Haven's Addiction

After I composed myself riding around in the coach for a couple hours, I realized that in my haste I had left Mazzy behind at the Academy. Going back there was the last thing I wanted to do, but I couldn’t leave her behind. When we pulled up she stood out front waiting patiently. She got in the coach as if nothing happened, but by the look in her eyes she was completely furious.

“It went that badly?” She finally asked in her usual peaceful tone, after several minutes of riding in awkward silence. Apparently I wasn’t doing as well at maintaining my composure as I thought.

“Yeah,” was all I could manage to say without breaking out into a bout of tears again.

“I’m sorry,” was all she said for the longest time. I couldn’t tell if it was out of sympathy or if she felt guilty for being the one to take me there. “That happens sometimes, and it’s rarely pretty.”

I merely nodded and thanked her for returning my stuff. We rode in silence for a long time before she finally asked “What now?”

“Evaluation,” I uttered without even thinking about it. “The psychics.”

“Are you sure you’re ready for it?” She seemed genuinely concerned, which was very unusual for her. She usually only took on the role of the bodyguard without any emotional attachment. She was there to show me around and keep me safe, as I am sure she had done for many other people before me. Sympathy wasn’t in the job description.

“No,” I responded, again uttering the words without an ounce of thought “but I don’t have a choice. Too much is riding on it, too many lives.” I refererd to everyone back home, but tried to only think of my wife. I kept the possibility that my actions might be responsible for saving the lives of an entire planet as far from my mind as possible. Being accountable for the lives of a few billion people was too much for me. I wasn’t ready to take that much on just yet, and didn’t know if I ever would be.

That’s one thing I’ve always been good at. I was a Doer. Whenever there was a task at hand that needed to be done, whether it was fixing the kitchen drain or figuring out a market strategy for a product, I would just get up and do it without hesitation, focusing on it until completed. That’s just the way my brain worked. I’m a task oriented puzzle solver by nature.

Whenever I got irritated, angry, or just plain pissed off, I would narrow mindedly focus on one specific task to vent my frustrations. My wife could always tell when I was upset because I would suddenly work obsessively on a project around the house. So it shouldn’t have surprised me in the least that I kept plowing forward despite the enormous amount of weight I suddenly found on my shoulders.

We rode in silence to the Djedoas temple where I would be evaluated. The place was absolutely gorgeous, brimming with luscious plant life the likes of what I had never seen before, and put every other building I saw thus far to utter shame. Upon arrival, the worries and concerns that had plagued me over the last several hours were forgotten for a time. The temple wasn’t ornate like a fancy cathedral. In all actuality the building itself was quite plain with no distinguishing features, but the entire place resonated an aura of peace and tranquility about it that transcended its appearance. Everyone I met there was cheerful and welcoming, a far cry from the prissy wizards we had just came from.

We were escorted to see the head honcho himself; Nasgoth Djedoas. Apparently he was the founder of the psionic schools in Haven, which made him to be very old indeed considering they have been around for as long as Haven has existed. An aid informed me that it is exceptionally rare for Lord Djedoas to meet with new recruits personally, and that I must have somehow made a distinguishing impression upon him. Considering that I had never met the guy, I took that to mean the Twittle bird reputation preceded me.

While I waited to see him, a cat-like assistant named Sera gave me a brief history on the order of the Djedoas while giving me a tour of the campus. She walked upright like practically everyone else in Haven, as well as back on Earth, but with tufts of orange striped fur that reminded me of Morris, the 9 Live cat food cat. With a very feline face, right down to the whiskers, and a tail that stuck out behind her, there couldn’t be any doubting that she was a genuine alien species and not some special effects movie makeup. I became so enthralled by the movement of her tail as we walked that I found myself staring at it periodically. Occasionally she would catch me looking and would have to quickly turn away and feign interest in some random piece of architecture because I felt guilty for staring. She must have though I was checking out her ass, because she would give a flirtatious grin, which was pretty unnerving coming from a feline face, give an almost imperceptible purr as she quickly looked me over like I was a suitable piece of man meat, and then continue on like nothing happened. I swear she put more of a sultry wiggle into her step after that, which made me want to check out the goings on of students as we passed by with extra effort so that I wouldn’t look at her backside again.

