Virgil squared off against Hunter. They faced each other from twenty feet apart. With the kebaac, Hunter sensed sound waves pulsating off of objects around him. He let his eyes roll back into his head and he felt his surroundings. He sensed his mentor’s presence in three places. The old wizard had created doppelgangers of himself. Hunter knew the body doubles were not real, but they felt real. When they hit him, the pain was real enough. One doppelganger was behind a column to his left and one was to his right. Hunter breathed heavily. His whole body ached. His ribs were bruised and his left eye was swollen.

“You have to be kidding me.” Hunter muttered to himself.

“Do not give up now, novitiate.” The monk said in an annoyingly tireless voice.

Virgil was still as sprightly as he was when they had started early that morning. Hunter, on the other hand, felt not only exhausted, but also injured. The monk never allowed Hunter to stop or take a break. Luckily, Hunter did not know how to quit.

“Watch me!” Hunter shouted through gasps of air.

With that, Hunter pulled knives from the straps around his chest and threw them. After the first one left his hand, he reached across his body and with a single, fluid motion yanked the Damascus Steel boomerang from his waistband and hurled it into the air. As the second knife left his other hand, he did the same with the second boomerang.

Without hesitation, the monk spun his staff. The staff deflected both knives, but missed the boomerangs. The boomerangs continued on their wide-angled course. Meanwhile, Hunter had taken new knives from his chest straps and hurled them. Virgil continued twirling the staff with practiced dexterity and easily deflected both. Hunter then charged forward. As he ran, he drew dual swords from the sheathes criss-crossing his back. He let out a primal yell.

As Hunter charged, Virgil’s doppelgangers sprung from cover. Each lifted a long bow and prepared to fire blunt arrowheads. In the instant before they released their bowstrings, however, a patterned-steel boomerang blade ripped through their necks. The shadowy forms exploded into dust. The boomerangs landed in the columns and stuck there buried deep in the rock.

As Hunter reached his mentor, a long, heated battle of swords and staff ensued. Meanwhile, Tiyana had grown tired of watching. Hongo was cleaning his gun. While Hunter’s, Hongo’s, and Virgil’s attentions were otherwise engaged, Tiyana snuck out onto the training field. The columns provided good cover for her as she ran from one to another in an effort to get close to the action.

“Boys will be boys, I suppose.” She muttered to herself as she watched Hunter and Virgil spar.

Tiyana eventually reached a column where one of Hunter’s boomerangs had landed. She felt the grass below the boomerang with her fingertips. She gently explored the area. The dirt beneath the grass was brown. Directly beneath the boomerang, in the intersticies of the blades, she found traces of chalky dust. The amount that she found seemed to evaporate into mist before her eyes. In five minuets it would be gone. Tiyana quickly scooped a thimbleful into a thin glass vial. She sealed it airtight. She would take it to a laboratory later and see what she could find out about the Delphic monk and the cryptic dust.

“Finish me!” Virgil shouted.

Hunter had disarmed him and pinned him against the floor with a sword pointed at his chest. Hunter hesitated before landing a final killing blow. He knew that the man underneath his feet was not real and would fade into dust, but he had trouble bringing himself to feel comfortable killing even illusions of living beings.

The illusory monk grabbed the sword with his bare hand. Blood streamed from the deep laceration that quickly formed. He threw the sword aside, brought his knees up towards his chest, and kicked upward. The kick landed squarely on Hunter’s jaw. The kick felt real enough. Hunter’s head snapped back. Pangs of pain exploded inside his head. In a rage, Hunter tapped his forehead to activate the kebaac. As he fell to the ground he drew his Bowie knife from its ankle-sheath. Virgil pounced on him as he fell, but Hunter anticipated the move and drove the large dagger into the monk’s stomach. The façade exploded into dust.

“Good Hunter. Make it a general rule to never hesitate. If you pay Ghaelvord that courtesy, he certainly will not return it. Furthermore, he may anticipate your hesitation and use it against you. He did not win battles through skill alone. He uses guile and deception.” Virgil said.

Then Virgil strode casually, but stoically into the clearing and studied Hunter. Hunter lay on the ground breathing heavily and squinting with his bruised eye. Virgil looked up at the sky, and then looked back down at Hunter.

Then he said, “The sun has set. Our day has ended. Excellent work. I cannot call you a novitiate for long.”

Hunter struggled to his feet and tried to catch his breath.

“You need to heal. You took an impressive amount of damage today. Do not worry, though. It will get better. This will be the worst day.” Said Virgil.

Virgil went on, “Hunter, touch your middle and index fingers to your forehead.

Center your mind. Feel the cosmic connection, and then sever it. It will eventually become second nature to you, turning it off and on. For now, think about nothing, but thought itself. Probe your mind’s eye with your consciousness. See the connection. Feel the connection. Let it go like a captured butterfly or a dammed river or a capped geyser.”

Through gasps, Hunter closed his eyes and concentrated. He was exhausted and lightheaded. He felt the connection. He felt the vibrating cords and the fullness of himself. He felt his forehead attached to a metaphysical rubber band extending out into the sky and beyond into the vastness of space. The band felt as beaten up as his body. That morning, the connection had been solid. Now, it was tenuous. He brushed it away with his mind. It gave way easily, like a cobweb. The band snapped back into space.

Meanwhile, Tiyana and Hongo watched. They had heard Virgil’s closing words and walked out onto the field. They saw a flash of light. Hunter crumbled to the ground. As he fell, a deep reverberation filled their ears. They felt a tremor as a beam like lightning erupted from the ground where Hunter stood and escaped up into the clouds and beyond. Hunter’s gargantuan form shrunk. Finally, they saw Hunter lying prone on the ground. The large robe covered him.

As he propped himself up on his elbows he said, “Am I alive? Tiyana, dear, what in the world have I gotten into?”

She ran to him and embraced him. She felt absolutely exuberant to see him back as the Hunter that she knew and married. His eye had healed and the horrific black and blue bruise on his ribs had vanished. He still breathed heavily and still felt physically spent, but was otherwise back to his old human self.