Travellers from a city of night
Following hope’s blue, fragile light.
They looked half-drowned and exhausted. One was a dark-haired young woman, maybe his age, barely on her feet, being supported by a similarly-youthful, worried-looking red Centaur. Their clothes were finely tailored beneath the mud. Water streamed from their hair into their eyes, even though they were under the porch.
Ferrian stepped aside at once, gesturing them inside.
They made no move, however, just stared at him. They looked afraid.
Ferrian blinked, regarding them. Not wayward travellers, then, he surmised. They knew exactly what this place was: the Centaur especially. Their race could detect magic.
Ferrian took a deep breath. “Please,” he urged. “Come in.”
After a few more uncertain moments, the Centaur moved, reluctantly, ushering the girl through the entrance. Ferrian closed the door quietly behind them.
The sound of the rain diminished, to be replaced by echoing silence. The three of them stood together with their reflections in the gleaming-new entry hall.
Ferrian felt nervous and slightly awkward. He was no good at social formalities. Then again, neither was Arzath. His master’s idea of introducing visitors was to fling open the door, glare at them for about ten seconds before declaring: “Go away!” and slamming the door in their faces.
He supposed anything other than that was an improvement.
“Um...” he said, scuffing at his still-damp blond hair. “Welcome to Castle Whiteshadow, the School of Magical Studies. I hope. Um. I’m...” he hesitated, then sighed and rolled his eyes. “Well, Lord Arzath wants me to call myself a Lord, but that sounds stupid, so you can just call me Ferrian.”
He offered his hand with what he hoped was a reassuring smile.
The Centaur eyed it but did not take it. Neither did the girl. But the former gave him an apologetic look and bowed instead. “Alon,” he greeted.
Ferrian understood. “Alon,” he replied with a small bow of his own.
“I am called Luca,” the Centaur said. “This is Lady Araynia.”
The girl met his eyes shyly and quickly looked away. “My Lord,” she said softly, ignoring his request.
Ferrian groaned inwardly. Great. Lord Ferrian.
The girl hugged herself tightly, her hands buried in her drenched fur-trimmed cloak. Both of the strangers were shivering.
“I’ll fetch some blankets,” Ferrian said. He waved a hand at the open dining room door. “Go ahead and get warm.”
He started across the hall, boots echoing on the marble, and hurried up the sweeping white staircase. This part of the castle had been reconstructed almost exactly as Requar had built it, though the foyer was enlarged somewhat and a contrasting black staircase had been added on the right-hand side. Other ebony stone features made their presence known here and there, as well. The colour scheme had been altered; the sunburst design on the foyer floor was red, blue and yellow, mirroring the great round window above the door, and matching velvet wall hangings lined the main rooms and passageways. There was a preponderance of gold trimmings.
Ferrian wasn’t convinced the new decor was entirely tasteful, but Arzath liked it and at least it gave the place some colour to brighten the gloomy corners…
Retrieving a couple of woollen blankets from a never-used guest room, Ferrian returned to the foyer balcony to find the pair still standing exactly where he had left them, dripping quietly on the floor.
Discreetly, he cast a Mind Sweep as he descended the stairs.
The room dissolved into vague shapes and a multi-coloured glow appeared around the newcomers. It was gold, but wavered in various shades of blue and violet, wisps of light fading into the ether.
They were unhappy and fearful, and weary beyond measure. Something bad had happened to them, and they had journeyed hard. But they were also relieved.
Curiously, there was another glow as well, a pale blue one in the middle of the woman’s silhouette, but by then Ferrian had reached them and had no time to examine them further.
Blinking his magic away, he handed over the blankets and led them forwards, to the warmth and light.
This time, they followed.
“Oh, uh… sorry about the mess!” Feeling slightly embarrassed, Ferrian hurriedly snatched up his wet cloak, scooped up the rucksack and books and dumped everything behind his chair, relatively out of the way. “Take a seat!” he said. The remainder of the loose books flew into his hands, one by one like heavy, musty paper birds.
Lady Araynia stepped forward tentatively, clutching a blanket around her, and perched on the edge of the opposite armchair. Luca hung her sodden cloak on one of the dining chairs and came forward, then hesitated, looking at the ground, and took a step back.
Ferrian dropped the books unceremoniously on the pile and then noticed why the Centaur was uneasy. Reaching out his arm, he summoned his Sword. It leapt off the floor into his grasp. He walked over and propped it up beside the kitchen door, safely away from anyone.
