The Stupid Candle

[Allana]

Three Years ago....

The girl sat, staring at the candle. No, staring was perhaps not quite correct, more correctly she was glaring at the candle. Her concentration was fixed upon the charred tip of the wick. There was nothing else, there was no classroom, no instructor staring at her just as intently as she stared at the candlewick, there was no tickle on her nose that she could not stop, there was no itch, no itch, oh how it itched! "Just focus" she told herself. A thin tendril of smoke began to waft from the wick and her excitement surged. She was doing it, but oh how she wanted to rub her nose! She trembled with the restraint to not scrub at her face to stop it. The feeling swelled, and she found herself concentrating harder on not thinking about it than she was on the wick. No! She wasn't going to... she had to concentrate... she had to...

"Achoooo..." she sneezed. Her focus shattered. Whatever ember she had stirred, whatever inkling of a flame had been birthed upon that thin cord was abruptly snuffed out, and the last remnants of smoke were sent spiraling off to dissipate uselessly into the still cool afternoon air of the classroom. She deflated as all that excitement at her near success leaked out of her and was replaced by abject failure. Sheepishly she eyed the unlit candle while she used the sleeve of her apprentice robe to scrub furiously at her nose.

The old man watching her sighed and then spoke "You must concentrate Adara." They words were said flatly, and the disapproving tone was not lost upon the girl. She sank under the weight of them her eyes meekly rising from where she sat to his.

"I almost had it." She responded, and she glared back at the stupid candle. The stupid candle that should have been lit by now. She'd been trying all day to get the stupid stupid stupid candle to light. Just once, just once it should have lit! Without realizing it she muttered "Stupid candle."

"Now you mustn't blame the candle. You will get this, you almost had it. You simply need to concentrate. Put all other thought out of your mind." Those words came out as they had the last ten times, and though they might sound soothing there was a hint of boredom and a strong air of frustration that she sensed in them. "Watch."

The old man drew his fluffy white eyebrows down at the candle, his blue eyes fixed onto that thin wick. Instantly the wick came alight, a bright flame popping up from nothingness. The little light seemed to mock her in its dancing on the tip of the wick. Adara fixed it with a hard baleful stare. Stupid candle!

"Oooooh, this is pointless!" She wailed flopping backwards amid the cushions in the room. "I'm never going to light the stupid candle." Her hand found a large, red velvety pillow and she clutched it to her chest where she lay. Closing her eyes she heaved a dramatic sigh.

"You won't if you don't concentrate." With her eyes closed she could not see the old man rub his temples in vexation, but she knew he would be doing so. He always did so when she put on one of her "displays" as he called them.

"Stupid candle." She reiterated, still laying sprawled amid the cushions clutching the red one to her chest she opened her eyes to stare at the ceiling. "Maybe I'm not supposed to be a mage. Maybe I'm supposed to be a Ninja!" She grinned at that thought, more-so because she knew the look that old man was giving her. It would be cool to be a ninja!

"I do not teach... Ninja-ing." The old man contorted his face as he said the last word, filling it with layers of disapproval. "Perhaps we should try again tomorrow, when you are more focused."

She squashed her eyes shut again. Now she'd done it. Why did she have to mention ninjas. She was so, stupid. The old magister would definitely report that to her father, and she would hear about it for the next week. It had only been three days since the last report. She had been eavesdropping on her father's study and heard the old man tell her father "The girl does not apply herself, she has the potential to be a great wizard, but she refuses to focus." She didn't even want to know how her father would react to a second report in so short a time.

Sitting up, she released the pillow and pushed disheveled scarlet locks out of her eyes. The pillow fell down onto her lap, where she once again began hugging it to her. "You aren't going to tell my father are you?" She couldn't keep the dread out of her voice. If she had to hear about her potential and how much her father was spending on this mentoring one more time over supper, and get that look from her mother that said she was going to... what? She didn't know, but it would be something! She'd do something, something bad. She could put an elpy in her father's study, that would teach him! Or a slug in the magister's slippers, that'd be funny. Or maybe....

"No, I wont tell your father, this time. So long as you apply yourself tomorrow." The old man's frown at her cut short her thoughts of malicious pranks. Relief flooded through the girl and she bounced up, a bright smile spreading across her features, the pillow flying from her arms to knock the candlestick off the short table. She paid no mind as the old man glanced at the toppled candlestick and rubbed his temples. "Tomorrow, we will try again."

