Hunter's Beginning (Veller) (7 page)

Before she could reach Daniel she heard Alex cry out and quickly scanned the room for the smaller boy, she found him,
and then she found him again and then once more. There was three of him and they were all trying to stay out of the reach of a very large valrik with a very large blade. Kile wasn’t sure if she was actually seeing three Alexes or if being landed on by a five hundred pound behemoth addled her brain.

By the time she had reached them, the
valrik had already taken out one Alex, while the other two were trying desperately to escape as they dodged around one of the many columns. Alex didn’t die so much as he just disappeared as the sword sliced through him, which bewildered both the creature and Kile but not for long. The valrik turned quickly and brought the large blade down again, cleaving yet another Alex it two, that one disappeared also.

The third and the last Alex was all too real and all
too scared as he scrambled to get away. The blade came down again and this time it met with the rusty sword held by a rather surprised Kile. The connection felt as if it shattered every bone in her body as it drove her to her knees. Her first thought was how did I get here? Her second thought was how do I get out of here?

“Get back Alex
!” She cried as she tried to maintain her grip on the hilt of the blade that was now actually bending under the shear weight of the valrik as it pushed down harder. He was larger than she was, he was stronger than she was and she knew that this wouldn’t end well. It broke off and swung at her again and again she held up the sword to absorb the blow, but this time it wasn’t enough. She felt the sword shatter in her hands, and the last thing she saw was the valrik’s large cleaver blade heading directly for her head.

***~~~***

3

There was no blow, no pain, and by all accounts she should be dead, and as far as she could tell, she wasn’t. Kile slowly opened one eye then the other. She was no longer staring at a valrik, but at a tall thin man dressed in flowing yellow robes.

Great, j
ust what she needed, another mystic.

He had a narrow face with a pair of wire rimmed glasses perched upon a thin pointed nose. His eyes were rather small and sunken giving him a very sallow appearance.
His hair, what he had of it, was a sliver white and grew in tufts around the ears leaving his head completely bald.

She had no idea where he had come from, why he was there or how he had gotten there in the first place. At first she had thought that maybe he was there to save her, but he appeared to be more interested in a piece of parchment that he was reading
than with her, so she ruled that scenario out quickly. She looked to see if Alex was alright and that was when she realized she was no longer where she thought she was. Not only was Alex missing, but the entire room was gone.

Kile was sitting in the middle of a completely white
chamber. The ceiling, the walls, even the floor was completely white. There didn’t appear to be any texture on any of the surfaces, sort of like a room of mirrors, yet they didn’t reflect anything. There were no windows or doors not even a piece of furniture, save for a small wooden box and the two overstuffed wing backed chairs, the one she was seated upon and the one across from her where the mystic in yellow sat reading his parchment. Alex, Daniel, Carter, the boys, the valrik, even the gulrik were all gone. She never did like the mystic arts.

“Ah yes, you’re finally awake.” The Yellow Mystic replied as he slowly rolled up the parchment and slipped it easily into the small wooden box seated on the floor beside him.

“What just happened… am I… dead?” She asked, not really wanted to hear the answer.

“Dead? Dead? Of course you’re not dead. Do I look like a necromancer to you? Do you think I would converse with the dead? Do these look like the robes of one who is influenced by the sphere of darkness?”

She only understood about every other word in that rant, mostly the word “Dead” since he practically shouted it.

“Uh… no… I guess not.”

“I should say not, dead… please, a necromancer indeed.”

“But sir, where am I? What did just
happen?”

He pushed the wired rimmed glasses further up his
nose as he studied Kile carefully. He didn’t seem very old, probably in his late forties, his face was carved with deep wrinkles, giving him the appearance of a man older than his years.

“An illusion.” He finally said as he leaned back in his seat.

“An Illusion?”

“That is correct.”

“What was an illusion sir?”

“Everything of course.”

“Everything?”

“The
valrik, the room, your friends, everything. You never left your seat after the essays were collected.”

It was all a test, obviously it was a test, in this place everything was a test, but what was it testing, her courage
, her skill in battle? She was scared out of her wit. She couldn’t kill when she had the chance and worse of all she died. Any way you add it up, her test scores couldn’t have been all that great. Was that why she was here and not with the others?

“I failed.”

It was a mixed feeling of relief and dread. Relief in knowing that it was all over, she had come to terms with herself, she was not cut out to be a Hunter. She didn’t know half of what was expected of her, and the half she did know confused her even more, but it was the dread that weighed the heaviest in the pit of her stomach. The idea of going back home in disgrace was bad enough, but to admit to her father that he was right all along was worse, not to mention there was Pordist, the one driving force in her mind that kept her going.

“What? Who failed?” The Yellow mystic asked, staring at her as if she had just said the most absurd thing he had ever heard.

“Me… I failed.”

“Who said you failed, I didn’t say you failed.”

“I didn’t fail?”

“I didn’t say that either.”

“Then… why am I here?”

“Well, isn’t it obvious?”

Kile looked around the room again, thinking that maybe she had missed something important, but there wasn’t anything in the room to miss, there wasn’t anything in the room at all. When she didn’t reply, the yellow mystic sighed in annoyance.

“You are here to take you mystic arts evaluation.”

