Read Online The Jade Mage: The Becoming: Volume 1 by William D. Latoria - Free Book Online Page A

that he felt something strange happen, something...wrong. He wasn’t sure if he had mispoken a word or had fumbled over a gesture. Surely he had sobered up from his drinking earlier in the night...hadn’t he? He didn’t know for sure, and trying to figure it out was causing him to lose his focus. All Tartum knew for sure was, the magic was trying to leave him, and the spell was falling apart. Frantically, Tartum pushed down his panic and concentrated all his will on salvaging his spell! Looking at his staff, he saw it shuddering as if at any moment it would explode, and the panic came back with a vengance!
    “My staff is going to shatter!” Tartum thought. The thought was fleeting, barely taking a second to cross his mind, but the impact was profound. The panic was overwhelming him now, and his mind told him to stop. He couldn’t lose his staff, it was his most prized possession! Nothing in the world meant more to him, except for his spell book. Why was this happening? What had gone wrong? It wasn’t fair! No one had told him! Why did Isidor have to keep all the information from him and allow him to fail like this!?! Tartum’s mind reeled. His focus was almost completely broken, and the magic was leaving him, threatening to take his staff with it in the process.
    “I’m so close! So close! I can’t fail now!” He thought. The magic wasn’t working, the enchantment failing, his staff breaking. Something sharp and painful lanced through Tartum’s mind. “NO! NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO !” he told himself, angrily, ”I WILL NOT ALLOW IT! I’VE COME TOO FAR! DONE TOO MUCH! THE MAGIC WILL NOT FAIL ME !” he told himself. Tartum’s panic and fear were driven from him, as a white hot rage began to take over.
    “ NO !” Tartum told the magic. “NOT THIS TIME! YOU WILL WORK, AND I WILL HAVE MY REWARD! YOU OWE ME THAT AND MORE!” he screamed, his fury making him sound like a hysterical nut rather than a powerful caster. His vision went red, and he focused the full strength of his will. All caution was thrown to the wind, and Tartum opened himself completely to the magic. The power poured back into him. For a moment, Tartum felt as though he was hovering over the ground, and it felt wonderful. He forced the magic to funnel into the glyphs of blood in his enchantment, and restabilized the failing spell, with an overabundance of power and anger.
    Feeling the magic flowing through him and into the enchantment, Tartum remade the gesture for the wisp of light from the lightning bugs and screamed at it, “ LIGHT !” As he screamed the word, a surge of magic flowed into the infused light, as it was absorbed into the gold, wrapped around his staff. The success did nothing to calm Tartum’s temper. “How dare the magic try to fail me!” Tartum thought. The idea that the magic had almost abandonded him, just because of a small mispronunciation or a slight miscalculation of a gesture, redoubled his fury.
    He channeled more and more raw magic through himself and into both infused wisps of smoke, from the green flame and sulfur. Now, more through will and instinct than gestures, he forced the smoke to move over his staff. “ DARK !” he screamed, in a frenzy of rage, as the smoke absorbed into the gold of his staff.
    With the spell completed, Tartum shut himself off from the magic, and his whole world felt mundane. Without the magic inside him, his anger was gone, and he found himself feeling weak and dumb. Unsteadily, Tartum made his way, the five paces, to his staff. He felt like he was walking through thick, sticky mud, and his legs burned with every step. Still stuck in the ground, the staff looked no worse for wear, and Tartum was immensely grateful for that. Pulling it out of the ground, he held the staff gently and spoke the word of command.
    “Light.” But nothing happened.
    Anguish hit Tartum hard, with his failure. Why didn’t his staff respond to his command? Everything worked like it was supposed