Reawakening

by CM Raymond

  But if the things Ezekiel said were half true, she was on the road to becoming one of the most powerful magic users he could think of. And Sal was the proof. Ezekiel had told her that he had never seen anything like him, and the Founder was freaking ancient.

  Well, at least to her he was. When she thought about it, anyone twice her age was almost decrepit, so he was close to collapsing, right?

  She smirked.

  However, if Sal was unique, and Hannah was the only person who could cast that kind of magic, then the possibility of her rise was also unknown.

  But that didn’t mean those abilities wouldn’t take time. And patience was no longer one of Hannah’s strengths—not since her brother died.

  When she was just a beginner on the road to learning magic, her brother had somehow called out to her psychically, or at least she felt his pain. Hannah still remembered the fear she felt as she raced back to the city, only to find that she was too late.

  Her father was dead, her brother dying in her arms in their home on Queen’s Boulevard. Their deaths devastated her, and she took out that devastation on the men who had committed the atrocious act.

  After she had lost control, killing her family’s murderers and blowing up her house in the process, she and Ezekiel became the most wanted people in Arcadia, perhaps in all of Irth.

  Ezekiel had transported her out of the city, but Hannah barely remembered it. She had stayed in bed for two days afterward. Rage had taken her over, and she wanted nothing more than to raze the city of Arcadia to the ground. With the passion that boiled beneath her skin, she may have been able to.

  For the better part of a month, Ezekiel had her do nothing but meditate—working to control her anger. He said it would not be wasted, and instead, her meditation would transform her rage into a careful weapon, a weapon that could strike with precision.

  Needing to stay and care for his mother, Parker went back to the city. He could serve as eyes and ears on the inside.

  The decrepit tower in the woods had hidden them for the time being, but it was time to move. Ezekiel’s plan led them away from this place of safety, and Hannah welcomed the danger. The old magician always had something up his sleeve, though he held his cards close to his chest. Hannah knew that they were heading to the Heights, she just didn’t know why.

  With her bag slung over her shoulder and Sal at her heel, she went to the staircase door that had remained locked for the entire time she’d been in the tower.

  She had never asked the old magician why parts of the tower were off limits. As she climbed the stairs, the narrow corridor with steps winding up gave no indication of why he may have done this.

  Perhaps it was only out of convenience, or to keep the girl close.

  Six floors up from the ground level and Hannah figured out why. The roof was missing from the tower, and the steps simply ended as if one could climb them and disappear into the heavens. Hannah pushed through the door and found Ezekiel standing in the middle of an open space also exposed to the air.

  “This is pretty damned cool,” she said, looking at the forest. She had never been this high off the ground in her life.

  Sal peeked over the edge, but kept his wings by his side.

  “Yes. A shame we need to leave it behind, but I doubt it’s the last we will see of the tower, if all goes according to plan. And it looks like we’re leaving just in time.” The old man stretched a cloaked arm out, pointing to the woods around the tower. Men with the blaze of the Hunter on their chests walked the land two-by-two. “My mental magic could keep a few of them from running into our home, but I can’t control them all. Once we leave, the tower will reappear, and they’ll have quite the surprise. I imagine they will be rather pleased with themselves until they find the place is empty.”

  Hannah smiled.

  Her mentor was powerful, and she could never imagine doing that kind of magic. But if what he was saying was true, someday she would be able to do his mental magic and much, much more. “So, what’s this plan of yours have to do with a trip to the Heights?”

  The old man’s eyes glinted. “It’s a surprise. But you need to know this. I can’t rightly teleport the three of us all the way there. I’ll take care of me and Sal, but you will have to use your own power, with me as your guide.”

  She glanced off into the distance, toward the mountain range known as the Heights. The trip seemed impossible. She cocked her head to the side. “Forgetting something? You haven’t taught me how to do that teleporting thing yet.”

  “Well, there’s no time like the present. Consider this your first lesson. Tell me, do the children still ride sleds in the winter.”

  “Sure! Although, we have to sneak into the nobleman’s district at night to do it. Wealthy Arcadians don’t appreciate boulevard kids like me rolling around in their backyard.”

  Ezekiel shook his head. “Child, there is so much wrong with this world. I pray to the Matriarch you can help me put it right. But enough of that. First, we need to get moving. Teleporting is a little like sledding. Picture yourself sitting on a sled at the top of a giant hill. I’ll give you the push; the rest is up to you.”

