I was starting to wonder if people were pulling my leg about this whole magic business.
Magic wasn’t very consistent. There were solid, believable things like the healing magic McFarlane’s man had used on my leg, or the elemancy Kuro used, and then there were things like this so called “divination” that Sheena claimed that she was a student of. Thunderbolts and lightning? I could believe that. Seeing the future? That was a whole different story.
Kuro was not a typical mage. By his own admission he was not to be treated as a concrete example of what mages were like, as his unique circumstances had forced him to learn most of what he knew secondhand or on the way to where he was now. Algrustos was showing me that like in Ishmar, no two people were alike, even if they were raised in the same country, had the same beliefs, and possessed similar abilities.
The mousy mage and I were escorted across Ethenia by a squadron of royal guards. Alverd was a few steps ahead of us, his eyes open and watching for any potential danger. The city looked so different in the daylight with people going about their business like they had done the day before.
I was struck by how casual the citizens were. Many of them had finer garments than the peasants that lived in Ishmar’s capitol, and they looked healthier and better fed. Children chased each other merrily, ducking and weaving through crowds of adults. A robust marketplace complete with a fountain depicting the goddess Eternity raising her hand to the sky had dozens of people haggling over everything from fresh food to imported goods.
Two women were having an argument over who would pay more for a bolt of silk from the nation of Kierhai, whom the shopkeeper reminded his customers had the best silkworms on the entire continent of Selarune. A burly man carried a crate of vegetables to a stall in a corner of the market, stopping abruptly to avoid trampling a child chasing a rolling ball. Three mages were comparing the prices on a line of crystalline artifacts laid out for display in a glass case and griping about how quality was getting worse every year.
Ethenia was so full of life. These were people who didn’t have to worry about the same things my subjects had to. Poverty, hunger, lackluster housing, and incredibly strict laws had led to my people suffering immensely to the point where they had been willing to support an invasion of a country we had a truce with just so we could have food to feed ourselves with. Even though the Algrustians thought everything I was seeing was just their version of normal, it was anything but for me.
This is what I want for my homeland. Walking past the marketplace, I spied two young mages sitting together on the edge of the fountain, sharing a book with each other. I saw the woman squeeze the hand of the man she was with, and he wrapped his arm around her, pulling them closer together. She leaned her head on his shoulder, the perfect picture of young love on a clear day without a care in the world. I stopped in my tracks when I saw their intimate moment. I wasn’t sure what about it made me so distracted. I didn’t move until Kuro stepped in front of me, blocking my view of the two. He waved his hand in my face.
“Hey, Alicia? What’s going on?”
Pushing his hand away, I growled at him. “I’m fine, get your hand out of my face. I was just looking at all of… this.” I pointed at the busy marketplace. Alverd, who had noticed that we were no longer following, came over and followed my gaze.
“What’s wrong, princess? Everything seems perfectly normal over there.”
“That’s just it!” I said. “This is normal for you. All of this… you take it for granted because everywhere you’ve ever been, this must be what passes for normal.” I could hear my voice crack as I remembered how different things were in Ishmar. “I’ve never known your ‘normal’. You saw what things were like, how people had to line up to be given portions instead of a fair share. So much of this is… overwhelming for me.”
Kuro bit his lip like he wanted to say something. After a moment, he tried again. “If this is what you want for your people, Alicia, then you should remember something. You shot your mouth off a few times when we were in front of the Council of Magic. It has to be hard to listen to them sling mud at you, but if you keep antagonizing them they’ll vote to overturn the Queen’s decision.”
“Wait. I thought she was the Witch-Queen. Doesn’t she have the final say?”
Kuro shook his head. “She does in theory. If she doesn’t agree with the Council of Magic’s decision she can override it, but what will happen then is that it will be clear to all of her people that she’s willing to use her authority to ignore their demands for war. The attacks on her will increase, and if she’s assassinated then any hope you have of brokering peace is gone.”
He was right, and I hated that. You don’t have any good options here. Remember who you’re doing this for. I took one last wistful look at the marketplace before nodding. “I’m sorry that I almost ruined everything.” I let out a long sigh. “I want all of this so badly, but at the same time I have so many things to worry about. I don’t want Ishmar becoming a vassal state of Algrustos when this is over. I want real equality.”
