The Initiates were all wearing their dark maroon robes. Apart from the color, they were entirely plane and non-descript. Initiates were all given the same items, three from the university and one from yet an undetermined source. And these four items were all they had in common on this first day. As Intellos surveyed this class, he took mental notes of where each Initiate chose to place their items. Some of them had their quills, inkwells, and books neatly arranged on their desktop. Others were placed without organization. Some even had not placed them on their desktops at all, probably waiting for instruction before acting. Ending his assessment, he walked slowly behind his desk, located at the front of the room of course, placed his book next to his feathered quill and walked again to stand in front of his students, where he waited.
It seemed that every year, no matter how closely the incoming class of initiates was mentored by an assigned Ascendant on the first day, there was always one student who was late. This morning was no different. As the minutes dragged on in silence, uncomfortably for those seated in the chairs closest to him, Intellos glanced at his hourglass and smiled. Just before the sands ran their course exiting through the opening and into the past, a young girl initiate stumbled through the opened door, dropping her quill, book, and inkwell.
The class laughed when she ended up on the floor with her belongings. Intellos, seeing her embarrassment, walked over to her, bent down, and gathered her scatter possessions. Seeing she was unable to move, too mortified to access her physical mobility, he leaned close to her ear as he helped her up, "Good morning, Anaria. Do not worry about them; my very first class in this very same room began exactly as yours did, except I spilled my ink all over my robes. All of my friends called me "Spots" for the rest of the year!" he said with a broad smile. "Now take your seat so we can begin." His amused grin lingered on her as she walked to the back of the class and sat herself in the last remaining seat. He was fond of her and had been since he first consulted her parents regarding her talent. She shared his thirst for knowledge, but unlike him, she spent most of her time writing instead of reading. Returning to the head of the classroom again, he turned and prepared to begin their formal education into the grand exposure of wizardry.
"Good Morning," Intellos began his address. Not waiting for an answer, he continued, "Where is it you suppose you are?" Allowing the students a perplexed moment to look around at their new classmates after which he continued, "Well, do not be shy; there really is no wrong answer. And most times, the most obvious answer is the best one."
A timid voice from the back of the class answered, "We are at the University?"
"True enough, Anaria, indeed you are!" He said with excitement lacing his words. "But now, how do you know that?" He directed this question to the timid voice who initially answered him.
"What do you mean," the young girl said after a pause to look around her class, now with all eyes directed toward her.
Through an amused chuckle, the High Wizard spoke again, "My meaning was contained within the question my young Initiate. How do you KNOW where you are?"
Again the young girl looked around hoping to get some help from her classmates who were no better off finding an answer to his question than she was. Then, just as Intellos was about to ask his question in another way, a different, yet just as timid voice spoke up, breaking the awkward silence, "Are you asking how we know we are in The University or how we know we are sitting at a desk?"
"Exactly! Correct you are! How do we know either? And does knowledge of one mean the knowledge of another?" Seeing he had confused his students even more, and achieved his exact intent, he leaned against his desk and continued in the speech he had delivered for ages. "My young Initiates, so many times we do not realize the depth of what we know because we do not take time to consider all that we know. Think of all that you did to make your way here. Think of the lands you traveled over, some of you at great lengths. Think of all of the things you saw, smelled, felt, heard and tasted. Close your eyes and revisit your journey from the time you left your home, to the time you successfully made your way to your desk seated in front of me. Were you not presented to an array of information made evident to your minds through your eyes, ears, hands, nose, and mouth? Yet how many of you were able to correctly and with a specific attention to detail, recall the entirety of your passage? Know this; a Wizard is not measured in what he knows, for that is but a function of his conscious awareness. Learn to expand your conscious awareness and you will expand the base of knowledge you are able to operate within. Tantamount to learning your surroundings and all information presented to you is the daunting task of learning yourself. For how can one learn anything if one does not learn himself first? It is therefore the mandate of every Wizard to learn from within before learning from without. Because unless you have a well-founded knowledge of yourself rooted in the reality of your conscious intent, all knowledge you will learn will change as you change. And if knowledge changes, it is not knowledge at all. Learn to construct the unchanging foundation of who you are as wizards and you will learn power. For all knowledge begins from within, and therefore, regardless of the world we exist in, we must first know the world that exists within ourselves. That, my young initiates is the source of power for the Wizard, and must become the Wizards first concern."
What was that! Intellos thought as he concluded his opening instruction to this year's class of initiates. When he would normally have seamlessly transitioned from a lecture to an exercise aimed at leading them in a meditative experience designed to begin their inward journey, he was forced to divert his attention away from the students and toward the rear doorway to the classroom, an exit that was exclusively reserved for students. But it was no student who approached him now. His initial reaction was to imperceptivity scan all of those seated in front of him to see if there was a deception spell cast to mask the true identity of one of the new initiates, but moments into his observation, he realized that they had stopped moving all together. In fact, all motion within the class room had stopped. He could no longer see their apprehensive and elevated breathing rates continue through the rising and falling of their chests, all the dust particles were held suspended in the air, now growing thick with an unfamiliar power. Even the faint flickering of the candles used to illuminate the surroundings had been stilled.
