Avondale Read Online Free PDF Page B

set ablaze in the great purge. There were no history books about magic, and no one ever spoke of the wizards of old.
    Tiberius turned the page and looked at the carefully written script. It was not as perfect as the scribe work from the Temple of Addoni, but it was clearly legible. He glanced at his door one more time to make sure the latch was closed and he was truly alone, then he began to read.
     
    The essence of magic isn’t spells or working wonders, but rather a mastery of the will, combined with a judicious use of knowledge. There are four ordained orders of magic, and a wizard must master five spells in one before moving on to the next.
     
    Tiberius felt his heart pounding in his chest. He simply couldn’t believe he was actually reading a book about magic. He wondered briefly what it meant by a mastery of the will, combined with a judicious use of knowledge. He had always imagined wizards chanting spells, but he’d never thought of having to will the magic to work. It made sense to think of bending the power to your will, but it also made him nervous. The wizards had lost control of their magic, that much was known to everyone. They had delved into powers too great and destroyed so much that was good. Tiberius wondered briefly if he should just throw the book into the fire. Perhaps even reading it would unlock some ancient evil that he wouldn’t be able to control. But he had no fire, and the truth was that he wanted to know more. He wanted to know about the four orders of magic and the spells one had to master to work through those levels. He decided to keep reading.
     
    The first level of magic is the healing arts. It is the most useful of all magic and grounds a wizard in the first and most important principle of wizardry: Magic exists to benefit all mankind. Healing magic, or Sana Magus, is a complicated art combining a knowledge of the human body with a strong grasp of magic fundamentals. It is important to remember that magic power is first and foremost a creative act, in the sense that magic is meant to build up, not tear down.
     
    Tiberius closed his eyes and said the name of the First Order over and over again in his mind. Sana Magus, Sana Magus, Sana Magus. Healing magic—the thought made him giddy. He imagined himself hovering over a sickbed, whispering powerful incantations and restoring health. He couldn’t imagine how that would ever be a bad thing. If he could just learn enough magic to heal people, he could be the greatest physician in the entire realm.
    His first impulse was to take notes, but then he realized that writing notes would only make getting caught more likely. He would have to memorize as much of the book as he could. There were Priests who had memorized huge sections of the ancient scriptures; surely he could memorize the precious information in this book. He looked back over what he had read, searching for the most important things to remember. The first principle of wizardry seemed obvious: Magic exists to benefit all mankind. He quoted the short axiom to himself over and over again.
    It didn’t seem to make any sense that magic, which was intended to benefit mankind, had ended up destroying most of the world. No one really knew what the blighted lands were like. A thick layer of fog and mist covered it so that even in the floating airships, there was little to be learned. When the catastrophe had occurred, only a few of the luckiest people made it to the highlands; the others were lost, that was common knowledge. What wasn’t so common was a reasonable explanation for the huge, monstrous creatures like the Forkus that sometimes lumbered up the mountain out of the mist. What had created those beasts? What did such huge creatures live on if the land below the mist was ruined and uninhabitable?
    Tiberius had heard of people occasionally leaving Avondale and venturing down the mountain. Most were criminals banished to the wastelands. None ever returned, and the mystery grew,