The Sorcerer's Quest by Rain Oxford Page A

is
drawing in the monster you created. Thus, you must go and fight your own
creation to retrieve your wand.”
    “Lovely. Dying was absolutely on my list of things to
do today.”

Chapter 7
    “It’s just a shortcut.”
    “ We should stay on the road ,” Merlin argued,
eyeing the dark forest with suspicion.
    “But that will take an entire day. Maybe even two!”
    “ If we get lost, it will take even longer .”
    “You’re a wolf. Are you saying you can’t find your
way out of the forest?” I asked. He glared at me, but I headed into it before
he could argue again. Since I was not going to be around other people for a
while, I took off my robe and put it in my bag.
    It was a little darker than the average forest, which
was why it was called the Dark Forest, but I had never had any trouble when I
went through it. Well, there was the time a troll captured me and took me back
to his cave to eat me. I escaped by setting his entire cave on fire.
Fortunately, it wasn’t troll season this time.
    It was also not as hot inside and the shade was a
definite relief. We traveled for a while without incident. “So, will you tell
me why me being the seventh son is significant?” I asked when the silence
became uncomfortable. I didn’t hear birds, bugs, or anything, and that wasn’t
normal.
    “ I suppose I should. Because seven is regarded as
a magical number, it is said that the seventh son of the seventh son will have
natural abilities in magic, as long as the line is not broken by daughters or
death. How that affects you, with your sorcery, I cannot be sure .”
    “Wouldn’t that mean I should have more magic than the
rest of my family?”
    “ Quite possibly. However, seven is not sinister,
so the seventh son should not be inherently corrupt .”
    “Wait, so I’m this way because I was the seventh
born?”
    “ Not completely. It did not make you inherently
good, either. I have always believed a person’s kindness was a derivative of
nurture over nature, but knowing your mother, you might just be the exception .”
    “What?”
    “ I said I do not know why you are nice .”
    “So why didn’t you just say that before?”
    “ I believe your mother married your father because
he was the seventh son of his line with the intention of stealing your power .”
    “She never said anything to me about the seventh son
having more magic. Besides, stealing someone’s magic is not that easy. There’s
no way my mother would risk having a child who was more powerful than her.”
    “ Have you ever heard of someone named Livia ?”
    “Isn’t that who Vactarus mentioned?”
    “ You have an impressive memory. Like you, she was
born to a family of sorcerers and she could do both light and dark magic.
Unlike you, however, she embraced her magic .”
    “I can do sorcery, I’m just not good at it.”
    “ So you believe the problem is that your curses
always go awry and not that you can only produce light magic ?”
    “I… well… I think it’s both. Sometimes, I can do a
curse, but if I do manage dark magic, it still ends up helping someone.
Otherwise, my magic just twists what I say around to do something nice.”
    “ How are you with fire ? Can you set a fire ?”
    “Usually. Sometimes I have to do it without magic,
though.”
    “ Sometimes ?”
    “Well… when it’s for personal gain.”
    “ So, when it is sorcery then ,” he said. I
nodded. He stopped and indicated a certain tree with his paw. “ Set that tree
on fire .”
    “No way! It’s just a poor tree.”
    “ It is a dead tree. There are no leaves on its
branches. I suspect a parasite, in which case, you could be saving the trees
around it by burning it .”
    “Or it could burn down the forest.”
    “ Thus, proving you are capable of sorcery .”
    I groaned and aimed the staff at the tree. I imagined
the dead branches on fire, illuminating the darkness of the forest, while also
hoping deep down that I didn’t set the forest on fire. Magic flowed from