FicWad

Damien felt like crap. His head was pounding and his body ached in new and interesting ways that hopefully would not be encountered again. He lay there for a few minutes, trying to get some sense of his surroundings without having to open his eyes to the light that he knew was shining starkly down on him with, in his present conditions, irritating effect.

A humming noise finally penetrated down into his sleep and pain addled thoughts. It sounded layered, quiet singing without words and only tones, one at a medium pitch and the other, lower and more subtle. For a minute Damien lay there, simply listening before he recognised the lower voice. Graham.

It all came back in a rush of fragmented senses, the pain of the knife slicing his hand, the crystalline vision of his blood slipping out onto that ancient tome rife with that comforting mustiness that books gain in time and the sound of nothingness as all went to black. He swung himself off the bed in a sudden movement as rage at the betrayal from his friend flooded him with strength, dragging him towards the sound of the humming. His eyes opened to see Graham watching him calmly as he stumbled towards the other man with his hands outreached and face twisted into a grimace of anger.

He reached Graham in a sudden charge; even in his befuddled state his body knew enough to thrust his arms to catch the man upwards and off balance so that he could get his answers. It was here, however, that everything went wrong for Damien. As his hands reached up, they seemed to hit something solid in the air and slid sideways, throwing his momentum off and to the side and him to the floor which he hit with a solid sound. The energy that had carried him this far vanished as suddenly as it had come, leaving him lying, groaning on the cold concrete.

A hand reached down and prodded him a few times and Damien opened his eyes slowly, looking up at the man.

A voice slurred with pain and tiredness asked, "Why?" A small part of Damien's conscious mind winced at how defeated he sounded.

"Take these, they will help numb the pain." There was an amused undercurrent to Graham's voice now. "I will explain when you are capable of thinking."

Damien just groaned again and took the offered glass of water and the little case of Nurofen, his fingers fumbling as he attempted to take the pills out of the foil casing. He popped several of the little pills into his mouth and gulped down the water, revelling in some blessed relief to his throat in the process. Feeling incapable of moving anymore, Damien simply lay on the floor. The cold surface seemed to leech away some of the pressure that appeared to have built up in his mind, and he promptly passed out again.

For a while after Damien awoke again it was quiet, the only sound the clink of glasses as port was liberally poured. For a few minutes after the two found seats at opposing sides of the room's only table Damien sat silently, sleeves rolled up as he stared at the marks on his skin, very carefully not looking at the spot where he was sitting earlier.

He looked up at Graham and sighed. "Go on; tell me what the hell is going on here?"

Graham raised his head and looked at Damien for a few seconds before speaking. "I took a gamble, and it paid off." He slid the decanter across the wide table in anticipation.

"So...these fancy new doodles I have?" Damien took the opportunity of filling his glass again and examined the black lines that ran along his arms, tracing along his skin and up his hands, leaving only his palms free. The marks weren't abundant but they were noticeable; it was as if someone had taken a black biro and drawn over his veins - apart from the symbols on the underside of his wrists, those were something special. He set the decanter down and turned his hands over so that his palms were facing upwards, staring at the symbols that seemed to look obstinately back.

"It's a circle, yes? With an inverted triangle inside and the left hand line missing?"

Damien nodded. "That's right, and a sickle that leads to the right on top of it."

Graham smiled, picking up his glass and sipping from it as he pulled a book over to him and slid it across the table. Damien's hands caught it instinctively and brushed across the leathery cover, seeing the matching symbol on the front in metal. "That's it exactly; now explain why you drew this on my arms and why I can't scrub it off?"

"Ah." Graham winced slightly. "This is where we run into difficulties. I didn't draw it on you, it began to appear after you passed out."

Damien drew a deep breath and then let it out and then downed his drink and poured himself another, sarcasm leaking into his voice. "So some sort of mystical force thought it would be entertaining to doodle on my arms in magic pen?"

Graham nodded, completely unfazed. "That's pretty much it actually. Here's the bit you have to get your head around; magic is real. The things that go bump in the night? They're real too, and now you're getting pulled into our world."

"'Our' world?" Damien raised an eyebrow. "I do hate to break it to you, Graham but magic is just a fairyta..."

Graham had begun to concentrate as Damien was speaking and raised his hands, gesturing very carefully with his fingers. As Damien watched, a slight shimmer began to appear in Graham's hands before a light suddenly blossomed, floating above the middle of the table before changing to a ball of fire and then a rose and finally vanishing as if it had never been.

Damien swallowed nervously, desperately trying to keep his composure. "Alice, White Rabbit; White Rabbit, Alice." With shaking hands he downed his drink again, feeling the soothing warmth help calm him a little as Graham sat there and grinned smugly.

