Honed by Pain by Mike Stagg

Author:Mike Stagg [Stagg, Mike]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-04-11T22:00:00+00:00

Torant descended the stairs, which spiraled down into the earth. Torches lit the broad stone steps but with each curve, they became farther apart and the light dimmer.

After four more turns, he came to a broad wooden door reinforced with bands of iron. Out of habit, he went to knock with his bandaged right hand, caught himself, and struck it twice with his left.

The door opened and a woman with black robes and brown hair smiled and ushered him into a dimly lit room filled with tables, candles, and the People of the Way. “I am Temný. Přítmí bade me guide you to him.”

Torant nodded and followed her into the room. Black-robed Holders were gathered in groups around different tables, each with candles arrayed in different formations, some under covers, some in front of slitted sheets of wood, and others before mirrors.

Torant really didn’t know what to think. “What’s going on here?”

Temný smiled more. “This is where those of us who study this path start.”

“Staring at candles?”

“Learning the properties of light.”

He looked around the dim room. “Seems pretty dark.”

“How else to see it?”

They wove through two groups and Torant saw a short man with flat red hair, a ridged-nose, and bone plates for teeth. When the man extended a talon-tipped hand to a candle, Torant froze and reached for his Blade. Temný put a hand on his arm. “All are welcome here. You know this.”

Torant lowered his hand. “I didn’t leave his people on the best terms.”

“He is of our People now. Come.”

When they passed, the Harrier caught his eye, made a point of seeing him, and then went back to his candle.

As they passed out of the room, they came to a dark hall. “Take my arm,” Temný said. “I will lead you.”

The path was smooth and, in seconds, utterly dark. “Why this obsession with light?”

“Light is the key to all around us.”

“Light?”

“It reveals or hides the nature of things. Even time.”

They came to another door, which Torant realized once Temný opened it. This room had one table with a large box on top. Four black-robed people stood around the table while a fifth had both of her hands on the lid of a box. Temný touched Torant’s arm and the two stopped.

“Ready?” said the fifth Holder.

The other four nodded.

The fifth Holder removed the lid. A chorus of “ohhs” came from the other four and there was a furious scribbling of quills into small leather books.

Temný started them up again. She nodded to the fifth man. “Kvantum.”

“Temný.”

As they passed the table, Torant couldn’t resist and looked inside the box.

There was a dead cat in it.

“You’re suffocating cats?” he said as they walked out.

“No. We just opened the box to determine which reality it existed in.”

He looked a question at Temný.

“It would take too long to explain,” she said and they left.

Another dark hall, another guided walk, longer this time, and Torant, who had been in more deep places than he cared to recently, came to find that they were in total darkness.

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