The Onyx Vial (Shadows of The Nine Book 1) (10 page)

The tree huffed. “Fine.”

The limbs shrank into the shape of arms. The leaves shriveled and curled—turning black, as though under the breath of fire—and became hairs. The trunk widened and split, the bark loosened and stretched. In seconds the tree was an angular, dark haired man dressed in brown pants and a white shirt peeking out from beneath a vivid green cardigan, its sleeves rolled to the elbows.

A flicker of recognition passed over the man’s face. Then it was gone. “Hello, Hunter,” he said, with a smile that resembled a wince. “I apologize for taking so long to finally meet you. My name is Bardoc.”

Hunter nodded. His voice had fallen down the stairs.

Bardoc Edan’s long, thin fingers squeezed Hunter’s shoulder. “Thank you for showing him the way, Tehya, my leaf,” Bardoc said, not taking his eyes from Hunter’s face as he pulled him into the room. “And for ruining my fun,” he added in a low whisper.

              “I heard that,” Tehya said.

              Bardoc
tsk
ed. “I so hate to be overheard.” He winked at Hunter and gave him another painful looking smile.

              Tehya smirked as she closed the door behind her. Hunter’s eyes lingered after her until Bardoc released his shoulder.

“I hear you’re new to this world,” he said. "I am sure you are feeling overwhelmed trying to familiarize yourself."

              “That’s an understatement,” Hunter murmured. None of Grandpa's stories ever mentioned a man turning himself into a tree.

              Bardoc clapped a hand on Hunter’s back and bent to meet his gaze. “Like Tehya,” he said, “I am excellent at hearing words under one’s breath.”

              Hunter chuckled nervously.

              “Come,” Bardoc waved Hunter through the wide room.

              There was excess empty space in the center, a crisply-made bed and an empty nightstand on one side, a desk and stocked bookshelf on the other. Across from where they stood was a doorway, which opened into an equally sparse, much larger room a half level below.

Hunter got closer to the second room and realized that its walls were lined with shelves, brimming with thousands of small bottles in all shapes and colors imaginable.

              “Wow.” He stepped down into the room, careful not to miss a stair. “What’s all this?”

              “Samples. For training.”

              Gawking, Hunter strode toward the back wall. Inside the bottles were solids that must have come from every corner of the world, glimmering liquids, gasses that swirled and roiled within their confines, and even flames. It appeared as though every particle in nature was accounted for.

              His eyes found a clear, barrel-shaped bottle full of dark red dust that swirled like water. Beside it was a broken dagger, the hilt and blade separated by one smooth slice. He thought of what his grandpa had told him about combat in a world of magic. The old man hadn’t mentioned any weapons.

              “You grew up on Earth,” Bardoc said.

              Hunter turned around, a sour feeling in his stomach. “How’d you…?”

The Instructor breezed to a grouping of tall-backed leather chairs in the far corner of the room and seated himself. “Ears that hear whispers have little trouble deciphering loud words through a floor,” he said, tapping his spindly finger against his left lobe. The scar-like imprint of his mark, almost identical to Grant and William’s, shone distinctly on the back of his hand.

Hunter couldn't help wondering what his own would be like when it finally appeared. "Right. That." He sat down in the chair facing his new Instructor. The leather was cool and well worn.

"And Tehya confirmed it when I spoke with her before bed last night."

"Oh," Hunter chuckled nervously.

“You come from a place permanently severed from the worlds of etâme. You must have questions.”

He had plenty. Most of them he had been able to ask his grandpa, but the attack had put a limit on the answers he’d been given. “Probably,” he said, not knowing where to start.

Bardoc twined his fingers together. “I have a few of my own, as it happens. But you must answer me fully and honestly.”

Hunter considered the Instructor. The sourness in his stomach folded over itself, rising like dough. It was a feeling of wariness. Of distrust. Why? Was it the smile that didn't reach his eyes or was Hunter just suffering from the sting of Ariana's betrayal, and more guarded than normal? The man didn't know that Hunter was on the run from Falken Fyrenn. He only knew that Hunter was from somewhere it was apparently impossible to be from. Maybe this was enough to cause Hunter to feel this way. But the man was Tehya's father. The rest of the kids trusted him enough to come here for lessons and stay in his home, and Hunter had put his trust in the kids. So there was no reason he should be hesitating. "Okay."

Bardoc straightened his angular frame. “Delightful,” he said. “First; what brought you to Ionia.”

Grandpa's voice rang in his ears.
Falken Fyrenn is no made-up villain, boy. He’s as real as you and me. And he’s been hunting you since infancy. I know only that he wants you dead. That your parents brought you to me to protect you.
He could still see the flames seeping through the hidden door, hear the old man shouting instructions down the cold, dark stairwell.
Take those pages and bring them to the school. Tell the High Master who you are and where these came from. You'll have your answers then.

“My grandpa sent me to train at Ruekridge,” he answered.

Bardoc’s intelligent eyes narrowed in thought. “And who is he?"

"Owen Woodworth."

Bardoc frowned. "That name isn't familiar to me. How did he know of Ruekridge?”

Hunter could picture the article tacked on the wall in the hidden room, youthful Grandpa and Grandma Woodworth smiling out from the image. “He was living here when it was built." And, Hunter suspected, had been one of its architects. “I… moved to Earth when I was a baby.”

“Ah.” Bardoc studied him shrewdly. “And what of your parents?”

Hunter pinched his lips together in sudden anger and remorse.
The documents
. "Gone."

“Dead?” Bardoc asked, not unkindly.

“No. Well, I don’t actually know,” Hunter admitted. “But I don’t think so.”