After a minute of staring blankly at the space above the table and fidgeting nervously he spoke again. "You couldn't have faked that, could you?" His brow furrowed as he thought. "No, there would be no point would there?" Damien sighed, running a hand through his hair and paused as he looked at the markings on his skin. "So ok, say I accept that it is real... what the hell do these marks mean?"

Graham smiled slightly. "Pragmatic to the end, I see. Things get a little complicated here I'm afraid. There are a number of different styles of magic and each one is specialist. I am a wizard and so I can use small amounts of energy such as creating wards or illusions, but I can't raise the dead for example."

Damien nodded, lighting up a cigarette as he sipped from the drink. "Okay. That I can understand, but why don't you have the markings that I have?"

"Well you are not a wizard so therefore you don't have the same mindset as I do and so you don't have the same way of accessing magic, it's that simple."

Damien licked his lips in a quick movement. "It's truly real, isn't it? I'm going to learn how to do magic."

Graham grinned. "Yes my friend, you are. First however we need to talk to a certain book. That book." He pointed to the tome he had given to Damien earlier. "When you bled on that book, you woke up the soul of the magician inside."

The other man blinked. "That's impressive."

Graham shrugged. "I know. According to what we discovered he was a magician - that's what your style of magic is called - that got an experiment wrong and managed to tie his soul to his Grimoire."

Damien frowned. "So do things like that happen a lot, and does that mean my aspect of magic is to do with my soul?"

Graham shook his head. "No on both counts, there are always risks when playing with forces but things only really get dangerous when one starts to experiment. As to your magic, it's slightly different to most others. It's not restrained to one aspect, but then it isn't human."

Damien simply closed his eyes at that statement. "You are going to explain that later, when my head doesn't feel like it is about to explode. For now, let's talk to this magician."

The two slowly stood and walked around the table to stand in front of the large tome, Damien rubbing his wrists as he looked down at the Grimoire. The cover was now much cleaner and a lot of the extraneous symbols were gone, leaving only a replica in metal of the symbols on his own wrists with a few subtle patterns and symbols intricately entwined across the cover.

The dark haired man looked at his companion. He seemed to be almost fidgeting in his excitement, an unheard thing for the reserved man. "Graham, I don't suppose that you would like to start this off? After all, you know more on this than I do." Damien gave him a wry smile and took half a step sideways to give his friend more room.

Graham reached out with a tentative hand, brushing his fingers over the rough cover of the ancient mystical tome as Damien leant in as well. His fingers caught the edge of the book which fell ajar to the touch, spilling open to reveal slightly yellowed parchment. For a few seconds nothing happened and then suddenly the centre of the page darkened as ink began to stain the parchment.

The two men leant forward as letters began to appear slowly on the page and for the first time in millennia Shaihe communicated.

Boo.

There was a long pause and then Damien turned to his friend. "I am sorry, Graham; it appears that your magician is broken."

Graham raised his eyebrows. "My magician? He is bound to you by your blood so you get the insane consciousness."

"Aw crap."

H-Hey! I'm not insane, you try being trapped inside your own mind for millennia. I believe a little quirkiness is allowed.

Damien frowned. "Wait, if you have been trapped for so long, how can you speak modern English?"

Easy, I read it from your mind when you were unconscious.

Damien stepped back. "You were in my mind? How dare you!"

Calm, friend. I haven't been anywhere near your conscious thoughts -your memories - only the practical knowledge such as society and language.

Damien nodded cautiously and a slightly twisted smile escaped him. "I understand, and it's not like I can stop you anyway."

Actually, you can in time. It will be one of the things that I will teach you.

"So - it's actually real, I will be learning magic?" There was an edge of excitement to Damien's voice.

"That's right, it's all real." Graham spoke up with a small smile.

And I will be teaching you, I hope that you are going to be free to put the rest of your life on hold. Things are going to be very intensive.

Shaihe was right. Life was on hold for Damien, day after day melded together in a haze of knowledge gained. The shifts at the pub were the only times when he wasn't either sleeping or working in Graham's cellar.

At the beginning, there was no sudden dramatic learning curve, no mystical understanding but just learning by rote, sigil after sigil, symbol after symbol were copied out and learnt verbatim Each one was memorised and tested until he was capable of recalling all of the basic symbols at a moments notice. After that, Damien then had to learn how to combine them, which symbols would meld well and how they did it and which symbols would simply corrupt and explode.

It had been a month and Damien had yet to learn any practical magic, he had learnt theory over and over again, ideas and compatibility charts. That isn't to say that he never witnessed any- Graham took the opportunity to have access to Shaihe's consciousness to probe for ideas that he could incorporate into the wards he designed. It was not unknown for Damien to head down the stairs and promptly walk into an invisible wall. There were more dangerous things at play as well, behind a line drawn across the floor a haunting, harmonic and wordless song would drift across the room. After a short demonstration in which a pencil was thrown over the line and was shortly reformed into wood shavings, he was convinced not to cross it.

