#redditprompt fantasy magic

[growingstrongorsomething]

5. A Mute Spellweaver

Original Prompt: https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/bpxp37/wp_magicians_have_to_say_the_name_of_the_spell/ The man is moving his hands furiously.The shopkeeper is looking at the hands. His eyes are bulging from trying to get the signs. 

“Yes, seven kuais. You think it’s five, well, it’s because the sale was going on. No, no, we are not lying.”

The man pops the knuckles in his fingers before continuing.

“I give you six kuais. It is already too close to our cost, and we can’t do sales every day. Yes, thank you, may Capitalist Ceaser profit you too.”

The man is checking out the new handwand. It is like the short version of katar sword, but made of wood, and slender. He puts it on and aims to a pair of shoes thrown to an electrical wire.Zzap! The shoe received the magic quanta. But the shoe isn’t falling down. 

A boy is puzzled by the man. He tugged the man’s shirt. The man looked at him.

“Brother, brother, you want the shoe to fall?”

The man nodded. He signalled for help.

“Sorry, brother, I can’t read Hand Tongue.”

The man mouthed the word for help. The boy points to the shoe. “Jatuh!”

The shoestrings unravelled from the wire. It plopped on the cobbled road. The boy fetches the shoes and hand it over to the man.The man lifted a metaphorical hat from his head. 

The boy smiled. “You’re welcome, Mr...?”

The man mouthed his name. Dawai.

“Mr. Dawai, you’re welcome. Bye!” 

The boy enters a shop where his mother is already waiting for him at the door.The man tries to signal the boy for his name, but the boy is already gone. Dawai sighs. 

Dawai walks to the magic field gym. Many people are playing there. One is throwing a boomerang and keeps the flight on with his wanded magic, his mouth muttering all the time. A few strong young men and women are throwing and kicking rubber balls at each other. They wear thick cotton armour. The crowd keeps the ball in field with their wall magic, taking turns muttering the incantations. 

He keeps walking to a section of the field. The section is bordered with a tall fence. Balls, discs, and sticks hit the fence from both sides. Dawai looks at the door of fence, with the sign ‘Disabled Magicians Only’. A guard on a wheelchair smiles at Dawai as he shows his disability card. 

The guard smiles brightly and opens the door. “Come in, come in! New wand I see?” Dawai nods.“Come with me! They have installed new disc brands to shoot at. Try it out!”

Dawai tries to knock the disc. Took him three tries. A man shouts at the top of his lungs, and manages to knock a line of twenty discs. Well, when his aim is true. Most of the time, it just flies away, flinging an unlucky person or bird once in a while. 

His assistant gives pointers to aim without eyesight. The blind man knocks more discs over time.The blind man sniffs the air. “Dawai is that you? Clap once for yes, two for no!”

Dawai clapped once.The blind man hugs Dawai. “Well, am I glad to see your silhouette? How’s life?”

Dawai taps on a magical tablet. The words shine and the tablet speaks. “Fine, James. I just got a new wand.” 

“Now, isn’t that awesome? May I look?” Dawai moves the wand very close to James’ face. He squints very hard. He takes some time enjoying every crafted runes and decorations on it. 

“From what I see, very pretty.” James raises his head from his crooning position. “Well, I have to go now. Exercises do have a way to make you tired. Bye!”James laugh at his own joke as his assistant leads him away. 

Dawai keeps shooting at the discs.

The next day is work day, and Dawai is in one line. Some workers practice their stances. Some mouthed their spells. Others stretch their bodies, while more are squatting or sitting cross-legged on the floor. There are two other lines of workers, flanking both sides of the loom. Gari waves at Dawai, he is assigned to the left flank today.

The horn sounded. The factory manager marches to the front of the line, placing himself directly in the middle. 

“Line, ready!”

Everyone stands up straight.“Ready wands!”

They point their wands to the loom.

“Drummers, play!”

A troupe of drummers knock their drumsticks to the side of the drum, giving a wooden sound. A few seconds later, they start beating the drum skin. The music starts and the drummers play by perfect beat.

The manager takes a stance. “Workers, by my lead!”  

The line forms the same stance.The manager starts dancing, and the line joins in almost perfect choreography. Quantas of magic fly in a volley to the machine’s receptors. The loom starts to weave the threads slowly, gaining speed as the give of the thread increase, slackening the spool. 

