by Lee, Nikolas
“I’m sorry, Lillian. But I have to do this.”
With a pit in his stomach, and a thought that this was the worst decision he’d ever made, Ion closed his bedroom door. He wanted to forget this conversation had ever happened, and did so by burying himself beneath his bed sheets, and smothering his ears with fat pillows. Mother knows what she’s doing, he thought. She wouldn’t misguide me. She just wouldn’t.
He shut his eyes and chanted, “The heart of Onyxia, the heart of Onyxia,” until sleep made its nightly visit.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
A TEST OF LIMITS
Ion awoke a number of hours later, which was a number of hours after he was supposed to. It was the day of the CVEs and he was late.
“Dirty,” he said, rummaging through the tunics in his dresser drawers. “That one’s dirtier…dirtiest…ew, that’s gross.” Then came the “Ah ha!” and at once his only clean tunic was pulled over his shoulders and tied at his waist—by his best leather belt, no less—Ion dashed out of his bedroom.
He came to a halt at a crowd of students gathered at the entrance of the Jovian Fields. The giants stood in the back, and past their mountainous bodies, Ion could see the elves, the nymphs, then the dwarves and the Guardians, with sprites hovering all around. The white sun blazed in the background, just over the mountains, and its light sparkled off the metal armor each student wore. In fact, there wasn’t a single student—sprites included—who wasn’t heavy with some sort of armor, be it silver, copper, or wood. Ion looked down at his pathetic linen tunic, and hated being late even more; he’d slept through the starting ceremonies, when free things, important things, had been given away to each student.
Through the gap between Gregory the Giant’s arm and side, Ion could see Othum, in his best crimson robes and his sparkling diamond, standing atop a large marble stage at the front of the crowd. The rest of the academy’s teachers stood on either side of him, with Illindria—choked in a strictly wound golden dress—whispering into his ear.
Finally, Othum stepped forward with his hands out and a smile on his face. “Good morning, my students! I see you all look nice and shiny in your armor—armor you’re going to be putting to good use. Why, who knows what kind of perils you might face on this glorious, glorious day! Will you fight the dreaded Hydra of the Eastern Isles? The Centaur armies of the Spanish Hills?” His eyes narrowed darkly upon a blue nymph just below him. “Or will you face the vicious, venomous, thousand-horned Gilafragoodle of the Floridian Marshes?” The nymph screamed, fainted in her fellow nymph’s arms, and Othum laughed. “I’m just kidding! The Floridian Marshes no longer exist. And it turns out, the Jovian Fields aren’t big enough to house a Hydra, or even those dreaded Centaurs—believe me, I checked.” Illindria cleared her throat behind Othum, and when he looked back, she ushered him on with a generous smile. “Right, well, the Class Verification Exams shall begin in a moment, after my dear son Esereez announces our official Class Verification Exam Rules and Guidelines.”
Esereez stepped forward, giving his usual I-wish-I-was-somewhere-else-making-something-with-metal look, and unrolled a piece of withered parchment in his charcoal hands. “Dutifully, each race will partake in a particular mission. Some races will share a mission, while others will work separately. Students will be graded on an individual basis, but should work in a cohesive team to accomplish the given task. Restraining or attacking a teammate, while not illegal, is not advised. Relics can and should be used, as well as any shield, sword, axe, or other weaponry he or she is comfortable wielding.” Esereez rolled the scroll back up and continued, “Today, we shall see who has been listening in class, and who will be expelled for having refused to do so.”
“Well done, my boy!” Othum said, clapping as Esereez returned to the line of professors. “I must insist all students try their very best. First years must pass a Class Four, second years, a Class Ten, and third years a Class Fifteen. Anyone older than that...you shouldn’t be here so get out! Now, the giants will be testing first, so if all other students could take their seats in the grandstands Esereez has made for us, we will begin the first of our exams.”
Othum nodded at the Inventor, who pulled a small silver device out of his robes and pressed a red button. From out of the academy entrance hall sped six tiny silver chests on golden wheels. They buzzed like bees as they zipped under the shadow of the academy walls and stopped to unfold in a storm of clinks, clanks, and violent sputters, until a row of marvelous, silver grandstands stood before the crowd. The students filled the stands; Ion took a spot beside Theo.