[Allana]

The magister stood in the dimly lit study. He shifted uneasily under the scrutiny of the man behind the desk. Adara could sympathize, being under her father's scrutiny, especially for failure was not something that anyone found particularly comfortable. Her father was not particularly large, he was of only average height, but his presence was commanding. He was a man used to getting his way or being able to buy his way around obstacles.

"I-I am afraid that I can offer little more, until she successfully overcomes her block." The little man stated. He licked his lips, and rubbed his hands anxiously. "We-we have been over all the basic excerises, and she fails to grasp even the easiest. She-she hase the potential." The little magister shifted his gaze to Adara with a frown. "Mmm, yes, she has the potential, but there is nothing more I can do. Once she-she can overcome that block, I would be happy to resume teaching."

The graying man seated behind the desk slapped a book shut and fixed the magister with a cold glare. "You told me you had dealt with troublesome cases before, Magister." Now his gaze shifted to Adara as well. She shifted uneasily under the weight of that gaze.

"Y-yes, I-I know." The magister stumbled, his hands speeding up as he grew more anxious, or maybe embarrased. "I-I thought, well, I-I thought..." Whatever he thought, he was cut short by the sharp crack of her father's hand on the cover of the book.

"You. Thought. Wrong." He was no longer eyeing Adara, now his gaze was fixed on the cringing magister across the desk from him. "You have wasted my coin and my time, and think I will welcome you back as a tutor later? No, I have had enough of your failure." He rose, pushing back the heavy chair with its heavy bronzed armwrests and deep green cushions. "Be thankful, I do not report your failures to those who recommended you. You have until dawn tomorrow to gather your things and be away."

And that, was that. There was no arguing with that tone, it left no room for compromise, negotiation, nor appeasement. The man had failed, and now he was gone, again. Adara winced inwardly as the little man bobbed a bow, and smoothed his clothes a few times before scurrying from the room. She thought he reminded her a bit of a rodent, the way he was always twitching and moving about in an erratic fashion. He was the sixth magical tutor to try to break through her block. It was hopeless, though they all said she had promise or great ability, she could not tap it. She was such a failure, why was she so stupid?

Her father's gaze swiveled onto her now, and she fidgeted again. "I..." she started but that was all that she managed before she was silenced with a wave by her father.

"Go to your room. We will find you a new mentor." He said, sternly. There was no nonsense in those words, nor any amount of comforting, he simply expected to be obeyed. She might as well have been a misbehaving employee. She thought she sensed disappointment again in that gaze. She wanted to go to him and apologize, to promise to do better next time, but she knew he would not tollerate such nonsense. She was dismissed, just as the magister had been, and so she hurried for the door.

Outside, in the hallway, she slumped. Why did she have to be so difficult? Other students years younger than her were already throwing around balls of flame, and yet, she was still struggling to light a candle. Dejectedly, she walked the hall back to her room. The empty hall seemed so foreboding. When she was in her room, she shut the door and flung herself onto her bed. Burying her face in her pillow, she cried herself to sleep. She had failed again.

[Allana]

Adara looked down the corridor, she couldn't recall where she was. The hallway seemed the same in both directions. Dark shadows obscured the alcoves and corners. Something about them felt dangerous, and a shiver coursed down her spine. She did not like this place. Choosing a direction at random she walked at first without purpose. How stupid was it for her to get lost in this place. As she walked the chill in her spine deepened. The shadows in the recesses seemed to lengthen, growing more menacing with each step. She worked to rationalize her fear, this must be a building on her father's estate, perhaps a wing in the servant's quarters. How had she wandered there without intending it. Adara glanced back over her shoulder, and then again in the direction she was going. She jumped as she noticed a stairway ahead of her. When had that gotten there? A stupid question, stairs aren't something that could move.

The stairs were wide, with a stone handrail, and she griped it tightly as she followed the steps down. Was there a servant's wing on the second floor? She couldn't remember. The flight of stairs stopped at a small landing before joining with another archway, still shrouded in shadow she could not see what lay beyond. She reached the landing and her heart soared at the accomplishment. Why did she feel so excited over stairs? She was being so stupid!

