Awakenings

by C. D. Espeseth

  “I … have never had to pull it to me, sir. The energy has always felt like it wants to flow into me, I just allow myself to let it in.”

  “Hmmm, now isn’t that interesting?” Fellow Callahan nodded thoughtfully. “How many would describe the experience like Ms Corbin here?”

  Several hands went up, though far fewer than before. Wayran was taken aback. He had never thought it might be different for other people.

  “Another question then. How is it that you either ‘pull’ the energy in, or ‘allow’ it in? What is the mechanism for this transfer? Is the energy separate from your body? If so, how can you possibly control it? Which leads to a strange counter-question – what if it’s not entirely separate from your body? What if we have simply artificially defined it to be so and therefore limit ourselves to thinking of it as such?”

  “My head hurts,” Kevin said.

  A few people chuckled beside him.

  Fellow Callahan turned to them, but rather than be angry at the interruption, he was smiling, and as he took a quick step towards Kevin, his eyes twinkled with light. “Yes! Good! That means you were trying to think about it!”

  Kevin tapped his head, “Not just a shelf for a good hat.”

  His grin was begging for an officer to yell at him, so Wayran elbowed him in the ribs and whispered, “Sir.”

  “Sir, I mean,” Kevin said quickly. “Not just a shelf for a good hat, sir.”

  The twinkle remained in Fellow Callahan’s eyes. “I am worried about inflating that ego any further, yet humour is meant to be a sign of a quick intellect, so let us hear your thoughts on why you can take energy from here …” Fellow Callahan waved his arms to the sides, “ … to here.” He tapped Kevin’s chest.

  “Well, sir.” Kevin dipped his head in thought. “I’m glad you asked, as I’ve actually given this whole thing a bit o’ thought. It’s like this, see, I figure there is energy in just about everything, right?”

  Fellow Callahan nodded.

  Kevin was encouraged, “Right, so if there is energy in everything, and I was told once that energy can never be destroyed, only transferred, yes?”

  “True,” Fellow Callahan nodded again.

  “And this energy, you see, it tries to move around for some reason, especially on a warm day like this one. So, what I do is make like a bridge between the energy in myself and the restless energy in the other things.” Kevin peeked his fingers and showed both hands coming together to make a bridge.

  “It seems easier for me to make the bridge connection through my hands for some reason, I figure it’s because people do a lot of things with their hands, don’t they?”

  “Yes, they do,” Fellow Callahan said nodding along with the metaphor.

  Kevin smiled, really getting animated now. “So, it sort of follows to use your hands for this as well. I asked a very pretty young lass about this once, as she could do a trick or two as well with her hands if you know what I mean.”

  “Please try to stay on topic,” Fellow Callahan smiled patiently but circled his finger in a ‘get to the point’ gesture.

  “Yes, of course, sir. Apologies. So, as I was saying, this lass, she described the whole process like trying to breathe in starting with your hands and then with your whole body, and that made a good bit of sense to me.”

  “Yes, that is a good metaphor.” Fellow Callahan agreed.

  “Ok, so, once I’ve got my energy bridge up, I keep the idea of breathing in with my whole body front and centre, in my mind like, and then that cheeky energy just comes dancing along into me, tingling and making my hands go numb until I sort of push it, or breathe it out into a conduit, which is where you can feel the energy flows out easiest, then you keep breathing out as much as you can to fill something like a santsi globe, if one is flush enough to have such a thing, that is.” Kevin spread his hands as if he’d just performed a magic trick. “And there you have it.”

  “Sir, I mean. There you have it, sir.” Kevin turned to Wayran as if Callahan wasn’t still staring at him. “Geez, it’s gonna take me awhile to get used to the whole ‘sir’ thing. Not in my nature, you know?”

  Wayran gave Kevin a nervous smile as he noticed Sir Vyktor’s annoyance rising during Kevin’s lengthy explanation. More time wasted when he could be doing more important things.

