Prophecy of Light - Unleashed

by RJ Crayton

  “If Zygam has use of it, then why does he need me?”

  “He can only tap into part of its power. He needs a mage who fully aligns with it. But part of its power is enough to do great damage.”

  “Then why hasn’t he done it before?”

  “Because he wants to rule, to draw others to his side, to draw others who believe what he is doing is right. He is power-hungry, which means he wants to draw powerful mages to his temple, not destroy them. But he wouldn’t be above destroying them if it meant amplifying his power by capturing you.”

  “But I won’t help him,” I protested.

  Pylum blew out and said softly, but firmly, “He believes he can convince you, once he has you. It is why he keeps Talitha. He knows your aunt will lure you to him.”

  He was right. But I wouldn’t admit that to Pylum. “I want to return to my room.”

  He slipped down from the chair and said, “Fine. But, from now on, you’re training partners with Jasper. The only time you’ve been able to release your magic here at the temple has been with him, so let’s keep you two together and see if that draws any more magic out of you.”

  I frowned. Now I was paired with a person I’d hurled across a room. Even though it was an accident, he couldn’t be that fond of me right now. Odds were, he disliked me greatly at this point, and now we were stuck doing all our lessons together.

  I glanced at the glyph on Pylum’s arm. Grace. I sure needed some of that right about now.

  Chapter 7 - Memories

  Lunch was often eaten outside at tables in the courtyard. It was always temperate here, and though it got cloudy sometimes, I’d never seen it rain during the day. Usually the waterworks came at night. I wasn’t sure if that was because of the natural climate, or if there was an enchantment the mages put on the area surrounding Hakari Ahet.

  As I was eating, Jasper approached me. He wasn’t smiling, but he wasn’t frowning, either. “So, Master Pylum says we need to train together,” he said, setting his bowl of stew down on the table and joining me.

  I nodded and tried to seem neutral about it. I didn’t like being ordered around, but I didn’t hold anything against Jasper, so no point in acting like I didn’t want him as a partner. “Yeah,” I said, and pulled off a piece of my roll to eat. “I’m sorry about earlier. I hadn’t meant to.”

  He waved me off. “No problem,” he said. “It’s happened to everyone. I’m not even sure why we need to be able to battle people without magic. I mean, Master Tadashi said there are times it’s too dangerous, that in certain instances our magic can hit sacred items, but what are the odds of that happening?”

  Given my luck so far — my mother killed by an evil mage, my aunt taken by one, my magic trapped inside — my odds seemed pretty good. I shrugged as I spooned my stew.

  “So you’ve been living in Halcyon?” he asked

  I nodded.

  “I’m from the Northlands. Tharsh.”

  I crinkled my brow. I knew he looked different from most people, but I didn’t expect that. “Tharsh,” I repeated. I’d seen a map of the world. I understood that Halcyon was in the center of the globe, surrounded by dozens of other small countries. As you travelled north, you hit the Great Sea and above that, were the Northlands. I hadn’t imagined I’d meet someone from there, though. Northlanders tended to stay north.

  “How did you get from there to here?”

  “Zygam,” he said, plainly, but clearly watching for my reaction.

  I stared. Zygam. I hadn’t expected that, either. “You knew him?”

  Jasper shook his head. “I don’t remember him,” he said. “We have our own temples there, ones for mages, but Zygam thought it was too segregatory, that mages of all parts of the globe should see other temples, be raised in the culture of other temples. He’d come from the Northlands as a babe, and lived here at Hakari Ahet after his parents died. So when he was old enough, he came back seeking other mages who wished to travel, to be ambassadors, of sorts.”

  That made sense. Jasper looked more like Zygam than any other person here, in terms of his light skin. Though, Zygam’s eyes were green, whereas Jasper’s were cobalt blue. I stared into them, wondering why I’d only performed magic around two people: Zygam and the boy Zygam had brought here. Though, even as I thought it, I realized it wasn’t true. I’d done some kind of magic when I met Akilah. She hadn’t seen me in the shadows, and she had nothing to do with Zygam, so he couldn’t be a link to my magic.

