The Artifacts Of Elios (Book 1) (21 page)

Laura stood and greeted the man with a warm hug and a peck.  “I was so worried,” she said.  Noting his dusty appearance she added, “go wash up, I’ll fix you a plate.”

The man strode to the kitchen sink and touched a glyph covered tap causing water to pour out and began to wash his hands while his wife busied herself with preparing another plate of food.

“I’m
Soaris,” he addressed Ava, “I apologize for the lack of introductions earlier this afternoon but things were a bit rushed.  Thank you for meeting our guest, Laura,” he said to his wife.

“Wild horse
s couldn’t have stopped me,” exclaimed Laura.  “You do know that this is your son’s
girlfriend
,” She put the emphasis on girlfriend.

“You women are such romantics.  Don’t
get your hopes up, dear; I’m sure they are just friends.”

“I hope we are more than friends,” Chimed in Ava smiling at the older couples banter.  “I told him how I felt at the pier before
I boarded for the expedition.  My fear is that the most handsome athlete on the warball team will forget about me before we get a chance to see each other again.”

“She’s got it bad,”
Soaris said humorously to his wife.

“Don’t you worry one bit.” Laura coddled taking Ava’s hand and patting it gently.  “I probably shouldn’t be telling you this but the last letter I got from Shane said that he thought that he had met
the
one; the same letter that was nearly filled with details regarding a smart, beautiful, and inspiring lab assistant that he was dating that matches your description.  And if there’s one thing that he got from his mother it is his loyalty,” she scowled at her husband.  “No matter how unusual this family is we stand by those we love,”

Laura turned to her husband. “How did it go after you dropped off Ava?  Are you going to have to destroy the Island?”

At this Soaris smiled widely.  You’re not going to believe this but after I dropped off Ava I traveled to the Arc and sent a message to the Elders regarding the predicament and they sent two Lumen mages.  They had me go distract the expedition teams, the army, and the navy; which I gladly did.  I was able to create the illusion that pirates were on the way to attack.  By the time I got back to the Island the city of Hylye was gone.”

“Do you know where it went?” asked Ava.

“That’s the amazing part,” Soaris said shaking his head.  “I went to where the city used to be on the island and was met by the two Elios mages.  They transported us to the hill station.  You know the valley that runs west and south of the hill station, that’s where they put the city.”

“But we were just there,” Laura said.  “The overland pulled out just as the sun was almost completely over the horizon.”

“You must have just missed it.  I walked the streets with the two Elios mages and they told me that the move was successful.  I asked if it was ok to occupy. All they said was that the city belonged to the Luion but they recommended that I wait for my son to make it safe.  Then they promptly disappeared.

That leads my next topic of conversation to be directed to you, Ava.  What has our son been up to that the Elios of all people are confident that he has the skills necessary to make a city safe?”

Ava shrugged.  “When I last saw Shane he was working on creating an artifact that he had learned about partially from studying existing artifacts and partially from a dream he had had.”  She then went into the details of Shane’s theories and his dream of the Arc and Laws of Wisdom and everything else that she could recall.

Soaris
was silent when she finished her explanation; his expression one of a man that had just finished a very long race and rest was finally within reach,

“What is it
Soaris,” his wife asked with concern.

“It’s Shane, he is the
Dernier Chanson.  He is the one that I have been preparing for,”

Whe
n Shane woke his jaw was feeling normal again; the swelling and pain was gone. His knuckles and other parts that had had minor bumps and bruises were all healed as well.  He swung his legs over the side of the bed and stretched and finally got up and began to dig through his boxes to see if he could find his razor. He looked over and noticed that Ari’s bed was empty.  As Shane searched through the boxes he noticed that whoever had cleaned out his apartment had cleaned out everything.  He found a lot of junk that he would have left behind if it were him that had gathered it up.  While he waited for Ari to return he found his two large duffle bags that he usually used for packing gear for his trips home and stuffed then with his clothes and shoes; he kept one of the boxes for books and papers that he wanted to keep and the rest he used to box up all the other items he planned on throwing away. When he was done he had two duffle bags and a large box that contained everything he owned;
Depressing
he thought.  Having completed his organization he took his now located razor and went into the bath room to shave.

Shane was just putting away his razor when
Ari returned.  “Here have some breakfast.”  Ari tossed a paper bag on to Shane’s bed.

“Thanks,” said Shane as he sat on the bed and looked in the bag.  “Mmmm, sausage egg and chees
e on a croissant, where‘d you get this?”

“Roger threw it together for me.  I would have brought you a cup of roasters but I figured it would be cold by the time I got it back here.  I have instant in my top draw
er if you want the front desk to bring some hot water.”

Shane smiled and grabbed his pack and retrieved the cup that he had enchanted with the hot and cold glyphs.  “Hand me
your can of instant.”

Ari
opened a drawer at the base of his armoire and lobbed a can of the powdered caramelized dark roasted grain beverage to Shane.  Shane scarcely paying attention snagged the flying can from the air with the practiced ease of a warball receiver. He walked to the wash room and filled his cup with warm water then brought the cup back into the sitting area and put the cup on the short table in front of the couch.

