Read Online Thaumatology 101 by Niall Teasdale - Free Book Online Page A

across the landing to her own room.
    ‘One night in bed with a succubus,’ she muttered, ‘and you’re contemplating being an idiot.’ She found one of the shirts she wore around the house and slipped it on. ‘Shedidn’t even try anything,’ she added, and headed for the door. ‘And now you’re talking to yourself!’
    ‘First sign of madness,’ Twill said as she buzzed past.
    ‘Yeah, thanks,’ Ceri said wryly.
    ‘Bad dreams again?’ the fairy asked, hovering over the next landing as Ceri walked down. Ceri nodded, reaching the floor and turning toward the lounge. Twill landed on her shoulder, little hands gripping the cloth. ‘I saw the sheets. Well, one good thing came of it.’
    ‘You think?’
    ‘I know. You trusted Lily and yourself enough to sleep in the same bed as her. That’s progress.’ She flicked her wings. ‘What’re you up to?’
    Ceri knelt beside the box which still rested beside the seat and started to unpack the contents. ‘There was an image I saw in the dream,’ she said. ‘I want to draw it out before I forget it.’
    ‘And this… device is going to draw it for you?’ Twill was not really at home with technology.
    Ceri giggled. ‘No, but I should be able to use it to draw on.’ She lifted the tablet out and pressed the power button. A green light shone in one corner of the eight by ten inch computer, and the screen flickered once and began to stream boot-up text; apparently, Carter had made sure it was charged and ready for use. The text vanished and a background image appeared. It was an upward-pointing containment circle with “Get Well Soon” printed across it in large, white letters. Ceri grinned; yes, Carter had set the machine up for her. ‘Wow,’ she said, glancing at a corner of the screen, ‘MagiTech Thaumium Six OS. Latest thing. This has the Etherstream networking system, optimised multi-threading, the works.’
    ‘Does it cook breakfast?’ Twill asked. She sounded unimpressed.
    ‘No,’ Ceri said, ‘that it doesn’t do.’
    ‘Then I’ll go do that while you go all gooey over your new love.’ She lifted off Ceri’s shoulder and buzzed out through the lounge door.
    Ceri looked at her tablet. She had never used the newest of MagiTech’s operating systems, the university was still on the previous version with no sign of upgrading. However, the new features were supposed to be pretty intuitive, so… She tapped the “Programs” icon in the corner of the screen and, sure enough, a window opened displaying a matrix of software icons. She located a package called “Doodle” and was rewarded with a simple white screen with icons at the top for line width and colour.
    Five minutes later, Ceri walked into the kitchen holding the computer, now bearing a rough image of the glyph she had seen in her dream. She sat down at the kitchen table, placed the tablet in front of her, and stared at it. It looked like an enchantment rune, but it was nothing she had seen in class. She was sure she had seen it before, but still could not really think where.
    Twill floated over from the cooker while her spatula continued to make sure the bacon did not burn in the frying pan. She looked down. ‘That,’ she said, ‘looks like one of the demonic scripts.’
    Ceri looked up. ‘Demonic? I didn’t know you knew any demon languages.’
    ‘There are lots of things you don’t know about me, Ceri,’ Twill pointed out. ‘However, you’re right, I don’t. On the other hand, however, I do know what their glyphs look like because I like to know what to avoid, and that just screams “walk away.” Try your father’s books.’ Ceri started to get up and Twill fixed her with a look. ‘ After breakfast,’ she said.
    ‘Yes, Mother,’ Ceri responded, sitting back down and flicking the tablet into sleep mode. Twill had told them she was eighteen, but what that meant to a fairy neither Ceri nor Lily really knew. The tiny fae certainly mothered the pair of them terribly, acting