by RJ Crayton
Jasper shook his head. “I don’t believe so, but some do. Safiya means peaceful and serene. It’s a nice name for someone who helps maintain the temple’s light and balance.”
He was right. It was a nice name.
“Anyway, I’ve been helping Master Safiya every now and then. Today, she sent me to scourge.”
“That’s pretty advanced, isn’t it?”
He shook his head. “Not really. It’s kind of grunt work, but it’s really important. Sort of like cleaning a bathroom. Not glorious, but noticeable if it isn’t done.”
Yes, some things were important, even if they weren’t glorious. As I looked at him, I realized he was exactly the person I needed to help me. “Your parents used to maintain the temple?” I asked.
He nodded.
“So, do you know where it is? I mean, I came here by portal and the only time I’ve left has been by portal. But we’re not in the desert anymore.”
He laughed. “No, we’re definitely not in the desert.”
I wished he hadn’t made it seem like it was such a ridiculous suggestion. His laughter died away as he looked at my face and turned serious. “I shouldn’t have laughed. I just sometimes forget you’re not used to being here.”
“Where is here? I thought it was an oasis in the depths of No Man’s Land, but now I don’t think that’s right.”
“No, we’re not an oasis,” he started, then stopped. “Well, maybe it is like an oasis. We’re in the Midlands, but we’re not really part of the regular Midlands. We’re in a realm, if that makes sense.”
I shook my head. It didn’t.
He sat down on the floor and motioned for me to do the same. I sat across from him, and he spoke again. “Think about it like the world, the desert lands that you know, they’re on one plane, or realm, like the ground. And think of the temple as another plane, like the sky.”
“The sky isn’t another plane,” I said. “It’s just sky.”
He blew out a breath and scrunched up his lips in concentration. “Okay, true. But think of birds flying in the sky. If a bird is in the sky, you can see it and know it’s there, but you can’t touch it. It’s out of reach, right?”
“I guess. I mean, if it’s flying high enough.”
“Right,” he said, seeming glad that I’d agreed. “So we’re like that bird. We’re within sight of the other places, but not exactly on that same plane. We can look out and see, we can land and interact, but we can escape back to the temple, here. It’s just that we’re on a different plane. It’s a place that’s separate and apart, a place for mages.”
I wasn’t sure I quite grasped it entirely, but I understood it well enough to ask my next question. “So is there a way to leave here without using a portal? I mean, if I ran off the grounds, would I drop from the sky and plummet to my death?”
He shook his head. “No, it’s not like that. We’re not literally floating above the world, but we are slightly out of their reach. If you want to leave, you just walk to the edge of the grounds, and then when you see the barrier, step through it.”
“Barrier?”
“Yeah, it’s not solid. It’s more like a hazy mist. You’ll probably more feel it than see it. But once you got there, you’d just step through and you’d be back where you came from.”
That didn’t make sense. “But you and I came from different places. You’re from the Northlands and I’m from the desert. Why would I end up back where I came from? Where would you end up?”
“The mist knows where we entered the temple. While I’m from the Northlands, I didn’t enter the temple from there. You can’t, actually. You have to travel from the Northlands to the Midlands and then travel through some of the northernmost cities, until you arrive in Bailsi. Then you can enter the temple, if you’re a mage. It would return me there. That’s one of the joys of the temple, that it puts you where you belong when you leave it. It’s also why mages use portals. We don’t necessarily want to go back to where we came from.”
I sighed. This place was strange.
“Are you trying to leave?” he asked, concern on his face.
I didn’t want to lie, but I also wasn’t ready to confide in him that I needed to rescue my aunt on my own. I shrugged, hoping it looked like a response in the negative. “I was just curious about how the place worked.” I looked down at my hands. “The last place I lived, I had to flee in the middle of the night because Zygam was after me. I just was curious, if something happened here, where I would go.”
