The Tower Of The Watchful Eye: The Legend Of Kairu Book 1 (2 page)

I grabbed my
head as it started to swim. “This isn’t me,” I said.

“
What are you talking about?” the girl asked
nervously.

“
I don’t look like that,” I continued as my memories flooded
in. “My hair is wirier, my nose is bigger and for God sake I don’t
think I have a single muscle…this isn’t real.”

I turned to
look at the girl and she just sneered at me. I gathered all my
strength and launched a Dispel at the floor. The room started to
fade as the girl shrieked. When the room finished fading, we were
left standing in a small clearing. A single tree stood in the
centre and everywhere around us was a dense fog. The girl closed
her eyes for a second then reopened them. Her eyes were gone,
replaced by bright lights.

“
So you figured it out,” she said in her new voice. It was
similar to the voice she used for the girl just a little deeper and
echoier.

“
You will leave my mind, Demon,” I commanded
shakily.

“
I admit defeat this time,” she purred, “but I will have you.
Even the strongest Mage has fallen to my charms. You will not be
able to resist me forever.”

“
We will see,” I said as the fog overtook us.

Chapter 1

“
ANDY!”

My eyes shot
open and I sat up quickly, smacking my head on the top bunk and
falling back onto my pillow. I grabbed my head and hissed in
pain.

“
What the hell?” I muttered.

“
It’s still fun to do that,” the familiar female voice
giggled.

“
If you keep doing that, Lily,” I started as I looked up at
her, “I’m going to finally have a real excuse for failing my
exams.”

“
As opposed to your famous excuse of, ‘because I don’t want
to’?” she smiled.

“
I don’t see the point of shooting Fire Balls through hoops,”
I said as I sat up in bed.

“
It’s to train your accuracy,” she explained. “The last thing
you want to do in battle is catch one of your own Mages in the butt
with an Ice Bolt.”

“
I do a pretty good job in my dreams,” I said with a
shrug.

“
Speaking of dreams, what was up with last night?” she asked
with a smile. “You were thrashing about.”

I smiled
weakly. “I was going well until I realized a Demon was trying to
possess me.”

“
You had your first Demon Dream?” she asked excited as she sat
down on the bed next to me. “Congratulations, what was it
like?”

“
It was…” I stalled for the proper word. “Strange. I was lucky
that I could pick up on all the little mistakes.”

“
Was it a Demon of rage?” she asked staring at me like a
little girl hearing a story of dragons. “Or was it
pride?”

“
I believe it was a Demon of desire and pleasure,” I
answered.

“
You have desires?” she asked confused.

“
Oh, ha ha,” I said sarcastically. “The Demon made me a Master
of the Order in charge of a small group of soldiers trying to save
the King of Balendar’s daughter. I figured it out when I met ‘the
daughter’ and she said the wrong thing. She called herself the
King’s niece.”

Lily laughed.
“Stupid Demons. That’s why they’ll never possess me.”

“
Don’t be so sure,” I said. “It’s easy to be swept up into the
dream.”

“
Well, I can’t wait for my first Demon Dream,” she said
dreamily. “Then I can finally follow the School of the Elemental
and stop doing these pointless classes.”

“
At least you know what you are going into,” I said sadly. “I
think I’m screwed.”

“
Nonsense,” she smiled. “You’re good at Illusions. Just go
into Spiritual or Demonology. You’re bookish enough for
it.”

I smiled a
little. “I don’t know if I want to dedicate my whole life to
understanding dreams though.”

“
Then come with me in Elemental,” she pitched. “It will be a
lot of fun.”

I thought it
over for a second. “I don’t think Elemental is my speed.”

“
No offense, Andy, but you don’t have a speed,” she joked.
“Just don’t get into that Nature stuff. I’d hate for you to become
one of those self-serving bastards.”

I laughed.
“Nature isn’t my thing either. You don’t worry about me, Lily.”

She chuckled.
“Someone has to, might as well be your best friend.”

