by B. J. Keeton
“No, you don't, Ceril. That's why Ethan Triggs is dead. Because you don't have it in you.”
“I'm sorry, sir.”
“You are, indeed,” Bryt said. The professor's sword vanished. He turned back to the class. “So you see, class, what a Flameblade can be in both the hands of a trained Charon,” his sword reappeared, “and in the hands of an ignorant child.”
Ceril looked at him, and his head began to throb as the blood rushed to his head and his heart beat faster.
He summoned his sword, and it gleamed purple-green in his hand. He lunged at his teacher. Ceril slashed and cut and stabbed with all his might, and Bryt parried and dodged each one with nonchalance. Ceril fought harder and harder, his rage vocalized by louder and louder grunts and cries. Yet the small man countered him at every point.
Eventually, Bryt went off the defensive. He spun in place and planted his sword’s pommel solidly in Ceril’s sternum. The force of the blow pushed Ceril to the ground and knocked his Flameblade from his hand. Its fire extinguished for just a second, but immediately flared again as it appeared inside Bryt's shoulder, much like it had done inside Ethan Triggs' chest.
“Class dismissed,” the teacher said. He fell to the floor. The students ran out of the door, but a few medic Recruits stopped by Bryt to see if there was anything they could do to help. He was either crying or laughing, and the students could not tell which.
“No, no,” he said. “I'll be fine. I'll go see Howser soon. Run along. Don’t worry about me.”
When the room was empty except for the two of them, Bryt said, “Well done, Ceril,” as he forced himself into a sitting position.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean just what I said. You did well. You have a lot of promise. It's been more years than I care to count since I've found an Apprentice with his own Flameblade, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen one with as strong a bond as you have. It's very rare for someone to be able to control it like you do. You can make it do things when you’re not even touching it.” He grunted. “Now, if you don't mind, would you get this thing out of me?”
“I don’t know how.”
“Sure you do. But first, try to flare the heat just a bit. Need to cauterize the wound so I don't bleed out when this thing disappears.”
Ceril knew that he had to be exceptionally careful in the next few moments. He had attacked a teacher, almost killed him. And on the day after he’d murdered one of his older classmates. Roman was going to be furious. Ceril concentrated, thought about the sword and the heat he had felt from Bryt’s earlier in the class. He couldn’t screw this up. Ceril’s breathing became more rapid, and as it did, he was able to see a slight glow appear around the Flameblade.
Bryt said, “Good, good.” The instructor heard a crackle, and felt the blade singe his flesh. He screamed, which made Ceril jump and the Flameblade disappear. “Thank you, Ceril.”
“Why did you do that, sir?” Ceril asked.
“What?”
“Embarrass me like that? In front of everyone. I don’t think they knew about Ethan.”
“I had to. They would have found out about Ethan eventually, anyway.”
“Yeah, but—”
“But nothing. This way, you’ll get their respect.”
“They’ll hate me!”
“That will pass,” Bryt said. “And as for the rest of it, I had to get you riled up. I had to infuriate you, and that was just an easy wound to stick my thumb in.” Bryt grunted and moved his wounded shoulder in a circle. “The bond we have with our Flameblades is only partially what I told the class. The swords are made up of nanites, and they do respond to genetic makeup. The trick to controlling them, though, has nothing to do with genetics whatsoever, nothing to do with the bond at all. If you want to use the sword for anything that doesn’t involve making some pretty lights, then you have to be able to focus your emotional state.”
Ceril stared blankly at Bryt.
“Ethan Triggs riled you up emotionally, didn't he, Ceril?”
Ceril nodded. “He was trying to kill me. I…was scared. I’ve never—never—felt like that before.”
“I know.” The professor reached out and touched Ceril’s arm. “And I wish I could say that you never will again. Unfortunately, I had to get you riled up today, too, and while I’m sorry for the way I did it, I won’t apologize for doing it. You’ll learn more that way.”
