Centaur Love Ch. 06

Mathew woke as Felicia struggled to stand up. Moving to help her stand made his legs cramp up. With a groan, he struggled to stand first. Then helped Felicia up. Hay and dirt stuck to her sides as she stood. White streaks of sweat stains marred her fine brown hair on her flanks. Her long blonde hair had several bits of hay in it. He had several bits of it stuck to places he didn't think hay should be.

Felicia turned then laughed, "Oh Mathew." She reached and pulled one or two stalks out. "I guess we didn't think this through."

"What?" Reaching down, he picked up the currycomb. "I think we need another one of these for the house."

Felicia laughed and kissed him. "You spoil me."

"Every chance I get my mate." Mathew slipped his boots on and took Felicia's hand and started heading towards the pond. As they walked down the path, he was grateful to walk naked. For certain body parts were sore. It took him three days to heal up the last time he used that spell with Felicia. Once they made the pond, he kicked off his boots and jumped into the deep end, leaving Felicia to wade in on the shallower end. After a good rinsing in the cool water, he swam over, then slipped through the breaks in the walk path to the shallow end to help Felicia rinse off.

With last dunking of herself to rinse off, she waded over to shallow end where Mathew sat on a boulder drip drying. Felicia played in the water a little longer until Mathew grabbed his boots to put them on. Once they were back at the barn Mathew gathered all his and Felicia's clothes asking her to carry the two bottles of Staggerwort back to the house.

Once inside Felicia winked and headed into the kitchen. She pulled out two large bottles of preserved chicken and a huge bag of pasta. Mathew went into the magic room and wrote his Uncle letting him know he had two full quart bottles of Staggerwort oil. Looking through the magical library he found his first-year apprentice books for Felicia, with at least eight Klatha she could through many of the spells listed in those books. He went looking for the book he wanted to review. He never thought he would have enough power to throw teleport spells. Finding the dark blue book and pulled it, Teleportation.

Mathew rearranged the front room, giving Felicia a place to stand and read. Looking at one of the side tables he noticed the straight legs, with some carefully drawn chalk lines he applied the transmorphtation spell and grew the legs another twelve inches so Felicia could use it as a lamp table. It looked a little odd with such long legs. But it held the lamp at his shoulder height and the table's surface was at a perfect height for him to stand next to.

With the front room done, he went into the kitchen to work on the dining room table. Unfortunately, he couldn't extend its legs without them sticking out since they were at an odd angle, but looking at the bench, that he pulled to the side earlier, he could transmorph its legs high enough to give Felicia a standing table to eat from. He mentally drew out how to split the solid leg and angle it to taper them outward so it would be stable two feet longer.

As he sat there Felicia watched him, she wasn't sure what he was doing until he cast the spell to transmorph the benches legs. She watched in wonder as both side legs grew nearly two feet long. It looked like the wood itself was growing at a slight angle. Just watching Mathew perform magic was fascinating and creepy. When she first met him she knew his family were mages but didn't know he was one.

Even when he got back from the city, he never performed magic, but did most things with just his hands. Watching him do it now filled her with wonder. She used to dream as a little girl that she could throw magic like the mages from years ago in her father's books on war. She knew she most likely she wouldn't have enough power to throw spells like Mathew just did; she listened to his spell and learned that for every inch of length the mage wanted to grow something; he had to calculate the one point of Klatha for every inch long, one inch wide and one-inch thick section.

Felicia was lost in the calculations when he flipped the bench over. It now stood just under chest high to him. Walking over, she gently put her hands on it, not trusting it just yet. "Mathew, that was, was just incredible!"

He leaned on the bench, now centaur table with a little more pressure than she was, "You will get there, Love."

"I will never have that much Klatha!"

Mathew didn't want to discourage her, he knew she might never have the reserves to throw a four hundred point spell like he just did, "You never know Felicia, and you might."

"Even your Uncle said Centaurs could only use the residual Klatha that they have, he never said I could grow my powers."

"No, Felicia, he did not, but he is testing you to see. And even if you can't grow your powers, we could always buy a set of bracers or a necklace with a large enough storage stone that I could recharge and you could pull the power from it."

