Origin (Scales N' Spells #1) - A.J. Sherwood Page 0,35
thought some comfort food might be in order.”
“God, yes, and thank you.” Cameron dug in with a sigh of bliss. They were warm and perfect on his tongue, with lovely flavor. He could eat his weight in these. “Please tell me you live off these here.”
“Some dragons try.”
Lisette turned to sit in the other wingback chair. She had a slight smile on her face that still somehow hinted at calculation. “Well, young mage. You’ve had quite the day.”
Cameron’s mouth was full, so he couldn’t protest her descriptor, but he frowned at her. It was a frown that relayed disapproval. And frustration. And many other things because he could frown with the best of them. He’d learned it at his father’s knee.
The frown did not have its desired effect. She smiled in return, as if he’d said something particularly amusing. “I think you’re under the wrong impression about magic. Many are if they don’t grow up around people who actually practice it. It’s not a matter of waving your wand, speaking a spell, and poof! Things happen.”
Cameron felt his brain grind to a halt. Swallowing, he demanded, “Wait, that’s not how it works?”
“No, no. Perish the thought. Books and movies often make it sound as if you have a well of magical energy in you, and with the right talent and intent, magic will leap to obey you. But really, most mages have very little magical power to call their own. We have the talent, certainly, but our magical core is more like a conduit.”
“Like the grounding wire to a battery?” he asked slowly, wrapping his head around this new information. Alric had mentioned something about this too. He hadn’t elaborated on it much, though.
“Something like that. Although, we channel power.” She crossed her legs, hands resting on a slim book in her lap as if they had all the time in the world to discuss this. “Mages actually require quite a bit in order to do any working. I’m sure you’ve wondered why mages were always willing to partner with a dragon?”
“It did cross my mind. Alric said something about it, but he didn’t really elaborate.”
“I imagine he, as a dragon, doesn’t really understand it well enough to explain. But you see, when a mage forms a bond with a dragon, we gain access to all of their magical power. It’s readily at our use, and it boosts our own abilities by at least fifty percent.”
Cameron did and didn’t follow this. “So…you have to have something magically powerful to work with?”
“Forgive me, I’m not explaining this right. It’s been so long since I’ve taught a young mage, I think I’ve forgotten how.” Lisette took a moment, breathing in and rephrasing things. “Mages require magical elements in order to do any working. We build our spells, enchantments, and potions much like you would build a machine. It all has its own design, its own elements, and it has to be a cohesive force in order for it to work. Our magic is used to tie it all together and put it in motion.”
Cameron ate the last bite of potato pancake, chewing on both her words and the food. “So, say that I want to build a vehicle. I’d design it, gather the materials for it, and then I would use magic to assemble it?”
“Precisely. And drive it, presumably, but you take my point. We use many, many elements in order to build spells. Some elements don’t work with others. Some do. Build too lopsided of a spell, it will collapse and backfire. Or just fail to function.”
Cameron had always felt that because magic had never come to him before, because he’d never felt anything else but human, it wasn’t his. He’d often tried yelling made up magical incantations or mixing random things together as a kid, waiting for something magical to happen. Even in his make-believe, he’d kept hoping. Until hope couldn’t stand in the face of no results. It was why he’d gone the more practical route of engineering.
But from what Lisette said, it only made sense he’d been unable to do anything. Or feel anything. Of course he hadn’t, he hadn’t been in the right environment for it. Hadn’t possessed the necessary tools.
But it also harkened back to a time when he was very, very young. The memory was hazy, a little golden and fuzzy around the edges, worn by time and a youthful mind that didn’t comprehend what he was seeing. But it was there, half-recalled.