Celdic stared at the ceiling above his bed, trying to remember the dream that he had awoken from. Images of himself flying through the dense forest surrounding the mountain city of Tenral flickered through his mind, but the sequence and clarity of the dream stubbornly refused to acknowledge him. Sometimes dreams did that.
The 7am bell began tolling loudly from the center of the city of Tenral, oblivious to the groans of sleepy protest scattered throughout the city. After a protest by the labor party several decades earlier about the injustice of the labor class being forced to arise earlier than everyone else, a bell was erected in the center of town and all vocations were now required to begin their day at 8am sharp, and end at sunset. In actuality, the labor class was the sole group that only worked until sunset, so the other classes were more than happy to adhere to the new law. The labor class was also the only class that had three days off out of seven, so they were less than pleased about the obnoxious bell that woke them on their days off. The council just smiled and told them to be careful what they wished for.
Celdic threw off his blankets and made his way to the wash room. His sister, Chale, would take residence for the better part of the hour if he did not hurry. He peered at himself in the mirror, where bright blue eyes stared back at him. His sandy brown hair was tousled from sleep, and his sharply featured face was lined from sleeping face first on his pillow.
After washing and cleaning his teeth, Celdic exited the wash room just as Chale came down the hall. She was taller than him by at least two inches, standing at six feet and two inches. Her chest length dirty blonde hair was braided into a long pony tail, and her blue mischievous eyes were trying to hold back her mirth. She was trying not to smile as she walked past him, her pouting lips quivering. Celdic immediately became alert. His sister had an extremely overdeveloped sense of humor, and he had learned to recognize her looks enough to know when she was up to one of her pranks.
Back in his room, Celdic quickly dressed and pulled on his shoes. He took two steps, and then dropped to the ground and began frantically pulling off his left shoe as he felt something wriggling beneath his toes. Holding his shoe in the air, he shook it several times to try and dislodge the unknown inhabitant.
Nothing came out.
Celdic sighed. He was going to have to reach in to pull it out. He reasoned that if Chale had been able to put it inside of his shoe, it could not be harmful, so he reached up grabbed something fat and slimy, then pulled. It grudgingly let go of the toe of his shoe, and Celdic pulled it out.
Celdic scowled down at the garden slug in his hand before taking it to the window and throwing it out. Touching a garden slug was inviting a handful of wart-like blisters on your hand for the rest of the day. Most people preferred poison ivy. His finger tips were already turning red and beginning to swell. Celdic told himself to remember this incident the next time that he felt like taking pity on Chale on the practice field for hand to hand combat.
Celdic went into the kitchen where his parents were already preparing some breakfast. His mother, Elinor, was on the Council of Elders, where the laws of the city were created and modified. She was the youngest member to ever be voted in, but people seldom thought of her age. She had a presence that crowded a room all by itself, and she was a thin woman. Her eyes held a wisdom seldom seen in a person without grey hairs. She spent most of her days listening to complaints from the various class parties, who were always convinced that the grass was greener on the other side of the fence.
Celdic’s father, Denrik, worked for the department of agriculture. They controlled the farming industry, as well as the harvesting of the Rajan Gardens, where especially skilled gardeners were trained to enter the dangerous, and sometimes lethal dense foliage. Denrik had never shown much interest in his work, unlike his wife. His children were his life, and he spent all of his free time making himself a part of their school work and training.
“Good morning, Celdic,” his father said with a smile as he flipped some vegetables around in oil on a frying pan. He had an athletic build, and enjoyed working with Celdic on his hand to hand combat training. He had the same mischievous look in his blue eyes that Chale possessed, but his sense of humor was somewhat more mature than hiding slugs in people’s clothes.
“We’ll see,” Celdic muttered, looking at his swelling fingers.
Denrik caught his look, and a grin broke out on his face before he could restrain it. He hurriedly changed his features to a reproachful look. “That was a very cruel thing of your sister to do.”
Celdic gave him a level look, while his mother turned to look at him curiously. “What’s wrong with your hand?”
“Somehow a garden slug mistook my shoe for his bed,” Celdic said sarcastically. “I think that I might start putting up directions for them.”
His mother shook her head with a sigh. “Sometimes I think that girl will never grow up.”
“There is nothing wrong with staying young forever,” Denrik defended his daughter.
“You would certainly be the authority on that,” his mother said pointedly.
His father shrugged. “We can’t all be serious, or all the important people would start to take themselves too seriously.”
