13 July 1023 P.E.
Northeastern Quarter, Darnan
William James and his wife Moira watched the lad eat. He was as scrawny as an alley cat and ate like one too: watching them, eyes darting among the various fruits and sandwiches, eating in spurts.
Brand’s hand shot out and grabbed a purple cactus fruit. Long, curly spines made it look like a dragon’s egg. He quickly peeled it as Moira had shown him, then sunk his teeth into the white seed-spotted flesh. His eyes closed halfway and one corner of his mouth curled upward in a happy grin.
“Are you sure about this? We can’t afford to keep feeding him like this,” Moira whispered.
“We have to, love,” William whispered back. “They were going to turn him over to the high lord.”
Moira sighed. “I suppose I can take on some extra washing for some of the other ladies in the building.”
William kissed her lightly on the cheek. “Thank you.”
She smiled fondly.
“We did always want a child of our own.” William’s eyes twinkled.
Moira laughed, prompting a startled glance from the boy. When the lad saw that nothing was wrong, he went back to devouring a sandwich.
“I’d always figured we’d get one a bit smaller,” she said with a smile.
William put his hand around his wife’s waist and pulled her close, kissing her neck. His mustache tickled her skin, making her laugh.
“Stop that,” she said, swatting him away. “Propriety, please.”
“He’s going to have to get used to me showering my wife with affection in my own home,” William said, gesturing to the tiny kitchen.
A mere three steps carried him to the table. He sat and grabbed a large green citrus fruit before the boy could swipe it.
“What is your name?” Moira asked the boy.
“Cadmus Brand,” he replied around a mouthful of fruit, “but the only person who ever called me that was Alastair. Everyone else calls me Brand.”
“Is that what you’d like to be called?” William asked.
Brand thought for a moment, then nodded. He wiped the juice dribbling down his chin with the back of his hand.
“Very well. I have to work tonight, Brand,” William said, taking out a knife and sectioning his own fruit. “I need you to help Mrs. James with the housework while I’m gone. And after work, I intend to begin your training.”
“Training?”
William glanced at Moira. He leaned forward. “You and I are different, Brand. I can help you to fulfill your potential and become what you were always meant to be.”
Brand frowned. “Alastair told me that being different would get me killed.”
“Alastair’s the one who asked me to teach you to fight. He knew that you couldn’t stay hidden forever.” William smiled.
“He knew you could be something more than just a street urchin.”
Brand cocked his head to one side like a curious bird.
“What do you mean, ‘something more’?”
William held out his hand, palm up. His hand began to glow faintly, a soft yellow light. Ever so slowly, the light gathered into a tiny circle of light at the center of his palm. The light then rose like a golden dewdrop to hang a few centimeters above William’s skin, hanging like a tiny glowing drop of liquefied sunlight. It bathed the table in warmth. With his other hand, William touched the drop. It fell to his palm with a splash of light and was gone. Brand gaped, stunned.
“We can use magic, Brand,” William whispered. “And not only for little tricks like this. We can use it to help people.”
Brand grabbed William’s palm and turned it over, looking for the trick. When he couldn’t find it, he sat back, still staring at William’s hand. “I can’t do that.”
“Not yet, but with training, you could. I know you can. Alastair knew, too. I think that with training, you could help quite a lot of people.”
“You think this because I survived a fall?”
William nodded.
Brand looked down at his sticky fingers. “I don’t think I can help anyone. I ended up in jail just because I didn’t die when I fell.”
William took hold of Brand’s hand, causing the youth to look up. “The reason you survived is the same reason you will be able to use magic, and with magic, you can help people. It’s the same reason Fafnir fears you.”
“Who’s Fafnir?”
“You know that the kashmari are in charge of Darnan? They’re in charge of the other cities, too. And High Lord Fafnir is in charge of the kashmari.”
“Like a king?”
“Kind of. Where did you learn about kings?”
“From a book in the library.”
“Hm.” William nodded his approval as he took a bite of fruit. The juice was tangy and sweet, like a cool breeze on a summer morning. Swallowing, he said, “Well, the guards were going to turn you over to Lord Fafnir. He hunts men like us because we’re the only ones he fears anymore.”
Brand seemed to mull this over, but his brow remained creased.
William looked up at the clock and stood.
“I have to leave now or I’ll be late for work. But when I return, we’ll talk more. Agreed?”
Brand nodded.
“Good.” William shoved the rest of the fruit in his mouth, rinsed off his hands, and picked up his waistcoat from the counter. He strode to the round mirror next to the front door to pull on the waistcoat and straighten his bow tie. With a soft kiss and a few last murmured words for Moira, he rushed out the door.
