by Helen Harper
Fortunately this time things seemed a little easier. I followed the cobbled pathway, heading back towards where I presumed the main building was. Almost immediately I noticed a large red-brick building to my right with a sign hanging over the doorway that proclaimed itself to be for Divination. It seemed somewhat ironic that the one mage discipline that taught you how to find things was the one place that actually managed to signpost itself properly so that you could find it.
Standing outside was a diminutive looking mage, rubbing his palms together. As I got nearer, he smiled slightly and bowed.
“Mackenzie Smith?”
I nodded and tried to smile back, although I was aware that it was probably more of a grimace at this point than a full on grin.
He gestured towards the door, encouraging me to enter. Instead, I gestured back at him, playing the polite game of insisting that he go first. Not that I was trying particularly hard to be polite, of course, I just didn’t enjoy the sensation of having people behind me where I couldn’t see them. Especially when those people had inexplicable and dangerous magical powers. After several almost comedic moments where we silently told the other to ‘please go ahead’, the mage gave up and went in first.
Once inside, he bowed again and introduced himself as Mage Higgins. He had a friendly face, with laughter lines at the corner of his eyes and a mouth that seemed to be permanently smiling. His demeanour was somewhat standoffish, but I could forgive him for that given my academic record so far. At the very least, he was the most approachable teacher I’d had so far and, despite the lingering traces of fire inside me, I felt considerably more relaxed.
“What do you know about Divination?”
I thought for a moment, casting my mind back to what I’d seen Alex do and what had happened when I’d been trying to escape through the Clava Cairns up in Inverness. I shrugged. “It tracks things. Or people. If you want to find someone then you wave your hands a blue light comes out and leads you to where you want to go. Oh,” I added, remembering what Mary had told me, “it also means that you can see into future and read minds.”
I felt ridiculously pleased with myself. There! I knew something and I was not the class dunce for once. Mage Higgins, however, frowned at me in displeasure. “Divination is an art form. It enables the user to ascertain the potential truth, whether that is in the fore-telling of the potential days to come, an understanding and empathy or a situation, person, place or thing, or the discovery of elements unfound. It is not as crude as fortune-telling or mind-reading.”
I barely managed to avoid rolling my eyes. That was what I’d said, just in not so many words. I swallowed down my thoughts, focusing on the relief that what was inside my mind was my own after all, and waved my hands in the air with a flourish. “Of course, Mage Higgins. An art-form. That is what I meant.”
He stared at me for a moment, brow slightly furrowed, as if he couldn’t work out whether I was being serious or not. I gazed back innocently. Eventually he gave up. “Very well, then. In order to begin with Divination, the most complex and sophisticated of all disciplines, one must start at the beginning.”
He lifted his hands up into the air, and connected his middle finger with the thumb on each hand, forming a sort of circle. All at once, a beam of floating blue light appeared from each hand, rising dramatically into the air and circling around the mage’s head.
“The atmosphere is made up of rivers of silent consciousness. Tap into that consciousness and you can twist it to your purpose.”
As I watched, the swirls of blue light joined together to form the shape of a perfect circle, then dissipated into mist and re-formed into a square.
“So the atmosphere is alive?” I asked, cautiously.
“Not in the sense that it is a mere creature like you or I,” answered Higgins. “It is far more complicated than that. Think rather of it as particles of being instead of a being. Each one is interlinked and each one can be put to use.” The blue square became a helix, connecting lines together almost ad infinitum. “Look behind you,” he commanded.
I turned, and realised that there was a painting on the wall. I took a step closer to examine it.
“It’s a wonderful piece, isn’t it?” Higgins sighed in happy ecstasy. “Escher created it as a lithograph around the same time as his Waterfall piece. He gifted it to us before his career took off.”
“Escher was a mage?”
“You’d be surprised at how many artists have formed part of our community at one time or another. That, Initiate, is what comes from appreciating the true aesthetic of the world.”
I gazed at the painting. It depicted a natural scene, unlike other examples of Escher’s works that I’d previously come across, although this one maintained the same intricacies that had catapulted him to fame. Water cascaded down, across and up a fast-flowing river, with rocks and trees penetrating out at unusual and unfeasible angles. I found it virtually impossible to take in the whole image at once, and instead had to focus on small individual parts at a time.
“Once you appreciate the connections within and without our world, then you can begin to manipulate and control them. Why do you think there are so many planes and dimensions?”
I started. I’d not really thought about it before. They just existed, much in the same way that France did, or Alaska. The ‘why’ of their existence seemed like a pointless question. I turned back to face the mage, who was smiling at me benignly.
“Okay,” I said slowly. “Everything’s connected and interwoven. Like an eternal tapestry.”
“Yes! You get it!”
I really didn’t. But he seemed pleased and I figured I could fake it. I nodded, trying to appear thoughtful and wise. “This is a revelation to me, Mage Higgins.”
He clapped his hands together. “Most excellent. Now we can begin.” The mage half turned and pointed towards the window. “Between here and the outside world just there, are the brooks, streams, rivers and currents of being. If I do this,” he flicked a finger and sent out a trickle of blue light, “then you will see that it travels along the currents. The inveniora finds the currents in order to travel and reach its destination.”