“Where were you all morning?” Theo asked, looking hefty in his suit of iron armor.
“The same place I am every morning!” said Ion. “Couldn’t someone have woken me up?”
“Well, I tried waking you up!” said Theo. “Anyone ever tell you you’re a heavy sleeper?”
“Maybe...”
Ion peered over Theo’s head and spotted Oceanus and Lillian sitting on the other side of Theo. They sparkled in silver breastplates, shoulder pads, and shin guards. Ordinarily, Oceanus would have scolded him for being late, that he’d probably offended the gods. But she didn’t.
He missed it.
“The Caller seems lost this morning,” said a voice as sweet as a Glow Cake, yet as venomous as a triple-tailed sand scorpion.
Ion turned to find Solara behind him, laden in armor, except unlike everyone else’s armor, hers shone with gold. Wonder who she nearly killed using spider pimples to get that armor.
“No armor and no weapon?” Solara asked. “Poor Caller’s going to be eaten alive.”
Spike leaned his fat head into the picture, wearing his usual set of sandstone armor. “I get first dibs,” he said with a smirk.
Ion turned to face the Fields. “I’m just a heavy sleeper,” he grumbled.
“Giants of the Achaean Academy!” Illindria’s voice thundered over the Jovian Fields—as sweet as Solara’s but not near as poisonous.
The giants stood in a row before the professors’ stage, rising like a mountain range in the distance—a mountain range shimmering in silvers and coppers.
“Your mission today is a complicated one,” Illindria began. “The world knows of a giant’s unending strength, their endurance in battle, and their hardy appetites. So we at the Achaean Academy have constructed an exam to test your other attributes...your diligence, to be particular.” She locked her hands behind her back and said, “Approach, Sentinels!”
Five Sentinels marched out from behind the stage, their bulky-plated black armor clanking with each step. None of that surprised Ion—sure, he was nervously chewing on his lip just at the sight of the Deadly, those nymphs who didn’t breathe, but what was most interesting was what they were holding. Each Sentinel carried a metal birdcage filled with several screeching, leaping, incredibly frustrated Lizarous younglings, which were the size of regular lizards.
“Your Class Verification Exam is to return each Lizarous youngling to their cages, without injuring them,” said Illindria. “This includes: squishing, squeezing, breaking, dismembering, hitting, violently beating, stomping, and/or killing in any way.”
Esereez pulled another device from his belt, this one with a blue button, and when he pressed it, an iron throne unfolded behind each professor. Each took a seat (except for Mr. Poe, who had already been swaying about on a tower of rockers) and the stage sprouted wooden wheels. The professors’ platform lurched to the left and rolled past the giants, joining the line of grandstands at the foot of the fortress.
“Giants of the Achaean Academy,” Othum called from his throne, “your exam…begins…now!”
The Sentinels unlatched the doors to the Lizarous cages, and younglings flooded out of their prisons. The giants gave chase, their footsteps thundering through the Fields. Students gasped as Gregory the Giant dove through the air, landing with his arms clutched around a batch of younglings. A group of them scattered for cover beneath the grandstands. There was a rumbling, and a gray-s
kinned giant from Ion’s Racial Studies class stormed by, shoveling the younglings up into his shield.
The giants quaked their way left and right across the Jovian Fields, scaling statues and wading through fountains; they even climbed trees, breaking many limbs in the process. When the last of the younglings had been caged and their indignant cries once again tore through the air, Othum called the giants to the professors’ stage, where each student was given their Class level. Gregory was a Class Five; Gertrude was a Class Four. And while the younglings were terribly irritated, none of them had been hurt, which meant no Class Threes.
The sprites’ exam came next. In the middle of the Jovian Fields, perched high atop golden stilts, stood another of Esereez’s constructions. It looked to be a sort of maze—a mess of bricks, rusted pipes, discarded chariot wheels, and sharpened spears.
The sprites assembled on the platform before the start of the maze, and Othum’s voice echoed across the Fields, “Good—now you must find your way through without flying. Understood?”
