by RJ Crayton
His face was red with anger and he exhaled. “I have to go,” he said and started to walk away. Then he turned back to me and said, “The librarian can help you, I’m sure.”
Chapter 13 - Searching
The prophecy was the only thing I wanted to know and the one thing that appeared to be lost to me. I’d asked the librarian, Master Fahd, for some assistance and he’d looked at me a little askew but given me a couple of books that briefly discussed the Talisman of Elpida. Unfortunately, all the books that discussed it were fairly vague on its powers — noting everything from healing to the ultimate power of destruction. They said that the prophecy associated with it had been misinterpreted by many over the years. The books said many foolish young mages attempting to fulfill the prophecy had caused untold misery, so its text was restricted.
That had made the day all the more infuriating. First what I did to Jasper, and then not finding any answers.
Though, what I did to Jasper weighed on me heavily. I’d really messed up. I could see it in his eyes. I hadn’t meant to read his mind, and I knew the second I saw it that it was a mistake. I just hadn’t known how to stop it.
I’d hoped to talk to him during our lessons, but he hadn’t come to classes. He’d sent a note down saying he was too ill to attend, and I suspected he hadn’t actually come down with a sudden illness after my brain invasion. He just didn’t want to see me.
My magic was poor to nonexistent, as I was still bothered by upsetting one of the only friends I had and preoccupied with the prophecy. Part of me wanted to go to Zygam just so he’d tell me the truth. I was tired of being in a place where people kept things from me.
Only, I couldn’t help remember I had been perfectly happy with Auntie, who had not only lied to me, but locked my brain. I didn’t want to give Zygam too much credit.
After classes, I grabbed dinner in the eatery on the main floor. Still no sign of Jasper, and I felt irritated. I was tempted to try to contact him in my mind, as I had unwittingly done this morning, but given why he was upset with me, that seemed like a bad idea.
I made my way back to my room and found Akilah sitting on her mattress, reading. She looked up as I entered and smiled. “Hey. How was your day?”
I sighed and shook my head. She gave me an understanding nod and waved me over. “Tell me what happened.”
I didn’t have anyone else to confide in, so I told her everything: about my dream with Zygam, my questions about the prophecy, and my accidental mind invasion.
“That is one whopper of a day,” she said, her warm brown eyes finding mine. “Well, let’s take them one at a time and start with Jasper. Mind invasion isn’t right, Kady. It’s one thing people with those powers aren’t supposed to do to other mages. Not without their permission.”
“But I didn’t mean to,” I told her. “It just started happening.”
Akilah shook her head. “You have to want to see in someone’s mind for it to happen. As simple as the gesture was, you wanted to see what happened to him, and some part of you made a choice to look. When you have an urge like that, you’ve got to temper it.”
Temper it. I hadn’t even realized it was happening until it was too late. “How?”
She bit down on her lower lip and looked at me. “Try to look into my mind,” she said.
I shook my head. “No. You just said not to do that.”
She smiled. “I know. But I want you to get a feel of what you have to do, of the process your mind requires to invade another person’s mind. Until you’re conscious of what it is you’re doing, you won’t be able to stop.”
What she said made sense, but I had no idea how I’d done it in the first place.
“Just think of something about me you want to know, and then try to connect with me to find it yourself.”
Something I wanted to know. Hmm. Well, I was curious about Akilah’s parents. She didn’t have any here at the temple because she didn’t talk about them. So they must have died or something. As I was thinking, I could feel my mind wander, and it seemed to stretch out, if you will, as if poking spindly fingers out into the ether. And then a severe shock, like static shock, but stronger, buzzed in the center of my forehead. “Ouch,” I said.
“I blocked you,” she said.
“It hurt,” I told her.
“I know,” she said with a grin. “I threw in a shock just to keep you from trying it again. Master Tadashi talks about muscle memory — you know, when you experience the burn of a workout. I figured you’d remember the burn of trying to enter my mind and not do it again.”