  I shook the thought from my head and took a bite of stew. I returned my attention to Jasper, who seemed to be waiting for me to speak. “I didn’t realize your parents were here,” I said. I’d never seen him with them. But I hadn’t really been paying attention. I knew some of the people who lived in the student wing also had parents who lived in the family wing. But I didn’t know all of them. A girl, Elaan, had been practically tackled by a younger sister one day after class. So I knew her family was here. I’d never noticed Jasper interacting with his.

  “My parents are dead,” he said.

  Well that explained it. I felt bad for bringing it up. “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “It’s life,” he said. “They died a few years ago, on a mission for Pylum. They were trying to retrieve something of importance, though I never learned what it was. Only that they’d perished in their attempt.”

  “And you’ve been here ever since?”

  He offered a sheepish smile and a nod. Then, with cheer, he added. “Yes, since I was a few months old. Like you, I did all the formative things — learning to walk and talk and early magic — here. You’re even in a couple of the stored memories from my mother.”

  My mouth popped open like a fish. “You have memories stored that have me in them?”

  Embarrassment flashed on his face momentarily, though I really couldn’t fathom why. Then he added. “Just one or two memories, and you’re not the focus. They’re mostly my mother’s memories of me, my dad and her. But there are a few that include me when I was playing with other kids. You’re in a couple of those.”

  My stomach fluttered. This was more news than I could handle. Lunch would be over soon, and then we had a free period for meditation and reflection. But I didn’t want to meditate. There was only one thing I wanted to do. “Can you show me?”

  He looked down into his bowl, as if it somehow held answers, then took a deep breath, and smiled. “Sure,” he said.

  I wanted to say, Take me there right now. Show me one of the memories that my aunt has locked away from me. But that was way too in-your-face. It was the kind of over-the-topness that would make me recoil if I saw it on another person. Too much, too quick from someone I didn’t know. It took all my restraint not to demand too much. Part of me wondered if I should get a glyph for grace tattooed on my arm.

  I smiled at him and said, “I know we’re supposed to meditate after lunch, but could I see it then?”

  He hesitated and it looked for a moment as if he planned to tell me no, but then he just nodded. “Alright.”

  * * *

  After we finished eating, I started to follow Jasper to his room, but was told that girls were not allowed in boys’ rooms. He said he’d be back and we could go someplace to watch the memories.

  Given that they were private, I figured we’d try to go somewhere off the beaten path, but where he led me was more off the beaten path than I’d expected. I’d never been to this part of the temple before. It wasn’t a secret room, per se, but this area didn’t seem to get a lot of foot traffic, either. We’d taken a few winding staircases that led down, rather than up. I hadn’t even realized there were underground parts to the temple. It wasn’t in the tour Akilah had given me.

  The room we were in was small and cozy, with a single cushion on the floor in the corner. Jasper motioned that I could have it. I sat, and he joined me. I wasn’t quite clear on how the memories worked. The only time I’d seen a memory displayed in an orb, Pylum seemed to be directing it there straight from his own mind.
But Jasper had said these were stored memories, so they were somehow kept, even though the person who remembered them was gone.

  The orb, which looked like a crystal ball, was in the bag Jasper had slung over his shoulder. As he sat down beside me, the walls, the same sandy colored stone of the rest of the temple, began to glow. “What’s going on?” I asked, as I watched the phenomenon.

  “It’s just brightening so we can see better and feel warm and comfortable.”

  “It can do that? On its own?”

  Jasper nodded. “The temple embraces light and shines its light on people. This is an Alshams room. It basically means ‘light room.’ People come to think or meditate or seek calm and peace, if they need more seclusion than their own chamber allows. That’s why there’s only one cushion. It’s meant to be used alone.”

  Ah. That made sense. “No one mentioned it to me.”

