Magic of the Realm: Realm of Fantasy and Magic, #1

By P.S. Power and Max Kincaid

In this epic series, worlds will be changed. Realities will be torn asunder and your faith in humanity will be restored...

 

Magic of the Realm:

Tor Baker is a student of magic, attending an elite school for people who are, by almost every measure, his better. Only nothing is as it seems and the magic of a humble baker's son might be the only thing that can save the Realm of Noram from an ancient threat that no one understands.

 

*The new installment of this full length, epic series of fantasy and magic is coming out on the first day of every month! Look right now for more of your favorite series, everywhere that fine books are sold. Because waiting is hard, and reading is a gift to us all.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Opal stone press
• Release date: Nov 30, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223346654

Book preview

Parts of this series have been published prior to this release. This version is better.

Chapter one

The loud and resonant school bell rang again, disturbing Tor from his meditation.

It was, he thought, either the third or fourth hour of the day. Early in the morning, a cool darkness outside of the black work space he was in at the moment. That was cold, too, now that he roused from his trance to notice it. The menacing and annoying tones were a constant at the Lairdgren School, naturally. Infecting the entire region with noise, day and night. A deep, soul rending chime that came from the main tower next to the main, wide open, courtyard. Torrance Baker thought that he might have the number right at least, as he got up on shaking legs and jogged clumsily from the isolation chamber toward the empty commons.

Clutching his current prize in a death grip that turned his fingers white at the tips so he wouldn’t lose it. Not now, after all his work and effort. A wonder, made of simple wood and ink. That, and magic.

Possibly an incredible thing. Unless he failed.

Running as fast as he could toward his goal, which honestly was faster than his first steps had allowed after a moment, since it was possibly the fifth or even sixth bell if he'd gotten lost in the working trance again. Which was so likely that he nearly chuckled at himself as he panted lightly. Of course, he'd gotten lost in his work. It was just what happened when you drove yourself like he’d been doing. Truly, magic didn’t happen much at all if you didn’t, or couldn’t, surrender yourself to the work like he’d done. A trick that had taken him years to learn how to do. Not that he was perfect at it yet or anything.

He'd done it, though. Finished his first novel build. He'd made real magic.

Tor had done that before, after a fashion, of course, making copies for several of his more advanced classes but this time the magic was all his. Something that had been planned out carefully, gone over a thousand times, then forced into being by his own will. It made a difference, at least to the builders of the school he attended. A lot of people could make copies, about one in every sixty or so could manage it, from a template, for instance. Truly, that was the number that could do it without even having training in the topic. Only a very few ever bothered trying to create new pieces. The difference between a copier and a full builder was huge. Most people didn't even attempt it.

Even the children going to school for it seldom did.

Now if it just worked, he'd be able to justify having missed classes to get it done. If it didn't...

It had better work. He muttered those words softly. Not hitching too badly since he wasn’t purely sprinting as he moved toward his goal of the moment. That, his idea working, was all he could really hope for. Otherwise he'd have to resign from school in shame, or at least pout and moan about his failure for a while. It would do what he wanted though. He could feel it. That, or he was really hungry. It was hard to tell at the moment, if he was going to be honest about the idea.

After all, the deep working trance states that were needed to create magic could, and generally did, mess up basic perceptions for a while after you were done. Even the lighter mental states used for making copies or just in his regular daily meditation classes could cause that to happen. He grinned and kept moving as quickly as his stiff legs could manage. Meaning not very, compared to his actual ability most of the time, given the circumstances. He’d sat, without moving, for a rather long time. Days. That could have a bit of a crippling effect on a body. It was what stopped him from doing a little happy dance, in fact. It was a funny thought, so he grinned a bit, as he moved. His oldest sister, Terlee, was incredibly shy most of the time, but that, the happy dance, had been a thing that she’d do occasionally. So he could have done that, given his pleasure in the moment. Only he was too mature for that sort of thing, now. That and the fact he simply had no talent for that sort of thing. At least he’d never shown any before. Then, the last time he’d danced at all, he hadn’t been a wizard. It was tempting to try just in case his new skills had somehow imparted rhythm and a sense of control over his body to him.

