answer_key

by:

roguemariel

Warning: somewhat violent minor character death
Evil Sorcerer School

Evil Sorcerer School

In celebration of Prince Akira’s birth, Camelot was hosting a go tournament. All the best go players in the land were coming, along with several of the best go players from other lands. King Koyo was very excited about the birth of his son and heir, and felt that go was the best way to celebrate,

After all, few things in life, to King Koyo’s way of thinking, were better than go.

The tournament was going well. King Koyo watched the players, quietly murmuring to Queen Akiko, telling her who he thought would win. Queen Akiko, not being as interested in go as her husband, smiled and nodded, occasionally asking him questions on why certain people were more likely to win.

Over in the corner, just after a match had finished, several people got together to recreate the game, trying to figure out if the other outcome had been possible. One group happened to be a pair of sorcerers, and they magicked the stones into place. Unfortunately, their magic did not interact well.

The go-ban exploded.

One after another, every go-ban, go stone, and go-ke glowed and shattered. People screamed and began to shove at each other, attempting to flee the room. Chairs and tables began to creak as they did their best to follow suit.

In the mess, Queen Akiko was separated from her husband.

Nearly everyone escaped from the tournament hall, though some were not as fortunate. King Koyo found Queen Akiko some time later, a table leg embedded in her stomach. As she was bleeding out (they found her far too late to save her), she said told Koyo over and over how much she loved him and Akira.

When she fell silent, King Koyo’s heart broke. He looked at his wife’s body, the table leg still impaling her, and felt a deep sadness and the beginning of a bitter rage. Unable to blame himself or go, and needing to blame something, he turned that rage upon magic users. He decided that he would rid Camelot of all sorcerers, so that no one else could be killed by magic during a go tournament every again.

--

Hikaru had sneaked into Evil Sorcerer School. It was easy enough – he’d always had magic, and no one there knew he was the manservant to the Prince of Camelot. The hardest part had been convincing Akira to let him go in the first place. Akira seemed to think he needed Hikaru around to play games of go against when he wasn’t training the knights. It had taken Mishio Shirakawa, the Court Physician of Camelot, to get Akira to relent. Shirakawa told the prince that he needed several hard to find herbs, and that Hikaru was uniquely suited to locate them.

Of course, it couldn’t be said that Akira had believed it, but he told Hikaru that he wasn’t necessary for the next few days anyway.

The headmaster of Evil Sorcerer School was Seiji Ogata, and Hikaru had had to demonstrate his skill to him by setting ablaze a haystack several yards away. Headmaster Ogata had looked at Hikaru very oddly after the fire started, but told him where he would be staying while at the school. Later, Hikaru found out that most people had to use spells to set things on fire. Unfortunately, by this point, word had gotten around, and all of the other sorcerers were giving him a wide berth. To use magic without a spell meant that Hikaru must be very powerful, and so they left him alone. Evil sorcerers, after all, still had a sense of self-preservation.

This presented a problem for Hikaru. The whole reason he was there, of course, was to get to know other magic users, and with any luck, persuade them that Akira was different, that he would be a good king. While King Koyo was a fantastic go player, he hated magic, and had killed an innumerable amount of people over the years on suspicion of magical tendencies. So many people had, over the years, blamed Akira for the things that his father had done, and Hikaru had lost count of how many times he had had to save Akira from some magical attack or another.

So Hikaru wandered the halls, hoping to explain this to people in a way that wouldn’t get himself or anyone else killed. He hadn’t had much luck, and was contemplating turning back, when he heard a voice coming from a room labeled GO. It sounded like someone was calling his name. He knocked, but when there was no response, he opted to go in anyway.

There was no one there, but there was a lone book lying on the go-ban. Hikaru walked closer. The book, he saw when he stood in front of the go-ban, had no title on the cover. Instead, it had a picture of a dragon on it. The dragon, unlike most pictures Hikaru had seen in his life, was moving about the cover as though it was flying. As Hikaru picked the book up, the dragon settled.

And then began to talk.

“Hello, young warlock,” the dragon said.

Hikaru dropped the book and backed away.

“Well, young warlock, that was not very kind of you.”

Hikaru walked hesitantly toward the book before picking it up again. “Hello?”

“Hello, young warlock. My name is Sai. I have been hoping you would show up,” Sai the dragon said.

“Hi. Er, I’m Hikaru, but I think you know that. Why were you waiting for me?”

