There is nothing better than a draw, only perhaps a victory.
Edelweiss
For a moment the kid stood still, his eyes gleaming with hope, yet doubt and disbelief - and then the next moment he was gone. Literally.
Aleshio just smiled indulgently, stepping forward a few steps. He held up his hand, and then gently, as if afraid of crushing him, rumpled the boy's hair - I looked rather puzzled at first, for the kid was still invisible to my eyes. It was only after a few seconds that the illusion faded.
His whole body trembled, every muscle in his body tensed as he closed his eyes and bowed his head. His lips pressed together in a sharp line, he simply couldn't look up at him. Aleshio wasn't particularly bothered. For a moment, he stood silently, not speaking, just watching the mage.
He smiled - but this smile was nothing like the grin he had ever smiled before. The corners of his lips curved upwards, just slightly, as when one experiences something mundanely joyful, as when one simply looks around or up at the sky and is reminded that there is reason to keep fighting, as when one meets a long-forgotten acquaintance and is suddenly reminded of happy moments of time spent together.
It was the first completely sincere gesture Aleshio had made since we met. There was no calculation, pretense, or arrogance. It was a simple little smile, brought to his face by the joy of seeing his disciple again.
If Livius had looked up at the man's face then, he would have understood what I understood then: that Aleshio was never angry with him. I didn't notice that I even forgot to breathe as if I were afraid of being noticed - for it was a moment that belonged only to the two of them.
"It was good to see you again, Liv," Aleshio said kindly.
There was a warmth in his voice as if he was really talking to a small child. Aleshio withdrew his palm and started to move, the kid wanted to catch up, but he was too late, his hands couldn't reach him. He stared at Aleshio's receding figure with a haggard expression, as if he had been tortured - and he must have been tortured: by his memories.
The man did not turn back, not even once - perhaps he knew that Livius would not like him to see him like that. It was strange to realize that no matter how strong a man might be, no matter how strong a king might get, even they had their weaknesses.
It took long minutes for Livius to withdraw his hand, and he might have stood on my doorstep for all eternity had I not cleared my throat. He looked up at me, and was a little surprised: he must have forgotten that I was there.
"Sorry," he apologized suddenly, pulling himself together and giving me a huge, childish grin. "I'm Livius, nice to meet you."
"Hello," I said coldly, but he didn't seem to mind.
I sized the small mage up again. If I had to guess, he looked like a child of about ten, with brown curly hair and mysterious green eyes. I had to remind myself of the fact that I was dealing with the famous Sorcerer Lord, it seemed so unbelievable that I actually found it hard to accept.
In any case, I could not help noticing the bone-handled umbrella in his hand, for that was his distinguishing feature. The Sorcerer Lord never goes anywhere without his umbrella - and I now knew the reason for this mystery.
He must have been tired of the cold outside, for he stepped lightly around me and entered my apartment.
He looked up at me with his big green eyes that glinted with mischief.
"I've wanted to meet you for a while," he admitted, "regardless of the situation."
I sighed. "Am I that famous?"
Livius chuckled. "Yes, you are. Among the lords, anyway."
My eyes did not leave his face even for a moment. "Really? Shall I take that as an honour?"
It was no honour. It was trouble.
Livius was not bothered by my sharp gaze. "You can imagine my astonishment when I learned that my Master had accepted you as his disciple. Even though you are not a mage."
Well, shit happens.
"It made me pretty curious."
I did not reply. There are no more dangerous creatures than curious mages.
"I'm impressed," he continued. "You're not intimidated by the presence of one of the most powerful mages alive... moreover the look in your eyes shows that you could kill me in an instant."
I did not deny his observation, and he chuckled like this amused him.
"Wait a minute," I said, as we entered the living room, "I must tell my companions that I have accepted another suicide mission.
The Sorcerer Lord nodded and then jumped up on the couch. He didn't take his excitedly glittering, annoyingly curious eyes off me until I disappeared into the kitchen.
Alex and Rolo were sitting at the table, looking up at me tensely as I entered.
"You agreed," Alex stated, not asked.
I closed the door behind me.
"What have we got ourselves into now?" he asked, but there was no resentment in his voice.
He grinned faintly as if he had been expecting this outcome. Rolo, on the other hand, ignored my arrival and instead continued to solve his crosswords, as if everything was fine and we weren't having a meeting because doomsday was upon us. I too sat down and sighed deeply.
"This is not the best timing," I said, mostly to myself, "Alice and Des are at a meeting and Coffee is at the conference with her father. There are three of us left in the group..."
"Don't count me in," interjected Rolo.
