The Channeler

by William Kline

  Tommy grinned back at the thought of the somber, older students howling and holding their shins, and they had sat on their bunks and joked back and forth about interesting and increasingly abusive ways to get their escorts to produce sounds.

  Eventually, however, their talk had run down. Mirth gradually turned to boredom, and eventually both boys sat quietly, alternating between trying to study and sitting and staring. There wasn’t much point to any channeling exercises; Tommy was far too nervous to concentrate, and in any case he wanted to be fresh in case that was part of the test, as he suspected it would be.

  After several hours another group of students arrived with lunch trays; Roast beef and grilled chicken sandwiches, a hot and hearty vegetable soup, and a nice red apple for dessert. There was milk to drink, again, along with iced tea and a glass of ice-cold water. Again the other students spoke not a word; they simply laid down the lunch trays, gathered up the remains of the breakfast trays, and left.

  Shortly after they finished lunch, the same student who had come for James called for Ryan. Ryan paused and shared a nervous look with Tommy, and then he was gone out the door. “Good Luck!” Tommy called after him feebly, but the door was already almost shut and Tommy had no idea if the other boy had even heard him.

  With Ryan gone, the waiting became almost unbearable. Tommy paced back and forth in the room, unable to sit still. He had never dealt well with waiting, and had had a tendency to worry himself sick when he was nervous. That was why Tommy had almost never broken the rules at his old school – when he did, he always worried himself so sick over possibly being caught that it became easier just to obey the rules. He had never understood how the “bad kids” could live with themselves.

  Tommy’s pacing gradually increased in speed and urgency. After almost an hour, his stomach was tied firmly in a knot and he was considering asking to go to the bathroom so he could be sick. In his mind, he saw Ryan and James and all his other classmates, sitting at a graduation celebration and laughing about how stupid Tommy had been left behind. His mind spun the dread fantasy up again and again, worse each time, and he was right to the part where his room got moved into another area so he could be with a “younger class” when suddenly the door opened again, shocking him out of his daydream.

  The same boy stood there in the doorway. He locked eyes with Tommy and said, “Thomas Nelson? Come on; it’s time.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  The boy lead Tommy to a part of the school that he’d never been to before. That wasn’t surprising; the school was vast, and students at Tommy’s level were actively discouraged from roaming the school at random; they’d been told that it was for their own protection, that, lacking experience, they may very well wander into something harmful. Tommy had never even been to the area where the more advanced students, like Stephen, Mary, and Mae lived. For that matter, he didn’t even really know how to get there.

  They walked for quite awhile – Tommy guessed that it was over fifteen minutes – and took so many turns and sets of stairs that Tommy was totally lost. He began to wonder if this was part of the test, and was grateful for the physical fitness training he’d been attending over the last couple of months. The boy set a pretty brisk pace, and “old Tommy’ would have been winded.

  Eventually, the boy opened a door and motioned for Tommy to step inside. It was a plain stone room, much like any other room in the school; it was lit by glowing bulbs from above, and had the same smooth walls without crack or mortar. On the far end of the room was a narrow archway that lead to an unlit hallway that stretched into darkness. There was a small wooden table in the center of the room. On it was a metal lantern, like the gas lantern that Tommy’s dad had in the garage for the camping that they never actually found time to do.

  The boy walked to the front of the table and turned back to face Tommy. “Listen carefully to my instructions,” he began. “You are not permitted to ask any questions, and in any case, I am not permitted to answer them. The lantern on this table is powered by magic. The first part of your test is to channel into it until it begins to shine. Then you will take it and proceed down the hallway behind me,” the boy intoned, gesturing to the darkened hallway opposite the door through which they had entered the room. “You may take as long as you need to complete the test. If at any time you decide that you cannot continue or you need to give up on the test, simply say the words ‘I give up’ out loud, and the test will be over. However, if you give up on the test, you will fail and will have to return to your previous class. Once I leave this room, there is no turning back. Do you understand these instructions?”

  Tommy thought about it and decided that he did. His palms were damp with nervousness, though, and he felt a trickle of sweat running down the side of his chest inside his shirt, so instead he asked, “Is this dangerous?”

  The boy took on the annoyed expression of someone who had been through this several times and simply repeated, “Do you understand these instructions?”

  Tommy realized he’d get no further explanation from the other boy, so he nodded his head and replied “Yes, I understand.”

  “Good,” the boy said curtly. Then, “Are you ready to proceed?”

  “Uh. I guess so. I mean, yes.”

  The boy nodded his head once, said, “Good luck, then” with the practiced voice of a ceremonial invocation, walked to the door, and left the room, closing the door behind him.

  Tommy watched him go and then walked to peek down the hallway. It got very dark rather quickly; Tommy could barely see more than fifteen or twenty feet, and there was nothing there to see but hallway and darkness. He walked up to the lantern and picked it up. It clanked faintly with a loose-metal type of sound, and Tommy could see that it was almost exactly like the lantern that had hung in his father’s garage.

