As his niece left the room, he looked back at the open door and listened to her footsteps as they grew more distant down the hall.
He made sure she was gone, and that he had his privacy before turning back to his desk. With the storm raging outside, he had a little extra energy to work with. He knew for a fact it was in this book, Mythospheric Meteorology. Weird occult gibberish to someone who didn't know what they were doing, a how-to guide to catch lightning in a bottle to him.
While using candles was absolutely nothing new to him, Hannah would complain nonstop if the power wasn't restored before tomorrow morning. Anything for his niece, he supposed.
Opening one drawer of his desk, he pulled out a steel flask engraved with the symbol of Mjolnir. As he stood from his chair, he looked at it. He couldn't help but remember his brother Andrew, everything they'd learned, what they'd been through, and how it ended. He gently opened the lid before taking a large swig of mage water, a liquid catalyst for the arcane; Wizard gasoline, if you will.
The acidic taste of salt and liquor and something overwhelmingly metallic filled his mouth as pins and needles trailed on his tongue, down his throat, and through his veins.
His already impressive affinity for magic spiked as it hit his stomach, the sheer might of human belief and the miracles it conjured erupting from within him. Such raw potential was never meant for the human body, yet mages found a way to use it regardless.
Yeah, he's definitely going to need that tea afterward. The taste of silver was revolting. It only got worse with every swallow.
As he felt the burn spread through his nerves and bones, a bright light sparked in the window. A moment later, he heard the rumbling.
One mile. Good.
He reached out and formed the connection to the greater sphere. He searched for the realm of the Edda—Odin! Baldur! Thor!—filtering out all but the mythos of the Norse as he read the script, page seventeen, chapter four, lines eight through ten.
"Eldingar ok Trumur, vér kalla til tín!
Tórr, mee Mj?llni í hendi, gef oss kraft tinn!
Lát himininn kljúfa ok eldingar slá,
mee eld ok reiei, fjandmenn brotna má!"
As the words left his lips, he felt communion with the mythosphere. The air shimmered, vibrating with energy, his hair standing on end. One could feel the power in the air as the ambient static jumped exponentially. A few seconds later, the light bulb above his head flickered, then flared to life, casting the room in a warm glow. The hum of electricity flowed through the house, even if the lines outside remained dead.
Borrowing a smidgen of power from a full-on god—on Thor, no less—to light up your home seemed excessive. But for Hannah, it was worth it.
From the kitchen, his niece’s surprised shout rang out, “Hey, Uncle A! It’s back on!”
With a long, tired sigh, he fixed his beard and snapped his fingers, and the candle snuffed itself out. The grimoire snapped shut before flying back onto the shelf. He was going to need to wait for her to leave for school before he could have a chance to refill his flask.
Great. Just great.
Now, how much silver did he have left? Hopefully, enough to distill more mage water. The charge of thunderous magic still brimming beneath the surface caused his fingers to spasm. No matter.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
He would deal with it. He always did.
“Uncle A, is everything all right?” Hannah’s voice was coming down the hall. The air in the room was still buzzing with power. It should calm down in an hour at most. In the meantime—
He almost tripped as he closed the door to his study behind him, the tingling spasms in his hands almost impossible to hide as Hannah looked at him with worry. Concerned as always, that one.
“Hey, kiddo, just forgot to take my pills. Need to keep up with that. Did you find the tea?” He certainly hoped so. That metal aftertaste seemed to get worse the longer he left it. He really should experiment with trying to make mage water less disgusting.
Any form of magic was a costly affair. Materials, knowledge, skill, secrecy—and worst of all—your physical health! He's getting too old for this, and he was only forty-nine!
Last time he checked, there wasn't any sort of pension fund for mages. Which felt more and more like a kick in the teeth each day. It's not like he doesn't pay taxes!
Walking into the kitchen, he glanced at the wooden ravens keeping watch over his abode and saw one turn its head toward him: Huginn and Muninn—symbols of Odin and the eyes of the gods. Handy things to have around, especially since they were less overt than a camera.
Take that, James, you nerd. You can’t beat the classics.
After grabbing his pills and quickly tossing one into his mouth, he filled a mug from the kettle. One blessed tablet should help counteract the water and calm the coiling magic left in his body until it faded naturally. It didn’t make it suck any less, however.
Hannah stood in the entryway of the kitchen with her arms crossed, her hazel eyes giving him an odd look.
“Do you smell that?" she said as he took a sip. "That burning smell, like metal?”
He stopped just as he was about to lower the mug. Burning? The stove was off now, so it couldn’t be that. For her to be smelling metal, of all things?
He stopped to think about it, not noticing any smell before he noticed the faint sound of humming, like a swarm of bees inside the walls. He was a Songbird, meaning he was a mage who could experience magic as sound and music—a wonderful skill for incantations.
The trace residue of my magic.
Was she smelling his magic? Was she a bloodhound?
But she was unaware of magic, she's no mage, he made sure of it. The only way for a non-mage to feel ambient mythic energy was to be hit directly by a powerful source. Saying the first thing to come to mind, he replied.
“Oh, that might be the wires in the walls. The storm might have caused a surge. I’ll check in the morning.”
Taking another sip of his tea, he looked into the mug and thought carefully. He needed to be on his toes if she was a latent bloodhound, those who could sense magic via their sense of smell. When she was little, he could perform spells easily, sometimes literally right under her nose. Oh, she loved when he made things disappear. However, if she had even a tenth of the talent of her father, who was also a hound, then he'd need to be much more cautious.
"I'm heading upstairs. Goodnight, Uncle A." With those words, Hannah turned to leave the room.
Good. It would let him tidy up.
Thankfully, this old house was built to funnel excess magic through the pipes to be collected in the attic. Every little bit counts in this day and age.
Pulling out an old cell phone, he began to type. Jimmy better answer.
A: I need more colloidal silver
J: youre lucky you havent turned blue yet
A: its the best for distilling MW
J: you could try other methods
A: and where the hell am I gonna hide a power source
A: Hannah at least leaves the liquor cabinet alone so I could hide MW in there
J: ok fine but you owe me
Oh, his pain-in-the-ass ex-student.
James Quinn was a genius at magic, ironically, in everything except mysticism! Invocations, rituals, curses—they all made the man's brain melt. But somehow, he figured out how to upload a minor hex onto his computer.
The Mythosphere is like the internet, he said, runic is like Python, he said, magic can be coded, he said. A python is a snake!? What does a snake have to do with a computer, let alone a magic one?
How in the actual fu—
A rumble from outside broke his train of thought. As he finished his tea, he leaned back and rubbed his forehead.
Regardless, everything seemed good for the time being. Hannah’s got friends. She’s... passing in school. James is progressing with his new techno-magic, even if that still feels really dumb. Things are going well.
Which is why the man known as the Magician of Mímir knew it wasn’t going to last.
It never does.
All he could do now was wait as his phone went off again.
J: Hey you need anymore rock salt?
