Professor Aionia gave her approval.
“Olivine is indeed the stone which I gave you. And if you’re struck with fortune,” Professor Aionia continued, taking the stone in her hand and crumbling it into fine mist, revealing a rough green gem inside, “you can find peridot, which can become a fine jewel once cut.”
Elwin stood, wide-eyed with delight.
“The gem is yours to keep. You’ve earned it.”
Elwin took it in his hands.
What desperation Elwin must have been in to have honed his Asha to such a granularity already, she thought. For she once did the same thing – but it took her twice as long, and aspiring weaveseers on average took months. Yet, she made no hasty comment nor a hint of her knowledge, being careful to not lead Elwin astray.
“Now that you have learned to see the weave of various things, it is time to teach you of its proper name.”
“It has a name?” Elwin inquired.
“Yes. We call it ORI.”
The name rang in his consciousness, as if he’d heard it before.
“It means ‘weave’ in the language of Heian,” Professor Aionia said.
“ORI refers to the weave that binds and connects the tapestry that is the cosmos. All of the world is bound together by it; it is emanated by every atom in the universe, and extends to all beings, living and non-living. You and I, that pebble by the stream, the root of that maple tree, the snow on the caps of the Sacred Mountain, the orestone at the bottom of the Panthalassa, the heart of the Sun and the soul of each nebula, are made One and All by ORI; by the will of DEIA AETERNITAS, the creator of this grand tapestry.”
“And it is by ORI that we are able to control the very Elements of nature; it is also ORI which enables the soul to exist, that gives consciousness. What are we, but a collection of atoms, examining itself through the looking-glass?”
Elwin did not speak for a long while. He needed time to let the thoughts settle in his head.
“You’ve done well to come this far, Elwin. You have passed the first stage of your training – but the hard part has yet to come.”
“The hard part?” Elwin asked, his voice quiet in contemplation.
“Yes. Now that you have tasted the sweetness of this revelation, you must learn to float as naturally as you breathe. Meet me tomorrow at the Duellium Arena instead of the Oracle of Aeternitas.”
“The Duellium Arena in the center north?”
“Yes. In your battle uniform.”
* * *
“Celendir wool,” Professor Aionia said, examining the fabric on Elwin’s uniform for battle.
“As light as a feather, yet stiffens to spread and soften an impact like plates of armor. It shall protect you well in the challenges you must overcome.”
“Um... why, Professor? Should I expect injury?” Elwin gulped.
“Grave injury we will avoid, but remember this – although pain is not necessary, it is inevitable in the search for greatness.”
She strode across and out of the forested arena towards a clearing, and they came upon the bottom of an enormous stretch of a staircase that led to the summit of the hill, flanked by reddening trees and old temple-ruins.
“Do you see the summit?”
“Yes, Professor.”
“Can you see the bell of bronze that hangs upon the final step?”
Elwin squinted his eye to see. He made out a gleam of lustrous brown. Surprisingly, it hadn’t been tarnished in patina as of yet.
“Yes.”
“Your task, should you accept, would be to put on your blindfold, and climb the staircase to the summit to ring its bell. Once you do, you shall move onto the next step of your training.”
Elwin was surprised that his training wouldn’t be held in the Duellium Arena like he’d expected, but a corner of his heart was glad, because it was the arena in which he’d once lost to Lucian. The memory of his defeat still haunted him.
Professor Aionia’s voice pierced his thoughts.
“Do you accept this challenge?”
“Of course! All I have to do is race up and ring the bell on the summit, right?”
“Correct.”
“That doesn’t sound too bad,” said Elwin, stretching his calves. “May I begin, Professor?”
Professor Aionia gestured her bandaged hand and stepped aside. “Proceed.”
And so Elwin put on his blindfold, felt for the faint outline of where the staircase began, and broke into a run. He was not ten steps up when a giant cylinder of hot metal swung from a rope and smashed into him from the right; all Elwin could manage was let out a ‘bleurgh’ and be flung out of the staircase into the trees below.