Well, yeah. I reached a hand up and rubbed my forehead, though that didn’t seem to help with the lingering pain.
“You realize what you did to try to invade my brain?”
“Yeah. I think I can recognize the feeling now.”
“So next time, stop yourself.”
I nodded, but frowned. “How did you stop me? Does everyone learn that?”
Akilah looked at me steadily and bit her lip. “You learn it in the mind enhancements class with Master Nuri. It can help you with things like telepathy and closing your mind. Normally you’d take the class and learn how to protect your mind, but maybe Master Pylum wanted you to focus on other aspects of magic for the moment.”
I sighed. I wish I knew something more of this power with the mind. I’d used it to speak to Jasper and Nigel, but I had no idea how to control it. And my lack of control had hurt Jasper. “So what do I do about Jasper? He’s still mad.”
“Then let him see a memory from you.”
“My brain is locked. I don’t have any.”
Akilah threw me a dubious look. “You don’t have memories of magic, but you have memories of times with your aunt. Times that were special, were private. Offer him one, as a sorry. A tit for tat.”
I leaned back. I didn’t like the idea of sharing my memories with Jasper. They were private, and Auntie had always praised the notion of secrecy, of just the two of us.
“You don’t have to,” she said, reading my mood. “You just seemed upset that Jasper was mad. I thought that might sway him. But, a simple apology could work, too.” She paused a moment, then said. “Or not. Jasper’s hard to read sometimes.”
“Do you know him well?” I asked.
She looked at me, her eyes debating whether she wanted to answer, and finally she said, “I know him well enough to know that he won’t be rushed. Eventually, he’ll come to a decision about you. The sharing was a suggestion on helping him come to a decision in your favor. Just give him time.”
Time. I didn’t have time. I needed to find my aunt. Which brought me back to my other questions. “So what do you know about the Talisman of Elpida and prophecy surrounding it?” I asked. “Zygam said they were important.”
“He stole your aunt and has trapped her in stasis. Why do you care what he says?”
She had a good point. But just because Zygam was bad didn’t mean he couldn’t speak the truth. “Because he’s raised a good question and Pylum doesn’t tell me things.”
She nodded. “Master Pylum doesn’t like to share information, but that doesn’t mean you can’t trust him. I mean, he’s your cousin. He has your best interests at heart.”
I stared at her a moment, sure I’d misheard what she said. She didn’t say she’d made a mistake, though. “Did you say he was my cousin?”
She hesitated a moment, as if she realized she had misspoken. “He told me he was Fatima’s cousin, that she’s part dwarf.”
This was the first I’d heard of that. “Why wouldn’t he tell me that?”
Akilah shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe he thinks you know.”
I shook my head. “No, it was just me and Auntie. She never mentioned other relatives. She mentioned Pylum once, saying he’d told her it would be safe in Halcyon, but she never said he was related to us. If he was her cousin, why wouldn’t she mention it?”
Akilah paused a moment, then answered. “Maybe because you’d want to find him.
I mean, if I knew where any of my relatives were, that’s the first thing I’d do. I’d go find them. I’d want to talk to them. Maybe she knew that you’d want to see him, and seeing him meant Zygam would find you, so she didn’t mention it.”
Akilah had a way with the world. She seemed to instantly be able to make sense of things that left me baffled. She was entirely right. For all the life that I could remember, I thought Auntie and I were all that was left of my family. If I had known there were more, I would have wanted to go to them. I would have asked her to seek them out. I would have become upset, possibly even defiant. She couldn’t have wanted that.
I sighed and looked at Akilah. “You said you would look for your family if you knew they were out there,” I said. “You never mentioned your family before. Do you know where they are, who they are?”
Akilah smiled. “I know enough about my family to know they weren’t like your family. They didn’t have my best interests at heart. My father’s name was Hashim, and my mother’s name was Amina. When I was little, we traveled all over, to many of the Midland nations, from desert to tropics, and we searched for the Talisman of Elpida. My parents were obsessed with the Prophecy of Light, and they abandoned me to seek its glory.”
