A Magical Comparison

 

Ma Jiro, standing before the gate, could feel some force leaking through from the other side. It was unlike anything she’d ever felt—not elemental magic, nor the strange homing or honing of the gate and its trinket- Something almost like spirit, yet more charged, less warm, whimsical. She pondered over this as a form began to take shape. The shape of a person.

A diminutive form, smaller even than her, emerged from the gate. A man, small, pale, looking even smaller on account of his vast blue robe and oversized broad brim hat, both of which were inscribed with faintly visible symbols—symbols unlike anything she had seen, not even upon the gate.

“Are you the one who has been speaking to me?”

The man looked up at her, the inclination of his head revealing a tangled mass of black hair under his hat through which one green eye shone. His little nose twitched.

“It would seem that neither of this expected this,” he said dryly.  He walked past her, looking about the canyon.

Certainly, he didn’t look like much, but Ma Jiro could feel a subtle power wreathed around him. Magic? Of a different sort, certainly. Traces of the same still flowed through the gate, the starry sky of which lingered.

“Things are different here,” he said. “Mana is missing.”

“Missing?” Given the traces of power she could detect, just barely from the portal, she determined that there existed some force on the other side, something that could not be found here. The little man stunk of it himself.

“And everything else is… stronger. More pure.” He glanced back at her. “Probably more direct.” He looked left, then right, nose twitching, little rat that he was. “Say, where’s the nearest ley line?”
            Ma Jiro scoffed. “Ley Line?”
            He froze, looked her up and down. “Did you open this gate?” he stuck a plump thumb out behind him, gesturing to the portal.
            “Yes,” she said. “But not for the likes of you. How did you come to be here?”
            “They must not exist here,” he muttered to himself, turning away. “Then where does the mana come from…?” With his back to her, Ma Jiro could not see what he was doing, but could faintly feel different shades and flavors of magic emanating as he fiddled about. Definitely a spellcaster of some kind, but a man? And so pale, besides?
            Quietly, Ma Jiro drew in her own power, reciting the verse in her head.

“Dib u dhig burburkeena iyo daciifnimadayada.”

The power of stone flooded her small frame, setting and fusing her fractured bones.

“Dherer iyo xoog noo dhis.”

Further still, the stone bolstered her, weaving into the fibers of her muscles.

“Naga tuur hadhkii ugu dheeraa.”

Finally, her body hardened at every level.

His ear twitched.

The wizard turned just in time to see Ma Jiro launch herself. His hand came up, but--

Fizzled.

“Shit.” Barely, he managed to dive to safety.

“I will not ask again,” Ma Jiro said then. “Who are you really, and what are you doing here?!”

Whatever power shrouded him had begun to thin out. Ma Jiro could see wisps of it flowing off him into nothingness.

“Something else, then,” he muttered. Darkness pooled in his left palm, erupting in a shower of black, razor sharp needles.

Ma Jiro darted around the missiles, with pierced the earth and dispersed. In two long strides, she had flanked the wizard, and closed in.

The man flexed his fingers, placed the tips together, and pulled them apart, twisting his digits and wrists as he did so. A web of shadows spread with his motions, tangling up Ma Jiro’s attack.

“You’re an odd sort of mage, aren’t you?” he mused,  hopping back some and preparing the needles again.

The darkness felt familiar, in the way that her bitterness came clear to mind. In the way the resentment in her thoughts…. In her other thoughts moved. In that, the power itself was pliable, and so, Ma Jiro cloaked herself in the darkness meant to entangle her, and surged forward, absorbing the needles with their own power.

Not to be outdone, the man lifted his hands, and a hexagonic array formed- one by one, orbs of different colored energy flared up at the corners—among them, Ma Jiro recognized fire, frost, electricity, and saw still others she could not name. However, one corner fizzled completely, in it, the wisps of whatever power came native from his land. However, the shadow burned most prominently. In fact, it flooded the array, overtaking the other elements, distorting the space and ultimately combusting all at once.

Thr feedback from the spell sent them both tumbling backwards, end over end. The stone around the impact shattered, Because of her own fortifications, she suffered no damage. Ma Jiro spared a thought for the portal as she came to rest. It stood, inert, hollow, no stars inside, but otherwise unharmed.

In the direction of the man, a cloud of dust and crumbling rock. She turned her attention back to the gate. It still thrummed with power, though inactive. Yes, it would still work. She began to channel her power into it again trying to force it open. Much like lifting the gate, now trying to open it taxed her quite heavily. What had changed?

In the distance, the rocks crumbled away, and the small mage pulled himself from the rubble.  The gate forgotten, Ma Jiro moved to confront him again. He, however, was focused on the gate, nose twitching again.
            “Interesting.”

Yes, isn’t it?

Ma Jiro started at the return of the voice. The man, too.

“Can you…. Can you hear him?”

He’s a friend.

“Yes,” said the man. “That voice is what led me here.” Now, he bent himself over in a superfluous bow. “My name is Haddie.”

“Ma Jiro.” She kicked at the dirt, still toying with the idea of attacking him again. “You say he called you?”

“An offer I couldn’t refuse,” Haddie assured her. “You’re doing something with that gate, aren’t you? I want in.”