Kuro shrugged. “Then show the Witch-Queen you’re not a barbarian. Best way to prove to her that your people can grow beyond the perception the continent has built of them for hundreds of years is for you, their representative, to take the first step. And that means holding your tongue when people talk crap about you. Believe me, I’d be the first person to think about lighting some guy on fire if he talked about me the way some of those Magisters did about you, but if I have to behave, then so do you.”
Alverd rolled his eyes. “Kuro, if you had self-restraint we wouldn’t have prices on our heads in Kiret-”
Kuro whipped around. “Oh come on. That merchant prince had it coming and you know it. A whole country of slavers and that one had to be the guy who decided to have his bodyguard spit on my shoes. It was his own fault for having so much lantern oil in the back of his carriage.” He saw me looking at him incredulously. “It’s a long story. Maybe I’ll tell you about it someday, when we’re not in a rush.”
“Please do,” I said. “You’ve piqued my curiosity.”
The guards escorted us along the roads through the city for some time after that. In the light of day, the city was so picturesque. People hung wet laundry outside their window sills, citizens greeted patrolmen with waves and smiles instead of fear. Everything was so surreal. After rounding a street corner, I could finally see the sky unobstructed by the tall buildings flanking the street, and one of our escorts pointed at a set of taller buildings in the distance. One of our escorts took it upon himself to tell me about the grandest one.
“That’s the Academy of Grand Sorcery and Magical Enlightenment. We have the world’s foremost experts on the magical arts, magical theory, the history of magic and the research of its applications there. We also have an extensive facility for divination that the Queen has reserved for private demonstration.” I couldn’t help but hear the pride in his voice. He didn’t have a condescending tone, just satisfaction in telling me how wonderful this school was.
It took another ten full minutes of walking to reach the front of the Academy itself. A resplendent stone archway stood over the walkway into the Academy grounds. Each stone within the archway was carved with a rune representing a different school of magic, according to the guard. The runes glowed with blue fire, but when I reached out to touch one that was close to the ground, I felt no heat.
Inside the grounds, students wandered freely across a grass lawn. Statues depicting great witches and wizards dotted the gardens, many of them old and wizened. A small amphitheater had been set up on the grounds where more than a dozen students were watching a professor give an in-depth lesson on some kind of magical phenomenon. The professor waved her staff and a giant creature materialized in front of her, a bear born from smoke and nothingness. The students oohed and ahhed and took notes on pieces of parchment.
We were led to the largest building on the campus, which was almost as big as the Castle of Brimstone. Like the Ivory Palace, its entrance was held up by two massive sparkling pillars of stone that sat before a set of giant double doors. The doors swung openly imperiously on our approach, and I saw that no one had done anything to make them do so. They swung shut behind us as we entered.
The interior of the building was spacious, but that was because the majority of the initial room was taken up by a gargantuan device I couldn’t even begin to understand. Kuro’s jaw dropped as he ran forward excitedly. “It’s an orrery! And not just a standard one, but one that uses magic to recreate actual depictions of the planets and their various rotations around our solar system!”
The center of the “orrery” was a blazing globe, like one of Kuro’s fireballs. Circling around it at differing speeds were thirteen orbs of unequal size. One orb had a name projected across its flickering surface, marking that it was Selarune, the world we called home. Lights streaked across the empty space, and it took me a few seconds to realize they were the stars. At last, it hit me. The orrery was a way to track what went on in the night sky.
On either side of the orrery, three separate stories of the building were dominated by shelves of books. Students and teachers hurried through the cramped space between shelves, running to their classes or other responsibilities. I was so amazed at what I was seeing that I didn’t even notice that Alverd had moved next to me until he spoke.
“Incredible, isn’t it?”
I nodded. “Someday, maybe a school like this could exist in Ishmar. The first thing I’d do is abolish and outlaw the mage hunts. We could benefit so much from what magic has to offer. And no one should have to be afraid of having their children taken away, or consider it a mark of patriotism to give them up because of fear.”