The dancing line sings as well. The first song of strengthening, to make cotton as strong as steel. The cotton may still be cut in this stage, but after making the main cloth, more spells will be added to strengthen it to the final form. 

Dawai doesn’t listen to the music. He feels the song through his bones. A, a, a, TA! A, a, a, TA! The dancing line throws quantas every fourth beat, gaining a bit of sweat on their brows. Their hands remain pointing at the loom, as the loom starts forming a sheet of fine cotton cloth, magic literally weaved into its formation.The dance takes an hour before the electricity takes over. 

Dawai is already panting at thirty minutes. At forty five minutes, he is losing step. When the hour horn blows, everyone stands still. Except Dawai who is already on the floor. The thump makes everyone look at the fallen spellweaver.

The manager jumps to check Dawai’s breathing and pulse. “Someone get the medic!”

Dawai is awake in a hospital bed.An old man looks at Dawai, his face saagging from age and concern. 

“You feeling alright?”

Dawai makes a flurry of sign. Well, as much of a flurry an exhausted man could.

“Mom is worried about you. Yes, you want to be independent. But, you should go home once in a while.”

Dawai can only nod.

“Remember, we always love you.”

Dawai makes more signs. The doctor comes in to check on Dawai.

“Yes, see you this weekend.” 

The old man kisses Dawai’s forehead again before leaving.

The doctor’s diagnosis is that Dawai is magically exhausted. But the prescription isn’t the usual lemongrass, sireh, and kelulut honey tea. Instead Dawai is referred to a magical teacher. 

Dawai is signing furiously. The doctor shrugs. “I can’t read you. Slow down.”

Dawai repeats himself, slower but the fury is punctuated by each time his hands clap each other.

“You have been using too much magical energy to do what normal people do with less. This doctor, called Teacher Hashim, knows a way to strengthen your magical focus. It’s controversial, but in your case, you may benefit a lot from it.”

Dawai signs about money.“Not too expensive. You have applied for insurance?” Dawai nods.

“Disability benefits?” Dawai shakes his head.

“Well, it will be a bit more expensive. Usually he asks for two hundred kuais, but now he is having a promotion. New classes begin next week. For now, rest.”

The streets are not busy with traffic, but the buildings are filled with people. Dawai scratches his head as he tried to understand the directions. Some are helpful, but others are rude.

“Why don’t you just use the map board?”

Dawai makes mouth movements, telling that he is ill and can’t use a lot of magic yet.

“Your problem, not mine!”

Dawai finally gave up, and use a half-kuai to buy a magic pellet. He presses the pellet on the map board, types the address. A direction is given... to the next city. Dawai sighs.

The doctor laughs until hoarse. “Ahahahahahah! Oh gods, you really fell for that!”This is not a good time to incur extra medical costs, but Dawai could not help but make himself have hypertension from that laugh. 

He stands up, huffs, and prepares to leave.

The doctor stands up from his cross-legged position. “No, no, no, no, you really ARE in the right place! I am sorry for laughing at you.”

Dawai is brought back to where he sat. The doctor pours more tea for Dawai. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, but there are two cities named Flew, and our government haven’t agreed officially on how to rename both of them. That city you were lost in, it’s called Flew of the Birds. This city, it’s called Flew of the Concords.”

Dawai drinks the tea, still fuming.The doctor lets a few laughters out of his system. “Alright! As an apology, I will give you further 10% discount. So, your discount will be 20%. That should come to 160 kuais. You agree?”

Dawai considers a bit. He nods.

“Excellent. Finish your tea, then I give you an overview.”

They go to the side of a low cliff, facing a forest. The doctor looks over the scenery. It is filled with trees and shrubs, and a creek flows across the field. Save for a few craters, the scenery is majestic.

“Now, observe. Usually, when we throw quantas of magic around, we use words. For example,” the doctor points at a crater then swings as if throwing a rock, “Tumbuh nan sebatang.”A tree sprout slowly. A few minutes later, they are both drinking more tea. 

“Well, the demonstration shows that speaking magic words lets you throw magic quanta. Now, if you do this,” Teacher Hisham points to the crater. He contorts his body as if to throw a javelin, then inhales a full lung of air. After a second of delay, he shouts, “TUMBUH NAN SEBATANG!”

