Shadow's Rising {Wing 1} Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Slowly the, now only potential, students filed through the ominous looking door. On the other side was a small waiting room where they were greeted by a short, muscular man with a scar on his cheek. He stood on a small podium at the back of the room straight backed and grim. He looked like a soldier that enjoyed battle and addressed the students like a military unit.

“Good afternoon, potentials. My name is Lt. Gormin Renson. You will call me Sir Gormin, and I will be your evaluator today. You are about to undergo some examinations designed to test whether you have the strength of mind to become a dragon rider. If you fail, I will have the pleasure of sending you home to your mommy.”

Some of the students chuckled at this, but Gormin silenced them with a glare.

“Getting this far is enough to get you accepted into most other academies, so don’t be afraid to back out. I’d hate to see such potential wasted due to trauma after seeing some of the horrors we face.” Gormin spoke solemnly, but his mouth twitched in a sarcastic smirk.

“Each of these tests will be done individually. One at a time, you will go through the door behind me for your first test. We will be watching how you react and will pull you out if we deem it necessary, but know that you will have failed if this happens. Also, though we will try our best, we may not pull you out in time, so think carefully before you begin the trial.”

That caused quite a stir amongst the potential students. Gormin let the chatter continue for a moment before he raised his hand for silence. However, a few students didn’t pipe down quick enough.

“Quiet!” The evaluator snapped as he scanned the room. The students all shut their mouths and snapped to  attention.

“I will now explain the first test so listen up! Beyond the door behind me, you will be blindfolded and placed in a room with a very specific kind of monster. These monsters are very rare and live in caves, so it is unlikely you will meet one in the wild. They have the unique ability to enter your mind and create nightmares. They then feed on your fear to grow. To pass, you must endure your greatest fears for ten minutes.”

At this, there was some worried muttering, but it quickly dissipated when Gormin paused what he was about to say with a look of annoyance.

“You shouldn’t have to worry about something as pathetic as your own fears. I guarantee you will face monsters far worse than anything your feeble minds could conjure up. This should be child’s play for any true dragon rider. But, for those who don’t feel up to the challenge, the instructors waiting for you outside will escort you to the gate where you will await the first carriage home. This is the end of your tour. If anyone wants to leave, now is your last chance.”

Gormin looked around the room, his eyes boring into each student. Some couldn’t take it and left with their heads hanging in shame, but the majority stayed.

“Alright, then. Let’s begin!” Gormin grinned openly, rubbing his hands together like a greedy merchant. “Now. Who wants to go first? Any volunteers?”

A couple of potentials either brave or cocky raised their hands.

“Good. Let’s see how long that bravado lasts. You there, what is your name?”

“It is Damien sir,” the boy replied confidently.

“Alright Damien, you are up first. Just walk through that door and the testing will begin.”

Damien nodded and boldly entered with Gormin following close behind. The rest of the potential students stood and waited.

A little over ten minutes later Gormin and Damien exited. Damien was pale and had a haunted look, but Gormin simply shoved him out the door where Lt. Keldor was waiting and called on the next student.

This continued with Gormin calling out names and testing students. Sometimes they heard screams coming from the other side of the door. A few times Gormin came out early with a student wide eyed, white-faced, and staring blankly into the distance with a look of shock or terror on their face.

Slowly, the numbers dwindled until only Jarid remained. Gormin led the last trembling potential student to the door and checked a clip board.

“Ah, the commoner. I see you have some guts to stay this long but there is no shame in backing out now. You can just return to your normal life without experiencing the horrors of what is behind that door.”

Jarid took a deep breath and walked up to the evaluator.

“Sir Gormin, I have a question. Does this creature force you to be afraid or does it simply show you your greatest fear?”

Gormin raised an eyebrow at first but after a pause he simply shrugged.

“It shows you your greatest fear and feeds off it, so I suppose it would be the latter.”

Jarid nodded and took a deep breath, focusing on the door and what lay behind it.

“I’m ready.”

