Adamagika: The Spirit Within - 9. Ch 09: Students of Arantiva

CHAPTER 09: Students of Arantiva

Jacob and I have been seated outside the Gathering Hall for the last hour and thirty minutes. When we arrived at the city, Magister Aenhol spoke to me about arrangements that needed to be done for Jacob. He asked me not to discuss anything that happened in the forest with anyone, at least not yet.

I was looking forward to going back into the castle. Finally seeing home seemed to have brought back all the exhaustion I felt the last few days. I may have had a small bed along with the other servants in the castle but it was still a bed, much, much softer than the grass I’ve been used to the last few days.

Jacob was openmouthed the whole way through the streets. His head would swerve in different directions every few seconds as though he couldn’t get enough of what he was seeing. I made a mental note to take him on a tour soon. At that moment though, sleep was my first priority.

It was not meant to be. As soon as we arrived at the castle doors, there stood looming the unmistakable figure of Madame Rooste. The exhaustion seemed to trickle out of me like blood through a rather large wound.

“Your presence,” she said with enough indignation to clearly say that she was not happy being the one to tell us this, “is required at the Gathering Hall.” She then stiffly turned around and walked back towards the castle.

I began to worry but Magister Aenhol assured me that everything would be alright. As soon as we arrived outside the hall, he asked me and Jacob to wait there and not speak to anybody. He will come for us if we were needed to speak.

And wait there we did. It has been a very tense hour and a half waiting there not knowing what exactly was happening inside.

“What are they doing in there?” Jacob finally asked letting some of his worry and annoyance show in his voice.

“I don’t know,” I replied. “The Mage Lords don’t usually meet in the Gathering Hall unless it involves something that could affect the whole city or the mage community at large. From what I saw before the doors closed, it looked like the whole council was there.”

“Do you think they’re discussing me?” Jacob asked with uncertainty.

“I don’t think so,” I replied though I was uncertain myself. “They wouldn’t need to involve the whole council in order to discuss one student. What I’m wondering is how they knew we would be back at this time. It almost seemed like they were waiting for us.”

We fell into a somewhat uncomfortable silence until Jacob finally raised a question that both pleased and surprised me.

“Can I live with you? I mean,” he paused and continued with a shaky voice, “I mean can I stay where you sleep and all that?”

It was only then that I realized that Jacob was afraid. He was in an unfamiliar world, one he probably thought was hostile and I’m sure he felt alone.

“Hey,” I said as a placed one arm over his shoulders, “you don’t need to be afraid here. You’re one of us now and if I had any say about it, I’ll make sure that I’m with you at all times wherever you go.”

He smiled at that and his shoulders seemed to relax. He seemed grateful for my assurance but in truth I would have fought anyone that made any attempt to separate us even if it was Magister Aenhol. That thought surprised and scared me at the same time.

I still did not understand what happened with us but whatever it was seemed to have incited an unfounded familiarity with each other. Though we’ve known each other for only about three days, I felt like I’ve known Jacob my whole life. I also knew I felt protective of him which bothered me actually. I could not shake the eerie feeling that something terrible might happen to him if we were not careful.

“What do we have here?”

I looked up to the newcomer and felt a tightening in my stomach. Not now!

“Hi Marcus.” He was alone this time without his thugs which seemed somewhat unusual for him. I looked into his metallic grey eyes and for the briefest moment I saw and felt anger, frustration, and something else that looked something like… no, it couldn’t have been...

Marcus looked over Jacob who was looking back at him. A sneer plastered itself on his face. “Who’s this? Another one from the village?” He looked Jacob up and down appraisingly all the while maintaining the sneer on his face. “From the looks of him, I’d say he’s one of their peasants.”

“Leave him alone, Marcus.” I got to my feet and squared my shoulders to look more intimidating if that was possible for me. This new attitude surprised me but I didn’t have time to think about it. “He hasn’t done anything to you. What are you doing here anyway? Aren’t you supposed to be in class?”

My display of courage seems to have had no effect on Marcus because his sneer grew wider if that was possible. “What I do with my time is none of your business.” For a moment, his eyes flickered and the hostility in them seemed to fade away as though he momentarily regretted what he had said.

It returned easily enough though when he looked over at Jacob and continued to speak. “Let me guess, they threw you out after discovering you were a mage? Did your mommy and daddy start throwing stones at you? I bet they threw you out with the trash when they…”

Jacob leapt to his feet with a speed and agility that surprised even me. With one swift motion in the blink of an eye, Jacob unsheathed his dagger and had it pressed against a startled and confused Marcus.

“Jacob, what are you doing?” said a voice from behind us. It was Magister Aenhol. He had to pick that moment to come out. “Jacob, put that down,” my teacher continued as he approached us.

