*****
It had taken a few hours to summon the mages from the University. As the group walked through the Palace District on it’s way to the bridge leading into the Grid, Iona couldn’t help but notice the column of smoke to the south as it drifted lazily skyward. She turned to Wen, a powerful Nature mage and part of Iona’s escort, and asked, “That almost looks like the University has caught fire…?” Wen, short for Wendalia, followed her gaze and shook her head, “That’s the Lord General leading a raid on the Guild’s alleged headquarters.” Wen shrugged, then added, “If you ask me, I doubt that organization has only one head to be struck away.” Iona turned to Felis and asked, “Do you know anything about it?” Felis’ eyes were undoubtedly yellow this morning, and his mouth was drawn in a thin, tight line. He replied, “I’m sure I don’t know, Miss.”
Felis did, in fact, know. Iona assumed he was a University scholar, specializing in Talent Developmental Theory. This belief was shared by University professors and students. The reality of the matter was that Felis was one of the Guild’s premier Adept Assassins, and he had a token of his own design in his pocket that proved that fact. The fact that he had the confidence of so many people was a credit to his Talent and his abilities. He brought the conversation back to the matter at hand, asking Iona, “Do you have any idea of what you expect to find? We are going back into the Ruins, correct?” She nodded in response as she glanced northeast towards the Ruins, her view of it obscured by the Palisade Wall, “The Ruins. Yes. As to what I expect…?” She paused as she considered. What did she expect? Iona’s Talent allowed her to sense magic; all magic in her immediate vicinity in fact, whether she wanted or not. She knew that the blast of power she felt earlier was like nothing she’d ever experienced before, even though it was an entire neighborhood away. She also recalled what the aging scholar from the University had told them; that there was a dangerous presence in the Ruins which had caused hundreds, perhaps even more than a thousand deaths, and had prompted the building of the Palisade wall that separated the Palace District from the Ruins and Batter’s Field. For all she knew, they’d find a crater in the middle of the Ruins to mark where the event had taken place. She found the words to answer Felis’ question, “I’m not sure what will be there, but the entire area will have been soaked with residue. But we have to assume that the Ruins are still dangerous. I don’t want to stay any longer than necessary, but I have to know… I have to see what might be there.” Felis gave her a nod in reply. His thoughts were already elsewhere, with the column of smoke to the south.
Once they’d turned into Batter’s Field and approached the Ruins, the sensation was unmistakable to her. She voiced what she was feeling, “Unbelievable. It’s like walking through fog, or smoke. It hangs so thickly in the air. It was nearly four hours ago, or longer, and the breeze hasn’t even blown it away.” She worked her mouth, as if to get the taste of it off her tongue. This brought Felis back into the moment. He shifted to walk slightly in front of her, and focused his gaze towards the Ruins. Iona guided them unerringly. They hadn’t quite reached the center of the Ruins before she stopped, her eyebrows raised, “It’s here. Can’t you all feel it?” She looked around her for affirmation, and got none, “No? I can hardly believe that. The ground is fairly vibrating with residual pow-…” her voice trailed off, her incredulous tone fading away. She knelt down, placing her palm on the ground. She murmured, breathless, almost to herself, “Incredible. And it wasn’t just him. There was another… Older… much older.” She raised her head and scanned the surrounding area. Felis had been walking around the perimeter of the cleared area. He’d paused in one spot and had leaned forward. He appeared to be studying something. She called out to him, “Felis? Find something?” Felis pointed at something behind a large chunk of rubble, “A body. He appears to be long dead, but not yet decomposing.” She stood and walked to him, and looked at where he was pointing. She felt a second of revulsion. Dead bodies always looked so grotesque but in following the Gifted boy she’d seen several over a period of months. Still, she wasn’t used to it. They walked to where the body lay. Felis turned the dead man so he faced away. She knelt and placed a hand on the lower leg of the corpse. The sensation was immediate, but she kept her thought to herself, “It wasn’t the young man that did this. It was the old one. The one I didn’t know about until today.” Her mind began to surge forward. The timing suggested that the one she was sensing as old could be whatever the scholar thought remained of the Mad Wizard. The aging scholar had told her that the Mad Wizard had been Gifted, and that was why the University sought to train Hunters like her. “What if whatever remained of the Mad Wizard caused the death of this man?”, she thought. If that’s the case then what she’d felt before, the huge surge of channeled power, could’ve been some kind of battle between the young man from
