Serena looked at the book she was holding. It didn’t have a title, but it was beautifully bound in a light grey cover. Her fingers traced the poison ivy which had been woven into the books cover. She opened it, ignoring every instinct that was telling her not to read the magical book. On the firs page in elegantly curved letters was written;

Property of Alias Cairn

On the second page, written in the same curly handwriting;

The Tales of the Grey Mage

She was aching to read it, but god knew how long she had been snooping around her uncle’s rooms. She was already going to have nightmares from what she had seen in the laboratory. She didn’t even want to know what he would do if he caught her in his wing. Softly she closed the library door behind her. She almost jumped out of her skin when she heard the front door slam shut.

“You had a good outing, sir?” Mister Stone inquired, in an appropriate repressed manner.

“A very good one, Mister Stone, a very good one indeed.” She heard her uncle respond in a chipper manner. Quickly she hurried towards her room in the east wing. Her room had quickly turned into a big mess over the last few days. Serena was an organized person, but in a way most teachers would disapprove off. There were small stacks of books everywhere. On top of each stack she had planted small flags, made out of wooden skewers and paper. On each little flag two things were written.

On one side it had the topic name of the books stacked beneath it. On the other she had written a number, indicating the priority the stack got. The only stacks with top priority, the flags depicting a one, were offensive and defensive combat spells. She ignored the stacks, who she felt were glaring at her, and jumped into bed. It truly was, the most comfortable bed she had ever slept in. She opened the book, skipped the first two pages and started reading.

Friday 13 November 1890,

If you are reading this it means that I am dead, or that you are my publisher. My name is Alias Cairn and different from my fellow mages I have decided not to take sides in the coming conflict. I neither stylize myself a light, nor a dark mage and have no intention of ever doing so. Instead I would call myself a Grey Mage. Now, dear reader you might think that this is a tale about the conflict that I can see brewing, but this is not. For a complete discussion on the nature of these so called light and dark mages please read my other work; Between Light and Dark, an outsider’s perspective on mage politics in the UK.

No, dear reader, this book contains none of the sort. Instead, I would like to recount my journeys and the remarkable people I have met on those journeys. Now, I hear my contemporaries screaming about the magical inferiority of non-European mages. I will address their concerns briefly and as follows; in my journeys across the world I have encountered spells and mages unlike any found in Europe. Some of these practitioners commanded greater power than any European mage I know about. Any theorems suggesting otherwise I will firmly debunk.

With that unpleasantness out of the way, I will now move on towards the first of my tales. The first story takes place during my first trip towards the colonies. It was a cold Friday in December 1840 when I left these familiar islands behind to travel towards more exotic lands. My destination, India. It is there that I met a teacher and lifelong friend, Guru Atiksh.

There was a knock on the door. Hastily Serena put the book beneath her pillow and picked up one of the large tomes lying on the other side of the bed. “Serena, are you decent?” Her uncle asked.

“Yes, come in.” She called out, making sure that the book wasn’t visible. Her uncle entered a second later. He seemed to be in an excellent mood.

“Tonight, we’re meeting a few friends of mine, colleagues you might say. I expect you to dress formally and behave in accordance with proper magical etiquette.” Guiltily she looked towards a stack with books in the far corner of the room. A three had been written on the back of the flag.

At first it had been a two, but the sheer boringness of the books had punched it down to three, plus an exile to the horrid corner. The etiquette stack shared its banishment there with the stack on magical theory, may both never be read. “I don’t have formal dress.” She said as her uncle looked expectantly. He smiled.

“I have taken the liberty of having several dresses, formal robes and any other attire you might need made and placed in the left closet.” He walked towards a wooden panel in the wall and pressed it.

Serena, who had so far hadn’t thought of pressing the walls and who had been using the large wardrobe in the corner of the room, was surprised by the amount of space that appeared to be behind the panel. She got up and walked into the closet. She was surrounded by shoes, boots, ball dresses, cocktail dresses, a number of smart looking suits and finally mage robes.

“Uncle, I don’t know what to say.” She said, perplexed and meaning every word. Then the right question sprang to mind. “How did you get my measurements?” He gave her an incredulous look.

“Identification spell, of course.” He said with an expression that made her out for mad. “Do you really think I would just rush any mage who forces their way into my house without any information? The second you set foot in this house I knew everything about you that can be perceived, plus a few things which can’t be. I had these made during your second day here. I anticipated the clothing problem and acted accordingly.”

He seemed quite pleased with how things had turned out. It seemed that the invasion of Serena’s privacy didn’t even come to mind as an issue. It made her want to wrap her arms around herself, but she refrained for he would surely comment on it. The irony of the situation didn’t escape her. She had spent her free time today snooping around his rooms, only to find out that he had invaded her privacy days earlier.

Suddenly, she was reminded of the laboratory and the thing her uncle was making there. A shiver ran over her back, which caught her uncle’s attention. His eyes narrowed in suspicion.

“Something wrong?” He asked, his tone several degrees colder than it been before. She beamed a smile at him, which was only three quarters fake, one quarter was reserved for the red mage robes and matching brown leather boots she had spotted from the corner of her eye.

His suspicious expression evaporated at the sight of her smile. “Good. We will be leaving in an hour, if you haven’t eaten yet I would recommend you do so. Where we’re going you don’t want to try the food.” With that ominous announcement he left the room. Serena released a long sigh, before smiling at the red mage robes.

“Oh, you and I are going to become great friends.”