In a Valley of No Light or Darkness - Chapter 1, Part 1 - Lessons

This is hundreds of thousands of years after the creation set things in motion; the races still live in the original places they found. The communities had grown too large, so people died, others survived. Civilisations rose and fell, no wars helping this happening, no wars happening at all in fact. The communities shrunk to preserve the supplies going around. For this reason, there are villages. Easier to work with, and no one is outed by fellow villagers to create disjoints in well being.

“Hey, Matserind, it’s time to get up,” shouted Adronnen, “You’ll be late for your teachings from Hammregeart.” Matserind had been taught on and off by this Hammregeart for most of his life, since he was able to talk. Hammregeart was revered as a wise man, in the same shape as the villagers but not of the same parts of Corronimara as any of the people in the surrounding areas. Most of the elders remember Hammregeart leaving for decades at a time, only recently had he been staying in the same place so frequently, but also as long as Hammregeart stayed, he was gone.

“He’s actually here this time?” asked Matserind, “Where has he been this time? I have been waiting for months.” All Hammregeart had left Matserind when he went was a note saying ‘I have other students who you will meet all in due time. Practise all that I have taught you over all these years and extend them to more than I have allowed you in my lessons so far. Wait for me, I will be a while, I do not know how long...’ “It has been exhausting, all my constant exercises that I have extended, I might just be able to beat him this time though.”

Matserind got up and threw on his robes, running down the stairs, he grabbed some burnt bread from the fire cover and ran to the foot hills of Lesser Mountains. Looking for the right path that would lead him to where Hammregeart did his teachings. Hammregeart only taught one person at a time, so every time the last student dies all the children that are only 4 years of age are paraded around forced to show off any natural abilities they have. Some of the families had an unfair advantage over the others as they had in bred to keep their powers strong, but in this strength there was narrowness, these families could only do a few types of manipulation.

Matserind was different; his family was one of the weakest manipulators in the village as they always had to ask for any help. It was especially embarrassing for them when Matserind’s father was building his house; he had to get his friends to manipulate the shape of the house as all he could do was do designs in the soft rock. This is the reason why Matserind has no brothers of sisters, his parents couldn’t live with the fact that they would not have children that could not even do as much as the father can. When Matserind was only a few months old when he was able to take a huge chunk of his wall and crumple it into a mosaic showing the foot hills and forest surrounding the village, although all of it was the same colour, there was texture that could be seen. Matserind’s parents were overjoyed; it just so happened that the last student of Hammregeart had killed herself by accident in one of the exercises to improve self control. The next day, Matserind was taken to the testing grounds were his parents were laughed at for themselves being there and the fact that their child was not even a year old yet. The other children were tested first, most of them passed with flying colours and some with style. Then it was Matserind’s turn.

He was placed on the centre of the field. Hammregeart asked his name, he wrote it in the ground without moving. Every bystander had a look of scared amazement. There was a legend of a manipulator of untold power, and everyone there seeing Matserind’s testing was thinking the same thing. Hammregeart jumped and punched the ground, like a tsunami it was travelling towards Matserind fast. It also just so happened that Matserind was facing the other way. Just before the travelling ground hit Matserind, it stopped and went completely over him; Hammregeart did not have his hand in the ground anymore. The travelling ground looked as if it had jumped over Matserind, it did not. Matserind had manipulated a certain part of the things that make up the soil around them and created a shield completely around himself. The crowd stood in silence as they saw Matserind change the ground that surrounded him into small round objects and ‘threw’ them towards Hammregeart. Hammregeart stopped most of them, but one got through and hit him directly between the eyes. Matserind’s parents ran over to Hammregeart and helped him get up, and to get Matserind up from the ground.

Matserind entered the cave mouth where he had gone every day since his testing and sent a greeting to anyone who might be in there. He was replied for the first time in months. He strode inside, expecting to only find one person. There was Hammregeart right in front of Matserind and to the left there was Hammregeart again. Matserind’s mind was wondering what was going on and was about to decide which one was the fake one when the Hammregeart in front of him started to go the same colour of the plants and cave walls. It separated into the rock and the plants that made it up. The plants unfolded their leaves which made the skin and shoots and branches that made the flesh straightened out and crawled along the floor towards the trees just outside the cave mouth, they joined together so they became one. The rock was in the shape of bones which broke apart and floated back their places in the walls, exactly where there were gaps in the walls the pebbled bits of stone bones fitted perfectly.

