Delicately opening the front cover, Wellynd’s eyes danced across the stylized script.
The matter of Eikonic Principles hereforth discussed were concepted by Observer Algar of the Eikonic Observatory of Melyar in 31 Post Luminescence. This, the second edition of the text, was scribed from Mellyc into Vertan Common by Scribe Tautsmith of the Revenshore Observatory in 63 Post Luminescence.
Property of the Revenshore Observatory.
The bottom of the page was signed:
L Ranier
Wellynd took a deep breath, glancing at the window, he blinked against the light that spilled in from outside.
He flipped the page.
For Eleanor and our son, in whom I see the hope of a stronger Melyar. May this text illuminate the world around you, so that you may shape it for the better.
Wellynd jumped, dropping the book to the dais, with a solid thump.
In the distance, he heard a muffled crack followed by a thunderous impact.
Looking up, he saw the windows vibrate as three similar sounds followed in quick succession. Something was happening outside. As much as he knew this was his last chance to experience an Observatory classroom, he also didn’t feel like getting into anymore trouble today.
He stared at the book for a moment before slinging his pack to the ground and placing the book delicately inside.
Why shouldn’t he have it after all? These people were surrounded by knowledge already. They wouldn’t miss a single book. One that he was sure he’d never find on the island.
Another crack followed by a rumble.
This time, the floor shook slightly and he heard the vibrating of the glass against the window frames, more violent than before.
Whatever the class was doing in the gardens was substantial enough to shake the room, and the gardens were at least one or two hundred paces away.
Cinching his pack tight, he strode to the door before looking over the empty class once more.
Maybe he and Klof could keep up with their friends after all. At least in some way.
The ground rumbled again, so he walked past the fork in the path that led to the side exit of the Observatory grounds.He had to see what they were doing.
Cresting the edge of the building, he looked past the array of garden beds to the distant field near the front gates.
An array of boulders, about the size of a standard delivery crate, rained down in a wide arc toward the ground where a group of students and their instructor had all taken battle stances, their arms and legs bent, ready to react.
He could hear the Master’s voice echoing on the wind, instructing the class with exaggerated motions.
They collectively raised their arms above their head, palms flat and facing the oncoming barrage of stone.
The boulders were some 50 yards out and approaching with terrifying speed when the Master brought his hands inward to his centre before extending them out to each side, palms never turning away from the hurtling projectiles.
Four students had stepped forward and mimicked his motions.
With a devastating crash, three of the boulders exploded against an invisible wall, the air rippling outward from the points of impact.
Thousands of pebbles rained down from the sky, the rubble piling on the ground and obscuring the grass.
Wellynd watched, stunned into stillness, before he saw that there was still one boulder crashing violently toward the remaining students. He took an instinctive step forward, his hand reaching out in an effort to help.
His eyes darted between the rock and the scared boy, frozen in shock, before a thunderous explosion echoed through the grounds.
Wincing, he clasped his ears, already hearing a faint ringing from the impact.
He saw the shockwave that followed, picking up stray petals from the blooming flowers as a fierce wind ripped toward him. He narrowed his eyes and buffered the barrage with one hand.
Where the boulder had been was now nothing but powdered stone hanging loosely in the air.
Behind the class, he saw the distant figures of the masters, one clapping the other on the shoulder, before they were obscured by the grey cloud that floated outward, surrounding the class.
Wellynd stood, watching the stone dust cover the grass, the students kicking up puffs with each step as they converged in the center of the field. Some students stood, some knelt, but most sat in a wide arc that centered around the two masters who stood facing the class.
The one master, adorned in a sort of red grape colour, stepped forward and began speaking, motioning with his hands to a few students in front of him. Then, he held his arm out straight, his flat hand just barely sticking out of his sleeve billowing in the wind. It looked like he was about to shake an invisible hand.
Slowly, he rotated his arm, keeping it straight the whole while, until it was just behind his head. He held it there, slowly curling his hand into a fist, before swinging his arm downward in a chopping motion. He repeated the motion several times, walking around the students, repeating it at different angles. Wellynd could see some of the students practicing to themselves, copying the master but with the intent of ensuring they’ve memorized something, not actually trying to perform it. The motion didn’t really look all that different,but maybe he couldn’t see some hidden detail from this far away. From here, it looked like they were just swinging their arms around.
The other master, adorned in bronze robes, now stepped forward. Pacing back and forth, he demonstrated a slower version of what Wellynd had previously seen during the first volley; the master raised his arms to the sky, palms flat and facing the class before lowering them near his heart and then extending them outward to each side. His hands came a little more forward than he previously thought, but the motion was mostly what he remembered. Again, students practised this to themselves.
