Touch of Darkness, Embrace of Light

Prologue

A young boy of sixteen was lying on his bed, legs up in the air, waving back and forth as he read a large and thick book. The book of impressive size and red covers was titled, with the use of much imagination, 'The Basics'. It was the basics of types of wizardry and the social ranking of the people practicing a certain type of art.

The boy was commonly known as Ryou because that was his given name. He had an examination coming up about the things he was trying to learn. Quite frankly, the social rankings were boring to him as he had never cared about them. Ryou had been raised to think all beings as equals, no matter what type of magic they happened to practice or if they practiced magic at all. Ryou himself was naturally talented with white magic and healing abilities, though to the amazement of many of his peers, he was also able to communicate with the dead; a power of those who practiced the darker arts.

Warlocks: The ones to practice the dark arts, such as raising the dead, calling upon the powers of the underworld and controlling evil spirits to do their bidding. The warlocks are considered to be low in rank and status but often get respect from their peers with the great deal of magical power they often poses. Many warlocks are stronger than the ones who practice the white arts, which is why their ranking is often high but also why they are left outside of the society. Some warlocks are known to go against the law and order to get personal gain, thus earning the reputation of a criminal. When a warlock is born, his or her mother dies in childbirth for unknown reasons,

Ryou read from the book. That part was interesting to him. The teen had never met a warlock but he had heard countless stories of them and was looking forward for his first encounter with one. The rumor has it that the new teacher, who mainly taught those in the advanced level, was a warlock.

The school was just normal looking, large five stories high building on the outside but on the inside it held many classes for those with magical abilities. It also had its own dormitory for students to stay in if they lived far, seeing that there was only one school for each bigger continent because the ones with magic were rare and far between. Of course sometimes there were families with countless generations of magic but they were even rarer than the random people popping up with magical abilities. Ryou was one of those few who had relatives with magic running through their veins, his mother had been one and so had his sister. Ryou's father was just an ordinary man who just happened to marry a mage.

Mages: A mage is one to practice the white magic, consisting of healing and curing abilities. The difference between healing and curing is that healing is the art of curing the wounds of the soul, whereas curing only cures those of the physical being. Where many of those who practice magic are able to cure, mages poses the most powerful of curing abilities, as well as the power to heal, which is not often found in a non-mage person. Mage's power can be considered as the opposite of that of the warlock's but the advanced state of magic, whether it is white or black, holds many similar aspects. Mages are appreciated in the society and often clime to the higher ranks. To fully un-tap the power of a mage takes a lot of practice and patience from the one possessing the power. In schools the advanced state for a mage comes a year after that of the people of his or her age.

Ryou was currently a state lower from the advanced state and it would take him at least a year to get to the level of ability it took. His roommate, Malik, who was half fairy, half human, was the same age as him but already on the advanced state. Malik was a talented person when it came to the practical use of magic but his knowledge in theory lacked a bit so Ryou was assigned to help him with his theory since they lived together and were both in the same healing class.

No one was quite sure what Malik's forte was when it came to magic. He did have great healing skills, but lacked on the other aspects of white arts so he wasn't a mage. He also took classes with the witches and wizards but wasn't as talented with "the language" as they were so he wasn't a wizard either. He could summon evil spirits but that was as far as his powers in the dark arts went. Malik was just a mix of little everything, both in race and in magic.

Witches and Wizards: Are considered to be a mixture of the black and the white arts, but do not posses the power to neither heal nor harbor the power of the underworld. Their main point in magic, however, lies with the language. The language is the normal magical language spoken by a person with a great deal of mental power to make true of what he or she is saying. They rank high in society because they are both powerful and well meaning. The art of the spoken word, as their magic is known, consist of a vast amount of adjectives they need to describe what they want to do. Witches and wizards carry a staff or a wand, which is unusual, compared to the other two other types of magic users who both use hands and different symbols.

The language was a way for all the magic users around the world to communicate with each other; it was their own language, which they could speak naturally from birth. The names they carried were also a part of the complicated communication system, they told more about the person then just the word that was their name, it held feeling, which was an important part of the language. You couldn't speak without feeling nor could you lie. Only the ones with most practice could tell half truths.

For example 'Ryou', it was a name but spoken by someone it held feeling of gentleness and innocence but also will power and courage and told to the one listening that he was a mage in training.

The problem with the magical powers being discovered in birth was that the person was automatically ranked in a certain place in the society. Like if you were a warlock, you were almost always deemed to be an outcast, but if you were lucky enough to be a witch or wizard, your future was very bright. Almost all the members of The Counsel were wizards or witches and they made sure that the system wouldn't change any time soon and the prejudice was deep within the society.

Ryou sighed as he thought about this but decided that it was better for him to just concentrate on his studies unless he wished to fail, if he failed, he would never get the chance to make a difference.

Edit: Now with gooder grammer, speling and punctuation,. …seriously. I fixed the mistakes I could find and removed the old author's notes.