by M. K. Adams
“If I go with you, will you show me how to use magic?”
He laughed again. “It’s not something that can be taught I’m afraid, you have to be born with it.”
Lyvanne’s face sunk. A few minutes ago her life had been so different, she’d barely given any thought to the existence of magic, but now that she had seen it first-hand it was engulfing her. She found that to her very core she needed to know more about it.
“I can show you more,” he continued. “I can show you the limits, the drawbacks and the best ways to fight back against it.”
“Why would I need to fight back against it?”
“As of this morning, I doubt you’d ever seen a warlock before, now there’s one offering to teach you about the ways of magic. You never know what tomorrow holds, best not to live your life assuming you know every twist and turn it might take.”
She tossed his words over and over in her head. It was dangerous, and she wasn’t the sort of person to take risks where she didn’t need to. But the reward for her friends was too much to ignore, and to learn about magic first-hand, even if she couldn’t do it herself, was something that many could only dream of.
“Listen,” he said as he stood up. “I won’t force you to do anything, but if you’re interested then meet me back here tomorrow night once the sun has gone down. After the job, we’ll talk more about my special gift.”
“Why are you being so open with me?”
He shrugged, “Got a feeling, I guess.”
With that he left, making his way back up the slope and through the shrubbery at the top that separated the Accord’s rear wall from the banks of the Aya. Lyvanne immediately began to think of questions that she hadn’t thought to ask. Why had he made the key there? Why not in the lower layers of the city? It frustrated her that she had missed her opportunity.
Lyvanne spent most of the rest of her day on the slope, finishing the washing and staring out at the gentle waters just beyond her feet. She pondered over the choice given to her, and by the time the sun was setting over the buildings to her right she had made up her mind. Tomorrow night she would return and meet the warlock again.
Chapter 3
That night Lyvanne didn’t get back to the house until late. She took her time wandering home, stuck to the longer routes and continued to think over her decision as she went. She passed the occasional drunk and the odd lady of the night, but her journey back was largely uneventful. Upon her return, she found that Oh was already sleeping. He had apparently been out on the nearby streets with Lira, and she’d managed to tire him out. It was a welcome respite.
Lira and Abella sat around a small makeshift fire in the centre of the basement’s stone floor. Lyvanne could tell by Lira’s face that Abella had been sharing her stories of long forgotten wars and continents so far out to sea that you couldn’t see them from the shoreline. Lira hated the stories; she was very much a city girl and had no interest in what lay beyond the walls of Astreya, but Lyvanne loved them. Saying her greetings to the pair, being careful not to awaken Oh, Lyvanne relieved Lira of her place by Abella’s side and let her head to bed.
“You were out late, Lyv,” Abella noted as she placed a delicate hand on Lyvanne’s shoulder.
Lyvanne hated the nickname Lyv, but she always gave Abella a pass. Abella was old and her memory wasn’t the best it had ever been anymore. She tended to forget simpler things like what people did and didn’t like being called. Besides, hearing Oh use the nickname probably didn’t help matters.
Kneeling down by the old lady’s side, Lyvanne asked her what stories she had missed so far, and with startling accuracy Abella listed them all off one by one. During her youth, Abella had worked in the King’s library, and had no doubt once been an incredibly smart woman. Now her mind failed her, but some of the knowledge she gained during that time in the library had stuck with her. Lyvanne admired her for that. The woman didn’t know how to light a fire to keep herself warm during winter, but she knew the intricate relationships between the eastern tribes of the Rive and the Islanders who lived a short boat ride across the East Channel.
“Abella, what do you know about magic?” Lyvanne whispered, eager to have some of her questions answered.
Abella grimaced, “A nasty thing magic, only for bad people.”
“Why?” Lyvanne asked quickly. Her heart sank slightly, not wanting to believe that the young man she had met was a bad person.
“The cost is great, and the power too terrible for people to wield responsibly,” Abella made as if to spit on the floor, but nothing came out. “Warlocks are born once for every ten thousand people born in The Rive, and now the only ones left are under the control of the King.”
That was new to Lyvanne. “Why?”
“So he can watch us,” she said matter-of-factly.
“What do you mean? I don’t understand.” If the warlock she met by the river was under the king’s control, then she needed to know now before she did anything stupid.
“The king had a vision many years ago that his bloodline would be deposed of power. Now every warlock in The Rive works for him round the clock. Always watching us, always watching for visions.”
“Visions? As in… the visions granted to us by the Angel of Destiny?”
Abella’s head slowly drooped into her lap before snapping back to attention, age and the late hour taking their toll. Let her sleep, Lyvanne thought, but she needed more information.
“A warlock by the name of Akira once discovered a way to use his power to watch the visions granted to others by the Angel of Destiny’s good will. Now the king keeps every warlock in his castle, always watching for visions, always looking for the one who will depose his bloodline.”
