Outside the grand hall in Inuvik City, a large carriage being pulled along by three horses trundled up when the coachman seated in front saw Magus Pilip and his group coming out. Magus Pilip sprung aboard the front seat next to the coachman with surprising agility, settling into the cushioned pillows atop the wooden vehicle.
“Get aboard!” he cried out as the coachman brought the horses to a stop.
The four young preteens amongst them immediately leapt aboard into the roofed carriage with whoops of joy. However, as Levin approached to climb up, Copan stood in his way, looking down from him atop the top step of the carriage.
“Sorry, this ride is only for the talented,” he said, smirking. Pointing at the other teenage boy in the group, he continued, “You’re good enough to ride with us.”
Giving Levin and Kirima a somewhat helpless look, he climbed into the carriage to join the rich kids. Levin didn’t really blame him; what he could see of the carriage’s innards looked quite a bit more luxurious than anything else he had seen in this dimension.
“Let’s go!” Copan called out to the front of the carriage.
Neither Magus Pilip nor the coachman bothered to check if everyone was aboard before he delivered a swift slap of the reins to start the horses trotting along again. But before Levin could voice his protests, Kirima tugged on his arm, smiling widely at him with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes.
As he watched, she raised two fingers to her lips, blowing hard and letting out a sharp, ear-piercing whistle. A few seconds later, he heard another set of hooves pounding against the cobbled pavement of Inuvik City, followed shortly by a groomed black steed rounding the corner and cantoring right towards them.
Kirima swung up onto her horse in one smooth motion, then extended a hand out to Levin. Taking her hand, Levin climbed up alongside Kirima, sitting behind her bareback and casually resting his hands on the horse’s rump.
They set off at a quick pace under Kirima’s control, easily catching the Academy carriage down the streets of the city. Kirima pulled them up directly alongside, peering through the open window on the side of the carriage and grabbing the attention of all five inside.
“Hey slowpokes! We’re gonna beat you to the Academy!” she taunted, sticking her tongue out for a moment before galloping away.
Levin yelped and grabbed her waist from the sudden burst of speed, and Copan and the others could only stare dumbfoundedly as the two set off. Levin had thought he looked cool, all relaxed on the horse’s rear, but now he could only laugh while clinging on for dear life.
“Just stick to the road!” Magus Pilip shouted after them, shocking the youths in his carriage from their state of shock. As Levin and Kirima’s backs got smaller and smaller, the four of them – the older fifth merely seemed amused by it all – raised their voices, clamoring for the coachman to go faster.
The only response they got was Magus Pilip’s laughter, already faint in Levin’s ears as they shot away ahead of the carriage. Levin realized with some surprise that Kirima was heading farther and farther away from the central hub of the city, traveling towards the north exit instead. She pulled out her family medallion, hanging it around her neck for all to see as they blasted through the gates of Inuvik City, but at the speed they were going, Levin doubted anyone could see more than a silver blur passing by. Regardless, they weren’t stopped as they shot out onto the beaten dirt roads.
“Inuvik Academy isn’t in Inuvik City?” Levin said, shouting so his voice could be heard over the wind.
“No! It’s on Mount Inuvik! Calling everything around here ‘Inuvik’ is pretty silly, don’t you think?” she said with a laugh.
Levin smiled, still exhilarated by the speed. To his knowledge, normal horses couldn’t go this fast. It must be a magic horse, he concluded; it only made sense.
And soon enough, the dubiously magic horse had carried them all the way to the base of a mountain, steep and fat with switchbacks cutting all over the side of it, wide enough for two small horse-drawn carriages riding side by side. To his side, Levin could see the river flowing to Inuvik City coming down from this mountain.
Levin then realized, with some surprise, that they were riding straight up to the impressive walled towers he had seen yesterday from the banks of that river. And considering how much more impressive the construction looked compared to everywhere else, it only made sense mages would be behind it.