The sigil covered piece in his hand, a circle ringed with well inked letters and symbols on a square of unfinished wood shook as he moved. It was all basically nonsense to anyone except him, being a mental map to help him hold his focus while he worked, without getting lost. A thing with so little importance that it had been drawn in black pot ink, the thick and cheap kind from the student store that took a while to dry. Most of the time at least. This time the ink had turned solid, well before he'd even finished the complex magical structure. The initial portion of the work, that had happened in the first few minutes, before he’d dropped into the deep working state. Which was a very good sign, considering the nature of the field he'd tried to create.

He hoped it was anyway. It was always just possible that he was imagining it having taken place, because the whole thing was such a big deal. A huge, vast, incredibly important matter. To Tor. No one else in the whole world would probably care at all, including his teachers. Which was, ultimately, fine. It hadn't been done for them. Really the idea had mainly been about trying to prove he could build things on his own, to get away from the drudgery of endless copy work. That wasn't hard and was incredibly important to the infrastructure of the realm, but it lacked... spark. Making his own things would be more work, but could be clever, new, or even things that were interesting to him, personally.

Which was selfish enough that he felt a bit bad about enjoying his efforts, for a moment. Only, in this case, building magic, being a wizard, meant he could help other people, too. Even if it was interesting to him as he did it.

The magical build itself was fairly simple, naturally. As much as anything that caused physical actions to happen without physical effort could be called that. Most wouldn't think so, probably, but as magic went it honestly wasn't the most complex thing ever made. Not even by him, if he counted copy work.

The field on the piece of wood in his hand simply told water to leave cloth and other fibrous materials within a certain area in space. It should, if the field were strong enough, mean that after washing clothing, blankets or other cloths, a person could have dry material ready to use within moments, instead of waiting for hours, or even longer on rainy or moist days. It was a labor and time saving device. Even if he were the only person in the world who would really ever use it.

The wood the focusing design had been painted on should dry out too, being fibrous material itself, just like cloth, but that probably wouldn’t hurt anything really, as long as it didn't just turn to dust. That shouldn't happen if Tor had gotten the whole thing right. Most people simply didn't on their first attempt, or so he'd been told in class, and even professional builders sometimes had to try something dozens of times to get new magics to actually turn out, since you had to truly understand the idea you wanted to produce, very clearly in order for magic to happen. Still, he was optimistic.

Not to mention a minor sense of desperation. Now that everything was occurring to him properly at least. He hadn’t been able to think of reality at all, while he’d worked, of course.

The school probably wouldn't kick him out for just missing a day's worth of classes for something like this, which truly had been class work related, but he'd need to show that he hadn't just been off in town playing the whole time, and then slapped some paint on wood as an excuse as an afterthought.

Tor wouldn't ever do that of course. He, being sane and fairly intelligent, actually liked school. The learning portions in particular. So much so that getting out of classes was a generally unpleasant idea for him, unlike a lot of the other, more noble and wealthy students there. The trick was, of course, in how his instructors thought of him in that regard, not what he felt about the matter. If he could think of it as a potential excuse, they probably would, too. They'd been at all this a lot longer than he had after all.

Age and wisdom were to be respected for a reason. Mainly in that it was tradition. Tor understood that most people didn’t think of things the same way he did, but if a matter was a tradition, he felt... Compelled, to follow along with it. To observe it fully. So he respected his elders, constantly. Even on top of that though, the instructors there had probably heard every possible excuse in the book before.

In fact, they heard most of them daily. Tor had witnessed a lot of that himself, since noble children in particular liked to drink and play, as a rule. Being a poor child from the woods, he was smarter than that. Learning wasn’t just the goal of a school, it was a gift that the King of the Realm himself, Richard Cordes, had arranged for Tor. Not that the man knew who he was, but his scholarship came from the orders of that very man. Spitting on that by being lazy or not doing his best would be worse than insane. It would be rude. To a King. That was a type of unintelligent he wasn’t planning to be. Ever.

