Diffraction

Chapter Eighteen: Results and Rewards

"Complicating matters is the fact that the eyewitness most likely to provide an accurate description of the process is unavailable for comment."

Lyllithe twiddled her thumbs and adjusted her dress. Should I leave? Should I look for another instructor? She chose to wait, staring at the empty chair across from her.

What did I do? Did I fail somehow?

Alone in the silent room, waiting for judgment upon her desires and dreams, the minutes since Marta departed stretched like hours.

She studied the drab, featureless chamber. Not at all how I pictured the great Arcanists' Hall. Then again, this is merely a testing chamber. Maybe they sought to minimize distractions.

The hum of arcane energy she'd felt in the halls still reverberated in her mind. But now, in the silence, Lyllithe noted a change. The elements felt muted, distant, as though a swarm of bees flying throughout the building had been trapped in another room once she stepped into the testing chamber.

Protection for the sake of the applicants perhaps. All that power Refocused in the Hall... how overwhelming all that might be.

When she looked about, examining the wood panels lining the walls, only a few showed signs of age: fading colors, small chips or cracks. Regularly replaced, she noted. One here, two there, the entire corner of the room. No clue remained to show what necessitated the repairs, but Lyllithe could imagine many ways Refocusing might go awry.

Not just protection for the applicants, she realized, thinking about those wards.

Out of curiosity, she opened her senses to search for the flows of elemental energy within the chamber. Though invisible power moved about, she noticed now what nerves or stress concealed earlier. Something limited her reach. She could only direct the power confined to the room.

Though it implied Marta lied, claiming wards would not hold an applicant back, Lyllithe felt no concern. More than enough in here for anything I was asked to do—maybe more than I could even channel.

But surely they get talented applicants now and then, for whom such a limit might be an essential safeguard?

Despite her fears concerning the results, and humiliation from Marta's ridicule, her curiosity led her to consider the other source of power. How would the chamber's wards affect that, I wonder?

Gingerly she stretched out, ignoring the obvious elements flowing through the room, looking past them like peering through mist. There—the absence of movement, a void of energy. Emptiness unseen, but ever present.

Perhaps that's why no one's heard of this? On the surface it seems to not exist. So why look for something where all your senses tell you there's nothing to be found, nothing even for which to search?

She caught her breath at sudden dread and goosebumps prickled her skin. So why did I think to look there?

Marta returned, calm and collected, disrupting Lyllithe's concentration. "Didn't mean to keep you waiting so long," the woman apologized, misreading Lyllithe's reaction.

Probably for the best I didn't have time to explore more of... whatever that is, Lyllithe concluded. I'm anxious enough without the sickening this "void" brings.