Penna M. Fischer – 6/30/14 / 21-241
The Weaver Reborn
Penna M. Fischer
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 1-3
Chapter 2 2-11
Chapter 3 3-23
Chapter 4 4-38
Chapter 5 5-57
Chapter 6 6-71
Chapter 7 7-81
Chapter 8 8-91
Chapter 9 9-101
Chapter 10 10-113
Chapter 11 11-125
Chapter 12 12-135
Chapter 13 13-147
Chapter 14 14-162
Chapter 15 15-169
Chapter 16 16-183
Chapter 17 17-190
Chapter 18 18-202
Chapter 19 19-213
Chapter 20 20-224
Chapter 21 21-241
Chapter 22 22-254
Chapter 23 23-264
Chapter 24 24-278
Chapter 25 25-291
Chapter 26 26-302
Chapter 27 27-316
Chapter 28 28-332
Chapter 29 29-349
Chapter 30 30-368
Chapter 31 31-391
Chapter 1
The blow connected with her jaw sending her reeling. Maxine fell hard into the dirt on her stomach dazed for just a moment before she pushed herself up, rubbing at her lip and finding blood on her hand. Ok, now she was pissed.
She jumped to her feet and in the same movement she swung out hard with her fist. The blow connected with Tommy’s cheek. He stumbled back but managed to keep his feet, his nose which was now bleeding profusely.
He glared across at her with hate in his eyes. “Oh, you’re so dead, Maxine!” he shouted.
He rushed her and grabbed her around her stomach, trying to tackle her to the ground. She braced herself, digging her shoes into the dirt and miraculously she managed to keep her ground. She clutched both of her hands together, intertwining her fingers together, and slammed them both into the back of the boy’s head.
Tommy, collapsed to the ground, losing his grip on her. She danced back, realizing that suddenly there was a crowd of students surrounding them, encircling them, their voices shouting, “Fight! Fight! Fight!” in unison, egging them on. “Go, Tommy! Get her! You’re going down now, Maxine!” someone shouted somewhere.
Punks, she thought angrily, returning her attention back down to the boy laying on the ground. He was already getting back to his feet. She danced back, bracing her feet, and putting her fists up. “Come on, Tommy,” she shouted at him. “Come at me, again, I dare you.”
“You’re nothing but a worthless orphan!” he shouted, rushing at her again, his fist swinging.
She ducked it and swung low and upwards, jabbing her fist deep into his stomach. “At least I don’t pick fights that I know I can’t win,” she hissed in his ear, sidestepping away.
The boy doubled over, landing on his knees and puking into the dirt. To add insult to injury, she kicked out at him, catching him on his chin and sending him reeling backwards.
“That was my last wand!” she screamed at him, pointing at the broken halves of a wand that lay nearby on the ground.
Tommy rolled on the ground, coughing and spitting up. “Like you need it,” he hissed, wiping away at the blood pouring down his face. “You worthless vacant.”
The word ‘vacant’ burned through her, raging through her veins. “I’m not a vacant!” she screamed, rushing him again, raising her arm back to swing, aiming for the side of his face.
Tommy leaned forward and the blow missed, sailing over him. As her arm swung uselessly past his head he stood up and whirled around swinging his fist and connected with her stomach. She gasped as pain seared through her body, knocking the wind out of her. She stumbled past him, hugging her middle. She swallowed, resisting the urge to throw up, and whirled around, trying to push the pain away. Her eyes widened at the sight of Tommy barely a foot away. He wasn’t coming at her again – no. Instead he was crouched low, a small wooden wand held out menacingly. She swore inwardly. He would pull out magic in a fist fight, she thought angrily.
“Go on!” she shouted at him, bracing herself. “Cast a spell. It’s the only way you can win a fight and you know it,” she said, standing straight and tall, preparing herself for Tommy’s spell, and he knew some nasty ones. It wouldn’t be the first time she had been on the wrong end of his wand.