Coming back, he hovered for a moment, uncertain. “Tea?” he offered. “Um. Wine? Some food?”
At the mention of food, their eyes lit up, and Luca nodded quickly. Ferrian set the kettle over the fire to boil, then hastened into the kitchen to fetch some bread and cheese.
He placed the food on the end of the dining table, then went back to see what else he could scrounge up. When he returned a few minutes later, the plate was completely cleared – even the crumbs.
Luca came forward and filled his hands with apples from the platter Ferrian carried. He took one over to Araynia. She began devouring it ravenously.
Ferrian had never seen anyone eat so fast. They were starving.
He realised for the first time that neither of them carried packs or provisions, or any kind of travelling gear. Luca carried a sword at his hip, but that was all.
“Where have you two come from?” Ferrian enquired, setting the platter of fruit and biscuits down on the table.
They didn’t respond at once, as their mouths were full of food. Finally, Araynia swallowed and said quietly: “Crystaltina.”
“The Crystal City?” It wasn’t that unusual. The few travellers that had been bold enough to seek out the School were all from wealthy backgrounds, no doubt eager to study sorcery for the power and prestige, or just for the thrill of it. That was largely why Arzath had turned them away. But it was a long way to come without any supplies.
This pair didn’t look like they had come here to learn. They looked rather like they didn’t want to be here at all. Especially Luca.
“What’s brought you here?” Ferrian asked.
There was silence again, but this time they were not eating. Araynia stared down at her apple as though she was suddenly not hungry any more.
Luca’s brow was furrowed. He examined the fruit in his own hands as though he, too, had lost the desire to eat. He seemed to be searching for the right words to say.
“We… barely escaped with our lives,” he answered finally. He shook his head, but said nothing more.
Something dark took hold in the pit of Ferrian’s stomach, and grew larger the longer the silence went on. It was punctuated with a deafening clatter of hail on the windows.
Ferrian’s neck prickled. “Oh no,” he whispered, reading the unspoken words from their haunted expressions. He lowered himself into his chair. “The demon-wraiths.”
“They… they crept under the doors,” Araynia whispered, still staring at her apple, shivering again despite her blanket and the heat of the fire. “And through windows. Silent. Like… smoke...”
Luca shook his head again. “The Gold Watch was holding them off at the Palace,” he continued, “with their silvertine swords.” He swallowed. “The rest of the city...” He took a deep breath but left the sentence unfinished.
Araynia finished it for him. “Swallowed in darkness.” Her eyes were a deep blue colour, and filled with tears, glinting in the light of the fire. “My family...”
The wash of dread inside Ferrian tightened, squeezing his guts until he was slightly nauseous. The fire was suddenly far too hot. “You came here for help,” he guessed, feeling dismal.
Luca looked down at Araynia and placed a hand on her shoulder. “Show him,” he told her gently.
She looked up at the Centaur, then over at Ferrian. Wiping the tears away with the back of her apple-hand, she brought her right hand out from under the blanket.
Shaking, she uncurled her fingers.
A blue gemstone sat there, attached elegantly to a silver chain which lay crumpled on her palm. She had been clutching the stone so tightly that red marks scarred the inside of her fingers.
“He led me here,” she said.
Ferrian frowned, not understanding. “Who led you here?”
“Him,” she replied mysteriously.
Still frowning, Ferrian reached out for the stone. Araynia pulled back, but Luca’s hand tightened on her shoulder. He gave her a reassuring nod. Reluctantly, she held the stone out again.
Ferrian took it, letting it sit flat on his own palm.
It was a beautiful largish sapphire, deep blue, perfectly clear, about an inch long and cut in an oblong radiant shape. Firelight sent orange sparks dancing in its faceted depths.
Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.
There was magic in it. Faint, but there; a peculiar but comforting kind of cool warmth brushing his palm.
A sudden chill of recognition swept through him. He had seen gemstones like this before, though smaller, and set in the hilt of a Sword. And only one person used magic like this. It was unmistakable.
He found that his breath had caught in his throat. It was a few moments before he could force any words out. “Where… where did you get this?”
Araynia looked at him nervously, chewing her lip; her brown skin gone a few shades paler, as though fearing his reaction. She glanced up at Luca again. “I… I’ve had it since I was a little girl,” she stammered. “My… my grandmother gave it to me.”