“Sure,” Ceril said.
“I hate to say it, Ceril, but the time you spend with me is going to be hard. Not just physically, but emotionally, too. I'm going to have to get you to turn this embarrassment and guilt that you feel so easily into something productive. We're going to focus those emotions and direct them, instead of wallowing in them and not sleeping.” Bryt started to climb to his feet. His right arm hung limply at his side. “Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll be going to see Howser now and see if I can get some feeling back into this arm. I expected you to do some impressive things today, Ceril, but I never expected you to stab me.” Bryt chuckled. “Same time tomorrow, okay?”
He patted Ceril on the shoulder with his good hand and walked out of the room.
Chapter Eight
Five Years Later
I wonder what they’re doing right now.
“Ceril?” Roman asked again.
“No, that’s me,” Ceril said without looking at his instructor. “I know what I’m doing.”
“You don't say? Well, you could have fooled me.” Roman sighed. “Ceril, I don't know where your mind is today, but it's not here. It hasn't been for some time, so I'll tell you what. Go ahead and take the rest of today off. Get a little rest. Fix whatever it is that's broken in you, all right? Then I need you to come back in here at 0600 tomorrow, ready to be briefed. It's a routine Instance hop, but you know as well as I do that even routine missions are more than dangerous enough to get you killed if your head's not in the game. You got me?”
“Yeah, sure. 0700. Got it.”
“Six. Oh-six, Ceril.”
“Yeah…yeah, I’ll be here at oh-six,” Ceril said. “Promise.”
With that, Ceril turned from his instructor and walked out of the room. He made his way through the grey metal hallways that had become his home during these last six years and quickly found himself lying reclined on the bunk he had been assigned his first day aboard the Inkwell Sigil. He stared out the porthole with his fingers interlaced behind his head. He loved watching the blur change color in front of his eyes. It was one of the few things that could really relax him these days.
For a very short time, the observation deck had helped him relax, but he hadn’t been able to go in there for years without having some kind of panic attack.
Without being able to keep his hands in the dirt—like he used to do on the deck—he had taken to staring at the colors of hyperspace and trying to find some kind of meaning in their shifting. It had almost become like a religion to him. Saryn joked that he was looking for his purple-green god out the window.
Sometimes he wondered if she was right.
Life aboard the Inkwell Sigil was not luxurious, and much of it was lonely. Much of Ceril's time was taken up by studying, and his room reflected that dedication. Unlike most of the other Apprentices, Ceril kept his room almost exactly as it had been when he came on board six years ago. His linens were standard-issue white and gray, and the walls of his quarters were undecorated except for the Sigil’s embossed logo near the ceiling and a small selection of books Ceril couldn’t leave in the Library—he just had to have access to them any time. The porthole and its view of hyperspace over his bed was the highlight of the room.
Well, except for the picture of Gramps on his desk.
How he missed that man. Ceril hadn’t seen him in six years, hadn’t even spoken with him in five. That photograph was Ceril’s only proof that he had connections with anyone off the Inkwell Sigil.
He stared at the picture, not blinking. Ceril saw himself standing beside Gramps. The day that photo was taken seemed l
ike a lifetime ago, and his heart sank. The two of them had shared so much of their lives with one another, but lately, his studies and Apprenticeship made everything before coming onboard the Inkwell Sigil a blur.
He hated that, but he couldn’t help it. He looked away from the picture and back out the window. Focusing on the shifting colors allowed him not to think about how long it had been since he had seen or spoken with Gramps. Too long, Ceril thought. Much too long. What if he’s…not there anymore? Ceril pushed the thought from his mind. Of course he was. Nothing had happened to Gramps in the last five years. He had always been as tough as a Yaghian plated bear.
And what about Swarley? Ceril never even got to say goodbye. For all the years they had lived together and made visits to each other’s homes over breaks from Ennd’s, Ceril might as well have vanished into thin air. They must have come up with some story about where Ceril had gone—some lie. They told Swarley just to move on with his life. Because that’s what they had told Ceril.