“
You’re going to be late for class,” I smiled.

“
Oh jeez,” she said panicked as she stood up. “You’re right.
You better hurry and catch a Master before they start their
classes. See you later.” She grabbed her books from her bunk and
ran off as I raised my hand in a wave.

Lily is a bit
of a crazy person. She always seems to be happy and makes friends
easily. You also won’t find a more dedicated student in the Tower.
I wish I knew how she does it. In the five cycles we have been bunk
mates, I have yet to figure her out.

She was, sort
of, right referring to her as my ‘best friend.’ When you only have
the one, the title is given by default. I wouldn’t even go as far
as calling us friends, she travels with her social circles and I
only ever see her when we meet in the Apprentice Chambers. We are
two completely different people that just happen to share a bunk
bed together.

I stood up and
grabbed my Apprentice Robes from under the bed. I brushed my hand
down it a couple of times to get the dust off and changed out of
sleep wear. I didn’t have to worry about casting a spell for
privacy. Everyone was too focused on running to class to notice.
Grabbing my notepad and the Alchemy book I borrowed from the
library, I left the chambers in search of a Master.

The Apprentice
Chambers were on the first two floors of the Tower of the Watchful
Eye with the next five acting classrooms and libraries. The next
ten belonged to Mages and Teachers and the top four going to each
Master respectively. The top floor holds the Archives and is
restricted to anyone but the Masters and The Keeper.

The Tower is
the home of the Order of Magic and right in the centre of the great
continent of Kalenden. The Order of Magic acts as a governing
figure for the four provinces: Balendar to the East, Nesqa to the
South, the Ghanlar Plateau to the West and The Szwen Forest to the
North. Each province is in charge of their affairs but the Mages
will intervene when necessary.

Humans rule
the valley and farmlands of Balendar and the tropics of Nesqa. The
Bird People, known as Evenawks, make the home in the mountain
plateaus of Ghanlar and the Wood Fairies, Nao, live in the Szwen
forest. The Evenawks and Nao are magical based creatures but the
Evenawks are incapable of using magic as a weapon.

Any Human with
magical properties is brought to the Tower as an infant and spends
their childhood learning spells. During our 18th cycle, we go
through a coming of age ritual know as The Demon Dream.
Successfully resisting the Demon earns us the right to join a
School of Magic as a full Mage. We become in charge of our own
lives, studying what we want and undertaking missions for the
Tower.

It all sounds
good on paper, but life isn’t always a straight line.

I was having a
hard enough time finding a Master. Floor after floor I searched,
unable to find one that wasn’t busy. I was hoping I wouldn’t have
to walk up to their personal chambers just to find one. In a
strange twist of luck, one found me and, of course, it was the one
Master I was hoping to avoid.

“
You don’t move this fast unless you’ve done something wrong,”
the chilling voice of Master Pryce said behind me.

“
You always assume I’m up to trouble, Master?” I asked turning
around to face him.

“
I don’t need to assume anything,” he replied.

Master Pryce
was the cocky head of the School of the Elemental. He was a tall,
sharp featured man with a look on his face that suggested
everything in the continent disgusted him. He was both feared and
respected for his knowledge and power and gave grown men nightmares
when angry.

“
Now, are you going to explain why you’re running through my
hallways?” he asked with an interest that sent chills down my
spine.

“
I needed to find a Master,” I explained. “I had the Demon
Dream.”

A look of
genuine surprise crossed Master Pryce’s face. “Yet you survived.
Here I thought we would have to be cleaning your blood from the
wall.”

“
Your confidence in me is reassuring,” I said
defeated.

“
Don’t get me wrong,” he smirked. “You have your…talents. It’s
your attitude that needs work.”

I stayed
quiet, not taking the bait for starting an argument with him.

“
Well, let me double check then,” he said as he stared at me.
I could feel his mind probing mine then suddenly stop.
“Congratulations are in order then. Have you considered what School
you will go into?”

