Brotherhood Saga 03: Death (40 page)

Though he knew he had very little to worry about, this persecution was hell.

Pressing his hands into the pockets of his dark trousers, Odin turned his head up and looked at the castle looming in the distance, its shadows dancing over the city beneath it and thrusting the surrounding district into perpetual darkness. It could have been a glorious thing, were one to think about it in a more noble sense, but to him, it seemed like the sun merely wanted to force an image of dread into his mind to further rattle his senses.

Knowing that everything would be all right despite the emotions he felt, he bowed his head, allowed his hair to fall to the sides of his face, then rolled his neck about his shoulders to ease the knot at
the curve of his skull.

Everything will be fine,
Virgin had whispered.
Don’t you worry.

That seemingly-ritualistic kiss upon his brow, still burning strong like a hot poker stabbed into a cow
’s ass, was enough to assure him that things would be fine, no matter what the future held.

In that moment, he decided he would only look to one place—his future.

The Neven D
’Carda was the one to open the door after the guards escorted Odin to zir’s office and a knock sounded at the threshold. Pale eyes alight with interest Odin found eerily unsettling in the somber light that streamed both from the living room at the far end of the corridor and the windows behind Odin, Jarden turned and began to lead him down the corridor with a wavering posture that seemed entirely too fragile to move. Ze seemed a feather floating in the wind—first right, then left, then forward and back again. By the time the creature finally seemed to gain a semblance of posture, they had already crossed into the living room and were making their way toward the far side of the space, toward where the wall split off into a hall that led into a darkened area of the quarters.

“Where are we going?” Odin decided to ask.

“My office,” Jarden replied.

Keeping his silence, Odin shrugged his hands into his pockets and continued to follow the person who would soon be his mentor, not bothering to comment o
n the paintings that adorned zirs walls but more than fascinated by their prowess and integrity. One featured the city of Lesliana viewed from what appeared to be a bird’s-eye view, while another showed a creature that appeared to be made of stone lumbering across the hillside looking out toward the distance with a pair of eyes made visible only by the shroud of mist that suspended its limbs and body of rock together. He was so drawn to the paintings that, at one point, Jarden’s hand fell to his shoulder and encircled around his upper arm to draw his attention.

“Sorry, zir.”

“Do not be sorry. They are quite beautiful works of art. Come, though—I have much to teach you today.”

“What do you plan on teaching me?” he frowned, continuing his trek down the hallway and toward what appeared to be a slight turn in the path.

“I would like to teach you about magical amulets and jewelry.”

Great.

The strife notion of the very thing Virgin had placed around his neck upon their first meeting immediately came to mind.

Rather than express his unsurety about the situation, Odin straightened his posture, held his head high, then took a deep breath as they turned into another side hall and headed toward a single door that lay at the very end of the hallway.

“It may be dark,” Jarden said, “but that can be easily solved.”

“Zir?”

Jarden opened the door to reveal a room completely darkened by shadow. “Would you?” ze asked.

Odin pressed his hand forward and shot three orbs of light into the office.

Almost immediately, light burst into life to reveal a room far larger than he could have possibly anticipated.

“My library,” Jarden said, flushing his arm out and toward the office. “And my personal quarters.”

“It’s beautiful,” Odin said, stepping into the room.

‘
Beautiful’ could not describe the confines of the room he had only slightly seen from the outside, for when he stood solidly within the structure, he had to turn completely around not once, but twice to see every hardbound scripture that adorned the shelves. Books spanned from wall to wall, then wall to wall in all shapes, sizes, lengths and colors, while in the very center, poised under a series of two candelabra, was a desk formed in the shape of a U and emblazoned in the finest red wood Odin could have ever seen, though where it had to be found he couldn’t possibly now. That in itself wasn’t what caught his attention though, as something green and glowing in a jar on the corner of said desk seemed to magnetize his eyes toward its surface.

Within this glass jar, a jell-like entity that seemed to move in response to his and Jarden
’s presence pressed forward and morphed from the back of the jar to the front.

“What is this?” Odin asked.

“You will enjoy this,” Jarden said, stepping forward to press a finger against the glass.

The creature inside—whether it be living
or just some false trick—extended what appeared to be a single small tentacle to touch the Elf’s finger on the opposite side of the glass.

“Maelforms are not often found in our world,” the Neven D
’Carda said, turning zirs eyes up on Odin when he stepped forward and crouched down to examine the creature. “Sadly, you seldom see them around anymore.”

“What are they?”

“Gelatinous creatures that dwell within the deepest parts of the earth—most specifically, in mines and deep caverns.”

“Why is this one in a jar?”

“I keep this one as a sort of pet, if you don’t mind me saying,” Jarden said, lifting the glass within one of his abnormally-large, disjointed hands to view its form. “If you would like to know the explicit reason though, Maelforms are quite useful in regards to magical amplification.”

“Really?” Odin asked.

“Would you light those candelabra please? There are matches in the drawer.”

“Matches?”

“You have never heard of a match before?”

“No, sir. I… don
’t even what one is.”

“I will show you.”

After placing the Maelform in its jar on the edge of the desk, Jarden rounded the desk, then reached down and pulled one of the drawers open. From there, he pulled a small, obviously-paper box from within, then slid what Odin could only classify as a tray out to reveal twelve finely-crafted, red-tipped pieces of wood, along with a patch of black surface that must have, in some way, something to do with lighting them.

