to argue with me, son,” said Sainar, his voice as gentle as a blunt side of the blade touching a victim’s neck. “I will explain everything when the time comes. But first, I want to take a look at the boys.”
***
The apprentices of Sainar’s ten children had never met before. Now they stood in the temple’s library, all ten of them, and studied each other in silence. The sun was already high; its slanted rays fell into the library hall through the tall, narrow windows and gilded every dancing speckle of dust along the way. No other student shared the room with the ten young guests. They were alone in the spacious hall.
Juel Hak. His reddish skin and slant-eyed face leave no doubts about where he is from. Faizuls are nomadic tribes from the fringes of the charted Omnis. Hunt, war, and torture are what their kind is particularly good at. Civilized Omnis and its magic frighten them, so they usually stay away from the charted lands and spend their lives quarrelling between each other. Kangassk Abadar bought Juel from one of the tribes when the boy was only three. Now his apprentice is twenty-two and has no memories of his family but his character is still Faizulish to the bone. Luckily for him, this is exactly what makes Abadar proud.
Orion Jovib. A distant descendant of Ziga, the legendary pirate all port taverns from Adjaen to Mirumir still sing about. Jovibs remember their history as well as Saidonatgarlyns do, mostly because of their naming tradition: they always name the first son Orion, the second son Ziga and the first daughter Meralli. And then tell the kids why when they grow up and start asking questions.
Orion is eighteen. He has a relaxed attitude of someone who rarely dwells upon the past. Jovibs are like that: always open to changes. Pirates today, bards tomorrow, servants of justice the day after, then hermits and scholars, and then suddenly pirates again…
It’s hard to argue with Orion; it just always seems that he is one step ahead of you. Clever and cunning, he could have been a leader if he wanted. And not a despotic type like Juel but a charismatic one, making people wish to follow him… on any questionable path he chooses.
His teacher – Kangassk Lar – is not much older than Orion himself. Orion became Lar’s apprentice at the age of eight; Lar was twenty-one at the time. Now, when Orion is as tall as his master, they look like brothers.
Lainuver Boier. He is only eighteen, just like Orion, but is already a professional thief. Just like all the Kangassks’ apprentices, Lainuver is a powerful ambasiath – a magically talented person with untapped potential. The way he uses the properties of pure ambassa is quite unusual, though. He is good at being unnoticed when he wants to and at deceiving people.
His master – Kangassk Aranta – is a thief’s daughter. She has never really left her mother’s trade, so, naturally, she never regretted her apprentice’s choice.
Still, thief or no, Lainuver is not that bad as a person. He is well worth the Lifekeeper’s title.
Bala Maraskaran. A former slave boy from Ebony Islands, now an apprentice of a clumsy, accident-prone man known as Kangassk Majesta. This particular Kangassk brought a good deal of disappointment to his father and now his apprentice is following the same steps.
Bala is sixteen. His skin is pitch-black; his hair is bushy; his smile is pearly-white and very, very powerful. This is the kind of smile that makes people forgive him a shattered ancient vase or an expensive sword broken on the same day it was bought. Bala has a heart of gold. At sixteen, he is still a big, kind child.
Irin Fatum. He is fifteen, just a year younger than Bala. This boy rarely unsheathes his sword. Just like his master – Kangassk Orlaya, a short and fragile woman – Irin prefers bow and arrows. Longbows are out of his league yet but even a shortbow is a serious threat in his little hands. Especially if the arrows are poisoned. A pebble is not a toy in Irin’s hand either. Anything that can be shot or thrown, he will use as a weapon.
He rarely speaks. His habit of being silent for hours while waiting for a perfect moment to attack became a foundation of his personality. Size and age differences aside, Irin Fatum, the most questionable of the young Lifekeepers in the library, resembles a smaller version of Juel.
Those are the oldest of the ten. They fell into their roles as soon as they met.
In the newly-established hierarchy, Juel Hak became the leader, Orion Jovib – the leader’s rival, Irin Fatum – the leader’s ally. Lainuver Boier, impressed with Orion’s wit and cunning, allied with the pirate’s descendant. And Bala Maraskaran, the kindness itself, just kept trying to make everyone be nice to each other.
The big boys paid little attention to the rest of the ten for those were mere children.
Pai Prior. A boy of thirteen. An ambasiath, just like everyone there but an ambasiath who has always dreamed of being a mage like his parents. His master – Kangassk Vesperi – did her best to keep the boy away from magic but he still kept learning new spells somehow. Sometimes it seemed to her that he was inventing them from scratch. Maybe that was true.
What else is absolutely true is that no power in the world can stop the boy from practising magic. Restraining bracelets could, but this is the kind of spell only worldholders are allowed to cast, to poor Vesperi’s regret.
Sainar and Vesperi thought long and hard what to do with the boy and finally decided to let him be. His self-made spells are too simple and weak to hurt his ambasiath potential anyway. All Vesperi has to do is to keep Pai away from serious magic.
There is always a lively, flickering fire in that boy’s eyes, the kind of fire a poet or an artist has when inspiration lends them wings.
Milian Raven. Or, rather, Corvus. He is twelve. They say the language his surname belongs to had been long dead even before the worldholders left the Primal World to create Omnis. Milian likes ancient languages but still prefers the modern form of his surname, because, in his opinion, it sounds better.
Young Raven is a bookish kid, so unlike his master Kangassk Marini, a talkative woman with a bubbly, cheerful character. She would prefer a noisy tavern to a cosy library any day. Her apprentice – quite the opposite. Milian prefers books to people and fantasies to the real world.
He doesn’t like the other nine boys being there. Oh how much he would give for them to go away, so he could look through all the library books in peace! But no, they are not going away. They keep talking, they keep arguing, they keep fighting over their places in the team.
Milian instantly disliked both the newly established leader and his rival. And Lainuver too.
Kosta Ollardian. He is twelve, like Milian – only Milian is tall for his age but Kosta is short. For some reason, he looks especially sad with a sword.
There’s a big purple bruise on his right cheek; Kangassk Ollardian is ruthless with his son… Yes, son. The boy inherited his grandfather’s magical chalice filled with transformed magic – ambassa – to the brim, so Kangassk Ollardian talked Sainar into accepting Kosta as one of the chosen ten. No one is happy about that, though.
Kind and obedient, this boy has no warrior’s spirit in him at all. There is light in his heart but this is the light of a fire burning very low.
Oasis. A feral child of the urban jungle of Lumenik. He has never had a surname, never had a proper first name as well, and never knew his exact birth date. Is he twelve or thirteen? Or maybe fourteen? No one knows.