  “You will keep additional comments to a minimum, Bertoni!” Captain Miller’s voice snapped. “Efficiency in speech is also an essential skill for an officer. You don’t’ want your troops to die because you can’t get to the point quick enough, do you?”

  “Ah, no, sir,” Kevin said with a quick nod and shut his mouth.

  “Bertoni, is it?” Fellow Callahan’s smile broadened. “That explains a few things, and your explanation was a very good one if I do say so myself. Possibly a bit long winded.” There was a slight twinkle in the older man’s eyes. “You’ve drawn a very easy picture to understand. If you don’t mind, I’m going to use that. How many of you could apply Mr Bertoni’s explanation to what you do?”

  It took a few moments as people thought about it, and as Wayran thought, he had to admit that ‘breathing in with his whole body’ was a good way to describe it.

  Eventually, all the hands in the training ground went up.

  Fellow Callahan arched an eyebrow at Sir Vyktor, who rolled his eyes, nodded and seemed to concede the point to the Siphoning Master.

  “Like I said, sir. I’ve given this a bit o’ thought.” Kevin’s smile returned and threatened never to retreat ever again.

  “Yes, I can see that you have. Good.” Fellow Callahan tapped Kevin on the shoulder. “Your father was a thinker too; did you know that? We used to stay up together to watch the stars.” The smile on Fellow Callahan’s face touched the old man’s sparkling eyes. “We had quite a few inspiring conversations, he and I. He would be proud of you.”

  Kevin’s smile did drop then as Fellow Callahan walked back to the front of the class, though not in fear or embarrassment. A slight glaze of water had formed in Kevin’s eyes, and Wayran wondered if it was the first time in the Tawan’s life he had been rendered speechless with genuine pride and happiness.

  Wayran gave him a quick nudge on the shoulder and an appreciative nod.

  Kevin gave a shy smile back and had to take a deep breath, but as he turned back to listen to Fellow Callahan, he held his head a bit higher.

  “Let’s get to it then, shall we?” Fellow Callahan said to the class. “Grab one of the training swords from the racks there. They are all blunted but are functional conduits. Try to think first about your … what was it again, Mr Bertoni?”

  “Your energy bridge, sir,” Kevin replied. To his credit, his voice only croaked slightly.

  “That’s right, your energy bridge. Then breathe it in with your entire body. Start with using your hands, but then try to siphon in with the rest of yourself, focus it into the santsi atop the gloves, then push it into the conduit. Off you go, get to it.”

  Wayran jogged to the weapon racks, and as he saw the real confidence Kevin had gained rather than his usual bravado, Wayran wondered if being stuck here was such a bad thing.

  Then he began to train beside the people who had dedicated a large part of their lives to be here, and his doubts resurfaced tenfold.

  8 - The Presence

  I remember when I first became dedicated to tearing down our civilisation. A news article had been published, “Plummeting insect numbers ‘threaten the collapse of nature’” was its headline. I knew at that moment we would not change. We were engaged in a protracted species suicide and were going to take the rest of life on this planet with us.

  As a species, we were sociopathic and too self-absorbed and full of our own importance to stop the lifestyle we had become addicted to. To top it off, the problem was only escalating.

  One sociopathic addict can be locked away in a cell for the remainder of that sad soul’s life, but we were an entire species of them which would continually regenerate, propagate and self-pe
rpetuate. What is the answer then?

  As I read that article, it came to me.

  The answer, of course, was a bullet to the back of our head.

  - Journal of Robert Mannford, Day 212 Year 00

  Wayran

  The Training Grounds, The Academy, New Toeron, Bauffin

  “Enough.” Fellow Callahan’s projected voice echoed off the walls and above the din of blunted swords charged with heat or shock smashing into one another.

  The first round of sparring while siphoning ended, and it couldn’t have come too soon for Wayran. He had become incredibly aware of just how far out of his depth he was. He felt as if he had been siphoning wrong ever since he learned he could do it. What he had been doing for the Storm Chasers was a totally different skill than what they wanted a Syklan to do. This type of siphoning felt brutal by comparison. Slamming energy this way and that, bashing it through your body and your conduit with no subtlety or grace. No, quantity delivered quickly was all that mattered here.

