by Delmire Hart
“He’s not wrong.”
Barkley looked at Max in surprise at the admission. It was one thing for the demon to mouth off at the mages, another for a mage to agree with him. Although, everything he had seen so far suggested that it was the truth. He suddenly remembered Max’s words from the day they met. Even then he had said that mages had lost much. Barkley had forgotten the off-hand comment in the blur of the events that followed.
“The destruction of so much knowledge and the restrictions around entry to the academies have only led to the stagnation of mages. One of my predecessors was able to hide some of the books that would otherwise have been burned, but they are precious few. I know a few others have copies of books from then as well. The Circle doesn’t care as long as they are kept out of sight and never talked about. The librarian from that time wrote in his journal his beliefs on why such extreme measures were taken, as well as accounts of events at the time. Keeping a record of events in the magical world and in the academy is something that each head librarian is tasked with when they take the role. Although, I am the only librarian right now, so I’m not sure ‘head librarian’ is a title I can take.”
Max paused as he cast about for something on his desk, then reached over to grab a tea pot. Peering inside, he seemed satisfied with whatever he saw and lifted it up with one hand, placing the other hand underneath. Small sparks of flame leapt from his palm to encase the bottom of the pot.
“Isn’t that dangerous with so many books around?” Barkley exclaimed, alarmed.
“Magical fire has different properties than regular flames. It doesn’t splutter or burn something I don’t want it to. It’s quite useful in that regard. Now let’s see…”
He pulled out a chipped mug from under a pile of papers and poured a steaming brown liquid into it. It took rummaging around in the drawers of the desk for Max to produce another cup, which he offered to Barkley.
“Tea?”
“Uh, sure. Thanks. You know,” Barkley started as he accepted the mug of warmed tea, “you are quite different to when I first met you at the gates.”
“Ah, yes.” Max smiled wryly as he set down the tea pot, a few small drops marring the paper underneath, though the mage didn’t seem to notice. “I’m not the most suited to handling the city petitions, but as a lowly librarian, I get handed the task no one else wants. I learnt very quickly how I needed to act to carry out my duties in the most efficient manner. It is something like putting on a mental suit of armour before I leave the grounds. I think of it like this: outside the gates I am Maxwell, while inside I am Max. I hope that makes sense?”
“It does actually, especially seeing how the headmaster acted when you brought me to him.”
Max winced at the reminder. “Yes, well. Where were we? Ah, right. The burnings.”
Barkley let the conversation move back to the topic from before without complaint. He was interested to learn what had happened, and it seemed like the headmaster of the academy was something of a sore spot for Max.
“My predecessor wrote that before the burnings, magical studies and research had been stagnating. No new major discoveries had been found for a few hundred years, and it was causing great turmoil within the community. What small discoveries had been made weren’t of much use outside those specific fields of research. The Circle at the time denounced the works of famous scholars who had been at the fringes of mage society when they were alive, eccentrics who had devoted their entire lives to the furthering of their areas of study. Marigold Church, Iron-eyed Frederick, Wilbur Park, to name a few from the books I have hidden away. There are probably even more whose names we have now forgotten too.”
“Why was it such a bad thing that nothing new was found? Doesn’t that just mean most things had already been discovered?” Barkley questioned, perplexed. It all still didn’t make sense to him.
“If only!” Max laughed, as he poured more tea for himself. “Unfortunately, there is much about our world we do not know, even more now than back then. I do not know the reason for the stagnation of research, but it was theorised that the burnings of the books were to encourage new studies in those fields and renewed interest in research. It seems strange to me, but perhaps the Circle was just that desperate. Much like myself, my predecessor kept to the fringes of the Circles politics, so the inner workings of the time can only be guessed at.”
“What an obscene reason to burn books,” a voice drawled from beside him, and Barkley spun around to see Zaxor lounging on a chair.
He hadn’t even noticed the demon appear, let alone where he got the chair from. There was a frown spread across his handsome face, and he seemed almost personally offended by the destruction of the books.
“I wholeheartedly agree,” Max replied, looking over the demon in interest. “The burnings didn’t just occur here in Rilia either; there were many across the continent. It set something of a magical dark age into effect. Not straight away, it was slower than that, but over the years, more and more has been lost. Now, not only are we losing old knowledge, we aren’t gaining new knowledge.”
“I have a number of human souls in my collection that would be disappointed to learn that. Although, it would be easily fixed by removing the restrictions on who can join the academy and how far one can travel in the demon plane.”
Max laughed then, surprising Barkley, and even Zaxor raised an eyebrow in question.
“Ah, sorry, sorry. But I can see why Lucille kicked you out. She’s from an old, proud mage family and doesn’t like her ideals being questioned. But you speak the truth, albeit from a demon’s perspective on time. Removing the restrictions would allow more expansive research and a greater variety of demon knowledge. It would still not be a quick task, but one that could be accomplished over many human lifetimes. However, I am curious if any of the mages you previously contracted were scholars whose works we have lost. I’ve read that many of them had powerful demon contracts.”
