by W. M. Martin
“Help me, Alice. I'm completely lost,” implored Maggie as she watched Kylie’s eyes glaze over at the thought of learning more about the minuscule creatures.
Again, before Alice could say anything, Kylie spoke up excitedly, in an effort to explain herself. “Tandyls are small creatures that can't be seen by the naked eye. That's why Mr. Akiyama was using the Eight Flames of Lido, so we could all see them. The light from those little green flames can magnify just about anything. Pretty cool, huh?”
“Oh yeah, that's definitely pretty cool, Kylie,” Maggie replied with as much enthusiasm as she could muster.
Kylie appeared to be pleased with Maggie's response.
Alice leaned in and whispered, “Hey, do you two want to see something truly amazing?”
Kylie answered gleefully, “Yes!” before realizing that her response was obviously louder than Alice would have liked.
Maggie quietly asked Alice, “What did you have in mind?” picking up on the fact that Alice’s demeanor lent itself to mischief.
Alice, still whispering, replied, “It's called the Eye of Kariagi.”
Kylie's eyes grew as big as saucers.
Maggie asked Alice, “Why are we whispering exactly?”
Kylie, jumping ahead to answer a question directed at Alice for a third time, answered, “Because, Maggie, we have to go through Mr. Akiyama’s office to get to it!”
Maggie, Kylie and Alice managed to sneak in to the artifacts antechamber and were stealthily making their way to Mr. Akiyama’s office. The trio of Aviors ducked and crept along a series of bookshelves which appeared to go on without end. Alice had to stop twice and scold Kylie for trying to grab a couple of the smaller tomes, to peruse through, on their way to their artifacts instructor’s office. As they approached the aged and wooden door which held behind it a trove of ancient wonders, at least according to Kylie, Alice exclaimed a little too loudly, “Blast it! Wait a moment, I just remembered that Mr. Akiyama told us all on our first day here that his office is warded against intruders. I'm truly sorry, I suppose we've come all the way down here for nothing.”
Kylie stepped forward and raised her right hand which began to glow, closed her eyes and intoned softly, “Ostiumpatentibus.”
An internal lock was heard unlatching and a previously unseen ward melted off of the front of the old wooden door and receded into the cracks and crevices of the entrance. Maggie and Alice looked at each other in complete surprise.
Maggie whispered to Kylie, “How'd you do that?”
Kylie smiled and answered, “I've been helping Mr. Akiyama for some extra credit in class, and he's been teaching me a few simple spells, others like that one aren’t so simple. Ostiumpatentibus was the first difficult spell that he taught me; it’s used to dissolve tricky wards. That’s actually the first time that I’ve gotten it to work without Mr. Akiyama’s help!”
Maggie exclaimed in excitable and forcibly hushed tones, “We can do magic?!”
Alice placed her hand firmly on Maggie’s shoulder and looked around for a moment, perhaps for signs of any more wards. She then walked past Maggie, turned to face her and answered, this time stealing Kylie’s thunder, “Of course we can, silly. We’re Kindred after all and your dear Elliot isn't a proper falcon is he? Nor is my sweet, Mr. Thistle. He's a lovely bird to be sure, but our totems are mystical or even magical if you prefer.”
Maggie could sense Elliot’s displeasure at having been referred to as “not a proper falcon.” Alice turned back toward the door which was now open, just enough to slip a hand through, and slid past Kylie. She placed her hand on Kylie's shoulder and praised her magical prowess.
“Good show, darling!” said Alice before entering into Mr. Akiyama’s dimly lit office.
Maggie, Alice and Kylie stood in a massively arched foyer which had been well-hidden behind a deceptively average door. Mr. Akiyama's office, like every other room at the Kindred academy, was monstrous in size. Maggie had always felt that entering each room at her school in the heart of the Veil, was almost like entering another world. The stale and musty smell of ancient books was married rather harmoniously with the bitter wooden fragrance of the shelvings that housed them. The slightly dank odor collided with the bitter and pungent scent of the black and briny ink used to record whatever mysteries in the past had been uncovered by a litany of scholarly authors. The most recent of which had been the brilliant, yet curmudgeonly, Mr. Akiyama. The office’s farthest wall could not be seen through the darkness which pervaded the unlit portions of the giant room, but row after row of strange copper flames, housed in clear, yet crystalline canisters, lined the office’s corridor floors, creating a path for the three Aviors to trek down. Kylie had immediately regretted opening the door to their instructor’s private sanctuary and the fear that had been steadily washing over her ever since unlocking his door, was written all across her face.