Jacob promptly lower his dagger and placed it once more in its sheath.

Marcus face seemed to have regained some of its color within the last few seconds. “You’re going to pay for that. You don’t belong here.”

“Marcus, I think you should head back to your class now,” Magister Aenhol said to him calmly.

Marcus and Jacob held each other’s gaze for a few moments longer before Marcus promptly pushed past Jacob hitting him on the shoulders and continued down the hall presumably to return to class.

Magister Aenhol approached us and looked Jacob over. His eyes lingered on Jacob’s knife. “I don’t know how it is back in the village, but here in the city, students do not threaten other students with sharp objects.”

Jacob looked down since Marcus left the hallway and hasn’t looked back up yet. He didn’t say anything in response to what Magister Aenhol said.

“I think,” my teacher continued, “it is best if you hand over that weapon to me at least until I know you are capable of controlling yourself.”

Jacob’s head promptly shot up and his eyes met my teacher’s. “What? No!”

“It is not a request, Jacob,” my teacher said sternly.

“But, it’s all I have,” he said almost desperately.

The implications of this statement sunk in like a sharp knife. We swept Jacob from his home without any of his belongings. His dagger was probably the most valuable thing he owned at that point.

“Be that as it may, until I know that it is safe for you to handle that weapon, I would rather it be kept with me.”

“Sir, maybe you could…”

“No Adam,” he said sternly as he looked over at me. “I will not change my mind on this, not even for you.”

I promptly looked down feeling chastised. Jacob looked over at me but I couldn’t meet his eyes. From the corner of my eye, I saw his shoulders slump in defeat. He pulled the sheath from his belt and took the dagger out of it. He held it in his hand as though committing it to memory for the last time. I couldn’t help but glance over.

It was a beautiful dagger. It curved upwards like a scimitar and had intricate engravings on the side of the blade that looked like swirling clouds with several unfamiliar symbols etched into them. The blade looked as though it was made from silver metal and the handle from copper. The base had jagged but intricate designs that made me think it could be used to pound on objects. I felt saddened that he would have to give it up then. It felt like I failed him.

He sheathed the dagger back into place and held it out to my teacher. My teacher took it with his right hand and promptly placed it in his robe.

“Don’t worry Jacob,” my teacher said in a much gentler voice. “I will return it to you in time.” Jacob nodded. “Now,” my teacher continued in a louder, more energetic voice, “I’m sure you are curious as to where you will be staying Jacob seeing as how you are a student here now.” I finally looked up to my teacher and met his eyes. They looked surprisingly mischievous. “The Mage Council has by some persuasion from me agreed to have a student room allotted to you two, it is a shared room like what all the other students use.” He paused as though waiting for what he said to sink in.

And perhaps, he did need to pause because it took a moment for me to comprehend. Jacob seemed to have picked up the meaning sooner as his eyes widened into saucers.

“Sir,” I said slowly, “do you mean that Jacob and I get to share a room like all the other students that stay in the castle?”

“I hope that wouldn’t be a problem,” he looked at each of us as though he was gravely inconveniencing Jacob and me.

I looked over at a Jacob and his eyes seemed to sparkle with joy that was absent just a few moments ago.

“I’m sure we could live with it,” I said in a somewhat exasperated voice. I heaved a deep sigh for effect.

“Well, if you don’t want to, I could always…”

“No sir, not at all! We don’t mind,” I said quickly as though there was any possibility that he might suddenly change his mind.

“I didn’t think so.” He smiled at us. “Well, why don’t I take you to your room then?”

Smiling, Jacob and I followed him down the hall and outside towards the second tower where the Mage Academy and student quarters were located. Up several flights of stairs high above the rooms allocated for classes, he brought us down a hall that curved around which I assumed followed the shape of the structure. I’ve never been down those halls having never needed to go to the student rooms. It was peppered with doors which I assumed each led to individual student rooms. He stopped outside a door that had the number “317” engraved on its surface. He opened it.

It opened into a small room. The walls were the characteristic grey and black stone which made up the entirety of the castle’s interiors. It was slightly smaller than my room with the servants but unlike the latter which contained six beds, this room contained only two, one on each side of the wall. Opposite the door were two cathedral windows that bathed the room in multicolored lights. The windows opened outwards if it was the same as most other windows I’ve seen in the castle. Between the two beds and in the middle of the room was a long table with two chairs opposite one another. Across the beds and to the right of the door was what looked like a dresser. On the other side was another table much smaller with small shelves and a mirror.

It was a simple room but as far as I was concerned, it was the most beautiful room in the world.

“Now, I suppose it is too late for you to join in your classes today, Adam. So, why don’t you show Jacob around so that he becomes more familiar with his surroundings? You will have all the same classes as Adam along with tutoring at night to help you catch up with the basics. You will have a lot of catching up to do if you want to stay with Adam though.”

