Chapter 17. As You Wish

  [Lorelei]

  I only worked up the courage to speak once Calypso and I were back in Armarillis. More precisely, once I’d created a teleportation vortex under his supervision, and a couple of seconds later we stepped out at Armarillis.

  “Zael is going to kill you,” I said confidently.

  “He hates it when people talk back to him like that. He’s definitely going to make you pay.”

  “Oh yeah? Well, let him try.”

  “I’m honestly surprised. Dad not only let you live but also let us go just now relatively calmly,” I muttered.

  Calypso chuckled softly.

  “Lori, Lori… I think I know your father better than you do. Sure, he can’t stand insolence, but he really respects worthy opponents. The thing is, he probably doesn’t usually come across people like that among the younger generation. Everyone either sucks up to him or trembles in fear.”

  “And you? Aren’t you afraid of him?”

  “Why should I be afraid of him?” Calypso shrugged indifferently.

  “Sure, he’s a powerful mage, a fearsome warrior, and all that, but not so much that I’d be scared to open my mouth and speak my mind around him. Same as with everyone else, really. Well, except your mom. Her, I probably shouldn’t cross, or she might accidentally devour my soul… And I’m rather fond of it at the moment. It's pure and beautiful, no need to devour it.”

  “Next you’ll say you have an innocent soul,” I snorted.

  “I am the very picture of innocence!..”

  “I adore you,” I breathed sincerely.

  Calypso chuckled.

  “That’s the right attitude. I should be thoroughly adored. I enjoy it immensely.”

  “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “Well… For defending me, I guess… And taking the heat, so to speak. For making your position clear to my dad,” I smiled, hugging my shoulders again.

  “For being so, you know…”

  “Reckless?”

  “Yeah,” I grinned.

  “Anyway… I’m really grateful. And right now I’d really love to throw my arms around your neck, like that clingy Margarita used to do,” I added more quietly.

  “So what’s stopping you?” Calypso asked cheerfully.

  “We-e-ell…” I got kind of flustered, looking around.

  “Everyone’s watching us…”

  And everyone really was staring at us as we walked through the Armarillis corridors.

  “Everyone was watching me and clingy Margarita too, you included,” Calypso remarked with a sly smile.

  “It didn’t really bother her. And it shouldn’t bother you either, in theory. So what’s really stopping you, Lori?”

  I shrugged vaguely.

  “I don’t want to attract extra attention…”

  “Now that’s getting closer to the real issue. Although the actual reason goes even deeper. It’s your constant tension, isn’t it? And your inability to relax and stop caring what others think. Well, we’ll keep working on that. Still so much relaxing to do with you!..”

  “Oh, come on,” I rolled my eyes.

  “It’s not like you’re dying to hang on my neck in public either. For obvious reasons, no need to explain.”

  “Because you’re not ready for that, Lori,” Calypso said in a singsong voice.

  “Am I right? I can feel your tension perfectly well and I can hear your heart rate spike the moment I get a little too close in public or look at you too openly. You instantly shut down, close off. And my job is the opposite: to open you up. Well… we’ll keep working on that.”

  ***

  Kes tried hitting on me several times with invitations to dinner together, but I shot him down with admirable regularity.

  My refusals, however, didn’t stop him from pushing.

  “Kes, you’re being a pest, leave me alone,” I finally snapped during another one of his approaches as I was leaving the library with a stack of books in my arms.

  “I’m not interested in you as a boyfriend, what’s so hard to understand?”

  “But how can you conclude you’re not interested when I haven’t been your boyfriend for a single day?” Kes persisted.

  “You won’t know until you try.”

  “Kes, has it occurred to you that I might already have a boyfriend?” I snapped.

  “Even if you do, which I highly doubt, he’s not the only guy in the world, and I could easily turn out to be better than him,” Kes smiled.

  “But you’ll only realize that if you get to know me better… in private.”

  I let out a quiet growl of helpless frustration, and the stack of textbooks in my arms wobbled.

  Kes picked up the textbook I’d dropped and gallantly handed it to me.

  “Need help carrying those?”

  “Thanks, I can manage,” I said through gritted teeth.

  “You’re missing out, Lori,” Kes continued, not taking his piercing gaze off me with those bright eyes of his.