Kylie stood paralyzed with anxiety and said, “We have to go. Seriously, Alice. If Mr. Akiyama catches us we could probably be expelled.”
Alice shrugged and replied, “Fine by me, I just thought you wanted a better look at the Eye of Kariagi. I know I did. Oh well, come on then, back out to the festival we go. I do hope they haven't eaten all of the shepherd’s pie. I'm actually rather hungry.”
Maggie could see the internal struggle in Kylie's eyes. Maggie knew Kylie well enough by now to understand that she was battling with her morals about breaking and entering and her desire to actually get up close to and see, with her own eyes, a relic which she had only read about. Maggie stepped up to offer Kylie some help in making her decision on whether to go or stay, but Kylie had already made up her mind. Throwing caution to the wind, Kylie led her friends on a nerve-wracking march, through the massive underchambers of Mr. Akiyama's dark and ancient office, to see the Eye of Kariagi.
“Where exactly is this “Eye of Carrot-Cake” supposed to be at in here, Alice?” asked Maggie, who was herself getting a little bit more apprehensive about their adventure the further along that she walked.
Alice replied, “I'm not sure, Maggie. I've never been down here before either, remember? Also, it's called the Eye of Kariagi, not the Eye of Carrot-Cake. Just keep walking. We have to be getting close. Look, there's a couple of old display cases with loads of artifacts in them! I wonder if the Eye may be in one of them?”
Kylie hurried over to the large display case and gave a quick and studious glance at each item which had been locked safely inside.
Alice looked at one particularly malefic-looking stone in the display, next to the one Kylie was looking over, and read its inscription aloud, “The Quietus Stone.”
Kylie almost knocked Maggie over to get a glimpse of the spiked, black stone with a swirling red core and interrupted Alice exclaiming, “The Quietus Stone?! I’ve read about this, Alice! Whoever uses this stone can become invisible to the Spire itself! The stone’s power is remarkable but it can only be used once by any given Kindred. If ever the Kindred releases the stone from their control, they can never use it again.”
Maggie quipped, “That’s a pretty useless relic if you ask me.”
Kylie responded defensively, “Well, I for one, am very happy that I got the chance to see it for myself.”
Alice chuckled at Kylie’s reverence toward the Quietus Stone and Maggie’s indifference to it altogether and said, “You didn’t let me finish reading the inscription beneath the stone, Kylie. This is merely a replica of the Quietus Stone. The actual stone has been missing for almost seventy years. Oh well, it’s still rather interesting to me. Do you see the Eye of Kariagi in there with the replica?”
Kylie sighed with a hint of disappointment, “Nope, it's not in here. Come on, let's look just a little bit longer.”
Maggie, giving the contents of a different display case a cursory glance, asked, “Hey, Kylie, what exactly is this Eye of Candlesticks or whatever you call it, anyway?”
Alice moaned from behind Maggie and corrected her mistake saying, “Ugh, it's c
alled the Eye of Kariagi, Maggie. Seriously, are you even trying to get it right?”
Maggie ignored Alice and assumed that her best friend’s question had been rhetorical.
Kylie began to explain to Maggie about the Eye as they continued their search. “The Eye is a relic that was crafted and used by a Fallen sorcerer by the name of Artax the Conqueror. An ancient Kindred Praetorian, Joy of Oslomarh, would eventually capture Artax and bring him to justice. You see, Artax had built up an army using The Eye to force others to do whatever he commanded them to do. He basically turned the humans under his control into mindless slaves who had no choice but to fight and die for him, and eventually he conquered a great deal of the human world.”
Maggie stopped to think for a moment and stated, “I've never even heard of Artax the Conqueror, and I grew up in the human world.”
Alice brushed by Maggie to peer around the corner of an enormous rack of sheathed weapons with papyrus scrolls attached to each one and stated, “The humans called Artax by a different name, Maggie. They called him Alexander the Great.”
