Olga McArrow - Hot Obsidian

One of the battlemage magisters noticed the curious boy and stopped by.

“This is a Liht spell, kid,” he explained in a kindly manner.

“I know,” said Pai, his voice sad and yearning, “I’ve always wanted to cast one myself.”

The magister raised his brow, surprised, and gave the boy a closer look. Judging by the handguardless sword and a simple cloak, it was a young Lifekeeper. Most of them were ambasiaths.

“Did you ever try?” the magister asked, very carefully.

Pai nodded.

“Can you show me?”

Pai nodded again.

It was the second time that Milian saw Pai cast his Fiat-lux. Just like the night before, he waved one hand above the other and quietly sang a wordless song over them. The spitting, hissing ball of light appeared above Pai’s palm; he made it float near one of the perfect corridor Lihts. But if the Liht was staying in place, Fiat-lux kept bobbing up and down like a cork on the waves: Pai’s levitation spell was different from the classic one as well.

The magister was surprised, to say the least, but he did his best not to show it. He scratched his chin thoughtfully, frowned, then turned back to Pai.

“What a curious little thing,” he said. “A hybrid between the classic Liht and a battlemage’s fireball. Very, very interesting. Did you invent the formula yourself?”

“Yes!” Pai couldn’t help being proud.

“Oh well…” the mage made a wide welcoming gesture. “My name is Einar Sharlou. I’m a junior magister of battle magic. I teach here. How can I help you?”

Einar was surprisingly nice to the two seemingly useless boys (kids of their age are too young to be accepted into a magical college). After a tour of the college, he took them to his study where he treated the boys with the best Southern coffee and sweets and asked them a lot of questions about their life. Milian got tired of stepping on Pai’s foot under the table every time his friend was about to say too much. Sharlou didn’t notice that or maybe just didn’t show that he noticed: he just moved on to the next topic.

When the Transvolo question resurfaced again, the magister had to disappoint his guests: there were only two mages in the college powerful enough to cast such a difficult spell and both of them were away now.

“How hard is it to learn Transvolo?” asked Pai.

“Very. It’s a spell few people can master. I can only hope to be one of them someday,” Einar sighed.

“May I try?” Pai continued.

“Ah, you are a very talented lad, Pai Prior,” laughed the mage, “but don’t try to jump too high too soon. Anyway, if you, both of you, would like to visit our library, you have my permission to do so…” he hesitated. “You see, I firmly believe that every ambasiath is a potentially powerful mage. People like you are extremely rare. So if you want to… Of course, our senior magisters are away now, but we can accept you both even in their absence by assembling a junior magisters' council and voting. Just say a word and you’ll become students here. No exams.”

Milian half-smiled sceptically at that. Pai grinned, his eyes shining. But despite their reactions to Einar Sharlou’s offer being so different, both boys jumped at the opportunity to see the library. Pai grabbed all the books about Transvolo he could find and lost himself in reading. Milian wasn't so quick in choosing his subject. After wandering among the tall, dusty bookshelves for a while, he felt a familiar warm feeling flicker under his heart; that was how he usually picked a book to read. Today, it was the newest edition of Encyclopaedia of the No Man's Land. Milian disliked its simplistic chapter summaries at once but enjoyed the chapters themselves immensely.

Through the desert of scientific lingo and the jungle of diagrams, through the dry, emotionless text and the iridescent lens of his young imagination, Milian Corvus saw the No Man’s Land so vividly that he forgot about time itself while he was reading.

It took him only four hours to read the whole book but, as he returned the encyclopaedia to its place, he knew that the memories of what he had just read would not fade in his mind for many years to come.

Upon his return to the real world, Milian saw the library drowning in the reddish light of a young sunset. It was time to go. Raven quickly found Pai, he even raised his hand to shake the young mage by the shoulder but froze, having seen him read.

Four hours. Four hours it took Milian to finish reading just one book. Pai had already been through six. Astonished, Raven shook his head and looked around, hoping that no one else had noticed… But no, the whole crowd in the library did, the librarian included. All eyes were on Pai now; there was a whole spectre of emotions – from horror to wonder – on the adult mages’ faces.

Gerdon Lorian, may his soul rest in peace, always found the ambasiaths amusing and compared them to elephants trying to quietly tiptoe through a pottery store. A talent combined with ambassa is always so horribly visible that trying to hide it only makes things worse.

“Let’s go, Pai,” whispered Milian. “It’s evening already. We must get to the inn before the curfew or we’ll have to spend the night with Crimson Guardians.”

“Yes… yes, of course.” Pai nodded obediently and closed his book. He still looked like he wasn’t all there, though. “I’ve read so much! I just have to share my thoughts with someone or I’ll explode.”

“Sure, sure, no problem,” muttered Milian as he helped his friend return the books. “You can tell me everything on the way.”

Pai was so excited with the possibility of finally learning some real magic that he lost all caution; he was barely in touch with reality. If he had been alone, he wouldn't even have found his way to the inn. Milian had to drag him through the evening crowd by the hand and keep the conversation going at the same time because Pai would not shut up about what he had read that day.