At that moment Kile wished that the valrik had hit her. Valrik she understood, valrik were real, although that particular valrik the one swinging for her head wasn’t real, but she still understood him. The mystic arts were something entirely different, something that she couldn’t grasp and she was sure she never would. It was ethereal, it wasn’t there and yet it was. She preferred something a little bit more solid a little bit more reliable something she could lay her hands on, or in the case of the valrik, something that could lay their hands on her.

“I… don’t know any… mystic arts.” She replied without looking up at the Yellow Mystic.

She didn’t want to tell him, not outright like this. Her original plan was to try and bluff her way through the test, but that wasn’t really a possibility now that she had seen this man. He radiated the mystic arts, there was no way she could put one past him. She had thought about trying to convince him to look the other way, to cut her a break, but why would he do that. He didn’t owe her anything and she didn’t have anything of value to offer him as a bribe.

“Nothing?” He asked as he rubbed his chin. That was something that all mystics did when they were contemplating something or trying to look intelligent. There must be a mystic handbook or mystic classes where they learn such body language.

“I’m sorry sir, but it’s true. I don’
t have any special gifts.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.” He said as he reached into the small wooden box and began to pull out a series of objects. He placed them in front of him, one by one, even if there wasn’t a table for them to sit on. They just hovered in the air, defying every law known to man, and he did it with such ease, as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

She hated the mystic arts.

“What do you know
about the arts child?”

“Um, not much really.” She said rather meekly. She didn’t really want to try and repeat what Daniel had told her. For one thing she knew she would get it wrong and it would make her appear more foolish
than she actually felt.

“Well… that is refreshing.” The mystic replied. “Somebody who actually admits when they don’t know something. There is hope for you yet Miss. Veller.
Most of these little upstarts think that they can come in here and teach me a thing or two about the mystic arts, I assure you… they can not.”

Now that he had the items arranged before him, floating above the floor about the height of a normal table, she could make out what they were. There was a glass of water, a rock and a single white candle. It would have been just as easy to have placed them upon a physical table, but Kile was starting to believe that mystics liked to show off their skill
s whenever they could. Living among other mystics the way they do, they probably don’t get much of a chance.

“In the past there were many schools of magic, but
under the guidance of the Magi Canton, we have learned to limit them to a mere eight, and then sadly just six.”

“I thought there w
ere only four.”

“And I
thought you didn’t know anything about the arts.” The Yellow Mystic replied raising one bushy eyebrow.

“Oh
… yeah… sorry. It was just something that Daniel… that somebody told me.”

“Yes, most people are misinformed. In one sense, I guess, your friend is right. There are only four.”

That did it, now she was completely lost.

“Allow me to explain, there are six spheres of influence, governed by the most basic of elements taken from common
lore. They are, of course, earth, fire, wind, water, wood and metal. Yes, I know, it is a bit… cliché, but it does serve its purpose. The remaining two are not very common and therefore your friend would not have known about them, they are the sphere of light, and the sphere of darkness. Those that are influenced by the sphere of light often serve in the clergy, and as such do not study here at the tower.

“And the dark?”

“Are encouraged not to. But that doesn't concern you. Those two spheres are very strong, and you would have been sought out long before this time if you were so influenced. Now, of the basic six, only four are still studied at the tower, so that is where we will start your evaluation. Let us begin with the easiest shall we?” He said waving his hand as the candle slowly slid across the table that wasn’t there.

“I want you to light this candle.”

“How?” She asked as she looked around for a striker.

“With
your mind child, with your mind. Focus on the candle, think the candle to be lit and it will, feel the heat building in the wick. As with all mystic arts it is a matter of concentration. Feel and manipulate the strands of power that run through everything.”

Kile stared at the candle and tried to focus, tried to picture the candle lit but the more she concentrated on it, the less it appeared to be doing anything, and the only thing that was building was a headache. The mystic sat back in his chair and stared at her with a curious look. The look of a man that couldn’t make out what it was that he was
looking at. By the time Kile felt the blood rushing to her head and was on the verge of passing out, the mystic waved his hand.

“Enough.”

Kile flopped back in her seat. She was a bit light headed, but if that was the extent of the test it wasn’t so bad, even if it didn’t produce anything. She had assumed since the candle hadn’t ignited, she hadn’t passed.

The Mystic reached out and touched the tip of
the candle, and it sparked to life. Easy for him she thought as she watched the small flame dance upon the wick. He didn’t say anything about touching it. Maybe if she was aloud to touch it, she could have lit it.

“Extinguish the flame.” The mystic said.

Kile blew the candle out.

“With your mind.” The Mystic replied with a heavy sigh and touched the candle again.

Kile stared at the flame once more, she wasn’t sure what she was suppose to be focusing on or how she was to extinguish the candle with her mind short of maybe hitting it with her head, but she concentrated on it to go out, and much to her surprise, it stayed lit.

“It would appear that
you are not influenced by the sphere of air.” The Yellow Mystic said absently as he waved his hand and the candle was snuffed out by some unseen force.

What happened to fire? Kile wondered as she watched the candle slide across the table that wasn’t there and dropped into the small wooden box by itself. This just wasn’t natural.

The mystic then motioned for the small stone to move across the unseen table.

“I want you to lift the stone.”