***
A few hours later, the sun was high above them in the middle of the sky like a giant staring eye (it never really moved that far anyhow, Glint thought to himself quietly). Glint and Azrael were standing outside the tavern door with their backpacks upon ready shoulders, while still shouldering Vladimir’s luggage between the two of them. This was, Azrael had explained, standard for guards. It was especially true in their case since they were the ones who suggested travelling without horses for the first part of the journey.
It is said that you can tell much about a man from the things he packs when he isn’t really thinking about it, and it became apparent to Glint that Vladimir was a practical yet passionate man. In equal parts, the bard’s luggage consisted of evenly distributed necessities, as well as objects that reminded him of his daughter and his music.
Somehow, Glint felt like he was going to enjoy travelling with the bard. He kept his wolverine’s claw deep within his own pack.
They said farewell to Gared and his wife, who had come out to wish them well on their journey. The kindly woman showed her emotions openly, fussing over Glint while he acted embarrassed to appease her. Gared on the other simply shook hands with the three, called Glint’s friends to say goodbye, and went back inside in a gruff manner.
“Really is a man of the sea,” commented Azrael, eliciting a laugh from Glint.
“Oh he’s just shy,” he assured the necromancer, “I’m sure he’ll miss you more than most.”
A large man walked towards the necromancer, and Glint saw Azrael stiffen up. It was Mark, the friend who had grabbed Glint’s travel companion and carried him upside down just the night before. The man stopped less than a foot away from Azrael, then raised his hand, scratching his own clean-shaven chin sheepishly. “Sorry about yesterday,” he mumbled. He offered his hand and Azrael took it pleasantly enough. Glint was surprised that the necromancer was being such a nice guy about it.
Then he remembered that Azrael was mainly upset with him about the whole thing. He hoped the man wouldn’t go too far with his vengeance.
Last to say goodbye was Arin. The red haired man took Glint to the side, looking collected and curious as usual. Before Glint could say anything, his counterpart sighed. “Forgive us, Glint.” His words were tinged with sadness, surprising the youth.
“What for, man?” he asked, and Arin gave him a knowing look, scratching at his patched clothes. He looked slightly sheepish. “For... for how people here think of your kind,” he stated, and Glint stiffened. Before he denied anything the warrior instinctively scoped the perimeter. All clear. “Don’t worry, I didn’t tell anyone. They wouldn’t understand. I used to think the same, but... I think I get it now. You’re just as human as I am.”At that, Glint relaxed a little.
“Look, Arin-“ he started, but the other interrupted him with a gesture.
“No need to explain,” he announced. “Just, get that friend of yours to keep you safe, so you’ll visit us one day. I’ll make sure people around here think differently by then. And don’t wait too long, or I’ll die of old age.” The last parting shot was humorous and bitter, yet Glint felt oddly comforted by it all. He vowed he’d come back here and share stories with his friends again. Maybe by then he’d develop a taste for alcohol again. He joined his companions, who had waited for him before the tavern. From this angle, its thatched roof was a little like a bird’s nest.
From the weather, Glint thought that spring might come early this year. He said so to Vladimir and the man looked at him strangely. “Was it not already spring?” he asked, and Azrael laughed from his other side.
“This, my dear bard, is the end of winter’s bite.” the necromancer stated, shocking the musician. Glint wondered how different life must be where Vladimir came from. He couldn’t imagine a place where this type of weather was considered spring. True, the grass was starting to grow green again, and in about a month the forests would be lush with newborn flowers, but it was still decidedly winter.
With the party of three ready and their goodbyes spent, they set off, heading mostly westwards. The road would curve south on its own. Despite the way being usually well travelled, after meeting a few people on their way the companions found their path largely empty. They were only accompanied by the chirping of birds and the scuttling of small wildlife in the forest around them. Glint hadn’t really ventured that often in this direction while hunting the wolverines, but remembered a clearing that was south of their position. Thus after travelling about an hour, exchanging pleasantries and talking about general nothings, as people were wont to do when newly acquainted, Glint took the three left, to the south, veering off the path suddenly.
He had spoken to Azrael about the place, and the necromancer followed without question. Vladimir, however, sputtered as he struggled to catch up. He asked a few questions which the two ignored other than Azrael saying, “Just this way, master bard.” and by the time they reached the clearing, the man was furious.
“Where are you taking us?” he demanded of Glint, red in the face. “There’s nothing in it for you to just take me this far and rob me, you know.” Once again the man was showing his keen skill for analysis and calm thinking, Glint saw, despite the bard’s obvious anger.
