The weather was beginning to turn colder, and the wagon I was riding in did not provide the same sense of comfort as the previous trips we took in more temperate weather. The landscapes no longer had the green hue I got used to, and the roads got worse and worse the further we went away from the capital. With the fast-approaching winter I realized that I would soon be turning 16, and that this would be the first birthday I would have in this new world. This is not information I have shared with many others though, and the only way anyone could find out that it was indeed my birthday would be if one of the teachers remembered it from the class registers. The calendar the Jenusians used was very similar to ours from Earth, with 12 months in a year, and the number of days in each month was almost identical to the one I was used to. It was a solar calendar, which was a relief since I wouldn’t have put it past them to still be using a lunar one, but the biggest difference was that they did not have a leap year every four years. So it was reasonable to assume that the calendar would eventually become less and less representative of the seasons of the year, although this doesn’t seem to have happened so far.
The names of each month were different, with some of them almost seeming more like grunts than names, but just knowing the order in which the months went helped me keep track of the passing time. Just the fact that there exists a 12 month calendar already implies this is yet another addition to the mystery of how so many commonalities exist in this strange place with Earth, but both my own searching through the palace library and Sophie’s aid here and there did not yield any concrete answers.
Since there wasn’t much to do on the wagon journey, with a lack of entertainment an issue which plagued people like Max and Louis greatly, it gave me some free time to orient myself and just think about things. I was already dreading the conversation I would have with Sophie when we would come back from Parnam, as I had promised her that I wouldn’t just disappear out of the blue again, and ended up breaking that promise right afterwards. I had an inkling that any arguments about how this was something out of my control would be futile, so I just prepared myself to apologize incessantly until things returned to normal. Gaspar and Gero would be vexed regarding my disappearance out of nowhere, but I had the feeling that someone as straight-laced as Gaspar wouldn’t be difficult to convince, while the aloof Gero wouldn’t mind in the slightest.
It had been over a week since our departure, and every night was spent sleeping in either a makeshift camp in the wilderness, or at the castle of some noble. It was quite eye-opening to witness the extent of some of the Jenusian noble’s holdings, with our group of nearly half-a-thousand people having no trouble fitting in. It seems the nobles were already notified of our impending arrival each evening, and it was generally expected for them to have large enough abode’s to tend to hundreds of guests at a time, although not as luxuriously as our compound in Krilos.
On days where we would hole up in tents, I managed to get enough sleep to feel relatively rested the morning after, but on days where we would be staying at the home of a local noble, a lengthy feast would be held and it would be lucky if I could manage three hours of shut-eye. Part of the reason I realized how bad the roads were getting was that the bumpy roads would wake me up as I was trying to catch up on some sleep during the day, and the frequency of these interruptions increased near the midpoint of our journey. Thankfully, as we were now approaching Parnam the roads returned to a state not too dissimilar from the ones around Krilos, but this also brought a host of other problems with them.
A traveling convoy of over five hundred people was difficult to ignore, and the people we would pass on the roads would always give way once they saw the standard of the royal family, and gawked at us like some passing attraction. This was understandable as I have not seen anything resembling proper entertainment during my time in Krilos, so seeing some high-class wagons being escorted by fully armored men wasn’t something the average person would see often.
The Knights especially drew the same kind of attention I would expect a celebrity to draw, with Sir Grant looking like some stylist did work on him every morning. Disregarding the high class armor and yellow cloak he wore, which signified that he was in service to a royal, his hair definitely wasn’t naturally that frizzly and spiked. Why did he spend so much effort just to look good if he was a Knight? This was something I was finding hard to understand, but the reactions of the common people were enough for me to reason that he was doing so for someone’s vanity; either his own, or Kuvira whom he served.
The city of Parnam looked to be slightly larger than Thacks, but still visibly smaller than the capital. The main road leading into the city was packed on both sides by people, even outside the walls. When our group came into viewing distance I could hear a commotion break out even here, as some people tried to move closer in our direction. The path towards the main gate was propped open by the city guards, but the cheers of the people managed to travel past their blockade.
To say that this was something I didn’t expect would be an understatement. Even at the ‘grand reveal’ in the main temple of Gera in Krilos the crowds outside didn’t devolve into this level of chaos. My first thought was that these people were so ecstatic due to the presence of Kuvira in the leading wagon, but that thought was dashed as soon as people began to chant the name ‘Talik’.
Talik was the god people in Eastern Euphelia worshiped as the god responsible for death and something like reincarnation or rebirth. At the ‘selection’ in the temple of Gera, the other priesthoods sent representatives to serve as witnesses, due to the official story being that many gods cooperated in summoning us to this world, Talik among them. We were informed in advance that the religious ceremony that we would be attending would be at the main Temple of Talik, which was in Parnam. So it seems that these people aren’t here because they are hardcore royalists, but rather because they are faithful adherents.
The atmosphere was not so different inside the city, and it looked at some points that perhaps a riot would break out due to the city guards preventing the mob from swarming our procession. I wasn’t the only one having such thoughts either, the students who were subjected to such an unusual situation looked shaken, and I swear it looked like some of the soldiers who were on horseback next to our wagon had sweat pouring down their brows.
