Arduin awoke from a dreamless sleep to find himself in a place he didn’t recognize. He was startled, but as his mind cleared and his memories returned, he remembered what had happened and understood. He was in the back of a jewelry shop. One that Thane traded with. Only, Thane wasn’t here.

Arduin turned to look around the room without finding his friend, and finally decided to take a peek into the front to see if he could find the owner.

He pushed back the curtain to find the large owner in the same spot he had been in before. Milo stood behind a counter, cleaning a bracelet with a peace of clothe, turning his heard attention to the curtain rustling behind him.

“Your friend left. He didn’t bother mentioning when he would be back.”

Getting the news, Arduin shrugged and returned into the backroom, sitting on the cot the same way he had been before. He could have gone out to try and find a mark, but he didn’t feel like it, and he needed to try something.

“Shade, you here?” He kept his voice low enough so that the owner wouldn’t be able to hear.

“Hello Arduin” A sweet voice came from beside him, and he turned frantically to find it’s source. There, sitting against the wall, was a young girl no older than eight. Her curly hair matched her black dress, and she wore a smile on her face. A small necklace containing three crimson jewels lay around her neck, but her most striking feature lay in her dark purple eyes that almost glowed in the dark. Everything about her was immaculate. She looked like she had just escaped her noble family in the heavens district.

“You… look different” He stuttered, trying to compare the raven that had appeared before to the girl in front of him. He couldn’t quite wrap his head around this little girl being a demon of darkness.

“Well, those two souls were nice, but they didn’t give me much to work with, so that avian form was all I could manage at the time. I hope you don’t mind, I’m using your new mana supply to get this far. She began to inspect her arms, judging the quality of the design.

Arduin simply stared at her for a few moments before responding. “Where were you when the keepers were chasing us? You disappeared!”

Shade put her hands on her hips, her lips pouting in a way that didn’t suit a child. “I’ll have you know it took a lot out of me to create that shadow gate with what little you had to work with. I couldn’t get at Fairen’s supply yet, so I had to use the mana keeping my form together to fill the gaps. It’s not like I would have lasted long in the sunlight anyway. Honestly, what are they teaching mages these days?”

“What? I’m not a mage. The only things I’ve learned about magic has been from this book!” Arduin pointed down at the tome in his lap and Shade’s eyes followed.

“Seriously? And Fairen chose you? Do you have leverage over him or something? And what is a champion doing in this place?” Shade’s eyes scanned the room.

“It’s more like he had leverage on me. I don’t even know what being a champion means!”

Shade didn’t respond, her eyes scanning the small room with a small frown.

“Oh I know!” She walked the step between them and sat directly in front of him. “Don’t resist, okay?” The familiar moved her hand up in a motion like she was going to flick Arduin in the forehead.

“Wait, what are you…”

***

“Doing…” His voice carried off into a cold wind that blew past him. He stood in a plain field of green grass that went on as far as he could see. There were mountain ranges far in the distance, blocking his sight of the falling sun and creating a still twilight. He grumbled internally about how many times he was going to go through a sudden scenery change.

“Much better!” He turned around to see Shade exclaiming behind him. “Now we have plenty of room!”

“Shade, what did you just do?”

“Hmm? I sent us both into a dreamscape to teach you a few things. I figured this would be easier than staying in that little room. Being connected to a demon has some perks you know.” She looked disgusted at what Arduin considered a luxury.

“I’m dreaming?” Arduin continued.

“Yup. Here, we can do whatever we like, so we’ll be using it as a training ground. Just don’t die, okay?”

Arduin bent down to touch the grass at his feet, testing the texture of the blades. Everything seemed so real. If he didn’t know better, he would say he was awake. Shade continued without waiting.

“First things first, we need you to be able to handle yourself. Your physical strength doesn’t look like much, so we’ll have to figure out some magic for you to use. What’s your natural affinity, or do humans even still have that?”

Arduin got up and faced the girl that was supposed to be his familiar. “I’m pretty sure I have some affinity with mind magic. I wasn’t nearly as good with other spells. I only ever got weak flames or a small stream of water. But when I casted [Confusion] on Thane it was like he couldn’t put a thought together for hours.” Arduin smiled at the memory, but refocused.