“Watch this,” Shane said as he touched the glyph that made the cup contents hot.  Immediately the water in the cup started wafting steam.  Shane opened the can and stirred a couple of spoons full of the instant beverage into the hot water and soon the rich aroma of the hot cup of roasters filled the room.

“This was one of the first enchantments I learned,” explained Shane as he took a sip from the cup.  “It’s a simple hot and cold sequence if I wanted to make it cold I could just touch here,” He pointed to a glyph on the cup.  “By the way, how are your bumps and bruises this morning?”

“I woke up feeling like I had slept for a week and I haven’t felt
this good in years.”

“It’s really quite simple.  All the enchantments you’ve seen so far is the beginner stuff; the simplest enchantments that I could find to practice on.  “I’ve learned a lot since and now that warball season is over I was planning on doing some serious experimenting.”

Ari grimaced with a serious expression.  “I need to get you somewhere safe so that you can continue your research.  If what I’ve seen so far is any indication then the world is going to change; drastically.”

“I was hoping to get proficient enough to teach Ava and see about getting her an instructor like mine; if she is able to control lumen enough to do activation then that would help a lot.  She is an excellent researcher and analyst.”

“Can you teach anyone how to do that?” asked Ari.

“I’m not sure.”  Shane went on to explain his tale on how he had learned about and then made the instructor and how he had looked up simple glyph enchantments to practice on,

“Can you instructor show me?” asked
Ari.

“Instructor,” commanded Shane, “Remove camouflage and activate on the table in front of me.”  The portrait of Ava disappeared and the brass plate materialized on the table with a blank screen.

“How may I instruct
,” greeted the device in his mind.

“Mental interface off switch to audio,” Shane said mentally.

“
How may I instruct?”
repeated the device; this time so Ari could hear it too.

Ari
stood speechless for a moment before uttering “Que je sois damné.  I’ve been around, son, but I never thought I’d live to see the day when someone would break the artifact barrier.  My professors at Wonstrowd said it couldn’t be done; and believe me, I tried.  This is too good to be true.  May I ask some questions?"

“Be my guest.”

“Instructor,” Ari hesitated forming his thoughts.  “Can you show me how to understand glyph magic and how to activate glyphs?”

“I am an instructor designed to instruct those who would become a glyph mage.  My primary purpose was changed when the current bonded student exhibited extreme talent for glyph mastery. From that point on I became limited to
the instruction of only the current bonded student.  Others that have proven to be capable of glyph mastery may be bonded but they must be tested first. You would be required to be tested by another instructor and if you were found to possess sufficient lumen awareness and control then at the request of the current bonded mage or a lumen master you could be bonded as well to this instructor.”

“Where can I
find an instructor for myself?” asked Ari.

“Instructors are created by the student.  This assures that the student has sufficient knowledge of glyphs and lumen to become a glyph mage.”

While Shane ate his breakfast Ari asked dozens of questions to the instructor that always gave the answer of either you must be bonded or you must be instructed on the operations of this instructor in dream mode.  He finally gave up seeing Shane laughing uncontrollably in his chair.

“What’s so funny?”

“It’s the sight of seeing someone go through what I went through.  It’s hilarious when it isn’t happening to you.  Pretty frustrating isn’t it?”

“A barrel of laughs
,” deadpanned Ari.  “Any Ideas on how we resolve the issue?”

“Well,” said Shane getting serious.  “I think we need to go at this as scientifically as possible.  First you are going to need a square brass
plate.  I think copper might work but brass is sturdier.  I could probably look up something to conjure up a piece but you can probably go out and purchase some and be back before I can get it down well enough to do it myself.” 

“Instructor,
resume normal shape and deactivate.”  The device instantly became a square brass plate covered in the usual glyphs.

Curiously
Ari reached over and touched the activation circle and like Shane’s first experience with what he had thought of as a light artifact, a bright light appeared above the plate.  As Ari slid his finger back and forth along the line the light grew and diminished accordingly.

“
Remarkable,” said Ari.  I’ve seen these before; we all thought they were lights.  Many were ceramic and were broken but the few we had no one was ever able to duplicate them.”

You want to know why?” asked Shane.  “Take a look at the scroll work.  Look really close; if you don’t have good eyes you may need a magnifier.”

Ari leaned in and squinted.  “You’re kidding me.  They’re the tiniest glyphs I’ve ever seen.  No wonders none of the copies ever worked; they only copied the designs not the details of what the designs were made of.”

“Notice the square and round symmetry? 
That part is important to the design too.  I haven’t gotten that far in my lessons yet but I’m sure it’s relevant.”

Ari
stood up, “I’m going to run out and get that brass.  Is there anything I need to get like tools for engraving?”

“I have everything you need.  While you’re gone I’ll make you a mug like mine. And I’ll try to think of everything I did leading up to when I made my instructor”

Ari
headed for the door.

“Hold up,” Shane interrupted and beckoned him back to where the still glowing light was on the table.  “Hold your hand in the light for thirty or so seconds.”

Shrugging Ari followed the younger man’s instructions.