After an ordeal of rain, when a torm forms, the spirit is put under enormous strain. Solidifying toral is too heavy a burden for a young spirit, so the spirit burns itself and regrows into a foundation strong enough to support the torm. That burning comes with opportunity all its own. The spirit holds in its grasp a person’s most important moments, the experiences that defined them and built their personality.

As Del fell unconscious, his spirit burned, releasing those memories into his mind before they could be reabsorbed into a new form.

A bright face was the first memory Del saw. His five-year-old cousin dancing around with a smile on his face, gloating. He had just won a race between them. The trickles of Del’s spirit brought him a fresh feeling of innocent disappointment and jealousy. “One day,” the young Del had said, clenching his little hands into fists, “one day I will become fast enough to outrun anyone.”

His cousin had tackled him. “Not if I do first!” Del came out of the wrestling match a minute later, stooped over, breathing hard and laughing.

A door creaked open on the other side of the yard. “It’s time for dinner.” Del’s mother stood outside their house. Her smile wide, expectant. Nobody sane would ever ignore her cooking for longer than a moment.

The sky darkened into winter, and his mother vanished from sight in the passing of time. Del found himself racing towards the house from across the snow-covered yard. Fires blazed and screams filled the air. Del shot glances behind himself and all around, hoping to find the danger. No matter which way he cocked his head though, villagers cried out and ran through the streets. He was almost at the house, running across the cobbled entry path, when he slipped on a patch of ice. His face broke the fall, bouncing twice.

When he pulled himself to his feet, Del tried to keep moving forward, but it was too hot. Flames crackled, consuming his home. Del sat down right there, bringing his knees in close, he had no idea what to do. High above, a once sturdy beam Del’s father had nailed into place lost its battle against the fire, falling towards the child it had been placed to shelter.

Del was his young self, gazing upwards at the beam, totally helpless, unsure what was happening. Then, his gaze met the eyes of his savior who appeared out of nowhere, slapping the heavy beam away with a whisper of untold strength. As the savior’s attention shifted, the eyes changed from a normal, standard emerald to a demonic red. “Don’t worry. This is a nightmare. You are my disciple, and I am your master.” Del’s mind relaxed, his will overcome.

Then Del was a disciple, his thoughts somewhat older, more established, and he hung onto every word his master said. “To make an edge that cuts, you don’t need a sharp blade. What blade could be sharper than disparity?” The Sage leaned in close, his voice intense. “Read the toral. Where metal meets wind, force must dwell.”

Something clicked for Del, and he turned towards his stone mannequin, dented and chipped from ineffective slaps. This time though, Del felt wind and metal, understood some layer of his master’s insight, reached it through thousands of failures. On a blunt blade, an incredibly sharp force came into being, and a stone leg flew.

Del turned with a proud look on his face. A crowd of stunned guardsman cheered their approval, but the Sage was unmoved, only gesturing for him to continue. “Sloppy. You must make your mind sharp. I know you can do better.” A twitch in his neck produced a sharp crack. “Listen to me, improve, and you won’t die in your first real fight.”

Del flung himself out from under a metallic leg. He didn’t make it far enough. Bone broke. He screamed. Guided by the shout, another giant ant ran into his pit through one of their many meandering tunnels, attracted to easy prey. Del tried to inhale toral like he had been taught, tried to pull it from around his arm where the first ant had struck. In practice it was no trouble, now though, Del could sense nothing but pain, could do nothing but look up at his master and hope. Another blow from the ant, and Del’s left leg snapped. Then blessedly, he was being lifted into the air, landing on the safe ground above the pit.

“What are you doing? Did you not listen to a word I taught you?” The sage was seething, Del had never seen his master show so much emotion. “And screaming when you’re hurt, how stupid…”

A cry from another pit sent his master into motion. A moment and then Cas landed beside Del, mid-scream. Their master stood over them, deeper in his rage. “How many times have I told you? Screaming will only bring more enemies. I will not come to save you next time.” Del hesitantly met his master’s insistent look, feeling shame. The anger he saw in those eyes reached a boiling point and seemed to bleed into the sage’s eyes, turning them a demonic red. “Nobody will ever save you!”

