by Heath Pfaff
“That’s probably because you’re visualizing it happening, and not making it happen. If you want it to happen, make it happen. Your Will can’t be denied if you won’t let it be.” Arthos said calmly.
I thought of the water tank again, how I’d kept rising back up even though I should have died. I’d refused to die. I wouldn't accept it. This had to be the same way. I wouldn't accept failure here. The ball would move. It couldn’t deny what I wanted from it. It was just a ball. I looked at the ball once more and gathered my desire to see it move. It had to move because I intended it to do so. A surge rose up inside of me, chaotic and angry, and the ball hopped a few inches into the air before rolling a little further away.
“I did it!” I exclaimed a bit louder than I meant to. I was quite excited. This was magic. I had real magic.
Arthos laughed. “You did, and pretty quickly too. You’re not the fastest I’ve ever trained, but you’re moving right along. Go ahead and try the next one.”
I nodded and turned my attention on it. This time it came easier. I popped that ball up even higher into the air. It wasn’t that difficult to do, though I didn’t exactly hit it straight. It bounced off to the side.
“Alright, now the biggest of them. Leave the metal one for now.” He said.
I turned my attention on the largest one and hit that one. It didn’t go as high as the one before it, but it shot off to the side a great deal of distance. I looked over at Arthos and he was nodding, his expression impressed.
“That was good, but you’re not very stable on your application of force. You really need to focus on hitting from the bottom on a single, small point. You want to go up, not to the side.” He paused for a moment then nodded towards the metal ball. “Try that one now.”
I turned my focus to the fourth sphere. Up. I needed it to go up. I focused my will and pushed. The ball popped sideways into the air and went soaring across the field, further than any of the others by far, but not at all straight up.
“Wow.” Arthos chuckled. “That was a good hit, but not very well focused again.”
I frowned, uncertain why I couldn’t get it to go straight up. “I’m not sure how to aim it.” I admitted.
“That will come with time.” He assured me. “Right now you’re like a baby who has just learned how to walk. You can use your legs well. You’re stumbling about, looking for something to hold onto. Your Will is raw and unfocused because you have no experience with it. I’ll give you something to help you work on that when we’re finished here today, but I want you to keep trying to move the spheres here. Stick to the wood ones for now. That metal one could become dangerous if you start hitting it in the wrong direction.”
I did as he instructed, working for the next few hours on the balls, as Arthos watched, not really giving me much feedback on what I was doing wrong or right. I found the longer I kept at using my will, the increasingly tired I became. The balls weren’t heavy or hard to move exactly, but the act of moving them over and over again was taking a toll on me. Will fatigue, I guessed. At least I knew what was happening.
“Alright, it’s time to spar.” Arthos voice broke my focus and the ball I’d been about to hit popped slightly sideways with no real force or direction from me. “You need to keep your physical edge. Just because you’re a Warden now doesn’t mean you can just quit working on yourself. You’ll find that your body doesn’t diminish the way it did before if you stop working. You’ll hold your strength by Will now, but that doesn’t mean you can’t lose your edge if you don’t keep at your training. Besides, challenging yourself to new levels of difficulty only makes you better.”
Arthos reached to his back and drew two halves of a staff weapon just like my own. I drew my weapon as well. I’d yet to encounter anyone who used my weapon so this was a novel experience. “Avoid head blows, but try your hardest to land hits.” He said, and then he engaged. There was no other warning that we were starting, but that was alright. My previous training had taught me to always be ready. I wasn’t surprised by the sudden onslaught.
Arthos came at me like he intended to kill me. His weapons blurred and it was everything I could do to hold him back. I’d thought I was very good at my weapons, but he was on another level entirely. In moments I was falling back and struggling just to keep from being hit. I was managing, but only just, and then it felt like someone grabbed my leg and pulled hard. Suddenly I was off balance. Arthos hit me in the ribs and I heard a crack as I staggered backwards and fell to my knees. His next blow landed across my shoulders and this one laid me flat, agony bursting through and down my back. I rolled over quickly, spinning my legs to get momentum and bringing my weapons up but Arthos was done. He’d drawn back and was looking at me.
He’d cheated. He’d used his Will to defeat me. “That wasn’t fair.” I groaned as I struggled to get back up. My ribs hurt badly, probably broken, and I would have a terrible bruise along my back.
“What wasn’t fair?” He asked, a small smile on his lips that told me he’d anticipated we’d have this conversation.
“You used your Will and not just your weapons.” I snapped, but then what had I really expected from this fight? It wasn’t going to be like before.
“My Will is a weapon, Lillin. Now that you can use it, no one is going to hold back in a fight. You need to learn it as well. When we spar, I will be using my Will on you. I might hold back to some degree, but it’s important that you understand how to use it in combat, and how to defend against it.” His voice was firm, but not unfriendly.
“Defend against it?” I asked surprised. This was something I hadn’t really considered. “We’re all on the same side. Why would I ever have to seriously fight a Will user?”
