I was twelve years old when I watched my family die. I was twelve years old when I first killed a man. I know how that sounds by today's measure, but at the time, I was considered almost a man myself. I had already hunted for my family, built shelters for the village, knew how to fish, forage, and cook. I was still too young for this.
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I awoke with a feeling of excitement. Finally my long months of persuading my father to allow me to test early this year had paid off, though my bribes of honeyed jerky certainly didn't seem to have hurt either.
I was to be allowed to take the Trial of Adulthood!
I could barely contain my smile and nerves all bundled together and streaked with flashes of golden pride. Most children of the village weren't allowed to take the Trial until at least 14, some not even then. My father had still seemed skeptical even last week when I had finally worn him down enough to finally cave to my wheedling.
I rolled from my woven blanket and stood, stretching and beginning my breathing exercises. I would need every spare bit of mana I could muster today. My inner pool was already mostly full from my week of preparation, all culminating today.
I didn't have access to any magic yet, but I vowed that by tonight I would have taken my first steps towards ascension. Satisfied that I had shaken the last vestiges of sleep and fully topped off my mana, I quickly grabbed the bag I had packed last night, as well as the dried nuts and jerky I had placed beside it to avoid having to cook breakfast this morning.
As jittery as I was, it seemed to have been a very wise decision, as I doubted I could stand still long enough to get the fire re-kindled, let alone cook anything. Shouldering the small pack, I rushed from the door of my single room hut, almost running into my mother who has been about to part my grass frond doorway to check-in on me before the Trial.
"I know you're excited, but that's no excuse to blunder about like a lame oxen," she admonished me, flicking my ear with her middle finger.
Luckily she hadn't grabbed it, so she really was being understanding this morning. On particularly bad offenses I sometimes wondered if she wouldn't tear one of my ears off.
Her name was Yrsa, and she was a short but solidly built woman, famed and feared through the village for her strength of both body and character. Her long azure hair was beginning to fade and go gray, but it just seemed to add to her countenance, imparting a look of wisdom to her still mostly youthful face.
The fear was well-deserved as far as I was concerned as well, since she could deliver a solid drubbing or lecture to any member of the village. The disgruntled look on her face instantly reminded me of when she had even chewed the village chief out, his lofty position and stature no match for her ire.
"Now, have you eaten? Stretched? Channeled? Performed your ablutions?"
I nodded for the first three, then winced and quickly shook my head for the last. She cuffed me on the other ear, spinning me around and shoving me back into the house.
“Clean yourself, you silly child! You become a man today, I shouldn’t have to remind you!”
I quickly hurried to the watering hole at the back of the hut, peeling my shirt off before splashing my face and armpits with water. I stared at my reflection for a minute to check that my mother would find my hair acceptable, before quickly running my still wet hands through it. It was a light turquoise color, bordering on a blue-green pastel and my eyes matched.
I still looked at myself and saw a child, but I knew that after today I would be an adult.
I grabbed the small bundle of scented herbs next to the small basin and rolled it between my hands before anointing myself with it and draining the watering hole with my nearby chamberpot. Picking the pot up reminded me that I also had not relieved myself this morning so I quickly did so and carefully moved back outside the hut again.
My mother watched as I laid the pot next to my doorstep and snorted slightly, shaking her head and motioning for me to follow her. I fell into step behind her and followed her to my parents hut, just a short distance away.
My father, Hagen, was waiting out front and when he saw me a strange mix of pride and worry washed over his face, quickly masked by a stern expression. After all, he was the village chief that I remembered my mother admonishing. He couldn't allow his countenance to crack for a small thing like his eldest son's Trial. After a second I could see the familiar mischievous twinkle in his eye that I knew so well.
"There you are Zakai, still need your mother to fetch you from bed, eh? Perhaps you shouldn't take the Trial this year after all," he said, stroking his emerald beard.
