The Magi

The following morning, Elijah woke up absolutely freezing. It had snowed during the night making the barracks cold and drafty. He walked over to the chest and pulled out an additional blanket before realizing it was time to get up. It was still dark outside, and his entire body still throbbed from yesterday’s physical training. Elijah gathered his pile of books and read the piece of paper lying on top of his pile, which listed what he needed to read and discuss for the remainder of term. Most everything was a classic like the Iliad and the Odyssey, various Shakespeare plays, and a textbook with a collection of short stories and poems. There were also books written by old philosophers and mathematicians. Elijah recognized the names of a few authors, but most he had never heard of.

After a quick breakfast, Elijah walked through the training arena and into his classroom. He took a seat in an empty chair at the very center of the room. He definitely didn’t want to draw any more attention to himself than there already was, being the new student, so he figured sitting in the middle would be a nice way to remain unnoticed.

There were some students in the classroom already. As the rest of them began to file into the room, Elijah recognized a few. Adam, the boy who heard him trying to open Kyria’s diaries, walked in and sat down in the very back of the classroom, near the door. He pulled out a book and began to read it silently. The tall boy who helped Elijah up from the pit of foam also walked in. He sat in the very front corner and turned so he faced the entire room. He began chatting with a chubby boy next to him.

Then, Elijah saw Hannah Maybury walk into the room. He hadn’t seen her since her family had walked with him to visit Arthur during the winter recess. She quickly scanned the room, and Elijah figured she was looking for her circle of friends to sit with. To his surprise, she looked directly at him, smiled, and walked right over to the seat next to him.

“Can I sit here?” she asked politely.

Elijah blushed.

“Sure.” She sat down and smiled at him in appreciation. From her bag, Hannah pulled out a book called The Writings of Aristotle. Seeing this, Elijah pulled out his copy too and took a few deep breaths. He told himself he was only nervous because of the difficult book he was expected to read and discuss, but as he looked at Hannah sitting next to him, he knew that wasn’t the only thing making him nervous.

“So how did it go yesterday?” Hannah asked. “I work with my mentor on Mondays, but I wondered how you were doing your first day.” Elijah’s eyes widened in shock. She thought of him? His hands began to get sweaty again as he tried to calm himself down so his voice didn’t shake when he answered her.

“I’m not sure I did so well,” Elijah admitted, his voice shaking. “I had a hard time getting out of that foam pit.”

“It’s so embarrassing isn’t it?” Hannah said sympathetically. “The first day we did that last term, all of us in our first year got stuck in that pit. It was like a sea of drowning swimmers! There’s still some who can’t do it in my group.”

Elijah felt immediately better. He hadn’t noticed anyone in his group that couldn’t get up, but some did struggle more than others.

“So you had physical training yesterday,” continued Hannah. “I have that on Saturdays. You’re working with the older group then.”

“Really?” asked Elijah. “Why would they put me with the older group?”

“Oh, they mix everyone up for physical training. Paul’s in that group, I think.” Hannah pointed to the tall boy who helped Elijah up out of the pit. “So is Andrew.” She pointed to a small pale boy with red hair sitting behind Paul talking to the chubbier boy next to Paul. “They are both in their preliminary year too. It’s just that most of the kids in your group are older, and most in mine are younger.” Elijah paused for a moment, gathering enough courage to ask about her.

“How was your day with your mentor?”

“It was okay,” she said brushing her brown hair out of her eyes. “Mostly, we just talked about things my parents have told me already, but I had some time to work on moving the elements.”

“Any luck?” asked Elijah curiously. He was trying to be polite and carry on the conversation, but Elijah was also curious to find out what his own day with his mentor would be like. He had to wait until Saturday to find everything out.

“No,” she said. “I thought for a minute I made some ripples in a pond, but it was just the wind.”

“Maybe you made the wind then,” Elijah said, immediately feeling like his joke was stupid.

Hannah smiled at him and looked like she was about to respond, but at that moment a middle-aged woman with dark hair and wrinkles around her mouth walked into the room, and Hannah straightened up in her seat, signaling to Elijah it was time to quit talking. He felt much better after his short conversation with her. It almost made up for the embarrassment he suffered the first time they met. Immediately following the instructor, Samuel charged into the room out of breath. He took the seat next to Adam by the door.