* * *
Late that evening, after most of Darnan had retired for the night, Brand stood next to William in a large underground chamber lined with bricks. The sheer size of the cistern astounded Brand. It could have comfortably held several streets with all their shops. Most of the great chamber was filled with an enormous pool of dark water. The pool’s opaque surface rippled slightly in the flickering orange light of the torches William had lit on several walls and columns.
They stood on a walkway of moss-covered bricks. Throughout the cavernous cistern, thick stone pillars crowned with great reaching arches supported the vast ceiling. Lichens and mosses decorated the damp stone in an array of pastel blues and greens that shimmered from the torch light reflected from the water.
“The Great Cistern of Darnan,” William said. William had changed out of his service uniform in favor of a simple linen shirt, rough trousers, and soft leather boots. With his neatly trimmed mustache and ram-rod straight posture, though, he hardly looked any different. “Without it, this city would shrivel up and blow away in the wind for want of water. We should be able to practice here in peace.”
He turned to the boy. Brand’s face lit up.
“We get to do magic here? Right now? How does it work?” Brand asked. “The magic? Are you sure I can do it?”
William chuckled at the boy’s enthusiasm. “Yes, I’m sure you’ll be able to do it. And yes, we get to practice magic here. As for how it works…
“There are a very small number of us who are…well, we generate a certain form of energy. With training and certain augmentations, we can use this energy to temporarily enhance our physical bodies. That’s how we can be strong enough to challenge the kashmari. We’re the only humans who can.”
Brand stared at William.
The older man fiddled with the pipe in his pocket while he thought of a better way to explain it. “You fell off a roof the other day in the alley. Fell five floors, right? That would have killed most grown men, and yet you, a soft-boned boy, walked away as though it were nothing.”
“There were crates that broke my fall,” Brand murmured, his face falling. That didn’t seem like nearly enough proof of his magical abilities.
“Even if they had broken your fall, the crates themselves were far enough below you and sturdy enough that they should have still injured you.” William tapped Brand’s thin chest. “But they didn’t. You somehow managed to tap into your raw abilities. Your body became stronger, just for a moment. I suspect if we tried that experiment again right now, you would break your neck because normally, it takes a long time to build up that energy within us, ready to be used again.”
“So how can I practice using it if I don’t have any left?”
William smiled. He pulled out a small crystal vial from his pocket and held it up. It was filled with a light green liquid.
“This elixir helps to augment that tiny speck of energy within us so that we can use it far more often, and longer.”
William held out the vial to the boy, who took it gingerly and turned it about in his fingers. “We can’t get more of this energy from, say, eating a special plant?”
“No. There isn’t any of this energy in the world around us. It’s only in us. Even this elixir only amplifies our own energy.”
“Is there still a limit? I mean, how often we can use our…that energy?”
“I call it a spark. And for as long as I’ve been a pharmakon, no, there’s no limit so long as I use these elixirs. Without them, I can’t do anything with magic.”
A chill ran down Brand’s spine at the name. Pharmakon.
“Is that what I’m going to be once you train me?” he asked in a whisper, not even daring to say the word.
William retrieved the vial and put it back in his pocket. “A pharmakon? Yes, that’s exactly what you’ll be.”
Brand had read about pharmakons. Wizards who were stronger than ten men, as fast as a bullet, and could turn invisible. One book even said they could fly.
But they’d all been killed. Or so the book had said. Brand could hardly believe that he was standing here with a real pharmakon, maybe even the last of his kind. And he wanted to teach Brand how to become one too? The boy twisted his hands together nervously. What if he couldn’t do it? What if William was wrong and Brand couldn’t use magic?
Brand realized William was speaking again and tried to shove his fears aside.
“Now, I want you to close your eyes,” William was saying. “Breathe deeply. Feel your heart slow. Feel your mind calm.”
Brand did as commanded. As he pulled in each breath and released it, the tension in his muscles ebbed away and peace descended on his mind.
“Good. Now, look inside yourself. What do you see?”
“I…don’t understand.”
“That’s ok. You will. Calm your mind and imagine you are looking inward to the core of your soul. What do you see?”
Brand heard the drip drip drip of water somewhere to the left, heard the skittering of tiny claws across the brick, felt the cool, damp humidity on his skin, and smelled the clean scent of water. He felt the crisp air fill his lungs and flow out through his teeth.
“Look inward.”
“I’m trying.”
“Take your time. Try to let go of everything around you.”
Brand frowned and tried to tune out the sensory bombardment from the cistern. One by one, breath by breath, each smell and sound faded until Brand felt as though he were floating in a void.
There.
It was so faint, no more than the suggestion of light and warmth. He didn’t want to lose it, so the boy was silent, though his face split into a smile of wonderment.
“Reach out to it. Focus in on it.”
