“You gonna be okay?” Tsubasa asked. She and Roland stood at the top of the stairs overlooking Mount Fuarain’s boiling caldera. The glow of the magma was nearly blinding, and the heat just as overpowering. “I don’t even know how to deal with that heat. Calling it ‘hot’ is too big an understatement. Even ‘scorching’ is massively underselling this. How are you supposed to cross to the Canon?”
The Canon’s entrance was in the center of the caldera, past nearly fifty yards of bubbling magma. There was no path.
“Shureen,” Roland said. “And Kirin, and Vi.” Squinting against the glare and the blistering heat, he looked over at Tsubasa. “I’ll be back as soon as I can. This is meant to be my hardest trial yet, remember? It’s supposed to be like this.”
“Can the Fantasians you’ve formed Pacts with hear me?” Tsubasa asked.
Roland paused a moment, listening inward. He heard each of them in turn, and smiled. “They can,” he said.
“Then Kirin, Vi, Shureen,” Tsubasa said, pointing straight at Roland’s heart, “you’d better take care of this guy, okay? Don’t you dare let Jurall beat him down. He’d better come back without a scratch, you hear me? And if I don’t hear from you in an hour, I’m going into the Canon after you, even if I have to cross a lake of lava to do it.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “It’s pretty stupid that no one’s allowed to come with you into this Canon, when we could for Shureen’s. And I know you’re powerful and can handle a lot, but you’re still fragile in a lot of ways. Going it alone really doesn’t suit you.”
“I’m not alone,” Roland said. He raised his ocarina to his lips, and began to play. First Vi’s song, then Kirin’s, then Shureen’s. Vi responded immediately, winds wrapping around him in a cooling breeze that forced away the oppressive heat of the volcano. Kirin he felt beneath his feet, his builder’s mindset already planning a path across the lava. And Shureen added to the cooling barrier around him, and also touched the lava, preparing it for Kirin, making it cooler and easier to work with. Roland lowered his ocarina and turned, three songs still resonating around him, three voices rising within him, three presences surrounding and going before him.
After six years, he’d finally returned to this Path, and formed a Pact with Shureen. He’d had six years to reflect, to mature, to prepare. He wasn’t about to stop at one victory — and the voices singing within him echoed that sentiment. They had no intention of forcing Tsubasa to come in after them, nor returning Roland to her and their companions waiting at the foot of the mountain less than whole.
And they had no intention of letting Jurall see their Summoner as anything less than worthy.
“Let’s go,” Roland murmured, more to the Fantasians than himself or Tsubasa. As he started towards the caldera, Vi’s breeze brushed the feather ornament attached to his ear, and he thought of the twins and smiled.
He didn’t pause as he reached the lake of magma. Stepping out onto it, he found it harden beneath his foot, cooling into a stone path. Inch by inch, foot by foot, a grey stone path formed, steaming but safe, guarded on its sides by Vi and Shureen. One foot after another, Roland strode across the lava, to the heart of the caldera, and the imposing Canon’s entrance. The air was a rippling haze across the dark opening in the stones, Jurall’s fiery crest glowing red-hot above him.
Roland stepped inside, and darkness closed in around him. The blinding light of the caldera was shut out, and for a moment he stood there blinking spots from his eyes, trying to make out shapes in the darkness.
It was Vi that whispered a warning, and saved Roland as he ducked low, nearly flattening himself against the hot floor. Something sharp flew over his head and bit into the wall beside him, spraying him with shrapnel. He leapt to his feet and sprinted ahead, still unable to really see. But he could move this quickly because he could trust Vi and Kirin to guide his steps, feeling the air and the floors, walls, and ceilings around him.
He made two quick turns, his heart thudding in his chest. He ducked, sidestepped, and scrambled around and past unseen traps and foes that destroyed the walls and floor behind him as he narrowly evaded their deadly attacks, and then he emerged into new brightness. This inner chamber, dozens of stories high and as long across in all directions, was an intricate web of crisscrossing stone walkways and stairs, all rising and falling over a volatile ocean of lava, with huge waves cresting and falling, spraying blistering mist against the foundations of the chamber.