Lyvanne took that to mean that he wasn’t under the king’s control after all. Regardless, it was interesting to know. Her whole life she’d prayed to the Angel of Destiny, hoping to be shown the path she needed to take or to see a glimpse of what her future could hold. Now, even that was being thrown into confusion and put under threat. She hadn’t thought it was possible to watch the visions that others had. But the more time she spent that night thinking about magic and religion, the more she realised that there virtually nothing that she really knew about them with nay level of certainty. Religion wasn’t something that Abella had ever spent much time talking about, let alone teaching to the children. On top of that, her whole understanding of magic had been completely reshaped in the space of one day.
That didn’t stop her though. Later that night as she bedded down for sleep, Lyvanne said her prayers to the Angel of Destiny and waited for the day that she’d be shown her way out of the city. Determined to cast the thought of any prying eyes to the back of her mind as she slept.
The next morning, Lyvanne woke with a start. She’d dreamt that she was down by the river and that she’d been arrested by city watch for trespassing. In the dream, they’d taken her away to a dark dungeon beneath the city, before moving her into the mines even further below. It felt like a warning, a sign not to go to meet the warlock, not to break into this person’s house, a person who had done her no wrong. Yet, she felt more determined than ever to go through with it. She had questions filling her brain, questions that Abella couldn’t answer, and for some reason she couldn’t yet figure out, she trusted this stranger.
She went out of her way to leave the house before anyone else woke up, not wanting them to notice that anything was playing on her mind. Abella she could fool, but Lira and Oh were much more likely to notice that she was out of sorts. From then on, she spent the day for the most part keeping her head down. They needed food, and she scrounged what she could from the fishermen at the docks. She gathered enough to last them all a day or two at best, and decided to call it quits before she drew any unwanted attention. Today of all days was not the time she wanted to be testing the City Watch.
The sun was still beaming down onto the city as Lyvanne passed through the hole into Abella’s house. Making her way down into the
basement, she was greeted with the usual sight. Abella was playing toy soldiers with Oh whilst Lira cleaned the basement as best she could.
“Welcome back child,” Abella said as she opened her arms up to greet Lyvanne, no doubt having little recollection of their conversation the night before.
“Thank you,” Lyvanne said as she leaned in for a hug from the old lady, passing off her sack of food to Lira as she did.
“Look!” Oh said, as he came bounding over towards Lyvanne, holding out what she recognised as brand new wooden soldiers, painted in the green and silver patterns of the king’s royal army.
“Where did you get that?!” Lyvanne asked, more angry than confused as she knew full well where they would have come from.
Oh backed away slightly, surprised by the anger in her voice, and Lira stepped forward in his place.
“I heard you leave this morning,” she said timidly. “I couldn’t get back to sleep, so I decided to do something nice.”
“Lira, you can’t go stealing toys from Merchant Street. You’ll be caught”
“No I won’t I’m not stupi -
“Lira!” Lyvanne shouted at her friend and immediately withdrew as a pang of guilt overcame her. But she knew she needed to follow through “It was nice of you, but it was indeed stupid. Don’t put yourself at risk when you don’t have to. Okay?”
Lyvanne felt hypocritical, but her situation was different she told herself; Lira risked herself for a toy whereas she was doing it for something much bigger.
“Come now children, don’t argue here,” Abella chimed in, trying to quell the situation. It worked, but Lira was noticeably upset and Oh went surprisingly quiet for the rest of the afternoon.
Neither of them said goodbye properly when Lyvanne left later that day. She had wanted to say something, to hug them tightly like she usually would, but they felt distant and the moment she stepped onto the street she regretted not apologising.
The sun was beginning to set over the stone and wooden buildings that made up Astreya as Lyvanne arrived at the Accord, casting long and menacing shadows over the quiet streets of the residential district. Taking a deep breath, Lyvanne reminded herself once again why she was doing this, for the quality of life she could at least in the short term offer to the others and for the personal knowledge she could learn from the stranger. Then she made her way down the slope and out onto the bank of the Anya.
She waited there for hours, as the night sky grew darker and more beautiful as the stars began to illuminate the black canvas that loomed overhead. It was then that she realised she’d never been this far away from home this late at night, and for a moment she dwelled on all she’d missed out on. The stars were the most beautiful sight she’d ever seen, a concoction of white and blue miracles living in the sky and all of them reflecting perfectly in the running water of the Anya.
Before long, she heard the rustling of movement coming from above, and she caught sight of the stranger making his way down to her.
“I’m glad you came,” he said, keeping his voice noticeably quieter than the last time they were here, for which Lyvanne was thankful.
“I nearly didn’t. I had a dream that I’d get arrested,” Lyvanne decided not to tell him about what Abella had said about warlocks, not yet anyway. It could wait until she knew more about him.
The warlock wore a dark hooded robe, but underneath she could see him incline his head. “Dreams can be powerful, perhaps you should have listened to it.”
“Do you want me to go home?” she asked, almost playfully.
“We both know you won’t,” he said with a cocky smile.
He was right, she’d come this far, and she was going to see it through to the end.
“Besides, everything is a possible future, nothing in this life is certain,” he continued, his confident smile protruding from behind his hood.
“Visions are certain, visions from the Angel.”
Another incline of the head. “They used to be.”