Jasper shook his head and spoke confidently. “Zygam wouldn’t attack here. There are too many good mages, and the power of light is too strong. You shouldn’t worry.”
I nodded. He was probably right. “Is the dark temple similar, in that it exists on another plane?”
“Yes,” he said. “At least, I think so. They don’t teach us in depth about the darkness until we’ve mastered all of our basic skills.”
“And when is that?”
“Depends on the mage,” he said. “Akilah is very good. She’s already completed her basic skills. She has her mukaat designation.”
“But she’s only fifteen,” I said.
“So?” he said. “She’s completed the necessary training.”
“Why does she sleep in the area with the other students?”
He shrugged, then said. “Maybe because it feels homey with everyone else. Maybe she’s not ready to move to the family section. I mean, I should be completing my training in a few weeks, and I don’t know if I’ll move to the other part of the temple. It does seem lonely there if you don’t have a family.”
A family. My only family was my aunt, and she wasn’t here. If I was surrounded by a bunch of families, I’d probably feel lonelier than I already did. I could see why Akilah didn’t move.
I smiled at him. “Thanks,” I said. “You’ve helped.”
He looked surprised. “Really?”
I nodded. “Yes, really.”
“I’m glad, then.”
He stood, and I decided to stand, too. “You know, you could help me more if you would practice with me. I’m getting better at tapping into my magic, but I think if you tutored me, maybe I could get better quicker.”
He stared at me like what I was asking was crazy. “I can try, but you were better than me a long time ago. Whatever’s hidden inside is going to come out, whether I help or not.”
“Well, I’d rather it be with your help.”
He nodded. “Alright. I’ll help.”
Chapter 10 - Practice
Jasper was true to his word. Over the next couple of days, he practiced with me, a lot. I think every free moment he had, he spent trying to help me do simple, medium, or complicated magic. I appreciated his kindness.
Today, we’d gone out to one of the outer gardens, and I’d been levitating simple objects and trying a few glyphs that didn’t require a ketesh. I was tired, so I sat down on the soft grass and looked around. It was pretty here, serene. I could see why people liked it here. I wished Auntie were here to enjoy it with me.
He sat directly across from me and leaned in to look at me closer. “Are you OK?” Jasper asked.
I waved him off. “I’m fine,” I said.
“Sometimes people can get woozy after a lot of glyphs without a ketesh,” he said.
I shook my head, smiled. “I’m fine. Just thinking.”
“About what?”
I shrugged. I wasn’t sure I wanted to talk about my aunt with him. Though maybe I should. He’d let me see a memory of me when I was little.
I looked to the west, where the sun was setting. The sky was a purplish red around the part of the orange disk that lingered. “My aunt,” I said finally. “I worry about her.”
“I can imagine,” Jasper said. “It’s hard when someone’s gone and you don’t know if they’re safe.”
His eyes were kind of distant as he spoke, and I suspected he was thinking about his parents. I’m sure he had worried about them, and he ended up gettin
g the worst news possible. I bit my lip. I was sad for Jasper, but at the same time, I really didn’t want to be like him. I didn’t want to hear news of Auntie’s demise. I looked down at my hands in my lap, and for some reason I thought of the glyph Pylum had looked at while we were talking. Grace. I needed that.
“Pretty sunset,” I said, trying to think of something more pleasant.
Jasper turned his head to see it, and nodded. “Yep.”
“Can I ask you a question?”
“You just did,” he said with a mischievous grin.
“You know what I mean,” I said.
“Go ahead.”
“One day when I was talking to Master Pylum, he looked at one of the glyphs on his arm, and he said it was there to remind him to have grace.”
Jasper nodded, seeming to be waiting for me to explain more.
“Why does he have so many glyphs on his body? I mean, they’re so noticeable, and not all mages have them. Just some.”
Jasper put a hand to his chin. “I think it’s more a custom of where you grew up. I believe in Bathesh, it is common for the dwarfs of mage descent to display their heritage through glyphs. And some people say that certain symbols help you draw more power to yourself from your surroundings. Like Master Shanzu has a sun glyph on his back, he told us once. He says he likes to let the sun kiss it each morning, and it fills his entire body with light.”
