Underground Ring: Book 1

by M. M. Reid

  “Trosian, below you, in the centre!” I said, calling like the others did before me. The tall boy nodded in thanks as he began to crawl on his belly.

  The three Mystics disappeared into the chain jungle, leaving me alone at the beginning of the maze.

  “Hey, I can stand in here!” Ben’s excitement could be heard from just beyond the chains.

  I waited in silence as panic began to set in. At this point I realized that, unlike with most tasks, I would need their help in order to get through. We needed to work as a single unit. Each one of us was critical to the success or failure of this task. This lesson was something I’d never had to learn before.

  “Augrais, bottom right!” Lee shouted.

  Without question or hesitation, I dove down onto my knees, ignoring my eyes for a moment. Like a key fitting into a lock, I slid in with no problem. The tight fit suddenly opened up into a small closet-like space. Ben was correct: I could stand.

  “Now what?” Ben asked, as we were all together again.

  “We do it again,” I said simply. “Trosian, you start. Once everyone has their location, we move forward.”

  He glared at me for a split second, then looked away. There was a long moment of silence. I half expected Trosian to reject my request on principle but, to my surprise, he co-operated.

  “Augrais, right in the middle.”

  Like the wheels and gears of a well-oiled machine, we were moving together in unison. Ducking, kneeling, twisting, we squeezed our way forward into the unknown.

  “I see the end!” Lee exclaimed.

  I realized suddenly that we were actually on the other side of the maze, crawling out into freedom and victory. Our cheering echoed through the ravine as we realized we had passed Lokus’s first test. Little did we know that the true ordeal was just ahead.

  A seductive scent wafted on the wind. Food! My stomach rumbled, waking from the drug of excitement. I nearly doubled over as I grasped my stomach. I was so hungry. Then Lokus’s words reverberated in my mind.

  “It is simple. Your objective is to get to the other side first. Succeed, and you will be rewarded with food. Fail and you will not be eating until tomorrow at dawn.”

  In a split second I was racing fleet of foot, the dust from the ravine kicking up behind me. I could see a basket a few feet away. The others must have realized what I had seen shortly after me, since I could hear the patter of their feet behind me. I raised my energy, dug my heels into the soft earth, and whipped around. Lee was already in mid-tackle, arms outstretched, threatening to wrap them around me. My Fire swirled about me. My hands grasped under his armpits and I slung his light body away from me.

  The surprised Trosian was right behind his cousin and he threw an awkward haymaker in my direction. I ducked in time and subdued him with a precise elbow to his solar plexus. As he fell to his knees, I could see the pain and embarrassment in his eyes: he had been defeated so easily.

  Ben stood still at the edge of the maze, his fists raised. I remained in my fighter’s stance, never taking my eyes off of him. He looked at me, at his hands, then back to me. With a look of exasperation Ben just muttered, “Screw it,” under his breath and took a seat, his back against a wooden pole.

  I dove for the basket, greedily ripping a large loaf of bread free. I froze, as there was a sudden clapping behind me. Lokus’s power came before his voice.

  “Very good, Augrais,” Lokus stood over us, watching us like a king would his subjects.

  I said nothing, merely glowering at the food in my hand, the very thing that separated me from my peers. My thoughts were raging like a stormy sea. Was this all some sort of joke to Lokus? What did we—did I—learn from this? Put yourself first? Betray your comrades? What the hell did it prove? The bread was slowly being crushed to crumbs in my palm.

  “Well, what are you waiting for, Augrais?” Lokus’s voice taunted me. “You won the contest and you alone may eat. Are you not hungry?”

  “Yeah, what’re you waiting for?” Ben mocked angrily, his face buried in his arms.

  I looked from Ben, to Trosian, to Lee, and finally, to the crumbled food in my palm. Small bits of grain blew into the breeze as my stomach howled quietly. My breath became slow and steady as I found my inner peace.

