Alistar couldn’t help but laugh, not because he found anything funny, but because he was happy. Aside from Anice, he now had two friends, and he was hopeful that he would soon have many more.
“I’ll see you guys tomorrow after supper. Goodnight!”
With that, Alistar ran off and began to make his way home, first through the thick copse of trees that surrounded The Spot and across an open field, then towards the road that led into the southern district of Mayhaven. Following South Street up to the marketplace, he noticed that there were far less people around than he ever remembered, likely because he had never been out so late before. He ran home under the supervision of lingering daylight, which finally dimmed as he arrived at the eastern gate of Caedmon’s estate. Here, he was lightly chastised by Harold and Rayson, who joked that he was lucky the lord of the house had yet to return.
“We won’t say anything,” assured Rayson, who was tugging at his tangled beard in an absentminded manner. “But don’t get your hopes up. You know how the women are.”
“Aye, that,” said Harold. “Likely, he won’t even have his coat off before they go and fill his ear about it.”
“It’ll be fine,” Alistar smiled. “Thank you, both. I’ll be off now!”
Once inside, he sought out Anice for a time before having the sense to focus on his magical awareness, which told him that she had already retired to her room for the night. Mrs. Dawn was in the dining hall going over some papers with an exasperated expression, Madeline and Patricia relaxing at the main table while sipping some tea. Their eyes lit up as soon as they saw him, and as expected, they both gave him an earful on the importance of returning home before sunset, to which he held back a reply that technically the sun was still setting but was simply blocked from view by the surrounding mountains.
“Yes, I’m sorry. I was just having so much fun that I lost track of time.”
“Oh?” said Patricia, her dark eyes containing a happy glint. “Were you with that friend of yours?”
He nodded. “I was with Zech and Jaden. We were fishing by the river.”
“And how did that go?” asked Madeline. “Did you catch any?”
Holding up two fingers, he gave a light grin. “It took a while for them to cook, so I was late getting home.”
“You ate them? Please tell me you didn’t swallow any bones.”
He shook his head. It had been close, since there had been many bones within those fish, but in the end he’d eaten them without much trouble.
“Alistar, could you come here for a moment?”
Hearing Mrs. Dawn’s wispy voice, he nodded at the two house servants and rushed over to his teacher. “Hello, Mrs. Dawn. How is your evening going?”
The woman fixed him with a wrinkled smile and patted him on the head. “Quite well, my dear. I was just going over your notes for the day and I wanted to ask you something about the third question I assigned to you for this week’s lessons.”
“The one about magic crystals?”
She nodded. “I asked you how they were graded, and you answered that ‘it depends.’”
He was slightly taken aback for a moment. “Was my explanation not good enough?”
“There was nothing wrong with your answer. I was just wondering where you learned the second part of your response?” She pointed to the lower half of the sheet of parchment that she was holding up for him to see. “You went on to describe how they are also separated by classes of quality, but that wasn’t mentioned in Shades of Magical Minerals. The answer I was expecting was that they’re differentiated by attributes that are determined by their colours.”
Thinking of the reading that she had assigned, he recalled that the latter part of his answer had come from an old leather-bound notebook that he’d found in his uncle’s library. It had contained information on the different types of items that could be created with magic crystals, and had gone into great detail in differentiating between the colour of a crystal and its quality. For instance, crystals of darker shades were of a lower quality, while those of lighter shades were of a higher quality. The colour of a crystal described what type of natural energy it had absorbed, such as how reddish crystals tended to be more affective in aiding with fire magics while greenish and amber crystals were more conducive to facilitating earth magics, and to some extent, healing arts.
“I read another book about them, an old collection of notes that I found in the library.”
“Did it mention what the specific classifications were?”
He nodded and recited them at her behest. “There are low, mid, and high-class crystals, as well as exquisite ones, which are the best.” Pausing for a moment, he added, “Exquisite-class crystals can hold so much energy that if the wrong person touches them, it can be fatal.”
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
“Why are you so interested in such things, Alistar?”
“Because I intend to be a mage,” he deflected, having long since decided to keep his special treasure a secret. “I want to make sure that I pick a good medium to practice my magics through, so I’ve been looking into wands and staves since they use magic crystals to store and channel energy.”
“Very good,” smiled his wizened teacher. “Not many children think of such things at your age, at least not to the point of following through with research.” She let out a heavy sigh, glancing at the large stack of papers that sat beside the much smaller pile that she’d withdrawn his notes from. “If only young Anice could form the same habit. It would surely do her a great deal of good.”
He couldn’t help but notice that all of the sheets that his cousin had worked on were covered in red ink, a wet quill sitting on standby atop the table.
“That book you read,” said his teacher, who fixed him with a curious, kind-eyed stare. “Did it mention any other classes of crystals?”
He shook his head, intrigue swelling like the site of a bee sting. “There are others?”