Brand wasn’t sure what that meant, but he focused on the light, and it seemed to grow, expand, and fill him until its warmth seemed to emanate from his entire body. He opened his eyes.
The warmth vanished.
“I had it!” Brand exclaimed. He tried to reach inward again, but his excitement drove away any semblance of peace.
William chuckled. “With training, you’ll be able to harness that energy at a moment’s notice, without hardly even thinking about it. That is what I was talking about. That energy is what we use. But you noticed how faint it was?”
He reached into a pocket and withdrew two small vials, each partially filled with the same light green liquid as the larger vial. He handed one to Brand.
“This is a simple amplification elixir. It is very rarely used on its own because of how dangerous it is to be seen using our amplified abilities, but it is also one of the few that you can use before you’ve been through the Trial. Never use it in view of a kashmari. Never, for any reason.” He handed one of the vials to Brand. “We can use it here because of the thickness of these walls and the layers of dirt between us and the street above. No kashmari will know we’re here. Go ahead and drink it.”
“What’s the Trial?” Brand asked, eying the elixir.
“The Trial of Augmentation is where a young pharmakon is inoculated against the poisons that we use in our elixirs. Without undergoing the Trail, you would die from drinking even a single drop of any of my elixirs. But after the Trial, you’ll be able to use them to enhance specific aspects of your abilities. Because each elixir will only enhance a specific ability, your skin won’t glow and you’ll be able to use your abilities around kashmari.”
Brand pulled the cork out and upended the vial into his mouth. It was bitter and tasted faintly like the weeds behind Alastair’s shop.
Nothing else happened.
“Is something supposed to happen?” Brand asked.
William smiled. “It already has. It helps your energy, your spark, to regenerate at a much faster rate. Each elixir does this to a smaller extent. Take a calming breath. Then see if you can find that spark as you did before.”
Brand sucked air into his lungs and let it out slowly. He closed his eyes.
The spark was there. It was far brighter, eager, pressing on his mind, begging him to reach out. He let the warmth wash over him like a powerful wave of brilliant sunshine chasing away the darkness. He opened his eyes.
Strange swirling patterns of light erupted from his skin, glowing a fierce golden color that shimmered slightly. Brand gasped and looked at William. The older man was staring in slack-jawed amazement, eyes tracing the patterns of light.
“I’ve never seen anyone glow quite like that,” William said. “Incredible.”
Brand looked back down at the rivers of fire seared across his skin and all doubt of his abilities evaporated. If he could glow like this, he could do magic. Excitement etched a grin across his young face.
William then downed his own vial. The older pharmakon took a deep breath, his face relaxing. Brand’s jaw fell open.
William glowed all over, a brilliant beacon in the gloom of the cistern. No patterns appeared on his skin, but every inch of him burst with fiery light. His eyes glowed a searing, brilliant blue.
“Wild, untamed magic,” William whispered. His voice echoed loudly in Brand’s ears. “Every sense you have is enhanced. Your bones are stronger, your reflexes faster. But it comes with a price. When we use magic in this raw, untamed form, the whole world can see us for what we truly are. And there is absolutely nothing the kashmari hate more than a practitioner of magic.”
“Come.”
William dashed away down to the unlit portion of the cistern, leaving behind a faint golden afterimage in his wake. Brand followed, his feet flying over the bricks. It felt right to move, to run. The elixir made him want to push faster and faster. He sped forward and caught up to William, who led the boy down a tunnel into another large chamber, this one devoid of light.
The light from Brand’s glowing skin lit his way a couple of meters ahead of him. His enhanced eyes took that small amount of light and amplified it so that he could see every detail of the cistern, including the looming gargoyles carved into the capitals of the columns high above.
Brand rushed forward, laughing, and slid to a halt as he came to the end of the pathway.
William, however, kept running. As the older man darted to the edge, he threw himself out across the water towards a pillar. He hit it with a light thud, clung to it for the barest of moments; then he shoved off of it, vaulting to the next pillar. He jumped from one pillar to the next until he landed lightly on the other side of the chamber on another brick walkway.
William turned back to the boy.
“Are you coming?”
Brand backed up, then ran at the edge like William had, launching himself across the water. He hit the column. Fingers scrabbled at the smooth stone, boots scraped ineffectually.
The boy dropped into the water with a splash. A second later, he rose spluttering to the surface.
“Care to try again?” William asked. His voice was patient, calm, controlled.
Brand swam back to the walkway and pulled himself up. His clothes streamed water onto the bricks. He shook some of the water off, then sprinted to the water’s edge.
Brand launched himself at the column, flew through the cool air, and hit the stone pillar. He tried to grab at the smooth stone, but his fingers were still slick with water. He fell with a splash once more.
Brand’s dark head broke the surface of the black water. “I can’t,” he sputtered. “The stone’s too slick.”
