Tin Thoughts (The Downfall Saga Book 2) Page 33
The door opened.
“You can come in now,” said Professor Cleary, with a smile.
Donovan stood up, and reaching into one of the inside pockets on his cloak, he pulled out the pendant that he’d found the previous year, and hung it around his neck. It seemed fitting that he proudly displayed the symbol of Zeren for what was coming next. He’d thought about bringing the white dagger with him as well, but quickly discarded the idea. The professors wouldn’t be amused if he was openly carrying a weapon.
He walked into the classroom.
Several tables had been pushed together to form one large table in the center of the room, while the others were stacked around the perimeter. Eleven frowning faces, with Headmaster Marrok in the center, plus Cleary’s smiling face, sat on the far side of the table. Donovan didn’t recognize the other ten people sitting at the table, but he assumed that they were all professors, or at least fully trained wizards. Osmont sat on an empty table at the side of the room, but didn’t acknowledge Donovan’s presence.
A series of hisses and angry mutterings spread when the people in the room saw what Donovan was wearing around his neck.
He put a cocky smile on the healthy half of his face, and strode over to the table. He sat down directly across from Headmaster Marrok.
“This is a most unusual request,” said Marrok. “None of us appreciate having our time wasted like this.”
“On the contrary,” said Cleary. “I’m very interested in what’s about to transpire.” Marrok shot him a stare. “From a purely academic standpoint, of course.”
“It is not my intention to waste your time,” said Donovan.
“So we can cancel this charade?”
“As I was saying. It’s not my intention to waste your time because I believe that you will all be witnesses to the most significant event to happen at Haven in the last thousand years.”
“If you’re done trying to impress us, I’d like to move on to more important matter that I have to deal with today.
“I’m as anxious as you are.”
Headmaster Marrok looked down to the end of the table where Professor Cleary sat. He had an old, dusty book sitting open in front of him, and a small wooden box.
“It took me several hours to search through the archives until I found the appropriate admission procedures.” He tapped the book in front of him. “To the best of my knowledge this hasn’t been done in a thousand years but, luckily for all of us, it turned out to be a fairly simple process.”
“Get to the point,” said Marrok.
“Right. We had to substitute ourselves for the usual twelve testers, but I don’t see that having any impact on what we’re about to do.”
“Cleary!” snapped Marrok.
“Can you pass this down to Donovan?”
The wooden box was passed down the table and set in front of Donovan.
Donovan opened it and saw that it held one of the glass spheres which was used to test all of the teenagers in Rourke to see if they had the ability to use magic. Donovan picked it up and balanced it on the table in front of him.
“The test is surprisingly simple,” said Cleary. “Everybody here should be familiar with this object. The candidate, in this case Donovan, is to light up the sphere. The twelve of us have ten minutes to quench the light. The one rule is that we cannot directly harm Donovan during the test.”
Most of the people at the table broke out into laughter.
“Are you sure that you read it correctly?” asked Marrok. “This child couldn’t resist one of us, let alone twelve at once.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” said Cleary. “He was surprisingly resistant when I tested him last year.”
“Either way, it will be decided in the next ten minutes.”
Donovan focused on the sphere and it began to dimly glow.
“Is everybody ready?” asked Cleary.
Everyone gave their agreement.
“Then begin,” said Marrok.
Donovan immediately felt them fighting against him. When he’d done this the previous year with the other students, he had described it as a cold sensation trying to extinguish his light, but it felt different this time. It felt more like a hand squeezing his heart, trying to crush it in its grip. He didn’t know what had changed, perhaps it was because he had greater control over his magic or maybe it was because of the combined might fighting against him.
He stared down at the sphere and its pitiful, yet steady, glow.
He closed his eyes.
He could see a small ball of light in his mind’s eye, giving off an intense blue light. Twelve tiny threads of red light connected it back to the people sitting at the table.
Donovan seized the twelve threads, he didn’t understand how he did it, but it somehow felt right. He began pulling on them, drawing them towards his ball of light, which started to grow in size and intensity.
One of the threads snapped and disappeared.
He pulled harder on the other threads and they began to snap one at a time until only the blue light remained.
He opened his eyes.
The twelve people facing him were all slumped down on the table, and the sphere was still glowing.
He looked over at Osmont who had stood up, an awed expression on his face, but didn’t approach the table.
“Is it over?”
“It’s been at least twenty minutes.”
“It felt like only a few moments had passed.”
Marrok wearily lifted his head. It took him a moment to realize that the sphere was still lit. His eyes went wide when he noticed that everyone else was slumped over on the table.
“What does this mean?” asked Donovan.
“You are the first Zerenist to study at Haven in a thousand years,” said Osmont.