Tin Thoughts (The Downfall Saga Book 2) Page 12

  “There are many books which talk about the stars. Why would I want to lose sleep, just to sit outside in the cold looking at things that will still be around when I’m old?”

  “Why indeed,” he said softly to himself.

  Ravyn walked over to a table which had a series of paintings spread across its surface. The paintings were awful, they were a random collection of colors with no discernable shapes. He was about to follow her over to the table when he heard a voice from over his shoulder.

  “My Prince, can I have a word?”

  He turned to lock eyes with a handsome man, with a cleft chin and an aristocratic nose, standing behind him. His suit was mostly mauve with green striping, and Caddaric could smell mint on his breath.

  “I can spare a moment.”

  He glanced over at Ravyn who was examining the artwork, before following the man to a quieter spot away from the tables. They crossed the soft green grass until they were far enough away from the crowd that they wouldn’t be easily overheard.

  “My name is Thanasis,” he said, reaching out his hand.

  Caddaric reached out and shook his hand. “Pleasure, I’m sure.”

  “I’m the President of a special society here at Haven. We make it a priority to find the right kind of people to become associates. People who bring something unique which will enhance our collective. In short, people like you.”

  “I’m flattered, but I don’t know if I’ll have the time.”

  “We have access to resources which will save you time. Look, we rarely allow outsiders to visit our abode, but I’m going to make an exception for you. I can assure you that you won’t be disappointed if you come with me.”

  “I’m sorry, but I’m here with a friend.”

  “Her?” said Thanasis, raising an eyebrow as he watched Ravyn playing with a puppet at a different table. “She’s pretty enough, but we have better, who come easier.”

  “I wouldn’t underestimate her if I was you.”

  “My apologies. I didn’t mean to insinuate anything. We will certainly keep an eye of her if you think she has potential. Come, let me give you the tour. I think that even you will be impressed.”

  Caddaric looked back at Ravyn.

  “She can take care of herself.”

  “Alright, but I’m a hard man to impress.”

  Thanasis let out a rich bout of laughter and put his arm around Caddaric’s shoulders to steer him out of the Nexus.

  Thanasis refused to answer any questions as he led Caddaric through a long series of tunnels, which left Caddaric disoriented and sure that he wouldn’t be able to retrace his steps. They stopped in front of an innocent looking section of wall. Thanasis reached out his hand and a section of wall swung away from them, revealing a room behind it.

  Caddaric wanted to ask how he had done that, but Thanasis raised his eyebrows and gave him a smile, before ushering him into the room.

  The common room was filled with many comfy looking leather chairs, with mahogany end tables sitting beside them. The walls were covered in dark, wood paneling with brass highlights. Despite being underground, the floor was covered in hardwood. Several large animal skins were spread on the floor in front of the large fireplace. The room smelled faintly of oil and lavender.

  “Come, let’s walk,” said Thanasis.

  Two men were in the midst of a quiet conversation, sitting in the chairs near the corner of the room, when they entered. They looked up and watched as the two of them crossed the room, their steps echoing around the room, and headed through a side door.

  Caddaric found himself in a long hallway lined with portraits.

  “The Hall of Portraits,” said Thanasis. “Not very original, right?”

  They stopped in front of a portrait of a middle-aged man with a widow’s peak and a button nose.

  “Many of our members have went on to become luminaries. This is Hansel Wal. He captained the ship that made the only documented trip from Paxton to Chaylse.”

  “He had a ship built so he could make a trip that would have been quicker going across land? I believe in celebrating accomplishments not senseless bravery.”

  Thanasis turned away and slowly walked down the hallway pointing out various famous people.

  “Jon Blaise, a general in the Button War.”

  “Laura Laibrook, creator of the Laibrook compass, which she used to find the Caves of Colla.”

  “Is that Amar Amman?” asked Caddaric.

  “I believe so.”

  “Many of the buildings he designed are still standing today.”

  “As you can see, many of the most famous wizards have been Millers. Yes, that is the name we call ourselves. If you are lucky, you may prove to be important enough to join our ranks.”

  They entered a large library running the entire length of the hallway they’d just walked down.

  “The largest library at Haven, perhaps even the world. If you need to know anything for one of your classes, you can find it here. We have assistants who will find the relevant books for you, so you can focus on more important matters.”

  Caddaric ran his finger along the spine of a book. Pulling his finger away he saw that there was no dust on it.

  “You could teach the servants in the Royal Library how to keep things clean.”

  He led them out of the library and back towards the common room, talking as they walked.

  “We do everything in our power to keep our members happy. There are suites here for our member which are unlike anything you’ll find elsewhere in Haven. We have a private dining hall where you can have a meal prepared at any time of the day. There are several practice rooms with the necessary wards to keep you safe while harnessing your magic. We also have our own house wizard who is here to assist in any academic matter. He may be getting old, but he knows how most of the professors like to test their students.”

  “That sounds most impressive. I now see how beneficial this can be to one’s future.”

  “I think that you might have what it takes, but you’ll still need to prove yourself. We will be watching you, so don’t do anything to disappoint us. We may contact you again at a later time.”

