by Awert, Wolf
Ambrosimas and the Onyx before him were silent. What could he have said? He had been the one suggesting Nill’s special role in Ringwall’s fate, after all, even if he found the idea that Nill was the Changer ludicrous. He had hoped to figure out Nill’s secrets by himself. That attempt had failed. But if all members of the council were in agreement with Mah Bu, that meant that the boy’s life was no longer in any immediate danger. He had to plan his next move very carefully.
Mah Bu spoke once more. “I gave Nill a key for just one day. He knows that he only has one sun’s cycle to find what he needs in the scriptures. I do not think he has been successful yet; however, I feel a little generosity is in order. I will leave him the stone for an indeterminate length of time, and we will place an eye in the library so that we may understand his motives. I think he will be happy if his key does not disappear.”
Again the others nodded.
“If that’s all?” the Magon asked.
“It’s not,” Ambrosimas said. “The stool has shrunk, or the room around it has grown too large. We ought to replace it with a chair.”
All eyes snapped to the stool of Nothing, and all archmages wondered what Ambrosimas planned now.
When Nill awoke the next morning he felt as though he had slept for a month. His body was stiff as a board, his muscles hard and tense, his joints cracking. A dusty layer had fallen on his mind and it took him a few moments to realize where he was. He sat bolt upright, grasping for the keystone. It was still there. He then glanced at his brush and quill. The parchment was exactly where he had dropped it yesterday.
He stretched, submerged his head in cold water and slowly lumbered out of his cave to relieve himself. The pale flamelets that came from the walls of the first cave told him it was very early in the morning. Nill checked on the rations that had appeared in his cave overnight and took a small piece of bread, a lump of lard and one of the rare treasures of Ringwall, a little rock of salt. He poured a mug of water, heated it and dissolved a few dried herbs in the warm water. He quietly moved to the main cave and sat down on one of the logs.
As quietly as he had moved, the sounds had been enough to awaken Brolok and Tiriwi. They came from their caves, showering him with reproach, but it was only a measure of their worry for him. Not only had they roused half the city in their search, they had also wasted an important mage’s time for half a day.
Nill told them of the library, and that he had found something significant. What it was, he would not tell. “Wait a little longer. I’ve no more than suspicions and guesswork at the moment. Once I’m a little more certain, I’ll tell you everything.” He hesitated. “I might have a hint of who my parents are.”
He did not mention the ornamental writing or the falundron.
Brolok poked him in the ribs. “We have to get going, it’s healing potions today. The last important thing to practice before we finish our education. I’m not too happy about it; truth be told, I’m terrified I’ll have to drink a poison that none but the Magon can fix, and when I need him he’s too busy.”
Brolok grinned. Nobody had ever sustained lasting harm in any of their lessons about healing. How important it was to Ringwall was obvious by the amount of teachers they had for the subject. Five elemental mages, three of the Spheres and five white mages were on constant guard to make sure nothing went wrong.
“There are a number of poisons on this table. None of them will agree with you. Some might even be deadly. But poisons always take effect slowly. You will have time to find a counter-measure and use your magic to dispel the effects of the poison. Listen to your body, feel the poison and react to it. You’ll manage. We will learn about cuts and open wounds at a later time. Curing curses, too, are locked behind knowing about poisons.”
Nill’s thoughts were far away. He was standing in the library, then in the catacombs. He was reading or writing glyphs, wandering around in darkness; he certainly was not in the classroom, listening to the monologue about healing. Later he considered that he might have found out something about what the falundron had done to him.
When it was finally his turn to be poisoned, only three vials were left on the table. The left one contained an acid green liquid, the one in the middle was a warm red and the right one was full of an ominously swirling black fluid.
Nill appraised the danger he sensed from each vial. “Green is for Wood, I can do that. Red is Fire. Black could be anything, really. Probably Metal.” He hesitated. “Maybe the colors aren’t indicators at all, and they’re just there to confuse me.”
Nill attempted to sense their auras. Potions and poisons were not living beings. Their auras were weak, mostly hidden by the glass that contained them. Nill was quite certain that the poison contained within the left-most bottle was a plant-based one. The red one was not Fire, as he had initially presumed. Its aura was too stable, weak and transparent. Possibly Earth, then, but maybe something else entirely. The black one had no aura at all. “Not possible,” he thought. All he saw was the flat shine of very unalive glass. However, there was a tiny vibration around the seal, where the glass and the beeswax met. He looked closer and saw a miniscule green sliver, a threatening double-shade below it. The potion did have an aura after all, very thin, almost as transparent as the glass. There was Metal in there, but also more. Metal took up space, and something was stopping it from doing just that. This was completely different, and far too dangerous. Better not drink that one, he thought.
Nill decided on the green vial. He reached towards it slowly, for even the bravest souls were never keen on poisoning themselves. But he was too slow. Slower than he normally would have been. Something inside him was warning him not to take the green.
Red then? I’ll take the red.
“Take the black one.”
Was that Tiriwi’s voice, guiding him? Nill’s arm bent away from the red one and his fingers closed around the black.
“That’s right.”
