At dawn Seth did not so much as wake as he was woken.

His eyes opened to the priest nudging his foot with a nonchalant care. Unwilling to disobey a priest that left him believing he would not be dying anytime soon, he didn’t ask for a little more time as was his norm back at home. He did not dally, tossing and turning as he would at home. He simply fought the urge and rose to sit. Something on the man’s face told him it was the wrong move so Seth pulled himself to stand.

The priest looked at him, studied him as one would a horse he intended to buy. Seth did not like the feeling. A noble child was not studied. Arrogant as it sounded, that was the domain of those born to lesser homes.

Nodding more to himself than anyone, the priest reached a hand to his back and withdrew a long stick.

“You will be using this until we get to our destination,” he said.

Seth reached out a tired hand in acceptance when the priest offered it to him. He realized a moment later that it was not a stick. The object was easily taller than Seth, perhaps five inches taller. Its brown exterior that had given him the misconception was actually a scabbard. The weight of the weapon was nothing considerable but it fell from Seth’s hand the moment the priest released it.

Seth stared at the fallen weapon, perplexed. Then he turned his gaze back to his empty hand. For some reason it had given out, weakened as his left arm was prone to.

“I swear I didn’t drop it,” he started to say in panic. “It just…”

The priest made an uncaring gesture, silencing him. Then he pointed at the sword in the dirt and made another gesture. This one Seth interpreted quickly.

Seth reached for the weapon. He grimaced when dirt got under his fingernails as he picked it up. Again, the weight of the weapon surprised him. It wasn’t heavy, not in the true definition of the word. Still, it bore down on his arm as if he’d been overusing the arm for more than a day without rest. It made him worry if the accident in Macbeth’s Humvee had done more harm to him than he’d thought.

With a devotion born of a need to survive, Seth tightened his grip around it. He lifted it high so that it rested on his shoulder.

The priest continued to watch him, quiet. It reminded Seth of his teachers when he was littler, the way they creased their brows and bent their lips when grading the students. While the man did not crease his brows or quirk his lips, there was just something about the way he watched him that gave Seth the impression.

He must have been satisfied with whatever conclusion he met because he nodded and said, “You will learn The Draw.”

It was Seth’s turn to have an expression.

“The draw?” he asked, confusion lacing his words.

“Yes.” The priest turned, reached for his lower back and drew another weapon. “The draw.”

The priest held a short sword in his hand now. Its blade was as black as night and as wide as Seth’s hands if placed side by side. It looked thick and heavy, riddled with countless hexagonal patterns carved in blue lines. But the way the man held it to the opposing side of his hip as if sheathing it there gave the impression that it weighed nothing.

“Do endeavor to learn something,” the priest said after a moment. His grip tightened on the sword’s handle.

He swung the sword in a diagonal arc, drawing a single upward slash, and returned it to place. The action was simple and underwhelming. It was carried out in a single motion within the space of a breath. Then he turned to Seth.

Is that all? Seth wondered, holding back a touch of disappointment. He’d been expecting more, a rush of wind, a flash of light, some skill or the other. He had half expected the sword to burst into flames. The man was a powerful soul mage, for the love of nature. Jonathan wasn’t a powerful gold mage but his spear thrusts disturbed the wind well enough.

But nothing? Seth had not expected nothing.

Realizing the priest was waiting for a response, Seth nodded and took stance, emulating what the man had done. He held the sword to the opposing hip of the arm he intended to draw with, knees bent forward in a half-crouch.

He kept the sword firmly locked against his hip with his weaker hand and tightened his grip on the hilt. He could feel the end of the scabbard scraping against the dirt but didn’t think much of it. The sword was longer than he was tall, so it was only to be expected.

The hilt was cold to the touch and sent a shiver up Seth’s arm. He ignored it as best his mind could and took in a steadying breath in preparation. All he had to do was unsheathe the weapon. He only needed precision in its return, and while he didn’t know how he would accomplish it, he settled for executing the first step.

Feet apart, knees slightly bent, and lungs filled with a calm breath, Seth focused on a point in the air before him—a whisker of morning light he thought he could see—and drew.

He unsheathed the blade.

The sword revealed a portion of its blue blade, the length of Seth’s forearm and stopped there. No more and no less.

Seth frowned in confusion.

He hadn’t met any resistance when he’d pulled it. And while his draw arm was surprisingly tired, he was certain it had more strength than this. The failure baffled him.

Since the priest had said nothing on his performance, Seth executed his next action quickly. He slid the blade back into its scabbard, and drew it almost immediately. The sword came free again. This time it revealed more of its blade than the last time.

