Magic in the streets, Angles in the Marble

L

Lucy

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When Lukas, (a cleric of the angel) awoke that morning, he realized that this was the day, his very first raid. The priests had knowledge of an enclave of magic users, hidden somewhere in the city's catacombs, and he was eager to root out those who would use their gifts and talents for evil.

As Lukas ran down the stairs, ready to begin the raid, the city was beginning to awaken...
 
The morning had begun as usual. Aleistar had been awoken by the smell of coffee over the fire and breakfast being made and pushed himself off of his bed, which was little more than an enclave cut into the stone of the catacombs, and had probably been occupied by a dead body before the magic users had moved in. Walking into the main chamber of the branch of the catacombs they lived in, where meals were had and the rest of the magic users would meet, he sat by the fire, which had been conjured up by a man with an affinity for pyrokinesis.

The group lived a simple life. Each day, the leader of the group would send a couple people out to secure food for everyone. It was always different people each day, for fear of suspicion, and sometimes they didn't get enough food, but Aleistar had known no other life, having been born into the enclave.

After being handed a tin cup with the watery coffee that their cook Jameson could make, he drank it down quickly, not wanting to set it down and then have someone else take it before he could finish. Making a face at the bitter taste, he forced himself to drink it all, knowing the caffeine would do him wonders. After breakfast was made, leftovers from last night, he wolfed down that as well, not wanting anyone's sticky fingers to take his food.

Grinning at his father as the man passed, he asked, "What are you going to teach me today?" His father also worked as his tutor, teaching him how to harness his magic in a way that wouldn't hurt him or others, unless that was his intent. Each day it was something different, and Aleistar was always eager to learn.

Little did anyone in the enclave know about the raid...
 
Lukas stepped into the chapel, he regained his composure again, not wishing to disturb father Michael, who was lighting candles at the altar. When he finished, the priest turned around to face the young man standing before him.
"Today is the day, Lukas. You shall earn the right to become a full cleric." he said, beaming with pride.
"Thank you, father. Is the raiding party prepared?" he asked with excitement,
"Yes," said the priest. "They're waiting outside, you had best join them if you don't want to be late!" He smiled as Lukas nodded and exited the chapel. It might have been odd to contemplate thoughts of violence, amid the choir and incense of the church, but the scriptures were a two-edged sword, condemning those who couldn't fit into the established guidelines. The birds sang as Lukas mounted his horse.
 
After breakfast, Aleistar and his father went to a smaller room, where fewer candles and oil lamps burned. In the center was a large black mark, left from some failed experiment with fire, but otherwise the floor of the room was bare. With its vaulted ceiling and beautiful stone carvings, the room had been a place for rich nobles to be buried. Now, it was Aleistar's training room.

"Today, I am teaching you hydrokinesis. You will learn to master water, in all its forms," his father said, as he raised his arms to be at ninety degrees to the rest of his body. Murmuring softly, soon the water in the air around his hands turned to liquid, and landed with a soft splash. "Try it," he told his son. "The words are reko, aquari hajine."

Aleistar repeated the words to himself before infusing magic with them and repeating it. Focusing all his attention on the words and what was supposed to happen, he pushed until it began hurting, even going so far as to hold his breath. When he could no longer, he let it out, breathing hard. Glancing inti his cupped hands, he saw no water, and let out a sigh.

"You pronounced it incorrectly. The word is a-ku-a-ri," his father said, renunciating ththe syllables. Aleistar nodded before repeating the same ritual as before.

Thus time, he could feel his magic bonding with the words, and within moments his hands were full of water. Smiling, he let the water drop, before his father told him, "Do it again."

At Aleistar's groans, he added, "Good mages practice until they get it right. Great mages practice until they never get it wrong. Keep practicing." With that, he left, and Aleistar sat down, cupping his hands and starting over, grumbling in between incantations.
 
The raiding party rode through the streets, until they arrived at the entrance to the catacombs. Lukas paused, reigning in his horse as the knights and clerics shuffled around him. One of the holy men, named Cadmus, raised his hand for attention.

