The Lost Scholar

CHAPTER: 09

THE TEMPERANCE

After the encounter with Yuri and the Tomb of the fallen king, Gabriel sat in the chair of Roy’s Atelier. Now, after the revelation, the child felt guilty for saying nasty things behind his father’s back. He should use that energy to better use. “What do we have?” Gabriel asked looking intently at his temporary guardian.

“Nothing, so far your mother is guilty,” Roy explained as he prepared himself a concoction of dry liquor using various herbs and many liquid extracts.

“We have previous evidence of Amelia’s witch craft. We can use her to save mother.”

“I think you are failing to see the bigger picture… Not surprised since you are very young.” Roy took a big swig at the drink wrinkling his nose at the intense taste.

“What are you getting at?” Gabriel asked.

“Have you not notice how this all went down? Think about it for a second. Let’s recap.” Roy slammed the glass on the table and pushed his glasses back and stared at the eager child. Gabriel nodded and sat tightly on the bed biting his lower lip.

“While there is a possibility that child can do such acts, there is no motive yet. All we have is hersey, we need literal proof.”

“Now that you mention it, according to Amelia’s father, he told me the church demanded to see her diary. I assumed it was because of evidence but…”

“Let’s get that diary,” Roy simply said as he dressed up in his clean clothes. Gabriel stared in disbelief. “What?”

“There has to be something important in it that the church needs it,” Roy answered as he stored a few things into his satchel.

Gabriel jumped out of the bed and grabbed the cleric’s arm.“...She was blind. How can she write?” Roy looked back at the child and cocked his head in curiosity. “How do you know she was blind?” He asked. He then stared at the door and pondered for a few seconds before he spoke up again, “now I really want to go get that diary.”

“No! Are you insane?”

“Do you want to help your mother or do you want to be an orphan?” Roy spat in a harsh tone. How ironic, his voice was thick but he could hear it all day but the way he spoke this time hurt Gabriel, it was a knife to his heart. How dare he speak of his strong mother as if she was doomed no matter what he tried. He stayed quiet and watched Roy’s face contour into realization. “I’m sorry, that was out of line…” he said in a soft purr, he legitimately regrets what he said.

“It was…” Gabriel looked back and said in a serious tone, “but you are right. How are we going to do this?”

“Simple,” his lips tugged into a smirk, “we start with your first lesson.”

“My first lesson…?”

“You wanted me to teach you how to fight witches back, right? I will show you the basic of the basic, thermal vision.”

“What is thermal vision?” Gabriel asked and Roy placed a hand over his chest, the child blushed intensely and his heart sped up. “We humans have a natural body heat that gets warmer at the very core. The most visible of examples is,” he moved his hand away and held his palm open close enough for the boy to see a burst of hot blue and orange ribbons, “an open flame.”

“Thi-…What color is the core? Does it change?”

“Yes, it does; in fact, it’s what you would normally call an aura.”

“Aura…?”

“An aura is the human core powered by an emotion. If you were cowering in fear and you ran that will reflect and the ones with thermal vision can know exactly how you feel and use it against you.”

“…What is my aura?”

“It is a cluster fuck of rainbows every time you talk.” Roy grabbed the boy's hand with his free hand and guided him outside into the frigid snow. “Thermal or aura vision is very simple to understand and see. Some don’t see auras but they can feel or even hear them.”

“Is it possible to have all three senses?”

“If there is, I would love to meet the person who can. I know that you can see auras.”

“How can you tell?”

“You asked me what did black meant. The hardest to detect is soot. Those using soot auras, to a beginner reading auras, can’t see the real aura color spectrum. That took me a long time to learn and distinguish it.” He chuckled before he continued, “you are a natural, kid.”

Gabriel felt a sense of pride when Roy praised him. Roy laughed harder; his voice will kill him if he continued this. “Your aura keeps changing, you need to control your emotions,” Roy said.

“It’s hard when someone like you is being so nice to me!” Gabriel shouted.

“All right,” Roy gathered his composure and stared at Gabriel, “What colors do you see in me?” Gabriel stared at his glorious god like body and watched the colors dance off his splendid skin, “Yellow. Orange—Pink? I—I can’t tell…”

“Good. Some auras are mixed with other colors, very hard to distinguish right of the bat. Now, what colors do you see?” His face had the same soft and assertive expression but the colors shifted in tones, “Gray. Gold—wait! Platinum! Your aura is Platinum—huh?” his aura didn’t emit any color or any type of light.