That was interesting. I wasn’t sure what to make of it. “Akilah has one,” I said. “On her arm.”
Jasper nodded, and looked down. “She got it after she earned her mukaat. It’s the shaitan. It means ‘storm.’”
Storm. It seemed an odd thing to get. “I guess people must fear her if she’s a storm,” I said.
Jasper shrugged. “It could mean that, or it could mean she’s survived a storm. I don’t know. You’d have to ask her.”
I stared at him, and even though he’d said he didn’t know, I suspected very much that he did know. I wondered what storm Akilah had survived.
“Did you want to be marked with a glyph?” he asked, clearly trying to move the conversation on.
I hadn’t really thought about it. “I don’t know. I was just curious about them. I feel like there’s so much I don’t know about this place and the people here.”
He nodded. “Yeah, I think it would be hard to go to some place where you’re supposed to belong, but not feel it. It would be like if I had to go to the temple at Lys Slot.”
I raised a brow. “Is that in the Northlands?”
He nodded. “My parents grew up there, and they liked it. I don’t remember them saying bad things about it, but they decided they wanted adventure of a new place, of new people, and they came here. But if I had to go back there, I imagine it would be strange.”
I took in a deep breath, enjoying the warmth of the lingering day. “Have you ever been back there to — what did you call it — Lysol?”
He laughed. “I’m not even sure what a Lysol would be, but it sounds funny. No, it’s Lys Slot, the light temple for mages in Tharsh. It’s made of ice, but it’s not cold inside.”
“Wow. That’s amazing.”
“So I’m told,” he said, and he sounded a little sad. “Master Yaritza has been. Her father was from Tharsh. But I’ve only heard about it.”
“Do you think that you’ll go there ever?”
He shrugged. “Maybe. When I’m older, once I’ve finished my mukaat. Maybe I’ll travel a bit, see the world.”
I admired his optimism about the world. In hiding, the world I’d seen had always seemed dangerous. But, perhaps that was just because of our hiding. Perhaps when you weren’t always looking over your shoulder, there was something better to look at.
“Do you think you’ll go back to Halcyon?” Jasper asked. “I mean, after your aunt is safe and Zygam isn’t a threat?”
After. Hmm. That seemed so far off. Auntie wasn’t safe, and Zygam still was a threat. “Maybe. It was nice there. Auntie had a bakery,” I told him. “She baked the best sufta rolls.”
“The kinds with the nuts and seeds and fruit in them?”
I nodded.
“I’ve always liked those.”
Yeah, I had, too. I felt a bit sad again. I looked at the dark purple of the sky and just the hint of sun that was left. “We should go in,” I told him.
He looked up, too, and then nodded.
“Thanks for helping me,” I said as I stood.
“Glad to,” he said with a smile.
Chapter 11 - Evil
Kady had been doing much better with her magic, and Akilah was glad. She sat now watching Kady levitate a ball in a slow, perfect ellipse.
They were in a small practice room on the lower level of the temple. It was about twelve feet square, and Akilah sat directly across from Kady in the center of this room. Pylum had asked Akilah to remind Kady of how important it was for her to train. But Akilah wasn’t sure why. Kady was happy to train for as long as it took. Even now, this was simply a warm up. A prelude before Akilah attempted to help the girl with portal magic.
Master Asim had given Kady the basics, but portals took a while to master. Even Akilah’s portals, while serviceable, weren’t perfect. They were too stormy. Too violent. She’d seen Pylum create a portal that was closer to a breezy day than the cyclones she had created. Style was nice, but function was the primary thing that mattered, Akilah knew.