"Hear now! Prepare yourselves! For inside these caverns, we shall encounter the vilest evils known to man! Are you all ready to face what may darkness may come?" He shouted to the assembled crowd.
The men gave a cheer, and saluted the holy general, who was charged with leading them into the catacombs. Lukas saluted as well, and the party charged down into the catacombs.

The men split up, taking different paths, and Lukas took a winding side-path to the left. He assumed others were with him, but when he looked, no one was there. This must be part of my test... he thought.

Lukas exited the path in a cavern, an ornate room, really, and he marveled at the beauty for a moment before he noticed the young man sitting on the floor.
 
Aleistar had been quietly murmuring incantations to himself when he heard someone enter. "Father?" he asked as he looked up, thinking the man would have returned to give him further instruction. However, it was someone entirely different. Frowning, he asked, "Who are you?" just as his father ran into the room from the other entrance, bleeding profusely from a wound on his stomach, the blood showing through his shirt.

"Father!" Aleistar shouted, before a sword stabbed the mage in the back, exiting through his chest. For a long moment, Aleistar could do nothing but watch as his father fell to the cold stone ground, the water in his hands falling into his lap as his wrists fell limp.


A second later, Aleistar was on his feet, a furious rage building inside him. He wanted to use his magic to kill the man who did the same to his father, and would have, too, had he known the spells. Aleistar only knew defensive ones, and now all he could do was mumble incantations that did next to nothing.

"You bastard!" he shouted, but the man was gone. Spinning so he faced the other man, he asked, "Who are you?!? Why'd you kill him?" Feeling like he couldn't breathe, like a crushing weight was on his chest, Aleistar fell to hid knees as the realization that his father was gone truly hit him.

"No...it can't be true," he said, tears filling his eyes as he covered them with his hands.
 
Lukas stared blindly- was this carnage really necessary? He faced the survivor, wondering what to do. He had been ordered to kill or capture the mages, but something in him wanted desperately to escape. Earlier this morning, Lukas had been so certain of his goals, but now...

"I... He- He was a criminal. A thief! He- he probably sold his soul to gain his powers..."

The young apprentice muttered empty words that tried to justify the actions of his comrades. He felt empty and ruptured inside, and anything but holy.
Now he'd have to kill the son as well, wouldn't he? But try as he might, Lukas knew he couldn't bring himself to harm an innocent person.
 
"He was my father!" Aleistar shouted, pulling his hands from his face to glare at the man. "He's the only person who's ever taken care of me...and now he's dead!" Jumping to his feet, he tried to summon his magic, but his sorrow and tears prevented him from doing so. Instead, he sprinted away into the catacombs, not caring which direction he was going or whether he could find his way back.

All he could think of was his father, and his face right as he was killed. As the darkness encompassed him the further he went into the catacombs, he summoned a small fire to his hands, cupping then like he had with the water. Holding the fire close, knowing that the catacombs had spots where it was insanely cold, Aleistar eventually sank down onto the ground, his chest feeling tight.

Aleistar gave his damndest not to cry, but once he was still and his heart was beating so fast it would go out of his chest, the tears came and wouldn't stop, and soon he was leaning his head down between his knees, holding the hand with the fire away from his face, sobbing.

His father was dead! The only person who had taken care of him, who had taught him everything about magic, was gone. He eventually let the fire die out, letting the dark wash over him. Wishing he could have seen his father one last time, he sank against the wall, crying softly.
 
In the moments after the violent incursion, Lukas stepped down off his horse. He gave the animal a slap, letting it run back through the catacombs as he himself ran to follow the boy. His footsteps pattered through the wet puddled floor, and he followed the young mage, unsure of what he'd do when he found him. Soon the path grew darker, and Lukas discovered he needed to light the way with a torch.

Pulling a reed, wrapped in rags from his side-bag; Lukas used a pocket flint to light the torch, watching the flare light up the cavern. He continued on until he found the young mage. For an absence of words, he simply sat down on the other side of the tunnel.