“No,” he remembered Roman saying. “Absolutely not.”
“Why not?” Ceril had asked. “It’s been nearly a month, and I’m sure he’ll want to know where, you know, his roommate is. If I’m alive or whatever.”
“Rules are rules, Ceril. You know that. I wish I could, but I can’t let you contact anyone who isn’t aboard the Sigil for security reasons.”
“Yeah,” Ceril had said. “Security reasons. Because you don’t want people to know you exist.”
“Exactly,” said Roman. “We don’t want people to know we exist.”
“But they do know,” Ceril explained. “There were those people with the Flameblades who attacked—”
“They. Are. Not. Us. I’ve told you that over and over again, Ceril. Do you think that anyone on this ship, me included, could do that to anyone? To children, I mean? Could you? You have a Flameblade, after all. Are you one of them?”
“Of course not,” Ceril had said. Roman rarely raised his voice, but when he did, it was enough to frighten almost anyone. “But…”
“But nothing, Ceril. We don’t want people—any person at all—to know that we exist because we will be seen as being just as bad as they are. Do you want that?”
Ceril was silent.
“Well, do you?”
“No, sir,” Ceril said. “But why would they?”
“Why would they what?”
“See us that way? If we just let them see the good that we do, what we’re really about., then maybe they’ll realize we’re not so bad.”
“I’m sorry, Ceril,” Roman said. He’d meant it, too. Ceril heard the apology in his voice. “That’s just not how the world works. That’s just not how we work. This system has been in place for a very long time, and it works. I’m sorry that it’s painful not to talk to the people you care about, but it’s for their protection as much as yours and the order’s. On the upside, you will be able to talk to your grandfather eventually.”
Ceril’s eyes widened. His whole body perked up. “Really?” he said. “When? Soon? Today?”
“Eventually,” Roman had said. “When you complete your first year of training and pick your Class.”
“Oh,” Ceril said. And that was that.
Roman had been as good as his word, though. That first year had gone by quickly though, and Ceril had been able to speak with Gramps just like Roman had promised. Ceril’s grandfather had not been happy when that Ceril was training to be a Charon, but he told him that he would support him in whatever choice he made. Ceril had tried to bring up how Gramps knew Headmaster Squalt and Professor Nephil, but Gramps dodged the question and redirected everything back to being about Ceril.
Gramps was still in great health and had plans to expand the garden even more that summer. When Ceril asked about the terrorists who had called themselves Charons, Gramps became visibly distraught and denied knowing anything about what Ceril was talking about.
Now, five years later, Ceril yearned to speak with his grandfather again. He would soon, though. That was one of the few things that kept him going. He was going to start his Rites tomorrow.
That had him worried. No matter how routine tomorrow’s task would be, he had to get his head on straight—it was the start of his final test to become a full agent of the Charonic Archive.
A full agent, he thought. A Charon. The thought was ridiculous when he actually thought about it. He was supposed to be a farmer by now. Of course, Charons were supposed to be myths, too.
So much for that, Ceril thought. With his eyes fixed on the window, Ceril got to his knees and extended his left arm with his hand open. His Flameblade materialized in his hand. Its faint purple-green glow was overpowered by the light from the hyperspace blur. He did a one-handed practice that Bryt had taught him. It was supposed to help with nervousness. Sometimes it did, but this wasn’t one of those times. When he finished, the sword dissipated and his hand was empty once again. Ceril collapsed back onto his bed.
Roman had said that once Ceril’s Rites were finished, he would get to go back to Erlon. What Ceril couldn't wrap his mind around was how. How that was possible?
If he was supposed to go back to Erlon after being Rited, then why all the secrecy? In his six years of being aboard the Sigil and through all his research, he couldn't find more than what would a single book's worth of information about contemporary Charons on Erlon.