“Used -
“Come,” he interrupted. “These are things we can discuss another time, we have work to do tonight.”
The interruption annoyed her, but she couldn’t help but admit that this complete stranger had entirely captured her curiosity since their first meeting.
Who are you? She thought as the pair made their way back up the slope until they reached the wall that guarded the Accord and the houses of the rich within.
“Do I get to know your name yet?” she asked as the pair made their way up to the Accord.
“If we get caught, I’d rather you didn’t know,” he replied matter-of-factly, but with a comforting smile that kept her nerves at bay. “I’ll tell you after, okay?”
The wall of the Accord was a few feet taller than the Lyvanne was, and the top was lined with a row of metal railing and spikes to ward off would-be intruders such as them.
“Come on, I’ll boost you over,” The stranger said as he placed himself up against the wall, “Once you’re up there, I’ll need you to keep an eye out for any guard patrols whilst I climb up.”
Lyvanne nodded and let out a small grunt as he lifted her up and onto the top of the wall. Being careful not to impale herself on any of the spikes, she began to squint her eyes in search of any movement from within the Accord. Thankfully, there was none, so as her new found acquaintance started to pull himself up, Lyvanne crouched atop the wall, in awe of the houses that lay before her. Having never been inside the Accord, she had never imagined what the houses inside would be like. They appeared as large as two or three regular houses from the Upper layer of Astreya combined, let alone the smaller homes found in the lower layer. Each house was built from a strong looking grey stone, compared to the sandy rock used throughout the rest of the city, and what Lyvanne envied most of all was that each one had a surrounding area of grass and shrubbery, much like her hideout down by the river. How could people own so much, she asked herself as the pair slowly began to make their way down the wall and into the Accord.
“Quite something, huh?” the stranger asked.
“Yeah, something like that,” Lyvanne replied, words failing her.
The young man led her through a maze of tall houses and elegant gardens, his steps never faltering as if he had lived here all of his life. Off into the distance, Lyvanne could just about make out the fires that illuminated the guard posts at the gates and the smaller fire about ten feet further into the air which indicated a watchtower. Lyvanne gawked at the security, questioning what made these people so much better than everyone else and what they had to fear from the rest of the citizens. She blushed when she remembered why she was there.
“Here we are,” the pale young man said as they turned a corner to find one of the largest houses in the Accord: an elaborate mansion of refined stone and glass windows.
“Who did you say lived here again?”
“A dignitary from the Shimmering Isles,” he replied as the pair made their way towards the side of the house, always being careful to stick towards the shadows. As of yet they hadn’t seen any patrols, but that didn’t mean they weren’t out there.
“You can protect us if things go wrong, right? With magic?” Lyvanne asked.
He nodded. “That is where this comes in,” he said, pulling out the key which he had forged in the Anya the day previous. Motioning for Lyvanne to hang back momentarily, he crept up to the front door and used the key to unlock it.
“How the -
Lyvanne began to question aloud, before being beckoned to follow on. Passing over the threshold of the front door was like entering an entirely different world. Lyvanne had never known such luxury; she had never even known that it was possible to live this way. The house was decorated with the pelts of exotic creatures that Lyvanne did not know, from places that she had never heard of. The walls housed various paintings, some of beautiful landscapes, others of rich looking people with elaborate robes which would even put to shame some of the people she used to see on Gemstone Avenue.
“How can you live like this?” Lyvanne whispered, terrified of being discovered, but with a surge of pure adrenaline coursing through her veins leading her on.
“Not the time for questions,” the young man replied. “I need you to stay here whilst I search upstairs, if you see a patrol coming then you need to let me know, I don’t want us walking out of -
There was movement upstairs, the sound of footsteps against wooden floorboards. The stranger looked immobilised with shock and Lyvanne’s face turned a ghostly shade of pale, almost akin to the warlock who had enticed her to come along.
“I thought they weren’t supposed to be here?” Lyvanne whispered with ferocity, her natural instincts to be the grown up in any situation kicking into gear.
“They… they weren’t,” he replied, evidently trying to plan out his next move now that his whole mission had gone down the drain.
After a moment’s hesitation, he pulled the hood up over his head and carried on undeterred, taking large but quiet steps up to the top floor. Lyvanne wanted to call out after him, to warn him that it was a bad idea, but she held her tongue. He can look after himself, she convinced herself as she turned her attention back towards the doorway, still ajar from their break in. Staring out into the cool night air, Lyvanne took in a deep breath of fresh air, using it to calm her senses, before quietly closing the door and using a nearby window to keep one eye on the outside whilst she began to look around for nearby riches. Just something small, she told herself, enough to help set up outside the city. Her search was cut short almost immediately. Three members of the City Watch caught her eye through the window as they passed by, inspecting each house as they went. The trio wore more mobile gambesons than the usual uniform would dictate and each with a long sword sheathed around their waist. She pulled herself away from her search and crouched down beside the window, keeping an eye on the patrol’s movement. Lyvanne watched them intently. They weren’t far from the house, but if they could just pass by then they wouldn’t pose any immediate danger.