Honor's Price

by Sever Bronny

  The gathered throng took up the call, repeating, “Feat! Of! Legend!” while stomping and clapping in time to the chant. Everyone partook in that chant, from young girls to old men. From Mr. Okeke to Leera. Feeling the intense pressure once more, except this time without any of the confidence, Augum raised his hands in surrender, and the crowd went wild with cheers.

  This was the moment he had showed off. This was the moment he had attempted to cast an illegal spell way above his degree—Teleport. And he had failed, launching himself into a pig’s trough and making a laughingstock of himself. He had borne the burden of that humiliation ever since. And now the moment to successfully perform the spell faced him again.

  Augum scanned the faces in the crowd, drowning in shouted encouragements to perform a feat of legend, settling his gaze on demonic Augum, who was malevolently hopeful.

  But there was something off about his thinking. Had it been the spell that had been the problem … or had it been himself?

  He stared at demonic Augum and realized he was a reflection of himself. And the more he stared, the more he saw those things that cast a shadow over his soul. Above all, he saw recklessness. He dwelt on that word until he realized what it represented … poor decision-making. And pride.

  And that’s what Atrius was trying to teach me! Augum thought. He scanned the faces again, searching, looking, and finally found the man off in the distance, arms folded, watching, judging.

  Augum knew what to do. Instead of reattempting the spell, he raised his hands and jested in a loud voice, “I’m merely a man, not an Unnameable.”

  Confused, the crowd stopped cheering. Then, starting with demonic Augum, they began to boo. The booing spread, until every single person, even Bridget and Leera, were cupping their hands around their mouths and booing.

  A drop of sweat dribbled down Augum’s nose. And even though he knew they weren’t real, it hurt his feelings seeing Bridget and Leera do that.

  He raised his hands higher and tried a different tack. “I don’t have to do what you say!”

  The booing increased in ferocity, and people threw tomatoes. Augum dodged them at first, but then pointed and telekinetically deflected them, so that they splattered onto the stage. Someone outside his field of vision threw one and it smashed against the side of his head. He turned to see a furious Jez, shouting, “Coward! It’s your manhood party, so man up and perform a feat of legend!”

  The tomato dripped down his collar. More tomatoes splattered on him. Augum saw their faces, the disappointment, and the heat of humiliation flared on his cheeks like a rash.

  Augum searched for Atrius in the crowd again, but he was gone, and so he closed his eyes and allowed the tomatoes to pummel him, while recalling everything Atrius had taught him.

  And then a certain line came back to him, one Atrius had uttered in Castle Arinthian.

  Augum smiled and let his body and soul take the hits, and even extended his arms. And then he struck upon an idea and began catching tomatoes and placing them by his feet.

  “What about an onion?” he shouted at the crowd, and sure enough, onions poured in, along with heaps of booing. He let them boo their hearts out. “And a bowl? Does someone have a bowl?” Bowls flew in, which he had to duck, dodge or smack aside. All he needed was one, which he deftly caught. “What other food have you?” He laughed at the assortment that flew his way. He caught a couple olives, a few chive stalks, and even a small wheel of white cheese. He gathered these and placed them in the bowl, then wandered off stage.

  Atrius Arinthian waited for him by the door. Behind him, the crowd’s booing quieted and dissolved, though the people remained, stirring about as if they were bored ghosts from the past.

  Augum bit into a tomato. “Although we cannot change the past, we can change how we perceive it.”

  Atrius smiled and opened a hand toward the door, beyond which Bridget and Leera awaited, beaming proudly. Augum strode through the door and offered to make them a tomato, onion, olive and chive salad … with a side of white cheese.

  Pieces in an Ancient Puzzle

  “We have enough food and water to get there, but that’s it,” Bridget reported as they sat against a wall, huddled in coats and blankets, on the morning of the eleventh day—and the coldest one yet.

  She placed a hand above her eyes as she stared at the looming darkness. “Should get there around midday.” She blew into her hands to warm them.

  Leera squinted down the hall. “Anyone see more doors?”