“What’s wrong, Maxine?” he said with a sneer, brushing his blond hair out of his hate-filled eyes. “Can’t win a fight when there’s magic involved? A worthless vacant like you doesn’t belong in a magic school. I can’t wait until you are finally out of here you stupid orphan trash.”
Damn rich snobs, she thought glowering down at him. She was an orphan, they weren’t. She couldn’t use magic proficiently, they could. That was all they needed to determine that she did not belong here and insulted her every chance they could.
She opened her mouth to retort when someone from the crowd suddenly shouted “teachers!” and the crowd began dispersing in all directions.
Tommy’s eyes widened. He spun around towards the school preparing to run. She took the opening. She rushed him, grabbing him around his middle, and tackling him to the ground. He managed to get turned around on his back and she straddled him swinging her fists out at his face, pummeling him with blow after blow until hands grabbed her under her arms and pulled her off of him, putting an end to the merciless barrage.
“Maxine Alciard,” the teacher said, rolling his eyes up to the heavens. “Why am I not surprised?” he asked, exasperated. He turned and grabbed the broken halves of her wand up off the ground. “Come on. Headmistress’s office,” he commanded, pulling her along by her arm. As she was led away she glared back at Tommy. Another teacher had a handkerchief pressed against his nose and was speaking gently to him.
Tears stung her eyes and hate pierced her heart as she turned back around, led in from the courtyard into the building.
Headmistress Ailya was the same as always. The woman glared down at her from across her desk, her arms folded across her chest and Maxine’s broken wand sitting on the desk between them. Personally Maxine just felt like flipping this woman off and walking out of the office. The two of them had bumped heads ever since she had been forced into this school three years ago as part of an orphan outreach program set up by the Arcadian Emperor Ghental. Middle East Arcadia Academy Magic School had been specially chosen for this grand plan and approximately a hundred eleven to fourteen orphans had been dumped in the school. Most of them did fairly well, but Maxine had been the wild child from the offset. Personally Maxine just wished she had been left in the orphanage. She’d had no chance of being adopted, but at least things like broken wands and school yard brawls didn’t happen. At least when she had defended herself in the orphanage it had been understood and tolerated.
Ailya tapped her fingers on the desk. Normally the woman would be seething with rage but today not so much. “One last hoorah before you leave my school forever, Miss Alciard? Need I ask if the destruction to the magic potions lab was you, too? Did you have fun breaking in last night and mixing all of those various potions together?”
Maxine grinned settling back into her seat. “I was just conducting research, ma’am.” Actually it had been downright hilarious, she thought. It had been fun to mix all the potions together to see what strange things might happen. She had even managed to make a strange purple moss grow in the sink. She hadn’t done it to be destructive, it was just something she had always wanted to do while sitting in class listening to a teacher rambling on. Since she was leaving soon she thought she’d act on it.
Ailya leaned forward, her lips pursing and Maxine could see a lecture behind her eyes. She braced herself for it but almost as soon as she opened her mouth the door to the office opened. Maxine turned around in her seat to see who had entered and excitement immediately soared through her.
“Brother!” she shouted jumping up out of her chair and racing over.
Sorcerer-Minister Morkoth was a lean seemingly-young looking man in his early thirties. He was dressed in a black and purple outfit with a dragon symbol emblazoned on his uniform of the Arcadian crest, and a black cape with a purple inner lining that billowed out all around him. He had dark hair and deep blue eyes that sparkled with mischief and magic. Humans were not born with magical powers, but some rare lucky individuals could Awaken to them later in life, becoming extraordinarily powerful individuals. These people, forming the Brotherhood of Sorcery, were regarded as mysterious and dangerous, and they presided over governing much of the lands of Sharanna.
Sorcerer Morkoth had acted on behest of the Emperor to be in charge of the orphan outreach program and to handle the children placed in the MEA Academy’s care, but the relationship that had formed between him and her had become so much more. After he had found her crying in a bathroom he had spent many hours trying to make her feel settled and to help her find friends. Instead they had become friends sharing hours upon hours fishing or swapping stories or even working to get her magic to work. He was forever patient with her and always believed in her.
