Devol stopped in his tracks. Instructions? He swung his satchel in front of him, fished the map out again, and studied it. After a moment, he noticed a small diagram on the left edge which included the symbols he had seen on the rock with the bottom dot circled. “Oh, how did I miss that?”
“You are determined but somewhat narrow-minded. That would be my guess,” Vaust responded calmly and began to roll his right sleeve up. “I can appreciate your willingness to seek the Templars out and learn things for yourself. But you are young, and if this is what you want to do, you need to mature, Devol.”
The young Magi wanted to retaliate against the veiled insult, but he had to admit that he was right. He simply nodded and awaited the mori’s next words.
When his companion had finished rolling his sleeve, he glanced at the rock with the anchor. “As it stands, this is your first challenge to becoming a Templar—setting foot in their realm.”
“So you want me to open the anchor myself?” Devol asked, folded his arms, and sighed. “Well…fair enough. You are right. I would probably have spent days discovering this on my own even when I got here. But I have to ask why you would try to test me at this point?”
“That’s simple. I care about the reputation of the order,” Vaust explained and showed him the underside of his arm. A golden tattoo of a circular shield inlaid with a triangle set with an inverted eye met his curious gaze. “After all, those who join the ranks would be my brothers-in-arms as well.”
Chapter Six
“Uh, sir. We have another customer,” the hostess of the famous Fairwind seafood restaurant, Azure Oasis, notified her superior.
The head Manager frowned. “Then why are you talking to me, Melony? You are the hostess for the day. Go and host.”
“Well, the gentleman isn’t exactly dressed to our standards,” she said smartly, pulled back the curtain that blocked the entrance of the room, and peeked outside again. “And to be frank, sir, something seems a little off about him.”
“Is he causing a ruckus?” he asked, stood from his desk, and strode to his office exit.
“Not exactly, sir,” she admitted. “But if you could deal with him, I would be most grateful.”
He sighed. “Fine. Everyone deserves a favor now and then.” He pushed the curtain aside and stepped through to the main dining area, walking carefully on the dark-blue carpet to the white marbled floors that lead to the entrance. The hostess followed. When he reached the front, he looked around. “Now, where is this…oh.”
It was very easy to see which of the few waiting diners the hostess was concerned about. The man was dressed in dark garb—not entirely unusual as gentleman usually preferred darker colors for their formal dress—but his clothes were far from formal, especially the cloak and hood.
He took a few steps closer to the dark figure. “Can I help you, sir?” he asked, his arms folded and chest out—not exactly a posture that suggested a willingness to be of service.
“I should hope so,” the man replied. When the manager noticed that under his hood, a cloth hid the patron’s mouth and dark glasses obscured his eyes, he began to feel a little on edge. “I was looking to acquire some food. I’ve heard your restaurant has some of the best fish in Fairwind—particularly high praise in a fishing village.”
“Well, you’ve heard right,” he stated and relaxed somewhat. The man didn’t seem to be there to cause problems. “But this is a fine dining establishment, and with that comes a few rules—”
“Oh, no need to worry. I’m not hoping to dine in,” the man explained and slid his hand under his cloak. At that, both the manager and hostess tensed cautiously but the concern eased again when he withdrew a piece of paper and a small red pouch. “If you could prepare these items for me, I’ll be on my way.”
He took the paper and bag and heard a jingle. The hostess stepped alongside him. “We don’t allow food to be taken away. You have to have—”
“Hush, Melony!” her superior ordered and she looked at him in confusion before she realized that he had opened the pouch to reveal a rather sizeable, glittering cobalt. He looked at the would-be patron with a large smile. “Of course, sir. We shall do our best to have it ready as quickly as possible. Would you like coffee or a glass of wine while you wait?”
“A glass of wine would be lovely.” Vaust nodded and sat on one of the benches near the front door. “Take all the time you need. I have some time to kill.”
The mori carried his order on his back in a rather large bag generously provided by the Azure Oasis staff. He left Fairwind and strode up the hill to the field beside the stone formation. When he drew close, he sensed a flare of Mana behind the rocks. A loud shout followed before a crack preceded a body being flung back and skidding on the dirt. He sighed, placed the bag down, and retrieved one of the containers of water before he advanced.
His young companion sprawled ignominiously in the dirt and groaned in pain as he rolled from side to side. Vaust opened the top of the pitcher, splashed a little onto him, and frowned when a slice of cucumber plopped onto his cheek. Devol coughed and shook his head. The older Magi looked inside the container. “Oh, cucumber water,” he commented and took a sip. “Quite refreshing.”
With a grimace, the boy shifted so he could lean back against the rock behind him. Water dripped off his hair. “You got the food already?”
“You’ve been at this for a few hours now,” he pointed out and set the pitcher down. “A couple of questions. First, how does it feel that I can order several courses worth of meals and bring it here before you were able to discover how to activate an anchor when I did it right in front of you?”
Devol pursed his lips, looked away, and made no attempt to answer. “Well then, second question. It’s more personal curiosity, to be honest.” He looked at the anchor point and noticed another small pattern above the top arrow in the shape of a rectangle with several smaller ones inside and stitched together with lines. “Why did you think punching the anchor would get it to work for you?”
