The Hourglass!

Looking down at the dusty page under warm lamplight on a cold and starry night, I got the chills.

I knew that symbol. I would know it if I saw a baby draw it into dry sand with a spindly stick on a dry windy day. I would know it anywhere, because the most terrifying man I have ever met in this world (or any other) wore it round his neck.

The Wizard!

…Or, the Sorcerer now, if I’m to be more accurate, with my since updated grasp of Cali.

What it appeared to be is the symbol of the Albert dynasty, meant to represent the mana affinity of their house and bloodline, and a very special one it is indeed, the affinity of Spacetime.

Calming down, I realised I had actually missed some of the clues for this earlier. The books I read on mana had mentioned how only one magical bloodline used Spacetime magic and that through their influence and their magic power established it as its own strata of mana.

The Wiza- I mean the Sorcer- Oh Fuck It! The Wizard had definitely used spacetime magic to summon me here, he said so himself. He also talked about his clan, that he was adopted into it or something, how he was going to become a Supreme…

…wait.

A Supreme! That old sick fuck might be a Supreme now!

With this new wave of panic I start skimming through the pages about the Albert House.

“...established 4600 years ago… founded by Albert Hourglass… smallest out of all the dynasties but still very powerful… now currently ruled by the Supreme Archam…” I mutter as I read.

Wait!

Currently?!

I flip to the front of the book to see the publication date.

Damn it!

It’s over a hundred years old. If that sick bastard did become a Supreme it would have been well after this book had been published.

Okay… Okay. Let’s just take a moment. Okay

I’ve calmed down a bit now after my little freakout but I’m still unsteady and shaky. Unfortunately, I know I won’t find any more answers in this book. My questions, it seems, will have to wait until tomorrow when I can look through the rest of the catalogue and also ask Kara what she knows.

So, after reading a little further to try and take my mind off my new discovery as best I could, I finally felt my fatigue catch up with me and so embraced my tiredness and decided to settle into bed to get some much needed rest.

But even as I drifted off to sleep that hourglass pendant still swung in front of my eyes, just as it had many years ago, still inspiring a dark and hopeless dread in the pit of my stomach.

I hope she’s still feeling chatty. Kara’s going to have to answer some more questions for me tomorrow if I want to get any peace of mind.

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“Ask me again at the end of the day, you’ve got work to do, remember!”

With that reprimand I left Kara alone again with her books and her desk and went off to do my chores. It seemed that with the introspection that comes with every new day Kara had realised when she woke up this morning that she had let me spend the whole day yesterday sitting around doing nothing, only chatting with her and sampling some very enjoyable tea and biscuits. This went very much against her strict and proper outlook and so it seemed she planned to rectify her previous mistake yesterday thoroughly today, and have me work and work and work.

It was only after I did my especially assigned heavy workload to Kara’s especially demanding standard at the end of day that I could finally ask her some of my questions, only at the end to find myself unsatisfied and still laboured with anxieties.

From what Kara knew it seemed that she did remember a Supreme emerging around the time when she was a young girl, and she particularly remembered because the Sorcerer in question has a special connection with this city in fact. This special connection is actually an involvement with the settlement of this island and the foundation of this city, so she said at least as I tried to ask my questions without arousing too many suspicions.

Apparently, the only reason this island was even settled to begin with, instead of some other more easy to settle islands that were also on the way between the Homeland and the new continent, was that further inland of this island there is a vein of some sort of special stone that contains spacetime qualities.

The Spacetime affinity is inordinately rare and likewise resources that involve it are equally so. As a result, the Hourglass kingdom established an outpost here, a “Tower”, where they could collect the stone that they mined and then transport it back to their capital. This tower and the powerful sorcerer residing within thereby also provided a measure of safety against magical beasts for the island and those who lived here, which of course encouraged the development of the city of Mellawin.

When she was a girl Kara remembered a great amount of fanfare when the Sorcerer in question became a Supreme, returning home to his kingdom in triumph and becoming a legend and point of pride for the citizens of Mellawin, for years after bragging about it to those who passed through the town that it was the birthplace of a Supreme.

This of course meant nothing to me but in fact actually made me feel a bit chuffed at the fact that that sick bastard was basically the hero of this town, my home and where I had lived most of my life by now.