  Caddaric was ushered out into the tunnel and the door swung shut behind him, leaving him alone in an unfamiliar section of Haven. He searched the wall but couldn’t figure out how the door worked, nor how Thanasis could distinguish it from the rest of the walls along the tunnel.

  Chapter 13

  Donovan fell into the routine of his classes. As the temperatures cooled and the snow banks grew deeper and deeper, Donovan searched for routes to travel between classes without going outside, although it wasn’t as bad as their first year. The Nexus was still green and warm, and remained in a perpetual summer. The valley between the Medical Center and the Burrow was warmed by the hot springs, but when the wind blew, it cut through whatever clothing you were wearing and chilled to the bone. The paths running around the Complex and the courtyard where they did their weapons training had some sort of a self-heating property which slowly melted the snow from its surface, but the air above was still frigid.

  Donovan didn’t see Kort nearly as much as he wanted to, with them only sharing the one class. Kort seemed to be taking his studies much more seriously this year and he spent most of his free time preparing for his classes. The few times he saw Kort sitting in one of the small eateries, he would be deep in conversation with Ravyn, and Donovan didn’t want to interrupt them.

  Ravyn and Caddaric had rekindled their feud from the previous year, and took every opportunity to show each other up. They were both focused on captaining the team for the Paragon Prize Tournament later in the year, but Donovan had no idea which of them were more likely to get the role.

  Sitting down in Professor Nikka’s classroom, Donovan pulled his supplies out of his pack and waited for the class to start.

  Professor Nikka had been teaching them about topics which Donovan would have expected in an art class, like perspective and lighting.
They spent only a small portion of their time actually practicing magic, which was fine with Donovan.

  Professor Nikka walked around the room and handed out small tiles with a simple pattern on them. Donovan received one that was divided diagonally into slate grey and charcoal black sections.

  “You know the routine,” he said. “Try to duplicate the pattern.”

  He turned his back to the class and began filling the blackboard with notes.

  Donovan studied the tile, locking the colors into his mind. Closing his eyes, he tried to project the image beside the tile. He opened his eyes and saw nothing but the tile, and a blank spot on the table beside it.

  This wasn’t a new problem for him and he had come to accept it. Back in his first year of study, he’d found that he had better luck using his magic when he was in physical contact with the object he was trying to use it on. He had finally learned how to light a candle with his magic, but it only worked when he pinched the wick between his fingers. He rested one hand on the tile and one of the table beside it. He repeated the process and tried to project the image with no more success than the first time.

  He stared up at the mirrored ceiling. It wasn’t fair. He wished that his magic was special in a good way, rather than stopping him from accomplishing even the simplest tasks. There should be a replica of the pattern beside the first, right where his hand was resting, in fact his hand should be hidden by the image.

  “Very interesting,” said Nikka, who had snuck up beside Donovan.

  “What’s that?” said Donovan sardonically.

  “Your hand. You managed to bend the image around the top of it.”

  Donovan looked down, but his hand looked the same as it always did.

  “I’m not falling for one of your jokes this time.”

  “I’m not joking. Repeat what you were doing before I walked up.”

  Donovan thought back to what he had been thinking at the time. He was frustrated that nothing was happening, and that there should be an image right where his hand was resting. He focused on the back of his hand and imagined the grey and black pattern splitting it in half. He projected his focus, and the back of his hand changed color to match the tile sitting beside it. Like every other illusion that Donovan had seen, his hand partially bled through the image. He was so surprised that he barely maintained his concentration to sustain the illusion.

  Nikka squatted down so he could look at Donovan’s hand from the side.

  “It takes remarkable skill to curve an image as precisely as that. It took me at least five years to accomplish something like that.”

  “Why should it be difficult? I’m just projecting the image onto my hand.”

  “You know that magic doesn’t work that way. You can only affect the world around you, but never yourself. You could project an illusion on your own body no more than I could heal a cut on my own arm. It’s very difficult to follow the contours of your hand so closely.”

  Donovan didn’t understand why things had to work that way, but he wasn’t going to broach the topic with Professor Nikka.

  “Right. I meant that I know the back of my hand so well that it’s easy to follow its surface.”

  “I’m glad that things are finally coming together for you. Now keep practicing.”

  Once Nikka had walked away, Donovan expanded the illusion to cover his fingers as well. He flexed and wiggled them, and the pattern followed their movements as if tattooed to his skin. Clearly Professor Nikka wasn’t the expert that he thought he was.

  His spirits buoyed by his first success in the class, Donovan played around with various patterns on different body parts. He found that if he could fully picture the pattern in his head, it was easy to duplicate it onto his body, but nothing happened every time he tried to project it elsewhere.

  He turned the index finger on his left hand a deep forest green. He tried to turn his middle finger the same color and the image disappear. He tried again, this time trying to change both of them at the same time, to no effect. Finally, he tried turning them both green along with the patch of skin in the nook between the two fingers, and it worked. As long as he maintained one continuous image, he could project simple patterns on his skin. The larger the area he tried to cover or the more complex the pattern, the more likely he was to lose focus, and the illusion would fail.