She informed me that those at the Psion Academy were a collection of students with mental powers known as Psionics. Lord Djedoas founded this place as a school to teach those with talents no matter how strong. All level of abilities were welcome from the powerful zen masters to the lowly peasant who could only marginally read peoples emotions.

“It is strongly believed here that everyone has a purpose in the world,” Sera said in her feline voice that put emphasis on the R’s that practically purred each time she spoke, “and that by enabling their natural abilities to the fullest the world would be a better place.”

My first impression upon hearing this reminded me of a church like all the others we saw around Haven. Boy was I wrong. Religious instruction or propaganda of any kind was strictly forbidden. There was a great deal of religious tolerance and people of all faiths were welcome with open arms, but the Academy remained strictly neutral ground. They didn’t participate in religion or politics.

The true core of the organization came from the students with high enough aptitude who were trained to be knights of the order. They used their mental abilities for the good of the world to defend the innocent, thwart villainy, and rescue kittens from trees and some such. The kicker is that the knights from the Djedoas Academy were known as, I shit you not, the Djedai Knights. Your guess at the proper pronunciation would be correct.

Sera proclaimed Lord Djedoas to be the most powerful Psion in the entire world. When he first arrived to Haven, he gained an immediate following. Most distinguishable of all was the weapon he carried. He carried a sword at his side, but it hung from his belt as just a sword hilt. I swear I am not making this up. When the sword hilt is drawn, the blade appears with a glowing light. It’s not a genuine light saber, though. The glow comes from a unique metal that glows, and it hot to the touch. This metal also carries a constant melodic tone that changes as the swords swings through the air. In hearing this I was in fanboy heaven, and realized that if the academy was ever short of funds they should travel to Earth and sue the pants off George Lucas for copyright infringement; if he was still alive.

Apparently only Lord Djedoas knew where this unique metal could be harvested, and how to properly mold it into a weapon. Since the metal was apparently indestructible, it seemed like this would be impossible to do, which is why he still held the secret after thousands of years. The weapon could take on any shape when it formed, and when in the shape of a sword blade it could cut through any matter like butter. With a weapon like that in my hands, the Graxis wouldn’t stand a chance.

When one of his students becomes skilled enough and devoted enough, he personally crafts one of these weapons for them to use in protecting the weak and defending the innocent. All students are not required to perform such service, but some degree of honor is expected. He managed to gain such loyalty in them that abuse of the power the weapons hold is extremely rare and short lived. The more I heard about it, the more it sounded like exactly the kind of weapon I came in search of.

Nasgoth Djedoas was the most unique man I had ever met in my life. From the first moment I looked upon him, I was in awe. He seemed completely normal in appearance, and could have passed for being human back on Earth without any trouble. Everything from his Caucasian toned skin, to his short cut brown hair made perfect sense to me. His height, weight, facial features and build were average in every way with nothing about his physical features that stood out. I didn’t know if was part of a spell, like with the sign outside Fenton’s that made his appearance to seem like whatever would be the most normal to me, but I accepted it. Even now as I write this, and have personally met with him many times, and have held this same conversation with multiple people who have been in his presence, there are no words that come to mind that would give an accurate physical description of him. I am convinced that he emanates some sort of powerful psychic aura that makes him appear this way to everyone.

What is particularly striking about him is that he immediately resonated a noble and altruistic aura upon entering the room. I knew upon seeing him that he must have been divine royalty of some kind. There was a quiet reverence about him that demanded respect, but wasn’t forceful. I remember thinking to myself, on that first meeting, that this is the closest I will ever come to being face to face with a god. The power around him was so strong that you could practically see it, and I felt drawn to him like a magnetic pull.

“Welcome Bailey,” he said with a smile warm enough to melt anyone’s heart. He had a sincerity and friendliness that was indisputable. He reminded me of what the Dali Lama would be like. Someone tranquil and compassionate on a level that no normal person could possibly comprehend. He invited me into his personal office, which turned out to be little more than two mats on the floor for seating and a small table in between them. He guided me over to them were we sat across from each other. He immediately sat down with his legs crossed in a full lotus position while I tried to get as comfortable as I could.

