Edited to bring in line with new rules for '13 lines'. My apologies for posting too much.

My main question is: would you read on? But any suggestions are very welcome. At the moment I think the story is going to be about 8000 words, is that a normal length for a short story? I got the number from the submission requirements of a magazine.

See instructions on what "13 lines" means.

I'm not hooked, largely because I'm not really in Emesto's head. I don't know how he's feeling about anything that's happening -- what it signifies to him. I do like that I can *see* what's happening clearly.

Emesto stood tall, spread his right arm out and pointed his fingers towards the cauldron. “This time it must work.” He muttered to himself. He'd been trying to perfect the illusion spell all morning, all he wanted to do was make his cauldron appear to be a table! It should be a simple spell for a magician of his ability but it just wouldn't go right. “Right here goes.”
His concentration was shattered by the sound of the town's alarm bell.
“What's that for?” He demanded angrily. He crossed to the window, but it faced over the town preventing him from seeing beyond the walls. The bell continued to ring which only caused his irritation to grow. There was no point in trying to resume

[This message has been edited by Max Masterson (edited February 13, 2007).]

Ditto Survivor.

Another thing that would help me is if the emotion is one that grips me. He's annoyed because he's interrupted. Very human, but it's not really gripping (I get annoyed daily, but I don't find it entertaining), and it makes me dislike him -- there's a report of a town emergency and all he can think of is that his work is interrupted? But it doesn't make me dislike him a *lot*, which could make me interested again.

What *should* he be feeling? If it's consistent with whatever struggle this story is going to be about, you might try fear.

There's also the question of whether the spell is relevant. You don't think so (or you'd have described it), so you might just cut the whole thing about the spell.

The specific spell that Emesto is trying to cast is of great importance to him at that moment, you say that he's been trying to cast it all morning, that he composed himself to cast it, and that his concentration on it was shattered by the alarm.

There is simply no room in all of that for him to not be thinking of that particular spell rather intently. If you tell us that the character is thinking about something specific with great deliberation and focus, and then fail to mention any of the details, you've broken POV. In this case, for no reason other than that you didn't consider it "important".

You might want to give up the spell reference all together and start with alarm. As a nit - Right now I know he's trying to get the caldroun to appear on the table but not where it starts from.
I'd like to know how the spell is going wrong too. NIT - I'd like it better if the spell when awry when his concentration broke rather than having him just lose the spell. But then, that's just me.

Your hook right now is the alarm but you lose the hook because the MC minimizes it.

You could do any number of things to tighten the first 13. As possible suggestions -

1) Concentrate on the spell, and his frustration that it's not working and have the alarm sound on line 13;

2) Minimize the spell in terms of lines and concentrate on his reaction to the alarm with something happening in line 13 to show that he NEEDS to be concerned with the reason for the alarm; or

3) Lord Rustian could interrupt the spell because he needs Ernesto to deal with the dragon before the alarm sounds.

I have no idea who Emesto is or why I should care. By your explanations I am told that he is a powerful wizard. If that's the case why is he practicing a trivial spell like a second rate wizard (ala Harry Potter). I get the sense that he's still in school. If he is still learning, why is he not afraid by the alarm bell? If he is indeed elite, I understand his annoyance. But the context tells me that he is not elite, and then would be afraid of an attack.

I think you try to explain the dialogue too much. "What's that for?" He demanded angrily. "This time it must work." He muttered to himself. The dialogue should explain itself most of the time. Words that end with -ly (angrily) are dangerous. And if your dialogue ends without an exclamation or question and you have text afterwards, you need a comma instead of a period--"This time it must work(,)" he muttered to himself.

I've tinkered with the opening again, any better?:

Emesto stood tall, spread his right arm out and pointed his fingers towards the cauldron.
“Hyiato!” he declared. To his satisfaction a large ball of fire erupted from the cauldron. It rose to about head height a metre in front of him and hovered there. He gestured to the left and then the right. The fireball moved where ever he pointed. He smiled, that was more like it. He had spent all morning trying to get it right. He had learnt it while still an apprentice but had never attempted to perform it for years. He snapped his fingers and the flame disappeared.
Now to see if he could do it again at the first attempt.
DING-DING-DING!! His concentration was shattered by the sound of the towns bell. Someone was attacking the city!

I don't particularly like the "DING DING DING" version. With all the pointing and magic words and cauldrons, I thought I was reading the latest installment of Harry Potter.

The original version hooked me in most...the version where the mage pops out and bumps into Lord Stark (oops, I mean Rustian) buckling on his sword. However, in that version I found the writing style a bit flat. Go back and count how many times you use the verb "was".

As for the second version, like previous commenters I found the soliloquizing a little annoying.

A minor point: the letter m in certain fonts is difficult to distinguish from the combination r-n. m rn m rn m rn

When I read the extract, I thought the protagonist was
named E r n e s t o, (Spanish for Ernest). Apparently, I was not the only one--at least one other commenter made the same mistake. I showed the passage to my 14-year old son, a computer geek. He recognized the letter as an "m", but he laughed at the name, thinking the Wizard was named after "MS-DOS".

Best wishes!

This last version is a bit...off the wall.

Ignoring anything that might be considered "silly", there is still a distinct lack of POV here.

To his satisfaction....that was more like it. Now to see if he could do it again at the first attempt. His concentration was shattered by the sound of the town[']s bell.

I've tried again, with less use of the word 'was':

Ernesto stood facing the table he wanted to make disappear and flexed the fingers of his right hand.
He wanted to get it right this time. He felt frustrated with himself, such an easy spell of illusion that he'd mastered years ago as an apprentice, but it just wouldn't go right today. He started to recite the words that should cause the table to appear to disappear, but his concentration was shattered by the sound of the town's bell being rang furiously. The sound startled him, causing him to accidentally form a fireball in his hand. Intense pain seared his fingers. He hurriedly clapped his hands together to extinguish the flames and crossed to the window to see what had caused the alarm. He hoped the alarm didn't mean they were under attack.

[This message has been edited by Max Masterson (edited February 17, 2007).]

First, we it bothers me that we don't find out what "it" in sentence 2 refers to until sentence 4, (although sentence 3 gives us a category for it). This just feels a little to me like using "he" all through the first paragraph, and waiting until the second to give us the name.

Second (and this is a problem that didn't exist until the draft before this one): I recommend never using exclamation marks in narrative. They don't increase tension, or indicate importance or danger. They simply sound like the author shouting at the reader.