It was a Saturday when Damien had faithfully copied out the symbols and how they join for the twelfth time from memory and was starting to become frustrated with the level of caution from his friend and the animated book. "Look, I've done this twelve times already. I know it all now. Can I please try doing something practical before I go insane?"

Graham looked at Shaihe. "I'm not sure; you seem to understand the basic information." He looked down at the open Grimoire next to him in an obvious question. "Very well, we will start the practical work."

Damien grinned and pushed the notes to one side. "Yes! I get to learn how to make sparkly things!"

Graham walked up behind his friend and hit him with one of the many ancient tomes carefully placed around the room. "Be serious for once. Bloody child."

Damien frowned slightly, gaining the impression that Shaihe was laughing and then just shrugged. "For an entire month all I've done is written symbols. Actually doing something for once would be nice."

"Very well." Graham stepped over to where the Grimoire of Shaihe was resting and carried it over to the table.

Ok Damien, the first time is the hardest. Once you have established how to access magic then it can be done with more and more ease- as long as you practice...

Damien nodded and focused his attention on the large volume. "So, how do I do it then?"

You will need to close your eyes at first and go into a light meditative trance except reach out instead of in. I will help guide you to what you need to look for.

Damien took a deep breath and closed his eyes before breathing out, establishing a slow pattern of breathing in and out, feeling the word fall away apart from one thing. He reached out slowly with his awareness trying desperately not to break the trance that he was settling into. Three things caught his attention; he could feel Graham standing behind him, shuffling slightly from one foot to the other, he could feel Shaihe, half in the book and half in his mind indicating at something that seemed as natural as gravity.

That was it. Damien could feel it now, brushing around him and he pulled it inside him, attempting to direct it out through his hands in some vague control. Carefully opening his eyes, he felt a rush of exhilaration as he saw sparks flickering across his hands.

It was then that everything went horribly, horribly wrong. The rush of exhilaration loosened Damien's already tentative control and a sudden flash of lightning skittered across the table. It left scorch marks where it touched until it brushed against the papers that Damien had stacked together. A sudden echoing harmonic sound erupted from beyond him, losing the finesse that he had always associated with Graham's ward-singing. All of that flashed through Damien's mind in a fraction of a second as he saw the pages in front of him glowing brighter and decided that discretion was the better part of valour. He pushed against the table, the chair collapsing as his weight was violently thrown against it and he scrambled backwards before tackling Graham down as the pages of symbols that should never ever be combined erupted in a rush of light and darkness and malignant energy.

For a few seconds Damien saw the wave of iridescent light rushing towards him before catching on the ward that Graham had rapidly erected and rushed off in a curving direction towards the grounding point set up behind the line with a roar of power.

In the silence afterwards, Damien sat in shock. Graham was unconscious next to him. And Shaihe - Damien felt a rush of mind numbing fear run through him. His hands clenched as he took a deep breath, closing his eyes as if trying to deny everything that had just happened. Then he felt it, the rough leathery cover under his clenched fingers with the smooth metal seemingly woven into it and scrambled onto his hands and knees, fingers scrambling to open the volume. He looked at the blank, open pages for a minute of fear.

Was that sparkly enough for you?

The next hour was spent in silence, only the creaking of the mattress as Graham was put into it and the sound of the ruined table being scraped and brushed to the side interrupting. After everything had been cleaned and stored away or placed in the rubble heap Damien sat down, propping Shaihe up on another chair. "That was a really stupid thing we did, wasn't it?"

Oh, very definitely. On the upside it has taught you not to draw those symbols in proximity though so that makes it two good things that have come out of this.

"Two? The first is obvious but the second - when you appeared under my hand."

Correct, it appears that my experiment finally succeeded. Only taken a few millennia, seems that both the item and the person need to have a level of awareness for the bond to work, and since we are in that situation.

There was an impression of a shrug.

With practice you will be able to call me whenever you need me, a useful thing to discover and yet another thing we will need to work on.

The young man raked his hand through his hair. "What if this happens again?"

You're nervous - understandable - but we have learnt, Graham and I should never have made that mistake in the first place and now none of us will ever do again.

Damien nodded slowly. "I know, it's just...magic was always a dream to me, since I was a little child. I never dreamed that it would hurt my friend."

Guess what? Shit happens. Magic is dangerous, as is any force, just look at that tsunami - a giant wave, just water.

He blinked. "How do you - you're in my head, right."

There was an impression of a slight grin from Shaihe and the two sat quietly talking until Graham woke.

A dry and hoarse voice emerged from the camp bed. "Was that sparkly enough for you?"

I already said that!

Damien repressed a snort and muttered a comment to Shaihe. "Shush you." He turned to the vaguely battered form that was swinging itself over into a sitting position. "How are you feeling?"