  Hannah nodded, but was more than a little freaked out. She wondered if it was possible for her to be able to screw things up so badly that she could end up reappearing on the sun or in the middle of a swamp. But she had come to trust Ezekiel, even more than her own abilities. She knew that he needed her. The old man wouldn’t intentionally put her in the middle of something she couldn’t handle, at least, not yet.

  “Concentrate, Hannah,” Ezekiel said, grabbing her arm. “You ready?”

  She grit her teeth and nodded. At first, she felt the wind grabbing at her hair. Then Ezekiel’s grip tightened, pulling her forward.

  And then, just as he was about to pull her off balance, they disappeared.

  ****

  Adrien pulled the blood red hood of his cloak over his head and marched toward the edge of the market quarter. The evening air held a chill, but the cloak was also to keep his privacy. He didn’t leave the Academy often, and he cursed the need to leave the comfort and privacy of his office.

  Adrien resented the filth of the common folks, even if it was his own political machinations that kept them precisely where they were. He was glad for the fact that the curfew was near. Most of the people were off the streets already out of fear of the Hunters and the Guard. Thankfully, he wouldn’t have to look any of them in the eyes. To Adrien, the people of Queen’s Boulevard, and even many who lived on the edges of the market square, were less than human.

  They were scum.

  But even insects could cause problems. Adrien wanted nothing else than to get the current situation under control, so he could focus on the bigger picture.

  His machine was almost finished, and it was time to turn his eyes beyond Arcadia. But if Arcadia wasn’t under the strictest of his control, it could ruin everything. Ezekiel knew how to recruit... especially from the poor and needy. Adrien was intimately aware of the old man’s tactics. Adrien’s need was precisely what Ezekiel used to recruit him when he was a child.

  Ezekiel.

  Just thinking of his old mentor’s name sent a chill down his spine. Adrien’s power had grown tenfold in the old man’s absence. He was nearly invincible. And once his machine was completed, all of Irth would bow before him. And the old magician was the only thing in all of Irth that might be able to stand in his way.

  Ezekiel was incredibly strong when he left the city forty years prior, and he had come back with powers that Adrien had never seen—and didn’t quite understand.

  While the Chancellor had grown in influence and some magical ability, it was clear that his teacher had focused on becoming the best damned magician he could.

  At first, Adrien was tempted to brush it off. Even if Ezekiel was powerful, he was just one man. And Adrien had an army. But Ezekiel had proven capable of finding help of his own. That little bitch was powerful, more powerful than Adrien had given anyo
ne from the Boulevard credit for. Adrien knew that he had to take care of them quickly, or else the old man might be able to build an army of his own.

  Adrien was no fool, and he realized that must have been Ezekiel’s plan.

  The Chancellor’s process of narrowing admittance into the Academy had worked. It gave him unilateral control over the city’s wealthiest and most influential. What it also did was leave plenty of powerful people out in the general population. That had been fine. Fear kept them from practicing their magic. Death at the hands of his Hunters was a helpful external motivation to keep unlawful magic at bay.

  At least, it was until the return of the Founder.

  Adrien assumed that Ezekiel would be searching the back alleys of Queen’s Boulevard, looking for the Unlawfuls that may be courageous, desperate, or crazy enough to join a little band of rebels.

  But since the day that the girl had blown the roof off her house, no one had seen any indication of them. If Ezekiel was preparing for war, he was moving slowly. That gave Adrien plenty of time to prepare. He immediately set into play the plan that would weed out the Unlawfuls and make all citizens scared enough to keep the power that ran through their bodies untapped—no matter what Ezekiel promised them.

  Twisting through the Noble’s Quarter, Adrien finally arrived at the house he was looking for. Adrien smiled, as he remembered it being built so many years before. It had been Saul’s house—his partner in building Arcadia. As the city grew, he and Saul divided up the leadership. Adrien oversaw construction of the Academy—the best way to train magicians.

  Saul took the Governor’s seat, and, as soon as the mansion connected to the Capitol had been built, Saul moved out of this house in the Noble’s Quarter.

  His friend’s time as Governor didn’t last long. Saul disapproved of Adrien’s strategy of training only the sons and daughters of the wealthy. He couldn’t see that by keeping the number of magicians few, and connected to the noble houses, he ensured that only those who were loyal to Arcadia gained the power of magic.

  Over time, their disagreement boiled over into a straight out feud... one that ended in Saul’s death. While the two had had some heated public arguments over the direction of the city, there was never any evidence found connecting Adrien to the untimely death of his friend.

  And no evidence would ever be found—Adrien was careful and powerful.