Roland gasped for air, catching his breath — for a moment. But then up from the magma leapt a pair of magma guardians like he and Tsubasa had fought on the mountain’s slopes — one a round beetle-like creature, the other a taller warrior with scythe-like arms. Roland stretched out his hand, and Vi’s wind gusted forth, blasting them back off the walkway, down into the lava they’d leapt up from.
But all throughout the labyrinthine paths, more magma soldiers were leaping up, or falling from the ceiling, or emerging from hidden tunnels.
So it’s to be a fight all the way? Jurall wants to test my power.
But is he that simple? Just a brute fighter, valuing raw strength above all else? I don’t think so. There’s more to him — and I need to find it.
Now Roland took his time, because he didn’t know which way to go, and if he had a chance to think and analyze his situation, he was going to take it. He’d known Shureen’s trials in advance, thanks to his failed journey before, and both Kirin and Vi had given him ample time to observe, think about, and overcome their trials. He’d have less time to think here, less opportunities to fully focus on a single task or question, but this was the Lord of the First Quartet, the great barrier between the first half of Roland’s Path and the second.
And by all appearances, Jurall was angry. Fires exploded, lava roiled and roared, and magma guardians started rushing at Roland, seeking to cast out this intruder from their master’s domain.
Like he had in the fights on the mountain, Roland moved with martial arts to direct Vi’s wind. Punches, sweeps, and kicks landed with gusting force from dozens of feet away, leaving Roland safely out of his foes’ reach as he fought his way through them. At the first fork in the web of open walkways, he took stairs up instead of down, casting about for signs of a passage leading deeper into the Canon, or a door to the Cloister itself. Kirin, who avoided violent conflict, set his focus to investigating the chamber too, while Vi and Shureen walked with Roland, fighting his foes and clearing his path forward with wind and water.
On a landing higher up, Roland cleared the area of magma guardians and then paused to catch his breath. There was a stitch in his side, and he was struggling to take a full breath. As a bubble of magma far below popped, Roland thought he heard a deep, mocking laughter echoing through the vast chamber.
You value power above all else, don’t you, Jurall? Mock my physical weakness all you like. I’ve spent my whole life learning to deal with it, facing mockery from classmates and colleagues at every turn. One more derisive bully is nothing. And I’d expect better from one of the Eight.
As Roland took in the scene, still trying to analyze the suspension of walkways, stairs, landings, and hidden openings for magma guardians to pour out from… the perspective his new vantage point offered made him pause.
It’s… a loop. A Gigonian loop. Why didn’t I see it at first?
The Gigonian loop was, all by itself, the final exam for the Academy Canticum Crystallus’ elite geometry course, its highest level in the subject. And Roland had aced it with top marks, the best in his class, the best in any class for over a decade before him.
The Gigonian loop is designed to trap you in a constant running loop, always returning to the start no matter what path you take. It’s meant to feel futile. No wonder Jurall’s using it here — he wants to force me into a never-ending fight. Well, that may work on other Summoners. But unfortunately for him, I know exactly how to solve this!
And Roland, as he blasted approaching magma guardians off the stairs leading up to the landing, laughed a little under his breath.
Oh, Muirrach is going to be so annoyed. Yet another trial solved with maths!
He’d need help, though. He hadn’t faced a Gigonian loop large enough for him to walk across it — and certainly hadn’t tried to solve one while fighting for his life inside an active volcano. It was Kirin who reached out, feeling the entire web of walkways and then painting a picture of it in Roland’s heart, that helped him put his expertise to work.
It would be nice if I could sit down and write it all out properly. But I can do it in my head. Just measure them out to find the primary wing… there. Right where I’m standing.
Roland sidestepped a flung globule of magma, and with two swift punches doused the beetles that had flung them at him.
Next, find its inverse. That would be… there. In the center. Combine their radii, and halve their perimeters…
He blasted a pair of scythe-armed guards off the stairs, then was forced to flee down the stairs as a large contingent of beetles launched a volley of magma projectiles. Spinning into a kick, he and Shureen launched a wave of water that put them out of commission.
Kirin, can you draw me the reflector? Yes, a line like that. Shift it slightly left… there.
