Hunter's Academy (Veller) (2 page)

“Without knowing the exact circumstances that surround why this ability
occurred, we can’t really study it. We need more information.” He said as he started to write something down in his notebook. “Have you noticed any changes in other areas, say your sense of tastes, your hearing, even your eye sight?” He asked her.

“You think that can be affected as well?”

“We know animal senses surpass our own. Rodents have a better sense of smell, birds have better eyesight, and it may not even stop there.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, we know that there is a certain amount of interaction between male and female…”

“Whoa, stop there.”
She said holding up her hands.

“It is something…”

“No, we are not going there, we are NEVER going there.”

“It was just something to think about.” Morgan replied as he turned back to his book
and scribbled something else down. One of these days she was going to have to get a hold of that book to find out exactly what he keeps writing about.

“Besides
.” Morgan said as he set the book aside “There was something else that I found that I wanted to explore.”

“And what would that be.” She asked, dreading the answer. If it was another one of his tests, she knew she wasn’t going to like the outcome.

“The alva called it the Maligar.”

“The what?”

“The Maligar. I couldn’t find too much about it, but according to the text it has something to do with influencing an animal’s behavior.”

“I don’t
understand how is that going to help me?” She asked.

“Well, we won’t know until we try then will we?” Morgan replied as he walked into the back room and came out with a large brass cage that he held with two hands and struggled a bit as he set it down on the counter.

Kile climbed out of the overstuffed wingback chair and Vesper quickly jumped into her seat. She ignored the yarrow as she slowly approached the brass cage that Morgan has set on the table. She had no idea what the Mystic had in mind or what he was planning on using it for. At first she saw nothing when she looked into the cage, only piles of sawdust and some shredded pieces of parchment, she was going to pass it off as one of the mystic’s daft experiments, but then one of the larger pieces of parchment began to move. When she looked closer she could see, hiding under the paper, a small white rabbit. It was clear to Kile that the little thing was scared and very nervous, and she couldn’t blame him. One moment hopping around in a field minding its own business, the next stuck in a brass cage with two vir staring at him.

“Hello there.” She said as she got closer and stuck her finger between the bars to pet the rabbit, but it quickly moved to the back of the cage out of reach.

“It’s alright.” She added trying to calm it down.

-Scared-

The voice in her head was very soft, very timid, and it was difficult to actually hear it, but she could feel it. Like her conversations with Vesper the words carried more feeling them meaning.

“I know you are. Everything’s going to be alright.” She told him.

“Can you understand him?” Morgan asked as he grabbed his notebook and began to scribble.

“It’s difficult, but I understand what he means.” She told the mystic. “I don’t think we should use him for the test, why can’t I just use Vesper like I’ve been doing.”

-I take test?-

Vesper asked from his seat on the chair beside the cooling flame. The yarrow actually enjoyed most of the tests since he had very little to do
in them and was often rewarded for it.

“It won’t do. We already know you can communicate with Vesper, and he would do just about anything you ask of him.” Morgan explained. “What we need is a subject that is wild that is not likely to do what you ask. The Maligar is about control, about commanding an animal to do something that it wouldn’t normally do.”

-About domination-

Kaza added.

“What do you mean domination?” She asked the crow that had come down to join their conversation in spite of Morgan’s feelings. The mystic had made it quite clear that he did not want Kaza interfering with Kile’s studies. She noticed a significant change in the way the Mystic view his one time pet now that he knew the crow understood just about everything he said.

“It’s nothing to do with domination.” Morgan countered. “
It’s control through influence, a blending of the minds.”

Kaza landed on Kile’s shoulder.

-He means you must dominate the rabbit’s will. Control, command and dominate.-

“
That's horrible.” She replied as she looked at the rabbit still huddling in the cage.

-Free?-

It whispered to her and she could feel the cool winds of the meadow, the warmth of the sunshine and the smell of the clove surrounding that one word.

“We have to let him go, he doesn’t want to be here.” She said as she reached for the cage.

“Nobody wants to be here, but it’s only a simple test.” Morgan assured her. “After the test I promise I will release him where I caught him.”

“You promise?” She asked as she looked at the small white rabbit still curled up under the large piece of parchment.

-Command, control, dominate.-

Kaza repeated.

“Just this one test.” She told Morgan and then turned to the rabbit “Nobody’s going to hurt you little one. We’re just going to do a simple test and then you can go free.”

-Free?-

“Yes, you can go free after the test… okay?”

-Free.-

She wasn’t sure if the rabbit understood her, some of the wildest animals that Morgan had brought in for her to communicate with often didn’t. Only those that were around humans, whether by choice or by accident, were the ones she could truly communicate with.

“You shouldn’t converse too much with it Kile.” Morgan said as he directed her away from the cage. “I don’t want it to get too attached. This experiment must be controlled. I have to know if you can influence it by your edge and not you kindest towards it.”

She didn’t like the way Morgan kept referring to the rabbit as an “it”, it was a he and a young he at that, although she couldn’t get his name. The mystic had often regarded the animals they used for the experiments as objects and not living, breathing creatures. She would have thought that Morgan would have understood by now, but he appeared to be more driven by the results than the actual tests.

“What do I have to do?”
She asked reluctantly.

