Fate’s Pawn

Raziel had to walk very slowly back to his room and Duriel stood nearby ready to catch him if he fell as he climbed up to his top bunk bed. The room was small but it had a large window that overlooked a pair of desks. The beds were in one corner but the afternoon light streaming in was too bright for Raziel's overwrought senses. He wasn't just seeing the light, but smelling it like a campfire and feeling the pressure of its energy flowing into the room like a strong wind against his mind.

He waved blearily towards the curtains, trying to shut them but before he could do more than paw at the cloth, Duriel pulled them shut. The room sank into darkness, a feeling that gave Raziel vertigo as the shadows swallowed him. His grandfather said something to him but Raziel couldn't quite get his mind to wrap around the exact meanings of the words. Duriel saw the incomprehension in his eyes and began to repeat himself. The words were slow and clear this time but Raziel still had to work very hard to take them in.

"You need rest. Sleep will restore your reserves. Do not, Raziel, listen to me, do not do anymore magic tonight. You could hurt yourself. You need to always have a teacher nearby until you know your limits. Do you understand?"

It took Raziel several seconds to realize that the last part was a question. He had to concentrate to nod. Duriel was saying something more but it slipped away from Raziel. The next thing he knew, he was facing away from the door with his eyes closed and his pillow over his head but he could still sense it as his grandfather left the room. It wasn't the sound of his footsteps or the door shutting that told Raziel that Duriel was gone. It was just the receding pressure of his grandfather's energy. Or magic. Whatever it was exactly didn't matter.

Raziel knew he was sensing the magical energies flowing all around him but that didn't make it any easier to deal with. It didn't hurt but the disorientation was uncomfortable. It was like being blind his whole life and suddenly having his eyes opened and trying to understand sight.

Gradually though, the waves of sensation stopped crashing over him. He didn't know if he slept or if he was just riding it out. When he finally was able to move the pillow the darkness of night had fallen over the room. He rolled over onto his back and felt more or less normal, if a bit light headed. And as soon as he felt that he had to try and use magic again just to prove it to himself. Duriel's warning rose up in his mind and he pushed it aside like cobwebs.

He looked within himself and reached out, not with his hands, but with his will. There was quiet magic thrumming through the room, more docile than what he'd felt outside during the day with his grandfather. Less like a running river and more like a tranquil pond. But he was still able to touch it, to feel the magic course through him.

Raziel suddenly realized that he didn't know what to do with the power now that he had it within him. There was no ball sailing at his head for him to catch. The darkness of the room gave him an answer.

"Light," he heard himself whisper and the magic responded. A mote of light, like a glowing snowflake appeared in the air about a foot in front of his eyes. The light was deep blue that pushed against the shadows but seemed to make them larger at the same time. Raziel smiled at the point of light and relaxed. It began to fade, like a star disappearing with the coming dawn.

As the light faded so did his vision, narrowing to a dim tunnel. For a moment he had to struggle to draw in breath and his blood was ice in his veins. He lay there in his bed feeling the magic of the shadows swirling around, enveloping him like sinking into cool waters. He struggled, trying to stay awake but waves of exhaustion carried him under.

When he opened his eyes again a minute or an hour later, the room wasn't so dark. He sat up slowly and saw pale moonlight pressing in against the curtains, seeping in around their edges. It, like the moons he'd seen this afternoon, reminded him of a night from a years ago. It reminded him of his plan.

He crawled to the base of the bed and slowly crept down the ladder. He glanced at his roommate's bed but it was empty. That wasn't surprising. Hoeru often kept odd hours. At least Raziel didn't have to worry about waking him up.

Raziel swayed a little once he was on the ground. He had to keep a hand on the bed frame to keep himself steady as he made his way to his desk. A fruitless tug at the drawer he reminded him that he needed to unlock it first. He found the key in his pocket and a moment later the drawer was open. It was completely empty except for a single book. Raziel didn't have anything else that was nearly as important as The Book. His father's book.

It was bound with old leather and tied shut with a cord. Raziel had to keep it tight; not all of the pages were bound, constantly threatening to slip out. He ran his fingers over the cover, feeling the familiar creases and scratches embedded in the leather. Raziel considered turning on the light so he could read at his desk. He'd spent hundreds of hours there, pouring over the pages, memorizing the words and absorbing every detail of the pictures. But tonight, when he'd taken such an important step towards completing his plan, hiding in the dark while he read didn't feel right.

