~The Last Theurgist~
Part 1: Eyes of Gold
Prologue
The two train passengers looked ordinary enough- a girl, small and possessing a circular face, and a boy, tall and rigid, Barely anyone threw them second looks despite their ages- no more than sixteen. No one knew who they really were.
The boy looked to the girl, whose short blonde hair served as a veil to protect her moist blue eyes.
He reached out a hand, as if to comfort her, but then switched the action to resting his hand in his lap. "What's wrong?" he asked.
The girl flinched, as if bugs had begun to encircle her. "Jacob, you know what's wrong," she said in a voice that was clearly trying to be intimidating, but wasn't succeeding at all.
Jacob sighed, looking away from her as reluctant as someone forcing themselves to look away form a dying loved one.
"Valdus," he whispered, still frozen at what had happened.
She flinched once more.
Jacob turned back to her again. He had to provide her with some means of comfort- he owed it to her now that he had brought up that name.
"Everything will be fine," Jacob tried. "We know full well that Grace is okay and in one piece, and I don't think Ian and Nick would have easily gone down without-"
Finally she looked up. "And we have no means of contacting them now that we're here, on... on Earth. The place with no magic-"
"Nuh-uh-uh," Jacob's forefinger waved back and forth in a scolding manner, but the impish smile on his face broke it all. "Remember just why we're here."
The girl's lips tugged upwards to allow a small smile, but folded into a frown once more before the smile could be completed.
"True, but this is just one person out of seven billion. Earth is by far the most populated world in the Spiral. How're we supposed to find this person?"
Her frown was contagious- Jacob's grin faded as well when the train shuddered to a stop. Jacob leaned to get a closer look as passengers trotted out- a small bench with some shrubbery socializing with it, completed by the starless curtain of night.
No, this didn't look like their stop. But it did look like it was coming close.
"Well, when did you get so pessimistic?" His voice was dripping with disbelief. "Not a few days ago you were all like, I'm Alyssa Thunderslash and nothing can beat me! I found it annoying at first, but now I kinda miss it-"
"Yes," Alyssa cut off sharply. "And I miss Valdus before he... you know. I miss the Spiral, the Spiral that wasn't plunged into blackness. I miss Angie..."
From there on out Alyssa couldn't continue. Angela Thunderslash... she remembered when Angie had been so young, she remembered when she had been sorted as the first necromancer in the Thunderslash family for generations, and she had told her that story, The Necromancer's Matter. It had provided Angie with such a comfort, always remembering Destiny Seagem, Vladimir Thorn, Neela Waterpetal and many more characters.
That had provided Angie the strength to grow up into Angela in later years. Angela had thrived in her studies even after her teacher, Malistaire Drake, had ripped out the Death School just two weeks after she discovered her school. She learned quickly, and within a matter of time had matched the master diviner easily at an adept rank.
To put it simply, Angela had surpassed Alyssa. Which was the bad part.
Angela had got it into her head that she could find her old teacher, battle and surpass him easily, and bring him back to Ravenwood without much trouble.
She wasn't seen since.
Angela's disappearance was what motivated Alyssa to begin her own quest- collect a good amount of people, find Angie and defeat Malistaire Drake if she had to. As a result, she had met Ian and Nick, Grace and Jacob, and her childhood friend Valdus joined fairly quickly-
They were close. They found the location of the former Death teacher, at the very top of Dragonspyre. In the process when encountering a large amount of helephants, Ian, Nick and Grace had all sacrificed themselves so she, Jacob and Valdus could move on and confront Malistaire on Angie's disappearance.
These sacrifices were, in the end, all for nothing. At the last moment everything had gone so wrong and so suddenly. As a result, most of the worlds in the Spiral were plunged into darkness, save Earth.
And in the end, Angela was nowhere to be found.
"She's dead, isn't she?" Alyssa whispered. She hoped that by saying it that it would make her stronger somehow and force her to accept the truth- all it did was make her heart quiver even more.