“These are made by Dwarven scientists,” the Elf said, drawing one of the small pieces of wood from its place in the carton and holding it up before Odin
’s eyes.

“That must be why I never heard of them,” Odin replied, reaching out to take the object from Jarden
’s outstretched fingers. “How do you have them?”

“Pardon?”

“I thought the Elves and Dwarves didn’t get along so well?”

“We have had our differences, yes, but that does not mean we do not communicate with them.”

“I just always assumed that the Dwarves had a problem with your kind.”

“That we were too…presumptuous,” Jarden agreed, retrieving the match from Odin
’s fingers and striking it on the black surface. Flame burst to life at its tip. “They are quite the object, are they not?”

“They are,” Odin said.

Extending his long, lanky arm, the Elf first lit the candelabra to the west, then the one to the east, taking extra care not to allow the flame to touch the very end of the wooden construct before lifting it to his lips and extinguishing its power.

Once sure that they would no longer be requiring the use of his magic, Odin willed the
orbs to dissipate into thin air, then walked around the desk before seating himself in the chair opposite Jarden.

“I suppose we should start now while t
he day is young,” Jarden said. Ze, too, seated zirself and crossed one leg over zirs knee before turning zirs blank eyes on him. “Do you have the time?”

“I have all the time in the world.”

“Your partner will not worry?”

“He thinks I
’ll be here for the whole day,” Odin shrugged. “At least, if you’ll have me for that long.”

“There is no reason for you to believe that I would not like your company. You are a special person, Odin, especially in part due to your mixed lineage.”

In the lapse of silence that followed, Jarden began to pull from drawers a series of items that Odin could tell reeked of the isolating power of magic if only because of the sensations that ebbed from them. Dark, sour, like fruit gone bad and vegetables bearing mold—each and every object that came into contact with his eyes threatened to impale daggers into his vision and blind him, thus leaving him incapable of learning or knowing anything that could persuade the chance of a more active use of his magic.

It
’s all right,
he thought.
They’re just rings… amulets… necklaces.

Every piece of jewelry seemed to taunt him with its presence, creating a
euphoria Odin found hard to process. It seemed like he was drowning beneath the shifting waves of the ocean, dragged into darkness by a creature invisible yet bearing sharp teeth. He could still breathe—such was his confusion—and he could still sense the presence of life around him, but something seemed wrong about this feeling, like he’d just been smothered beneath a pillow and forced to breathe through its fibers in order to draw life’s necessity of oxygen.

Jarden raised zir
s head.

Odin blinked.

Ze lifted in zirs palm a ring that seemed to crack with static that Odin unarguably knew was a magical amplifier.

“What is it?” Odin
asked, not sure whether to reach out and touch the object or to just leave it within the Elf’s hand.

“This is called an Amplifying Ring,” Jarden said, extending
zirs opposite arm in order to take Odin’s wrist in hand. “What this does, before I proceed any further, is give you a source of power to draw the energy needed to cast magic from. While wearing this, you will have no need to actively seek out the Ether within the world, nor, shall you say, will you have to resort to concentrating the tension and heat in the air in order to produce a flame.”

“You mean I can just cast a flame, like that?”

“Try it.”

Odin extended his finger, then concentrated.

A plume of plume of white flame burst into life at the front of his digit and began to sear toward Jarden’s face.

“Suh-Suh-Sir,” he managed. “I-I mean
zir!”

“See?” Jarden asked. “You barely had to concentrate.”

“This seems a bit dangerous.”

“It can be, if not properly used.” Jarden lifted another ring and balanced it within
zirs palm. Faintly, Odin could make out a water drop-shaped insignia upon its face. “See this one here, Odin? This will allow you to call upon the essence of water without having to seek out a source.”

“You mean I can make water out of nothing?”

“Essentially, yes.”

“How is that possible?”

“The essence of the water has been captured in a solitary form and bent into a loop.”

“A loop?”

“All sources of magical energy are, as our scientists have come to understand, circular in construct. These constructs—circular, just like I said—are formed into loops either by natural or, dare I say, intelligent design in order for there to be an endless source of energy. Consider it a figure eight, if you like—an infinity symbol in which a source of energy can repeat itself eternally without fear of extinguishing itself.”

“So these rings,” Odin said, “these wards—“

“Stop the magical energy before it can continue to loop itself.”

“How, though?”

“Say you set a wall between two sources of energy, Odin. There is no way for the two polar ends to get to one another if there is something blocking them from their natural path, is there? No. Imagine a source of what the Dwarves have shown us to be electricity inside one of their bulbs of light. They are made, by my understanding, and constructed in a rectangular shape that starts from the base of said bulb and continues on throughout the inside of the bulb until it meets a contact source. There, it sparks, then continues until it goes back down to where the initial wire started, thus rerouting and continuing the process. This would happen endlessly, if given a natural source of power to derive itself from. Like that electricity, magic works in a similar matter—the figure eight, like I described, endlessly looping. However—unlike electricity, which eventually burns out, magic persists forever.”

“So these…
inhibitors...
produce a barrier between the ‘center’ of the magic,” Odin said.

“Correct.”

“That doesn’t explain where magic comes from.”

“We do not necessarily understand where magic comes from. We know there is a stream of energy that exists within the mortal plane—the
Ether,
as most mages know it as—but we don’t know what necessarily creates it, or whether or not it is a natural of supernatural thing.”