Mia took Sam’s hand and squeezed. It was a measure of his growing discomfort that he didn’t even pull his hand away. They stood in place and waited, the thickening cloud coming off of whatever it was that Havash was doing and the thunder rumbling all around them. That was all they could do.
It felt strange to be so helpless. Mia shouldn’t be. With her magical abilities, she shouldn’t be helpless at all, but if that was what they were dealing with, and if there was the possibility they would encounter additional magic, then there was nothing he would be able to do when it came down to it.
“Step forward,” Havash finally instructed. He had stopped his circle and stood outside what now looked like a thick swirling of dust and fog around whatever it was he’d set on the ground.
“Toward what?” Sam asked.
Thunder rumbled again, this time close enough that Sam could again feel it as the power coursed through him, leaving some part of him shaking with the energy.
“Move!”
Sam and Mia stepped forward. When they did, the cloud parted around them, swirling out and flowing around them. Where they went through the cloud, the air tingled strangely. It was almost unpleasant. Warmer than the air should be, and some part of it stung. Probably the dust of whatever it was Havash had sent spinning.
“Hurry,” Havash hissed. His voice was muted now, though the thunder was still out there. Sam felt it as much as he could hear it. Whatever was coming was different than most of the storms they got in Erstan.
Something grabbed him. Sam jerked back instinctively, but whatever grabbed him was strong and held onto him tightly. It wrapped around his wrist, and he tried to see if it was Havash, but he couldn’t see the man through the cloud. There was nothing there. He still held tightly to Mia’s hand, but she felt more distant than she had before. He tried to move toward her but couldn’t.
Whatever had him squeezed. It started around his legs and began working its way up. The pressure built with rising intensity, working along his thighs, then his stomach, then chest, out to his arms, before going through his head.
Sam cried out. What was happening? The pressure was more than he could tolerate. Could this be the vistam? If that were the case, then why would it be targeting him? The pressure lingered longer than he could track, staying there long enough that he began to wonder if it would ever end. He was aware of nothing else. Only the sense of pressure.
It stayed with him, filling him. Then it disappeared.
Chapter Six
The change was rapid, almost impossibly so. It had happened in a flash. The pain and pressure had been there, and then it was wasn’t anymore. When it disappeared, the cloud that had circled around them had gone too, revealing a new landscape entirely.
Massive buildings rose on either side of Sam, built of a gleaming white stone. On one side, spires rose high toward the sky, almost impossibly high, and on another, there was a single tower of a building. There were others that were similar, and Sam turned slowly in place, holding tightly to Mia’s hand while looking at them all.
“What happened?” Mia whispered, looking around them in amazement.
Sam could only shake his head. He knew where they were, only not how they’d gotten here. “This… is Tavran.”
He’d seen drawings from some of the books Arne had but had never imagined what it might look like in person. Pointing toward the building with the spires, he inhaled deeply. The air smelled different. Not the dust of the road like they’d had—this was floral fragrances and a strange spice.
“That’s the Temple of Ruiz. That would be the Tower of Feldwar. That would be…”
He stared at the Academy. The building wasn’t nearly as decorative as the temple and didn’t have the same ornate spires as the temple did, but there was something about the Academy that caught his breath nonetheless.
“How did we get here?” Mia asked.
They were in a stone courtyard, walled off from what Sam suspected were streets running all around them. No one else was in the courtyard with them. The ground was hard and dry and reminded him something of the road they’d taken out of Erstan.
“He brought us here with Alchemy, I think.”
Havash lifted something off the ground before tucking it into his pocket. It was the sphere he’d set out before. He wiped his hands on his pants and nodded to himself. The tension Sam had seen on his face when they’d been outside of Erstan with the thunder rumbling all around him had faded. It was replaced with a different expression, though it didn’t seem to be any more relaxed.
“I brought us here,” Havash said, patting his pocket. “And not alchemy. You must be careful about mentioning that, especially these days.” He looked at Sam for a moment. “We will not talk about alchemy. What I used was the Arcane Arts. Nothing more.” He said it firmly and with a sternness to his voice that left Sam on edge. “Unfortunately, I had to bring us here a little more urgently than I would have preferred, but given what I’ve encountered recently, it was necessary. For that—and for your discomfort—I am sorry.”
He was apologizing?
Havash turned in place, his lips pressed into a tight frown. He rifled through his pocket, pulling out a few items, before setting them on the ground before him.
They were all made of a strange metal. One of them was silver, but as long as Sam’s form, and etched with symbols. There was one that looked like an orb, though it was made out of wood, when Havash turned it, it seemed to shimmer, catching a little bit of greenish light. Another still was what looked to be a wire flower. There were a few others, but he didn’t see them very easily.
Mia remained motionless. She was looking around, her mouth slightly agape.
Sam stepped over to her. If Havash was busy sorting through everything that he had on him, then he needed to work with his sister.
“Are you feeling okay?” He kept his voice low, not wanting to upset Havash by speaking, but he wanted to offer Mia whatever help he could.