Felicia frowned. Mathew smiled and shook his head yes, "You heard Uncle Robert say he knew a centaur that could use cantrip's?"

"Yes I did, but I didn't know what he meant. I thought he was meaning the person could use power objects like the training box?"

"Yes, and if a person can use a powered object, it also means that they can access a storage stone and use the power stored in them to power a spell, like we did yesterday." Felicia looked at Mathew, confused. "When you threw that masking spell yesterday, all I did was provided the Klatha Felicia, if you had a stone with several hundred klatha stored in it and could separate the klatha from it, there is no limit on what spell's you can throw!"

"You mean I could throw a spell just like you did? And I could...," Just then the water boiled over in the pasta pot. Both jumped up to pull it off the burner, but Felicia said, "Sit. I am making dinner and quit getting my hopes and dreams up while I am trying to make dinner. With you just walking around in your boots is distracting enough."

Mathew looked down, sure enough, both he and Felicia were still naked from this afternoon. "Your hopes and dreams love?"

"Oh Mathew, you remember what papa said about mages and magic, growing up in a centaur household. Every child growing up hearing stories told about mages and some wonderful things they can do with magic. What child do you know that didn't want to grow up finding out they could throw magic and become a powerful mage?"

Mathew laughed, "Actually a lot of them, many of my classmates at the mage academy grew up within mage families, many dreamed of becoming powerful knights and going off to fight battles in shiny plate armor, like your father."

Felicia laughed, saying, "Really?" as she dished up the chicken and pasta. She had made a yellow gravy from the chicken drippings that she ladled over the chicken dish. "It was funny that they didn't pursue their dream."

Mathew took his little bowl from Felicia's hand and set it on his table, "Well most of my classmates were not muscular like me. Most young mages I knew were shorter. I don't think many had put in a single day's worth of labor in their life. And most didn't mind the structured learning and placement process that I disagreed with. They were happy to push their skills and training with high hopes of making Grand Magnus's."

Felicia took a loaf of bread from the bread cabinet and set it between them. Taking a bite of her chicken, she asked, "And if they didn't make grand Magnus? What?"

"If a student didn't test out to a Grand Magnus level either topping at Master level or elite, the council assigned you to where they needed you to go. Most work in the various mage industries. Banking, magical device shops, potion-making, that sort of thing."

Felicia nodded, "And what if they come into their powers later on like your Uncle?"

"After a little more training, the council moves them to where they think it needs them. Most rarely test out to Grand Magnus before they finish the academy. Those that work at the academy, and in the council till a post there opens up."

"But why can't they choose what they want to do, why does the council decide their fate?"

"I don't know love, that is why I hid my powers and made it look like I had declining powers. I didn't want to stay in a city for one, and the other was you."

Felicia blushed, "stop that, we can't do anything tonight. I am a little sore back there." Mathew grinned, looking down. He was a little rubbed raw too. He stood and kissed her, telling her the same. He grabbed both bowls and putting them in the sink, he pumped the hand pump to fill the pot so he could wash the dishes. As he washed them, Felecia dried them and put them away.

As they walked into the front room Felicia saw the side table that he transmorphed for her. Then she saw the three books he pulled for her. Walking over, she picked up the top one and started looking through it. Mathew sat on the couch and opened his teleport book. Somewhere between-group blip and teleport self, Felicia flicked the striker on the lamp. When he finished rereading group teleport he looked up. Half the oil in the lamp was already gone. Closing his book, he had to pull Felicia out of her book to go to bed.

The next morning he woke early in a fright. He felt like he was underwater and struggled to take a breath. Sitting there in the dark, he knew the orchard was completely flooded. He had trouble reading the water level in the upper pond to where the gate was. He licked his finger and renewed the clairvoyance spell, but still couldn't read the water level to the gate level. After a quick shower, he went into the magic room and looked for the crystal ball and scroll his Uncle made him buy.

The spell was a variant of the far see spell, but instead of knowing a place or person to target the spell to, it allowed the caster to look a set distance in any one direction to see what was there. It took him a few moments to get the distance right to the gatehouse. He walked out front with a bit of chalk and drew a magic circle. With his plane set next to the barn, he found the stream's bank next to the gatehouse twenty feet higher. Staring at the exact spot he wanted to go, he called the spell and forced the Klatha to take him there.

