The Ace

by Majestroke

  Diana considered that was the best moment for criticism.

  “I hate this place,” she said. “Next time please ask Travis to give us somewhere else.”

  Her brother’s eyes weren’t visible through the round glasses, but his lips curved to a smile.

  “I’m not trying to be harsh sis, but this is the way to go to the top.”

  “You’ve been saying that for a month, you know.”

  She was in the lowest class of the rebel ranking system - The novices. While the bigger people went to lead political conferences and tumults against the capital, people like them were the ones who supervised around the city, checking for any signs of a newly born magus. People made signs of being a mage after thirteen, so mostly it had to be teenagers, but there were some rare exceptions.

  “If you finish the inspection round with me without grumbling I’ll treat you to some beer,” Quinton said. “I got some extra coins from working at the Kruger Inn.”

  Diana eyed her brother warily. He had a knack for uttering lies, but for some reason he seemed to be honest regarding the reward.

  “If you say so.”

  Diana kept her mouth shut. As much as she wanted to complain regarding the sweaty people with the strange body odors, she also wanted to drink beer from her favorite inn.

  “Besides I don’t think today’s going to be much easier like our last few inspection rounds,” Quinton mused, adjusting his glasses to avoid the evening sun rays falling to his eyes. “Travis said there had been some weird signals in the Agora Market in the past few days.”

  Diana rolled her eyes. “Probably said that to motivate us.”

  “No, he was serious. I’ve known him for seven years, I can say it from the look in his face.”

  Diana stretched her arms. “Okay, so then enlighten me. How weird is this signal?”

  “It showed high hex levels but the signal never appeared in the seekers for more than twenty seconds.”

  “Must be a trap of some sort.”

  “That was obvious. And that is the reason why I want you to stay away from this if the signal reappears today.”

  “Why is that?” Diana snapped. “What’s wrong with me joining the fray?”

  “You are still a novice. We don’t know who we are dealing with.”

  “I don’t care. At least let me watch it.”

  “Staying in the perimeter of a battle can be dangerous, but I think I can’t put forward any arguments can I?”

  Diana folded her arms. “Why don’t you try? I’m going to swat them off like flies.”

  Quinton chuckled. “Just wait here, I’ll buy some lollipops.”

  He brushed past the moving crowd to a much smaller stall than the rest. Different colored paintings of lollipops were drawn below the steel grilling with the writing,

  SMALL AND HEARTY. TWO COINS ONLY. NO TAX INCURRED

  Diana decided to rest in one of the nearby benches. Most of them were filled at this time of the evening, but at least if she could squeeze her weary butt into one of them after the miles of aimless walking, she could at least feel a bit relieved. She trod towards the ceramic porcelain benches, searching for a vacant space. All benches were filled with various sorts of people - from beggars to tradesmen. A couple of girls were chattering at one of the benches in the corner. Diana decided to ask for some space, and then had second thoughts. She wasn’t much of a socializer, nor much of a talker when it came to strangers. Finally a boy - an year or two older than her stood up from his seat, leaving a small space behind for Diana to sit. She began to walk before any other person could sit on the vacant spot, only to realize the boy was walking towards her.

  “Hey beautiful,” he sneered. “Lost in the crowd?”

  Diana took a quick survey of the guy before deciding whether to kick him in the crotch. Messed up hair, mismatched eyes and a body odor that was worse than the venison of the dead dog in the meat shop, all said that the boy wasn’t one of the generous people who helped girls. Then again, it was Agora, where help was a word banned from the dictionaries. Perverts were a frequent group of visitors in the marketplace, and it was one of the reasons why Quinton didn’t like Diana surveying the place alone.

  “I just need a seat,” Diana replied placidly, trying her best not to make a move. Her eyes searched for her brother, but the mass of people walking to and fro covered her view of the lollipop shop.

  “You can sit on my lap,” the boy suggested.

