Frey lay deep in the earth. His own blood met his tongue as it rose up from his stomach. His organs were squished beneath his armor. He tried to move but he only made himself sink deeper into the dirt. He called out to the darkness above him. At first, it was just his back, but now the dirt rose over his arms and legs. He couldn"t breathe, swiping at his surroundings in a blind panic. Before the last bit of air left his lungs, a hand wrapped around his chest. It pulled him away, freeing him from the earth. When Frey wiped the dirt from his eyes, there was no hand. Looking back at the place he was almost buried, he saw Hopi, sinking into the dirt. "Weak," Hopi said. "You were too weak." Frey tried to pull him up but his hand went through Hopi"s. He reached again. His body shook around as the world fell apart. Behind Hopi were others, all screaming for his help. He reached out and felt something slam against him.He opened his eyes to find himself lying on a wooden table. Liz slapped him again with a book: "Wake up." He sat up, the sunlight entering through a window and meeting his eyes. They were inside the Virility household, at the old, dusty place that used to serve as Thomas"s study over a decade ago. The chair was too small for Frey, so a new bigger one was brought from elsewhere. The desk, however, was only big enough to hold his book. Several broken quills lay at the edges, all covered in egregious amounts of ink.
"I"m sorry ma"am." Frey apologized and picked up the book in front of him. Every time he opened it, he made sure not to stain the book"s pages with the ink that smeared his hands. He brought it close to his eyes so he could see the squiggly lines a little better.
"What does it say?" Liz asked, reeling her copy of the book back for another hit.
"C," Frey read the letter. "As in castle."
"Very good," Liz pat him on the back, then flipped the page. "And what does this one say?"
"D," Frey read the letter. "As in Dragon."
They went through their usual routine, reading through all the letters of the alphabet, going over drawings, reading whole words, and most painful of all, trying not to fall asleep. Frey was. .h.i.t several times and, although he didn"t feel any pain, he still felt bad. By the end of the session, Liz"s copy of the book was bent to the shape of his head. Looking through the window, he could see Doevm and Jameson, returning after a heavy session of training.
"Did the thieves give you any trouble?" Jameson"s voice carried into the room.
"None at all," Doevm responded. "I was able to get some good practice in by fighting them. I"m improving, I know it. It"s just a matter of time until I get those moves down."
"I bet you"re doing great, getting stronger while leaving me behind in this dusty room." Frey gripped his quill too hard, snapping his fifth one of the day. Liz forced Frey"s head away, nearly smacking him into the book.
"Focus," she said as she shoved another quill in his hands. "We have to get you to learn this in two weeks, a near impossible task enough already, but your constant state of distraction is making this so much harder."
"I"m sorry," Frey apologized, thinking about how he ended up in such a boring state. "What will reading do for me? Why do I have to learn this?" He flipped the page. "8 is how many legs are on a speed-deer."
"Spider," Liz corrected.
"Spider," Frey repeated the words several times as he read through the word. "Why isn"t the I a y? Why is there an e before the r?"
"I don"t know. Just learn it." She shrugged and stood up. "That should be enough for our lesson today. I"m too tired to continue." She walked out of the room, her old cranky bones creaking against the equally as ancient wood flooring. "Oh and Frey, study when you get home too. No training from now on." The light crystals faded to their dim, near dark state.
"Spider," Frey repeated as he shut the book. "S, p, i, d, e, r, spider." He stuffed his book into his s.p.a.cial ring and waited until he couldn"t hear Liz"s footsteps until he left the mansion. He didn"t head for his house, but towards the Pit, almost at a sprint. "Finally I can take a break from that woman," he thought as he entered the training room he had missed for so long. The training equipment was still right where he remembered it. The horrible smell of fermented sweat and blood was heaven to his nose. He took a deep breath, straightening his crooked back and stretching his sleeping legs.
He got into a stance, imagining Kilot in front of him. The dwarf held out the spear and s.h.i.+eld, and he copied it with imaginary weapons. They closed in with Kilot getting the first strike. "S as in Snake." Frey rolled, nearly biting his tongue. "P as in Peasant." Blue life essence erupted from his limbs as he drew his thrusted his imaginary spear, using the s.h.i.+eld to balance it. "What letter was after that?" He stopped and the figure of Kilot vanished.
