Chapter Twenty-Two: Meditation
"Invoking the elements is not a mere show of strength; it is a demonstration of your mind, and your ability to bend those forces to your will…" Avis could hear Jerrod lecturing him from behind. The pale-skinned boy was sitting cross-legged in the middle of a small grove of low, gnarly banyan trees. Jerrod was standing off to the edge of the grove, examining the leaves and vines that snaked down towards the ground.
"To master the elements, you must have an understanding of the world around you, as well as an understanding of yourself," Jerrod continued. The Cleric scrutinized the boy with his hawk-like gaze. "Tell me…have you ever noticed anything about Ullek? Not about the physical aspects of the city—I don't care about the buildings, or the streets, or the walls. Have you ever noticed that, at times, you can almost…" Jerrod searched for a good word, "…almost feel the city, just by immersing yourself in it?"
Avis pursed his lips thoughtfully, recalling the countless times he had sat on a high tower or a rooftop, and just closed his eyes. It had almost been as if he had been able to feel and sense the soul of the city, the thrumming energy that made Ullek such a nexus of life. The merchants selling their wares, the wealthy trundling down the streets in their carriages, the outcast and poor wandering the alleys, the Qarat soldiers on their patrols—Ullek had been full of life… It was extremely hard to describe with words…it felt almost as if Avis could put his finger on the pulse of Ullek and just feel the lifeblood of the city flowing all around him.
"Yeah," the boy nodded. "I've felt something like that before."
"Not surprising," Jerrod agreed. "It's difficult for me not to notice it in such a densely populated place as Ullek. Tell me…what do you think that feeling was?"
"You…you mean it's real?"
"No, I'm just wasting my time by asking you a serious question about a figment of your imagination," Jerrod muttered, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "Yes, that feeling is real! Now tell me what you think it was that you were feeling."
"I dunno…" Avis shrugged. "The city was full of life…when you have a lot of people in one place like that, it's almost like you can feel the energy of thousands of people trying to scratch out a living…"
"Well…yes and no," Jerrod said. "You're on the right track. What you are feeling is the Anima Mundi."
"What's the Anima Mundi?" Avis reflexively asked immediately after Jerrod mentioned it. The moment the question was out of his mouth, Avis knew he had made a tactical error.
"You're certainly full of questions, today," the Cleric commented dryly. "Am I speaking too slow for you?"
"No, master, I-"
"No, it's perfectly alright if you'd like me to speed up. If I miss an important detail that may end up saving your life in the future, so what? At least I won't be wasting your ever-so-precious time."
"I'm sorry! I'm sorry, and I won't do it again," the pale-skinned pleaded in apology, turning to face Jerrod.
Jerrod opened his mouth to berate the boy further, but closed it at the last second. His brow furrowed in a light frown. Yes, Avis needed to learn when to keep his mouth shut…but maybe Jerrod was simply being too hard on him.
The Cleric had spent ten years in this swamp without any outside contact. He had enjoyed that solitary, quiet life. It had been peaceful and tranquil…completely the opposite of his hectic, harried life as a Priori. After ten years of having only the Preluceans for company, the Cleric had become used to the laid-back, relaxed life of a hermit.
When he had first brought Avis to his home, the boy's rabid curiosity and inquisitive nature had grated on the Cleric, but after nearly a month of training him, Jerrod found that he had gotten used to the endless slough of questions. Though he would rather die before admitting it, he was even beginning to enjoy the company. After living for ten years without any human contact, he was realizing just how lonely life could be in a swamp.
Still…there was no need for Avis to know that.
"Assume your posture," Jerrod ordered as Avis turned towards him. The boy quickly turned back around, taking a deep breath and closing his eyes. The Cleric continued his quasi-lesson once he was satisfied. "The Anima Mundi is, for lack of a better term, life energy. It exists in you, it exists in me. You felt it in Ullek because the Anima Mundi was present in the thousands of Menaphites who live there, or rather lived there, whom you were surrounded by every single day."
"It was all those people who I was feeling?"
"Yep," Jerrod nodded. "Straighten your back, lift your chin. You were feeling the Anima Mundi, present in the citizens of Ullek. But there's much more to it than that…the Anima Mundi exists in all living things. It exists in every tree, every leaf, every plant, every insect, every bird, every animal…even the tiny microbes that are too small to be seen with the naked eye. It is present in all living things… You already know about it. People usually refer to their Anima Mundi as their 'soul'."