The look of mischief was still present in his eyes, though his smirk only showed in his voice. He was a tough man, but he also had a well deserved reputation for being a prankster in the village. Some even went so far as to call him a favored son of Geir, the God of Mischief and Harvest himself. He had once claimed to me that our family tree did indeed trace its roots back to Geir. He had been deep in his cups that night, celebrating the birth of my youngest sister, Iona. When I asked him the next day if it was true he scowled and cuffed me, telling me not to repeat such things in public.
I was still unsure if he was simply embarrassed or thought it would be bragging to say our family was descended from the Gods.
I knew his game however, and didn't rise to the bait. Defending myself or making excuses would only give him the opportunity to say my reaction marked me as too immature to take the trial. I couldn't stop myself from grinning at him though, which made the corners of his mustache twitch up for a brief second. My mother scowled and reached for him, but he danced away from her quickly, obviously having expected the attempt.
“Let’s get going then, I’m sure some of the other youths are practically foaming at the mouth to get started,” he said, motioning towards us both.
He quickly strolled towards the town center, his arms clasping behind his back and his posture and demeanor evening out to the serene gait that I thought of as his town chief persona. I heard my mother chuckle under her breath, but I knew even if I looked she would have schooled her expression before I could blink. She believed in showing propriety in front of the populace even more than father did, so I straightened myself further as we approached the square. I could see that we were neither early nor late, but a decent sized crowd was already forming next to the clay fountain at the center of the square.
Even now, the sight of the fountain struck me with an acute sense of envy at the skill so apparent in its design.
The waters shifted through a myriad of rainbow hues, the mana bleed from the pump that cycled and purified it expertly tuned to be used as a decorative effect rather than a pollution as it would in almost any other construct. My parents both assured me that even when I could access my mana pool such a feat would be beyond me for decades. Even if I demonstrated a prodigious talent for Manaforging, and it may never be possible for me at all if I didn't possess affinities for the right elements.
The clay of the fountain was no less impressive either, stained a sparkling white that would never need cleaning by the Manashaping that had gone into it's production. It subtly glowed with the reflection of the rainbow colors of the water it contained. Even the water itself was impressive, functioning as a high grade mana potion, though it was considered extremely crass to drink from it unless one was in dire need. It never needed replenishment as the imbued runes carved into the bottom of the basin duplicated the water as it was used or evaporated, without allowing it to overflow or run dry. Qadira's Fount was considered the village of Kvivik's prized treasure, and it was actually debated on whether the village or the fountain had come first.
The buzz of conversation rose in my ears as we approached the crowd and fountain. Talk of promising youngsters, peppered with the odd hushed bet between some of the more competitive fathers of the group. I heard my own name mentioned a few times, though it seemed to be with shaded with doubt and skepticism more than anything. It became harder to contain my grin every time I heard my name mentioned.
It didn't matter what they were saying, I knew I was ready. It wasn't like I was setting a village record, attempting the Trial at age 11. Not for lack of trying. For months I had attempted to convince father to let me join last year, but he wouldn't even consider it. Even mother told me it was too early. The thought skittered through my brain, my nerves attempting to distract me, but I brushed it off with another wave of excitement.
Today, my journey to control the world around me would begin, and I had no intentions of letting a small thing like the Trial block me for even one more year.
As the last of the villagers and my fellow aspirants entered the square, my father motioned for the village to quiet down. Next he motioned for the hopefuls to form a line in front of him, and we hurried to fall in a loose rank with each other. I nodded at a few of the other children that I was closer with, but was too impatient for the test to begin to try and recall any names or faces. Most of the rest of the children were needed at their parents farms, only coming into the village square on market days and for special occasions like this. The tradesmen that called the village proper home didn’t have any children close enough to my age for me to bond with.
“As you all know, today we have gathered to prepare our youngest hopeful adults on the first steps of their journey to ascension,” Father began, hands clasped behind his back and mischief absent from his demeanor.
“Today, the Gods will gather in judgment of their souls, weighing and measuring the depths of their talent. If any of you feel you are not ready yet, I urge you to wait until next year, for not even the Gods can help you once the bloom of your talent has been opened. If your mana seed is not fully ready to blossom, opening it early will forever stunt your growth.”