As his body slipped into the astral plane, a fleeting thought as he passed into the astral plane, maybe this wasn't a wonderful idea and he should have practice with the blip spell.

Felicia woke to an empty bedroom again. She saw the door to the water closet open, looking expecting to see Mathew she stared at the redesigned, it was large enough now for her to turn around in. The showerhead also allowed her to wash her entire body. After her refreshing, warm shower, she was brushing her hair out front watching the sunrise when her Uncle Robert teleported in. Between one brush stroke and the next, he was standing there.

He walked over and kissed her cheek, Good Morning Felicia."

"Good Morning Uncle Robert."

Robert looked around for Mathew. "I don't know where he is this morning, Uncle Robert," Felicia told him.

"I know he is wake I touched his spell this morning, and he was busy doing someth...,"

Just then Mathew appeared next to the barn. He was holding a small glass orb and had a chalk bag dangling below it. Robert looked at Mathew shaking his head, "The impertinence of youth."

Mathew grinned, "It wasn't necessary Uncle, I didn't need to practice with blip spells I already know how astral-travel feels like. You have teleported me hundreds of times, so practicing blipping wasn't necessary." Holding up the crystal ball, "And with the far see spell and the crystal ball I can not only see the plane difference but can feel it through the far see spell."

Robert laughed, "Where did you go?"

"Just up to the gatehouse Uncle, I felt the orchard this morning, it was completely flooded, but couldn't feel the gatehouse good enough to know the water level behind the stack gates."

"Ah," Robert said, "That is because it dwarven made and their brand of smith magic interferes with Klatha type of magic's. It takes one of their Great Master Smiths to incorporate their famed metal-smithing and magic. Now let's go inside, you Mathew can make us tea and breakfast. While Felicia and I will step into the front room so I can test her this morning."

(XXXXXXXX)

The ancient tower was so well built that even during the summer you had to light a fire to warm the room up. It was only near the end of summer that sun warmed the old rocks up enough to pull the chill out of the air, just when you wanted the deep cool chill. Grand Magnus Dorthan stared at the fireplace. The effort it took to go get some logs, light a fire, with little hope that he would be here long enough to enjoy its effects, just wasn't worth the effort.

Dorthan shrugged his shoulders and looked at his inbox. It was full to overflowing again. He had to find a new place to hide. Too many people knew his current address. He started on the scroll cases, only prominent people still used scrolls and scroll cases. He disliked the 'new' fashion of folded envelopes and what is being called letters. He looked up from an excessively worded scroll that he was reading, from a Local Baron about the rising costs of this year's heal potions, he was contemplating throwing it and all the scrolls and letters into the fireplace when someone teleported in to block his view of the fireplace.

Robert gazed at the cold fireplace, enjoying the slight chill of the room when he heard, "If you're here for my job, you can have it. If you're here to kill me, please use a fireball."

"Light a fire if you're cold."

"Too much effort to go get a few logs to burn, why don't you help me throw all these worthless correspondences into the fireplace and we could use them instead."

Robert looked at the pile of fancy scroll cases and heavy vellum paper some people started using as 'envelopes'. The cost of paper was coming down since they found a faster way to make it, still it expensive to use as a scroll cover. Oh, a letter, they are now calling them. Robert snorted, a letter was something you wrote on the paper, not what you call a scroll full of them.

"Some very nice people took some time to write you, and all you want to do is burn their 'letters'. If they have enough money to buy heavy vellum to wrap their 'letters' in, don't you think they deserve a reply?

Dorthan snorted, "Knew you would take the high road in this." Then he frowned, "Don't you have a home to go too?"

Robert grinned at their banter, "I could have teleported directly home, then let you know along with everyone else tomorrow what I found out."

Dorthan chuckled, "Do you know what that would do for my heart condition? And personally, I can care less if you cowed your herb suppliers into selling you all their weeds. What I want to know is how our plan is going on the west side of the mountains."