The crater receives the quanta and a large tree sprouts. The earth around the tree cracks to accommodate the mighty roots.Dawai instinctively clap. The teacher makes a slight bow. 

“But, that wasn’t my point. Now, observe as I do the same thing with one difference.”The teacher points to the crater. He contorts his body as if to throw a javelin, then inhales a full lung of air. After a second of delay, he exhales as if he is shouting. No voice came out however. 

But the quanta of magic flies as strong as before. Another tree appears and the crater ceases to be one as the tree roots ploughed the soil and break the crater’s rim. “You see, Dawai, you don’t need to utter the words to throw magic quantas efficiently. You need,” Teacher Hashim draws and then exhales breath, “to breathe.”

Dawai and Hisham is jogging the early next morning.“Keep up, Dawai, you already paid for this course!”They jogged for an hour. After that, they immediately start the meditation class. It is hard to keep his breath calm and controlled when he has to learn to blow it out of his mouth.

“You need primer on meditating too? Just remember your studies back in middle school. Only this time feel the air in your throat.”

Dawai studied keenly under Teacher Hashim for a week. On the eighth day after jogging, Dawai is instead brought to the cliff the other day. “So, Dawai, you’ve learnt a lot. Shoot my tree.”

Dawai aims at the tree. He swings the wand. In the same tempo of launching the quanta, Dawai exhales his breath with force. The quanta falls only a few dozen feet away. “You’re holding back. Exhale like you’re shouting.”

Dawai repeats the stance and this time, he shouts. Of course, his voice cord being damaged, there’s no sound. The quanta zooms through the air and slams the tree, exploding part of the crown to shards of wood and leaves.

“Good, good. But remove the wand, I want to see your power without it.”Dawai repeats the spell without the wand. The magic quanta instead falls short a few hundred feet from the tree.

“Needs a few weeks of practice. Remember what I taught you. Spend the rest of the day calibrating your output. Don’t want to destroy your workplace now, don’t you?”

After three more days of sick leave, Dawai is back at the cloth factory. He joins the dance, with not much of sweat or heavy breathing like he usually had. 

After the dance, Gari touches his shoulder. Dawai makes a hello sign.Gari replies in sign too. Dawai is amused, and asked where he learnt.

“Just starting. I learnt from my nephew’s Orb 2. Such a rich kid, managed to buy his own horse last year.”

Dawai and Gari talks in sign language when suddenly the loom makes a sound it’s not supposed to. 

“Is the loom breaking?”

Spools are flung away by the springs. The threads tighten and break. The loom machinery begins to fall apart, with the wires snapping wildly with electrical charges. Emergency personnels move quickly to shut off power and reduce damage. 

But the frame holding the loom breaks with a sickening twang and the loom falls. Dawai’s right hand reaches for his wand as everyone runs away. He aims at the loom and exhales with a heave. 

He manages to whisper out a very hoarse word. “Angkat”

The loom bounces up with a great force. A dozen magicians throw quantas to the loom to stop it from reaching the roof. It merely scrape the roof before it falls. The magicians moves to stop the loom from crushing the ground at force.

Dawai walks to a safer part of the factory. Gari points at the loom. “Dawai, you managed to lift it! How could you do that?”

Dawai tried to make a sign, but his throat feels a great pain. He coughs a spittle of blood. His face can only show panic.

Gari is waiting outside the hospital. Dawai comes out with a mask on his face.“What did the doctor say?”

Dawai makes signs.

“Too fast, I can’t read you.”

Dawai makes the sign slower. Gari says what Dawai is signing. 

“You can’t follow Hisham’s technique too much. You can get your throat hurt. Learn to throat speak, but after two months. What does it mean?”

Dawai brings out the tablet and scribbles. It says: “I need to take two more weeks of sick leave. I can’t make magic as powerful as this morning, or my lungs can explode. I am lucky it’s only a slight injury on my throat.”

Gari nods. “So how do you eat? Your throat is hurt.”

Dawai unravels a pipe from within the mask. He sets one end on a jutting pipe on the base of his neck, and the other on the rice and chicken Gari brought. Dawai slurps it in and the food magically pass through the pipe smoothly.

“Huh, the wonders of medicine.”

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