COMMANDER CAYOS WAS TRUE to his word. As the grey vestiges of night were pushed back by the brightening sky, he stood in the midst of the barracks once again with arms folded while the sleepy young men lined up in front of him.
“When I call your name, you will answer ‘Yes, sir,’ your name and your home province and ‘live to serve.’ Jael!” he barked.
“Yes, sir! Jael and Cassimir live to serve!”
“Sargon!”
“Yes, sir. Sargon and Hindra live to serve!”
“Tobias!”
Silence greeted the fading echo.
“Tobias!”
A voice yelled, “Yes, sir!” Tobias strutted forward as the other young men parted way for him. He wore the same uniform as the other boys yet it fit him differently. It wasn’t just the breadth of his shoulders or that he stood a foot taller than his companions. He exuded confidence and self-assurance and a large dose of vanity.
“Yes, sir? That is all you have for me?” growled Commander Cayos. The menacing tone was lost on Tobias.
“Well, sir, I am a prince of Peca. I do not bow to servants or,” he stared boldly at the commander, meeting his eyes and holding them, “teachers.”
Mutters broke out amongst the young men.
Commander Cayos’s eyes flickered over the young men, measuring their responses. He walked around the young prince, examining his proud stance. “Who here agrees with Tobias’s statement? Do you accept him as your prince?”
More muttering met his ears, this time louder.
“He is not my prince,” said Ellas of Tyr. “Tyr does not do princes.” Tobias scowled at him, and Ellas grinned back.
“Nor mine,” said Hans. “In Fjord, officials are elected, not born. We are a democratic society born of the highest of principles.”
“In my province, we put the gods before men. It is the proper order of things.” Heads swiveled to stare at Casper, a skinny boy from Shadra. Such primitive expressions of faith were foreign to many of the young men present, and a few openly smirked at him.
More muttering broke out as the young men absorbed each other’s presence, weighing their relative strengths and weaknesses, pondering the meaning of it all. It wasn’t their height and weight that went into the evaluation, but rather their obvious cultural differences, for each province had strict rules about interaction with their neighbours.
Commander Cayos stopped in front of the young prince, arms folded once again.
“What is it that makes you a prince?” he said softly, eyes hard.
Tobias swallowed, his Adam’s apple bouncing underneath the red chafe of his recent shave. He cleared his throat and straightened his back, drawing himself up regally. “I was born to bear the crystal heart. I was chosen to be a prince. It is the will of our people.”
Commander Cayos nodded. “It is not a matter of your genetic birth that made you a prince, but the presence of magical blood, identified at birth. Your parents are neither king nor queen, correct?”
“Yes, sir.” This time, he said the words with a deference missing a few minutes earlier.
“Yes, sir…what?”
Tobias swallowed once again and said, “Yes, sir! My name is Tobias, and Peca live to serve!” He kept his eyes staring straight ahead at the curving wall.
Commander Cayos swung away from Tobias and bellowed, “Not one of you is better than the other! You are brothers! Your former allegiances end right now. Leave them on the floor in front of you or have them beat out of you because from this moment on you serve the Citadel and it alone. Your heart, mind and soul belong to the emperor. Is this understood?”
Echoes of “Yes, sir” bounced off the stone walls and swirled around the openings.
“Day one of training commences right now. You will learn to trust each other or you will be eliminated. There is no going back. Follow me.”
Commander Cayos’s heavy boots stomped away toward the sloping ramp. The young men fell in behind him as he took the downward path to ground level, eventually emptying onto a high-walled compound set with a puzzling array of equipment. Tall poles, like ship masts were spaced around the perimeter of the compound. They were strung with ropes and pulley arrays and a mind-boggling quantity of flags.
In the center of the compound was a sea of dark mud surrounded by dew-slicked grass glistening in the early morning sunshine. Weapons of various configurations stood in wooden racks in a three-sided lean against one wall and ladders rested against its side, waiting for who knew what. Benches made of wood dotted the field, and towering structures with flat tops and curving staircases brought to mind the stone passages of the Citadel.
