my very bones. When I was spelling for Mifal, I created many useless spells, however things always came good in time… well until the last time of course.”
He realised he’d rather spoiled his little pep talk so he added “So let’s press on, trust me, the next one will definitely be the one.”
“That’s what you said last time.”
Tung reluctantly opened the Scroll one more time and went through the enchanting motions, he was actually very proud of himself because he could do it quite quickly now. Without an initial hitch, the next spell appeared in his brain. He could see the words, but as he searched for the picture, a mounting panic engulfed him. Where was the picture? There was no picture. His mind’s eye searched the empty space where the image should have been. He tried everything. He closed his mind’s eye and opened it again just as you would with your real eyes when you can’t believe what you are seeing, or in this case, not seeing.
“I can see the words, but there’s still no picture.”
“There must be a picture. There’s always a picture if you concentrate hard enough. SO CONCENTRATE.”
Tung tried again, hard. He concentrated harder than he’d ever concentrated before in his life although that wasn’t saying much. He’d never been particularly strong in the brain department.
“There’s nothing, nothing at all. There’s no picture,” he said as his mounting panic arrived at the blind level… 20:20 blind panic.
For at least a minute Madrick didn’t react, at least not visibly. Inside however, an immense pressure was building in his brain. Blood pumped noisily through his ears blocking out all other sounds. Was his head going to explode? He slumped to the floor. Why could this buffoon not see the picture? There was always a picture. No picture meant no hope. Maybe he could teach Tung to read in the next short while. That was a ridiculous idea, the futility of the situation was clearly clouding his thinking. Of course, Tung could just say the mystery spell see what happened, but that could be extremely dangerous. Imagine the horrifying consequences of a misdirected fireball or a banshee scream in this confined space. He had to face up to it, no picture meant his life was over.
Then it came to him in a blinding flash of revelation. There was no picture; nothing to see. Yes, yes. There was nothing to see because with this spell there was nothing to see. It was the Spell of Invisibility, it had to be. How could they be so fortunate? This was the perfect spell for a great escape.
“You’re a genius,” cried Madrick as he began a strange little dance around the cell. His fancy footwork had to avoid all the banquet food and the stallion; and a few other things which Tung, and the stallion, had created along the way.
“You’re the perfect keeper of the Scroll. You’ve done it. We’re as good as free. You’ve created the Spell of Invisibility. It’s a fantastic spell; you have to see this one to believe it.”
Laughing at his own little joke, he closed in on Tung who backed off in case a hug was on its way. It was, but the retreat had been fast enough to avoid it. Madrick was too busy thinking about the wonderful spell to notice the snub. Thinking back to the daily classes in the Sorebun Academy where students had been subjected to endless lectures about every spell known to wizard-kind, he dredged up everything he knew about the spell which Tung had created.
He remembered it would make the sayer vanish, along with anyone touching him at the time of saying. He remembered it was a short lived phenomenon, lasting only a few hours. And finally, he remembered that only the body was affected so they’d have to be completely naked otherwise their clothes would give them away. Well, at least it was going to be bright and sunny tomorrow.
He devised a simple plan; the simpler the plan, the more likely it was to succeed, particularly if he had to rely on an idiot like Tung. In his