I could see that the bolt of blue did indeed seem to waver and shimmer along the air as if it were floating steadily down a river of air. The light reached the window and dissipated slowly. “So the blue snaky light is called inveniora?”
“If you must use such basic terms to describe it, then yes. The blue snaky light is inveniora.” When he pronounced the term, Higgins’ voice took on a tone of hushed reverence. This was indeed someone who loved his day job.
“Okay,” I nodded vigorously. “I get it.”
“Then discover it for yourself, Initiate. Send out your energy and find the current.”
Sighing inwardly, I really wished that he would stop calling me ‘Initiate’. Still, this lesson was already going considerably better than the last one so I managed to keep my irritation level to a tiny simmer. “Uh, how do I do that?”
“Reach inside yourself,” said the mage. “Pull out the part of yourself that is connected to your integral energy and send it out to join the world. It remains as part of you, but it also enters the currents of consciousness.”
Okay. Integral energy and currents of consciousness were equally baffling, but I thought I had a vague idea about what he meant. I concentrated on my stomach, where I felt instinctively that my ‘energy’ resided. In my mind’s eye, I saw myself pulling out an invisible thread that made its way up through me, past my heart and through my shoulders and down my arm and…I flicked my fingers and shot it out.
Nothing happened. Higgins raised his eyebrows and folded his arms. I took a deep breath. This really didn’t sound that hard. Out of everything I’d experienced so far at the academy, Divination seemed about the only discipline aside from Protection that I had any hope of understanding, so I had to try harder.
I did the same again, visualising the same thread, just more slowly this time, gi
ving it the opportunity to take shape and become real. Yet again, there was nothing. A flame curled inside me, the residue of my earlier annoyance from Illusion. I tried to ignore it, this time pulling my magical inveniora thread from the soles of my feet, allowing it to gather impetus as it travelled up and up and up and through and…fuck it.
“If you get frustrated,” stated Higgins calmly, “then you cannot tap into the currents.”
“I’m not frustrated.” I yanked violently from inside myself this time, picturing not a skinny thread of blue light but instead a fiery ball of bloody flame. And this time I really could feel it. The sphere of bloodfire travelled through my system, singeing my gut and searing my lungs until I had to hold my breath. Then I forced it out at maximum velocity down through the veins in my arm.
A sparking red light appeared in the air. I beamed, proud of my efforts and turned to Higgins to seek his approval. Instead of pleased satisfaction on his face, however, there was a look of growing alarm. I turned back to see my own inveniora growing. It wasn’t just a snaky light of red, it was a blossoming and overpowering cloud. Tendrils reached out across the entire room, hitting the pockmarked walls and bouncing back, then multiplying further and further. They danced their way through the air in every possible direction.
“Stop it!” yelled Higgins.
“What? How?” I shouted back, now almost unable to see him through the veins of red. The acrid smell of burning reached my nostrils and dread filled me. Oh God, not again. I flailed my arms around, panicking, trying to gather back in the inveniora.
“I can’t breathe,” choked the mage.
Fuck, fuck, fuck. I reached out desperately to try and get hold of the trails of light, but it was to no avail. They just seemed to be growing and growing. Taking a deep breath, I ran over to roughly where I thought the window was and felt my way along until I was sure I had it. Then I drew back my fist and punched through, smashing a hole through the glass, which in turn ripped through my skin. Blood ran from my hand, spattering onto the floor, but I didn’t have time to worry about that now. Instead I focused on trying to use my mind and arms and every part of me, to push the inveniora out into the open air and away from Higgins.
Bit by bit it seemed to start working. The clouds of red light shoved their way out through the small hole. I tensed my body and leapt up, kicking through the rest of the glass, shattering the rest of it until there were only a few shards left clinging to the edges of the window frame. The remainder of the scarlet haze escaped, rising up into the sky as it did so in a ball of hazy mist. For a second I watched it, checking that it wasn’t going to continue to enlarge or re-form or do anything remotely dangerous. Mercifully, instead, the edges started to show signs of evaporation as it mixed with the rest of the atmosphere. Thank fuck.
I turned back to Higgins who was curled up, foetal-like on the floor, muttering to himself. I pulled him up to his knees and looked into his eyes, searching for any signs of damage or pain. He coughed painfully and stared at a point somewhere behind me.
“No,” he moaned. “No, no, no, no.”
“Ssshhh,” I soothed. “It’s okay, it’s gone. You’re okay now. We’re okay.” From outside in the corridor I could hear some shouts and calls of concern.
“No,” he groaned again.
I looked back and saw with a sinking twist what it was he was actually complaining about. The Escher lithogram, even protected as it had been behind a plate of glass and frame, appeared irrevocably damaged. Its finely etched lines were dulled and the paper had taken on a red hue, almost like a rash. The rocks and trees were virtually obscured now and the confusing twists and turns of the water no longer appeared to distort reality and perspective. Instead they were smothered by taints of crimson smudges.
