The room was dark, the only light coming from the open doorway leading into the courtyard. In a moment his eyes adjusted, but not before a fist struck his jaw and addled his senses. There were five people in the room with Ezyk, and the two behind him hauled him to his feet. Two more stood in front of him, while the last closed the door. With the door closed, only the thin light of the evening sun slid through a small crack in the door to illuminate the room.
The boy in front of Ezyk was Staffon Heager. Beside him was his younger brother, Fenris Heager. Fenris was named after the Legendary Wolf, but he would have been more appropriately named after the Legendary Opossum, had there been such a thing. He was small, with a hunched stance, furtive eyes, and a rather large nose, which dominated his face and made his quick glances from side to side almost comical.
Steffon had a delicate bearing, although taller and straighter than his brother, with a protruding forehead and thin lips that barely covered his mess of teeth. Ezyk found himself thankful that the older brother wasn’t the most robust of nobles, else that punch might have hurt him more than it did Steffon.
“This is a school for the nobility,” Steffon said, cradling the fist he had punched Ezyk with. “You don’t belong here. Your very presence diminishes the prestige of this academy. If the wizard wanted a pet, he would have been better off with a dog.”
Steffon leaned in closely. “if you think I’m going to share this school with a monkey who spent the first six years of his life not wearing pants, you’re dead wrong,” he said, punctuating his words with another punch to the face.
Damn it Neya, Ezyk thought as he felt the fire burning inside him, but it was still in check.
Ezyk considered the most appropriate response to deescalate the conflict as quickly as possible, trying to deal with the situation as O’tambwe had taught him. Ezyk took a breath to begin a well-argued case against assaulting him, then he spat a mouthful of blood in Steffon’s face. Maybe it wasn’t as in check as he had thought.
A lot of things happened at once. Steffon shoved away from Ezyk, wiping at his face like he had discovered a nest of spiders on his forehead as a shadow fell from the ceiling, hitting Fenris in the back of his hunched neck. The two boys holding Ezyk dropped him in surprise as the lookout by the door watched in shock.
Steffon was still wiping his face when the shadow set upon him. It was a lithe figure that seemed to swim through the air towards him, accelerating unnaturally. All of a sudden he didn’t have time to be afraid of common blood tainting him as small fists struck with bruising precision. Neya hit Steffon everywhere it hurt, first his nose, then his stomach, then she kicked him in the groin. Steffon’s eyes bulged and he dropped to the ground, folding around his manhood.
The room went silent, with Neya standing in the middle. Ezyk’s mouth was filling with blood again, Fenris was unconscious, and Steffon couldn’t breathe. Their three lackeys looked on in stunned silence.
“Who’s next?” Neya demanded, planting her foot on Steffon’s ribcage like a hero in an epic painting. She faced Ezyk and the two lackeys next to him. The only sound that penetrated the silence was a thin wheeze from Steffon’s lungs as they asserted the need to breathe as only slightly more important than his need to reproduce.
“You idiots aren’t good for anything but ganging up on weaklings for sport!” Neya said, tossing her head back and crossing her arms.
Ezyk bristled at being labeled a weakling, but Neya wasn’t going to change her mind about him now.
“Where I come from, men fight with honor!” she said. “If you worms represents the next generation of nobility, I’ll be a chicken’s aunt!” She pointed at each of the boys next to Ezyk “stand away from him!” The two lackeys shuffled a few steps away from Ezyk.
A wave of relief swept through Ezyk. He was pulling himself to his feet when he heard a meaty smack and the thud of a body hitting the floor. When he looked up, Neya lay sprawled out on the floor, head lolling to the side. The boy who had been beside the door stood behind her, with a chair in his hands. His face was ashen, as if he was as shocked as everyone else at what he had done.
Steffon slowly uncurled himself to begin standing, and at his motion, the two boys beside Ezyk approached Neya. “We caught ourselves quite the prize. Forget the pet, what better way to send the wizard a message than his daughter?” he leaned down and ran his hand up her leg. “Bring her and my brother. We’re going to salvage some fun out of this night yet.” Steffon said, a lecherous smile revealing his mouthful of crooked teeth.
The hope that had been dashed was replaced with white hot anger, so strong that Ezyk coughed out a mouthful of blood as his insides writhed like a pit of snakes. Then it was gone. Ezyk was left with nothing but terrible purpose as the world lost it’s color.
“Hey inbred fuckface,” Ezyk said, putting a finger to a drop of his own blood on the floor. Steffon and his lackeys glanced at him.
Steffon’s brows knitted together with anger. “what do you..” he began, then the air grew heavy and Steffon’s movements slowed as Ezyk began the first stroke of O’tambwe’s light spell.
End them. Break them. Ezyk stared down Steffon for what felt like days as his anger wound about itself, fueling his concentration on the spell. Ezyk began to feel nauseous as his finger crawled along the floor so slowly it appeared to be standing still.