“Of the ones you mentioned, I did have a contract with Frederick Iron-eyes,” Zaxor replied, the tip of his tail flicking about.
Barkley wondered if it was uncomfortable to sit on the small wooden chair with his height and the added annoyance of his tail. The demon didn’t seem uncomfortable, but he suspected that Zaxor wouldn’t let on even if he was. He was trying to decide if the way Zaxor’s tail was moving showed irritation or amusement when the demon continued.
“My last contract was some six hundred years ago. Marigold Church was still alive at the time, although old and white haired. She was reputed to be even more formidable in her old age. As for Wilbur Park, he was a close friend of my contracted human. They were both still young then, and he was only just beginning his research into the planar rifts.”
“How marvellous!” Max exclaimed, nearly knocking over his half-full cup of tea as he eagerly leaned forward. “You must know so much about magic we have lost!”
“You are welcome to seek a contract with me,” Zaxor drawled, suddenly looking bored. “But be aware that my price is steep.”
With that, he vanished, leaving only the small wooden chair behind.
“Sorry, he does that.”
Max waved off Barkley’s apologies with a grin. “It’s fine. I got a little too carried away in my excitement. I have read what few books they managed to save, and they make much more sense to me than what is being taught as magical theory. But without the rest of their research notes or books on their fields of study, there are large sections that don’t fully make sense. Or perhaps, you just need to have a contract with a powerful demon.”
With a small sigh, Max drained the last of his tea, then stood.
“There are a few things I need to prepare before taking the petitions, so why don’t you take a look around. I’ll come get you when I’m ready to go.”
Suddenly excited, Barkley stood and looked around the room. He didn’t know where to start. Honestly, it didn’t matter where he started as long as he got to see everything before lunch. His stomach rumble
d, reminding him he had missed breakfast, but he ignored it in favour of walking to the closest bookshelf. Bit by bit, he began his tour of the library, taking great care to read many of the book titles and author names. It would help him when he came back later to find something to read.
***
Lunch was a quiet affair. Barkley kept to himself once again, although he noticed that his classmates from that morning often shot him looks. He also learned there was a magical bell that sounded out each meal that he had slept through that morning. Once sounded, you had an hour to get to the dinner hall if you wanted food. Full mages had access to the kitchens if they wanted something to eat outside of those times, but trainee mages like Barkley had to attend the dinner hall at the correct times or miss out.
When his peers made to leave, Barkley fell in behind them. No one spoke to him as they wound through the castle to where they had been that morning. This time, however, they were in the room next door.
A wooden desk stood in the middle of the room this time while a large stone bench ran around the edge of the wall. Stations were set up at intervals with strange contraptions of glass vials and tubes on metal stands. Wooden stools sat in front of each station, and his classmates were dispersing around the room to claim one each.
Choosing one near the door in case he got kicked out again, Barkley took a closer look at the items laid out. There were jars and vials filled with different things, ranging from dried plants to a weird purple liquid. The only things he recognised were the stone mortar and pestle and the pitcher of water. Glancing around at his peers, everyone seemed excited for whatever class this was. Their enthusiasm was a far cry from the bored yawns and glazed expressions from that morning.
Lucille entered the room, her lips thinning when she spotted Barkley. He winced, but she ignored him to walk to the middle of the room to introduce their next class: Alchemy. She was quick to explain that their normal teacher for the subject was busy, so she would be the one to give the lesson today.
Barkley was just getting excited about the subject when he found out that magic was needed. While magical plants could be grown in the human world, their magical properties would remain dormant until activated. On top of that, the flame they would use to heat certain steps of the compound they would make was to be magical so it could be closely controlled. All around him, his classmates were calling their imps into existence and getting right into it. No matter how much Barkley stared at the recipe he had carefully penned into his notebook, he knew he could not do it alone.
“Zaxor?” Barkley called quietly. All the others just waved their hands to call their imps to them and it made him oddly self-conscious that he had to call Zaxor by name.
There was no immediate response, so he was just about to give up and start preparing the ingredients anyway when the demon appeared next to him.
“Oh? This looks more interesting.” Zaxor surveyed the alchemy set with interest before sighing in disappointment. “How basic. I suppose you want my help?”
“Uh, yes. I need to activate the herbs and make a flame—"
He cut off as Zaxor grabbed his hand and muttered something under his breath. A black rune drew itself across his index finger. It was strange to see it appear on his flesh but not feel anything. Even once Zaxor stopped his incantation and the rune flashed red for a moment before returning to black he felt nothing.
“Uhh?”
“What herbs are you trying to activate? I’m surprised you need to activate them at all, do they not have a forestkin looking after the gardens here?”
Barkley ignored Zaxor’s remark in favour of reading the jar labels until he found the correct one. He wasn’t sure what a forestkin was, and as curious as he was to find out, he didn’t want to ask and set the demon off on another rant. All he wanted to do was keep his head down and make it through this lesson. Maybe he’d actually learn something this time.
