Vivien and the Scoria

Chapter 3: The Time of Testing

4th Year of Lord Tante's rule

Aernir city centre

Central Tower

12th day hour

           

The day of Will's Test came too soon. The weeks between my birthday and his were spent as normal, but an air of sadness drifted over every encounter we had with each other. Will was my brother in everything but blood, and I loved him as such. He was family. His family was mine. And we were all about to lose this Will forever. If he came back from the Test, he would be irreversibly changed in a way we could never hope to fix; and if he didn't come back from the Test, well...

Twister had said his goodbyes this morning, unable to go through with seeing Will off to his Test.  We walked alone in silence on our way to the Central Tower through the streets of the Aernir city centre. At this time of day, Merasans buzzed around like gnats, many having a break for lunch during the hottest part of the day. Aernir brought together all the stalls from across the city, so one could eat anything from Tanah veggie burgers to Air smoked salmon to Udarah fried egg fritters to Api roasted beef, all sold within meters of each other from stalls decorated with brilliantly coloured flags that helped sell their wares, creating a mix of smells that made would normally make my mouth water.

Not today however. Today, the smells made my mouth taste like ash, the sounds blurred together into a screaming mass of wrongness, and the sights were a chaotic scramble of colour. The sombre air around Will and I made haggling saleswomen back off without a word, and we proceeded to the centre of the city in continued silence. I'm not sure if the experience was the same for Will, as he was probably dealing with his own issues internally. Or, knowing Will, he was simply walking without a thought, having accepted his fate.

Time passed by like a slippery fish between our fingers, and in no time at all, we were at the Central Tower. The impressive building, the largest of the five in the square that marked the very centre of our city, loomed above everything else. The Towers had been built many, many years ago, before any recording about the city occurred. Some people think that the Towers may outdate the city itself, and that our early ancestors chose the site for our city because of them. As far as anyone knows, it's just speculation, but nevertheless, the Towers each represent a clan of the city, in the cardinal directions which our mountains face.

The Central Tower, therefore, represents the centre city of Aernir. Tante took it over as his centre of operations when he came to the city, and renovated the lower levels to be the barracks in which the Fellan and Scoria live. He lives in the upper levels, according to rumours, and only those who have a Test have seen the inside of the building in the last four years.

It was outside the Central Tower that we waited for Will to be called in for his Test. Stone benches had been erected there for the purpose of waiting, and we joined three other people waiting to take their Test. Those also waited included a nervous boy who, judging by his tattoos, was from Udarah, and was accompanied by a stern faced Air woman (identifiable by her clan mark on the back of her hand) who could have either been his mother or his teacher. The third person was a lonely figure seated as far away from the rest of us as possible; they were covered by a long black cloak, and I could tell nothing else about them.

No-one was speaking. We had nothing to say. The only thing we could offer was the comfort of knowing that no-one was truly alone at this time.

The peace that existed in the few moments of silence outside the Tower was broken by the sudden opening of a door that was so seamlessly melded to the wall of the Central Tower that I had not noticed it. From within, a Fellan emerged, and came to stand before us all, careful to avoid the sunlight that could not create a shadow at this point in the middle of the day. In a raspy voice, the Fellan spoke. "Lord Tante will see Perci Dann now." The Udarah boy exchanged nervous glances with his Air companion and stood, moving with fluid grace to stand in front of the Fellan.