Chapter 3 - The Four Trials

  Arin awoke with adventure on his mind and a chill in his veins. The ship would be here soon, and with it came the promise of a new life. A new chance at something greater, something greater than this.

  Wattle and daub walls framed his home, which was really just a single room. At its centre lay the firepit, which had long since died out and taken its warmth with it. As he sat up, a shaft of dawnlight blinded him, leaking from the shutters.

  He pulled back the animal skin covers and shivered at the sudden gust of cold that first pierced his flesh before resting in his bones. He was careful not to awaken his brother as he climbed out of bed. He would let Hugo sleep a little longer.

  “Good morning Arin.”

  He looked up to see his mother already awake. She was sitting in front of them, covered in a quilt of animal skins. Her eyes were bloodshot and tired, and in her hands was an iron fire poker.

  “Mother, what are you doing?” He asked.

  “Another child was abducted yesterday. I'm not taking any chances.”

  “But the fire…”

  “It died during the night and I didn’t want to wake you. You needed the rest for your exam.”

  “You should’ve woken me. I can sleep on the ship.” Arin said with a sigh. He hunched in front of the firepit. He snapped his thumb and middle finger together, imagining in his mind's eye a flash of sparks, igniting between his fingers like flint on steel. After three clicks, his imagination was made real. A spark came, a spark born of magic. He shoved the heat into the ashes, and blew on what remained of its wooden bones. He clicked his fingers a few more times, finally sounding life back into the pit. His sigh of relief formed a cloud in the air as he and his mother warmed their hands by the fire.

  “Has father…?”

  “He was up all night watching over you, but I managed to convince him to go hunting.” She said, “I told him not to bring you.”

  “Thank you.” He replied. Their plan had been simple: while their father was away hunting, Arin and Hugo would sneak out to join Eli on the airship headed for the exam. By the time their father returned, the three of them would already be halfway to Orthos.

  It had only been possible thanks to their mothers help. They had somehow convinced her to let them take the exam, but it had taken lying about Hugo’s magic. For all she knew, Hugo had sparked months ago and was ready to take the exam head on, no shady maneuvering or cheating in sight. He felt more than a little guilty about lying to her, but even after losing half their grain to the tithe, and even after all the missing children, she never would’ve agreed to help them otherwise.

  “Wake your brother.” She whispered. “ Your father will return soon.”

  Arin watched his little brother while he slept, hesitant to wake him. Was this really the right thing to do? Bringing him along? He could leave Hugo behind and join Eli on the ship. It would be safer, wiser. They had tried everything these past few days to get Hugo to spark, but nothing had worked, maybe nothing would ever work. Even with their help, how could Hugo pass a magic exam without magic?

  Would he really be able to protect him?

  But while his mind raced with the worst, his body moved on its own, shaking his brother awake. In the end, he would just have to trust Eli.

  “Wake up sleepy head.” He said gently. “It’s time.”

  Hugo mumbled something before rising.

  This was for the best. If everything went to plan, they would all pass the exam and be officially accepted into the academy. The three of them would be in the same year level, maybe even the same class, and learn magic together. Once they graduated, they could go home and use their magic to help the village. Nature magic to grow the crops, water magic to fill the wells, or even metal magic to smelt better tools. Then he could marry some beautiful village girl and start a farm and family of his own. Maybe then his father would finally see that magic wasn’t something to be afraid of. Maybe then…

  Arin packed what precious little they owned onto a piece of cloth. Some stale bread and dried cheese, a waterskin, a needle and thread, a wand Eli had gifted him on his sparkday, and a copy of the redbook. Amar, guide me. He thought, as he patted the little book, before wrapping the cloth up into a makeshift sack which he tied to the end of a stick.

  “What if father looks for us before the ship leaves?” Hugo whispered.

  “You’re overthinking this.” He sighed.

  “He’s going to kill us.”

  “He’ll be upset.” His mother agreed. She raised her hands like bear claws and put on a deep voice as she said; “No sons of mine are going to be mages!”

  Arin and his brother laughed at the impression before she suddenly grew serious. “But… he’ll also be proud of you.”

  “Proud?” He scoffed.

  “A small part maybe, he’ll pretend it’s not there but I promise you…” her eyes darted to the floor. "Haven't you ever wondered why you look… different? Different from the rest of the village I mean.”

  It was impossible not to notice. The rest of the village looked Belmish, with fair skin and blonde hair. Meanwhile, Arin and his brother had olive skin and brown hair, Orthosi features which they had inherited from their father. Growing up the other boys teased them for it. They were left alone once he started punching them.