“I mean, I’ve never been formally tested either. I wasn’t excited to figure out how court wizards would react to a runner showing up with magic.”

“Mind magic huh? If you made a contract with Fairen, then you also gained dark magic affinity. Mana will probably be your biggest problem. How much have you practiced manipulating a human’s mind?”

As shade talked, she began to walk until she had covered about 15 paces. Even as she moved farther away, her voice still sounded like it was right next to him. Arduin had to remind himself that this wasn’t reality.

“What do you mean? The book only had three mind spells: [Confusion], [Liar’s Guise], and [Memory Projection]. I don’t know any that do that.”

Shade pinched the bridge of her nose. “This is going to be worse than I thought. Incantations work as guidelines to form magic, but that leaves a lot to be desired as far as flexibility. What if you want to do something that a spell can’t accomplish? While most lower tier spells can be cast by humans with enough training and mana, true magical manipulation requires the caster to imagine the desired result and then use their will, not words, to create it. Spells are helpful, sure, but once you learn how a spell shapes and applies magic, you can go without it. For most beings, this is almost impossible unless you have the attribute of the desired effect. Take me for instance. I can only freely manipulate darkness.” Shade waved her hand, and the long shadow she was casting began to reshape wildly until she lowered her hand and the wild shadow settled back into her outline. “Simple, right?”

“So if I’m a mind mage…”

“You could eventually learn to freely manipulate people’s minds. And you’re pretty lucky. The mind attribute is rare in humans, not mention having two attributes. I bet you could create some really interesting combinations when you get better at controlling them.” Shade showed her wicked smile again and Arduin shuddered. “Unfortunately, I can’t teach you mind magic, but we can get started on dark magic. Lesson number one: control”

Shade moved her hand again. This time her shadow didn’t simply reshape, but burst from the ground, forming a black figure without any features except for the basic shape of a little girl. It began to walk towards Arduin, leaving dead grass where it walked.

“Dark magic consumes. It swallows everything that doesn’t overpower it, which can include the caster, which is why cowards without the attribute don’t dare try to use it.”

The shadow halved the distance to Arduin, and he began to backpedal.

“You have until this shadow catches you to dispel it.I would suggest moving faster.” Shade snapped her fingers, and the shadow began to run.

“Worst familiar ever!” Arduin turned to sprint in the opposite direction.

After he started to lose his breath, Arduin turned, seeing the small body a fair distance away.

“How do I control it!” He shouted, hoping Shade could hear him.

“I don’t really know. It’s just an instinct, really. I don’t know any spell incantations for dark magic that you could use either. Have you tried trial and error?” Shade’s voice sounded beside him.

Arduin stared at the shadow and tried feel something, anything, but the monster just kept coming, forcing him to start running again.

Shade willed herself up into the sky to watch her inexperienced master running from her shadow, turning every so often to stare back at it before it could get close enough.

“It’s a shame he won't get the benefits of running like this once we leave” Shade muttered to herself, “and why is he getting winded? I don’t think he heard me say this was a dream… Oh well, I guess it’s better that way.” She heard him yell a confusion spell somewhere between curses and laughed at the effort. Mind spells wouldn’t work on mindless entities. Getting an idea, Shade willed her voice to project as she gave her next suggestion.

“Try visualizing your mana doing what you want to happen. Your attribute should make it easy if you manipulate the shadow itself.”

Down on the ground, Arduin heard Shade’s thought and turned again to face his pursuer. Although there wasn’t much, Arduin began to imagine his mana forming in his fingertips. As he concentrated, his hands felt warm, marking his success. He put his hands out in front of him in the direction of the approaching shadow, and gripped the air, imagining his hands grasping at the center of it’s body. He yanked his hands apart, and he could feel a force pressing against his fingers.

Almost 10 paces away, the shadow split in two, dispersing like smoke and absorbing into the ground. Shade landed next to him.

“Nicely done. Now do it again.”

Behind Shade burst 10 more shadows, and Arduin tried to dispel them, but he was too slow, so he was forced to run again.