  “No,” I said finally, looking back up at the old Mystic. “I am not hungry.” I was shocked at my response. I wanted to say yes and devour it all. I wanted to eat. If we had started this contest in martial combat, I would have eaten. It was the maze before that gave me hesitation. The metal jungle was a kata, a martial dance. We moved together through it, towards the glowing light of the end of the maze, each doing something different, but all ascending towards the same goal. Lokus had been right all along: it was about survival. In this world, no one human can decide the outcome, no one human can overcome the impossible odds that the Mystics now faced. But together, united, maybe, just maybe we could stand a chance to survive. The bread slipped from my grasp and fell to the ground. The enlightenment of understanding and meaning only strengthened my will.

  Lokus’s face showed his shock for only a moment before he regained his passive disposition. “Do not be foolish, Augrais. You have not eaten for nearly 20 hours. This will be your only time to eat until nightfall. I strongly suggest you regain your strength.”

  I felt the others’ eyes upon me as I silently shook my head. I then turned and offered my hand to the kneeling Trosian, still recovering from the piercing strike of my elbow. The junior Mystic looked from my hand and to my eyes. A sort of understanding took us then. His hand clasped my forearm and I hoisted him up, never breaking eye contact. I knew that from now on Trosian would always strive to be better than me, to be stronger. And I would always meet him in that challenge.

  Ben helped Lee to his feet, allowing his former enemy to drape his arm around his neck for support as they both hobbled over to us.

  Lokus’s eyes flashed back and forth as if questioning the solidity of our decision. “Trosian, you were second,” he said. “Eat. Don’t let this food go to waste.”

  Trosian bowed his head in respect. “I’m sorry, Lord Lokus.”

  “Ben? Lee?” Lokus’s intensity was hard to encounter.

  Ben and Lee took our side. Lee looked battered from his fall and his ankle was twisted. They both shook their heads.

  “Starve then,” Lokus stated in a final tone as he walked past. As he swept by, I could have sworn I saw a faint smile on his lips.

  We were together from then on, united, unwavering, and unwilling to bow to temptation. It was then that our bond became strong. It was then we realized that this was our family now. And even if we did not share the same blood, the bond of our spirits remained forever untouched.

  We left the field together and continued our training, which could be nicely summed up in one word: brutal. The world was a warm, fast paced globe as I stumbled through the big oak door of the house, knocking it open by literally walking into it. My forearms could barely grip anything, weakened from all the boulders we had to pick up and the grappling we had to do. We were judged and graded as a team: when one of us failed, the others were punished. This mostly meant that Trosian and I had to carry more rocks during our sprints. Lokus’s glowing blue eyes watched us carefully for any sense of weakness, or any sign we were trying to cheat our way through the movements.

  I fell to my knees at the bottom of the stairs. My pain was being drowned out by the immense waves of nausea rippling through my body. Trosian gasped and fell next to me, his forehead resting against his arm as he hyperventilated. Our rivalry was definitely encouraged by Lokus as he paired us together for the day’s competitions. Though for most of them I was superior physically, I found Trosian’s willpower far exceeded my own. He often pushed his body far beyond a healthy limit just to keep pace.

  Just as if he sensed me thinking of him, my rival lifted his head, his face pale and his lips severely chapped, and looked at me with dead eyes. His eyes then lazily drifted to the top of the long
, 35-step staircase ahead of us, then back to me. I gave him a look of disbelief in response. Did he really want to race up a flight of stairs after everything we had gone through? Capitalizing on my weakness, Trosian’s energy began to flare slightly as he slowly began to crawl up one stair at a time. Never one to back down from a challenge, my body began to lurch forward as I swallowed puke down my gullet. It wasn’t long before I caught up to him and kept pace for a moment. This was a sad competition as we both were progressing slower than snails, our screams from muscular failure echoing through this house as if it were a house of torture. Trosian glared at me and began to grunt as he inched forward slightly faster than me. Still, I surpassed him. Then he surpassed me until we were both running on all fours up the stairs, the finish line blurred for us by our sweat and blind determination. I don’t quite know who won that race. All I remember was collapsing at the top, trying in vain to catch a breath. Trosian was right next to me and looked to be in a worse state. I flipped over onto my back so I wouldn’t puke. I have to hand it to the kid, he has guts, I thought.

