Drew had a full day of classes on Monday so it was well after five p.m. when he arrived at the Collective for his second day of training. Simon greeted them at the door this time and led them through the maze of hallways to the workshop, his forest-green robe flapping around his legs as he walked. Kensington was already there, and he glanced up as they entered. “Good afternoon,” he greeted them. He wasn’t wearing a robe today but had on plain black trousers and a crisp white button-down that had the sleeves rolled up to the elbows.
“Hi,” Drew said, dropping his backpack on the ground by the door and crossing to the bench where the sorcerer was sitting. Several smallobjects were arranged on the table in front of them, and Drew looked at them curiously. They didn’t seem inherently magical, more like basic household objects and small curios which ranged from a porcelain figurine of a dog to a pinecone to a spotted feather, and even a dustpan and brush set.
“Have you been practising finding your centre today?” Kensington asked. He had assigned Drew homework yesterday. At least once an hour, no matter what he was doing, he was to try and find his centre. As Kensington had pointed out, he wouldn’t always be in a quiet space when he needed to access his magic, so he needed to get used to doing so in everyday settings.
“I did,” Drew confirmed.
“And? How did you fare?”
Drew held up one hand and rocked it back and forth. “Eh, maybe fifty-fifty? Half the time it was relatively easy to find, but other times I kept getting distracted.”
“To be expected, so keep it up,” Kensington told him. “Today, we’ll be working on having you recognise when magic is being used. Just because you cannot use your own power as yet, does not preclude you from being able to recognise when someone else is accessing theirs.” He gestured to the items on the table. “Tell me what you observe.”
Drew watched as Kensington glanced down at the table and then muttered a word he didn’t quite catch. There was a strange pressure in the air that made his ears pop and then the dog figurine rose smoothly into the air.
Drew rubbed at the spot on his neck just below his ear. “It was like the pressure in the room changed.” He looked over at Zach, who had taken a seat in a comfortable-looking armchair and was flipping through a book. “I’ve noticed that happen a few times lately. Was that you doing magic?”
“It was,” Zach confirmed, looking up from the book with a smile.
“Huh.”
“Sometimes it will be quite subtle, but there will always be that slight change in atmospheric pressure when magic is being used,” Kensington continued. “The greater the magic being used, the greater the change in pressure.”
“So magic actually affects the atmospheric pressure itself?” Drew asked in surprise.
“It does,” Kensington confirmed. “Though we’re not entirely sure how.”
“It’s why some storms are magically charged,” Zach added. “I’ve not been around these past centuries to know of any recent incidents, but I’ve been there before when a whole village was destroyed by a tornado which was the result of a magical battle.”
“Holy crap,” Drew muttered. “How much magic is needed for that? Like, am I going to be causing random weather events by doing this sort of stuff?”
Kensington shook his head. “No, the forces Zach is speaking of are only generated by prolonged use of very strong magic by multiple users at once. A single user could not generate a magical storm themselves, even one as powerful as yourself. Even if all of us, plus Simon, were to use our powers all at once there is very little chance of affecting the weather unless we were doing very powerful spells.”
“Well, ‘today I learned’ I guess.”
“Thatisthe point of this training,” the sorcerer said dryly. “Now, I want you to close your eyes and try to find your centre, but alert me each time you feel me using my magic.”
Drew nodded and did what he was told, and hislesson continued.
Two days later, Drew was able to reliably locate the spark of magic deep within himself ninety percent of the time. Zach had helped him practise, transforming into his cat form and weaving around his ankles, batting at his shoelaces with his paws, and meowing loudly in his ear to distract him. He could mostly tune out everything else and concentrate, but some distractions were simply too great. Only time and practice would help him there.
Kensington continued to push him, and he’d had him memorise numerous simple spells which would help direct his magic. Drew had been disappointed to learn most of them were simply directions in Latin and didn’t have any deeper meaning. “To be completely honest, the spell itself is simply to guide your magic,” Kensington had explained. “If you struggle with Latin, you can always just stick to English, but you’ll likely give away to every man and his dog what you’re doing.”
Today, Kensington decided that Drew was ready to move to the next level and actuallyusehis power. “To begin with, I want you to try to lift this brush into the air,” Kensington instructed, pointing at the dustpan and brush set on the table.
Drew looked around the room. “Do I at least get to wear a fancy wizard’s hat?”
Kensington gave him a disapproving glare. “I may be bald, but does this goateelooklike a long grey beard to you, Mr Phillips?”
Towering over Drew with his bald head and green eyes, he looked very unlike Yen Sid. “Um, no,” Drew admitted.
“Then please do not treat this lesson like an excerpt from an animated children’s film from 1940. As I have explained previously when covering magical theory, you access your power by concentrating your willpower on your inherent magic. It is only then that you use a spell or incantation to direct and channel the magic to do your bidding.”
Drew nodded. “Ah, so more like the will and the word.”
Kensington gave him a withering look. “What are you babbling on about now?”
“The Belgariad, by David Eddings,” Drew told him. At the sorcerer’s blank look, he added, “It’s every thirteen-year-old’s gateway drug into the world of fantasy fiction. Seriously, you’ve never read them?”
