by Peri Akman
She knocked on a door, and Quinn briefly realized he was in some mirror opposite hallway as the place Tsalir was. This might be on the opposite side of the temple. Or it was a big temple, that was unlikely, and there were probably many hallways exactly alike.
There was no answer for a moment, until Asim gracefully opened the door. He yawned blearily, his white hair a mess, and completely lacking a shirt. It was far into the afternoon by this point. Even his tattoo seemed messier than before.
For a moment, Quinn was distracted by Asim’s chest. He was relatively hairless, but seemed to be covered in an assortment of faint scars, stretching all over his body, in varying sizes. Holy gods that was a lot of scars. How many battles had he been in? Dozens? Hundreds? Thousands?
“Eyes up here, kid,” Asim said, and Quinn snapped upwards. Well, wasn’t that embarrassing.
“This is Quinn. He’s from my school.” Kay supplied, gesturing to Quinn.
Asim smiled, but Quinn could tell he didn’t recognize him. Seriously? He literally fought with Kole in front of him, but actually remembering Quinn? Oh no. These two apparently had amazing chemistry together.
“I’m Kole’s apprentice.” Quinn said as stoic as possible.
Asim practically leaped out of his own skin, before immediately turning rigid.
“Kole is here?” He asked, raising an eyebrow. His voice had a slight quiver to it.
“You know the bandaged lady?” Kay asked.
Well someone hadn’t been informing Kay about the gossip, it would seem.
Asim muttered a few words under his breath. “Give me a minute. Can you two go get Dale? I don’t think she’ll listen to me if I tell her anything.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea. Last time I saw her—”
“—wait, last time? Did Kole meet Dale?” Asim asked, his expression darker.
Quinn nodded. Asim groaned.
“What? What happened?” Kay asked, confused.
“Do you remember that minor argument I had with her?” Asim said gently.
She nodded.
“Well, Kole is the type to escalate it to a major argument.” His voice was strangulated in an attempt to remain gentle. “For the love of Alamiel, hang on.”
He shut the door.
Alamiel? Asim worshipped the Star Gods? That was… weird. Granted, it made sense, it was the dominant religion. It’s just… it wasn’t the dominant warlock religion. Of course, what did Quinn know? The trimmed, smooth and proper Asim of Trell wasn’t exactly the image he had gotten after the Academy.
But why would he? He was at his best there, he had a face to put on. Here he was probably tired, overworked, and judging from his annoyance with the light entering the room, hungover.
Quinn felt a twinge of pity. Asim did not seem like a particularly happy man.
Kay gave no indication of wanting to continue any idle conversation, and the two waited in silence for Asim to get ready.
After what seemed forever, Asim reopened the door. His hair was now in a low ponytail again, without a strand out of place, the bags under his eyes were nonexistent, and he was standing straight up. He wore a fancy purple vest, not much different than the one he wore at the Academy.
“Well then,” Asim said, smiling pleasantly, “Let’s get started, shall we?”
It was like he was a different person. Quinn shifted uncomfortably, but followed Asim all the same. Kay followed behind the two.
Did they not like each other? There seemed to be a pointed degree of ignoring going on, and the silence was practically devastating.
A hallway or two down, they stopped at another set of doors. Asim knocked, but much to their collective chagrin, there was no answer. The duo had apparently stepped out. After an annoying period of time of checking various areas of the temple, they found them on the roof with the plants, talking to some of the empaths.
Dale was excitedly motioning about some invisible concept, while Cosime stood absolutely still by her side, only occasionally blinking. Her expression changed the second she saw them walking towards her.
“Can I help you?” she asked, gesturing grandly.
“The demon infestation was found. That is why you’re here, right?” Asim asked coolly. He crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow.
“Yeah I am. Although I’m surprised you’d ask me,” Dale sourly said.
Asim rolled his eyes. “We can be professional, Dale of Javier. An argument doesn’t mean we can’t work together for the common good.”