Laughing, he pulled her into his arms, catching her in a warm embrace. “Hey there, Little Sister,” he said, petting her head and tracing her braid of brunet hair down her back. He tilted her head back and analyzed her face, taking in her split lip. “Another fight?” he asked.
“Tommy,” she said simply.
“Who won?”
She gave him a wide grin. “Me of course,” she said proudly.
“Well, then that’s all right, I suppose,” he said with a laugh, laying a hand on her head.
“Sorcerer Morkoth!” Ailya shouted behind them, jumping to her feet. “You should not praise the child for –“
Morkoth instantly turned cold as he stared up at the woman. “Do not tell me what I should or should not do,” he said, his voice full of warning. “I am removing Maxine from your care tomorrow. How I decide to raise her after that is no concern of yours. She will become someone else’s ‘problem’ as you have put it so disingenuously multiple times.”
Maxine’s heart soared at the words. As both a Sorcerer and the Minister of Magic Sorcerer Morkoth’s plate was undoubtedly full, but still he had made the decision to adopt her. She had called him Brother for as long as she could remember, a joke started when he had once said that maybe one day she would Awaken as a Sorceress and would join the Brotherhood, but now it was official. The paperwork was already drawn out and completed. Her and Morkoth were brother and sister. And tomorrow she would be leaving with him. Adopted and rescued from the terror of MEA Academy. Tomorrow felt like it would never come.
“I don’t think that I taught you how to pick locks so you could break into school rooms and waste gallons of magic potions,” Morkoth chided her later as they walked out of the school’s west wing and followed the bridge that lead to the school’s outer courtyard.
Maxine made a straight beeline for her favorite tree and started climbing up into one of the lower branches. “Then why did you teach me?” she asked with a laugh. “Not many honorable things can come out of picking locks, Brother.”
Morkoth chuckled staring up at her and shaking his head. “No, I suppose not, considering I use to use it to break into people’s houses to steal.”
“Or a witch’s tower,” she said with a laugh. Morkoth in his youth had broken into a tower to steal from a witch, but what he had found instead were tens of people that needed rescuing. At nearly the cost of his own life he had saved them, but gotten cornered by the witch. As if in answer to his prayers that had been the moment that he had Awoken to his powers and saved him and his childhood friend who had broken in with him. That childhood friend was now Sorcerer-Emperor Ghental who had Awoken just years later. A strange twist of fate making the number of Sorcerers rise from five to seven.
“Or a witch’s tower,” Morkoth chuckled. “Here, hand me your wand,” he commanded.
She reached into her pocket and pulled out the two split halves. “Tommy just swiped it and broke it when I was trying to practice.”
Morkoth reached up and took them from her, reaching into his pocket for a small gem. She gasped at the sight of it. “Brother!” she shouted. “Don’t waste your precious magic on that silly thing.”
“Relax, Little Sister,” he said gently holding it out in his hand. “The amount of magic needed to repair this is just a small margin of what I can collect being here. I’ll walk through the school and do a little gathering from the students casting spells and that will give me more than enough.”
Sorcerer Morkoth was the Sorcerer of Magical Transference. All Sorcerers had a Focus (what they could do with their magic) and a Restriction (what they couldn’t do). Morkoth’s Focus was any spell casting. His Restriction, though, was that it had to use magic gathered from another source. In essence, he stole the magic from another’s spell to use in his own. Throughout the day he would gather magic and then he placed it in gems to store since the moment he went to sleep he lost whatever he had gathered. He was incredibly powerful even by Sorcerer standards and he knew all the tricks for stealing magic. Just walking down a hallway sometimes she would see the lamps flicker and go out as he took from them.
He held both the gem up and the wand and began to cast. She felt a goose bump sensation across her skin at the feel of magic in the air and a small tug in the back of her mind that she ignored. As she watched, tiny sparks of white light began to dance around the broken edges of the wand. Within seconds the wand reformed itself and mended, the fissure between them closing not leaving even a trace of a broken line. Smiling proudly, Morkoth replaced the gem in his pocket and reached the wand up to her.