“That’s good to hear.” The three of us turned to see the Witch-Queen herself stroll over to us. “One of the things that makes us so wary of Ishmar are the mage hunts. The entire continent knows of that practice, and I think it more than anything contributes to your lurid reputation.” She folded her arms, looking at me sternly from beneath the brim of her hat. “I’m glad you got to see how life could be if this truce works out, princess. I really do think that it’s a goal you can achieve if we can cooperate.”
I narrowed my eyes. “So it was by design? You wanted me to see all those happy people on my way here, didn’t you?”
Sheena waved her arms in a mock display of innocence. “What? That? Hahaha, you give me too much credit. I really did want to bring you here to conduct the divination ritual, and if you happened to see anything on the way, more power to you.” The crooked grin I’d seen on her face when we first met reappeared.
Breathe, Alicia. BREATHE. She may be childish but she did you a favor. Even if it was roundabout. I took a deep breath in through my nose, held it for a few seconds, and then breathed out through my mouth.
“Well it was eye-opening, and I did see a lot that I want recreated in Ishmar when we finally retake it. But first things first. We came here to talk about this divination thing.”
Sheena clasped her hands together. “Indeed. I’ve set up in one of our chambers in the back, near some of the research labs. Let’s be on our way.” She grabbed hold of Alverd’s arm and yanked him away. Again, I took a deep breath in through my nose and out through my mouth, relying on my berserker training to control my anger. The last thing I needed was to lose my temper because I was being territorial.
The guards took up a position around us. A few people stopped to stare at Sheena, but a lot more of them were staring at me. I’m probably the first and only Ishmarian to ever set foot in this school. I could see a few of them whispering and pointing. Bet they’re not saying anything flattering about me.
Just out of curiosity I took a step towards a group of the students. They recoiled away from me as if I were a venomous snake. I didn’t mean anything hostile by it, but I could tell by their reaction that what they were thinking. Kuro was right. You’ve got a lot of hearts and minds to change. Clearing my throat, I tried to address them. “You there.”
The mage in front gulped audibly and pointed meekly at himself. “Um… m-me?”
“Yes, you. Your school is very impressive. Especially your… ornery.” I bit my tongue on the odd word. The mage looked at me quizzically before recognition dawned on his face. “Oh, the orrery! Yes, it’s the pride of the school. I hope you like it.” I could see he wanted to be anywhere but here.
I put my hands on my hips. “Maybe someday you could build one of those in Ishmar. I’m sure we’d be eager to learn about the sky like you do.” The mage exchanged skeptical glances with his two friends, who were using him as a shield.
“Haha, maybe. Well, we have classes to get to. But it was… nice talking to you. I think.” And before I could say anything else, they scurried away.
Kuro scoffed. “Well that was disgraceful. I mean them, not you. You, actually, handled that pretty well.” I gave him a sideways smirk.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
“I’m learning.”
Kuro raised his eyebrow. “Okay, but let’s not get carried away with all the back-patting. When you can keep a cool head in front of the Magisters, then we can celebrate. Come on, we better catch up to the others.”
Alverd and Sheena were standing in a room not far behind the main hall. The door had been left open; inside I could see a small table with four seats, one on the far side and three on the closer side. A crystal ball and a deck of cards lay on the table. The floor had a rug with a five pointed star emblazoned on it that filled most of the space, with tall metal braziers at each of the star’s points. Four incense burners hung from the ceiling in the corners of the room, which had been lit and were already starting to fill the room with some kind of mild yet soothing fragrance.
When Kuro and I entered, the door shut behind us. She motioned for us to seat ourselves across the table from her. Before she could speak, I cleared my throat. “Before we begin, I just wanted to say I’m sorry about what happened in the throne room earlier, Your Majesty. It was shameful of me to act that way.” It was hard to say the words, but they needed to be said. Then I straightened up and looked at her, waiting for her answer.
Sheena waved her hand dismissively. “There’s hardly a need for that, Princess. Lord Kertouli ambushed you with that accusation about Ishmarian assassins. Truth be told, we have no way of knowing for sure if they were Ishmarian. They did indeed have dragon-tooth weapons, but such things could be purchased at black markets all over the world. And the documents we recovered from their bodies were written in cypher. For all we know, the assassins could have come from anywhere. But we’ve been blaming Ishmar for all of our political woes for years, so it’s hardly a surprise that the assassins would be blamed on them too.”