“
Not quite,” I said. “I’m not good enough in
anything.”

“
I wouldn’t say that,” he said and I cringed, waiting for the
rest of it. “You have a talent for being sent into my
office.”

It wasn’t as
bad as I thought it would be but that didn’t mean I wanted to keep
hanging around.

“
Have you considered Demonology?” Master Pryce asked. “Not
even Master Gerth can cover his whole body in scales with Harden
Skin. That’s a useful talent.”

“
Aside from everyone calling me ‘Lizard’, it hasn’t been
useful to me,” I said.

“
Children being children,” he said with a dismissive wave.
“When you are facing a Mage in a real fight, you will learn to
appreciate it for what it is. I could really use someone like you
in my School.”

“
I’ve never been good at attack spells,” I said hoping this
conversation ends soon.

“
You could always be Silenced,” he offered with a
smile.

“
No, thanks,” I answered.

“
Suit yourself,” he shrugged. “The other Masters and I will
summon you for your Coming of Age Ceremony at Nightfall. You are
excused from classes for the day but try not to get into trouble. I
wouldn’t want to have to discipline you on your last day as an
Apprentice.”

His smiled
said otherwise and I turned to get as far away as possible from
him. This would be the perfect time to hide from everybody in the
library for the next ten hours. With today being my last day, the
others will be looking to give me a ‘going away present’. I cringed
at the possibilities as my mind played tricks on me.

When I was far
enough away from Master Pryce, I slowed down and walked at more
leisurely pace. With classes in session, I could enjoy the empty
hallways and feel the magic being used in each class. The hum of
the energy was strong even through the closed doors.

I arrived at
the steps and begun my descent to my favourite library. It was the
library on the fourth floor and held the most books on history and
tales of Mages of old. It also happened to be the library that was
the most open should I need to make an escape. I left the stairs
and nearly ran through the open archway to my sanctuary.

“
Andy!” the librarian called out with a huge grin when I
entered.

“
Shhh, Tom,” I whispered.

“
Are they following you?” he asked worried.

“
No, but I don’t want them to know I’m here,” I
answered.

“
Wait, shouldn’t you be in class?” he asked scratching his
head. “Yes, it’s too early. You’re supposed to be in
class.”

“
It’s ok, Tom, Master Pryce said I didn’t have to go to
classes today,” I said trying to calm him down.

“
I don’t like Master Pryce,” he said bluntly. “But if he said
so, then okay.”

Tom was a
member of The Silenced, a group of ex-mages who were found guilty
of a crime and had the magic stripped from them. During the
process, their minds tend to snap from the stress and pressure and
they become simple minded slaves for the Order. The Masters use
them as a warning to the Apprentices and Mages that magic should be
used carefully.

“
I brought back the book I borrowed,” I said handing him the
alchemy book.

He smiled as
he took it. “Did you like it?”

“
It was okay, just a lot of healing potions,” I answered. “If
I ever need a healing potion, I’ll come back for it. I want
something that talks more about the properties of plants in
Alchemy.”

“
I like plants,” Tom smiled.

“
You have the best plants in the whole Tower,” I said
motioning to his collection of potted plants around the
library.

“
Not the whole Tower,” he said bashfully, looking at his
feet.

“
The whole Tower,” I repeated.

Without
looking up, he smiled, grabbed a watering can and started to water
a large leafy plant behind him. It is sad to see someone who used
to be a Mage reduced to such a simple being. I have no clue what
his crime was and nobody will even speak of it but watching him hum
softly as he watered the plants around the library, it couldn’t
have been that bad.

I crossed the
large room to the section on plant life and browsed the titles. I
was looking for a specific plant, something that Tom called a Dalen
Flower. The other day he showed me the deep purple flower with
large petals and told me he had kept it hidden so nobody can find
it. When I asked where he got it, he just said it belonged to him
and that it’s dangerous. I made it my mission to figure out what it
was just in case Tom accidentally hurt himself with it.