Myriad

Kalin sat on a bench underneath a huge tree, its branches empty of leaves at the start of winter, in the large garden behind Theodore’s home. Hedges surrounded the garden, shielding the house from view. He fiddled with the leather bracelet he wore on his left wrist.

A universal. He wouldn’t have guessed in a million years.

He heard the door of the house open and close, and then light footsteps behind him. He looked up and saw Regina walking towards the bench.

She quietly sat beside him. “I guess that was a lot to take in,” she said, looking at the ground. Her dark, glossy hair shielded her face from him. Kalin was also glad he could hide.

“It’s really hard to believe,” he admitted. “And confusing. I mean, I haven’t used magic since I was a child. It never occurred to me that I was a universal, even though in some way I should have realized I was different.” Kalin shook his head, feeling that he sounded conceited. “Wait… I don’t mean I’m special. I mean because my magic was always varied, wasn’t restricted to one type. But as for what your group wants—I’m not sure why you would have a vision about someone who can’t even cast a spell. I learned a long time ago to suppress it.”

They were silent for a moment. “That must have been difficult,” Regina finally said. “Denying who you are. That must have been awful.”

Kalin looked over at her, and she met his gaze. She had dark eyes, warm and tender. He swallowed nervously, then quickly looked down at his hands. Stop being an idiot.

“The thing with my visions,” she said, twisting a length of her hair between her fingers, “is that they never make sense in the beginning. I’ve just learned to trust them, trust that things will come together if I take the first steps. You don’t have to know how exactly you can help us, Kalin. You just need to try.”

He risked looking at her again, and she smiled at him. He smiled back, his heartbeat thudding in his ears. He heard the back door open again and turned to see the others approaching.

Mark stood with his arm around Sasha’s waist, with Alfred by them, his hands behind his back. Theodore stood by the tree.

“We understand this is quite confronting,” Theodore said. “It came as a surprise to us, too, that you existed. But the fact is, your power is rare, special, and we’ve found you just in time. We want you to work with us. Whenever a universal is near another, they can sense it. They’ll physically feel a connection. We want you to track Myriad, tap into that connection. We’ll teach you how. There are seventeen more days until the princess’s birthday. We want to train you.”

Kalin said nothing for a long while. This was all so much. Was it true? Were his powers special? And even if they were, who was he to stop Myriad? But could he really say no? Clearly the group believed he was meant to help them, and they had a worthy goal. And Kalin, like everyone, didn’t want any more people to be killed. It was all so overwhelming.

“Train me how?” Kalin finally said. “What could you do with so little time?”

“Can you trust me?” Theodore asked for the second time that day.

Kalin looked at him and realized he did. He nodded.

“Then don’t worry about the time. Just work with us. We can teach you everything you need. It’ll work, Kalin.”

Kalin rubbed his forehead. “But what if I can’t do anything? What if I can’t?”

Sasha stepped forward, grinning. “I’d like to teach you something about fire.”

Kalin stood by Sasha’s side in the center of the garden. There were no trees or plants by them, just a wide expanse of grass. A target, like an archer would use, stood several feet away from them.

Sasha turned to face him. She was nearly as tall as him and wore simple clothes: trousers and a green shirt. Her fiery red hair flowed about her in the wind. She smiled. “Your goal is to become one with your magic. You need to be completely attuned to it so you can track Myriad. The key is to focus, then let the magic flow through you. You aren’t creating it from nothing—it’s inside of you. You just need to connect with it.”

She faced the target and held out her right hand. “My gift is being able to create fire and water. Watch me closely.” She shut her eyes and her palm begin to glow. A small ball of fire formed above her hand, swirling and pulsating. The ball grew larger and larger, and then she reached and threw the ball at the target. Flames exploded at its center. She raised her arm again, this time a ball of water flying from her hand and hitting the target. The fire was quenched, smoke rising from the spot. She looked at Kalin. “Now you try.”

He raised his eyebrows, shocked. Do that? Are you mad? He stood there for a moment, then sighed. I have to at least try.