“Hey, I tried to be professional, man!” Dale shot back. “You’re the one who decided to get all snippy at me.”
Asim’s smile flickered falsely for just a moment. “I apologize for my emotional outburst. That was quite unprofessional of me. And you’re right, you have a right to do what you think is best.”
The empaths and gardeners seemed to shift uncomfortably around the conversation. Whether they were made uncomfortable by Dale or Asim, Quinn could not quite tell. Kay seemed to be annoyed with Asim the most, as evidenced by her nearly silent hissing of the word ‘liar’ under her breath.
Dale seemed slightly more swayed than Kay, but she remained firm in her tone. “Oh yeah, and is his psycho warlock gonna apologize too?”
Quinn visibly flinched. He did not like how Dale talked about Kole when she wasn’t here. Asim hadn’t been particularly pleasant in his tone either, granted, but it was different with him.
“I don’t speak for Kole. We’re not even friends, to be perfectly honest,” Asim replied effortlessly. “But I would appreciate it if you don’t insult your working partners.”
Dale bared her teeth. “So I’m supposed to be professional, but she’s not?”
“If she does anything unprofessional, report her to the authorities. She’s a direct dog of the government, a former criminal. She can’t do anything to you,” Asim replied irritably.
This line made Quinn stare at Asim in shock. That was… not a thing to tell random people! It was an invasion of privacy, for Prism’s sake!
“She did it because you made her feel unsafe!” Quinn yelled out. Asim grimaced, and Dale smirked. Kay stared at Quinn like he had just spat out a dancing purple blob.
“Made her feel unsafe? She’s the one who went all death threat on me, and with my own powers, I might add. I might not be the politest, but that’s gotta be some sort of warlock faux pas,” Dale shot back. She was… stronger in tone here. Like she knew she had no issue talking to him.
It unsettled him. To some extent, Dale saw him as lesser than Asim. And sure, it was probably the age difference. Quinn was fifteen, Asim was forty? But… it just felt like there was more to it than that.
“She panicked. Is that so hard to relate to?” Quinn asked, stumbling over his words as they came out stilted and weird.
Asim grimaced.
“Um, yeah! I was trying to help! I didn’t do anything wrong!” Dale cried out. Cosime barely reacted, but the empaths were muttering to themselves.
Asim quickly leaped in. “This is all irrelevant. Can you really blame the kid for defending his master? Most apprentices would do the same, no matter how irrational and ill-informed it—”
“It’s not irrational!” Currents of anger and betrayal swirled inside of him. “I saw the entire thing. And unless you’re gonna let Cosime talk, I’m probably the most objective one there!”
Asim visibly withered.
“Hey, Cosime, why don’t you give your side of the story?” Dale said brightly, turning to Cosime.
Cosime jumped, and their black tattoos became slightly duller as Dale released control.
“I… I… I…” Cosime stuttered, and shook their head. They clutched their forehead, as if overstimulated. “T-terrible mummy. E-evil eye on me and m-master Dale.”
They tugged on Dale’s robes desperately, she resumed the control, and Cosime returned to their stoic pose.
Dale’s smile was nearly unbearably smug. Asim continued his expression of eternal deflation and g
rimacing.
Quinn floundered for a moment, unsure of how to reply. So Cosime really was with Dale by choice. Kole’s angry scream echoed in his head. Cosime was just a kid. How much could Cosime really understand about the dynamic? Was it even really that healthy? Quinn had no idea, and he really wish he did.
“Can’t we just go?” Kay muttered under her breath, unhappy. Asim gave a passing glance to her, which seemed to be mixed with sorrow and pain.
“Why don’t we just go, and settle this after the demons aren’t threatening to murder everyone,” Asim said, much louder than Kay.
“Gods around us, please listen to the pretty man!” a passing empath whined in pain. “I have a migraine because of you lot.”
A few of the empaths nodded silently in agreement.
Asim smiled politely and bowed at the empath who called him attractive. He gestured them to leave, and started walking. Much to Quinn’s surprise, Dale followed without a complaint, Cosime of course trailing behind her.