Not enough, Seth scoffed.

He needed more power.

So, with greater determination, he slid it back in and this time he pulled more than he drew. He abandoned technique for the superiority of power.

This time the sword didn’t even budge.

A dread filled the air momentarily. It was more of a feeling than a certainty. Quietly, Seth turned his eyes to the priest. He wasn’t sure what would happen next but braced himself for a myriad of possibilities.

He found the priest with a piece of wood in his hand. The man was shaving away at its ragged edges. He smoothened it so it wouldn’t be caught in anything. When the priest was satisfied with his task, he swung it from side to side, testing, gauging.

Seth swallowed.

“In the seminary,” the priest said, still swinging, the piece of wood whistling as it cut through air. “They employ what they like to refer to as negative reinforcement when teaching. I asked that you endeavor to learn, and learn you did. However,” he took a step forward and raised what was now a cane, “I do not remember asking you to forget.”

The stick cracked the air as it came down on Seth.

Where it met skin, pain flared. Seth buckled under the weight of it. His leg gave out beneath him and he found himself on the floor. His mouth hung open in a voiceless scream.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

The priest did not spare him a glance. Instead he turned his attention to the cane in mild puzzlement. To anyone watching he would’ve seemed like a confused man. It was almost as though he’d expected a different out. He raised the stick again with a curious expression, then brought it down once more.

Seth did not follow it this time, neither did he feel it. Within the space of a second he was searching for the sound of his voice. His mind panicked at the growing pain, dying where it wanted to live.

Then the world went black.

……………………………..

When the boy had taken the stance, Jabari had strolled up to the nearest tree. He cut through the distance and plucked a branch from it within the time it took a grown man to blink. When he returned, the boy had not even noticed his absence, not that he’d expected any different.

Gently, with a care mothers reserve for their infant child, Jabari shaved its edges with one hand. Its purpose was to inflict pain not draw blood. While he had enough resources for it, he didn’t want to have to start changing the boy’s clothes. That they had survived the accident with naught more than a puncture mark where the boy had been wounded was a good thing.

He took to the task of forging his cane and watched the boy execute his first draw poorly. He didn’t hold it against him. The child had executed the technique as best his body could allow him. There were multiple errors to note, but it was to be expected, almost commended, considering the power of the Tachi he was holding.

When the boy executed it again, it was poorer.

The third time was appalling and Jabari found himself wondering why the boy would discard what he’d learned just to do something stupid.

The task was impossible to accomplish. Yes. To attain what he required, the boy would first need to be souled, for the human body did not have the strength required to carry out the technique. But the boy could struggle with it. After all, that was the main aim of the lesson; to struggle.

But this was not struggling. The third draw had been stupidity camouflaging as creativity. So, emulating the technique of the reverends of the seminary, Jabari swung the cane a few times. He listened to the whistling sound it made as it cut through the air as he spared the boy his undivided attention.

Jabari had never trained a child before. Worse, he had never trained an unsouled. In the early days of the seminary violence had been their method of training. Perhaps violence was not the word he was looking for. Violence entailed a certain desire not just to inflict pain but to create damage. Perhaps the term ‘negative reinforcement’ was more accurate. To teach their students, the priests used the fear of pain to dissuade failure.

They were better now, less willing to take up the cane. But Jabari knew very little of reasoning with children. Thus, he was inclined to try the cane first. Reason, if necessary, would come second.

“In the seminary,” he said to the child, still swinging, the piece of wood whistling with every action. “They employ what they like to refer to as negative reinforcement when teaching. I asked that you endeavor to learn, and learn you did. However,” he took a step forward and raised the piece of wood, “I do not remember asking you to forget.”

When he brought the piece of wood down on the boy, the crack of wood on skin rend the air in an echo and the boy dropped to ground. Seated there, his mouth hung open but no sound came free.

This puzzled Jabari more than most things did. He turned his attention to the stick. He had shaped it from memory to resemble the one Reverend Alphonsus favored. Was it defective, he wondered. Had he made a mistake in its forging he was not aware of?

The thoughts crawled through his mind as he wondered why the child made no sound. When used properly, the children were always loud. They either cried or screamed, or at least gasped when they were being stubborn. The strike had shaken the boy’s will, this he could tell from the feel of the boy’s spirit, but it seemed it had done little to his body.

