The Test

“This place has no memory of me,” ZilvorX muttered, looking around. Each footstep took him further into unexplored territory. Gravel crunched and rocks slid precariously beneath his feet, threatening to toss him to the ground even as it rumbled beneath him.

“Of course, why would any place remember a simple wizard? It’s not like I was here last time proclaiming ‘remember me, o landscape!’ Or am I somewhere else entirely?” It seemed memorable at least, though the desolation turned the mind’s eye into an unfamiliar observant, straining to pick out the familiar from the alien. Still, the feel of it differed.

ZilvorX closed his eyes, stretching out his consciousness along the ley-lines he followed. Not even an echo. “Strange, I know I’ve been this way before.” He lashed himself with a thread of mana firmly to the closest line, a mile distant. “How can a land change so much it forgets?”

As he recentered his direction to approach the ley line, the new angle shifted around him and caused a dizzying perspective lurch. He’d forgotten about that. His essence began to bleed into the ley line, binding him to this land. Just as he had several times before. He knew it.

Something about the sensation felt off. Was it the land, or his mind that got confused? Perhaps both? He sighed. His mana bled away, and he lost the ley line. “What is going on here?” No matter, he faced a new direction now, and instead of crushed ground and barren rock, he walked upon a beach.

Waves crashed to his right, slapping against white sands littered with sea moss half-dried in the sun up against a berm of scrub grass. ZilvorX turned, and the landscape remained the same. He shut his eyes and opened them. Still a beach. Inhaled deeply. Ocean spray.

“This is nice,” he said, kneeling to feel the damp sand with his outstretched hand. He rubbed the crust away between his palms and stared at the low-hanging sun, either rising or setting, he couldn’t tell. “Halloo out there!” he hailed, seeing no one nearby and receiving no response in return.

“The cosmology’s all wrong,” he noted, seeing the faint twinkling of stars as the sun did indeed begin to set. “Where in the seven blazes am I?”

A choppy whir approached from across the waves, sending a spotlight down upon him as he raised his hands to shield his eyes. “Halloo?” It looked like a disc, several feet across with a spinning blade in the center, ringed with lights that individually aimed at him as its trajectory kept it in a looping path around him.

“Halloo there I say, I’m ZilvorX. Who might you be?” Still not quite sure what he was looking at, the young wizard again let his mind drift, partitioned from the present moment. It sought the ley lines of this land, but found nothing. No power supply of any sort. Like a dead world. He sighed.

“Tchk…tchk…tchk...You…you…you…” came a modulated noise, choppy in the wash of the rotating blade and the crosswind of the flying mechanism.

“Yes, yes, get on with it please. Just tell me where I am, and I’ll be on my way.”

Rapid zaps of yellow-green light pulsed out from the flying disc, scattering sand at his feet. ZilvorX jumped. ‘Hey, what’d I say, what’d I say?” The zaps continued, forcing him to step back then start running as they hit the ground, chasing him.

The sand squashed beneath his boots, sucking at them as he retreated from the disc that pursued him. ZilvorX tried varying his path, but the lights zapped much closer, redirecting him. “No magic, no problem, right? Right. Right.” He tried to reassure himself but he couldn’t understand how he had managed to come to a world with no ley lines. They’d never taught him that, or at least that it was possible.

Swooping low, the disc sped up, its angle causing it to canter from side to side, with its staccato pulses beating out a shallow rhythm. ZilvorX tried to match his pace, noting the zaps seem to slacken when he kept time.

“At least tell me what you want!” he yelled over his shoulder, his breath getting ragged and hoarse. When he flagged, the ring reminded him of its closeness.

“Are…are…are…tchk…tchk…Are…” it replied. Each few zaps forced him closer to the water until he was jogging slowly through it, splashing as the waves threatened to sweep his feet out from under him. Twice, the zaps hit him, once in the hand, then once in the shoulder. They left no more than red marks, tingling his fingers and leaving his shoulder sore. Even so, he did not enjoy the feeling.

In the last of the fading sunlight, he noticed something sticking up from the sand just ahead. It seemed to be a corner of some sort, perhaps a pyramid or box shape. The exposed corner blinked red like a beacon. He realized the ring was directing him straight to it, so he pushed a bit harder. Gritting his teeth, he fell to his knees once he reached it, and began to dig. Above him, the ring looped a wide circle with its light beams ever fixed on the box.

“Late…tchk…tchk…late…tchk” droned the disc.

ZilvorX unearthed a small tetrahedron-shaped object, with each of its four corners blinking just out of synchronicity.

“Who’s late? You’re late?” he yelled up at the flying disc. He marveled at the shape in his hands, unable to make out any seams between the illuminating lights and the bulk of its body. The lights seemed to be internal, yet shining through an opaque yet somehow translucent material.

He touched one corner and it dimmed, causing the other three to brighten their pulses by a similar amount. The timing between the sequence shortened as well, its pace quickening. ZilvorX cocked his head. He’d felt something there!

“Curious little thing you are, aren’t you?” He touched a different corner, and the sequence shifted, dimming that light yet reawakening the previous one. Each corner was warm to the touch, despite having been half-buried in the sand and dashed about by the waves. The last rays of sun glimmered across the sea, becoming obscured by waves as they rose and fell at the horizon. The darkness covered most of the sky, leaving only the far horizon aglow.

“You…tchk…are…tchk…late…tchk…” chided the odd mechanical voice circling him. The voice sounded urgent somehow, even in its mechanical droning.

Each corner tingled, filling him a bit with mana here and there as he cycled through the combinations. The final corner stopped blinking, remaining solid red while the remaining three pulsed together rapidly. Before long he had one cycled to blue, another to green, leaving only the last corner blinking. The ring above him whirred down low, looping around him now in a very tight circle just beyond his reach as it illuminated the ground at his feet, creating a glowing white ring in the sand around him.

The last of the sun faded into darkness as he slapped his hand on the final corner, feeling energy pulsing through his fingertips. Orange welled up from the sand around him, sparkling as he fell through the ground.

ZilvorX arched his back, and he found himself restrained to a table by his arms and legs. “Congratulations, ZilvorX. You passed the test.”

***

Story Prompt: A wizard finds himself far from home, lost and alone.

From: 500 Fantasy Writing Prompts by Erica Blumenthal