The youngster rolled his head to look at him with weary eyes. “I was merely eliminating all my options.”
“As you might have noticed, all you managed to do was trigger the protective ward,” he retorted and indicated the rectangle that faded slowly. “And you are lucky it is there. If you had managed to damage the anchor, be it the symbols or rock, it would have simply made it deactivate.”
“The symbols or the rock? I thought the symbols were the anchor,” Devol muttered and narrowed his eyes at the large stone. “That’s not simply a rock, then?”
Vaust shook his head slowly. “No, that is not ‘simply a rock.’ If it were that easy to make anchor points, they wouldn’t be so valuable.”
“A fair point.” Devol sighed, straightened a little, and rested his hands on his knees as he stared at the symbols. “I wasn’t eliminating options. The truth is that I got angry.”
The mori chuckled and offered him the pitcher. “It took a while but you are honest, at least.”
With a self-deprecating grimace, the boy took it and drank some of the water. “I tried doing the…oh, that is refreshing.” He took another gulp and wiped his lips with his jacket sleeve. “I did exactly as you did, but the symbols didn’t light up for me. Then I tried letting my Mana trickle in. That got them to light up a little, but when I poured more in, nothing happened—they didn’t even get brighter.”
He is close—or at least on the right track. This was not a test for him to get into the Templars’ keep. He had said that purely as motivation. What he was trying to do was get him to understand how much Anima enhanced the trinity. He had hoped that he would catch on given that he had already seen what Vis and Vita could do. It wasn’t unreasonable to expect that he would come to the final conclusion on his own—what were the possibilities of Vello?
But he imagined the boy was getting hungry and there was no use to continue the training if he would pass out from hunger and exhaustion. He stood, took a swig from his gourd,
and went to retrieve the large bag of food. In silence, he returned with it and placed it on the ground. He was about to address his companion when he saw he had drawn his sword and now stared at it. “What’s on your mind?”
“I’m gonna try something,” Devol said, pushed to his feet, and approached the symbol.
“You can have more time once you’ve eaten,” he told him and sat with his legs crossed. While he was not exactly sure what the young Magi was contemplating, he was fairly certain it would not work.
“What’s one of the differences between you and me?” the boy asked and held his blade up.
“Well, there are so many,” Vaust responded as he undid the knot on the bag. “Most aren’t kind—at least to you. I don’t think you need to bruise your ego any further.”
Devol looked at him with an exaggerated frown. “Thanks for that,” he muttered and turned toward the anchor. “But in this case, I thought the one thing you have that I don’t is that you are used to your majestic.”
“That is one thing, certainly,” he agreed and selected a tin which he opened to reveal herb-buttered salmon. “Are you sure you wouldn’t care for a bite? One of the things your realm does better than mine is food, although that may be due to the big difference in diet.”
The boy’s blade began to glow with the same white light as before and Vaust was grateful that he still wore his shades in this enclosed area. It seemed brighter than he remembered. “What are you doing?”
His companion did not answer and instead, placed the blade against the rock. With that, his purpose suddenly became clear. He thought the majestic acted something like a key and that one needed to have it on them or active to open the anchor before they could control it. It wasn’t a bad train of thought, but it was a futile one. After all, not every member of the order had a majestic.
He lifted a piece of fish to his lips to take a bite but a loud roar was immediately followed by another burst of bright light. Vaust dropped the tin and almost drew his kama as his eyes widened.
Devol now stood in front of an open gate. The image of the Templar castle was visible on the other side of the large portal. He could feel the wind from the mountains and the distant heat of the flames that adorned the hall but did not understand how the boy had accomplished it. There was only one way to control an anchor point.
The young Magi looked at him and beamed as he held his sword aloft. “It looks like I passed the first test, eh, Mr. Lebatt?” he shouted victoriously.
The mori relaxed, moved his hand away from his weapon, and simply gave the boy a nod. He had indeed passed his made-up test, although he wanted to accuse him of cheating. Unfortunately, he was unsure of how he did it.
Still smiling, his young companion ran toward him, placed the tin Vaust had taken out into the bag, and tied it again. “We’ll bring this with us,” he said happily as he shouldered it. “Maybe we have enough to share with your Templar friends.” Oh, there would be, the mori realized caustically. He’d bought enough to last three days for the two of them, convinced that this would take at least that long.
He shrugged as the boy ran merrily through and chuckled at his enthusiasm. Most first-time portal-users were incredibly hesitant to walk through and he had no experience with them to his knowledge, yet he hurried through with excitement rather than fear.
The older mage followed, stepped into the gateway, and made a note to examine it when he returned. He had to know what Devol had done.
Although perhaps it would be better to simply watch the boy.
Chapter Seven
Devol took several cautious steps toward the Templar guildhall and studied it curiously as the howling winds of the mountain pushed against him, although it did little to slow his march to the gates. Vaust stopped in front of the portal and watched him move closer to his destination.
As the gate closed behind him, the mori noted a small change in the boy. He was still determined but he saw an apprehension in the young Magi, whom he had only seen cycle through feelings of excitement, belligerence, and curiosity. He seemed almost humbled at this moment as he approached the gates but he did not falter.