He waited a short few breaths and made eye contact with each of the aspirants. When his gaze reached me I felt the first twinge of doubt I’d felt all morning, his stern and distant gaze felt like it was from an entirely different man. I suppressed the twinge as quickly as I could, a determined scowl forming on my face. When he saw this his familiar twinkle lit behind his eyes, though he kept it away from his face.
He continued to the rest of the aspirants and while a few of them looked more visibly nervous now, no one backed away. Most of the rest of the children looked to be between 14 and 15 years old, their parents more willing to invest the extra time and ensure that their mana seeds would be fully bloomed before allowing them to attempt the Trial. There were a few 13 year olds, children from smaller farms or in the case of one girl I knew well, headstrong enough to browbeat her parents into allowing her to test early.
Her name was Revna, and father oft mentioned her in passing around me, his attempt to be subtle in saying that he thought she would suit me. She was pretty enough I supposed, with her long black wavy hair and sharp features, but I had yet to ‘awaken to the charms of the fairer sex’ as my father put it. By all accounts she was quite smart and fierce enough to cow both of her parents, though not enough to get them to let her test last year either. She didn’t change her expression a whit when my father locked eyes with her. Having ascertained our resolve father clapped his hands loudly, making a few of the more nervous children jump.
“Very well. Let this year’s Trial of Adulthood begin!”
The moment after he said this, his hands shot forwards and streams of mana poured out of him, a riotous rainbow of every type of mana flaring around us until suddenly we were no longer in the village at all. I tried to look around when I realized this, but the strange haze that intense concentrations of mana always left me with took a few seconds to clear from my vision. I tensed, listening as intently as I could, straining to be aware of any threats before they could pounce on me while I was momentarily blinded.
The nature of the Trial of Adulthood was magically wiped from your memory once you had completed it, some said a measure implemented by the Gods to ensure that nepotism and favoritism didn’t run rampant among the mortals. Others claimed that the Gods themselves tested us, and that their true selves were too glorious to be held within the memories of a mortal mind. Mother and Father were of the more pragmatic view that it didn’t matter why no one could remember the Trial and that it simply made it all the more important that any aspirant should prepare as hard as they could. I agreed wholeheartedly with that.
My vision finally cleared, though if not for the lack of colorful afterimages following the movements of my eyes, I may not have realized it. I was surrounded by a void of pure black nothingness and only a quick glance down at my body, fully visible and lit as though by the noonday sun, reassured me that I was actually here. I glanced all around, hoping for something in the darkness to latch onto, but I was truly alone here. I reached inside myself and found my mana pool, still full from this morning. After what seemed like years, but must have been only seconds, two dark gray pillars appeared in front of me.
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I waited a few seconds to see if any other objects would appear, but when nothing was forthcoming, I cautiously proceeded the handful of steps between me and the pillars. Luckily, though I could see no difference between the void under my feet and the void surrounding me, it appeared I was standing on a completely level plane. When nothing happened when I got closer to the pillars, I steeled myself and stepped between them.
Instantly, I was in a different space once again. I probably would have stumbled if I had tried to continue walking after stepping through the pillars, but as it was I merely blinked as I grasped my new environment once again. I was now in something that I could only call a temple, with pillars identical to the ones I had stepped between surrounding me. A quick glance back showed that the walls behind the pillars completely encircled the room, my entrance through the void was gone. I turned forward once again and dropped into a more defensive stance, arms up in front of myself.
Soft laughter echoed from above me, drawing my attention to the shadowy second level of the room I found myself in. I couldn’t make out much from the dark gloom above me, but I caught glimpses of what seemed to be ornate and elaborate thrones arranged in a half-circle on the opposite side of the room. Of the figures undoubtedly sitting on these thrones, I could see nothing at all. Stranger still the ever-steady flow of mana all around me, present even in the void I had come from, was gone.
“Well, at the very least this one seems to share some of your nature, Trakaris,” a masculine voice from one of the figures near the center sounded out, and I felt myself tremble at the inherent power those mere words carried through the room.
I felt as though mana should have gushed forth from him, a torrent almost strong enough to sweep me off my feet with its force, yet still I could sense no mana at all in this room.