“As for your outburst, you were put on the defensive and needed something to latch onto. When I mentioned that divination wasn’t perfect, you saw an opening and you pounced. Anyone in your position would have done the same. I’ll be sure to let the Lords know in the future that antagonizing diplomatic guests, even ones from Ishmar, isn’t acceptable.”
Well. That went better than it had any right to. I nodded to show my appreciation. “I thank you for that. I know I’m not the easiest person to get along with, but I really do appreciate your understanding.” Eager to change the subject, I cocked my head in the direction of the crystal ball “So, tell me about this divination ritual. How does it work? What does it do?”
She took the deck of cards in her hand and began to shuffle them, laying them out into several stacks. “People often assume that divination can tell us the future. In a way that’s true, but that would be like saying rain always heralds the arrival of a thunderstorm. In most cases, it does turn out that way, but not always. Divination can tell us things that could happen, as well as help us glean insight into what is already happening.”
When the last of the cards had been distributed, she looked at me from behind her spectacles. “As with all forms of open interpretation, divination isn’t a way to get concrete answers. It can set you on the right path, or lead you down a false one. Sometimes having the ability to know what’s coming puts you in the way of the harm you were trying to avoid. It might be too late to change peoples’ perception of what divination is and what it can do, but we can always try to warn them of its dangers and potential.”
She separated three stacks and placed one of them in front of each of us, then pointed at me.
“Please remember to take everything you hear with a grain of salt.” Her normally refined voice had taken on a dull, monotonous tone. Her eyes had lost their youthful glow, and the color had drained from her cheeks. She drew three cards from the top of the deck and laid them face down in front of me. After a moment, she flipped the one on my left face up.
The card had only one word on it, below the numeral VI, “Messenger”. As Sheena pushed the card forward, she spoke. “The Messenger signifies that you have a higher calling. You seek to fulfill a greater purpose, one far larger than you can carry alone. You seek aid in order to fulfill this purpose, and thus you come to me.” As her hand lifted from the card, I could see that it depicted an angel passing a scroll to a priest, who was accepting it on a bent knee.
Her hand went to the middle card, and flipped it over. This time, it had the numeral 0, and was titled “Traveler”. “However, you have no experience or knowledge of how the world is outside your longtime home. You are beyond naive, and have made little progress in growing since you left the comfortable life you took for granted. But there is hope. From here, the only way to go is up.” Sheena’s hand lifted, and the card depicted a man carrying a pack, walking up a mountain.
This is seriously creepy. I don’t know if she’s pulling my leg or if this is real. Alverd’s hand folded over mine. He nodded at me. I felt relieved, albeit not by much. She then flipped over the last card.
The card’s number was XIV. One word was upon it, “Catastrophe.” Depicted on the card was a city, burning as lightning struck it from a blackened sky. Sheena spoke. “But lo, your path is paved with destruction. Your goal lies at the end of a road steeped in suffering, not just your own. Innocent and guilty alike will be brought before the gates of judgment as a result of your desire for peace, princess. Only the strength of your resolve will tell whether these lives will be claimed in vain or not.”
I shuddered. What if she’s right? What if I return home with an army of mages and my people see me as a traitor? What if I have to kill my own citizens to achieve my dream? Can I really go through with that? My mind wandered to the idea of starving peasants being conscripted and I felt a cold dread inch its way up my spine.
Sheena pulled the three cards off the table and shuffled them back into the deck. She waved her hand over the scrying crystal, and the interior of the glass ball became cloudy. “Gaze upon but one future, one branch in a tree of many. See what lies down but one path, should you pursue it.” I leaned closer, to see what was within the deepening shadows of the crystal.
I saw… myself. Locked in battle with someone all too familiar. It was a blurry image, but the person whom I was fighting was familiar. Dressed in splendid dragon tooth armor, a mantle of finest silk draped across her shoulders, was Eliza, my elder half-sister. She had a wide-eyed look of maddened glee on her face, and her bloodstained rapier was angled at me. I was suspended in midair, looking to bring my hammer down on her head. But the most unsettling thing was the crown, my father’s crown, perched on Eliza’s head. She was queen. The Queen of Dragontamers.
The image vanished back into smoke. That was unnerving. I was beginning to understand why Sheena had warned us not to put too much face value on this. It was too easy to draw some terrible assumptions from what I had just seen.