He held out his right hand, palm up like Sasha had done. He stared at his hand and tried to imagine fire appearing. He concentrated on making his hand glow. Fire, he thought. Fire. He waited a long moment, then put his hand down. “I can’t do it—I can’t just ‘be magical.’ I closed off that part of me a long time ago.”

“And why did you do that?” Sasha asked.

Kalin ran a hand through his hair. “My parents don’t have magic. They didn’t… approve.”

Sasha looked at him, her green eyes twinkling. “So, this is an emotional barrier. You need to give yourself permission to let go. You need to break down the wall, Kalin.”

“That could take months!” he exclaimed. “You want to train me in weeks!”

She grasped his shoulders and turned him towards the target. “Don’t think about what you can’t do. Think about what you can do. You can do this. Listen to yourself. Feel.”

He frowned, wishing she understood what he was saying. He looked at the target, then shut his eyes, relenting.

Feel.

He tried to remember what it was like when he was younger. What had he felt then? Where had the magic come from? He sought out the memories, visions of himself as a child, making things fly across the room, turning the food he didn’t want into food he did want.

Stop doing that! Be normal! Be normal!

He winced, hearing his mother yelling at him, remembering his father dragging him to his room and locking him in there for hours.

Kalin shook his head, casting the visions out. He tried to focus on memories of the magic again. Something about willing things to happen and the power pouring out of him.

You’ll stay in there until you stop! You’ll stay in there until you can behave like a normal son!

He felt a tightness in his stomach and clenched his fists. It wasn’t my fault! he screamed inside.

A bitter taste filled his mouth. Now was when he would usually tell himself to calm down, suppress his powers, but these people wanted him to bring them out.

It occurred to him how ludicrous this all was. One day he’s at home, and the next he’s at a stranger’s house with people telling him he’s all-powerful and can stop Myriad. Him? He was no one. He was nothing!

He heard his parents’ voices again, screaming at him.

Kalin felt heat in his heart, a burning sensation that filled his chest and traveled down his arms. Let it out.

But he couldn’t.

He stopped, stepping back. “I can’t do this. I’m sorry.”

Sasha looked at him for a moment, then grasped his arm. “You can, but you’re stopping yourself. I can tell. Why?”

Kalin sighed. “How can you expect me to release my powers after all these years? They’re buried inside of me. It’s not something I can just let out. You have to understand.” He turned and began to walk away.

“The princess’s life is in your hands. Is giving in to your fear more important than saving her?”

Kalin froze. Her life. He wanted to be selfish. He wanted to believe it was all madness, but maybe it wasn’t.

He turned back to the target, then shut his eyes. Feel the anger. He imagined the harsh words, the beatings, the abuse. He felt the rejection. The hatred. The pain.

The heat returned to his heart, burned stronger, brighter, but this time he didn’t suppress it. The heat coursed through his body, tingling along his arms. He felt the barrier he usually put up start to rise, but he forced it down. You must do this. The pain grew; the tingling turned to a pulsating feeling, vibrating throughout his chest and arms. He was reaching his breaking point. He couldn’t hold back anymore.

Kalin opened his eyes, glaring at the target. He thrust out his right arm, then felt a surge of power rush through him and explode at his fingertips. A huge ball of fire flew out of his hand, hit the target, and set the entire thing alight. Kalin stood there, breathing heavily. Eventually he looked at Sasha.

She folded her arms across her chest, her eyes twinkling again. “Now do it with water.”

They sat in the room with the bookshelves later that evening, eating a meal of cold meat, cheese, and bread. The round table had been repaired, the two halves joined together with a long piece of wood. A fire burned in the fireplace, and lit candles were dotted around the room.

Kalin had spent the day working with Sasha, attempting to control fire, water, and ice with some success. He was exhausted and felt very strange, using his magic again. In some ways it was foreign, new to him. When he’d used magic as a child, he wasn’t trying to. Now he was focusing and attempting to control it. But on the other hand, the feeling within him resonated, as if he was coming home. It both unsettled, yet warmed him, like he was finally being his true self.

He took a sip of his cider and looked at each of the group members. If they knew so much about him, and if he was to work with these people, he wanted to know about them. “How did you all meet?”