“I recommend you take sparring very seriously.” Arthos answered smoothly, but that felt a bit disingenuous. He was covering up for something. “You need to know how to win in any situation. Your technique needs to be flawless.”
“Your ‘flawless technique’ broke my ribs.” I growled, ignoring the pain, but not happy about it. Broken ribs could be quite dangerous. I didn’t really like the idea of ending up with a punctured lung, or some form of internal bleeding.
“Good, because when we’re done here tonight you need to learn how to affect your own healing. You won’t always have access to healers. You need to learn how to take care of yourself. In time it will become automatic and natural.” He said this as though this was just an obvious progression of things.
“We can heal ourselves?” This was the first I’d heard of this, though I’d always wondered how the Warden’s dealt with injuries in the field.
He gave a brief nod. “Yes. It takes time and effort, but a Warden can heal almost any damage that they might sustain within reason. It’s painful and, at least at first, takes focus as well as an understanding of the body. That’s why your lessons contained so much study on bone and muscle structure. It makes you a more effective fighter, and a more effective healer once your Will is awake.”
“Can you teach me how to do it now so I can fix my rib?” I asked, finding breathing rather painful.
He shook his head. “I could, but I’m not going to. It will take time, and we’re not done sparring. I’ll go a bit easier on you now, but I’m going to keep trying to use my Will on you, so you need to resist that.”
I tried to hide the anger in my voice as I responded to him. “How?” Pain wasn’t helping me remain calm and rational.
“When we were fighting you were completely focused on combat. You need to learn to leave a strand of consciousness tied to your Will at all times. When my Will strikes yours, you will feel it like someone brushing a hand over the hairs on your arm. Defense is the easiest part of Will use. One Will can resist another far easier than it can attack.” He explained. “This is true because it’s easier to affect yourself then it is to affect others of course. You’ve used your Will now, so you know how to reach for it. Now you just need to touch it, keep it at the back of your mind all the time. It n
eeds to be a constant companion.”
I sighed and nodded. “You make it sound so easy.” I groaned. It was much harder to focus now that I was in pain. I brought my weapon up in front of me, linking the two halves. The full staff was a better defensive weapon. It could be used to keep a person at a distance, and I’d need to do that if I was going to be separating part of my focus onto something else. I grasped the haft in a ready position and reached back for my Will.
To my surprise it wasn’t hard to touch. It was just there. It was shapeless and massive, seemingly impossible to draw upon or form, but it was easy to brush against.
Arthos came forward again. He kept his weapon split into two halves and when he launched the attack he came quickly. I backed up and spun my staff to counter the blows he was leveling. I could tell he wasn’t pressing me as hard as he had before, but the pressure was still on. Twisting and turning caused pain to explode in my battered ribs. I gave up ground readily and didn’t bother to try and take it back. I couldn’t beat him in an assault. I just had to survive this.
I felt a surge and knew what it was almost instinctively. Arthos opened his mouth like he was about to speak, but my Will surged around me, and for a moment it was almost overwhelming. It felt like a massive wind at my back, buffeting me and almost knocking me off balance, but when it subsided Arthos was standing a bit stunned, his eyes a little wide. He put his weapons down and I lowered mine as well.
“Did you attack with your Will?” He asked.
I shrugged. “I just felt your attack coming in and reached for my Will. I’m not really sure what happened then. It seemed to wash over me like a tide.”
“I see.” He said softly. “You felt my Will?” He asked, but didn't give me time to answer. “Well, that was very well executed. I think you’ve got the basics of Will defense in place. Quickly too.”
“Did I do something wrong?” I asked, not sure why he seemed so surprised.
He shook his head. “No, not wrong, but unexpected. Will is difficult to sense. Usually you can feel it touch you and act to defend then, but . . . of course you seem full of surprises. Has anyone really talked to you about your water test yet?” He asked, and he began to put his weapons away. I did the same.
I took a deep, shaky breath. My ribs ached furiously “No.” This was a point of contention. “They seem upset about it, but no one is explaining why exactly. I thought you didn’t really care about any of that?”
He was quiet and thoughtful for a moment. “The water test has one purpose. It is there to push you over the last wall that stands between a Warden and their ability to physically harness their Will. Everything up to that point is a matter of fortifying your determination and making sure you have the skill necessary to succeed as a Warden, but the water test is the best way we know to shatter your expectations of physicality. There are other ways to awaken Will, but they’re not as effective, and create Wardens of lesser strength. To master Will you must understand that your body is only a physical container for your manifesting power to affect the world. We kill the body and force the students to reanimate it through their Will to live. That didn't happen with you.”
This wasn’t exactly news to me. I’d gathered this from what others had told me and it fit with everything else I’d seen. The Wardens were all ghostly pale, their eyes dull. They looked like corpses that walked. On some level I’d always just thought that the Will changed them over time, and that it would happen to me as well if given enough immersion in the power.