He dragged himself back through the brambles, his head swimming and his vision blurred, feeling that some bone in his body had broken, for the force of impact was leagues above how hard Lucian had hit him during his first duel; miraculously, he was fine.
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“Can you stand?”
Elwin examined his battle uniform again, weaved by the tailor Angelo Giovanni – there was so much surprise to his craft, even now, and he thanked the tailor. He stood on his feet, massaging his sore ribs.
Professor Aionia spoke once more.
“Hidden between the trees of those four hundred steps to the summit are twenty-four cylinders of metal, all glowing red-hot, made by me and controlled by me at a distance. Your challenge, should you accept it, would be to climb to the top without getting hit by a single cylinder.”
Elwin’s jaw nearly dropped to the earth.
“But how?”
“Feel for the energy of the cylinders before they hit you. That is the essence of this challenge – to know and feel where everything is when your mind is already burdened with a physical task.”
Elwin gulped.
“Now then, shall we begin?”
Elwin clambered over the rough steps towards the summit of the temple ruins, gasping for breath, dripping with sweat, his muscles sore, his torso already bruised underneath the uniform in a rainbow of colors. It was his seventh attempt on the summit, and as he commanded his calves to carry him to the top, he honed his mind to see where the next cylinder would emerge. But his effort was not quite enough, for a cylinder this time came out from his left and then hit him hard, and he tumbled out and away into a bramble below.
It was impossible to do with focus. To avoid the cylinders, he had to predict where they were, and to do that, he had to maintain that same concentration, that same emptiness of thought that he had upon that boulder by the lakeside. But doing all of that while gasping for breath and stumbling upon crumbly stone was a dimension above difficult.
Morning after morning, evening after evening, and day after day, rain or shine or snow or frost, Elwin arrived at the foot of that giant staircase, with Professor Aionia standing upon the summit.
He remained alone on campus, even as nearly all of his Franen classmates returned to their families for festivals during the wintriest month of Manuyasna, sojourning the empty halls and grounds of the Academy on his way past the deserted ziggurat, past the soundless Tree of Naran and Naru, and past the Arena towards the base of that insurmountable hill, flakes of snow falling around him. Every day, he clambered up that staircase, and was inevitably knocked out by the swinging cylinders; but as the days progressed, he found himself inching farther and farther up before being hit. Numerous times, he could feel the weave of hot, buzzing gold appear by the side of his mind; and every time he did, Elwin would duck by instinct at the last second, the hot cylinder almost brushing his nose as it swung past him. He was getting hit less and less, and was clambering higher and higher with each attempt.
And without his conscious realization, the strain and toil of his everyday endeavor was bringing him to the Grand Dining Hall more than usual, one of the few places open in the Academy during that long, dark, and wintry month. He took no notice of the few upperclassmen or a dozen Fradihta that remained, conversing only with Chef Rosso and his cooks in search of things he hadn’t yet tried; he ate his meals with voracious fervor, sometimes five of them a day. And combined with the exercises he performed, he was putting on muscle without knowing it – his arms and legs once thin and unadmirable cultivated a mass that could not be dismissed, and his lackluster core grew toned and robust from a thousand repetitions of jumping, ducking, lifting himself, chiseling in Elwin an entirely new dimension of agility and strength.
He wasn’t sure whether it was because of his age or his meals, but found the height at which he saw the world ascend little by little, and the folds of his uniform that had brushed the floor brush it no longer. He was noticeably taller compared to his previous self at Ascension – he wondered how far away he was from Lucian’s own, since he had stood nearly a head taller than Elwin before he left for the winter.
With these improvements – for the first time in his life – Elwin did not feel abject shame at his thin self while looking upon the mirror. He was thin no more, and possessed muscles to show for it, even if they weren’t like the muscles on Professor William. He was gradually finding comfort with his own body.