  His entire body still felt like it was humming, and he had to check the santsi on his glove to make sure there was no glow still within the orb. His nerves felt cooked, but as he looked around, he could only find one or two other faces that looked somewhat tired.

  “Now that you are warmed up,” Lady Buika began, “it is time to add the next layer and learn how to control your siphoning in conjunction with the Hafaza’s abilities.”

  Warmed up! Wayran wanted to scream but knew it would do nothing except earn him scorn and pity.

  He clamped his jaw shut and tried to focus on his breathing to help his body recover.

  Fellow Callahan addressed the class, “Many of you will most likely be a bit startled when you first experience the Hafaza Presence enhancing your abilities but be assured Lady Buika is the best at what she does and has the resonance well in hand. You still retain the control over the flow of the energy you are siphoning, but both of us are here if anyone feels out of control. Try not to panic. Today we will be using small maces as the spherical ends will allow more energy to build up, and the Hafaza’s abilities will be much easier for you to see and feel. You will place yourselves next to one of the metal rods stuck in the ground around you. If for any reason you are panicked, touch your mace end to the rod and allow your siphoned energy to dissipate.”

  Fellow Callahan paused to ensure everyone understood the instructions before continuing, “Some of you will learn to excel at this and will graduate to being paired with a Hafaza in the field. Others will find the sharing of their siphoning control to be completely alien and counterintuitive.” Fellow Callahan gestured to the weapon racks. “Take your weapon and find a training dummy. We will start with basic attacks until you get used to the feeling.”

  Wayran noticed that Fellow Callahan took Adel aside to have a quiet word with her. He pointed to the bracelet on her wrist and gave her some words which appeared to comfort Adel.

  He went to the weapon rack and grabbed a mace, and found his mouth go dry when she trotted up beside him.

  “Hello,” Wayran said and immediately regretted it. Idiot, she is probably as angry as everyone else about us ruining the initiation ceremony.

  “Hello, you’re Matoh’s brother, right?” Adel grabbed a mace.

  “Well, yes. I’m Wa–” he tried to say but was cut off.

  “Corbin, Spierling. On the double you two!” Captain Miller barked.

  Wayran grabbed a mace and hurried to find a training dummy. He was happy to see Adel had chosen one next to him.

  “I’m Wayran,” he said, taking up a fighting stance in front of the straw stuffed dummy.

  Adel nodded curtly.

  “I saw your fight, it was impressive,” Wayran whispered over to her.

  She nodded again, her jaw clenched. She jerked her head towards Lady Buika and Fellow Callahan who had already started their instructions.

  “Oh, sorry.” Wayran grimaced and promptly shut his mouth. Not a good start. He was in the military now, and that meant he was surrounded by people who followed orders, were very disciplined and did what they were told by their superiors. Most likely not ones for idle chit-chat.

  He then noticed several initiates were casting suspicious glances towards himself or Matoh.

  “Yes, I suppose everyone will want an explanation before we begin an exercise like this.” Fellow Callahan sighed and raised his voice so everyone could hear. “The events of last night’s initiation ceremony are currently under investigation. The Academy council convened this morning. We do not believe the Spierling brothers intentionally unleashed the energy into the crowd, nor do we believe it likely to happen again. It was an accident, and by all accounts, there were other forces at work. We are monitoring the brothers carefully to ensure no one is hurt, themselves included. They are as confused as the rest of us as to what really happened. However, if anyone notices something strange happening, they are to report it immediately to their senior officers. Now, are we fine to begin?” Callahan waited in the following silence. The initiates and other officers who had not been part of this morning’s judication seemed satisfied. Heads bobbed around the grounds, and everyone’s attention swivelled back to the task.

  “Good, begin to siphon and fill the santsi globes on your gloves.” Fellow Callahan instructed.

  Wayran did as he was told and focused on finding the chaotic potential energy hidden in the world all around him. He closed his eyes to let his mind reach out to touch it.

  Smack.