“Well, it’s quite simple actually. You have to concentrate on the subject until your mind is locked with theirs and then command it
to do something.”

It
seemed simple enough, she thought.

-It’s the domination of the will.-

Kaza added.

“It’s only a test.” She told the
crow, but she was trying more to convince herself. The whole idea just didn’t sit right with her. The sooner she started the test, the sooner it would be over for both of them.

She turned to look at the cage and tried to focus on the small white rabbit, but she was quickly overcome with fear and confusion.

“I can’t do this.” She said as she broke off the initial connection.

-Good for you.-

Kaza crowed from her shoulder.

Morgan didn’t have to understand what Kaza said to know that the crow was against the test from the start. He just gave the bird a dirty look before turning his attention to Kile.

“It's a simple test to see the limits of your edge.” He told her. “You may be protesting for no reason, you may not even be able to do it in the first place, but we shall never know if we do not try.”

As much as she hated to admit it, Morgan had a point. Without knowing the full extent of her edge, how could she use it effectively, and
he might be right, she might not even be able to dominate the will of an animal, of course she really didn’t believe that either.

She
pushed the thoughts out of her head and fell into her edge like Daniel had showed her. She wasn’t sure if it was the same for her as it was for him but it did help clear her mind and focus. She reached out to the rabbit again, and again she felt his fear, but this time she pushed passed it until she was in the recesses of his mind. From here she could see many things, although seeing wasn’t exactly the right word, feeling was closer to the mark. She could feel his life, his home, his family. She could feel the ground beneath his feet, smell the spring air, and taste the clover. She could hear the wind blowing through the grass. Every sensation she experienced was a memory, a memory that they both shared. It was deeper than the connection she had made with Vesper, so deep that she was finding it hard to tell her life from that of the rabbits.

It was the rabbit that shot Master West in the ass with a
crossbow as she was running through the field in search of clover. It was the rabbit that took the entry examination when she was snuggled up with her brothers and sisters in a dark, warm hole. It was the rabbit that broke the feed grain lever in the old barn while she was running from a fox that had gotten too close. It was the rabbit that was told he was useless by her father; she was lying in the sun beside her mate. As much as she loved the idea of escaping her life, she also felt that this was not the way to do it, this was wrong.

“That’s it Kile, you have control, now command the rabbit.”
She heard Morgan whisper in all four of her ears.

She could feel black tendrils, like sticky molasses reaching out between her and the rabbit.

“What do I command him to do?” She struggled to ask.

There was a momentary pause before Morgan answered.

“I don’t know, I didn’t think that far ahead, I wasn’t even sure you could do it. Why don’t you try something unusual… make it dance.”

Dance she thought, that would be unusual since she didn’t even know how to dance, but she sent the command and the black tendrils got thicker and the rabbit slowly got up on his hind legs and began to dance, and it made
her sick. She tried to break the connection, but the more she did, the more the rabbit danced as it moved quickly around the cage on his hind legs until he and the cage came crashing to the ground. His quick and unnatural movements had rocked the cage off the edge of the table and now it lay broken upon the floor. The rabbit, seizing its opportunity, made his escape and probably could have if it wasn’t for the thick black strings of molasses that connected him to Kile.

It shot out from under the wreckage of the cage but couldn’t gain traction on the smooth floor of the tower. It slid from side to side taking out a candle stand, knocking over a few boxes of curiosities and scattering a stack of papers under one of the
smaller tables. It wanted to get away, she wanted to get away.

She could
hear Morgan cursing as he chased the rabbit, but even with no traction it was still faster than the old mystic.

“Kile you must control it.” Morgan told her.

It was difficult to actually focus on the rabbit now as his thoughts were stronger and the one thing on his mind was freedom, but when she finally did break down the outer defenses of the rabbit’s will, it felt worse than before. It was the same feeling she had when she connected with the cat that night she rescued Vesper. It was a sickening feeling and the thick sticky strings of molasses twisted around both of them this time. She could feel it attaching her mind to that of the rabbit’s as it tried to escape the tower.

“You must command it, you must control it”

You must dominate it. The words were unspoken, but they were there. They echoed in each black strand that joined them, command, control, dominate, and behind it all, way down in the darkness, she could hear laughter.

This wasn’t right she kept telling herself
, this wasn’t how it was suppose to work.

“You must exert your will, you must learn control.” She heard Morgan yelling behind her, and the rabbit kept pulling at the strands and between them they kept getting more and more tangled until she wasn’t sure where she ended and the rabbit began.

“Kile stop, Kile what’s wrong?”

Now Morgan’s voice was frantic, more scared, and the tendrils kept getting more and more tangled,
and the distant laughter got closer as it grew louder and louder until she realized she was the one that was laughing, she couldn’t bare it any longer.

“STOP
!”

And it did, Morgan stopped, the stands of molasses stopped, the laughter stopped, and worse of all the rabbit stopped.

Her head was pounding as she fell to her knees. She watched as the mystic approached the rabbit that now lay motionless on the floor.  He bent down and scooped it up in his hands, its head lolled to one side and Kile knew without even looking at it, that he was dead.

“Pity.” Was all Morgan said as he set the body of the rabbit on the table, but he still didn’t understand, he couldn’t understand. She had talked to it, she had heard it, she had felt it, and she had killed it and all the while, she laughed about it.