After dinner, I followed Lurian to the house armory.
“You won’t be allowed in here without a master or me in attendance,” he stated firmly as he unlocked the thick wooden door.
The room wasn’t much to speak of, looking like a pantry with its shelves stripped and replaced by racks of all sorts of weapons and armor. When I saw that more than a few were made out of metal, my jaw dropped. The wealth contained in this room alone was staggering.
“Now you see why we require someone to be in attendance when you are in this room?” I simply nodded as he walked past me and to a wall mount that held my sword.
He gingerly picked the blade off the wall in gloved hands and set it on the little table in the center of the room that held polishing cloths and all sorts of cleaning agents. “Most Chosen do not need weapons but if you should become a master, or a master requires you to be armed, you may choose whatever weapon in this room you desire. You will be required to pay back the cost though if you do not return it.”
I nodded, still surprised at the amount of metal contained behind the simple wooden door. I did a quick inspection of my sword, finding it had been cleaned and oiled properly. After witnessing the contents of the room, I wasn’t surprised.
After thanking Lurian, I headed back to my room where I found three sets of clothing laid out in neatly folded piles on the small dresser. There was a note that directed me to leave dirty clothing in the wicker basket to the side and it would be picked up in the morning to be washed.
Apparently, they didn’t want initiates to get bogged down in menial chores. While I had grown up with servants most of my life, I wasn’t some ivory-spoon-fed noble and did know how to wash my own clothes. But I was secretly glad that I didn’t have to.
After stripping out of the ridiculous smock I had been wearing since I arrived, I slid into the hard mattress and fell asleep. Compared to the hard ground, it was blissfully soft.
Morning came fast as there was a knock on my door. “Initiate Bakus, it is time to wake. Master Mgumba wishes to see you at the tower after breakfast.”
I didn’t recognize the voice as I groggily got out of the bed. My body was stiff from sleeping on the unfamiliar surface but it was still a step up from my old sleeping roll or the hard ground. And it easily beat out trying to sleep tucked into an old chimney.
There was no bath drawn for me in the morning, instead, I found a bowl of clean water, a towel, and a bar of soap outside my door when I opened it. I looked down both sides of the hallway but didn’t see the servant that had left it so I could thank them.
Taking it back into my room, I washed up quickly, thankful that the water was still warm. Nothing was worse than washing with ice-cold water. It didn’t take me long to dry off and I was once again thankful for my decision to continue shaving my head.
Breakfast was a bowl of porridge with honey and a fresh loaf of bread. While not the grandest of feasts, it filled my stomach. I managed to catch a servant before he scurried off with my empty bowl. “Can you tell me how to get to the tower?”
The man chuckled. “It's pretty hard to miss, sir, just walk toward the waterfall.” The man walked away shaking his head at me like I was a fool.
I caught a couple of polite chuckles from the other initiates before one came over. “Come on, I can show you to the foot of the tower.”
“Thank you…”
“Oh, right, names Laris,” the older man said as I followed him. I say older but the man couldn’t be far into his twenties. Going by what I knew now, he could be twice that age for all I knew.
“Thank you, Laris.”
“Don’t mention it. Seriously, don’t.”
“Oh… um, ok.”
Seeing that I seemed to agree with his request, he led me outside the house and down the street. It was early but already the town was active as people moved about on foot or in horse-drawn carts and wagons.
Laris weaved through the crowds with little effort but I found the press of people annoying as I tried to push my way through. I would occasionally get an angry grunt or a return shove. I tried to keep up with Laris but I quickly lost sight of the man as I grew increasingly frustrated with all the people.
When there was a break in the crowd, I couldn’t spot Laris anywhere. I cursed my luck and tried to get my bearings. In the distance, I spotted the tower and decided to just make my way over myself. Either Laris hadn’t realized that I fell behind or he did this on purpose for some reason. Either way, I felt I would be better off making my way there myself.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
It took far longer than I thought to make it across town as I had to go down side streets and backtrack more than once when I found myself at the end of a dead-end street. The city was a maze but I eventually made it to the outer wall that faced the tower. Standing there, waiting, was an annoyed-looking Laris.
“Well, it's nice to see you decided to finally show up. If I would have known you preferred to go sightseeing, I wouldn’t have agreed to waste my time by leading you here. I think you can find your own way from here. Don’t bother asking for my help again,” the man left in a huff, not letting me get a word in.
I turned to two chuckling guards. “What’s his deal?”
Neither bothered to respond to my question and I grunted in annoyance as I walked past the gate and the lone trail that meandered towards the tower in the distance.