The door was opened, and Jarid entered a small room where he was blindfolded and told to wait for the test to begin. Then a different door was slammed shut across the room. Jarid sat cross-legged in the middle of the floor and waited.

Now that he was here, he was starting to feel excited. He had an idea that he wanted to try, and if it worked the way he thought it would, this test would be simple. Jarid trembled with anticipation at the thought of how his idea would work.

From what the instructor had said, it seemed that this creature’s ability worked in a similar way to Shadow’s. Jarid remembered that Shadow found it hard to read his mind when he was purposely controlling his thoughts. That was step one. He had to think about one thing to keep this creature from seeing anything else in his mind.

Hmmm. Ah ha! Flames! A giant inferno filling his mind and covering all other thoughts.

He imagined a fire surrounding his mind. The flames became a wall incinerating anything trying to get in. He could feel another presence prying at his mind now. He recognised the feeling from the few times Shadow had intentionally tried to read his mind.

Now it was time for the real experiment. During his training with Shadow, Jarid had learned that if someone was in his mind, he could use his imagination and concentration to turn the tables on them. That was step two.

Jarid pictured an opening in his wall of flame and felt the presence enter. He made a ring of flames to isolate it and closed the opening behind the creature. Then he imagined himself in this little arena. The creature seemed very confused. It must have been used to open minds, ready to fear what was coming. It had the form of a massive, snarling, mutated creature that Jarid recognized as a goblin.

But Jarid wasn’t afraid of goblins. The creature was using someone else’s fear to kick start his own! His plan had worked!

Jarid smiled. Now it was time to have some fun. He walked up to the illusion of the goblin. He felt fear radiating from it. The fear it was projecting as well as the fear it had just consumed. This creature thrived on the fear of others. It was about time someone gave it a taste of its own medicine.

Jarid took a deep breath in and out as he concentrated. He imagined transforming into the likeness of a dragon, but not just any dragon. The terrifying form of the dragon that had killed Shadow’s mother. Jarid remembered the murderous intent he had felt on that night and the spine-chilling terror it created. He threw all of it at the creature. The creature’s illusion shattered as it shrank back from the terrifying sight.

Its true form looked like a grey slug oozing with terror. Jarid stood on his back legs, spread his wings, and glowered at the creature. It shriveled under his gaze. Then it whimpered and melted away leaving him alone in his mind.

Slowly Jarid pulled himself back to reality and the peaceful darkness of the empty room. Soon after, the blindfold was taken off and Jarid was handed over to Lt. Keldor who took him to the next test.

After Jarid left the room, Gormin went back to double check the monster in the testing room. Normally the pale slug-like creature absorbed the fear of its victims and grew in accordance with the fear it caused. That was how they determined if someone could cut it as a rider. But this time it had done the exact opposite, shriveling up while Jarid just sat there calmly. Even smiling at one point. This left Gormin with many questions. But he knew one thing. They would have to watch that boy.

Carefully.

In the next test Jarid was shown terrifying images of monsters that dragon riders had fought in the past. They gave him chills, but there was always a part of him that wondered if they were really monsters or were just misunderstood like dragons, which helped him not to show his fear. After that, the instructors took them to a cliff and had them lean over the shear drop. Jarid was glad he had gotten over his fear of heights with Shadow, otherwise he might have been done for.

Many other potential students dropped out during the tests that followed. By the time they returned to the basement room at end of the tests there were fewer than twelve students left.

Gormin smiled.

“Well done. You have now earned the right to call yourselves first year students of this academy. I am glad to have you all here. Over the coming two years I am going to be teaching you about all the different monsters you may face out there. Now, it’s about time to get you settled. You will be assigned to a squad and live in the dorm assigned to your squad.”

Jarid breathed a sigh of relief. At least he wasn’t expected to know what squad he was in already. Gormin went over to one corner of the room. Jarid hadn’t noticed a large pedestal covered in a blanket sitting there but as Gormin hauled it to the center of the room he got more and more curious.

Gormin threw the blanket off dramatically. Underneath was a pedestal with a stone carved into the shape of a dragon sitting on it. In the stone dragon’s forehead was a jewel.