“Well, you see, a long time ago, I was not a book. I was a go player – and a sorcerer, much like yourself. Unfortunately, I was accused of cheating, and a rival bound my soul into this book. He was a dragon lord, and thus I am a dragon. It’s terribly annoying, because I’ve had to wait for another dragon lord – and now you’re here!” Sai said, his tail twitching with anticipation. “There was another dragon lord several years ago, but he died before he figured out how to get me out of the book. It is, you see, tied to go – you, young dragon lord, must achieve the Hand of God and set me free!”

Hikaru blinked. He opened his mouth, then shut it, only to blink again. “The Hand of God?” he asked, confusion coloring his voice. While he watched go often enough, and Akira talked about it often enough, he certainly never played it if he could help it. “The perfect game of go?”

“Yes! I’m sure that together, we can do it. It will take a lot of work – what level are you?”

“Um. I don’t actually play. Sorry. Maybe we can find you someone else?”

Sai’s tail stopped twitching. He breathed out fire – which, as he was in a book, did absolutely nothing except hit the corner and disappear. The corner did, however, smoke slightly – thought it remained cold to the touch, and Hikaru managed not to drop it.

Just then Akira walked in. Hikaru glanced up, and promptly dropped the book (which earned him a “Be more careful, Hikaru!” that he opted to ignore). Akira stood there, eyebrow raised, waiting for Hikaru to acknowledge him – and that they were in the midst of several evil sorcerers, if they were to judge by the name of the school.

“Prince Akira,” Hikaru finally choked out. “Sire. I can explain.”

“Can you really? Because it looks like you are in a room with a talking book inside a school for evil sorcerers. Are you an evil sorcerer, Hikaru?” Akira asked.

“Of course not!” Hikaru cried. “I mean, I’d never do anything to hurt you, you know that, right? I mean, I’m a sorcerer, but I’m not evil, I promise! And–”

He was cut off by the entrance of several more people. The other sorcerers looked at Hikaru and Akira. They recognized Hikaru as being the powerful sorcerer from earlier, but Akira was an unfamiliar face. One of them suddenly realized that a man with a sword, a page cut, and an argyle tunic could only be one person. “It’s Camelot’s prince!” he cried. The group attacked.

A door appeared at the opposite end of the room with a musical sound. Everyone stopped for a moment to see what had changed, and then Hikaru and Akira ran for it. It opened into a long hallway with many corridors.

Several minutes later, Akira and Hikaru darted into a room, quickly shutting it behind them. Hikaru riffled through his book before giving up and asking Sai if there was a spell to lock the door. Sai, looking quite pleased, let out a breath of fire that disappeared when it hit the edge of the cover. The book rose into the air, as if the wings on Sai’s back could actually lift it, and opened itself to a page somewhere near the end. Hikaru hurriedly read the spell, and the door glowed golden. They heard as the pack of sorcerers intent on Akira’s life ran past.

“So,” Akira said. “You are most definitely a sorcerer. What should I do with you, do you think?”

Hikaru looked at him, chin out. “I’ve protected you, my prince, from magical threats. I have never hurt you, or used magic against you.”

“Well, then. Would you mind getting us out, then? I am supposed to be playing go with my father in the morning, and I would like to be well rested.”

“…That’s it? You aren’t going to kill me?”

“Hikaru, you aren’t subtle. I have known for quite some time. Now, can you get us out?”

“…Um. Right. Okay then.” Hikaru flipped through the spell book. He found something that he thought might work, and said it out loud.

Nothing happened.

“…Hikaru.”

“I’d like to see you try! Hold on, hold on….” Hikaru said it again, louder, then again, and again, and again, and finally it worked. The two of them found themselves in the barn forest just outside Camelot.

“So, Akira…”

“Hikaru. I’ll see you in the morning. Goodnight.”

“…Goodnight.”

The next morning, no words were said of the Evil Sorcerer School. Instead, Hikaru, who was late as usual, brought Akira breakfast, and managed to not spill it on Akira’s argyle tunic. Akira let Hikaru eat some of the breakfast (or rather, he didn’t stop him when Hikaru just started eating things). The two of them went to meet King Koyo when breakfast was finished, after a brief dissection of the last game Akira had played with his father.

Under Hikaru’s bed, beneath the loose floorboard, Sai fluttered happily on his spell book. Hikaru and Akira would change the world together, he knew, and unite magic users and non-magic users together with go.