His Rites would surely flesh that out further, and hopefully even help them stop the impostor Charons who were terrorizing most of Erlon. Except for a handful of news reports and scattered information about them, Ceril might not have even known they existed anymore. And even those reports were hard to find using the Inkwell Sigil’s archives. Ceril always had to do a little extra digging when he was off the ship to learn anything new.
Like so many other times during his training, Ceril just had to trust his superiors and hope they weren’t lying to him when they said they weren’t involved in those attacks.
He breathed in deeply and tried to calm himself. The swirl of the hyperspace envelope’s colors wasn’t making him any less nervous tonight. So, his attention moved back to the picture of him and Gramps. He barely recognized the smile on the boy’s face. He couldn’t remember the last time he smiled like that.
***
It felt somewhat poetic that almost exactly five years since he had last stood in the Inkwell Sigil’s observation deck, Ceril held the glowing green-purple Flameblade and stared off the highest tier.
Only now, he was a little wiser, a lot taller, and he would never be finished atoning for the death of Ethan Triggs. At least he had finished with Roman’s penance—training as both a scholar and a soldier. Even still, he would never stop paying the price he inflicted upon himself.
He had matured a great deal in his six years of training. Killing a person tended to have that effect on a kid. He had once been full of life and jokes; now, he rarely said a word to another student aboard the Sigil. He wanted to, sure, but his soldier training been so time-consuming that he had even less time for socialization than he had before Ethan's death.
Now, though, all that was behind him. He had come to the observation deck, this specific tier, to finish the last few revisions on his thesis and send it to Roman. Then he would just have his Rites, whenever the higher-ups felt he was ready.
As a scholar, his preparation for the Rites was straightforward: a research project on a topic that had never been researched before and could be archived for future use by the Charons. Ceril had found early on in his training that his interests were mythology and religion. If he couldn’t be a farmer and help Gramps out, then he would at least honor the impact his grandfather’s stories had on his life.
Years of work and research, all finished. Ceril touched the CONFIRM SEND? button on the tablet’s screen. He looked up at the swirling colors of the hyperspace envelope that surrounded the ship. Absentmindedly, Ceril held his hands out as he leaned over and rested his arms on his knees. The Flameblade teleported from palm
to palm.
“Careful with that thing,” came a voice from behind him.
Ceril sat straight up and the sword disappeared. “I always am. How are you tonight, Roman?”
“Just dandy,” the older man said. “May I sit?”
“Of course.”
“I got your thesis a moment ago,” Roman said.
“Good,” Ceril said. “I think it’s finished.”
“I’m sure it is, son. It was finished by my count over a month ago.”
Ceril shook his head. “It wasn’t. It had a lot of stuff wrong with it that I think I’ve fixed. I’m not sure, though. I may give it one more pass later and resend it, if that’s okay.”
“It’s not,” Roman said. “It’s fine the way it is. You have to let go at some point, Ceril.”
Ceril just sat there.
“What’s on your mind, Ceril? I can’t remember the last time you were in here, especially on this tier. What’s changed?”
“Nothing’s changed,” Ceril said. “I just thought it was appropriate for me to finish my work up here, that’s all.”
“Mmm hmmm.” Roman nodded. “It’s good work, Ceril.”
It was Ceril’s turn to be noncommittal. “Mmm hmmm,” he replied.
“I mean it. You’ve done something in these past five years that no one else was able to do for three hundred, maybe more.”
“It’s not that big a deal,” Ceril said. And to him, it wasn’t. His whole research project had been something he loved to do and would have been doing anyway: reading and listening to stories.
“It is. Ceril, you’ve parsed every legend and every myth—that we know of—that deals with the Charons and cross-referenced them, indexed them, with every major religious text on Erlon.”
Ceril nodded. “I know.”
“My point is, Ceril, that you—and you alone—have brought more to light about how the Charons are understood than anyone in recent history. And given the current state of affairs with the Untouchable and that group of pretenders he’s started, that’s more valuable than you know.”