Kirima slowed them down as they reached the mountain and the path underfoot began to slope upwards slightly. Levin released his tight grip on her waist, glad that she was looking forward and couldn’t see his blush.
“It should be around here,” she muttered, looking around the area while stuffing her clan medallion back into her shirt and out of sight.
It didn’t take long to find it, whatever it was. It came out of nowhere – Levin suddenly saw a thin, translucent film floating in the air mere inches from his face, already wrapping around Kirima as she passed through ahead of him, and spreading out in all directions like a wall before them. A second later, he passed through it too, with a sensation like a thin stream of water gently rolling down his face for just a moment before they were on the other side.
“What was that?” Levin asked.
“It’s okay!” Kirima shouted, looking up at something Levin couldn’t see. “We’re acolytes from the test, we just got a bit ahead of Magus Pilip!”
With that, she picked up the pace once more, breaking her horse out into a medium-paced trot that was far more comfortable than their mad gallop before. Levin frowned but didn’t say anything, not wanting to interfere with whatever Kirima was doing. However, it seemed that Kirima had nothing more to say to their invisible observer.
“We just entered Inuvik Academy’s rune array,” she began to explain. “My family has one too, and if someone enters without permission it alerts us. So now, whoever is watching us can just send a message to Magus Pilip, and he’ll tell them we’re acolytes now.”
“So, a magic security system,” Levin thought to himself. He shuddered, both nervous and excited at how real it was all beginning to feel. “And they apparently can easily communicate over long distances, too.”
“Actually,” Levin said. “I’m not an acolyte. Pilip said my scores were too low to be an acolyte, but he hired me as an assistant.”
“Oh! But with your rune section, I thought… Oh! Oh! I’m sorry,” Kirima said.
“It’s fine. I’m just glad I got into the Academy,” Levin said.
“That’s good! And by the way…” Kirima said, hesitating. “I think you should call him Master Pilip, then. Or at least Magus Pilip. A lot of mages get mad if you don’t show respect.”
Levin wanted to slap his forehead, but held back. Master Pilip had told him to call him that not thirty minutes ago, and he had already forgotten just because the man wasn’t here in person.
“Thank you. I have a lot to learn,” Levin said.
“Oh! There’s something we should see!” Kirima exclaimed, suddenly veering Nini off the path.
Having spent several days traveling with Mei through forested mountains just like this one, he was intimately familiar with how difficult the off-path terrain was. Which meant he was all the more impressed when Kirima’s horse powered straight up the terrain, able to handle it nearly as easily as the gentle switchbacks.
But even if Kirima and her horse seemed comfortable in the wilds, Levin was nervous to leave the path, not knowing the geography of the mountain. He wished he had flown over it with Cho, but didn’t regret being cautious instead. Now that he knew it was the Academy up here, he would be flying Cho over it at the first opportunity.
He could bring the bird over now if he wanted, getting the bird’s-eye map immediately, but that would mean leaving the city behind for a few minutes. Under normal circumstances, a few minutes wouldn’t have been that valuable. But Cho’s eyes had just alighted onto a new target, a pair already far more interesting than all the meaningless city gossip he had overheard until now. Cho couldn’t leave now.
Cho was locked in place. So they’d just have to find the path the old-fashioned way.
“Do you know where you’re going?” asked Levin, clinging to Kirima once again for fear of falling off.
“Yes! I memorized a map of this area! And I came here once as a kid!” she said.
They had managed to ascend an incredible amount of vertical distance up the mountain, the progress visible in dizzying manner whenever Levin turned his head. Soon, the sound of rushing water could be heard, and Kirima began to race them towards it. As the trees gave way, Kirima and Levin came upon the sight of a grand waterfall, tumbling hundreds of feet down into a pool far below that carried the clear mountain water away towards the city of Inuvik.
“It’s so beautiful…” whispered Kirima, gazing out at the picturesque scenery, her eyes fixated on the grand waterfall.