“So they left you on Earth with your grandfather, and you haven’t heard from them since?”

Hunter looked down at his hands. It was a perfectly reasonable question, asked without a hint of judgment. Yet he felt defensive. He didn’t believe his parents intended to dump him on his grandpa's doorstep forever, and he didn’t want anyone assuming that they had. “I think they might've gotten into trouble—
couldn’t
come back.”

A pause. “Do you intend to search for them?”

Hunter sucked in a breath. But he measured his reaction before he lifted his head, answered honestly, if more confidently than he felt. “I have no place to start."
Not anymore
.

Bardoc smiled sadly. “It’s probably for the best.” His fingers steepled beneath his chin. “This is a dangerous world. Poking around in its darkest corners is unwise.”

              Hunter nodded. But he wouldn't give up that easily.

              “And our greatest defense against the dangers of this world is our etâme. Which you and I will be focusing on today,” Bardoc said, his forehead smoothing over. “After a brief refresher on the basics, of course. To make sure your knowledge is sufficient.”

Hunter tucked one leg under him on the chair. “Okay,” he said, eager to lose his mind to something less depressingly futile.

“Can you tell me: What is etâme and how does it relate to us as human beings?” Bardoc inquired.

Hunter fidgeted, feeling like he was back in Mrs. Quirk’s class, singled out to explain a subject he hadn’t bothered to study.

Bardoc waited patiently, expectantly.

Think, Hunter, think. How did Grandpa explain it?
“Etâme is... the soul. An extension of it, anyway. Sort of. At least for humans. I guess you could say it's..." how had his grandpa worded it? "
The energy the spark of life gives off
for everything else,” he said, pulling at threads of memory. “It’s not a gift or a talent, but something like breathing—something we have in order to survive?”

Bardoc’s eyes smiled. “That answer will suffice. Now, can you explain to me how our races tie in with our etâme?” 

“Race is what we call the type of etâme we have.” 

Bardoc didn’t respond. Apparently, he required elaboration.

“I don’t know what else you’re looking for, here.”

“Ah. I see.” Bardoc shifted and clapped his hands together. “In summary, our ancestors—the Elders—were graced with etâme tied to the elements and to their souls, just as you said.”

Elders. Like Elder Script?

“The souls of the Elders were linked to each of the four elements equally. That is, they had full control over every element.” He eyed Hunter like a hawk. “Do you know what race
you
are, Hunter?”

“Eerden,” he answered. That was the first thing his grandpa had explained to him. “But, how—?”

Bardoc lifted his sharp chin. “The Great Unraveling,” he said. “The single greatest shift in the course of our history.”

Hunter leaned forward. Of all the stories he’d heard about Ionia, he’d never heard about this. "What happened?"

Bardoc grinned, in his strange way. “To understand the Great Unraveling, you must have a sound understanding of the categories of etâme. Can you name the elements?”

“Earth, water, air, fire”

“And the corresponding races?”

“Eerden... Mervais... Aeriel... and Fyydor.”

Bardoc nodded. Hunter felt a surge of pride.
At least I know
something
about this place
.

“And?”

The pride vanished. “And what?”

Bardoc leaned back. “There are more than four races, Hunter.”

This time it was he who said nothing, awaiting elaboration.

“Are you familiar with the term
Tieren
?”

The word triggered a memory. “Ariana mentioned it. Something about rarer twins.”

“Ah. Yes. I know the saying.”

“What
is
Tieren?”

“Tieren is the root name for persons of double race—who have full control over two elements. Ariana is a Tieren
mar
. A person with both Aeriel and Mervais races.”

Interesting. He wondered if being Tieren—having dual natures—made Ariana more moody. He thought this must be the case. “So she’s, what? Half one and half the other?”

Bardoc shook his head. “Oh, no. No, a Tieren is both races. Fully.”

How could anyone be two complete, separate races? You were either fifty percent from both sides, or some wild grouping of small percents that added up to one hundred. You couldn't be one hundred percent of both if you could only be one hundred percent.

“I think I may have confused you.” Bardoc stood and strode to the wall of shelves behind him. He ran a finger along the bottles as if they were library books, and snatched two clear, bubble-shaped bottles, one holding something blue, the other something white. “We’ll use Ariana as an example,” he said, returning to his chair.

He leaned forward, balancing the blue one on his open palm. Up close, Hunter could see that the bottle was filled with beads the size of small grapes. “The bottle represents Ariana’s body. The beads, her etâme— but just that which is connected to water.”

“Okay.”

“Is this bottle full?”

Hunter nodded.

“And this one?” He pulled out the second bottle, brimming with tiny, milky-white spheres.

“Yes.”

“As they are, these bottles represent a normal Mervais and a normal Aeriel. Both, as you have seen, are filled with their particular etâme. Hold out your hands.”

Hunter did so.

Bardoc set the white bottle in Hunter’s open palms. “Now, what would have to happen for all of these beads, from both containers, to fit in Ariana’s tiny little body?” He shook the first bottle. The beads were stuffed in so tightly, they didn’t even rattle against the glass.

“You’d need a bigger bottle,” Hunter answered.

“Ah. But I’ve already told you.
This
bottle is Ariana’s body.” He uncorked the first bottle, gestured for Hunter to do the same.

Hunter pulled the stopper out, then handed the bottle over.

Bardoc took it and held the opening of it over the other one and slowly poured the beads in. “Were you to melt down the beads inside these bottles, their mass would be equal. One does not outweigh the other.”

The white beads, at least four times smaller than the blue, rained through the gaps and slipped to the bottom, filling every crevice. Suddenly it all made sense.

“I get it,” he exclaimed. "They're different, so they both fit."