  “Think about it. I'm just inviting you to spend a pleasant evening with me. Give me one evening, please, dear Lora! And I won’t push for another date if you find me insufficiently…”

  “Lamárk, do you not understand that the lady doesn’t want to go out with you? came a lazy voice from the side.”

  Calypso had stepped around the corner to meet us, leaning his shoulder against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest, looking at us condescendingly. He looked calm and relaxed.

  “I don’t recall asking for your opinion, Brandt,” Kes replied coldly, giving his classmate a contemptuous look.

  “You’re not really inclined to care about anyone’s opinion, are you?” He didn’t wait for an answer, took my stack of textbooks without asking, and nodded toward the common study hall.

  “Come on, Lori. We have lessons scheduled.”

  I scurried after Calypso, wincing at Kes’s voice calling after us:

  “Still, my offer stands, Lora, any time, keep that in mind!..”

  “One of these days I’m going to lose it and punch his face in,” Calypso remarked melancholically as we turned the corner.

  I smirked.

  “Jealous?”

  “No,” Calypso answered calmly.

  “He just pisses me off. Can’t stand whiners and people who don’t give a damn about other people’s opinions when it comes to personal matters. As for jealousy… You know, to be jealous you have to doubt yourself, and I, hate to break it to you, am quite confident.. I’m way better than Kes, aren’t I? And since you’ve already appreciated wonderful me, you clearly don’t have such bad taste as to stoop to the level of some Lamárk,” Calypso finished with a broad smile.

  “You’re absolutely insufferable!..” I burst out laughing.

  “Ye-e-es, I’m insufferably wonderful, agreed.”

  I had to admit he wasn’t exactly wrong.

  Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

  “But you took my textbooks without asking,” I remarked with a smirk.

  “I could’ve carried them myself, but you didn’t bother asking my opinion.”

  “That’s different. That’s help. I could see you were struggling with that stack. You don’t ask about help, you just help, silently. Not pretend you want to help but, oh well, you won’t gallantly interfere in the name of some Holy Nonsense.”

  I laughed, looking at the smiling Calypso. Right now sunbeams from the wide-open corridor windows were falling on him, beautifully highlighting his gray eyes. I was admiring him on the sly and thinking that my brain was thoroughly poisoned by Calypso, and around him I didn’t even want to think about other guys.

  A lovesick fool? So be it. At least here and now I’m happy, and later… Well, I’d need to somehow manage to survive until ‘later’ first.

  ***

  [at Eric Clarkson’s house on the outskirts of Forland]

  The living room of Eric Clarkson’s house was a picture of tranquility this late evening. Eric himself sat at a snow-white piano, his long, slender fingers dancing over the ivory keys. He wore white trousers and a white shirt with three-quarter sleeves, the top mother-of-pearl button undone. Eric was playing a beautiful melody on the piano, unhurried, melancholic. Playing with his eyes closed and a faint half-smile on his lips.

  [*author’s note: for deeper immersion in the atmosphere, I recommend listening to Infinite Stream’s ‘Melancholic Waltz’; in my imagination, this is exactly the kind of melody Eric might play in this scene]

  The living room was dim, lit only by a couple of lamps: a floor lamp with a white fabric shade stood near the piano, and a small table lamp with a magical glowing orb sat on the tea table in the middle of the room, behind Eric.

  The white-blue glow of the orb sparkled with little stars that fell across the faces of two men sitting in armchairs at the tea table with twisted expressions.

  One man — Ilforte Brandt — was noisily sipping hot cocoa from his bottomless mug, with chocolate flakes and marshmallows floating in it. Though, judging by the strong, sharp smell, there wasn’t only cocoa in that mug. Zael, sitting across from his friend, hadn’t bothered with a mug and was drinking fire ale straight from the bottle.

  The men were tensely silent and looked somewhat drained, because a few minutes earlier they’d been having a very heated conversation. Quite an emotional conversation, judging by the floor around them, scattered with shards from a couple of glasses and mugs.

  That, in fact, was the main reason Zael was drinking straight from the bottle: he’d already hurled his glass in a fit of rage, and he was too lazy to go get another one. He didn’t dare conjure himself a new one either, because in such a grim mood he was afraid he might conjure some monster that they’d then have to chase all over Forland.

  “So?” Eric spoke up, not pausing his piano playing.

  “Have you calmed down yet? Or do you want to yell at me some more?”

  “What’s the point of yelling at you,” Ilforte snorted indignantly, leaning back in his chair.

