Chương 15: Ascension Day

Aaron grabbed his coat and followed Thomas out of the hospital. Thomas' white tunic was stained and battered, with evidence of sweat and dirt under his arms as if he hadn't changed in a few days. He dragged his feet as he walked and his posture was slumped. It wasn't befitting for a noble, but then again, he looked exhausted. The pair walked in an uncomfortable silence for an hour though the busy city.

Crackles and booms echoed through the torchlit streets as the library mages put on a bold colourful display of lights in the sky. The pair approached the Sacred Library. They weaved through the tightly packed crowd in the plaza. There must have been thousands of people there for the ascension ceremony. Every few paces, Aaron saw a Library Keeper dressed in a gold cloak to symbolize their devotion to the god of knowledge.

These were Gifted allegedly selected by Mnemo himself as his mortal acolytes and blessed with untold secrets of magic. They were scanning through the crowd looking for those with souls of great potential to be designated as gifted and assigned a tome and master. Aaron kept his head down and hoped they wouldn't be able to sense his Necromancy.

"This ceremony symbolises what is wrong with society," Thomas said, leaning close to Aaron. He was so close, he could feel his breath on his ear.

"It makes for a battle of us versus them, gifted and ungifted."

"That's not true, they choose those with the most potential in their soul so their power can be cultivated and work to benefit everyone."

"Do you see any of these library keepers dressed in rags, or toes poking through their shoes?" It's a club. Those with power, and those without." Thomas continued. Aaron frowned and shook his head, "This is the way it has to be. We would never have beaten the dragon if we didn't train our best and strongest. It's their purpose!"

"Purpose!" Thomas scoffed.

"There is no purpose. Our soul is what we make of it in this life. WE should get to choose."

"I was born to heal," Aaron argued.

"This is my destiny and what my soul was destined to do and that's why I was chosen." Aaron remembered he wasn't a healer anymore. Technically. What if the Library Keepers were wrong about his soul all along and he was never meant to heal? He stifled the thought and focused on how he managed to heal Thomas' leg with his new abilities. He could still be a healer if he wanted to be. As the two pushed through the crowd, Aaron got separated from Thomas by a few paces. He followed closely trying to keep up.

After a few minutes, the crowd started to become more sparse. They had cleared the main plaza and were down a side street. The path was smooth and clean under Aaron's feet. They were walking on large polished stone slabs. They looked expensive. On both sides of the street, massive houses were offset from the road with well kept front gardens. On the right, a house had a hedge sculpture shaped like a life sized stag, rearing up on hind legs. The antlers reached up twice as high as Aaron was tall.

After a few minutes of walking, they turned left through a gate between a large eight-foot hedge row. The courtyard had a beautiful marble fountain in the centre of a small pond. There were countless exotic fish swimming through it, none of which Aaron had seen before. Whoever this boss was, they had a lot of money. He followed Thomas down the path, around the fountain and up a few white marble stairs to the main houses. There was a smartly dressed man in front of the door.

He wore a woven white button down shirt and black jacket, black trousers and immaculate clean and polished black leather shoes. Aaron noticed the man exchanging a glance with Thomas before reaching out with his gloved hand and opening one side of the grand double doors into the mansion. Aaron thanked him, but he did not respond. The reception of the house was larger than Aaron's entire home, but open and empty with two doors on each of the three sides.

In the centre, a large marble staircase, big enough for five people to walk side by side, led up and spiralled round to the right to a balcony above. Exotic fresh flowers and extravagant paintings decorated the room. The cost of them all was unfathomable. Although Aaron wasn't stupid enough to think about stealing anything. He was approached by two equally smartly dressed, but shorter men, "arms out by your sides," they commanded. Aaron complied. He put his arms out and the men patted down his arms and pockets.

They must have been looking for weapons. It made sense that a gang boss had a few enemies.

"Can you please inform the boss that we have arrived?" Thomas asked. One of the two men said "Yes, sir" and walked out of a door at the back of the room.

"This way," Thomas gestured. Aaron followed Thomas through the door to the left. The door was made from rich hardwood and stained a beautiful bold dark brown colour with a picture of a blossoming tree expertly etched into it. This room was a bit smaller, but still larger than Aaron's living room. Aaron and Thomas sat on a comfortable upholstered two-seater chair. It was ridiculously comfortable. Stolen novel; please report. There was a giant painting on the wall in front of them.

The frame was golden and finely embellished with intricate patterns. The painting contained a flower. Eight white bulbs hung in a line below a curved stem. It was as if eight closed rose bulbs weighted it over like a fishing rod. Althea's tear was a plant of myth, although anything if Necromancy was real, so could anything. It was said to have the ability to nourish the souls of those who consumed it, accelerating their power. After a few minutes, a man walked in.

"Thomas!" He said smiling as he patted him on the shoulder. He wore several thick gold rings on each hand, some encrusted with lavish looking jewels. This must have been the boss.

"And you must be Aaron, it's so lovely to meet you!" He extended a hand out. Aaron stood up to shake hands with the man. He was of similar height and build to himself, but a fair bit older. He had a thin black beard, expertly trimmed to look sharp and formal. He wore a leather flat cap and thin framed round glasses. He wore an expensive looking black jacket, just like the guards, however he had a luxurious purple trim on the inside.

A silver chain hung from his blazer and fed into what must have been a pocket watch in his top pocket.

