ACADEMY OF LIGHT

by RAVENC JAMES

  In words of flattery.

  And Speak!

  In poetic sorcery.

  I see. Nothing was easy around here. I pushed a hand through my hair and sighed in frustration. If I understood it correctly, to open the door, I had to write a poem? And not just any poem, but a poem that was semi-incantation and exultation about the garden’s epic adventure? Really? But I would not just roll over and give up, right? Right.

  With renewed determination, I swept my gaze around. Everything looked earthly to me. I could name all the flowers peeking off the bushes or hanging on the wall: red and white roses, dendrobium, begonia, bluebells, bleeding heart, Ixora, calla lily, lily of the valley, cherry blossom, cannas.

  I sat on the verdant grass, picked up a small ruby rock, and used it to draw a box. The energy gathered along the lines and formed into a tablet. I then used it to compose a poem.

  “Pretty colors…” I started. Words came out on the tablet as I spoke. “Erase…” It wrote erase as well.

  “Not that…” Not that, the tablet wrote. I wiped the words off with my hand. The words rippled like water before they disappeared. Despite the shadows seemingly lurking in the corners, there was so much beauty in this garden. I translated this in verse and made a lot of errors. I did not know how long I had been doing this, but I believed it was long enough to think that Venir may well have caught up with me here.

  I kept on writing only to end up erasing everything. I changed a word only to write it back. This was my process that I went through repeatedly until finally, I was able to compose a simple rhyming verse.

  “From the bowels of nothingness

  Comes a stream of consciousness,

  It pierces through the light,

  And springs up to life.”

  Whoever designed this garden must have been very forgiving because the door actually opened.

  I walked through it and came out in another garden. This time it looked like a garden of nebulae. Well, it was what it looked like from my perspective. The flowers, plants, trees, the grass, and even the walls—all appeared to be made of gaseous materials. Yet, they were all stunningly beautiful. One plant, in particular, had two different flowers sharing the same stalk: rose-like and hibiscus-like. When I touched it, my hands passed through like it was made of air. I felt the ground, and my hand sank through, scaring me to death that my wings fluttered out of their own volition and instantaneously catapulted me up into the air. I was flying.

  Since the walls were gaseous, too, nothing hindered me from passing through it. After gliding through another, I flew through the wall until I reached the other side of the garden without even seeing a single door. This made my heart race faster. I made a grave error. You think?

  A silver-horned man with a long pointy tail suddenly appeared in front of me. His eyes were raging with fire. The beast bent down to bring his eyes to my level. And to my face, he roared: “You cheated!”

  I thought at first my skull would collapse from the force that washed over me.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t know!” I said, pleading.

  “Death to you. Death is what you deserve!”

  The creature moved and whipped me with its tail and cut my face. Silver liquid oozed out from the wound, and I screamed from the burning pain. Then, instinct took over, and I fled. The creature was in pursuit.

  I ran into what looked like an orchard and hid behind one of the trees with a huge trunk. The beast repeatedly called me a cheater. His voice shook the entire place. His steps closing. Gasping for breath, I mustered whatever earthly brain cell I had left in my heavenly skull to think of ways to escape from here. I remembered one experiment that may help, so I mentally summoned the energies from what I could find available nearby. They answered and came dancing to me in a circular motion. The ground shook as the beast moved. I split the energy to get the Rood, which was the only one I really needed. I summoned more energies, only to break them apart, and harvested Rood from the broken pieces. I repeated the process until I had enough of the red energy while well aware that the beast was closer. I could smell the sulfuric fume it was emitting. He roared in fury. I rubbed the red energy together to create friction. C’mon, c’mon. And just as I intended, it burst into flame. I needed it to be strong enough to resemble the sun that the angels in the Experiment Area had accidentally created. Please, please. I kept saying to myself, building up the intensity of the flame. I triggered the fission and the fusion cycle until it cycled by itself. And from it, a small star was born.

  “Here you are,” the creature said behind me.

  I jumped. With my heartbeat surging up into my throat, I flung the ball of fire at the beast, hitting the beast’s head.

  “Fire?” The creature laughed. “I eat fire!”

  The beast took it off his head and thrust it into his mouth.

  As soon as the creature burst into a colossal flame, I summoned the silver energy Sylfur and tossed it at the beast. And just like what happened with the sun at the lower house, the beast froze and turned into a huge diamond.

  “Not bad,” I said and then grimaced when the pain came back. The wound on my face stung so much I thought I would pass out. Never mind. I did, in fact, pass out. But before darkness fell over my vision, I caught sight of a door appearing right to my side.

  CHAPTER 14

  “I see that you’re already awake. I’m Traquus. We’ve met before.”

  I made a cursory assessment of my current state. I was on a bed, not a floor. I was so used to waking up on the floor whenever an energy-sleep caught me off guard that waking up on a bed triggered suspicion in my mind. I sat up and floated in front of him.

  I remembered him. He was the angel who’d greeted us at the door of the first house. His physical form looked a few years older than me. His eyes were blue, so blue it reminded me of the sky and the ocean on Earth. I found it unsettling to be referencing Earth so casually.

