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 he pulled himself to stand.
The priest looked him up, 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, only to realize it wasn't a stick. It was easily taller than him, perhaps five inches taller. Its brown exterior, giving him the misconception, was actually a scabbard. Its weight was nothing considerable but it fell from his hand the moment the priest released it.
He stared at it, perplexed, then 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 said in panic. "It just…"
The priest made an uncaring gesture. Then he pointed at the sword in the dirt and made another gesture. This one Seth interpreted quickly.
He reached for the weapon, grimacing when dirt got under his fingernails as he picked it up. Again, the weight of it 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 hand for the past day. 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, he tightened his grip around it and 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 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 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, then 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, 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'd 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? He 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 his draw arm. He ignored it as best his mind could, taking 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 bent, and lungs filled with a calm breath, he focused on a point in the air before him—a whisker of morning light he thought he could see—and drew.
The sword revealed a portion of its blue blade the length of his 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.
Since the priest had said nothing on his performance, he executed his next action quickly. He slid the blade back into its scabbard, and drew it almost immediately. The sword came free again and this time it revealed more of its blade than last.
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, abandoning technique for the superiority of power.
This time the sword didn't budge.
Quietly, he 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, smoothing it so it wouldn't be caught in anything. When he 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, and 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.
The priest did not spare him a glance, instead he turned his attention to the cane in mild puzzlement, raised it, then brought it down again.
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 panicking at the growing pain, dying where it wanted to live.
Then the world went black.
...............…..
When the boy had gone to stance, Jabari had strolled up to the nearest tree, cutting through the distance to pluck 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, he took to shaving its edges with one hand. Its purpose was to inflict pain not draw blood. And while he had enough resources for it, he didn't want to have to start changing the boy's clothes. That it had survived the accident with naught more than a puncture mark where the boy had been wounded was a good thing.
As he took to the task of forging his cane, he 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 he found himself wondering why the boy would discard what he'd learned just to do something stupid.
The task was impossible to accomplish. 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, that third draw had been stupidity camouflaging as creativity. So, emulating the technique of the reverends of the seminary, he swung the cane a few times, listening to the whistling sound it made as it cut through the air and spared the boy his undivided attention.
"In the seminary," he said, 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 it 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, and 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. He thought of Reverend Alphonsus, 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 him as he brought the cane down a second time.
The cane cracked through the distance, whipped into the boy's back in a savagery only displayed in the generosity of wood, and the boy fell unconscious.
Jabari sighed in barely withdrawn frustration. The boy had made no sound, again. The boy's slip into unconsciousness was a sign of victory, but the sound which Reverend Alphonsus lived for, a secret he kept to himself, only admitting in the secrecy of his privacy, was nowhere to be found.
Two strikes, and two failures.
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 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.
He doubted there was any 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, the part of the child's existence he was inclined to fix, before dismissing the notifications.
He then squatted beside Seth and stretched the boy's left arm out to the side. He studied it quietly for a few moments, then 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. Arm outstretched to the side, hand open, he 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. It was restless and chaotic in places, quiet and groggy in others.
Here it was the former. Thus, it came to his call slowly. First it struggled and he allowed it, like a mother to an infant refusing to eat. He coaxed it, gently inveigling his command over it. Outstretched, his hand remained open, but he kept his eyes focused on the arm before him, not really doing anything.
Slowly, ever so slowly, reality coalesced around his 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 his palm, growing 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 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 his 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 was fully formed, he 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, a massive cube of the same design as the handle with 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 and, with the absent attention of a master performing a task done countless times, tracking the cracks in the boy's arm, he brought it down. Then did it again.
Reia and reality shook at the action, and the world quaked with every blow.