Tor kept moving, passing other students as he went. A thing that indicated it was probably around the fourth bell, given the low numbers and sleep creased faces that were slowly pacing over the hard paving stones of the main courtyard. Excitement fairly boiled from him, making him smile the whole time he jogged, which was a rare thing for him. Keeping to himself had been his habit, more or less, ever since his first year in school there.

There had been an event, of course, when he’d asked out a girl. It was why he knew that no one would ask him to leave school for missing a bit. Not if he had a good reason. He’d camped in his room for weeks, skipping classes in his depression over his rejection. Having reached too far above his station, being poor and ugly, as he was. Maria had, of course, instructed him well on that point. Still, even if it were the kind of thing he should have known, he’d never thought of himself in that light before she’d screamed the words at him, angry at his weak attempt to get her attention.

Which was never important. Think, Tor. Focus now. This was muttered softly, not wanting to seem totally insane to the others there that morning.

A few of the children in brown waved. Most of them boys, of course. People from his classes. Oddly enough, one who bothered to called to him was a tall, good looking girl with dusky skin and a brilliant white smile. He recognized her as one of the combat giants who rather regularly bothered to thrash him in class, even if her name escaped him for the moment. She was honestly kind to him, even as she struck and beat him, to teach him how to fight a bit. He half-waved back as he moved, feeling shy suddenly, at the attention. No one tried to stop and talk to him, of course.

They wouldn't.

His reputation as a very serious student stopped that from happening, no doubt. Especially if he looked like he was in a hurry or distracted. Or thinking. No one wanted to hear him go on for hours about his latest project, whatever that happened to be. While fascinating to him, the interplay of fields of information that could be made to reorder the fabric of the world, to most people it was pretty much meaningless babble. Tor might have as well sat around spouting complete nonsense at them. Actually, he knew that one for a fact, because he'd done it a few times just to see what would happen. The responses were identical. People would smile and nod, say something soft occasionally and be mainly polite in their words, but that wasn't the same thing as paying attention to his prattling on.

Almost no one could be bothered to really listen. Not when he spoke of magic, at any rate.

Rolph, the boy that he'd roomed with for the last two years had never seemed to mind what Tor said, and he really did try to pay attention, it seemed. He was from a merchant family, Tor had been told, so needed to know things like what could be made, and what a wizard could actually be expected to do, as far as production went. But other than him and a few of his magic instructors, people just tried to leave their conversations at hello and see you later.

That worked well enough for Tor, to tell the truth.

Most people, the other students especially, were a little boring, only caring about the latest song craze, or what pretty clothing to wear on break. As if a student's brown trousers and tunic weren't good enough. It was almost as if people imagined themselves to be the new prince or princess of the land, the way they carried on.

Rolph didn't do that at least. Not too much. It was a fact for which Tor was eternally grateful. He didn't know what he'd do if his roomie had been one of that type. Go crazy, and shove writing pens in his ears to try and get away from the useless yammering came to mind.

Tor kept to a good jog, which would have made the weapons master, Kolb, happy enough. The slightly older man seemed convinced that anyone that couldn't run the length of the kingdom and back inside a month was incurably lazy. That no one had ever managed such a feat didn't stop the man from hinting it was the highest sign of worth for a non-combat oriented student like Tor Baker. Too physically small to fight properly most of the time, being short and slender, the head instructor liked to pick on him a little. Running was better than having the military students pummel the snot out of him daily, so it got done without complaint on his part.

True, most of them didn't really try to hurt him on purpose when he was forced, again by Kolb, to take them on in practice, but they somehow always managed it anyway. Generally because most of them were freakishly large. Giants, in fact. Like girl he'd just passed. A bit of focus allowed him to finally recapture the name, having heard it far more than once. Petra. If she had a last name, which she would, clearly being of the noble class, he didn’t know it. Indeed, he’d probably never even heard it at all. People didn’t share information like that with him. Not often.

Then, he hadn’t asked, either. It could, he supposed, honestly be that.