Before long, the students had formed two groups once more, interposing eachother with a large gap of academy grounds between them. Another volley of boulders launched and soared rapidly toward their targets. He could faintly hear the whistling of the projectiles breaking through the wind. He saw the familiar motions of the opposing class, and, looking skyward, saw the array of faintly shimmering arcs that met the incoming volley. The boulders collided with a fierce thrum that rippled through the courtyard and sent debris tumbling away at all angles. He felt the sound deep in his chest, like a violent heartbeat that shuddered through his body.
Setting his jaw, he turned away from the class and headed toward the side gate, the sound of stones still crashing in the gardens behind him.
~
Wellynd stepped into the courtyard outside of the Crest’s Inn. He had dallied on his trip back from the Observatory, and the sun was now well on its descent toward the horizon. This cast much of the courtyard and market strip into long shadows, obscuring the faces of the workers still moving crates off of the lift.
Wellynd raised a hand to greet the doorman just as his stomach let out a loud groan. He smiled sheepishly. The doorman smiled back, “Welcome back. You’re just in-time for dinner, sir. Please, come in.” It was the same attendant who had helped carry his bags to his rooms.
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“Yeah, thanks. Good to be back.” Wellynd replied.
He thought he saw a twitch in the attendants eyebrow at his reply. Was that an awkward thing to say?
The attendant held the door open, and Wellynd stepped through. The air was warm, and smelled of freshly baked bread and some combination of spices unknown to him. His stomach growled again. Turning back to the attendant, he started “Wow it sure… smells good in here”, but the door was closed, and so he trailed off quietly to himself.
A prim and slightly nasal voice from somewhere behind him started, “Today’s dinner consists of three courses: a soup, an entree, and a dessert. Our restaurant staff will be able to share further details, if you will follow me, sir.”
Wellynd turned to see that by the desk stood a staff member he hadn’t seen before. The fellow was tall and thin, his dark hair short and gelled, his moustache thick and followed his upper lip exactly. He looked as if he’d just stepped out of a dressing room with a personal barber. He held one hand across his stomach, the other proffered outward, his open palm pointing down a hallway to Wellynd’s right.
Wellynd rolled his shoulders backward, straightening his spine.
“Uh… great, thank you” he started toward the hallway. The heavenly smell wafting on the air was making his stomach hurt.
He came out into a large hall, and was led to a small circular table in the centre of it by another attendant. It was set for two people, a white table cloth placed overtop, with silver cutlery and two wine glasses laid out in front.
“Will you be expecting a companion this evening, sir?” asked the attendant. Wellynd was pretty sure the waiter already knew the answer, as his hand hovered just overtop of the wine glass across from where he sat.
“No, not tonight.” Wellynd said. The man nodded and began stacking the second placing of tableware.
“Of course, sir. A member of our staff will stop by shortly with a briefing on tonight’s courses, alongside a local wine sourced from Estuary Vineyards.” continued the server.
“Oh…excellent. Thanks” said Wellynd, even though he had no idea where Estuary Vineyards was. The waiter glided away and Wellynd took a moment to look around the hall. It was large and open, and placed throughout it were circular tables of varying sizes. His table for two was the smallest, whereas he saw some that might seat upward of eight guests.
Great wooden beams stretched up to the vaulted ceilings above, and he noticed some sort of loft at the back of the restaurant, stairs nestled along the wall beside the bar. The main hall looked like it could fit fourty or so people comfortably, with maybe another ten up in the loft. Wellynd must have missed the dinner rush because he only spotted three other parties in addition to himself.
There was an older man and woman sitting at a table similar to Wellynd’s near the front of the hall, maybe ten or so years older than Laine, her hand placed over his in the middle of the table. They had mugs of something hot, and what looked like a slice of chocolate cake.
Overhearing a conversation behind him, he adjusted his seat, using the motion to cover his glance backward. He briefly spotted a group of kids not much older than himself seated a few tables away. A flash of crimson stripes on the shoulders caught his eye; Observatory uniforms. What were they doing here?
He turned his head so he could listen in.
“I’m serious. Just listen. So like usual, I swung by Jeanie’s before fourth period so we could walk together”
“Yeah, so she can catch you up on the reading before class” said a male voice
“Shutup, Brandt. Anyway, she didn’t answer. Which is weird because I know she wouldn’t have gone to class without me. So I keep knocking. Eventually I hear shuffling and the door opens up. But it’s not Jeanie…” she continued
“Oh my god it was Vint, I knew it. I knew it. It told you, Nell. They always sit together in Selkis’ class” said a third voice, another girl, but it had a heavy lilting accent. She was probably from Western Arta.
“Nope. It was Master Bluff.” said the first voice, presumably Nell.
“Okay. So he was cleaning her room. He’s the custodian. This is your big news? Guy’s a creep, was probably sniffing her drawers, boo-hoo. Let’s eat.” scoffed Brandt
“Yuck, Brandt. But, no, get this…” A pause.