  “Smooth walls all the way to black,” Augum replied. He knocked on the empty wooden water barrel. “I’ll leave this here. No sense in carrying dead weight.”

  “An artifact for a future generation,” Leera said with a grin.

  “Let’s suit up,” Augum said. “Who knows what’s ahead.”

  They put on their ice-cold golden breastplates and arcane coats, hefted their now light satchels, wrapped themselves in blankets, raised their hoods, and strode on, breath steaming and hands in pockets.

  As the hours passed, the darkness ahead quickly thickened. The black basalt floor melded with that darkness like a carpet that went up a wall, creating the imposing effect of slowly falling into a giant chasm.

  Bridget craned her neck. “No mist.”

  Augum looked up. Sure enough, the ceiling went on into forever, coming together to form a thin line that melded with the black wall ahead. He glanced back and saw that the Hall of Rapture’s beginning narrowed in the same way. After over a tenday of travel, his bones—particularly his poor feet—ached, his stomach longed for a warm meal, and he could use a hot bath.

  “And the silence,” he blurted. “I could do with hearing something other than our own footsteps.”

  The girls grunted in agreement as if they had been having a verbal conversation.

  A few hours later the hall got dimmer.

  “Shyneo,” Augum said, lighting his hand as they walked, gaping up at the immense opacity. This was it. They were nearing the final trial.

  “Shyneo,” the girls echoed. Bridget’s hand lit with glowing ivy, Leera’s with vibrant water.

  Augum placed his necklace between his teeth and absently gummed it.

  “Right back to your old habits, eh?” Leera said. “You that hungry?”

  “Just nerves.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  The darkness thickened until the only light came from behind them. And then, hours later, even that faded, leaving them in near pitch-darkness. And yet they walked on, and on … and on.

  “See anything yet?” Bridget asked, voice lost to the void, face lit up by her palm.

  “Nothing,” Augum and Leera reported.

  “Are there even any walls here?” Leera asked. “Our voices sound … different.”

  Nobody replied. Augum glanced back at the fading strip of light that was the entrance into the darkness—their only point of reference. But what would happen when that too disappeared?

  Hours passed. They snacked on the last of their food as they tromped along and squeezed the final drops of water from their waterskins.

  “Well, that’s that,” Leera whispered, as if afraid of disturbing the darkness. She put away her empty waterskin. “No more water, no more food, and no going back. Whatever will happen needs to happen soon, or we’re done for. And that would be a disappointing end, especially considering it’s Endyear and we wouldn’t even have a butter cookie to show for it.”

  “Don’t be so morbid, Miss Sweettooth,” Augum sniped with a crooked grin that was more forced than genuine. The truth was he feared a grisly, starvation-bound end too.

  Leera, who was usually quick to pick up the banter, remained silent, flashing the barest hint of a smile, also forced.

  They kept walking and the light kept fading, until the darkness was so dense and cold and stifling Augum felt like he was having a hard time breathing. He held onto Leera’s hand like a lifeline, and she onto Bridget’s, for even though their palms were lit, they feared separ
ating and getting lost.

  And then, out of the darkness ahead, appeared the flaming silhouette of Trintus Bladeofbright.

  “It’s got to be the practical portion of the test!” Leera exclaimed, and they rushed to him as quickly as they dared, wanting to get it over with.

  “Congratulations on reaching the final portion of the trial,” Trintus said when they reached him, the flames on his body pushing back the darkness around them. “You will now demonstrate your aptitude in the first five degrees. Follow my instructions precisely. Squire Burns, Squire Jones, Squire Stone—you are to telekinetically fit the spear at your feet through the floating hoop above you.”

  The trio looked down to find three spears, and then above them to find a tiny hoop fifty feet up.

  Leera squeaked. “Uh … I can’t even see it.”

  “Just follow our lead,” Augum said, raising his spear and floating it all the way up to the hoop. But he waited for Bridget to line her spear up with the hoop first, then lined his up with hers. “Now line up at the back of mine, Lee. Lower. Higher. Now left. Good, now a touch to the right and a bit higher—there! You got it, now everyone forward.”