She then stood in the saddle, swinging one leg over her horse and jumping to the ground. Levin followed along, hopping down after her and following to the edge of the sheer rock from which the waterfall tumbled a short ways away. Kirima sat down, dangling her legs over the cliffside and swinging them back and forth in quiet contentment as she gazed upon the falls.
Levin sat down next to her, letting his feet hang out into the air alongside hers as they sat together on the warm stone jutting out from the dirt and forest behind. He looked over at Kirima, and jumped a little when he saw her staring back at him, not the waterfall. She smiled, holding up something in her hand towards Levin.
A piece of paper, folded over. Levin opened it up, and found himself staring at Kirima’s test sheet once more. Confused, he looked back to her questioningly.
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“Why don’t I teach you to read?” she asked.
Levin’s eyes lit up as he leaned in towards her. “Really? Of course! Thank you!” Levin sputtered. He had barely gone a day since finding the unreadable tomes deep underground, but for Levin that one day was like a lifetime of hunting for answers.
“Is this woman a saint?” Levin thought to himself. “I didn’t even have to ask!”
“Sure,” she said, giggling and cheeks blushing. “I noticed you couldn’t read when you looked at my test sheet earlier, so why don’t we start with it? If you want to study magic, you need to be able to read!”
Levin had no complaints with that. Kirima began her lesson, explaining the basic characters that made up the writing, pointing them out one-by-one on the rough parchment in Levin’s hand. As she spoke, she took Levin’s free hand in her own, using her pointer finger to trace the shapes of each letter into his palm. Levin listened with rapt attention, searing the structure, sounds, and stroke order into his memory as his universal translator spun to life with the new data.
It wasn’t a particularly complicated system, for which Levin thanked the stars. He knew some languages could have thousands of different written characters, or contextual letterforms that could make one letter take many different shapes. Those sorts of writing systems simply had too much raw information to be learned in a single lesson. But not so here – Kirima taught him only about five dozen characters, each representing a single mora. Luckily, this was a language that could be written or read with just the basic rules of pronunciation.
“Let’s stop here for today!” Kirima said once Levin had managed to read everything on the test sheet. “I can give you more lessons later if you need it.”
“I don’t think I will,” Levin said. Of course he wouldn’t; Levin had already begun gleefully using his Y-Link to translate his new books for his reading pleasure later. “Thank you so much, Kirima!”
“You’re welcome! I think mages should always try to help others,” she said.
Kirima’s lesson may have been brief, but it was more than enough, like Levin’s own personal Rosetta Stone. Since his universal translator had already arrived at near full fluency with speaking, it would now be straightforward to decode the rest. It wouldn’t be the fastest, as no written language could ever fully capture all the subtle complexities of natural speech, but it was enough. It was enough, and Levin couldn’t be more grateful for it.
As they fell into silence again, Levin caught Kirima staring out at the large waterfall once more, looking lost in her thoughts. He stayed silent, joining her in quiet admiration of the scenery.
“It reminds me of home…” she said after several minutes.
“Why did you leave?” Levin asked.
Kirima fell quiet for a long moment, and Levin quickly realized he had asked quite a personal question. “Sorry, if you don’t want to– “
“No,” Kirima said. “It’s fine.”
She took a deep breath before continuing.
“I left because I didn’t have a future there. Nearly everyone in my family is a mage with high talent, but my talent is…disappointing. My family didn’t consider me worth training. In those cases, the boys usually become laborers for the clan, and the girls house servants. But I didn’t want to be a servant! How can I spend my life scrubbing floors and washing dishes when I've seen my father use only a single word to build a waterfall twice as wide as this one? But, they wouldn’t teach me,” Kirima said, her lip quivering slightly.
“That’s why I came here. Inuvik Academy takes people from non-magic families, who often have aptitudes more like mine. I know that trying to be as strong as my family will be very hard, but I at least have to try! I hate being able to do nothing but watch.”
Levin wasn’t sure what to say. Her experience was entirely opposite from his, an upbringing characterized by complete freedom in who he wanted to be. But, at least he could relate to that disappointment towards their magical potential.