  Diana tried her best not to panic. She had two options. One, ignore the boy and sit on the bench. Two, make a dash towards the lollipop shop before the pervert could catch her.

  “Let’s see,” her attacker came a step forwards, his hand moving behind her back until reaching her butt. “How are we faring down here?”

  Diana had the urge to scream in disgust. Considering her choices between punching the boy and running away, she heard another voice behind her.

  “What seems to be the problem here?”

  The reprobate threw a look at the boy behind him, his face flashing with annoyance. But in the next second it changed to something else - the face of a dog after you’ve kicked it in the snout.

  “Consider it your lucky day bitch,” he whispered as he pulled his hands away and lifted them in defense.

  “Nothing, just some chit chat. I’ll be leaving.”

  He scuttled away into the crowd. Diana turned around to witness a boy of her age examining her warily.

  “Are you okay?”

  His voice wasn’t rough like the city crowd, but his face for some reason looked beaten up. His black hair was down until his forehead, giving him a rather mysterious look. But what caught Diana’s attention was the reason the other boy had retreated so quickly. It was the emblem pinned to the boy’s shirt. The head of a fox - the symbol of the school of Defense. This new boy wasn’t a regular Outcaster, he was an academic in the Innercast, and someone actually concerned enough to save a girl who was being molested.

  “I-uh,” Diana struggled to form some sentences. “Thanks, I-I thought you were my brother.”

  “You have a brother?” the boy shifted eyebrows. “Leaving a sister alone in a place like this isn’t something I’d call responsible.”

  Diana smiled instead of talking. She was talking to an Innercaster for the first time in her whole life. She wondered why she didn’t faint on the spot. From the stories she heard, academics like them take high pride in their status and ignored regular people like her, and yet the boy in front of her was an exception.

  Apparently, she didn’t seem to be the only one who was awestruck by the sudden kindness. The bypasses were throwing suspicious glances at them as well. Even the people in the bench seemed to have the sudden urge to rubberneck their conversation.

  The boy, however, seemed to take her silence as a sign of awkwardness.

  “Sorry,” he shook his head and extended his hand. “Adrian Blackheart at your service.”

  Diana gave the boy a trembling hand. “D-Diana Harth. Thanks again.”

  “Harth?” Adrian’s eyes suddenly sparkled with new found curiosity. “That’s a rare name.”

  Diana cursed her clumsiness. Rule number one of rebels: Never reveal your true surname. No wonder her brother called her a novice. If she broke the first rule by the end of a clumsy conversation with a boy, she’ll break the rest before the end of her first mission.

  “That’s a really old name,” she corrected quickly before Adrian interpreted the meaning. “I accidentally gave you my old surname. Sorry, I panicked.”

  Diana made a mental note: she was never good at lying.

  “I understand,” Adrian said, looking around at the rest of the people who suddenly seemed to be interested in their own feet. “It’s rare to see an academic in this area, isn’t it? Things have sure changed a lot.”

  “Yeah,” Diana agreed, ignoring his last sentence. “I’m sorry if I caused any trouble to you.”

  “No it’s fine,” Adrian brushed her hand. “Are you
alone? Where’s your—”

  “Diana!” she heard her brother’s voice among the crowd.

  Quinton scrambled among the heap of people towards her spot. He had no lollipops and as soon as he saw Adrian, his hand moved to his pockets.

  “Who is this?” he barked. “And why the hell is he touching your hand?”

  Diana decided to intervene before Quinton did something idiotic.

  “This is Adrian. He just helped me,” she quickly took a hand away and hid it in her jean pockets. “I-I was just thanking him.”

  Quinton threw a suspicious look at Adrian. Then he seemed to notice the symbol pinned to Adrian’s shirt. That changed his attitude.

  “I-I’m sorry,” he bowed. “This is my sister. I—”

  “No need to apologize,” Adrian smiled, which for some reason Diana found eerie. “Just be careful about your sister. Who knows what sort of traps she’ll fall into next?”