  The spears fit through the hoop and promptly disappeared.

  Leera planted a big celebratory kiss on Augum’s cheek after getting hers through, mouthing, “Thank you.”

  “Squire Burns, Squire Jones, Squire Stone—you will now repair these destroyed dragon statues,” Trintus said. And so it went for the 1st degree. For the 2nd, Trintus asked Bridget to “disarm your opponent.” A dual-wielding swordsman in outdated boiled leathers and a spiky helm charged at her, viciously swinging his two blades.

  Bridget effortlessly yanked twice in succession, snapping, “Disablo—disablo!” The swords twirled from the soldier’s hands, clanking to the floor. Amusingly, the swordsman slowed to a halt and moaned pitifully before disappearing, only to reappear for Augum and Leera to repeat the test.

  The fun part in the 3rd degree was the First Offensive demonstration.

  “Strike it before it strikes you, Squire Stone,” Trintus said, and flicked a couple fingers skyward.

  Augum glanced up to see a small fiery dragon in a meandering dive at him. He waited, getting a feel for the dragon’s flying. Then he smacked his wrists together. “Annihilo!” A bolt of lightning emanated from his wrists, blasting through the dragon and showering them with sparks and licks of flame.

  For the 4th degree, the trio enjoyed casting Confusion most, for the rotund and balding nobleman Trintus had conjured spoke rationally until the spell walloped him.

  “I was walking amongst the woods enjoying the view,” he would begin, only to blurt, “Eggs on my eyes like fingers on pigs and mother was a dumb ladder,” after being struck with Confusion.

  Hilarity thus ensued. At the end of that portion of the test, Leera whispered to Augum, “Think Trintus would bring him back just for comic relief?” She got her wish, for the same poor man was summoned for the 5th degree Paralyze spell. He would be chugging along at a run only to freeze and fall flat on his face, rolling stiffly. Leera couldn’t stop slapping her knee at the sight, prompting Bridget to mutter to Augum, “Sometimes I think she’ll never grow up.”

  Last came the Arcaner simuls, which the trio took far more seriously. They each demonstrated flawless execution, and especially enjoyed the effects of their enhanced summoned weapons. But Augum reminded himself that casting simuls in such a basic way was not at all what it would be like casting them in battle, and he wondered why the test was so austere—even Atrius had trained them in combat conditions.

  Finally, with the trio grinning excitedly, Trintus Bladeofbright nodded and said, “Squire Burns, Squire Jones, Squire Stone—congratulations, you have adequately proved your competence in the first five degrees.”

  And then he simply disappeared.

  Leera’s mouth opened and closed a few times. “That … that’s it?”

  They quickly flared their shields, only to find them unchanged.

  “Shoot, guess we’re not done,” Augum muttered.

  A pitiful moan much like the one that had come from the swordsman escaped Leera’s lips.

  Bridget heaved a big old sigh. “Onwards, I guess.”

  They walked for a despondent hour or so until an ethereal woman’s voice reached them, getting louder. “Are you sure they’re coming, Headmaster?”

  The trio turned to their right to see two glowing ghostly figures hurrying through the darkness. One was an old man dressed in a black arcanist’s robe and clutching an ancient wooden box, and the other was a young woman wearing an emerald academy robe. The trio caught up with them and listened in on the conversation.

  “With certainty, and may future generations forgive our weakness,” the old man replied, anxiously glancing over his shoulder. “The history must be preserved.”

  “You’re scaring me, Dragoon Chauncey.”

  The man abruptly stopped to face the woman as the trio exchanged wild looks of excitement. This was Headmaster Charles Chauncey the Third, the man who had hidden information on the Arcaner course in his archival cubby for someone to find!

  “The nobility has won, my dear. They have been trying to destroy the order since its inception. And now, at long last, they have bought the right influence on the high council and succeeded in shutting down the only surviving Arcaner course, the very lifeblood of the order. The generation of Arcaners who graduated this year … will be the last.” This seemed to give the man an idea. He reached into the box, withdrew a fresh scroll and quill, added a quick note, tucked the scroll back into the box, and resumed his frantic pace, the woman and the exhausted trio struggling to catch up.

