“Magic?” Toland replied incredulously.

Jaran nodded.

“But why?”

“You seem to have potential; it would be a shame to not at give you the opportunity to explore where it might take you.”

Toland thought for a moment, scratching his cheek aimlessly.

“You already have some of the skills necessary. These charms for instance, see the runes on them, these aren’t just petty scribbles passed out by witches and soothsayers, this is actual magic, just missing an activation rune. Once that was added the spell could be cast.”

Toland looked down at the cracked charm in his hand with new appreciation.

“Come and sit with me a minute and I’ll explain everything.”

Toland pocketed the charm and sat down next to Jaran, Kat taking a position sat against a wall.

“Honestly, when you spoke of how the charm told the forest spirits you were a friend, you weren’t far wrong. You see, magic isn’t something a wizard does himself, he asks something else to do it for him. What you see on these charms is more of a prayer, asking for protection, than something that actually gives protection itself.”

“But, if that’s true, what answers the prayers?”

Jaran smiled cryptically, “That is something that has been debated by wizards since the beginning of time. If you asked Katrina over there she would say it would be answered by either God, or the Great Serpent, depending on your intentions.”

“Which god?” Toland interrupted.

Katrina stirred and looked at him incredulously.

Jaran smiled and shrugged, “No need to look at him like that Katrina, the further north you go, the more gods there are.”

“But the divine mandates…” Katrina began.

“I know what the mandates say, but we are here as guests, it would be wise if you didn’t go trampling on their beliefs.”

“But the Serpent will take them!” Kat said, aghast.

“I am sure they have their own way of escaping damnation,” he looked at Toland, “Tell us Toland, what happens when one of the valley folk dies?”

“Um,” Toland stammered, “Well, Mum says that Trickster comes and collects you, takes away your memory and puts you in a new body. One that he finds fitting of how you lived, so if you were angry he might make you a wolf, or if you were cowardly he’d make you a rabbit, stuff like that.”

Jaran looked over at Katrina, “See, damnation avoided at the hands of a whimsical deity.”

He laughed, “Actually, that does somewhat appeal, perhaps I should have you bury me in your forest once I’m dead. One last gamble. I do so miss dice games.”

Katrina continued to glare belligerently at the two of them.

“But my point is, there are many ideas as to who answers the prayers. Some say its gods, some say its spirits, some say it is more material forces like magical beasts. Whatever it is, it also doesn’t always answer. It isn’t that they are fickle, far from it, it is simply that there is a certain level of effort a wizard is worth. For example, if you asked for it to fetch you a book of the shelf, it would hardly object to that, but if you asked it to turn a mountain into a castle, it might. Usually, if you ask for too much your request will simply be ignored, however, if you ask for so much as to be offensive, the spell can turn on you, and what happened to the charm there, instead happens to you.”

Tolan swallowed nervously, running a finger along the crack in the charm and then subconsciously making a mirroring gesture down his chest.

“It is exceedingly rare a wizard actually goes up in flames though, instilling students with a sense of caution is paramount in their training. Explore your limits carefully and slowly.”

Toland nodded sincerely.

“Now, on to actually using magic. Firstly, we might not know much about the entity that answers spells, but we do know the language they speak, mapped out by wizards over millennia of experimentation. So far we know about 300 runes for different things, including the 35 phonetic ones, those are the ones I will teach you first, should you wish it. Each rune is constructed by a symbol in a circle, these circles are joined together by lines which show the relationships between them. The most important rune is the activation rune, this is made up of some of the phonetic runes all in one circle, this sets the incantation for the spell. The activation rune I drew for you contained the phonetic runes for p, ro, t, ech, sh and on, but they could have been anything. We encourage novices to stick with their native language to start with, writing out fairly long incantations so that they don’t set them off by accident. You don’t want to be sat at dinner and say pass me the salt only for your house to burn down. More experienced wizards learn one or two dead languages to use instead, allowing them to use shorter incantations. If you want to show off, you could make up your own incantations, but let me warn you, it is very embarrassing if you forget what your spells do mid battle.”

Toland nodded and Jaran, realising no one was going to laugh, continued.

“So, you write out what to say to activate it, then you use the other runes to construct what will happen when you set it off. There are plenty of already created spells out there so stick with those unless you happen to be incredibly talented with protection spells. People do experiment from time to time, and sometimes they make wonderful progress, however, as grand and as wealthy their lives are, they are almost invariably short.”

Toland nodded again.

“Lastly, is to consider what you are writing the spell on. Whatever you write it on takes the actual force of the spell, usually destroying it. If you write it on paper, it might catch fire, writing on metal might crack it. What you write it on needs to be proportional to how long it takes to act, for example, if you want to open a portal to another place that stays open for a minute, you would have to use stone strong enough to withstand the spell for that long. However, it isn’t necessarily about the strength of the material, its about its resistance to magic. The best things are shiny, like gems or obsidian, but also if the material is alive. Runes written on skin can last hours and runes written on trees can last days. But, all magic has a time limit on it, once the spell has been cast, it will fade over time.”

“What about metal? That’s shiny, where does that fit in.”

“Depends on the mettle, if it is wrought iron like your charms here, it will snap fairly quickly, purer metals like gold and silver work well enough, but they have the problem of melting and distorting the shape of the runes, which has the added danger of stopping working or if a connecting line distorts too much, can actually change the effect of the spell. The best thing to do is use quick acting spells and write them on paper. Paper can be sorted into books and then ripped out when needed. This isn’t as limiting as you might think, use the magic to change something or create something that will maintain itself. You don’t need to create a magical bridge when you can use magic to create a bridge out of wood or stone.”

Toland nodded, understanding.

“So? How about it?”

Toland considered, “I would need to ask Dad if I could have some time off from working in the forge, but I think he will agree, considering there isn’t that much work coming through in the middle of winter.”

“Excellent,” Jaran said and went to clap his hands together excitedly, only to flail his stump about in the air, and rub his right shoulder, “I don’t think I shall be taking to wandering any time soon, so we shall begin at your leisure.”