When I woke the next morning, I knew I had slept soundly, my body was stiff and it took a few seconds to gain my bearings. I stretched out as much as possible, I didn't know how I was going to manage another session of magic if I was going to come out of them feeling so rough.
But I knew it had to be done, if Merkell was right and he usually was, we would be able to handle more magic over time. Things would be a lot easier and maybe we would start to enjoy learning magic. We were still a little ways off of that and we had barely scratched the surface, I had always thought magic would be fun and exciting to have but I seem to have skipped over the learning part.
I loved to learn new things but usually it didn't involve pain, or physical and mental workouts. I finished getting dressed and pushed away my complaints. I had to remind myself of the reason I was doing any of this. I pictured the people of Nentarli, I imagined everyone I had grown to care about and then I thought of the Dark Horrors.
I thought about how Riltresik was supposed to be worse, and he would be arriving in the Sectors soon. With that in mind I could manage some aches and pains, if it meant I could fight and do something about the bad in this world, I would do it.
I knocked on Emy's door and was glad to see she was all ready to go. The dining room was empty when we arrived. We sat down and poured ourselves some of the oat cereal; I didn't realise how hungry I was until I began eating.
By the time Blaike and Kaleb entered the dining room, I had eaten two bowls of cereal and three warm pastries with a sweet honey-like substance on them. I was drinking my blue juice as I watched them sit down, they looked well rested but hungry, they ate more than I did.
"So, is it easier for you guys to pick things back up since you've had magic for years?" Emy asked between mouthfuls of pastry.
"It is still tiring for us but it does not last long, for instance we were able to make it down to dinner last night." Kaleb said with a sly smile and both Emy and I narrowed our eyes playfully at him.
"I was out for the count last night," Emy stated despite the pastry in her mouth.
"I did not wanna see your breakfast rolling around in your mouth, thanks," I chuckled and crinkled my nose.
"What does that mean exactly?" Blaike asked with a frown.
It took me a few seconds to realise what he was confused about.
"It means she was fast asleep all night," I explained to him.
"I bet she was snoring like a Triorn as well," Kayle chimed in as he walked through the doorway and grinned at everyone.
Emy threw a pastry at him but he caught it and began to eat it. He sat down next to Blaike, smirking over at Emy. We didn't get long for breakfast as we had to keep with our schedule, a different fighting related lesson every morning and then every afternoon would be reserved for magic. Emy was still excelling at fighting and I was still failing miserably, I could manage to defend myself and I was adequate with a sword and Slinger, but everything else was pretty bad.
The magic lessons were the most interesting parts to my days in the few weeks that followed. We were progressing quickly and after the first week we barely felt any exhaustion. Merkell was definitely impressed with us and gradually gave us more difficult things to do. Emy and I were soon at the same level as Blaike and Kaleb, something Merkell said was due to the fact that we were learning together, as we were always meant to.
It made me wonder on a number of occasions, how it would have been if we had grown up together. Would we have reacted the same way to one another? There wouldn't have been the cultural barrier between us but, would we have treat each other differently because of that? My mind turned to Blaike and the way things were. I still hadn't managed to talk to him alone since we'd been interrupted by my parents.
Whenever my thoughts strayed to him, I found myself staring into space and Emy would click her fingers to bring me back. She always had a knowing smile on her face.
We had only been doing menial magic in the first week or two, lifting and throwing things, defending ourselves from flying objects. I could defend myself against anything thrown now and when Merkell caught us off guard with an assault of daggers, we all deflected them away with ease.
Our next set of lessons were going to focus on attacking back, Merkell wasn't just happy with us staying alive, he wanted us to be able to inflict damage back at our enemies. Kaleb and Blaike already had experience with it but my questions were bubbling away when Merkell explained what we were going to do.
"How are we supposed to learn to attack? Who are we going to practice on?"
"Have you got a secret stash of Dark Horrors locked up somewhere?" Emy asked in amusement.
She was picking at the sleeves of her Mage's outfit, I knew she was dying to get her hands on them and create a new design. Merkell had been adamant that she wasn't to mess around with them though and Emy promised.
I liked my outfit though, it was beige with long cuffed sleeves and trousers, the belts hugged my torso and I felt more secure when I wore it. I felt more protected than I had in the armor my dad had provided for our trip to Eribourne. I had requested an extra set be made in case I chose to wear it more often. If I got into an unexpected magical attack then I wanted to be wearing my Mage's outfit.
Merkell was happy to oblige but right now he was looking at Emy with disdain.
"That would be a ridiculous and dangerous thing to have, Emily, no I do not. I will create a magically imbued replica of an enemy for you to fight against."
