by ML Spencer
“Ready for the next stage?” he asked.
The swordsmith had a glint of anticipation in his eyes. Aram wondered how the smith could feel excited about a day’s work, when every day at the forge seemed to be exactly the same, just heating and cooling steel and banging hammers.
“Here, sit down!” Onsel sat on the floor before the forge and patted the space next to him.
Aram noticed Onsel had bits of steel spread out on an anvil. He sat next to him and watched the swordsmith stir the pieces with a finger. He selected one and held it up in his palm, showing it to Aram.
“We have to separate the hard steel from the soft steel,” he explained. “The soft steel is going to become the core of your sword, and the hard steel is going to become the outer jacket.” He pointed to the chunk of steel in his hand. “See how this one is broken clean? This is harder steel. So, we’re going to set it aside and save it for the jacket.”
The smith picked up a piece with rough, jagged edges. “This is softer steel. We’re going to use it for the core. It makes the blade more flexible, so it can bend without breaking.”
Aram helped the smith sort through the pieces, separating those that had broken cleanly from those that had jagged edges. After the steel was separated, Onsel had him work the piston to operate the bellows. Together, they heated the forge, increasing the airflow until the flames glowed cherry-red.
“Where’s your apprentice?” Aram asked.
“Today, you are my apprentice,” Onsel informed him with a smile.
Hearing that, Aram felt hesitant. He didn’t know anything about forging a sword, and he was terrified he’d get it wrong. He was just about to object when Onsel handed him a long-handled sledgehammer then selected a metal rod from a pile of rods, along with a thin steel plate about the size of a brick.
“I’ll tap out commands to you with my hammer.” Onsel looked up at Aram, his face glistening with sweat from the heat of the forge. “You need to strike with even force and rhythm. Pay close attention to my hammer. If I tap faster, then you strike faster. If I tap slower, then you strike slower. When you hear my hammer drag across the anvil, you stop. Understand?”
Aram nodded, for he was fascinated, and paying extra-close attention. If he was paying good attention, he never had to be told anything twice. He climbed onto the crate he had seen the apprentices stand on and leaned on the sledgehammer with its head resting against the floor. He glanced at Onsel, who gave him a smile of encouragement.
The swordsmith shoved his iron rod into the forge alongside a plate made of star steel, keeping them both submerged in the coals until they glowed a vivid orange. Removing them, he set the glowing plate on the anvil and, touching the heated rod to it, welded them together with firm strikes of his mallet.
“Tap your hammer against the anvil,” Onsel directed. “That means you’re ready.”
Aram hefted the heavy sledge in both hands, getting a feel for it, then tapped the face of the hammer against the anvil. Onsel lifted his small hammer and struck the anvil twice—the signal to begin. Lifting the hammer, Aram brought it down with all his might.
Bang!
“Too hard!” the swordsmith shouted. “Don’t swing it! Just let it fall!”
Aram lifted the sledgehammer again, this time letting it fall with its own weight onto the hot steel.
Bang!
“Good!” Onsel struck his small hammer on the anvil: Tap-tap.
Bang!
Tap-tap.
Bang!
Tap-tap.
Bang!
Tap.
Bang!
Tap-drag.
Aram lowered the hammer, panting, a sheen of sweat slicking his forehead. He rested the sledgehammer on the floor, leaning against it.
“Good!” Onsel said.
He returned the plate to the forge, and they repeated the process, heating the plate and striking it, first one direction then the other, several times as the morning wore away. At last, Onsel moved the steel plate to a vat of clay, which he ladled onto the plate’s surface, the clay steaming and hissing.
“What’s that for?” asked Aram.
“The clay prevents the steel from overheating,” Onsel said, then smiled up at him. “You did good! That’s all for today, son. Come back tomorrow for the next step.”
Aram wiped the sweat from his brow with his arm, still breathing hard. His ears were ringing, and his cheeks felt raw from the heat of the forge, but he was smiling, and he looked with no small amount of pride at the iron plate he had helped flatten.
Thanking Onsel, he headed back to the dormitory. But halfway up the stairs, he heard Markus shouting his name.
“Where have you been?” Markus gasped, running up to him, winded from the descent. “We’ve been waiting for you!”
“I thought we weren’t practicing today!” Aram gulped.
“We’re not practicing. You are!” Markus looked flustered, perhaps even angry.
Aram frowned in confusion. “Just me? Why? No one told me!”
“Because.” Markus took his arm and directed him up the hill. “Esmir wants you to go into one of the portals. And he says I can’t go in with you.”
Chapter Fifty-Four
“What do you mean?” Aram asked, feeling like a bucket of cold water had been thrown over him. “I’m not ready for my Trials!”
“It’s not the Trials,” said Markus. “It’s different. You’ll have to ask Esmir when we get up there. Let’s go! He’s getting cranky, and you know what that means.”
That was enough to prompt him. Aram followed Markus back up the stairs, jogging as fast as he could, until the long climb finally made him moderate his pace. Just a couple of months ago, he couldn’t have made it to the top without stopping to rest a few times, but his legs were stronger now. A lot stronger, as was the rest of him.
