Chapter 1: Nerius

15th December, 999

I walked slowly down the road, scanning the house carefully. The occupants had left about ten minutes ago but I had to be sure they weren’t coming back or that someone might still be there. No light shown through the windows and the street was quiet. Only one set of footprints echoed off the snow. The cold night air pulled at my cloak. The flames of the street lamps flickered.

I signaled to Nyx who was a couple of houses down. With a nod he starts walking quickly towards me and motions to the house. It was beautifully made, as most wealthy family homes are. It was two stories made of white stone. The outside of the windows were elaborately decorated and a wall of ivy reached to the roof. We headed to the side of the house and made for the ivy wall.

I watched Nyx closely, waiting for his direction. He knew this district very well, being fortunate enough to be adopted by a wealthy family who lived here. According to him these houses were very similar in their layout and security. His parents were two of the people who are in charge of the ‘Elemental’ branch of the police force. They were the kind of people that wanted to have their child follow in their footsteps, so Nyx had received a formal education on security runes and traps and the like. It made our job a lot easier, though I felt bad for him.

He pointed up to the window on the second floor with the balcony. With some effort I started to climb, slipping a few times. Nyx followed close behind, climbing with ease. He did this much more often than I did. I pulled myself over the railing and knelt to inspect the lock. There were no runes around it that I could see and I couldn’t detect any spells. It only took a few minutes to pick the lock and it eventually opened with a soft click.

All the curtains in the room had been closed leaving only darkness. I moved to it Nyx in and knocked over a chair. He managed to grab the one next to it before clattered to the ground. I felt his hand on the side of my face and the room started coming into focus. This room looked like it use to be a bedroom but was now used as storage.

The hallway was painted white with green borders along the top and bottom. Portraits of the family occupied much of the space. They were a decorated military family it would seem. There were pictures of great battles and men and women in uniform. Cases held medals of honor and old swords. There were also some pictures showing their accomplishments in hunting. Some were simply bears or stags, but others were of them killing dark elementals. So much pride showed on their faces as they ended the lives of the Djinn and those that worked with them.

Suddenly I didn’t feel so bad for robbing them. The dark Djinn I carried in my pocket vibrated lightly with energy. Personally I don’t think it makes me a bad person to have it. It wouldn’t have made a difference. I’d still be poor and struggling and I’d still be robbing houses.

The portraits never showed the family with their own Djinn so I figured they were Solutus. Those that didn’t, or couldn’t, form contracts with Djinn. There’s nothing wrong with being a solutus, but they were sometimes very judgmental of those of us that could contract them. Not to say that the Vinctum are not judgmental. However they to look down on dark elemental users. There have been a lot of conflicts lately between the Solutus and Vinctum. We are called witches or demons because of our ability. I don’t understand why. We didn’t ask for this.

Djinn are something of a lesser elemental. There are many factors that determine if a person is able to contract one of these creatures and for whatever reason humans have been able to do so the easiest.

The person has to be physically capable of handling the stress that the power of these creatures puts on the body. The Djinn use their host’s energy just as much as the host uses theirs. Additionally the person needs to have a strong will. It may be a symbiotic relationship but it can be very easy for the Djinn to dominate the host.

The Solutus see this ability as an imbalance of power. Many Vinctum hold higher positions in society. Though they very rarely use their power threaten anyone, the Solutus will blame the masses for the actions of the few. The city has since slowly divided into East End and West End. Vinctum like myself occupy the majority of West End.

But here we are. Nyx and I traveling across East End in the freezing winter to get a few trinkets that might sell for a decent profit. I followed him down the hall , keeping alert for any sounds. I took the two earth Djinn out of my pocket. Currently they took the form two small, spherical, green gems. Speaking in primordial I sent them down the hall to scout for any people. The took the form of snakes and quietly slithered across the rugs. After a few moments they reported no one in the rooms.

We found the master bedroom and the places they hid their expensive jewelry. We left anything related to military as it was. Gathering our things and heading back out the way we came I scanned the road below. It wasn’t that late so there were still a few people milling about, most likely on their way home. The snow had covered most of the ivy and as I proceeded to climb down I lost my grip and started slipping to the ground. I managed to slow myself down but not without attracting the attention of a woman in passing. She saw me and then Nyx above me.

“Run!” He yelled.

“Guards! Thieves!”

We ran down the alley towards the street. We used the darkness to cover our bodies in shadow. To anyone else we were just shadow people. The guards were right on top of us as rounded the corner. People stopped and turned at the sound of them shouting but few actually made a move to stop us. There was fear on their faces as they watched us pass. The guards started gaining on us, spears in hand, shouting at us to stop.

“Get ready to turn down the next alley way!” Nyx shouted, loud enough for the guards to hear. We dipped in but then immediately sailed over their heads, unbalancing them with a gust of wind. While they stumbled and tried to turn we kept running, turning two streets down. I turned around and focused on the end of the street. Energy flowed from my hands as a wall of stone erupted, blocking the path just as the guards rounded the corner.

The street was quiet as I stopped to catch my breath. There were still a few shops open and the houses above were well lit. The cobble stones on the street reached up the walls. White stone covered the walls above, some of them jutting out over the street. Lanterns were strung from roof to roof lighting up street. The vines growing along the walls were brown and bare from the cold. Nyx tugged at my sleeve.

“We can’t stop yet. They may find a way around.”

I followed as he climbed to the top of the nearest building. The large green sign over the door read ‘Alvar’s Produce’. We weren’t far from the outskirts of the city. However my home was at the opposite end. I used Spider Climb and raced up the building. I was reaching the limit of my dark djinn. I felt the shadows around me shift. They dispersed and I couldn’t help but collapse. I pulled the gems out of my pocket. The ones that was supposed to orange and purple were now pure white. The dark and wind Djinn were completely depleted.

“Hey,” I called to Nyx. “There might be someone down their who can give us a ride. I don’t know about you but I’m spent.”

Nyx no longer had shadows surrounding him. “Okay. Let’s wait for a few minutes. Give the guards a chance to leave the area.”

The snow had stopped falling and the clouds began to part. There was a full moon tonight. I can’t charge the tenebris until the new moon. I set the ventus on the ground and let it charge.

After some time we prepared to leave. I melded my hand into the wall and slid at a slow decent. We were near the Wayward Station, thankfully it was still open. While we rode in the back of the wagon Nyx finally relaxed.

“Hey, would it be alright if I stayed at your place tonight?” He asked.

“Of course. Are you guys fighting?” He nodded.

“Sometimes I fell like going to be a soldier is the only way I’ll escape them. But then I’d have to fight in some foreign county, probably.”

“Then you’d be even father away from them.” He laughed at that. “I wouldn’t mind going to see other places. And there is no guarantee that we would be fighting. Probably just hold a fort or something.”

“Yes, but I don’t think the cost is worth it.”

“You could always come to school with me.”

“What are you going for?”

“Anything that isn’t farming. I can’t do it anymore. I don’t even make enough to live half the time.” I thought for a moment. “You know, by law if we joined we’d only have to be in it for three years. And I heard the pay is pretty good. We might not even have to do anything.”

“That is the last thing I want to do." He paused. " What would you do with all your money once you left?”

“I’ve always wanted my own tavern. But it would have books too.”

“What?” He laughed.

“Some people need places to go and get away. That’s what it would be.”

“It does sound nice.”

 

Reviews

[James]

Wow! I like your style. I'm not usually a fan of first person anything, but you've still managed to intrigue me.
i think you did a good job of introducing the world and characters, and the small sequence of action gave a good idea of the type of magic being used. Well done! Definitely going to read on!