II - Under Watchful Eye

[Liandrix]

Three days later Liandrix found himself in the twilight-like seventh floor of the Kirin Tor archives, pouring over a book. But it wasn’t a book of the archives. Liandrix had brought his own book, the one he had borrowed from the library in Stratholme. It lay open in front of him, surrounded by other, older looking books.

Two days ago Liandrix had been welcomed into the fold, as it were. As he knew, Master Cohlien Frostweaver already had to apprentices under him. One, the younger of the two, was about Liandrix’ age and was called Derreck, the other was older and had been an apprentice for almost a decade; his name was Falen.

The fact that Liandrix had gotten his apprenticeship a mere day after his arrival didn’t sit well with the two, to say it lightly. Master Cohlien had said to treat Liandrix as a brother and they had at first seemed friendly towards him, even hospital. But he quickly realised their grudge, which had grown exponentially after their first plan of tricking Liandrix into doing something stupid, failed.

They had dared him to steal Cohlien’s prized hat as a bet and promised in return a keg of mead. Although they called it a bet, Liandrix had gotten the distinct impression that it was meant as a sort of initiation rite. Liandrix had remembered Cohliens accusations towards the students about stealing his hat, and had explained as much to them, to their apparent disappointment.

Cohlien, meanwhile, had taken some time to bring Liandrix up to speed on how apprenticeships work. It appeared that Cohlien’s apprentices where not his main job in Dalaran. In fact, Cohlien explained that every Master in the city who was training and teaching one or more mages was devoted to another cause, concerning the Arcane.

Liandrix was to follow his own course of action and, if time permitted it, show his work to his Master for which he may receive recommendations and advise. On occasion a Master may ask their apprentice to aid him in his own cause so that he may learn about magic in a more practical way.

Liandrix had absolutely no idea what course of action to take. He had never stopped to think what exactly he wanted to study. Cohlien had advised him to have a look around in the Archives and just pull off books at random and read. He also advised to start doing it above the fifth floor. Apparently the books had been ordered by date, starting at the bottom with the oldest volumes. This had made sense as Liandrix had only found books in Thalassian, the elven tongue, on the ground floor.

Meanwhile, Verdwald Slopes, the old man who lived with Liandrix, was still utterly convinced that his fellow-habitant was his long lost nephew Erik. Liandrix had given up trying to convince him he was Liandrix and that he had no family connections to him whatsoever. Instead whenever he was in the vicinity he just listened to the old man rambling on about him. It did give Liandrix an interesting perspective of this person and he found himself wondering who this boy was.

With every minute Liandrix was at home the image of Erik became more and more complete. Apparently Wald had taken him in after his parents had died in an accident after they had attempted to fly off a cliff in their own make-shift device that was supposed to let them float. As Erik was invited to join the mages in Dalaran one point Wald decided to join him, having vowed to always look after the boy. However, magic did not seem to strike Erik as an interesting study, and he had disappeared one morning, never to return.

And apparently, the old man’s solitude had hit him quite hard. Not a moment went by or Wald surprised Liandrix with some of his rather unique visions on daily life. After the hearing Liandrix had gone back home to find Wald on the roof of the house, declaring that he had seen the stars line up to tell him that Liandrix would lose all of his hair and regrow a mushroom on his head instead, after which Wald had jumped down, demanding if Liandrix had been troubled by spores in his ears lately. The morning after, Liandrix had woken up to find every piece of furniture gone from the living room. Wald had stacked them all on top of each other on the roof and was sitting comfortably in an arm-chair at the top, claiming that he was trying to figure out the meaning of having your head in the clouds.

The most disturbing one of all happened last night when Liandrix had returned from his first reading session. He had found Wald running around the house with a spade apparently attempting to chase the shadows away from the house. Before Liandrix could calm him down by lighting a few candles Wald had destroyed two windows, gored a book with his shovel and somehow gotten a chair wedged into the branches of a tree. He had also painted the dinner table yellow in an attempt to light it on fire to get rid of the darkness.