When they arrived at the top of the bluff, he discovered that Markus had been right—Esmir was in a cranky mood, which meant they would be working doubly hard. As soon as the old Warden saw them, he gestured for them to hurry, a deep scowl making his face look like bad-quality parchment.
“Where have you been?”
“I was at the Brausas’ workshop!” Aram gulped.
Esmir drew his lips back from his teeth, looking like he was about ready to start spitting. “Next time tell me when you’re going down there! I’ve been waiting here for two hours!”
Aram doubted that. Esmir was usually late to their practices. Very late. And he typically hauled himself up the stairs with last night’s liquor on his breath. Aram glanced at Markus for confirmation. His friend just smirked and rolled his eyes. It was all Aram could do to keep from smiling.
“Let’s get to work.” Esmir raised a hand, pointing at the Portal Stone behind them. “That’s the first of the Four Portals. It’s the only one you can enter multiple times. It’s also the least dangerous, because it doesn’t submerse you fully into the Shadow Realm—you just touch the surface of it. It’s used by students to practice magic.”
“How’s that?” Aram asked, looking at the stones. There was something about their dark, rough-hewn appearance that set him on edge. The dolomite stone on the right was slightly taller than its counterpart on the left, making the portal look like a dilapidated doorway.
Aram glanced at Esmir nervously, feeling every hair on his body stand upright. “Why haven’t I gone in before?”
“You weren’t ready,” Esmir answered.
Aram frowned, glancing back at the dark portal that beckoned like a hungering gateway he didn’t want to walk through.
“And I’m ready now?”
The furrows in Esmir’s brow deepened. “I think so.”
“You think so?” Aram licked his lips.
Esmir gestured at the portal with the butt of his cane. “You’re going to start practicing in there as often as you can. When you go in, you’ll be given everything you need, including the ability to use magic without a catalyst.”
Aram gasped, fee
ling a thrill of excitement tingle his fingertips. He had always dreamt of being able to touch the strands at will. He shot a grin at Markus, for suddenly the Portal Stone was looking less like an ominous mouth and more like a doorway to adventure.
“What should I take in?” he asked excitedly.
“Nothing.” Esmir walked toward the portal, leaning heavily on his cane. “In the Shadow Realm, everything you take in can be used against you. Even your clothes.”
Aram glanced down at the long tunic and pants he was wearing, struggling to imagine how they could be used to harm him. The first thing that came to mind was strangulation. Then an image came to him of his own clothes attacking him as though they were filled with an invisible body, a thought that made him grin.
He looked at Esmir dubiously. “So … I’m supposed to go in naked?”
The old Warden nodded. “Unless you want your own boot kicking you in the groin. Don’t worry. If you need to be clothed, they’ll clothe you.”
Aram thought about it. Whoever the Overseers were that lived inside the portal, they had to be good; otherwise, how would they be good judges of a person’s character?
“I’ll go naked.” He decided to put his faith in the process. When Markus shot him a funny look, Aram raised a finger. “Just don’t laugh at me.”
Markus gave a nervous chuckle, though by his face, he wasn’t convinced that going into the portal at all was a good idea. “You’re braver than me.”
Aram turned to Esmir. “Do you want me to go in now?”
The Warden waved him toward the portal. Aram hesitated only for a second, weighing the ominous specter of the portal against his excitement over finally being able to practice binding without a block. In the end, his excitement won out, and he trotted across the sand to the stones, pausing beside them to undress. He took everything off, including his breeches. He even removed the heart knot necklace his mother had given him. He could feel his pulse racing—not in fear, but in anticipation.
Shooting a grin at Markus, he entered the imposing arch of standing stones.
It was night.
The same ring of standing stones surrounded him, though here, they were much taller, looming over him and canting slightly inward. Each monolith glowed with its own muted light, and the obelisk at the center of the circle bore sets of carved runes upon its face that hadn’t been there before. It hummed softly, a low and constant drone that was almost outside the range of his hearing. Beyond the ring of stones, there was only darkness, as though the world ceased to exist outside them.
Looking down, Aram saw that he was clothed in a plain gray cloak worn over a tunic of the same color. He brushed his hand across the fabric, assuring himself that it was real, and discovered that it was smoother and softer than any linen he had ever felt.
He paused, looking warily around the circle of glowing stones.
Not knowing what he was supposed to do, Aram walked toward the obelisk.
As he approached, the humming noise grew louder and became discordant, a sound that did to his ears what wool did to his skin. He gritted his teeth, wishing he could scratch the sound out of his head. Pausing beside the obelisk, he reached toward it cautiously. As his hand drew near, he felt a tingling sensation in the tips of his fingers, as though the circulation had been cut off and was just now returning. He withdrew his hand quickly, and the tingling faded.
Frowning, he stared at the carved runes on the obelisk, which looked utterly foreign. Summoning his courage, he placed both palms flat on the cold, smooth surface of the obsidian stone.
The runes came to life, glowing softly with an azure light. There was a grinding sound, and the obelisk vibrated as though shaken by a tremor.
Aram flinched, retracting his hands, his pulse suddenly racing. This wasn’t right. Nothing about any of this was right.