“Can you find me in the dark?” Roy’s entire being faded into the darkness. Gabriel’s bottom jaw, because it was locked with his skull, didn’t hit the snowy ground. “How the hell did he do that!?” he thought to himself since he failed to speak. He gulped and proceeded to run after Roy and find him.

He couldn’t hear a thing; no birds, no branches breaking, nothing. Roy was moving with the grace of the wind; fast and silent. Gabriel noticed a glint of light at the distance, “platinum,” Gabriel whispered with a hint of excitement. He made a mad dash, jumping overgrown roots and blocks of snow to reach his goal.

His coat was close to his fingertips and as he touched the fine leather, the light giving life to it vanished and it fell to the ground. “Where--?” Gabriel’s breath hitched when he felt a hand on his shoulders and acidic whisper rushed in his ear, “Don’t be fooled… Aura is the evidence of life. At times, the aura can resonate for a period before fading.”

Gabriel turned and nothing was there. “R-Roy!” he shouted looking around feeling vulnerable. Something about the trees gave him a sense they were people as if the rumors he heard around town were true. He noticed something strange; some trees had auras. Some were black and one was platinum. “I found you!” He now understood and ran with full force and dropped kick the tree only to feel horrible pain at the impact and consoling his pain as he lay on the ground whining. He heard a heavy sigh and Roy walked from behind the tree staring at Gabriel with sheer disappointment, “I think you are ready for my plan… Along as you don’t do stupid stuff like that.”

“I…I won’t…” Gabriel rubbed his aching feet before he stood on them.

“Now for you next lesson.’’

“O-okay…” The child nodded nervously the moment Roy held out his book of stories. “This book contains the necessary instructions to rid of corrupted humans. Corrupted humans…” Roy held out a page of monsters with hollow eyes and black mist for Gabriel to see. “Or any other vessel containing life, create this fire to continue, but in special occasions it is the brain impregnated with parasites or acid.”

“That is gross!”

“One can tell if they are no longer with us when the heat is constant. A lively vessel can create a light spectrum of colors per minute. In your case, it is per second.”

“Animals can do this too?”

“Of course.” Roy reached into his pocket and hold a flower in his open palm. The swirls of colors were mesmerizing to Gabriel’s eyes. “It is simple to destroy the light inside of life. All it takes is brute force…” He closed his hand into a tight fist and the light dispersed into the sky. Upon opening his hand again, the flower’s state was obvious, but it hurt Gabriel in a strange way he can’t seem to understand. “We are all meant to die…” Roy whispered as he held Gabriel’s hands open and placed the wilted flower in his tiny palms. “One thing I was okay with when I served the church, was to eradicate those that deemed dangerous. Some do not understand because only we see all the sides no one else can. We expose ourselves to danger for the sake of salvation.” Roy showed none remorse, but his icy blue eyes begged to differ and so did his aura. “Yes, I have done it before. But we are the monsters that keep eden cleansed from evil… Whatever you believed, it is yours alone.” Gabriel nodded after a lingering silence. “The church has trained us to kill and I live by my commandments till my heart stops.”

“Make no mistake… The act of death is one that will burn your hands even after life. Killing should never be an alternative till it is the only one. Do you understand me…?” The cleromancer’s voice was hoarse as he spoke.

“You believe in Crow but you also believe in Jehova?”

“...I stopped praying to him the moment someone else answered. I want you to understand that this world is not so black and white as many paint it to be… Many of us are born into strange circumstances no one dreamed of it occurring. That no god outside of earth or inside are in total control of our actions... I want you to promise me, that if you have that courage and impulse to kill, it is because it was your only alternative to save someone’s or your life.” Now Gabriel understands Roy’s actions the night before and now, thanks to the revelation of his parents origin, he can understand his mother’s sacrificial acts of a life for a life, and his father’s obligation to the world. How it all seemed heavy and weightless all at once.

Gabriel wasn’t an idiot. He knew why Roy brought the subject up, there will be a moment in his life where death is certain and he will have to choose.

“Death can change a man, weather the weight of his actions are to much for him to bare or he will lose sight of himself in the bloodbath. Don’t make the same mistake of those souls who have sinned for the sake of following orders… Never make my mistake. Do you understand…?” The cleromancer placed a gentle palm over the apprentice's heart. Gabriel stared at before reaching Roy’s pinky finger with his own. Once coiling they sparked just as the first promise that he intended to keep. "It is a sin for a reason..."

“I promise… If you tell me why you left the church.” Roy held his gaze steady, but it slowly crumbled under the eyes of the Amesthyn. “When you are older… and have seen your share of the sludge and disgust filling this world, I will tell you.” Gabriel tightened his pinky’s grip and nodded.