The Ten Guardians: Sacrifice©
Chapter Two: The Scientific Method
“Well, well, well! Awake at last, and did you sleep alright?” a voice asked loudly.
Sparrow recognized the voice of the ever-curious Elder Jareth Bruno. Although the physical aging of magi was slowed as a side effect of their expertise, they all still had various stages of visible age. Jareth looked to be one of the younger Elders. His hair was all dark brown except for an unnatural streak of dark black on his right side. He had a ready smile and a kind heart but was too quizzical for Sparrow’s comfort. His kentor was the focus on the mind. Magic being a focus of the mind, his studies were a much-needed foundation for teaching students to use magic. Somewhere along his journey, he developed a curiosity for the unexplainable, and of course, that created an interest in Sparrow, the boy without a past found in a scorching desert without a scratch on him.
Jareth would often try to question Sparrow about his memory loss and his past, along with almost every instructor in the school. Sparrow cared little enough for their questions, let alone answering them, which he did as infrequently as possible. The attention made him uncomfortable.
Sparrow opened his eyes and found himself in the infirmary recovery room in one of the dozen beds lining the walls. He was wearing standard student pajamas, his clothing nowhere to be found. There was a chair and a small table at the foot of the bed with a glass of water on the table. The infirmary was used often enough yet appeared to be vacant beside the two of them.
In trying to reply, Sparrow let out a small croak. Jareth rushed towards him while summoning the glass of water from the table with the turn of his hands. Conjuring food and drink from nothing was impossible, but he could teleport small objects from somewhere nearby. A small wrinkle of concern was evident on his brow as he helped Sparrow to sit up and take a drink.
“Thank you, Elder Jareth. How long have I been asleep?” Sparrow said hoarsely.
Moving to a chair at the foot of the bed, he sat and paused a moment before responding with a shrug.
“Not so long as when they brought you in from the slave sellers, though we’re not supposed to speak of the incident. I assume the council’s concern is not with you and me discussing it but rather with the other students discussing it. The tendency to treat unexplainable phenomena with fear is often like an avalanche, slowly growing until it becomes unstoppable.” With a slight pause and a smile, he added, “Well, almost unstoppable.”
“Thank you for your concern, but the students already know I am a freak. Hiding it does little to stop me from feeling a subject of discussion,” Sparrow said.
“Ah, this is partially true. However, there is a world of difference between a rumor and a fact, and as great a difference in people’s reaction to them both.’ Besides, freaks are much scarier than you. Trust me,” Jareth said with a small smile.
“And yet an entire recovery room has been cleared for my benefit,” Sparrow whispered under his breath.
Jareth cocked his head to one side to indicate he had not heard what Sparrow had said, but Sparrow waved it away as if it was not important before changing the subject with a question.
“Am I well enough to return to my classes then?”
“Under normal circumstances, I would say ‘no.’ Someone randomly passing out for two days from reliving a simple memory spell would need mental evaluation, but my probing has only been met with boredom from both of us. Nothing with you seems to go according to plan anyway,” Jareth said.
Sparrow was about to ask what he meant by that last part when he realized that Jareth’s lips had not moved at the end. It must have been a mental thought that Jareth forgot to sensor. Sparrow changed the subject by requesting permission to return to his room to prepare for at least the evening classes.
“Yes, yes, of course, just one moment if you will,” he said while standing from his chair near the edge of the bed.
With a seemingly careless wave of his hand, Jareth formed an extremely complicated spell, and with a small snap of noise, a sliver of light formed in the center of the room about two paces wide and flat. Then another duplicate sliver appeared just above the first one. Waves of colors connected them. Even though it happened in the blink of an eye, Sparrow could follow the rapid movement of the two slivers as they twisted away from each other. They completed one full rotation before the bottom sliver came to rest on the room floor, and the top sliver hovered in the air, high enough for any living person to pass through. The sense of color that was between the slivers focused until it revealed Sparrow’s bedroom.