  Once Saul was gone, Adrien had seated a series of governors that would do his bidding. Each of them would run their course over less than five years. Power corrupts, and there wasn’t enough room in Arcadia for two heads. Adrien considered doing away with the governorship altogether, but having someone under his thumb to manage things left Adrien plenty of time to handle other problems, like the one that currently took him out into the streets of Arcadia.

  Adrien banged his fist against the door, reconsidering whether or not he should have left the Academy. Perhaps it would have been easier to have the man to whom he was paying a visit to come to him, but he decided that was an impossibility—the risks were too great. They couldn’t be connected.

  If the man was spotted paying a visit to the Chancellor, their ruse would unravel.

  “What is it?” a voice said from behind a crack in the door.

  “It’s me, open up,” the Chancellor said.

  The door swung all the way open, and a man nearly as old as the Chancellor stood with wide eyes. “Sir, I heard you might…”

  “Shut up and let me in quick, before anyone sees me.”

  The man stepped aside, and the Chancellor stormed into the nobleman’s home. Carefully decorated from some of the best artisans in Arcadia and beyond, the living room looked more like a museum than a place for a family to live. Adrien even spotted a piece from before the Age of Madness. He nodded in delight, figuring that the piece would be his soon enough.

  “I need to see him,” Adrien spat at the servant, still ogling the city’s most celebrated citizen.

  “The master is away for three fortnights, which—”

  “Not him, you fool. I need to see his guest.”

  The man’s eyes cut around the room as if looking for somebody to help. Finally, he said, “I’m sorry, but it is his hour of meditation. He cannot be disturbed. Very strict rules.”

  Adrien cursed the fool in his head; then his eyes turned as black as an onyx. “He will see me, now!”

  The servant's legs visibly shook. He knew that death soon followed when the Chancellor used his magic. “Yes… Yes… of course, sir. Right this way.”

  The servant led Adrien through twists and turns of the house until they reached a basement staircase. Each nook and cranny brought back a memory of Saul anchored to the corners of the room. He marveled at the way in which the memories, long forgotten, came rushing back in the house of his long-dead friend.

  A shame, Adrien thought. We could have been great if he had only listened to reason. If he had only listened to me.

  Stopping at the bottom of the stairs, the shaking servant was now sheet white in the face. “I can go no further, sir. You understand.”

  Adrien nodded. “Yes, good man. I’m glad you understand who you ultimately serve in Arcadia.”

  Without a word, the man ran his terrified ass up to the ground floor.

  Adrien tried the knob of the only closed door on the basement floor. It was locked, but he could hear faint voices, and what he thought was laughter from behind it. Stepping back to the hallway wall, he raised a hand and twisted and turned his fingers. In a heartbeat, a blast escaped his body, blowing the doors off its hinges. The commotion of splintered wood was mixed with the screams of female voices.

  Stepping through the door, Adrien saw two women, probably the most expensive hookers that could be hired within the walls of Arcadia scrambling for sheets and pieces of clothing. Failing to cover themselves even moderately, they sank back for protection, huddling around the man who shared the bed with them.

  But no one could save them from the Chancellor’s wrath—not even someone as esteemed as the Prophet Jedidiah.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  A wind, cold and sharp, smacked Hannah in the face when she completed the final jump. They had spent the day jumping from place to place—Ezekiel guiding her as she learned to trust her magic. It was like falling, but forward instead of down. All it took was a willingness to make the jump. And a fair amount of magical energy.

  This last jump nearly brought her to her knees.

  As her stomach straightened itself out, she took in the world around her. Surrounded by trees and mountains, she suddenly realized that Ezekiel was nowhere in sight. She freaked, thinking that she might have jumped too far. But as she looked around, Hannah heard voices echoing around the mountains. Instinct took over, and she hit the ground. Peering out over a rock, she saw a group of rearick dressed for a mine, walking single file on a mountain path.

  “Shit,” she thought. “Where the hell am I?”

  Then she heard Ezekiel’s voice, echoing around in her mind. Sorry, Hannah. You’ll have to make the rest of the trip on your own. Take the path to your left. One’s first trip to the temple/monastery always has to be walked. The mystics are a people of long tradition.

  “What’s that?” Hannah asked aloud, trusting the old man could hear her. “A tradition of being asshats?”

  Just start your climb. Even with just his voice in her mind, she could picture her mentor smiling.

  Turning left, she found a course of rough stairs winding up the mountain. She watched them twist and turn until they were finally lost in the clouds.

  “Fuck me,” she sighed and began the ascent.