“I hear you have some talent that you wish to share with the world.” I was completely captivated by this guy despite the discomfort in the seat. His presence was amazing. In looking at him I felt that this was a person who completely understood me, and genuinely cared about my feelings and aspirations.

“Why is it that you are here Bailey?”

I was taken aback by this question because I didn’t truly have an answer. At first I thought he meant figuratively like ‘why are we here on this earth’, but realized I was being affected by his divine presence. What he really wanted to know was, literally, why I came to his office. Personally I thought he knew why, but wanted me to say it out loud for my own sake.

As I thought about it I wondered, why was I here? What did I hope to accomplish by talking to him? I guess I was there to unlock whatever mental powers I had, but for what purpose? What good did I expect it to do for me? I didn’t even know what these mental powers were or how I could use them. To be honest, I think the reason I came here was because the incident with the Twittle birds really unsettled me, and the Academy even more so, and I wanted to understand the meaning behind it better.

“And the truth comes out,” he spoke up.

Was he just reading my mind?

“You already know the answer to that,” he said in response to my thought. “You ask a lot of questions. Asking questions is fine, that is how you learn. You are asking questions of yourself. You need to learn more about yourself before you can ever begin to learn about any abilities you may or may not have. For those abilities are a part of your self. Thus knowing your self is the key to unlocking your potential.”

He spoke in riddles too. Just what I needed. I started to roll my eyes thinking, ‘Oh, great. Just what I need. Advice from master Yoda.’

“Master Yoda taught me well. Everything I know about the Psionic arts came from him.”

“Seriously?!” I asked in complete surprise. The enthralling spell of his presence seemed to falter for just a moment. “The person who trained you was named Master Yoda?”

“Yes,” he looked at me confused. “Why would I tell a falsehood about that?”

I couldn’t help but grin. “There’s just a guy back in my world you need to meet. Bring a lawyer.”

“The common mistake of the Twittle birds,” he said, completely ignoring my remark, “is that they don’t give people a clear picture. After being visited by the birds they come here only to be disappointed because they are led by rumors. They are expecting to leave here with vast knowledge, and wondrous abilities. They do not understand that we cannot unlock any talents they have. All we can do is show them where their abilities lay inside them, and guide them on the path to discover the rest for themselves.”

“So the birds are a myth, a lure to get people here. For what? To be let down?”

“Look deeper into the meaning.”

This mysterious mystic crap was starting to get annoying, but I thought about it for a moment anyway. I didn’t know anything about Psionics, but just like any skill it has to be learned. I am skilled at business, but I only found out I had a talent for it when I went to start my own business out of necessity to support us. If I did have any psychic abilities, I never stumbled upon how to use them. Or was it that I never stumbled upon them because I never felt that I needed them?

“Now he understands. Necessity is what makes it happen. You may be more talented in other fields than you are in business, but since you never chose to explore those talents they were never nurtured to grow.”

“So, do I have any psychic talents or not?” I grew impatient, the tone in my voice sounding harsher than I intended it to. He closed his eyes for a few moments and I could feel a slight tingling in my head like intangible fingers slowing probing deep into my brain.

Finally he opened his eyes again and said with a smile so brilliant that it brought me tremendous relief. “That you do.”

“So, how powerful are my skills?”

“As powerful as you want them to be. The progression of your abilities is entirely up to you. While all abilities are limited, the boundaries of those limits can only be achieved by exploring them. It is conceivable that they could expand to the point that they would seem infinite.”

“How do I explore them?” I asked, trying to ignore the cryptic nature of his responses.

“I can show you. If I do there will be no way for you undo the knowledge once it is learned. Are you sure you are ready to begin down that path?”

I took a deep breath and exhaled. “Like you said, necessity is what makes it happen. Whether I am ready for it or not, I need to be. Let’s go deeper down the rabbit hole.”

He grinned. “You are more prepared than you realize. Let us begin.”

He closed his eyes as if going into a deep trance. Watching him I began to get drowsy and found my head drooping as I started to nod off. Next thing I knew I was in a dark void, like a completely blackened room. But I couldn’t see any of the walls or floor. Nasgoth appeared floating in front of me in the exact same position. It was as if everything in the room except for Nasgoth and I completely vanished into the blackness. He sensed my uneasiness and seemed interested in it. He gave a small smile, and any nervousness over this sudden change in environment washed completely away.

