Ch. Thirteen

13

            The Academy was lively in it's own curious way. The main building, with the thick, polished peak that stretched far into the sky and cased a slab of shade over Lamberdine each and every evening, was very much packed with the various scholars and Apostles, sitting on the long steps or leaning against it's bottom. On the walkways (feverishly kept tidy and bright), Magi moved in their careful, practiced step atop them, their bright scarves loosely hung beneath the sun, flittering and swirling in chaotic trails behind them, a book held before their eyes or a notepad limp in their hands. It always surprised me how many there truly were, be them the graduates like the twins, or the apprentice's, young and perplexed against the world. They all wore that same, dreamy expression, though, as though their gift and the pleasure of the Academy were nothing more then stepping stones in their pursuit of knowledge. "More" was what came to mind when I really stopped and watched them, and it was more an intimidating thought then praiseful.

            Still, it was we whom were the odd ones, and yet the many Apostles and Magi paid Katdja and I no attention as we passed one another, our sweat still dripping and stench most certainly crude. In our two, separate worlds of mercenaries and Magi, we walked and shuffled past one another as though ghosts, indifferent, lacking any sort of gain should one of us decide to break down the wall and communicate with the other. What would they teach me? I them? My world was one of action, the blade that guts the fish and then cooked it. Theirs was the one that wrote of it, preparing for when the vast school would come and to snatch them all at once. Two different identities of progress and reason, and, despite what they say about the Lamberdine scholars, they would be just as stubborn as I to listen.

            Approaching the campus, I saw the lake to my left, glistening and swaying, it's light wakes pushing comfortably against the grassy banks. A handful of people sat beside it; many of them Apostles, and even a few "regular" people like myself. If Rose was already waiting for me, I couldn't make her out from the rest of the lakeside persons.

            Turning, I saw Katdja already moving up the stairs, not knowing I wasn't behind her. I called out, waving.

            "You're not coming?" she yelled, paused in half step.

            I moved closer to her, so we didn't have to yell. "No. I came here to just sit by the lake, and maybe just watch the water," I lied, pulling at my pant leg.

            She laughed, and then yelled down to me (even though we were close enough to just talk normally now), "Completely forgot to ask why you were coming here. Of course it is for something stupid like that."

            "Thanks, Kat."

            Still laughing, she turned and made her way up the long set of stairs, giving me a dismissive wave.

            I made my way over to the lake after she'd stepped inside. Walking along the grass, I circled around a half of the lake, eyeing at the shadowed faces of the hooded Apostles, looking for Rose. I didn't see her though, and having come to the end of the half-circle, I paused on the small, tight bridge that crosses over the lake run-off, listening to the falling rush of water as it collapsed down into Lamberdine city.

            The Academy lake had me interested from when I was only a little boy, maybe even before Elex had found me and we'd made our lives in the sewers. It was forever falling, the water, and yet when you were up here, beside the lake itself, it looked so peaceful and still, as if there was never, in the history of time itself, a single blade of grass that disturbed it's obedient stillness.

            When I was a boy, I imagined that the Magi simply "made" the water of Lamberdine, which is a belief that is still common with both kids and adults to this day. But that isn't so, or at least not entirely. In actuality, behind the Academy, and way below the mountain it stands on, there is the ocean, infinite and ceaseless as it presses and collides into the base of the mountain.

            It is supposed, that before Lamberdine, when there was only the few Magi whom roamed desperate and abandoned in the area where their nation would much later be founded, that they lived in absolute fear of not only the wilderness and world, but of themselves, uncertain of their powers and abilities. Many times their powers simply acted of their own, their lack-of control allowing the most devastating of magic to both frighten and, sometimes, harm themselves.

            So they made a pact, and climbed the Lamberdine mountain, and founded the Academy with little more then the rocks already up there and occasional gull they could fetch and eat. Up there, they learned, grew in intelligence and ability, and soon were constructing the first roads and pathways of Lamberdine, dissecting the rough mountain with their powers and constructing a more approachable, but hidden, guide to the secret academy.

            At first, life atop the mountain was possible. The lake was there then, but it was fading, draining by the growing numbers of wandering Magi and the increasing numbers of people drawn to serve and assist them (the early Apostles). And if the lake were to run dry, then the Academy itself would fail by the simple components of bodily needs.

            So they did what they must; with the powers they had, they drilled a long, wide chute through the midst of the mountain, cracking and damaging its entire structure, and then unwound it into the ocean. With that, they opened reservoirs inside of the mountain where, once they lifted the water up with their combined abilities, they could then store the water inside. With that, they would use their abilities to freeze, heat and then somehow desalinate the water, then carry it up further, where it would run off into the lake and fill it, decontaminated and entirely drinkable.

            Over the years, the need has grown alongside the city. And yet still the Magi perform this process, providing always for the city by turning the lake into a fall, and then allowing the water to trickle freely into various drains organized alongside the rivers that run through Lamberdine, which is then used for whatever, however, by Lamberdine's people.

            It still baffled me, even now. The water seemed to infinite, and there were no signs of exactly where it came from, just the steady, calm lake, and then the waterfall that never ceased. Even more provoking was the thought that, somewhere inside the Academy, Magi, maybe one but probably plenty, chanted and thought the seawater into cleansing.

            It was wild, but I wasn't here to speculate on the mechanics of Lamberdine. Taking a long, final glance from the bridge, surveying the micro-like city below, I continued on to the other side of the lake, and sat.

            Rose would come when she felt was right. She was here, I knew that much. But she was waiting, and so was I.