The attractive girl always managed to hand him a piece of his backside when they worked together, which was more than a little humiliating. Worse, Tor kind of suspected that particular young woman actually went out of her way to be gentle with him compared to the others. Carefully pulling her punches and sword blows. Controlling her throws, so he could roll out of things, instead of hitting the ground with full, no doubt crippling, power. He'd seen her easily drive men over seven feet tall and three hundred pounds to their knees more than once. That Tor was still alive probably meant that she was coddling him like a baby. He decided not to worry about it and grinned instead.

He was a builder, a wizard, not a warrior. Maybe even a real one now. Unless the new magic didn't work. Then he was just... screwed. Thinking the term left him feeling uneasy, since it implied a sexual connotation that he didn’t really know anything about. Still, it fit. There was definitely a sense that his project had work better as planned, if he wasn’t going to be made very uncomfortable in short order.

Only, as much as it felt very real to him, Tor also understood that he was wrong. That he could have done nothing that day, gone to his classes and said he was off doing those adult things that had just made him blush with some woman, and his instructors would only glare and tell him to do better than that. Then go on with their day. Barely noticing him at all.

A thing he knew, or at least suspected was a simple truth. Only, at the very same time, his brain screamed at him that he needed to be afraid of the worst possibly consequence. Always. That was just how he was, really. Weak, he supposed. Missing big parts of his own world because he was too... Country. Too much a boy from the backwoods for the world he was in at the moment.

Keeping his pace steady, he made his way up the three flights of gray stone steps to the outside walkway that led to his shared room. It was decent sized, the space he lived in, being very nearly as big as the bedroom he'd shared with his four brothers before he left home. That had only been about two and a half years before. Nearly three now, he thought. He’d left just after his fourteenth birthday, of course.

Rolph complained about the tiny space they both lived in occasionally, but his family was rich. Being involved in some kind of merchant empire thing that included a lot of famous and wealthy people. At least from what little his roomie had hinted at when he got tired, or had grabbed a little extra wine with dinner. There were names in the listing of things spoken of that started with baron, duchess or count, for instance. It might have been the other man trying to impress his peers, but he wouldn’t bother doing that with Tor.

After all, he already felt sort of impressed by the raw fact that Rolph was from the Capital in the first place. Plus, he didn’t do that kind of thing most of the time, or in public, where it might do him some form of social climbing with the other students there. Not that it was needed. His roommate was already popular with pretty much everyone.

The door to their room had a real metal handle, that being a nice brass lever, and while it didn't have an official lock, Tor had made one that recognized him and Rolph when a hand was put on the painted design near the door on the right-hand side. It also cleverly recognized anyone who belonged to the school, which was probably why they hadn't forced him to take it down yet. All it did was keep people that weren't supposed to be there out.

Not that he, personally, had anything anyone would want to steal. Rolph did. Fine silk clothes and books that Tor envied more than a little, as well as more gold than he'd ever seen in one place before. A chest of the stuff that was bigger than four of his own hands. Rolph’s hands, which were far larger than Tor’s own.

To his surprise Rolph had always offered to let him read the books whenever he had spare time. Casually having mentioned it every time he had a new work. As if not even worried that he might damage them or leave them smudged. It was incredibly nice to just kick back and peruse a history text every now and again, instead of spending all his time working on meditation or field work for making magical devices. Of course, now that he could create his own fields instead of just copying other people's, magic was looking to be even more interesting. A lot more, actually. The simple fields they'd let him copy so far had been bland to work on.

Slapping the lock design, a simple handprint, which wasn’t too large being his own in worn black paint, got the door to unlatch easily, sliding open as if held in place by some unseen force. It looked pretty magical, but it was mainly just a clever swivel lock. A basic wooden privacy bar about the size of his forearm. It was counterbalanced so that the amount of energy it took to swing it in and out of place was virtually nil. The small effort of touching the plate did it, passed the energy of intent along to bump the bar in and out of the way. It was magic strictly speaking, but only the tiniest amount. He'd borrowed the field design from the lock on a chest that Rolph owned. That, a thing made of fine hard wood with metal bands, also had a clever magical contraption attached to seal it. One that had probably cost half of what Tor's entire family made in a year. Possibly more than that.

