The Heroes Fall -1- When War Calls

  Chapter Sixteen

  What inspires more than necessity?

  January 22, 997 R.E.

  ‘Feel the energy flow through you and into your wrists, concentrate it there, and then release it. It will return to you in a circular motion; the energy is attracted to itself and its host, this is how the shields are formed. The endobraces will do the rest,’ Vennoss instructed, gesturing with his hands to show how it was done.

  Jaden was concentrating as hard as he could. For the previous two days he had been training almost every minute of every hour he was awake. His arms and feet had healed completely with Daijuarn help, but he was exhausted, and had only been able to make the endobraces give off a little light.

  Vennoss was standing anxiously at the other end of the shrine they used for these tests; a safe distance from Jaden’s target, as he had done for most of the training—shouting suggestions of posture, movement, breathing and attention whenever he saw an error, which seemed like every time Jaden tried to do anything.

  ‘It’s hard, Grandfather,’ said Jaden out of frustration. ‘If you had them you would understand.’

  Vennoss shook his head. ‘I have seen many people trained. It should not take you this long to learn. Now, do it again.’

  ‘Maybe I’m not meant to be Daijuarn, then,’ Jaden shot back angrily.

  ‘Your clothing looks fine,’ Vennoss teased. ‘Come on, one more time!’

  Jaden rolled his eyes. Daijuarn garments had been provided for him, white like those that Adonis and Blair wore, but ever since he had elected to wear only the open vest and trousers, Vennoss felt it was his duty to insult him, saying it looked ridiculous to begin with, before finally resorting to sarcasm later.

  Jaden refused to wear the entire set, no matter what was said. He did not want to believe that he was of the Daijuar yet. He would wear only what was needed, and had only agreed to change at all because they assured him any other clothing would burn on contact with the energy. He consoled himself in knowing that looking as an Alliance soldier was far worse than a Daijuarn Sentinel, and even though he would not admit it openly, he liked his new clothes this way. The vest he wore was pure white, with many folds of material between his shoulder and neck on each side, and connected with a thin but large hood on the back. His arms and part of his chest and stomach were exposed, giving him perfect freedom in his movement, while the trousers he wore were loose on his legs, but were weighed down by the many folds on the outer sides. A wide dark blue belt, veined with gold, held them in place. The pattern of the gold seemed the same as his forearms now looked, except in the centre there was the symbol of the Daijuar.

  He had been marked by them, branded as one of their own. And now he had to learn to use what they had given him.

  Jaden looked ahead at the large stones. They were piled up on top of one another to be just taller than he was. It was impossible to push them over, he thought, especially if all he could manage was light. The broken grey stones around him told another story though. This shrine had been the training ground for many before him. Unlike the others that were made of smooth dark tiles, this was of oddly shaped, jagged rocks, smashed and carved by the many different tests the Daijuarn Sentinels were put through.

  ‘Trust yourself, young master!’ encouraged Tarsha, behind him. She had claimed the smoothest stone at the shrine as her own personal sitting place to watch Jaden’s progress. ‘Know you can do it!’

  Adonis and Blair were standing on either side of the area between Jaden and the stones, erecting energy shields each time he made an attempt to push the column over.

  ‘When you are ready,’ said Adonis.

  Jaden nodded, and two shields of transparent white were put in place. They hummed the low familiar tone of Daijuarn shields, allowing Jaden to relax to their steady rhythm as he imagined the energy rising up through his body and into his wrists another time. His hands moved from his waist to his chest, palms flat and always facing his target, and then with a deep breath, he sent a quick burst of energy to his hands to ignite the endobraces with a flash of white, and then pushed as much of the energy forward as he could. There was a high-pitched ringing as his energy came forth, and then a muffled sound as the light disappeared, and the energy fizzled out.

  He heard Tarsha sigh. ‘You’ll get it!’ she said.

  ‘We would hope so!’ retorted Vennoss. He came forward to speak with Jaden, causing the Daijuarn shields to disappear as he passed. He picked up Jaden’s arms from his sides and slapped the underside of them just in front of his biceps. ‘Here,’ he said, ‘and here. That is where you must feel the energy build. Emotion is the key to using the power. Your ancestors before you have used fear and hate, and even love to know how to use their energy. This is no different. Master your emotion, master your mind, and then you will master the use of the essence. Feel something, child, anything, and then let it out through the endobraces!’

