by Simon Archer
My mouth dropped open. That was the last thing I expected her to say.
“Great!” Fitz said, stepping aside so I could exit the room. I walked out and stood beside her.
“Good morning,” I told her. “Thank you for everything last night. The shower… the food… it’s made a real difference.”
“You look like it did. I can actually see your face today instead of a film of dirt!” Gale joked. Fitz walked out, and the door to my room closed behind him.
“After you, Ms. Gale,” he said cheerily, holding his arm out dramatically.
“Thank you, Mr. Fitz,” she replied. The three of us walked down the hall and began the twists and turns that I’d gotten confused by the night before.
“How do you remember where to go in this place?” I asked after the seventh or eighth turn.
“Years of practice,” Gale answered. “You’ll get the hang of it soon.” I stared at the back of her head as we walked. I hadn’t thought further than the next day since I’d arrived in Blenwise, and she’d already mentioned years.
“Um, I’m not really sure…”
“A discussion for later, Blake,” Gale giggled. “Don’t get all worrisome on me before I’ve eaten. Or, before you’ve eaten, for that matter.”
I shrugged and kept walking. We finally made it to a staircase, but it didn’t look familiar. We went all the way to the main floor but exited on the opposite side of the foyer than the one I’d climbed the night before. Gale made a quick right and led us through an archway. Fitz popped me on the shoulder with a huge smile on his face.
“You are going to love the meal hall. It’s one of my favorite places here!” he bragged.
“Why is that?” I asked. He seemed overly excited about the place, even if the food was excellent.
“It’s fun to talk to everybody. Mealtime is the only time a lot of us get to see each other, depending on which Tri we are a part of at the time.”
“What is a Tri?” I wanted to know. The questions were piling up in my mind as we came to large double-doors that Gale waved her hand in front of. She gave Fitz a rather serious look, and he shrugged his shoulders as he turned to me.
“I believe Gale will fill you in on all that,” he said, taking her silent warning not to start divulging information to me. I shot Gale a disapproving look to which she simply raised a brow. She turned to Fitz and patted him on the shoulder.
“Fitz, you run along now. I need to discuss some things with Blake. The two of you can plan on breakfast tomorrow, if you’d like.” Fitz’s face lit up.
“I would absolutely like that! Then I can let him know how my swords test goes today!” he told her, happily. Turning to me, he held out his hand to shake. “I’ve been practicing for this one for a month!” I grabbed his hand and chuckled. His good-natured personality made me wonder if he’d ever made anyone mad in his life.
“Good luck on your test! You’ll level up for sure!” I clasped his hand to shake, but when I did, a spark jumped between our palms, causing both of us to jerk back slightly.
“Wow! You’re ‘shocking,’” Fitz joked, laughing at our mutual jolt. “Thank you for the good luck!”
He let go of my hand and walked into the room. I turned and took my first good look at where we were. The room was huge, as it seemed most were in the Academy. There were decorative, vaulted archways every twenty feet and what seemed like a hundred round tables neatly arranged that each had six chairs and six place settings.
Along the right side of the room was the largest buffet I’d ever seen. It stretched the entire length of the hall and behind it were beautiful women helping people fill their plates. Almost everyone who sat at a table or was in line at the buffet was a woman. In fact, I only spotted about ten men in the entire room.
“You weren’t kidding about there not being very many guys here,” I said to Gale. She chuckled and took me by the arm.
“No, I wasn’t,” she replied, tugging me towards the buffet. “Let’s get you some food.”
“And then let’s get me some answers,” I added to her comment. She didn’t say anything, but she nodded her head, so I took that as her finally agreeing to tell me more details about what I was doing there.
We made our way to the buffet line, where Gale showed me where they kept trays and plates. As we made our way through, there were so many options it was difficult to decide what to eat. Everything from blintzes to poached eggs was available. I finally decided on a cheese omelet, a bacon and sausage combo, an apple, and coffee. And as I passed it through the line, not a single one of the gorgeous women behind the service counter bothered to even look at me. They weren’t rude by any means. They just simply didn’t acknowledge my existence beyond putting food on my plates, even after exchanging greetings with Gale.
Once we were at the end of the line, I followed Gale as she wove through the tables. I assumed that she had a specific table in mind for us to sit at, but as we passed the last section, it became clear that she headed for the doorway.
“Are we are not eating it here?” I asked, taking a few quick strides to come alongside her.
“No, we have too much to do,” she replied with a smile. We left the meal hall and walked straight across the foyer where Gale stopped just before she would’ve run into a wall. There was nothing out of the ordinary about the wall until, with a wave of her hand, a glass door appeared, and swung open.
She stepped aside and looked back at me. “After you!”
Strolling through the door, I only made it a few paces before stopping. The room I had just entered was absolutely breathtaking. The walls were smooth and painted with murals of the surrounding lands. I could still tell that they were made out of stone, but I had never seen stone ground down that smooth. A bright light filled the room, making me glanced upward, expecting to see a skylight. Instead, there were several narrow pieces of glass in various places on the ceiling that reflected light on two mirrors at the top corners where the walls met the ceiling. From there, the light spread throughout the room, making it brighter than if light bulbs had covered the entire ceiling. Something occurred to me as I stared at the unusual lighting setup.