“I see that you have great potential in the field of Telekinetics.” His mouth didn’t move when he spoke to me. The words couldn’t be heard, but were pumped directly into my head. “It is there that you would excel,” he told my mind.

“Moving objects with my mind?” I thought-told him back, intrigued at the possibility of having such a power.

“Your potential can become highly advanced if nurtured properly. You would be best to begin with moving small objects, and let your abilities evolve from there.”

“So how do I move objects with my mind?”

“The common mistake when learning Telekinetics, as with most Psionic abilities, is to visualize and think physically.” With a wisp of smoke a tea cup appeared floating in the air in front of us. “Take for example this cup. Try to move it with your mind.”

I tried to make the cup move, but of course it wouldn’t budge. This was especially frustrating because it floated motionless in midair, and just breathing on it should have been enough to make it do something.

“See, you are making the same mistake. You are visualizing your hand reaching out and picking up the cup. You are thinking in too much of a physical form. To move the cup your mind does not reach out with a physical manifestation of your hand. To move the cup you must move the Cup,” he said with particular emphasis on the last word.

This riddle-speak, or should I say riddle-though-speak, was getting really annoying.

“The cup is made of matter, and is constantly surrounded by matter,” he continued. “All matter contains energy. Energy is the building blocks that make up all matter. It is this energy that you must harness and manipulate. By manipulating the energy within the cup and surrounding the cup you will put that energy into motion, much like a current of air or water. In moving that energy you will thus move the cup.”

“So, how do I move matter?”

“What you must first do is sense that energy. You need be able to feel it around you, to see it in your minds eye. Hear it, smell it, taste it, feel it all around you. The energy is constantly there. It never fades, it just goes unnoticed. By opening your mind to the true nature of matter to go beyond your normal senses. Now try it again, but harness this energy to move it.”

It sounded like a bunch of hippie jargon, but I decided to just roll with it anyway. I tried to move the cup again. This time I tried to see this energy around the cup that he talked about. As I did I saw Nasgoth reach out for my head with one hand. As he did so his arm seemed to go straight into my head, like the hand of a ghost going through a wall. He kept his phantasmal hand there and I felt a tingling in my brain. My senses shifted and I could finally see the cup in a different light.

It wasn’t like what I imagined, it seemed much more real. It was like putting in the translator Drognaus handed me, which seemed like ages ago. I heard the same words as before, but all of a sudden the words made sense. I could not just see the cup there, but feel its presence. I could see in my mind that the cup was not just a spherical bowl with a handle, but millions of little pieces all interconnected with one another. Looking at the cup in this way reminded me of looking at old color cartoon strips in the newspaper. The strip looks like a picture of a person, but when you look very closely you see that it is nothing more than hundreds of tiny dots of different colors that all come together to create the image.

Was I sensing the very molecules that made up the cup? He said that all matter contains energy, and that I must harness that energy in order to move the cup. The molecules that make up the cup are made of atoms, which are made of protons, electrons, and neutrons that are nothing but energy that is formed together into a cohesive structure. So if I tweak some of the energy of the molecular structure around the cup, would that cause it to move?

Under Nasgoth’s guidance I agitated some of the energy, or molecules or whatever the hell it was, on the underside of the cup. It took me a few tries of finding the right energy signatures to adjust and the right way to tweak them. Finally I found the right combination of the two and the cup slowly started to move up in the air. It didn’t move very much, and was slight enough that it couldn’t even be detected by the human eye. In my heightened state of awareness, which was like looking at it through an electron microscope, it definitely moved; of that I was absolutely certain.

Nasgoth then withdrew his hand and let me try it on my own. Without his guidance permeating my mind, it was a lot more difficult to do. I could still sense the energy of the cup, although it took more effort to find the correct energy signatures needed to properly move it. I still felt like I moved the cup, but it didn’t look physically noticeable, and took a great deal of concentration and mental energy. Maybe I was just imagining that it moved.

“You are doing well,” he informed me. I was startled when I realized that I could suddenly hear his voice again. I looked away to see that the room had returned to normal, then turned my attention back to the cup that sat on the small table between us.

