For those of who who read this series a long time ago when I first put it up, it is advised that you re-read the story, as there has been much editing and a change of format. I'm really sorry that it took me about a year to get a new chapter up and everything, but I'm here and ready to update hopefully once a week or so. Enjoy.

Chapter Seven: In Which A New Day Dawns

The sun heralded the new day, shafts of light streaming through the windows of the Hopeful chamber. Caim groaned and rolled over, yawning and opening his eyes. The other bunks were still, all other Hopefuls yet to awaken for the day. He rolled out of bed and blinked groggily. What time was it?

He shrugged and pulled on his boots, tucking his flute in the folds of his robe. He ran a hand through his hair and left the room, careful not to awaken anyone. He turned from the door once on the other side of the wall and found himself face to face with a female Hopeful. Her eyes glinted with a light of mischief.

“First one up? I beat you by a good hour.”

“Umm… Who’re you?” She didn’t answer, just looked at him with a weighing eye. Caim started to walk down the hall, stopping when she appeared in front of him. He turned back around, and then looked back at the girl. “How did you…”

She giggled. “It was easy, silly. ‘Specially ‘cause you weren’t paying attention.” Caim tried to back away from the Hopeful, only to find her at his back. “What’s your name? Mine’s Nerilka!” She bounced on her feet, looking at him expectantly. Caim felt uncomfortable.

“I’m C-” The girl held up a finger.

“No, wait… You’re Carlos!”

“No…”

“Casey!”

“Actually…”

“Courtney!”

“That’s a girl’s name!”

“Hmm… You don’t look like a Caroline…Ooh! Caden! No, wait…”

“Excuse me, but why can’t I just tell y-” The girl cut him off again with a squeak, still in deep contemplation.

“Cedric!”

“No!”

“Well then, what is it?” The two stood in silence for a moment. “Well?” Caim opened his mouth to speak. The girl made no move to cut him off.

“Caim. Nice to meet you… Neril-”

“Call me Rill! Rill is better!” This girl -Rill- sure was strange. “Am not!” Caim was taken aback.

“Did you just read my mind?” The girl held her face in a serious looking position before the face slipped and she started to laugh.

“No! It’s just what everyone always thinks when they meet me! And usually for a few months afterwards!” She paused for a second, sniffing at the air. “Wanna go to breakfast? Everyone’s still asleep, so all the good stuff will still be there!” Without waiting for an answer, she grabbed his wrist. Caim found himself being dragged along belong Rill for about five minutes until they came to the cafeteria. Caim tried to free his arm, but Rill held onto it like a vice. “Yay! Pancakes today! The cook always puts blueberries in them! Come on!”

The cafeteria was empty except for three professors sitting at a far table, and a Firius Mage picking dejectedly at a stack of what Caim assumed were “pancakes”. He thought he looked familiar.

Yanked away from his observations, Rill led him up to where the trays were stacked. Releasing his arm, she picked one up and picked up a stack of pancakes. Thinking of nothing else to do, Caim followed her example, picking up pancakes, a bowl of chopped fruit, and a cup full of red juice, and another with milk. Skipping happily, Rill sat at the nearest table and started tearing into her food with a vengeance. Caim sat down next to her.

“You know, the food’s not going to disappear if you eat it slowly…” Picking up a fork, he but a wedge off his stack and took a bite. “These are really good.” Without stopping her food rampage, Rill handed him a container full of sticky liquid, muttering around a lump of pancakes and biscuits.

“Sirrhup uwn poncahks. Guhd!” Sniffing at the amber liquid, he poured out some of it on the stack of pancakes. Rill took it from him and upended it on her rapidly dissolving plate of food. Caim dipped his fork in the mass of syrup and pancakes now on his plate, surprised at the flavor it added.

“Wow, it’s even better like this. What’s it made out of?” Rill swallowed.

“Tree sap.” Caim waited for her to start laughing, but her face was serious. She turned away and picked up her tray for a second helping. Caim shook his head. He was never going to understand Rill. She materialized next to him with a full plate, barely hesitating before going at it.

“So…” Caim ventured, taking another bite of his pancakes. “How long have you been here?” Rill stopped eating, licking syrup from her fingers.

“About two months.” She grabbed a napkin and cleaned a blob of syrup from her left ear. “Rill got here the day after the last Testing Day, just a wee bit late!” She held two syrup-dripping fingers close together. “Rill was the only Hopeful here for almost a week before other people started getting here! It was really lonely, so I spent a lot of my time practicing! I can make a light ball better than Tarquin! Wanna see?”

Caim nodded, taking a swig of the red juice. Rill held out her hand, palm up, ignoring the syrup that was running down her arm. She stared at her hand, and for a moment Caim thought nothing was going to happen. Rill let out a happy squeak and a sphere of light bigger than Caim’s head appeared with a brilliant flash. He rubbed at his eyes, trying to see past the docks flecking his vision.