Eventually, the nausea was too much for Ezyk to bear, and he lost his concentration with a sick groan. Ezyk lifted his finger from the last stroke of the light rune as he clapped a hand over his eyes. A bead of light shone through the meat of Ezyk’s palm, dazzling his sight. Ezyk heard screaming, and then the light was gone.
End them. Break them. Ezyk took his hand away, and found his sight swimming with small motes of light, but otherwise unharmed. Steffon had not come to his feet, so Ezyk walked up and kicked him in the face with all his weight behind it.
Not stopping to look at the result, he found the two who had held him. One was doubled over, holding his eyes, the other had his eyelids squeezed shut and hands held in front of him. Ezyk took both of the boy’s middle fingers and wrenched them with everything he had. Bone slid over bone before the fingers broke, causing the boy to collapse with a wail. Ezyk ran to the other and slammed a toe into his throat. Steffon’s lackey went down, choking on blood.
The one who had hit Neya had been furthest from the light, and had been partly shaded by the others. At the wailing of his friends, he turned to flee, fumbling toward the door. Ezyk leapt over Neya, grabbing the chair on the way by, and dispensed a bit of justice, hitting him in the back of the head with the heavy wooden furniture.
End them. Break them. Ezyk turned back to the boy scrambling on the ground with broken fingers and delivered a blow across his temple, knocking him to the stone floor.
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It wasn’t until O’tambwe burst into the room, that Ezyk realized that he had not stopped hitting them with the chair. None of Steffon’s crew were moving, the room was spattered with blood, and the chair was varnished with a gruesome lacquer.
Ezyk looked at O’tambwe, then back to the slaughter in the room in a daze. “O’tambwe, what-” Ezyk’s question was cut off when the wizard threw a small white clay ball which shattered in the center of Ezyk’s chest. Ezyk’s sight went black, followed shortly by the sensation of his shoulder hitting the ground.
Ezyk woke up in his own bed, wondering if the brawl in the storage room had been a dream. Ezyk raised his hand to touch his face, and winced in pain. His split lip and black eye, along with strained muscles across his entire body disputed that notion.
“Good evening child” O’tambwe said from his seat beside Ezyk’s bed. His fingers were laced under his chin as he watched his adoptive son.
“What happened? Is Neya ok?” Ezyk asked.
“Neya is fine, but the other students in the room with you…” O’tambwe said, and Ezyk had a sudden flash of dread.
“They’re dead, aren’t they?” Ezyk asked.
“They should be,” O’tambwe said with a sigh. “It was a close thing. There’s going to be a meeting with the dean about this incident.”
Ezyk didn’t see anything he could do. “When?” He asked, feeling his stomach sinking helplessly.
“Right now.” O’tambwe said, standing up.
Ezyk rolled of the bed slowly, as it seemed every muscle in his body had been replaced with wet noodles. Aching wet noodles. He got to his feet in short order, gradually growing accustomed to the weakness.
“Lean on me on the way there,” O’tambwe said. “And try to appear as pathetic as possible.” There was no trace of humor in O’tambwe’s voice, but it still made Ezyk smile a little.
They arrived at the dean’s office, O’tambwe’s elbow hooked under Ezyk’s shoulder. The first thing he saw through the door was the dean at his desk, but as he stepped through the door, the peripheries of his sight widened, and he was stunned to find Steffon and his crew there, completely unharmed.
“What did..” Ezyk stopped as he looked at O’tambwe, who winked. Better not incriminate myself. Ezyk thought before closing his mouth and focusing on looking as badly beaten as possible.
“What I see here is an obvious case of bullying,” Dean Richmond said. “What boggles my mind is your audacity to claim that this boy,” The dean’s fingers jabbed toward where Ezyk rested on the couch. “ Assaulted the five of you in a dark storage room and beat you savagely.” The dean took off his cap, scratching his scalp through his thinning hair. “Which is obviously untrue.”
“Dean Richmond, he-” Steffon said.
“SHUT UP!” The dean roared, slamming his fist on the table. An ink bottle almost overturned, and several pens jumped in place.
“You think who your father is gives you the right to run my school?” The dean said, pointing at Steffon as his face was dyed red with anger. “I’ve personally spoken to your father, he told me you are a little shit, and a caning at the end of every week might just be exactly what you need. Don’t think he will intercede on your behalf.”
Here, your ass is mine,” Dean Richmond said, his voice low. “With your father’s full support. Do you understand?”
Steffon’s jaw had been hanging since Dean Richmond interrupted him. He swallowed. “Yes sir.” Steffon said in a small voice.
“Good, now GET OUT!” the dean pointed at the door. Steffon and his lackeys quickly filed through the door. Once they were gone, the dean sighed, locked the door, and pulled a chair out to sit in front of O’tambwe and Ezyk.
“O’tambwe, your little experiment has gone too far,” the dean said. “That boy is too dangerous.” Dean Richmond took out a pipe from his pocket, and began filling it. “We came within a hair’s breadth of having the sons of no less than 5 noble supporters of the academy meet untimely deaths. Honestly I don’t care a whit if those boys die, just not in my school.”
