Taming Fire

by Aaron Pogue

  "And imagination," I finished for him. I sighed.

  He placed a hand on my shoulder. "And patience," he said. "And determination. And focus." He stopped. He tilted his head, and after a moment he nodded. "Focus. I suspect that is the issue."

  I met his eyes. "What do you mean? I already do the exercises."

  "As well as anyone I have ever seen."

  "Then what—"

  "That is self-control," he said. "By focus, I mean something...wider. Your life does not belong to the Academy. Your life does not belong to your study of magic."

  I held his eyes for a moment and then hung my head. "I don't know how—"

  "Of course you don't," he said. He squeezed my shoulder then climbed to his feet. "And perhaps Leotus is right at that. Perhaps you shouldn't be one of us, Daven. I cannot answer for you. It is a question for your heart. But you have a strong grasp on theory and a remarkable discipline. I cannot gauge your native strength until you can perform a working, but I believe you could have a true future among our ranks. If you want one."

  I could not answer that. After a moment he nodded and left me there. The dinner bell rang, but I didn't move. Even bell rang, too, before I finally shook myself from my thoughts and dragged the long walk back to my rooms. I didn't sleep well.

  It should have been an easy question. It should have been an easy answer. A Wizard of the Academy stood higher in rank than anyone else in the kingdom. In theory, even than the king, though I knew of no wizard who would test that claim. But it was not a political position. It was a place outside. Above. What law could govern a man who bent reality to his wishes? What strength could bind him, but the strength of the Academy itself?

  But I had known wizards, and they were not gods. They were scheming connivers, as often as not. Claighan had been kind and clever—kind enough, anyway—and in the end he had proven weak and foolish. Here among the Masters I had found indifference, cruelty, arrogance, and among some of their prized pupils more of the same. And, too, there were the vicious monsters. Archus. The traitor Lareth.

  What law could bind a man like Lareth, if not the law of the Academy? But Seriphenes, his old Master, barely called him down. He certainly did not bring him to heel. I frowned, reviewing that conversation for the first time in weeks. Its edges were soft, unreal, and I couldn't say for sure if it had been a memory or a dream.

  But it didn't matter. Not here and now. If I were to have a place at the Academy, I had to give my heart to it. I had to make a home among these stained and broken creatures. And, dream or memory, that conversation told me what my heart felt of this place. Themmichus was a friend. But he was alone among all the school, and he had suffered for the kindness he showed me. That made this place no home for me.

  Still, I had nowhere else to go. I pressed the Chancellor's words to the back of my mind. I went back to my studies with Antinus and continued to impress him with my memory and understanding. I attended classes and watched my classmates work through the budding first steps of their magic, and I strove to memorize every piece of it. Someday, maybe, the experience would be mine, and I would be ready for it.

  In my fifth week at the Academy I woke at dawn to a single sharp rap upon my door. I dressed hurriedly and threw the door open, bleary and confused, and found Seriphenes waiting in the still-dark hall. He nodded once then turned on his heel. He snapped, "Come!" and marched off down the hall.

  We passed through the building and on to the Learning Halls, where Seriphenes led me down a corridor I had never noticed before. Soon these halls would be bustling with other students, but for now the whole building rested beneath a calm silence. He stopped before a plain, narrow door, and turned to face me.

  "Today you are to be my student," he said. "I am supposed to teach you magic."

  I felt a tension in my shoulders and tried to relax. His lips pressed together, grim. He nodded. "I have spoken to the other Masters about your progress."

  I licked dry lips and ducked my head in a nod. "Yes, Master Seriphenes?"

  "Yes. Progress." He reached past me to open the door and gestured for me to enter. The room inside was dark, but I tried to show some measure of confidence as I stepped past the Master and into the darkness beyond. My second step brought me up against a wall. Before I realized where I was, Seriphenes closed the door behind me. The darkness was complete.

  For several moments I stood there stunned, the silence punctuated only by my ragged breath. Finally, I said, "A closet?"