“Indeed, Vladimir,” said Azrael in his most no-nonsense voice from behind him, and the bard whirled with speed, pausing in his string of cursing. “We know that you have the money to pay us. We also know you don’t have it with you. I understand that we have nothing to gain by harming you, because if we complete this mission we will make more anyway. The money you have with you wouldn’t be worth the deed.” As the necromancer said that, Vladimir looked mollified somewhat, as if rational conversation gave him assurance, somehow. His eyes still shifted in suspicion though, and he held his instrument behind him protectively whilst studying their surroundings.
“Then why does he bring us here?” he bade of Azrael while pointing at Glint accusingly.
“Look, Vladimir,” the man turned his eyes to Glint when he said that, and the warrior went on in a softer voice. “Why don’t you have a seat? I promise you Michael here will explain it all to you. Just relax and listen to us.”
The man complied after a moment, and sat himself down on the ground, leaning against a large rock covered with moss. He placed his instrument on his crossed legs carefully, then turned his attention back to the two. After taking a deep breath, the bard said, “Well?”
“You understand how strange it was for us to accept-let alone be the ones to propose- such a low minimum wage for ourselves during this job? It was suspicious, was it not? Why would two guards take on such a long mission on these conditions? Why give no proof of affiliation with bands, swordsmen groups, or something similar? Did these questions not cross your mind?” As Azrael asked these questions, Vladimir’s expression made it clear that they had indeed.
“Good,” the necromancer said. He crossed his arms as if in thoughts, then said, “Glint, show him.”
Glint had, of course, come out of his room in his simple leather armour and his overlarge blade. It had been his standard disguise for a while. Now the warrior let the metal of his bracers melt over and forge itself anew over his clothes: a perfect seamless suit, covering him from neck to toes, and a Y shaped helmet. A barbute. With a shudder, lightning poured through him and the metal, embracing him in tingles and strength. The cold felt far off, distant. He was protected from everything and anything.
“Oh, record time,” Azrael remarked. Vladimir’s mouth had taken on a comical shape, much like that of a well, with his teeth for stones. For a few seconds he made a few sounds which couldn’t be really classified as speech, after which Azrael interrupted him with, “yes, he’s an Ability user. So am I.”
The bard looked from one to another in disbelief, then laughed in and exclaimed, “I never knew. I couldn’t afford your services if I spent a year saving money!”
“I know, master bard. Luckily for you, money is not our main concern, current
ly. Young Glint here is on an adventure to train himself until he joins a local guild in the Bane Mountains, with me as his teacher. We have decided to aid a noble bard, with the payment to be decided by you when and should our journey end. It would be nice of you to keep our abilities a secret until we reach Hindshelm, however, because the good folk of the immediate area are more sceptical of Ability users than in Krava.” Vladimir had stood up now, keeping his eyes on Azrael. His gaze, however, showed no disapproval, and so the necromancer continued. “Glint here shall be needing no horse, I and he will be training during any breaks we have in our travels, and thus we shall be rarely staying in an inn. Is that understood?” Azrael was speaking in a fast fluid matter-of-fact voice, and Glint could empathize with how the bard must feel. Glint had often felt overwhelmed by the crow, after all.
To his credit, Vladimir nodded silently, accepting that at least some authority was to be taken out of his hands.
With that, Glint led the two others back towards the path and they set off on their way, heading mostly west with whilst also winding slowly south. Along the way Vladimir persisted in asking questions about him and Azrael- how had they met, what their abilities were, what they planned to do, why they were not affiliated with any guilds nor finding work as independent Agents. The questions helped him realize how little he himself knew. Vladimir was a curious man, so much so that Glint amused himself by imagining that the bard’s instrument, which was slung across his back and bobbed up and down to his footstep’s rhythm, was actually poking its head out to better hear the tales.
Within an hour, Glint and Azrael had filled the bard in on some of their adventures together, although neither spoke about the past. Glint was still uncomfortable with his history and so made up a story about how he was a Normal boy whose father had invested much money into training. He had gained the ability and then one day won the manor in a bet. Azrael had just wandered into his house one day, looking for work. It was close enough to the truth, he’d thought, although he would need to come clean before reaching his hometown. After all, he didn’t know how his reception was going to go, although optimism lay far from his expectations.
Vladimir grunted in dissatisfaction with this tale, but it was still more than he got from the necromancer. The man had either dodged questions or blatantly lied with outlandish tales until Vlad had said, “Enough! I can’t bear any more of this ridiculousness! You are more slippery than water, Mister Michael.” Azrael hadn’t even told the man what his ability was, just that he was a “magician”. His made up stories had been interesting, however. Glint had especially liked the one about an alchemist guild building situated at the bottom of a river, needing a rose in a bottle as key for its transparent bridge to extend to shore. They had a rose in a jar in his pack, but it being a key was nonsensical at best.