The light of the standing stones dimmed, the world around him darkening, until all that was left was the light of the glowing runes, which seemed to float before him in the darkness.
Aram turned in a slow circle, glancing warily around. There was another grating sound, and then the light of the stones increased slightly, shedding a muted glow across the square.
Aram froze.
In the opening of every portal stood a person.
No—they were not people. They were something else. Something older.
Aram didn’t know how he knew that, only that he did. Each had a smooth, ageless face with features that seemed somehow washed out. They were not human or Auld, but something that existed apart, or perhaps something that was no longer. Perhaps they were gods or the children of gods, or something far more sinister. They were all staring at him with whiteless eyes the color of squid ink.
Fear seeped into him, chilling his insides and drowning his courage. He didn’t know what those things beneath the Portal Stones were, but he knew that he wanted nothing to do with them.
Their faces seemed almost serpentine, with slitted nostrils and long, thin lips. Their bodies were twice the height of a man and hairless, though their gray skin was subtly striped.
They stared at him and did nothing.
Aram could feel himself starting to sweat, although the air around him was cool. If this was a test, then he didn’t understand the nature of it. These things had given him clothes and light to see by, but nothing else. There didn’t seem to be any challenge he needed to overcome, no puzzles to solve. Unless the test lay in these ancient creatures themselves. He assumed they were the Overseers, though perhaps that was a naïve assumption to make.
Maybe they were waiting for him to make the first move. He walked forward warily toward the nearest of the stone doorways, where one of the gray beings stood beneath the horizontal slab of rock. He couldn’t tell if its glassy eyes were tracking him. When he stopped in front of it, the being did not react.
For a moment, they simply regarded each other, each staring into the eyes of the other. He was almost certain that the being nodded slightly.
The attack came without warning.
Bolts of blue lightning streaked down from the top of the obelisk, tearing into him with raking claws and pounding him to his knees. Aram screamed as crackling energy coruscated over his body, searing his skin like wrathful flames. He rolled and thrashed on the ground like a man on fire, but the sorcerous energy stuck to him like tar, and all his writhing didn’t make it go away.
He could smell the stench of his own burning flesh. The pain was intolerable, ripping screams from his mouth. The onslaught continued, forked spears of energy clawing at him, biting deeply into his skin.
In a last, frantic bid for life, Aram reached out and caught hold of the ethereal strands and began to weave, wrapping the aether into a complex knot of energy that sucked the heat right out of the air, quenching the searing net with a steaming hiss.
Panting, he collapsed back on the sand in infinite relief as the agony slowly faded. He rolled onto his side and looked down at his body, expecting it to be badly charred from the heat of the assault. But it wasn’t. His clothes were scorched and smoldering, but his flesh remained intact, as though he had just imagined his skin burning. He sagged back with a relieved sigh, closing his eyes.
“Aram! Can you hear me? Aram!”
Aram opened his eyes to find someone standing over him. His first thought was that it was one of the creatures from the portal. Terrified, he recoiled, scrambling back then cringing into a ball.
“It’s just me!”
Lowering his trembling hands, Aram looked up to see Markus standing over him. He sat down next to him, his face intense with concern, and set a hand on Aram’s shoulder to steady him. It took Aram a long moment to stop trembling, and when he did, he looked into Markus’s face with a slight, wistful smile.
“I did it,” he whispered, his voice shaking. “I saved myself.”
He glanced down at his body and found that he was still wearing the cloak and tunic the Overseers had given him. The garments were riddled with blackened holes and,
in places, were still smoldering, but his body was unharmed. Markus stood and helped him to his feet, his gaze running over him.
“Are you injured?”
“No.” Aram couldn’t believe it. He didn’t know whether the crackling energy was real, or whether it had all been just in his mind.
Fingering the burned sleeve of Aram’s tunic, Markus shook his head with a grin. “Next time, wear Iver’s clothes.”
Aram looked down at the burned cloak he was wearing. “I don’t think so. I wouldn’t want to be attacked by Iver’s clothes.”
The sound of Markus’s laughter made Aram realize he’d made a joke. He started laughing too, which made Markus laugh harder.
“You survived your first experience within the portals,” Esmir said, inspecting him with a critical gaze. “Was it difficult?”
Aram nodded. “Those things in there … they’re powerful. I don’t know if they’re necessarily evil, but they weren’t right either. The lightning they made was … it was really bad. But then I stopped it. I stopped the lightning. Esmir, how come I can defend myself in there but not out here?”
“That’s a good question, and I don’t have an answer,” the old man said. “There’s been much speculation, but no one knows for sure. Some believe it’s a different world, where our rules don’t operate. Others think the creatures in the portals exert some kind of power or control over Auld magic. All we know is that they give a candidate everything they need to be successful. Including defensive magic.”
“But how did I know what to do? It was just like at the Grove—it just happened. I don’t know what I did!”
Esmir grunted. “You know the fundamentals—you’ve been studying them all your life.”
“Knots,” Aram said.
“That’s right. And you’re a True Savant, which means that you know instinctually how to bind them into something of great complexity. You can see the details of the threads, and you can also see the tapestry.”
