Hunter's Beginning (Veller) (4 page)

“Even if I don’t get in, if I can get noticed by the mystics they may teach me anyway.”

“What do you mean by… spheres of influence?”

Alex looked at Daniel, and Daniel returned the look. There was something in that look, and Kile wasn’t sure if she really wanted to know what it was. She suddenly felt stupid and didn’t know why. There was so much about the examinations that she just didn’t know. It wasn’t for lack of trying but information was so scarce back in Riverport, and no one took her seriously enough to try to explain anything. She had come into this blind.

“You don’t know about the spheres of influence?” Alex asked, as if it was such an obvious topic that every child born would have been taught it, but Kile had never heard of them. She knew very little about the mystic arts, only enough to know that she didn’t really trust them.

“Well, simply put.” Daniel started, and Kile knew this was going to get complicated. “All of the mystic arts can be divided into the four basic elemental spheres of earth, fire, wind and water. I’m influenced by the sphere of water, which give me skills in the art of healing. Alex is influenced by the sphere of wind, which gives him the ability to create illusions, just like Carter over there.”

“Yeah, but mine are better.” Alex added, and no sooner had he said it then a small dog appeared in the boy’s hand. It couldn’t have been more than a couple of inches long, and if it wasn’t for the fact that it was semi transparent, Kile could see where someone could mistake it for being real. He quickly closed his hand and the dog was gone.

“What about Eric?” Kile asked.
Surely not everyone here had skills in the mystic arts.

“Fire.” Daniel replied
almost instantly.

“You sure?” Alex asked.

“Yeah… well, I think so. I saw him light a lantern once, of course that was some time ago, and I could be mistaken.”

“So does everyone have some form of mystic arts?” Kile asked, although she really didn’t want to know the answer. It was just one more thing that would keep her from her goal of becoming a
Hunter.

“Not everyone, if by everyone you mean the entire kingdom. Sure everyone is influenced by at least one sphere but not everyone can manipulate that sphere, only a real select few, but in order to become a
Hunter you need some knowledge of the mystic arts. They call it the Hunter’s Edge. It’s that one thing that separates the Hunter from… say… a common mercenary; it’s the thing that gives him his advantage.”

“And every
Hunter has one?” Kile asked. “Has there ever been a Hunter without an… edge. What about Erin Silvia, does she have an edge.”

“Of course she does, she’s a
Hunter.”

“What edge does she have?”

“Nobody knows that.” Alex replied with a look that clearly defined Kile as being as stupid as she felt.

“What Alex means is that
Hunters don’t tell anybody about their edge, not even other Hunters.” Daniel replied. “They say that the only two people who will know a Hunter’s Edge, is the Hunter and the mystic that trains them in it.”

One more thing, Kile thought, this was one more obstacle that had to be overcome. Could she fake it? Would they know? If nobody but the mystic and the
Hunter knew what your edge was, could she get by without one? The only problem with that little scenario was that she would have to convince the mystic to lie for her, and somehow she didn’t think that would be possible.

“It’s okay if you don’t know it?” Daniel replied, obviously seeing the concern in her face. “Not everyone knows what their sphere is, not until they’re tested.”

“But you guys know.”

“Well, Yeah, but we have a mystic back in our town that tests all the kids when they turn two. He can tell if they have any
real talent and what sphere of influence they fall under if they do.”

“Yeah, but by now she should know if she has any talent, otherwise, what’s the use
in taking the exams?” Alex remarked.

Thankfully before Kile could reply, the doors on the far side of the room opened slowly with a loud grinding sound that silenced what little talk there was in
the room. Each of the cadets turned and stared into the darkness beyond the open door, each wondering what the next stage of the exam would be.

As she watched she could
just make out the shape of a man. The shadows appeared to swirl around him, cloaking him in darkness. It picked up dust from the floor which outlined the very edges of his robes giving him definition and form. It was as if the room was sketching him into existence. When the artwork was done, the dark robed mystic hung over the threshold for a moment, then stepped down into the room and raised his arms.

“Enter.” Was all that he said, and then he was gone, the dust
falling to the floor, the shadow slipped back into the darkness, and the man was no more.

Kile hated the mystic arts.

She followed Alex, Daniel and the other boys into the next room, but as she stepped over the threshold she lost sight of them, lost sight of everyone as she stood alone in the center of a small square room with a single desk and another Mystic. This one was draped in purple robes. There was a large book open before him, along with an inkwell and an assortment of quill pens. He slowly picked one up, dipped it into one of the wells and began to write.

“What just happened?” Kile asked, looking around the room. There wasn’t a door behind her, so she couldn’t have come in that way. Then she realized that there wasn’t a door on any of the four walls. There was no physical way in or out the room. Had she failed the exam already? Did they find out she wasn’t sponsored or that sh
e didn’t have a sphere of… whatever it was? There were so many things that could go wrong it was just a matter of time.

“Name please.”

“Where am I? Is this still the exam?”

“
That's not really your name… is it?” The Mystic asked without looking up, his pen poised over the blank page of the book.

“Sorry… it’s Kile, Kile Veller.”

“How old are you Miss Kile Veller?”

“Fourteen.”

“Date of birth?”

“The nineteenth of January.”

“How tall are you?”

“Pardon?”

“Tall… as in how far is the top of your head from the bottom of your feet.”