  “Well, here goes” he said out loud, then immediately regretted his articulation. If he could quit the test by speaking out loud, then surely someone was listening to him. The thought made him look around the ceiling of the room, but it was blank and smooth; there were no cameras or microphones to be seen. He supposed that there might be a microphone in the lights somewhere, but then decided that the whole exercise was moot. In any case, he’d have to be careful what he said out loud. He certainly didn’t want someone mistaking his words for him giving up on the test.

  Tommy sat down on the stone floor and closed his eyes. He relaxed his mind and body in the way that he’d been taught and tried to channel. It was somewhat more difficult than he was used to due to the fact that he felt nervous and pressured, but after a few minutes he felt the power flow and he directed it into the lantern. It was like channeling into the crystal in the channeling room – he could feel the power flow into the device and begin to fill it – but unlike the crystal Tommy could clearly feel the limit of what the lantern could hold. It only took a few moments, and Tommy realized that the lantern was now full – the energy he was channeling poured around the lantern and off into room as if it had never flowed into the device.

  When Tommy opened his eyes again, he saw that the lantern was shining brightly with a clean, white light. Pleased with his progress, he picked up the lantern carefully. At first, he expected it to be hot, but then he realized that was silly; there was no fire to generate heat, and all the light was provided magically. Tommy shook his head at himself and smiled before setting off down the hallway.

  The hall was more of the same unrelieved grey stone, and curved slightly to the left. Tommy quickly lost site of the entrance archway around the curve, and soon he found himself walking down an unadorned stone hallway with only the lantern for light. He didn’t walk for very long, but it seemed like an impossibly long time to be walking down a hallway inside – at least 10 minutes, possibly longer. Eventually, he came upon a large metal grate that completely blocked the hallway.

  He stopped in front of the grate and stood for a minute studying it. It was made of a dull grey metal, and after studying it for a moment, Tommy was sure he
knew what it was. Just to be sure, he relaxed himself, embraced the power, and channeled it at the grate. The energy warped and bent around the metal, refusing to touch it, and Tommy’s suspicions were confirmed – the grate blocking his passage was made from tungsten.

  Setting his lantern down on the floor, Tommy grabbed the grate with his hands and pushed, but the hard metal didn’t budge even a hair’s breadth. He tried pulling, lifting, sliding, twisting, turning – all to no avail; the grate stood immobile in his path. Stepping back, Tommy scratched his head. After a moment’s thought, he decided that he must have missed something back down the hall, so he picked up his lantern and began retracing his steps.

  He didn’t get very far down the hallway before it abruptly ended in a blank stone wall. Tommy was surprised and confused. He was sure he had walked much, much farther down the hallway the first time, and he decided that the hallway must have closed up after he passed. Just to be sure, he put his hand against the wall and pushed; it was as solid as any of the other walls. Frustrated, he decided to return to the grate.

  When he got back, the grate was still there, and he noticed that his lantern had begun to dim significantly. He fought down a brief panic at the thought of being alone in the pitch blackness. It took him several minutes of deep breaths and trying to relax before he felt ready to channel again, and the lantern had almost gone out by the time he refilled it with magical energy.

  Once the lamp was shining brightly again, Tommy turned to regard the metal grate and saw something he hadn’t noticed before. Down the hallway, just at the limit of his light, was a small metal arrow protruding from the wall. It was bright, shiny, silvery, and pointed straight up at the ceiling. Suddenly, Tommy understood. He went through the mental exercises that were becoming second nature to him, focused his will, and channeled energy directly at the arrow.

  Almost immediately, the metal grate began to rise into the ceiling. It moved slowly but steadily upwards, and after a few minutes, Tommy was able to step forward through the grate. As soon as Tommy moved he let his concentration lapse and lost contact with the magical power, and the grate began to sink back down to the floor. Tommy realized that it was only the energy that was keeping it up, and he stepped quickly away as the grate sank down and crashed into the floor with an immense bang that reverberated up and down the hallway.

  He smiled, suddenly pleased with himself, and set off down the hallway. He only paused briefly to examine the metal arrow that he’d seen through the grate. It was as cool and smooth as he thought it would be, but it had served its purpose in his test, and he had no further business with it. He hadn’t gotten very far – just far enough to begin to wonder if that was the end of the test, if he’d finished it so quickly, when he came to another grey metal grate blocking the hallway.

  This time, he knew exactly what to look for – peering through the holes in the grate; he saw not one, but two things protruding from the wall down the hall. On the right-hand side of the wall was another silvery arrow, pointing to the left, this time. On the left hand side was a strange square made of the same grey metal as the grate – tungsten, again, Tommy surmised – but with an upwards pointing arrow etched on it in silver. Tommy channeled at it experimentally, but predictably the energy just slid off the square and refused to touch it. Tommy had fully expected the result, so he turned the focus of his energy over to the silvery arrow.

  He had fully expected the grate to slide to the side, and was surprised when it didn’t. What did happen was that the strange metal square down the hall slide to the left and into a small hole in the wall that Tommy hadn’t been able to see previously and exposed another silvery arrow that had been behind it, this one pointing up. Tommy guessed the nature of the test – one arrow to move the metal panel, the other to move the tungsten bars blocking his path. He shifted the focus of his channeling to the new arrow, and was completely surprised when the tungsten square immediately snapped back into place, blocking him.