“I suppose,” she said. She looked around her before turning back to Sam. “When you talked about it, I never imagined it looking like this. I never imagined it being so large. And, to be honest, I never thought that we would actually make it here.”
Sam chuckled. “Then I did something that surprised you.”
“You’ve always surprised me,” she said. “You kept me safe since mother and father…”
“You don’t have to say it,” he said, taking her hand and squeezing it softly. “I’m going to keep you safe here as well.”
Mia glanced over to Havash. “How? If he makes you serve him, how are you going to keep me safe?”
Sam didn’t have any idea. Not yet.
Finally, Havash straightened. “Very well. Everything is put away. Now, are you ready?”
“You said it wasn’t alchemy.” It was Mia who spoke, and Sam was surprised by it.
Havash looked at her, frowning deeply. “As I warned your brother, alchemy is frowned upon these days.”
“Why?” She asked.
“Mia,” Sam warned.
She shrugged, shaking her head. “There are minor alchemists all over Olway. At least, they’re all over the Barlands. Which means they have to be all over Olway. Why would alchemy be so bad?”
Havash nodded to her, and he shifted his cloak, managing to hide the contents in his pockets. “Alchemy is not bad, at least, minor alchemy isn’t. What is it about the use of herbs and leaves and other medicinals to offer healing and hope?”
It was more than just that. Sam had seen how Arne created a lantern just the other day. There were other uses of alchemy, but perhaps it was different than what was taught in the Academy.
“And Mia isn’t going to learn about that kind of alchemy?”
“Not any longer,” Havash said. His voice was soft. “As I said, this is not alchemy. It might have been created with alchemy, but its use was with the Arcane Arts.”
“Aren’t they the same?” Mia asked.
Havash snorted. “No
t all Alchemy requires the art.” Turning and frowning at Mia, he said, “Now it’s time to get you to the Academy.” He hesitated. “I suppose both of you.”
She took a breath and looked all around her. Sam squeezed her hand, hoping to reassure her, but not sure that he did. All of this would be stranger still for her. Mia hadn’t studied the way that he had, she didn’t know the buildings, and she would have no idea what to expect here. Not that he was that much more worldly than she, but at least he’d taken the time to study and had a sense of what was here.
“Come along now. We will walk the rest of the way.”
“You couldn’t bring us all the way to where we needed to go?” Mia asked.
Havash looked back at her, a dark gleam in his eyes. “As you will learn, there are places where you don’t travel without the risk of some sort of danger. This was as far as I could safely bring us. Now. We should keep moving before others arrive, and we find ourselves tossed from here.”
“Others?”
Sam turned slowly, looking around the courtyard. It wasn’t large, but the walls looked to be stout. Light reflected from something buried in the walls, a dull sort of reflection that reminded him of the way the light had reflected off the sphere Havash had used to bring them here.
At the edge of the courtyard, Sam continued to stare all around him. There was nothing here that left him thinking they were in any danger, so why would Havash suggest they would be tossed?
Havash opened a door, pressing it outward, so it swung toward the street. He stood for a moment, waiting for them to follow. Sam hesitated, then saw a cloud of dust forming in the center of the courtyard. It was the same cloud they’d been trapped within when they had traveled here.
“How do you make sure you don’t overlap with another?” Sam asked.
Havash followed the direction of Sam’s gaze, frowning slightly. “There are ways of detecting whether another has traveled. When you have a chance to work with that power long enough, you begin to feel the familiarity of it. The worst thing that could happen would be landing on another user of the Arcane Arts as they traveled to Tavran.” He shook his head. “Perhaps not the worst thing. Still, not what we would have wanted during this journey.”
When they were all out in the street, he pushed the door closed behind them, sealing off the courtyard, but not before Sam noticed the cloud thickening. The streaks of color in it were different than what he’d seen from the one Havash had formed, though he couldn’t tell much more than that.
Havash guided them along the streets. Sam found himself gawking at everything, from the shops of more kinds than he’d ever seen before, to the people on the street dressed in all sorts of different clothing, to the changing smells mixing on the wind. Everything about Tavran felt amazing and incredible.
They headed toward the Academy building. It loomed over them, taller than most of the surrounding buildings and set on a slight hillside so that it seemed even taller. As they moved toward it, Sam found his gaze drawn up to the building. Massive towers stretched up from around a central portion. All of it taller than any building he’d seen before, and the stone unlike any of the others in the city. Sunlight gleamed off the stone, though differently than it did from the Temple of Ruiz.
“Is that where we’re going?” Mia whispered to him.
“I suppose it is,” Sam said.
In the time that they’d been traveling, he hadn’t had the opportunity to give enough thought to what Havash had asked of him. Mostly because he thought that he would have time to think. He had anticipated a week-long or more journey to Tavran, time where he would’ve been able to question Havash, even if he did so slowly. He hadn’t expected they would reach the Academy so quickly.
And now he wasn’t sure how he was going to get his questions answered.
Havash intended to force Sam into the Academy to serve as a spy, but what would happen if others learned of his intentions? Havash wouldn’t be the only person with power within the Academy.