Had one of his colleagues correctly and adequately dismantled the mysterious nature of time extensively enough to assume its control and was now using his knowledge of it to cast a spell intended to show this Wizard's superior breath of knowledge in Intellos’s most sought after topic of consideration? No, that could not be it. If it were, he would have sensed the other wizard's reservoir of magic being utilized long before the spell was made manifest. But he could not deny the power approaching from the doorway. He gathered his extensive knowledge of several protective spells aimed at fortifying his mind against attacks as well as those aimed at hardening his own skin well beyond the metal of armor to protect against physical attacks. If one was in observance, they would have seen his skin assimilate his power as it shimmered with a faint metallic radiance. They would have also felt this newly created hardness extend several inches beyond his skin to add to the protective properties.
The raw power was unlike any he had felt before. It was rooted in completeness as if it could be no more perfected than the form it now presented. There was no magical reservoir for him to examine, or at least, no magical signature he could follow to a reservoir. He had heard about techniques employed to mask the reservoir, but they required complete dedication and resulted in no evidence of a displayed power. This being, or whatever was approaching him, had no such illusion to hide its substance because the power was readily evident. So it left him to ponder the completeness of what he felt. Knowledge was, at its very nature, incomplete because one could always learn more, examine more, and test more. Therefore, any and every display of power from any and every wizard from the first to the last was accompanied by a sense of in
completeness due to the very nature of knowledge. But because of the sense of completeness now approaching him, he was forced to face the reality that perhaps knowledge was, in fact, complete, or at least could be completed. And this being, this entity could not be of human or mortal beginnings.
Weight, solidity, concreteness, and reality all emanated from the silhouetted figure suddenly visible in the student's doorway to his classroom. It projected a greater aspect than any he had encountered before. As the foremost wizard in Avendia, he was keenly aware of the different levels of reality, whether they be related to our perceptive minds, physical bodies, or our subconscious thoughts. His knowledge in each was extensive. Yet never had he felt the level of realness he was experiencing right now in the presence of this energy. Even through his defenses, which were all but impervious to even the most powerfully driven spells, he could feel the depth of this creature seeking to measure him. Surrounded by a shimmering, radiant light, Intellos was not able to visually know the creature as he was forced to squint out of protection. He tried to speak, but could not form words through his frozen lips. It was now that he realized he had succumbed to the same effects his students had as he was utterly unable to move. Though his mind was active and left open to perceive, as were his senses, his body was locked behind the tumblers of a power he had no knowledge of, and was thus unable to combat. If indeed combat, was its goal.
Impressing upon his conscious awareness was an increasing understanding of a desired response from the wizard by this creature. It wanted something. But what? What could this other worldly power, because there was now no doubt in the wizard's mind that indeed this being was from another world, want from him? Warmth, like that of heated bath water pouring over a chilled body removing all prior evidence of exposure to the wintery elements, washed over him from the very center of his being until it permeated to his ever working mind. Stillness, like the calming of a rapidly flowing river spilling into a collecting pool until the calm becomes so compete, there is nothing left of the river except for the glasslike, undisturbed reflection, rendered his thoughts utterly motionless until his singular focus was upon this being.
Once all distractions were eliminated and the sole occupying permeation into the Grand Wizard's complex and completely stilled conscious awareness was this being, he was able to correctly see it for all of its reflective glory. Far into his past, and well beyond any topic of study he deemed serious, was a myth he had once pondered, for the briefest of moments. This myth was derived from a few separate, but interconnected descriptions throughout the history of Avendia. These unique and similar descriptions would appear during Avendia's most desperate moments, when it seemed the very balance of all things was being hung by the thinnest of threads while some grand master held a match to its fibers. Never described by more than a couple individuals in these moments of history and never described by those prominent enough to play a role of significance within said historic moment, a single name flawlessly fit the description of his current experience. He was in the presence of an Angel.
As it stood in the doorway, pressed against his consciousness, its very existence began to challenge the Grand Wizard's preconception of purpose. If there was one Angel, did that mean there were more? And if there were more, who was at their head? For what purpose did they appear? With his active mind beginning to throw ripples into this divinely created stillness, the Angel resonated a greater calm, refocusing Intellos utterly upon it. The glasslike stillness returned, and he found himself approaching the answer to at least one of his questions: What did it want of him?
