of this sensation was not far away. Under normal circumstances, mages could not sense the effect of spells, they could only sense power used haphazardly by quite young, inexperienced mages who were not in control of themselves.
Intrigued, Bleist immediately turned in the direction where he hoped to find some untrained magician. He moved slowly ahead. He preferred to be cautious, as some part of his mind was giving him all sorts of explanations for what had just happened, rather few of which assumed that anything good would come of it. He quickly checked the spells around him and sped up slightly.
He felt he was getting closer and closer to where someone was using magic spontaneously. He stood at the beginning of a narrow alley, halfway down which was a pile of old crates. He moved forward cautiously. With each step he came closer to the source. He saw a soft golden light oozing from a gap between two piles of old crates and his heart beat harder and thoughts began to run through his head at a frantic pace. I had come across an Atlantean. An untrained Atlantean. How is that even possible? And still in Dagos. Slower and slower he approached.
Once he was at the gap between the heaps he bent down and saw a hunched figure sitting against the wall. Around him an irregular field emanating golden light wavered.
Bleist stood on some sort of plank that had cracked. The boy, who until then had essentially not moved, sprang to his feet. Darius managed to see a thin, frightened face with grey eyes. The next second all the mage saw was a blinding flash of golden light, and when he could see again he saw the boy, who had just been sitting against the wall, run towards the end of the alley, leap into the air and turn into a black dragon. Bleist froze and stood surrounded by the scattered remains of crates staring at the receding figure, and then looked up at the empty sky for a long time more.