“Nonsense, Varyk,” a feminine voice from almost the same point in the center followed after, though this time I felt my stance was bolstered instead.
“He probably just has some small portion of wisdom or knowledge. And do remember to control yourself, you almost knocked the poor thing off his feet.”
I heard Varyk let out a soft snort, but he chose not to respond. With no further distractions in the form of what I now knew to be divine power, my brain caught up to the names they had just used. Varyk and Trakaris, the twin rulers of the Gods. So they truly did hold court in judgment of the souls of mortals during our Trial. Before I could follow this thought much further another voice rang out from right of the room, a masculine growl that gave me goosebumps all over.
“Enough toying already. You know I hate the games you both play on this day every year,” he snarled, and I realized this voice must belong to Garm, God of Volcanoes and Ash.
He was said to have the head of a white wolf, and from his voice, I could easily believe it.
“Let us simply judge him and be done with it.”
“Yes, you both know I love a good game as much as any of us, but here my other nature must hold sway as well. It is time for the reaping, though this one looks a little green on the vine still…” a melodious voice from the very edge of the right responded, his words plainly marking him as Geir.
A bemused and slightly irritated silence passed over the room. The moments stretched, and I began to wonder if they were waiting for me to speak, when finally a voice croaked out from the left for the first time.
“I have smelled one of you in his past thread,” came a gravely wheeze, as though it was a voice which had been aged so long as to have lost all strength except for the air behind it pushing it out.
“An atavism of the Gods. His blood is strong enough to hold power equal to your own.”
This time the silence that descended upon the room was complete, as though every being present was holding their breath. It really was true then! Father’s family is descended from the blood of Geir! My hopes blossomed open fully, for these words could only mean greatness must await my future. My mind ran wild with the possibilities, as surely with the blood of a God in my veins my mana would be truly awe-inspiring in its power.
“His mana seed is bloomed and fully ripe as well,” an ephemeral voice seemed to whisper from the left, yet it was powerful enough to spread through the whole chamber.
“… his future is boundless…” this voice seemed to come from a distance so far away as to be almost indistinguishable from noise, yet I could swear it had been whispering directly into my ear as well. The goosebumps from before returned with a strength to make me shiver.
“… but no matter what path he walks, I see an endless pain…”
If the silence before had been complete, now it was as though all sound had curled up and died. Only to be replaced in the very next instant by a throaty laughter that drove me to my knees with its potency. My head felt like it would split open if this continued for much longer, but thankfully it abated as quickly as it had arrived. I felt a wetness splash onto my hands and realized my ears were bleeding. I swept my gaze back up to the seats of the Gods and scrambled back to my feet.
For the first time since I entered the chamber, I found it within myself to speak. Yet even as I tried to open my mouth to ask how I could avoid such a future, I realized that I couldn’t speak. My mouth wouldn’t open, and my limbs remained frozen where they had been after I had made my way back to my feet earlier.
“What a delicious pronouncement, I haven’t heard a fortune that interesting in centuries,” Trakaris almost seemed to purr the words, bringing to my mind the image of a lion playing with its prey after it had already been caught.
“So, little one. Normally one your age wouldn’t even be able to take this trial without damage to yourself, but here you stand, mana seed fully ripe no less. An atavism of one of us in you as well! Don’t worry about Wyrd’s pronouncement dear, after all, if you could avoid that pain she wouldn’t have mentioned that it lay on every path you walked. Now, as fun as this has been, it is time for your crucible. I can’t wait to see you set out towards that future of yours!”
In the center of the room, a pedestal with a golden chalice began to rise from the floor. I suddenly felt compelled to walk forward, and by the time I realized I wasn’t moving my own body, I was standing in front of the pedestal and my arms were reaching for the chalice.
My mind was screaming questions at me without end. Am I truly descended from the Gods? Who is this Wyrd? A God I’ve never heard of? How can my future be boundless yet all paths lead to pain? Countless other questions about everything that had just been revealed to me spiraled through my mind, but my arms inexorably drew the chalice up to my mouth and I found myself draining the contents in one long swallow.