Rolph stood and just played with the door lock every now and then, even a year after it had been put in place. Sighing and asking him how it worked. Tor had to smile when that happened, since, as an accounting student, Rolph lacked a lot of the needed background to understand the answer. The fellow tried to keep up and was bright enough, so Tor kept explaining. That willingness to try was one of the reasons he got along so well with the giant redhead. Even if his family was rich.

As it stood Tor kind of thought that the other boy was less baffled by the device itself, since he already owned basically the same thing on a chest, than just amazed that someone like him, only a third-year student, could manage to make something that interesting. It made Tor happy to hear, and a bit proud, since he'd actually done it the year before. In his second year.

As he flushed a bit at the memory, feeling happy and a little proud, there was a weird sense from inside of him that pride in his accomplishments was bad. That quiet voice that was always with him. The annoying part of himself that left him feeling awkward and ashamed, as often as not. Which he pushed away at the moment. After all, he had a real reason to feel good about himself in that moment.

Once inside the fairly tidy room he looked around for the wash basket, the large wicker one that Rolph let him share, and picked it up without really looking inside. It felt heavy, but then both he and Rolph had gotten the weapons studies chief instructor for two years straight for some reason. None of the other accounting or magical students had Kolb, or even any of the man's first tier trainers for that matter. Most of them didn't even have weapons or fighting classes at all. A few who were true nobles did, being sons and daughters of counts and barons that might have to fight to protect themselves someday, even if they were better at math or history. It was an odd happening really, that they had been singled out like they were.

Almost no one went into magic, as a field. It was considered the hardest course of study a person could take at Lairdgren School, so those students willing to try it normally didn't have more than some light exercise classes to keep them healthy. Simple dance or stretching normally. How they'd both been so fortunate to be given extra combat courses he didn't know.

Rolph had simply shrugged it off the one time Tor had mentioned it, and suggested that maybe their parents had something to do with it.

Maybe his roommate's parents did, of course, being wealthy people who could pull strings and pay for special privileges for their child. Tor's parents were also wonderful people, of course. Hardworking and industrious in all things, including having children, but wealthy or influential they were not. That meant the most likely thing was that it had been a paperwork error, made at some point. That idea made a lot more sense really.

Of course, when he'd mentioned that to Kolb the normally gruff giant man had just laughed at him and patted him on the back. Kindly. Then told him that even if it was a mistake, it didn't matter, since too much time and effort had been spent on him to give up over something as trivial as mis-signed documents.

Tor had pointed out, more than once, to Rolph that without the King's scholarship he'd be busily learning to be a baker in his parents' shop like his older brother, Taler, or possibly sneaking off to the docks to look for work as a fisherman's apprentice, not learning to build high powered spells and fighting from some of the best teachers in the land. While he could have done without the bruises from training like a warrior, he didn't complain about it to anyone but his friend.

After all, he already knew how to bake well enough to open his own shop. He'd literally grown up doing it. That had taught him enough about work to doubt that learning to fight was really any harder than, say, fishing on the ocean. Both fighters and fishermen had that hard look about them that spoke of something in particular.

Brutally hard physical labor.

If he had to pick one to do, he'd take the one that also let him gain magic. If he had to take beatings to be allowed to learn that, then he'd do it with a smile, any day of the week. Well, not really with a smile, more like a lot of wincing and carefully holding his face blank and trying not to rub the sore spots, while attempting not to cry, but he'd still do it, which had to count for something.

In fact, he did do it. Daily.

Building spells took work too, obviously, or everyone would be doing it. What it didn’t, possibly couldn’t do, was much for the body. At least this way he wasn't turning fat, or into a no muscle stick man like some of the other students had in the last years. That he'd paid for it in sweat and more than a little blood was inconsequential. At least Kolb always said so. Normally right before he assigned him some nearly impossible task or another to make him stronger. Generally things that hurt.

When he got to the laundry area, there was only one other person in the outdoor, stone tiled, space. A boy who was probably in his first year, from the look of him. It was possible to tell that fact, both by his fresh-faced looks, as well as the remaining stiffness of his heavy brown uniform. That was made of thick canvas, like Tor himself had on. It probably meant the new child was there on a scholarship, like Tor was. The rich students tended to put on airs and wear finer material, even if they were forced by the rules to stick to basic brown for their daily wear.