Ferrian lifted his head and stared at her.
The girl swallowed. “She was a nurse,” she went on. “She was blind since birth, but very good at her job. Twenty years ago, she worked for an esteemed healer. He had adopted an infant son but had no one to help him care for the baby. One day the healer left without warning, taking the boy away, leaving many of his possessions behind in his haste. My grandmother gathered them up for him, but he never returned to collect them. So she gave this pendant to me.”
Araynia took a deep breath. “She told me that this stone was magical and that it would protect me if I was in danger. She whispered when she said it. When I was little I believed her, until my mother found out what she’d been saying and insisted it was just a fairytale, and that I shouldn’t listen to such nonsense.”
Her eyes glistened with tears again. “I wore it all the time anyway, because it was pretty and I wanted to believe that the magic was real. I had it with me when Luca and I fled the house, when the demon-wraiths attacked...” She swallowed. “In the darkness, it started glowing. I don’t know why. I felt as though it was leading me somewhere; to help, to safety.”
She looked up at Ferrian hopefully, meeting his gaze fully for the first time. “The man who owned this stone. The healer. Do you know where he is?”
Ferrian continued staring at her for a long moment. All the blood had drained out of him. He realised his own hand had clenched around the stone as the girl had been speaking. Slowly, he handed it back to her.
Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath before replying. “That boy was me. The man you speak of was… my father. For awhile.”
He opened his eyes to find them both looking at him. Hopeful. Fervent.
He shook his head. “But the man you’re looking for is dead.”
Araynia shook her head in confusion. “No. No, he’s not.” She looked down at the pendant and shook her head again, in denial. “He is not!”
Ferrian looked back at her sadly. “Some kinds of spell don’t require a life force to work,” he explained. “They can persist long after their creator has died. For decades, or hundreds of years, or thousands, like the Aegis or Grath Ardan. The magic in that stone is just a remnant. Lord Requar used to live in this castle; the stone must have picked up on traces of similar magic, and that’s why it led you here. Arzath and I found active spells still in the basement–”
“NO!”
Her unexpected cry cut him off, startling both him and Luca. She looked angry, now, both hands clenched into fists, the apple core crushed in her slim fingers. “You are just like my mother! You are wrong!”
Ferrian felt anger rise in a sharp wave inside him, his magic stirring icily in response. He forced it back carefully, containing the frost to his clenched palms, and slumped back in his chair, staring at the ceiling. “He is dead,” he said, not bothering to temper the coldness in his voice. “I was there. He gave up his own life to save mine, and I sat at his funeral and watched him burn!”
He closed his eyes. I don’t need these memories! he thought furiously. I don’t need to remember this again right now…
“His brother scattered his ashes in the waterfall out there,” he pointed over Araynia’s shoulder, glaring at her. “Believe me, if Lord Requar were still alive, Arzath and I would know about it!”
Silence fell like a hammer. Even the rain outside had quietened.
Araynia’s expression changed. The fierce look dissolved into mortified tears that leaked down her cheeks.
Luca looked downcast as well. His shoulders slumped.
Ferrian felt his own annoyance slip away. The two of them had journeyed far in search of help. That stone had been a beacon of hope for them, and the hope had been a lie.
Sighing, he leaned forward, placing his head in his hand. “You’re not the only ones who need Requar’s help,” he said gloomily. “My friends are in danger too.” He shook his head. “But he’s gone. We have to figure things out on our own.”
He looked up at the girl. She was staring into the fire, her eyes gone dull, her hands limp, all hope spilled from her as though Ferrian had stabbed her in the heart.
I have to do something, he thought desperately.
Getting up, he knelt in front of her. “Look,” he said. “I’m not Lord Requar. I don’t have the ability to heal anyone. But I have a Sword. I can banish the wraiths.” He held her gaze firmly. “I’ll come back to Crystaltina with you, and do what I can to help.”
He knew as he said the words that it was a futile offer. Her family was in all likelihood long perished; they would have died instantly, the night she’d fled, if the wraiths had touched them. By the time the three of them got back to the city, weeks would have passed. There was either no one left alive or the Watch had successfully extinguished the wraiths. And if they were infected, what then? He could add this girl’s family to the list of people he was supposed to miraculously rescue from trigon…
Ferrian felt as though a terrible burden had been dropped upon him, and was slowly crushing him.