Maggie looked surprised and responded, “Now him, I've heard of. So, what happened?”
Kylie answered, “Well, the legend goes that Joy of Oslomarh, who was a noted scribe, Praetorian, and a sorceress herself, summoned her totem, an octopus that was named Polocto, to sneak into Artax’s bedchamber one night, and then Polocto silently removed The Eye from around Artax’s neck while he slept. She then used The Eye to release all of Artax’s human slaves from his control. He died pretty soon after that according to the humans. They believe he died of either liver failure, fever, or that someone poisoned him.”
Alice laughed, “What absolute rubbish! The humans are completely clueless. Artax didn't die for quite some time after The Eye was stolen from him. I've read somewhere that Joy of Oslomarh actually used the Eye of Kariagi to force Artax to write not one, not two, not three, but all four of the Adjudication Tomes that are kept in the Phordash Temples on Jupiter. I’ve also read that she made him write them all with his non-dominant writing hand as punishment for his crimes against the humans and also to give the poor sod a taste of his own medicine.”
Kylie spread her arms and gasped, “Look! I think that's it!”
The Eye of Kariagi was an octagonal pendant with a dull, yellow gem set into the center. At first blush it was a fairly ugly and uninteresting item to behold.
Maggie griped to her friends, “That's it? Seriously? We've risked possible expulsion for that ugly thing?”
A small voice which emanated from the rafters, just above the girls, came out of the beak of a small cardinal. “You three have risked far more than that,” chirped the bird.
Maggie, Alice and Kylie all jerked their heads upward towards the sound of Nancy’s totem, Siril and his very distinct voice in unison and a collective dread poured over the three Aviors like molten lead.
“You girls are in for a world of trouble,” said a disembodied voice from the darkness of the great underchambers.
Nancy gave form to that voice as she stepped into the light which was being cast by Siril, overhead.
“Mr. Akiyama is on his way down here as we speak, and I have half a mind to hand you over to him,” threatened Nancy.
Maggie felt her knees begin to buckle and was positive that the weight of Nancy’s threat was bearing down equally hard on her friends as well. Alice could not take it any longer, and she fell apart at Nancy’s feet.
Alice cried out to Nancy, appealing to her good nature, “Please, Ms. Decker, you're far too kind to send us to Mr. Akiyama! We’ll take any punishment that you see fit to give without a word of complaint. I promise to the Nexus and beyond, but please, please, please don't tell Mr. Akiyama that we broke into his office! I beg you!”
Maggie knew how kind Nancy from Decker’s Double-Decker Diner could be, but she also knew how rigid and stringent Ms. Decker from Clan Avior could be. The dichotomy of Nancy’s double life was still a striking point in Maggie's mind. Nancy looked over all three of the girls and without saying a word, she opened an omniport which led directly to her own office inside of the Avior enclave. As Maggie, Alice and finally Kylie stepped graciously through the omniport, their ears were assaulted, and they bore witness to a tapestry of anger, which was steadily being woven before their very eyes. Nancy’s sharp tongue and fiercely hostile tone issued forth from tightly pursed lips. The torrent of hot rage flew across her office like sparks caused by two colliding blades. The only thing that the young Aviors could do was to lower their heads, look at their feet, and stand still for the verbal lashing which they were so justly receiving.
With an almost tangible fury directed squarely at the three Aviors, Nancy snapped, “You foolish girls were not only in an instructor’s locked and warded office, but you were in the bowels of this academy’s artifacts storage halls. There are any number of items, weapons, scrolls, gems or tomes that could've seriously injured or even killed all three of you! Ms. Pennington, I am shocked by how ignorant you apparently are. You have always appeared to me to be the voice of reason within your little group of friends. I was obviously wrong. Detention with Mrs. Bonifassi for a month! Ms. Hanson, I understand that you have a curious mind and that you enjoy the study of the artifacts at this school. I truly applaud your quest for knowledge, but you are obviously unworthy of such knowledge at this juncture. No Kindred Artifacts class for a month! You will instead serve the time allotted for Kindred Artifacts class with Mr. O’Sullivan, helping the other students in their Omniport Theory class. Ms. Bennett, I'm the most disappointed in you. You've let me down, Maggie. Detention, with Edgar at the diner in Thieves, every evening after your final class for a month. All three of you will be expected to keep up with the work assigned to you while you serve out your punishments. If you are even a single day late with any of the assignments that may be due, I'll go directly to Mr. Evans and Mr. Akiyama to inform them of your little jaunt down into the artifacts antechamber. Now, get to your rooms immediately. You each will be absent, sadly, from today’s festival and all of the activities which have been planned for this evening. Good night.”