We would be staying in the inner city, which was the old expanded castle of the ruling family, House Freid. The one most excited out of all the students is undoubtedly Louis, who met the daughter of the Duke on a previous occasion. It seems that even though he saw her only once, the poor guy was positively smitten with her. He roped Max and I into discussions regarding his prospects in properly ‘courting’ her as the Jenusians called it. While I wasn’t entirely familiar with the standards for romance here, I had no doubt in my mind that any potential suitor of a noble lady would have to consider the political ramifications of the match first and foremost.
I didn’t exactly want to disappoint Louis while he was so giddy about the girl, so Max and I shared a knowing look and decided to placate him with platitudes and encouragement. Who knows, if Louis actually becomes someone noteworthy over the next few years, it’s not far-fetched to think Duke Freid would give his blessings.
The cramped nature of our accommodations and the limitations on our movement in Parnam, which was admittedly for our own safety in such a devout city, meant that I couldn’t really do any exercise or swordsmanship practice. Instead I decided to lean into the sorcery side of things and every spare moment I had alone I would try and ‘strengthen my mindspace’. While lying in bed, my roommates already fast asleep, I would close my eyes and try to visualize the ebbs and flows with which the clumps of differently colored light would move around me.
I had experimented with different ways of thinking in regards to these lights, and noticed that their movement was not random whatsoever. When meditating alone the lights moved much more calmly, but when meditating with others around me, even if they were ‘mundanes’, the lights would move more erratically. Sometimes they would gravitate around Max, Louis, or myself, other times they would avoid us as if repelled by a magnet. I had a brief thought that perhaps these lights might have some kind of consciousness or intelligence, but they would not respond to any words that I would say in either English or Rahlian.
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If anyone had stumbled upon me when I was meditating behind the storage area in the compound, seeing me speaking to seemingly nobody, they would have probably thought I was insane.
One thing that clearly influenced the ‘arcane power’ which was not visible with one’s eyes was the movement of the wind. I remembered clearly how I was meditating once and a gust of wind blew near me, strong enough that I could feel it on my face. At the same time as this had happened all of the lights which I was tirelessly trying to will to come towards my chest were blown away, which leads me to believe that these things, while invisible to the naked eye, were present physically in some form.
This theory of mine also helped me improve the gathering of these lights towards me multiple fold. It seems that the doubts before about whether these things existed or if they were just visualization of non-existent things held me back a lot with influencing their movement with my ‘will’. I would sometimes imagine a flowing river pushing them towards me, or a magnet attracting the opposite end of another magnet, as guides on what kind of movement I desired from these lights.
These concepts were easy to understand for someone like me, but they would be very difficult for people who have never even heard of the word ‘science’, like the native inhabitants of this land. I began to think that perhaps this was a bottleneck in the personal development of sorcerers, and that might be a reason as to why we were summoned.
This night I tried to visualize the same gust of wind blowing the wisps towards me, but that visualization didn’t quite yield the results I had wanted. The window to the room my roommates and I were staying in was open, and I couldn’t hear the blowing of the wind even though my bed was closest to it. It seems one’s surroundings have a lot of impact on the effectiveness of the ‘visualization’ aspect.
But just because it didn’t work on my few previous tries on trying to imagine myself standing on a cliff with the wind blowing towards me, or standing in a doorway and the air current blowing intensely through a narrow gap, I didn’t give up. I thought next to try and visualize part of the air in its chemical form: two oxygen atoms stuck together. Who knows, maybe arcane power in its most basic form is as small as an atom too.
As soon as I did that, the wisps of light immediately dashed towards me at a fast speed, and even more of these wisps began appearing in my limited vision from the direction of the window. At the same time, I felt a gust of wind blow in from the same way, which caused the window to shut so loudly that it woke up both of my slumbering roommates.
I too was startled by the noise, although I didn’t jump out of the bed in just my undies like Max did. They looked at me funny before I nonchalantly pointed to the now-closed window to show that was the source of the noise. After following the direction of my finger, and seeing the closed window they understood what had happened and immediately went back to sleep.
I pretended to do the same while nervously trying to understand what had just happened. Why did me imagining two conjoined oxygen atoms and willing them to move towards me like a gust of wind cause such a reaction? I didn’t dare to try such a thing again for fear Max and Louis would catch on to what I was doing, so I placated myself by deciding to experiment on this weird phenomenon when we returned to Krilos.
The celebrations in Parnam lasted for four days, of which we were only presented to the general public for an hour or so on the first day. With the autumn harvest season mostly concluded, the Priesthood of Talik would preside over a ceremony which was meant to remember the dead and celebrate their lives. The way both the temple and the believers viewed death was a lot more positive and less melancholy than what I was used to. Instead of viewing death as a tragic event of sorts, the people instead seemed to be praying earnestly for the happiness of their departed loved ones in the afterlife. The ‘End Path’ as the celebration was called, was one of the most important celebrations for the common people, and it seems that many people from the surrounding towns and villages made the trek to the city where the main temple is. The ‘End Path’ also has a related celebration in Spring called the ‘New Path’, although from what the teachers know we won’t be attending then.
