Magi Odyssey Page 2

  The thought of jumping forwards in time had occurred to her, but she wasn’t sure that was the best idea. The Weaver had already sent her back, so she didn’t think it would be wise to second guess the Weaver just yet and start time travelling herself.

  At least, not for a while. She wanted to be sure that the Weaver wasn’t going to suddenly appear and take her back. Besides, even with the growing fear that the Weaver was going to leave her here, she did feel quite curious about the world she was now within.

  She was over a thousand years back in time. How many people get to do something this insane? So, she thought, why not make the most of it and have a look around?

  She did need to blend in a bit better, though, which was where the clothes of this dead woman came in. Steeling herself, Amanda removed the clothing from the woman and moved back into the trees and out of sight of any passers-by.

  With a quick thought and a working of will, she created an expanded Force Field that worked as a shelter, keeping the rain off her as she laid out the clothing she had taken from the woman on a large rock. There was a fur cloak, which the woman had worn with the fur turned in, no doubt to keep her warm. The main garment was a long ankle length gown with a leather belt that had been worn over the top of it. There had also been a knife attached to it, which Amanda decided to keep. There was also a pair of leather shoes that were secured with straps. The only other item of clothing was an undergown made of linen. With another working of Magic, she dried the stolen clothes out before stripping off, placing her own outfit into a pile. She considered leaving her underwear on, but ultimately decided against it, even though it was unlikely anyone would see her wearing them. She quickly pulled on the clothes she had taken from the corpse and was surprised at how warm they actually were. They were also quite rough and threatened to rub in a few places, but that was all fixable with a few Magical alterations.

  With her new outfit on and ready, she waved her hand over her modern clothing and set them alight with a violent and intense Magical flame that consumed them utterly in a matter of seconds.

  With that done, she wondered where she should start. She realised that she actually knew nothing of the world she had been stranded in. She hadn’t been terribly interested in history, and there was no way for her to find out the details she needed now that she was actually here.

  Well, she thought, the capital of England was London, she knew that much, so she felt reasonably sure that the city would be a good place to start. There would be people there, and she would be able to have a look around and get a feel for the time she now found herself in.

  With a quick working of Magic, she sent her senses down the length of the country, and suddenly, she could see a second image in her mind's eye. She’d placed her senses somewhere just within where the London Orbital motorway, the M25, would be in the modern day, thinking she would be outside the city somewhere, only to find herself looking at more tree trunks and no people.

  Frowning, Amanda moved her senses up, out over the tops of the trees to get a birds-eye view of the landscape, only to see woodland and countryside as far as the eye could see. She knew where her senses had appeared and she knew where they were in relation to modern day greater London, so she sent them zipping off over the tops of the trees towards where the centre of London would be.

  As they moved, they flew above a few tiny settlements of wooden, thatched roofed buildings, but little else until something caught her eye. She spotted what could only be stone buildings off in the distance. She jumped her senses over to the settlement and found some ruins of a former settlement.

  It seemed to be a town, or, at least, it used to be, and it looked to be abandoned. Amanda shrugged, it was as good a place to start as any, she thought, and worked her will on the local Essentia again. With a whip crack, Amanda Ported and suddenly found herself standing amidst the old town. The place had been here for a long time, and as she walked through the streets and buildings, she could see the remains of makeshift settlements that had been built within the old stone walls and then also left behind.

  She wasn’t entirely sure where she was, but the look of the buildings, or what was left of them, appeared to be Italian or similar to buildings she’d seen down there before.

  Was this an old Roman settlement, maybe?

  As she walked, she soon came to the edge of the settlement and saw that it was close to a river, and spotted a couple of ladies sat at the water's edge, dressed in clothing not too dissimilar to hers, although they both also wore head coverings. Amanda chose to keep out of sight, but used her Magic again to listen in on their conversation.

  Within seconds, Amanda realised she couldn’t understand what these two were talking about. They seemed to be speaking some kind of foreign language, although, the occasional word did sound familiar. With a frown, Amanda used her Magic once more and reached inside each of the ladies’ minds one at a time, and copied the knowledge of the language into her own mind.

  All of a sudden, she could comprehend what these two were talking about, but it wasn’t anything of any use to her. They were discussing their families and relationships; typical everyday stuff.

  Keen to move on and find where she needed to be, Amanda pressed her Magic into one of the girl's heads and pulled what she needed to know from her.

  It turned out that Amanda hadn’t been wrong about her observations about this abandoned town. This was the old Roman settlement of Londinium, and apart from a few people living here, taking advantage of the pre-built houses, most people avoided the town, preferring to live elsewhere. The main and biggest of which was Lundenwic, about a mile west of where she currently was.

  Satisfied that she knew where she was and where she needed to go, Amanda concentrated once more and sent her senses west. She quickly found Lundenwic close to the river, but felt somewhat underwhelmed by it.

  Surrounded by a wall of pointed wooden stakes, the small town, which to Amanda looked like a tiny village, seemed to be centred around a single large hall with lots of smaller simple wooden structures around it.

