Adamagika: The Spirit Within - 21. Ch 21: Lady Helena

CHAPTER 21: Lady Helena

“Come on, Adam, wake up.”

“Nuuuuuuuh…”

“Come oooon,” the voice said again, this time with a considerable whine added. “You’re going to be late for your first day. The sun’s going to be up before you.”

“Let it,” I squawked. I was feeling exceptionally drowsy and there was an annoying ringing in my ear that sounded remarkably like Jacob’s voice. I also had a slight headache that I knew sleep would easily solve if only the ringing would just leave me alone.

“Uhhh,” came Jacob’s voice from somewhere in the distance before I heard a door slam.

I sighed in contentment and slowly drifted back to sleep.

The peace wasn’t meant to last though as I soon heard Jacob’s voice overhead again. “Last chance. Get up now or I’m going to have to use force.”

I ignored him.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” he said in a singsong voice just before I was drenched from head to toe in ice cold water. I was shocked to full consciousness.

“Holy… god, was that necessary?” I spluttered.

“Apparently so,” Jacob said indifferently as he headed towards our dresser and started pulling out clothes. He was already fully dressed.

“Look what you did. Now our bed is wet.”

Jacob looked thoughtful and I could see a small smile playing on his lips – an unjustified smile if I might add. Whatever he was thinking about, he just shrugged it away. “You can magic it dry anyway, you big baby. Besides, the sun’s rising. You’ll be late for your first day as an Aerophalanx.”

I looked towards the window and the sky was indeed slowly turning yellow. Dawn could not be further than minutes away. “Why didn’t you wake me up earlier?” I yelled as I ran over to Jacob to take the clothes he brought out for me. I stripped out off my wet boxers and put on clean dry ones. I used magic to dry myself up and then put on the rest of the clothes. The whole time Jacob was looking at me with an amused smile.

“What?” I asked.

“Anyone ever tell you, you’re hot when you’re in a hurry?”

I became uncomfortably tight in my clothes. “We don’t have time for this,” I said with a half-smile.

I wondered if I should bring the Aerophalanx helmet Magister Aenhol gave me. It was tucked at the bottom of our dresser. I haven’t worn it yet so it hasn’t adjusted yet to me. I figured I’d only do it when they asked me to. Until that time came, I would keep it in its unaltered state. I decided on leaving it at our room. The prospect of carrying that thing around wasn’t the slightest bit appealing.

We rushed out of the room and headed down the hallway. That early, there was no one up yet to get in our way. It didn’t take long before we were headed out of the Academy and headed towards the Armory.

In the dim dawn light, I could roughly make out the figure of a man standing near one of the armory doors. He was dressed in a dark maroon mage coat that stretched to his knees. The matching pants and shirt he sported inside were of a lighter maroon shade. He had a brown leather belt and boots that rose almost as high as his knee caps.

He looked oddly familiar. It wasn’t until we were much closer that I realized that I saw him just days before… in the Seer’s cave.

There was no mistaking it – lean body, perfectly toned muscles, windswept light brown hair, lightly tanned skin, chocolate brown eyes, and a friendly smile… the Seer changed into this boy. He was the boy whose name I didn’t know.

“Adam Lowry?” he asked in that deep and sexy voice I could still remember from a few days ago.

“I know you,” I said before I could stop myself.

The tall boy before me looked mildly surprised for a moment before a warm and friendly smile appeared on his face. “I guess I should be flattered.”

“Hi,” Jacob said as he stepped forward towards the boy in front of us. “My name is Jacob,” he said as he stretched out his hand. I had this very distinct impression that Jacob was feeling protective right then… or maybe jealous.

The tall boy must have noticed it too because a smirk appeared on his face. It was cute though. “Brian Knightly,” he said to Jacob with an outstretched hand of his own. He then glanced back to me, “I wasn’t told that there would be two of you.”

“Oh, I wasn’t really asked to train as an Aerophalanx,” Jacob said with an uncertain glance at me.

“But he’d like to train as one if you’ll let him,” I added.