His demeanor was reassuring. He had wondered if he would race merrily toward the hall once he had arrived but this display, no matter how brief, did show that a part of him understood the gravity of the situation ahead of him.
The young Magi reached the edge of the moat that surrounded the castle. He stared down what was at least a fifty-yard drop into the chasm, and the water looked deep. After a moment, he focused on the castle and studied it more thoroughly. Even with the picture the portal had provided, he could not have imagined its scale at the time. It was massive—well beyond any of the halls he had known even in Monleans, where it was said that the hunter and knight halls were the largest in the world. This eclipsed even them.
He counted seven spires in all, four at each corner of the castle and three that were stationed in a triangular pattern and built into the center of the façade. Numerous pennants fluttered over the front entrance, and he recognized the green, white, and golden ones with the large tree and sun emblem—those of Arkadia, the realm of humans, wildkin, and fleuri.
At the bottom of the banner were seven other insignias and one was a sword pointing to the same sun emblem that adorned the insignia of his realm. It was that of Renaissance, his kingdom. He was more than familiar with it, given that he had seen his father in armor almost every day of his life, where the emblem shone proudly on his chest plate.
The other icons were probably from the other kingdoms and meant to show that this was a realm of seven kingdoms united together—although with what he knew of history, that seemed to be a more noble goal than actual reality. He turned his attention to the spires and noted the large bowls that sat on top, each with a large fire that the wind from the mountain did nothing to extinguish. In fact, it might have helped to keep them ablaze.
Slowly, he shifted his gaze to the gate in front of him. The large drawbridge was raised, waiting to be lowered to invite visitors inside. In the small space above the entrance and the bridge, large spikes provided hints of a gate that could be used if the castle was ever attacked.
Devol released a long breath, placed the bag of food at his feet, and rested his hands on his waist as he watched his companion approach. “Hey, Mr. Lebatt?
“Yes, Devol?” the mori asked, stepped beside him, and let his gaze trace the familiar structure. “It’s quite a sight, is it not?”
“Oh yeah, it’s amazing,” he replied but a questioning tone still lingered in the compliment. “But I…”
Vaust looked at him in surprise. “Yes?”
He scratched his head a little sheepishly. “Is this another test?”
“Not one I’ve devised, why?”
The boy frowned and gestured at the castle. “Then shouldn’t the bridge come down?” he asked and pointed at it. “You said you were a Templar too, didn’t you?”
His companion frowned. “Yes, and I have to say you’ve taken that information with rather less enthusiasm than I expected.”
“Yeah, sorry about that.” He smiled a little awkwardly like the thought had only now occurred to him. “I thought it was a joke at first, and I was in a foul mood at the time.” He looked at the bridge again. “But in that case, why haven’t they lowered it? I know they don’t know who I am, but they should lower it for you, right? Is there a password or call sign or something?”
Vaust chuckled. It was amusing to see him in the moments where his knowledge and understanding gave way to childish myths and games. But he did have a point. “Why yes, there is a password.” He opened one of the pouches on his belt and retrieved a small purple crystal with a silver band around it. “Give me a moment and you’ll hear it.”
Devol gaped as the crystal began to glow as Vaust raised it to his head. A voice resonated in his mind. “Eh, who is it?” the speaker demanded and the boy looked around to see where it was coming from.
“It’s me, you dul
lard,” his companion replied with mirth in his voice, although his lips did not move. “Lower the bridge. Isn’t that your responsibility? Am I interrupting a nap?”
“Vaust? Well now, you’re alive!” The man dissolved into laughter and the boy now realized it was being emitted by the crystal. “It looks like I owe Zier a splint now. But why are you all bothered? You were supposed to be here yesterday.”
“I had an interesting meeting,” the mori explained with a smile at Devon. “I’ve brought a visitor with me—a young Magi looking to meet the Templars.”
“Is that so?” The man evidenced genuine curiosity in his tone. “We don’t have many of those these days. Let me meet the little scamp.”
“Certainly. Let us in and you can do exactly that,” Vaust stated crisply.
“Aye, aye, I’m on it. Hold on a wee moment—been helping with the smithy,” the man replied. “I’ll be there in a minute.”
The mori nodded and lowered the crystal from its position close to his lips.
“Who was that?” Devol asked as the glow in the gem faded before Vaust stowed it in the pouch. “And what is that?”
“The crystal? You’ve never used an apperception stone?”
“Apperception?” He shook his head in confusion before his thoughts came together and he realized what the crystal was and pointed at the satchel. “Oh, an A-stone!” he shouted, shaking his head. “No, we mostly use voxboxes to communicate. A-stones are expensive. My father has one but he won’t even let me touch it, much less try to use it.”
“Oh, that’s right,” the mori conceded. “They are rather pricey in some realms. As they were originally created in Avadon and the stones are rather plentiful there as well, they are considerably cheaper. They work better for our line of work than your voxboxes, so we each have one. They are one of the few materials that can hold Mana.”
A New Light (The Astral Wanderer Book 1) Page 6