“Do you like my mirror?” asked Hammregeart. Matserind nodded, not knowing what to say. “I know what you are thinking, ‘He must be part Schomin, part Gaemlomony and part Awuenia’. Well, I am not. I am part of a race that is a part of all other races in this world. We call ourselves the Athair-Na-Rèir; we live for centuries if not millennia and can control all elements. And we do not stay in the same place for too long, as is the answer of your next question.”

Matserind just stood there.

“I have done as you have asked, I can now do the exercises you set me one hundred fold. Is there anything new that you can teach me?” Matserind wanted to do more than just learn to do things, they were interesting things to do, but Matserind was getting restless. He knew how to do most things with his element apart from merging with others, which is all he wanted to learn.

“Well then, we had better make sure that you have done that.” Hammregeart knew that the testing was going to lead to his defeat, but still wanted to go through with it. “Once this is finished, I shall teach you a completely new lesson, no elements, just who you are. Do you think that you could cope with that?”

‘What is this man talking about? “All we can do is with the elements we belong to”, that is what he told me on my first lesson. Now he is going to contradict everything that he has taught me from the begging.’ Thought Matserind as he and Hammregeart took their positions outside in the field just by the cave. Matserind turned around so he was facing away from Hammregeart and merged part of himself to the ground so he knew exactly what was happening. Hammregeart flexed and sent a boulder travelling towards Matserind, who knew that it was on its way. The boulder split in half, went around Matserind came back together and was sent straight back to Hammregeart. He broke the boulder into tiny pieces, which he knew Hammregeart could not stop all of. Hammregeart looked at the pieces and knew that he was going to be hit by at least a hundred of them. What he did not see was that the ones that Matserind had decided to hit him with were sharpened; the pieces of the boulder came towards him.

They did not touch Hammregeart. Around him there were leaves that were almost transparent, not far from the edge of the field was another Hammregeart holding out his hand. Matserind looked over feeling that the Hammregeart, that had the boulder pieces around him, had been tricking him all this time. The pieces of boulder dropped in exactly the same places that the original boulder had been taken out of. As the last piece went back into place, the Hammregeart that had been attacked started to go the same way that the first one had, splitting into the rocks, soil and plants and going back to where they belong. The real Hammregeart started clapping as he walked towards Matserind.

“Well done, you almost killed my other fake me,” Hammregeart complimented Matserind. “Don’t worry about the lesson today, I think that you are ready for the next stage in elemental development. That means the combinations of the elements, if you did not already know. Then tomorrow I will teach you a great talent that requires no elements at all and all of them at the same time; this is called Astrionem. It is the leaving and returning of your body safely.”

Matserind was wondering why all this new stuff was being thrown at him now. “Thank you Hammregeart for the honour of being your student. But I must ask, why are you going to be teaching me so much new fighting and survival techniques now in such a small time scale? Especially when there has never been a war in all history?”

“I am teaching you the rest of the lessons you need for you to live and learn by yourself, after these few days you will travel with me to the other parts of the world that you have not seen or heard about, it will be most likely that your friends and family will not hear about them either. In my absences, I have been going to the smallest villages of the different races and tutoring the ones that have shown exceptional skills. There are thirteen of us in total, but there is an opposite group of us, they too are thirteen in total but are being taught in a more aggressive nature. It is written in the stars that there will be a great battle between the groups of thirteen, one group will triumph and the other will be defeated. Depending on the group that wins there will either be joyous occasion where no one needs to be scared of the other races or there will be more wars going on to eradicate the other races, between each race.”

Hammregeart took out a plant, some rocks and a pile of soil and put them in the middle of the field. He put his hand over the three different piles and fused them together in one complete body of element Earth. There were some piles of the same parts of Earth in front of Matserind, he put his hand over one set. The soil split up into tiny parts and crushed the plant, the rock was a bit harder and just got a few holes in it. Going to the next set, Matserind now knew somewhat how to fuse the different parts of Earth together, he found the parts of the soil that the plant had absorbed when it was in the ground, in the rock were more parts of soil just tightly packed. Matserind found a connection and tried to use that to fuse the different Earth elements; the soil parts made the plant and rock move, but the closer they got to each other the less stable they were. The soil parts started to leak out of the plant and the rock started to crumble up into tiny pieces. Matserind was not happy with this, so he just stopped the fusion leaving the plant, rock and soil in mid air just rotating around. Matserind did not know at this point that soil, rock and plants were part of the same element. ‘How can I do this?’ He asked himself, ‘I found a connection between them, just not the defining one. How are they connected?’ Something in his mind clicked, ‘they must be parts of the same element, but how can I fuse them together?’