Brian looked somewhat skeptical. “It’s not really for me to decide. Usually, it’s up to our Mage Lord to decide who trains as an Aerophalanx.” He started walking towards the door and held it open for us. Jacob and I walked hurriedly towards it and went in. The door opened into a hallway remarkably similar to hallways in the Academy. I speculated that the entire castle probably had the same design throughout its different towers.

“Oh,” I said as we followed him down the hall. “Is it alright if we ask him then?”

“Her,” he said, “and sure, I’ll take you to her now.”

For a moment, I was afraid that he was referring to Madame Rooste, but then I remembered that she was the Mage Lord overseeing the Mage Academy. That left only one other possible candidate to be that person.

“I’m actually the Squad Leader for the S AeroSquad, the S being short for Struthius,” Brian said as we trekked higher into the tower. “As you can imagine, having to say that all the time is quite a mouthful.”

“Sounds cool,” Jacob offered. I smiled to myself. I had the distinct impression that from his protective mode earlier, he was now trying to get into Brian’s good graces.

Brian smiled probably because he sensed the same thing or maybe smiling just came natural to him. “Don’t let the name fool you. It’s the squad primarily for flightless birds.” He opened a door that led up and along the tower walls.

“What are flightless birds?” I asked.

“You are,” he said with a smile and glance towards me. “A flightless bird is the term we give to new recruits that are just learning the ways of the Aerophalanx. You won’t be able to fly your first gryphon until you’ve undergone a lot of training. There are a few of us in the squad that are already bonded to gryphons but haven’t been moved yet to other squads.”

“What do you mean bonded to gryphons?” I inquired. Before Brian could respond though, we reached the end of the corridor which hosted a set of large brown doors. A large gryphon seal was etched across the surface.

“You’ll know if you become one of us,” Brian remarked with a wink before throwing the two doors open. He led us into a majestic room unlike anything I have seen in the Academy. I had a quick look around the surroundings. The walls were lined with bookshelves. But instead of hosting books, floating transparent images were careening out of them and crossing from shelf to shelf. The images varied greatly depending on where you looked.

At one side, I could see floating miniature people who seemed to be in the middle of conversations. They seemed oblivious to being watched and were carrying on normally doing what seemed like everyday tasks. On another side, I could see mages in combat hurling different spells at one another. Every now and then, a gryphon with a mage on it would fly out of the shelves and disappear into another only to be chased by another mounted gryphon.

Beside the images with the mages locked in combat and across the images of the people who were doing uneventful things was what looked like a flat map of the known world. I could see several mage cities floating in the image with labels. Every now and then, labeled dots would move from one city to the next. If the image was to scale, whatever those floating things were would have had to move at the speed of sound to cover so much distance that fast. The edges of the map were marked with arrows and labels presumably of other known areas of the world.

The last corner of the room was perhaps the most fascinating for me. Unless I was mistaken, it was showing Arantiva, except only one side of the city was being shown. It was what a person looking at Arantiva from afar would have seen except that this image was rotating counterclockwise. So if the viewer waited long enough, he would see a completely different side of the city.

That wasn’t the fascinating part though. Rather, it was the floating, shimmering images around the city. There were buildings and towers that seemed to glow with unusual auras and these auras seemed to shift from one building to the next. There was also some form of massive energy field floating around the city, encasing it in a thick blue dome. There also seemed to be what looked like floating birds flying left and right through the towers as though in a patrolling fashion.

I wondered what the glowing auras and energy fields were about. If I looked out the window of our room, I wouldn’t see anything out of the ordinary outside those buildings. And yet, the image showed them with distinct auras and glows. I wondered what caused those auras.

At the very center of the room was a rectangular table. There were also floating images on it which looked like a city of some kind. I didn’t recognize it, but it didn’t look like any of the known mage cities. It looked almost non-magical, the way the buildings were designed. Around the table, four adults were huddled, three men and one woman.

The woman was Lady Helena. As soon as she realized that we were in the room. She made a complicated hand gesture into the air and all the floating images around us vanished into the wall. The bookshelves were then promptly filed with books that seemed to just melt through the walls. The images on the table also vanished and it became just an empty desk.

“Haven’t you ever heard of knocking?” Lady Helena huffed testily.

Brian blushed a deep red. “I’m sorry, my Lady, I didn’t realize that you were occupied.”

