A Heartfelt Parting

Anok and Amais stare each other down, neither willing to speak until Anok breaks the silence with a sneer.

"I see you've learned nothing from being reported if your impudent face is anything to go by."

"I don't expect you to understand loyalty Anok." Amais quips. If possible the older man's disgusted expression grows, he narrows his eyes and opens his mouth to shout.

"Everything I've done, I've done to help you. But I see now that was a wasted effort." He barks.

Amais laughs, finding genuine humor in how delusional the older man was. Anok had been the single obstacle in his way for years, nearly banning him from the library on many separate occasions, and now he was claiming it was to help him.

"Help me? If you believe that's what you were doing then who am I to deny a man his fantasies?" Amais says.

“Fantasies! Listen boy-”

"Your machinations with the grandmaster failed." Amais interrupts, reverting to a cool expression. "I hope you learn from this, so that you might not interfere with anyone else's personal quests."

Amais moves past him, ascending the staircase to his room. Having had enough of Anok for one day.

The meeting with the grandmaster had taken up all of his time, when he gets to his room Talien sits waiting for him.

"Master! I heard you were summoned!" She says jumping off the bed.

"Yes I was summoned by the grandmaster." Amais tells her, confirming her fears. Her eyes widen into big saucers as she tries to process his words. So what would happen to her master now?

Would he be banished?

If so, she would never forgive Anok for doing such a heinous thing. All so he could be right.

“Despicable!” Talien yells from the bed clenching her fist, she stands heading straight for the door, probably to give the old man a piece of her mind and fists. Sensing her anger Amais hopes to calm her down before she would do anything rash.

He places the journal that the grandmaster had given him on the bedside table and grabs his distraught acolyte by the shoulders.

"You needn't worry about that." he says reassuringly. Talien glares up at him, frowning deeply at her master. A million thoughts run through her head, each cursing Anok in different ways.

.

“He could have gotten you banished!” she says after a moment of silence between them. Her master nods.

“I know, but he didn’t.” Amais replies. This doesn’t soothe her in the least. Talien grumbles, moving the hands on her shoulders away to lean against the stone wall of the room.

Suddenly feeling the weight of exhaustion, Amais takes a seat on his bed, releasing a long sigh as he rests his bones for the first time in hours.

"You're exhausted." Talien says pushing off the wall and taking her seat beside him. “What happened?”

"Anok reported me, it was as you said."

"I didn't want to be right." Talien says, lowering her head in guilt. "Are you in big trouble?"

"Quite the opposite, the grandmaster took no issue with me." Amais replies, patting the girl's head so she wouldn't worry.

"But I might have to go on a long trip." He says trying to break the news of his travels to her.

"I know, you're trying to find your old master." Talien says. Amais’ hand in her hair pauses its strokes.

"Many of the acolytes and masters talk about it." She says responding to the question he had not yet asked.

"I suppose it's quite the rumor."

"So what's the real story?" Talien asks, resting her head on his shoulder. “They all say Master Gaius just up and left you. But from the way you talk about him, he would never.”

"A long time ago my master disappeared, I didn't know where he went until I came across his journal describing a fantastical place he may have gone to."

Talien listens, paying rapt attention to what she's hearing.

"Where do you think he went?" She asks.

"The tower of Wynd, and that is where I must go and look for him." Amais replies, locking eyes with the girl who’s surprised at the name. It wasn’t anything they taught the acolytes in their studies and even while searching, information about the tower was scarce.

"How do you know he's there?"

"The survivor that came here met him. My master is still there." Amais says patiently.

"When do you leave?" Talien asks quietly, "I want to carve an amulet for you."

Amais nods, knowing she would want to do such, as it was tradition in the temple of Edain. If only Gaius had let him do the same.

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"Thank you Talien, at least our parting will not be like that of my master's." Amais laughs. He can see the sadness in her eyes. He pats her cheeks.

"I'll come back Talien."

"But what if you don't?" She whispers. She stares up at him with teary eyes. "I don't want you to go."

He shushes her, hugging the young girl to his chest. His very own acolyte. Talien sobs quietly as Amais rubs her back and rocks her comfortingly.

"If I don't make it back before your mastery, I'll ask master Astra to assist. I will be back Talien, I will."

She nods, pulling away to wipe her eyes. She sniffles, continuing to wipe her eyes and red cheeks.

"You better keep your promise!" She yells, lightly punching his shoulder. Amais laughs, ruffling her curly hair.

"I promise."

Despite being tired Amais doesn’t sleep, he gets up again. Picking the journal off the bedside table.

Amais spends the night studying the journal the grandmaster had given to him. It was written by a young woman, a cleric of Edain named Daavi.

She had found the temple while wandering the Eastern plains of their land. There the tower stood on what was once a lake and she entered.

Amais reads how she encounters a strange room with only one attendant in sight where she would eventually trade her humanity for access to the rest of the tower rooms. He reads on until his eyes grow heavy, begging him to shut them.