  “It’s generally used by the older mages. My parents were keepers here, so they were in charge of keeping the temple safe and rejuvenated. They loved the temple and took great joy in caring for it. They used to take me everywhere with them. Sometimes I would come with my father when he scourged the room of lingering sorrow.”

  “Lingering sorrow? I don’t think I understand.”

  “It’s a room to meditate or resolve problems in because you can leave your sadness, your sorrow here. The room will absorb it — it will take away the darkness so you can find your light. It’s good at what it does, but every so often, it has to be scourged. The traces of darkness must be expunged. There are glyphs that do most of the work, but you still need a mage to start the process.”

  I took another look at the room, at its glow. It did feel warm and loving. “Rejuvenation,” I said, the word coming from somewhere deep within me.

  He nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “Some people call them rejuvenation rooms, but that’s only in so much as getting rid of the darkness is rejuvenating.”

  He reached into the bag that had been on his shoulder and pulled out the memory orb. He set it on the floor in front of us. “We should start, since we don’t have a ton of time before the afternoon lesson in glyphs.”

  I nodded as I waited for him to touch the orb, the way Pylum had. Only he didn’t. From his bag, he pulled a crystal that was about the size of a long finger. It had intricate patterns etched into its clear diamond-like surface. He set it at the stone base of the memory orb, and inserted it into a hole that, until now, I thought was decorative. “What is that?” I asked him.

  “A memory crystal,” he said as if it was the most normal thing in the world. But he seemed to realize I had no idea what he was talking about. “It preserves memories, sort of like a picture album that the salabs use.”

  The people around here referred to those without magic as salabs. I knew briefly of picture albums. Auntie didn’t keep any for us, but I’d seen them in some places. Little portraits of families all kept together in one spot. I looked at the crystal protruding from the base of the orb. “How do you know what’s on it?”

  “The slot I took it from in my room was labeled. But, if it got lost, I could just put it in an orb and ask it.” He touched the orb, sliding his fingers across its crystal surface. Then, a woman’s voice said, “Jenna’s memories. Jasper at age three.”

  He smiled, a truly joyous smile at hearing the voice. But his voice turned bittersweet when he spoke. “Usually the person who made the memory crystal will name it, and it indexes in their voice.”

  “That was your mom?” I asked, a little hesitant about bringing up painful memories.

  He nodded. “Yes,” he said, his tone more even now. With his hands still touching the memory orb, he said, “Show me Jasper playing with Dirah.”

  The clear ball started to cloud, and everything was a swirling white mist.

  “It’s searching for it,” Jasper said.

  A moment later, the white smoke-like substance disappeared and a scene materialized. A man and a woman stood in the corner of the room. The woman had flaxen hair, crystal blue eyes, and a kind smile, while the man was tall and lanky with brown hair, brown eyes, and a strong chin. They were clearly Jasper’s parents, and they watched proudly as little three-year-old Jasper levitated a ball across the room. It was clear he was the one doing it, his toddler face scrunched in concentration. I smiled as I watched how adorable he was. Then little Jasper fell over and the ball dropped from the air. His mother started to go over to him, to comfort him, but his father held her back and they waited.

  “You’re next,” I heard the fifteen-year-old Jasper sitting next to me say. When I glanced at him, his cheeks were pink. He was clearly embarrassed by the fall.

  Inside the orb, little Jasper was standing back up. He looked at the fallen ball and levitated it again. “You were persistent” I said, hoping he wasn’t experiencing a pang of regret at letting me view this memory.

  Inside the orb, his ball floated across the room. A portal opened and the ball levitated right through it. A moment later, though, the ball returned, me clutching it in my hands. I zoomed into the room, smiling at Jasper and tossing him the ball. Then my mother emerged from the portal, which hastily shut after her.

  “I’m so sorry, Jenna,” my mother said. I leaned in to get a closer look, to hear the tone of her voice. It was such a pleasant sound and I wanted to commit it to memory, commit it to a place that couldn’t be erased or locked away from me. My mother scooped me up into her arms. “I’m very sorry. I’m working on limits with her.”

