Amícûs

An Amícûs is an animal that belongs with one particular person. Retia explains it to Chris in the street in Tés Aváir: it is your companion for life, and the bond between you is made of magic.

How to find your Amícûs

The path begins in Surain’s Animal Shop. Behind the shop, a door in a wall leads to a portal, and the portal leads to an island where the animals live. When an animal shows interest, you have to give it a name and say that name out loud. If the animal is truly yours, it comes to you.

Chris, Ahra and Retia all find their Amícûs on the island:

• Retia gets an Eleonora’s falcon with golden eyes and names it Fulmen.
• Ahra gets a lynx cub and names it Lynx.
• Chris gets an Arctic fox and names her Alôpex.

More than a pet

Professor Gopaltu, who teaches Amícûs, is very clear on this point: the animal is an extension of yourself. What you feel, it feels too, and what you hide, it knows. You can talk to your Amícûs in your thoughts.

The teachers have theirs as well. Haltora rarely goes far from the wolf Fenris, and Headmaster Edrin carries a white cat on his shoulder, and it has red eyes. Nihil’s Amícûs is an ermine that lives in his sleeve, and Will got an owl that settled on his head and stayed there for twenty minutes. According to Ahra’s brother Maka, ravens are a common Amícûs among Engle.

Rare animals

Ghost tigers are the rarest kind of Amícûs. Only seventeen have been documented in the whole history of Anglia.