Without speaking, the angel was able to communicate. Intellos saw the image of a cave; a hidden cave long in its solitude and great in its importance. He was meant to find this cave. But that was not the end. The implanted vision from the angel shifted from the forgotten cave to a young girl. A girl who's face he could not see. Faceless, this girl was somehow attached to the cave as if a single lost sheep had lost its way and failed to return home. But the reunion of the two would never happen if he did not follow the directive from this superior being. Embossed within his new found realization was the need and willful intent to find what he was given charge to find. Wait! He was given charge? He was instructed? It just occurred to him that the Grand Wizard of the High Council of Wizards and the Grand Master of the University of Knowledge, the Great Intellos Saa'ik Saa'ir had just been enlisted into the service of a being whose intent seemed even greater than his pursuit of knowledge.
Intellos began to laugh, at least internally because he was still unable to produce any degree of movement. Perhaps, if he concentrated hard enough, and applied all of the reserves of his will, he would be able to wiggle a finger, but certainly he was still unable to produce the complex coordinated movements required to express the irony he was now feeling. His laughter continued. He had visited each and every King, Emperor, Queen, and Royal Court in every nation in Avendia, he spoke with a solidified assurance such that all would consider his words and advice with more severity than even those of their closest companions, he had achieved a level of authority in the land that extended far beyond the considerable authority of the previous three Grand Wizards, yet, at the end of this day, he was being summoned as if he was again an Initiate on his first day. A deep laughter, from the very reaches of his belly, would have exploded from his mouth if he was yet able to move.
"Grand Wizard Intellos," said Anaria timidly from the back of the room, "why are you laughing?"
So immersed within the moment that had obviously passed, he did not notice that while he believed he was still unable to move, he was, in fact, capable of engaging his normal motor control to its fullest capacity; and was currently enjoying what must have appeared to his students as a completely insane laughing fit from an old and insane wizard. However, one does not become Grand Wizard without finding oneself in numerous uncomfortable positions without the wherewithal to properly brush them aside as if it was normal behavior.
Still through a small chuckle and reflexive deep inhalation, Intellos spoke, "What was the last thing you saw, Anaria?"
"We were listening to you talk, Grand Wizard Intellos, then you sort of paused for a second, then started laughing," replied the girl who looked around seeking the comforting approval from her classmates.
"Very interesting. Did you feel anything? Did any of you feel anything?" He asked first to Anaria, and then to his class.
"I do not know. I do not think so. Maybe just a small draft of air from the window," answered the girl once again.
"Very well then. Let us allow no more time to pass before we begin the first of several lessons that will be integral to your ability to understand knowledge as true knowledge," he began again with the formal material he desired to present to his students in their first class period. As intensely as he desired to research this cave and its contents, whatever they may be, he still had a responsibility to his students that required the completion of at least this class, before he began looking into the Angel and cave. He continued, "I want you to all close your eyes and envision a flame."
The rest of the class passed without any more interruptions or otherworldly incidents, and quite frankly, the Grand Wizard was content with having only a single visit from the Angel he had once believed was only a myth. Upon its completion, he dismissed his students by letting them know that he may or may not be back with them on the morrow, but should he not be with them, he would enlist the expertise of Mido the Wise to further progress them on their meditative journey.
Each year, after the first day's initial class, Intellos would always retire to his study and finalize the list of projects for the outgoing class of Ascendants. He personalized this list based on all of the knowledge he gathered from his exposure to each of them over the years of their study within the University’s walls. Doing so allowed him to complete two objectives: firstly, he was able to give his students projects fitting their level of ability, and secondly he was able to assign them topics
that would hold their attention. In past years, the Ascendants were allowed to select their own final projects, but when one of them chose to pursue the arts of Necromancy and subsequently animated a previously dead turtle, the Council had to act simply because of the sheer implications. Sure, one turtle is not enough to cause rise for concern, but what was to stand in the way of a wizard applying the techniques of dissection upon the turtle to that of a human? While the completion of his project was extremely substantial and a great advancement in the realm of knowledge, all evidence of it had to be eliminated by the decree of the Council. So, as it was, the young Ascendant's memory was erased and altered and all notes on the matter were destroyed. But he did not stop there. Because the implications could be so devastating if explored by the evil side of wizardry, as Grand Wizard, he mandated that all memory of this event be erased. However, it would have been impossible to erase everyone's memory; consequently, there had to be one who would retain it, and that one was him.
But today did not see him walk the all too familiar path from the class to his study. Rather, he found himself, quite purposefully, walking through the endless maze of hallways, down several flights of stairs, through more hallways, passed magically locked doors, until he finished his descent by standing in front of a singular black door that lead to the deepest bowels of the University. It was here, amidst the dampness of the mountain side the University was partially constructed in, where he would hopefully find the knowledge he required to begin the quest of finding the cave indicated by the Angel. Now, if he could just remember the correct spell to bypass this final door.
Convergence (The Dragon Within Saga Book 1) Page 12
