Nar from the fire II

The history of the Nar[1] School, if compared to the millenary School of Parnassus', could be considered short, it had been founded three hundred years earlier, but its growth had been slow, because its methods, as the name suggested, were initially too exotic and close to the alchemists of the Middle Eastern Schools.

The founder of Nar, according to the legend, had been an illiterate farmer, he had taken vows and became a missionary.

He had left for the Middle East where he had remained for five years: there he had met the alchemists of the Arabian Peninsula, who had accepted to teach him their Practice.

When he returned he could speak and write twenty languages, he knew mathematics and astronomy, and he was no longer interested in the type of mission he had accomplished for the Church: he had given up his sacred clothes and founded his own Alchemical School.

Ren and Fiamma were among the youngest disciples of that school and for them the story of the founder was only a fascinating legend and what linked them to those distant places was nothing more than a name and some dusty history books.

The School building was an elegant construction of light bricks and arched windows with a Persian taste, it was located in the south-east part of the city, built between two separate islands. The main body of the school was on the Big Island, while the secondary body was built on a smaller islet, connecting them was a bridge that could be called a true engineering miracle.

Although its main purpose was precisely to allow the passage from one part of the School to another, over time it had become the actual heart of Nar.

It was in fact designed to be a covered bridge and to house small pavilions, it was raised above sea level, protected from sea storms.

In recent years, however, Nar had certainly been among the schools that had expanded the most, gathering more and more disciples and attracting many scholars and alchemists from all over the world: expanding the structure of the school had become a necessity.

On the bridge three new floors of pavilions were added on top of each other. How the stilts on which the bridge rested could bear so much load was a mystery, Ren suspected the reason it didn't collapse had to be of alchemic nature.

To see it from afar, the bridge looked like an enormous sea creature, immersed in the lagoon water as if waiting for something. Its composite nature was actually eerily harmonious, as if every addition was already conceived by the original designer.

The first floor was made with a stone similar to that of the bricks of the two main buildings of the School, the second floor was made of wood and masonry, the third and fourth floors, to be as light as possible, were made only of wood and glass. The colored Murano[2] glass gave the upper floors of the bridge a solemn appearance as if they were the rose-windows of a cathedral. Hardly anyone knew that these were actually just Nar's student quarters.

The kids arrived at the School by midnight. The curfew in Nar was actually quite late, and for this reason it was rarely broken, but the island of the Chinese district was rather far, and the ferry had brought them to a pier located on the north coast of the city: they had had to walk for twenty minutes to reach Nar School buildings.

So, when Fiamma and Ren finally arrived, the curfew had already passed, and they had to sneak into the palace with the same stealth as when they had ventured into the Chinese Villa.

Past the main building, they walked through the first courtyard where the twisted figures of the olive trees cast eerie shadows on the ground and cobblestone path.

The first courtyard sloped down towards the sea, and there the bridge had been built, from where the children stood the bridge almost completely blocked the view of the islet of the secondary building, where the study rooms and libraries were located.

Fiamma and Ren managed to reach their rooms without being seen: it was not the first time they had come home after curfew and they knew how to make their footsteps silent.

They wished each other goodnight and quickly parted. Ren remained motionless in the corridor for a moment, until he heard the clang of Fiamma's room door closing. He took the silk ribbon out of his pocket and turned it over in his hands: it was the only thing he had gotten from that expedition, the only proof that could show that it had really happened: it had been a total defeat.

He stuffed the tape into his pocket feeling a bit flustered and crept into his dormitory.

Inside, the air was heavy, and you could hear the breaths of eight people asleep. They were his roommates: all boys about his age.

The beds were created in niches carved into the walls, wrapped in cotton curtains to give students a minimum of privacy.

Actually, hardly anyone slept with the curtains drawn, since the air in such an overcrowded room was always too hot, and one still felt wrapped in too many blankets even with open curtains.

Ren's niche was the middle one, on top of it rested one of the older boys in the dormitory: at seventeen years of age, he could be considered an expert ward and would soon take the exam to become a full-fledged alchemist.

In the bed below, Nasir[3] was dozing. The boy could be called Ren's best friend, they were the same age and for as long as he could remember, Ren had always had him by his side, he was the closest thing he had to a brother. Sadly, he wasn't the kind of person who got involved in things like stealing fireworks from a Villa.

He was a person with a calm and peaceful temperament, more interested in the theoretical study than in the practices of Alchemy, he was not particularly agile and did not care to improve in such field, so when it came to raids and stunts, Ren could only turn to Fiamma, who was the exact opposite of Nasir: agile, shrewd and prone to breaking rules.

Ren climbed into his niche and lay down on the soft mattress, already feeling his eyelids get heavy.

"Psst" Nasir was calling him from the bed below.

The boy leaned out of his niche and looked towards his friend: in the night his face was dark, and he could distinguish nothing but two bright open eyes, which returned the gaze.

"Why aren't you sleeping?" Ren asked him.

"I couldn't sleep, I was worried about the two of you. Were you lucky?" Nasir answered in a faint voice.

Ren didn't really want to admit the defeat, so he pulled the ribbon out of his pocket and waved it at his friend triumphally.

"What do you think?" He asked, all proud.

Nasir kept silent for a few moments. "What is this?" He finally asked.

"The loot." Ren replied gloating.

"It's just a piece of cloth." Noticed Nasir, reaching out to feel the ribbon, but Ren yanked it away, as if it was something extremely precious that could not be touched without due regard. And in was exactly what Nasir believed.

Actually, the reason why Ren had retracted the hand that was holding the ribbon was quite the opposite: by examining it, Nasir would have immediately realized that it was nothing special, and Ren just couldn't accept to be outed like that.

"Fireworks?" Nasir asked, in a voice so low that Ren's good ear alone could not hear it.

"Fireworks?" Nasir repeated, perfectly calibrating his voice to remain low as a whisper but loud enough for Ren to hear.

"Another time." Ren muttered, dismissing the conversation quickly. "Goodnight Nasir, I'll tell you everything tomorrow."

"All right, goodnight." His friend replied, unfailingly polite.

Ren yawned and rolled the silk ribbon around his wrist, a little less than five minutes later he was already sleeping.

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[1] Nar is the transliteration in Latin letters of Arabic: نار, which means "fire, light" the school of Nar is in fact particularly versed in the study of the element of Fire.

[2] Murano is a small island in the Venetian lagoon, famous for the quality of the glass that is made there.

[3] Nasir: نصـيـر‎ it's a quite common Arabic name, its meaning is "friend" or "helper".