I leaned back and took in a breath. Alverd and Kuro were looking at me, concerned. “Hey, what’s with your faces?” I asked.
Alverd spoke. “Your face went ashen, Princess. We didn’t see anything in the crystal, but your face went whiter than a sheet.”
I was about to reply when Sheena interrupted me, still in her monotone, but now with a bit of an edge to it. “In this room, what is seen is for the seer only. If she wishes to tell you, it must be outside the confines of this room. I’m sorry, but this is how it must be.” I gave an inward sigh of relief. Meanwhile, she finished shuffling the cards again and laid the deck on the table.
She gestured to Alverd, but he held up his hand. “I’m a bit wary about this, but I’m ready. Deal away, milady.”
She doled out three cards onto the table before her. She placed her hand on the leftmost card, and flipped it face-up, revealing it for the three of us.
It bore the numeral II, and the word “Knight”. Upon it was a knight in armor atop a horse, holding a jousting lance. She waved her hand over the card. “You are a man of great character above reproach. More than a decade’s worth of training and learning have made you a paragon of justice in a dim time. Your kind is exceedingly rare, and getting rarer by the moment. But sometimes this quality makes you a thorn in the side of great and terrible people.”
She turned over the middle card. Upon it was the numeral IX, and the word “Rival”. It depicted two men with swords crossed. “You have many enemies, now and in your future. Why they are your enemies will change from person to person, but all of them will share something, some small thread that binds them to some greater evil. But what that greater evil may be, I cannot say.”
Sheena reached for the third card and turned it over. It revealed the numeral V, and the word “King”. The King in question was dressed in a robe of gold, with both hands grasping the handle of a flawless silver blade. “But you are a born leader. Had you time, you would have ascended the ranks and become a fine captain. Your honor and your natural charisma are as much a weapon as your sword and shield. So long as you remember this, you will prevail over any obstacle that rises up in your way.”
Alverd looked torn. I immediately remembered his confession that he had abandoned his post to go searching for Kuro and their childhood friend during the Ishmarian invasion of their homeland, Marevar. Instead of staying to hold the line, he had left his comrades to die and ran from his responsibilities as a knight. It was one of the things that haunted him. So for him to hear such things, that he was noble and brave, was probably the last thing he would have believed.
He took a good look at what lay within the scrying crystal, and his face darkened. When he sat back on his cushion, his face was a mask of disbelief. Again, there was nothing I could do. I put my hand on his shoulder and he looked at me. I tried to smile at him weakly, to show him that everything would be okay. He smiled back, but I could see that he was still rattled.
With that, Sheena took the cards and placed them back in the deck. “Kuro, it is your turn.”
He gulped. She turned to face him, then fanned out three cards onto the table. When she flipped the leftmost card over, the numeral IX was visible, along with the words “The Lost”. The card depicted a man at a crossroad. A nearby road sign was of no help, having a large question mark painted upon it.
She narrated, in her unnerving tone. “You are plagued by doubt and misgivings. The source of these doubts comes from within and without. You wonder how you can emerge from the trials ahead with your honor intact while staying true to your beliefs, however misguided they may be.”
The next card was turned over, and a surprise awaited. The card was upside down. It had the numeral XV on it, and the word “Hope”, but Sheena’s tone grew darker. “But despite your efforts, you will tread an increasingly darker path that will take you where you never dreamed to tread. And there, you will find the greatest foe of all…”
Her hand hesitated above the last card. Finally, she flipped it over. When she did, she finally broke her monotonous tone and drew back in horror. Kuro, too, gasped at what had been revealed. Alverd and I leaned in for a closer look at the card on the table.The numeral on the card was XIII. It depicted a tiny mage at the bottom of the card, but rising above it was a massive shadow, with a nightmarish face, looking down at the mage with a look of malice and evil. The two words on the card were “The Imbalancer”.
After a moment of silence, Sheena finished her divination. “…the greatest foe of all. Yourself. For even when demons whisper in your ears and monsters crawl into your dreams, only you can choose to answer them or not. Even if the great Master of Chaos, the Imbalancer of Scales, tries to tempt you, so long as you resist, you can stay true to yourself no matter the trials.”