"Why can't I feel it here if it exists everywhere?" Avis asked.
"Because you aren't focused," Jerrod replied. "I want you to empty your mind, boy. Don't let thoughts of the past or future distract you…concentrate, boy, concentrate…"
Avis closed his eyes and tried to do as instructed, but every time he attempted to clear his mind his thoughts would always be drawn back to Ullek, his burned home. Then he would think about the daunting path ahead of him—mastering the elements and bringing an end to the war while keeping out of Zamorak's clutches…it was-
"I would call what you are doing many things," Jerrod remarked, observing the boy. "One thing I would not call it, however, is clearing your mind, like I told you to."
"I can't help it; I keep on thinking about my home…" Avis sighed. "If your home was burned down would you ever stop thinking about it?"
"Well, seeing as I was only an infant when orks burned my village, yes, I could stop thinking about it," Jerrod replied, his voice remaining steady. "Can't remember a bloody thing about the dump."
Avis fell silent, unsure if the Cleric was sincere or simply spinning a story to benefit the lesson. Knowing the Cleric, it was impossible to be sure.
"The key to this sort of meditation is focus," Jerrod reiterated, turning back to examine one of the vines of the banyan tree he was standing next to. "I prefer visualization, but it's different for everybody. Some prefer music, others use breathing control…I just think of something peaceful, and I visualize myself there. Give it a try."
"What should I think of?" Avis asked as he settled into a more comfortable position.
Jerrod remembered that this kid had spent his entire life in a city—peaceful places in cities were hard to come by. "Try…" Jerrod tapped his chin for a moment, thinking of something the boy could use. "Try a mountain. Imagine you're at the top of a mountain…sitting down…surrounded by nature, much like you are now. Take deep, long breaths..."
Avis closed his eyes and tried again, taking deep breaths as instructed.
"Now, back to the mountain…" Jerrod murmured. "Are you picturing it?"
"Mm-hm," Avis hummed.
"Make it sunset; one of the most tranquil times of the day…keep taking deep breaths…"
Avis's breathing slowed as the boy relaxed. After a few seconds, it was almost as if he were sitting at the edge of a cliff that he was imagining. The sun was going down in the west, shooting the sky through with red and orange. Birds fluttered in the trees, settling down in their nests for the night.
Avis opened his eyes, taking in the scene. He was sitting on a bed of soft grass, surrounded on three sides by thick vegetation and the edge of the cliff in front. A slight breeze tousled his black hair, disturbing the leaves and plants clustering the cliff edge. The pale-skinned boy rose to his feet tentatively, walking up to the edge of the cliff and looking down.
A waterfall ran down the cliff a mile or so away—its gushing roar could be heard only as a soft, ambient background rumble…almost like distant thunder. The setting sun shone through the veil of mist, resulting in a rainbow haze.
Avis turned away from the edge of the cliff and went back to the center of the patch of grass, running his hands through the vegetation surrounding him. Something behind him gave a high-pitched tweet. Avis turned around, coming face-to-face with a hummingbird. Feeliong suddenly inspired, the boy held out his hand. To his delight, the hummingbird flitted forward and landed on his finger.
The moment the bird lighted on his finger, it was almost as if Avis's eyes were opened. He could feel the hummingbird. Not just physically, but also mentally and spiritually. It was a living creature, and therefore a repository of the Anima Mundi. He could feel the life force pulsing within the creature, then realized that he could feel that life energy everywhere.
He felt it in the grass he was standing on, in the trees and plants and vines surrounding him, in the flies flitting around the leaves, in the birds nesting in the treetops…he could even feel it in the air. Jerrod had mentioned the existence of miniscule life forms that were too small to be seen with the naked eye—Avis felt every single one. The consistency of the countless life forms in the wind felt like very fine sand to the boy.
He had felt this in Ullek, but it had been painfully limited—he had only felt the people. He hadn't felt the animals, the vermin, or the insects. He hadn't felt the micro-life forms in the wind…it was almost as if he had been looking at the world through a small tube, and now he was finally seeing with his entire eye.
It was beautiful.
The next thing Avis knew, he was being shaken out of his trance by Jerrod. He opened his eyes, throwing out a hand to prevent himself from collapsing to the moss.
"What happened?" the Cleric asked, crouching down behind the boy and helping him sit back up. "You weren't responding..." the older man's voice trailed off as the possible answer presented itself to him, however improbable it may have seemed. In a softer tone, he said, "You were there, weren't you? The mountain you were imagining; you were on it, weren't you?"
