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Toby finished his abbreviated breakfast and trotted to Teacher’s room. But before he turned the last corner, his nose warned him of things to come.
He arrived as a clock struck the hour.
“Cutting it close,” said Teacher.
Raymond was at work inspecting various beakers and flasks. The box with the noxious concoctions was on the table, and two of the bottles were open.
Raymond reached for a bottle and winced with pain. He used his other hand.
Toby reached for the bottle, but Raymond’s glare pushed him back.
Toby knew how to deal with the bully and thief, but Raymond the hero?
Raymond mixed different ingredients. The smell became impossibly worse, and Raymond seemed pleased.
Teacher held a different old book in his gnarled left hand. “This morning, you will learn the basics of levitation.”
“Yes, Teacher.” Toby looked over and pointed at Raymond’s lab table. “What’s he doing?”
“You can learn your lessons and Raymond’s, too?”
“No, Teacher.”
“Didn’t think so. He is working on making a new Travel Amulet. Do you know how many can shift?”
“Two.”
“Not completely ignorant.”
Raymond snickered.
Toby put his hand out. “May I have the book, please?”
Teacher and Raymond stopped smiling.
Teacher placed the book on the table.
“Thank you.” Toby collected the book, along with the others from yesterday. “When should I be back?”
“What makes you think you can leave?”
“Are you going to give me a lecture?”
“No.”
“When should I be back?”
“Two hours.”
He climbed to the rooftop garden. He might find Lela, and if not, he was out of the toxic fumes.
For a moment, he considered shifting home, but couldn’t put anyone else in danger. Besides, Dad and Chase would be furious.
The garden was empty except for a couple of little birds, except they had teeth, a scaly face, and hissed like a snake.
Toby found a spot at the north wall -out of the wind- and opened the book on Levitation. The first page had a drawing of the Levitation amulet.
Woven metal like the Prime, but only one stone, flat and blue, called a lapis lazuli; the author called it the heaven stone because the user lifted objects toward heaven.
Except that explained nothing, especially when the author said ‘lapis’ comes from Latin for stone and ‘lazuli’ is Persian for blue.
He skimmed the activation steps and found a cautionary tale about a man who tried to use it against a Giant Spider.
Better still, the author thought a drawing would be helpful, showing a man standing next to a creature at least 3m long, a meter tall, black body, and ten red legs.
Just like in his nightmares.
Toby shivered, but not from the cold.
How long had they been extinct?
He found chapters on this Messenger and that Keeper, outlining their brilliant successes or horrid failures.
The warm sun felt good in the otherwise frigid air, but the dense prose was...
He jerked awake and scanned the area for witnesses.
The sundial took a second to decipher. He still had an hour.
He took out the other book about amulets, which spent the first pages explaining why it wasn’t the Book of Amulets stolen over two centuries ago.
Nest, the author wrote it 90 years ago, based on a century of oral history.
What could go wrong?
The first chapter told of the primary powers of the Prime Amulet.
Next were Messenger stories, where each man was at least 35 years old when he took office.
So why are they testing kids?
Toby found a common theme: leaders sent the Messenger on missions, often alone, sometimes with his Keeper or a squad of guards. The Messenger sometimes consulted the floating golden Orb, also called the Visio or Kennen, followed by heroic success or a closed casket funeral.
Toby closed the book. If every Candidate must go through all of this before taking the three crucial tests no one can talk about, and only one candidate can test, no wonder they haven’t had a Messenger in two centuries.
Who says this generation’s Messenger has been born? He could be a toddler or some old guy like Carrick.
And if Toby succeeded, then what? He lives here with all the comforts of the 12th century, where people think lightning diseases are supernatural punishment?
Toby rechecked the sundial, but the clouds made his life difficult, so he returned to Teacher’s room.
Raymond now worked his chemicals behind a metal shield to protect the books, scrolls, and the Orb. His smudged face matched his scorched clothes.
“Having fun?” Toby asked.
Raymond cut his eyes but held his tongue. Raymond’s gaze moved from the open book to a beaker filled with a brown, bubbling liquid, and back to the book.
The liquid turned from brown to red.
Raymond looked at the book again as the beaker hummed.
With metal tongs, Raymond placed the beaker in a thick metal container, locked the metal door with a wide iron bar, and hurried out the door.
Toby looked at the metal can.
“Run,” Raymond said.
Toby found Raymond crouched behind a column with fingers in his ears.
Toby took the hint.
The explosion nearly knocked both to the floor.
They looked at each other from across the open doorway as a sweet-smelling cloud drifted out of the room.
Raymond snickered. Then laughed.
Toby tried to stay mad, but both convulsed with laughter.
A pair of feet appeared in the mist.
“Success?” Teacher said.
“If learning is a success,” Raymond said, “then yes.”
“Turned black?”
“No. I learned red is far worse.”
Teacher’s expression did little to hide his frustration.
Raymond returned to his work, but not before glancing at Toby with arched eyebrows, causing Toby to smile again.
“Something funny, Candidate?”
“No, Teacher.” He fought the giggles.
“You’ve finished your reading already?”
“Most of it.”
“That means no. Reginald the Fourth?”
Toby remembered some parts of the story. “He was Messenger nearly four centuries ago. He used the Levitation Amulet in a cave to levitate a boulder, to... Um-”
“To divert an underground stream threatening to undermine a village. Did you notice anything else about your readings?”
“No.”
“No?”
Toby couldn’t shut his mouth. “I don’t see how learning these stories is helpful. Each situation was unique. Sometimes the Messenger figured it out, or not. Sometimes he consulted the Orb, but the message is always vague, and could mean anything. The Messenger then got it, or he didn’t. Then he succeeded or failed miserably.”
Teacher stood there in silence for a long time. Teacher turned his head as if he saw something down the corridor and simply said, “Follow me.”