Liandrix couldn’t say that Wald was a radical lunatic, however. Between his odd moments he was always very caring about Liandrix. He cooked dinner, cleaned the house and even offered to tell him a bed-time story. But most times he seemed confused, frightened or determined to find an answer to a question about a non-existent matter. It meant that Liandrix often ended up taking care of Wald. It was like having a child and a parent all at once … and sometimes a rabid dog, too.

Liandrix turned a page of his book. He had shown it earlier to Master Cohlien and, after pronouncing his dissatisfaction about the narrow-minded view of the Church about the Arcane, he had set Liandrix the task of taking note of all the differences between the Church’s notions and fact, explaining their disagreements and common ground, and the reason behind both. It was a difficult task, not only because it required him to read a book on about every subject that was described in his book, but also to trace down the origin of its use.

Liandrix put a piece of paper between the pages describing the use of a so-called ‘holy ward’ and closed the book. Now he had to find a book that matched the description of that spell. He had discovered that the archives had a registry of the books on every floor with nothing but its title and year of publishing; this was enough to locate the books in a manner of minutes, provided you didn’t need to be at the top floor.

Liandrix found a book (‘Shields and Wards of the Light’) on the ninth floor. This floor was a lot darker than the seventh floor and Liandrix had trouble finding the book he was looking for. He was manoeuvring between the tall bookcases, trying to decipher the dates on the books when he bumped into another man, seated at a table. Liandrix turned around to apologise and saw that he had walked into another boy, a little older than him.

The boy was fair-haired and rather handsome, his dark hair covering his ears and his matching eyes looking impassively up at Liandrix. Liandrix stammered and apology and the boy gave a slight shrug with his shoulders and turned back to face a woman Liandrix had also failed to notice. But once he did notice her he wondered immediately why he hadn’t noticed her before, for surely her long blonde hair and piercing blue eyes would have cast their light across such a dark place; or was it simply so dark in contrast to her beauty?

Liandrix came back to his senses and noticed that he had been staring. Embarrassed he muttered another apology.

“Do you know this boy, Kel?” the woman asked, her radiating blue eyes on Liandrix.

The boy looked over his shoulder again and slowly shook his head and gave the girl’s hand he had been holding a squeeze. “No one I know, Cecilia.”

Liandrix quickly avoided her questioning gaze by diving behind a bookshelf; he had obviously walked into something he hadn’t been supposed to.

Liandrix resumed his search in the darkness and although he wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, he couldn’t shut out the voices that carried through the bookcases.

“Kel, it is taking so much time, how much longer must we wait?” the woman said in an audible whisper.

“These things take time. You know how it is. Patience, my love. They will answer when they see fit,” the boy answered calmly. He had a deep voice that made him sound older than Liandrix thought he was.

There was a silence, and Liandrix found the proper date of publishing as his fingers racked the book covers. There was a huff from the girl. “Kel’thuzad, if you think that you can get out of marrying me by some fool’s decision … “

“No hundred mages could prevent me, Cecilia.”

Liandrix found the book, grabbed it and practically ran from the ninth floor.

When he came down after cleaning up his books and marking their locations on a scroll (none were allowed to take books out of the Archives) Liandrix bumped into Derreck who had been sent by Master Cohlien to show Liandrix around the Archives and although Liandrix had been exploring the building for a few days Derreck showed him a few things he wished he had known before, not the least of which the fact that one could borrow a piece of glass very similar to a scrying orb which allowed the holder to light his surroundings.

Derreck, Liandrix learned, was a lot more agitated by his quick admittance than Falen was, and he didn’t let a moment go by without letting Liandrix know how fortunate he had been and how much he still needed to prove his worth. Falen seemed displeased as well but took a more mature approach by showing Liandrix much of the basics of the schools of the Arcane, but in turn reprimanding him harshly when he wrongly answered one of his many difficult questions or when Liandrix asked a question himself Falen deemed foolish.

This continued for a few weeks and between Derreck and Falen, his roommate Wald and the amount of work he did in the Archives each day Liandrix reflected that his time in Dalaran wasn’t as much fun as he had thought it would be. Finally Liandrix finished his project on the book he had brought with him and he had showed it to Master Cohlien.

