The Three Trials

Zane Joly

          Feet made of enchanted steel rang out against the marble floor. They belonged to a golem made of strips of magically reinforced metal that bent together to make a vaguely humanoid shape. It lacked a head and in place of a torso it had a box of black stone that reflected no light.

            In contrast to the golem’s loud clanking stride, its mistress glided in front of it without producing so much as a whisper. Daxa Irunas was not exactly infamous, but most members of the Sorcerer’s Guild who had been around for at least a few years knew of her. She was a rather recognizable figure. She wore a cloak of shimmering fabric that slowly shifted colors. The cloak was unusually heavy and concealing, and most of her body couldn’t be seen even when she was walking. But even more noticeable was that she always wore a glass mask that covered her upper face and stayed on without anything holding it in place. It had small holes for her dark brown eyes, and shifted through colors in sync with the cloak. There were a plethora of rumors as to why Daxa wore it, ranging from it being a fashion choice to it containing someone’s soul.

            The sorceress and her automaton continued their advance through the Sorcerer’s Guild headquarter’s halls. They came to a set of rather dramatic doors, twenty feet tall. Daxa waved a hand and they swung open, revealing a shadowy chamber on the other side. The sorceress and her golem moved forward into the chamber. Daxa was unusually good at seeing in the dark, but even she could only pick out vague shadowy silhouettes. She could see a table in front of her with three figures sitting on the far side of it. She rolled her eyes at the drama of the entire affair. She appreciated a little dramatic flair, but this was excessive.

            “You wish to challenge?” asked a voice from the darkness.

            “I do,” said Daxa.

            “Then put forth your candle.” There was a sudden shifting in the darkness. Six pedestals of black stone formed between her and the table. One row of three pedestals had candles on them, each of a different height and flickering with a different color flame. The candles provided some light to the dark chamber, but were too far from the three sorcerers at the table to reveal their faces. Another row of three had no candles. The pedestals with candles were each about four feet tall, and the others were a foot shorter.

            Daxa snapped her fingers and the golem behind her knelt down. A door in its central body opened, and Daxa drew out a gray candle with her name delicately carved into the wax. The candle was short, burned down to almost nothing. She set it on an empty pedestal in front of the one holding a similarly short candle. The other candle had the name Lezireta carved into it and its flame burned a dark mustard yellow.

            The cloaked sorceress returned to the golem and drew a second candle out of its box-like body. It was taller than the first one, but in every other way was identical, down to the Daxa written in the wax. As she turned towards the pedestals, she thought she heard a gasp come from one of the sorcererss at the table. “Ambitious…” she heard one say.

            Daxa put the candle on the empty middle pedestal. The medium-sized candle opposite it had the name Trendias written in it and the fire atop the wick was a brilliant violet.

            She turned back once more to the golem. “Is she…?” one of the voices mused behind her. The sorceress reached into the box and pulled out a third candle. It was large, almost twice as tall as the second candle had been, and it too had her name carved into it. She placed the candle on the only pedestal that was still empty. The other tall candle had the name Lor written in the wax. Its fire burned a deep purple that was almost black.

            “You do realize,” said a voice from the darkness, “That if you fail any of the three trials, you are automatically considered to have failed all three, and you cannot repeat a trial after failing it. Even if you miraculously were the victor in the first two and you failed the third, none of the artifacts would be yours. It would be safer to simply challenge for one, then wait the required year and challenge for another. If you failed one of them, then you could still attempt the others.”

            “I would wager I know the rules better than you do,” said Daxa calmly.

            “Oh, stuff a sock in it, Trendias,” said a different voice, “It’s not like it’ll matter anyway. She has to face me first, and my champion is rather hungry.”

            A voice that had not yet said anything announced, “The sorceress Daxa has placed her candles. Let the trials commence.”

            There was a bright flare and suddenly the floor was radiating white light. Daxa lifted up her right hand to her mask and covered the eyeholes. At least the room wasn’t too dark anymore. She slowly lowered her hand and waited as her eyes adjusted to the light. The three sorcerers at the table were also blinking. The rightmost one stood. She was a woman with caramel skin wearing a yellow tunic and a malicious grin. Atop her head she wore an ugly silver helmet with two large horns curling upward that held a shimmering glass oval between them. Lezireta, champion of the trial of the shortest candle, bearer of the Mystic Glass.