"I know I wasn't right to decide on my own..." I began but was interrupted.
"It's not that you made the decision alone," he looked up at me. Well, yes, that angry look would have made most monsters shudder. "You have no idea of the danger you've put us in again! Does it not occur to you that we could die?!"
"I know," I replied, "I know!"
"Then why did you have to agree to this?!" he continued.
"Don't you realize we have no choice?" I replied. "We're going to die anyway!"
"If you weren't always looking for danger, maybe not!" he retorted.
"You don't have to agree with me," I said, "You wanted to be part of my famiglia, so accept my decision, or if you don't like it, you don't have to follow me!"
That was the moment he started to make a real fuss. He slammed his pen on the table and stood up.
"You're right, maybe I should go! I don't know what I was thinking when I thought it was a good idea to partner up with you..."
I opened my mouth to speak, but the wolf beat me to it.
"Are you finished?" said Alex.
Unusually, he remained the calmest among us, though maybe he did not really understand the gravity of our situation. Rolo finally took a seat, annoyed and clearly offended.
"If we aimlessly fight each other, we find that the world is destroyed before we can save it," he said, wisely.
"The wolf is right," Livius entered the room, "We are running out of time."
My friends all looked at me for an explanation.
"I present to you the Sorcerer Lord," I beckoned to the kid, and he nodded.
I heard the sound of Alex's chin brushing the floor. Rolo forgot to breathe as his eyes grew so big I thought they would fall out of their sockets and bounce on the floor.
Livius took the last empty chair, though the table top must have been about in line with his chin, so he could barely see out from under it. The young-looking mage merely chuckled and waited for surprise to develop first into disbelief and then into tense reticence in my two companions. No one spoke, the atmosphere was tense to the point of crackling.
"Is there something you're hiding from us?" I asked the kid.
He looked up at me with huge, innocent eyes. My friends looked at me in shock, but Livius didn't mind my directness - as with most things, he just chuckled at it.
"No, I don't think there's anything important that you don't know about," he mused.
"I don't trust you," I said, "What proof do you have that you are not the one who wants to unite the two worlds because you do have a motive."
I told him the last part with my eyes only: Do you want to ease your conscience by freeing Aleshio from the prison where he was imprisoned instead you?
The little mage's eyes widened. "So, you know my story..."
I nodded and folded my hands in front of my chest. He giggled. I expected anything but this, though it shouldn't have surprised me, as he seemed quite cheerful despite my accusations.
"I know what you're thinking," he grinned, "You're assuming I might have become a necromancer because I wanted to bring my brother back to life."
"Isn't that what happened?" I raised my eyebrows suspiciously.
"No," he shook his head, "Anyone who knows the Mirrorworld wouldn't even attempt such a thing."
"Alex?"
"I don't smell a lie," my best friend answered the unspoken question.
Good, then. I didn't hear a disturbance in his heartbeat either. He chuckled again and gave me an unfathomable look.
"Well, you certainly live up to your reputation," he stated.
"One more thing," I said. "I want to see the fifth amulet. You have it, don't you?"
The mage's eyes lit up. "Indeed, I have it."
In any case, the Sorcerer Lord showed no inclination to move and reveal the mysterious amulet to us but merely scrutinized us with his mystical eyes.
"If I grant your request, how will you gain my trust?" he smiled.
"You are the one who asks for our help here, not the other way around," I replied calmly, "You must convince us that you are worth risking our lives."
His grin widened. "A sly monster indeed."
I flashed him a grin too. "So, you need our help or not?"
With an amused gesture, he reached under his robes and pulled from its hiding place the tiny gold medallion that hung around his neck. He unlocked the chain and set it on the table.
He stroked the polygon engraved on the cover plate, and it flashed open. The pendant opened of its own accord. Inside the jewel was a strange device. As it opened up, we caught a glimpse of a perpetually moving system of gears, as if it were a clock without a dial, with special stationary hands. Embedded in the end of each hand was a tiny, pulsing jewel. And on the inside of the cover plate, some kind of ragged mark was engraved.
"I use it to store my magical power," he explained, folding it up, then hanging it around his neck again and hiding it behind the robe, "Well, are you curious about anything else?"
"How do we prevent the end of the world?"
"I suggest we look for the third regalia before the necromancer finds it," he replied.
Another nod. "Your plan is spectacular, yet we have no idea what the amulet looks like or where it is."
He shook his index finger. "I know."
Then he waved a hand towards the cupboard, the door of which swung open and the salt shaker flew into his hand. He unscrewed the top and set it in the middle of the kitchen table.