  Quinton bowed again. “I was just over by the stall. Thank you sir.”

  “I just did my job,” Adrian threw a glance at Diana. “I’ll be leaving then.”

  “Y-Yeah,” Diana mumbled, almost in a half dream like state.

  She kept watching until Adrian’s silhouette disappeared from her view. She wanted to hug him for no particular reason. It was the customary greeting among Outcasts if someone saved you. But Travis once told her Innercasts believed hugging was only for ones who had a close relationship, and just a regular guy hugging a regular girl meant they were in some sort of intimate relationship. Diana didn’t want Adrian to think of her in that way. Besides, she was already in a relationship with Travis, and hugging Adrian would be cheating.

  “Hey,” Quinton shrugged her shoulder. “Come to our world now please.”

  Diana rolled her eyes. Funnily, the first thing Diana noticed was that he didn’t have the lollipops.

  “I got the signal back again,” Quinton said as she asked the question. “I’m going to search for it.”

  That put Diana back on alert mode. Suddenly perverts seemed to be the least of her concerns.

  “Where?”

  “Along the alleyway, a few steps to the right. There are a few abandoned houses there, I’ll have to use my Scavengers to know the precise location. But what’s assured, it’s deserted.”

  “In other words, a trap,” Diana simplified.

  “But it isn’t something I can ignore. Besides, it could be an orphaned child, or much worse, someone injured from the brawl that happened a few days ago.”

  The brawl. Diana reminisced the famous street fight that happened in Jaywater. A few soldiers from the castle had come for an inspection round around the street and some dumb old man had thrown a rock at one of their helmets. When the soldiers had arrested him and dragged him along the streets, the people had protested against them, throwing more rocks. They killed the soldiers, but backup was on the way. A several dozens of soldiers entered the city at the night and kicked the shit out of all inmates and burned a few houses to show who had the upper hand when it came to power. What’s worse, they dragged the old man who had started the brawl in the first place and pinned his head in the center of the city square.

  What the head symbolized: SHIT HAPPENS WHEN YOU THROW SHIT AT THE WRONG PEOPLE.

  Suddenly everyone seemed to take that moral more seriously.

  “I’ll go with you,” Diana said and when Quinton opened his mouth to argue, she quickly injected. “I will just watch, I promise.”

  Quinton heaved a massive sigh. “Fine, you know the rules. Follow me closely, just watch, and do not do anything stupid. There won’t be any people to save you this time.”

  Diana silently praised Quinton’s skill regarding the roads, but the Scavengers helped him as well. Scavengers were the name of those things. Quinton had named it that way, so Diana had no right to argue. Scavengers were small orbs in the size of pebbles. They were hardly noticeable by people, and even the ones who noticed them mistook them for some child’s toy. But what they misinterpreted was the real power behind these orbs. Those small balls acted as magnets to a hex user. They rolled and rolled until they were attracted to a user emitting hex. Quinton received the Gift of a Seeker on his fourteenth birthday. The Seeker class was good at stealth and finding people. But these small balls acted as means of powerful offense as well. The cracking of such a small seeker releases a large amount of hex creating a small explosion, which Quinton often used as his primary attack.

  When they reached the alleyway, Quinton dropped three Scavengers to the cracked stone path. The immediately began to roll along the path, falling upon cracks and rolling over ledges. Diana and Quinton followed closely behind as two regular teenagers taking a walk in the alleyway. If someone knew they were mages, they wouldn’t hesitate to inform the authorities. Not because they held a grudge against them, but because of the huge bounty placed on their heads.

  A few men, lying on the sides of the roads, with some wearing no more than a loincloth, regarded Diana with a creepy smile but went numb after noticing Quinton’s fiery gaze.

  The Scavengers rolled, swinging left and right at random times, until they cleared the steep alleyway and reached to a wider clearing. Diana noticed where they were. It was the place where the Brawl had occurred. All the houses by the side were burnt down and a few dead people were scattered in the street, with a few hounds sniffing around a dead body. In other words, it took all of Diana’s courage not to throw up. If the Agora was the pigsty, this was the barn of dead cattle. The stench from the corpses was enough to give Diana a nausea.