  “You’ve got the emotional range of an icicle. Sitting there playing your soothing little tune, probably laughing at us…”

  “No, I disagree,” Zael shook his head.

  “There is a point, and a substantial one: I got it all out of my system, and I feel significantly better.”

  Ilforte sighed heavily, set aside his mug of ‘spiked cocoa’ and tiredly rubbed his forehead.

  “I can’t wrap my head around it… How did we not figure it out sooner…”

  “Ye-e-eah. Not only are they a potential battle pair, but they’re also, um, clearly seeing each other… very actively.”

  “Well, in Armarillis’s experience, a battle pair has never been just colleagues or friends,” Ilforte said.

  “Usually a battle bond forms between either close relatives like siblings like Eric and Agnessa or romantic couples. And Calypso and Lorelei don’t exactly look like brother and sister, you know.”

  “But the way he put me in my place, huh,” Zael shook his head, looking sadly at the empty bottle in his hands.

  “‘I think you really need some advice to back off from your daughter,’ ”he mimicked Calypso’s words in an extremely snide tone.

  “‘I think I already know more about dark magic than you do.’ I mean, I actually liked that he wasn’t standing off to the side like a silent statue, meekly waiting for me to finish lecturing Lora, but… This is the first time I’ve encountered such absolute serenity from a young person! He was genuinely relaxed, damn it, not just pretending! I can read anyone’s emotions easily, and I can say for certain that Calypso wasn’t trembling inside with fear, waiting for me to smack him down. No-o-o, he looked at me condescendingly and spoke with defiance in his voice. Standing there in front of me like some confident rock… Il, what the hell did you give birth to?”

  “I didn’t give birth, take all complaints to Sirinity,” Ilforte waved dismissively.

  “Passing the buck, huh?”

  Zael chuckled and set the empty bottle on the floor.

  “Yeah… You really did produce quite a son. Only child, but with such a concentration of everything all at once. That is impressive. Wild, but still impressive. Have you thought about a second one yet, hmm?”

  Ilforte choked on his cocoa and spent a very long time coughing under Zael’s nervous laughter and an approving chuckle from Eric, who continued playing the piano.

  “What ‘second,’ are you out of your mind? Let me deal with this one first… You know perfectly well why I hesitated for so long about having a child at all.”

  “I know,” Zael sighed heavily, and his smile faded quickly.

  The reason lay in Ilforte’s genetics: he actually had a very dark bloodline. Ilforte himself had somehow been born a light mage to his core, apparently as a ‘freak of nature.’

  Long ago, after becoming the Mentor of Armarillis Academy and thinking about his future, Ilforte had asked himself: how would this heredity affect his hypothetical children? Unfortunately, he didn’t like the answer…

  Ilforte took this question seriously and once even consulted dream walkers — twilight wanderers who, through special magical practices, plunged Ilforte into special working dreams where he could view a hundred paths of the future related to the theoretical possibility of him having children.

  And in ninety-nine out of a hundred scenarios, Ilforte saw the birth of a dark mage of such power that it would be impossible to control once it reached full strength and spun out of control.

  That’s exactly why Ilforte had once made the conscious decision to give up his desire to have a child: the probability of disturbing the world’s balance was too great… And as Mentor of Armarillis Academy, he couldn’t allow himself such indulgence. Too much responsibility rested on his shoulders. Too much was at stake…

  And several years ago, Eric had a prophetic vision in which he clearly saw the identity of someone who would one day in the future help Calypso not drown in the depths of darkness. That one person who could somehow influence, calm, tame that darkness… That one chance in a hundred. The only positive outcome.

  Only Eric had known this person’s name all these years. He’d only told Ilforte the year in which someone capable of handling the darkness of Ilforte’s hypothetical child would be born. He’d only told him the year, thereby ‘giving the green light,’ clearly indicating that Ilforte could now pursue the matter of bringing into the world the child he’d dreamed of for many years.

  And so he did ‘pursue’ it, quite actively, one might add.

  Calm and well-behaved as a child, Calypso had caused his parents no trouble, but the further along, the more Ilforte worried that his son was sliding down a slippery slope into dark magic… Especially that unexplored shadow magic that had somehow managed to manifest in the magical Spark of an ordinary mage who had no spiritual connection to the flip side of the world.

