#6. NABRAS KAHN III

It was a sunny day in Yearma Academy. Nabras was on her way to the Hillerman Lookout on the mainland. It was early, her classes were still hours off, so she had decided to make a long hike out to this romantic lookout she had heard so much about from her classmates. She had set off early in the morning, just as the sun was rising.

One woman named Tris had told her that it was the best spot to have a fling, and a girl named Miranda had said that it was easy to know when someone was coming. Nabras didn’t really know what romance was. Books had described it in a thousand ways, yet she had never had a significant other, never even felt that interested in it.

Nabras was only 17, yet of all the girls from her village she was the only that remained unmarried. Her parents were never worried, she had expressed quite early an affinity for magic. This is what populated her head, not others her age. Even when she thought about it, she felt that she was not cut out for the roughshod life of a housewife or a spinster. Some women in her village had made a name for themselves, but always against the pressure of the Opine Theos, that brotherhood tradesguild that had such a grip on her town.

She shook her head against the cascading thoughts trying to run through her brain. She focused on the strain of her muscles against the soft loam of the trail. On her back, she could feel Kalfis readjust before settling to sleep once more. Her Spellbound Satchel was much easier for him to get comfortable in.

She crested the hill, the forest breaking away to reveal a glade, ringed by tall sentinels. Here and there a jacaranda tree peeked out, the bright violet offering a nice splash of color.

Yet Nabras could only look towards the northern side of the glade, where the hillside fell away to the cliff she had just walked beside. Beyond, the reason for the long walk, was Yearma Academy.

She had not ever seen it from this viewpoint herself, but she knew now that many of the illustrations she had seen of the school were done from this vantage.

Set within a large alcove along the coast, Yearma was a marvel of architectural engineering. Composed of two parts, it held itself in a particular balance. The central island was roughly half a kilometer wide, jutting fifty meters from the thrashing waves below. Atop it was a tower that dwarfed the islands height, and the place that Nabras had spent most of her time in: the Library. It was composed of blackened stones, decorated in red brick and dark wooden accents. The tower was massive in its own right, but the sharp, blade like building on top of it extended its height to ridiculous proportions.

Nabras knew the blade as the Administrative Wing, where the professors and headmasters who ran the school resided and worked. She would most likely never see the inside of that place.

Her eyes followed the four bridges that extended away from the island to the second part of Yearma, the Magi’s Ring. A massive bridge structure that encircled the island, it was crammed full of buildings and towers and shops along its entirety. How it stood so high above the water without collapsing under the weight of a small city, Nabras could not guess. Magic was the obvious answer, but in what capacity, and how much intervention was needed, was a mystery.

Three bridges led away from the Magi’s Ring to the mainland and the city of Turzani beyond, which sprawled like a grey, mossy net away from Yearma. To the south was the farming towns of Tila, Muzz, and Ipan, their wide agricultural fields coming all the way to the base of Hillerman’s Lookout. To the West, the bridge led to the Great Magi’s Road, the heart of connection between this place in the realm and all others.

The east, though, led to the sea, and it also was part of what Nabras gazed at so lovingly. She had heard of oceans before, as well as all their variations. Yet, in all her years, she had never been near even so much as a pond. She loved the water deeply, yet had remained distant from it her entire life. Living above it on the Magi’s Ring was exhilarating, if not a bit unsettling. Yet from here, so high up and so far away from the water, she could fully appreciate the expansive power of the sea that raged below.

Nabras kept walking, her eyes unable to look away from the wonderful view beyond. A quiet squeal, and hushed talking emanated from behind her. Surprised, she turned, but only caught the glimpse of bare, pale flesh as two nude figures disappeared behind a jacaranda tree.

Nabras felt blood rush to her cheeks, looked away to the ocean once more. “Sorry,” she yelled out. “I won’t look… I promise.”

Her mind tumbled for a few minutes as she stared at the Academy, her body flushed the suddenness of company. Naked company to be precise. She slowly wrangled her thoughts, words finally forming in them. “Tris was not lying.” There was a certain amount of amusement in her then.

She reached around her to grab her bag, setting it gently at her feet. She opened it and saw that deep down, maybe three feet, Kalfis was resting on a pile of books, his back pressing up into the fabric of the bag.

She smiled at him, his eyes opening. The two, green orbs stared at her for a long moment before he yawned. He was a calico cat, a little chubby but spry on his feet. She reached in, saying, “Come here little guy.”

Kalfis meowed in complaint, but soon she was sitting in the grass with him happily purring in her lap. She stroked his fur, taking comfort in the softness. The heat of the day was growing, so she took off her hat and placed it on the ground beside her.