  “I’m Orieumber. And yes, I remember you. What happened? Why am I here?”

  “You were seen lying unconscious at the portal. Since this house is only accessible through the Maze at the fourth house, I am positive that you came from there, that you’d taken the test and passed. So, congratulations. Welcome to the fifth house: The Arts and Science of Medicine. And this is your room.”

  This house was only accessible through the fourth house?

  “So, if I visit someone at the third house, I would have to go through the whole trial in the fourth house again?”

  “Yes.”

  No. This would not stop me from seeing Venir at the third house. I would go through the whole ordeal if I had to.

  “Why are you sad? You passed the trials, so be happy,” he said while staring at me in confusion.

  “Where’s the door out of here? I need to go back to the third house.” I hovered toward the door and opened it. I glanced down. The ground was a few miles beneath me.

  “The fifth house does not have a door to the lower houses,” Traquus said, hovering beside me.

  “What are you saying?”

  “You’re now at the second division of the academy. The upper houses. You’ve finished the basic knowledge, and now you’re ready for the application.”

  “But I need to see my friend.” My hope was for him to hear the desperation in my voice.

  “You can once you’re done here,” he said like it was not a big deal.

  “You mean to say the next house has access to the lower houses?”

  “No. None of the higher houses have access to the lower houses, and the only way out of this division is in the tenth house, the Great Ordeals.”

  “That information is not in any book! This fucking place lied! It did not say anything about not being able to go back unless we finish all the houses. There was nothing there!” I screamed at him as though it was his fault. But I did not care. “And do you want to know why I know it wasn’t in any of the books?” I moved closer to him. “Because I’ve read them all.”

  He raised h
is eyebrows. But rather than looking mad for my disrespectful attitude, he instead looked amused.

  “You cannot possibly read all of the books there. It’s designed that way, so there’s a room for the trading of knowledge.”

  “Well, my friend read all the easy books, and he’s thorough. While I read all the difficult ones, including a few of the mystery ones, and believe me, I did read all of them. And then we shared what we read. So yeah, I know what was in those books.”

  He grinned like our conversation was amusing to him.

  “That’s against the rules.”

  Then it was my turn to grin. “There are no rules. It gives you reasons why you should not do certain things, like sharing knowledge without corresponding payment because then you’re depreciating the knowledge.”

  “Isn’t it what you and your friend were doing, sharing knowledge for free?”

  “Oh, no. It’s not for free. We owe each other a lifetime’s worth of debt. So we’re… paying each other by installments.”

  His blue eyes gleamed while he smirked at me. “Then you should endeavor to get to the tenth house so you can see him again. Or you can wait for him to get here. Either way, it’s none of my business. I took you to this room while you were unconscious, but you can pick another room if you don’t like it here. It’s all up to you. And by the way, you and your friend have a way to talk to each other.”

  For real? Whatever it was on my face that got him to chuckle, I did not care. All I cared about was finding a way to communicate with Venir.

  “So how?”

  “Do you know how to manipulate the air?”

  I nodded vigorously.

  “The garden has better reception. And …” he said, stopping me from heading toward the garden. “Why don’t you fix your face first. There are books in the room that can help you with that.”

  The room was spacious. It had a table for experimentation, stones to hold gaseous elements, and diamonds. The best thing was that I had my walls filled with plated books from green, yellow, blue, and red.

  “I have my own library? All mine?”

  “Not really yours, but yours at the moment. All the upper houses have rooms for each fledgling, and inside every room is a mini-library,” Traquus said with a little smile.

  While he was talking, I was staring at his wings. They were huge, brilliant, and as white as mine. He must have noticed where my attention lingered because he shifted his gaze to his wings and then back to me. His eyes turned glassy and his face faraway.

  “Yes, we both have a special kind of wings,” he said.

  “But it was not white before. It was red the first time I saw it.”

  “As I said, I have a special kind of wings. So, if you don’t have any questions, then I shall leave you so you can heal yourself.”

  “I thought asking questions is discouraged in Ether,” I said before he could even turn to go.

  “It is. But I’m a different kind of angel,” he answered with an enigmatic smile that triggered an onslaught of questions in my mind.

  “I do have a lot of questions. But you have helped me already. Just ask me so I can return the favor.”

  He grinned. “What I told you is considered worthless information called common knowledge.”

  Oh. “But can I see you again?”

  “You will see me around.”

  He walked toward the door and then turned around as if he suddenly remembered something. “Most fledglings who faced the Hybrid reached this house with energy almost completely drained and wounds all over their body. But you emerged from there with only one wound. That in itself is a feat. You’ve earned my respect.”

  The Hybrid? The monster has a name? “Thanks,” I answered, feeling absolutely proud of myself.

  When Traquus left, I walked over to the mini library and pulled one book out. I needed to fix the wound so I could go to the garden and talk to Venir. The thought of hearing Venir’s voice motivated me to learn faster.