“Having trouble?” asked Hammregeart, “I can tell you what to do when trying to fuse elemental parts together, if you want.” Hammregeart got another set of Earth together. “They may seem different, but they are the same in the way that they are from the same element. You will find something pulling them together that is not strong enough to bring them into contact, they need each other as much as you need them. All there is to do is bring them in contact with each other.” He held out his hand above the set of Earth, the plant straightened out and unfolded itself inside out, the soil spread itself out to welcome the plant, the rock crumbled itself and mixed with the soil. Finally the leaves lay themselves over the body of Earth.

As Matserind was watching this happening he felt something in the ground moving, he looked around for any clues as to what it could be. He noticed his last set of Earth, it was moving in the same way as the one that Hammregeart was just about to finish. Matserind looked around intently trying to find a sign of another person in the area, there was no one. When his set had finished, Matserind felt the connection end. ‘It was me all along.’ Matserind made the Earth float up into the air, he flattened it into a disk shape, lengthening it to an arm’s length. The Earth went towards Hammregeart’s Earth, started spinning and completely chopping the other Earth into tiny pieces but destroying itself in the process.

“That is the most impressive work I have ever seen,” said Hammregeart, “all you need is a bit of control to stop you from fusing all Earth’s together. Another thing, if you want to chop anything down just use some of the clear stuff you made as a shield in your first test to put around the Earth to give it a bit more bite, so that your Earth does go right through the things you’re chopping.”

Matserind remade the Earth body and found the clear substance, he put it around the outside of the Earth. Spinning, the Earth was sent to the nearest tree, all that was heard from the Earth was a silent ‘swish’ of the blade. There was no sound from the tree as it was perfectly sliced into two. Hammregeart held out his hand and the tree stopped sliding off itself, he tried to put it back and mend the tree but could not because of it being too far away. Matserind saw this and made the Earth put the tree back the way it was before, the injury was sealed and the Earth fell on the ground below and broke into the contributing pieces.

“Thank you. Now, doing that with a part of a different element is a bit harder, because there is no absolute connection between them that is easily found. There is one thing that connects all elements together, but you must find that for yourself. Water is the easiest, try that at home and show me tomorrow.”

With the lesson finished for today, Matserind went home disappointed that he had been tricked so many times in the morning, but pleased that he had bettered Hammregeart in first attempts with fusing the elements.

Matserind passed a farm on the way back home that was having trouble with its crops. He was wanting to see if he could manipulate the plants by themselves. Matserind looked at the crops, found the connection and made them grow bigger. They grew until they were almost toppling over; Matserind saw this and reduced the size of the crops by just enough to stop them from falling. Matserind went home feeling happy that he can now control all parts of Earth.

Matserind got home and started on his assignment to fuse elements that were not part of his own. He followed Hammregeart’s advice by starting with water, as all life needs water to live. Matserind set out a set of water and Earth, it only took him a few minutes to find the connection between the water and Earth and then the fusion happened. The water was soaked up by the soil and plant then the same thing that happened the first time he fused the Earth elements together happened, but Matserind was able to take out the water from the fused body and control it by itself. Matserind did not know how or why every time he fused the water and Earth together he was able to control the water by itself, this was puzzling him. He couldn’t think of how it was possible but he had to carry on the fusion so he put it to the back of his mind.

Matserind tried with Air next, even though he would not be able to know if he had done it correctly. The only way he knew that he had fused them properly was that the body was lighter than the Earth body. Because this body was lighter then the Earth body, it was able to be moved around more quickly and easier to control. Matserind took out the Air and placed the Earth body on the floor next to the fire in the centre of the room.

Fire was the last of the elements he had try to fuse with the Earth. Matserind found the connection between Fire and Earth; the body of Earth rose and settled just above the fire. The fire started to grow and engulfed the Earth body; Matserind was surprised by this and brought the Earth body out of the fire’s reach. When the Earth was fully away from the fire it was still burning but it wasn’t burning naturally. Matserind tested if he had fused Earth and Fire properly. He touched it, no heat coming from it as far as he could tell. He flattened it to paper thin and hardened the outside with the invisible substance, he made it cut off a slice of the table top. Matserind noticed that the cut was perfect but where it had cut was on fire. Matserind made the Fire/Earth body soak up the fire to stop the table from burning. Releasing the fire from the body, Matserind while splitting the Earth into its different parts got an idea. ‘Why don’t I fuse all the elements together?’