The Inventor pulled out yet another device from his robes, this one with a green button. There was an earsplitting shriek like saws to metal, and the leaning chimney growing out the top of the maze coughed up smoke. And so the maze churned high above the Fields—the walkways of pipes and vents detached from one another to form new paths or tunnels; spears jutted out of walls, and chariot wheels spun like gears against each other.
The crowd watched, gasping with each sprite who fell through a crack, missed a step, or narrowly dodged a spear.
As the sprites crawled through small ducts and walked across thin cables like trained acrobats, Ion wondered what insane things Othum had thought up for the Guardians’ test. Not that it mattered. Come nightfall, Ion would be in the Darklands freeing Father, and when he’d surface—despite what Mother had said—Ion would for sure be expelled. He’d be defying the will of the gods, his creators, the ones he was supposed to protect. Ion thought about this all through the sprites’ exam, and it was only until halfway through the dwarves’ exam that he was distracted from the hole of thoughts he’d found himself in.
“Look at Stryker go!” Theo shouted, standing on his seat.
The dwarves were scurrying about the Jovian Fields, running as fast as their tiny legs could take them. Stryker raced from tree to tree, climbing up the trunks and plucking particular leaves from particular branches—though none of it looked very particular to Ion.
“What’re they doing?” he asked Theo.
“There are eighty leaves actually made of gold, and the dwarves are supposed to find every one of them,” said Theo, his eyes glued to the match. “We dwarves have a keen sense of smell for metal—it’s why we’re so good at mining.”
When the dwarves had been graded, and Stryker was awarded the highest Class out of all the first years (a Class Six), Othum stood from his throne and stretched his arms out to the crowd. “Intermission is upon us! Sentinels, bring out the sweets!”
Twenty Sentinels marched out of the academy entrance hall, their hands filled with twinkling silver trays on which towered Blister Bites, Glow Cakes, and Frostlings.
A Sentinel stopped in front of Ion, lowered her tray down to him, and said, dry and low, “Sweets?” Her glowing, purple eyes shone through the holes in her helm. Without removing his eyes from hers, Ion snatched a Frostling, two Glow Cakes, and accidentally grabbed a Blister Bite, which he quickly gave to Theo, whose arms and mouth were already full of the cakes.
By the time everyone had finished eating, Ion’s mouth glowed a brilliant turquoise and was completely numbed by the Frostling.
The Jovian Fields soon filled with the sounds of battle, as the elves and nymphs fought to protect three stuffed dummies from four mechanical Rhynodon (of Esereez’s invention, of course).
Nymphs lured a Rhynodon past a squall of trees, where no one could see them. Screeches ripped through the air, and moments later, the nymphs came prancing out of the darkness, holding the dismembered plates of Esereez’s beasts. The elves fought in plain sight, throwing daggers and swinging swords so powerful they sliced through the Rhynodons’ metal flesh as though it was made of air.
No dummies were injured in the exam, but the same could not be said for the Rhynodons, which were now stacked in metal towers before a fuming Esereez.
The elves and nymphs were graded.
And the Guardians came next.
Ion could hear his heart pounding in his ears as he stood in the middle of the Jovian Fields. He felt his stomach twisting, his palms getting sweatier by the second. He looked down at a gash left from one of the Rhynodons, and he looked to his right—Theo was forcing a smile and nervously turning a fat hammer over in his hand. Lillian and Oceanus stood stoically on the other side of Theo. Oceanus held a circular, wooden shield, while Lillian held a short sword. Spike and Solara stood at Ion’s left, though he didn’t bother looking in their direction. It was fair to assume they were grinning evilly, praying they got a chance to tear something to shreds.
“Good afternoon, my precious Guardians,” Othum boomed from his throne. “I hope you’ve enjoyed watching your fellow students—I know they’ll enjoy watching you. Two generations of Guardians have now come and gone from the training grounds of the Achaean Academy. But now, with the third standing before us, and the Outerworld Wars having resumed, it is in the best interest of Illyria and the Balance to see that the Guardians are rising to their full potential. So today, the bar on your Class Verification Exam has been raised.”
Ion would have swallowed at that point, but he knew it would have been so loud everyone would have heard it, so he refrained.