  Vennoss walked briskly back to his place near the target. ‘Now,’ he called out, ‘thinking of something that has harmed you, feel, and then release. Understand?’

  Jaden bowed his head slightly and repositioned his feet so that he was standing side on to his target. He began to think of what he could feel. There was anger from being pushed so hard to train to be something he didn’t even want to be, but it didn’t seem enough. He knew if they were going to let him rest, he would need something more powerful, something that caused absolute hatred within, and there was only one thing he could think of that could work. He had relived the memory too many times already, but he had to try. He had to think of the attack once more, just to put an end to the constant hounding by his grandfather to learn how to use the endobraces.

  Slowly, the memories floated by, jabbing at his mind and bringing the pain he needed. He saw the faces of the people who had died, and the merciless execution of the old and gentle man, Don. He saw the fort over the Tennagen field, the soldiers guarding his sacred place, and then he remembered his family and how their lives were taken.

  He looked up, his eyes red as the tears threatened to surface, and then repeated the motions he had been taught. He felt the energy build inside him and focused it into the parts of his arms his grandfather had slapped. He imagined the rocks as if they were soldiers coming toward him and ignited the endobraces in white light. As he imagined them beginning to fire upon him, he released the building energy and pushed his hands forward.

  The Daijuarn shields ignited, and he felt his success. The light coming from the endobraces was too bright to look upon. He closed his eyes as he continued to push the energy through his arms. But he heard no sound in the coming seconds; no stone falling, nothing burning, not even the hum of the Daijuarn shields was alive anymore.

  Vennoss alerted him to his failure by calling out again. ‘They’re still standing, you can open your eyes,’ he said, looking up and down the target.

  Jaden thought hard. He had failed. How? He had done everything they had told him and nothing had happened. Why couldn’t he do it?

  ‘You’ll never become a Sentinel with that sort of effort,’ said Vennoss.

  With a second blinding flash and a sound that was almost as an explosion, Jaden’s arms had risen in an instant, sending a wave of fiery energy racing forward from them. Vennoss quickly ducked out of the way while the two Daijuarn shields were erected once more, but they had not come fast enough, and all three had fallen to the ground along with the stacked stones.

  Vennoss turned, gasping in shock as he peered through the dust and smoke at Jaden. But Jaden was no longer there. He had left them. His arms throbbing with the same ache as his mind, he had walked quickly away, not knowing where he would go or what he would do, just that he wanted to be alone, away from the Daijuar, away from his grandfather, and away from the training.

  ‘I will go talk with him,’ said Tarsha, getting up to follow.

  Vennoss was still in shock, but managed to nod to her before glancing at Adonis and Blair. Both were getting up, shaking
their heads from side to side with wide eyes, as if they were dizzy after taking a powerful blow to the head. When all three recovered, they walked toward the centre of the shrine to speak with one another.

  ‘He is lost,’ said Blair. ‘Why do you continue to help him?’

  ‘I must do what I can for him,’ replied Vennoss. ‘He is the last of his people … a people that were in my care.’

  ‘But he has power unlike our own,’ said Adonis. ‘He could be dangerous.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Vennoss, now deep in thought.

  ‘You knew that would happen, but still you pushed him,’ Blair observed.

  Vennoss nodded. ‘If a box containing a secret is locked, you could spend hours, maybe years trying to open it, and you would not know if the secret was worth the effort. Or you could smash it open, learn the secret and then worry about putting it back together later. Unfortunately, time is not a luxury we have at this moment.’

  All three watched as they saw Jaden walking up to the other side of the hollow, coughing so loudly that they were able to hear him clearly from where they stood.

  ‘His sickness remains,’ Vennoss added.

  ‘Maybe you are wrong,’ said Adonis. ‘It is not milayiss.’

  ‘If not milayiss, what could it be?’