I tried to get more information out of Kara but that was all she really remembered unfortunately, not even knowing his name or what had happened to him. However she did mention that there probably was a good record of him at the Main City Branch and if I was really interested I could go and check it out myself, or wait until the new round of updated books came in but even she admitted that will probably happen after she was well and truly in the grave.

After this conversation, I once again returned to my room to fall into bed, ready for another night filled with worry. While doing so I contemplated what I had learned today and whether I should follow up with Kara’s suggestion to visit the main branch.

It was only after some nervous internal struggling and weighing of options that I decided to forget about the whole thing and let sleeping dogs lie.

What had happened to me had happened a century ago and I had put the pain of it behind me, and I had no energy or interest to revisit it all again when I could basically do nothing about it all anyway.

Filled with a new sense of calm and resolution, I finally managed once again to fall into the comforting embrace of my mattress and blankets, soon slipping off into sleep.

***************************************************************************************************************

After this little hiccup, time passed.

I continued to read through the Politics section to further my understanding of the magical kingdoms as well as the major figures and factions within the Coalition. I naturally consulted with Kara from time to time to check and see whether she knew if what I was reading was actually how it really was of course also.

Soon enough though, I tired of the long winded biographies and superfluous essays and once again decided to switch up my learning focus into a new area.

With no real struggle I decided to go with Geography, because although there were a great many maps, I only really needed to have a look at the current world map of Calzyn to get a good enough grasp of things.

Overall, as I looked down at a map of the Homeland Continent and examined it I couldn’t help but think it kind of looked like a rough looking stretched out Pac Man… with chicken pox.

The continent was mostly circular and opened up with a sort of mouth on the eastern side for an enclosed sea. This sea also as it just so happened contained an island that could easily be taken for a small pellet the continent was about to eat up.

This island was surprisingly enough Kanmor, the land of the Koi clan, the clan of Spiritualists. The island was round and simple looking enough with the exception of the big red patch in the middle of the island.

This red patch was actually on the Pac Man continent as well, but in a much larger amount, 103 spots to be exact.

These areas, it seemed, were the Blessed lands and altogether they took up about a quarter to maybe a third of all the land area in the Homeland, dotted all throughout it.

I had read about it before, but seeing the scope of it I could actually understand why no Blessed Lands were currently being conquered and the Coalition had to expand into the new continent instead if they wanted to keep their society running as it always had.

To put it simply, the borders were just too massive.

The forces of the Martial Association may be holding the line now but I had read and understood enough that the beasts that occupy these lands are very strong, and if the defence meeting them isn’t strong enough to match, they will break out and ravage the human territories as they see fit. To move resources to focus on even one Blessed Land would break this delicate balance and sentence millions, maybe even billions of people to their deaths.

Looking at the map I also examined a few other areas of interest. Meda, humanity’s birthplace. Zhorrland, the realm of the Balelight kingdom and right next door Oa, the second blessed land conquered by the people of Calzyn and the capital and headquarters of the Coalition.

I also couldn’t help myself and looked across the map until I found the Hourglass kingdom, nestled in at the top of the map in the Homeland continents northeast.

Seeing all of this I could begin to put shapes and areas to the names of places I had read about and the people and forces that I knew occupied them. It was all very enlightening and reassuring for me, seeing how everything I had learned about the world was all being laid out in front of me, giving validation to my education and alleviating some of my anxiety about the wider world. It all made me feel pretty excited.

Soon enough however, I grew bored of it.

There’s only so long you can look at a map until you’ve seen everything you need to see, you know?

Afterwards, I glanced through a few other maps. Oa, Mellawin and the rest of the island, what had been drawn and distributed about the new continent so far, but soon enough I got sick of geography and decided to move on again.

To General Knowledge, the biggest section by far.

And also the most diverse. The topics and books listed down were expansive and detailed to a fault. They included common topics such as weather, astronomy and musical theory and expanded out into medicine, metallurgy and much much more.

So, much like I had done for almost five years by this point, I started taking books down off the shelves every once and while and brought them up to my room to read in my spare time. When I finished with them, I brought them back downstairs and exchanged them with some new ones, and then repeated the cycle over again and again.

In the inbetween I worked, talked to Kara and also started planning out my next steps for when I would leave the side branch, a place where I had grown comfortable and found a home for myself for the past few years, but I knew it could not last.

And just like that… my life continued.