Lady Helena looked at him sternly before turning her attention towards me. She then raised an eyebrow towards Jacob.

She turned towards the men around the table. “Pardon the interruption, gentlemen, but we will have to continue this discussion at a later time. I have some administrative duties that I need to attend to.”

The other men nodded and straightened themselves. They illuminated with light for a brief moment and then vanished as though they were never there.

“You are always in such a hurry, Brian,” she said as she strode the distance between us. “You’re just like your father, always in a hurry to get somewhere.”

“I’m sorry… mother. I’ll try to be slower next time,” he added with a wide grin.

“Mother?” I asked. Now that I looked closer, I could see the resemblance. They shared similar facial features. Their hair would have even looked the same if it wasn’t for the fact that one was blonde and the other was light brown.

“Yes, as unlikely as it seems, this overzealous boy before you is my son. What I would give to have passed on some more of my patience to him.”

“Yeah, too bad I had to settle for her amazing good looks,” Brian said with a wink towards me.

“Uhh… and a flirt… to his own mother too. Heaven help me,” Lady Helena wheezed. She had a mollified look on her face though before she finally turned to me. “So what brings you here? Not in trouble already, are we?” She started walking back towards the table.

I looked over at Brian who was gesturing that we should follow her. By the time I looked back at Lady Helena, she was already seated behind the same table with the image of the unknown city earlier. She was seated on a large, ornate chair that I could have sworn wasn’t there moments ago. Her table, which was moments ago empty, was filled with different papers and other items that gave it an odd mixture of chaos and order.

The three of us walked towards her. “Have a seat,” she gestured towards the empty space that was at the front of her desk.

“Uhm, there aren’t any chairs,” I said wondering if I was the only one missing that fact. I looked over at Jacob and he seemed just as confused as I felt.

“Yes there are,” Brian said as he made his way towards the front of the table. He then leaned backwards as though he was about to sit on thin air. However, where thin air was moments ago now sat a comfortable looking arm chair with red fluffy cushions. “Sit anywhere you like,” he added.

Jacob and I walked uncertainly to the table. I looked over at Jacob who had a worried look on his face. Were we supposed to summon a chair or something? I thought summoning solid objects was difficult if not impossible.

“Don’t worry, just sit,” Brian said with a smile, “trust me.”

For some odd reason, I wanted to trust him. Something about him made me feel like he was trustworthy. He had an aura about him that said he wasn’t one to deceive.

Against my rational judgment, I closed my eyes and decided to give it a try. I bent my knees and leaned backwards as though about to sit but I prepared my hands in case of an embarrassing fall onto the floor. No sooner than I had leaned though that I felt a slight tingling in the air around me. I could almost hear a faint voice in my head telling me that it was alright and that I should just lean back and relax. When I finally did take my plunge, I felt a soft material against my hands. I opened my eyes and I was seated on the same type of chair than Brian was seated on across me.

Our eyes met and I could see a pleased look in his.

I looked over at Jacob who was the only one left standing. His eyes were wide as saucers. He followed the same thing I did but instead of closing his eyes, he kept them open and looking down at where the chair should have been. He bent his knees and leaned backwards and a chair shimmered right beneath him.

“Now, that is cool!” he said and it sounded like he actually meant it.

“It does tend to impress guests,” Lady Helena said with a smile. “So, now that we’re comfortable, perhaps we can get right to business. What brings you two here?”

I looked over at Jacob who merely shrugged at me. “Lady Helena, we were wondering if it was possible for Jacob to train as an Aerophalanx as well.”

“After that display in the Academy gardens?” she said with a disbelieving voice. “I think not. We need fliers who have better control of their emotions.”

“That’s not fair! That wasn’t my fault.” Jacob half-shouted. Lady Helena raised an eyebrow as though to say really now. At that moment, I saw slightly what she meant.

I knew Jacob was very passionate. He tended to go for what he wanted and he had a tendency to fight against anything that stood in his way. I took Jacob’s hand in mine. He looked over at me and I gave him a supportive smile. He looked mortified perhaps realizing what he had just done and his shoulders sagged.

“I’m sorry,” he said before bowing his head.