“I don’t feel dangerous,” Ezyk said, wincing in pain as he tried to sit up. Dean Richmond gave him a look that spoke volumes about whether he gave a damn about Ezyk’s opinion.
“Your school is famous for producing great military men yes? I think you can see the benefit in keeping Ezyk on for one more term. He’ll be a great asset to the country.” O’tambwe said.
Dean Richmond lit his pipe, drawing the first smoke into his mouth, tasting it. “No, I don’t think so,” he said, exhaling a cloud of smoke as he spoke. “He’s going to lose control again, and there’s no guarantee he wouldn’t kill a student.”
“With respect dean, I didn’t lose control,” Ezyk said. “I knew exactly what I was doing.”
The dean raised his eyebrows. “So you attempted to beat five people to death with a chair. on purpose?” he asked.
Ezyk met the dean’s eyes. “Yes. I didn’t lose control, I… somehow knew exactly how to hurt them,” Ezyk said, casting his gaze down as he recalled the scene. “It felt like nothing else mattered. I used a light spell to blind them, broke Sam’s fingers, kicked John’s throat, stomped on..”
“Enough,” The dean said, waving dismissively. “That sounds plenty like losing control to me. My decision stands. Ezyk, you are expelled. Be out of this school by tomorrow.” Dean Richmond reached into his desk and began pulling out papers to formalize his decision.
Ezyk couldn’t muster the strength to be outraged. He had, after all, tried to kill five people. Four, he corrected himself. Fenris had already been unconscious, and had been spared from being beaten with a chair. Ezyk stood, left the office and began walking to his room.
The thing Ezyk found strange was the complete lack of remorse. He had hurt people by accident before, he knew he could feel sympathy and guilt, but it seemed as though the entire event had been painted an emotional grey.
If anything, Ezyk was a little disappointed that they were still alive. Ezyk stopped walking in the center of the marble hallway. Was that my own thought? He asked himself. Unsettled, he made his way to his room and flopped down on his bed, calming his mind and turning it inward, as O’tambwe had taught him.
“How goes it?” O’tambwe asked from directly above him.
Ezyk’s eyes snapped open, and he wiped a bit of drool form his mouth. “Meditating, contemplating the universe and all that.” Ezyk said with a smirk he didn’t feel. Evening was coming on fast, and he had nowhere to go. He didn’t even own any property to take with him. Unless Ezyk walked out the door naked, he could be accused of stealing from the academy.
“Indeed, it seemed peaceful,” O’tambwe said. “I am here to give you your graduation test.”
Ezyk looked at O’tambwe, his eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?” He asked.
“I have haggled the dean down from an expulsion to a… sort of involuntary early graduation,” O’tambwe said, sitting on the chair in front of Ezyk’s desk. “Provided you pass your graduation test.”
“What is the test, and how could I pass it without any idea what I need to do?” Ezyk asked.
“You will “pass” because it is not a test. Not like the ones you’re used to,” O’tambwe said. “Wizards are manipulators of fate and the natural order. A very long time ago, a brilliant wizard made a device which showed him the moment of his death. This wizard gained great power from that experience, and used it to try to avoid his own death. He raised an army of such power that he believed himself untouchable. He defied fate, and in the end, caused his own destruction.”
“What is the test?” Ezyk asked. O’tambwe reached into his robes and removed a length of gold chain, each link seemed to change like water as he looked at them, until his eyes began to hurt. The chain was about fifteen feet long, the links the size of a thumbnail. Then he noticed there was no end to it, the whole thing was one circle.
“I am going to show you the day you die. If you are strong enough, you will make your own fate. But I warn you, actions motivated by fear will only steer you closer.” Ezyk looked at the chain again for a moment, but had to look away as the shifting patterns inside it made his eyes water.
“I don’t think I want to do this,” Ezyk said. “I’m not strong enough to face that.”
“That is exactly the appropriate feeling,” O’tambwe said. “Tomorrow you are going to leave this academy. You will then be assigned a job as a minor wizard in a company of the Empire’s army. You are then going to face four years of constant war. Summon the courage to take this test, and you will be a true wizard, and your chances of living will be substantially improved.” O’tambwe said.
“How does it help me become a wizard? That doesn’t make any sense.” Ezyk said.
“It has been proven that experiencing your own death attunes your consciousness more closely with the Weave of Fate and makes magic flow easier,” O’tambwe said, pooling the fine gold chain into his hands. “Assuming it doesn’t break your mind. Since it was created thousands of years ago, this has been one of the most closely guarded secrets of wizardry. You must do this, as I have.”
Ezyk looked up into his father’s eyes and saw the truth in them. “Alright.” He said, swallowing his fear.
O’tambwe instructed Ezyk to lie in the center of the room as he laid the golden chain in an oval around Ezyk on the floor. O’tambwe sat crosslegged outside the chain. “Close your eyes.” He said, his fingers descending to touch the chain. Ezyk closed his eyes.