Oh, but it was a wonder being able to see it visualized in his heart, all thanks to Kirin!
Now we map a reversed Gigonian loop over the top, using the reflector as our through line. Where the primary wings intersect… is our exit! There!
Roland ducked down another flight of stairs as a second volley was launched his way. Things were getting far too volatile here — despite clearing away individual magma guardians with ease, new ones came out of the woodwork — or stonework, in this case — far faster than Roland could eliminate them. He was going to be overrun soon if he didn’t make it to the exit.
Thank goodness he’d found it. All thanks to trusty mathematics.
With Vi, he carved a path through a marching band of scythe-armed guardians, then rushed ahead, taking a set of stairs down and then stopping halfway, before stepping sideways off of that staircase, seemingly into a drop right down into the ocean of fire and lava…
And instead dropped through an opening into a tunnel, cleverly hidden by the mesmerizing optical illusion of the Gigonian loop.
Roland couldn’t help it — he laughed out loud. Just a quick laugh, but loud and full, echoing off the walls of the tunnel. “We did it! Thanks, everyone. Now, then — what’s Jurall have in store for us next?”
Kirin sounded a warning, and Roland saw something bright and hot surging down the tunnel straight towards them. A moment later, with a pang of fear, he realized what it was: a magma cobra, just as huge and ferocious as the one he’d faced on the mountain.
And his first instinct was to trust Shureen once more and let her power destroy the foe that threatened them. But as he stepped back, closing his eyes to sink into Shureen’s embrace…
She sounded a question. Just three tones, each with their own thought.
I will do this, if it is what you want.
Think about Jurall’s trial and what he wants.
Is this truly the path you desire to take?
Roland opened his eyes. This was one way to act, in the face of Jurall’s trial. But what Jurall was seeking, testing him for… and what Roland himself wanted…
We’re closed into this space. It looks like the only way out is to blast right through the foe charging us. To beat power with greater power.
Jurall is trying to dominate me with raw force. He seeks to use it like a purifying fire, to force me to burn hotter and dominate his own power.
But…
Roland eyed the approaching magma cobra with trepidation… but also with resolve.
That’s not who I am.
Roland took a deep breath, Vi and Shureen giving him fresh, cool air instead of the dry, scorching air of the Canon.
All right, Roland. You’ve made your choice.
Now… how to see it through?
Because he was in a very narrow tunnel. And there was a giant serpent, just barely big enough to slither through this tunnel, charging up its length towards him. It really did seem like he had only one choice.
But in his heart, three voices chimed. Three voices, wholly in tune with the path Roland wanted to walk. And they, with Roland, heard the voice of his Teacher from a valuable lesson long ago…
“Conviction is vitally important. But conviction without a proper plan to see it through won’t get you very far. Strength of will, strength of character, must be paired with the intelligence and understanding to see your ideals through. Or, better yet, paired with others around you with those vital traits. You can’t solve life’s greatest problems alone.”
It’s always better to walk together than alone. To rely on others than merely yourself. Kirin, Vi, Shureen… you have the intelligence and understanding, the means to see us through this. Don’t you?
The serpent was close, fifty yards away, but at the speed it slithered, it would be on them in mere seconds. It was time to act.
And as the serpent opened its mouth to spit a stream of fire at Roland, filling the tunnel with no escape…
Roland left the tunnel entirely.
It was thanks to Kirin, and Vi, that he could do so. Kirin opened up the floor below him, finding a chink in the rock to morph into a Roland-sized escape hatch. And Vi gave Roland a cushion of air so that he didn’t plummet into the unknown without any safety net. Fire blasted over them, harmlessly, and Kirin shut the hatch behind them, locking the serpent out from attacking them. Outside the tunnel, they were in a new spacious chamber, the size of the Academy’s entire male dormitory. Faint fractures webbed the domed ceiling high above, glowing with heat and pressure. Openings in the black rock that formed the chamber’s floor spat gouts of fire and steam at varying intervals.
And echoing through the chamber was a rumbling, a mixture of mocking laughter and mounting frustration.
I didn’t think you’d like that. So how will you respond?
