The Tower Read online

  Tower of the Four

  Episode 2: The Tower

  Todd Fahnestock

  F4 Publishing

  Copyright © 2020 Todd Fahnestock

  All rights reserved

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-9863756-8-2

  Cover illustration and design by: Rashed AlAkroka

  Printed in the United States of America

  For Elowyn,

  It fills me with joy that you turned this into a D&D campaign for your friends. Your personal touches to the academy were exquisite.

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  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Acknowledgements

  Tower of the Four

  About The Author

  Praise For Author

  Books By This Author

  CHAPTER ONE

  Brom

  Brom, Oriana, Vale and Royal—the newly formed Quad Brilliant—watched as the dead emerged from The Dome. The three coffins came on carts, each drawn by a stoic wagoner who looked only at the road, not at the two hundred stunned students lining it.

  “Three out of four,” Vale murmured. “Dead.”

  “A heavy toll,” Royal said. “But the survivor will become a Quadron.”

  For the first ten months, Brom’s Quad had barely spoken to each other. In the last five days, they’d talked non-stop. They had helped each other with new discoveries and blazed past threshold after threshold. They had crammed to learn all they could, and the change to Quad Brilliant was astonishing. Since they’d broken their barriers and bonded, their collective magical abilities had surged.

  “So we’re happy with that?” Vale asked. “Three dead. Don’t worry. Let’s get back to studying?”

  “Happy?” Oriana raised an eyebrow.

  “You know what I mean. We just accept that?” Vale clarified.

  “You are always free to leave,” Oriana said, seemingly barely interested in Vale’s outburst. “We all are.”

  “That’s not what I’m saying,” Vale said darkly.

  “It is the Test of Separation,” Royal interrupted, as though that settled the matter.

  This morning, the Test of Separation—the final test that transformed students into Quadrons—had been given to Quad Moonlight. No one knew exactly what happened in the Test of Separation save those who survived it, but everyone knew failure meant death. All four members of Quad Moonlight had entered The Dome. Only one had emerged. It put a sobering pall over Quad Brilliant’s recent successes.

  “It is the most rigorous test in the two kingdoms,” Royal continued. “No Quad save The Four has emerged with all four Quad members still alive.”

  “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

  “Except you are not saying anything exactly,” Oriana stated pointedly.

  “One of us is going to die. And if we’re like Quad Moonlight, three of us.”

  “Not this year,” Oriana said.

  Only fourth-year students were invited to take the Test of Separation. For those fourth-year Quads who were ready, the Test of Separation was always announced without warning. The announcements usually came near the end of a Quad’s fourth year, but particularly talented fourth-year Quads were sometimes tested near the beginning. In the hundred years the academy had stood, only two Quads had been called at the end of their third years: Quad Soulforge and Quad Adamant. Quad Soulforge had only lost only one of their members during that Test, while Quad Adamant had lost three. Brom had been shocked to discover that the old Quadron Cy’kett was that fourth member from Adamant—its Motus, its sole survivor. Cy’kett was famous among the older masters and librarians.

  The three wagons rolled closer. Red velvet embroidered with a fierce dragon—the sign of the Motus—draped the first coffin. White velvet embroidered with a haughty owl—that of the Mentis—draped the next, and the last bore black velvet with a moth flying before a moon, the sign of the Anima. Only one member of Quad Moonlight, their Impetu Dwinn, had survived. Today, Dwinn would become a Quadron. He would go through the ceremony in a room with The Four themselves, and they would strengthen Dwinn’s Soulblocks so that he could work magic outside the walls of the academy.

  One of the first lessons the masters had taught all of them was that Soulblocks were fragile. The only place they could be built and stay built was within the academy walls, where The Four had wrought powerful spells to preserve them. It made the academy a safe haven, a place where fledgling magic users could learn their craft. But only a full Quadron who’d passed the deadly Test of Separation—and then underwent Soulblock reinforcement from The Four—could work magic outside these walls.

  Any student was free to leave the academy at any time but leaving without the rigorous spell of reinforcement destroyed their chances of using magic forever. Soulblocks crumbled outside the academy. Brom didn’t fully understand it, but he understood enough. He wasn’t going to leave until he was a full Quadron, and that meant facing the Test of Separation.

  The wagons reached Brom, Oriana, Vale, and Royal, then trundled slowly past, heading up the crushed gravel path toward the giant portcullis leading out of the academy.

  “Quad Seabreak got called for their Test,” Vale said, obviously still frustrated by Oriana’s dismissive answers.

  “Mmmm.” Royal nodded.

  “The invitation came just after Quad Moonlight...passed,” she said. “They’ll test tomorrow.”

  “No they won’t.” Oriana didn’t take her gaze from the coffins. “They’ve taken the path of The Forgotten.”