"You don't know that," Jacob said in a small voice.
He was just saying that to comfort her. As if comfort made a difference on Angela's well-being.
"You never met her." The words stung into Jacob much more harshly than Alyssa intended. "You don't know the kind of things she would get herself into. It's time for me to face the truth- I'll never see her again!"
Despite how fierce the words were, Jacob still felt a need to reassure her. He genuinely did believe that her little sister was out there, somewhere.
"Well, dead or not, we'll find her." Jacob's golden eyes locked with Alyssa's pained blue ones. "Angela Thunderslash will be found, along with the theurgist."
He refused to let go even when Alyssa looked away.
"Yeah... Angie... and that theurgist." Alyssa inhaled deeply, beginning to stabilize herself. "Speaking of the theurgist, are we there yet?"
"Close," Jacob said. "After finding and training this person, we'll only have a few more to go."
"Myth, Star, Death and Sun," Alyssa agreed. "We'll have them all after that."
"The strongest of each school," Jacob continued. "Only those at the peak of their abilities will have the power to restore the Spiral."
Alyssa nodded. "It's really too bad, what happened to all of the theurgists."
"I know." Jacob's voice shrunk. "More than 'too bad'- the entire Life School... extinct..."
She grimaced, as if she were walking slowly toward a pit full of acid. "I just... always wonder... what did the Life School do to deserve that?"
Jacob shook his head sadly. "For all we know, nothing. It could have just been sheer cruelty."
"I don't think that's it," Alyssa ventured. "He didn't exterminate any other School."
"That we know of."
Alyssa didn't respond. She stared at the sights around them plainly. "At least there's one he missed- because this other theurgist is in a world without magic."
"I don't think he ever would have guessed," Jacob agreed. "Thank Bartleby we have Grace."
"I also wonder... again, how will we even find the theurgist? We don't even know that person's gender. We only know the location-"
"Los Angeles, California," Jacob finished.
Alyssa lightly closed her eyes. Los Angeles... why here, of all places? It was one of the most populated cities in the country, according to Grace. Finding the theurgist in here would be like trying to find a needle in a haystack.
"...How will we know?" Alyssa opened her eyes again.
For the longest time, Jacob was silent, unsure of what to say. He didn't show it, but he had just as many doubts as Alyssa. But he couldn't show that.
"I suppose we'll just know," Jacob tried to make his voice sound unconcerned.
The answer was good enough for Alyssa. She finally smiled weakly and gave a faint nod of her head. Jacob's words in mind, she turned to look aimlessly out of one of the train windows.
Earth.. it was so unfamiliar to her, yet amazing in ways she wouldn't have dared to imagine. Brilliant lights winked out of buildings, lifelike pictures were used for advertisements and there seemed to be more people walking around here than the entire population of Wizard City.
The train pulled to a stop once more. Alyssa let her muscles relax, barely realizing Jacob standing up and gesturing for her to get up. This allowed her a bit of comfort, telling her that she'd find the last theurgist.
Whoever that was.
A/N: And that, my friends, is the prologue of the Last Theurgist. Yaaaaayz! *Confetti*
Anyways. Once again, this is a loose sequel to The Necromancer's Matter. Reading TNM, while I want you to do it as an author who wants her stories to be read, is NOT a prerequisite. There will be a few references to it here or there that you won't be able to catch if you don't read it, but you shall surely be able to survive. Plus it's more than 100,000 words long, so. . . yeah, I would kind of understand if you didn't have time to read it. :P
Some of you may notice that TNM, on this site, is still ongoing and yet here is the companion. That's because on other sites, TNM is done. And it's almost done on here. And I was very anxious to finally get this out. Aaaaaaand I wanted to post something on the first day of 2013. So why the crap not?
So- um- yeah. Peace. Hope you enjoyed this, and that you like what is to come!
~WritingBookworm