  Amanda wanted a closer look, so she found a place she could discreetly Port to and worked her Magic.

  She immediately sunk into the mud as she appeared between what she could only describe as a hut and the outer wall of the town. One of the first impressions she had of the place, apart from how cold the mud was that her feet were in, was how much it smelt.

  She was getting strong wafts of human or animal waste mixed with smoke and cooking meat. It was certainly a unique odour, that was for sure. Pulling her cloak about herself a little tighter, Amanda stepped out from her little hiding place and started to make her way along what she could only guess might be a street, although, there was no formal or recognisable layout that she could see here.

  Some of the shelters had walls of wood with pitched roofs on top, but many of them didn’t have walls at all and looked like a tent made from a thatch roof. As she walked, several people looked at her curiously. The town was small, so it was likely that long-term residents could spot someone new right away. She also guessed, in this era of horse travel, that visitors to the town were probably not terribly common. She felt pretty sure that her long red hair looked very out of place as well.

  She continued on, though, taking in the sights and finding herself feeling utterly fascinated by how people used to live.

  From what she could see from peeking into the huts she could get a look into, they all looked like they consisted of a single room, sometimes with an earthen floor. In a few others, the floor was covered with wooden planks. In either case, a covering of straw was often over the top.

  People all around her went about their business, running errands, cooking, working or trading, looking at her occasionally to get a good look at the new arrival, but ultimately not really bothering her.

  As she walked, she started to feel sure that there wasn’t really any kind of place for her to stay. She’d hoped that there might be a tavern or something around where visitors could pay for a room, but there was no such thing here. However, even if there had been such a place, she wasn’t sure what was used as currency in Briton right at this moment.

  It didn’t take her long to look round the whole town, and she was starting to feel somewhat dejected and unsure about what she should be doing. From what she could see, although there were guards on duty, people were coming and going through the main gate to the town quite freely, so Amanda wandered over, made her way through the gate unchallenged, and walked down to the river’s edge were a few boats were moored.

  She gave them a wide birth and looked for a quiet spot where she could be relatively alone. It didn’t take her long to find a secluded place where she sat down on a rock at the edge of the river. For a moment, she gazed out over the river, watching its choppy waters move lazily along. She sighed. This was getting tedious, she thought. She didn’t have time for this, she wanted to be back home, dealing with whatever fallout might be coming her way from the Magi Legion’s kidnapping. But, instead, she was stuck here waiting on the damn Weaver.

  She wondered if she might be able to summon it or something, so Amanda reached out, focusing on the image of the Weaver she had in her mind and tried to somehow find it, or reach out to it like she would do with a regular link.

  She sat there for several minutes, getting more and more frustrated until she slammed the base of her fist onto the rock and screamed through clenched teeth.

  Frankly, she’d had enough of this shite, she thought, and decided that if the Weaver wouldn’t bring her back, it was down to her. Amanda reached out with her mind once more and pulled on the local Essentia, focusing on jumping forward in time, only for the Essentia around her to suddenly disappear. It was gone. She couldn’t even feel it anymore.
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  Looking up, she noticed the river had frozen in time. The world around her was utterly still and silent, which had a really unnerving effect. A short distance in front of her, a hole in the fabric of reality tore itself open, creating a void of pure black and what looked like a generic human face, a male one, seemingly lit from below, hanging towards the top of that void.

  ‘Amanda,’ it said, it’s strange deep voice with its odd modulation reaching deep into her mind. ‘You cannot do that.’

  ‘There you are, finally. I was wondering when you might turn up, don’t yeh know?’ she said, standing up as a feeling of relief flooded through her. ‘I’m ready to go back now.’

  ‘I will not take you back to your own time, Amanda,’ it said.

  ‘Excuse me?’ Amanda said, feeling like her heart had just stopped working as she caught her breath. ‘I’m sorry, to be sure, but you brought me here, you sent me back through time. Take me back, please.’

  ‘I cannot.’

  ‘Me arse you can’t. You brought me here, now take me back.’

  ‘You misunderstand me, Amanda. I am quite capable of returning you to your time. However, circumstances will not allow it, nor will they allow you to, either.’

  ‘What circumstances?’ she asked as the sinking feeling in her stomach grew.

  ‘It is complicated. Suffice to say, your path is set. You are to live your life here, in this time, from this day forward. You may not use your Magic to return to your time or pursue other methods of reaching the same goal. You must live here, from today, each and every day doing forward.’

  ‘So… I’m stuck here?’ she said, her voice almost a squeak from the stress she was under.

  ‘That is one way of looking at it. You are to live your life from this day forward without travelling through time other than as a last resort to save your life, and then only the minimum required. Do you understand?’

  ‘Well, sure, but this is banjaxed. This can’t be right?’

  ‘This is the path you must take. It will be a long and arduous one, but I have faith in you, Amanda.’

  ‘You? You have faith in me? Ah, go-on-with-yeh,’ she said, feeling somewhat taken back by what the Weaver had just admitted to her. ‘Hang on, Magi are immortal, right?’

