Herald of death

As he listens to an audiobook in Arabic, Ethan can hear Russ whine in his mind, not out of fear but out of boredom. 'We are still above the Black Sea; you are going to have to wait another three hours. I hope your neighbors aren't too noisy,' Ethan thinks.

He finishes a sketch of the Flame spell, hoping to find a hint on how the Eldorian sigils mold the spell. 'Heat, protection, wind, moisture, skin, forward, fuel, burn. I removed light and cleanse from the original spell, but how does the rest fit together?' he thinks.

A piercing jet engine's sound reaches Ethan's ears, disappearing as soon as it appears. He looks through the plane's windows, triggering Predator's sight to see a F35 flying through the clouds.

'That's odd,' Ethan thinks. 'Something serious must be happening for a high-tech fighter to be deployed in the region. Is it about the destroyed Russian warships?'

"Are you a mage too?" Ethan's neighbor asks as he sees the drawings of runes in Ethan's notebook. "What spell is this?"

Ethan turns his gaze to the man wearing a graphic t-shirt featuring an obscure coding joke. A laptop adorned with stickers rests on his feeble legs, displaying an IDE. He has a disheveled look, with a mop of unruly hair and glasses perched on his nose.

"Too?" Ethan replies, caught off guard.

The man nods, curiosity in his eyes. "Yeah, I got the Mage too. But I haven’t been able to learn any other spells besides Lightning bolt. I've been trying to modify it since Ether appeared, but I haven't been successful yet."

"Modify a spell," Ethan mutters. "Did you make any promising progress?"

"Kind of, but without knowing what the runes mean, it's kind of guesswork," he says.

Ethan hands him his notebook. "Can you draw your spell?" Ethan asks.

"Sure," the man says, scribbling it on a new page.

'I already modified a spell, but it nearly killed me,' Ethan thinks as he watches the man work.

"Here you go," he says, handing back the notebook.

'Perhaps he could have a few insights in spellcasting,' Ethan thinks. He annotates the two spells, translating the Eldorian runes into English.

"How?" the man asks, stars shimmering in his eyes. "Where did you learn that language?"

Ethan hands back the notebook, keeping an eye on what the man does. "I got lucky."

The man stares at the drawing, his pupils almost dilated. "When you cast it, where does it start forming? And where does the magic exit before reaching your hand?"

Ethan adds the entry and exit points to the drawing. The man annotates the spells with hypotheses. "The Ether passes by each symbol successively, turning into … fire."

"Indeed," Ethan says. "The intensity of the flames depends on the intensity of the Ether I pour into it. And I was able to will it into a small … fireball."

"The symbols of your fire spell diverge into two paths," the man says. "The first contains the symbols for fuel, wind, heat, burn, and forward. And the second contains moisture, protection, and skin."

"What do you mean by diverge?" Ethan asks.

"The structure behind the symbols is like a circuit that splits and then joins at the exit point," he explains.

"So, it's matter, intent, and then area of application," Ethan says. "But the circuit of your spell is different."

"I think each symbol has its own entry and exit points. We share the forward symbol, and its side is connected in the same way to its predecessor."

"Then, does it mean we can use any symbol we know to create new spells?" Ethan asks.

"Perhaps," the man says. He draws a new spell using moisture, heat, burn, and forward. Placing the pen by its side, he closes his eyes and extends his hand.

"Don't blow up the plane," Ethan mocks. As the man struggles with his mind, Ethan visualizes the Shield spell but replaces the last word, sphere, with skin.

A layer appears around his skin, slightly lifting his clothes. 'It costs more than the original version, but it's discrete,' Ethan thinks.

"You learned the Dermal shield spell," the voice announces.

The man opens his eyes, a small jet of vapor escaping his palm. "I did it," he says, a smile on his face. "It called it Boiling gale."

"You should learn my spell too," Ethan says. "As a thank you for the insight."

The man closes his eyes once again, blinking several times to double-check the Flame spell. As the man focuses, Ethan casts Lightning bolt, killing the screen embedded in the seat before him.

"You learned the Lightning bolt spell."

'But why did I need an entire book to learn my first spell?' Ethan asks himself. 'It cannot be all there's to it. It must be more complex and have more depth."

Ethan feels a pull on his mind, as if he were about to be drawn into a vision. He glances around, checking that no one else has noticed their conversation, and lets go.

The vision takes him to the depths of a forest, illuminated by the two moons. The place is filled with luminescent plants and unknown insects. Ethan and a small group of children are gathered around an old teacher. His robes are woven with Aetherian runes, and his eyes shine with Ether.

The young mages listen intently as he speaks, their faces illuminated by the ethereal glow of the flora. The air hums with magic, even if Ethan cannot sense any thread of Ether.

"Is there a difference between the spells I create and the ones I learned from the spell book?" one of the youngsters asks.

"There is indeed," the old man answers. "The tomes given by God inscribe in your mind the perfect version of the spell they contain. However, if the spell were written in Aetherian, merely molding it in your mind would drain your Ether and Life force. This is why they are translated into our mortal language. As you mature, both in your ability to cast spells and in your mastery of Ether, these spells will transform into their original, divine form."

'The runes on his robes orbit around notions of protection; I can read shield, barrier, ward, …' Ethan reads before his vision blurs.

Ethan finds himself back in the airplane as his neighbor conjures a minuscule flame, hidden in his hand. 'This wasn't one of Maelor's visions,' Ethan thinks. 'It must have been coming from Pastseer.'

As he refocuses on his surroundings, Ethan notices a stressed passenger with a medieval-looking bag. The man’s eyes dart around nervously, and he checks his phone repeatedly.

Anxiety spikes as Ethan triggers predator’s sight, sensing three other similarly aged and stressed people on the plane. Each of them has an out-of-time bag at their feet, through which Ethan cannot see. 'Those are all haversacks,' Ethan confirms with dread. 'Just my luck. And on a plane of all places.'

Scanning the rest of the plane, Ethan searches desperately for an air marshal or equivalent. He senses the cold metal of a handgun resting in a man’s belt but realizes that that man’s heartbeat is dangerously low. 'They already started,' Ethan thinks.