William placed his hands on his hips. “Don’t try to grab the column. Angle yourself a little to the side. Then when you get there, shove off of it toward the next column.”
Through his streaming hair, Brand watched William spring back across the water.
“Like this.”
Brand watched his mentor bounce back across the water. He paid closer attention to how William vaulted from one pillar to the next, barely touching each stone megalith before pushing off again. The older man landed softly on the far side of the dark cistern, then turned his glowing face back to watch the boy.
Brand pulled himself out of the water and wiped his face. He gritted his teeth. Then he hurled himself over the water once more.
This time, as Brand collided with the pillar, he pushed at the stone instead of grabbing at it. He flew toward the next pillar with a great whoop that echoed around the cistern.
Elated, he bounced off the next pillar. But on the third pillar, his hand slipped. His momentum carried his face forward and smashed his cheekbone into the stone. Stunned, he fell down into the water.
When Brand resurfaced, he groaned and gingerly touched his face. He winced.
“Good enough for today,” William said. “Swim over the rest of the way.”
Alastair had been adamant that Brand learn how to swim despite living in the desert. He’d scrimped and saved and spent every penny he’d had to drag the boy into the mountains last year to a small lake where he’d spent a week teaching Brand how to swim. Now Brand was grateful for those lessons. He pulled himself through the water, luxuriating in its cool caress, relishing the way it held him close. It cooled the bruise blossoming on his cheek.
Brand dove under the dark skin of the water. The glowing designs on his arms lit the cistern floor as he swam, lighting his way. His muscles stretched and strained against the still water, his every move fueled by the elixir. Brand felt every worry wash away, swept away by the water. He burst up through the surface of the water and hauled himself up onto the walkway beside William.
“You’re a splendid swimmer,” William remarked.
“Alastair taught me last summer,” Brand replied. “I almost wish we could just stay and swim.”
Behind his mustache, William’s smile seemed pensive. He led Brand down the walkway. It curved gently to the left.
“This elixir enhances that energy within you, allowing you to perform at a peak far above regular humans. Other elixirs will focus and enhance a single attribute, such as your strength and your stamina. While not as amazing, they have the advantage of not lighting you up like a torch.”
Indeed, as they walked down the tunnel, the light from the two of them lit up the bricks as though they were both holding torches.
“How long does it last?” Brand asked. A grin stretched from ear to ear. He bounced a little with each step.
“It depends on the elixir and how much of it you’ve taken. I only gave us each a small dose, so it will wear off in a few more minutes. Others last for hours.”
“You said that this was the only one I could use without my body being prepared. What did you mean by that?”
“Most of the elixirs I use, and that I will teach you to use, are made with powerful poisons. There is a process that you will have to undergo that will help your body mitigate those poisons. And even then, you will have to be mindful of the appropriate dosages so that you don’t kill yourself.”
Brand went quiet, the gravity of it all sinking in. They walked in silence for a while. The light from their skin slowly faded, and with it, Brand’s energy. Each step felt more leaden than the last. Up ahead, Brand could see the faint light of torches. He had to will his feet to keep moving and for his eyelids to stay open as they emerged into the same chamber they had started in.
“What’s the point of all this, then?” Brand asked, rubbing his eyes. “Why do you want to teach me how to use magic if we have to stay hidden? Wouldn’t it be easier to not use it?”
William took a torch down from a sconce and dipped the flaming end of it in the water, extinguishing it with a sizzle.
“Some have tried that throughout the years. But here’s the problem: it’s so much a part of you that in dire need, you will use the ability instinctively before you’ve even realized what you’ve done. You did as much the other day when you fell from that roof. It’s far better to learn how to control it and wield it properly than hope you never find yourself in a situation where you are forced to use it unintentionally.” They walked to another torch, which William took down and quenched.
“What do you use it for, then? Do you come down here just to jump around every so often?”
William chuckled as he took down the last torch. He led Brand back down the tunnel that had led them into the cistern.
“I believe that we have been given these abilities for a purpose, to try and fight against the injustices of the world.”
“Like the kashmari? It’s not right that they have so much while us humans starve.”
“They are one injustice, yes.” William’s face darkened. “Among others,” he murmured so low that only the last vestiges of the augmentation elixir allowed Brand to hear. Louder, William said, “You need not worry about the kashmari. That will come later, after you have mastered your abilities.”
William led Brand through the dark streets of Darnan back to the James’s small apartment. The street lamps were few and far between and at times, Brand succumbed to the welcoming darkness, his eyelids drooping closed. After one such instance, William hooked his arm under the boy’s arms to steady him the rest of the way.
“When will I be able to use those other elixirs?” Brand asked groggily.
“Not for some time. There is much to teach you before then.”