Roland waited a moment, letting Kirin map out the floor of the chamber, letting Vi sense out the air, letting Shureen pool in his heart, an ocean of serenity.
The Cloister was here! The door was hidden, and locked, but the means to find it — and open it — would not be far. There couldn’t be many more trials to face.
But then an ear-splitting roar erupted from behind Roland. He wheeled around, heart pounding, and found himself looking up, up, up… into the towering, hungry face of the huge magma cobra, its forked tongue flickering, its hooded cowl flared wide, its eyes blazing with fury.
A moment later, Roland was running, Vi lending lightness and speed to his steps, as the cobra spat fire and magma, scorching earth and air behind him. Leaping high, Roland spun into a kick back towards the cobra, but not directed at the beast itself. He directed a jet of Shureen’s water at a smoldering geyser, and when it struck true, a huge cloud of steam erupted, a mask to disguise Roland’s flight. Kirin gave him pillars of rock to serve as cover, in a configuration of Roland’s design, creating a geometrical illusion that would disguise him even further once the cobra passed through the steam cloud to seek him out.
And that gave Roland space to catch his breath, and feel out the chamber through the Fantasians, and find the truth hidden within it all. How to find the Cloister, and how to open the door… he saw how the tunnel he’d been in before was meant to feed out onto a high platform, where a battle was meant to take place, all to gain the key to the Cloister’s door.
But the key isn’t there now. There’s an impression from where it was, though… so it’s been moved. To where?
Roland ducked behind a pillar just as he heard the hissing vengeance of the cobra stalking him. It was closer than he’d expected. It wouldn’t be easy for it to find him, but still —
He gasped and flinched back as a blast of steam erupted in front of him. He hadn’t seen any hole in the ground, so where had it…? The air grew hazy, rippling, and he staggered, and then…
He was standing before Alystair, his Teacher, alive and well. Dressed in a sleeveless button-up and three-quarter length pants similar to Muirrach, he was taller than Muirrach, with smooth, rippling blue skin and a twinkling, somewhat mischievous glittering in his huge eyes. His wide mouth smiled warmly at Roland, and Roland’s heart was overwhelmed.
“What… how are you… here…?” Roland asked, breathless.
“What a silly question,” Alystair said, laughing that warm, rolling laugh that Roland missed so much. “It’s all because of you, Roland. You saved me.”
“I…” Roland shook his head, not understanding what he was hearing. “What are you…”
“Don’t you remember?” Alystair asked. He gestured, and a hazy ripple in the air beside him morphed into a vision of Roland and Alystair together in Shureen’s Cloister, six years ago. But here, rather than being daunted and overcome, instead Roland stood up to Shureen, bold and confident, and though he couldn’t understand her voice, he spoke loud and clear: “I’ve come to form a Pact with you. Join your Summoner!”
Roland shook his head. “This isn’t what happened,” he said, baffled — and disturbed — by the forcefulness, the arrogance, in his voice in the vision.
“No,” Alystair said, and his smile vanished. “But it could have. If you’d had the strength… so much would have been different for us.” The hazy vision beside him morphed to a new day, the day when Alystair told Roland to go home to Albia, to leave the duel he’d been challenged to in his hands. But this Alystair wasn’t wounded by Shureen, because the fictitious Roland hadn’t let her attack, had forcefully risen to the challenge rather than being daunted by fear and confusion. And though in this vision, Roland returned home as he’d done in the past… he later heard news. Alystair had won his duel. He had slain his foe! He was alive!
“Don’t you see?” Alystair asked. He flicked his fingers, and the vision continued to change, showing this new, imagined reality. “All you lacked was power, and the will to exert that power. If you’d fought harder, asserted yourself more confidently, bent the Fantasians to your will like a proper Summoner…”
Roland was watching the scenes in the hazy vision — Alystair happily reuniting with his sister, Eilidh, and brother-in-law, Muirrach; Roland coming back to Wonderia so much sooner, continuing to be a part of that family; Eilidh never leaving, Muirrach never having to keep that lovely house all alone…
But the words of this version of Alystair broke him out of this hopeful imagining. “No,” he said, looking up at the face of his Teacher, but unquestionably not his Teacher. “That’s not who Alystair taught me to be. And that’s not who I choose to be. What could have been is gone. All there is, is what was, and what I can learn for the future from it. And your would-be lesson is one I will gladly fail.”