  “The extinction of the order is imminent,” he went on. “The true history, the dangerous history not even modern Arcaners know about, needs to be hidden and preserved in case the unmentionable happens. I am its last guardian, but another guardian may come.”

  “What history, Headmaster? What unmentionable thing do you fear? And how will you hide it without them finding it by arcane means?”

  The man froze and glanced back beyond them, into the darkness. “They have breached my office. We have little time.” The pair ran on, transforming into a smoky blur before vanishing.

  “What was that all about?” Leera asked, as the trio slowed to a stop, panting.

  “That was the Arcaner course, the Arcaner way of life, trying to save itself through us,” Augum said, goose bumps rising on his skin. “Or it might have been the headmaster’s memory, which he planted just for this occasion. But that wooden box wasn’t in his cubby in Archives, was it, Bridge?”

  “No it was not, which means he hid it somewhere else in the academy.”

  “But notice he didn’t say where,” Leera said. “Wonder what that means. And is it possible the Heart of the Colossus was in that box along with that scroll?”

  They trooped on, discussing the matter, only to walk through an invisible membrane, and with a yelp, step into thin air, plummeting onto a sandy floor with a collective “Oof!” As he spit sand out, Augum realized they were back in the Arcaner Studies room. The portal ring made from the first tier of bleachers hovered above them, and began silently returning to its place.

  Augum jumped to his feet and summoned his shield, innards buzzing with excitement that he had been made a dragoon—only for his hopes to crash when he saw that a castle had not been added above the golden words.

  Leera dug her hands into the sand. “Ugh, blessed warmth.”

  “Dragoon Pelagia?” Bridget asked after standing to confront the empty dragon desk.

  Dragoon Pelagia appeared with a soft whoosh. “At your service, Squire Burns.”

  “Dragoon Pelagia, what happened? Why are we back?”

  “Please rephrase your query, Squire Burns.”

  “Dragoon Pelagia, is the dragoon trial over?”

  Dragoon Pelagia stared straight ahead, face placid.

  “I don’t understand,” Leera said, standin
g and brushing sand off herself. “Did we pass the trial or not?”

  Augum disappeared his shield as the bleacher ground to a halt in its original place. “I don’t think so. At least not yet.” He couldn’t help but feel the sting of disappointment. All that work … and for what? So they could end up back here with nothing to show for it except a vague clue from the past? He wanted a definitive end to the trial, especially considering what had happened to poor Isaac.

  There was a small meow as Sir Pawsalot hopped down the stone bleachers.

  “Aww, were you waiting for us by the door?” Leera cooed, scooping him up. “You were, weren’t you?” Then she looked over at his water bowl. “Look, it’s practically untouched! It’s the same day as we left. Maybe only hours later. All eleven days happened within the trial! But the meat is mostly gone. Whoa, you’ve been a little glutton, haven’t you? Poor thing, all worried his humans weren’t coming back so he gorged. Well, here we are!”

  Bridget sat down on the lowest rung of bleachers and rubbed her calves. “If it’s the same day, then we still have until the seventh bell to find the Heart of the Colossus.”

  Augum sat beside her, grateful to be warm again. “That has to be our final trial, which is our original goal. It’s got to be. I mean, that’s why we crammed in a tenday—to become dragoons, find that artifact and boot the Canterrans out. And somehow, the test has shaped itself to that need. At least … I think.” He grimaced. “But why did we come through the portal? Doesn’t that usually indicate the end of the trial?”

  “Evidently not,” Bridget replied, rubbing her temples. “Argh, so confusing.”

  “This is still an illusion then,” Augum said. “All of this is part of the illusion of our test, and by the end of it, we’ll discover what the Heart of the Colossus is, I’m sure of it.” They better, anyway. “The clues have been presented to us. Now we have to solve the puzzle.”