of the room they used to make an anchor to the other side. The anchor in turn informed her that the space on the other side had conditions necessary for her to make the transfer.

The four humans and three animals had then huddled together in a tight pile, while Mistress Kalina cast the spells that transported them to the other half of the world. It had taken a few minutes. They had arrived with a thundercrack and a flash of light, as Tercius’s heart hammered, only to fall a few meters down until Mistress Kalina altered the structure of the spell that created her sphere and allowed them to float.

“How about we go a bit higher first?” Mistress Kalina said, her springy orange hair tied with a ribbon behind her head, making her seem a completely different person. “The view is spectacular, let me tell you,”

Without an answer from them, the telekinetic sphere enlarged to give everyone more space and zipped upward with no jerk whatsoever, as Penelope's and Seliana's screams echoed his inner state. The land grew smaller even as it expanded, and Tercius glanced east towards the sun if only to catch a glimpse of something he knew was there. As they rose further upwards, in the far distance over the yellow sand and red lands, glimmering under the hot sun, was a thin but wide blue line, slightly curved downwards. The Eastern Ocean.

“Look,” he said and pointed. “Look,”

“Wow…” the occupants of the sphere sighed together.

“Look at the mountains,” Penelope pointed at Kortana’s Peaks to the south and Tercius suddenly wondered if they were at an even higher altitude than those monoliths. Of all the pets in their company, only the salamander stirred uncomfortably in his cage, as Penelope’s vrasta seemed ready to leap and fly and Amber merely observed the new view with great interest.

“Shall we?” Mistress Kalina said after a few minutes and as the sphere went down the ocean once more dipped behind cover. Tercius crouched and looked straight down through the transparent flooring but such was the speed and the height of their flight that once he recognized landmarks, he was already past them. He didn’t blink as his dilated pupils took in the sights and he leaned forward.

“Is that Nurium?” Mistress Kalina asked. “Tercius!”

“Huh?” Tercius’s head searched for the caller.

“Is that your town?” she pointed down at the giant river that bisected the whole continent of Sogea. A tiny dirty-yellow outer wall snaked around a myriad of even tinier flat-roofed stone homes, and a slightly bigger wall protected the core of the town near the left bank of the river.

“Yes, Mistress, that’s Nurium,” Tercius answered.

Mistress Kalina nodded and moved her closed fist gently down. The sphere dipped on a gentle slope downwards, while maintaining its speed. Mistress Kalina glanced at Seliana and Penelope and a small metal bottle appeared in her hands and she extended the bottle to Seliana. “Sogea can be… a bit hot—”

Tercius snorted. This time of year, to describe Sogea as ‘a bit hot’ was like saying that the northern snowstorms were a minor nuisance. Luckily for them, the transfer had restored time to early morning, to somewhere around eight if he had to read the sun’s position, and the temperature was still within a bearable limit.

Mistress Kalina gave him an amused glance and returned her attention to Seliana and Penelope. "—Apply this over any visible skin and rub it in. Face, neck, arms… Everything you don't want to be burned off actually,"

"Ohh… it smells nice," Penelope said as her mother tipped the bottle into her hands. When Seliana offered it to him, he waved her away. Why would he need it? He had lived here for a decade without it.

The three women applied the product liberally, so much that the insides of the closed space smelled like some sweet fruit. It had certainly perked up Amber.

Mistress Kalina’s flying sphere came down to around ten meters off the ground and continued the last leg of the journey at that height. They went over the town’s wall and Mistress Kalina asked him for instructions to his home. It took him a moment to realize where in Nurium he was and then a moment more to get the general direction of his home from there. Mistress Kalina adjusted the sphere to glide over the flat roofs and Tercius marveled at the perspective that this manner of travel allowed. Hundreds of Sogeans moved below Tercius’s feet, going about their own business, completely unaware of who was currently flying over their heads.

A strange feeling rose in him as he saw people lead their daily lives, buying and selling merchandise, chasing their kids, repairing their homes, or leading ordinary conversations about the strange weather. Then his eyes went to the back of Mistress Kalina and he could just see her focused eyes that looked to the distance.