Theodore swallowed a mouthful of food. “Alfred was a friend of my family’s from when I was young. When I took over my father’s business after he passed away several years ago, Alfred helped me, but we decided our time would be better spent helping warlocks and witches throughout Prentor. We tried to stop crimes committed by those with magic, but in secret, as the authorities’ only solution was to imprison our kind. We realized we needed more help, and I sought out Mark and Sasha. Mark is a powerful shape-shifter, and you’ve seen Sasha’s abilities. They joined us seven years ago. Regina was the last to come to us, two years ago, but she instigated it, having had a vision that she was meant to help us.”

Kalin took in the story, then looked over at Alfred. “What are your powers?” he asked quietly.

“Mind control,” Alfred replied.

Kalin raised his eyebrows. Mind control? “How does that work?” he asked, curious.

Alfred took off his glasses and cleaned them on his shirt. “You have to be quite close to the other person,” he said, his voice raspy and deep, “and then you plant a seed in their mind of what you want them to do. It can’t be sustained for long periods of time, but long enough to do what you need.” He put his glasses back on, hooking them over his ears. Kalin noticed they were dirtier than before.

“But how do you… stop someone from controlling your mind?”

Alfred smiled, his wrinkles becoming more pronounced. “That’s the most important thing—how do you stop it. I’ll teach you, soon enough. Good question.”

Kalin smiled, realizing he desperately sought everyone’s approval. He didn’t like feeling that way, but he couldn’t help it. He wanted to make them proud.

“What about you, Theodore?” he asked, looking at the leader of the group. Kalin noticed his blond hair had streaks of grey.

Theodore put his hand, palm down, over a space on the table. A faint light shimmered from beneath it, then removed his hand and a quill was lying there. “You’ve already seen my gift,” Theodore said. “I can call things. Bring things from one place to another. Remember, everything we can do, you can do. You’ll see.”

Kalin nodded. He yawned, realizing how tired he was. He was desperate to go to bed, to rest after such a long day. Then he realized he didn’t know where his bed would be.

“You can stay with us, Kalin,” Theodore said, smiling at him.

Kalin blushed, embarrassed he could be read so easily. “Thank you. That means a lot to me.” He noticed everyone glancing at one another.

“You know you’re helping us, don’t you?” Sasha said. “That we should be thanking you? You’re going to be saving lives, Kalin. If this works.”

Kalin looked at her in surprise. He became nervous, and fiddled with his napkin. “I-I can’t think of it that way,” he stammered. “It’s too overwhelming. I’m going to take it one day at a time—just try, like Regina said.”

He looked at her openly for the first time after sneaking glances at her all day.

“Regina’s a smart girl,” Alfred said. “You’d be wise to listen to her.”

The room grew silent, and then Kalin yawned again. Everyone laughed.

“I’ll show you your room,” Mark said, picking up a candle and walking towards the staircase in the corner.

Kalin quickly followed him, going up the stairs, then down a dark hall.

Mark entered a small room off to the left and lit a candle on a table near the door. “We’ll see you tomorrow,” he said. “Sleep well, Kalin. You’ll need it.” He left, shutting the door behind him.

Kalin lit a few more candles with the first, then sat on the small bed by the window. He felt a mixture of things—anxiety, excitement, fear. It was hard to believe he’d met Theodore only last night, only left home last night. Everything had changed so quickly. But what brought him the most joy, the most happiness, was starting to be himself again. Something had awakened inside of him.

He lay back on the bed, sighing, and felt his tiredness take hold of him. He shut his eyes, and images of fire and light washed over his mind, mixing with feelings of warmth. He felt like he was floating. He drifted away, the warmth taking over, carrying him to a place of peace.

Myriad sat at his desk, a strange sensation coming over him, a source of power, a connection. He reached into his memory for the last time he’d felt something like that and remembered an old man his father had brought in to test his powers when he was a child. Myriad had felt the same sensation being around the man that he was feeling now.

Somewhere in Prentor, someone of great power had been awakened. Someone like him. And that person could potentially find him.

Myriad resolved to find them first.