  “When your father was your age he left his home, his family. Struck it out on his own before ending up here. Now you’ll be doing the same.” She took Hugo’s hands in her own, ceasing his nervous fiddling. “Becoming men.” She smiled weakly. “He walked away from Orthos and now you're running to it. Funny that. Perhaps you’ll even bump into some of your relatives. The world is small like that.” She patted Hugo’s hands with her own. “He’ll be upset at first, but he’ll come around. You just leave your father to me.”

  “What are you going to do without us helping on the farm?” Arin asked. “If the tithe keeps increasing you’ll need more help in the fields.”

  “If the tithe keeps increasing we’ll starve either way. And with the way you two eat everything in sight, I’d say you're doing us a favour.” She chuckled, but her laugh cracked halfway through as tears welled in her eyes.

  “Mother listen… if we pass the exam we’ll be sent straight to the academy. We may not see each other for a while.” He said, but that only added fuel to the fire and so his mothers tears soon turned into a mournful sob.

  “Then this is it?” She replied solemnly, pulling Hugo into a hug. His brother burst into tears and he felt a pang of disgust at how little it took to make Hugo cry.

  “Just… while you’re having fun playing with magic and all, don’t forget to send us an echo or two.” She turned to Arin, cupping his face in her hands. “Promise me you’ll look after your little brother.”

  “I will.” He replied.

  She pulled on his cheeks with a tearful grin. “And…look after yourself too. Okay?”

  “Yes mother.” He replied. He felt a wave of sadness grow in his gut and pushed it down before it could rise any higher. He didn't cry. He never cried.

  Hugo looked up at the airship in awe. Its massive balloon was shaped like a long finger, painted white and cross stitched with ropes and bunting depicting Belm’s flag. Hanging beneath was the carriage of an almost equal size, as if the hull of a wooden fishing boat had been stitched beneath a giant pillow roll.

  “We’re going to ride in that?” He said.

  “Never seen an airship before?” Eli teased, meeting them on the grass.

  Growing up, Hugo had watched airships of all colours and sizes fly back and forth over the Horns, trading between Belm and Vorsk and Orthos. He had seen hundreds of airships before, but this was his first time riding one.

  No one except for Lady Vallier had ever attended the academy in the village’s history, so half the village had gathered to say goodbye, though most of them were far more interested in the airship than them. Hugo scanned the crowd for his father and breathed a sigh of relief when he failed to find him. He was still out hunting.

  Eli was joined by his chaffling slave, a freakishly tall and lanky man that stood with a perpetually hunched back. His right eye was white in white, marking him as a chaffling, and a tattoo beneath his eye marked him as Eli’s chaffling. The tattoo featured Eli’s house sigil, along with the number twelve. On his back he carried two massive leather trunks with a book bag slung over his shoulder. Despite the burden of weight, the chaffling’s face was entirely expressionless.

  “What could you possibly have in there?” Arin balked.

  “Clothes.” Eli replied.

  “Doesn’t the academy have a uniform?”

  “Where are your things?” Eli replied, dodging the question.

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  “This is everything.” Arin grinned. He carried a stick over his shoulder with a bundle of cloth tied to the end that contained anything worth taking.

  “My god.” Eli replied, looking genuinely mortified.

  Hugo turned to the crowd behind them and waved goodbye to his mother. A part of him wished his father was there, standing next to her. Except instead of trying to stop them, his father would wave too, wishing them well. The rest of the villagers called out their goodbyes as the three boys entered the airship.

  Inside was loud.

  Hundreds of aspiring mages filled the main carriage, all trying to talk over one another. Some were showing off, sounding waves of fire that arced overhead, while others fidgeted nervously. Rows of leather seats lined the carriage in sets of four, forming small alcoves each with a window to the outside. The ship had come over from the city, and their little village of Applemouth was one of its last stops before heading to the capital, so every seat in sight was taken.

  “Just follow me.” Eli said, as his chaffling led the way. They followed him in a single file line down the long, carpeted aisle that ran from one end of the passenger cabin to the other. Hugo got a lot of stares as they walked past and a paranoid voice in the back of his mind wondered if they somehow knew he was an imposter. Sparkless, a cheater. It was more likely they were sizing him up. Size had little to do with magic of course, but he supposed there was still something primal in it.

  Eli led them to a private cabin at the far back of the carriage. His chaffling placed his trunks on the racking above their seats, before taking Arin’s rucksack and adding it to the pile.

  “Goodbye Twelve.” Eli told his chaffling dispassionately. “Serve my father well. He will get lonely without me.” Twelve simply nodded before leaving, closing the sliding door behind him.

  “How come we get such a fancy room?” Hugo asked, eyeing the cabin up and down before finally taking a seat. Instead of cold leather, these seats were padded with green cushions and decorated with an assortment of little pillows. An intricately detailed carpet covered the floor, and the wooden walls were polished to a fine sheen.

