Nature's Peril Part 1 (The Nature Mage Series) by Duncan Pile Read Free Book Online

travels. One night he’d come across a family trying to rescue their child from a ditch. The boy had fallen into the extensive drainage ditch surrounding their town and wasn’t responding to their calls. Dark had fallen, and the family were stumbling around without lanterns, in danger of falling into the ditches and injuring themselves too. Under normal circumstances, Shirukai would have summoned a globe-light, but magic was distrusted in that part of the continent, and he’d been forced to get creative. Instead of summoning a single large light, he summoned a thousand tiny ones, using his advanced neuromantic skills to convince the family that they were only fireflies. The illusionary flies had swarmed around them as they searched, and eventually, aided by secret magic, they’d found their child lying unconscious in the ditch. As soon as they had rescued him the flies dispersed, and the family had carried the boy back to their home convinced that the gods had favoured them in their search.
    Anothe r night, Shirukai had eaten in a local tavern, listening to a group of locals discussing the evils of magic. Many of Antropel’s rural backwaters were deeply suspicious of magic, and in the worst places local law enforcers had been known to arrest anyone they caught engaging in what they perceived as a foul practice. If the stories he overheard were true, some of those magicians had been killed for their gift. Disturbed by what he heard, Shirukai had joined the conversation and laced his voice with suggestion. The spell-work had been subtle, chipping away at the trenchant prejudices of those locals, suggesting that magic, if employed for the benefit of others, could play a vital role in the functioning of society.
    Slowly, as the night had worn on, Shirukai had seen those men become open to the idea that magic might not be such a bad thing after all. They weren’t convinced, but they were willing to see things in a different light. Perhaps it wasn’t a dramatic achievement, but Shirukai thought it was important, and spent many a night doing the same thing in towns and villages the length and breadth of the continent. It wasn’t an entirely selfless pursuit, however, as it helped him take his already advanced neuromantic skills to a whole new level. By the time he’d reached the south coast, he’d become so sophisticated in the art of magical persuasion that he began to wonder if anyone at the college could rival him.
    Yes, the traveller’s life had turned out to be everything he’d wanted it to be – a life of discovery, with new mysteries awaiting him around every bend in the road, but despite his satisfaction with his experiences, Shirukai could feel th e call of home, and more particularly of Chloe. Sitting there in the beach-side tavern, he remembered the softness of her touch and wondered if she still waited for him. Perhaps she’d found someone else. The thought made his pulse quicken. Trusting his instinct, Shirukai faced the possibility that his travels may be over and found that he wasn’t disappointed. Most of his decisions were made instinctively – even the important ones – and with a surge of excitement, he decided there and then that when he woke up the following morning, he would set out for Helioport.  
    Someone cleared their throat nearby, disturbing his reverie. Shirukai looked up to find a stranger standing over him – a man with such an unappealing aspect that Shirukai almost blanched. The stranger’s cheekbones were so prominent they looked like a deformity, and his scalp was utterly hairless, showing every knob and bump of his skull. Skinny to the point of emaciation, he had pallid skin and muddy green eyes set into a heavy-boned face. Without a doubt, Shirukai had never seen an uglier person.
    “Good day to you,” S hirukai said, forcing a smile and gesturing at an empty chair. Ugliness gave him no cause to withhold basic courtesy. “Care to join me?”
    “Thank you,” the stranger