  The only comfort was that Eric never made mistakes, and his prophetic visions were always clear and accurate. Which meant the necessary ‘tamer of darkness’ for Calypso had definitely already been born.

  And it had finally dawned on Zael and Ilforte that this so-called ‘tamer’ was Lorelei.

  It had dawned on them quite emotionally, which was why today Zael and Ilforte had stormed Eric’s house, after he’d been successfully dodging his colleagues for several days, fearing the storm.

  And rightly so: the storm had indeed happened, and Eric’s ears still remembered the screams of ‘Why the hell have you been keeping quiet all this time, Eric?!’, ‘Why didn’t you tell us it was her, Eric?!’, ‘Il, how are you raising your son?!’, ‘And how are you keeping tabs on your daughter, buddy?!’

  “I expected some powerful light mage to appear and stand beside Calypso and simply knock some sense into him or scrub his brain clean,” Ilforte muttered, thoughtfully running his palm across his cheek.

  “I expected a powerful counterweight, you understand? But Lori… God, I never even looked at her as a potential ‘savior,’ I was in such shock when my son told me he senses Lorelei as a potential Guardian… It’s… absolutely incredible. How can she help Calypso deal with his darkness? She’s dark herself, and with such an imbalance that she herself needs someone to ‘tame’ her first!..”

  “The universe works in mysterious ways,” Eric intoned melodically, continuing to play the piano.

  “He’s not going to tell us anything,” Zael sighed.

  “As the Prophet, he’s not allowed to talk about such things. Only he has the right to know all the nuances, all the details. And we’re left to bite our nails in nervous anticipation of gods know what…”

  “That’s just it – ‘gods know what.’ These two are each ticking time bombs, mines we’re trying to carefully defuse. And what happens when this pair joins forces and goes off at full power?..”

  “Think of it this way: the universe doesn’t just bring this or that Fortemin into the world for no reason,” Eric said.

  “Light and dark Fortemins aren’t born randomly. We’re soldiers of balance, and we watch over the equilibrium of light and darkness in the Universe. Exactly as many of us are born as are currently needed to maintain that balance. So here’s the question: what must be about to happen in the world that two such damn powerful dark mages Lorelei and Calypso appeared at the same time? Especially Calypso. That’s what you should be thinking about. There are no coincidences… Everything in life happens when it should. The universe knows what it’s doing. You need to learn to trust it. I do. And I act in concert with it.”

  “And what should we do?..”

  “I’ve already said relax. And just live. This is my game, don’t interfere with my ‘chess match.’ Especially since we have a ‘fork’ coming up.”

  “What do you mean?” Ilforte frowned even deeper.

  “Oh, nothing…”

  With those words, Eric finished the melody and closed the piano lid. He slowly inhaled and exhaled, finally opened his eyes, and turned to his late guests with a sly smile — they looked quite nervous and troubled.

  “Can you imagine what kind of kids they’ll have in the future?” Zael suddenly said with a nervous smile.

  Ilforte muttered something like ‘Holy Melia, save me!’.. and buried his face in his enormous mug of cocoa again.

  “I don’t even want to think about that yet…”

  “Wait… It just hit me… Does that mean we’ll be in-laws?!”

  “Let’s just try to live that long first… Or maybe better not to?”

  “We’ll live, where are we gonna go,” Eric said in a singsong voice.

  “We’ll all live. So, gentlemen, are you going to let me sleep tonight, or is there more you haven’t told me yet?”

  “How do you expect us to sleep?” Zael said, almost plaintively.

  “Knowing that our problem children are destined to be together, and all we can do is watch from the sidelines and try not to lose our minds worrying about these fearless idiots?”

  “How, how… Soundly and deeply. Cuddling a bottle of fire ale with vanilla candies on the side. Maybe with some duct tape in hand or under your pillow.”

  “What’s the duct tape for?” Ilforte didn’t immediately understand.

  “Well, isn’t it obvious? You both need something to periodically tape down your twitching eyes and… Ouch!”

  Two throw pillows flew at Eric from both sides with such force that they finally knocked Lord Prophet off his perch.

  “What a crafty little bastard you are,” Zael shook his head.

  “Ye-e-es, I’m a bastard,” Eric said with feeling, not rushing to get up and making himself comfortable on the soft carpet, putting the thrown pillows under his head and gazing dreamily at the ceiling.

  “But a damn fabulous bastard, wouldn’t you agree, Dad?”