Celdic walked out to the shed and grabbed the axe. After splitting enough would for the rest of the day and the following morning, he went back inside for breakfast. Chale had joined them, with barely contained mirth still reflecting in her blue eyes. Celdic frowned worriedly. She usually bragged about her pranks afterwards, so she must still be expecting something else to happen. Celdic treated her to a flat stare, with the promise of pain on the combat field. She stared back with pure innocence. Part of the problem with Chale was that her face had a naturally innocent look to it. Her teachers were only now beginning to realize how beguiling she was, after fifteen years of school. She had honed her innocent appearance to an art form.
They quickly ate their breakfast and bid their parents goodbye as they began their short journey to the school. The street outside was paved with cobble stones, with a wide sidewalk on either side. There were lamp posts spaced throughout the streets that shone brightly with the nightbright algae that grew in the Rajan Gardens. The sidewalks were already filling with people making their way to school or work. The roads were filled with horse drawn carts and wagons. Two story houses dotted either side of the street, for the most part sharing the same design as the surrounding houses. This was one of the residential districts of the mountain city of Tenral, home to just over a hundred thousand people.
Celdic felt his chest start to tighten as they drew closer to the corner that they met their friends on. Lendel, and his sister Li, had been friends with Celdic and his sister since they were barely able to walk. Celdic had been growing increasingly nervous around Li as she matured, and he found it difficult to find a safe place for his eyes to rest, usually settling for the ground or some distant object. It did not make any sense. He had known her all of his life. It was not that long ago that he and Lendel used to try and lose their sisters because they did not want their feminine company. Now Celdic leapt for any chance to be around Li, even though he spent most of his time tripping over himself. If that were all, he would have been happy with the situation. Unfortunately, Chale found his newfound interest in her closest friend extremely amusing, and went to great lengths to embarrass him. Questions about whether he thought her breasts were bigger than Li’s were usually followed with a suggestion that Li show him so that he could better gauge the size. Fortunately Li was almost as embarrassed as Celdic was, though she contained it much better, playing along with Chale sometimes.
“What do you think Li is wearing today?” Chale asked on queue.
“The same thing she always wears, just like you.” Celdic replied acidly, plucking at his own uniform clothing that all students wore.
“I meant
under her uniform,” Chale said archly. She laughed as Celdic’s ears burned bright red.
It was not really fair. Chale was quite taken with Lendel, but Celdic could never embarrass her using the same tactics. If he asked Lendel if he wanted to know how silly Chale looked after bathing, she would just offer to show him right there. Celdic’s only form of vengeance was giving her a sound thumping on the combat field, which she usually turned on him anyway, explaining to Li that she would not want to use her added height as an advantage against him.
Li and Lendel were standing on the corner of the street arguing playfully while they waited. Li was an inch shorter than Celdic’s six feet, with chest length straight brown hair that cascaded over her shoulders in silky waves. Her face was fox-like, with a quick intelligence and mysterious smile that made her absolutely intoxicating. Her dark brown, almost black eyes were enough to enslave a man’s soul and make him think that it was worth it. It was her full lipped smile that made his knees weak, and started his tongue to stuttering. Celdic had never seen a smile to compare.
Lendel was a half a foot taller than Celdic, easily dwarfing all of the other students at the school. His blond hair barely brushed his broad shoulders. His face had an open friendly look that made people comfortable approaching him. Most of the girls at the school had certainly found him approachable throughout the last year. Chale was no longer seen very far from Lendel when there were other girls around.
“What are you two arguing about?” Chale inquired curiously.
“I tried pulling out the argument that I had with Celdic a couple weeks ago.” Lendel grinned at Celdic, “He seems to think that a good offense can never be a good defense, because it stops being a defense the moment it turns into an offense.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Chale protested looking at Celdic quizzically, “I’ve heard you use that term before.”
Celdic rolled his eyes. “Lendel asked me if a good offence was a good defense, so of course I argued against it. It’s a matter of principle. I don’t agree with anything that Lendel says.”
Chale mulled it over for a moment, pursing her lips. “Oh. I suppose that I can understand that.”
“Yes,” Li agreed, “perfectly understandable.” Her tone said otherwise.
The four of them continued walking down to the end of the street, where the residential quarter gave way to the enormous educational grounds. The school was made up of over a hundred large building complexes. Rather than building schools throughout the city, the original architect had designed the school to sit at the center of the city, with the residential district surrounding it. Many people had criticized the lack of foresight for growth adjustment, but the original architect had said that if the school ran out of room, they needed a disaster for some population control anyway.