The drone of the waterfall steadily grew as I got closer. It soon got to a point where I couldn’t hear anything besides the deafening rush of falling water in the distance. The path led to a thick stone building set some distance away from the waterfall. Waiting outside was Master Mgumba, he waved me into the sturdy building and shut the door behind him.
Almost immediately the sound of the waterfall faded away to a dull drone. “Good, you made it. I thought you might have been lost in the city for hours but this shows you have excellent situational awareness.” Oh, so that’s why Laris didn’t want me to mention him helping. This was supposed to be a test. I decided to honor his wish even though I was annoyed with him.
“Is this part of the tower?” I asked in confusion.
“No,” Master Mgumba shook his head. “We use this outbuilding to converse with initiates before they go to the tower to meditate. Since you are here, I assume you wish to remain with the Order?”
I nodded my head.
“Good. So you aren’t aware of what your ability is, is that correct?”
“No, I don’t. I think it activated a few times subconsciously and I may have been able to force it to act once, but I may have imagined things.”
“Tell me about those times,” he said, gesturing me to a set of stone benches set along the wall of the spartan structure.
“Well, the first time I was attacked in a cave by a dangerous occultist while on a mission with Holton Aloo.”
Mgumba frowned at that name. “Yes, that man had so much potential but he wastes it like so many before him. Sorry, continue.”
I nodded. “When I was attacked, something inside me just reacted. At the time I had a small throwing knife made of metal, given to me by my father. It practically leaped out of the hidden sheath I kept it in and zipped down the tunnel with an audible crack.”
“Hmm,” Mgumba rubbed his chin. “Go on, what else.”
“In my fight with Holton, I threw that same knife at him to try and create distance and escape but despite the man’s head injury, he managed to corner me. Then I felt the knife again and ‘tugged’ on it for lack of a better description. I was only trying to get it to come back to my hand but it lodged in Holton's back and I fled.”
“A wise decision. That man’s prowess with a blade and his gift is quite legendary. Did you have any other feelings like those?”
“No, but when I was injured, the guards said dust was floating around me and my horse when I rode into their town. The only other time I think I felt something was when three bandits attacked me to try and steal my sword. I think I pushed the spear tip to miss me?”
“Oh, you don’t think that’s what happened?” Mgumba asked.
“I’m not sure. I felt something but it was so weak and small.”
Mgumba smiled kindly and patted me on the knee. “You remember when I told you those books were drivel, this is why. Chosen rarely start off with world-shaking power. Even Lou Shin and Amy Pond didn’t realize for quite some time that they were changed by their experience. But we have ways of bringing out a person's gifts. It’s up to you how much you want to train it as it's much like any other muscle. Left alone it will stagnate and barely grow with time. Exercise it and you may see rapid growth, or you may not. Some gifts are harder to train than others. Once we figure out what your gift is, we can figure out how to strengthen it. Now, enough sitting around let's head up to the tower.”
I nodded as I stood, “will you be there to guide me?”
“No, any conversation will be impossible. You will see why when we arrive. Your time will be better spent in meditation and when I return, we will discuss what you learned. Think about the nature of what you sensed so far and try to reach back into that place where you felt something stir. What feelings it gives you when you try to grasp it.”
It was confusing for me why Master Mgumba would leave me to my own devices but as I followed him out of the building and we got closer to the side of the waterfall, all I could hear was the torrential downpour of water. Master was yelling something and waving me toward an alcove in the side of the cliff but his words were lost in the drone of falling water. We were only separated by ten feet or so and I couldn’t hear anything he was saying even though I could see he was yelling.
He grabbed my arm in surprisingly strong fingers as I got closer and held on with a grip that defied his aged appearance. I was confused for a moment as to why before I felt the ground lurch below my feet. If he hadn’t been holding on I would have stumbled off of the circular stone platform that was quickly rising along the half-moon alcove in the cliff face. My stomach dropped out as the platform rose rapidly into the air.
The sound of rushing air actually overcame the deafening sound of the water for a bit until we neared the top and the platform slowed and finally came to a stop. I stumbled off the platform and fell to my knees on the top of the cliff face. Master Mgumba patted me gently on the back.
“The hard part is over, come we have one more trip,” Master Mgumba yelled and I was barely able to make out the words. When I looked up he was walking to the broken edge of the cliff that faced the tower. With a wave of his gnarled hand, rock began to form a bridge to the tower near the center of the waterfall.
I stood on wobbly legs and hurried behind as the man continued walking, I was afraid that the bridge was only supported by his effort and didn’t want to stray too far from the ancient master in case the rock crumbled away below my feet. It was obviously only a temporary bridge otherwise they would have kept it up all the time.
It was disturbing to my senses on many levels because I didn’t know where the rock that formed the bridge was being generated from but I trusted the old man or more specifically his power.