Moirai

Latifurn waited for the cheering that followed his announcement to die down before continuing.

“In this first test, the battle of wits, I will present both of you with a series of three puzzles which you will be given one minute to complete. At the end of the one minute, I will ask you to tell me your answers. I will warn you that lying is pointless as the Praesul are monitoring both of you to prevent this method of cheating.”

Latifurn’s droning voice barely registered as he explained the rules. It was all very formal and official and I wondered if he, and most of the onlookers, knew quite how intense and important the Trial was.

“The first puzzle.” He announced next, and picked a stick up from the ground. In the dust he marked nine dots arranged in a square with sides that were three dots in length. He repeated the drawing in front of Centurion. “When one minute is complete, you will take this stick and draw four straight lines through all nine points without removing the tip of the stick from the ground.”

“Your time starts now.”

I looked down at the square. I was quite a fan of riddles and brain puzzles, and often researched them on the internet. I knew I had come across something similar to this before, but I couldn’t remember what. My brain had frozen and wouldn’t obey my commands to even try and think of a solution.

Centurion was muttering under his breath, his eyes darting from one point to the next, miming lines with his finger.

Simple geometry, I told myself furiously. The time was slipping away and in my mind I could hear the ticking of an imaginary clock. At least half a minute had passed. My breathing increased in speed as I tried to mentally draw four lines connecting the nine dots without removing the stick.

“Ten seconds.” Latifurn remarked dryly. “Five.”

Suddenly the answer presented itself to me, and I felt an icy bucket of relief pour down my entire body from my head to my toes.

Latifurn presented me with the stick and, hands shaking slightly with anxiety, I drew a line from the bottom left point to the top point, then diagonally down to the bottom right point, then left back to the first point, then diagonally up to the top right point.

There were four solutions in total and could have used any corner of the square, so I held little hope of Centurion failing, but at worst we had tied, which was better than losing.

Latifurn nodded. “You are correct. Centurion?”

I handed the stick out to Centurion, but he didn’t take it, glaring at it so hard that I half expected it to burst into flames in my hands.

“I…couldn’t solve it.” He growled, each word sounded like the grinding of metal against metal.

I attempted to hide my surprise. Perhaps Centurion was not as quick-witted as I had given him credit for.

Latifurn nodded at him as well, showing neither pleasure nor disappointment. His nonchalance was starting to get to me.

“Alnya is the victor of the first puzzle test. Now, the second puzzle:” he looked at both of us to make sure we were paying attention. I was, but I could also feel Centurion fuming silently beside me. Another Dryad came forwards and handed Latifurn two metal pots. He placed them down in front of us, pointing to each as he explained. “One bowl has a capacity of five cups of water, the other has a capacity of three cups. If you had a large water supply, how would you use these two pots to measure exactly four cups worth of water?”

Panic seized me once again as I realised that, though this would be easy to solve given enough time, would I have enough time to do it?

Unlike the previous puzzle, my mind now seemed to be working overtime. Thoughts bounced around the inside of my skull with the speed of bullets, but nowhere did the answer appear.

Fill the smaller pot and tip it into the larger, then fill the smaller one again and tip two cups into the larger pot to fill it up, then you are left with one cup…

I knew I was getting somewhere, but I just couldn’t seem to see the end of the road. I tried again a different way.

Fill the big pot and tip three cups into the smaller one, then empty the small pot…

The answer was staring me in the face and I felt like screaming in frustration, knowing that I couldn’t see it.

“Your time is up.” Latifurn’s voice was quiet, but it cut like a whip through my thoughts, almost painful in the knowledge that I hadn’t done it in time. “Alnya?”

I shook my head. “I couldn’t work it out.”

Then, when Centurion explained that he had worked it out, and that it was using my first method – by pouring the one cup into the big pot and then repeating the small-into-large step so that there were four cups in the big pot – I very nearly did scream out in annoyance at my own blindness.

My frustration and panic was only added to as Centurion’s voice couldn’t be any smugger if he tried.