“That’s huge!!! How did you do that?” Rill laughed, poking his chin with a sticky finger.

“Practice! Weren’t you listening? Besides, Rill figured out the secret!” Caim’s interest was aroused.

“There’s a secret? What is it?” He licked the syrup off his chin and polished off his pancakes.

“Rill’s not gonna tell you!” Caim looked down at his plate dejectedly. “Unless… you have to help me find the secret place! Then I can show you!”

“Secret place?” Rill nodded energetically, spraying Caim with syrup.

“Of course! Rill found it once, and it taught her lotsa things! I remember… lotsa books there.” Caim paused in wiping syrup off of his face.

“You mean like the library?” Rill bounced up and down in here seat.

“That’s right! Rill found secret place when she was in place with lotsa books!” Caim realized that sometime during their conversation she had finished what remained of her second helping. Rill tipped back her milk glass and sighed. “Rill can take you there now!”

Caim looked at Rill, then down at his robes. “But we’re covered in syrup.” Rill giggled again.

“Silly! You just gotta do a spell! Watch!” She focused again. Caim though he could just see a shimmering white halo around Rill before she shouted. “Tersus!” The syrup vanished from her figure, completely dissolving into the air. Palm still surrounded by white, Rill put it on Caim’s chest. He gasped as he felt it disappear from his face and hands. He looked at his robe.

“How did you do that?” Rill took on a grumpy look.

“Rill told you, you’ll learn when we find secret place! Come on!” She slid her tray onto a section of tabletop that had a green tinge. It shimmered and then disappeared. She leapt up. “Come on!”

Caim tentatively slid his tray to the section of table. There was a flash and it also vanished. “Well, what are you waiting for? Rill wants to go!” Rill stood impatiently, tapping her foot. Caim stood up, and Rill grabbed his arm again. “Good! Rill will take you to secret place!” She ran off with Caim in tow, zipped past the turn to the library, and skidded to a stop in front of a blank stretch of wall.

Caim tried in vain to free himself. “Uhh… the library was back-”

“Patefacio!” Caim suddenly found himself standing on nothing, and the pair fell downwards, Rill screaming happily as they hit something metal and started to slide downwards. Caim tried to hold down his breakfast. The slide twisted and turned, and countless times Caim was hit against the stone walls as they rushed past. Up head, a spot of light inched closer with frightening speed. “Make sure you hold your breath when we leave the slide!”

“What?!” Any further objection was cut off as they dropped into open space and hit the water. The impact drove all air from Caim’s lungs. He tried to suck in a breath, but sucked in water instead. The edges of his vision were getting darker…

Caim found solid ground under his feet, and pushed up as hard as he could. Light sparkled on the water as he broke the surface, coughing up water and drawing in copious amounts of air.

Beside him, Rill was treading water and looking slightly amused. “If you had been down any longer, Rill would have had to save you!” Caim spluttered as he got the rest of the water from his lungs.

“Where are we?” Caim coughed and spat up water.

Rill sighed. “I told you! Rill took you to a place with lotsa books!” Looking around for the first time, Caim realized they were, in fact, in the library. They were floating in a large pond that seemed to grow out of the floor. “The librarian is an Earathus mage! She shaped the earth and grew the plants, and Professor Alder filled it with water! Isn’t it pretty?” Caim was, at the moment, expending all of his energy trying to crawl to dry land. Rill backstroked by him easily, hoisting herself out of the pond. Caim realized that she had probably done this before.

The librarian came rushing over, wearing a beige colored robe with deep embroidery. As Rill helped pull Caim out of the water, she looked at the two disapprovingly. “Nerilka! How many times have I told you not to do that? You upset the cheetah sharks!” Caim felt sick.

“Cheetah...sharks?” The librarian nodded.

“Oh yes, they’re a mixture of cheetahs and sharks. They live in the water, fastest darn things I’ve ever seen. The can overtake almost anything, and are incredibly violent. You’re lucky I just fed them.” As if on cue, two or three fins broke the surface, circling the area where Caim and Rill had hit the water. Caim used every scrap of self control he had to stop himself from vomiting on the carpet. Rill merely giggled again.

“Sorry! Rill forgot! Her new friend wanted to come to the library!” Friend? Caim felt sicker than before, if it all possible.

He managed to croak out a response. “The stairs would have been fine…” Rill shook her head.

“No. Slide is much faster, and way more fun than the stairs!” The librarian sighed and rang a little bell that she produced from her sleeve. A young Liquius Mage laden with books came running.

“Sorry ma’am. I was trying to figure out if this book fit under the history or lyrical poetry section, and-” The librarian cut him off with a shake of the bell.

“Never mind that, can you dry off these two before they drip all over my library?” The Liquius nodded, and set down the books, putting his hands on each of their heads. The water in their clothes and pooling on the ground slid back into the pond. Caim wished that someone would just give him the option of a towel once in a while.