Buffeted by the snow, wind, and the wintry chill, the days flew by, and finally, the Arten and his Tanaar came upon a cloudless morning on the 38th of Manuyasna.
* * *
Two-hundred and ninety-seventh attempt on the summit, Elwin thought.
It was the 78th day since his training began, and 57th since he first set foot on those steps to the summit.
His expression under the blindfold was no longer boy-like nor childish; there was no smile on his face, only of stern determination, and there was an air of the utmost cool. His hair, uncut, was longer now, and hung unkempt and messily to his shoulders: all about him was an expression of a young man, raw with power, his breath a hot mist in the winter frost. The tournament which had seemed far away was steadily inching towards him, and he was not even past learning how to float. He had so many other endeavors to master.
Today shall be the day he reached the summit; he must.
From atop, Professor Aionia declared. “Begin!”
He honed his mind, took a measured breath, and broke into a sprint. At once his Asha splashed awake with a painting of golden threads, making aware of everything before him. He felt the strong outlines of the stone stairs in golden weaves, and set his foot upon it by instinct; the winds rushed past him as lines, the leaves fluttering in the wind in the speed and deftness of his wake. He climbed and climbed, past the temple ruins, past the bends and loose stone; immediately he saw the glowing-hot buzz of a cylinder at the forefront of his mind, and ducked around as a leopard jumps.
Two more by the left.
Elwin controlled his pace and ducked back, feeling the rush of golden threads swing in front of his face.
Three more to the left, one swinging from underneath the branch, the other coming from above by the neck.
He circled around, stretching his perception into long lengths of time to avoid them all –
Two more, one coming slower than the other, one aiming for my knees.
He jumped to let the lower cylinder roar past him, and waited for a precise second to put his feet down again, this time feeling the rush of energy above his head.
He clambered higher and higher.
Three more – No, FOUR!
At the brief miscalculation Elwin was almost hit by the fourth cylinder; this one was not glowing hot as the others, and was much more invisible, harder to see with his mind.
He grit his teeth and moved forward. The cylinders he encountered were hot no more; they stood out little from the background trees and marble columns in ruin. He was getting ever closer to the summit; he must not fail now.
With all the breath he could muster, he splashed the entirety of his mind’s eye – Asha – with clarity once more, becoming hyperconscious of all around him – every leaf, every pebble, every stone, every drop of dew and water, strands of ORI stretching from his mind in a thousand lines to the atoms of the world, their forms materializing like a painting of gold among black. He felt a single strand of ORI tug upon his mind to his right, and saw a cylinder swinging his way; he ducked back, almost falling from the stretch, but did a handstand, thrust himself up, and rushed ever upward, eyes still closed.
One more.
Another one.
Yet another one.
Elwin bobbed away and by the cylinders. He was as swift as a coursing river, the force of his approach unstoppable. The summit was finally in sight in his Asha. He would need only to take seven more steps.
And just as he realized it, he saw forms of seven cylinders materialize from the black, all threatening to pound him, to batter him off of this final crest.
Conquer, Conquer, Conquer!
He roared in his mind; he jumped over the first one, somersaulted over the next, slid under the next two, ducked by the fifth, and turning to his side, slipped in between the last two cylinders in an impeccable fraction of a second – he leapt over the final step upon that staircase, his hair flying in the wind, and reached for that rope on the bell –
He tugged it hard for the first and for the last time. The bronze clapper struck the bell with resonant force, shaking the trees and leaves with its bright toll for all the world to hear: Elwin Eramir had risen at last, risen above the impossible task.
He took off his blindfold and looked to Professor Aionia, triumphant, drawing deep breaths to replenish himself. The rising Sun cast a drape of tangerine gold over the waves of the lake far below and through the venerable columns of marble upon the slope of that hill; how sweet the vision of victory!
Elwin gave his Tanaar a stiff salute of gratitude; she saluted back, proud of Elwin and his ascension.
“Congratulations. Now you know how to float.”