There was nobody coming, and Del was going to die. He had made a mistake. A root had wriggled behind him, dragging his foot from beneath him. When he had fallen, ten more had tried to lance him. Nine of them, Del cut, but the last had buried itself in his torso. He was steps from the filthy labyrinth’s exit, but the roots barred the way, and nobody was coming. Of that, Del was sure. He faced the labyrinth wall, willing himself to move, to fight. Cas hadn’t made it out yet. There wasn’t a body lying here. If he chopped through enough of these roots, maybe his cousin would make it through. Maybe.

Del lashed out, cutting six more roots into pieces. The seventh curved too far away for his wounded body to move. Nobody was coming. Then Cas was there, unable to build a technique, or even get his sword in the way of the root. He accepted the attack that would have killed with his own body. Blood flowed. Then Del was fighting a desperate battle, back-to-back with his cousin, his best friend.

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

As they held each other up and limped towards the exit, barely victorious, Del found his voice choked up. “I thought nobody was coming.”

Cas squeezed his shoulder. “I will always be there for you.”

Del squeezed back and returned an oath he felt true to his very core. “I will always be there for you.”

The labyrinth washed away, and Del was staring at his master’s figure as he emerged into the courtyard for his ordeal of rain. He met demonic red eyes, and they made him feel the same as he did in his nightmares. Like the one with fire. He saw the beastman run forward intent on killing him, and felt an ungrounded anger, an anger he did not understand, whose origin he could not explain. He fought an opponent who used all the same techniques, all the same tricks. And then…

Del woke up and stifled the shout of horror before it crawled out. He shook the confusion from his head, but he couldn’t fully shake the visions of red eyes that he knew would forever sour the image of his perfect master.

He was in a cave now. That brought Del back to himself. The cave was new, and so was the man who sat before him, back turned as he stared into a fire. The image of an owl in shackles was woven onto the back of the man’s hard-worn jacket. To Del, the familiar symbol of a sage was no longer so much a point in someone’s favor. He had to wonder if his new captor would want to be called master too.

“You’ve had a tough life, son.”

Del nodded his head. Best to agree with whatever the man said. The strong chose the rules of engagement.

The man laughed, an uncomfortable sound. “Most kids I see sleeping after their ordeal of rain can’t stop smiling.” The man paused. “You couldn’t stop screaming. I was afraid you might ruin your throat.” The man turned, pouring from a kettle of tea, giving Del a cup. “I’m sorry. You should have been saved years ago, both of you.” The man nodded his head to the opposite side of the cave where a sword sat.

Del rushed over, skinning his knees on a rock. When he reached Cas, it was just like before. There was no response, just dark wakefulness.

“I don’t know what that scum did to you, did to him.” The man was old. Those reforged in a crucible, sleetborn, as all sages were, rarely showed their age. Which meant this man might be truly ancient.

“My…” Del paused. He had meant to say ‘master’, but looking at Cas, it felt like an inappropriate term. Whatever those demonic eyes he had seen in his memories were, they had allowed the Sage to invade his mind. Del had been led to all but kill his cousin, of that he was certain. There was a quieter, scarier question too. What else could have been a product of those eyes?

“Yeah.” The old sage nodded with weight. “Probably best not to give him that honor. He’s dead and buried now.” The man looked into the fire, and Del got the feeling this sage knew his master more than he was letting on. “You were not his only crimes.”

Del studied the man before him. For a sage, he held himself in such a mundane way. It was unknown, unsettling. “So, what now? Do you intend to kill me, use me somehow. Why am I still here?”

The man shook his head. “I haven’t introduced myself. I’m Torang. People call me the Vulcan sage, and I’m no murderer.”

Del looked at the man askance.

Torang shrugged, adding a log onto the fire. “Ok, I’m technically a murderer, but only for those who deserve it.”

Del found that less reassuring than he probably was intended to. Still though, he had heard of the Vulcan sage. The rumors, at least, held him in high regard. A pillar of the kingdom they called him, a servant of justice.