There could always be refinement in magic, but being able to produce each particular magical item correctly so it served its function was what Akilah focused on. Pylum understood and appreciated that. Some of the older mages here at the temple did not. Master Shanzu always thought Akilah should not have been promoted to Mukaat, the rank of those who had achieved sufficiency in the arts of magic. Akilah knew she would need much more skill to be elevated to the level of Master, where she might be able to officially teach here at the temple.
But she wasn’t sure that she wanted to teach regularly. She enjoyed parts of it, but the idea of being relegated to it for a lifetime didn’t suit her either. She watched Kady, who was now speeding up the small ball while maintaining the perfect ellipse. Akilah smiled encouragingly, but the girl was too focused to notice.
While being here at the temple had been an immense help to Akilah, she also wanted to find her past, her family. She felt as if that was the key to finding her future, to figuring out how she fit in the world. She’d told Kady to read the books on magic, on understanding its principles, because that is how she’d found some semblance of peace. She’d been a mess when Pylum had found her, alone and hungry, wandering the streets of Galrach, and she’d been slow to trust him. Eventually, she did come to trust him, and she’d been fairly happy here at the temple. It was a place that allowed her to use her magic well. She was particularly adept at glyphs. She had intuitive knowledge of what each glyph meant, and she’d been able to do something most mages couldn’t: create glyphs. Most glyphs had to be learned, to be used based on logic and a mage’s memory of how it could be used. But Akilah had the ability to, on the fly, imagine a glyph, one that wasn’t in the standard book of glyphs, and use it to her own will.
Master Shanzu had been awed by it. He thought it was incredible, but he also thought it was a reason she should study more, a reason for her to wait in receiving her Mukaat. Pylum had disagreed, saying, “Mukaat is not Master, Shanzu. Mukaat means she has learned our basics thoroughly and she may integrate into life. And that she has.” She’d been proud of receiving the Mukaat designation so young, and of actually being sent on missions by Pylum. Missions like searching for Kady and her aunt.
The ball slowed to a crawl and then settled on the ground. “That was wonderful, Kady,” Akilah said. Kady didn’t seem happy with the compliment. She simply nodded and stood. Akilah figured since Kady was taking a no-nonsense approach, she would, too. “You feel the magic is flowing enough now for you to try portals?”
Kady considered the question quite seriously and then nodded. “This is
advanced magic?” she asked.
Akilah shrugged. “I’m told you’ve done it before, so perhaps it will come back to you, but my most standards, it’s considered advanced. It’s the last thing you must achieve in order to earn your Mukaat.”
“And that’s like a degree? You’re all done with your learning after that?”
Akilah shook her head. “It means that you’re ready for the world. You can learn more and become a master who can teach other students. Or you can take jobs in the mage world, or you can go live among the salabs, happy and peaceful and completely in control of your magic.”
“Salabs,” Kady said, biting her lower lip. “Some people here call regular people that, while others don’t. Why is that?”
“Well, Master Pylum prefers to simply call them people. But mages are people, too. So, I think salabs helps with accuracy, though Pylum thinks it encourages dissent.”
“How?”
“Remember when we met?” Kady nodded, so Akilah continued. “I told you I was looking for Nigel because he was special, and later I said that all people were special. Well, Pylum inherently believes all people are special, mage or not. He believes that when we view non-mages as salabs, we inherently sow dissent. Sort of like cultures that war based on skin color. The constant focus on difference, he thinks, gives it more importance. There are others who simply think a designation helps for clarity and that dissent is sowed only when others use those words to hurt. There is magic in words, whether you are mage or not.”
Kady grinned. “My aunt always said that.”
Akilah nodded. She was sure she had. If Akilah had trapped the powers of a powerful mage deep inside her, she would have been sure to stress to that mage that words had power. Kady, had her power escaped without warning, could have done a lot of damage. “So, since we are speaking of the power of words, let’s move on to the power of silent words, or our thoughts. Portals are generally created silently. We project our vision of where we want to go outward, and transform the light within us to create travel.”
“Portals use light within us to work,” Kady repeated for assurance.