Despite the constant bickering between the necromancer and the bard, Glint felt at ease travelling with the two along a clear road. More than anything, he felt that the onset of spring was adding to the joys of adventure. He said so one day, and Vladimir immediately stopped his latest argument with the necromancer. If there was one thing to be known about bards and musicians, it is that they enjoy their craft immensely. A woodworker could spend a day without crafting a table, a warrior could go a year without battle. Even a writer of tales could spend some amount of time enjoying other pastimes and letting his imagination wander with neither pen nor paper. However, a musician always looks for an excuse to play. Some do it to show others their ability but others have more noble reasons, such as entertaining or inspiring. There were even those who simply loved the art of expression.
Vladimir the bard was no exception to this rule, and so at the mere mention of spring and adventure he pulled out his cream coloured instrument from behind his back. He spent a few seconds fiddling with black pegs set at the end of the thing before strumming a few disconnected chords. All the while, the man didn’t slow down his walking pace, and Azrael whistled at the sight, impressed.
Vladimir seemed to look around him as if to look for inspiration, and Glint wondered what the bard saw. He looked at the sky, the ground, and the fir trees around them. He listened to the wind and the crunch of feet upon dirt roads. Then, he began to sing:
At once the three friends, they met
On a road, a gambler’s bet
It was their fate, together to walk
A road of dark, a viper’s nest.
Azrael then began to hum slowly, in a deep tone betraying his usual voice, and Vladimir changed his finger’s positioning to accommodate him. Glint enjoyed the music, walking to Vladimir’s left with Azrael on his other side.
They had no fear, the three
For they had with them the seed
Of happiness and joy and all
The lightness of pure deed.
At that Glint began to hum along as well. Suddenly he started to think that perhaps Vladimir was simply singing about sunlight. Perhaps the three friends were the seasons? Then was the dark Vladimir’s idea of winter?
Returned from shadows dark
Riding on a great big ark
Going back to honoured hall
They bore a shining mark.
With that the bard played his final chord, and his two privileged guards clapped long and hard, laughing with pleasure at how they were able to be part of the song through their humming.
“Now tell us a story!” Glint prompted enthusiastically, his brown hair trying its best to get into his eyes. It had gotten longer lately, he thought. I should trim it when I have a chance.
Azrael pointed off to the distance, where a stone bridge led into a town. “I think that will have to wait, Glint. We have reached our destination, sadly, and so Master Vladimir’s wonderful tales will have to wait for another time.”
The three stopped less than a mile shy from the bridge. “Should we not enter?” asked Vladimir in confusion, “Is this not the town we wanted to get our supplies from?”
“It is,” answered Glint, “but only you and Azrael will enter, I’ll skirt around and meet you on the other side, then we’ll continue northwest.” He wasn’t too happy about it, in fact. But Azrael said that this was a good way for him to train his control over his powers. He would need to expend qi for a large amount of time every day. The necromancer had called it “maintenance training”. Still, running next to horses for hours on end was not Glint’s idea of fun.
“Why... oh. I see,” Vladimir’s eyes twinkled. “It would be suspicious for three travellers to purchase only two horses. I’m surprised I didn’t see it sooner.” The man looked genuinely annoyed with himself.
“It is no trouble, Master Vladimir,” said Azrael in a comforting tone before turning to the youth and taking his hand theatrically. “Very well then, Glint. I shall see you on the other side of town in an hour.”
With that, Azrael and Vladimir went on further towards the town, crossing the stone bridge casually. While they were heading there, Glint took off to the left, circling the village. An hour was a long time, and he decided to amuse himself by going as close to the town as he could without being seen. This town seemed to have a good mayor, for the place had a semblance of a wall surrounding the wooden houses with their pale thatched roofs. Sadly there were no real armed guards to play around with, but the low grey stone wall with moss and weeds growing out of it here and there was directly behind some of the buildings, so there was still a chance to be seen. The warrior allowed an extra trickle of power to fill his body, insuring that he could step as lightly as a feather.
Stealthily yet swiftly, Glint tiptoed towards the wall less than a hundred feet from its entrance, where two guards stood. The warrior used the trees as cover, sticking as close to the firs as possible. With his body control the grass made almost no sound as he stepped on it, heading towards the wall. Reaching it, Glint couched, keeping his back to the wall and then moving while keeping his attention on the sounds he could hear from inside the town behind him. Obviously no one would sound
an alarm over a single warrior in his late teens sneaking around the town wall, but he could be mistaken for a thief. Glint ran his mind through that possibility and snickered.
Of course, no one saw or heard him move around the wall, which had less to do with sloppy defences and more with his own abilities. At some point Glint even passed under the dangling feet of two boys sitting on the wall, chatting about the seamstress’ sickly son and how he never went out to play.