Rill bounced up. “Okay! Rill promised she would show you,” She leaned close to Caim’s ear and whispered, “the secret place.” Her eyes shifted to the librarian and the Liquius Mage, as if suspecting them of listening in. The Liquius Mage picked up his stack of books again and tottered off in the direction he had come. The librarian muttered to herself and starting walking the other way.

Still trying to catch his breath, Caim half walked-half slid along the floor, pulled by a happy Rill as she made her way to a section of books that seemed to be the same as any in the massive place. She scanned the shelves and pulled out a red book with gold writing on the cover. Caim realized that he could no more translate the text than he could understand Rill.

The aforementioned flipped to a page in the text and looked around again, making sure no one was looking. Caim glanced around. Besides the two they had already met, the only other visitors to the library was an Airius Mage writing what appeared to be an essay at a long table near the entrance, and another Hopeful who was reading a book under a lamp some distance away.

Rill put a thin finger in the middle of the page and began to chant some form of spell that was apparently in some other language. “Incendia, terra, aer, unda, quod redimio phasmatis, patefacio via sic nos may obduco!” Caim held his breath. After all the other events that followed Rill speaking in a different language that hadn’t turned out so well, Caim wasn’t feeling too optimistic about this one. Rather anti-climactically, a small section of the bookshelf slid back a few inches with a click. Rill pushed it further open, sheparding Caim through before she closed it behind them and plunged the world into darkness.

“Rill found this place a month ago! Rill also found out how it works! Only someone with the potential to become a Spellsword can read this language! Well, after they visit the secret place acourse. The language makes the magic stronger!” Caim suddenly felt very privileged.

“Thanks about all this, I guess, but what made you take me down here?” Rill shrugged.

“You were the only one that I could feel it in. Everyone else was different than me, but…something that you have is like something I have!” Her words faded into silence. Rill seemed to realize that they were in the dark and conjured another light ball that hung above their heads. Caim was looking at Rill strangely.

“You just talked in the first person, Rill.” She made a face.

“Rill was trying to sound serious. Now come on!” Caim batted her hand away from his wrist.

“I can walk, thank you.” Caim brushed himself off and followed Rill down what appeared to be a long corridor. The light stretched far, but Caim could see no walls or ceiling. The light fell on a cold floor as far as he could see. He shivered and moved closer to Rill, who chose that particular moment to stop suddenly. Caim bumped into her and fell onto the floor with a thump. Rill pointed ahead into the darkness.

“Porro est locus qua specialis recubo.” Caim shook his head. Had he almost understood that? She had said something about secrets ahead… She beckoned for him to keep moving.

“Qua es nos iens?” His eyes opened wide and he clamped a hand over his mouth. He had asked where they were going. Now he was both anticipating and dreading what lay ahead. Rill turned back to him with a small smile.

“See? Now you’re starting to understand!” Caim realized that she had spoken in that other language, but at the same time, he had understood everything that she had just said. An idea came to him suddenly, and he held out a palm, drawing from the Well like the instructor had told them. He spoke.

“Lumen!” A ball of light flared up inches from his palm, considerably larger than the one he had summoned before. He suddenly felt guilty. “Is this even fair?” Rill nodded.

“Of course. All Spellswords know this language, it is how they manage to have an equal amount of power in all five elements.”

As she finished the sentence, they came into a large chamber. How Caim knew, he had no idea, but their voices weren’t echoing like they had before. His eye was drawn by the only thing he could see. A shaft of light illuminated a low, stone altar, which was engraved with the symbol of the Spellswords. Rill pointed to it.

“This is an altar of the Totus Elementum, or the Spellswords. Once you say the right words over it, if it finds you worthy, you will be imbued with this language.”

Caim realized that Rill had become more and more serious as they had approached the altar. Every trace of her usual bubbly self had disappeared. He found it to be an improvement.

“Go!” Rill gave him a little push.

“But you said I needed a spell! What is-”

Rill held up a finger and softly chanted. “Ara ut est totus elementum , tribuo mihi dignus utor quinque.” Gulping, Caim walked forward. Rill remained rooted to the ground where she stood, and her light enshrouded form grew dimmer and dimmer as he walked closer to the altar.

He shivered as he placed his hands on it. He could feel power residing in it. It struck him that, if this succeeded, then he would become a Spellsword when he went to the shrine.

Caim took a deep breath and chanted Rill’s spell.

“Ara ut est totus elementum , tribuo mihi dignus utor quinque!” Although he had spoken softly, his voice boomed in the darkness, and he could feel…something…trying to enter his mind. He had no idea how he knew it was that, but he struggled against it. Rill’s voice called out.

“If they don’t find you worthy, you’ll die! Let them in to your mind!” Caim started shaking even more. He wished Rill had brought that up sooner. Caim took a deep breath and stopped resisting.

Suddenly, the something entered his mind and the world exploded as bright light burst across his vision.