“What about you? Why come to Trurok?” Kirima asked.
“Why did I come?” Levin thought with a sigh, before slowly coming up with an answer. “I came here with a group of… explorers, I guess. I wasn’t really a main part of the group, but… Well, I was mostly just excited for the chance to do something historic, but I never imagined it would…”
He trailed off. He couldn’t say it – It would become a slaughter. Levin shuddered, clenching his hands into tight fists that made his fingernails dig deeply into his skin. Kirima looked at him, and Levin could see the concern in her eyes. He took a deep breath.
“I was separated from them,” Levin said. “And I think Inuvik Academy is my best chance at finding a way home.”
Kirima leaned in, taking Levin’s hand in both of hers. “I think I can help! My family can help you get across the Nalep!”
“Thank you, Kirima. But we didn’t cross the Nalep to get here,” Levin said, dabbing at the corners of his eyes with his free hand.
“Oh! Then did you sail over the Kasbah Sea? Surely you didn’t cross the Ascraeus Mountains! But if you did, the Grinn Clan might be able to help you,” Kirima said.
Levin hesitated. “I’d rather not say,” he said slowly. “Sorry.”
“Oh.”
That one word stabbed into Levin’s heart like a stake, but he stayed quiet. He trusted her – even though a large part of him thought it was foolish – but he wasn’t ready to reveal his true origin. At least not until he knew it wasn’t behind the reason they were assaulted.
How would Kirima even react if she found out? No, it was better this way. And Levin wanted to leave this dimension and its people behind eventually anyway.
“It’s okay! I’m sure you have your reasons,” Kirima said, standing up.
Her continued positivity just made him feel guiltier, but Levin put a smile on his face as he stood up and joined her in walking back into the shade of the forest. Nearby, Kirima’s horse stood grazing on the underbrush a fair ways from where they had dismounted earlier.
“Nini! Come over here!” Kirima called out with a click of her tongue.
The horse responded immediately, trotting up to meet Kirima and Levin and letting them climb up once again. As Kirima pulled on the reins, directing them further up the mountainside, Levin remembered something Kirima had said earlier. Something very important.
“Weren’t we going to try and beat those kids to the Academy?” Levin asked.
Kirima laughed, pushing Nini to go faster in response. “We probably still have enough time!”
The roar of crashing water behind them quickly faded away, replaced with the fast-paced beat of hooves and snapping branches. Kirima looped them around back to the path that they had left behind, but instead of following it, they continued to shoot straight up, bypassing the switchbacks running back and forth in favor of a direct approach up the mountainside.
About two-thirds of the way up the mountain by Levin’s estimation, the steep switchbacks transitioned into a gentle, straight, and exceptionally short path that ended just ahead at a tall gate made of giant wooden doors, currently swung open on their hinges. They were set into a curved stone wall that ran the length of the flat, carved section of the mountain, merging into a sheer cliff face far in the back.
Through the open gate, a grand campus populated with towers that stretched into the sky rose up along the artificial clearing that had clearly been cut from the surrounding mountain. Because of that, the Academy had fairly little flat space, but it made up for it in tall, round towers ten or more stories tall that created a striking image amidst the sheer vertical backdrop of the carved mountainside.
Levin was dumbstruck by the stark contrast between Inuvik Academy and Inuvik City, truly comprehending for the first time who really ruled over this world he had arrived in. Levin felt grateful that the first time he had truly laid eyes on it could come from his own ant-like perspective and not Cho’s, the bird’s-eye view having a tendency to make everything look equally small. Instead, his avian scout was still planted in the city, paying attention to that very interesting conversation.
He had identified these two as targets of interest immediately upon finding them with Cho, and the conversation he had just overheard confirmed it. They thought they were hidden, and under normal circumstances they would be, if it wasn’t for a piece of spy tech a couple thousand years too advanced for this world.