Chapter 14 - The Prophecy of Light
Kady watched Akilah with wide eyes, and Akilah almost wished she hadn’t told Kady about her parents and their dealings with the prophecy. Kady seemed to want to know now more than anything. Akilah felt a small prickle in the center of her forehead, and then it withdrew.
Akilah smiled. “That was good,” she said. “You stopped yourself.”
Kady nodded. “But I do want to know. What do you know about the prophecy? I mean, if your parents were obsessed with it, they must have told you something.”
Akilah laughed. While a reasonable assumption, it wasn’t an entirely correct one. “My parents abandoned me when I was five,” she said. “And while they spoke in whispers of the prophecy, they didn’t speak of it in terms that I can wholly remember or recite for you. I just know that we traveled place after place after place in search of the Talisman of Elpida. We traveled from village to village, looking in obscure locations for something I couldn’t really fathom, even though it meant so much to them.”
“Why did they want it?” Kady asked
“Power,” Akilah said, remembering the lust in their eyes as they talked of the great they could do with the Talisman, how they could bring the world back to greatness.
Kady frowned, disappointment percolating on her tiny face.
Akilah asked, “What is the matter?”
“Nothing,” she said, pausing a moment. “I just wonder why people think the talisman is so wonderful. Pylum said it’s dangerous, but both Zygam and your parents thought they could harness the power it had.”
Akilah watched as Kady screwed up her face in thought, trying to puzzle things out. But Akilah had been doing this for nearly her entire life and hadn’t come up with very good answers. Just that to some people, power mattered more than people. To some people, the promise of something better was more important than the thing they held in their hands. They could have been a family. They could have been happy. Instead, they’d traipsed around the world, seeking some mythical talisman hoping to fulfill some insane prophecy.
“Do you know any of the prophecy?” Kady asked.
The stone can unleash untold power
The stone’s master can rule in peace — or crush in darkness for as long as desired
Elpida can be controlled only by the one who tames it twice.
Once in youth and the second time when wisdom compels.
The lines played in Akilah’s mind, yet she didn’t tell Kady. Pylum had told her not to share the part of the prophecy she knew. Not with anyone. He’d told her it shouldn’t have been shared with her at all. Her mother had found the talisman as a child, and its light had glowed fantastic through her. But afterwards, an earthquake struck, burying the talisman. Akilah’s mother, Amina, had barely escaped. Amina, back when she was more motherly than obsessed, would tell her daughter that the spark of the talisman was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. It was magic at its purest essence, in its strongest form. And Akilah remembered feeling, even then, frightened by the look of greed on her mother’s face. That power was frightening and deadly, and as a child, she wished they’d never find it.
“I don’t know the entirety of the prophecy,” Akilah said. “It’s got several components, supposedly. But the one I’m told that people hang their desires on is that the bearer of the stone can rule for as long as they desire. Whether they rule in peace or darkness is also up to them.”
“Do you think Pylum would tell me the whole thing?”
Akilah laughed and shook her head. “Not in a million years.”
Kady reached out a hand and set it on Akilah’s knee. “I’m sorry about your parents,” she said. “Pylum showed me a memory of Zygam with the talisman, and I could see the desire in his eyes even then. It’s all-encompassing, and I’m sorry your parents were sucked into that. You’re kind and deserved better.”
Akilah tried to offer a thankful nod, but she wasn’t entirely thankful. Being told you got the raw end of the deal wasn’t helpful. It didn’t change what had happened. It just highlighted that your life had been sucky for a long time. “My parents are long gone, so it doesn’t matter. What does matter is that you let go of this thing with the prophecy,” Akilah said. “Knowing it doesn’t do any good. My parents knew it, and they’re gone. Zygam knew it, and he’s wicked. It doesn’t bring any good to anyone.”
