by Mike Simmons
“Yes, I can sense things. I will tell you more about it tonight when we camp. Look, there’s the stream,” Edward said, pointing to the small stream up ahead.
The stream, only a few feet wide and a foot deep, caught the attention of the horses as they approached. The air smelled fresh and clean. Lush green plants flowed over the banks up into the dirt where Edward and Brandon stood. The horses eagerly drank up the cool, fresh water. Brandon opened up the pack that hung on the side of his saddle, and pulled out two tin cups and a long piece of sausage wrapped in a thick, white cloth. He tossed a cup to Edward and broke off a few bites worth of sausage, putting the rest in Edward’s outstretched hand.
“Thank you,” Edward said, with a small nod. Brandon sat down on the base of a fallen tree with a relieved sigh. Everything seemed peaceful here, as if nothing terrible went on anywhere else; birds chirped, and sounds of nature surrounded them. Brandon dipped his cup into the stream, and took a small bite of sausage.
“It’s hard to believe there is a war going on right now. Look at the woods out here. They are beautiful. People are too caught up in the ugliness and brutality of war. They don’t realize what is given to us,” Brandon said, caught up himself in the beauty of the woodlands around them.
“War is not always a mutual decision, son. War sometimes ends up on your doorstep, and you must fight back, or lose everything you have. Lord Reinhold wages war against Aurora because she has brought this fight to his territory. If he doesn’t stop her, she will kill countless numbers of people, his people; people who are honest, and work hard for a living, people with families. People like you, and me." Brandon watched Edward speak with understanding.
“Aurora is out for no one but herself. She wants to rid the world of men,” Edward said, as he twirled his pointer finger in a circle into the air. “She’s crazy. Some horrific things happened to her when she was a little girl; things she was powerless against, but those events triggered the growth of her power and made her who she is today.”
“What do you mean? Are you talking about her royalty, or her magical abilities? Wouldn’t both of those things be set at her birth? People cannot change their royalty or their ability to channel magic. I mean, I understand that your upbringing could make you do dark things, or vice versa, but why do you think she’d be any different if those horrible things didn’t happen to her? Is there something I’m missing?” Brandon questioned, unclear of what Edward implied.
“Things would be altogether different today if her past was not written as it was." Edward looked off into the trees. He appeared deep in thought. “The horses have rested enough, let’s ride, and I’ll explain on the way." With that, Brandon gave an agreeing nod. They dipped their cups in the river one more time and finished off the last of their sausage as they mounted up. Brandon gave Baby a reassuring pat on the side of her neck. They walked the horses to the road and headed north, keeping a steady pace as Edward started explaining.
“You first have to understand the way that magic works. This might be confusing, but I’ll do the best that I can to explain it to you. When the Gods created our world, they started with a single, blank palette. On that blank canvas, they drew our world, and wrote the rules of how things work. They colored in emotions, instincts, and primal urges. They added in everyone and everything that would live and thrive here. When they were done, they tore off an image of our world, almost like another world, and added different creatures and different rules to it. They did this multiple times. These mirrored palettes, some say, are other worlds, or other dimensions. Well, the tearing of the palettes created energy. That energy is what we call magic, and because it is tied in with everything created, some individuals are able to harness, control, and manipulate that energy." Edward looked over at Brandon to see if he followed him.
“Okay, I’m with you so far.”
“Man has catalogued the abilities of magic into three categories, or 'spheres,' if you will; Mind, Body, and Spirit. Each sphere controls different things, and different abilities and powers are born within each of these spheres. The three spheres are always depicted as three diamonds, each with four sides. One diamond is atop the other two forming an imaginary triangle, and all are encased within a circle. Each side of a diamond represents a different kind of power associated to its corresponding sphere. Where the common folk have minimal energy spread amongst the three spheres, the Gifted have that energy throughout these spheres in far greater density. Depending on which sphere, and which side of that sphere they are gifted in, determines what powers, or enhancements, they are able to manipulate or control." Edward paused, waiting to see if Brandon understood him.