  ‘He may just be sick,’ said Blair. ‘The essence does not destroy him, it keeps him alive.’

  ‘No, that cannot be,’ assured Vennoss. ‘He has no knowledge of the arts.’

  ‘He may not need any,’ said Adonis, looking meaningfully at Vennoss. ‘He would not be the first to show signs of power without our aid.’

  Vennoss shrugged off the comment. ‘Although possible, it is unlikely. There are few capable of becoming Daijuarn, and even fewer who can do it on their own.’

  ‘How do you explain his power?’

  Vennoss paused. ‘At this moment, I will not. Tomorrow he will be tested further … then we can get some answers. Perhaps after Tarsha has talked some sense back into him.’

  The Daijuar exchanged concerned looks, but agreed, and then all three searched where they had last seen Tarsha and Jaden before silently retreating into the temple.

  Tarsha was sitting patiently with Jaden, among the trees and out of sight, just below one of the shrines. She dared not say anything. Jaden’s head was in his hands. He was refusing to acknowledge her as the minutes slowly passed them by. When Jaden finally stirred, he did not look at her, nor did he lift his head.

  ‘Are they dead?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ said Tarsha.

  Jaden seemed to breathe easier as he lifted his head to rest it again his left hand, while he put the other out in front of him, making it glow with white.

  ‘I feel it inside,’ he said softly. ‘It’s taking control of me. I can’t fight it.’

  Tarsha moved forward to better hear him. ‘Fight what?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Jaden.

  With a sigh, Tarsha leaned back. ‘I cannot say what you are going through, so I will not try to reason with you, but perhaps I can help you in another way.’

  Jaden said nothing in reply, still toying mindlessly with the light coming from his hand.

  ‘I know a little about the Daijuar,’ Tarsha went on. ‘I might be able to tell you where you’re going wrong. It might help to try without your grandfather standing over you.’

  Tarsha waited out the following minutes, deciding she had said all she could for now. There was nothing else left to do except let Jaden tell her what he wanted. The minutes crept on by without any sign, but she remained. She thought with all that had happened, what Jaden needed most right now was a friend, so she did not mind.

  She was happy to be able to rest for a change, and enjoyed being able to finally sit in a Daijuarn place. She had often dreamed of what this would be like, but she had never guessed how it would make her feel. There was so much history, so many centuries worth, and knowledge that many could never have imagined to be true. It all seemed surreal and timeless, and everything was so much more vibrant and alive. The energy was high, she could sense it herself, and she guessed that this was what Jaden needed to learn to feel if he were ever to become a Sentinel.

  Jaden stood up unexpectedly and began walking higher up on the slope of the hollow. Tarsha followed only a couple of steps behind. They stopped at the shrine, Tarsha at its edge, and Jaden in its centre so that the Daijuarn symbol was under his feet. He studied it for a few seconds, but then closed his eyes.

  ‘Why is he angry with me?’ he asked.

  Tarsha moved to one of the benches on the left and sat down. ‘I do not think he is angry with you,’ she replied plainly.

  ‘Then why has he changed?’

  ‘That is just how he is,’ said Tarsha.

  ‘He has never been like this.’

  ‘In your village, no, perhaps not. He was at peace there. But the world is at war. He feels there is never a moment he can rest while it remains so. This is the person I have known for all these years, I’m afraid. He has not changed from what I can see.’ Tarsha waited a moment for Jaden to understand what her words meant to him before going on. ‘He is fond of you, I know that much. If it were anyone else up there, he would have shown anger. He is a stubborn man when he wants to be, he is known for it, and he is very particular in everything that he does. He expects results, for things to be done as he thinks they should be. He has no time for those who cannot achieve what he wants them to. But he has time for you.’

  ‘I have disappointed him,’ said Jaden.

  ‘No, do not be so hard on yourself. He understands what you have been through.’

  ‘I can’t disappoint him. I have to succeed,’ said Jaden.

  ‘Then you must train.’

  ‘I don’t know how.’