The rest of the class was spent discussing the use of their five senses to discover more about the world. Elijah was completely lost the entire time, but thankfully he was never called on. So, he spent the day listening to everyone else talk about Aristotle, the philosopher, and reading from an act of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. Some of the students seemed to have a lot to say about each topic, but most of them were quite content to let the teacher, a very boring, long-winded woman named Mrs. White, talk for most of the class time.

Elijah enjoyed the time they were given between discussions to visit with one another, even though he really didn’t know anyone. He learned from the others his discussion classes would always be done with students in his year. Other than physical training, which never changes curriculum regardless of age, all of his training would be with those same students. During the breaks, Elijah met almost everyone in the class—informally of course. There were fifteen of them, and they were all very curious about Elijah and Samuel.

“Why are the Maliphists after you?”

“Where did you come from?”

“What was it like living outside of Savenridge?”

“Who is Stan Hawk?”

“When did you learn about us?”

“How did you learn about us?”

Elijah tried to entertain each question and answer them seriously, but he began to grow tired of the attention after a while.

At lunch, Elijah found Samuel and sat next to him, but before he knew it, two other boys joined them. Elijah recognized Paul, the tall boy who helped him out of the pit, and he also recognized the other as the chubby boy who sat next to Paul during class discussions, but he didn’t know his name.

“So did you close your eyes?” Paul asked Elijah, referring to the foam pit as he sat down across from him.

“I didn’t get a chance to go again,” Elijah answered shrugging his shoulders, pretending his failure didn’t bother him in the slightest. Paul chuckled.

“Try it next time. Remember, you’re training your body to get stronger. The stronger it gets, the easier it will be to get out of there. Technique has a bit to do with it, but it’s more about strength. Zempke’s totally loony, but he has a method to his madness. Before you know it, you’ll be flying out of there. Isn’t that right, Isaac?” Paul slapped the boy sitting next to him on the back in a playful way.

“Hey, if you can even pull yourself out, you’re doing better than me,” said Isaac. Elijah and Samuel laughed, but Elijah wasn’t sure if Isaac was joking or not.

“I’m Paul Hetfield, by the way, and this is Isaac Rogers. I don’t think we’ve actually introduced ourselves.”

“I’m Elijah Hawk, and this is Samuel Moore.”

Paul and Isaac were almost exact opposites. Paul was tall and lean, but strong-looking. He had dark brown hair and icy blue eyes that were hard not to notice when walking by. Elijah wasn’t sure if he even liked Paul, but he enjoyed being around him. He radiated a charismatic confidence that was easy to be drawn to.

Isaac was not tall or thin. He had an average height and was a tad on the pudgy side. His hair and eyes were dark brown. As the four boys talked about their new experiences in training and living in Savenridge, Elijah could tell Isaac was a happy person. He smiled even when there wasn’t anything obvious to smile about. He paid attention to each person that talked by looking at them directly and, of course, grinned as they talked, as though they were in the middle of a joke and he was anxiously awaiting the punch line. Elijah liked Isaac immediately.

It was clear Isaac struggled with training because every so often, Paul would make a wisecrack about Isaac’s shortcomings, almost in a taunting way. True to form, Isaac would roll with the punches and laugh about his struggles. Elijah wondered if deep down Isaac was bothered by the playful banter, or if he really, truly was that lighthearted and carefree about his faults.

After the class discussions were over for the day, the four boys, Elijah, Samuel, Paul, and Isaac, decided to take a walk outside the training quarters and get some fresh air after being cooped up in a classroom all day. Paul led the quartet into a meadow covered with snow. One of the runoffs of the river cut right through the middle of the meadow. They found a spot close to the tree line that had a few large rocks and patches of earth peeking out through the snow, so they stopped there to relax for a few minutes, watching their cold breath steam out in front of them.

“So tell me, Elijah,” Paul said with authority. “Word is you’ve got something the Maliphists want. Is that true?” Elijah cocked his head sideways and gave Paul a curious look, not having a clue what he was talking about. His question seemed almost accusatory.

“I have no idea what the Maliphists want with me,” Elijah said.

“Is it true they have your uncle?” Isaac asked without his usual smile. Elijah dropped his head and kicked at the dirt under his boot.

“Yes.” All four boys were silent for a few moments. Paul looked around, his long arms resting on his hips.

“So you have no family here, then? No blood relatives?” asked Paul.

“No,” Elijah answered. “I was brought here from Saint Phillip’s Academy.”

“So you know Felix Pennington,” Isaac said merrily, changing the mood and, Elijah hoped, the subject as well.