((Sorry for the late reply. I had a lot of finals to get done.))
 
Hearing someone coming, Aleistar looked up briefly before frowning and sinking his head down, sobbing. It was a long while before he was able to stop. When he did, he rested his head on his knees. The fire in his hands had gone out, and now the only light was coming from the man.

When he found his voice, he asked, "W-why? Why'd you do this? We...we weren't hurting anyone, my father was a good man..." Simply speaking of it was making him tear up again. "It's not fair!" he finally said, too tired to get up and run again.

After a few minutes, he asked, "What are you going to do to me now? Kill me? Like that man did to my father?"
 
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"No..." Lukas said, "No, I'm not... I thought they were right, my teachers, my mentors... But now I see how wrong they all were."
The cleric rested his head against the wall, trying to gather his thoughts.
"There's no safe place for a mage in this city... We have to get out of these catacombs before the rest of my party finds us."
 
Aleistar watched the man, not trusting him in the slightest as he said that they needed to leave. Not with someone like you, he thought bitterly. He would leave by himself or die sitting there, waiting for the end. "Why do you have to go?" he asked bitterly. "You've got those people. The city people love you guys. I'm just some nameless coward to you, huh?" He rolled his eyes, signing. This man could go back to the non-mages; Aleistar had nothing but this now--old bones and friends' bodies.
 
Lukas found he didn't have a decent answer anymore. But he could still try to explain, in the only way he knew.
"I... didn't realize there was such carnage..." He sighed. "When I was younger, the older priests liked to tell nasty stories about the mages. They were demons, monsters... But looking at these people, I see what the priests were hiding. They're not monsters. You people are human beings, and I- I can't live with the knowledge that my brothers did something like this. When they find out that I ran off during the raid, do you think they'll take me back?"

He struggled with the conflicting feelings, warring in his chest. Could secular magic really be evil?
"Seeing what they did here... I don't know if I want to go back."
 
"Then don't," Aleistar said bitterly. "You can go to other places. I'm just a Mage. No one likes mages, no matter where you go. I have nothing. I might a well just stay here and wait for your people to find me." He sighed softly, drawing his knees to his chest and trying not to cry again, feeling the unfairness of it all.
 
"No... I have to do something to fix the wrongs we did. I won't let you die like those others." He sighed. "I was taken in by the priests because I had the potential to be a warrior. When I grew older, they told me mages were responsible for the deaths of my parents, but I wonder now, if even that was true."
 
"But..." Aleistar said, his voice cracking slightly. "I want to die...there's no one else on this world who will ever care about me. I'm a mage, and everyone thinks I'm evil. No one will ever want to hold me, will ever love me... I'll be alone for the rest of my life. So isn't it better to just die here, with my family?"
 
"No," Lukas answered, gazing into the light of his torch. "There are other mages out there, I know it. And you won't do your family any favors by dying like a rat in some hole." He sighed. "I- I'm really sorry. It sounds empty and meaningless, but it's true. I wish I could just take it all back, and fix this, but we have to move on before they find us."
 
"A-alright..." Aleistar sniffled, brushing his nose clear of snot with his sleeve. Pushing himself to his feet, he asked, "Where would we even go? I don't even know of any other mages." Folding his arms across his chest, he fixed his grey eyes on the man, frowning a bit.
 
"I'm not sure..." Lukas replied, rising and pushing the blond hair out of his eyes. "I do know of one thing though. It'll be easier for us to blend in with people at the market place. Traders come from across the world to trade here, people of all shapes, sizes and colors. First off, no one will notice two more misfits, and second off, we might be able to find news, or a ship, or even more mages... You never know with traders."
 
Aleister nodded, moving closer to the man so he could be nearer to the fire, the cold of the catacombs chilling him. "Do...do you think I could get my father's body? Put him somewhere in the catacombs where his body could rest...? I just...I don't want to leave him where your people killed him..."
 
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