“Lastly, the third puzzle:” Latifurn said. There were no props this time; it was a word puzzle. “What is more unstoppable than time, more certain than death, what the poor have, what the rich need and what, if eaten, will surely kill you?”

I literally breathed a sigh of relief as, after a few moments of consideration, I realised that the answer to this one was quite easy. I waited out the minute, glancing over at Centurion. I frowned upon seeing that he looked similarly relaxed.

Latifurn signalled the end of the minute and asked me for my answer. “’Nothing’ is the answer to all of those.” I said.

He nodded. “Centurion?”

“My answer is also ‘nothing’.” He said with satisfaction.

Latifurn looked towards the Praesul, who chorused, “He tells the truth.”

“Then I pronounce this battle tied!” he proclaimed and I took yet another deep breath. It was better than losing, I kept telling myself. “It is time for the second test, the battle of arms, to begin. Retrieve your swords.”

Centurion and I both walked over to Kasanda who handed us the weapons, hilts first. “They have been guarded to prevent major injury. Good luck.”

The comment was directed at me alone.

Latifurn was now at the edge of the clearing. “Stand at opposing ends.” He instructed. Centurion stayed where he was, leaving it to me to walk to the other side. “The fight will end when one of the competitors is in a position that would mean imminent death if the swords were not guarded. Prepare! Three…two…one!”

Centurion barely waited for the countdown to end; with a fierce yell he closed the gap between us faster than I would have ever thought possible. I intended to weaken his grip on the sword with a hard block, but his speed meant that I was only barely able to stop it from winding me.

He didn’t change his tactic, keeping on the offensive. I realised that I should have prepared myself for how different this was to fighting Mayran. Centurion’s mannerisms and controlled movements made it clear that, if the swords weren’t protected, he would quite easily kill me.

As it was, within the first few minutes I had gained a hard blow to my chest and another to my leg. Unlike the way Mayran guarded our swords, these did not feel like rope. Instead, they rather resembled thick wooden poles. I quickly realised that the Trial was taken more seriously than I had originally thought, if the risk of injury was accepted. We were banned from aiming higher than the collarbone, as even a dulled blade could kill through a hard enough strike to the neck, but Centurion continually aimed as high as he could. I, on the other hand, couldn’t even touch him.

We locked swords, his strength making me lean backwards as sweat rolled down the sides of my face with the effort of merely holding him at bay.

“What’s the matter, Alnya?” he hissed, his own face shining with perspiration. His eyes were so evil...his expression reminded me of something, but I couldn’t put my finger on what.

He grinned sinisterly, and everything clicked together in my mind. The dream…Indina’s knowledge of the Trial…my theory…

“It’s you.” I breathed. Centurion was Indina’s spy. I didn’t know how, but the way he was looking at me with a sense of satisfaction, glee and malice, the ring around his irises the same red that Indina’s were, I knew I was right.

But I couldn’t expose him now. If I did, he would just claim it was a ploy to escape the Trial. No, the only way to do it was to beat him.

As though he heard my thought, he suddenly dropped his sword, removing the pressure and throwing me off balance. The next thing I knew, his hilt was slamming into my left shoulder, sending a wave of agony through my arm. I cried out and rolled away as he went to stab downwards.

Getting shakily to my feet, trying hard to ignore the throbbing of my shoulder, I braced myself and lifted my sword in defence.

Come on, Alnya! A voice that sounded very much like Mayran cried.

At the last second, before our swords met, I ducked under his swing – which would have just clipped me under the chin; an illegal move – and twisted around behind him, resting my sword against his neck.

The battle was won, and I dimly heard Latifurn announce it so. There was a roaring in my ears and my mind was teeming like an overturned anthill from adrenaline and the realisation of who Centurion was. Now I just had to best him with my aura. The likelihood of that was questionable.

In a way, I felt comforted that Indina was relying on a spy rather than using her aura directly against me; at least Centurion was something solid to fight.

As we walked back over to Kasanda and returned the swords, I lingered behind and whispered to her. “Centurion is Indina’s spy. Wait until the end of the Trial.”

“Well done.” She responded loudly with a nod of understanding, making it look like I had been asking her how I had performed.