“Then you’re dead?” I asked, making sure I had the right of this.
He shook his head. “No, that’s not exactly right. I’m not dead, but I am reanimated. All of us are. I can keep my body going indefinitely. Some say that a Warden never has to actually die, though from time to time one of us is obliterated and can’t recover, or occasionally we just quit.”
“Quit?” My voice held every bit of the uncertainty I felt at hearing that.
“Existing takes Will, and when you are a master of your own Will, letting go of that Will means letting go of your life. All a Warden has to do to stop living is simply let go.” Arthos gave a lifted his hand up in a closed fist and then opened it like the bud of a flower waking. “You though, you’re different. You didn’t die during the water test. You refused to let go of your life before your power was supposed to be awakened which was something that hadn’t happened before. Some think you cheated, some believe you’re something special, and others believe you’ve stumbled into a different type of awakening, one we don’t do here at this school.”
I mulled over this information for a moment. I hadn’t intentionally cheated. I’d just wanted to stay alive and I’d refused to let my body go. It had been terrifying and difficult, but I’d done it out of desperation. Was that really so unusual? What did it mean if I was different? It was a troubling circle of thoughts that didn’t seem to bring to the front any answers through worrying the questions over.
“What do you think? Do you think I cheated?” I asked, curious to see what my teacher had to say on the matter.
“No, I don’t think you did. If you’d cheated somehow, you wouldn’t have control of your Will the way you do. From working with you I’d say you have a great deal of untrained potential. It’s raw and unfocused, but you seem strong. The lack of focus is a problem though. Having a great deal of power with no focus is no better than being exceptionally weak. You won’t get very far if you can’t bring your Will to bare exactly as you intend.” We crossed back into the building, the door shutting in our wake and reminding me that I was still within the city and not truly free at all.
“Some of the lowest ranking Wardens have a great deal of raw Will, but they can’t do anything with it because they never mastered control. Beyond their instinctive grasp of Will to keep themselves alive, some of them never manage even the basics of using their Will as a tool. I should introduce you to some of those. It might be good for you to see that Wardens come in all different forms.” He seemed to be making a mental note to do so, which indicated to me that he thought I might well end up taking that route.
“So what happens to me if I can’t learn to focus my Will? What do those Wardens do?” It was clear these people weren’t gotten rid of. He said he could introduce me to them, but what exactly became of them?
Arthos gave a shrug and a smile. “Many become researchers, or take other non critical jobs. We don’t send them out for important work, though that doesn’t mean they can’t live fulfilling lives. Being a Warden is important even if you’re not a Knight, out winning glory for us in battle. You shouldn’t worry about it too much. You’ve made it into our order. The inquiries will go on a bit longer because they will want to know everything they can about why you’re different, but things will settle down and your life will become a bit less unusual.”
“What if I wish to become a Scout and not a Scholar?” I asked, wondering if I’d even have a say in things if I lacked ability.
He raised an eyebrow. “Most new recruits wish to be a Knight. That is where the honor is, and where strength can really be used. There is no glory in being a scout. It’s hard work, and the reward is often death in foreign lands.”
I gave a shrug. “I just want to know if I can pursue a different path even if I can’t focus my Will.”
“You can pursue any path you wish, but there are skill requirements for becoming a Knight or a Scout. If you can’t master your Will to the proper degree then you won’t be able to follow those paths. It would be suicide.” Athos’ expression was curious. “What is it that interests you about the scouts?”
I’d backed myself into a corner on this one. I couldn’t exactly go into what had first piqued my interest so I had to think fast. “I like answers, and it seems the Scouts would be the most likely to find them.” I replied, thinking it a good excuse.
Arthos thought about that for a bit before he answered. We continued walking in silence while he did so. “It seems to me Scholars would have more ans
wers than Scouts, and a much easier life as well. I’ve found it very fulfilling.”
“Scholars,” I answered. “Have answers about everything we already know, and maybe about things that can be pieced together from books or documents, but Scouts find answers that are beyond anything that can be learned by study. I think they would have the answers to the bigger questions.” As I said this it locked in my mind in a way that felt perfect. I’d been simply trying to cover for my curiosity, but the explanation I’d given felt like more than a cover. I might have inadvertently convinced myself that being a Scout was exactly what I wanted. I could find my own answers, and I had a remarkable number of questions.
“It’s difficult to be a Scout.” Arthos said, voice a bit solemn. “The skills needed are not trivial to master, and the work is often thankless and brutal, but if that’s what you want, then you should work for it. My training regiment is more geared towards practical application. I usually train Knights, but I might recommend you to someone who trains scouts if you do well enough.”
“I suppose I’ll figure it out as I go.” I replied, my future here still uncertain. “How long will it take the others to decide what they intend to do with me? I don’t really like not knowing what is coming next. The uncertainty bothers me. I feel like it’s all I’ve lived with for a long time now, but I was under the impression that things would be clearer as a Warden.”