“Supposedly there exists a class above the exquisite, though they say only two of them have ever been found.” She spoke with the joy of an elder telling a fantastical story to a small child, which happened to be the case. “My grandsons seem to enjoy the topic very much, so I thought I’d share it with you.”
“What’s it called? This other class of crystal.” He couldn’t help but think of the translucent mineral that sat hidden within his mother’s locket, which he had left in his room today.
“Patience, dear boy. Let me clean up a bit first.” She tidied the papers with a timely shuffle and straightened up in her seat. “They say that this other class of crystal can only be created in certain environments, though no one knows what sorts of environments these are, since the original discoverers never admitted where they had found them. All that’s known is that these stones possess such vast amounts of energy that they surely require countless millennia to form, likely far longer than we can fathom. Of the two that were found, one has been lost forever, but the other is rumoured to be in Imperial Baldus. Do you know where that is?”
“The Baldor Empire’s capital.”
“Correct. And what do you know of their capital?”
He recited the names of the imperial family members that lived there, as well as any nobles of note. He then described its location and some brief history before admitting that he didn’t know much else about it.
“Some call it the City of Starlight, because every building—even the smallest of houses—and every street is lit up by a mesmerizing network of mid-class magic crystals. It’s said that no less than 50,000 were installed here and there throughout the city and enchanted with illumination spells, making it so that the entire place lives in eternal ambience.”
That many?
It was important to note that a single mid-class magic crystal of high quality cost at least one golden lucet. Just how wealthy was the Baldor Empire if a single city could take up so many resources, all for the sake of keeping the streets lit in the afterhours of the night?
“The infrastructure was installed over two centuries ago, and to this day the light hasn’t waned for even the briefest of moments. This fact has brought up countless questions over the years, for even with so many stones, at most they could light the city for a decade or so. That would mean that every ten years, the imperial family would have to invest another 50,000 crystals into maintaining the network of artificial lights, which would surely have affected the empire’s economy by now. And yet, they are still on pace to becoming the most powerful entity in all of Mais. Now why is that, do you wonder?”
Alistar wanted to ask what this had to do with this new class of crystal, but began to see what his teacher was getting at. “They must have an alternate source of power?”
Mrs. Dawn raised a greying eyebrow. “I’m surprised you saw through it. Yes, this is the only other way that they could have continued to power so many stones without having to replace them over such a long span of time. And as for that power source, I’m sure you’ve already guessed it.”
“The type of crystal you mentioned?”
“Indeed. Many think that the empire is in possession of the last remaining crystal of this type, the ancient-class crystal.”
An object that could keep 50,000 mid-class magic crystals charged for over two centuries? Alistar doubted that such a thing could truly exist.
“Have you been to Imperial Baldus before?”
“Heavens, no. Simply gaining entrance into that city costs a fortune in its own right. I’ve always wanted to visit it at least once in my life, but I doubt that I’ll ever get the chance.”
“As his teacher, you shouldn’t fill his head with fairy tales.” Madeline had appeared at his side and gently gripped his shoulder, her long, wavy hair blanketing her hand like drapes over a windowsill. “Such things don’t exist, Alistar. And even if they did, forget about us, even King Glenden wouldn’t ever have a chance of seeing one.”
“Humph,” snickered the older woman. “Spoken like a woman who’s never mothered a child.”
“What was that?”
“Children enjoy such stories. There’s no need to be so serious.”
“I’ll be sure to remember that for the future. Come along now, Alistar. Let’s get you washed up for bed.”
Alistar could tell that Madeline was angry, though he wasn’t sure why. Mrs. Dawn had only spoken the truth, after all. As far as he was aware, the young house servant had never had any children.
Later that night, once he had cleaned his body with a washcloth and a basin of warm water, Alistar retreated to his room where he finally found himself alone with his thoughts. This wasn’t a good place to be, he eventually decided, as he quickly devolved into the depressed, self-pitying state that usually preceded his nightly sleeps. In an attempt to distract himself from his emotions and anxieties, he retrieved his mother’s locket from where he’d tucked it away in a discreet corner of the lowest drawer of his dresser. Sitting cross-legged atop his bed, he unlocked it and opened it as gently as he could, staring down at the strange crystal that he had plucked from that peculiar, scaly flower head what seemed like an eternity ago. A light, vibrant shade of translucent, pinkish-scarlet, the stone seemed to stare back at him with a glorious glint. Staring down at his hand, his eyes trailed over the locket itself, and soon he was entertaining a quiet sob that began to lull him into a saddened sleep.
After returning the crystal to its compartment, Alistar clutched the locket close to his heart as he lay curled up beneath the covers. He dreamt of his family often these days, though usually under frightening or traumatic circumstances. Even so, he hoped that tonight would be one of those nights. As long as he could see his mother, it didn’t matter if she manifested as the same faceless visage that continued to haunt his dreams. Even in a nightmare, he knew that she would never hurt him.