"It was the edge of a cliff surrounded by forest, actually," Avis corrected his teacher. "But yeah…it all felt so real…that life energy you mentioned? I could feel it. I could feel it everywhere, just like you said…even in the wind…"
"Normally, I would be surprised," Jerrod murmured. "But…well, surprising me is all you've been doing for the past month so far. The fact that you just did another surprising thing doesn't surprise me at all. I find myself utterly unsurprised. Heh…" the Cleric chuckled at himself. "Amusing paradox…"
"I'm sorry?"
"Never mind," Jerrod shook his head, returning his thoughts to the present. "When you were at—the edge of a cliff, you said? When you were in your imagined location, you said you were able to feel the Anima Mundi. How were you able to start feeling it? Did something approach you? Did something…speak or converse with you?"
"Well…" Avis's brow furrowed as he tried to remember when he had started feeling the life of the forest. His eyes lit up when it came back to him. "There was a hummingbird. I held out my hand and it landed on my finger, then I started feeling."
Jerrod nodded, his hypothesis having been confirmed. "That hummingbird landing on your finger was your subconscious finally being awakened to the Anima Mundi all around. Had your mind not been ready, the hummingbird simply would not have landed on your finger."
"And the cliff?"
"All in your mind, of course," Jerrod explained. "You were in what we mages like to call the Ondr. It is one of the deepest forms of meditation known to us. Essentially, your mind divorces itself with the real world and retreats deep within itself—beyond physical sensation, beyond distraction, beyond pain. Your body could be ravaged, but in the Ondr you wouldn't feel a thing. If done right…it is the ultimate inner peace. I did not expect you to achieve Ondr your very first time…"
"How long does it usually take?" Avis asked.
"Men have spent lifetimes of meditation, trying to reach Ondr," Jerrod shrugged. "I've done it once or twice, personally, but I enjoy nature much more than I enjoy the inside of my own brain. But for someone with as powerful a life essence as you…meditation is right down your alley. You never know when it may come in handy. During your free time every day, I want you to return to this grove and practice entering the Ondr."
"Yes, master."
"Good. The next time you enter, you can contemplate why you have yet to master the downward thrust with your blade."
The rest of the afternoon was devoted to sparring with the shortswords and, sure enough, Avis's downward thrust was still lacking. Though Avis had a long way to go until he could face an enemy with a sword, he was definitely doing a lot better than he had been doing recently. The average length of his bouts with Jerrod had extended from five seconds to roughly fifteen. Jerrod won every single match—he was barely even trying—but Avis was definitely improving.
After they finished, the sun was well on its way to setting in the west, bathing the swamp in its rich, amber light. Master and apprentice both retired to the cottage for the evening meal.
"So what's the Fifth Element?" Avis suddenly asked as Jerrod was putting dinner out on the table.
"Hm?"
"The Fifth Element," Avis repeated himself. "You said I used something called the 'fifth element' to waste those death knights outside of Ullek. I asked you what it was and you never answered me."
"Well…" Jerrod hesitated, but shrugged and proceeded to explain what he knew of the Fifth Element. "I suppose I'll tell you, in reward for your achieving the Ondr. The truth is, we don't fully understand the Fifth Element. Everything we know about it is theoretical, as it is impossible to study it like we can the other four elements."
Avis and Jerrod both sat down at the table and started to eat. Jerrod continued to speak between bites.
"The Fifth Element is the oldest of all the elements," Jerrod explained. "We think that it is the building block of…well, everything. Similar to the Anima Mundi…but much more abstract. While the Anima Mundi is an energy present in all living things, the Fifth Element is a different type of energy…manifested in the form of this world. Everything in it—living and nonliving things. We think the Gods shaped this world out of it."
"So…everything is the Fifth Element?" Avis ventured, not quite understanding what Jerrod was getting at.
"Yes…and no," the Cleric replied. "It's like comparing clay to a pot. The pot is made out of the clay, but it is molded, shaped, and changed from its original state to become something else. This plane of existence was molded, shaped, and changed from its original state into this world. The Fifth Element is the energy that this world was made out of…but in its pure form. It has no name; we simply call it the 'Fifth Element'."
"I'm assuming it's really hard to use?"