“Alright,” Brandon said. “Mind, body, and spirit. Each sphere has four types of powers associated with it, so they represent them with a diamond, because of its four sides. Then they put them all inside a circle. Got it.”
“Good, you are right so far. Now, with each power, the ability to channel that power, and how much energy you have throughout that sphere, determines how much power, or control, you have with that magic. They rank it into classes. It starts at minimal power, which is classified as Class one, and goes all the way up to the most extreme and dangerous power, which falls into Class five. The majority of people that can channel fall into Class three or less. In all of Venifera, you could fit all of the Class four magic users into a single room, and you could count all the Class fives on less than one hand.”
“Wow, okay…” Brandon whispered. “So, where does the evil queen fall in all of this?”
“Well, Empress Aurora is gifted in the Mind sphere. The Mind sphere breaks into four categories: Psionics, Illusion, Elementalism, and Sensing, each represented by one side of the diamond. I am a Sensor, Class three, and a Psionicist, Class three. I have what is called “Control” of Mind, which is the ability to channel two sides of a magic sphere. Empress Aurora is a Psionicist.”
Brandon interrupted him. “She is just a psionicist? Why don’t you kill her then? You are that and then some, right? You are a Sensor, too. I’m sure Reinhold would pay you dearly for helping him out. She’s crazy, you said so yourself.”
Edward continued to look ahead at the road as he explained. “When Empress Aurora was a child, her mother took her to a training facility located close to where her castle now sits; her father was killed in the Ogre Wars before she was born. Through their tests, they categorized her as a Class three psionicist. Psionics refers to the psychic ability of using the mind to induce paranormal phenomena, like telepathy, telekinesis, and other workings of the outside world through the psyche. Psionicists can move things with their mind, like make things float, and so on. Her instructor, a man named Korgen Kitadal, another gifted psionicist, took her under his wing for training. He taught her how to use her powers, and how to make them grow. Everything was going well,” Edward paused a second, “until he broke every rule he pledged to uphold." Brandon’s eyes scrunched and he tilted his head sideways, in a questioning look.
“A year or so into her training, Korgen held a late night training session with Aurora. According to the record, as she was studying the pages of her training book, Korgen flipped the lock on the door. He came up from behind her, overpowered her, and had his way with her. No one was around to hear her screams. The next morning, a stable boy found her bleeding and naked body curled up in the corner of the school’s stable house; she was awake, but the shock of the incident sent her mind into submission. The lights were lit, but nobody was home. It was as if she was in a coma. Well, the Sensors and historians of the incident believe that is when it happened." Edward stopped talking.
Brandon looked around. “That is when what happened?”
“Aurora stayed comatose for eleven months. They were able to keep her alive with magic. They gave her fluid from tubes inserted into her arms. A lot of the documentation for this period was destroyed, but from what we have been able to find, the Sensors believe that the trauma of this horrible event sent a ripple through the barriers
of her mind, opening all the doors that held everything together, all at once. The writings say that her mind sphere was a 'chaotic collapse of tremendous power.' When she awoke, all hell broke loose. They say that as she screamed with her first conscious breath, all of the windows of the training facility exploded. The ground shook with uncontrolled power. Her nose began bleeding. There was two male Sensors occupying her room and monitoring her health.” Edward paused again. “At some point within her coma, they believed she entered the fifth class of psionicism. The first male Sensor was found headless, as if his head exploded. The entire room was covered in the mess. The other Sensor tried to flee, but his skin was pulled from his bones as he ran.”
“You have to be kidding me. Are you saying she did that?" Brandon asked in astonishment.
“Yes, she used her new found gift.”
“Gift? What about the other people of the school? What happened to them?" Brandon had a worried look on his face.
