Auramancer: The Beginning
#1 of Auramancer
Who says music isn't a form of magic?
The box was what started it. No one knew where, or why, or how, but on one day, in one split of a fraction a second, the world changed.
A young girl, playing with her great-grandmother's music box, noticed it first. Dancing lightly to the melody played by the small, mechanical device, Danielle Tanser saw her shadow shift, the color of the light changing. Spinning in a pirouette, she started, her fingers and long blond hair brushing through an intangible electric blue sheen in the air. It swirled around her fingers like smoke made of purest azure and then began to fade as the music box wound down. In moments, it had vanished, leaving the stunned girl in the silence of the dusty attic, the lone window casting a beam of light on the box. She stared with wild eyes as she approached the massive oak dresser on which the box stood, trying to understand what had just happened. The tiny metal crank stood still, emerging from the side of small wooden box which could not have been larger than a paperback book.
Gingerly, she reached for the handle, placing one hand on the box to steady it as she wound the crank. Rotating it only a fraction of a turn, she jumped back from the dresser to watch. As soon as the handle was released, the azure glow returned, seeming to unwrap from the music cylinder and spiral into the air, each note sending a rippling wave through the unraveling threads. It lasted only moments, and as the music stopped, the light vanished.
In its wake, a sense of energy permeated the air with a feeling like the static electricity that comes before a thunderstorm. The girl, alert with caution and excitement, reached out to touch the box. As her hand touched the soft rosewood, the spring gave one small burst of movement and a brilliant blue spark shot from the box to her hand. She reflexively pulled back to avoid the shock, but felt only a tingle in the palm of her hand. In the moment of stunned silence that followed, she stared at her hand, looking for any outward sign of what had just occured, but there was nothing. After wavering with indecision for another few moments, she approached the box again. More than simply wanting, she needed to understand. Steadying the box once more, she rotated the crank, the ratcheting of the spring mechanism eerily loud in the silence of the attic.
This time, the box did not glow, and the music began to play unaccompanied by any noticable side-effects. Confused, she prodded at the box, restarting the tune several times in an attempt to engender the same response, but the box refused to divulge its secret. Then, she had an idea. She left the box playing atop the dresser and ran to the stairs, hiding behind the banister for a few seconds before eagerly peeking out. Nothing.
She thought for a few minutes, trying to figure out what had triggered the strange happenings. Realization dawning, she jumped up and began to dance to the music once more, still focusing much of her attention on the small rosewood device. After a few seconds, the otherworldly glow returned to the room, but not from the box. Her hands, tracing through the air, began to leave tiny wisps of orange light behind, and as she moved to spin once more, the glow strengthened and began to swirl. It formed a latticework around her, giving form to the ballerina's dress she had imagined herself wearing as she moved about the tiny room.
She experimented with different motions, the mist seeming to flex and move at will, but when the music box wound down, she found herself alone in the attic once more. Her mother called from downstairs a moment later, and she hurried down the stairs, keeping her discovery a secret for now. She would be back.