“Oh… I guess five and three.”

He didn’t so much as write down what she said, as his hand just moved across the page and the words formed, not words that she recognized, but words
nevertheless.

“Eye color?” He asked.

“I don’t know… green I guess.”

“Aren’t you sure?”

“Well, yeah I’m sure… don’t you know?” She replied as a note of annoyance crept into her voice.

“They’re not my eyes.” The Mystic replied.

“Yeah, but… you can tell by looking.”

“Not really.” He said as he lifted his head, and she saw for the first time that his eyes were wrapped in a purple bandage that matched his robes.

“Oh… I’m… I’m sorry… I… I didn’t know.”

“There is nothing to be sorry
about; you did not take my sight… that was my doing.”

“Yeah, but I was… well kinda rude.”

“No, you were being young, and youth lacks the wisdom to be rude. What is your hair color?”

“What… oh,
it's red… or kind of reddish brown.”

“I believe it is referred to as… auburn”

“Really?”

“That is what I understand. I can
at least put down that you are female, since I do not need to see you to know that. Now, where do you come from?”

“Riverport.”

“What province is that in?”

“Province… I think it’s the
Shai Province.”

“Yes, I believe that to be correct
at the moment.”

It was not uncommon for someone to not know what Province that they came from, since it was something that could quite literally change
overnight without the inhabitance of a town knowing about it.

“Immediate family?” The Mystic asked.

“Yes.”

“Obviously, please elaborate.”

“Oh, Sorry.”

“There is still no need to
apologize.”

“Oh yeah, sorry… I mean I’m… Father, mother and one brother.”

“Father’s name?”

“Harold Veller.”

“Mother’s name?”

“Beth Veller.”

“Brother’s name?”

“Leon Veller”

“My name?”

“W
-what?”

“Just seeing if you were paying attention. You will be taking the written part of the examination next. You will exit through the door on your right, you will take a seat, once
everyone is seated the exam will begin. Do you have any questions?”

“Well… yeah, what written examination? What’s it about?”

“Please proceed to the next room.” The mystic replied as he directed her to the door that suddenly appeared on her right.

“You asked if I had any question.”

“And it is obvious you do, but I did not say I had any answers.”

“Funny… very funny.” She mumbled as she turned to the door. She was beginning to wonder if it wasn’t so much the mystic arts she disliked as it was the mystics.

***~~~***

2

When Kile stepped into the room, she was grateful to see the rest of the cadets. They all
look as dazed and as confused as she felt. She could only assume that they must have gone through their own little interrogations with their own little purple mystics, or in this place it could have been the same purple mystic. What did she know?

The room was laid out like a normal classroom or as normal as this place could get, with rows of desk, rows of chairs and a sort of raised platform in the front for the instructor to stand on. As with all the rooms in the tower there was nothing on the walls, it was obvious that mystics didn’t go in for decoration and therefore must lead a rather simple and boring life. That would explain why most of them don’t appear to be all there, she thought as she looked around for a place to sit.

“Kile, over here.”

She saw Alex pointing at an empty desk beside his own, and she was all too happy to sit next to somebody who didn’t think she was a jinx. As she took her seat she noticed Eric on the far side of the room. He didn’t seem to notice her, or was just ignoring her. Either way, as long as he stayed over there, she had nothing to worry about.
Daniel was sitting on the other side of Alex and on the other side of Daniel was Carter.

“So, you
made it.” Alex remarked as Kile sat down.

“
Made it? Was that part of the exam too?”

“No, not really.
That was just information gathering, nothing all that important.”

“How do you know?”

“Mystics that wear the purple robes are historians. They observe history as it happens. They write it all down and force kids like us to read about it in school.”

“Well, I don’t know how good an observer mine was, he was blind.”

“They all are.”

“Are you serious?”

“All the historians are blind, that way they can’t be influenced by what they see.”

Kile wasn’t sure if she was ready to follow that line of reasoning, but she didn’t have to think about it for long as the door in the back of the classroom opened and the silence was disturbed by the scrapping of chairs on stone as the class turned as one to see who had entered.

It was the first man Kile had seen since she had arrived at the tower who was not wrapped in the robes of the mystics. Instead he was dressed in a dark green tunic, brown pants and a gray wool coat. He wore high leather boots that ended just below his knees, and a wide leather belt with a bronze buckle. He was a tall man, rather thin with a good natured face. He had short black hair, a neatly trimmed beard and silver blue eyes, the color of which were disturbingly familiar, although she couldn’t exactly remember from where.

He looked around the room once, smiled and
proceeded up to the raised platform. His movements were so fluid that Kile was sure his feet never touched the floor, and the cadets turned with him as he passed. There was something very strange about this individual but Kile couldn’t put her finger on it. Before he even reached the platform, the door opened again, and again the class turned as one to see who else had entered.

The second man wasn’t so good natured. He was a large broad man with a flat topped haircut, dressed in brigand leather and sporting a long sword at his side. His face looked more weather beaten and harder th
an the armor he wore. He looked around the room, focusing on each individual face as if burning them into his memory. Each boy he looked at could only hold his stare for a few moments before having to look away. When his eyes fixed on Kile there was a change, ever so subtle, but it was there. He didn’t like her; he didn’t want her there and at that moment Kile didn’t want to be there.