“The final test is the battle of auras. It is won when either competitor can no longer fight, due to exhaustion or otherwise.” Latifurn’s voice drifted over me as I stood, once again, next to Centurion. Now that I knew what he was, my hatred of him had intensified.

I was still breathing heavily from the fight, and my arms felt like lead from swinging the sword. My one consolation was that Centurion would be feeling the same. I just had to make sure that I remembered what Mayran and Kasanda had told me and not overexert my aura.

Latifurn told us to return to opposite sides of the clearing, then performed another countdown.

Once again, Centurion acted instantly. From his palm sprouted balls of fire. As it was my first encounter with someone using their aura offensively, I hadn’t really known what to expect, but quickly recovered my surprise. I leapt and rolled and darted around to avoid the fire, thinking that I probably looked quite silly but not really caring. One grazed my side, singing the clothes of and just charring the skin. It hurt a lot, but, like my shoulder, I shut out the pain.

I saw in Centurion’s eyes that, had I been unable to dodge one of the fireballs, he would not have obeyed the rules and stopped it from killing me. The Praesul would, of course, but it would instantly disqualify Centurion.

I tried to respond, summoning up the warmth of my aura and creating a small earthquake directly underneath his feet. He wobbled unsteadily for a moment before lightly leaping off onto solid ground.

Though it hadn’t worked, a sudden rush of exhilaration filled me upon the release of my aura. Now, in the heat of battle, it felt so right. My aura wanted to be used, and for the first time, I really wanted to use it.

I continued with the earthquake strategy, making it his turn to jump around the clearing like an acrobat. Then, I felt his aura war with mine as he stilled the ground.

I couldn’t predict what he would do next, so it came as a complete surprise when an unseen force struck me in my stomach, throwing me backwards out of the clearing – the Dryads quickly got out of the way – and into a tree.

Winded and aching all over, I dropped to all fours, coughing breath back into my lungs. Centurion approached and I felt again a force lift me back to my feet and push me against the tree, pressuring my windpipe.

Something clicked within me, and the warmth of my aura grew stronger, filling me up to my fingertips. It wasn’t uncomfortably hot either, but only served to strengthen me.

Bringing my will to bear against his, I used his own force against him, pushing him back several feet. I then imagined it pushing down on him.

I raised my arms chest-high and slowly pushed them downwards. Centurion was shocked enough that he was forced to his knees, then all fours, before his magic responded. Our battle became invisible to the naked eye, but to me it was as though our auras were two blazing lights fighting for control.

We pressed against each other, mentally, for many minutes. Time lost its meaning and I felt my strength ebbing out as the struggle increased in intensity. My breathing became weaker, while Centurion got paler and paler. The rest of the world faded away into less than the background. Nothing else existed but him and me. I brought all my rage towards Indina to the forefront of my mind, hoping it would add to my flagging strength.

One of Centurion’s arms slipped onto the ground, and the other shook. If I could just hold on for another couple of minutes…

Every muscle in my body was shaking, too. My vision blanked out, only seeing Centurion. I knew that if this went on much longer I would have to give up as I would surely die of exhaustion.

To my shock, Centurion pushed his other arm up and I felt his efforts increase again.

I knew I had to pull in a final stand. I closed my eyes, trying to gather all of my aura at once; every speck of the warm, golden power, leaving myself feeling rather cold, but at the same time every single vein in my body felt like it was thrumming. It was a strange, yet pleasant feeling. I waited for as long as I could, seconds that felt like aeons, before releasing my aura against Centurion’s, crushing it to splinters. The pressure from his side gone, I stumbled forwards with a gasp. Centurion collapsed to the ground, unconscious.

I dragged myself to my feet, breathing harder than as if I’d just run a ten mile marathon. Drained and empty. Mayran, Loni and Kasanda were in front of me, but I couldn’t remember seeing them approach. Their faces were severely blurred, and their voices so muffled that I couldn’t make out anything they were saying. The only thing that broke through the fog was Latifurn’s voice, “Alnya is the victor of the Trial!”

In a whirl of colour, I hit the ground and knew no more.