“How is the light coming through the ceiling when there are several floors of the building above us?” I asked Gale as I heard the door closed behind me. She stepped up to stand beside me and smiled.
“Magic,” she replied. “This room only exists when needed and is invisible to anybody looking for it who shouldn’t be inside.”
“Are we even in the Academy anymore?” It didn’t seem possible.
“Yes, we are,” she answered. I looked around for somewhere to set my tray down so that I could eat, but the room was completely void of any sort of furniture. Gale saw me looking, nodded her head, and a small table for two appeared. “You’ll have to eat quickly and listen while you do.” I glanced down at the tray she was holding in her own hands.
“Aren’t you going to eat as well?” Unless she planned on talking while chewing, I wasn’t certain as to what I should listen to so intently.
“Yes, but I will eat while you begin your testing. I don’t mind cold food,” she said. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up.
“What testing?” I asked as I set my tray on the small table and pulled my chair out.
“We need to know what you’re capable of. Each Dragonmancer has different abilities.” Gale set her tray down as well.
Both of us took our seats, and I began eating. The omelet was cooked perfectly, all the vegetables were as fresh as you could get, and the cheese melted over the top was not too salty.
“This is amazing! Between this omelet and the burger I had last night, am I to believe that this Academy has the best meal plans ever?” I said between bites. Gale chuckled a little.
“The food is always good here, yes,” she answered. “Now, listen up. I’m going to have you do a few things that you might not understand. Or, at least, it may seem weird to you to do such things. I promise you there is a reas
on for everything I ask you to do. Also, I need you to tell me exactly how you feel when you do the things I request of you.”
She didn’t wait for me to reply before reaching her arm out and snapping her fingers. There was a swirl of purple light directly beside her, and when it faded, it left a beautiful cabinet standing in its place. The double doors on the front flipped open, revealing several shelves loaded with different trinkets, most of which I had no idea what they would be used for. Reaching inside, she selected one and held it out to me. I put my fork down and took it from her.
“What is it?” I asked before examining it.
“What do you think it is?” she replied.
After rolling my eyes, I looked at the thing I was holding in my hand. I felt a little silly once I looked at it because it appeared to be a small piece of petrified wood. There were engravings across the topside, and it had been polished smooth. There were streaks of different shades of brown, accented with black grain.
“It’s a very old piece of wood,” I told her. “What kind of tree did this come from?”
She stared at me until it became clear that she was not going to answer my question, so I decided to try to guess. The image of a huge old oak tree, stretching one hundred feet into the air entered my mind. No sooner than that it had, the piece of wood shocked out of my hand and flew across the room. It landed on the floor ten yards away, and the second it touched down, there was an explosion of tan lights. When the lights disappeared, the same oak tree. I had seen in my mind was standing in their place. I stood up so quickly that I knocked my chair over.
“How did that happen?” I yelled, reaching out to point at the tree. “Is that thing like magic beans or something?” I broke my gaze from the tree and looked at Gale. She stood up slowly and began walking towards the tree.
“I’m not certain what a magic bean is, but that little piece of wood had no magic in it at all,” she said quietly. Her face showed surprise and satisfaction at the same time. “What were you thinking about as you held it?” She made it to the tree and gently touched the bark.
“I was thinking about that tree!” I was still yelling. “How can a small piece of wood turn into a tree without it being magic?”
“My dear, I do believe that you are the one with the magic,” she replied, grinning at me.
“I didn’t do anything, though!” Seeing that she was safe near the tree, I decided to join her.
“You most certainly did something, even if you do not know what it was. Let’s try again!” She left me standing under the magnificent oak while she returned to the cabinet to retrieve another item. When she got back, she held her hand out to me again. I stared at her.
“What if next time the tree decides to grow where I am, instead of ten yards away?” I said as I stared warily at the tree.
“If I am correct, and you are the one with the magic, your own magic will not hurt you,” she answered more patiently than she had any other question I’d ever asked her.
“Okay,” I said and then decided to just get on with it.
Slowly, I took the new item from her hand and shifted my eyes to it. From what I could tell, it was the handle from some sort of broken blade. The image of a sword came to mind because of the weight of the thing.
Just like before, the hilt flew out of my hand and landed ten yards away. Instead of tan lights erupting, however, bright silver ones seem to explode from the floor. They disappeared as quickly as they came, leaving a brand-new sword in their wake.
“No way!” I hollered.
While the shock was slightly less than when the tree grew, it was still significant. I ran to the sword and picked it up without a concern as to whether I should.
The hilt was exactly the same as the one I’d held, but it now seamlessly attached to a long, heavy, silver blade. The light in the room shone on the blade, causing a bouncing reflection to shine on a nearby wall. I looked up at Gale, who was walking towards me. “It’s real!”
“Of course, it is real,” she chuckled.
“But shouldn’t these things be disappearing, or returning to their original state, or something?” Even though I held the sword in my hands and could see the tree branches weigh heavy with leaves, I expected them to disappear.