I should accept her proposal, Tercius thought. Blazing Hells, who knows what a mere month of energy-enhanced training under her tutelage might do if only I move past my inhibitions. Even if I turn out to be right and she turns on me one day, so what? Nothing lasts forever anyway, stupid. I've known that since I was what? Eight? I need to make a plan for such an eventuality and just accept her offer.

"It's that house there," Tercius said and pointed at the two-story house. The house looked a lot bigger than those around it, simply because it had another garden in the center of the structure. Solid stone walls that came to a grown man's chest level were the first line of protection of the stoutly constructed home. The second line of defense, this one focused more on privacy, came in the form of thorny bushes whose wicked branches rose another meter in height above the stone wall. But seeing the branches only half-filled with small, light-green leaves, Tercius had to wonder what was going on.

These particular bushes were chosen for a few reasons, but one of the primary ones had been a very small requirement for water. They could go with no water for up to two weeks, right at the height of summer, with just a dozen minutes of a pick-me-up from a Gardening skill. Suddenly, Tercius had a sinking feeling in his gut. His grandmother liked her garden to be as vibrant as it could be. She would never allow for things to progress to this state, not if she had any say in it.

“Is there a place around here where we can land and where no one will disturb us for a few minutes?” Mistress Kalina asked.

“There’s an inner garden in the center of the house, Mistress. We can land there away from prying eyes,” Tercius said as he crossed his arms over his chest, careful as to not to squeeze Amber.

The green-eyed woman nodded and adjusted their course. As they came near, he noticed the small pavilion he had constructed with Ciron and Neiran, the currently non-occupied sand area where Septimus practiced his swordplay around this time of day, and where Aurelia played in the evenings, the food garden which seemed alright, and finally the small corner-bound garden of medicinal herbs that Rona kept in tip-top shape at all times. It was here that Tercius saw that some of the vines had obviously overgrown to proportions that were beyond necessary, something that Rona would never allow. He saw flowers that should have been collected before they bloomed. Someone was caring for this garden, but it wasn’t someone who knew about plants as well as Rona knew. Tercius breath sped up.

The news that Mistress Kalina gave him yesterday had made him suspicious of a situation like this, and his helpful brain had constructed two dozen scenarios before he made a firm stop to it, but now…

Tercius heard a baby's cry even as the sphere dived down and came to a halt silently right in the center of the inner garden. The door and the windows on the shaded side were open, creating some much-needed airflow through the home.

Tercius had not been ready for the heatwave that awaited him as Mistress Kalina dissolved the sphere. It was as if someone had literally moved him from a freezer into a preheated oven. A small breeze blew his way and he turned to Mistress Kalina who was casually fanning herself with a hand and a small spell.

“Can they see and hear us now?” he asked in a low voice.

Mistress Kalina nodded as she examined the garden, her nose making small, rather polite sniffs. “The spells are undone,” she answered in a low voice.

Tercius nodded and gave a glance to the two tagalongs. They, much like Mistress Kalina, found the garden interesting enough to glue their eyes to examine it. Eventually, his eyes turned to the second floor where the baby's cry was coming from, and he used his Mana Sight to check on everyone inside. Tercius made a quick count of the signatures present inside and found two adults missing— his father and his grandmother— and one missing fourteen-year-old— Neiran. His grandfather was in his room, lying on his bed, while his mother was in her room with three children, one cradled in her arms, while Aurelia played with Leo on the floor next to the bed. He noticed that his grandmother's two cats were lazing on the cool floor near the kitchen and he lowered Amber down to let her roam and she immediately started sniffing around her new territory.

As Tercius came up he almost slapped his forehead as he realized his stupidity— there was a better way to get an answer to the question that prevented him from hailing the house! With the aid of Visualization, he quickly went over his recent memories of the outer garden and when he didn’t see anything resembling a memory tree, Tercius sighed with immense relief. At least no one was dead. Rona would have planted a memory tree even for an infidel such as Septimus and Tercius was sure that everyone would have planted one for Rona.

"Anybody home? It's me, Tercius." his voice rose and broke itself, but still, the sounds came alive in a wave that swept throughout his home.