“This one! Cyrene.”
Barkley measured out the required amount of the dried plant into a shallow glass container. It was an odd brown colour and smelt unlike anything he had come across before. It was like a mix between mint and dung. He wrinkled his nose as he turned back to Zaxor for further instruction.
“So why do we need to activate these plants, anyway?” That seemed like a safe enough topic, and Lucille hadn’t explained why, only that they needed to.
“Cyrene, or uashrurton in the elemental tongue, is native to the elemental plane and requires a certain type of magic in the soil to grow to its true potential. All things with magical properties come from other planes; nothing native to the human plane has magic. Although, from what I remember of my time in the human world six hundred years ago, those tasked with maintaining gardens with plants from other realms contracted forestkin to help.” Zaxor paused as he took in Barkley’s curious expression, then continued to explain. “Forestkin are minor earth sprites that have little magic on their own, but over time, they can infuse the gardens they tend with that magic and release the plants’ full potential.”
“Ush-rut-on?” he said slowly, trying to repeat the original name of the plant in front of him.
“Uashrurton,” Zaxor corrected. “Now point at the plant and say ‘increreser’.”
As soon as Barkley said the words, the dried flakes of plant changed colour and began to grown. The smell in the room was overpowering as tendrils of mottled green and brown emerged from the glass container. Thin, ropey vines sprouted forth, flopping over the rim of the glass to crawl over his workspace. Its strange growth slowed to a stop only once half the bench in front of him was covered.
“Uhh…”
Zaxor only laughed as Lucille came over to scold him for making a mess.
Chapter Nine
The odd black rune that had taken up residence on his right hand’s index finger turned out to be a way to channel Zaxor’s magic without him being present. Apparently, the demon found his studies boring and didn’t want to hang around. By giving Barkley access to his magic and a few key words to use to do certain spells, they could each do what they wanted without hassling the other.
It would have been a lot easier if Zaxor had properly explained how it all worked, but the demon had been having too much fun watching him learn by trial and error. In the end, Barkley hadn’t managed to make the minor healing salve he been asked to, but he could activate the magic in certain plants and cast a small magical flame without taking his eyebrows off. He counted that as a win.
In the long run, understanding how Zaxor’s magic worked would help him when they joined the army. He would know what was and wasn’t possible, and hopefully even be able to use that knowledge to offer suggestions. That was, of course, if they asked him his opinion, which might be wishful thinking on his part. Still, Zaxor was contracted to him, so they couldn’t make him do anything he didn’t approve of.
That all seemed so far away right now though. It had only been a few days since he had arrived, yet it felt like longer. How long would it take to earn his mage title? What test would he have to undergo? Could he not just take it now and be done with it all? He filed away the questions to ask Max the next time he saw the friendly old mage. He certainly didn’t feel comfortable asking Lucille, that was sure, and none of his classmates had approached him yet. Even Maria, who was still assigned to helping him, kept her distance.
The faint tolling of a bell in the distance filtered into his dimly lit room and Barkley sighed. It was time for breakfast, but he didn’t exactly feel like facing another day just yet. Not after how yesterday had gone. His bed was warm and comfortable, and he debated the merits of lying in bed versus getting breakfast. Maybe he should stay and work out some of his frustrations by taking care of his morning ‘problem’.
As his hand was sneaking down his chest, a weight settled across his thighs. Above him, Zaxor grinned, his mischievous expression barely visible in the dim light. The demon lightly ran the tips of his fingers across the exposed skin of Barkley’s abdomen. Barkley had kicke
d off his blanket during the night, and its absence left only his thin sleep pants and shirt covering him. With the way the demon was sitting above him, hand sneaking under the light fabric, he felt awfully exposed.
“What are you doing?!” he gasped out, breath hitching as the demon caressed over a sensitive spot on his hip.
“I’m just helping my human out with their frustrations.”
Barkley frowned; Zaxor still hadn’t used his name. Something about being referred to as ‘human’ irked him, though he couldn’t say why. The demon leaned forward, catching himself on his hand next to Barkley’s head. His other hand snuck across his stomach, inching lower, but Barkley caught it and stopped him.
“Oh? Don’t you want my help?”
“Why do you call me that?”
Surprise flickered across Zaxor’s face at his question, although it was quickly replaced with thoughtfulness. Even from his position on his back, Barkley could see the demon’s tail waving back and forth in the air as though he was thinking.
“I might just be another human to you, but this is my life,” Barkley started, trying to put his discomfort with the use of ‘human’ into words. “My thoughts, my feelings. I am who I am, I’m not just some human to me. With our contract, I shouldn’t just be some human to you either.”
“Very well, Barkley.” Zaxor drew out his name as though tasting it on his tongue.
Barkley had expected resistance or a few taunting remarks before the demon agreed, but he seemed oddly pleased. It was almost as though he had been using the term to see how long it took Barkley to comment on it. That didn’t make sense, especially with Zaxor’s surprise and thoughtfulness over his words. Unless it surprised him that Barkley had bit back so soon.