  ‘Most Magi.’

  ‘Okay, sure, most Magi, which means I might live through to the modern day?’ That’s like, over a thousand years away.’

  ‘It is, young one. I have a piece of advice for you before I leave,’ the Weaver said. ‘Be careful how involved in Magi society you become. In fact, I’d recommend keeping out of it entirely whenever you can. Whether you are or not, many Magi and Scion’s are long-lived, and frequently bare grudges for hundreds of years. Any enemy you make now might eventually find your younger self when you are significantly weaker than you are now. I’m sure I don’t need to elaborate any further,’ the Weaver said.

  Amanda nodded slowly. She understood. She was well aware of the concept of time paradoxes, and she did not like the idea of wiping her current self from existence by getting her younger self killed before she ever went back in time. Well, she thought, that concept made her head hurt. Time Magic, it was nothing but a headache waiting to happen.

  ‘I wish you luck in whatever path you choose to take, Amanda. I will be watching you,’ it said, and with that, he was gone and time reverted to normal once more. The river started to move again, and she could feel her connection to Essentia once more as well. She looked about her and sighed. Well, that was that, then. She was indeed, stuck here. But, maybe that wasn’t so bad? Maybe she needed to think a little more positively. She remembered her promise to Georgina, to live her life to the best of her ability and to make the most of any opportunity that came her way because you never knew when your time was up.

  This, for a potentially immortal Magus with knowledge of what was to come, could be the biggest opportunity anyone ever had, ever. Moments ago, she’d felt like she was falling, dropping into an endless pit of despair as the reality of what the Weaver had done to her started to register on her mind and what they meant for her. But then, suddenly, she felt free. Liberated. She had time on her side in a very literal sense.

  All kinds of possibilities opened up to her, especially with her Magical talent. The world, and maybe beyond, was her oyster.

  This would be fun.

  751AD

  Lundenwic had been great. In the end, she’d actually kind of enjoyed spending a little time here and soaking up the local atmosphere; it was kind of fun. But she was starting to feel a bit claustrophobic and felt like she needed a little peace. She needed to contemplate her future, and what it was she wanted to do with her life now. She’d thought about it for a while, and eventually, she came to the perfect conclusion.

  Walking out of town, she made her way, in a very visible way, with her possessions in a sack, out of the town, telling people she was going on a journey. When she was far enough out of town and out of sight, she pulled on the threads of Essentia and concentrated on her destination.

  With a flash of light behind her eyes and a whip-crack of air, she found herself in a very different place.

  Before her, the huge gates of the Red Temple rose up, guarded, as always, by the pair of Temple Dogs that were more than just statues.

  She could think of no place better than here to get some R&R.

  Graceful Phoenix

  778 AD

  Sitting up, Amanda looked out of the nearby window as the morning sun streamed through into her small room. She sat on her low, simple wooden bed, topped with a woven grass mat and a couple of thin blankets.

  Her bed was hard and uncomfortable, but she was used to it by now, and she had spent some time at the Red Temple back in her own time, so she knew what she was letting herself in for.

  She never slept terribly well in her bed, but it did help her enter a better meditative state when she needed to. She’d arrived here about twenty-eight years ago now, feeling the need to find some peace and to think through her situation some more.

  The monks had accepted her warmly, offering her a room and making her feel very welcome. She was also pleased to see that the monks were still practising the Art of the Phoenix, the little known martial art that she had been learning from Gentle Water over the years. One of the temple’s masters, a female monk called Pan Mei, gladly took her on and started to train her.

  That had been her life out here in the Himalayas for nearly thirty years now, and she had slowly come to accept that she was not going to be returning to her own time via magic. She would need to live her life here, and if she happened to be one of the Immortal Magi of the world, then maybe she would still be alive when she finally did return to modern day New York.

  Things were at least looking favourable in that regard. Having lived here for twenty-eight years now, she still looked the same as when she’d first stepped through those doors, while most of the monks around her looked considerably older, including her martial arts mentor, Pan Mei.

  Amanda wasn’t the only Magi here, though, and while she did interact with some of these Magi monks, she limited her time with them, preferring to focus on her training and contemplate her life.

  She hadn’t seen the Weaver since Lundenwic, and there had been times when Amanda had tried to summon the being to her over the years for one reason for another. She might be surrounded by monks and a few Magi here in the temple, but she couldn’t help but feel a little alone sometimes, and so far, the Weaver was her one link to her former life, the one person she thought she could talk to.

  But her summons had thus far remained unanswered.

  Her day followed pretty much the same routine, day in, day out. She woke up, grabbed something for breakfast, as there was usually something on offer in the temple, before meeting up with Pan Mei for her morning training. She’d eat again before midday, before going for a long walk during the afternoon.

  She enjoyed her walks through the mountain paths that surrounded the temple, taking in the breath-taking vista’s that surrounded her current home. She’d often find a quiet spot out there and meditate for a while, something else she had learnt from the monks here.