Robert gave Dorthan the stink eye, "What heart condition. We both know that is a lie. Let's see, I stopped by my nephews this morning. He wasn't there this morning. The little turd either disregarded my suggestion of practicing to the blip spell, or just figured it out, that they only designed the spell to make the students use precious Klatha practicing it. He already figured out Master Keyton's far see spell for figuring out places you haven't been.

I sent him to make me a second breakfast while I tested his mate. As you suspected she tested yesterday at close to six points of Klatha. After she threw two one minute light spells yesterday, this morning she tested over twenty-seven."

"What? Are you sure?"

"I think after twenty-five years I know how to test a student mage?"

Dorthan shook his head, saying, "Smart Ass." Dorthan sat there lost in thought as Robert gave him the next bit of news.

"It worried Mathew yesterday when I suggested he blip around the farm to get used to teleporting. He hinted that I should check if he had enough Klatha to start practicing. Either the boy is better at reading my poker face, or I am getting too old and losing my touch. But I think we will have to revise our projected timeline of the council without being able to detect Mathew."

Dorthan grinned, "That was awful wordy Robert, are you trying to protect my old heart from some dreadful news?"

"If you think seven thousand Klatha is bad news...,"

Dorthan coughed and grabbed his chest, "By the blessed robes of Tiberius!"

"Keep holding your chest, my friend." Robert said with a grin, "And his reservoirs were not filled as of yet, he has a deep pool of potential, filling as we speak or he will soon grow into it. Just as large as his current reserves."

"By the Robes, Robert, he has the potential to walk in demanding the trails, then in the same day challenge every Grand Magnus to his or her council seat, and still have enough to take mine."

Robert nodded yes, "I think your theory of potential power and skip generations might have some validity. With Caroline and Gunther, she is a master level and he a junior level, Mathew made up for both of them."

"Do you think we can keep him hidden long enough for him to finish his education before someone in conservative party notices him?"

"If he stays under the Clairvoyance shield, I cast on the farm and he works hard on the books we gave him, yes. He and his mate haven't left the magical misdirect I laid over the farm and her father's place. But as soon as they organize the elves and Centaurs into an army, I am afraid Mortenson and the conservatives will notice him. That is why I left them with instructions to spend the remaining days studying their spellbooks. She on his old first-year books and Mathew, to read Sexitorius's books and Tiberius's book."

Dorthan nodded in thought. In less than a week those two had changed his plans and timelines. He had hoped that High king would have sent some of his generals south by now, and that organizing the crowns defenses would have kept the council busy enough to not notice what was happening out west. With Mathew's potential of being more powerful than those listed on the arch of mages and his mate being the first Centaur mage in history. He let his thoughts wander, trying to seek the future.

By the time Dorthan looked up, it was early evening, Robert had already left and a bone-deep chill settled down on him. He pulled out a small crystal ball and sought a farm on the western side of the mountains. He needed to lay a few spells over the farm and valley to augment Roberts.

(XXXXXXX)

For the next two days, Felicia and Mathew spent the days inside studying. He could see why Felicia needed to study his first-year books. After each lesson he worked with her, learning how to form the basic magical shields, to learning the basic physic shields to protect her mind in physic attacks. But his Uncle was very adamant that he finishes all the eighth years' books as soon as he could.

The physical attack spells were handy, as were the Klatha bolt and ball. He never heard of a mage that could manifest Klatha directly into a sphere of power like the spell described. Just calling a small one after he learned the spell terrified him. The near translucent ball had a lot of deadly energy as it sparked in his hand.

These spells were older than what they taught at the academy. Why his Uncle thought he should know them had him worried. They designed these spells, for, mage to mage combat only. All the physical spells cost less to cast than the pure Klatha ones, but there were no known shields for pure klatha spells.

The next day Felicia cooked up an enormous bowl of her famous potato salad and they teleported down to her father's place. He needed to practice group teleporting. Their sudden appearance next to the practice field had the desired effect Mathew was hoping for. Everyone was shocked at their sudden appearance. Many didn't know Mathew was a mage. Now that he was exhibiting his powers he hoped that many would start listening to what he said.