  Tarsha stood up and walked toward the trees at the entrance. ‘Then I will show you,’ she said, and picked several lemons growing nearby. ‘I think I know your problem. You have more power than you know what to do with, but you think about your objective too much. You do not focus enough on how you will succeed. Start from the very beginning. First, try to simply feel the energy around you, let it drift in and out just like the air in your chest, and then try to push it out. Breathe deeply if it helps. You must learn control. The Daijuar may not be there next time to protect the people near you.’

  Jaden bowed and then took in as much air as he could before releasing it slowly and taking in another breath.

  ‘Good,’ said Tarsha. ‘Relax with it, accept it.’

  Jaden coughed and let his concentration go for a moment.

  ‘Relax,’ Tarsha repeated. ‘There is no hurry. When you can feel the energy, let me know.’

  ‘I don’t understand it,’ said Jaden, but stopped as the two steel doors at the top of the grand stairway swung open.

  A woman of great beauty and dressed in white appeared and hastened down the stairs.

  ‘Raquel,’ said Jaden.

  ‘What?’ asked Tarsha.

  Jaden turned to her, ‘Wait here,’ he said, and then quickly dashed down the slope before she could reply.

  His mind was suddenly alert and his eyes wide. She was here. She had come back to find him. For some reason he felt excited that he was going to see Raquel again, the woman of untold beauty and royal grace. She had made it to the temple and entered ahead of him, and he quickly followed her in, but as he stepped inside the hexagonal room, his heart sank.

  The woman was speaking to his grandfather and the Daijuar, but he immediately realised she was not Raquel. Her hair was black and her clothes were white, he now saw. Raquel had worn blue and her hair was sun-streaked brown. Jaden stood frozen in the doorway as all eyes were turned on him, but he could not take his gaze away from the woman. Her face was similar to Raquel’s, but not quite the same. Her jaw was thinner and her eyes not as deep, green instead of blue, and her eyebrows had a greater arch in them. Her nose was almost the same while her lips were not as full, but what struck him most was that thi
s woman’s expression was one almost of fear before she had turned to him. Raquel had always been calm, even when she had seemed otherwise. Behind her mask, there was always a unique calmness to her.

  ‘Jaden, I’d like you to meet Dahla,’ said his grandfather, but Jaden managed only a slight bow before making his way out of the temple.

  It wasn’t Raquel. His heart felt as if it had lowered several inches in his chest while his stomach felt weak and empty. Over the little time he had spent with Raquel, he saw now just how close he had felt to her. She was something more to him than company. She was someone who, although she did not speak much to him, was able to understand him better than he understood himself, and without knowing it, she had put him at ease in a place somewhere inside that he didn’t know existed, until now.

  He wandered past the fountain, but stopped to take a look inside at the statues. He wanted to see Raquel again, if only for a second, wanted to look upon her face and remember the beauty he had witnessed. Unable to see clearly through the curtain of water, he jumped into the pool and walked to its centre so that he was standing next to the statues, water splashing about him continuously and sealing him off from the hollow. Inside, he studied the Daijuarn embrace, the statues’ hands lightly upon each other’s necks, their foreheads pressed gently together and their eyes shut. Now he saw what he had somehow expected but didn’t want to believe. The statue was not of Raquel. The statue was the woman who had just entered the hollow, a woman his grandfather was surely familiar with, while Raquel was a stranger to him.

  Disheartened, Jaden walked back up to the shrine. His hair and skin were wet but the Daijuarn garments were dry, despite water droplets being upon them. The Daijuar had told him that they would be like this. They would never get dirt on them or get wet, and they would not burn from the energy he used. They were made of some kind of special fabric, but they had not explained how it worked or where they had got it. Jaden asked no more questions, deciding it was just part of everything else he didn’t understand about them.

  He found Tarsha waiting for him at the shrine. She had a questioning look on her face, but all he did was shrug in answer.

  ‘I can feel the energy,’ he said. ‘I need to understand how it works before I can go any further.’

  Tarsha seemed to have given up on her question and resumed her place near the trees. ‘That is something you will have to ask your grandfather,’ she said. ‘All I know is that it is from the Forgotten Years, but has since calmed and no longer causes the damage it did all those centuries ago.’

  ‘But it is still here.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Tarsha, ‘and perhaps one day, it may even leave us entirely, and the Daijuar will be no more.’