“It’s a shame, he’s good with a stone, can hit a bird from twenty feet away,” said one of the boys in a high pitched voice.
Glint resisted the urge to yank on the dust covered foot just above his face, passing under it instead and moving ahead on. “Not bad,” he murmured just audibly enough to startle the children, then carried on his merry way.
After reaching their meeting spot, Glint awaited his companions for more than thirty minutes, throwing stones randomly in boredom on one side of the road. So absorbed was he in his thoughts that he almost missed the sight of them walking their horses right next to him. They had also gotten saddlebags for the horses. The two hadn’t discussed what supplies they were getting with Glint, but he hoped they brought salted ham with them, at least. A growing warrior needed meat, after all. Azrael was telling some joke or the other when Glint leapt up to join them, taking his place next to Vladimir. The three walked for a bit in silence then, only breaking it to greet others who passed them on the road either on for or in carts drawn by donkeys and laden with food. The drivers would often look oddly at the sight of two men on horses and a young warrior on foot travelling together.
At long last the warrior spoke up. “So I guess we now part ways for a few hours?” he asked, and Azrael nodded at that. “How far are you going to be from us?” the necromancer inquired, giving Glint pause. He knew he had to stay out of sight. If he moved slower people might believe that he was a ranger or something, but at his speed his true nature would be unmistakable. This was something they wanted to avoid.
“Maybe sixty feet? seventy? No more than a hundred.” He concluded his statement with a sense of finality, and Azrael raised an eyebrows.
“A little close, Glint,” reprimanded he.
That was something the warrior understood, but he wasn’t going to budge on this. “I need to able to hear Vladimir’s stories,” he said firmly. His tone brokered no argument, and the bard laughed.
“Very well then,” he said, clapping Glint on the back, “I shall make sure to sing only the finest for you, lad!”
Glint smiled widely at that, and Azrael sighed in acceptance.
A few hours later, though, Glint was not smiling. While running, he had been instructed to keep his qi flow under strict regulation. Not a thunderstorm, but thin slithering lightning bolts. The task proved far more difficult than he had thought, and took a large amount of concentration, causing the warrior to start sweating in no time at all. Although his two companions far to his left were not galloping on their mounts, they still moved at a speed he was unable to duplicate with just the strength of his muscles. While running on the uneven grassy terrain with the wind whipping at him the warrior had to be careful so as not to trip on any tree roots or crash into branches or trees. On the other hand, Vladimir’s music helped through the power of distraction, and the warrior kept doggedly going, refusing to ask the others for a break.
So it was that Glint was more than glad to stop when Azrael called a camp break to rest and water the mounts near a stream. The warrior collapsed almost instantly, and the necromancer laughed musically for a bit before helping him up. The three then had a light meal while Azrael explained the nuances of keeping a slow flow of qi through the tempo of breath. “However,” he explained finally, “breath is merely a conduit or materialization of your control. Even if you pant or break the breathing method, you can still maintain control over your qi with simple willpower. It is just twice or thrice as hard.” Glint could appreciate that, for he had felt the extra pressure placed on him when his qi flow did not match up with his breathing technique correctly. Vladimir listened with interest from the side but offered no comments, naturally. He spent the time polishing his instrument with an oiled rag he’d pulled out of his horse’s saddlebag.
“Well… in that case,” asked Glint with curiosity, “Isn’t it technically possible to reach a level where you can do it without a breathing method at all? Just by imagining it, I mean?”
At that Vladimir paused in his work. “What does imagination have to do with it?” he asked, looking genuinely puzzled.
“Well, in order to create, gather, or manipulate energy, you need to visualize it happening. At least in the beginning. Imagery is the basic training for anything. If you can’t do it vividly, you’d fail.” As Glint answered, he looked at Azrael for support, and the man nodded his approval.
“But... how do you know if it will work? What if you just don’t have the talent for it? How did the first person who did it know that he was going to succeed?” this seemed to fluster Vladimir greatly, Glint thought. “I don’t think I’d be able to do it. I would keep thinking it won’t work.”
“Exactly,” said Azrael, drawing both Glint and Vladimir’s attention. “It is exactly like learning to walk. You really just need to keep training whilst being sure of success. Personally, I think this is the most important thing for an Ability user. Perhaps it is more important than talent even, because even the talented will fail if their concentration falters due to a lack of belief.”
“Strange,” Vladimir stated, tugging on his curved moustache. He then continued polishing the already glistening surface of his gharja, deep in thought.
Deeming no further interruptions forthcoming, Azrael continued with his explanation. “Yes, it’s possible. At the level of...”