  “You can go if you want to,” Quinton said. He didn’t seem to do much better. He was afraid of dead bodies, and Diana knew that. Yet, his brother somehow managed to keep his composure while keeping an eye on the Scavengers, which in despite of the setting, were still rolling along the blood stained pathway.

  “No, I think I’ll go with you.”

  For some reason, her brother didn’t argue. “I would recommend that. You need to see what the capital does to the people. The Prince is sitting in the high chair, enjoying the warm waters and the magical girls while innocents like us pay the prince.”

  Diana didn’t reply. She was trying hard to cover her nose, and all she wanted was a dip in the river to remove the stench off her body.

  Her brother however, kept talking, and the balls kept rolling.

  “That boy you talked to, I saw the way you were looking at him. You were impressed by him, and for a moment you had the thought of being someone like him.”

  That wasn’t the thought Diana had, but she had better things to do than arguing. Besides, she had learned from her experience that when her brother was giving lectures, it was best for the other party to keep their mouth shut.

  “He is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. No matter how much benevolent they look from the outside, they always want to kill you from the inside. They are learning from the money stolen from the taxes of our people. We don’t even know what a school looks like, but they have the chance to gain knowledge and wisdom from the money they scrape from us!”

  Diana decided to offer something. She had heard enough of her brother’s ramblings. They were going deeper and deeper into the city, and the sun was fading away. She began to wish they hadn’t found the signal in the first place.

  “You seemed to be really humble when you saw Adrian.”

  “Adrian?” Quinton smiled from the corner of his mouth. “So I left you alone for five minutes and you befriended an academic and even managed to get his name. Did you ask him out? Was they why you two were holding hands.”

  Diana felt the heat rising up her cheeks.

  “A guy tried to grope my ass you idiot!” she snapped. “That guy may have been an academic but he had the dignity of saving me, something not many people in the city are used to.”

  Quinton removed his glasses. “You are too naive Diana—”

  “They stopped!” Diana noted, glad the subject was changed.

  The Scavenger
s had stopped in a rather large doorway and was rolling over and over the same position, unable to go inside.

  “It’s a cathedral,” Quinton stated.

  Diana took a wary glance at the building. His brother seemed to be right. The shattered multicolored windows and the broken head of the gargoyle lying on the bare ground signified it was a church.

  “I’m going inside,” Quinton said. “The moment you hear an explosion, you turn around and run in the other direction until you get back to the guild, understand?”

  Diana nodded.

  “Understood?” Quinton repeated.

  “Yes,” Diana blurted.

  “Same goes the other way around. Someone suspicious comes here, you back away and give me the signal. The mental link is stable right?”

  One year ago, her brother had created a link between the two of them that only activated when someone was attacked. The immediate feeling of tension gave a strong signal to the other person, which both the siblings found useful at times of danger.

  “It’s stable,” Diana replied in the affirmative. “Oh wait let me check, there’s no way to check if it’s stable unless I get afraid of something? Why don’t you strip naked so I could panic a little more?”

  Quinton let out an angry grunt. “You are so stubborn.”

  He extended his hand and the three Scavengers flew back into his hand. Without another word, he opened the massive wooden doors and stepped into the cathedral.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Ace

  As her brother faded from the view, Diana noticed something strange. The doors seemed to be the only material that didn’t seem to be damaged. The glasses were shattered, the walls were broken and the tented roof, which seemed to have had a conical roof structure was broken with a few damaged stone blocks lying on the pavement.

  Twenty seconds passed and when no sign of conflict nor placidness came from the church, Diana began to get the creeps. She didn’t believe in ghosts, but she knew revenants existed. If hex existed, so were the dark creatures that were created from it. By the number of dead bodies they passed, she guessed the place had some angry mobs of revenants.