What kind of Magic?

Chapter 9

The next several days were very difficult for Langia. She remained in the castle with the warlock, but did not get any further in her research. She was one of the finest mages in all of Lumina, and she couldn't figure out how to get the warlock out of the castle. It frustrated her incredibly. It frustrated her so, to the point where she thought she must change her strategy.

As if to add it her mounting frustration the enigmatic warlock was no help. Despite the fact, that she had been at his castle for a week, she had still not learned his name. He made no more effort to help her and barely seemed to tolerate her being around.

Langia refused to give up however, she owed it to her kingdom to finish this quest. In order to get the warlock out of the castle, she would have to learn more about him. She had her theories about him but she had to prove them first.

"Of all the rooms to spend your whole day in, why this one?"

The warlock turned from the window and gave her another of his familiar glares. "Why must you bother me with questions?"

Langia had noticed he spent large amounts of time by the window in the tower.  He would just stand there and gaze out of it forever. "Call it research. I'm just trying to figure out how to get you out of here."

"By asking me personal questions?"

"You never know when one small detail might help."

"Uh-huh."

"The point is," Langia said accusingly. "You're avoiding the question."

"I have a right to avoid it." He said, his back to her as he leaned on the windowsill. "I specifically told you not to ask me questions. I don't have to tell you anything."

"Yeah, well. I've been ignoring most of the other rules you set so why not that one too?"

He roughly turned to face her, clearly irritated. "Do you have a purpose coming up here? Or are you just trying to get kicked out of here?"

Langia backed up a step. His temper was rising, and she didn't want to know what would happen if it rose all the way. "Alright, Alright. I'll try to stop being a bother."

He turned away from her and continued to stare out the window. "So you're having trouble figuring out the spell on the door?" He said after a long pause.

"Obviously." Langia said, staring down at her shoes. "If I knew how, I would've cracked the spell already."

"I wish I could be useful, but I've been trying to break that spell for years." He said. "I had hoped you would have more luck."

"Unfortunately, I'm not." Langia said.

Outside the window, rain started pouring, slowly at first until it quickened to a massive downpour. Some of the rain started coming in through the glassless window.

"Are you just going to stand there and let yourself get soaked?" Langia asked.

The warlock's shoulders rose and fell in a shrug. "I've stood through more than one rainstorm before."

"Suit yourself then." Langia said. The wind was pushing cold air through the window. Langia had no intention of sitting through this storm. She hurried down the steps from the tower. For a moment she pondered where to go. She had to continue her work. She wouldn't go back to the palace without the warlock coming with her.

Langia headed to the library. Despite the fact that she was unable to read the books in there, she still felt there was something there she needed to know. For a minute or two, she wandered aimlessly around the shelves. Some part of her wished that some small detail would jump out at her if she wandered around long enough. Then as she reached a hidden corner of the library she hadn't explored, she noticed something.

It was hard not to notice. She had never seen anything like it in the library. It was a massive painting in a large black frame. The painting was of a young couple posing together. The woman was beautiful, wearing a lovely black dress that matched her perfectly. Her long black hair fell down her back in perfect curls. She had bright purple eyes and red lips curled in a slight smile.

The man was handsome and clad in black polished armour and his hand rested on a large black sword. He had black hair the same shade as the woman's but he didn't share her eye colour. Where her's were bright purple, his were dark black. The two had similar looks, but based on the man had his hand around the woman's waist Langia could tell they weren't siblings.

Langia had no idea who they might be. She didn't even know if they were alive or not. She had no idea why anyone would even paint a picture of them. Even though she didn't know these people, they had helped her out immensely.

There was more than one dark warlock.

Langia stood there and stared up at the painting, taking in this new information. Everyone in the kingdom of Lumina had grown up hearing the tales of The Dark Warlock, but no one had every heard of story of more than one. For all anyone knew, there could be a whole race of them someplace far away. Perhaps, they even had their own kingdom someplace, just like Luminia.

She looked all around the picture, to see if there was anything that may identify the two people in the painting. There was no plaque nor caption anywhere on the frame. The wall the painting hung on was plain and bare. In desperation, Langia searched the rest of the library but there were no more paintings. The only thing in the room was more and more books she couldn't understand.

Langia was instantly filled up with many more questions she wanted to ask the warlock, but she figured she had already annoyed him enough today. Langia left the library and entered an empty hallway.

Langia was used to seeing the empty hallways by now. The warlock usually shut himself up in a random room and spent endless amounts of time by himself. Mino wasn't always in the castle either. It was his job to guard the castle and the nearby forest. So, most of the time she spent by herself.

Langia made her way back up to her room. There she wrote down all of her obvervations from the library. She had no idea how seeing a painting of two people would help her figure out the barrier spell. But, at this point, any information Langia could find would be something. She was making poor progress on her mission and it irritated her more with each passing day.