"I thought we had enough dummies around here?" Emy asked, purposely glancing at Kayle, who was scribbling away from his new perch on a stool he had brought out for himself.
It didn't get used much as he was usually diving out of the way of flying objects or magical blasts that went awry.
Kayle looked up as though he knew she was talking about him and threw her a rude hand gesture from back in our world.
"I cannot wait to see a dummy kick you around this garden." He called back to Emy and she returned his hand gesture with gusto.
"That is enough!" Merkell put a stop to it before they began arguing. I hid a giggle behind my hand and Merkell composed himself. "I will create a Dark Horror for you to practice with, aim your attacks towards it but do not be fooled, it will fight back just as any real enemy would. Cassandra and Emily will go first, then Blaike and Kaleb may take on the next one, we will see how you all fare."
It took Merkell only a short time to conjure up a Dark Horror dummy for us to fight against. It was so realistic I almost screamed, the memories of the night I fought one raced through my mind. I instinctively peered over at Blaike to make sure he was still himself and he caught my eye. Instead of being annoyed, which I thought he might be, I was shocked to see him giving me a reassuring smile.
I half smiled, nodded and turned my attention back to the dummy-Horror. It had begun to move, seemingly of its own accord and I took a steadying breath. I exchanged an encouraging glance with Emy and we started to advance on the creature. It watched us move, its black orb like eyes stared without blinking, it had no discernible eyelids.
This was the first time I had been able to observe one properly while it was alive and moving. They were all slightly different but each was too shiny, oozing some kind of liquid from random places. It had limbs like arms and legs but they were disfigured and mangled so much that they shouldn't have been functional. Its mouth was a disgusting mess and I tried not to stare too long as I worked out a way for us to attack it.
The dummy seemed to anticipate that we didn't know what we were doing, or Merkell wanted to make it more of a challenge, because without warning it struck out with magic. I barely had time to deflect it. I peered at Merkell briefly and he arched an eyebrow at me.
"You will not get this much time to think in a real world fight, you are well aware of this so attack. Aim your magic at the creature and envision the damage you want."
I swallowed back the memories he brought up and looked to Emy with a nod. We each acted quickly and the creature just about managed to deflect my attack but not Emy's. Two of its 'arms' snapped with a gut wrenching crack, they fell to the floor and dark blood spilled from the severed stumps.
Without hesitation I sent another burst of magic at it, this time it didn't manage to deflect my attack and the creature was squashed to the ground. I held my own until it was flattened, it was motionless except for the blood pooling out around it.
"That was... gruesome," Emy stated as we walked over to look at the dead creature.
I nodded in agreement and smiled a little breathlessly, "Good teamwork though."
Emy grinned and we looked back at the dummy but it had disappeared and we turned to look at Merkell.
"Well done but next time do not take so long, timing is important in a fight and can be the difference between winning and losing. If you can manage to conjure up two simultaneous attacks and you know you can land both without exhausting yourself then you should. Do not wait around to see what your opponent will do first. Now, Blaike and Kaleb it is your turn."
Blaike and Kaleb congratulated us before walking up to meet their own dummy-Horror. They attacked as soon as Merkell had finished conjuring, they circled and kept moving around each other so the creature didn't know who to attack. Merkell must have noticed their strategy because he switched things up.
"I think this may be a little too easy for the two of you." Was all he said before conjuring a second dummy-Horror and sending it into the fight.
Blaike stayed with the first while Kaleb turned to take on the second, this certainly changed things. They were much more guarded and concentrated harder than they had seconds before. Their attacks were deflected a few times and they had to change tactics again before they finally killed their opponents.
Blaike had a cut above his nose from one of the dummies attacks but otherwise they were fine. They walked back over with smiles on both their faces and the dummy corpses disappeared behind them.
"Very good, you handled that unexpected change very well." Merkell praised them and Emy and I congratulated them.
Merkell gazed over at the spot where the dummies had disappeared and his mouth stretched into a smile, which worried me to no end.
"Wait here just a moment, please."
And he walked off without explaining, his pencil and paper floated behind him.
As soon as he disappeared into the house, Kayle came jogging over and he was grinning.
"That was quite impressive to watch, from all of you," he added quickly before Emy could start on him.
"Thanks, I kinda feel better about ever meeting up with a Horror again," I said with my nose crinkled and I looked at the spot they had disappeared.
"Yeah and once we can identify them in someone else's skin, we'll be good to go," Emy announced.
I raised my brows as I looked at her, she seemed actually frustrated about it.
"The eyes and the sound of their voice are the most obvious signs, they cannot replicate those with a fake skin. If you know the person well enough, you can tell by the way they move or speak, also." Blaike explained quietly and I glanced over at him.