“Just a little bit. He filled in for Master Roddick for a short while. I was only at the academy for a few months,” Elijah answered.

“Pennington was my brother’s mentor,” Isaac said. “At least when he wasn’t teaching at Saint Phillip’s Academy. He taught me a couple things here and there when he was mentoring my brother.”

“A lot of good it did,” Paul joked sarcastically.

“Hey, I’m doing better than when I started,” Isaac said. “I can almost run a full lap without assistance.” The boys laughed. “And, yesterday, I made it to mental training on time.” Isaac said this with mock pride, and he held his head up high.

“You’re right. You certainly are training hard to be mental,” Paul said, and Isaac took a playful swing at him as Paul danced out of the way.

“So what exactly does a mentor do?” Samuel asked, finally feeling comfortable enough to contribute to the conversation.

“Mostly, they work with you controlling the elements, but they also run your element training program,” Paul answered. “They meet with you once a week to see how everything’s going. To see if you’re on the right track and help you if you’re not. As you can see, Isaac’s mentor’s got his hands full.” Isaac shook his head and rolled his eyes.

Elijah thought about Saturday when he was supposed to meet his mentor. He wondered what he would be like. There were other questions he wanted to ask Paul and Isaac, but he decided to wait until another day. It was getting much colder outside, and Elijah had some reading to do to catch up for Thursday’s class.

Mental training, both his accelerated session and his normal session, was not nearly as hard as Elijah thought it would be. In fact, he found it to be quite easy. The trainer had him spend the day focusing and concentrating on various things. He had to repeat what another student said while the other students were talking to him at the same time. He had to stand on one foot without moving a single muscle for as long as he could remain stationary. Elijah found this to be physically demanding too, but it mostly took concentration to remain still. He lasted twenty-one minutes, which was the longest time for any student in their preliminary year. He also had to build puzzles from memory and stack items blindfolded. Mental training started out fun, but after six hours, Elijah became easily agitated as the work became more tedious.

One exercise, however, had the entire school in a buzz about Elijah when it was over. This exercise was done blindfolded inside a quiet classroom. The instructor, Master Ismai, a short, stocky man, blindfolded one student and lined the rest in front of that student. A frail-looking girl with white-blonde hair, named Rachel, was first to go. Ismai blindfolded her, stood her about ten feet in front of the other students and then explained the exercise.

“We are going to work our senses during this exercise,” Ismai instructed. “Most of us overuse our sense of sight. In other words, we rely on our sight for pretty much everything. How will you function if I take that sense away?” The class, still standing in a line shoulder to shoulder, murmured when he said this. Rachel, still blindfolded, looked absolutely petrified.

“Today’s exercise is not physically difficult,” Ismai continued, “but it will require lots of concentration. I will ask a certain number of students to step forward. Your job, while blindfolded, will be to simply tell me how many students have stepped forward. You will need to lose your dependency on your eyes and use whatever instincts you have to give me the correct answer. Let’s see how well you do.”

After demanding absolute silence, Ismai walked behind the line of students, tapping a few at a time on the shoulder, indicating them to step forward.

“Okay Rachel,” Ismai said when he was finished, “how many students stepped forward?” Rachel took a moment to think.

“Four?” she answered feebly.

“Take off your blindfold,” Ismai instructed. Rachel took off her blindfold and looked around. Seven students stood in front of her. She looked mortified, but Ismai encouraged her to keep going. After five tries, she correctly guessed the number of students standing forward. At her success, she was told she could stand with the rest of the students, which she did gratefully.

Most everyone performed about as well as Rachel. Some did much worse. Many were not able to get the right answer at all without major help from Ismai. One student named Gabriel got the first one right, so Ismai gave him another few chances to exercise his focus. It turned out, Gabriel took a lucky guess the first time, and he missed the next six tries.

After almost the entire class had gone, including Samuel who got zero correct, Elijah finally got his turn. He felt unusually confident in his ability to use his other senses, and since everyone before him didn’t do well, there was little pressure on him. The room was completely silent, but he strained his ears to hear just the slightest sound or movement. The feeling he had was very strange. He couldn’t hear anyone, but he could almost feel the presence of three students getting closer to him. He even felt like he knew who they were.

“Okay, Elijah,” Master Ismai said. “How many students have stepped forward?”