After a few moments, Kay followed, and Quinn finally left once they all seemed to be going peacefully.
Quinn shook his head forcefully, his curly hair brushing his nose. This was going to be a nightmare.
What was worse was Kole finding out. It wasn’t like he could run ahead and just warn her.
Unless…
Quinn went to the edge of the roof, and reached out to summon Ser Hero. Only instead of picturing Ser Hero, he pictured a talking bird.
And sure enough a few seconds, it appeared. It looked too fake to be a real bird, it was green, for some reason. Whatever, he would have to work the problems out later.
“Gonna tell Kole about the guests!” the bird squawked, before diving down and beginning to fly away.
Quinn gave a small smile of victory.
He really could summon anything he wanted. He looked around briefly to see if any of the empaths had noticed. They didn’t seem to, although one seemed to have the exact same smile that Quinn had on. They were probably just trying to get away from the swirl of anger that had been the previous fight.
He gave a quick wave, before chasing after the other warlocks down the stairs.
His mind twinged slightly. Now that he had a comparison, it was interesting how much… lesser the talking bird was. Ser Hero started off as a slight pain once they were out of focus, usually in the front of his head. This was mostly easily ignored until Quinn needed to go to sleep, and then he had to banish Ser Hero, otherwise he’d be up all night.
The bird… was more like a scab. Sure, he was aware of the bird on his mind, but it wasn’t really there. Not with the same presence. Which meant that if he ever did get around to summoning more than one thing, he could probably summon an army of birds.
Which might not be as efficient as Ser Hero, but it would look pretty cool. He would gesture and—BAM! army of birds would appear behind him.
On second thought, that was really dumb. Really really dumb.
But it was something to keep in mind. He could always summon something respectable. Like giant wolves. People were afraid of wolves, right?
Or bears! Even better!
Or you could summon monsters.
Quinn grounded to a halt, midstep.
In the distance, he could see Kay turning a corner.
He looked behind him, but no one was behind him.
Quinn shivered. That… had not been his own thoughts. It didn’t feel like it. It felt like… Quinn wanted to say a demon, but that also wasn’t accurate.
It felt more guttural than that, and devoid of that slinking sleazy feel that demons gave off when they talked.
It was probably just an empath messing with him, had to be.
Had to be.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Quinn had ‘conveniently’ forgotten to mention Ser Hero, or anything pertaining to them. As a result, Asim and Dale seemed absolutely floored by the lack of any monstrous or demonic presence.
Asim took to the skies to search for any sort of unnatural activity, but he came back without a single sight of any monstrous or demonic creatures.
Maybe floored wasn’t the right word for it. If anything, he seemed more shaken by the events.
If this had been two months ago, Quinn would have leaped at the chance to tell Asim he was indirectly responsible, but it didn’t seem like something he was too inclined to do now. If Asim was so willing to throw him under the bus, Quinn did not care about his approval. All that mattered was that Kole mimicked their powers, and then the two of them would take care of the demons.
That seemed a bit arrogant, but it was how Quinn was feeling. He wanted to show them that he was important.
Now if only he could explain the voice in his ear. Was he possessed? Sure, most warlocks couldn’t get possessed, but maybe he was in the one percent of one percent that could.
Just like he was impossibly special for being able to summon living things, and being able to summon a monster.
Just add it to his list of weird things.
He would have to ask Kole later.
After Asim’s report, no one was really bothering to talk. Dale was ignoring everyone, Kay was ignoring Asim, Asim was trying to keep a public face on, and Quinn was too wrapped up in his own thoughts.
In the distance, Quinn could see Kole, with a bird on her shoulder, walking towards them.
He probably should have seen this coming.
He made a waving motion, but directed it towards the bird. Getting the gist, the bird began to fly away.
“Oh look. She’s here to see us early,” Dale observed, her lips pursed. “Lovely.”
Asim had a similar expression.