Through the single window in the room, the late afternoon sun was splashing light on a plain but comfortable single bed. The only other piece of furniture in the room was a bare study desk with an armchair. A single log was burning in the small fireplace, but that wasn’t surprising to Sparrow. A single log was always burning in the fireplace. The flame almost completely disappeared during the warm parts of the day and flared to life when it cooled off at night. It never needed more firewood, and there was never any ash. The mantelpiece and walls were plain as the day he arrived at the school.
Sparrow secretly hoped that Jareth would open a gateway for him, but he succeeded in keeping his excitement from showing. He thanked Jareth, who waved it away without a word as he walked out the door. Just before the door shut behind him, he leaned back into the room.
“Better hurry. That might look easy, but I give it about thirty more seconds before it shuts on you. I’m not as young as I look,” and then he closed the door.
While getting out of bed, Sparrow noticed white slippers by his bedside made of simple leather with a layer of soft material inside. Slipping them on, he walked to the doorway of lights and colors to get a closer look at his new source of study.
Sparrow found the spells he learned with his peers to be far too easy or completely impossible to cast. In his monthly interview with one of the High Elders, he was advised to find his way to make the spells work. The instructor said to use magical words, gestures, or various ways of mental focus to complete spells, but different combinations of these methods can work better for different people. Sometimes a nontraditional method can work when a traditional one fails.
He was sure the High Elder did not intend for him to use magic without supervision, which was prohibited for entry-level ‘Sparrow’ students, but he found the best way for him to learn how to do a spell was to take it apart and put it back together again. Depending on the spell, there were different access points to begin studying before he could unravel it. The more advanced the spell, the more difficult it was to find those access points. He had never studied such a high-level spell before, but he was excited at the chance to try. At least it was more exciting than floating candles in the air.
Sparrow noticed that the image of his bedroom was slowly starting to blur, the colors melting into each other like it was made of hot wax, and the slivers of white on the top and bottom flickered with their fading power. The thought of walking to his bedroom from the infirmary in his pajamas made him hurry through the image, and he found himself in his room. He turned around to see the image on the other side but was surprised to find there wasn’t one. The rapidly flickering slivers of light were at the top and bottom as on the other side, but everything in between was gray.
“He did that on purpose!” Sparrow exclaimed out loud with frustration. It was a one-direction gate, and he could see it only had a few seconds left before the whole thing disappeared.
Quickly Sparrow entered dai schen, which meant the gift in the old tongue. Upon entering the school, his first lesson was how one could enter or embrace a harmony of body and mind which would allow magi to see and use the magical properties of the arcane. The basic understanding was that calm and purpose were needed to use magic properly, while haste and negative emotions could hinder your abilities.
Not every school called it dai schen, but it was a well-known concept among arcane users regardless of race, gender, species, or culture. The ironic thing about dai schen was that Sparrow could achieve it at any time as if it was already a part of him, even when he couldn’t get the spells he was taught to work.
He always felt embarrassed when others in a classroom could do something simple with magic, and he struggled with it. More embarrassing still was when he set fire to a desk while trying to light a candle. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get the fire to go out. Then the instructor couldn’t dose the flames either because Sparrow was still channeling the spell and was obviously far stronger in magic. That was the first time Jareth had to intervene on Sparrow’s behalf, and he had been interested in the boy ever since.
Sparrow knew he had very little time, so he cast the first spell he ever recalled casting; he slowed down time. He found this spell easy to cast but knew little about it. He had no idea how far the spell’s effects went, whether just this room, the castle, or the entire city. He also could not physically move faster than anyone else when he cast this spell, but his mental state always remained unaltered, at least so far as he knew.
The only thing he was certain of was magic could be sensed by those who know what it feels like, and the Elders and High Elders definitely knew how to sense magic. Yet his memory trance had confirmed that no one had ever noticed this specific spell. He could mask the spell without knowing he was doing so for some reason.
With time slowed, Sparrow could focus on the task at hand, but he still had little time to do what needed to be done. Launching his consciousness towards the sliver, he started at the bottom near the floor, then slowly rotated to the side of the sliver, looking at the fibers of the spell as he moved along them. He needed to find the access point, the final knot which held it all together, the blemish of the spell … but everything was smooth. He searched along its entire surface, looking beyond what any normal human eye could see. He then moved to the top sliver, searching from one end to the other.