With spring ending and summer beginning, it would be nice to sit outside and read. Raziel rarely took the book out of his room only when he was certain he wouldn't be disturbed. He didn't care to explain anything about it to anyone unless he absolutely had to. But it was either very late or very early and it wasn't likely that there would be anyone awake who might bother him.

He had to go slow, steadying himself with a hand on the wall, to keep from getting light headed, something that grated against him. Patience had never been one of Raziel's strengths but he didn't want to fall and have to explain what he was doing outside his room. The climb to the roof of the building was better. With doors between him and the other dorm rooms, he could afford to be a little louder. He only lost his balance a couple of times on the stairs.

The roof of the dorm was flat with a few tables and chairs around. It was where parties were held on holidays or birthdays and where teachers met for classes that only the boys were allowed at. Space was a valuable commodity in Peritura. Roofs couldn't be wasted.

The dorm was also one of the taller buildings around. Dominic's school was located in the residential district of Peritura and as such was surrounded by the cramped squat houses that most of the city's citizens were forced to live in. The positive upshot was that it gave Raziel a view of the city beyond the school's walls though, sadly, not to the forest beyond the city walls. But with no taller buildings around Raziel was left with a nearly uninterrupted view of the sky.

Raziel sat in a chair near the edge of the roof and looked up at the moons. There were four that he could see now. Near the horizon the blue Sea moon was rising while the red Blood moon hung above it, glaring down at the world. On the other end of the sky the green Leaf moon was sinking beneath the edge of the skyline. But directly above Raziel was the white moon. The Snow moon.

Being beneath the sky on a night like this brought back memories for Raziel. Memories of laying on the roof with his mother while she pointed out constellations. Memories of his father telling him stories about all the strange places he'd been.

Impossible memories of a flying city.

He opened the book, carefully holding the pages to make sure that the light breeze couldn't steal any. He hardly needed to look at the pages to know what they contained. He only really understood a portion of the contents but he knew every line like he knew his own face. He still needed to look sometimes, to reassure himself that the book was there. That his parents had been once. It was all that was left of his parents. They'd been taken when he was only seven. He'd lived half his life without them now, hard as that was to believe.

The book was full of his father's writing, of his drawings. Notes on places he'd been, pictures of things he'd seen. Almost all of it was in service to his hunt for the flying city but there were even a couple drawings of Raziel and his mother, Sara. Raziel's favorite was one of the last pictures his father had ever drawn. It was one of his best, after he'd really honed his skills as an artist. In it, Azariel stood behind Sara with his arms wrapped around her. In turn, she had her arms wrapped around Raziel in front of her. He had drawn them all smiling and happy. It hurt to look at that picture sometimes.

But Raziel's plan didn't involve any of those drawings. There were four pages about a ruined fort only a few miles outside the city. Azariel had been all over Arcas in his search, especially out on the edges of the Rim. It wasn't really that big of a surprise that one of the places he'd been to wasn't far from Peritura.

The first page was mostly taken up by a picture of a tower. There was a smaller diagram of the fort down in the corner showing the outer walls, the four square buildings and the tower at the center of it all. The buildings were labeled but the labels didn't make much sense to Raziel. The tower was huge and imposing in the picture, drawn in heavy black strokes. Standing atop the tower there was a figure.

The next page was a map showing the surrounding area. Peritura was marked and circled. Raziel assumed his father had come to the city and hiked his way through the forest to the fort.

The third page was full of notes in unusually messy handwriting. It was hard to make out much of what had been written there but Raziel knew one thing for sure. Azariel had met something at the fort. Something that knew things about the flying city.

Raziel knew the thing at the fort was some kind of spirit, a creature created by the magics of the natural world. If nothing had killed it in the intervening years, it would likely still be there. If Raziel could just talk to it, it might be able to give him a lead to finding the flying city. To finding his parents.

His eyes drifted away from the book, unconsciously finding their way to the city walls. He'd walked by every inch of those walls, even climbed to the tops of nearby roofs when he could, trying to find a way over them. But they were just as good at keeping him in as they were at keeping the things that lived in the forest out. The whole thing was patrolled by soldiers at all hours of the day and night. There were no ways through it. He'd have to go over. And it was a very long drop to from the top of the wall to the other side.

But the advanced class got to leave the city limits to practice magic. Magic was, after all, inherently dangerous. Accidents happened. And the last thing anyone wanted in a cramped, crowded city was a sudden fire, explosion, or any of the essentially infinite possibilities that magic could make into reality.

Soon, Raziel would be on the other side of that wall. All he'd have to do is find a way to disappear without being noticed. And find his way through the forest. And convince the spirit at the fort to talk to him. And find a way to get back to the class or the city. And then explain where he'd been.