Is this how Requar felt? Ferrian wondered unhappily. How did he live with the responsibility?
He didn’t, he answered his own question morbidly. He was broken, and went mad with despair…
Taking a deep breath, Ferrian stood, pushing the thoughts away. “You can stay here,” he told them. “We’ll leave as soon as the storm clears up–”
“You will do no such thing.”
The new voice caused them all to turn.
A dark figure stood at the end of the dining hall, like an omen of doom. He was clad entirely in black, save for a white long-sleeved shirt beneath his tunic and swirls of white embroidery decorating his waistcoat. He looked imposing, as though one of the shadows of the castle had come to life.
Emerald eyes flashed beneath his hood as he approached. What could be seen of his skin was too pale, his eyes glints in shadows deeper than the hood. He cast a contemptuous glance over the Centaur and the girl.
“What the hell are these disgusting creatures doing in here?” he declared. “Have they been dredged up from the river?”
Luca and Araynia were taken aback, but Ferrian was unfortunately used to this kind of rude announcement. “They are our guests,” he replied calmly.
Lord Arzath glared at him. “I thought I ordered you not to let anyone in without my permission?”
Ferrian stared back at him coolly. “You did. But I ignored you.”
He could see the fire rise behind the sorcerer’s eyes. “They are not stray kittens!” he snapped.
“No,” Ferrian retorted, “they’re people, and deserving of some compassion.” He folded his arms. “Perhaps you ought to practice that one day...”
Arzath’s eyes narrowed. He turned sharply to the visitors. “Get out,” he snarled.
“Arzath!”
The sorcerer turned his glare back to Ferrian. “Their petty problems are none of your concern!”
“Petty problems?” Ferrian strode forward, gesturing with his arm in disbelief. “The Crystal City is overrun with wraiths!”
“Indeed. And there are too many of them for you to fight. Don’t be foolish!”
Ferrian returned the glare. “I’m going to help them.”
“You are not.”
Ferrian let his breath out through his nose. He’s in one of THOSE moods, he thought. Itching to burn something.
“Are you really going to try to stop me?” he demanded.
Arzath folded his arms.
Ferrian sighed loudly. “This is ridiculous. What’s the point of learning magic if I can’t–”
“What’s that?”
They all paused at Arzath’s words. The sorcerer strode forward suddenly, gaze fixed intently on Araynia.
“What is that?”
She tucked her hand away quickly.
Arzath made a rapid gesture with his arm. The girl’s arm flew out, twisted at the wrist and the blue stone tumbled to the floor. She cried out in pain.
Arzath held out his hand and the pendant flew into it. He examined it, ignoring the girl’s distress.
“Well done!” Ferrian exclaimed angrily as he passed Arzath, moving to Araynia’s chair. There was a sharp hiss of steel as Luca drew his sword. Ferrian shook his head quickly. The Centaur, heeding his warning, backed warily around the armchair and took up a guarded position on the other side, close to the fire.
Arzath was oblivious to all of them, absorbed in studying the stone. Suddenly his eyes widened. He looked up quickly. “Where did you get this?”
Ferrian saved Araynia another lengthy explanation. “Apparently Requar left some things behind when he fled Sunsee twenty years ago,” he said. “One of them was that pendant. Her grandmother acquired it and gave it to her.”
Arzath stared at Araynia for a long moment. She quivered under his penetrating gaze. Ferrian put a hand on her good arm, reassuring her. He wouldn’t let Arzath hurt her again.
Finally, the black-cloaked sorcerer looked back at the stone. Briefly, something passed across his face – a look of intense sadness, before darkening rapidly, like a storm cloud descending. His gloved hand clenched around the stone. “Get out,” he ordered, his voice low and dangerous. “All of you!”
Not waiting for them to obey, he spun on his heel and swept from the room.
Ferrian realised he’d been holding his breath. He let it out. “Show me your hand,” he said.
Araynia let go of her injured wrist.
Ferrian took it gently in his hands, and looked up into her eyes. “I’m not a healer,” he told her. “But I can take the pain away.”
Summoning his magic, he felt it rise through him and course, cold and crackling, down his arms and into his hands. Frost spread from his fingertips and across the girl’s skin; a gentle wash of cold, just enough to numb the pain.
