Chapter 44: Training

The decision arrived before James was fully awake, settling over him with the quiet certainty of something that had been working its way to the surface for days. He needed guidance—real guidance, not the kind filtered through obligation or agenda. Everyone in his orbit had their own priorities, and his welfare sat somewhere further down most of their lists than he’d have preferred. The only approach that made sense was to cast a wide net: solicit opinions from several directions, then trust himself to sift the useful from the self-serving. That thought got him dressed and out the door, heading toward Bartholomew’s shop before the morning had fully decided what kind of day it wanted to be.

“James, how have you been?” Bartholomew asked, looking up from whatever he’d been sorting at the counter. “I have not seen you in weeks.”

“If you knew my schedule, you would not be surprised. But I need your opinion.”

“Certainly.”

James leaned against the counter and laid it out plainly. “You may know that I have received training from Kael to be a battlemage. Before he left on a mission, he extensively trained me on a spell and all of its components. Thanks to his guidance, I have become proficient with that spell. He gave me additional spells, but I have not learned them yet. I have also performed some tasks for Lord Mallow. I am trying to balance the secular and magical. I wanted to invite you and Mathin to a meal and see how you have balanced the competing forces.”

Bartholomew considered that for a moment. “I will be glad to offer you my thoughts, but remember, my particular skills are not in great demand by the authorities.”

“Are there other mages I should invite?” James asked.

“The only other mage in Castletown is Pasul. I doubt he will even talk to you. His entire life is his church. I know he is magical—you can sense it. But I have never seen him use his magic. His church forbids it.”

“That would be a problem. He’s never experienced the issues I need guidance with. What is your schedule?”

“Anytime is fine. Unlike Mathin, I do not have a wife.”

“Let me ask Mathin, and I will let you know the time.”

He left Bartholomew’s in better spirits than he’d arrived, the simple act of setting something in motion doing what it always did for him. The afternoon stretched ahead, unscheduled and rare, and James had no intention of wasting it.

He stopped back at The Fenrir long enough to pack a lunch, exchanged a wave with Suki, and headed out toward the clearing with a bag over one shoulder and his mind already ranging ahead. The walk gave him space to think—specifically, to return to the problem that had been nagging at him since his last session with the spell components. Every combination he’d attempted had yielded the same frustrating split: some worked cleanly, others refused to activate at all, and a handful fizzled in ways that felt almost deliberate, as though the spell itself was declining to cooperate. ‘What would happen if I compared two different spells against each other?’

The clearing received him in its usual silence. He lifted a log with a spell and settled it in front of him as a seat, then sat and drew up the first component—the power-drawing function—and alongside it, Observe. He opened both in his mind the way he’d learned to, holding them steady, and began moving along each line looking for the places where they rhymed.

‘This is like deciphering a computer program.’

The thought arrived with a small, private satisfaction—the recognition of a familiar shape wearing unfamiliar clothes. Back on Earth, he’d spent enough hours staring at inherited codebases to know what shared libraries looked like, the way different programs called the same underlying functions while doing entirely different things above that foundation. Magic, it turned out, was not so different.

The commonality emerged slowly, then all at once, the way patterns did once the eye knew what it was looking for. Both spells shared a common base—identical opening lines, the same foundational architecture—before branching into the sections that gave each its distinct character. ‘So each spell starts the same and then reaches a point where there is a split, allowing for the new lines to work. I wonder what I would find if I look at other components?’

The question was its own answer. He pulled up Grab, Lift, and one of the healing spells Mathin had been walking him through, laying them side by side in his mind, and found exactly what he’d expected: the initial lines were identical across all of them, the same sequence repeated without variation before each spell diverged into its own particular logic.

He went back to Observe and started at the beginning, working through it line by line with focused patience. Lunch happened somewhere in the middle, eaten without much attention, the bread and cheese consumed more out of physical necessity than appetite. By the time he set the remnants aside, he had what he needed.

‘The initial lines check for power before continuing, then start pulling the local power into a usable form. Any spell I write will need this base.’

The insight brought a smile to his face, finally something genuinely useful. He turned it over once, twice, then filed it carefully away.

‘I will work on this later.’

He stood, rolled his shoulders, and shook the stillness out of his legs. The clearing was patient and green, the treeline catching the afternoon light. He looked up at the nearest tree—tall, old, the first thick branches starting some twenty feet up—and smiled to himself.

He activated Lift, planted the fulcrum log, and jumped.

The first circuit of the clearing took him seven minutes. The second, five and a half. He pushed himself through a third attempt with his jaw set, tightening the arcs, anticipating the fulcrum placements rather than reacting to them, trusting his body to follow where his mind had already been. When he landed from the final jump and checked his internal count, he was just inside five minutes.

He stood at the edge of the clearing breathing hard, hands on his knees, and let the satisfaction settle.

‘I wish Kael had taught me more spells. Next time I will try a new one.’

The next morning, James headed to Mathin’s shop, the streets of Castletown already busy with the particular noise of a market town finding its feet for the day.

“Morning, Mathin. How are you today?”

“Fine as always. My wife was thrilled with my share of Ari’s treasure. Today I can do no wrong.”

“I talked to Bartholomew and invited him to dinner with us. I want to understand how you handle requests from the authorities. Will tonight work?”

“Yes, I am available.”

“Great, I will have someone tell Bartholomew.”

Returning to The Fenrir, James was pleased to find the second trader already waiting. Alfarr was a compact, road-worn man with a merchant’s habitual economy of expression—the look of someone who measured time in coin. “Hello James, I have returned with the spice you ordered.”

“Wonderful. You are the second to arrive. Let us count the spices and then go find the Chamberlain and complete the contract.”

The count was brisk and accurate. An hour later, both men passed through the castle gates and were received by the Chamberlain with the same crisp efficiency that had impressed James the first time and continued to impress him now. The man ran his domain like a well-oiled mechanism—no wasted motion, no unnecessary conversation. Alfarr left with his coins and James with his receipt, and the whole transaction was done before lunch.