The door banged open and two black robed mages who I didn’t recognise came bursting in. They took in the scene with one glance and glared at me with seething hatred. I held up my hands, palms upwards. “I didn’t do anything! I didn’t! I was just doing what he said.”
Higgins continued to moan. They scooped him up between them and pulled him out of the room. Then Thomas entered, mouth twisting as he looked around.
“Mage Thomas!” I babbled. “This isn’t my fault. I tried to stop it, I broke the window, I’m sorry but I didn’t mean for this to happen.” All I could think of were the Arch-Mage’s last words to me about just having one final chance left.
He strode over to me and looked down. “You’re telling the truth,” he stated grimly.
“Of course I’m fucking telling the truth! Why would I do otherwise?”
“Why would a simple Divination lesson cause such havoc?” He shook his head at me.
“I’m sorry,” I gasped again.
He sighed deeply and put his hands on his hips. “Come on. I’m going to escort you back to your room. It’s probably best if you stay there for the rest of this evening. We’ll need to get that blood cleaned up as well.”
I glanced down at my hand and the blood now covering half of my arm that was continuing to drip remorselessly onto the floor. Shit. Panic seeped through my consciousness at the thought of the repercussions spilling that amount of my stupid Draco Wyr blood might have. Thomas offered me his arm to help me up, but I had no other choice but to ignore it and clamber to my feet myself.
A spasm of irritation crossed his face, however there was nothing I could do about it now. Past experience had taught me that whenever others came into contact with whatever weird shit was within my system then strange stuff started to happen. The last thing I needed was an untrustworthy mage knowing more about me than I needed him to.
“It’s fine,” I muttered. “I’ll make my own way back.”
“Suit yourself.” He turned on his heel and stalked out of the room. Loudly exhaling the angst and anxiety of the afternoon, I followed him out.
Chapter Six
I ended up following Thomas all the way back to my little room. Whilst I’d been glad to have him along thanks to all the stares and hushed whispers from the collection of Initiates and mages as we passed, I felt more and more nervous as we approached the dorms that he would come in and immediately spot the books I’d nabbed from the library. I cursed myself and my stupid actions. I should have put them under the pillow after all, then at least I’d have had a chance of concealing them. Now, between what had already happened between Thomas and myself, and the fact that I’d completely freaked out an experienced mage and destroyed what was probably a priceless painting, the discovery of the books would completely signal my downfall.
Fortunately for me, he just left me at my door, silently leaving to return to whatever he’d been doing before I’d interrupted with my spooky red inveniora catastrophe. I’d wanted to ask him whether everything was okay – that my Divination creation had all vanished into the ether and wasn’t now making its way to smother some nearby human inhabitants with its noxious redness - but I was kind of afraid of the answer. I also naturally wondered how much trouble I was in now. Deep down inside, I had to admit that maybe it would be better for everyone if I put a stop to all this foolishness now. Mrs. Alcoon might be permanently trapped in her state of enforced inhibitory stasis, but at least she was alive. At the rate I was going, if I became much more successful at any of these disciplines I was liable to kill everyone within a ten mile radius.
I moved over with a heavy heart to the small sink, then twisted on the cold tap and thrust my hand underneath the stream of water, watching as my blood mixed with the cold water and swirled its way down the pipes. I’d need to see if I could get hold of some tweezers or something to pull out all the tiny shards of glass.
I was still standing there, staring down at the white ceramic bowl and the splashes of blood continuing to inexorably drip down into it when there was a knock at the door. Startled into action, I jumped and managed to call out, “Just a minute!” in time to hastily flip over the corner of the bedsheet to mask the books that still lay there. Then I turned off the tap and c
reaked open the door an inch, peering through the gap to see whether it was Dean coming to take me away.
“Hey, Mack! Look what I’ve brought!”
Relief flooded through me. It was Mary, holding up a first aid kit. I opened the door all the way and ushered her in.
“Hi Mary,” I said weakly. “How are things?”
“Awesome! Although, I mean, like, wow. You’ve really been tearing things up, huh?”
“I guess.” I took the kit from her and unzipped it with my teeth, then searched through until I found tweezers. “Is Higgins okay?”
“Mage Higgins? Yeah, so I hear. I think he’s just a bit shaken up. What on earth happened?”
“Honestly, Mary, I have no idea.” I headed over to the sink and turned on the tap again, the bent over my head and began digging into the wounds to get out the glass that remained embedded in my flesh. “Have you heard anything about what the Dean is going to do?”
Silence answered me, so I craned my neck backwards. Mary was staring at my hand with a faintly sick looking expression on her face. “Does that not hurt?”
I blinked in surprise and then looked back down at my bloody hand. “Um, yeah, I suppose. A bit.” I hadn’t really thought about it much. “Have you heard about the Dean?” I prodded her again.
She shook herself. “Uh, no. I don’t think he could do anything even if he wanted to. Mage Thomas checked and says you were telling the truth that you were just doing as you were told. His Divination skill is good for that.” She shrugged. “That makes it the fault of the teacher for not taking appropriate precautions.”
I yelped slightly. Higgins? “Fuck!” I swore. “It wasn’t his fault.”
“Was it your fault?”