So passionate was the self-taught mage’s speech that it made Milian doubt his choice of the ambasiath path in the end. Milian Corvus did what he had never thought he would ever do: he dared to consider becoming a mage himself! But the fragile idea had been broken almost instantly: some thug, annoyed with the tardiness of the crowd, smacked Milian on the head as he was elbowing his way through. It hurt, both physically and emotionally, but it helped Milian sober up and get back to reality. He and Pai had things to do, they couldn’t both have their heads in the clouds.

Thanks to Milian, they reached the inn just in time.

It got very quiet in the room when they closed the door behind them. Everyone dropped what they were doing, only Orion kept cleaning the sword Oasis had left him for safekeeping, but there was a silent question in his eyes as well.

“Well, what did you learn?” asked Juel.

He was looking at Pai as he said that because it was Pai’s mission. But Pai Prior was in no position to speak coherently, so Milian had to do the talking.

“We talked with one of the magisters,” he explained. “He told us that the mages powerful enough to cast Transvolo are out of the city now, they may not return for months.”

Pai was sitting cross-legged on the carpet, busy with following a pattern of dancing tigers on it with his eyes, his thoughts still somewhere far away. His voice sounded very far away too when he said, “That’s enough time for me to learn Transvolo myself.”

Nobody dared to laugh.

“How much time do you need exactly?” inquired Juel.

“A month. Maybe two,” mused Pai, his idle fingers brushing through the carpet’s fur.

“Too long,” the Faizul shook his head.

Orion gave Oasis’s sword, now as shiny as a new mirror, a last look, sheathed it, and cleared his throat.

“As far as I remember,” he said in a matter-of-factly way, “Sainar gave us no deadlines.”

“Yes! And Transvolo may prove useful!” Bala joined him.

“Agreed,” nodded Lainuver. “We could use some more time as well. While Pai is busy with Transvolo, we can learn a thing or two about the No Man’s Land and its dangers. I’d hate to go there unprepared, if you get what I mean.”

“We can’t afford that,” Juel stopped the arguments. “We don’t have enough money for rent and food…”

Someone knocked at the door. Hard. Probably with a boot.

“And here goes the hero that will solve our rent money problem,” guessed Orion. That said, he stood up and headed toward the door.

The late visitor turned out to be Oasis. The team’s urban jungle specialist was tired, bruised, sweaty, and angry (for being left behind the door for too long) but glad at what he had found.

“Hi, pal!” Orion greeted him cheerfully. “I've cleaned your sword. Take good care of it from now on.”

“Who’s beaten you up?” asked Jarmin, his eyes wide with worry.

“Ah, that…” Oasis waved his hand and made a bored face. “Local street urchins. A whole gaggle of them, strength in numbers and all… Well, I think I’ve taught them a lesson. Knocked down five of them; the rest ran away. Scum.”

Another ambasiath elephant made a jingly run through a pottery store. Just great…

“I hope you haven’t killed anyone?” frowned Juel.

“Of course not.” Oasis sprawled himself on the soft carpet, pure joy on his dirty face. “To tell the truth, I almost grabbed my knife when they started throwing stones but I managed without it. Ah, it’s been years since I’ve had a proper street fight. I used to be good even before my apprenticeship; now, it’s all child’s play.” Oasis rolled to the side, his face suddenly serious again. “Almost forgot: I found us a cheap place to live. No carpets there but it’s still cosy.”

Juel and Orion exchanged glances. Pai watched them both with burning hope in his eyes.

“Fine,” yielded the Faizul. “We’ll stay here to learn about the No Man’s Land and Transvolo.”

“Huzza!” Orion winked at Pai, “Do your thing, mage!”

“Our food tastes like ashes to them, it allows them to survive but they can not thrive on it. Often, they hibernate for centuries to conserve energy but they can not remain in that state forever. Once in a while, they have to hunt. The only food that can satisfy the hunger of a child of the night is human flesh…”

Helga-Vlada and Sereg, “Tome of Dark Creatures”

The Order of Hot Obsidian is an elusive thing. You will never find it unless you know exactly what to look for. And even then, all you can see is just the tip of the iceberg.

There is a famous ambasiath, known to Omnisians as Hansai Donal, a rebel, a romantic, and a powerful speaker. There are his ten children and their apprentices. Twenty one members in total. There used to be twenty-two when Gerdon Lorian, Sainar’s step-brother, was alive, but that was a very long time ago…

After having been scattered around Omnis for many years, the members of the Order had reunited again, ready to fulfil their oaths, but there was no unity among them. Instead of being a single ray of light meant to slash through the darkness, their moods were a swarm of wandering fireflies, harmless in their disconnection. Only Abadar and Orlaya remained unfased, the rest of Kangassks were full of doubts and worries rekindled by their father’s strange behaviour: after his latest speech, Sainar barely talked to anyone and averted his eyes often.

Had they known about the true purpose of their apprentices’ mission, it would have been the end of the Order, indeed. But they didn’t know. Soothed by their ignorance and by the enchanting beauty of the diadem forest, Sainar’s eight younger children did worry about their boys, of course, but, most of all, they were glad to be together again.