Alice left Nancy’s office, followed closely by Kylie. Maggie stopped just short of the threshold to the office and turned around to apologize, but Nancy swiftly raised her hand to silence Maggie before she could even speak.
Nancy stated sharply, “I said good night, Ms. Bennett!”
Maggie turned to the exit and left Nancy’s office, her pride having been stung by the brusqueness of Nancy’s words. Maggie heard a laugh coming from the balcony from just above the common room. It was Lucy. She was looking down at Maggie and had obviously been eavesdropping on the girls as they were being caustically berated by Nancy.
Lucy taunted, “Wow. What'd you do, Bennett? I couldn't make out what Ms. Decker was saying, but she was obviously pretty mad at you, Alice and Kylie. She sounded particularly, how did she put it, ‘disappointed’ in you?”
Maggie was in no fit state for Lucy or her verbal sparring.
Maggie snapped at Lucy and said, “Go away! I'm not in the mood for you or your smart-mouth today, Lucy.”
Lucy jumped down to the floor below, just in front of Maggie, and continued her taunting, “What are you gonna do about it, Bennett?”
Maggie clenched her fists which had slowly begun to ripple with sapphire flames. Her sky-blue eyes were brightly glowing as simmering heat radiated from them. Maggie could feel her anger rising and it felt good. The confrontation was cut short when Nancy peered around the corner of her office. She made her presence known to both Maggie and Lucy.
Nancy barked, “Silence! Both of you! Ms. Bennett, I told you to get to your room. Ms. Min, unless you want to join her, I suggest that you move along, right this instant!”
Lucy smirked at Maggie and then made her way to their enclave exit to presumably rejoin the festivities that awaited her outside. Maggie released her clenched fists and let her hands slowly open. The blue flames which had been dancing
on her knuckles dissipated, and she continued her lonely march up to her dorm room. When she entered her room, she summoned Elliot to keep her company.
“You don't have to hang in here with me, Elliot. I can open the window, and you can fly around outside, y’know? You aren't being punished. I am,” complained Maggie.
Elliot responded, “We are one, Mags. Your punishment is mine to bear also. I could have warned you not to break into your instructor’s office. I was as curious as you were. Or perhaps you were as curious as I was. Our feelings are reciprocal of course. At any rate, I am content to remain in this room with you.”
Even though Maggie knew how Elliot felt about their situation, it had made her feel better, if only slightly, to hear it coming directly from him.
Over the next six months, Maggie would immerse herself in her Kindred studies. She would put on a set of proverbial blinders to any and all distractions around herself. She would set aside her stressful, futile quest to envelop herself in armor and focus more on her combat and summoning skills. Maggie had been accepted by the Spire to join the ranks of Clan Avior and she was going to prove to everyone at the academy that she was a worthy addition, especially to Nancy.
CHAPTER TEN
1 year total within the Veil
2 years total away from Earth
Mr. Carver stood in front of the gathered and eager students with his dark hands clasped firmly behind his back. He slowly appraised each student before him.
Mr. Carver announced to the room in his crisp, deep voice, “Class, you have all trained extremely hard these past twelve months and you have each made enormous strides and a great deal of progress during your first completed Kindred year of studies, here at the academy. Today you will all be rewarded for that effort. This will be your only class today. After this class you will all be visiting the Haven of Plimpkins. I want everyone focused on the here and now. You can talk about Plimpkins after class. Now then, today is battle training, and as such, there will be full contact. Everyone will participate; everyone will get hit. Like I've said since day one, you are Kindred and that means you can all take a pretty solid pounding. There will be no armor envelopment in my arena; as always, save that for Ms. Holiday’s class. Trust in yourselves and be mindful of what you have learned. I have trained with everyone here, and I believe that each of you are ready to begin full studies as Guardians. Oh, and one last thing. Watch your blind spots.”