"Where are my manners, is this how we treat a guest?" He glared at the guard.

"Go and get some drinks!"

"Are you hungry, my friends?" He asked, smiling at the two of them.

"Let's eat!" He patted them both firmly on the shoulders and marched off through a set of doors at the back of the room. Bamboozled by the eccentric noble, Aaron followed him through a series of finely decorated rooms until they reached a dining room. He had expected a gang boss to be slightly more… disagreeable. There were several braziers around the room roaring away, brightening the room with a warm orange glow.

The light reflected off the silverware and metallic picture frames around the room, glistening onto the ceiling. The table was beautifully crafted out of fine wood, stained and darkened to a glorious bold brown. It was marbled with natural wooden rings. The boss sat at the head of the table and invited Aaron to sit next to him. He pulled up a chair and looked across at the other eleven empty chairs. Thomas sat opposite him.

Like clockwork, staff flooded in through a door at the side of the room with bread, meats, salads, wine and anything you could imagine could be rustled up at a moment's notice.

"Thank you for the hospitality, sir. My name is Aaron. Thomas here tells me you are in need of my skills as a healer?

"No, no, no, no, no!" The man shushed Aaron before he could continue.

"Dinner before business!" He gestured to the wait staff to hurry. They quickly filled their plates with a lavish selection of exotic food. Many of which Aaron had never seen before. It was definitely beyond anything he could afford.

"Eat!" he gestured.

"Please, be my guests. Help yourselves! He reluctantly started to eat the food. It was delicious. The bread was warm, hearty and had a yeasty taste of freshness as if it was just out of an oven. The salads were crisp and delicately balanced with a range of exotic seasoning and the meat was perfectly tender and melted in his mouth.

"Let me introduce myself, my name is Harold Umber. It is a pleasure to host such an esteemed guest." Thomes kept his head down, quiet and uncomfortable.

"Thank you." Aaron said, although he would hardly refer to himself as esteemed.

"No, I should be thanking you for saving my son's leg. I wanted to show my gratitude personally for what you did for us." Thomas was eating with his head down. He looked like he was avoiding eye contact.

"No problem, just doing my job," he said.

"Nonsense, you've got something special about you. You didn't give up on my boy when all of the other healers condemned his foot." Aaron forced out a smile. Harrold seemed kind and grateful, but he couldn't help but think about Thomas' warning.

"You have a beautiful home!"

"Thank you, Aaron. It's been in my family for generations. Family is important, don't you think?"

"Yes sir," Aaron said. The boss let out a hearty chuckle.

"No, none of this sir. Please just call me Harrold." Harrold gestured to his staff to pour him some more wine. A man walked forwards from the corner of the room and topped up the silver goblet in front of him with a fruity smelling red wine.

"Harrold, I appreciate your hospitality, but I'm eager to know why you brought me here. Thomas says that you need my help." Aaron said. Thomas flinched at his name, but carried on eating his food.

"Aaron, don't lie to me. I hate liars." Aaron felt like his heart stopped for a moment, but was relieved when a warm smile returned to Harrold's face.

"I know you're afraid of me. It's completely understandable. You don't want to be associated with someone of my reputation and you think my line of work is…" He paused.

"Unsavory." Harrold looked at Aaron as if inviting him to question him or respond. The silence in the room could have been shattered by a pin dropping at that moment.

"I don't care what my patients do for a living. My job is to help the sick and that's all that matters. I don't make judgments about who deserves help and who doesn't."

"So you think we would be less deserving?" The man asked. Aaron's face dropped. He felt stupid for phrasing it that way. Choose your words carefully, Aaron, he said to himself.

"I'm just messing with you. My business is my own, I don't expect you to get wrapped up in anything or get your hands dirty. I just want to offer you a simple deal, cash for healing!"

"I won't accept cash." Aaron said. If it was a transaction, Harrold wouldn't owe him anything and what he really wanted was to guarantee his and Tim's safety. Harrold swirled his goblet around and frowned as he inspected it.

"So you won't help me, huh. You won't even hear me out?" Aaron noticed Thomas looked up at him from across the table. He was staring intensely and raising his eyebrows. Aaron sensed it was a warning.

"I'm going to be honest with you here, and I mean no disrespect," Aaron said.

"Good, I can respect a bit of honesty."

"I'm scared that I'm going to get in too deep with something I want no part of. I'm going to need some kind of guarantee for my safety and that of my family." Harold sat back in the chair, and crossed one leg over the other. He drummed his fingers on the table.

"Aaron, I'm going to be honest with you as well. If I was going to extort you for your help, I wouldn't be inviting you to my house and eating with you at my table. I don't like to work that way. I'm a fair man and I will be fair with you. That, I give you my word." Aaron wasn't sure if he could take him at his word. Thomas told him that he would respect a blood debt more than a financial transaction. He suspected this was the best guarantee he was going to get. And what choice did he have?

"I can help you, Aaron." He continued, "there are secrets in these walls not even the Sacred Library himself contains. Let's make it as simple as possible. I tell you what I want, you tell me what you want. We strike a deal, it's fair for everyone and we all go home happy." Thomas was still staring across the table at Aaron. The look in his eyes spoke a thousand words. He was crying out for Aaron to agree. Aaron's heart raced at the thought of a library full of secrets.

What if he could find out more about his power? Maybe there was something that could help him with Tim's curse.

"Tell me what you need me to do."