“Today, the Guardians are to subdue an enemy army without being touched by enemy weapons,” said Othum. “And as I’m known for enjoying twists of many kinds...”
Othum turned his face to the sky, and as strips of golden lightning began jolting and streaming off the diamond in his chest, so too did the sky begin to stir. A shudder of thunder boomed overhead, and a wall of clouds, so dark they were purple, marched out from beyond the Acropolis, their shadows slowly washing over the Fields.
“Guardians of the Achaean Academy,” Othum boomed, “your test has begun!”
There was a crack like distant thunder, yet there had been no lightning. And then...
“Watch out!” screamed Oceanus.
Ion was tackled to the floor—his sister on top of him—and a chunk of marble as tall as Othum and as round as Illindria came crashing down upon the spot where he once stood.
“Thanks!” Ion gasped.
Oceanus got to her feet and looked down at him with disdain. “If you don’t at least try to pass this exam, for the slight chance that Othum isn’t lying, I’ll stuff as many Blister Bites as I possibly can down your throat.”
Ion got to his feet as rain began to fall. “I’m going to try,” he said, rolling his eyes. “But not for Othum...for you.”
Oceanus scoffed. “You really are bad at apologies.”
A horn sounded in the Fields, and through the rain, Ion saw Sentinels—hundreds of them. Some were stationed atop the Acropolis walls beside massive, wooden catapults, busily loading them with huge chunks of stone, while others climbed down from the walls using ladders, their hands made heavy by ivory shields and metallic, barreled weapons, which Ion had only seen in the basic manual for Weapons Wielding class: Hill Gusters, Flame Spitters, and Barking Cannons.
“Illegal weapons?” Ion hissed.
“Illegal weapons?” Theo squeaked. “That’s not fair!”
“Fair is what the god’s decree,” said Oceanus. “We’re Guardians, Theo—our enemies will throw everything they have at us, regardless of whether or not the weapons they use are illegal.”
“Well,” said Solara, “then I suppose I won’t be playing fair either.”
In the blink of a cyclops’ eye, Solara split from the group, racing toward the approaching Sentinels. With a roar, she melted into a storm of hissing locusts, tackling the Sentinel
s with waves upon waves of insects. Spike charged next, his hands melting into giant stone fists, shattering every shield in his way.
The Guardians charged, barreling into the line of Sentinels as rain flooded the Fields. Marble boulders whistled through the air as they were chucked from their catapults. Torrents of wind came screaming out of Hill Gusters; Flame Spitters sprayed streams of fire; and Barking Cannons rocked the Fields with earsplitting booms. Theo blasted the crowd backward with a barrage of explosive fireballs, while Oceanus tossed a Sentinel over her shoulder with her now ice-encased shield.
Ion rolled across the floor, only narrowly avoiding the end of a spear. He dipped and dodged, swerved and even flipped—the Sentinels coming from every direction now. A river of fire swept to his left. A catapulted rock collided with the earth only feet away. A Barking Cannon shrieked to his right.
Then, “My foot, my foot!” yelped Theo in the thick of the crowd. “That car hit my foot!”
Ion managed a glance through the wall of enclosing Sentinels, and after hearing the rumble of a horn somewhere near the professors’ stage, saw Theo whimpering as he was dragged out of the battle by two Sentinels. Another glance and Ion spotted the small gash just below Theo’s right ankle, and then the blood—the blood. Sure, there was actually only a dribble of blood, but this certainly didn’t stop Ion from imagining it squirting out of the small cut like a miniature geyser.
He rammed a Sentinel’s shield to shove her back, desperate to avoid any sharp objects near him or his ankle. He breathed deep and felt the damp, heavy air seep into his skin. The rain was giving the air weight, making it more tangible...more pliable.
Ion roared, then kicked, and from out of the sole of his foot flashed a howling twister. He threw a punch, and a second twister rocketed out of his knuckles.
Punch after punch, and kick after kick, whirlwinds barreled out of Ion’s limbs, launching Sentinels across the Fields. Another punch, and another kick, and soon Ion was fighting beneath the shadow of the gates. It was cold and dark here, but it was safe. The catapults could only fire long distance; Ion was directly beneath them, yet completely out of their range.