  Something thin flicked off his head, and he lost the connection to the energy around him.

  “Ow!” he cried out before he could stop himself.

  “Never close your eyes when your are about to siphon. You will be in battle, and if that had been a sword instead of my measuring stick, you would be dead, young Spierling.” Fellow Callahan stood in front of him with a serious look.

  Wayran hadn’t even heard the older man approach.

  “Yes, sir,” he said. Wayran had spent too long collecting energy with the Storm Chasers. In the Wastes, you had to focus very carefully on the flow of energy so as not to pull too much, you had to feel for the storm’s edge and orientate yourself next to it. That level of caution and delicacy was not needed here.

  “You are not trying to forge a santsi globe, or work the energy with clinical precision here,” Fellow Callahan continued, now speaking to the entire class. “Siphon in hard, and thrust that energy into your conduit, into your weapon. You will be striking to shock, to burn, or reverse the flow from your enemy’s weapon and thus attempt to freeze lock it and bind the weapon to yours. All of these techniques require brute force with siphoning, not delicacy. Keep your eyes open and redirect the energy through your bodies as fast as possible. A Syklan can pull in a quick burst of energy without thinking, it is akin to breathing or twitching a muscle to them. That is your aim.”

  Wayran nodded and tried again. This time with his eyes open.

  He reached out and grabbed what he could, barely registering where it came from, and tried to slam it through his body into the conduction point on his palm and pushed it into the mace.

  The mace crackled slightly, and he swung it through an overhand blow to strike the straw dummy. There was a loud ‘pop’ as the mace discharged as it struck home.

  “Better,” Fellow Callahan said quietly to Wayran, then gave a quick smile of encouragement and walked over to the next initiate in line.

  Wayran grimaced slightly as the numbness in his arm caught up with him. It felt as if he had been sitting on the arm for hours! How did anyone get used to slamming energy through themselves like that?

  He looked to his left at Adel. The mace was flying from one strike into the next. Pop, pop, pop went the energy as the mace struck the dummy in ribs, left cheek, then right cheek. She even threw in a kick to the dummy’s chest and sprung backwards with the recoil to land in a fighting stance.

  Matoh, about four or five initiates down, was making the dummy rock back and forth in the g
round with each strike. He too had a rhythm of snapping energy striking the straw dummy.

  Jerome, far off to the other side, was moving effortlessly around the dummy and striking from all sorts of angles as if performing some sort of lethal dance.

  Kevin, to his right, would strike twice so quickly that his strikes sounded as if they hit simultaneously. Then he would jump so far back the enemy would need some sort of polearm to reach him.

  Then, Bastion, the enormous Asgurdian whom Adel had beaten in the initiation ceremony, roared like a bear and his mace smashed right through the dummy’s head with a blast of flames and force so powerful it cracked the wooden pole beneath the straw and sent the now-flaming head looping through the air to land nearly ten yards away. The strike got several looks of approval from other students, and even a raised eyebrow from Sir Vyktor.

  Halom save me, Wayran thought, what have I got myself into! He’d be lucky to survive this, let alone make it to the end of a day with enough left in him to put in a shift at the Artificium to learn Jendar and translate the journal.

  At that moment he felt like such an imposter. These people have been training their whole life for this, hours and hours spent honing their martial skills. Whereas, while Wayran did meet the basic requirements of an Academy initiate, he was no warrior. He wanted to explore, to scour through ruins, to find artefacts to explain ancient mysteries, to fly into storms and feel the raw power of nature.

  Matoh finished off a devastating series of what must have been fourteen hammer-like blows to the dummy. He had started with shocking strikes, then lit the dummy on fire with the next few and then quickly sucked the heat back into the santsi globe on his hand with freezing strikes as if it was nothing.

  Wayran tried to copy him, but his arm went numb after three quick shock strikes. He had to stop swinging or risk losing the mace from numb fingers. Thank the gods they had been using wooden staffs last night, or else Matoh might well have killed him.

  He shook his head, without his strange foresight ability, he would have never have been able to beat Matoh in that fight.