  The Forgotten were those who left the academy voluntarily, who came to the school but lacked the courage to finish. Most often this happened during the rigors of the first, second, or third years. But occasionally, a Quad would decide not to take the deadly Test of Separation. It didn’t happen often, but sometimes a fourth-year Quad packed up their belongings and left the academy without having taken the Test, forfeiting their magic and letting all of their training be for naught.

  “Seabreak lost their spines. They’ll leave school as normals.” She used the word that the students used to describe everyone outside the academy. “They’re choosing safety over a chance at magic.” Oriana gave a sidelong glance at Vale, who narrowed her eyes.

  “Are they really?” Royal exclaimed in a hush. To a student from the academy, there were only three types of people in the two kingdoms: students of magic, Quadrons, and normals.

  Of course Royal wouldn’t back away from the threat of death. Brom felt the same, and it seemed as though Oriana and Vale also felt that way. But Vale had come dangerously close to
indicating that the threat of death wasn’t worth the prize.

  Brom tried to imagine himself in Quad Seabreak’s boots, watching Quad Moonlight get torn apart. Moonlight’s carnage could crack even the most hardened confidence.

  “Four years, and they’ve chosen to become normals,” Brom murmured to himself.

  “What about the other two Quads?” Vale asked. The student body of the academy dropped by half every year, leaving only four Quads—sixteen students—during the fourth year. “Were they invited to test?”

  “There are nineteen days left before the end of this year,” Oriana said. “Plenty of time for an invitation.”

  Silence fell among Quad Brilliant, and all they could hear was the creaking of the wagons and the trundling of the wheels, slowly fading. Somewhere down the line, someone started crying. Brom looked, trying to spot the student, some bereaved friend of the dead.

  “Three dead,” Vale repeated. “Maybe there’s something wrong with the Test.”

  “Three of them were not strong enough,” Royal said. “That is all.”

  “Why make it so hard that people die?” Vale persisted. “It’s almost like they don’t want people to become Quadrons.”

  “They say the Test of Separation is created by the student taking it, that they face their own fears and weaknesses,” Royal said. “Who knows what Quad Moonlight conjured?”

  “Bullshit,” Vale said. “The masters make the Test.”

  Royal winced at Vale’s profanity, and Brom hid his smile. Royal didn’t like it when she cursed.

  “Not everyone can be a Quadron,” Oriana said coldly. “Those who can’t—yet try anyway—die. Quad Seabreak chose wisely. If they don’t think they are up to the challenge of the Test, then they aren’t.”

  “What if it’s more than just hard?” Vale asked.

  “What are you talking about?” Royal returned.

  “The masters are cruel,” she said. “What if they set Quad Moonlight up to fail?”

  “Cruel?” Royal said. “Learning magic is difficult, the most difficult thing there is. The masters don’t make it difficult. They’re here to teach us. Harsh methods are required.”

  “Death isn’t a harsh method. It’s death.”

  “You know what I mean,” Royal rumbled.

  “You’re just saying what they want you to say.” She shook her head, agitated. “What if the Test is horrifically unfair, but no one wants to speak out because they’re afraid they’ll get banished from the academy?”

  “What are you talking about?” Royal growled.

  “What if we were supposed to fail this year?”

  “If we weren’t strong enough, then we were supposed to fail. But we were—”

  “Oh, stop acting so righteous!” Vale snapped. “If Oriana hadn’t popped your cork by bowing to you, you’d still be wrestling with that stupid pyramid. I’m saying: What if The Collector set us up to fail, except we didn’t?”

  “We may yet,” Oriana said quietly. “We are still far behind the other Quads. We may yet become one of the thirty-two sent home.”

  “Just answer the question,” Vale said. “Why would they have put us all together? This group, who didn’t have a chance of bonding?”

  “Perhaps it just seemed that way,” Royal rumbled. “We’re not the only Quad who had problems bonding.”

  “It took us until the end of the second semester. Every other first-year Quad bonded in the first!”

  “Well... We had additional issues,” he said haltingly. “They didn’t intentionally set us up to fail.”

  “We were the first Quad chosen out of a hundred and twenty-eight students,” Vale said. “How could it not be intentional?”

  “You see danger in every shadow.” Royal’s voice rose to match his growing anger.

  “Because there is danger in every shadow. And what if it’s not just the masters? What if it’s The Four?”

  “Don’t say that,” Royal swept his hand down like a sword. “It’s bad enough to speak lies about the masters. But The Four are... It’s...”

  “Sacrilege?” Vale offered.

  “Yes.”

  “They’re not gods.”

  “Shut your mouth!” Royal barked.

  “You don’t find it suspicious that no full Quads ever pass?” she asked. “None. Never. Except The Four themselves.”

