Conjuring! Didn’t they know he had never in his life conjured anything? Beggar-boys knew nothing, – these men didn’t seem to understand that yesterday’s abilities weren’t his.
The man began reading out a chant from the scroll. Hamar sweated, his palms went cold.
As one of the men repeated the nonsensical words and danced a hand in the air, on the ground the lines on the mat seemed to disappear at the centre, clouded over by a form!
The cloud became a small column and was soon moving like a creature, and then it condensed into a shape that popped legs down from itself onto the mat! Hamar gasped!
The man stopped chanting and dropped his hand, and the legs went back up into the small cloud, the column dwindling to nothing. They smiled at him,
“Your turn,” the man said and handed him the scroll.
The parchment shook in his hands. The scroll’s letters looked more like a line of dancing tadpoles. The taller man nodded for him to begin!
Hamar stared at the scroll and could only say, “Uhhhh…” But then he jolted as if his head had been smacked from behind, and the same words shot out of his mouth that the man had spoken!
Without knowing what he was going to say before he said it, the words sped forth, and even did several repeats. Up went Hamar’s hand and he twirled it to a rhythm!
In front of their eyes the vapour reappeared over the mat, then condensed, and then the misty thing began to weave to match Hamar’s hand moves. Hamar was doing it! He really was doing it!
He, beggar boy Hamar was doing majic!
They swept that scroll away and lined up more. This time they didn’t chant beforehand, but silently spread the scroll out in front of Hamar to see what he knew to do by himself.
Sweating again, he read out the words on these scrolls, too! His hand made even more elaborate moves, and he jumped when glowing things as small and solid as maggots appeared on the mat!
Aktiarh was called in. With delight Hamar boldly sped up his chants and flared one of the worms into a writhing water imp, then another into a flaming fire imp, next a column of wind, metres tall, and a living plant spirit! Aktiarh glared, – the startled adepts leapt up to stamp out the fire on the silk carpet!
And so began his first week of studies. A great to-ing and fro-ing went on inside him with each lesson, – the thrill of wonders, the terrified need to escape every time something weird showed up.
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