“Do you want them to change back?” Gale asked, reaching to take the sword from me so she could examine it. I hadn’t expected her to ask me that, but her question sparked a sort of confidence in me. I turned and looked intently at the tree.
“I want the tree to change back into the small piece of wood,” I said loudly, almost as a command. A split second after the words left my mouth, a swirl of smoke, the same tan color the lights had been, surrounded the tree briefly. When the smoke cleared, all that remained was this small piece of wood lying on the floor.
“I guess that answers that question!” Gale laughed.
“Holy shit!” I yelled again. “So, I can just tell things what to do, and they will do them?” My mind raced, thinking about the possibilities.
“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Gale said, once again strolling to the cabinet. She returned with a third item and held it out to me. I reached for it, but she pulled back before I could take it. Cocking my head to the side, I shot her a questioning glance.
“This time, I want you to picture a leaf in the palm of your opposite hand once I give this to you,” she said seriously.
“You want more leaves?” Her request seemed a little odd, and small, after what happened with the tree and the sword.
“I want an entire pile of leaves,” she answered.
“Okay, whatever you say!” I told her. She extended her hand once again and laid the object in my outstretched palm. It was a small, purple, plastic ball. The moment I held it, I pictured a gigantic pile of leaves next to the wood piece. I turned so the ball would have a clear flight path to the area beside the wood. The ball did not move, though. Thinking perhaps I wasn’t concentrating hard enough, I closed my eyes and once again imagined a large pile of leaves. When I opened my eyes, the ball was still sitting in my palm. I looked at Gale, confused.
“I had a feeling…” she trailed off, returning to the cabinet again. That time she came back with a small sheet of paper and held it out to me. “Try again.” I handed the ball back to her and held the paper in its place. Once again, I closed my eyes and pictured a pile of leaves. The paper flitted across my hand quickly as I opened my eyes just-in-time to see it land next to the petrified wood. Rust-colored lights turned into a leaf pile in an instant.
“How did you know that the ball would not work?” I asked her, amazed.
“Because the ball is plastic. Paper is made out of wood. Wood comes from trees. Therefore, it made sense that paper could be transformed into something produced by wood.” She shrugged.
“A wood?” I inquired, thinking she left something out.
“Yes, a wood. It is an Earth element. Wood, fire, wind, water… please tell me you know what elements are,” she responded, sounding as though she was preparing for disappointment.
“Yes, I know what elements are,” I replied sarcastically, still staring at the leaf pile. “You also said ‘transform’… so I am transforming the state of an element, not simply changing one thing into another?”
“Now you are catching on,” Gale said happily. “I’ve never seen it done in person. I’ve only read about it.”
“What would make you wonder if I could do it enough to test me for it, if you only ever read about it?” I was getting the feeling that Gale thought I was more special than she was letting on.
“Just a hunch,” was her lame response. “Now, how about you clean up the pile of leaves? Would you like to keep the sword?”
“I don’t have an everyday use for a sword, so I’m good,” I told her, laughing. She raised a brow at me.
“One day, you might. Let me know if you ever change your mind.” She walked over, grabbing the wood off the floor, and stepped away from the leaf pile. In another minute or so, and w
ith a little concentration, I returned the leaves, and the sword to their original state. I carried the paper and hilt to the cabinet for Gale to put away. I noticed my half-full plate of food sitting on the table, now cold. Hunger had left my mind the moment the oak tree grew, but just returned with a vengeance. Sitting down, I tried a bite of my cold omelet and decided it was still good enough to eat. Gale took a seat across from me.
“What’s next?” I asked her between bites. She stared at me.
“You aren’t you scared?” she wanted to know. Being scared hadn’t occurred to me. Exhilarated, excited, amazed… but not scared.
“Not at all! Why?” She hadn’t looked scared, and it was curious to me why she’d think I would be.
“Nobody in the land possesses the type of magic you seem to. A lot of people would fear that kind of ability,” she answered plainly.
“Well, apparently, I am not most people. At least I am getting that impression from you more and more,” I said, grinning at her.
“You most certainly are not like others. We need to keep testing your abilities.” She looked impatiently at my breakfast plates. I shoved another bite in my mouth and started cutting up my omelet faster than before.
“Just a few more bites,” I told her while chewing. I finished my breakfast in three huge bites and dropped my fork on a plate. “What’s next?”
10
I had no idea how much time passed while we tested my transformation magic abilities further. Gale kept bringing me different elemental items to change. Occasionally she would throw in random objects, not elemental, to see if I could change any of them. Only the elemental ones worked, however.
By the time our next break rolled around, I’d managed to cover the massive room we were in with piles of dirt, stone stacks, bushes, a small lava flow, and a tornado that was hovering in place in the corner.
Gale was most impressed by the tornado because I could control it. If I pointed at it and pictured it moving to the left, it would move to the left. Also, there wasn’t any outward air disturbance from it, so while I could make it bigger or smaller by thinking about it, I was unaffected by any sort of wind. At one point, I moved it over a pile of dirt, which it immediately sucked up. The dirt stayed spinning in the tornado until I willed it into a pile again. Once we had completed that stunt, Gale put her hands on her hips and started laughing.