Torang began drawing something in the loose dirt of the cave’s floor. Del moved in, curious despite himself. Curiosity had always been one of his worst vices.

The image was that of a circular crystal, a classic representation of a newly formed torm, only this image had a small chip in it, a missing piece. Three lines were drawn in the dirt, dividing the image into four sections, matching the structure Del could see inside himself. Four sections: four types of toral. By instinct, Del knew them to be force, wind, metal, and water. The toral he had inhaled during his ordeal would be his tools to become a great warrior.

“While you were sleeping, I looked at your torm, and that of your curious sword.” Torang tapped the chip in the torm. “You’re missing a piece, and the sword is too, though I’ve never seen a sword with a spirit before. It was human once?”

“Caspian” Del said “, and I never introduced myself, but I’m Delphin.”

Torang’s eyes warmed as he took that in. “I thought that might be the case.” He tapped the chip in the drawn torm. “I’d guess your spirits are connected at this point. In theory you should be able to pass toral to one another.”

“I don’t think Cas is able to do much of anything at the moment.”

Torang nodded, running fingers through his roughly shaved beard. He must have been unsatisfied with the feel because a blade formed from metal toral in a blink, whipping around, skimming off new growth. “I would guess that was Garom’s intention. I think you’ll find you can take toral from your friend, or even manipulate it inside him.”

Del felt sick at the thought. He was sure Cas would be fine with sharing his toral. In fact, he could feel it through their link. Del wasn’t fine with taking though, and he certainly wouldn’t manipulate anything in his spirit. That would be like puppeteering a thinking corpse. It was just wrong.

Torang looked at Del, peering at him closely. “You’re good at keeping your face blank.” The man sighed. “To be honest, I’m not allowed to offer you too much help, law of the crown, sages aren’t supposed to have much autonomy. That’s how we get people like your master. I’ll give you what I can though. Some information, some coin, and I’ll send you on your way.” The sage slapped the ground, and the whole cave shuddered. “Before I do that though. You need to decide what path to take.”

Del shook his head, telling himself he wasn’t bothered by the sage’s strength. He had seen plenty of examples to understand the depths of what a sleetborn body was capable of. He had spent most of his life at the side of a Sage and had never feared him. Despite his thoughts, despite this Tarong’s calming demeanor, a shiver ran along Del’s spine.

“I knew your late mentor for years. I was the one who gifted him the wings of a demonic eagle. He was a real upstart at the time, passionate and ambitious.” Tarong gave a mirthless chuckle. “The gift was meant to give him greater mobility, strength. When he underwent his ordeal of snow though, he took in more than just that. He partook of power he should not have and hid it for years. By the time I realized, it was too late. He was a sage of his own right, and he used those powers to kill and steal. Eventually, when he was ready, he stole from the Hailords in a bid for immortality.”

Immortality. That was something Del’s master had spoken of. It was supposed to be the goal of every warrior. To rise above the realm of the strongest sleetborn, to take the step up, casting aside the service of a sage and accepting the responsibilities of a Hailord, one of the honored demigods that protected humanity.

Torang snorted flame toral, and the fire, having waned, leapt back up with a roar. “Garom failed. Hailords don’t take kindly to thieves. They crippled him, and he hid. I’ve been searching for him for years. I half thought he had died, but he showed himself for your ordeal, practically lit a beacon. Not like him to be so careless. I think he intended to make you his legacy, something of his that would last forever. He spent years training you, developing you. Now, you need to choose: take up that legacy, or cast it aside?”

As it turned out, Torang didn’t actually want to hear an answer. Which meant he did share something with Del’s Sage, a lack of faith in mere words.

Torang proved to be true to his own words. The Vulcan sage cooked a meal, gave Del a few coins, and enough local news to inform his bearings. Then he left. Del didn’t wait around. He walked off with a purpose, traversing the great forest of Lufaria, hopping over the occasional stone, keeping out of the mud puddles.

The old sage hadn’t asked the right question. Del’s path wasn’t motivated by his master, or his legacy. He had made a promise, and right now, Cas needed him.