Gemmell, David – Morningstar

‘I cannot teach you sorcery in a single night, Owen, nor would I wish to try. But here is your first lesson: when you rub your hands together you create heat. Well, a stone is not as solid as it looks. It is made of more component parts than there are stars in the sky. I make them rub against one another. The heat generated is immense.’

‘You are mocking me, lady. A stone is a stone. If it was, as you say, made up of many parts, then air would be trapped within it and it would float on water.’She shook her head. ‘All that you see in this world is not all that there is, Owen Odell. And your logic is flawed. I can make a stone float, or give a feather such weight that you could not carry it. But these lessons can be for another day. For now I want you to tell me why you did not create the rock-wall illusion.’I did not think,’ I admitted. ‘I was frightened – close to panic.’Yes, you were. Fear is good, for it makes us cautious and aids survival. Not so with terror. It is like slow poison, paralysing the limbs and blurring the mind. You have courage, Owen, else you would not have stood up for me at the Burning. But you are undisciplined. Never, when in danger, ask yourself, ‘What will they do to me?’ Instead think, ‘What can I do to prevent them?’ Or did you think that magick, and all the connected powers, were merely discovered in order to entertain revellers in inns, taverns and palaces?’I was ashamed of my cowardice and said nothing, my thoughts hurtling back to childhood where my father had constantly berated me for lack of skill in the manly arts. I did not climb trees, for fear of the heights, nor learn to swim, for fear of drowning. High horses frightened me and the clashing of sword-blades made me cry. My brothers took to the game of war like young lions, and upon them he showered praise. But Owen was a weakling, worthless, a creature to be avoided. The great Aubertain – how I hated him for his cruel courage, his arrogance and his pride.

I gloried in his one weakness – fire. A long time before, when he himself was a child, he had been burned upon his left arm: the scars were still visible, white, ugly and wrinkled, stretching from wrist to elbow. Even into middle age he would jump if a fire-log cracked and spat sparks.

And then, one summer’s evening, a storehouse near the castle caught fire. Every villager and soldier ran to the blaze, human chains forming to ferry buckets of water from the deep wells to the men at the head of the lines. The fire was beyond control and bright sparks flew into the night sky, carried by the breeze to rest upon the thatched roofs of nearby cottages.

My father, brothers and I organized work parties, carrying

water into homes as yet untouched and drenching the thatch. There was a two-storeyed house close by. Sparks entered through an open window, igniting the straw matting that covered the ground floor. Flames billowed up.

I remember a woman screaming, ‘My baby! My baby!’ She was pointing to an upper window. My father was standing beside me at the time and I saw upon his face a look of sheer terror. But then, with a snarl, he tore loose his cloak, wrapped it around his face and shoulders and ran into the burning building.

Moments later I saw him at the upper window with the babe in his arms. Climbing to the sill he leapt to the yard below, his hair and beard on fire. He landed awkwardly and we heard his leg snap, but he twisted his body as he fell to protect the infant he held. Men ran forward then, smothering the flames that writhed about him. The mother retrieved her babe, and my father was carried back to the castle.

I am ashamed to say that my hatred for him swelled, roaring up like the blaze around me.

‘Why so melancholy?’ asked Megan, and I shivered as my mind fled back to the present.

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