Academy.
Nobody else met them; nobody was awake at whatever deep hour of night found them skulking about. The only light came from the servant’s lantern and from the basrelief wall sculptures of the great forest of Wayreth that ran either length of the long corridor; the tips of the trees glowed with motes of faerie fire, turning the passageway into a star-cluttered field of pinprick lights. Tythonnia had never seen anything so beautiful and, despite her nervousness, she marveled at the simple artistry of it.
The servant reached a large bronze door that dominated the end of the corridor; floral patterns and glowing magical script of elven make were etched on its surface. The servant rested his fingers against the door; it silently glided open as though mounted on the exhalation of one’s breath. The servant bowed his head and motioned for Tythonnia to step through. He then closed the door behind her.
The chamber was large, two floors in height and the interior the size of a modest tavern. The upper walls were a strange fusion of green rock and red metal, fluid droplets caught in their molten states. The lower half of the walls was a jigsaw of mahogany wood pieces, varnished and fit perfectly together. Spiraled columns of solid stone branched into irregular ribs along the green ceiling, like a tree trunk opening its branches to the canopy. In fact, the entire room was organic in its design. Few hard edges adorned its space, including curved experiment tables of granite that bore the appearances of artists’ palettes.
Behind a row of Qindaras clay pots and Abanasinian glass urns stood Highmage Astathan. Tythonnia knelt immediately, her heart racing at the honor of meeting him.
“Child, stand,” Astathan said, motioning with his hand. He had a delicate way about him, despite his age.
Tythonnia obliged, but could not bring herself to hold his gaze.
“Come,” he said. Another gesture drew her to his side. He took both her hands in his own, his slender digits still strong and nimble. To her surprise, he turned her hands this way and that and, before releasing them, nudged her head left then right with a finger. Tythonnia blushed under his golden-eyed scrutiny; she wasn’t sure how to react.
“Master?” she asked.
“Impressive,” he said, nodding to himself all the while. He let her go and walked to a row of jars mounted on shelves. He studied them, his back to her. “If I didn’t know better, I would say you’d never undergone the test.”
“Um, thank you?” she said. She was uncertain how to respond or what he wanted to hear.
“It’s the deepest recesses of your eyes that betray you,” he said, still studying the urns. Finally, he tapped one. “Ah,” he exclaimed and brought it to the table where more jars and urns lay.
“My eyes?”
“The test wounds everyone,” Astathan said, uncorking various jars and bottles, and smelling each in turn. He nodded to some and sealed others right back up again. “Why?”
“Why?” Tythonnia asked. “Oh-why do they wound everyone?”
Astathan glanced at her long enough to nod before returning his attention to the table’s contents.
“It’s a reminder, Highmage. That magic has a price.”
“That’s a patterned answer,” Astathan said. “It’s something I’d expect from an initiate reciting his lessons, not from someone who underwent the test herself.
Tythonnia stammered. She wasn’t sure what to say. Was she supposed to stay silent and learn at the feet of the greatest mage of their time?
He played at distracted, but she could tell he was listening intently. He genuinely wanted to hear her answer. He was curious-curiosity meant there wasn’t one possible response. Then it hit her. The test is never the same from one person to the next, therefore, why should the consequences be. She once heard someone say that the test wounds and injures in a manner specific to one’s ordained path, a path that embraces the study of magic and draws one away from life’s distractions. Call it a cruel mistress who demands attention, or perhaps the insistence of destiny, but the trials of a wizard are the roadmap of his or her future.
Astathan wasn’t interested in why the test wounded its applicants, Tythonnia realized. He was interested in why it wounded
“I can’t speak for anyone else,” Tythonnia said, framing her response carefully as she spoke. “But maybe I was injured to reveal a …” she hesitated. The admission frightened her, but she was more afraid of lying to Astathan. He was a mythic name, a living legend, and any number of powers was ascribed to him. Discerning falsehoods among them, perhaps? His gaze penetrated her flesh, rendering her genderless and naked to the soul. “To reveal something about myself, like a truth,” she said finally.
“And this truth … it troubles you?” he asked, looking up to study her.
“It scares me.”
“As well it should,” Astathan said. “Those hurt physically must overcome adversity, yes, but rarely are their lives stripped of any pretense. Rarely are they forced to face their true selves. Many of us wrap ourselves in our lies. We let them define us for fear that others will hate us for what we despise in ourselves. Soon it becomes our flesh; its whispers, our voice.”
Tythonnia nodded, barely following the gist of the conversation. Astathan, however, continued speaking.
“But the test … ah, the test,” he said, a wistful smirk on his face. “It forces us to face the naked truth. The test is there to humble us, to forever remind us that we are never greater than the magic itself. Each of us burdened, each of us forced to remember that a greater cost exists. Do you follow?” he asked. He looked Tythonnia straight in her eyes.
“I–I think so.”
“Good. Because you’re about to be tested again.
Before Tythonnia could respond or react, Astathan opened his palm and blew a handful of dark powder into her face. Everything went black.
CHAPTER 3
It was an empty land, bereft of anything living, No grass to dapple the dusty earth, no leaves to clothe the twisted branches of trees. Winds whipped about in blind fury and left the air tasteless and stale. The lamed sun hid behind a gauzy sky, and instead of bringing heat to the world, it sucked it away and hungered for more. In the distance, monochrome thunderclouds flashed and brought down a rain of ash.
Tythonnia walked across the plains, stirring up clouds of dust with her bare feet. Her robes were filthy with it, her features and hair caked ashen gray. The world leeched her life, turning her from woman to crone. Her bones ached; her muscles screamed. Age was a locust that devoured the green of her youth. She would die soon.
In the distance lay a mote of red, the only color in a colorless world. It swirled, vibrant and charged. It pulsed like a heartbeat, and flowed in small whorls and eddies like living blood. Tythonnia knew she had to reach it, touch it. It was the last reminder of color. Without it, Tythonnia might never remember hues again in the toneless world.
Finally, with her shriveled and atrophied body, she reached out to grab the last ember of life. It hovered within reach and she was eager to consume it, to forestall the inevitable. But she hesitated. Her gnarled fingers trembled with exertion and age.
Who was she to consume that thing, just for the sake of want?
Who was she to take and not regret the fleeting moment?
Was her life worthy of the last particle?
When the world needed it more?