Setting her hand down carefully, he stood. “Stay here for now,” he told them. “Rest and eat something. Don’t mind what Arzath says. I need to go and speak with him.”
They looked uncertain, but nodded. Luca kept his sword drawn. Ferrian turned and hurried out of the dining room.
“Brilliant, Arzath!” Ferrian’s voice echoed down the long black and white corridor. “You injure our guests and steal from them. I thought we were supposed to be making a good impression!”
Arzath didn’t reply.
He jogged to catch up with the sorcerer’s swishing cloak. “We’re building a School!” he went on. “And you don’t want any students!”
Still, Arzath said nothing.
“You know what I think?” he went on, furiously. “I think you’re afraid of completing the School, because you won’t know what to do! You’ll have nothing to occupy yourself with other than actually teaching, and you obviously can’t stand that idea!”
Arzath stopped dead in the corridor, his cloak settling around him. He spun as Ferrian approached.
Ferrian stopped as well. Some instinct caused his magic to flare icily inside him. Arzath strode forward, coming so close to Ferrian that they almost touched.
Ferrian tensed, his heart pounding a little faster. He knew how to defend himself – Arzath had made sure of that – but he didn’t want to get into a serious fight with his master. He still had the burn scars from some of his ‘lessons’.
“What I feared has already come to pass!” Arzath hissed, his eyes burning. “I fear nothing! I care about nothing!” His eyes bored magma-filled holes into Ferrian a moment more, then he whirled away.
“Then what the hell is all this for?” Ferrian called in exasperation.
Arzath rounded a corner, into a darker part of the castle. Ferrian followed.
“I made a promise to my brother,” he said without turning around. “I intend to honour it.”
“And then what?”
Arzath laughed, but it was a cold, hopeless laugh, devoid of its usual fire. His voice echoed off the cold, black stone. “Then this world shall be a place I no longer care to live in.”
Ferrian’s footsteps slowed to a stop as he watched the sorcerer disappear into the depths of the castle, his cloak becoming one with the shadows.
Some while later, Ferrian wandered back down to the dining room to check on the visitors. Lady Araynia seemed okay; her wrist wasn’t broken, only strained. The two of them seemed to have recovered a little. He gave them directions to the guest rooms that he had made up for them, assured them Arzath wouldn’t bother them again, apologised for the theft of the pendant – but they probably wouldn’t see it again – and left them to make themselves as comfortable as they could manage in the circumstances.
Walking across the foyer, he opened the door and went out into the rain, through the mud and stopped in the long wet grass at the edge of the bluff, gazing out across the valley.
The rain was cold and refreshing after the stifling heat of the fire. He let it pour over him. He hadn’t bothered to bring a cloak.
It could do nothing to wash away the pain inside him, however.
Off to his left, there was movement: something enormous and pale. The ground trembled. A huge head, pearl-scaled and glistening, horned and magnificent appeared beside him.
“He’s going to leave it all to me, Dragon,” Ferrian said, staring off at the waterfall cutting a white line through the mist in the distance. “I’m going to be the only sorcerer left.” He blinked at the tears that filled his eyes. He felt his soul leaking out into the rain. “He was right: I can’t kill all of the demon-wraiths. There are too many people to save. I can’t do this alone.”
The great White Dragon lifted her head and tilted it slightly, regarding him with one massive, mirrored eye. “You are the Winter,” she said in her strange, musical voice. “A thousand snowflakes fall at your beckoning.” The eye blinked, slowly. “You have never been alone.”
He looked up at her, at the water streaming over her long nose. She had lived inside his head for many years, since the day of his birth, in fact; a ghost of a Dragon, a memory, trapped in his body along with a powerful Winter spell. Then Lord Requar had used his Sword of Healing on Ferrian and brought her back to life: now she was a real, breathing creature.
The Winter had fled, but the White Dragon had remained at his side.
He was not alone, it was true. But he still felt helpless.
“I don’t know what to do.”
She bared ice-white teeth in what could have been a sneer or a grin; with Dragons, there was little difference. “You deceive yourself,” she sang. “You know.”
Then she lifted off, stirring the rain into flurries, winging away over his head like an ice queen of the grey sky, around the black and white spires of Castle Whiteshadow, to whatever high den she had made in the snowy mountain tops.
“But I don’t know, Dragon,” Ferrian sighed, staring after her. “I don’t.”