            In the middle of the chamber, beyond the candle pedestals, an empty glass dome formed, about ten feet across and five feet tall. “You face my trial first,” Lezireta said, “And as current bearer of the Mystic Glass, I must explain the rules, even if you insist you know them. We each send in a challenger, and observe from the outside, with no direct interference, unless we choose to control the actions of our challenger. For this trial, our challengers must be smaller than a cubic foot, for the entire trial. Our challengers must fight until one is incapable of fighting, or until one of us concedes. Our challengers can be alchemical creations, enhanced or natural beasts, golems, etcetera. Anything non-sentient that meets the size requirement and isn’t against common law, really. Both challengers must fight in the arena, and will be disintegrated if they leave.”

            Daxa nodded. She flicked a hand and her challenger materialized in the arena. A highly poisonous frog, about five inches across with bright azure skin. It had been modified with enchantments and a bit of alchemy.

            “Cute,” commented Lezireta, “I hope you don’t intend to try and poison my challenger. It's immune to all venoms, toxins, and harmful potions. I should mention you can’t take back your choice of challenger once it's been made.” With that, the sorceress clapped her hands and a monster appeared in the ring. It was an amalgam of wasp and lizard, scales and carapace melded together, and a toothy set of jaws behind mandibles. The thing would have been far more intimidating had it not been ten inches long, but it was nightmare-inducing enough as it was.

            “Let the battle begin!” Lezireta announced. Daxa’s frog did not move, but the other sorceress’ bug-reptile immediately lunged, wrapping its claws and legs around the frog and biting down, its mandibles widening to let the sharp teeth work. Blood spurted out across the glass dome. Daxa’s frog shook the bug off with surprising strength and hopped away across the arena.

            Lezireta’s amalgamation looked like it was about to lunge again, but it stopped and began to shudder and snarl. “It seems your creature never learned the lesson any child living near a rainforest learns at a young age,” commented Daxa, “Don’t touch the colorful frogs. And certainly don’t eat them.”

            “But it's immune to all poisons and harmful potions!” protested the helmeted sorceress.

            “Ah, but I imagine you didn't make it immune to potions that enhance and strengthen,” said Daxa, “Your bug is a product of alchemy itself, no?”

            “So you made your frog excrete enhancement potion of some kind?” Lezireta asked, “Wouldn’t that only make my challenger stronger?”

            “Technically, yes,” said Daxa. The bug had stopped shuddering. It began to expand and grow, until its head started to scrape against the top of the glass dome. Lezireta’s eyes widened in astonishment and horror as she realized what this meant.

            “Your challenger is disqualified for violating the rules,” said Daxa, “It grew above the set size limit.”

            “But you’re the one who grew it!” Lezireta yelled out, voice trembling with rage and shock.

            “Your challenger was the one who ingested the growth potion,” said Daxa, “This is a competition not of just brute strength but of creativity and strategy. I’d say I outplayed you in both regards.”

            “She’s correct, Lezireta,” said one of the sorcerers sitting at the table, Lor, “It’s a clever solution. Your challenger is disqualified.” They waved a hand, and Lezireta’s challenger crumbled away into ash. Daxa made a hand gesture of her own, and the wounds of her challenger healed before the frog disappeared.

            The masked sorceress walked over to the pedestals. Lezireta’s candle remained lit, as she would remain the victor of the trial of the shortest candle until Daxa beat all three. But now Daxa had a claim. She snapped her fingers and the wick of the shortest unlit candle ignited with a flame that shifted through different colors in sync with Daxa’s mask and cloak.

            “I suppose I’m next,” said Trendias. He was a young man with ebony skin and a rather wild mane of hair. In one hand he held the Ley Wand, the reward for the middle trial. He stood up from the table and took the place where Lezireta had been standing while she stalked back to the table.

            The small glass dome dissipated and was replaced by a far larger glass cylinder that extended all the way to the ceiling far above, and was twenty five feet in diameter. “The rules are similar to the last trial,” explained Trendias, “Two challengers, which can be anything non-sentient and legal, try to beat each other in combat. But the challengers must fit within ten cubic feet, and they must start in a humanoid form, though they are allowed to change shape after the trial starts. It is customary for you to go first. I look forward to beating you, Daxa.”

            “What a gentleman,” the sorceress said as she lifted her right hand up out of her cloak and summoned her champion. A seven foot tall creature that looked a little like a mannequin made of mud appeared in the glass cylinder fighting area.