He scratched at his head. "Spider. S, p, y? No, it was something else." His imaginary spear falling into nothingness. "Forget this." He threw away his chaotic ball of thoughts. "It"s been five days and I haven"t even memorized the alphabet yet!" When he tried imagining Kilot again, but no one appeared.
"d.a.m.n, I guess I can just use the equipment." He picked up a training spear, yet he didn"t get into a stance. Instead, he found his eyes glued to the squiggles on it.
He pulled out his book and flipped to its last pages. The words were so small and long. Everyone he looked at were beasts, and his weapon, a delicate feather with some ink dripping off the end. "How am I supposed to read this?" He found himself pacing around the Pit, alternating his gaze between the weapons and his book. "Spear." He said out loud. "Ssss, puh, hear." He sounded out the word. "S, p, e, e, r, is that it?" Glancing at the letters on the spear, he cursed at his illiteracy for the thousandth time that day.
"What am I doing?" Frey thought. "I can"t even spell a four-letter word." He shut the book and put it back into his s.p.a.cial ring. His opponent appeared, but instead of Kilot, it was a jumbled mess of written words. He shook his head, trying to dispel it, but it remained staring at him. He cursed, threw down his spear, and left. The words followed him. Whenever he looked at something, his mouth sounded it out. He rushed to his house, his head trying to spell the word: rose. He snuck in through the front door, carefully closing the door. Navigating through the dark to his bed, which was now in Arte"s room, across from the crib with a red stain on the alcohol-smelling mattress. He lay down on the dry gra.s.s bits shoved into a fabric covering.
As he lay in the silent room, Owen"s snoring disrupted his thoughts. In the night, he felt warm. Gazing at the patched-up ceiling, he didn"t feel the draft. "Did he do this for her? What am I doing to protect her, learning scribbles?"
"Weak," His mouth said. "W, e, e, c."
Frey cursed under his breath and brought his book out. Under the moonlight, he could see its pages. "Spider. S, p, i, d, e, r. Spider. So it was with an I, that"s right." He flipped the page to see the number nine. It wasn"t immediate, but an image of nine guards formed in his head. Unsure why he thought of it, he focused on the words next to the number, only to see the words read: nine guards. He flipped the page. Reading made him think of ten pillars. The words read: ten pillars. He flipped the book to its end, many paintings forming in his head. "I see it," he thought. "I can read, not just all the letters, but the weird words too! Spider, spear, book, sword, all of these are weird, yet I can read!"
The victory was short lived. As the night progressed, the words went back to their scribble state. He rubbed his eyes, hit himself, prayed to the G.o.ddess, but the words turned back to scribbles. No matter how much he turned the pages, they did not go back to the images. He would have cursed, but Arte was sleeping within a couple feet of him. "What happened? Why did I lose it?" That night, he didn"t get much sleep. "Maybe if I just keep practicing," he thought.
Just outside of Frey"s house…
Doevm sat with his back against the wall, taking deep breaths as he called upon his soul energy. In soul form, he could only see other souls. When he looked into his old house, he detected Frey"s soul with a tiny fraction of his own attached to it. He stretched his soul into a thread, connecting his mind to Frey"s. He kept his mind blank to prevent detection.
"W, e, e, c," Frey thought.
"Open your book." Doevm thought less as a thought and more of an action. Frey took out his book as if he was one of Doevm"s undead. "Sound it out, put it together. S, p, i, d, e, r. I am weak but I can get stronger. S, t, r, o, n, g, e, r. I need to study right now. Training is wasting my time. I will not train until I am literate." Doevm ran out of whatever energy his soul used, a term which he brilliantly called soul energy, and stood up with his mind in a haze. "Frey, the rest is up to you." He wondered back to his tiny broom closet and opened the black book.
"Soul projection." He brought out a quill and wrote some notes next to the term: "Able to influence the thoughts of others." After letting the ink dry, he scanned through the other terms in the book. "Looks like this is the closest to skill to giving someone accelerated learning." He shut the book and his eyes.