  “The perks of nobility.” Eli replied, closing his eyes as he stretched out his arms across the cushioned seat. He opened an eye. “Unless you’d prefer to sit out there with the peasants?”

  There was a sudden jolt as the airship’s steam engines whirred to life. Hugo peered from the window as the ship began to lift off the ground. The balloon carrying them wouldn’t normally be enough to lift so much weight, were it not for the navigators guiding their ascent with wind magic.

  “I recommend you get some sleep.” Eli said. “The first trial begins as soon as we land.”

  When Eli opened his eyes it was dawn. The rhythmic white noise of the steam engine had stopped, signifying their descent. They had finally arrived in Orthos. He had visited many times before, yet the city’s size never failed to take his breath away.

  The capital was so enormous, he could not make out its entirety from the borders of the cabin window. Thousands of houses stood amongst a labyrinth of streets. As the ship descended closer, he could make out the tiny specs of people going about their morning routines below. The entire village of Applemouth, his entire home, his entire world. The smallness of it all suddenly struck him. He could fit it all a thousand times over in this city.

  As they drew closer, he could make out the terracotta roofs and limestone walls of each building, basking in the light of the dawn stars like the orange canopy of a stone forest. At its centre was the coliseum. In only a few hours they would be down there, risking everything at a chance at the academy.

  Eli watched Hugo and Arin sleep and felt the weight of this risk settle on him. If it came to light that Hugo couldn’t use magic, Eli would be barred from ever attending the academy, noble or not. His status may even be revoked entirely, reducing his family to nothing more than another sorry lot of peasants.

  But his family had been on that path for a long time.

  Bad decision after bad decision from his ancestors had left House Vallier on a downward spiral, and then his mother decided to marry a common born man. It was hard to hate her for it, afterall if she had chosen anyone else then he never would have been born. But hate was the wrong word. For all he loved her, he couldn’t help but see it as a foolish mistake, and her, a fool for making it. He was but a halfblood, born of a lower branch house. He barely qualified as a noble now, and if he could blame her for anything then it was that.

  Maybe his house was cursed, each to make one bad decision that moved their family one step closer to oblivion, and that was hers. Maybe this, he thought, was his. Helping Hugo. His bad decision. The final bad decision. His children would blame him for losing their noble blood, just as he blamed his mother.

  But it was a bad decision he had to make. In just the past two weeks alone, six children had gone missing from Applemouth, one of them his own age. His father had sent requests for aid to the neighbouring villages, to the king, even to Amar himself. But without the noble prestige of his mothers name attached, the requests would never be taken seriously. Even if they were, there was no guarantee Hugo and Arin wouldn’t be taken before help arrived. A part of him wanted to stay behind, to investigate for himself, but another part, a wiser part, opted to take the boys and leave while they still could.

  He wasn’t just doing this for Hugo’s sake. The exams drew crowds in the hundreds of thousands, across multiple cities. All of the great houses would be attending, Amar himself would be attending. To them magic was everything, and if he could show off his potential, if he could make an impression, make his name known, then he could use that popularity to improve his house’s name. And if he played it right, they would be too busy watching him to notice anything suspicious about Hugo.

  It wasn’t unheard of that commonborn participants in the exams were adopted by impressed noble families. If he could catch the eye of just one of the great houses, he could marry his way into a better standing. He wasn't just going to save his bloodline, he was going to remake it anew.

  By his hand, the name Vallier would be recognised across the entire world, and this was just the first step to making that happen.

  Instead of landing at port, the airship dropped through a giant dock vent, landing in an underground chamber beneath the coliseum. Hugo watched as an adjudicator waited for them patiently, an old woman dressed in a tenub and robes.

  “Follow me, children.” She said, speaking into the point of her wand to amplify the volume of her voice. One by one, they were escorted out of the ship and down a labyrinth of narrow tunnels lined with flaming torches lined the walls that did little to light the way ahead. It reminded Hugo of the walled pathways they used back in Applemouth to herd sheep to the slaughterhouse.

  “The exam will be divided into four trials.” The adjudicator began, her voice echoing through the tunnels. “The trial by fire, the trial by water, the trial by air, and the trial by earth. Each will test your abilities with their respective element.”

  Hugo knew all this already. Eli had spent the past few days explaining every last detail of the exams, but that did little to soothe his nerves. He wasn’t the only one. The stench of sweat permeated the air and his heartbeat pounded in his ears as he followed the crowd. He clenched his fists in some vain attempt to feel something, a light, an energy, anything, as if after all he’d done he would spark now.

  Arin punched him in the shoulder playfully, “Nervous?”

  “No.” He replied, but it was clear from Arin’s laugh he had seen through the lie.