During his search for the access point, his body’s senses were heightened. It was always like this when he was studying a spell. He could feel the cool autumn air coming off the closed window at that moment. He could sense the firmness of the floor threw his slippers and even hear the pulsing of the flickering slivers of the spell. Sparrow suddenly realized that he could actually hear the spell! That had never happened with any other spell that he had studied. Sparrow focused on the sound and listened as hard as he could. Within the pulsing was the smallest fraction of a sound that didn’t fit with the rest of it. He plunged into it and rejoiced at finding his access point! As soon as he opened the seal by entering the access point, the slivers of light stopped pulsing and became a steady glow again.
Instantly he could see the framework of the spell, how fibers were laid down one on top of the other to form a complete whole. He had no idea the fibers could stay complete and smooth with the closing access point embedded in the sound emitted from the spell. His entire focus was on unraveling the fibers, committing each to memory. The speed of the mind, coupled with time being slowed, made the process go very quickly, and in just a few moments, he had the layout of the spell in his memory.
Technically the spell was still the same spell that Jareth had cast. He had just taken it apart. Now he needed to put it back together correctly. He started by going backward, reforming the entire spell, including the sound, until he had finished reconstructing it. He knew he could hold the spell open, but using magic is much the same as using your physical body, so he would eventually get tired. Instead of holding the spell open, he could create a seal that would hold the spell open for him. There were different levels of seals he could use, and the stronger the seal, the longer it would stay open.
Holding this strong of a spell open would drain him fast, but sealing it in its current state would profit him nothing since it doesn’t go anywhere. He had to be able to change it before he would be willing to close it. He decided to do something simple; he just wanted it to become a two-directional gate instead of the single-directional gate he had come through.
While holding the spell open, he thought of the infirmary recovery room he had been in a moment ago. Nothing happened at first, but he could sense the spell wanting more information from him … not more information, but different information. Instead of picturing the infirmary in his mind, he thought of what it would look like if he looked at it through the gate, but there was no change.
Sparrow could sense beads of sweat on his forehead, and his legs were beginning to tremble, and he realized that time was back to normal. He did not know when the time spell had collapsed or how long he had been studying the fibers of the spell, but he knew he didn’t have much strength left to hold the spell open. He would miss class again, but another demerit was inconsequential compared to what he was learning at the moment.
Sparrow decided to imagine the infirmary with himself in the room. The slivers immediately did a single twist until they met in the middle, making a small noise like someone snapping their fingers when they touched. Then with another small snap, the slivers reversed their twist until they were again above and below an opening that showed the infirmary as its destination.
“I did it!” Sparrow exclaimed with a wide grin on his face while inspecting his handiwork.
He had altered the spell to go in two directions, but now it was time for the real test. Could he cast the spell from scratch?
The only seals Sparrow had learned from his classes were basic and short-lived. They lasted long enough on simple spells like keeping candles lit, but applying those seals to an advanced spell would be pointless as the spell would only last a few seconds. He did not want to keep it open anyway, so he simply released the spell without sealing it, and the slivers of light twisted towards each other and blinked out. He was so excited to try his new spell out that he did not think about where he wanted to go. He simply began casting the spell.
As he laid the foundation for the spell, he felt an image forced into his mind. It wasn’t a sudden thought that had popped into his head that he could ignore by thinking or focusing on something else. It was as if the image was being forced to the forefront of his thoughts. The image was of a massive meadow surrounded by a lush forest that flowed to the base of a mountain on the far side of the meadow.
As Sparrow took in the image, he became dimly aware of the increased magic flowing through him. He was casting the same spell as before, but it felt ramped up in power. He was so distracted by these bizarre involuntary occurrences that he finished casting the spell before he had time to process what was happening.
A solid blue bar with a sickly black aura appeared in the middle of the room, high in the air, and it was easily three times the width of the previous gate. The black aura pulled in the colors of the room, sucking the light of the fire, turning the room a sickly gray hue. Sparrow knew something was horribly wrong with the spell, but his curiosity at what he had cast was strong enough to convince him to see it through.