  There was a somber shuffling outside and then the door swung open behind us as Lee hobbled in, his arm slung over Ben’s shoulder for support. The two of them had only done half the work Trosian and I did, but they were still in terrible shape as they gingerly attempted to climb the stairs together. It appeared that Lee was barely conscious. This was clearly Lokus’s attempt to bring the team together, having Ben help Lee. I’m sure if it had been up to Ben, he would have left his enemy outside in the burning heat.

  “Don’t tell me…” Ben paused at the top catching his breath, Lee dangling, paler than a ghost on his arm, “…you guys raced up here?”

  I responded by coughing vomit on the ground.

  “Nice.”

  It was about an hour later and we were all sitting in the lecture room as instructed. The room was small, barely having enough space for the four desks and their chairs. There was a small area in front with a chalkboard and a large potted plant behind us. I was sitting in one of the centre desks, my head down, the room spinning about me. Trosian was to my left and Ben to my right, with Lee half hanging out of the chair just beyond that, still a gross mess. It wasn’t long before the windowless room became very stuffy and began to smell of body odor. Upon our arrival there had been a large plastic cup on each of our desks. Inside was some sort of pasty liquid that smelled like chalk and manure.

  “I think I’m gonna hurl,” Ben groaned, grabbing his belly after taking the first sip.

  Thankfully, it wasn’t long before Lokus entered, beaming brightly.

  “Enjoy your break, boys?” Lokus exclaimed, striding right up the chalkboard and seizing the chalk with enthusiasm. Lokus began to write upon the board as we all groaned.

  “What is Vitae, class?” Lokus spun about as he queried, watching us intently.

  “It’s energy,” I said.

  Lokus shrugged slightly, making a face telling me that wasn’t exactly what he was looking for. “What else?”

  “Vitae is bioelectricity in and around the body,” Trosian called out.

  “Very good, Trosian,” Lokus nodded. “Can Vitae grow in strength? Ben?”

  Ben shifted upright in his seat as he snapped to attention. His eyes darted to me for help. When he found none he stammered, “Uh…yes?”

  “So as we improve our energy abilities, does that mean our energy grows with us?”

  “Yes!” Ben shouted his answer confidently.

  Lokus chuckled. “Not quite. Make sure you drink the shake, Ben.”

  Lokus then turned to write more on the board. Ben looked at Lokus, then down to his drink, then back to Lokus once again. Then my friend quickly tossed the contents of his cup into the plant behind us, just as Lokus turned around to address us, his face frozen in an expression of shocked innocence.

  “Augrais, what do you think?”

  I had no idea. My father had never taught me the mechanics behind Vitae. Why did it matter anyway? Would talking about how Vitae works kill the Violet-Eyed Demon? Well, it might bore him to death.

  “It increases in efficiency,” Trosian called out once more saving me from my awkward moment. “The speed at which it moves becomes faster, thus giving the illusion that we have more Vitae.”

  “Very good, Trosian,” Lokus acknowledged. “And how do we increase the efficiency of this bio electricity inside of us.”

  Yet another question that I couldn’t answer. “Is this going to make me stronger?” I asked?

  “Knowledge is the fount of our power, Augrais.” As Lokus’s mood became stern, so to did the energy around the room. “Unlike Vitae, your body has its limitations. And without the understanding of mechanics, you will never be able to defeat any well-trained enemy.” I felt my cheeks burn up as the unblinking eyes of Lokus locked upon me.

  “Focus,” Lee gave the answer this time, his words still thick with fatigue or, more likely, the shake he had just gulped down. “Our energy can’t move around us unless our mind concentrates on it.” Lee no longer looked as if he was at death’s door. The colour returned to his cheeks as he spun the empty cup in front of him.

  “Lee, glad to have you back with us.” Lokus turned his cold, dead eyes from me, his mood returning to that of the cheery old man.