Turning she looked through the archway and her jaw dropped. It was not another corridor. This room was magnificent. High vaulted ceilings, and magnificent stonework wrought pillars seemed to sprout out of the shadows. The sconces all sat empty, but even so above in the ceiling glass panes let in the light of the moon, throwing shadows and casting the room with a pale glow. Where the moonlight struck, it revealed an elaborate system of fountains, with tiny waterways and spouts and at the very top a water dragon. Crossing to the nearest basin she looked down in it. Instinctively, she reached down touching the bottom of the empty pool. It was damp, and slightly slimy. As she raised her hand to examine it the faint smell of stagnation made her wrinkle her nose. Why had her father not shown her this place, if she could just find a valve she could see the fountain in full glory! It must have cost a fortune to build!

In search of something to return water she moved on, quicker now, her anxiety over the lingering shadows fading to just a faint unease in the back of her mind. She was being silly, only children feared the dark. She just needed to find the valve for the fountain, then she could see it work and get back to whatever she had been doing. What had that been? She couldn't seem to remember, but it didn't seem important now.

Peering about the room, finding another archway, leading off to the left of the first entrance. She wondered just how big this place was as she crossed the threshold into another corridor. This hallway was slightly different from the first, even in the dark she could make out blue tiles of a thousand different hues, giving the impression of flowing water. Like the first this was lined with alcoves, and the darkness was again prevalent. She couldn't make out the shapes of the things in those alcoves, and her nerves would not tolerate the thought of getting close enough to look within. Surely a valve would not be visible in a prominent place, it would be out of the way, she needed to find a small side room. That made sense.

The further she went the lighter the tiles became, first fading from a deep rich midnight blue, then to a a royal blue, then finally a sky blue before fading completely into snowy white tiles before another archway. The patterns no longer made her thing of waves, but instead storm clouds. The detail was fantastic, she again wondered why her father had not shown her this before. Perhaps it was a museum he was building, maybe it wasn't finished? The room through the next archway again drew her attention. It was an enclosed garden, in the center a gnarled old tree, reached skyward toward the glass panes. It looked to be ancient and weathered, its bark ground thin by fierce storms, and where it should have had a bounty of leaves it had thousands of wind chimes. They hung off of it in varied lengths, and she suspected if a wind were to blow the sound would be wondrous. Now, however, the room had an eerie silence to it, all those chimes and not a one was stirring. She wondered how a gust would ever reach the tree, enclosed in this garden. She found herself walking through the silent garden in awe, finding another archway, just around the corner.

Beyond the archway was a hall more like the last, though the tiles began white, and gradually took on yellow, then orange, and then red colors, which all deepened to a dark red before another archway. Again, it was full of dark alcoves, and no other doorways. She considered going back now, she was getting further and further into this place, and she still didn't know where she was! Still curiosity had overcome her reason, and she wasn't even sure the way back was the way out. It seemed like she should have remembered coming this way, surely these fascinating rooms would not have gone unnoticed before? She found herself propelled onward through the next archway.

This room was again, massive. Obsidian threw the moonlight about in a thousand directions. That was the prominent feature in this room, the black stone was everywhere. From the hearth, to the curving stone benches, everything was carved obsidian. Ridges had been carved and polished to throw the light, though the moonlight reflected off them, it only touched on half of them. The others she thought must be only be lit by the light of the great fireplace in the center of the hearth, when it was ablaze. Now, it stood dark and unlit. As she circled the room, she noticed her observation had been slightly mistaken, while obsidian was prevalent, there were accents of deep red all about as well. She paused beside the hearth, holding her hand out over it. It was still faintly warm, as if a fire had been here only hours ago, and her hand came away sooty.

Her mind worked as she pondered the soot, and the tree, and the water. It made no sense. If this was being used, why had she not seen anyone else. Surely even a cleaning servant should have made an appearance by now. The tree in the second room, it had been ancient, surely that could not have grown overnight, and the hearth was warm to the touch. Then the damp stones. Why was this all such a secret? Why had she never seen any of this before, and why was her heart racing so and urging her forward still.

Still, as foolish as it seemed, she continued on, finding another archway. As she expected, it began with dark red tiles that reminded her of flames and slowly faded into a mixture of browns, grays and greens that at first didn't seem to be anything, just stone tiles. Then she realized that was exactly what the artist had intended. The room it lead to was unique, a rock garden. While circular, gravel paths coursed and wound their way around larger boulders. She thought, in the moonlight there were faint greenish veins of something on the boulders. "It must be a lichen of some sort." She thought speculatively. The crunch of her footfalls in the gravel seemed somehow unseemly loud in the dark and silent garden, and she thought it was curious that the groundskeeper had not planted a single plant here. Surely this room could have used a flower or two, or perhaps a shrub to contrast the soft earthy grays and browns of the stones.