I could always just cancel the spell anyway, he thought to himself.
A second bar identical to the first appeared above it, just like last time, but he still did not understand why they were so far in the air. The ceiling was ten feet in the air, so he was not concerned about the gate damaging it when it opened, but how would he reach the gate?
In a flash, his concern for reaching the gate vanished. The gate did not do what he expected it to do by making a small snapping noise as it opened. A tremendous crashing BOOM emitted from the center of the two bars, so powerful that the bars themselves quivered, and he had to take a step back from the blow. In one fluid motion, the blue bars began to twist apart, simultaneously opening a gate while twisting from horizontal to vertical. In doing this, the left bar almost touched the far wall, while the right bar silently cut his bed into two pieces.
Within the two giant bars that had created the gate was the same image that had been forced into Sparrow’s mind, except this was the real thing. He could smell the pollen from the wildflowers leaning into the room just at the bottom of the gate and feel the cool air flowing into the room. The sun was shining enough light to see the landscape plainly, but darkness would soon take over the daily watch.
While staring at the beautiful display of nature before him, Sparrow noticed movement to the right as a body separated itself from a nearby tree. The creature was very thin and was covered with a short layer of brown fur with a red patch on its chest in the shape of a teardrop. Although it was standing upright like a man, Sparrow gathered from how its knees were permanently bent that the creature was comfortable squatting for long periods. The creature’s face was shaped like a dog’s, with a protruding snout, dark round eyes, and pointed ears.
A green leather strap across its chest held a pouch at the creature’s hip, and the same sash held a double-sided spear on its back. There were glowing red and blue symbols Sparrow recognized as complex runes covering the weapon. Runes were part of a magical alphabet, and like languages, they required no seal to keep them active, but also, like languages, they required words and sentence structure to have meaning or power. The spike on either end of the spear was unique. One side of the spike was sharp, like the blade of a dagger. The other side of the spearhead was a crescent moon axe blade. The weapon was identical on both ends but with the blades reversed for balance.
With a toothy grimace, the creature said “finally” under its breath and began walking towards the gate. Sparrow was unsure what language it had spoken in or how he had understood it.
With a start, Sparrow realized he needed to close the gate! He reached out toward the gate with his mind but quickly realized he didn’t know where to begin. The gate was an entirely different spell from what he had cast before, even though he knew what he had done differently from the last spell. He frantically searched for the access point in the sound emitted from the gate as the creature unhurriedly advanced toward him.
It was about ten paces from Sparrow and five from the gate when it suddenly paused. As he studied its expression, he realized it was gazing past his shoulder, so he turned around to find his bedroom full of magi. All seven high council members were present in their white robes, and there were several additional magi who Sparrow did not recognize with cowls over their faces.
Turning back to the creature, Sparrow saw what appeared to be a calculating look on its face. He was wondering why when it hit him like a slap in the face. The creature was considering whether it could fight so many magi. If Sparrow wasn’t afraid before, he most certainly was now. Surely it could not win such a battle, but perhaps sacrificing itself to achieve its goal, whatever that may be, was worth the risk. The creature made its decision and pulled the weapon from its back with a look of determination on its face.
Sparrow then heard an urgent voice from behind him quickly whisper, “Sparrow. Slow down time, but only on that side of the gate. Imagine there’s a door you can shut hovering over the gate.”
He thought it was Jareth’s voice, but he was too stunned to turn around and find out. He had never done anything like that before but did as instructed by imagining the gate as an open door. He then threw the time-slowing spell at the creature before closing the door he had created in his mind.
It worked! The creature was moving so slowly it was almost like it wasn’t moving at all, but Sparrow could still move around normally. His excitement was interrupted as he was violently swirled around, and powerful hands grabbed him by the front of his robes and pulled him into the face of Jareth.
“Did you copy my spell exactly or add something to it? Quickly boy! Answer me!”