  "Be still," Seriphenes said from without. "Watch."

  I recognized the order, and closed my eyes. I needn't have bothered in the total darkness, but it was part of the process. I worked through the exercises Antinus had taught me, and realized with a start how easily they came. It was as Themmichus had predicted. With a thought, I settled into a disciplined frame of mind, then opened my eyes. The darkness was still there, though it did not press so close.

  I said, "I am ready." My voice sounded strangely distant to my ears.

  Seriphenes didn't answer. Instead, a brilliant white light suddenly flared in the room. I flinched away from it, but there was no heat, and my eyes quickly adjusted again. I found myself in a simple closet with low shelves along the walls stacked with parchment and ink, blank books and ledgers and chalk for the slates in the lecture halls. There was no chair, no stool. And there was no handle on the inside of the door.

  The light remained just long enough for me to make those observations, and then Seriphenes said, "You are to duplicate this light." My breath caught, and the light winked out. The darkness came crashing back, and my training was not enough to protect me from it now. I grunted in surprise. I blinked my eyes. I felt my breath speeding up and forced myself through my teacher's exercises again. And then through my fencing exercises. And then, at last, I could breathe again.

  But I could not see. I shook my head. "Master Seriphenes, I do not know this spell."

  "There is no spell," Seriphenes said. "It is simply light. It is what you want. It is what you need. You have the knowledge. Now put it to use. Create the light."

  I closed my eyes, began to build the visualization as Antinus had taught me, but frustration shattered my concentration. I slammed a fist against the inside of the door. "I can't, Master. I have not learned this level of working yet."

  "You have learned enough. That you cannot work a seeming with all that knowledge in your head is a joke. It is a problem, Daven, that reflects poorly on every teacher you have ever had. I will not let it reflect on me."

  "Then teach me," I said.

  "I am."

  I objected to that. I shouted at him, but he spoke over me. "You have your instruction. Create light within the darkness, and I will let you out. For my honor. And for yours. Make it happen."

  That last cut at me. The words were on my lips, "I can't," but I couldn't make myself give them voice. So I closed my eyes, worked through my exercises, and built the visualization.

  I saw the room in perfect clarity in my mind, remembering it suffused with a brilliant white light. I willed it to be so. I spoke my will. "Light!" One word, sharp and clear, and opened my eyes.

  Darkness.

  It crushed me. It suffused me. I felt my breath growing short again and forced it even. I closed my eyes and stepped through the process again. Slow. Deliberate. Careful. "Light!" And darkness. I tried again. And again. And again.

  It must have been hours, though I had no measure of time. I tried, and I failed. And with each failure I felt something building in my chest. Terror like a rage. I felt my whole future in that moment. I felt a desperate need. I felt every failure, every misfortune, every injustice of my life in that darkness. Silent, empty, and heavier than sin, it bore down on me.

  And finally I broke. I screamed, an almost animal sound. "Let me out! I cannot do it."

  I heard Seriphenes's voice, cold and calm through the door. "A wizard must, Daven. A wizard must be able to perform a working, and you are here to become a wizard. If that is not
your goal, you have no purpose here."

  "I cannot do it yet. I cannot do it here. Not like this."

  "You must do it here. Like this. This is the place of weakness. This is the time of need. Magic does not happen in a classroom or a study, but in darkness and fear. Answer it."

  I let my head fall against the door. "I can't."

  "There is no room for can't in the place of need," he said. "You do, or you are dead."

  "Please, just let me out. Dismiss me as you did at your lecture. Next time—"

  "No," he said, and his voice brooked no argument. "No. It is my responsibility to teach you today. I will not shirk that responsibility."

  "But I can't," I said.

  "And yet you must. Begin again."

  I did. I fought for calm. I tried in desperation. I tried in despair. I tried in building panic. I could not find the light. I pleaded with Seriphenes, but he only said, "You must." I pounded on the door. I screamed, again and again, but the door would not open for me.

