Gift of Gold (The Year of Churning Bloods) (25 page)

I nodded and absentmindedly began picking at the pimple under my nose.

“Good,” the professor said before opening a small box at the front of the room. “In one hand, I have a small pebble. In the other, I have a lump of iron which is a smaller, but about the same mass. I will give you one of each, and it will be your job to try and mimic the pebble so that it’s exactly like the iron.” As he said this, the professor circled us and placed a bit of sandstone and metal on each of our desks.

I watched for a moment as each of the trainees focused in on the task. A few of the pebbles in the classroom began to rock on the spot slightly, but aside from that, nothing really seemed to happen. I bore my focus on the objects in front of me, and experimentally, let out a small trickle of anti-magic. A small section of the rock shone suddenly, causing me to lose concentration. I fell back in my chair a little and took a couple of heavy breaths.

“Stay focused,” Umber criticized sharply. “You get distracted too easily.

“Funny, considering you’re the one who’s distracting me. Shut up,” I growled, pressing my hand into my forehead. Taking one last breath, I tensed every muscle in my neck and stared at the rock until I was seeing stars.

“Hey, not so hard!” Umber warned over my pounding heart. “If you use that much energy you’re going to get us hurt.”

“I need to.” I replied, gasping for air. “It’s the only way.”

“No it’s not,” Umber insisted. “Just work slowly, and you’ll do it without killing yourself.”

I sighed and reluctantly followed Umber’s instructions. After ten seconds, the rock began to glimmer very slightly. I watched in fascination as the metallic bit slowly enveloped the rest of the stone until it had taken the entire shape, colour and weight of the iron.

The professor, who’d been quietly watching the entire class, walked to my desk and picked up the two pieces of metal. He inspected them for faults, at one point holding them right up to his eyes. After a few moments, the professor clasped his hands together and beamed.

“Well done Jacob!”

The other trainees stared at me with something close to reverence as I quietly released my grip of anti-magic.
              “How did you do that?” Sebastian asked as if I could have cheated.

I didn’t say anything. I only shrugged and smiled modestly.

***

Time did pass, and more quickly than I expected. The days melted by into weeks and the weeks melted by into almost a whole month, where during this time I trained, ate and tried not to worry about the competition or the other part of the professor's plan. Every day I sank into the library, trying to find out what I could about dangerous beasts, but it was just like the librarian said though. The shelves had been picked clean. Each day I fretted more and more, and each day Umber said I that was just being stupid.

“Look at you clinging to those books of yours. Pathetic,” he said to me one day.

“How’s it pathetic?” I asked, quickly turning away from him. “I’m protecting us aren’t I?”
              “You don’t think that we can do it,” Umber replied in his matter-of-fact way. “You’re think we can only survive if we know absolutely anything.”

             
“It would definitely help,” I mumbled, leaning back in my seat and staring up to the top of the domed library.
              “You killed the Himathor. You didn’t know anything about that,” Umber protested, effortlessly swimming into my line of sight.
              “I actually did,” I confessed before nearly walking head first into a wall. I shook my head slightly and continued to sort through books.

“Did you now?” Umber asked, swelling up slightly as he prepared to gloat. “I suppose the fact that you walked out of that tent and far away from camp was just a ruse to fool me. After all, you did know about the Himathor.”
              “Alright fine, I was lucky to be survive,” I conceded, angrily burying my face into my arms. “I was lucky to survive drinking a dragon soul, I was lucky to survive falling off that cliff and I was lucky not to bleed to death when the himathor mauled me. Do you want to know something though Umber? I’m actually getting tired of all this chance. I want to survive because I was able to plan it out beforehand. If you didn’t want me to study, what would you have me do instead?”
              Umber didn’t say anything for a while but seemed to darken like the clouds before a long rain. “Alright. If it’s endless study you want, it’s endless study you’ll get. Don’t say I didn’t try to talk you out of it.”

“You’re just saying that because you know I’m right,” I replied, using the heel of my hand to cover my smug grin.
              “You’re lucky I can’t touch you,” he growled, bitterly edging closer as if he wanted to try. “I would have killed you the day you met me.”
              “You almost did, remember?” I reminded him, shivering at the memory.

“Oh yeah,” Umber said in a strangely cheerful voice. “Don’t think I can’t do that again mortal,” he added in a sinister voice before fading out of view entirely.

***

It was a nice morning, cold enough to enjoy but not to feel uncomfortable. I was on my way to Magical Identification, unaware that something would happen that would change a small part of my life forever. I walked into the classroom and stopped, struck dumb by the smell of cold flesh and rubbing alcohol. Everyone in the class was gathered around a large table in the center of the room, some craning their necks like vultures. At first, I didn’t understand what I was looking at. There was something fleshy and white lying on the table being cut open with a thick knife that the teacher held.

“It’s a man,” I whispered, but even as I said it, I knew I was wrong. This thing had a rounder shape. I looked down at the genitals and felt my lower half squirm with discomfort. There was nothing there but stringy black hair, piled up onto itself like mold on bread. Torn between horror, disgust and morbid curiosity, I automatically moved forward. Her shallow, blood soaked breasts reached upward like the woman was in mid breath. I glazed over her coin sized nipples and felt my own prickle up. What was I supposed to feel from looking at this? What was supposed to happen?