“I will help him, sir,” I said. “I’ll make sure he keeps up with his training.” I smiled over at my teacher and hoped that my eyes said exactly how grateful I was to him.

“I’ll leave you two now,” he said before promptly closing the door behind him.

I turned around to look at Jacob who hasn’t said a word yet. He seemed to be looking around the room uncertainly.

“So, what do you think?” I said hoping to get him to talk.

“It’s nice,” was all he said.

“Nice? Just nice?” I said with a teasing smile.

“Alright, it’s cool,” he said with his own smile.

“Why don’t we go around the city for a bit?” All thoughts of sleeping were forgotten by then. “It’s still early so we won’t have to worry about it getting dark soon.”

Jacob seemed to look at me uncertainly.

“What is it? What’s wrong?”

Jacob looked down and I swear he was blushing. “Uhm, I don’t have clothes.”

It was only then that it occurred to me that Jacob was still wearing the same things he was when we first saw him which pretty much meant nothing. His chest was exposed and looked somewhat dirty. In fact, his hair and face looked dirty. He was just wearing tattered leather skin pants and sandals made from leather and rope. I guess I got used to his attire the last few days that I began not thinking about it. No wonder Marcus spoke as he did.

I figured he should take a bath before we head out. I raised my arm as though to smell my arm pits. It was meant to humor him and perhaps suggest the idea of a bath but the smell I got coming from myself was repulsive. How could I have not noticed till then?

“I think we should take a bath before we head out.” I promptly went to the dresser and yanked it open. It revealed two sets of clothes on both sides. They included robes, pants, shirts, shorts, underwear (boxers as I preferred), and socks. At the base of the dresser were several pairs of shoes and slippers.

“I’m thinking these are yours,” I said as I handed him a shirt and pair of pants that looked smaller than the set on the opposite side. Jacob looked at me confused.

“What do you mean mine?”

It occurred to me that he didn’t know about how dressers worked in the castle. “Oh. There are clothes for all the residents.” I wondered how I could explain this to him. “See, when I got here seven years ago I was wondering the same thing you probably are now. When they showed me to my room in the servant’s quarters, they opened a dresser much smaller than this and they pulled out a set of clothes and shoes for me. They said my clothes would always be found in that dresser. They just fit me. I don’t know how they got the sizes right or anything.” I paused for a moment. “I guess it’s magic.” I smiled to him.

Jacob still seemed confused. “You mean I just look into this dresser and then I’ll just get clothes that always fit me?”

“Yeah, I guess. I never really thought about it but now that you mentioned it, the clothes never really seemed to get old or smaller. It’s like they always fit me and every now and then a new shirt would make its way into the dresser. I guess there are still a lot of things I don’t notice around here, stuff I take for granted.”

Jacob nodded but still looked unconvinced. “So where do I take a shower?”

I looked around the room. Clearly there was no door leading to a shower. We brought our clothes and a towel each outside. We checked down the hall and found a room with rows of showers separated by high walls and curtains that served as doors.

The showers there were similar to what servants used if not slightly bigger. They were nothing more than tiny spaces where someone could stand while holes carved into the ceiling would sprout warm water at the students desire (“you just have to think about it and it will spray the right warmth of water you want,” I told Jacob). Jacob’s questions about where the water came from made me realized it was another thing in the castle I took for granted.

We each took a shower and cleaned away the dirt of the last few days. I finished ahead of Jacob and was seated on one of the benches changing into my clothes when Jacob joined me.

He was still dripping from his shower. His dark hair was stuck to his face from being wet. I only noticed then that it looked much like his mother’s hair. But his face was more like his father’s with boyish rather than masculine features. His eyes came from his dad too. He had the same pale blue eyes that seemed to speak volumes of his soul.

He was also naked when he approached me.

His skin seemed to have gotten a few shades lighter as though dirt had covered up the smooth lightness that was beneath. His muscles were toned throughout his body but it had the unmistakable boyish quality that came with our age. His legs were developed probably from all the running he did in the village. Don’t even get me started on what hung between his legs.

I’ve never been shy with my body. When I would take showers in the shower room for servants, it did not bother me to see naked older men or for them to see me naked. But somehow being in this shower room with Jacob, someone my own age, seemed to require a little more modesty as though it would be indecent to expose myself.

And yet, here he was right before me, exposed in his full glory.

“What’s wrong?” He asked as he stood a few feet away from me holding his towel to his hair while still being completely naked.

“Nothing,” I said almost shyly as I looked down and continued tying my shoes.

As soon as I finished, I stood up and started walking towards the door. “I’ll meet you outside, okay?” I left without waiting for his response.