Scene 7-02

They kept a distance from me as we trekked deeper into the obscure areas of The Zone. Every time Kalia’s eyes met mine, she’d turn away and I’d catch her lips twisted in one of those pouts she used to give the dirty floors she had to clean. I could imagine it was her illness making her cranky, yet imagination couldn’t disguise the awkward silence between us. It was heavy.

My mind kept going back to the moment of the corridor and the magic. It was the second time I had used it. My stomach churned at the thought of facing those fish-things again. What was I that I could call up a spell like that with not so much as a backward thought? Do all magic folk have this sort of ability? I suppose they must if there is a university dedicated to the use and control of magic. If this were so, I was a walking danger to myself and all those around me.

‘No magic,’ I promised myself, ‘even if it would mean my death.’

‘Girls don’t lag.’ The master’s voice broke through my thoughts. I saw him half a meter along the moss steps we ambled down. I shook off the rest of my thoughts, gripped my stomach and fears and followed the way down carefully.

The steps led to a long path and a square archway similar to the one at the rock corridor. Sea-green ivy overwhelmed the archway’s surface; white moon-flowers, the shape and size of a man’s hand, graced the path’s ragged edges. A musky fragrance sailed past our noises. I pulled my cloaked around my chest and focused on my steps.

Night came quickly. The way became a cold and desolate journey where each end of the path was hidden within obscurity. We were walking blind.

Where’s the end?

‘Where indeed child. The way is dark with both your past and present lives but it doesn’t have to be this way.’

‘My past and present what? Edde?’

‘No – a witness to who you are. I know you Neven. The Lazareth knows you. You must be cautious with magic. The lazareth is freer each time.’ A sing-song voice chimed into the night breeze. A sensation of wet leaves iced my cheeks, the smell of moss brought my mind back to earth.

‘Heed my warning. The lazareth comes!’ the voice faded.

I blinked in light and a vague outline. It flapped wings and stretched a long sinew body. I recognised its angled jaw, narrow head and beady eyes.

‘What – how you come to be?’

The lazareth faced me. ‘Yousee, that’s how.’ Light danced over the edges of its body, highlighting talons it flexed and uncurled before its eyes.

‘Ah.’ It lifted its head and sniffed in the air. ‘It comes back.’

‘What comes back?’

The lazareth’s lips twitched with a smile. ‘A taste.’

‘A taste of -’ Light heated my eyes; they stung, blistered and swelled. Pain pushed at the soft spots of my brain like thumbs pressing down and blocking relief. I felt fire melt away layers of my skin, my heart and soul.

Xixus fyre quios mendoza.

Words circled like stars in my eyes. The pain pushed deeper, stripping off more of who I was and replacing the meaningful with raw – desperate ache.

Xixus fyre quios sander.

Heavy drumbeats pounded my ears – shattering the lasting layers of my consciousness. Suddenly, the pain – feeling – memories were gone. I faced nothing.

‘Now yousee see what comes back. Now yousee see…’

The drumbeats gave way to crackling, lightening and a earth-shattering screech. I blinked in a moment of blue fire sorching the way before me and felt raw pain all over my limbs.

‘Damn it Neven! Chiardoras putus esander.‘ The master’s voiced wrapped around my ears and conscious thought, and eased my pain. I saw the master, Edde and Kalia staring at me before the entrance of a courtyard and prism shaped mansion beyond.

‘Wh-what happened?’

Answers twitched on the master’s lips; instead, he shook his head and turned toward the mansion. I glanced at the others and felt ill at the awkwardness in Edde’s eyes, darkness behind Kalia’s. Why? I frowned.

‘Wait! Why you all being like this?’

‘Why Neven?’ Master Asuras faced me again with sternness. ‘For the magic inside of you.’

‘Why is that bad?’

The master shook his head and sighed. ‘It’s not bad – it’s dangerous.’ He gestured toward the way behind me. I turned and faced darkness.

‘Look.’

Heat tickled the back of my neck as a ball of white light threw rays out toward the night, highlighting patches of charred earth, broken boulders and a path blocked by a hill of rubble.

‘The way was clear when we passed.’

‘It was until you turned up the earth and spewed out rumble, almost killing us.’

‘B – but, Master Asuras I didn’t know, I -’

‘No you didn’t,’ the master said with a sigh and snuffed out the light. ‘That’s why magic is dangerous .’

He stepped before me. I felt a stifling energy pass between us and something else dark and hard to explain.

‘It is why the empire has the death decree for unskilled magic users. It is why we have a university dedicated to magic and science. It is why I take you to the Alchemist in hopes of suppressing what lies inside of you before it-’

The master left the sentence hanging but I felt what he was going to say. I gulped back my answers and followed through the courtyard toward the mansion.

We passed through a monolithic archway and toward stepped walls that shimmered with silver flecks. Two glowing columns stood sentry on both sides of an intricately designed iron door. Light danced across a lion-head handle. Master Asuras lifted the lion-head and released it, causing the door to echo with a clang before falling to silence. The door gave way.