Lady Helena studied him for a moment. She was twirling a pencil in her hand, or at least it looked like a pencil except perhaps for the fact that the tip was sparkling. We spent a few minutes in uncomfortable silence. It was so quiet that I could hear the pencil swishing through the air in her fingers.

“I’ll give you a fair evaluation then and we shall see where it goes from there,” she said. “Come closer, Jacob.”

Jacob looked uncertainly at me and I merely nodded at him. I had a feeling that I knew what she was about to do.

“Don’t be afraid, Jacob,” she said in a soft motherly voice. Despite her somewhat hardened exterior, something a little kinder shined through at that moment. “I won’t bite. Sit here across me and lean forward.”

After a brief hesitation, Jacob adjusted his seat such that he was directly facing Lady Helena. He then leaned forward. I kept my hand on his the whole time.

“Good,” she said. “Now look into my eyes.”

She then raised her hand between their eyes and kept her palm wide open. Purple flames sprouted from the center of her palms and hovered there in midair.

I waited for them to turn the same turquoise blue that I saw happen when she did the same thing to me. However, they remained in that stubborn purple color. Jacob began to frown and I knew that he understood what it meant.

I wished that there was something I could do. I really wanted to share this with him especially since it seemed to mean so much to him, probably even more than it meant to me. I squeezed Jacob’s hand tightly in my own. As I did, I felt a tingling through my fingers and the unmistakable flowing of magic through them.

“I’m sorry, Jacob,” Lady Helena said. “It seems you’re not…” She paused as the purple flames suddenly burst into the desired turquoise blue.

Lady Helena blinked. “Well, that was strange,” she said as she looked at the now blue flames. When she finally closed her hand, the flame vanished.

I released Jacob’s hand and I felt the flow of energy between us cease. Jacob must have felt it too because he gave me a curious look. Behind him, I could see Brian giving me a searching gaze.

Lady Helena looked intently at Jacob. I had no doubt that whatever happened was something out of the ordinary for her and she likely suspected that some form of foul play happened. I wondered if it was a result of something I did.

“I’ll have you serve as Adam’s apprentice,” she said after a minute of silence passed. “As an apprentice, you will serve him as an aide ensuring that he is always prepared for battle. You will not be training with the Aerophalanx recruits. You will train with the other apprentices. You will, quite often enough, get to watch the other Aerophalanx recruits train. If you have the time, you can practice on your own. However, you must make sure that your duties as an apprentice are not overlooked. The responsibilities of an apprentice require about as much if not more self-control as the responsibilities of a recruit.

“If some time in the future, I decide that you are suited to become an Aerophalanx recruit, I will have you promoted accordingly. Being an apprentice is not a guarantee that you will become an Aerophalanx. In fact, most if not all apprentices live the rest of their lives as an apprentice. However, I cannot deny that there is something… peculiar about you so until I figure it out, I will have you observed and I would rather you get to see the kind of training you are asking for. Do you understand?”

“Yes my lady,” Jacob said with a nod.

“You are free to resign as an apprentice any time you desire, especially since you did not sign up as one. My particular talent allows me to see what kind of person you are without even asking you any questions or looking at your history. For the most part, the purple flames indicate that your personality is not a match to what we are looking for here. However, I must admit that although delayed, you did show some… indication of fitting in as displayed by the blue flames you saw. So, this apprenticeship is not a right. It is not a privilege. It is a test. While you are an apprentice, I expect you to follow all the rules that come with being an apprentice and to follow the Code strictly. If you disobey them, you will be disciplined accordingly.”

“I’ll do anything I need to in order to serve alongside Adam, my lady.”

Lady Helena tilted her head. “We’ll see.”

She then stood up and so did Brian. Jacob and I stood as well and I realized that as soon as we did, the chairs beneath us vanished. “Brian, why don’t you lead these two to your designated Training Hall? You’re all late enough as it is.”

“Of course, my lady,” he said with a bow. He then gave me a wink as he turned back towards the door.

The three of us made our way out of the room while Lady Helena watched us from behind her desk. It was only a glance on my part but I could have sworn that she was studying me intently, almost worriedly. I didn’t get a chance to check again because the double doors closed automatically behind us.