  Jasper looked up at me in my mother’s arms and shook his finger at me admonishingly. “No,” he said firmly. “No portals.”

  His mother laughed, and then she said to my mother. “It’s fine, Tima. We understand.”

  My mother nodded and stroked my head. “I appreciate the understanding, but it’s not safe what she’s doing. I’ve got to figure out way to keep her safe with her magic until she’s got a better understanding of rules.”

  Jasper’s mother nodded. “It’s hard to teach them when they’re so young.”

  My mother looked longingly at Jasper and then said, “Well, he seems to have good control.”

  Jasper’s mother gave a soft smile and added, “Most times.”

  With that, my mother took her leave, and the memory faded.

  Jasper slid the memory crystal from the base of the orb, and I turned to him with a frown. “I thought you said there were more.”

  He looked down at the ground, then at me. “I think there may be another one on a different crystal, but I didn’t have time to look. I can try to find it later.”

  I supposed later would have to do. I forced a smile and said, “Sure.”

  With that, Jasper stood. “We should get out of here, make sure we get to Glyphs in time.”

  Chapter 8 - Sparkle

  After Jasper and I finished, I hustled to the glyph rooms in order to obtain a ketesh. When I arrived, the classroom was about half full, and Master Shanzu held open the door to the small supply closet off to the side of the room. A handful of us needed keteshes because we didn’t have our own. For a ketesh to work well for you, you needed to carve it yourself. You had to find a special tree in the farthest garden behind the temple, take a branch, and use the magic of your mind to shape it into the tool that was best suited for your magic.

  Only you needed to express magic before you could actually create a ketesh, and since I hadn’t — not on a consistent basis — Pylum didn’t think it was a good idea to try to create my own. However, I needed one for glyph magic.

  I was glad I wasn’t the only person who needed a loaned ketesh. Two other students and I rooted around in the closet, looking for a ketesh that felt nice in our hands. The keteshes varied in length and girth, though all were taller than me. I grabbed one of the shortest ones.

  While I appreciated Pylum trying to add me into the mix, it had been a little disconcerting to join people in classes where they’d already started learning. It wasn’t as bad as I’d worried it might be. M
ost lessons weren’t taught to the class as a whole. The teacher would grab anywhere from two to six students at a time and instruct them in something they hadn’t done before. It was a good way to teach a class of students with different abilities.

  Since I’d come here, I’d been paired with a young girl named Meklet. She and I tried our hand at simple glyphs. Meklet did well. I did poorly. But the nice thing about classes like this was that Meklet was the only person who noticed how bad I was. Everyone else was too busy doing their own thing to be bothered with whether I was succeeding or failing.

  When I returned to the classroom, I headed straight for Meklet, but she was with another girl. I figured she’d already been told I’d been assigned a new partner. When I reached her, she confirmed my suspicion, saying Master Shanzu said I’d be working with Jasper today.

  I sighed. I liked Jasper well enough, but it felt awkward now that he’d shared the memory. I didn’t want the embarrassment of failing in front of him, especially since he actually had seen a memory of me succeeding at magic. And not just little magic, but opening a portal as a two-year-old. My major failing was going to be noticeable.

  I walked over to him, and he offered me another sheepish smile. I wondered, briefly, if he had that ability to smile bold or mischievous. He seemed, despite his stature, with more than a foot of height on me, timid. Not that I was brimming with ego, but I had a certain amount of belief in my ability to take care of myself and come out alright.

  “Together again,” I said as I reached him.

  He nodded. “Yeah. Master Shanzu said we should go outside and practice sparkle glyphs.”

  I smiled to hide my shock. Sparkle glyphs were hard, and I had no idea why I’d be expected to try them today.

  I followed Jasper out the side doorway of the temple and into one of the many gardens. It was quiet here, and we stood on the green grass a few yards from the classroom. “Have you had much success with glyphs?” he asked.