I knew instantly he had looked away from me the second my eyes moved. I bit at my lip and saw Emy watching me, my best friend the ice breaker came to my rescue.
"Okay we'll know for next time then but where has Merkell gone? He hasn't dismissed us, has he?"
We knew better than to assume he had, Kaleb had made that mistake before and attempted to leave only to be hit in the chest by a flying barrel. It was a good job he was well built, if it had been any of the rest of us we would have been knocked out, with a few broken ribs for good measure. So now we waited to be told we could go.
Merkell had told us to wait but he was taking his time and it would be getting dark soon. Winter had settled over Dumair and I was glad the Mage's outfits were well insulated because the nights were freezing. I hoped we wouldn't be at this much longer, after the practice drills we'd had and then the attacks we just pulled off; I was ready to have something nice to eat and relax for the rest of the evening.
"He's probably setting something up for the last portion of our lesson," Kayle suggested with his pencil behind his ear.
"Maybe," Blaike said with a suspicious tone to his voice.
The blood from the scratch on his nose was still trickling down his face.
"Isn't there some magic you can do to heal that?" I asked and gestured to his nose.
Everyone else gave it a glance as though they hadn't noticed it before.
"There may be but it is just a scratch, I would not want to waste magical energy on something like that," Blaike replied and wiped the blood with his sleeve, leaving a smear over the bridge of his nose.
"You should-"
I was cut off from the rest of my sentence when the garden was plunged into an unsettling darkness. I could barely see the others but before I could panic, my newly acquired training practices set in. We managed to group together with our backs to each other.
"What's happening?" Emy asked and I knew she was somewhere to my right.
"Either Merkell has a new challenge for us or something has gone very wrong," Kaleb responded from somewhere behind me.
I tried to see something that would explain what was happening but it was too dark. I couldn't even find the moon or stars to light the way, everything was black. A ball of light came from nowhere and I turned to see Kaleb holding it in his hand. I was too apprehensive to ask how he did it, instead searching the gardens for a reason behind the sudden darkness. That's when I noticed the temperature drop, the darkness had also brought a fearful cold front with it.
My teeth chattered as I tried to speak, "W-we sh-should try to... g-get inside where i-it's safer."
"And warmer!" Emy agreed.
I was about to try to pull the group along with me when something moved around the periphery of the light from Kaleb's magic. I could feel it watching me, us, as it circled around our group but it did not try to attack straight away and I wondered if it was looking for weak spots.
I would have bet that whatever it was had something to do with our present problens. It was causing the cold and darkness, it wanted to confuse us into easy targets, if this was Merkell then it was his worst training idea yet.
"Nobody move, we must be careful, something is out there." Blaike spoke from my left.
I could hear Emy muttering something that sounded a lot like 'captain obvious' under her breath.
I might have smiled if I wasn't so worried, "Let's g-get rid of it th-then and go check th-that things are a-alright." I stuttered out, feeling as though the cold was seeping into my bones.
There were murmurs of agreement from the group and I heard the whistle of Kayle's Slingers start up from somewhere. I watched the movement pass by again and sent a blast of heat at it, I missed and hit a bush that set afire. It cast a small radius of light which was enough to see by and I caught my first glimpse of what was lurking out there.
At first I thought it was a man, but the arms were too long and bent at the wrong angles. Its legs were long and mismatched, and when I caught sight of its face I nearly screamed. I thought Dark Horrors were scary ugly but this was worse; it looked like someone had tried to kill a person in various ways and paid close attention to messing up the face. It didn't ooze from anywhere however, though the skin was just as black.
Now that we could see it, it stopped circling and stood still, facing us. The others moved to stand with me, we were in a mismatched line against the creature. I didn't take my eyes off of it and I noticed to my surprise, it was measuring each of us up. Something about it struck me as smart and intentional, this thing was much more than any Dark Horror. My surprise only heightened when it began to laugh, it stood there and laughed in a throaty, smokers cough kind of way.
"This? This is what has been trained to fight me, the powerful Riltresik? The people of Nentarli think five children will be able to protect them from the darkness?"
The voice was deep and scratchy, it laughed again only louder and I felt the temperature drop a few notches. This couldn't be him, he couldn't be here already, he couldn't have found us in our own garden. And where was Merkell? My parents? Anyone else?
"You are not as impressive or intimidating as you think," Blaike stated and I detected no fear in his voice. Either he was a good actor or he didn't believe this was actually Riltresik.
A sudden blast of magic fired at the creature but it deflected easily and we were all on guard as it watched us.