"Like a mystical wave of energy tried to kill me. I think we have learnt from that one, don't you?"

Damien closed his eyes in a visible attempt to control himself against the thought going through his head. "Please tell me you didn't do that on purpose..."

Graham gave a wry smile. "No, but I have been working my art for long enough to know that accidents happen. As long as you learn something, then it's fair enough. So, what have you learnt from this?"

Damien spent the rest of the day being quizzed on what should have been done differently, and lectured on how emotions negatively affect magic control, and finally instructed to continue attempting to focus the magic in very small amounts. As long as there were no notes on the sigils lying around, that is.

Damien went home late that night. He had sent Graham to bed reasonably early and - enjoying the fact that he had keys to the shop - spent the next few hours practicing what he had learnt earlier that day with much less in the way of explosions. To be honest, he felt slightly childlike. The next day he would be learning to draw magic. To be able to create those sigils he had spent so long learning, in the air. To use the technique he had learnt today to actually cast spells. Real magic.

The shift at the pub went quickly for the preoccupied Damien and he had turned down those who had offered him a drink. After seeing the destruction he could cause in a split second out of control, the idea of a drunken rampage was very intimidating in a crowded area. In the end it was about midnight before he made it upstairs. His friend, boss and landlord had taken an early night with someone he trusted at the bar and all was quiet upstairs.

Damien crept into his room and sat down on the edge of the bed, undressing rapidly before laying back, thinking back over the day. He had learnt to channel magic, got into an accident which almost killed himself and his friends and still somehow managed to get home and pull a shift off. Unsurprisingly it was only a matter of minutes before he was fast asleep.

There was a vague shimmer in a corner of the room, the hint of metal glinting on a leathery cover in the moonlight. Damien's body sat up, his eyes opening slowly and revealing an unnatural glint to the already unusually blue eyes. His hands rose up and the pale eyes examined the arms in the darkness. After a moment of concentrated scrutiny, an unfamiliar voice spoke from the young man's mouth. "Bollocks."

The body lay back down and Damien's eyes closed and for a few seconds the tome sitting in the moonlight shimmered and then promptly vanished. Damien shivered once or twice and then rolled over, his breathing settling back into its natural pattern.

The next few days continued with repeated practice of accessing magic and focusing it until Damien was completely capable of controlling it at will. Today, after about a month and a half of solid work, he was finally being allowed to cast.

There was a large area cleared in the middle of the room, bare floor surrounding Damien and heavy duty wards erected around the area to draw and direct the power away if need be. The young man was standing in the centre of all of this, deep, slow breaths keeping him focused as he listened to Graham reading out the instructions from Shaihe.

"Now close your eyes and allow yourself to fade into a trance but instead of focusing outside, focus on your wrists, where those symbols are and slowly call the power up."

Damien was oblivious to any changes due to his state of extreme concentration but Graham and Shaihe watched as a subtle pale blue glow began to gather around Damien's wrists and hands.

"Excellent Damien, now bring a hand up and this time focus on pressing against something, as if trying to make a mark in sand. When you think you have this, draw the sigil slowly."

The pale blue glow flared abruptly, focusing into a sharper creation, almost like ice as Damien's brow wrinkled in concentration and he slowly brought his hand around, drawing the symbol carefully. Unbeknownst to him the pale radiance hung in the air as he focused. Once he had reached the end of the symbol Damien paused, waiting for further instructions.

"Superb - that is exactly right - now, remember what we discovered about emotional control. Slowly open you eyes and you will see it in front of you."

The young magician opened his eyes cautiously, and they widened slightly as he saw the large symbol floating in front of him and allowed himself a smile.

"Alright, now you are going to close your eyes again and call the magic through, allow a small amount forward and into the sigil."

The pale radiance grew slowly in brightness, casting a soft glow over the room as Damien concentrated.

"Excellent!" The excitement was obvious in Graham's voice. "Now stop, cut off the magic flow and end the spell."

Damien slowly did as he was instructed, relaxing as the mental strain was finally released and he let out a sigh as he did it, looking very tired but incredibly satisfied. Graham helped him over into a chair and stepped away for a minute, leaving Damien to light up a cigarette and look over at Shaihe.

I am very impressed, you have learnt well and quickly. With work this will become easier and easier.

Despite the toneless nature of the script, Damien felt a definite sense of pride in his mind from the area he classed as the bond and grinned. It turned into a relieved smile after a minute as Graham appeared and handed his friend a cup of tea, nodding his head at the thanks.

We will let you recover and drink that and then we will do it again, and again, and again until you can do it in a matter of seconds.

Tired but feeling accomplished, Damien just let out a sound of agreement. He knew he was going to be all but unconscious that night but he could do magic now. The power of the world was at his fingertips.