The other man didn't seem to be having an easy time of it that day, trying to clean his outfits, apparently not having any wash powder with him. Instead, he tried to make do with hard work, scrubbing hard at the student browns in his hands. Having had to do that a few times himself in the past, Tor could sympathize. Setting up his own basket next to one of the wooden wash barrels he grabbed a corrugated metal board that didn't seem too dirty, glad that there weren't a lot of people out that morning. Some of the boards had rust on them, which didn't hurt the brown clothes too much, but could positively ruin the nice silks and velvets that some of the rich children had.

The washing, something that he'd been tasked with since childhood, went quickly for him, what with only two people's clothes to get clean. At home it had always been an all-day project, that he'd done at least once a week. They all took turns at it, since his parents were fanatical about them always wearing clean clothing. Fanatical for Two Bends. At Lairdgren School, he’d found that level of cleanliness was actually normal. Everyone wore clean clothing when possible and bathed daily. Like he had at home.

So at least the concept hadn’t taken him unaware like some of the other poor scholarship children. The idea of only wearing clothing for one day at a time had been the regular thing for him, so he hadn't had to bear snickers and ridicule for weeks before he'd figured it out. No one had ever bothered to mock him for that. They mainly just noticed his looks and how short he was, compared to the rest of them.

Sighing, he forced a bit of a smile, knowing that he wasn’t honestly ugly. He felt that way, but he was more in the average range. His brothers were all good looking, even, and no one had mentioned him being too different from them at all. That was in Two Bends though, not a larger city or town where they had more people.

Tor worked with a will, wanting to get to the drying portion of events as soon as possible, since that was the point of the moment, after all. The water made suds and nearly boiled as he worked the brown canvas on the board, excitement making the task more interesting, if only a tiny bit. The water was cold, of course, but the weather was warm enough so that his hands didn't freeze or turn odd colors. It was early in the spring half, being only a week into the new term, which meant first the nice, and then the way too hot weather would be on them in the months to come.

Perfect baking weather. Or at least it would be in a week or so. At that specific moment it was just a bit too cool for dough to rise quickly without heating the room it was in or using a proofing box. Tor laughed at the fact that his mind had turned to baking of all things. He didn't hate the family business, or anything like that, of course. Actually, he kind of enjoyed baking truth be told, but the shop really didn't need five or six bakers. Not in Two Bends, which only had about three hundred people.

Just as he finished, Tor noticed that the younger boy, who stood a way off, looked to be nearly in tears for some reason. His browns, the ones the child held, looked very new, and still had that stiff quality about them that normally didn't fade for the first year or so. The heavy material not truly softening until the fiftieth washing or thereabouts. Tor didn't really want to waste time talking, clearly being selfish and a horrible person but knew it wouldn't do to leave the boy in tears either. If it were his child brother having trouble, he'd want someone to help him out. Even if that meant putting off a special project for a few minutes.

It was the kind of thing that a good person should do, so he gently cleared his throat. That got the child to glance over at him, sharply, as if suddenly scared. That was easy to read on his face, even if only Tor was there. The boy was frightened. Probably of bullying, since that could happen to a new child at the school. Especially scholarship students. Not only them, however.

All right there? He asked gently, his voice a bit bland, half hoping that the boy would just say yes, so that he could get back to his real work and test the new field build sitting next to him. Torrance smiled, trying to be kind about it though. Friendly.

He could spare a few minutes, he reminded himself. The clothing would still be damp, even if it took an hour to get to it. That was the point of the build that he’d made. Drying clothing took way too long. He'd also been the new child once and no one had been overly helpful back then at all. It had made everything much harder. Change had to start with you, or it usually didn't happen. His mother said that all the time. It sounded pretty close to right, at least in a situation like the one he was facing at the moment. So, he decided to be the change the world needed. Even if that did sound pretentious.

Still, even that little voice in his head didn’t come out to mock him over the idea, at the moment. Meaning it was the right thing to do, probably.