  “None are as great as The Four,” Oriana intoned. “None ever have been. They’re above our comprehension.”

  “Maybe they’re just above the rules.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?” Oriana glared at Vale.

  “Vale, I’m warning you.” Royal’s face darkened.

  “I’m just—”

  “Without The Four, there would be no Champions Academy,” Oriana stated coldly. “Without The Four, there would be no Quadrons. They invented Soulblocks. Without The Four, there would be no students of magic, just ignorant novices draining their souls and dying. They made this place where even the ungrateful...” She put special emphasis on the word. “...might have a chance to learn. Simply because the Test of Separation is beyond most normals’ abilities doesn’t give you the right to speak ill of The Four.”

  A frosty silence fell between them.

  “I’m sorry,” Vale said softly, backing down. “I didn’t mean it.”

  “You’re damned right you didn’t mean it,” Royal said, looking larger than ever. He crossed his arms over his great chest.

  Vale looked troubled and upset. “I don’t know what I’m saying,” she said contritely. “It’s just...sad. Three out of the four didn’t make it.”

  “Don’t focus on your emotions,” Oriana said coldly. “Put them away and, when the time comes for your Test, be prepared.”

  “I’m supposed to focus on my emotions,” Vale said. “I’m a Motus.”

  “I’m prepared,” Brom offered, wanting to break the tension.

  “You’re cocky,” Royal rumbled, still red in the face and glaring at the ground.

  “He’s brilliant,” Vale said in as cocky a tone as she could manage, obviously trying to needle Royal. She seemed far more inclined to push the line with him than with Oriana. “We’re all brilliant.”

  Royal shook his head gravely. “Oriana, tell her to take this seriously.”

  But Oriana didn’t answer. Her indigo eyes might have been little purple flames for how hot they burned as she looked at the now-distant coffins, as though if she stared at them long enough, she’d discover what those poor dead souls had done wrong.

  But Brom couldn’t stop thinking about Vale’s sudden criticism of the masters, the very people who taught them magic. Brom had a hard time trusting them himself, always had. None of them were nice, except for the seemingly beatific Master Saewyne. Except she might be the worst, with her chalk violence, tight dresses, and manipulative smiles. Brom was half certain she was working Motus magic on them all the time, though he couldn’t tell how.

  He’d been leery of the masters ever since he’d discovered The Collector was intentionally intimidating him on that first day. What if it wasn’t just The Collector? Could it be that all the masters secretly wanted the Quads to fail? That seemed ludicrous. Why even have a school, then? Why teach anyone if you only wanted them to fail?

  What if the stern faces of the instructors weren’t simply a challenge to make the students tougher, self-reliant? What if the masters were, as Vale said, simply cruel? The Collector certainly seemed so.

  Vale had walked it back, but she’d watered a seed that had already taken root in Brom’s mind.

  The wagons passed underneath the giant portcullis and into the world. As a normal or as one of the dead, those were the only two ways to leave the Champion’s Academy.

  Unless you became a Quadron.

  I’m going to be a Quadron, he thought. I’m going to walk under that portcullis with my magic intact.

  The portcullis descended, and the students began walking the path toward The Dome where, after Dwinn met with Th
e Four in private and they strengthened his Soulblocks, he would receive his amulet and become a Quadron.

  That’s going to be me, Brom thought.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Brom

  In the remaining nineteen days between Quad Moonlight’s Test of Separation and the end of the year, Quad Brilliant rarely slept, barely ate, and flew through all the lessons they had missed during the months they’d languished. Brom felt like he was racing down a hill, barely able to keep up with his own legs.

  Vale’s burgeoning Motus abilities helped the Quad the most at first. She gave each of her Quad mates a jolt of excitement to start the day, making two hours of beleaguered sleep suddenly seem like a full night’s rest. Royal followed her lead, delving into the “external” application of the Impetu and instilling his Quad mates with physical strength and health.

  With her new Mentis abilities, Oriana found she could not only keep vast quantities of knowledge at the forefront of her mind, but she could also transfer it to her Quad mates. She researched at night, and during the day she fed the Quad a constant stream of knowledge mind-to-mind even as they practiced in the practice room. It was much faster than sitting in a chair and listening to an instructor lecture or demonstrate. Once they learned that little secret, they didn’t attend classes anymore. Instead, they went straight to the practice room and targeted a new magical threshold each day, sometimes two. Brom was worried the masters would come looking for their truant students, but they never did.

  “Why aren’t they checking up on us?” Vale put a voice to Brom’s thoughts that morning as they gathered in the practice room.

  “She’s right,” Royal rumbled in his deep voice. “I’ve not seen the masters in days, save in the grand foyer.”

  “Perhaps this is their way of being kind.” Oriana gave a thin smile. “Giving us one last week with the magic before expelling us.”