Alystair opened his mouth to speak, but Roland swept his arm through the vision, and Vi’s wind blew away the heat haze, returning Roland to the huge chamber of the Canon…
And to immediate danger. Not only had one magma cobra found him, but two more serpents joined the first! They surrounded him, towering over him, hoods flared, tongues flickering, flames sparking in their mouths.
Kirin, find the key!
With that plea, Roland leapt into action. Vi kept his steps light and quick, and both she and Shureen worked with his movements to raise up walls of wind and water to battle back against the serpents’ attacks. It was an overwhelming show of force, and yet a voice tickled the back of Roland’s mind, urging him to fight, convinced he could destroy all three of them.
Perhaps. But I choose a different road.
A huge tail smashed through a pillar, sending shrapnel blasting at Roland. Vi and Shureen blocked most of it, but a large shard of rock struck his skull, and he fell back, dazed, stars in his eyes, as he skidded across the floor. Shureen flowed through him, restoring his senses, while Vi lifted him back on his feet, and then they were running again, Roland relying on the strength of his Fantasians more than his own. A blast of fire came too close, only partially blocked, and he pulled back his hand before it got burned. Another pillar smashed, and he tucked and rolled, but even then a large rock struck his hip, and he cried out, rolling onto his side and standing awkwardly, pain lancing down his right leg.
Three serpents descended upon him, but slowly, and all around him Roland heard drums beating, and a distant chorus of otherworldly voices, chanting. He couldn’t make out the words, but the emotion was clear: Fight! Are you a coward? Destroy your enemies!
Roland steadied himself in a fighting stance, staring levelly up at the three serpents, feeling their heat pressing in around him, suffocating, dense, overwhelming…
And then, as they moved to strike, Roland leapt back. Vi took him in a high backflip, far from the three fanged jaws that ripped into the floor where he’d been standing. And when he landed, he landed right beside the revealed door to Jurall’s Cloister, right next to a Kirin-built pedestal of rock, upon which was the key to that same door.
“Farewell,” Roland said, tipping an imaginary hat to the three serpents as they glared at him. He turned, unlocked the door, and, bracing himself, stepped through.
It was an inferno. Raging fire blazed from all sides, its searing heat hot enough it should melt Roland down to nothing where he stood. And it would have, if he didn’t have Shureen and Vi protecting him. Even with their cooling, filtering protection, it was still blazingly hot, and too dry for him to sweat, which made it hard to breathe.
And there in the center of it all was the red avatar of fire, the Lord of the First Quartet, Jurall himself. He towered over Roland, three times his height, with a torso all red, bulging muscles, and a lower body that was pure red fire, his foundation a cyclone of flame. His visage was grim, his eyes narrow, smoldering coals, his jaw set like flint ready to strike a spark.
“So you’ve come,” he said, his voice a song, a bold, powerful song accompanied by deep drum beats that shook the Cloister. Roland staggered, but Vi righted him. “Weak, tiny thing. Frightened little creature. Leave. I have no cause to form a Pact with you.”
“Don’t you?” Roland asked. “I have formed Pacts with Kirin, Viatos, and Shureen. And I have conquered all the trials you set before me, and reached your Cloister. Surely that’s enough to at least hear me out?”
“Presumptuous,” Jurall sang, a dangerous edge to the melody. “I have made my judgment. Leave.”
“I will not,” Roland said, drawing himself up, craning his neck to stare right back into those smoldering, imposing eyes of the Great Fantasian of Fire. “By the rights granted all who walk the Path of the Eight, any who reaches a Fantasian’s Cloister is granted a fair audience, and a chance to have their voice be heard.”
“You speak of fair, after that cowardly display, after avoiding all the trials I gave you?” Jurall asked.
“I did not run in fear from anything you placed before me,” Roland said firmly. “I found a different path than you intended.” Roland shrugged. “If your trials were designed to only let me pass by arriving at a single solution, then your trials were poorly designed.”