The boy shook his head, letting it drop, his limp light brown hair falling into the blue eyes below, gently round cheeks looking flushed and embarrassed.

I...

The child started to speak as Tor waited patiently. With a curious expression on his face. Then the young man simply didn't go on for nearly half a minute. His face moved a few times, seeming conflicted and worried still. Torrance simply stood there, attentively. Peacefully. All the meditation had been good for something other than field building after all. He could wait without difficulty now. It was a great thing really, since the one thing he could be certain of was that life would give him reasons to be patient. It was a handy skill to have, if a little boring.

When the boy continued, he seemed a bit sad, for some reason. His accent was noble. High noble, even. That fact had Tor blinking, but not too much. It was the common accent there. That and high merchant.

I've never washed my own clothes before... At home we have servants who do it. I never even gave it a second thought. Not really. I mean, you put clothes in water and rubbed them on a metal board, how hard could it be? But no matter how hard I rub, I can't get the clothes clean and... Pointing as if blaming the water or the tub he grimaced. I can't make it frothy. What am I doing wrong?

The words were so plaintive that Tor had to fight back a smile. It wouldn't do to make the child feel bad, especially if his family had been the kind that could afford servants. Magical creatures those, that he hadn't even believed really existed until he'd gone to school. The closest thing Tor's family had to servants had been... him and his older sister Terlee. So instead of mocking the poor child, he decided to actually take a few seconds to be helpful.

Giving a nod, he pointed at the water in the other gray metal wash tub.

"Well, you're not doing it wrong really. You have the right idea and are working the board there pretty hard, which is actually getting things cleaner, even if it’s hard to see happening with the browns. Some wash powder would help a lot, though. You can buy it at the school store. Just ask at the counter and the man there will make sure you get the right kind for the material you have. It looks like you're doing browns and under things today? So, you can just borrow some of mine until you get your own. You need a special kind if you're going to wash silk, velvet or other nice materials like that. Again, you get it at the store. Unless you don't have any coin, and then you very politely beg it from your friends who do. If you really get stuck out though, doing it the way you are right now is a lot better than doing nothing. It will remove the worst of the smell and scent. Not the oils from your skin though, so having the powder really is better, if it’s an option." Tor smiled at the thought.

He could afford to be a little generous with this particular washing powder, since Rolph had paid for it. He didn't feel too bad about doing it either, first because his roomie would have done the same thing, without hesitation, and second because Tor had just washed half a week's clothes for him. It seemed a fair enough trade. Also, Rolph would never even notice the powder being gone. Not in a special fashion.

The child looked down, as if expecting a reprimand for being stupid, which either said something about his expectations in regard to schooling there, or his upbringing. A lot of the rich children had situations like that, or so it had seemed to Tor from his observations over the years. Everything had been done for them all their lives, but they were treated harshly almost at random and not knowing how to do something basic could be punished pretty severely, or so he'd heard. That they wouldn't, possibly even weren't allowed, to have a clue about some things, like cooking or washing clothing, didn't seem to matter. When the time came for them to know, they'd better. Or else.

Tor moved in and simply showed the boy how to use the light brown powder, scrubbing the material together to get at the bad stains, and how to use the friction on the board to do the rest. After a few minutes, the child was doing a decent enough job on his own, so Tor moved to the drying lines and draped the wet material over without using the wringer first. Avoiding wringing was half the point after all. It always seemed to take longer than the washing itself and was his least favorite part of the whole process. It wasn't hard or anything. It just bugged him for some reason, and always had.

The whole process took him about ten minutes to hang up everything on the sturdy tan line and to bring one of the low folding tables, a piece made of slightly green stained colored faded pine wood, to set the sigil on. After Tor took pains to make sure it wasn't under any of the wet stuff, he hit the top of the paint, and stepped back.

Waiting. Hoping that it would at least do something.

For the first ten seconds nothing much happened, there was dripping, but there already had been some of that, it was all sopping wet, so of course it dripped. He held his breath and felt his heart start to pound. Fearing that he’d messed up, in some fashion. Even a tiny mistake could potentially make all the work he'd done into wasted time. Nearly thirty hours in deep focus carefully building the energy pattern for this. A thing that would hurt if it didn’t work.