“This will help us determine what squad you belong in. As you progress here at the academy you will be taught how to use magic for all manner of things. Your squad will be crucial for helping you learn the skills necessary to apply your manna well. Thus, the type of elemental magic you have an affinity for will determine which squad you are put in.”

He placed his hand on the stone, and it turned from white to light brown. “I have an affinity for stone magic. While I was a student at the academy, I was a part of the Stone element squad which we simply call Brown squad. Now, line up so we can get you sorted.”

Jarid watched as everyone walked up and placed their hands on the stone. Gormin called out their element and squad. As Jarid drew closer he wondered what element he would be given. He had no idea what element he was best at. Everything had seemed about the same. Though some were more fun to wield than others.

As Jarid placed his hand on the stone, he felt a chill travel up his arm and some energy leave his body. The stone turned black. Jarid looked at Gormin in alarm, but Gormin showed no reaction other than scrunching up his face.

“No affinity. Assignment, Black Squad,” He announced. The other students started whispering and snickering to each other .

“Quiet!” Gormin snapped.

Then he motioned for the next student to come forward. Confused, Jarid rejoined the other students. He was excited to be in the squad associated with Shadow’s tribe but what did it mean? Did he have too little magic for the device? Too much? Did he have no affinity for any element, or all of them? Was that good or bad?

All these questions swirled around Jarid’s mind as Gormin gave a boring speech about how they needed to act as dragon riders so as not to dishonor the dragon rider name. Finally, he mentioned that their luggage was waiting for them at the top of the stairs.

“You are to head straight to your dorm and get settled in for tonight. Your dorm will have the name of your squad and a depiction of the dragon associated with your element over the door. Anyone caught out after night-rollcall will be severely punished. These punishments can be anything from a few lashes of a whip to being expelled from the school. Night rollcall is taken as soon as the sun has completely set so you had better be inside by then unless an instructor informs you otherwise.”

As the new students exited the basement room, Jarid noticed that the sun was already so low that only the peaks were no longer in shadow. Most of the students rushed to their dorms to get settled in. But Jarid took his time, admiring the deep purple sky and the sun shining off the mountain tops.

By the time he entered the dorm, the first stars were already shining in the sky. He had watched how the other students were greeted by their dorm members as soon as they opened the door. Light and cheering voices streamed out whenever a door was opened, but when Jarid knocked on the door to the Night Wing dorm he could already tell there were no lights on inside.

A few seconds later the door was opened by an older man who seemed to be in his late sixties. His face may have been misleading, though, for his arms looked as hard as steel and he moved easily. He raised an eyebrow at Jarid and motioned for him to come inside.

The room inside was large and dark. The only light came from a small candle sitting in a stand on a large desk opposite the door. A set of wooden stairs rose on each side of the room with hallways leading into the back of the dorm at the top. The old man took the candle and led him down the hallway at the top of the left-hand stairs. Doors lined both sides of the hall and the old man opened one for Jarid. Jarid stepped inside and was about to start looking around when the old man spoke. His voice was deep and neither harsh nor welcoming.

“This will be your room while you stay here at the academy. You will keep it clean and in order. Wake up horn is just before dawn, and you will be downstairs before the sun lights the peak of this mountain. I am the supervisor of this dorm. My name is Gunther Hale. You will call me sir or by my first name. I don’t care for titles or any other dragon scat like that. Any questions you have can be answered tomorrow morning. Go ahead and make yourself at home,” he sighed wearily, shutting the door.

Jarid began unpacking his things and getting ready for bed. The room was spacious and had a dresser, work desk (complete with pen and paper), a closet and a large bed. There was a uniform on the end of the bed along with a pair of boots on the floor.

Jarid put the uniform and his clothes in the closet. His personal items like the dragon scale and music box he left in his bag, which he tucked carefully under the bed. He changed into his night clothes and got into bed.

After all the excitement of the day he was totally drained, and the bed was even more comfortable than the one at the inn. He had one final thought before sleep claimed him.

I wonder how Shadow’s doing.