“You dare mock me?” Jurall roared, rising up another five feet, looming threateningly over Roland. The fires on the walls, floors, and ceiling burst and crackled, closing in tighter around Roland. “I am the Lord of the Fantasians!”
“You are the Lord of the First Quartet,” Roland said, keeping his nerve. Shureen, Viatos, and Kirin all sang within his heart, steadying him against the imposing Jurall. “And still no Lord of me.”
“You would presume to be higher than I? To rule over and dominate me?”
At Jurall’s latest raging outburst, Roland found his heart filled with pity. “You have sought to dominate me at every turn,” he said. “But haven’t you seen? All throughout the trial, you wanted to test my power, you wanted me to show I was stronger than you. And I have shown you — who I am. I don’t seek to lord over you. Nor either do I have any intention of submitting to your violent, aggressive rule. I have come to forge a Pact with you, as I have with the first three. The only way we can forge this Pact is if we come to an agreement about how to proceed — as equal partners.”
“You certainly put on a display,” Jurall sang, and Roland wondered at the strange tone in his voice — was that disappointment? “Though what you showed me is far from power. Far from what I need to see to be able to form any Pact with you, tiny, frail thing. Leave me!”
“I will not,” Roland said, firmly, but not harshly. There was a long moment where both of them locked eyes on each other, keeping silent as the flames roared, as the drums beat on and on. Finally, Roland spoke again. “Part of success on this Path comes from forging understanding, for Fantasians and Summoner to know one another fully and deeply. I truly believe that we can find an understanding with each other. Didn’t we already achieve that through the trials? You showed me who you are, and I showed you who I am. And now, here we are. You couldn’t keep me from you. And despite your efforts to make me leave, to frighten me away, I’m not frightened, and I’m still here. Surely that has value.”
“You’re confident,” Jurall sang, glowering at Roland. “But your power is a disgrace, nothing that can have value to me. I have seen so many like you, and your power is always the same — a flower, that wilts, dries up, burns away when faced with a dominating, authoritative challenge. Fleeting, fragile, delicate, and ultimately useless. That is who you are, tiny would-be Summoner.”
Roland took a deep breath at the attempted slights, and let them pass through him without harming him. He spread out his arms, and closed his eyes. “Listen, Jurall,” he said, and as he listened, too, he couldn’t stop from smiling. “Can’t you hear it?” The songs of Kirin, Vi, and Shureen resonated in his heart, and flowed out from him, a beautiful reprieve against the oppressive drumbeat in Jurall’s Cloister. “Three Fantasians, and their Summoner, in harmony with each other.” Roland opened his eyes, smiling up at Jurall. “That’s what I want. That’s what I’m asking you to be a part of. Your song, bold and strong — don’t you hear it? It’ll add so much to what we already have. We need you, Jurall. And you need us. Your power, blazing alone, is so impressive. But is that enough? Is that all you’re meant for? You’re the Lord of the First Quartet, so you know all about the three Fantasians under your care. Look at what you can be, together.”
Jurall’s eyes didn’t cool, his expression didn’t soften. There was a long pause, as if he was, rather than pondering Roland’s words, taking his time to listen to Kirin, Vi, and Shureen singing in support of their Summoner.
When Jurall finally did sing again, there was a thoughtfulness in his tone. “Your flower… it continues to bloom. Fire does not burn it up. The heat does not make it wilt. And you have won a loyalty from the first three Fantasians without giving them a single command, and that loyalty is powerful enough for them to rebel against their Lord.” Another long pause, in which the beating drums and flickering flames were highlighted as a contrast to Kirin, Vi, and Shureen’s clear, lovely voices. Slowly, Jurall inclined his head. “There may be… value, in the power you hold to. I do not know if it will weather every storm that is yet to come. I do not know if it is a power I wish to emulate. But… you speak of understanding. I would understand this power. And perhaps I can teach you something, in return.”
Roland smiled. “I’d like that, very much,” he said.
Fire poured into him. But it did not burn. It ignited something new within him — a new power, residing within him, joining with three others. A new voice to add to the chorus of harmony in his heart.
A new Pact, with the fourth Fantasian, Jurall.