“The exact details of the tragedy are unclear, but it was noted that Aurora walked out through the school, and slaughtered every male she saw. They were hopeless to fight her. Two Class four teachers, a shape shifter and an elementalist, were slain in the attempt to stop her. Trying to stop someone with that extreme of power is like trying to stop the world’s largest landslide when you are the size of a common house spider. The degrees of power above Class three do not jump in measurable stages, they are exponential. A Class four could potentially defeat a small army of Class threes, and a Class five is nearly unstoppable. There has never been a recorded instance of anyone defeating or controlling a Class five Gifted.”
Brandon’s eyebrows scrunched down into a point, as he shook his head from side to side. “A Class five, huh? Wow. How is Lord Reinhold supposed to beat someone with that degree of power? I’ve heard a lot of great things about Cedric Reinhold, but not one saying he has that sort of power. Where do you think this war will go, and how long will it last?”
Edward shrugged. “I’m not sure about the war, but Lord Cedric Reinhold is a brilliant battle tactician and strategist. You are right, he is not gifted, but with his skills, he does not need to be gifted to be a good ruler, or a worthy adversary in battle. What he lacks in magic, he excels in intelligence. He has the experience of battle; Aurora does not. She conquers with sheer numbers, or with hordes of the Gifted, but she does not have the war skills that Reinhold has been using. His wins are carefully calculated and precise. He picks his wins, and how he wins, carefully. He’s a brilliant man; a worthy adversary by all accounts of the word."
“Those Maidens back outside of Greylin, they were Aurora’s, weren’t they?”
“Yes, my boy. Those are Blade Maidens, Aurora’s primary soldier force. I feel foolish that I let the reading you gave me back in the tavern slip past my eyes. I was too overwhelmed with all that you showed me. The Maiden at the helm of the attack, the one that watched us escape, is Commander General Gretchen Lomire She is a Gifted, and force to be reckoned with. She is an Enhance, which is of the Body sphere. People who are enhanced are normal like everyone else, but their limits on what they are enhanced in far excel the normal caps and limits of a normal body. Gretchen Lomire is a triple enhance. She is Speed, Class two, Dexterity, Class four, and Strength, Class three.”
Brandon’s head jerked back in surprise and then laughed, sarcastically.
“How do you know that? Is that part of your Sensor? And why aren’t these people the ones who set out to save the world? I’m a little healer! I can’t compete with what these other people have! The world’s enemies, right now, have more power within them that what I can even imagine! I’m a farm boy, Edward! Why me? Just because of my birthmark? My birthmark makes me someone special? I hardly think so. This has all got to be wrong. There must have been some sort of a mistake.”
Edward pulled on Firecracker’s reigns. His eyes, glazed with a hint of worry, stared at Brandon. Brandon pulled Baby to a halt as he looked back at Edward. Edward stared at him for a moment and then slid his left hand up under his cloak. His belt moved, as he pulled a hardened leather scroll case from underneath. The ends of the case had caps that connected to a silver button in the center of the case via yellow ribbon. Edward untied the ribbon from the silver button, and when he finished, he popped off one of the caps. With a small tip upward, a rolled sheet of aged paper fell out into his open palm. He set the case in his lap, and unrolled the paper. Brandon could see his eyes gliding from left to right as he read the writing on the scroll. Edward’s eyes looked up at Brandon over the top of the page, and went right back down to the scroll. Edward took in a deep breath.
“I found this about a week before I saw you entering that cemetery. It is a copy, but it’s a prophecy page, from the archives locked tight underneath Reinhold’s castle. Would you like me to read to you why I think the things that I do?”
“Well, yes, that would be enlightening to me,” Brandon said coyly.
Edward spoke, speaking every word with intricate pronunciation.
“He who was born under the Red Star will see blood. The blood of innocents will stain his heart. Tears for the dead will fall into broken grounds. The sanctity of his world will be compromised if a stand is not made. The slayer of man can only falter under the shadow of the Red Star. Unbreakable Will, a shield to weigh with trust, the only defense." Edward stopped reading, his eyes still looking at the page as if studying it. His eye rose to meet Brandon’s. “I don’t think these other people are the ones chosen to save the world, Brandon. They are the ones you are saving the world from.”