***

Shade grew tired of levitating and summoned a small table and chair for her to sit on, enjoying a perfect blend of black tea in a porcelain cup. Arduin came up to the table exhausted and breathing heavily. Giant paths of dead grass lay behind him.

“That’s like… 400 of them now… just how many… can you make!?”

“As many as I need. Would you like some more?”

“No!… No, I think I’ve got the hang of it now.”

Shade summoned a single shadow to test him, and Arduin only had to move a couple fingers to shred the thing to pieces.

“You know you didn’t have to make them chase me!”

“I think it was a useful teaching tool. Learning under pressure, you know? Now let’s work on something else.” She put her teacup down on the matching saucer. “Now that you know how to disrupt shadows, try gathering them. The greatest weakness of dark magic is that you have to use what you have at hand. You can’t just create create darkness like a fire mage can create flames, but manipulate what already exists. The strength lies in the infinite supply available from a source. I created all of those golems that chased you from my own shadow.” Shade looked proud of her explanation.

“So if I just…” Arduin concentrated again, imagining the mana in his fingertips was a magnet. He willed the darkness to come, and it slowly collected like a pool of water beneath his outstretched hand on the ground.

“Try giving it form. Darkness is naturally very light, so you are going to have to compact it for it to be solid.” Shade explained, looking down at her student’s progress.

Arduin imagined a wall as tall as himself in front of him, and then visualized his mana going into the pool of pitch black at his feet. When he was sure that he could sense his mana in the pool, he willed the darkness in front of him to take shape, using his hands to guide it. The darkness spread out in a line on the ground, and then shot upwards, creating a misty, black barrier between Shade and himself. He squeezed his hands together, and the wall changed from an airy mist to something comparable to pure obsidian. He lowered his hands, but he could still feel a string of mana connecting him to the wall, slowly sucking his mana away.

“One more thing.” Shade’s cute voice came over the wall.

The sun that had been still behind the mountain range began to rise into the sky at an abnormal speed, and soon the valley was flooded by sunlight. As the light hit his wall, a hissing erupted and holes appeared, one after another, until the construct simply fell back into mist before disappearing. Arduin couldn’t even feel his infused mana any more.

“Too much direct light, from any source, is fatal to darkness. A little is fine, like before, but any more and you won’t be able to sustain your magic. The day is your greatest enemy, fatal to demons such as myself.”

Shade stood facing Arduin with a black parasol facing the sun. Even though she was covered, he could still feel the pain in her voice. As she finished her explanation, the sun lowered as faster than it had risen, and the valley returned again to twilight.

“Well, that’s all we’ll do for now. This is a nice stopping point and that boy is getting annoying. I bet he would be good to practice mind magic on.” Shade went off into her own world, getting distracted by her own thoughts.

“You mean Thane? How long have we been here?” Arduin seemed puzzled as he tried to think about how much time had passed. Shade lookup up from her mumblings.

“I don’t know. I’m not very good at measuring time. My perspective is a bit different than yours.” Shade began to dust off her dress. “Oh, and before we go, I have an important question. What exactly is your goal, Arduin? Why do you seek power?”

Arduin stopped looking Shade in the eyes and gazed away into the horizon.

“I don’t really know yet.” Arduin explained. “I’m supposed to be some champion, but what kinda crap is that. I just want to live a life where no one can take from me. Not my friends, not my future, nothing. I guess I’m doing it for that.”

“I thought for sure there would be something of revenge in there.” Shade almost looked disappointed.

“Who says there can’t be some along the way?” Arduin turned his eyes back and the corners of Shade’s lips betrayed a smile.

“I guess that will do for now. Just don’t go all goody-goody on me, okay? I don’t get along with heroes.”

Shade snapped her fingers, and the earth began to shake, a large hold appearing in the ground behind Arduin.

When he turned around to question the demon, he found the small girl right beside him.

“Wakey Wakey!” Shade shoved her hands into Arduin’s stomach, knocking Arduin off balance, sending him right over the edge of the pit. He fell for only a second before the feeling of falling jolted him awake.

~~~~~ Author's Corner ~~~~~

Hey guys, be sure to point out mistakes, grammar or otherwise.

Thanks for Reading,

Drne