Wellynd thought he heard a small sigh and then a frustrated tapping on the tabletop.
“He was clearing out her room! He said Jeanie was no longer at the Observatory.” revealed Nell
“What? Why would she get kicked out? She’s brilliant! She’s top five in our cohort, minimum. She hasn’t seemed any different. Wow, she must have done something really awful. She didn’t say anything to you when you saw her last week?” said the third voice
“Nope. And tell me about it; she’s the only reason I got through advanced harmonics. I feel like she would have said something.”
There was a thoughtful grunt.
“Hm. The variations she was coming up with for the term project in Shape Theory were pretty out there.” He cleared his throat before continuing, “…maybe she burnt out? She always seems pretty stressed.”
A large, lively party entered, their laughter echoing through the hall. Wellynd pushed his chair out from the table and shifted his seat to sit sideways so that he could hear over the noise. He grew frustrated as he could only catch snippets of the conversation.
“and I guess expelled her after all” said Nell.
“Honestly I think Master Deng was jealous of her…”
“Don’t be dramatic, Brandt. She wasn’t a prodigy or something. Speaking of which, apparently one of the incoming students next month is. Anyway, she wasn’t building anything dangerous — she wouldn’t do that…”
He heard a waiter clear his throat from above him. “And that is the menu for today’s service. Any questions, sire?” Wellynd looked up at him, but the man was looking toward the newly arrived party. He wondered how long he’d been standing there.
“No that sounds great. Thanks” replied Wellynd. The waiter left to greet the new guests.
He could no longer hear chatting from the students behind him, just the stray mumbled word from the room’s other parties, and the occasional scuff of forks against plates. He fidgeted with his napkin and took a sip of water. Wondering if the students had left, he turned to check their table, and locked eyes with Brandt. Wellynd flashed him a quick smile before turning back to his table. He took another sip of water as he slid deeper into his seat, and he could feel the tops of his ears start to burn.
“Hey wasn’t that the kid who was watching Artillery like a nump earlier today?” he heard Brandt say.
Kid. They were practically the same age. He felt his face turning red as he stared forward. He could just see the waiter coming out from behind the kitchen with a steaming bowl of soup. For the rest of the meal, he vowed to keep his eyes locked on his food.
After one final, blissful bite of lemon custard, the waiter returned with a mug of coffee and a small pot of syrup for sweetening. The meal had been delicious, although he found that each course was a rather small amount of food. To be fair, it was likely better than anything he’d had before, except for maybe his birthday two years ago when Alara had made him a roast from the dry-aged antelope that her parents had bartered.
Only he and the upstairs party remained in the dining room. He had stolen a glance when he heard the students get up to leave. Both Nell and the other girl looked back at him while he was finishing his main course of grilled fish, but they hadn’t given him any more attention than that.
He stirred his spoon around his coffee. The whole meal he had been wondering about their friend, Jeanie. He had been so concerned with getting in to the Observatory that he hadn’t ever considered needing to stay in. Was expulsion a common event? or was their friend an exception? Why else would someone just disappear? From what he had seen, the Observatory was one of the best guarded places in all of Revenshore.
After finishing his drink, Wellynd thanked the waiter and stood up from his table, tucking his seat back into place. He began to walk toward the entrance of the hall just as an elderly couple, dressed in fine clothing, stepped in. Without waiting for the waiter to seat them, they strolled toward the bar at the back of the restaurant.
“This city has become so dour these days, don’t you think? that brute at the dock was utterly rude. How were we supposed to know that some unsavoury washed up on the shore?" said the woman, holding onto her companion’s arm.
“Rascal is probably better off anyway.” chuckled the man.
Wellynd passed them and caught a scent of fine perfume. Berries? No, it was more herbal than fruity. He continued out of the hall before he processed what the woman had said. He stopped in the lobby of the inn. An “unsavoury” that had washed up on shore. Could it have been Klent? or Jensen? No. There was no way they’d have washed up already. The storm had probably caught many boats by surprise this morning.
He made his way through the lobby and back up the steps, and when he got back to the room, he found the curtains to have been closed and noticed a hint of lavender in the air.
“This really is way too much” he muttered to himself, as he stripped down to his underclothes and fell onto the bed. Taking the pillow, he placed it so he could lie widthwise.
As he stared at the ceiling, his eyelids growing heavy, he thought about the events of the day. So many odd things had happened today: Jensen and Klent’s demise at sea, the Mox’s troubling revelations, Selkis’ strange experiment.
He turned on his side. Kip had never reached out to him. Tomorrow morning he would get up early and leave the shipment with Uther at Mermaids. If Kip didn’t want to show up then so be it. Laine might be a little upset but that was fine. They could reschedule the exchange.
His thoughts began to settle, and, much to his surprise, Wellynd realized that, for the first time in as long as he could remember, he sorely wanted to get back to the island.