  This house turned out to be the application of energy in healing all sorts of wounds, big or small, deep or shallow. The second house taught me the different colors of energies and their names. Although it provided an explanation about where they came from and how their characteristics and behaviors differed from each other, there was only little explanation as to how to summon them.

  The book in my hand had more advanced summoning lessons than the lower houses. I did not get a good handle of energy-summoning except for one, the silver energy Sylfur. The blue energy Blo was bendable, while the red energy Rood was about strength or power. Using Rood, I could create fire, extreme light, or anything that could transform into elemental weapons when intensified. Unfortunately for most angels, this kind of energy was extremely hard to conjure. But Rood was not the hardest to summon. It was the white energy Hwit.

  I closed the book and got another one. I just wanted to know how to re-attach this gaping cut on my face that was now stinging.

  “To fix a cut or laceration….” I read. The book instructed me to use the green energy, Grona. Most elements around us had Grona. To summon it, I needed to break a sub-atomic particle and fuse its energy with the energy I found from another sub-atomic particle.

  I gathered the materials, followed the directions, and was amazed when the green energy came out of it. I found a receptacle filled with the kind of water found at the lower-house gardens and made a mirror out of it. Using the Grona, I stitched the cut. It did not take long, and the wound on my face vanished, leaving no scar to remind me of what I went through in the fourth house.

  The garden here was different from the other houses, and it was not used for any recreation but for a demonstration of skills. It had a massive sculpture of an archangel holding his beautiful sword up, as though he were ready to slay something with it. It captured his beautiful face and muscular build. Below the sculpture was the name Archangel Michael.

  I found a good spot in the garden to conduct my air-streaming activity. It was behind a huge kalaskig tree with blue fruits. It was isolated enough that I could see anyone coming my way.

  I touched the bracelet that Venir gave me. To create an air-stream, I had to make a token, which could be any object that bore an imprint of the person you were trying to contact. The bracelet was laced with Memor energy and remembered Venir as its creator, so turning it as a token was as easy as showing a picture of the person you were trying to find.

  Then I called out the air mentally. Materials like air, water, or even sand understood angel-tongue, but you needed to communicate with them in your mind.

  The air that heard my telepathic voice came to hover around the bracelet. Then I told the air particles to find Venir and carry my voice to him and his to me. At my command, they streamed away to find Venir hopefully, and once they found him, they would go back and touch my bracelet and then back again to Venir, creating an air-current between us. Only a few heartbeats had passed before the token bracelet glowed, a signal to inform me that Venir was found and that a link was established.

  “Venir, hey,” I said like I had forgotten what to say.

  “Ori? Where are you?” Venir’s voice came through the bracelet.

  “I’m at the fifth house now. I passed the fourth house.”

  “You’ve made it! Congratulations! You might probably be the fastest angel to finish the trial.”

  I could or could not be, but the pride in his voice made me feel like there were little angels fluttering their wings inside my stomach. I would like to keep the happiness in his voice, so I was thinking of not telling him everything about what Traquus told me.

  “Are you going to visit me here soon?” His voice was so hopeful that I felt an urge to lie and tell him yes, I would. There was no way Traquus knew everything about doors. There had to be one leading back to the lower houses.

  “Soon,” I replied. “But I have to finish a few tasks here in the higher houses.”

  Silence. And then…

  “Ori, tell me everything.”


  Busted. And so, I did. I told him everything, including how I cheated and how I could not go back to visit him unless I finished the tenth house.

  “But I’ll find out. Every house I go, I’ll look for one. I promise you that, Ven.”

  “Hey.” This simple hey from him had the ability to calm me. “It’s okay. I’ll wait for you regardless of how long it takes you to finish the houses. Or I might see you soon because I think I’m ready for the fourth house.”

  “You are?” My voice may have come out shrieking. But who would care?

  “Yes, I’ll fly over there and will contact you before I come in so you would know if I’m already inside. Alright?”

  “Do we really have to end our communication? I think it’s possible to keep it open?” I asked.

  “Alright, let’s try it then.”

  I entered back to the hall while talking with Venir, and our link did not break. I told him about Traquus, the angel we had met before, and how his wings had changed color.

  “That’s strange,” he said. “But then again, what is normal here can be perceived strange to a fledgling like us.”

  I flew back to my room. “Hey, tips for the fourth house: learn how to write a verse, especially about the story of creation. That’s where I got stuck.”

  “Duly noted. I’m here now.”

  “What? Where?”

  “At the fourth house. I’m standing right here at the threshold,” he replied.

  “Let’s keep our communication on and see if it works in there.”

  “Okay, here it goes.”

  Silence.

  “Venir? Answer me?”

  Nothing.

  While keeping our link open, I picked another book to read. I hoped Venir would turn out to be the fastest angel to finish the fourth house, beating my record, because… I already missed him.

  Instead of following the instructions in the book, I found my own way of summoning energies. I used the silver energy Sylfur to call upon other energies like Rood, Blo, Gel, and Hwit since they were attracted to Sylfur.

  I also found Sylfur to be good as a weapon. Who needs the Rood when you can just break apart any energy by throwing the Sylfur into it?