The other three days of the festivities were spent playing the role of a ‘good’ noble youth at repeated feasts, and even with my usual strong appetite I still think I ate less than my roommates. I just persevered through these unpleasant events, and focused all of my energy on meditation, although without thinking about chemistry.
We began making our way back to Krilos about a fortnight after we first left, and on the way back Kuvira explained that the summoned at the compound will have changes to our lessons. The amount of time spent on Rahlian and history will be decreased, and a new lesson will be added which deals with more practical things for the nobility. When Kuvira said these words at a feast of the same noble we stayed with on our journey to Parnam, my first thought was ‘but we’re not nobles though…’. Even though I thought that, I wasn’t brazen enough to interrupt the daughter of the Emperor, so like most others I sat there with a dull smile and listened to her speech which was full of praise for our behavior at the celebrations, and the ‘great’ progress we were making in our adaptation to life here.
She also informed us that this was not the first time we would be the only time we would have to go somewhere within Jenusia. They wanted us to be present as ‘messengers’ of the gods at social and religious functions it seems, and this information was quickly followed by the news that our physical training and swordsmanship lessons will be less frequent to give us more time to rest and recuperate in between these trips. Such a carefully planned speech, she really knows how to use the ‘carrot and the stick’ to get people to do what she wants them to. It definitely worked on me, I already began thinking about what I would fill up my ‘free’ days with, I just hoped Gaspar wouldn’t mind me showing up for his teachings more often.
We were gone from the capital for less than three weeks, but the landscape and just the general ‘feel’ of the whole city was very different. There were fewer shades of green, replaced with brown and tinges of yellow. People on the street were wearing much thicker clothes, and even I was beginning to feel a bit chilly with just a noble tunic. When we made it back to our rooms, a new set of clothes was already waiting for us on our beds. The tunic was much the same, but now stitched into it was a layer of wool. It felt a lot heavier than the wool in my sweaters that I used to wear, but it definitely felt soft and warm to the touch.
The shoes too were replaced with something that had a higher ‘shaft’. This would definitely come in handy when off-road, as I was starting to become annoyed from having to clean my shoes every time I went for a commission. It would probably be a good idea to purchase a scarf too, there probably wasn’t any reliable medicine to lean on if I caught a cold.
Since we had just come back from a trip, the Jenusians were courteous and let us have a few days R & R before the new lessons. I bit the bullet and went to the library on my first day off, expecting to be chewed out for being a liar. Sophie wasn’t there though, so I went to Gaspar’s home, where I was received by just Gaspar.
He didn’t really mind that I had been ‘scared’ to show my face in front of him after failing to repeat the basic forms properly, and he just ordered me to practice my forms while he sat nearby munching on some nuts. This went on for around half-an-hour, after which I collapsed from exhaustion. Three weeks of not having physical exercise combined with a schedule packed full of banquets really did a number on my stamina.
While I was recuperating I decided to pick Gaspar’s brain a bit regarding the whole ‘chemical formula’ incident.
“Sir, in your years as a mercenary have you ever met someone who was both a swordsman and a magi?” I asked, hoping he would be kind enough to provide me an answer.
Gaspar didn’t answer me immediately but sat there silently gazing off into the distance. I had assumed he just ignored me and began clearing my mind and steadying my breathing, because I thought he would make me practice the forms again after I had rested enough.
“Met? No. But there are tales passed down in Yas that mention someone who was both a powerful swordmaster, and a magi. Since I’ve never seen someone like that myself I couldn’t tell you if they are true, or just a story that people like to tell others about.” He eventually answered, not entirely sure why I had asked him such a question.
“Sorcery and swordsmanship are not compatible Leon, you’d best get such ideas out of your head while you’re still young. A man is not a god, and cannot master all things. It’s best you decide for yourself what you want to do, and devote all of your effort to it” He advised me, which was surprising since he was usually very concise with his words.
“Why do you think they are incompatible? Surely a magi trained in swordsmanship would be stronger than just a magi or a swordsman?” I followed up, not understanding why they were as he said ‘incompatible’.
“It’s not just because of one’s abilities, but about a person’s mind. I have had the displeasure of meeting quite a few magi in my life, and they are truly despicable. A man needs to be true to himself in order to be a good swordsman, and the magi spend their entire lives lying to themselves. Which is why in all of my travels I have only ever met swordsmen, or magi, never both” He elaborated, it sounded like he had some bad encounters with sorcerers in the past.
After that he flung one the nuts at me, and urged me to get back to training, which I didn’t particularly mind since he humored my questions. I kind of understood his point about the magi being liars though, since many of the things I have observed myself and heard from Sophie resembled a whole class of powerful people with ‘holier-than-thou’ attitudes. But even then I didn’t agree with Gaspar, I definitely wanted to be both a swordsman and a magi.