He began to work his magic with a chorus-masterly gesture. The tiny particles rose up and floated in the air like a smouldering cloud. Slowly the specks took shape in an elliptical pendant, in the center of which I discovered a flower. Only when he spun it in the air did I realize that it was not a pendant but a button.
"Okay, fine, now we know what it looks like, but that damn button could be anywhere in the world," I said.
"My Master created it after..." he began, but couldn't continue.
"Wait here," Rolo said and stood up abruptly.
He ran upstairs but came back shortly with a book. He opened it and put it down on the table. That was the first time I saw that hand-drawn picture book.
[One night, the whole world celebrated. So many stars streaked across the sky to pass by our land to witness the birth of a special baby.]
The pages were yellowed with age, but the drawings were still vividly coloured. A baby rested in a cradle at the edge of the drawing, surrounded by a peaceful landscape and above it, a multitude of shooting stars in the sky.
[But one tiny shooting star was too curious to see what kind of dazzle could enchant the whole world and ventured even closer. Dizzy with the world's glittering bustle, intoxicated by the spectacle, he strayed from his safe path.]
The following drawing indeed showed a lone shooting star lost in the inky sky. On the next page, the shooting star broke into tiny white pieces on the ground.
[Then, falling to the ground, it broke into a thousand fragments, and taking pity on him, ancient magic formed a tiny snow-white flower from the shards.]
The pictures showed tiny white flowers, a shape I already knew.
[To be nearest to the home of the longing little star, blooming on the dizzy heights of the mountains. This flower is called the edelweiss.]
In the last picture, the edelweiss bloomed on the tip of a hill really close to the starry night sky.
Livius looked a little surprised. "Where did you find this book?"
"My father drew it," he shrugged, then looked at us seriously. "I think I know where the button is."
I raised an eyebrow.
"My family..." he began, then paused for a moment, "So, my family took a particular interest in magic. They collected a lot of artifacts, magic books and magic items in our home. We had a huge box that my father never let me open, but I saw it once: inside the box was a tiny, insignificant button - just like the one you showed me."
"Your family was one of them, wasn't it?" the Sorcerer Lord asked, "One of the last of the Guardians."
Rolo nodded, and I raised my eyebrows questioningly, indicating that I understood nothing.
"In the beginning, magical arts were not as sharply separated as they are today. It all started with the creation of the most dangerous artifacts: magicians held two ideologies and grouped themselves accordingly." Livius explained.
"Some saw the use of artifacts as too dangerous, so the Guardians were, by definition, in charge of collecting and controlling magical objects. The other group were those who wanted to use the artifacts to change the world in some way, according to their own ideas and ideals: they were called the Inner Circle of Magic."
It shouldn't have been surprising that I hadn't heard anything about this, having never been interested in the history of mages.
"The number of Guardians has dwindled over the centuries, and in inverse proportion, the Circle has grown. There are Guardians to be found today, but only a handful in the whole world," added Livius, then laughed, "I think Fate is trying to humour us. Who would have thought that one of your companions would be one of their descendants?"
"Where's the box?" I asked, but Rolo shrugged but his movement was stiff.
"It must be somewhere in our old house," he said, "in the basement, I think."
"Let's go then," Alex jumped up.
Rolo waved him off. "As of right now, it is impossible."
"Why?" the wolf scowled.
"The basement is protected by special spells that won't even let me through at the moment," he admitted, "If it were otherwise, I would have retrieved the relics by now."
"Blood magic?" asked Livius thoughtfully, and Rolo nodded slowly, "Then even I won't be able to break it."
"Why are you unable to enter?", I asked Rolo.
"Only the head of the family can enter," he answered, "At the moment I am the last member of my family..."
"But you're not old enough to become head of the family," I finished, and he simply nodded.
"I'll be old enough in two years," the kid added.
Meanwhile, Livius was muttering under his breath that he couldn't imagine a better defense for a regalia.
"So, we'll have to wait two years to get the regalia?" asked Alex resignedly.
"No," I said, causing all eyes to glance at me.
Livius' eyes flashed with a calculating, inquisitive light, Alex was puzzled and Rolo stared in disbelief. He'd probably figured out my plan.
"If the coming-of-age ritual is performed, then the spell will let you in, won't it?" I asked feeling the corners of my mouth curving up.
Rolo still looked doubtful but nodded. "However, only the leader of the cats can conduct the ceremony. He will not agree."
I waved and stood up. "I've got things to do. I will be back in an hour."
Alex sighed deeply. I winked and left the kitchen behind me.