Kuro nervously leaned forward to gaze into the crystal. But instead of screeching in terror, as I was expecting, his brow furrowed and he leaned back, his mouth moving but not making words. He looked around, puzzled, as though something in the room might have explained what he had seen, but to no avail. As he did, I took a closer look at the card.
I may not have been a mage, but even I could tell that something like this “Imbalancer” wasn’t good news. I mean, with a title like “Master of Chaos” or “Imbalancer of Scales”, it’s hard not to assume the thing is evil as all get out. I was just about to ask more when Sheena swept the cards and shuffled them back into the deck, then laid the deck back on the table. After she had done that, she closed her eyes and breathed out heavily. When she opened her eyes, she was back to her normal self.
“Well! I do believe that was an interesting little diversion! I think you all learned something about yourselves today! What shall we do now?” She moved to get up, but I cleared my throat loudly. Kuro jumped in his seat a bit.
“Not so fast, Witch-Queen. I have a few questions for you.” She blinked, then looked into my eyes.
“Very well,” she ventured. “What do you wish to know?”
“First off, what is the big deal about this Imbalancer thing? I mean, is it just some kid’s story to frighten them into behaving?” If there was one thing I didn’t need at the moment, it was to be left out of the loop. And in my deepest heart of hearts, I was genuinely curious. I wanted to know why two mages looked as though I had insulted their mothers merely for asking about this subject.
Kuro and Sheena stared at me for a moment. He then looked at her with a face that seemed to say “should I?”. She nodded. He turned to face me. “The Imbalancer of Scales traces all the way back to the War of the Five Kings. Not too much survived that era, so not a lot is known about it, but the holy men in Shardin say it was the other dimensional being that the Five Kings summoned on accident, starting the whole war. It’s a symbol of all-consuming destruction and the hubris of mankind.”
I snorted at this theory. “Yeah? So what happened to this all-powerful being?”
Kuro shook his head. “Well, obviously, the world isn’t ruled by an all-powerful spirit of Chaos. The official holy books say that Eternity and her brother Creation banished the Imbalancer back to its own world. Why do you want to know?”
I folded my arms across my chest as I leaned back in my seat. “There’s just so much I’m learning for the first time. I know I’m the odd one out here. I’d rather you explain these things to me now rather than play catch-up later.”
He nodded. “I’ll tell you some more later. I’ve got some basic texts that could help you understand. Remind me when we get back to the Palace sometime.”
Alverd leaned forward. “I have to say, I’m beside myself. You have a very unique gift that you can interpret so much from cards and crystals. And from what I saw, I think you know more about me than I first realized.” He fixed Sheena with his steady gaze and I saw the color rise up in her face. “If it’s alright with you, perhaps you can help me interpret what I saw?” She nodded mutely, unable to speak.
Finally, Sheena turned away from Alverd, her face still as scarlet as her hair. “W-W-Well, I think w-w-we’ve had enough f-f-f-fun today. Maybe we should focus on something else…anything else, really. All this incense is starting to get to me.” She waved her hand around. “Let’s go get something to eat, yes? A good meal after a divination can’t go wrong, right?” She stood up and marched out of the room at top speed, giggling awkwardly the entire time. Kuro walked out after her, and Alverd after him.
I was about to follow when I felt my foot slip on something. Looking down, I saw that several cards had fallen on the floor. A stack of three. Did Sheena accidentally knock these off the table while she was doing her ritual? I fanned them out. They were the “Queen”, the “Knight” and a card I had not seen before. The Knight was upside down in the stack.
The image on the last card sent a shiver up my spine. A human was being pulled out of a cage by both a devil and an angel, both pulling said human in different directions. The card was entitled “Freedom”.
Did she remove these on purpose? I didn’t know enough about how this ritual worked to know what the cards signified or what would happen if cards had been selectively removed. I slipped them into my pocket. I’ll ask Kuro about it later.
Sheena’s divinations had been way too accurate for my liking, especially given how little she knew about us. There had to be some trick I was missing. I’d been warned many times during my training about a mage’s affinity for misdirection, but sometimes it was worth looking into smoke and mirrors to see just what a mage was trying so hard to conceal. After all, as we said in Ishmar, where there’s smoke…
…there’s fire.