"You only lie to yourself, do you have anything else to say before you die?" It asked and it still sounded amused by us.
"Yeah, suck brick," Kayle responded quietly.
I heard the whistle of the Slinger, then a resounding crack as whatever he had loaded it with found its mark, as always.
Black blood spilled down the creature's face, it shimmered from the light of the fire. The thing reached a disfigured hand up to wipe at the cut on what should have been its temple.
"The non magic user, I was not expecting that. You will not surprise me again."
The creature aimed something at Kayle but Emy dived to push him to the ground. The force missed and I took the opportunity to hit the creature with simultaneous magical attacks. Blaike and Kaleb caught on to what I was doing and joined in, due to our training we managed to send different types of attacks.
The creature wasn't able to deflect every single one and soon, Emy was up to join us. Kayle was reloading his Slinger continuously and he fired anything he could find at the creature. It began to stagger as it was burned, thrown around, hit with magical blows and whatever Kayle was throwing. I could tell it was weakening but so were we, we had to finish it off before it could leave and regain its strength somewhere else, or hurt anyone else.
I caught the eye of the others and we managed to time a strike from each of us at the exact same moment, five different types of attacks hit the creature. I didn't know what kinds but it wobbled on its feet for a moment, like it was bubbling from the inside, then all of a sudden it exploded.
Black gunk flew everywhere and we all got a spattering of it, the creature was no more and the garden returned to its original light and temperature. I felt blinded after being in the dark for so long and I stared around at the others.
They looked shell-shocked, especially the guys and I wondered if it was the fact that they had faced Riltresik, a fearful enemy they had known about for years.
"Was it really... him?" I asked cautiously as I tried to wipe off the black goo from my face and arms.
"I do not think so, that was far too easy after the stories I have heard and I do not see why he would come alone when he has so many at his disposal." Blaike postulated and wiped some black goo out of his hair.
"Maybe he heard how badass we're becoming and didn't wanna wait any longer to fight us?" Emy said, hopefully.
"I am sorry to have to disappoint you all but I was behind that little test."
We spun around to see Merkell standing at the edge of the garden. He looked apprehensive and there was something else to his expression that I couldn't put my finger on. I felt a little deflated and I could see the others did too, even though we hadn't fully believed it was Riltresik, we wanted to.
"Please explain, sir," Kaleb said, he walked over to die out the fire still burning the bush.
Merkell walked closer to us and I noticed the floating pencil was busy writing away behind his head.
"It was a test, to see how much you had progressed without me as a crutch to fall back on. I needed to see how you would cope with a sudden attack from the enemy, so I created a Dummy-Riltresik from my memories. It looked, spoke and acted just like him, even the strategy and the magic were the same, and I must say you did exceptionally well. You did not let fear take control and you worked together just as you should. Kayle, the Slingers were a nice touch, you nearly unraveled my magic with that."
I realised then that the other emotion in his expression was pride, he was proud of us and the way we handled things. That almost made me feel better after the disappointment he'd dealt us.
"So if we do that again against the real thing, you think we could win?" Emy asked and she sounded hopeful again.
Merkell pursed his lips, "I'm afraid not, Emily. The dummy was just a test, I did not use my own full force but Riktresik undoubtedly will. That is why we must practice more and build your magic, you are already becoming quite formidable but I am hoping by the time you must fight Riltresik that you will be unstoppable!"
The pride and encouragement in his voice were palpable, I could feel it soaking in and wash away any residual agitation about what he had done.
Merkell took away any black goo that might be on us with a wave of his hand. The others seemed to have forgiven him too and we recounted our lesson on the way inside. We went our separate ways to wash and change clothes before dinner. I took a little longer this time, lingering on what had happened. How amazing it would have been to be rid of the real Riltresik. It made me feel more determined than ever to destroy him and his Dark Menaces.
I pushed away those thoughts and went to grab Emy from her room but strangely she didn't answer. I popped my head around the door and called to her but there was no response. I figured she must have gone down without me since I had taken so long, I shrugged it off and headed downstairs. As I reached the ground floor, I noticed there was nobody around, it was eerily quiet.
My brow furrowed and I pinched myself to make sure I was actually awake, I rubbed at the mark it had left. I was awake but the house was far too quiet, I immediately became suspicious. I headed for the dining room but there was nobody in there either, I was starting to panic as I called out for anyone to answer me.
I walked back to the hallway and I heard a sudden scraping like a door being shut. I ran down the corridor towards the sound and had my magic ready. There was a door open slightly and I could hear small noises coming from inside. I braced myself, ready to attack whoever or whatever was on the other side but I would never have expected what I actually saw when I rushed into the room.