Chapter 3

The Cruelest Kindness

After the morning exercises and a quick visit to Amea, the Academy bell began to toll signaling midday. She heard Torok's whip in the distance, as he dismissed the students for lunch. She joined the others in line as they filed into the dining hall. Unlike the instructors who had their personal Nons do their cooking for them, the students had the barest of meals during their training.

It was little better than gruel, lukewarm rice soup with small bits of beef. Four more hours then never again, she thought.

She sat alone in her usual corner and thought of happier days. Keira's adopted sister Hella, and Solomon would sit and laugh and tell stories. That had all changed when Solomon and Hella had graduated a few years ago. She had felt abandoned, no one wanted to befriend the one Torok punished on the daily. Four more hours, she reminded herself.

She poked at her soup, and her stomach grumbled for something better than rice in warm water. She looked around, perhaps this was the one time her loneliness wouldn’t be a burden. Oh Leon, you would be so proud.

She placed her hands over the bowl and recited the spell in her mind. Keira felt the power leave her hands and a bit of weariness crept into her sore chest. She removed her hands and sitting in the bowl was a cooked whole chicken breast, transmuted from the rice and beef in the bowl. Keira smiled, I love magic.

She ate the chicken hastily and got up from her spot in the dining hall. Placing the bowl in one of the designated bins she was greeted with a wall of smoke as she exited the hall. Sitting to one side of the door in his usual armchair was Master Torok slowly puffing on his pipe.

“You fought well today. I doubt there is a student here that could match you, but you are far from the proficiency level I would like.” He said not looking up from his pipe.

Keira shook her head in bewilderment, “I believe that is the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

He rocked out of the chair, placing the now dowsed pipe in a pouch on his belt, “I was cruel to your benefit.”

“How could being…” Keira started but Torok cut her off.

“Because if you were going to embrace the dark, you would have by now. My cruelty has a purpose, we at this academy don’t allow those who we believe will serve the dark to become warlocks.”

“So, I will go through my ascension tomorrow?”

“That remains to be seen, the council will decide your fate. With today’s marks on your back you stand at your fifth set of stripes, as you know that puts you at their mercy,” He turned and started across the training field toward the main building of the academy, “Come I have one last thing I wish to impart before you leave my tutelage.”

Keira scoffed softly, “More lessons?”

“No, just a warning.”

***

A few minutes later they were descending into the bowels of the Academy. Several flights of stairs into the underground of the main building, they arrived at a large round chamber lined with flickering colored crystals. The entire chamber was bathed in blue light from the crystals above them that twinkled like distant stars. In the center was a pedestal with a round recess, and a few switches on the side. It looked like old magi-tek, short for magical technology. Tools and machines made by mortals but powered by the ethereal magic of the universe.

“Welcome to the Memory Chamber, you should be honored. You are only the second student I have shown this chamber to.”

“Why am I down here?” Keira asked.

“Because I need to show you something, the reason for my cruelty towards you.”

She sighed and crossed her arms, “What?”

He pulled a small clear crystal from the shelf to the right of him and placed it in the center pedestal. He flicked the right-most switch and the pedestal sprang to life projecting a moving image above them. It played out like the figures in the image were real and moving above them in their own dimension.

It was a horrific scene, piles of burning bodies, distant mountain forests blackened to sticks, the sky buried in inky blackness. As the image moved over the catastrophic carnage it centered on the sole living inhabitant of this burning world. It was a woman, with long dark hair wearing blood-soaked leather armor. Black demonic wings draped over her shoulders, then she saw it as the image drew closer.

The face of the one at the center of this storm of death was hers, a little older, a little darker, but her face. It was unmistakable: the thin eyebrows, the subtle cheekbones, the almond shaped eyes. The eyes were what drew her in, they were a deep crimson not the hazel that she was expecting. As the image hovered she saw the shear roiling anger in the eyes of the demonic version of herself. Suddenly the moving image disappeared and the heat of the image left her.

She stood there in silence, the only sound between them was the soft hum of the flickering lights above them. She looked down at the pedestal that had sprung for the horrible images. Is that really what I am to become? Anger, hatred, consumed by darkness?

“You see what I have been worried about, why I tried to push you out of training. The darkness will claim you,” Stated Torok stoically, folding his arms, “and the world will burn.”

“Then why train me at all?” She shouted, turning on him.

“Your father prevented it, against my warnings the council allowed your training. Their inability to see the truth will lead us to destruction, no matter your path.”

Before she could question Torok further, Amea Fae stepped into the chamber, “You need to show her everything Torok.”

“Amea,” Torok whined, placing his hand on his hips.

“No, Torok. Everything.” Amea rasped, pointing her finger at a cobalt-blue crystal on the wall. He pursed his lips and nodded in grudging agreement. Grabbing the crystal and placing it in the pedestal, a new image began to play about in the space above them.

This was nothing like the last, this time she saw a dark warrior that wasn’t her but another. A man, clad in a white mask and red cloak, wielding a black serrated cutlass. Like the vision before black wings dripping blood and radiating smoke were on his back.

Opposite him was a golden winged woman, she walked around the edge of the chamber to get a better look at the golden warrior. Again, she was drawn in by the eyes, the silver irises of this woman filled Keira with a feeling of warmth and peace. Unlike the brutal version from before, this future Keira was softer, filled with the power of light; but something was hidden behind the eyes, a strength of understanding that she couldn’t comprehend.

She didn’t understand that in both crystals the actors were wielding what looked like manifestations of pure darkness. And now, in the gilded version of her she was holding a blade made of light. What is this power? I’ve never seen anyone in the village that can do that, not even my father.

“Enough,” Torok said yanking out the crystal, “I will not be party to false hope.”

“It isn’t false hope at all Torok it is the future, one of many. Someday soon Keira will face a fundamental choice, to embrace the light or join the darkness.” Amea argued, Keira looked over at the aged Lumintari. Their eyes met in the dim chamber, “I have faith that she will make the right choice.”

“Well I am not so blind, no matter her choice, destruction will reign. I for one will do all I can to prevent it, it is my duty,” Torok’s caustic voice reverberated off the walls.

Amea took an unyielding step toward him, “But you are blind. Blinded by what her ancestor did to you. She deserves to know the real reason why you are so cruel. You cannot stop fate, we have discussed this.”

Keira felt her eyebrows furrow in puzzlement, as she silently observed the confrontation. Torok looked down in what she could only surmise was shame. “Your ancestor, who I will not name, took my ability to harness the light. Stripped me of my powers and left me broken by my dead comrades. But his cruelest punishment for my failure to kill him, was cursing me with agelessness. Forcing me to continue to live, without my light, without my soul. I can’t even take my own life to end my torment.”

Keira felt a ball form in her throat. As much as she hated the torture she had been put through, she couldn’t imagine what Torok had been through.

“Do you see now,” Torok continued, “I only wished to prevent this from coming true. To prevent you from becoming the Nightmare Without End.”

The Nightmare Without End, she thought. She knew the legend, everyone did, a great darkness that would consume the world and everyone in it. The embodiment of this darkness would be the herald of the Demon King and be known by the title the Nightmare Without End. While she didn’t like the brutality of Torok’s methods, what she had been through had made her stronger.

All she could muster with a trembling voice was, “I understand why. Without condemning or forgiving. I understand.”