Chale and Li split off from Celdic and Lendel to go to their Rajan Compounds class. Celdic waved occasionally to some of the acquaintances that he had made over the years. He and Lendel had Defensive Training for their first class, taught by Selindria. They hurried into the room to get the closest seats to the back so that there would be a buffer between Selindria and her favorite victims. Celdic and Lendel were the best students at hand to hand combat, and Selindria liked to pick on them to keep them humble.
A few minutes of chatter ensued throughout the class, until the bell began tolling and Selindria entered the room from her office.
Selindria glided into her classroom with a quick scan of her eyes that missed nothing. She was the only person taller than Lendel at the school, standing at just over six and a half feet. Her waist length black hair was pulled back into a long pony tail. Her eyes always took new students by surprise, with a narrow, slit shaped pupil, rather than a round pupil. Her lavender colored eyes seemed to see through desktops as well, as most students learned within their first week of class. Her face was inhuman in its perfection, and most of the newer students would catch themselves staring in awe throughout their first month. Despite her awe inspiring radiance, Selindria had never married and showed no interest in personal relationships. Part of the reason was that she was older than everyone in Tenral. Most people passed her oddities off as a result of her proximity to the Rajan Gardens. Her small cottage stood within bow shot of the perimeter lines around the Rajan Gardens. Gardeners that spent too much time within the Rajan Gardens were known to develop strange oddities as well.
Very few people tried to win her affection’s, and those that did always left disappointed. It’s hard to have a romantic relationship with someone that was still kicking in their mother’s stomach while you were over a century into your life. Not that a few had not tried. It was rumored that Elder Stanton, the Elder in charge of the Council of Guardians, had been the last person to have a serious infatuation with the beautiful giantess, though that had been almost forty years previous.
“Welcome back, class,” Selindria greeted her students brusquely; “I am going to need a couple of volunteers for the lesson today.”
Celdic and Lendel both tried to slide lower in their seats as Selindria’s gaze stared at them pointedly, though in Lendel’s case he still stood a full head above the girl in front of him. As the seconds stretched out and nobody raised their hands, a small smile flickered across Selindria’s face. Everyone new that volunteers in Selindria’s class had a strange habit of ending up in the medical recovery ward. Celdic and Lendel were the first two students to never end up in the medical ward, and Selindria seemed to be doing her best to ensure that they had the experience before they left the school.
“If no one is going to volunteer, I will just have to pick some of you at random,” Selindria continued, staring at Lendel and Celdic. The other students sighed in relief. They knew who she was going to pick on.
“I only need two,” Selindria said, thoughtfully tapping her curved lips, “I would hate to take the chance of splitting Lendel or Celdic up, so why don’t you two just come up here.”
Celdic and Lendel stumbled over each other assuring her that they did not mind being split up, but both of them knew that it was useless.
“Such loyalty between the two of you,” Selindria chided lightly, “don’t worry, the only thing to fear is fear itself.”
Celdic and Lendel were mirror expressions of reluctance, slowly making their way to the front of the class. They were pretty sure that Selindria would make fearing fear more than a popular maxim.
Selindria directed the two of them to sit in the demonstration seats at the front of the class facing the other students. Celdic could see the grins of anticipation on some of the students as they waited to see what kind of torture him and Lendel would endure today. Celdic swallowed, nervously wondering what Selindria was going to do to them. There was never a calendar of events in Selindria’s classes. She liked to keep the lessons secret until the moment they were taught. She went to great lengths to teach them randomly, so that previous year students could not warn their younger peers when her sometimes painful lessons were being taught. The older students loved to embellish on what actually did happen during her classes though, and most new students looked forward to her classes with trepidation and fear.
“We are going to learn about a new evasive defense technique.” Selindria walked over to her desk and inserted some small plugs into her ears. “This will come in useful if you ever find yourself at odds with more people than you can physically handle, and need a diversion to escape.”
“What are the earplugs for?” Lendel asked nervously.
Selindria grinned widely, showing her perfect teeth, “The better to hear you with, of course.”