“But Pylum is basing his decisions on it, basing his decision to wait in rescuing my aunt on something he’s likely misinterpreting,” Kady said, her voice full of determination.
“Then talk to him,” Akilah said. “Tell him your concerns and convince him to move forward sooner rather than later.”
“I’ve tried,” Kady said. “He doesn’t listen.”
“Try again,” Akilah said. “You don’t give yourself enough credit. You can be more convincing than you think. And you have more power within than you believe.”
Chapter 15 - Moving Pictures
I had thought about what Akilah said and decided to try talking to Pylum. If he was really my cousin, he would help me.
It was late in the day as I headed down to Pylum’s office. Only he wasn’t there. It wasn’t unusual. As head of the temple, he had to be various places for certain meetings. The failure to answer the knocking on his door had not been entirely a surprise, so I folded the note I’d written in my room and slid it under the door. With luck, he’d come see me soon.
With Pylum out of the way, I thought I’d look for Jasper. I checked the alshams room where he and I had met with no luck.
I was striking out on all fronts, so I decided to go to the glyphs room for open practice. Master Shanzu, on one day each week, allowed students to come in and do free practice with some supervision. Keteshes generally weren’t considered safe for students who hadn’t passed their Mukaat to use unsupervised. So, this was a good opportunity to improve.
When I arrived in the room, there were about a half dozen students in there, at varying ages and skill levels. One of them was Jasper. I grabbed a Ketesh from Master Shanzu and headed over to the general area Jasper was. I smiled and waved hello when he looked at me. He didn’t smile back, but he did nod in acknowledgment, which was a good sign.
He was making some greeting glyphs. The kind you used to let mages you’d never met know things. There were glyphs to indicate that you came in peace, glyphs suggesting not to approach further, and glyphs to signal warning. I heard him utter, “El-pu,” and saw a red glyph emerge, breaking into several glittering red sparks. It was a warning glyph to let others know to stay away.
I wasn’t sure if that was coincidental or aimed at me. I frowned, and decided to practice my own glyphs. I said, “Pin-ayel,” and then a yellow glyph glittered from the staff and two hands clasped tog
ether glowed in the air. I seek friendship was the meaning of that glyph.
Jasper glanced at it, then at me. He didn’t smile, but he didn’t frown, either. That had to be worth something.
I opened the book of glyphs, but I had to admit it wasn’t my strong suit. I didn’t like the notion of remembering these glyphs and having to produce them at will. It seemed easier to simply think of what you wanted and make it happen. Though, perhaps magic wasn’t supposed to be easy. Perhaps it was supposed to be hard, so only the most dedicated would use its stupendous power.
I spent thirty minutes practicing glyphs from the book. I specifically studied ones of peace and friendship and kindness. I mean, this was the Temple of Light. It seemed to make more sense to practice those than ones for defense in battle, or even offense at this point. I tried to concentrate on my tasks to ensure I was doing it right. But I also kept an eye on Jasper. From the corner of my eye, I saw him begin to put his things away to leave. I quickly followed suit and joined him as he walked out of the room.
“Can we talk?” I asked him softly.
He mumbled his reply, “In the garden.”
I followed him down a couple of corridors and out the side door into one of the smaller gardens here at the temple. It was warm and sunny, and it was nice to feel the heat of the day rather than the cool insides of the temple. I turned to Jasper, who was waiting expectantly. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ll say it a thousand times if you need to hear it. I didn’t mean to do that. I’m trying to figure out my powers, but certain things come to me naturally and I didn’t realize.”
Jasper put a hand on my shoulder. “I understand.”
“Really?” I said. “You’re the only real friend I’ve made here, and I would never do anything to hurt you.”
He smiled at that. “You’ve made lots of friends here.”
“You’re very nice, which is one reason I like you, but you know that’s not true. I barely fit in. Everyone thinks I’m an idiot.”
