8. Small in the Light

In the months following the invasion of the Worlds Gate, the Order of Illumination went into full recruitment mode, capitalizing upon widespread fear from the recent “demonic incursion” with enlistment ads posted on every newspaper and message board throughout the region. The strange block-print script of modern humans was difficult to read for Silane and Demix, both of whom had vague memories of mortal language from some centuries ago, but they followed a group of interested travelers to a city populated enough to host its own recruitment events.

Silane and Demix slipped in through the city gates, cozy and well-disguised in their healthy new human bodies. The rumors had been correct: the city square was abuzz with a recruitment festival. Between live demonstrations of magic and stage performers acting out dramatized battle scenes, hundreds of common people clustered around the Order’s signup booths. The crowds included well-groomed children with their parents, grubby children with the haggard look of orphans seeking to rise in life, and solitary adults who moved stiffly with sad eyes. The Order had set up various queues for those interested in full membership, casual participation, donations, and so forth. Becoming a paladin was Silane’s ultimate goal; paladins were the most powerful class, the chosen few who wielded light magic, and the very same who had so devastated the Shadowed Isle during the invasion.

After observing the humans’ behavior for a time, Silane and Demix queued up for the “membership” booth alongside some dozens of other adolescents. The line moved swiftly; the Order accepted most of the applicants, though they turned away a few for reasons Silane did not catch. When Silane at last came to the front of the line, the recruiter smiled at her with pitifully dull, squarish teeth.

“Name and intended track?” the recruiter asked.

“My name is Silane. I want to be a paladin.”

“Another wannabe exorcist, huh?” The recruiter scribbled something on a piece of paper. “Aiming high—a good trait, but don’t get your hopes up. Not every exorcist becomes a paladin. How old are you?”

“Ten,” Silane said, because that was a nice round number.

“Where are you from? Why do you want to join?”

“I lived near the portal between realms. My family was slaughtered by demons. I want to make sure nothing like that ever happens again.” Silane copied exactly what the angry boy in front of her had said, down to the grim intonation and the clenched fists. It rang unexpectedly true.

“That’s dreadful. I’m so sorry for your loss.” The recruiter finished writing and gave Silane a sheet of paper. It was covered in unintelligible wiggly symbols. “Welcome to the Order, Silane. Take this form to the gentleman in blue by the fountain—yes, that one. He’ll bring all of you to Lumivale Academy. Next!”

Silane stepped off to the side to wait for Demix, who was next in line. He limped slightly as he moved up to the recruiter’s booth, still favoring the knee where Silane had kicked him before.

The recruiter looked Demix up and down, brow creasing. “Name and reason for applying?”

“I’m her brother. The name’s Demix. Going for paladin.”

“Yet another high achiever—good, good. How old are you?”

“Twenty,” Demix said, probably because that was a nice round number and also bigger than Silane’s choice.

“Twenty? Do you think you’re funny? Fighting the forces of darkness is serious business, lad. How old are you really?”

“Haha, right you are. Let’s say fifteen?” Demix looked to Silane for help. She shrugged. His possessed body was a bit bigger than hers. That probably meant it was older.

“Fifteen, that’s more like it. Terribly unfortunate, but you just missed the cutoff. The highest age Lumivale Academy accepts is fourteen. Any older, and you’re just too old for the, ah, physical requirements of exorcist training—but fear not, good lad. There are many other ways to contribute to the Order. Anyone with a strong work ethic can prosper in the scholarly branch. Top scholars can even become clerics or spellsmiths versed in the arcane.”

The recruiter sent Demix off to a different booth. As Demix brushed past Silane, he dropped a hand on her shoulder and leaned over.

“Make sure you become the best paladin of the lot. I’ll aim for cleric,” Demix said.

Silane nodded. Just like when they had parted ways with Elrach, the opportunity before them now was too important to pass up.

“Until next year,” she said. If splitting up was the cost of infiltrating the Order, so be it. Silane would walk this path alone.

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The man in blue, Brother Dave of the Order clergy, led Silane and a dozen other initiates to a horse-cart caravan that brought them an afternoon’s journey beyond the city limits. Their destination was deep within the forest, surrounded on all sides by remote wilderness. As they navigated a narrow, ill-maintained road through layers of trees and magical warding, a hidden town emerged from the underbrush. Due to the powerful illusion magic cast over the town, its true size was only apparent once the horse-cart was right outside its walls. The outermost structures were horse stables and livestock pens, but the architecture grew into successively taller and more complex wood and stone constructs toward the interior. At the exact center of the town, a white stone cathedral of ancient design rose high above the treetops. It almost seemed to glow under the sunlight.

“Welcome to Lumivale Academy, the primary campus for exorcist training south of Whitewater. This will be your new home for as long as you remain with the Order of Illumination,” Brother Dave said, leading the initiates into the cathedral.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

It was spacious and well-lit inside. The main chamber held hundreds of benches facing the pulpit in neat rows, and enough open space remained to fit many more people standing. An omnipresent aura of watchfulness grated against Silane’s nerves from the moment she stepped over the threshold. Mist-binding and warding glyphs were etched upon every column and tile of the cathedral; the stonework here posed as much a barrier to her mistform as to her solid body. Even so, the floor felt hollow at her feet, echoes of memory and sorrow and desperate hunger pulsing up from the unseen depths. No one else in the group seemed to notice it. The other recruits looked upward, awed by the richly decorated murals sweeping across the domed ceiling high overhead.