She was still considering that as she passed into the next archway, right where she had expected it. Here, brown and gray tiles began to fade toward green and then blue and then into the darker shades of blue. Through the archway she saw the recognizable shapes of the fountains from earlier. She froze. That was impossible, that room had not had another way in! A chill coursed through her spine. What was this place? She backed away from the fountain archway, her mind trying to logically explain the presence away, but failing. Maybe there were two fountain rooms? That was possible, surely. She turned to go back, and that's when she saw it. She had written it off as an alcove at first glance, but it was not. It was a narrow stairwell that lead upwards. It was deep in shadow and treacherous in the dark.

She hesitated. That darkness, it chilled her marrow. Yet, that was silly. She was being stupid again. Children feared the dark, and she was well past the stage of looking for monsters under her bed or in her closets. Steeling herself, she ascended the narrow stairs. There were many of them, and the climb grew no lighter as she went. Suddenly the walls gave way on either side, and the stairs climbed into the open air, with only a thin railing preventing her from tumbling off. She nearly turned back. Looking down over the railing she could see nothing. It was pitch black, devoid of even the moonlight that had shrouded the other rooms. Taking a deep breath she calmed herself, her pulse seemed to be thunder in her ears. She had to see where this lead. Then she would go back. Her father would be displeased if she got lost here for long.

The stairs finally ended on a seemingly impossible balcony. No, balcony was not the right term. It was a catwalk wrapped in a circle around a massive stone spire, and all around it opened into nothingness. Only a tiny rail of simple wrought iron prevented what she suspected to be an endless dive into darkness, likely fatal. That sense of danger surged within her, but she tamped it down hard, she had come this far, she would not turn back now. She would not be stupid or silly this time. She found three more narrow stairways that descended into the darkness, and somehow she knew that they each had an adjoining opening in each of the earlier hallways, though she had not noticed them before. She found four heavy doors as well, set into the center of the stone spire at the center of the catwalk. Those doors were all identical, massive doors reinforced with heavy iron bands. Still, the banding was not the strangest part. Black chains, wrapped about the entire spire, and she never once saw a lock on them. Just looking at them they seemed unyielding with no give at all to them. Each link seemed a massive construct of its own. She was certain they would bar any access to whatever lay within. Even if she could move the chains, the doors themselves were massive, it was unlikely she could move them without help.

It seemed her hand stirred without her permission, stretching out toward the heavy door. Compelled, her fingers brushed against a link of the dark metal it and a visceral scream broke from her lips. Knowledge surged into her mind of danger, and terror greater than any she had ever known before. It was a torrent that threatened to sweep her away. Not just danger and fear, but something else, dark and foreboding was there too. Power. She turned then and if the brush against the door had not been terror enough, she found herself looking eye to eye with a cowled figure. Well, it would have been eye to eye, if she could have seen his eyes. Where she should have seen a face, there was darkness. The form chuckled, then hands were reaching for her, tightening around her wrist. She could do nothing as was lifted up and dangled off the catwalk. She wasn't even able to manage a scream to match the stark terror that she felt as darkness enveloped her. His voice a soft raspy whisper sounded in her ear as he released her. "You are not ready." And then he let her go, her hand slipping through his grasp and she was tumbling into oblivion as black as she had ever seen.

She sat up clutching her hand to her chest with a shriek to wake the dead. She was soaked in cold sweat and felt as though she'd climbed a mountain, or fallen off of one. Her breath was heavy and though the terror was receding she still felt the surge of adrenaline and the fear tugged at her heart. She looked around and found only the familiar confines of her room. No strange corridors, no tiled hallways, just her room. The furniture cast dark shadows in the night, and her eyes burned slightly. That's right she'd cried herself to sleep. Slowly the dream faded from her mind, as reality overtook her. It had all been a nightmare, right? She found her hand moving to her wrist where that figure had grasp her. There her flesh was painful to the touch, and pink. Looking closer she could see it was patterned in a faint hand print. She could make out the fingers as they would have wrapped around her wrist, and she could almost feel the wraith's grip before it had released her. It had to be a dream, right? Right? She wanted to believe, but what dream left marks. She wanted to run screaming, but that was stupid. She wanted to go and tell everything to her father, but he would never understand, and she had already disappointed him once tonight. So she kept it to herself, though it chilled her blood and made her hug her pillow close. Morning could not come soon enough, and she found no sleep again that night.

[Sadori]

((Amazing as always, Allana!))