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Teacher led Toby to a cave. “Do you know this place?”
He searched his memory but found nothing. “Sorry, Teacher.”
“This is a recreation of the cave in the story of Reginald IV. This is the first Test.”
What?
Teacher leaned toward Toby -as if he were telling a secret- “You will find it easier to succeed if you act like you know what you are doing.”
Teacher stood up straighter, “The King ordered Messenger Reginald to investigate crumbling homes in a local village. Reginald sat with the Orb and received this message:”
Savior of people,
Man of stone,
In the darkness,
Not alone.
“Did he understand it right away?” Toby asked.
Teacher handed Toby something.
It was the Levitation Amulet, the same one Teacher used to move Raymond to the hospital ward.
Heavier than expected and icy to the touch.
Teacher, “You have one hour.”
To do what?
Teacher turned to leave, stopped, turned back. “You may discuss what happens with me, but no one else. Clear?”
“Yes, Teacher.”
Now alone in front of the black cave entrance, he wasn’t sure how to continue.
Toby didn’t have a light, but he remembered reading something about the Sapphire.
He looked at the stone in the soft light from the cave entrance. He touched the Sapphire.
Nothing.
He pointed the amulet at the wall.
Nothing.
“Light.”
“Go.”
“Flame on!”
He examined the Sapphire. He looked closely at the mount and wondered how-
Like a bright blue LED, the Sapphire illuminated his face, and he blinked until his right eye readjusted to the dark.
He moved into the cave and walked for several minutes.
His ears found the stream first.
So far, so good.
The passage got smaller, and he had to stoop down, crawl, and then slide on his belly.
His sore muscles complained.
Mud caked his blistered hands.
He pretended like being in a small, dark, damp place meant nothing.
Amulet in his left hand, holding it out in front, he crawled on his elbows and knees until he came to an enormous boulder.
Hands sweaty.
Pulse pounding.
Couldn’t get enough air.
He slid over the boulder but lost control.
Both hands came down on the boulder to protect his face.
The Amulet popped through his fingers and something clattered.
Blackness swallowed him like light never existed.
No matter how he moved, his head wedged tighter,
His face scraped along the rock surface. Dust and dirt clogged his nostrils.
Where was the Amulet? He groped but found nothing.
The only sounds were the flow of water and his faster breathing.
More dust clogged his nose.
Fingers found something sharp and wet.
Like teeth.
He now saw nothing but red swirls wherever he looked. The walls closed in.
The prophecy said he’s not alone down here.
He needed air.
Breathing faster made it worse.
Heart pounding.
Fingers tingling.
Left hand cramping.
The black world spun.
Escape.
They could bring torches and find the Amulet later.
No one would blame him.
Everyone would understand.
Breathing comes first.
He somehow squirmed loose and blindly crawled for several meters when-
His heart froze.
He lost the Prime.
His mother nearly died protecting that thing.
He slid back into the black slit and reached into the void.
Nothing.
Wait.
Where is the chain?
Still around his neck
As was the Amulet.
In seconds, the Sapphire illuminated the void once again, and over several minutes, his breathing returned to something like normal.
He had crawled out of the main cave into that tight space.
What is wrong with him?
He wanted to leave, but he couldn’t just quit.
Had to give his ‘best effort’ before they’d let him fail, whatever that meant.
The passage turned, revealing a large room illuminated by greenish, glowing mushrooms.
He looked back, and those sharp ‘teeth:’ were just wet rocks.
A fast torrent flowed through the cave. A boulder lay next to the stream bed.
If he moved that boulder into the stream bed like Messenger Reginald, he’d divert the water through that other opening.
He pulled out the Levitation Amulet and remembered part of the activation steps.
Nothing happened
He could declare defeat and be home in an hour.
Sounded great, but he knew better.
Teacher never said this was a closed book test.
He visualized Teacher’s room but stopped: he didn’t know the space well enough to avoid all the stacks of papers and books.
The corridor was better.
He inspected around the room in the cave. He would have to be careful coming back. He stood in the center, away from the many stalactites and stalagmites.
He chose his landing spot, where he and Raymond had taken shelter. Toby pictured himself in that same spot, no higher or lower, and he wondered.
The squeeze was tighter and more prolonged. His stomach hurt, and his head felt like something split. Had to take a knee.
Teacher’s room was just around the corner.
A lot of smoke clogged the corridor.
Should be gone by now.
He stood up, waited for the world to stop spinning, and peeked around the corner. Raymond continued his rancid work. Teacher said something, and then he heard another voice.