  “That’s enough of that for today,” said Nikka from in front of the board. “Today we are going to start talking about gradients. Can any of you tell me what a gradient is?”

  Donovan raised his hand and waited to be called upon. Nikka gave Donovan a nod.

  “Yes I can,” said Donovan. “You wrote it on the board. It’s...”

  The rest of the class flew by in a discussion about where they commonly saw color gradients, and why they were important to the class.

  The rest of the day fell away in its normal routine and Donovan found himself alone that night, with no pressing homework that required his attention. He had been growing more and more restless as the days went by. He missed starting his day with a Vanora, and being able to play his lute at night. He’d tried to do a Vanora in his room, but it was too confined by all of the furniture. At least he could go to the combat yard before class and run through a Vanora, but he hadn’t played his lute in over two months, and his fingers were itching for an opportunity.

  With a place the size of Haven he’d thought that it would be easy to find a quiet corner to practice, but there were always students out and about at all hours of the day. He’d no sooner start to play in an empty classroom when someone would come barging in from down the hall and tell him to knock it off. Everyone had been friendlier during his first year compared to the strangers he bumped into now.

  With an entire evening free, he told himself that he would find a suitable place before he went to bed.

  He pulled the case out from under his bed. He double checked that it was done up tight before wrapping his extra blanket around it. Eamon had given him the lute when he was a kid and had returned it to him the previous year. He didn’t know where Eamon had gone, or even if he was okay, which made the lute all the more precious to him.

  Carrying it in his arms, he wandered towards the Nexus. As the central hub, it was the best place to start. He’d find a map of Haven and scour it until he found some forgotten hole. The campus was huge, but there had to be areas that were no longer being used.

  He left the tunnel and walked out into the Nexus. He paused to breathe in the warm summer air. He had been at Haven for a couple of months now and his mind still kept telling him how unnatural the weather was in some of the valleys. They were in the mountains during the winter, and yet he could see flowers still in bloom on the valley floor.

  He started towards the Administration Building to check their large map, when something stopped him. Something that he had wanted to check out much earlier, but it had completely slipped his mind with the commencement of class.

  He followed a path, ignoring the various students sprawled out on the grass reading, or working on homework at the tables. He walked through the narrow throat of the valley to the far side. His eyes glanced upwards to the small black orifice on the side of the mountain high above.

  Starting up what he thought must have once been a path leading up to the tunnel, he climbed far up the valley’s side. His legs were starting to burn by the time that he got to the opening and he paused to catch his breath.

  There appeared to be a tunnel running through the side of the mountain but, unlike the other tunnels in Haven, there were no lights inside.

  A wry smile came unbidden to his lips. Here he was, the only wizard at Haven who couldn’t summon a simple ball of light, and he would again find himself stumbling through a dark tunnel. Shutting out the memories of the Clachwards rumbling after him, he took a deep breath, and let the dark tunnel envelop him.

  The tunnel was narrow, you could fit two people abreast, but it would be cramped. The narrowness suited him just fine. He stretched out
his left hand and trailed it along the wall as he walked, relying on his other senses to tell him if there was an opening to his right. The wall was smooth, dry, and clearly not a natural cave wall. Curiosity peaked, he picked up his pace.

  He had no way to judge time, but he knew that he’d been walking for at least fifteen minutes when he felt the tunnel begin to gently curve to the left. A dozen steps later, he saw a moonlit opening up ahead.

  He noticed a symbol carved into both walls near the exit. A circled was carved into the wall, a dagger in its center, its blade wrapped in lightning.

  The symbol used by the followers of Zeren.

  The symbol on the pendant he’d found the previous year.

  There were numerous stories about the followers of Zeren living at Haven a long time in the past. There were enough stories that it made sense that this sect of wizards had actually lived at Haven at one time. It would be interesting to see where they had lived hundreds, if not thousands, of years ago.

  The tunnel opened onto a small shelf. He walked over to the edge and looked down into a hidden valley lost in the mists of time, surrounded by steep, red rock cliffs on all sides. Blue streaks, like the veins running under his skin, ran down the cliffs faces.

  The valley floor was covered by a white, moonlit mist. A light grey, stony hill rose through the mist in the center of the valley, sides smooth with no vegetation growing on them. A bowl shaped depression was scooped out of the top of the hill. It looked like the clay candle holders left beside a grave to light the departed’s way into the first night of their new journey.

  Donovan followed a set of stones steps down to the valley floor. The mist rose up to his knees and was so thick that he couldn’t see his feet. The air was still without even a hint of a breeze. No sounds from the outside world infiltrated into the valley. Donovan could hear a deep, pulsating hum in the air, calling to him, coming from everywhere and nowhere all at once.

  Pale, skeletal hands reached through the mists on either side of what Donovan assumed was a path leading to the hill. The stone hands had their palms to the sky, fingers splayed far apart, moonlight shining from their palms. Donovan bent down to exam the nearest one. The lines running across the palm were so real that it could have been a real hand turned to stone. He ran his fingers across the palm of the hand but couldn’t figure out where the moonlight was emanating from.