Commander Cayos came to a halt just shy of the mud sea and waited for the gawking to end. When he had their full attention, he said, “This is the training arena. Here you will learn to fight and to defend. Here you will hone your skills, and here you will be remade. If and when you acquire the skills to be chosen, you will be allowed to leave this arena and move on to serve the emperor. Mark my words. You will succeed or you will be destroyed by the process. If you do not succeed, you will die.”
Eyes widened with shock at the words, and a nervous shuffling of feet betrayed their fear. Casper laughed, nerves pitching the sound higher than he intended.
Commander Cayos took them around the training facility and explained the use of the various pieces of equipment. “Each of these devices will help you perfect a different skill set. Warrior Wizards are the rarest of all wizards. They take the battle to the foe, and emerge victorious every time without fail. Why? Because to fail is to die. What you are being trained for is the most sacred of duties. From here on out, you will be fashioned into warriors to be feared, regardless of your province of birth. The best assassins, the best generals, the best warriors are Wizard Warriors. All others pale beside the might of one such as you will become. Expect to be hurt. Expect this training to be torturous. Expect to come to know pain at a level that would break a common man, and become the master of your pain. You may be teenaged youths coming in, but when you leave this training you will be men.
“Each of you will have a training partner who will keep you accountable. They will become your support and your conscience. The parings will be,” he reached inside an inner pocket of his leather vest and pulled out a scroll and unfurled it, “Samos with Tyr, Wydra with Peca, Fjord with Bastion, Cassimir with Shadra, and Tunise with Hindra.” The boys shuffled around to find their training partners. “Every day will begin and end the same with an inspection for injuries and a potion to heal and strengthen. It begins now.” From the ramp they had recently vacated, two men entered in the livery of the Citadel, a golden tower embroidered on a black linen shirt. In their hands, they each carried an ornate silver tray with ten clear glass vials. One tray of vials contained a pale pink potion. The other’s tray of vials was full of a moss-coloured liquid that gave off the smell of rotten eggs. The servants stopped in front of each boy and offered him a vial with a bow of deference.
Once all the potions had been distributed and the servants had withdrawn, the commander spoke. “The green potion is a healing and strengthening elixir. It will cure most abrasions and contusions. It can mend bones and heal internal injuries. What it cannot do is heal your mind. Should another wizard or witch attack you with magic and gain control of your mind, they can destroy you from within. Now drink your potion.”
As one, the young men downed the green liquid. It tasted of mint and a bitter herb they couldn’t quite identify. Instantly, a warm, tingling sensation spread along their veins, bringing a rush of blood to their cheeks. Their ears heated and sweat broke out on the brows. Grins spread across their faces as strength surged into their muscles and they twitched with energy, begging to be released.
“I feel like I could fly!” said Marco from Wydra, flapping his arms with glee. The other young men laughed.
“You will get your chance soon,” said Cayos, ominously. “The second potion is how you protect your mind from attack. It will bind you to the emperor and to the power of the Citadel. With this potion, he will have access to your minds. He will create a shield within your mind that only he can access that will repel enemy attacks. It will still take the strength of your own magic to do this, and it requires your submission and will. You will start out with a low dose, which will be gradually increased as your training progresses. Drink it all.”
Obediently, the young men drank down the second potion. At first, nothing appeared to happen, and then a light flooded their minds, as if someone had entered a dark room and lit a lamp. It pushed back the darkness of the shared space within their minds, but it was not intrusive. The young men looked at each other and grinned, eager to begin their training.
“Follow me. We will start with the wooden towers.” Cayos led them to the base of the closest structure and walked them through the features. “One pairing will defend the tower from within, the second set from the upper wall. The other three sets are invading. You may use any means that come to mind and any of the weapons in the armoury shed. You may wound but not kill. Now go grab a weapon. Go!” he shouted.
The young men raced over to the array of weapons and each hauled one out. Some were random picks; some were intentional depending on the boy’s knowledge. But all ran swiftly back to the tower, establishing their positions. The clang of the dulled weapons echoed long into the day, without a break, punctuated by yelled instructions and occasional pauses for corrections in strategy or to switch places within the tower.
Toward the end of the day, a woman appeared high above them on a narrow balcony. She studied the young men in practice arena below with a keen, but silent, interest. Once she was satisfied that she had committed their images to memory, she went back inside.