When they finally arrived at the peaceful city of Vahara Arta, Elyre still couldn't believe they were there.
Aristhaeus had to pull her down the road because she often stopped to see one thing or another. It was a city very different from wood-nymph cities.
As they entered the city, some elven children gave them herbs. Guests of the city were always welcomed with a bunch of herbs symbolizing health.
The island was volcanic, so there wasn't a lot of space. There were some trees and a small forest outside the gates, but inside the city there were a lot of cliffs and houses somehow built on them. So it seemed as if the whole city had several tiers. The library of Vahara Arta was a big and beautiful building and it could be seen from far away.
It was very noisy. Children were playing in the low boughs of trees. This reminded Elyre of Wild Wood and made her happy. She heard children squabbling; they sounded so similar to her friends. Her friends weren't that young now, but they still quarreled often...
Unbeknownst to her, there was one other person who arrived at the city shortly after, Mage Mortagon from the Morana clan. He'd been instructed to do everything possible to separate Elyre from the archmage and win her to their side. He'd met them back at the inn, but try as he might, he couldn't remember the archmage's face.
"Aristhaeus often uses magic to hide his identity. So even if you see him, you may struggle to remember his face," Mage Shahmayar had warned him.
"Perhaps Elyre remembers his face," Mortagon thought. The archmage wouldn't dare use the same magic on her, would he? It would be too strange if she saw him every day, but somehow couldn't remember his face...
"Aristhaeus seemed too calm. He wouldn't be so calm if he knew what I know," Mortagon thought. Too bad that he was alone in this mission.
~Even though I know about this, it is still so unbelievable, it seems unreal.~ Mortagon thought.
~If the archmage knows, I will be very surprised. It would mean that one of us in the Morana clan betrayed us and told him...~
***
The library of Vahara Arta was like a labyrinth. There were shelves of books from the bottom to the top of the walls.
Mages would gather in the main halls. They would sit together and talk about runic inscriptions. They had cloaks with various runes on them, and they would point at some runes and comment on them and laugh or be scared, or serious. Most of them were simply showing off the runes they had.
Aristhaeus and Elyre went to the registration desk. As he seemed to be familiar with the procedure, she just followed him.
"Why don't we take a short break in one of the reading-rooms first?" he suggested.
She wanted to try and find some information about Princess of the Wood-Nymphs Nymphica, but she also needed to take a break after the long journey.
"Sounds like a good idea," she said.
As soon as they went into the reading-room, which was small so it was only the two of them inside, Elyre asked,
"So... how can I and my amulet help your investigation?"
"Can you take it off for a moment?" he asked.
She immediately took off the amulet and held it in her hand. Then she left it on the table.
He couldn't believe that, but when he touched it, he wasn't at all fascinated by the amulet.
There was another fascinating thing.
Elyre's magical resonance.
Her amulet seemed to have been interfering with her magical resonance, basically giving out completely wrong "signals".
Normally, every person had some magical abilities and magical resonance, which mages could feel. But Elyre's resonance was inconstant - sometimes weak, sometimes strong - which didn't make sense. The amulet was... cheating.
Now the amulet was gone and Aristhaeus saw the truth.
Elyre's magical resonance revealed her natural gift in magic... and it was considerable. It might rival his own.
A short moment of silence followed as Aristhaeus took the amulet in his hands.
~Amusing,~ Aristhaeus thought. ~With the natural power she has, and if properly trained, she could have been my rival for the position of an archmage.~
"Why are you suddenly so quiet?" Elyre wondered. "You don't like the amulet anymore?"
He smiled. "...Have you heard of 'the bottle'?"
"The -what?" Elyre tilted her head.
"The most basic concept of magic. There are two types of magic power and you could imagine them as a bottle. One is the source: it's the liquid inside; the other is natural power: it's the mouth of the bottle. There it goes, your free lesson in magic," he laughed.
~If she doesn't know this, then she definitely doesn't know about her natural power,~ he thought.
"Why are you telling me this? Is it related to the amulet?" Elyre wondered.
"It's something you should know," he said. "These are the two types of power every mage depends on, regardless of his rank and prowess. Source and natural power. If a person has a great source but lacks natural power, the source will only improve his ability to channel magic over long periods of time, but not the actual strength of his spells."
Elyre raised an eyebrow, "Is there anything else I should know?"
He just snorted. But there was one more thing. Mages could use different artifacts and magical potions as sources. Natural power could not be influenced in such a way - a person was born with it. It represented how much magic one could handle at once, or in other words, how powerful one's spells could become.
He had been pensive perhaps for a bit longer than he realized because she waved her hand in front of his face as if to check whether he was conscious.
"Perhaps we should have a duel some day," he said unwittingly.
"No, thank you," she said. "I am not competent enough to duel with mages!"
Her natural power could be like his own but, although such raw talent was rare, this did not worry him a bit. Because of his connection to the Seventh Fire, there could be no comparison between the two of them. The Seventh Fire was an endless spring of energy he could feed on. His experience and knowledge of his abilities and various spells were also much, much greater.
Aristhaeus still wondered at the magical resonance that radiated from Elyre. In Wild Wood, there weren't people who could guide her or assess her strength, he supposed. There were hardly any mages, except for those who worked for the Queen. Even the teachers at school were not true mages and perhaps Elyre didn't understand her talent very well.
To possess such powers, she had to be a descendant of a family of old magical lineage, he thought. She had been adopted in Wild Wood, no doubt. Maybe she was an illegitimate child of mighty mages from opposing mage-clans and had been left to the wood-nymphs to avoid conflict?… Everything was possible. Several ideas crossed his mind unwittingly.