  Lokus went on to explain how the concentration of the mind was just as important as the strength of the Vitae: if the concentration is broken, so too are the forces that draw the power together. The classroom began to fade for me shortly after that, as I lulled in and out of reality. Today was the first day I had trained outside my forest home, the first day without my father. The pit in my stomach rose to my throat as I sat there in silence, not daring to make eye contact with any of the others. I suppose that was when it really sank it. My father was gone and despite our distant relationship, there would always be a piece of me that respected the man he was. The final memory of him being dangled by the hooded figure, burned inside me like a bellowing flame.

  Lokus continued with his questions. “Is Vitae the only energy in the human body?”

  Fed up with getting the questions wrong, I used my Earth to probe Lokus’s mind for the answer. “No, there is Shin,” I replied, feeling smug.

  An emotion that I had never seen crossed Lokus’s face: absolute shock. Only a split second passed before he composed himself, but it had been there nonetheless. My Earth had managed to pull that singular word out from Lokus but now my teacher’s mind locked like a vault. Just what are you hiding, Lokus? I purposely didn’t hide my thoughts from him as a strange calm feeling of omnipotence fell over me.

  “Is that how that bastard became so strong?” I pushed Lokus.

  Lokus didn’t respond, but looked at me as if I reminded him of someone.

  “Lord Lokus?” Trosian queried, mildly concerned about the statuesque form our teacher had taken.

  The old man snapped out of his trance and a faint, pseudo smile appeared on his face as he slowly approached my desk. “Shin is the key to our gifts and the key to our life.” Lokus placed his hands firmly on the corner of my desk. I could hear the wood groaning under the pressure of his grip. “It is beyond dangerous to toy with such powers, Augrais. It will, for certain, only lead down a dark path that none can follow. We are not meant to abuse the powers of the Gods.”

  Lokus paused to allow his words to sink in before he pushed the desk away and turned towards the chalkboard. “Class dismissed.”

  I was slumped back in my chair, staring at the ceiling, a blank sheet of paper in front of me. A few weeks had passed and our training agony continued. There was always a new test with Lokus. These tests would range from lifting boulders to what I was trying to do right now—solve a physics equation containing mass, velocity, and inertia. Each test their own unique set of circumstances, but we would always be allowed to face it with the four of us working as a team. Usually in the mental tests, especially the ones with physics, I would wait politely for Ben to finish and then copy his work an
d pray to that Lokus would not call on me to explain my answer.

  “Are you done yet?” I asked, sighing at Ben’s scribbles. Ben was my key to these kinds of answers, even though Trosian usually finished them way faster. I would have asked Trosian for help…but we all knew how that would have worked out.

  “I’m finding it hard to concentrate with all this pain,” Ben moaned, gingerly placing his hand on his ribs where some of the rubber bullets had struck true. It was a test day for Lokus again. He had thought it would be a brilliant idea to stand on the roof of the home with a high-powered rifle and lots of anti-riot rubber bullets. If one of us managed to climb the house and touch him, it would be over.

  “Stop being weak.” I spoke upwards looking at the interesting texture of the ceiling.

  “Says the guy behind the human shield,” Ben said, then threw his pencil down out of frustration. “This is freakin’ hard. Trosian, how to you do measure the momentum of the car?”

  Trosian didn’t respond immediately, as he meditated, his eyes closed and hands folded on his lap. “If you promise not to tell Augrais, I’ll give you the answer.”

  I shot back into a seated position and glared at Trosian. He paid me no mind, as he passively meditated.

  Ben weighed his options for a moment, glancing nervously between us. I snorted and brooded with my arms crossed, insulted my friend would even consider Trosian’s offer.

  “Augrais, you wouldn’t mind if I did that, right buddy?” Ben asked with a nervous grin.

  “I won’t kick you,” I growled threateningly.

  “Oddly specific.” Ben slumped back into his seat, staring at his messy sheet of paper.

  The door creaked then swung open as Lokus strode in, his normal friendly smile on his face. It was the same smile that he was wearing when he was taking pot shots at Ben and I earlier today. How I wished I could wipe it off of his face.