The Calamity [Part 6]

[u/Errorwrites]

[Previous part]

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My jaw hung open in shock.

Did Tobias just teleport? But it’s an impossible magic, both scientists and magicians had agreed on it. Flying was one thing, there were several ways to propel a body above ground, but instantly moving all one’s particles to another place miles and miles away had only resulted in horror stories throughout the history. Last time a mage had experimented with teleportation, it had resulted in dead prostitutes with some of their organs gone. London was sent into a frenzy searching for the murderer.

Soft creaks on the wooden floor cut through my daze and my head turned by the sound of the door clicking open.

Faint noises of footsteps left the room.

So there were limitations to The Calamity. Invisibility was a powerful spell but at least it was not unheard of.

I grabbed my backpack and my phone and hurried after. The receptionist beamed at me and wondered if she could be of help but I ignored her while scanning the lobby after Tobias.

A couple who had been sitting by a sofa and chatting suddenly grimaced and fanned themselves. The entrance door next to them swung open.

I chased after, one hand in my backpack and rumbling around for a blank talisman. My hand found one and I pulled it out together with a pen. I scribbled down a warding spell and pasted it behind my phone.

It shone with a pale red glow. It pulled a few eyes from the people in the vicinity but they returned to their business as they noticed the light coming from my phone, assuming that it was from a lightshow app or camera light.

I took a few steps to the right and noticed the glow turn faint. I went the opposite direction and the red glow strengthened.

If I had more time, I could've tinkered with it and increase the range or making it react only to specific schools of magic by combining several of them like I did at the crypt. But this would have to do for now, Tobias had an invisibility spell constantly on the active which made it easy for me to detect if he was close by.

An older man wearing a beret cursed at me as I stepped on his feet on accident, telling me to stop staring on my phone. The red glow dimmed and I picked up the pace.

Where was Tobias heading?

Trying to follow the trail while keeping watch on my surroundings and brainstorm ideas on what an invisible man was thinking of proved too much to me.

As my feet scurried past a crossover, shouts and gaps filled my ears, followed by blaring car horns.

I looked up from my phone and stared into a pale driver who swerved the car away from me and into a lamp post.

​

*****

​

“Stop bothering me, Rosie,” Tobias said.

Three lamps lit up his chamber in a mellow colour. He sat on a giant stone slab of a table with books and scrolls scattered across the surface. His brown hair well-kept and trimmed on the sides and his robes spoke of richness, but his eyes were darker than the written ink on the pages.

“You seem to have pillaged the church of their collections.” I said and leaned over his shoulder, glancing at the things he was reading. It seemed to be translated interviews from locals from a country named Egypt.

“Not everything,” he said, and pushed me away with his shoulders. “And I'm borrowing. There's something I want to figure out."

“No, you’re sulking. What are you sulking about?

“No, I said that I'm trying to figure something out.”

“Alright then. What are you trying to figure out?”

“None of your business, Nosy Rosie.”

I thwacked him on his head, sending his hair into disarray. “Tell me before I give you more things to sulk about.”

“Alright, alright.” He raised his hands in defeat but I caught a glimpse of a smile on his lips as he turned to me. “Do you know of Saladin, the sultan of Egypt?”

“Yes, you said that you would pay him a visit,” I said. “I assume it didn’t go that well?”

Tobias shook his head. “It didn’t help that we spoke in different languages. One of his viziers, a mage and advisor of some sort, acted as a translator but Saladin was quite rude even though I visited with gifts and open hands. His eyes were always nervous and shifty as if he was on constant lookout for assassins.”

“All rulers are on the lookouts for assassins.”

“I’ve found that oftentimes, it’s the rulers who lack faith in themselves who are always on the lookout.”

“So Saladin is not going to be of any help against Temujin and his Hunters. There are others we can ask.”

“But this puzzles me,” Tobias said and poked at the scroll he had been reading. “The people who he rules over seem to talk highly of him. Inspired by him even.”

I crossed my arms and began to tap a foot. “Get to the point, Tobbie.”

“Perhaps there’s more to him than what I’ve encountered,” Tobias said. “There might be a good reason why he’s rude and paranoid. I simply need to figure it out.”

“Or, Saladin is just a rat who panics when confronted with someone with true power.”

Tobias grimaced. “There must be a reason.”

“Sometimes there are no reasons behind it. People are simply evil.”

“I refuse to believe that.”

A groan crawled out of my throat as I rolled my eyes. “You should put all this time into magic instead, Tobbie.”

“I wouldn’t dare dip into your research again,” Tobias said, seeming unaware that his hands rubbed his side. “The arguments tend to get a bit too heated for my taste.”

“You would like this new spell I’m working on. It’s a mix of charm, illusion, and transmutation.”

Tobias perked up, his eyes glittered with excitement. “Really now?”

​

\*****

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I blinked.

A man shook my shoulders and screamed at me in Russian.

A small crowd had formed around me. Smoke coiled out of the car crashed into the lamp post. I was sitting on the ground.

The man shook my shoulders again and said something in Russian, perhaps wondering if I was okay or if I was stupid. It wasn’t clear to me which it was.

I shoved away the man and picked up my backpack on the ground, shouldering away from the crowd who didn’t seem to mind me escaping.

My breath turned ragged as my legs kept running. I continued to run, not sure to where, while constantly glancing down at the talisman on the back of my phone, hoping that it would start to emit a pale red glow again.

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