He drew his eyes back to the book. It was still open to the page with the map and his father's notes. There was one more page. He turned it, looking at the pictures his father had drawn.

There were two drawings on it and a short (for Azariel) note scribbled in the bottom corner. The largest of the two was a face. Its features were strange, exaggerated, with huge eyes and a tiny mouth. It reminded Raziel a bit of elves he'd seen with their high cheekbones and thin noses, but they were still recognizably mortals just like humans, orcs, or changelings. This creature was distinctly other, alien. The blades of grass it had for hair only cemented that. If he didn't have other portraits showing that his father was a talented artist, he'd have thought the features were poorly captured.

"What're you doing?"

Raziel yelped and nearly fell out of his chair. He looked around wildly for the source of the voice even as he tried to cover up the book. His roommate, Hoeru, was perched on a nearby chair. He crouched with his feet on the seat and his legs nearly touching his chest. With his sharp looking teeth, gold speckled blue eyes, and wild mane of silver hair, he would have been unsettling at best for anyone who didn't know him.

"Oh, you're reading your secret book. Sorry," he said. Though his face didn't show any contrition Raziel knew he meant it. Hoeru was close to Raziel's age and they'd been roommates for years, ever since Dominic brought the changeling in. He was probably Raziel's closest friend. Reading the changeling could be difficult but Hoeru was always candid with his words.

"Secret book?"

"Is it not a secret?"

"No! I just don't like people knowing about it."

Hoeru narrowed his eyes and cocked his head.

"Isn't that what a secret is?"

"No. Well... yes. Kind of. It's complicated."

"Everything human is complicated. So what's in your not-secret secret book?"

Raziel started to tell the changeling to mind his own business but he clamped his mouth down on the words. They weren't fair and Hoeru probably wouldn't understand. Besides, of all people, Hoeru was one of the least likely to call him crazy for believing in the things in his father's book. Raziel looked down at the book trying to find some way to answer Hoeru's question and his eyes fell on the map of the area surrounding Peritura. An idea popped into his head, one he tried to reject out of hand. But the harder he tried to push it away, the more sense it made.

"You're allowed outside the city right?"

"Yes?"

"How far outside the city?"

"As far as I want so long as I'm back before dark."

Raziel bit his lip and looked back down at the book. He'd never even really talked about the book with his grandfather. Duriel knew Raziel had it of course but his grandfather didn't believe in his father's ideas any more than anyone else did. He was certain he could get to the fort on his own given enough time. But with Hoeru's help it wouldn't take nearly as long. Reluctantly Raziel held up the book, showing Hoeru the map.

"Do you know where this is?" he asked, pointing to the fort. Hoeru leaned close and squinted at the map. After a moment he scrunched up his lips and shook his head.

"I'm not good with maps."

Raziel sighed and let his head fall back.

"Miles could probably tell you though."

"I don't want to tell Miles about the book."

"Why? Miles likes books. Like a lot."

Raziel let out a frustrated groan and sat up. He tried to tell Hoeru all the reasons he couldn't do that and that it was a bad idea. Unfortunately no words came out because it was perfectly reasonable and a good idea. Hoeru just stared at him with his quintessential, 'the human is being weird,' look.

"I just... look, this book was my dad's. And people think a lot of his ideas were wrong. And crazy."

"What does that have to do with showing Miles the book?"

"I don't want him to think I'm crazy."

"He already thinks you're crazy."

"That's my crazy. This is different."

Hoeru narrowed his eyes as if squinting might make Raziel's words become clearer. And then his eyes suddenly went wide.

"You're embarrassed by your dad."

"No I'm not!" Raziel all but shouted.

"Oh. Are you sure?"

"Yes!"

"Then show Miles the book, have him explain to me where this place is and I'll take you there."

"I- What?"

"This place is important to you. So it's important to me."

"But you could get in trouble!" Raziel said, completely forgetting that he'd been considering asking Hoeru to do this just a few minutes ago.

"Yes."

"You're okay with that?"

"Raz," Hoeru said in the exasperated tone of someone explaining the very obvious, "You're my friend."

Then the changeling hopped off the chair and made his way towards the door as if that settled things. Which, Raziel supposed, it did.

He looked down at the book in his hands and carefully closed it. As he wrapped the leather cord around it to keep it shut a blazing current of excitement pulsed through him. The image of the grass haired spirit sprang into his mind. Soon he'd know what it really looked like. What it could tell him about his father.