To his surprise, Sparrow found that his eyes had started to water, and his lower lip quivered slightly. He had never cried before in his memory. He had seen it in his peers but never felt what it was like for himself. He wanted to crawl into a hole and hide his face, but Jareth held him fast.
“Answer me before it kills someone!” he shouted.
“I cast it the same way I had taken it apart, but at the end, I was distracted by a picture of that meadow. I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and then suddenly, I felt this surge of magic within me, but I don’t know what it was or if it added anything. I didn’t mean to add anything! I don’t know what happened … I’m sor-” Sparrow said with an emotional voice.
Jareth quickly but gently cut Sparrow off.
“We don’t have time for this.”
Jareth shook his head once as if to refocus himself, turned to one of the Council members to give him a nod, and stepped through the gate. Sparrow recognized the man as High Elder Marcus, the same man who had asked him to relive his memory of the time he had found him. Marcus raised his hand towards Jareth as if to stop him, but it was too late. A glowing Jareth was already through the gate.
As soon as he touched the gate by stepping through it, the glow from Jareth reached out to the gate, and the color of the sickly bars changed to silver. The bars on either side of the room rotated quickly until they held steady above and below the gate, and the dark aura disappeared entirely. In stepping through the gate Jareth had also stepped into Sparrow’s slowed time spell, but to his surprise, Jareth moved fluidly while the creature still moved in slow motion. Since Sparrow had cast the time spell, the creature had only taken half a step.
Jareth approached the creature and stretched out his hand to its chest. Although Jareth’s body covered what he was doing, Sparrow could still see his arm tracing something as he chanted under his breath. He dropped his arm to his side, turned around, and walked back towards the gate, his expression unreadable.
Sparrow noticed the creature had a glowing symbol on its chest, but it wasn’t a rune, like the writing on the creature’s weapon. This looked more like hundreds of white circles the size of a man’s head, all laid on top of one another in a mindless scrawl. Jutting just below the bottom of the circles was a single white line etched back and forth a few times before ending suddenly. This last line reminded Sparrow of a signature on a document, and he had no idea what any of it meant.
As soon as Jareth returned through the gate into Sparrow’s bedroom, he waved his hand, and the time-slowing spell collapsed, letting the creature move at normal speed again. To Sparrow’s surprise, the creature had halted its advance toward them. There was intense hatred smoldering in its eyes as it stared at Jareth. It then savagely howled in rage and slashed at a nearby tree. The blade cut from right to left clean through half of the tree. The creature then placed its weapon on its back before squatting down on its oddly bent knees and glowered at Jareth in defiance. With a low growl, the creature turned its gaze away from them.
“Very well, another day then,” Jareth muttered under his breath as he waved his hand, causing the light slivers to twist towards each other to close the gate.
Turning to face the group of Elders, Sparrow found only Marcus and Jareth in the room. The other council members and cowled magi had all disappeared somehow. Sparrow was unsure if they had actually been there or were just projections of themselves as a deception.
Before he could explore that theory, High Elder Marcus interrupted his thoughts.
“Young man, before we go any further in resolving what happened here today, we must know your given name.”
Sparrow opened his mouth to inform the High Elder that he did not know his name, but he was abruptly cut off before he could get a single word out.
“I did not ask for your opinion on the matter! We have indulged your experimental studies, catered to your social ignorance, and turned a blind eye to your prideful disregard for our policies! Regardless of your memory loss, to protect you and us … we must know your name.”
He turned to Jareth.
“You have two hours to prepare him…” after a slight pause, and a small look of concern at Jareth, he said, “My apologies, Jareth. We better make it tomorrow morning so you can recover from your sacrifice. When task is complete, we will meet you both in the reception hall.”
Marcus Squeezed Jareth’s arm in encouragement, left the room, and closed the door behind him.
Sparrow heard something heavy fall to the ground as soon as the door closed. He whirled around to find Jareth kneeling on the floor, a hand on his chest and a look of pain on his face. Sparrow ran towards the door shouting for help, when Jareth’s pain-ridden voice interrupted him.
“Stop, Sparrow! I’ll be fine in a moment. Purging your portal and canceling your time spell was … quite draining. Just … come help me to my feet.”