For a long while she sat there, turning over ideas. If she had been responsible, she would be thinking about her 1st Year Project, a demonstration of magical skill that, passing, would allow her to move up in her education. She should be thinking about how to turn her skills in to money in order to secure better materials.

But she wasn’t. She was considering how to get into the forbidden part of the library.

Nabras had tried to find answers about the Leyline flux she had heard of on the Voicecaster. She had asked dozens of the Library Attendants, attempting to find anything at all that might point her in the right direction. They had all given her the same answer: “The Leylines were built by the Yertal, and the Yertal are all gone. They did not write down their methods.”

It had been initially a welcomed challenge at first, then disheartening, then frustrating, and then enraging. When she had slammed a pile of books onto the return cart, she knew she had to take a break.

She considered her options, but felt defeated then. Realistically, there were none. She, just like millions of people who came before her, were grappling with the incompleteness of knowledge. She was, beyond her own control, unable to find the answers because the answers did not exist.

She pounded a fist into the dirt. Kalfis didn’t even flinch, used to her child-like outbursts. Instead he stretched out, pushing his outstretched paws into her chest. He kneaded for a moment, the sharp poke of his claws drawing her back to the physical. She looked down to him and scratched his belly, causing him to roll over happily in her lap.

She smiled, looking back to the school. Something was nagging her. She had forgotten something, though it was hard to recall. One of the attendants had said that there may be unlabeled books she could look through, though she didn’t know for sure what he had meant.

Her thoughts were disrupted by the couple from before, now clothed, walking sheepishly by her. The taller of the two women, dressed in black robes accented in red and white, stopped by Nabras, a smile on her face. “Sorry to disturb your hike.” Her hair hung messily, the tight curls framing her face.

Nabras smiled. “Sorry to disturb… you.” She pointed to the school. “I was told that this was the best view of it, I had to see it. Plus, I needed a break from studying.”

The shorter woman stepped out from behind her partner, intereste piqued. She wore a yellow dress, plain except for a woven belt around the waist. She looked Nabras over. “Are you a student?”

Nabras nodded, causing both of the women’s eyes to light up.

The taller woman gave a short curtsy. “My name is Belandra, this is Riamus. But call me Bella, and her Ria.” Ria also gave a curtsy.

Nabras nodded with a grin. “I am Nabras, this is Kalfis.” She motioned to the cat in her lap.

Bella and Ria smiled at Kalfis, but kept their distance. Bella spoke. “What are you studying?”

Nabras shrugged. “I just got here, its my 1st Year. I was scouring the Library for information about the Leylines, but there is nothing.” She sighed, a bit of her frustration from before returning.

Ria nodded, tapping her chin. She then said, “Have you looked through the Reliquary?” Nabras shook her head.

Bella smacked Ria on the arm. “1st Years aren’t allowed in the Reliquary. Hells, even I am not allowed and I’m a 4th Year.” She looked at Nabras. “Do you know what that place is?” Nabras shook her head again. “It is where all the books the Academy has received go to before they are categorized.”

She smiled broadly. “An attendant mentioned it, but I guess I understand now why he didn’t elaborate further.” She thought for a moment, then asked Bella, “Do you think I could get the headmaster of the Library to give me an hour to search for anything? I am just trying to find answers.”

Bella and Ria exchanged a look before laughing. They both looked at her with giggles, Ria saying, “You really are new.”

Bella was shaking her head with a smile. “The Reliquary isn’t some store room you can peruse through.” She thought a moment. “My First Year Spellcraft Professor said to me that the Reliquary was, “A place where hundreds of thousands of books, maybe even a million, have found a slow place to die.”

Ria was nodding. “My Arkaturgy Professor said that it contained books beyond count, most unread for centuries. It was such a problem that they ahd to install a magical field in it to keep the books from rotting away before they could be categorized.”

Nabras looked at them, gratitude filling her heart. “Thank you… so…. much.” She reached into her bag and shuffled around, looking for the paper lunch she had packed. She found it, pulled out two peaches she had prepared. With ease she tossed one each to Bella and Ria. “A token of my thanks. Plus… you probably need the energy.”

Bella and Ria both blushed but smiled, taking the Peaches without another word. They departed and despite the awkward beginnings with them, Nabras found she really liked those two.

She pulled out the small sandwich she had made, nibbling at it and tearing pieces of the chicken inside out for Kalfis to nibble on also.

The Reliquary. Nabras had never before broken into a place of higher learning, but she now could think of nothing else.

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