  Eventually I collapsed. I fell to the ground, knees bent before me, arms wrapped around them. I remember the almost physical force of the light when the door finally opened. The light washed over me, the dim glow of the mystical fire that lit these halls at night, and I heard the distant tolling of the even bell.

  I was soaked in sweat. I felt beaten. My muscles were sore, my head ached, but none of that compared to the emptiness in my chest. I could feel the darkness, soaked through my skin and settled into my heart. I looked up and saw Seriphenes considering me.

  He held my eyes for a long moment, no expression on his face. Then he turned with a swish of his long black robes and slipped away down the hall.

  9. Word of War

  I knew, then. I knew there was no magic in me. I knew I had no place here. But I had nowhere else to go, and I faced the threat of prison or death if I left the Academy's walls. So I went on with my classes, I went on pretending, but I did it all in a mechanical way. Time slipped by, unconnected from me. I lost track of Themmichus. And soon I lost Antinus, too. He would bring me a reading list, then leave to pursue his own studies. We all knew. I was only killing time.

  Still I met with the Masters, and it went again as it had before. Bennethis dismissed me. Leotus repeated instructions I knew by heart. Alteres tried to guide me, demonstrated working after working, but I saw nothing. The Chancellor looked for some critical piece that I was missing. And then Seriphenes came for me again. I spent six months at the Academy, and three nightmare days locked in a sweltering dark closet while Seriphenes waited, silent and terrible without.

  Time dragged on and on, and day after day I waited and hoped that I would make some breakthrough or receive some message from Claighan or notice some measure of real progress, but nothing happened. For seventeen weeks I put up with all the rude remarks, all the quiet, lonely hours, and all the frustrations of trying to move a world that refused to budge. Finally, as summer came to an end and fall began, a breath of change came to the Academy.

  I first noticed it in the excited whispers passing along the halls, the half-formed rumors spreading like fire among the students and just beyond my hearing as I made my way from class to my room. I walked with head tilted, straining to make out the news that had everyone so excited, but I reached my room with nothing more than a nervous energy and a burning curiosity.

  For a long time I sat on my bed, trying to focus on the reading Antinus had assigned me. But the words faded to gray before my eyes. I couldn't focus. Instead, my mind kept turning back to the puzzle. What in all this world could so powerfully capture the excitement of so many arrogant, spoiled children? A visit from the king?

  My heart turned cold at the thought. Perhaps he was already here, wandering the halls with sharp eyes and a burning temper. He was a well-liked king, fond of festivals and indulgent with the people's wealth, but I had seen him face-to-face. In my mind, he was a monster prowling, a beast hunting me by scent.

  Suddenly there came a banging on my door, and I jumped, my heart stopping in fear. Before I could move the door slipped open enough to admit Themmichus and then fell shut behind him. He looked as excited as all the rest of them, eyes wide, mouth open, more than a little breathless.

  And then his gaze fell on me and he frowned. "Did I scare you?"

  "No," I lied. "I was studying a volume that Antinus—"

  "Of course you were. Well never mind that. Have you heard?"

  I wanted to play it cool, to shrug it off. I didn't want to be one of them, bubbling with excitement at the newest gossip from court. But my curiosity would not let me.

  And besides, it was Themmichus. I could not resist his eager grin. So I shook my head. "I haven't heard anything. What's going on?"

  "War." There was a gleam in his eye, shadowed by a hint of fear but intense nonetheless. For a moment I simply stared at him, unhearing.

  "War? In the kingdom?"

  "War twenty miles from here! The king's army marches in the Ardain!"

  I could see it in his eyes, then, and I understood. I understood the energy bubbling through every corridor of the Academy. I remembered it, from a quiet, spring afternoon on the hill outside Sachaerrich. I'd seen the same excitement in the eyes of my friends when they heard Cooper was going off to join the Guard.

  My stomach clenched at the thought. War. Cooper was not made for war. He was made for long days in his father's shop. He was made for fire brigade, maybe, and he would have done well enough in a city watch. He would have done well enough in the Guard, too, when that had meant digging roads and settling tavern brawls—although he'd have done even better starting them—but he was not made for war. He would be on his way, though, and a thousand other promising young sons of happy, quiet villages.