  ‘What will they do then?’ asked Jaden.

  ‘I do not know. Live as the rest of us, without power, I assume.’

  ‘Then I will no longer have to wear these,’ he said, looking at his wrists.

  Tarsha chuckled. ‘Yes, if it happens in your lifetime, that is correct. But for now, you have been given great power, young master. If anything at all, at least use it wisely. Do not let it go to waste.’

  Jaden shrugged, rolled his shoulders and then shook his arms to loosen the muscles. ‘What did you want me to do?’ he asked.

  ‘Feel the energy as I said. You must let it inside you before you can push it back out. I want you to imagine the energy leaving you as a giant shield that surrounds and protects you. It is white and pure like those of the Sentinels. Trust in yourself and the Daijuar, and then I want you to imagine that shield pushing away everything around you gently.’

  ‘I don’t know if I can,’ said Jaden, and was silenced as Tarsha raised her hand. He knew he would have to try.

  He breathed deeply, repeating the steps she had told him earlier as well as what his grandfather had taught him, and then he imagined the white shield coming from him, pushing wave after wave of energy outward. After intense minutes of concentration, nothing more than a light had come.

  What was he doing wrong, he asked himself, what was he missing?

  He could hear Tarsha repeating the steps to him, but knew she had missed something too. His grandfather had said the mind had to be mastered first; the emotion had to be there so that the body could know how to use the energy. Emotion was the key. His anger at failing and his grandfather’s disappointment had been enough to make his hands feel as if they were on fire. What did he need to feel to release gentle repelling energy? He couldn’t think of anything in his past. He would need something else instead.

  The answer came to him a moment later. The experience needed for calling on emotion did not need to be real. All he needed was to imagine something that would bring the right emotions and they would come. He thought of the energy as Tarsha had said, and then gave it reason to come forth as he imagined a child throwing berries at him playfully. It made him smile on the inside, keeping his mind calm as he played in their game with gentle energy, as he would never wish to harm them. The energy came forth as he kept his eyes closed, and soon he could feel a small shield around him. He opened his eyes for a moment to see the smoky haze in front of him spiralling in and around his body, and then closed them again to maintain his concentration.

  ‘Good!’ said Tarsha. ‘Now let us put it to the test!’

  Tarsha walked up to the shield, seemingly unafraid, and then touched it with her finger. Her finger was pushed back away from it, but had otherwise left her unharmed. She then placed her hand on it and pushed in a few times, making the shield appear as a rubber cushion that let her move only so far in before it would push her back. It held the same low tone as the other Daijuarn shields, but changed to a higher pitch as she touched it.

  ‘And now for the real test!’ she exclaimed, taking several paces back.

  With an underarm throw, she sent the first lemon she was carrying slowly gliding toward Jaden. The shield did its job and repelled the lemon. She then threw another, a little harder this time, and again it was repelled unharmed. Gaining confidence, she started to throw the lemons as hard as she could.

  ‘You’ve done it!’ she yelled, but Jaden did not seem to hear her.

  He was in deep concentration, seemingly ignorant to the rest of the world as each lemon dug in a little to his shield before being pushed straight back out, just as Tarsha’s hand had been earlier.

  Tarsha walked to pick more lemons and started throwing them from the trees rapidly. After she had thrown another six, she picked the biggest one she could find.

  ‘Here comes a hard one!’ she called out, and then threw it with all her might.

  The shield disappeared at that moment and Jaden was left standing defenceless, his eyes still shut. The lemon slammed into his chest, causing Tarsha’s hands to fly to her mouth.

  ‘Oh!’ she cried out, hurrying toward him. ‘Sorry!’

  Jaden made no gesture to her, no sign that he was hurt or had even felt the lemon hitting him.

  His eyes opened slowly. ‘I have to go,’ he said.

  Tarsha looked confused. ‘Where?’

  ‘I can’t stay here. I have to leave—now.’

  Before Tarsha could protest, Jaden ran down the slope, but this time turned toward the grand stairway instead of the temple, and made his way to the left, to the opening through which he had first entered the hollow.