Brandon and Edward rode northeast, planning to restock their supplies in Darrow’s Hold, before making the long trip to Victorville. They only stopped to let the horses feed on the tall grasses patched along the roadside, or to stretch their legs. They did not talk a whole lot; Brandon had a lot on his mind. Edward let him have his peace.
As nightfall swallowed up the last rays of daylight, they headed off the road a hundred paces and made camp. Brandon let Edward setup the tent he had stuffed in his pack, as he headed out by himself to see what food he could catch. Within an hour, Brandon strolled back into camp with two jackrabbits in his hand, holding them by their feet. Edward sat on a tree stump, holding his hands out to the fire he built. He gave Brandon a welcoming smile as he strode into the firelight.
“It’s not much, these jacks are skinny, but it’ll have to do,” Brandon said.
“Looks wonderful,” Edward replied, with a hungry smile on his face.
Brandon pulled out his belt knife and gutted and skinned the jackrabbits, as Edward scuttled around the outside of the camp, just outside of the firelight. He came back with two sticks, thick in size, that were straight from the bottom to the top. Each had a branch joint that split the top into a small "Y." With both hands, he dug the straight ends of the sticks into opposite sides of the fire pit, far enough that they would not burn. He had a third stick tucked underneath his arm, smaller in width than the other two but twice as long, that he sat upon the top of the two forked ones buried into the ground with a smile.
“Perfect,” he said, as he looked at his makeshift rotisserie.
Brandon looked up from underneath his eyebrows as he skinned the last rabbit, giving the old man a slight chuckle. When he finished, he pulled the top stick off the other two, and ran it longwise through the gutted rabbits. Once done to his satisfaction, he placed the stick back into its supporting arms and let the rabbits begin to cook. They sat for a few minutes and watched the rabbits as if they were entertaining. All was silent except for the popping and hissing of the fire.
“Hey, Edward, I wanted to say thank you for saving my life earlier today from that Blade Maiden." He looked at Edward. “I don’t exactly know how you did it, but I know that I wouldn’t be sitting here if it wasn’t for you. Thank you. Maybe someday I can return the favor.”
Edward grew a genuine smile. “Hey hey, it’s nothing you wouldn’t have done for me if the situation had been different. I
mind controlled her. She was a puppet on my strings. Besides, what are friends for, right?" He gave Brandon a small wink.
Brandon pressed his lips together in a small smile as he nodded his head.
“Yes. You are a great man, Edward. It’s nice being able to talk to someone as a friend. I haven’t been too social since Matt passed away. It’s nice having a friend again, Edward. Thank you.”
They sat quiet for a few minutes. Edward turned the rabbits on the roasting stick to make sure they were cooked evenly. Stars filled the cloudless sky, and the moon hung at full face. Brandon rubbed his hands together in front of the open flames.
“So, you never told me what you are. I mean, you are a Sensor, I know that, but what exactly does that mean?" Brandon looked at Edward with a sidelong glance.
“As you know, Sensor is one of the four sides of the Mind Sphere. We can do just that, sense things. What we can sense, at what range, and whether or not it is a conscience sense or a subconscious sense, all depends on the individual person who has the ability. You see, people who are gifted, even those with the same gifts, are as different in their abilities as the human fingerprint. Although they are all similar, they are each unique to that person. People wield the gift differently, depending on their beliefs, their upraising, and how the intricate string of magical energy pulses through each of the three body spheres within the user. In my case, some of my sensings are automatic, like danger, and others require a conscious thought to grip the gift within me before I get the feeling, like finding the water earlier today. I can also sense the magic within others, like where their energy binds, and what class they are. With me, I feel it in my head. Sometimes like when a person puts certain metals on their teeth, that odd inner tooth feeling, it’s like that. Some others get the feeling of warmth on their skin closest to what they want to feel, and even others get no feelings at all, they just know. I get a sharp ache behind my left eye when danger is near me. It’s instantaneous; there is no doubt when I’m being told of what is to come. Does that clear anything up for you?”