The next moment, all questions and thoughts were driven from my head by a pain that wracked me to my very bones. I tried to scream, tried to curl up to somehow protect myself from this pain burning away from the inside of what I now realized was the very form of my soul, but my body was still being moved like a puppet by the Gods looking down on me from their thrones. They marched me backwards towards where I had entered the chamber, still facing towards them the whole time. As my foot passed the threshold of the room, the pain vanished and I found myself locking gazes with Trakaris as my body was being transported away.
She had iridescent eyes, shifting color as though she was looking at the world from behind countless prisms, and the depths of the cruelty I saw there were so boundless as to make my fear swallow all remnants of the pain I had just experienced.
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I found myself back in the town center as though I had never left. Yet I could remember everything that had just happened. I knew I had just been judged by the Gods, and that they had forced me to drink some strange liquid before sending me back here. I knew that Trakaris was not the kind and loving queen of the Gods that we had been told of. This memory just added to the questions that I had, until I finally noticed that everyone in the town square was staring at me in shock and I finally looked down at myself.
I was glowing an iridescent color that immediately brought to mind the cruel eyes that I knew would be waking me in terror for years to come. I almost thanked the gods that the aura would fade, no longer surrounding me in a slow crawl from one color to the next just like those same eyes, until I realized who I would be thanking.
Once a child has completed their Trial of Adulthood and taken their first steps to ascension, they begin to glow a color corresponding to the initial potential of their mana pool. Typically, a person will be known as a Metallic Mage, and shine a metallic color ordered Copper, Tin, Bronze, Iron, Silver and Gold. There are several grades of each, particularly Iron, which is also the most common rating. Beyond the metal categories lies a much rarer classification known as a Gemstone Mage, whose shine is more of a solid color, and they’re ordered Amethyst, Topaz, Sapphire, Emerald, Ruby and Diamond.
There were rumors that a couple decades back a young woman had been revealed as a Topaz in the nearest city of Toft, but no one from around here had ever even heard of anyone awakening higher than that. We knew that those rankings existed, because even the lowest Copper Mage could eventually ascend beyond the metallics if they had the right resources and discipline to progress. However, starting out at those ranks was thought to be a fantasy tale. I might have been the first awakened Diamond Mage on the entire continent of Tiellan in a century or more.
Father was the first to overcome his shock, and immediately began bellowing about how his son was the closest Mage to ascension to come out of the village for a thousand years and beaming with pride, loudly demanding his winnings from the fathers who had been foolish enough to bet against me. Mother next rushed up and squeezed me in a hug so tight I thought she was trying to burst me, but all she kept screaming was that she had known I would pass, and how proud she was.
The rest of the villagers eventually shook off their shock enough to congratulate the other newly minted adults as well. Most were Irons as is normal, with a couple Bronzes, one Tin, and one Copper. There was even a single Silver, Rezna as fate would have it, and if this were a normal year her ranking would have generated almost as much hubbub as mine had. I eventually prised myself loose from my mother’s rib-creaking squeeze and started to retake stock in my surroundings.
No one else seemed as terrified as I still was, so maybe I had just dreamed the whole ordeal to try and replace my lost memory. I knew it was a lie even as I told it to myself, but the truth was something I didn’t want to confront just yet.
And then, before I even had time to really get started convincing myself that I had dreamed the whole thing, a scream ripped through the slowly warming midmorning air. The kind of scream that reaches right past your consciousness and triggers your primal instincts to survive. Everyone in the square froze for a split second and then whirled to face the main road that led into the village and ended at the fountain. No one was prepared for the nightmare unfolding in front of us. She was still screaming. She just kept screaming as the thing ate her from her stomach up.
It had blistery red skin, bulging in places where flesh had no purpose. Each of its six legs bent backwards at the knee and looked too flimsy to hold it off the ground. Its tail was a bony protuberance, and it was sharp along one edge. It had no face to speak of, and its mouth took up most of its head, split vertically and with rows and rows of jagged and misshapen teeth.