  The coliseum was one of the largest structures in the world, but far larger was the vast network of chambers and tunnels that ran beneath it. They were used to house gladiators, prisoners, chaffling, and the vast menu of beasts and monsters that they would be forced to fight. The coliseum was normally home to a lot more blood than the comparatively harmless exam trials, yet the crowd above sounded no less bloodthirsty. The cheers of their two-hundred thousand voices pierced the layers of rock beneath before escaping into the tunnel like a howling roar.

  “Each trial is selected at random, and hosted in a randomly selected city, though the first is always hosted here in Orthos.” The adjudicator continued. “The exam ends when roughly two hundred participants remain, enough to fill the year level. Any questions?”

  “What if there are only two hundred participants left after the first trial?” A voice further ahead in the crowd asked.

  “Then the exam ends, and the remaining trials are skipped.” She replied.

  “Has anyone ever died during the exam?” Another voice asked.

  “None of the trials are designed to be lethal, but they can still be dangerous. We usually have at least one death per year.” The adjudicator answered.

  That caused a wave of murmurs across the crowd, and Hugo’s heart jumped into his throat. A risk of death was something Eli had conveniently left out.

  “We will join with the other participants now. Follow me.”

  The sounds of the audience above grew louder as they ascended, slowly making their way up the passageway towards the surface. He followed the crowd as they finally exited the corridor into a giant cavern. He saw the groups from other cities each exit from openings along the cavern wall. Belmish, Vorski, Orthosi, and more, all together there must've been a thousand of them, crammed together inside the cavern. The audience was so loud now they must’ve reached the surface.

  “There’s a lot of people here.” Eli said, his voice almost drowned out by the murmurs of the other participants. “So whatever happens, don’t leave my side.”

  Hugo didn’t need to be told twice. If participants with magic were dying in these trials, then where did that leave him?

  “Hello children.” An old man at the front of the cavern spoke through his wand. “My name is Kepri, and I will be the head adjudicator for this year's exam. In just a moment this door behind me will open. If you step outside before the bell rings you will immediately fail, so please, stay where you are.” Kepri waved his wand, triggering the sound of grinding rock.

  What this man called a “door” was actually a giant wall of rock that separated them from the outside. The cavern shook as the wall began to move, slowly lifting off the ground. Wind tore through the gap, bringing with it a wave of dust and sand and heat. Hugo squinted as he adjusted his eyes to the blinding light of the outside.

  What was supposed to be the arena looked more like a desert. An endless plane of sand that stretched ahead. Stands crammed with the audience lined the plane on all sides, rising like a wall and forming a massive pit. The chorus of cheering that was once muffled by layers of stone was now piercing his ears in full.

  On the opposite side of the arena stood a giant clocktower, its clockface the size of a house. Six hands on the clockface spun in different speeds and directions, the largest of which was almost at twelve o’clock.

  “Which trial is it?” Hugo asked over the deafening sound of cheering.

  “I can’t tell yet.” Eli replied.

  “Once the clock strikes twelve, the bell will ring and you may step outside.” Kepri said over the sound of wind and applause and war drums. “Everyone who makes it to the opposite side of the arena before the clock strikes ten-past-twelve will pass the first trial.”

  Ten minutes. So it was just a race then? The ground beneath him rumbled, and from the opposite end of the arena something shot out of the sand, so far away all he could see was a cloud of dust. A wall? Then came another. A second wall in front of the first, and again, faster and faster, each layer approaching them at increasing speeds. There were rows and rows of walls. Giant stone walls, spaced apart in a seemingly random sequence until finally the last wall shot out of the sand, towering over them. As the dust settled he could see it clearly. The first trial was a giant maze.

  “This doesn't look too bad.” Arin said, pointing forward. “I can see a path through.”

  “No.” Eli said, sighing under his breath. “This is bad. Each one of those walls sits on top of a rail.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means the walls move.”

  What sounded like clockwork cranked into action beneath them. At once, each stone wall flew into motion. Some walls shot to the left, sliding on some kind of rail beneath the sand, others slid right, others forward or backward, or in random directions, other walls rotated, spinning on the spot, fast enough to send anyone hit flying. Each of the hundred walls began to move in unison, a random, unparsable pattern of ever shifting stone blocks as if the maze itself were breathing, as if it were alive.

  “Ten seconds remaining.” The adjudicator called.

  Where the wall had opened there was a white line dividing the inside of the cavern to the outside of the arena. The crowd of children pushed as close to the line as possible, spreading out across its length.

  “With me.” Eli hissed, dragging Hugo towards him. All separate hands on the clock lined up, asymmetric sequences aligning for a split second as they touched the twelfth hour. A bell rang across the arena, war drums rumbled, and two hundred thousands voices erupted in cheer.

  At once a thousand children crossed the line. A thousand hopes and dreams, a thousand wishes, a thousand hands reaching forward.

  The trial by earth had begun.