Lendel swallowed, wondering how ear plugs were going to help her hear better. Before he could follow up with more questions, both he and Celdic noticed a strange feeling begin emanating around them. Celdic could not feel things with his Yar, like everyone else, so he had no idea what was going on. Lendel could feel things with his Yar, but it was clear from his expression that he had no idea what it was that she was doing. The strange feeling quickly amplified into an intensely uneasy vibration that seemed to be too low for human ears. As the vibration slowly intensified, Celdic felt an irrational instinctive panic take control of him, and he began looking around wildly, trying to find the source of imminent danger that he knew must be near. As the discordant resonance increased in intensity, Celdic lost his memory of where he was, operating almost entirely on instinct. He was too petrified to move, and at the same time he knew that he had to get away before something terrible happened. Lendel was frozen in place as well, with a rictus of fear outlining his normally genial face.
The walls began to hum as Selindria intensified the discord, and Celdic felt something break inside his chest. It felt like a small sun had erupted within him. The fear immediately evaporated, leaving him clear headed and euphoric as a strange energy filled his veins like liquid gold. A second later the walls stopped humming as Selindria hurriedly pulled her Yar in, ending the discordant vibration and staring at Celdic in shock. A moment later she recovered, smiling as if nothing unusual had happened. The small sun in Celdic’s chest slowly died out, though his face still shown with a residue of the euphoria that he had felt.
Lendel let out a breath explosively, “Can I go to the hospital ward now?”
Selindria walked past her desk and picked up a small apple. Turning, she threw it at Lendel with terrific speed. He snagged it out of the air just before it hit his face, staring at her in shock.
“Your reflexes are still working, so I would say that you are fine,” Selindria said pleasantly, “You and Celdic can go back to your seats now.”
Selindria’s eyes hovered on Celdic momentarily as he moved past her to his seat. His mind was lost in thought, wondering if he had just found his Yar. From everything that he had learned about Yar, it did not feel like that. In his early school years, his teachers had tried to help Celdic learn to feel his Yar, trying various methods, from meditation to strange concoctions from the Rajan Gardens. That had all come to a stop when Kidel, his teacher for Yar Basics, had given him a drink of something that had been prepared from some of the properties in the Rajan Gardens. Celdic had felt the same burning feeling in his chest, followed by a loud detonation that had instantly kill his teacher, knocked the entire school unconscious for hours, and caused headaches throughout the city for over a week.
“Can anyone tell me what just happened?” Selindria asked her class, turning to look at them with one eyebrow raised above her strange eyes.
A hand shot up at the front of the class. Selindria nodded, “go ahead, Andaya.”
Andaya cleared her throat; "You used an evasive defense tactic called Intimidation, which uses your Yar to create elements of confusion, doubt, fear and other emotions to put the opponent off-balance. It can cause temporary paralysis by keeping the opponent too worked-up in his or her own emotions to competently compete against you. This form of blindness opens a perfect window for escape.” She finished with satisfied smile on her face. She was always the first student to raise her hand to questions, and almost never answered wrong.
“Very good, Andaya.” Selindria told her with a brief smile. “That is the textbook version of what you just saw. Using my Yar to enhance the intensity of the existing sound waves at the lower end of the spectrum, beyond what humans can hear, I created an instinctive reaction in Celdic and Lendel. Their bodies had no choice in how they reacted once their instincts took over.”
“So we were scared of a bunch of sound?” Lendel asked sourly, “how can sound frighten a person?”
Selindria nodded, “Excellent question. Since all of you live here in the mountains, you are all familiar with the extreme thunderstorms that arrive in the spring. What is the feeling that you feel when you are outside and the thunder cracks within a few feet of you?”
“Shock,” Lendel replied, still soured from his earlier scare, “but that’s just because I’m worried that the lightning is going to hit me.”
“So you jump from a sudden thunderclap because you know that it means lightening?” Selindria questioned, her eyebrow rising higher still.
Lendel blushed. “Well I jump, because the sound surprises me at first, then I begin to worry about the lightening.”
Selindria smiled with satisfaction. “Just think of the sound that you were hearing earlier as a continuous thunderclap. You could no more restrain your instinctive fear from overpowering you than you could prevent yourself from flinching at a sudden thunderclap. The trick to controlling sound, is to find existing waves with your Yar, and then guide them into larger wave lengths. Creating new sound waves with your Yar will exhaust you, but existing wavelengths already have a constant momentum, and they are very malleable. The hard part is learning to recognize what a sound wave feels like with your Yar.” Selindria smiled, looking at Lendel with a twinkle in her eyes, “Of course, we have to start with really large sound waves for you to learn to identify them at first.” Selindria deliberately pushed her earplugs deeper into their cavities.