He peeked again. Teacher was talking to-
Toby yanked his head back.
What had he done? The answer was as straightforward as it was ridiculous: he thought of the moment he and Raymond walked back into Teacher’s room.
Over an hour ago.
The Amulet shifted him to that exact millisecond.
He nearly shifted himself into his younger self.
Since he didn’t remember seeing a second Toby when he and Teacher walked out into the corridor, he waited for an opportunity.
He ducked into a small recess in the wall and waited for Teacher and younger Toby to leave.
They came out the door, and as Toby moved into hiding, Teacher’s head turned.
Maybe Teacher saw something else.
Toby held his breath.
He heard Teacher say to his younger self, “Follow me.”
Toby focused on the mission.
Toby waited for Raymond to become engrossed in his work and crept through the door.
“Forget something?”
“Just a second.” He found the book, read the instructions, and walked back out.
“Good luck.”
“Um, thanks.”
Back in the corridor, he took a knee at the exact spot by the door and imagined the precise landing spot in the cave, the instant after he had shifted out, his feet in those identical spots and-.
The squeeze seemed less malignant. And Toby was alone.
He held up the Levitation Amulet, chanted the sequence, and the boulder moved. He increased his concentration to increase his power.
The boulder moved up a couple of centimeters. Toby turned the amulet, which moved the boulder across the room, into the stream bed.
Within a minute, accumulating water found a different path and flowed out the other channel.
Was that it?
He was about to shift out when he noted another opening. What if that’s the right one? How could he tell?
He lifted the boulder, moving it to the second position...
Something was different. With centimeters to go, the amulet quit like a dying flashlight.
He tried to activate it again. He shook it and looked closer.
Was the amulet dead?
Did he break it?
What would Teacher say?
As water now flowed out the third opening, something growled, but it wasn’t biologic.
It was geologic.
Cracks appeared in a wall.
He tried to push the boulder out of the stream.
Chunks of the ceiling fell.
The room tilted, throwing him to the rock-strewn floor and crashing his head into a wall.
Head ringing, rocks crashed all around. He crawled away from the water.
Expanding cracks all around.
A large rock hit his shoulder. A slab crashed behind.
He crawled several meters, and when he could stand, he sprinted for the narrow entryway.
He had to jump and dance over rocks and debris.
Behind him came a thundering roar.
He dove the final meters as tons of debris closed the passage.
“Get—up,” Teacher said.
They walked in silence back to Teacher’s room. Teacher Sklavos picked up two books from his desk.
“What-”
“Silence!”
Toby’s mouth slammed shut.
“You do not talk about testing. May I see the Prime?” The old man held out his withered hand.
Toby reached up to his neck.
“Stop!”
Toby flinched.
“Never take off the Amulet.”
But-
“Can you trust me?”
Could he?
“Who am I?”
“Teacher.”
“Prove it!”
What?
Teacher leaned in closer. “There are spies in this castle who will kill you. Never — remove — the Amulet. Clear?”
“Yes, Teacher.”
“Once the Amulet comes off, it does not go back.”
Teacher pointed to a spot on the Levitation Amulet. “Touch the metal,” he showed the correct contact point on the Prime, “to the metal here.”
Toby did and felt a quick vibration.
“May I have the Levitation Amulet?” Teacher reached out his hand.
“Are you going to yell at me?”
“The Levitation Amulet is not the Prime.”
Toby placed the amulet in that withered, bony hand.
Teacher pointed it at a crate of books, which lifted several centimeters off the ground.
“If that is so easy, why not tell me? I’m not stupid.”
Teacher placed the smaller amulet back into his desk, “Not stupid, but you are spectacularly uneducated.”
Teacher leaned on the desk and took a deep breath. “The amulet had more than enough power to complete the test. I didn’t teach re-empowering yet because it didn’t matter. Not yet. No student remembers everything I say, and most have an irritating habit of remembering the wrong part.”
“I’ll never forget how to recharge that amulet.”
“Recharge?”
“Something similar on Earth.”
“Recharge.” Teacher nodded. And in a flash, the irascible Teacher was back. He put a second book on his desk. “Chapter six outlines the dangers of time-shifting.”
Toby met his gaze and tried to fathom the old man’s powers. “How did you know?”
“Assume I know everything all the time.”
He held up the first book, the one about the Levitation Amulet. “Reread the chapter on Reginald the Fourth.” He handed Toby a blank scroll of parchment. “Present your interpretation tomorrow.”