But what choice did he have? He had attacked a master of the Arcane Arts. Now that he’d seen the power Havash possessed, he didn’t know what he’d been thinking. The other man was powerful, and he likely had been in control the entire time. Even though Mia had been in danger of dying, Sam couldn’t think that Havash would have actually let her die.
At least, he didn’t think so.
“What if… What if I can’t do this?”
Sam smiled at her. “You have the potential.” He nodded to Havash. “Even he saw that. Just do what they ask. Learn what you can. This is an opportunity for both of us.” He shrugged. “And if things don’t go well, well, then we can return home.”
“I don’t know, Sam. It just feels to me that when you come to a place like this, you don’t really get to return.”
As he looked around the city, he couldn’t help but feel as if she was right.
By the time they reached the wall surrounding the Academy, anxiety had begun to build within Sam. He felt more uncertain than he had before. He might’ve been an outsider in Erstan, but he knew what to expect. He knew how to navigate the streets. In this case, he was going to be an outsider, an overmatched one at that.
Somehow, he was supposed to find information in a place like this?
The wall itself was enormous. Easily twelve feet tall, made of a smooth white stone, with a thorny vine running along the surface. They passed through an arched iron gate until the entrance to the Academy loomed in front of them.
The building was enormous, with several distinct towers rising off from a central chamber, all nestled along the shore of the river running through Tavran. The stone didn’t gleam quite as brightly as he had assumed it did from a distance, though it still had something about it that made it look better than the neighboring buildings.
A path lined with shrubs shaped to look like animals led toward the entrance of the Academy. A few trees were scattered across the lawn, and the fragrance of unseen flowers hung in the air.
“Where are all the people?” Sam asked.
“This is an Academy. They will be working on their studies. As you will be.” He frowned as he looked at Sam. “You must make this convincing. Remember the consequences of your failure.”
Sam nodded quickly and hurried to keep up with Havash as they made their way along the path. When they reached the door, the man pressed his hand on it, and slowly the door began to glow with a bright white light.
Havash grunted. “This is what they use for protections?”
“What was that?”
Havash shook his head. “Nothing. It doesn’t matter.”
He pulled something from his pocket and set it in front of the door. With some surge of magic, it began to glow, and that power flowed into the door.
“What is that?” Sam asked.
“A key.”
The door didn’t change, but a sense of power flowed away from Havash, into the key, and toward the door.
Mia leaned close to it, watching intently. “Will I need to know how to do that?”
“You will need to know how to do a great many things. This is where you’ll learn them. The first year is the hardest. You’ll be placed into your tower, separated with students showing a similar aptitude, and then your classes will begin.”
Mia nodded slowly but cast a sideways glance at Sam. She was scared.
He was concerned as well. What would happen to him? Havash wanted him to pretend to be a student, to pretend to have potential, but he had no aptitude. There was something he could benefit from, though. It was exactly what he had told Havash.
He could learn. Read. Help Mia.
Together, he would make sure that she passed the first year. During that time, he would ensure that he had an opportunity to look for how he could survive after he finished Havash’s task.
Having a plan helped him feel better.
The door opened, and a thin man with a prominent chin and a sharp nose looked out at them. “May I help you?”
Havash lifted the device, tucking it back into his pocket. “Where is Bethal?”
“The Grandam is preoccupied.” The man’s gaze swept over Sam and then Mia. “Did you bring students for testing? Unfortunately, you are a day late, so you’ll have to return next year.”
“I already tested them.”
“You did.”
Sam frowned. This man didn’t know Havash?
“I did. Now, if you will call Bethal, I will explain the situation to her and how I came across these candidates.”
The man nodded toward Sam. “He looks a little old.”
“Who are you again?” Havash demanded.
“I am Ben Orland. The Secundum.”
“Well, I’m Havash Grosham.” Ben’s eyes narrowed slightly, but Havash continued. “I understand you’re in need of an Alchemist.” When Ben didn’t move, Havash shook his head before shouldering past him. “Come along.” He pointed to Mia. “They’ve been tested. Plenty capable I would say, but I suspect the Secundum would prefer to retest them.”
“That will not be necessary. If you tested them…”
“Yes,” Havash said.
“Very well. I will see them to their towers. The Grandam is meeting with the rest of the students soon. They can be placed after that.”
Havash straightened and looked over to Ben. “I believe the Alchemist section is where it has always been.”
Havash started away, but Ben caught him, pulling Havash around.
“There was an accident,” Ben said, keeping his voice low.
“I’m aware. Why else do you think I returned?”
“The area has been sealed off. We think it’s for the best. The smell…”
Havash regarded him for a moment. “You closed it off because of a smell?”
“There have been many reasons it’s been sealed off. Much like the reasons the rest of the Academy has been sealed off.”
“Yes. About that. You may let Bethal know I intend to secure the Academy myself. Not to diminish the work you’ve already done, but I think there might be some benefit to my additions.”
Alchemist Apprentice (The Alchemist Book 1) Page 6