Most likely the fault had been from himself. Jabari thought of Reverend Alphonsus. He thought of the way the man would raise his hand, the emotionless look in his eyes that reminded him most eerily of a dead thing; the way he would bring it down. He held the memory alive in one fragment of his mind and recalibrated his strength.

There was a panicked confusion in the boy’s eyes, but the child was not looking at him. Perhaps the boy had retreated into his mind. It was the thought that came to Jabari as he brought the cane down a second time.

The cane cracked through the distance. It struck true and the boy fell unconscious.

Jabari sighed in barely withdrawn frustration. The boy had made no sound, again. It seemed he had inflicted damage where he had been seeking only pain. This level of reinforcement did not seem to fit him. It seemed the only pain he could inflict bore damage as well.

Two strikes, and two failures.

Jabari tossed the stick aside. He decided he would use this method of training no more. It didn’t seem productive. He had no intentions of being nice to the child. Niceness would endear the boy to him. He needed to boy to be wary of him so he would be harsh. However, he did not need the boy to hate him. If the boy grew to despise him, that would shake the future. He did not want that.

Jabari swore to do better next time.

Until then, he dropped the cane and turned his attention to the boy’s arm. With a shrug of will, he pulled the boy’s existence to bear. Information scribbled into his vision immediately.

----------------------------------------

Name: Seth.

Type: Human.

Age: 13 years+.

Authority: None.

Skill: None.

Status: Unconscious.

State: Broken.

----------------------------------------

It had been too long since he’d last seen an existence so bare. He read the last line once more.

Broken, he thought. It was not far from the truth. If anything, it was kind. Still, broken things could be fixed. His eyes shifted to the boys left arm slowly.

Yes, he reminded himself. Broken things can be fixed.

He studied the pale blue notifications. The last line was no surprise. Even now, he could see the wisps of reia leaving the boy’s arm in motes of green life. There was a cacophony of other colors. Each one was an attribute of reia being pulled from the world around him. They would replenish the life reia he lost, but with nothing to purify them, they—along with the other attributes—would continue to strain the boy’s body with every passing day.

It was to be expected. There was no record of a person who’d survived existence cracking upon them without one defect in their body or the other.

Jabari doubted there was any record of one in the archives of the Savalthi sect, worshipers of the dual moon, self-acclaimed recorders of time.

His attention remained focused on the last line of the boy’s existence, the part he was inclined to fix, before dismissing the notifications.

Quietly he squatted beside Seth and stretched the boy’s left arm out to the side. He studied it quietly for a few moments, then he held his hand out the side.

Should anyone have been watching at the time, what occurred would have been the strangest thing since the first world crack. Hand held out to the side, Jabari commanded the world.

Reia on earth had been asleep for far too long. It hadn’t been long since it had come awake. Earth was still new to its blessings. Thus, its reia was restless and chaotic in some places, quiet and groggy in others.

Here it was the former. Thus, it came to his call slowly. First it struggled and Jabari allowed it. Then he coaxed it, gently inveigling his command over it. Outstretched, his hand remained open, but he kept his eyes focused on the boy’s arm, not really doing anything.

Slowly, ever so slowly, reality coalesced around Jabari’s hand. It distorted, then pooled into a point, darkness, air, and matter alike. It was akin to a painting of oil being sucked into one point.

Reality settled into Jabari’s palm. It grew into a haft as long as no more than a foot, perhaps an inch or two shorter. It was transparent and firm to the touch, almost natural. On the outside it looked like finely shaped glass. But, unlike glass, there was nothing fragile about it.

Jabari closed his hand around the haft as its head formed, reality continuing in its answer to his command. The world cracked around Jabari’s hand and he ignored it. It was no more than a hairline fracture, as wide as a strand of Seth’s hair and equally as long, no more than half a foot in length.

It would heal quickly.

When the head of his creation was fully formed, Jabari released the world from his command and brought his creation before him. It was a hammer. Its handle, smooth and transparent as glass, bore a few cracks along its length that did nothing to affect it. Its head was as large as Jabari’s own, a massive cube of the same design as the handle. It bore just as many cracks.

----------------------------------------

Item: Tool.

Type: Hammer.

Authority: None.

State: Reality.

----------------------------------------

Its existence flitted across his mind and he ignored it. He knew exactly what it was. He also knew its purpose. After all, it was his creation.

Returning his focus to the child’s outstretched arm, he went to the task at hand.

He raised the hammer high over his head. With the absent attention of a master performing a task done countless times, tracking the cracks in the boy’s arm, he brought the hammer down. Then did it again.

Reia and reality shook at the action, and the world quaked with every blow.