              When I finally looked at the creature’s face, I noticed that she was looking back at me, eyes half open from heavy bruises. I could have said that she looked tortured but somehow, it was so much worse than that. The woman looked humiliated. I slipped out of the classroom before anyone noticed me and vomited in the flower beds outside. I would get in terrible trouble for skipping class, but that really didn’t matter at the moment.

That was the first woman I ever saw naked. She was dead, bloody, cut open and beaten up, yet despite myself I couldn’t help but feel some sort of twisted sense of excitement. I felt like I had grown up a little bit more and I hated myself for it. Days later it occurred to me that the woman was a mage and this surprised me. She looked like someone you might have seen on the streets outside. I don’t know why but I expected mages to be bigger. She didn’t look like someone who could kill you. She didn’t even look like someone who would
want
to kill you. She had a gentle face with a mouth that looked like it was good at smiling.

Umber went a bit quieter after what we saw. For a couple of days after he only asked brief questions and never started any long conversations. Umber didn’t look sad or distressed but his colour seemed to bleach a little, like paint left out in the sun for too long. He liked to tease me about a lot of things, yet he never ever brought up that moment.

After a long time I began to forget what the woman looked like, even the details on her face. The one thing that really stuck with me was the smell. It was like rusty metal and rotten meat and blood and alcohol. I never forgot that smell.

***

The only lessons I ever really liked were the distortion classes. As strange as it sounds, it almost felt like a family to me. Yet out of nowhere, Professor Wenchenberg’s health began to fall alarmingly quick. During the course of one month, his office grew to be in shambles. Windows were kept open during snowstorms, the fire was never lit, papers were scattered everywhere, and swampy pools of wax gathered as his candles slowly burned out. The professor always seemed just as happy to see me, but this happiness was clouded up somehow.

I was honestly scared for him but no matter how many times I asked, Professor Wenchenberg would always say the same thing. “I’m getting old Jacob and I’ve found that age can be quite an unhealthy thing sometimes.”

“
Well, tell me what to do!” I shouted, suddenly losing patience. “You need to get better and I can help you!”

“Your enthusiasm is refreshing but you need to know that I’m quite old. And with age, comes a great amount of regret,” the professor said, leaning back in his desk chair. He looked more frail than I ever remembered seeing him.

“You’re not
that
old!” I insisted, covering his shivering body up with a blanket. “You’ve still got black in your hair! You can still walk for crying out loud!”

The professor laughed weakly. “I appreciate the flattery but I’m far older than I look. I could tell you exactly how old and you wouldn’t believe me.” He laughed again, but I didn’t join in.

I decided that the least that I could do was clean his office up for him. I sorted his books, I arranged his papers and I scrubbed every inch of his tabletops with warm soapy water. I made a fire with the freshly cleaned fireplace and helped move the professor into a chair right beside it.

“Thank you,” he said before holding out a thick book.

“What’s this?” I asked, taking it with both hands.

“Oh just some reading material. I heard they were all out of these at the library and I thought you might like one for yourself.”

I glanced down at the cover and felt my heart skip a beat. The cover read, “
A lovely guide to the biters
” By D. Seased. “Thank you very much sir,” I gushed, immediately opening it up. A moment later, I thought better of it and looked up to the professor. “Do you mind if I read it here?”

              “Not at all!” Wenchenberg replied as if this was the stupidest question he’d ever heard. “If I didn’t want you reading, I wouldn’t have given you the book.”

              I bowed again and took a seat opposite him, where I could lay the open book across my entire lap. I was flipping through it when I noticed one of the pages was marked with a single bit of ribbon. I looked up at Umber and cocked my head to one side. “You don’t think this ribbon could mean anything special do you?” I asked eagerly.

              “It’s just ribbon,” Umber said blandly.

“No but, what if this is the professor’s way of helping me?”

              Umber looked down at the book and then up to me with exhausted disbelief.

“Yes it makes sense!” I continued proudly. “The professor must have deliberately marked this page so that I would know what I’m facing in the first part of my competition!”

Umber seemed unfazed by this explanation. “Mortal, maybe you’re right and this is all one big secret message. More likely than not, this ribbon just happened to be there by chance.”

“But it could be a hint!” I protested quickly.

“I’m not saying you shouldn’t take hints. I’m saying you shouldn’t depend on them. What does the page marked say anyways?” He asked, hovering above the text. To answer his question, I began reading.

“Magmots

Magmots are worm like creatures whose internal body temperature can melt most metal. They do this by jiggling pebbles in their stomachs fast enough to turn it molten. The molten rock is their primary form of defence, however it can also be used to keep other Magmots warm. They nest under naturally occurring springs of water in the mountains. A casual observer might mistake a Magmot habitat for a regular hot spring.

Magmots are the larvae form of the Pilford dagger beetle, which unlike it’s pre-maternal state tend to be peaceful. The Magmot eats just about anything that moves, but is also partial to a wide variety of lakeside mosses and hotwater crustaceans. It must be noted they eat a lot. Magmots can range in size from six to 12 centimeters. Approaching them unprotected is highly dangerous, however that doesn’t stop many blacksmiths from keeping them as pets to help smelt things around the forge.