  Themmichus stepped closer, and a line formed between his brows as he frowned up at me. "Well? Aren't you excited? Think of the stories they'll tell."

  "I'm thinking of one right now," I said.

  He tilted his head, waiting for more, and after a moment I took a deep breath.

  "I'm thinking of someone I knew," I said. "Someone who received a commission to the Guard just before I came to study here."

  "Cooper?" I felt my eyes widen, and he laughed at me. "You've told that story a dozen times, Daven. Why are you worried about him now?"

  "Because he'll be marching to war," I said. "He could be killed."

  Themmichus shrugged. "I thought you didn't like Cooper."

  "I don't," I said. I felt another pang in my stomach and sank back down on the edge of my bed. "I haven't thought of him in months. But here and now, I feel a deep sadness for him." I took a breath and closed my eyes. "And not just for him. For all the boys in these halls."

  "Oh," he said, and he deflated. He took a step away and nodded. "All these little boys?"

  I met his eyes. "Yes," I said, tired. "Honestly, yes. You're the best of them, Themmichus. But you're all...." I flexed my hands, helpless, trying to find the words.

  He supplied them for me. "The rich children of an easy life." He spat the words at me and I hung my head.

  "You think it sounds like fun," I said. "So did they. My friends in Sachaerrich. They thought it sounded like an adventure. But it's not. It's fighting. It's good people dying."

  He stared at me for a long time, and I could not meet his eyes. Finally he said, "I thought you would be excited. I thought you would be more excited than all of us together."

  I shook my head. "No. I have known the pain of loss."

  "I don't understand!" He took a hard step toward me, stomping his foot. "Since the day I met you all you've ever wanted was to be a soldier! How can you look down on us—"

  "It's not an adventure," I said, but my voice sounded weak in my own ears. He listened anyway, so I went on. "It was never about the adventure. I want to be a soldier because it is good work, laying down my life for a good cause."

  "Why can't Cooper be doing that?" he asked. "Why can't that be the thing that has us so excited?"


  I looked at him for a long time. I had an answer, but I didn't dare say it. Because they couldn't know. An easy life is too easily offered up for glory by a fool who cannot know the cost. "Because you have a life worth living," I said at last. "You have a name, even if you won't tell me what it is. You have the promise of power. If you want to change the world, do it that way." I took a deep breath and nodded. "I should be a soldier, because the only chance I have of ever changing the world is by the strength of my body. But you have so much more to offer."

  His foot twitched, toes tapping rapidly against the cool stone floor. His lips pursed, and for a moment his eyes remained hard on mine. But then he blushed, and he dropped his head, and he nodded.

  "I can understand," he said. "I can see why you would think like that. I'm just sorry you couldn't be happy." He sniffed and shrugged one shoulder. "I thought I might get to see you happy."

  I looked away. "I'm sorry, Themm."

  "They...they're offering an amnesty," he said. "I came to tell you that. The king has offered a general pardon to any able-bodied fighter from the Ardain who reports to the post in Pollix."

  I stared at him, stunned. And then I felt a smile tug at my lips. "A rumor?"

  He shook his head, short and sharp. "No. I received news from my father today, good and true. There's a call to arms across the Northlands, too, and every shipbuilder on the Isle has been pressed to service to build the ferry fleet. The king is looking to obliterate the rebel's forces."

  I sat back. I rubbed my eyes then shook my head. I started to my feet. "You may get to see me happy after all, Themm."

  He nodded, but there was sadness in his eyes. "I know. But I...I didn't want to tell you that part."

  I shook my head, mouth split in a grin, eyebrows raised in confusion. "What? But why?" He bit his lip instead of answering, and I understood. I felt the joy fade from my eyes, my grin, but it still burned in my chest. I felt the touch of compassion cool beside it, though.

  I put a hand on his shoulder and he looked up. I gave him a smile. "I'll miss you, too."