Nill took the vial and unsealed it, guiding it to his lips. In the very instant the first drop touched his mouth he knew that it had not been Tiriwi. He sensed jubilation and triumph, and it unsettled him. It was a trap! Nill wanted to spit the potion back out, but too late. He had already swallowed.
He reacted instantly. Racing the poison down his throat and to his stomach, his mind and all his power were in full motion. He did not know what sort of poison it was, merely that it contained Metal energy. He attempted to call his body to balance out the excess of Metal, but it was impossible. Too much poison. He did not have the time to wait for his body to react.
He sent as much Fire as he could at the deadly Metal, but it did not help much. His head glowed red, his hands felt as if fire were coursing through them. He was shaking. Something was in that devilish brew that had nothing to do with the elemental magic. But Nill could not put his finger on what it was. He found his consciousness fading and he knew he had but a few more moments before the poison took him. In his stomach he saw a bubbling liquid and right in the middle there was a dark hole. Without thinking, he leapt after it.
Tiriwi saw his swaying on the spot. She wanted to jump up, to hold him steady, but he was too far away. Even Brolok, who was closer, could not stop him from falling over and smashing his forehead into the ground.
The mages rose as a unit.
“Do not worry, there is no danger. None of the poisons acts too fast to hinder reaction. Nill has ample time to heal himself.”
Some of them looked less than convinced at these words.
Tiriwi elbowed her way through her fellow students until she reached Nill and lifted his head. “Nill, are you in there? Let’s do this together.”
Tiriwi attempted to steer her thoughts into Nill’s body, but she found that a strong magical barrier prevented it.
She raised her head and stared at the mages.
“What have you done to him?! I can’t reach him, and he’s not moving!”
“You aren’t supposed to. Every student must find a way to deal with th
e poison on their own. No help is allowed.”
A few of the mages looked at the speaker with their brows furrowed. A White Mage broke the silence and stepped in. “I can’t reach him either. This is far beyond not allowing students to help one another. Someone switched the poisons.” The mage rushed forwards and took Nill in his arms.
Panicked shouts were coming from the students. Any of them could have picked the lethal one.
“Who brewed these potions?” a stern voice demanded, but no answer came. Eyes found one another and broke away again. The White Mage sat beside Nill in all the confusion like a stone. When he raised his head, a hush fell over the room.
“I don’t know what’s happening here. I don’t know if the boy has died, but I do know that he’s not among the living any more.”
The voices rose again.
Nill searched for something familiar, but everything around him was gray. He had left the black hole, and probably his body, far behind. He knew that he had traveled through the gray twilight once before. Traveled, ha! Back then he had raced through it so fast then that he could not remember a thing about it. He was betwixt. Behind him lay the here, and before him the Other World. Between those two there was a narrow gray strip, small and uninhabited. Nill reached back to his body and felt a sharp pain. The poison had spread through his body and had paralyzed his every nerve, stopped his breathing, curdling his blood, numbing his brain.
How am I seeing if my senses are gone? he wondered. He attempted to find his spine, using the vertebrae as a stepladder to reach his brain, but he was too weak to climb. He had left his body behind and was no longer able to return.
If I can’t go that way, I’ll just have to go the other way.
Nill entered the Other World. He floated through the shadows, thinking to himself: I’m one of them now. He looked down at his feet and saw nothing. Looking around he could see shadows and bodies, but he could not see himself at all. He felt a resistance. There was something before him he had never seen before. It looked like a flattened leaf, with four pointed tips and covered in bumps. He could not make out any further details. It was dark before an even darker backdrop.
“I cannot let you pass without your body.”
Nill responded flatly. “My body’s still outside. It’ll come after me before long.”
“No,” the guardian leaf-thing said. “The dead who come to rest here have the memories of the living and an image of their own bodies. You have neither. Return whence you came.”
“I can’t go back. My body’s locked me out.”
The shadowy figure contracted and unfolded again. “There are beings that can leave the world without the detour we call beyond. Your body might have wanted the same. But something binds you here; you ought not be here, yet you must stay.”
“Is this a riddle?” Nill asked. “Am I to solve it before I can gain entry? Or is it so that I can return to my body?”
“Go back to the mid-realm. Something will happen. The lords will decide what will happen. I know not what that will be.”
“You mean the demon lords?” Nill’s disembodied voice was small with awe and fear.
“I do not know,” the leaf replied. “Someone who stands far above me; I am but the gatekeeper.”
Nill retreated from the Other World, carefully hidden from the black guards who seemed to grow in number. He turned back to the mid-realm. Trapped in eternity was his last thought, before suddenly a painful blow smashed against his leg. Nill flew across the room, his body breaking, screaming in pain and joy. He could feel, hear and see, taste and smell. What did it matter that what he saw was hazy, the noises twisted and howling, the air laden with a foul stench that burned his throat? The poison he had swallowed had been less dangerous than he had assumed. He considered himself lucky for having paid more attention to the poison than his body. By weakening the Metal he had lessened the effect of the poison. But the poison had only been a disguise for what had hidden inside: the black hole, whatever it was. But something had thrown him back. Had he not been in the Other World he could have sworn that his old ram had taken up the fight again, knocking him over like so many times before.