“I see you disagreed on the arcane sources of the elemental components in a lightward,” Cohlien Frostweaver muttered as he read Liandrix’ work at the light of a candle.

They were in Master Cohlien’s study and Falen wasn’t sitting very far off at another desk, writing on a piece of parchment.

“I found the description of the components oddly familiar and when I cross-referenced them with those of a Light Shield they seemed almost the same, however a ward has no use if it is subjected to Gilberd’s Fourth Law on elemental shielding, which a shield with these sources is.”

Cohlien nodded thoughtfully and Liandrix thought he saw Falen shift uncomfortably in his seat.

Cohlien finished reading the tome Liandrix had written and finally his eyes appeared above the book. Liandrix got the feeling he was grinning.

“What is a lightbolt?” he asked suddenly.

Liandrix had felt that question coming when he had categorised all the offensive spells mentioned in his book. Lightbolt, although mentioned, had not been a part of his work for long.

“It’s a contradiction based on the fact that a spell can never both destroy and heal at once, provided it is a singular conjuration,” Liandrix said. “A contradiction cannot exist in a spell.”

Cohlien thumped the book on the table. “Really,” he said darkly. “Then how do you explain a frostfire bolt?”

Liandrix was taken aback; a frostfire bolt wasn’t mentioned in his book. He thought hard for a moment.

“A frostfire bolt is not a contradiction. Its base element is ice. The fire element is only present in its attributes of burning, which can be an effect of frost. If conjured with an additional binding solely between the attributes needed you could make ice burn like fire.”

Cohlien stared at him for a moment and Liandrix immediately reflected on his answer. But then the Master slapped his hand hard on the book. “Now you see why we don’t need any nutters like Althanir? Who needs fire if ice can burn?”

Liandrix stared and wondered if he should laugh or not. He certainly felt relieved enough to do it. Cohlien jumped to his feet and started teaching Liandrix how to conjure a frostfire bolt, which proved to be an exhausting lesson, but by the end of it Liandrix could light Cohlien’s hearth with a frostbolt as if it were real fire.

It was late in the afternoon when Liandrix returned home. It had been a long and tiresome day and he looked up against dealing with Wald again. But when he passed the mailbox Wald appeared in the doorway looking positively bewildered at Liandrix’ approach. He was clad in a simple robe that he usually wore in bed.

“But Erik, where have you been all night?” he asked.

Liandrix frowned. “It’s almost evening, Wald. And I’ve been studying,” Liandrix answered dully.

“That cannot be right,” Wald said, rubbing his chin in thought. “Your friend said it was tonight.”

Friend? Liandrix wondered who he meant by that.

“Well that explains my craving,” Wald said suddenly, pointing his finger skyward as if he had figured out a most difficult question.

“What craving?” Liandrix asked curiously.

“A bath,” Wald answered simply, and with that he discarded the robe with a single fling of his arm (Liandrix looked pointedly away) took a running dive towards the lake and landed in the icy water, belly first.

Liandrix dearly hoped he didn’t have to rescue Wald from the water, but he quickly spotted him, flaying around with his arms as if he had done it a thousand times. Liandrix went inside the house and immediately spotted someone sitting in the chair in front of the hearth.

“Falen?”

Falen stood up and turned away from the hearth and shoved his hands in his pockets, his eyes roving around the room as if he hadn’t noticed it before.

“Nice place you have here, although I question your choice of roommates.”

“What brings you here?” Liandrix asked sharply, trying to keep his voice level.

“Well, Lian, I’ve noticed that your progress is a little … slow,” Falen said, stressing the last word. “And I thought that I – as a fellow apprentice, should take the initiative to help you get there faster.”

Liandrix looked at Falen but remained silent. In his mind he recalled the words Cohlien had told him saying that no student of his had managed conjuring a Frostbolt in their first attempt.

“So Derreck and me have got this idea,” Falen said. He had a glint in his eye that Liandrix wasn’t sure about, he seemed to be sincere but his behaviour the past few weeks put him on guard.

Falen leaned forward. “How would you like to see some real magic tonight?”