"No individual can invoke the Fifth Element; it is too powerful for anyone's life force to withstand it," Jerrod said. "It is rarely ever used…and the only way to invoke it is with a large group of mages combining their powers, and even then…it's pretty shifty. The way you used it against those death knights was…"
"Impossible?" Avis prompted.
"Obviously not. You are just one huge living disproof…" the Cleric's voice trailed off again, and he paused to take a sip of tea from his wooden cup. "You can cast Air Magic, you say?"
"Mm-hm," Avis nodded, taking another bite.
"Are you any good with it?"
"Yeah, I know my stuff."
The Cleric's smile was equal parts wolfish and anticipating. "I would rather like you to prove that claim with actions, not words. Finish up."
Avis did as he was told, quickly finishing up dinner and getting to his feet, following the Cleric outside. Jerrod walked all the way down to the small beach at the water's edge. He rolled his shoulders, and performed a series of stretches that eased out the kinks in his muscles.
Avis watched Jerrod exercise, resigned to the fact that Jerrod would let him use magic when he was finished, not before. The Cleric started to bend down into a toe-touch when he suddenly leaped into an offensive stance, slicing his hand forward in a chopping motion. A blast of concentrated wind rocketed towards the boy.
Out of pure reflex, Avis leaped back and crossed his arms in an 'X' in front of his face, then spun around on one foot and stamped the other to the ground. Jerrod's blast of wind suddenly hit a barrier of some sort, a bubble of super-dense air that Avis was holding around his body. The wind blast struck the sphere and dispersed.
Jerrod gave an approving grunt. "Not bad…not bad at all…" the Cleric was intrigued because the stance and form of defense the boy had just done were more attuned to Earth Magic than Air Magic. Any normal mage using Air would have evaded Jerrod's attack, or simply deflected it. Avis had planted himself firm and stopped the blast dead in its tracks.
The Cleric manipulated his hands and arms in harried, circular motions, agitating all the air around him. Once the Cleric got all the air under his control, he let out a quick yell and thrust it all forward in a great wave of wind, following up by sweeping a lance of wind towards the boy's feet.
Avis, whose arms were still in the X position across his face, swept them out to his sides. A wedge of wind shot forward, slicing right through Jerrod's oncoming wave of air. The wave was cleanly bisected, passing Avis by on both sides. The boy didn't see the other rope of air heading for his legs, however. Jerrod's secondary attack caught him unawares, throwing him to the ground.
Even as he fell to the ground, Avis gathered the winds around his body, threw his legs up into the air, and streamed all of the wind down past his head, preventing him from landing on his head while simultaneously flipping his body over like a forward roll and landing back on his feet.
As he landed, Avis held out his arms, palms facing each other, and brought them together, almost in a clap. He didn't actually clap, however; he simply held his hands about an inch apart, cupping them as if they held a small ball.
Jerrod grunted with surprise when he found he couldn't move. The air had grown so heavy all of a sudden that it felt as if it were pressing down on him on all sides. He tried to move his arms, but the weight of the air kept them firmly pinned to his sides. He was effectively at the pale-skinned boy's mercy.
"Well, I stand convinced," Jerrod said after Avis released him. "You do know your stuff. I can see that Air is not your natural element…but you certainly are proficient with it… I haven't been bested like that in a very long time…"
"So…" Avis ventured, "…I won?"
Jerrod was quick to nip that victory in the bud. "Don't bet on it," the Cleric grunted. "This was just an exercise with Air Magic. In a real fight, there were a hundred ways I could have countered that move with the other elements."
"Okay," Avis shrugged. His faint grin did not go away, though. He had finally won at something, and he wasn't afraid to have a little mental celebration.
Jerrod saw this, but decided to let it go. The boy had done very well—Jerrod figured he could let him have his moment. He recalled how happy he had been when he had finally defeated his own master on Entrana in a duel of magic, back when he had stopped being an apprentice and graduated into the ranks of the Paladins.
"Alright, alright; you won," Jerrod sighed. "There. I said it. Happy?"
"Yes," was all Avis said in reply, letting his arms fall to his sides, his smile widening a little bit more.
"I bet you are…" the Cleric grumbled, dusting himself off and heading off towards his cottage, gesturing for Avis to follow. "Might as well get an early night's sleep. Tomorrow's going to be a big day, I think."
"We training with Air again?" the boy asked hopefully.
"No," Jerrod yawned. "I think it's time you learned Water Magic…and to do that, we'll need to make a small trip…"