“It sure doesn’t feel like it,” I grumbled.

“Don’t expect immediate results. It takes a lot of study to master the skills of the mind.”

“How long does it usually take? Weeks, months, years?”

“Advancement of mental abilities depends entirely on the individual. There is no formula to predict it. There are many factors involved. The individuals natural ability, their devotion, time spent on meditation, and worldly distractions to name a few. There are hundreds of different variables.”

“It all amounts to how much time you wish to devote towards advancing your abilities. The more time and effort you put into your meditations, the more skilled you will become, as with mastering any skills. The optimal way for you to learn would be to study full time here at the academy. I know you do not wish to pursue that. What would be best for you at the moment would be to study on your own. You have many things going on, and many goals to pursue other than your mental abilities.”

Master Djedoas obviously knew exactly what I was thinking. I wondered just how deep his knowledge of me went. Did he know about the time stream that I had just learned about at the Mage Academy? Did he possibly know more about it than I did? He showed no indication of either. He remained very calm and secretive, and only told me as much as I needed to know at the time.

When I left the Djedoas Academy that day, my mind was completely blown. There had just been too much for me to take in. I was still in shock about arriving in this world in the first place. Buying a ring that freezes things is just plain nifty, but learning that I am destined to save the world, that I am a clone, am traveling through time, have an invisible cord attached to me, and that I can move things around by thinking about was too much for me to handle.

When I got back to Fenton’s suite I immediately proceeded to handle it in true American fashion; I got sloppy drunk.

Damn it felt good.

The next few days were a blur. I didn’t leave the room except for a couple times when I think I stood out on the patio and pissed out into the garden. Whether I actually did or not is still kind of fuzzy, but it wasn’t a shining moment for me either way. Whatever kind of liquor Fenton kept in stock was primo stuff. Not once in my two-day binge did I have any nausea or a hangover.

Maybe getting drunk wasn’t the best of choices. All right, it was down right immature, but necessary. At first I felt like I had all the time in the world to waste since I would eventually return home as if I’d never left, but sitting around getting pissed made me feel selfish and worthless. It felt like the entire weight of the world, the very world that I had apparently been appointed to save, was weighing down on me.

Why me? What was so special about me that someone thought I would be a likely candidate to save an entire planet? Whoever sent me Haven went to great lengths to do so. They transported me to an entirely different galaxy, created a clone of my body, and broke one of the most stringent rules in a magical world to place a temporal tether on me. Most of all I drank myself into a stupor because I felt like they placed their bet on the wrong horse, and that I would be left alive to suffer knowing that every near and dear to me would be destroyed as a result.

Eventually the bender ended. There was no epiphany or yahoo moment. I finally stopped feeling sorry for myself and stopped drinking. Afterward I wasn’t nearly as overwhelmed. I needed to start moving to get my mind off things and focus on the task at hand. I fiddled around with my new equipment, both magical and not, and practiced on my new Psionic abilities. As I did, I began to wonder, and even believe, that it was possible that I could succeed. For the first time since arriving in this horribly fascinating new world, I began to have hope, real hope, that I would one day be able to return home.

If what the Mystic said was correct, which every instinct in my body said he was, I wouldn’t be able to bring any actual weapons back with me. I would return home only equipped with knowledge. Practicing my Psionic abilities would certainly be helpful, but so would any magical knowledge I could gain. If I could learn and memorize the process for making magical weapons, I would be the savior of our world, or at least I hoped I would. It was worth a shot. I had nothing else to lose after all.

So I sobered up and summoned Mazzy to let her know of my intent to study the arts and learn as much as I could about this world.

“It’s about time,” she said with an I-told-you-so tone.

“What’s that’s supposed to mean?” I took offense.

“Why do you think I’ve been following you around everywhere?”

I stopped to think about it. I assumed that Drognaus enlisted her as a tour guide/bodyguard. I expressed as much to her and she called me an idiot.

“I was instructed to assist you in getting whatever you needed to be ready for the challenges ahead. I was to show you around until you were ready to take your responsibilities seriously.”

“Ok, so I’m there. Now what?”

“We go back to Drognaus’s castle.”

“What’s there?”

“Everything you need to take this to the next level.”