The central mural of the dome was a sprawling battle scene rendered in burning gold and midnight blue. Three illuminated mortals at the apex of the ceiling stood back-to-back against ravenous shadows lunging in from the four cardinal directions. On the walls below that mural were smaller images. On the left: an archer in crimson took aim before a volcanic eruption, and a monk wove blue-violet lightning around the Worlds Gate. In the very front of the chamber, above the altar: a mourner in white knelt beneath a magnificent stained-glass window depicting the sun. On the right: a gold-haloed warrior slew a tentacled mass of eyes and teeth, and a builder established the cathedral foundations within a verdant forest. Between and beneath these great murals were painted many smaller scenes of heroism, alongside several blank patches yet to be filled. One spot near the back held an incomplete sketch of a one-eyed paladin striking down a titanic serpent. Silane understood that image all too clearly.

The murals jolted a faint spark of recognition within Silane, but she couldn’t place it. The elaborate artwork, much like the intricate architecture and the complexities of human society, was like nothing she had ever seen before—color and form that recalled the grandeur of foreign lands and times long past, somehow evoking a deep sense of intrigue regarding heroes and battles that she had never personally known. Silane was so caught up in inspecting the murals that she jumped at the sound of Brother Dave’s voice.

“Come along this way. There will be plenty of time for sightseeing after you’re settled. First, let’s do a quick aptitude test to see where you’re starting out.”

Brother Dave led them through a pair of heavy wooden double-doors into a side chapel, where a smoky gray crystal orb sat on a pedestal. He rested his hand atop the orb. The crystal depths lit up like a firefly, emanating a sky-blue glow that pulsed in time with his heartbeat and the rush of blood through his veins.

“From mana, the Order derives power and resists corruption by the forces of darkness. This sensor measures the depth of your mana reservoir and emits a proportional amount of light.” Brother Dave removed his hand from the glowing orb, and its brilliance faded back to dull gray. Producing a pen and notebook from his pocket, he beckoned one of the new recruits forth. “Katalin, step forward and place both hands on the sensor.”

A tall girl touched the orb. It emitted a modest pulsating glow.

“Mana presence, good.” Brother Dave made a note in his book before calling up the next initiate. Each initiate went up in turns, all illuminating the orb to similar levels as the first. Close to the end, a boy wearing a tattered brown scarf made the orb flash almost twice as bright as the rest of the initiates’ attempts.

“A strong foundation. Congratulations, Aaron. You have a natural talent for mana concentration.” Brother Dave wrote some more notes.

“This is not talent but proof of my sincerity,” Aaron replied, a vibrance flashing in his eyes to match the intense pulse of his heartbeat. “In the months since the demons invaded my home and slaughtered my family, I have trained without rest for the chance to strike back at the forces of evil. I only regret that my past efforts were clumsy without the guidance of a master such as yourself, Brother Dave.”

Coming from a boy who couldn’t have been older than Silane’s own possessed body, at maybe nine or ten years of age, these grand words sounded rather absurd. Brother Dave looked skeptical, and a few other initiates laughed. However, Silane could respect revenge. She looked closer—not with the wet meaty eyeballs of her possessed body, but with a momentary peep of her true Mistforged senses. The flavor of Aaron’s energy was familiar, calling to mind the night of revelry and bloodshed that had kicked off this whole mess. They had crossed paths before in the forest. Aaron’s family had been delicious.

At last, Silane’s turn with the orb arrived. When she pressed both hands against the sensor orb, a great suction wrenched her forward. It felt like her actual self, the Mistforged essence nestled within borrowed flesh, was being siphoned out of this possessed mortal body. She fought the orb’s pull with all her strength and barely remained in control. Her mortal body trembled from the shock, gasping for air.

The orb did not light up at all. If anything, it darkened.

“How unusual. It’s never done that before,” Brother Dave’s brow furrowed.

Silane couldn’t be discovered this early on. She couldn’t. She focused internally, digging deep within her possessed body for buried traces of life. There, behind her ribs—a slight pulse. This mortal shell she wore was still alive despite her control. She channeled that pulse out into the orb, converting the flutter of mortal heartbeat into a subtle brightening and dimming of the ambient glow. It blinked too fast, rushing at almost twice the rate of the other recruits’ pulses.

This body was terrified. It probably always had been, ever since the moment Silane had possessed it.

Silane couldn’t afford fear.

Exerting deliberate control over her autonomic functions, Silane decreased her heartbeat to a reasonable pace. Spots danced before her vision as her blood pressure also dropped, but she remained standing upright through sheer willpower. The orb pulsed slowly and steadily in time with that heartbeat. It was still much dimmer than the other initiates’ attempts, but at least the rhythm was correct.

“Aha! There it is.” Brother Dave looked at her in pity. “Your mana seems more sparse than most, but don’t be discouraged. Talent is only the first ingredient. With enough hard work and persistence, even the smallest mana reservoir can be expanded… and if not, well, there’s no shame in becoming a scholar instead.”

Silane pulled her hands off the orb as though burned. Become a scholar? No way. Neither of her friends had made it this far into the Order. Their hopes were riding on her; she couldn’t fail them now. She erased all traces of frustration from her expression and bowed.

“Much gratitude for your kind consideration, Brother Dave. I will persist.” Silane stepped back into the lineup of initiates, face set in a rigid smile.

Afterward, Aaron came up to Silane.

“I know what it’s like to be weak. Every time I consider giving up, I remember what the demons did to my family. What that spider did.” Aaron touched his threadbare, discolored scarf with reverence. “Remember why you’re here. That will give you the strength to go on.”

“I remember. I’m here to pay back the ones who destroyed my home.” Silane remembered the invasion, the sunbeam carving through the Stargazer Mountains, the one-eyed paladin who obliterated Sentinel Khond with a single blow. She would never forget those things, nor her mission: to destroy the Order and free her captured brethren. But Aaron had it backward. Having purpose did not grant Silane strength. Rather, she needed strength to fulfill her purpose.

“It seems we have the same goal,” Aaron said with a smile.