Cho was currently watching them leave the city, but that would only make it easier for Levin to track them – as long as they weren’t inside, there would be nowhere for them to hide. And once he found their base, it would be straight to Mei with the information. Hopefully he could convince her to visit them.
But for now, Levin had to focus on what was right before him. Kirima was bringing Nini to a stop just outside the open gates, looking around for signs of Magus Pilip and the carriage. Levin examined a short but long wooden structure running along the outer base of the Academy walls, realizing he had overlooked it amidst the grandeur of the rest.
If he was looking for horses and carriages he certainly found them, spread all throughout the long building with the occasional human attendant. Clearly, this was the Academy’s stables. But Magus Pilip’s carriage was not among them.
“It looks like we won!” Kirima said, turning Nini around to face the path.
They didn’t have to wait long for their victory to be confirmed, as Magus Pilip and his entourage came rolling up just minutes later. They must have barely missed each other when leaping up.
Magus Pilip jumped down from the front seat, and the five inside soon followed. Drawing Nini up next to the carriage, Kirima addressed the coachman leading his three horses into the stable.
“Excuse me? Can I leave my horse here?”
“Yes’m, you may. Many here have horses, and they’ll all be taken care of by the stablehands,” the coachman responded in a hoarse voice.
After leaving Nini in the care of the stable, Levin and Kirima quickly caught up to the group, where the four defeated youths promptly ignored them. Magus Pilip led them all to the center of the campus, to a large castle-like structure that was only a few stories high but took up much more space than the tall and skinny towers all around. Connected to the back of the central hall was a stone tower, the tallest building on campus as far as Levin could tell.
In front of the building was a monstrous bronze statue standing nearly twenty feet tall, depicting an aged, bearded man. In one hand he held aloft a bird’s feather that was painted a vibrant red, and in his other was a staff painted with criss-crossing black lines.
Along the base of the statue, a string of text large enough to be read from a distance read:
“Venerable Master of Flame, Founder of Inuvik Academy, our Honorable Magus, Lord Panai.”
Exercising his newfound ability to read made Levin a little giddy.
As they walked by the magnificent statue and neared the entrance, Pilip reached into his sleeve and retrieved a small wooden slab, crisscrossed with dim green lines that Levin recognized as a rune. He extended the palm-sized token as they approached and it lit up in response, the lines of the rune suddenly releasing a bright, vibrant light.
But the token was like a candle compared to the blaze coming from the massive double doors looming in front. A dense set of glowing shapes appeared from thin air atop the door, spreading out like rays from a central point to divide the surface into triangular chunks separated by glowing lines.
The door then parted on its own, swinging back as Magus Pilip continued inside without breaking stride. Levin and the others followed behind, looking around in awe at the expansive hall built all the way at the top of a mountain. From the outside, he had thought this place was a few stories tall, but Levin saw now that was wrong – it simply had an incredibly high vaulted ceiling, supported by pillars running down both sides of the chamber.
Several open passages split off from the wide central hall, leading to other rooms visible in the distance, but Magus Pilip didn’t lead them towards any of these. Instead, he led them to a small group of chairs and tables where another group of mages dressed in the dark red robes of Inuvik Academy sat, apparently waiting for them.
“Welcome to the Smoke Hall,” Magus Pilip said. “The headquarters of Inuvik Academy, and the best place to meet as a group on campus. The Wisp rank mages assigned to be your teachers are waiting for you here, so go introduce yourselves.”
Six new acolytes, six robed mages waiting for them – Levin watched as the others left Magus Pilip’s side, eagerly beginning their new lives as mages. Except for one. Kirima paused, turned to Levin, and threw her arms around him in a big hug.
“Goodbye, Levin! Good luck!” she said, and Levin returned her embrace with an awkward pat.
He smiled as he watched her run off, glad to have made a friend. For a second, Levin wished he could have stood and watched her for the rest of the day, but it wasn’t to be.
“Follow me,” Magus Pilip said.