He closes the book, placing it on his bedside table, tomorrow he would compare it with his master’s findings and set forth on his journey to find the tower.

“You’re leaving?” Master Astra says to him the moment he mentions his possible departure to her the next morning. Astra sighs, shaking her head, her blonde curls move lightly as she does. she lifts her head once again to stare at him.

“I was very fond of Gaius when he was around too, I’ll look after Talien, and should you not return I will perform her mastery.” the woman tells him calmly. Amais bows in thanks, feeling a weight come off his chest, someone would look after Talien and she wouldn’t fall under the influence of someone like Anok.

“Amais, the tower of Wynd, I’ve heard some rumors on whether it exists or not. I will not stop you but I as well don’t want you to throw your life away. More than for the temple or the Holy one don’t lose yourself in this quest.” she warns him.

Amais nods.

Astra pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose nodding.

“Journey well then, young cleric.”

“This is for you.” Talien says, solemnly handing her teacher a small wooden pendant. It was a neatly carved idol of Amita, one of the goddesses that fought by the Holy one’s side. A goddess of protection.

“I’ll cherish it always. I’ll always have you with me Talien.” Amais says. He hands her the pendant, lowering his head so she could be the one to place it on him.

“Thank you.” He says to her. Talien nods, eyes still teary from the fact that her master would be leaving and might not come back. Even if Amais assured her he would return, his old master had not.

The tower was dangerous, that much was known and with that a plot begins to form in Talien’s own mind.

“You’re determined to throw your life away.” comes the hateful voice of Anok from the door of Amais’ room. For a moment Amais wonders if he’d left it open by accident but then recalled, Anok never once respected other people’s boundaries.

“I can’t believe the grandmaster is allowing such.”

Amais pays the older man no mind as he packs all he thinks he would need. Wanting to see Boaz too before he left the following day.

“I’m not throwing my life away.” Amais says, turning around to face the old man who stands leaning against the stone wall of the temple. “You wouldn’t understand.”

Anok says nothing for a moment, a heavy silence falls over them, before once again Anok breaks it. sighing heavily.

“Gaius asked me to perform your mastery because he knew he wouldn’t return. You can hate me all you want boy, but that is the truth.” Anok says calmly, the calmest Amais has ever heard from him.

The younger cleric walks up to him, standing with his mouth agape as he tries to form sentences.

“If you knew why didn’t you tell me?!” Amais finally asks, trying not to raise his voice.

“Because I didn’t want you getting foolish ideas, little did I know you are just as big a fool as Gaius was.”

Anok shoves something into Amais’s hands and storms off.

“Have fun getting killed.” he jabs one last time as he leaves.

Amais recalls the weight in his hands and lifts it to examine its contents. It’s a cloth wrapped with thick string. He pulls it apart watching the cloth unravel to reveal a bladed chain.

The silver glints in the sunlight as Amais lifts it to see, the chain is light in his hands, he holds it, flinging it forwards and retrieving it. It feels right. As if made for him somehow. But he wasn’t a fighter and Master Gaius didn’t use a weapon like this.

Drawing the chain back up to eye level he gets a look at the blade attached to it. It’s only as small as his thumb with a small red gem embedded in the hilt of the blade.

Amais wonders why Anok would give this to him, then he turns to the cloth the gift had been wrapped in to see a note from the grandmaster.

‘This belonged to the owner of the journal, you must never enter Wynd without a weapon.’ the grandmaster wrote.

‘Maybe I’ll find something about this weapon in Daavi’s journal.” Amais says continuing to spin the blade of the chain dart.

He gulps, so he really was going to the tower of Wynd, he really would have to fight for his life.

“You’re really going, despite all my warnings. I have never known a man to be so stubborn.” Boaz says good naturedly. The large man sits having a dinner of meaty soup and vegetables which he eats with his only hand.

“You will come to learn that I am one of the most stubborn people you will ever meet, Century man.” Amais says. He places a hand on Boaz’s shoulder smiling kindly at the man who was no longer just the stranger from the tower.

“I believe that to be true now.” Boaz says slurping his broth. “I don’t think I have a hundred years to see you again.”

“I’ll try to make it back before the hairs on your chin start turning gray.” Amais laughs. Boaz joins in too.

“Bravery and wit, are two of fear’s greatest enemies.” Boaz says.

“And what’s the last one, they’re usually three in these cases right?”

“Kindness.”

“How could I forget?”

The two men sit and talk for a long while before the sun finally sets, Amais makes a note to remember all that Boaz had learned about the tower during their talks. By the time he gets to his room, Talien is laying on his bed sleeping.

He takes in all of her, the gentle snores, the rise and fall of her chest, the drool leaking from the side of her mouth. He chuckles. She would make an excellent paladin if she chose to go down that path.

He would definitely see her again, of that he was sure.

Amais makes space beside the young acolyte, willing himself to fall asleep so he would have the strength for his journey.

His quest to find the tower had begun.

“Just wait a little longer master, I’m coming.”