Sparrow did as he was asked and helped Jareth to the only piece of furniture beside the destroyed bed; the desk and chair in the corner. As soon as he sat down, Sparrow had to whirl around again as someone knocked heavily on the door. Jareth placed a hand on Sparrow’s shoulder.
“It’s just the staff. One moment please.” He straightened his back and carefully controlled his face until it appeared that he was in no pain. “Let them in,” he stiffly commanded, as if fighting to maintain his composure.
Sparrow complied with his request and opened the door to allow a stream of individuals into the room. There were three maids, one from the kitchen holding a tray of food and two carrying enough blankets and pillows for two beds. The maids were followed by four men bringing in a new bed. The maid from the kitchen set a tray of food on the desk by Jareth before she left to attend to other duties. The tray had two servings of some kind of roasted bird, some vegetables, and two empty glasses with a pitcher of milk.
The bed took a few trips to finish. They first brought in the frame and put it together, then left and returned with a large, stuffed mattress and, surprisingly, a cot. As soon as the four men had finished their construction, they exited the room with the broken bed pieces. The maids quickly made the bed and cot, and in the space of just a few minutes, his bedroom looked like nothing had happened besides the addition of a cot.
“Are you staying here then?” Sparrow asked cautiously.
Jareth ignored him as he removed his sandals and outer robe, placing the sandals under the edge of the bed and the outer robe on the back of the chair. Wearing just his underrobe, he finally turned to Sparrow.
“You are not allowed to be alone until after the ceremony tomorrow. The door was sealed from the outside by one of the council members. This way, you won’t be able to see the spell to … study it. No gates will work either, so don’t try it,” he said wearily.
With a yawn, Jareth crawled into the bed.
“I know you have questions, and I promise you I will answer them all in the morning, but for now, I must rest,” he said while rolling away from Sparrow and covering himself with the blankets.
Sparrow looked out of the window and, to his surprise, found the sun was just about to disappear over the horizon, giving way to the chill of the desert night. He had studied that spell for almost four hours, missing his evening classes and supper. With this thought, his stomach remembered the food tray on the desk, and he helped himself to the entire tray. As he finished the meal by draining the milk container, he was amazed to find his stomach still growling with hunger! The tray was intended for two people and contained more food than he could normally eat, but he felt empty inside, as if he had never eaten.
A karrie stem and leaf was on the tray, so he placed this in my mouth and started to chew. He didn’t know whether it was made naturally or enhanced with some form of botanical magic, but the plant was perfectly designed for cleaning teeth. The leaves were dense with fibers that separated themselves from hard surfaces like a tooth but with a tight fit that scraped the tooth as it was forced through the leaf. The fibers clung to whatever food particles it removed from your teeth and was digestible, leaving it safe to swallow when finished.
He was still wearing his pajama robes from the infirmary, so he placed the used karrie stem on the tray and crawled into his cot by the fire. The city was on the edge of a desert, so the night air was normally quite cool, and the fireplace warmth was a welcome addition.
I had such a bad day, he thought to himself.
He knew his tendency to push against authority was proving to be more of a curse than anything else. He never intended to cause harm in his exploration. He just wanted to learn more about magic to hopefully fill in the gaps in his past. He felt an overwhelming sense of guilt. It never even occurred to him to try to open the door and escape the horrible fate he was sure he rightfully deserved.
He had been frustrated since his earliest memory when he was found in the desert six months ago. This frustration had indeed built a prideful sense of entitlement in him, as the High Elder Marcus had pointedly said. Sparrow realized that he had assumed the rules and regulations placed on him were attempts at control, at forcing him to do things. He had felt different and out of place by special treatment, such as his own room, looking at it as charitable coddling instead of attempting to make him feel more comfortable with his fractured existence. He realized they had been for his betterment, and when viewed in the proper context, they were great privileges that he had scorned. He did not know what to do about it, but he resolved to do his best to be more patient and more grateful to those trying to help him.
The desire for sleep was not on his mind, but his body overpowered his thoughts, bringing with it those dreaded nightmares he thought he had been rid of.