After the brief initial pause, a few members of the crowd rallied long enough to begin firing spells into the creature, but they all just… slid off, like water running downhill. A few of the spells slid down onto the beast’s victim, finally ending her screams. I felt a brief flash of guilt at being happy that at least she wasn’t screaming anymore. Then we finally noticed that the monster was not alone.
Behind it, lined up in the road were a host of horrors, and while no two were identical, they all shared the same ghastly shape and color. Further back, at the edge of town, a black cloaked figure sat on what appeared to be a larger, more skeletal version of the same creature. At some unseen signal, the monsters began to charge into the crowd, and full panic erupted as everyone tried to flee for their lives. More screams like the first woman’s rang out, and I found myself suddenly being dragged by the hand by my mother. She gathered my father just as quickly as she had grabbed me and we all began running towards the house.
As we fled, I felt another pang of guilt and relief as the screams faded behind us. We quickly reached our house and all of us ran through the door as quickly as we could, screaming my little sisters’ names. As I reached the door, I slipped on the wet surface, landing heavily. I quickly put my hands under myself, only to feel them splash against something wet as well. Blood. A long trail of it leading from the doorway to further in the house. I began shaking and as I went to call out to my parents, I heard them begin screaming as well.
Their screams were quickly followed by the roar of their spells and the crackling of the walls of the house as they must have careened off one of the monsters further inside. My mother's shouts of pain finally gave me the impetus to get my feet back under me and rush to try to help them in some way. As I entered the room I despaired further still, as the beast had hold of one of my mother’s legs and was chewing its way up. She locked eyes with me.
"Run, Zakai!" She cried out, her hands imploring me to save myself.
I tried to run towards her, desperate to do something, anything to help her, only for my father’s arm to stop me and fling me back out of the room. I crashed to the floor from the force of his push, but quickly regained my feet.
“You can’t help her now Zakai!” he screamed at me, barring the door with his body.
“I’ll save her, you know I will, but you must flee! You don’t have any spells yet to protect you! Flee to the woods and wait for us there!”
With the last line he thrust his hand at me and I found myself blasted back through the doorway of the house, skidding for a few inches on my back when I landed, but the pain of the impact was distant. I quickly scrambled back to my feet and clenched and unclenched my fists, trying to muster the courage to ignore my parent’s orders and somehow save them from this nightmare. A few seconds later I turned tail and fled away from the village, running towards the woods as my father had commanded me to do.
Just as I passed the last few houses, I saw the same mounted figure from the edge of town, directly in the path I had been taking towards the woods. His cloaked head swiveled towards me, and the giant skeletal monster he rode let out a keening noise so shrill I felt that my eardrums would burst. As I grasped my head in pain he charged me, bearing down on me like the specter of death himself. I could see my death in the face of his mount, its fanged abomination of a mouth salivating as it hungered for my flesh. Just then, I heard a loud crack and the world went white. Time itself seemed to stand still, and my surroundings had faded as to be almost completely incorporeal.
“Unfortunately I cannot stop fate like this for long, child, so I must do this without your understanding or consent,” a young woman’s voice echoed all around me.
“They have reached their hands into fate and thus clouded the pool, so I can risk this much. Aim your hands at the screeling and its dark rider child. Your very soul depends on it.”
As abruptly as the world had frozen, it kicked back into motion like it was angry that it had been stopped for those brief few seconds. The light seemed brighter however, and then I realized it truly was brighter. It was as though the sun was coming out from behind the clouds, but there were no clouds in the sky that day. It continued to brighten further every passing second, washing out the world around me of its color.
The creature, the screeling she had called it, keened again, though this time in what must have been pain. Its path towards me never faltered, and now its rider was gesturing towards me with a hand inexplicably wrapped in darkness. The rider’s face never became any clearer no matter how bright the light got. I raised my arms towards him and screamed a mixture of defiance and terror. My vision immediately washed out like it did any time a large concentration of mana was in front of me and a beam of light burned its way through my body, exiting my hands and colliding with the rider and its screeling mount.
The world exploded.