Quinn rushed towards Kole. Feeling that the bird was far enough away, he banished it.
“Hey. You gonna be all right?” Quinn asked with a low voice.
“I expected Dale to show up again. I wasn’t ready for Wind Walker,” Kole muttered. “Thanks for the heads up.”
Kole looked down at Quinn’s clothing for a moment. “You’re still kind of damp.”
Quinn rolled his eyes. “Sorry for being distracted by literally everything else.”
Kole gave a snort and placed her free hand on his shoulder.
“Also, I need to talk to you later about something,” Quinn muttered as everyone else got within hearing distance.
“Hello, Kole. I see you’ve done a marvelous job of clearing the mountains,” Asim said as if their last interaction hadn’t been Asim trying to murder her.
Kole glanced at her walking stick, then back at Asim. Then back at her walking stick, and back at Asim.
Asim took a step back and raised his hands up.
Silence permeated the area as the two stared at each other, each making some sort of minute change in their body language.
“I’m sorry,” Asim stated.
“Good,” Kole snapped.
Asim grimaced, and Dale audibly snorted in the background.
“So it’s just you two?” Kole asked, gesturing to the two warlocks. “No surprise guests after this?”
Dale opened her mouth, as if to say something, but Kole immediately responded to her own question.
“That was rhetorical, and I think this whole process will go better if you don’t talk to me, or even look at me, all right?” Kole snapped.
“I was about to say the same thing,” Dale replied without missing a beat.
Asim sighed. “Can we just go to the nest now? Is that within the realm of possibilities?”
Kole tapped the ground with her walking stick and nodded. The group began to walk to the lake.
“Pretty impressive on getting rid of the monsters, Kole,” Asim said, his voice uncharacteristically rough.
Quinn felt his heart skip a beat. He felt his ears strain to listen to what Kole would say next, despite being right next to her.
“We didn’t get rid of them. They retreated, mostly likely due to the demonic presence. We’re not that good,” Kole muttered.
“But
there’s no demons here either,” Asim noted.
“Retracted into the nest so they can attack us en masse,” Kole replied.
“Lovely,” Asim said under his breath.
They walked back to the lake, once again in complete silence. Quinn was not pleased by this. Was this going to be the sum of the rest of his experiences in the mountains? Awkward silence between people who hated each other?
The lake was as undisturbed as ever. At first Quinn felt that it looked smaller, but he possessed enough sense to know it was just his imagination. He knew water had poured out of it, so his brain was looking for hints to show that change.
“Where is it?” Dale asked, which Kole pointedly ignored.
Asim repeated the question, and Kole pointed downwards, into the lake.
“It’s at the bottom,” Quinn clarified. “I found it by sheer accident. I nearly drowned.”
Kay raised an eyebrow at him. “You know how to swim?”
“I was learning how to swim.” Quinn smiled sheepishly.
“Lucky,” Kay muttered, before stealing a bitter glance at Asim.
Well, that certainly wasn’t the response Quinn was expecting.
Asim gestured to Kole and Dale. He gave some orders that Quinn couldn’t quite fully understand.
However, Kay and Cosime stepped back, so Quinn followed suit.
Asim stepped on the water, and it immediately rose. Air swirled around it, creating a vortex, carrying the water out of the lake, making a superficial bubble. The three warlocks were encased in it, and from the look of it, hovering on Dale’s disc. Holy gods, Asim was powerful.
Quinn took a few steps forward and gazed into the thick, watery wall. He couldn’t see well, with the light fracturing the water, as well as copious amounts of grime in the water, as well as it being whipped up by the wind, so he summoned up a glass tube and stuck it through the wall. The windy layer gave him some trouble, and he had to banish the tube, and summon a much longer one. This one did the trick, however, and he was able to see them with no problem.
“Quinn, what are you doing?” Kay asked, aghast.
“I’m looking,” Quinn responded as he squinted through his invention.
“You could get in trouble! Or die!” Kay cried out.