Nill’s blood was flowing again, his breath shallow, but definitely there. It was hard work, and he could not get the air much further than his throat. He coughed, but with every breath the air seemed to poke a larger hole towards his lungs, and Nill finally opened his eyes.
The surrounding mages aided him in removing the last traces of the poison. He stood up, then his knees gave way and he resolved to sit for a while.
“What’s wrong?” Tiriwi asked, worried.
“My leg. I can’t stand on it.”
Tiriwi took him in her arms and cradled him.
“It’s broken. Your thigh bone is cracked.” That was the White Mage, the one who had been holding Nill’s head. “I’ve never known a poison to break bones.”
Nill turned to Brolok and Tiriwi and said, very quietly: “Can you carry me back? I don’t want to be surrounded by mages and students.”
Brolok took him up on his shoulders and Tiriwi hushed his pained outcry. They left the ogling mages and students behind.
The White Mage followed them. “I’ll bring you back. Wait.” He drew a symbol on the wall with his finger and a large portal appeared on it. “Follow me.”
“No!” Nill tried to shout, but he was too weak and only managed a grunt. Brolok stepped through the portal and they found themselves standing in the Hermits’ Caves.
“I know that you’re scared, and I know of what. But worry not; I will leave you alone as you wished. We must find out what just happened. I will be back later to check up on your leg. It will heal without my help, but you might be damaged for life. You may never walk properly again if you refuse all help. Don’t do that.”
Nill wanted nothing to do with any of the mages. When the enemy attacked from the shadows, unseen and unheard, and his determination was incontrovertible, Nill was not able to tell friend from foe. There had been open attacks and stealthy ones, but Nill had learned not to trust false friendliness. For the first time, however, an attack could not be misconstrued as an accident, a misunderstanding or a mishap.
Yet he could see the reason in the White Mage’s advice. Once he had calmed down, he allowed his leg to be healed.
For the next few days he had someone sitting by his bed at all times. Tiriwi, Brolok and Nill were all surprised to see the healing arts that the great mages used on him. Whoever came to visit and sit with him always had a powerful aura and an awe-inspiring presence. An uninitiated person could not see their ranks by just looking, and the white mages scorned ranks anyway. And yet even the Neophytes could tell that the ones taking the watch over Nill were always the greatest mages.
They sat silent and unmoving, hours on end, their positions precisely calculated. Others sang and stroked Nill’s leg, still others danced through the room with simple, slow movements. Each seemed to do something different from the others, and every one of them said only that they were helping to strengthen his leg.
Tiriwi was enthralled. The healing arts in Ringwall overshadowed even those used by the wise women.
Nill spent his time painting. He enjoyed sending Brolok and Tiriwi to fetch him new quills, inks and parchments, always threatening to get up and fetch them himself. His paintings were neither pretty nor useful. They were meaningless ornaments and senseless symbols, born of his imagination, meant to confuse or please. Whenever he had finished a painting and let it dry he began anew. He felt bad for using so many pages of parchment, as he knew the effort that went into making them. He took care to paint as softly as he could, so that the parchments could be re-used without too much effort. All these paintings served the same purpose: they disguised two very special ones in their midst.
One of the pages contained all the symbols from his amulet, the ones he had also found on Perdis’ works. There were one hundred and twenty-eight of them in all. Nill wondered whether the number was significant
in any way. Nill had written phrases underneath all of his symbols, and they always said that power, meaning and sense came from the center. The phrases meant nothing to him. They were only to distract from the symbols.
The second of these pages was covered in the symbols Nill had only found on Perdis’ originals, the ones he had not found anywhere else. Only once he had assembled everything he could remember did he realize how many there were.
Nill missed quite a few lessons during these days, but Brolok and Tiriwi sat down beside him every evening and told him what they had learned. Tiriwi often giggled when Brolok failed to explain something with his limited means of expression. Nill had never seen her so relaxed, and Brolok was never angry with her but laughed along. When he gave up, Tiriwi picked up where he had left and Brolok would sometimes interrupt her, saying: “No, we never did it like that!”
Tiriwi did not seem to think much of it when she showed the boys some of her magic now. She did, however, take caution in not showing them any new spells.
The mages had ceased their visits, and Nill attempted to get up. At first he stood only on his good leg, the other one merely providing balance. He forced himself to put pressure on both until he finally had both of his soles flat on the ground. It was still a long way away from being able to properly walk, and whenever he found himself limping he forced himself not to.
“Stop limping,” he coughed.
Cold sweat lay on his brow, surges of pain clouding his mind. The floor seemed to wobble and the walls were turning and rocking like a raft on the sea.
If I can walk twenty paces, I don’t need to stay in my cave any more, he encouraged himself. He walked in circles at first, alternating clockwise with counter-clockwise. Once he had succeeded in that endeavor, walking straight seemed a lot easier. It only took him three tries to get from his cave to the stairs that led to the lower floors of Ringwall. He stopped and took a break. Then he walked back to his cave.
