Warlock Apprentice

Angor did not tell them any details about Jon, about Mara, about Sunders and Greya. He kept them as secret.

He said a lot, but his words sounded as if Angor avoided a lot of questions.

Sailum was an inexperienced boy so he did not notice anything wrong. Instead, he felt closer to Angor because Angor shared a similar life to him. Nausica on the other hand, as the former leader of the Blackberry Waters and someone extremely cunning, she easily realized Angor’s unwillingness to answer. Still, she did not point it out. This was always how she treated people.

They developed a closer relationship after the talks. After chatting something about their future plans, they prepared to call it an end.

Before leaving, Nausica turned back and spoke to Angor, “That was fun. I almost forgot why I came here.”

“Why you came?”

“Oh, nothing biggie. I wanted to ask about the last night. It’s totally fine if you don’t want to talk about it.”

“Last night? What happened?” Angor was puzzled. He slept well on the cloud whale, nothing special happened… Well except one.

“You mean Ebony?” asked Angor.

The only thing Angor could remember was getting into a small conflict with Ebony. However, Ebony was forced back into his tent by Nausica before they could start yelling.

“That disappointment of mine? Nah. In the early morning, why were there a bunch of light spots like fireflies in your tent?”

Light spots like fireflies? My tent? Early morning?

Angor had no idea what she was talking about. He went to sleep after returning to his tent and should be still sleeping in the early morning.

“Light spots? I don’t know. I slept early and didn’t wake up until the next morning.”

Seeing how Angor was puzzled for real, Nausica was a bit stumped as well. Was she seeing things? Could not be. She noticed the incident because she could not sleep during the night and wanted to smoke. That was when she found her lighter giving out an eerie blue flame instead of a bright yellow one. While she was trying to see what was wrong, she saw those light spots appearing inside Angor’s tent.

Angor did not shut his curtain during the night, so Nausica clearly saw countless light dots flying in there. She was surprised and wanted to ask Angor about it, but then she thought Angor was becoming an apprentice. Maybe he was trying out some kind of spells, so she decided not to bother him.

Also, she thought her eyes were deceiving herself when she saw Angor floating in the air.

She could not hold back her curiosity, so she came to ask about it. She would not push for an answer if Angor did not want to talk.

But… Angor did not know?

Nausica simply let it go. The wizarding world was full of strange stuff. There was no need to dig into everything.

Nausica left. Angor returned to his own room as well.

He was still thinking about Nausica’s question. Nausica saw light spots in his tent? For real?

Nausica could not possibly lie to him like this.

“Countless light dots… Could it be Sunders monitoring me?” As someone who read a lot of books but without much experience, Angor thought about the worst possible thing his teacher could do to him.

“Tweet…” Toby woke up from its tiny wooden bed.

Toby stretched its wings, tidied up its clothes with its beak, and flew onto the desk in a high spirit. There were some dried fish slices, prepared by Butler Goode.

“Sleep and eat. Lucky you,” Angor teased.

Toby tilted its head over its meal, “rolled” its eyes, and dug in again.

“Little bastard,” Angor crackled. Then he thought about Nausica’s question again. He looked at Toby enjoying its meal and got an idea.

He moved a small chair over, sat in front of the table, rested his head on an arm and stroke Toby’s feathers with the other hand.

Toby disregarded the harassment from its new master.

“Hey little Toby, tell me. Did you see anything strange yesterday morning? Like some light spots?” Angor was not expecting an answer at all. He only wanted some fun interaction with the bird.

Toby turned around and tweeted.

Being with Toby for a while, Angor could not read “bird language”, but he could still make out the meanings of several basic tones.

“You really saw those light spots?” Angor was shocked.

Toby nodded rapidly, “Tweet tweet tweet.”

“So Nausica was right. But where did they come from? What did they do? Was Sunders really monitoring me?” Angor spoke to himself.

Hearing this, Toby flew onto Angor’s shoulder.

Under Angor’s puzzled stare, Toby moved its talons and stepped towards Angor’s exposed clavicle along his shoulder.

Next, it picked up a thin, silver chain using its beak.

Angor lifted the chain from his shirt and revealed a pendant connected to it. The netted metal structure contained a transparent glaze sphere, the Alien Eye.

Toby hovered beside the Alien Eye, tapped at the object with its beak and returned to the table.

“You mean… the light spots came from the Alien Eye?” Angor was shocked.

Toby rolled its eyes and shook head. It tweeted and waved around its wings drastically. Angor paused for a while and tried, “The Alien Eye absorbed the spots?”

Toby nodded this time, “Tweet!”

“But how?! This is amazing…” Angor clearly remembered Jon’s words. The Alien Eye lost its power after being brought here from the Earth. It was now an ordinary glaze sphere.

The Alien Eye was a curious object, that was for sure. Otherwise, it would not have brought Jon here. Still, it had remained ordinary for many years, so why would something happen now?

One needed a cause for a stable object to suddenly go over changes. For example, a certain process was required to make graphite into diamond. It would not happen on its own.

Angor believed that there was a reason for the Alien Eye to change like that.

But what reason?

Generally speaking, he could consider time or space. Time was unlikely since the Alien Eye stayed that way for all these years and could not possibly change just because of time. Unlikely, but not impossible. As for space… it could be space. A change in location would bring many different elements such as a different magnetic field, temperature and so on. Angor could only take guesses though. He could not determine anything.

There were also micro causes that could be interpreted using chemistry, physics or Occult knowledge from the wizarding world. This was most likely caused by such a reason, but it would be hard to explain.

Before making such assumptions, however, maybe it was best for Angor to find out if anything particular happened last night.