  The shock caused him to completely lose focus, and the magic power drained away from him, so Tommy doggedly began the mental exercises required to seize it again. This time, it didn’t take him long to figure out what to do; He focused his energy into two different channels. They’d practiced this in class before, several times – some of the students were so good at it that they could channel at ten different targets at once, but Tommy found it difficult to split the massive flow of energy he handled into more than three or four streams. Micah had told him he’d get better at it with practice, but he still felt like he should be able to do more.

  The energy touched the left-pointing arrow, and the metal panel slide to the side again. That left the way clear for Tommy’s second channel to contact the up arrow that had been behind it, and sure enough, the gate began to rise. It took just a couple minutes of maintaining the two flows of energy before the gate was high enough that Tommy could step underneath it. Like before, as soon as he moved and released the magic, the gate began to slide back toward the floor, sinking faster and faster until it slammed into the floor with a jarring boom.

  Tommy quickly turned away from the closed gate and continued down the passage. His step was light; He’d faced two challenges and, after a few moments of thought, defeated them both quite handily. He set off down the hallway at a determined pace and stepped briskly past the two silver arrows, ready to face what might come next.

  He was quite surprised, however, when after a short walk he found not another grate blocking his path but a blank stone wall. The hallway simply ended. Frowning, Tommy put his hand against the wall and pushed, but to no avail; the stone was as solid as any of the walls he’d walked past.

  A sudden burst of inspiration took Tommy. Maybe he’d walked right past some more of the silvery arrows and not even noticed them. He turned to retrace his steps and was immediately confronted by another large stone wall, this one with giant metal spikes protruding from the wall. As Tommy approached to inspect the wall and its spikes, he saw that they looked extremely sharp. He also quickly realized that the spikes were moving slowly but inexorably toward him.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Tommy felt sweat break out across his forehead and the sides of his face, and felt the tension in his arms and shoulders that signaled a panic attack. Stepping back from the wall, he forced himself to take several deep breaths, and then began the mental calming exercises that he’d learned in channeling class. It took him several minutes to gather the power, since he kept having to stop and open his eyes to check on the progress of the wall, but he finally managed it. The wall was still a good fifteen feet away, and hadn’t made much progress, but it was creeping steadily nearer.

  Tommy focused his will and channeled at the wall and the spikes, but nothing happened. He felt the power flow, but there seemed to be nothing for it to contact, and it just vanished into the air. He struggled for a moment, then successfully fought down a surge of panic that threatened the calm state of mind that allowed him to channel. Calm again, he noticed that the wall was definitely moving toward him, but slowly enough that he had some time to think.

  He turned his back on the spikes for a moment (although he was constantly looking over his shoulder to be sure they weren’t getting closer) and studied the end of the passageway. A faint shadow caught his eye, and he got closer to inspect it. There, carved very lightly into the stone directly in the center of the wall, almost so lightly that he couldn’t see it, was a spiral pattern. Tommy traced it lightly with his finger for a moment before inspiration struck and he stepped back and channeled directly at the pattern.

  Immediately, the wall faded from view and became an open hallway again. Tommy stepped forward quickly, and found that the hallway ended after just a few feet and ended in a giant stone room. The room was fairly massive – at least as big as his school gymnasium back home – and had large, ornate stone columns lining either side of the room and supporting a flat stone ceiling carved with pictures of clouds. In the very center of the ceiling was a wide op
en hole through which a brisk breeze and even a few flurries of snow fell; Tommy assumed the room was paradoxically high up on the mountain, even though he had descended deep into the school in order to take his test. Beneath the hole in the roof was a low stone rim on the floor that surrounded what looked like a shimmering pool, and sitting a distance away from the pool was a small raised dais with a huge stone throne at the top. Sitting in the throne in a casual, bored posture, one leg thrown idly over one arm of the throne and his chin resting on his fist on the other, was Micah.

  Tommy’s face broke out into a smile, and he started across the room toward him, forgetting to even look behind him to notice that the hallway he had come through had vanished, and there was now only unbroken, smooth stone. As he passed the pool with its raised stone lip, Tommy cast a quick glance down. He gave a double-take and stopped and stared. It was no pool at all, but a vast, open hole that lead to absolutely nothing – Just wide open sky, limitless, as far as Tommy could see, with no sign of the ground. Tommy’s head swam with vertigo, and he took an involuntary step back from the pool. He was still staring when he heard Micah chuckling.

  “It’s not really endless, Tommy. That is just an illusion that relaxes me.”

  Tommy nodded slowly, never taking his eyes off the pool, and edged around it toward Micah. Only once he was past the area and several feet away did he turn his head to the man on the throne. “So that’s all, then?” he asked. “I passed?”

  Micah gave a “so-so” shake of his hand and head. “More or less,” he replied. “You’re done with the difficult part of the test, anyway. Now all you have to do is get past me.”

  Tommy favored the man with a worried half-smile, and said “Ummmmm, okay?”

  Micah sat up in the throne. “Every student must undergo an interview before they are ready to advance. Sometimes I conduct the interviews; sometimes one of the members of my coterie does them. But you cannot pass the test until we’ve completed our discussion.”