“Three,” Elijah said swiftly. Ismai didn’t give Elijah the chance to see the students. He moved quickly to the next try. After a moment, the question was posed to Elijah again. Then again. Then again.

“Six. None. Four. Er—twelve?” After close to ten times of guessing, Ismai stopped and instructed Elijah to take off his blindfold. Elijah was confused and embarrassed. The other students were only asked to guess five or six times at most. Why was he asked to do it so many more? He didn’t even know how well he did. It was as if he was made to show his failure over and over and over in front of everyone. Elijah felt his face blush with shame as he took off his blindfold. In front of him stood the entire class of fifteen students whose eyes were as wide as dinner plates. Not a word was spoken for several moments, but the students looked around at each other incredulously. Elijah sunk into his place in line completely humiliated.

“Let’s have another,” Ismai said, quickly breaking the awkward silence.

A different atmosphere permeated the remainder of the class. It was much quieter—almost eerie. After everyone had gone and Ismai gave final words of instruction to work on for the future, the class was dismissed, but Elijah was asked to stay afterward. Elijah wondered if he had exposed something about himself making it obvious he wasn’t cut out for the Magi after all. Maybe he had been so far off everyone knew he didn’t have the potential Roddick once thought he had. He sat down before he was asked to. Ismai sat down next to him.

“Elijah Hawk, is it?” he began. Elijah nodded his head, staring at the ground. “Can you describe what it is you were able to hear when you were asked to guess the number of students?” Elijah was not expecting this question, but even when he thought about it, he didn’t know what to say.

“I’m—I’m not sure I heard anything,” Elijah said. “Why? Did I get any right?”

“Every single one,” said Master Ismai. “You didn’t miss any. I’ve never seen anything like what you did today—not even from an older student. I even tried to trick you at the end and made students step forward and then step back. You still got it right.”

Ismai paused as if he expected Elijah to enlighten him on his ability, but Elijah was still speechless. He felt a little better knowing he didn’t make a fool of himself, but at the same time, he felt uncomfortable, as if he did too well on the exercise. Ismai smiled at him.

“Not to worry. In fact, I think it’s obvious you have an extraordinary gift. I’m excited to see what you can do with it.” Master Ismai thought for a moment before he spoke again. “If you don’t mind, I think I will speak with Mr. Button about this. You’re not in trouble—” he said, noticing Elijah’s eyes looking up in concern. “—I think we just need to make sure you get the proper training for your ability. Possibly give you a mentor that would be more suited to teach someone like you.” Elijah felt like a big bull’s eye was tattooed across his forehead. Someone like you sounded like he was from another planet.

When Elijah was dismissed, he went straight up to his room and locked himself inside. He didn’t want to be stared at, but even through all of the attention, there was a small part of him that was impressed with his performance during class. He felt special, but whether that was good or bad, he didn’t yet know.

The rest of the week was not as bad as Elijah feared. He noticed a few stares and some quiet gossip, but overall, the students didn’t treat him any differently. Friday’s physical training was very different than Monday’s. He thought it was going to be another day where he abused his body, but it was actually quite fun. Most of the day was spent with the obstacle courses, using his focus and mental strength in conjunction with his physical strength to complete.

Finally, Saturday arrived. It was the perfect scheduled day for element training, he thought. It was at the end of the week, so he was able to look forward to it, and he had a day off right after, so he could visit with the Roddicks and tell them all about it. Or, better yet, he could ask for advice if he didn’t do well during the training.

All the students who had elemental training on Saturday were told to report outside the front doors and wait for their mentor to meet them. The anticipation of this training had been growing as the week wore on. He waited outside with the others, watching the adult mentors gather their students one by one and walk out into the forests and meadows and fields until only he stood alone.

Elijah began to wonder if he had been forgotten. He remembered Master Ismai saying something about needing to find him a different mentor, but what if he forgot? What if all the other students received their training today and he didn’t? What if no one wanted him because they were afraid of his ‘gift’?

Elijah was about to go in and ask if he had the wrong day when he heard a noise behind him. Around the side of the building, Elijah saw an old woman he recognized. She carried a bag around her shoulder and slowly making her way through the snow. It was Olivia Rose, the woman who spoke for Savenridge, telling the Maliphist rider with the yellow eyes they would not give Elijah up—the woman whose husband was with Elijah’s uncle in the depths of the Maliphist prison. She walked up to Elijah and handed him the bag she carried.

“I’m sorry I’m late, young man. Would you mind carrying this for me?”