Then, all at once, water suddenly ripped out of the cloth, making a huge splash on the hard-packed bare earth below. Nothing splashed back up to the cloth at least, being away from the hard, gray tiles of the wash area proper. Meaning he wouldn't have to rewash any of it. He moved forward and tapped the black lines again to turn the field off and then moved to feel the clothing itself.

It was, obviously, dry. He knew that, having seen the water fly out all at once as it had. What he didn't know was if he'd managed to strip it so bare of moisture that it would turn to dust when touched. Poking a pair of brown pants carefully he tested to see if he had to buy a bunch of new clothes. Or more to the point, leave school in shame, because he only had five coppers to his name. Nowhere near enough for new clothes.

Thankfully, was perfect. Totally dry in an instant, leaving the clothing soft and pliable, not even as stiff as it would be from sun drying.

A bubbling feeling of joy rose inside him. For the second time in a few hours he really wanted to give that dancing around in joy an honest try. True, drying clothes faster wouldn't win a war or even get him a girlfriend or something impossible like that, but it just might get him a good grade in his novel building class. He knew that it would take more than just one solid build for him to do that, being the youngest person in the class by several years, but this was a start in that direction. A very good one.

His glee turned to dread when he turned to find Dorgal Sorvee picking up the wooden plate with the sigil on it. The black-haired boy had swarthy skin and hadn't ever worn a student's browns, opting for tan colored silks instead. His father was a wealthy manufacturer, and something like the local mayor where he'd come from. A leader of some sort, at any rate.

That was fine really, a lot of the rich children didn't wear regular browns. They weren't that comfortable and apparently if you could afford silk, none of the teachers wanted to risk alienating you by telling you to go put on heavy canvas instead. Which was only sane of them. You didn’t poke a bear with a stick, and you don’t challenge the rich and powerful when it came to their comforts. Everyone knew that.

Dorgal however wasn't just a rich merchant child, having branched out on his own into personal areas of endeavor. He was also an accomplished bully. His parents would be so proud of him, if they knew of it. The man was honestly pretty good at it, so depending on how they thought of the world, they might well be.

Being rich like he was meant there wasn't much someone like Tor could do about it either. Sure, he could offer to fight the boy, or call him names... and find himself out of the school the next morning, if not going off to jail. From the way the dickhead held the drying sigil it was obvious to Tor that he wouldn't be getting it back easily either.

He sighed.

Life had been easier at home. Sure, there had been a couple of bullies at the village school, but being the baker's child meant that he had five brothers to help him out in a fight if it came to it. More than anyone else's family by far and a certain amount of prestige. His family wasn't wealthy, but they did all right, always having enough food to eat and a good roof over their heads. Some of the villagers didn't always have that. The bullies had largely left him alone even if they did think he was a little strange.

Here, people like Dorgal could get away with murder, practically at least, so they did, whenever they felt like it. The boy's face held a snotty and malicious grin as he got ready to tap the sigil and activate it.

What have we here? Some kind of present for me? The boy, nearly a man in truth, meaning he should know better than to activate an unknown bit of magic, started to do just that. Moron that he clearly was. For a second Tor almost hoped it would backfire and strip the fellow of all his body's water. It wouldn't of course. He'd built in safeguards against that. Still, Tor reflected, he could dream.

A low rumbling chuckle came from behind Tor, making him spin, ready to fight if he had to. He didn't want to be kicked out, but he honestly didn't want to die for some wealthy person's amusement, either. When he turned, he had to look up to see who stood there. And up. Standing over seven feet tall, a wall of blond muscle hulked a little closer to him. A light-colored head on top of a deep crimson silk shirt. After a few seconds Tor figured out who it was.

Count Thomson.

Naturally. The fellow wasn't just a giant, but also one of Kolb's best fighters. If he decided to beat Tor to death, not only could he get away with it, legally even since he was a Count, but there was nothing the much smaller Tor could do to even slow him down, much less stop him. Even running away could be against the law if the man claimed he was under arrest for something at the time.

Instead