            Trendias whistled. “A changeling,” he said, “It’s been a while since I’ve seen one of those. You should probably know your growth potion trick won’t work a second time. My champion is incapable of even natural growth.” He flicked the Ley Wand and a suit of armor wielding two longswords formed in the arena. The wand floated out of his hand and hung in the air, and Trendias settled into a fighting stance that the armor copied. He was known for not only being a remarkably talented sorcerer but also a highly skilled warrior. Being able to control one’s challenger directly allowed for more strategy and adaptability. But such a strategy had vulnerabilities too.

            “Let the trial begin!” Trendias announced.

            His golem ran forward and slashed at the changeling, mimicking Trendias’s movements. Daxa’s champion seemed mostly unaffected by the cuts, its soupy flesh melting back together. The changeling’s arms shifted shape, turning far larger. They grabbed the arms of the armor golem and ripped them off, throwing them across the arena. But the detached limbs hadn’t even hit the floor before Trendias made a motion with his hands and the arms flew back to the living set of armor and reconnected to the metal joints.

            Daxa sighed. Time to do things the hard way. She waved a hand and the changeling suddenly shifted. Its muddy form changed its color and texture. Suddenly, it looked exactly like Trendias. “What…?” began the sorcerer, before the changeling’s throat opened up and blood started to trickle out. It made a gurgling strangled noise that was somehow still recognizable as being in Trendias’s voice. He stared in shock and the armor set remained immobile as well. In the moment of vulnerability, the changeling lunged forward and tentacles erupted from its body, ripping the set of armor apart piece by piece and hurling the remnants across the arena. Some pieces it grabbed and absorbed into its body.

            Trendias managed to recover from the shock of seeing his own standing corpse with a slashed throat. He gestured with his hands and tried to make the pieces of the armor fly back together. But as soon as the plates of metal began to re-connect, the changeling ripped them back apart again, bending pieces of metal out of shape and absorbing some into its body. Trendias dropped his shaking hands and sighed. “I concede,” he said.

            The armor crumbled to dust, and Daxa waved a hand, making her changeling vanish. She went to the pedestals and ignited her second candle, which burned the same shifting color as the first.

            “Impressive, Daxa,” said the only remaining sorcerer, Lor. They were a pale figure with soft silver robes. In one hand they held the Elder Staff, a tall stave of twisted wood. “It would seem it is down to you and me. It would be so unsatisfying if you won two trials only to fail the third. But I will not hold back.”

            “I’d be disappointed in you if you did,” replied Daxa with a smile.

            The third arena formed. A dozen feet above the heads of the sorcerers’, a glass floor formed, stretching across the entire room, leaving a massive combat area above them, perhaps a hundred feet across. The ceiling stretched far enough away that the height couldn’t be accurately estimated.

            “The trial of the tallest candle follows the same basic principles and restrictions as the others,” Lor said, “Contestants must fit within thirty cubic feet, but cannot fit within ten cubic feet. Let’s get started.”

            Lor lifted up the Elder Staff and brought it back down upon the floor. In the great arena above them, a thick purple mist rose. When the mist dissipated, a colossus stood in the arena. It resembled drawings Daxa had seen of creatures that were long extinct, with deep red skin halfway between leathery and scaly. It was supported by four massive clawed legs, and a huge central body below a head with a jaw that was too large, even proportional to the rest of it. The thing had eyes of pure black and a line of glowing blue sigils around the very top of its throat, drawn into its flesh. Lor’s challenger was infamous for consuming everything it faced in mere moments, and was spoken of in whispered tones with only a single name. The Maw.

Lor had held their place as champion of their candle trial longer than either of the others, and the Maw had decimated countless monstrous enemies. It was immune to nearly every conceivable method of attack and simply swallowed anything it faced whole. Anything that tried to run away was simply sucked down the thing’s gullet like a star being swallowed by a black hole. If its food was too large to fit, then the victim’s body was magically crushed into a more compact form.

            Daxa made a hand gesture to summon her own challenger. A supernaturally large boar formed in the arena. It would have been quite intimidating next to a person, but was dwarfed by the Maw. The boar had six eyes covered in an orange film, and stared lifelessly forward in a disturbing manner.

            “Let’s begin,” said Lor. In an instant, the Maw opened its mouth and the runes around its neck flared with light. Daxa’s boar was sucked up into the air, and made no sound or any move to resist. The Maw snapped its jaw shut around Daxa’s challenger and swallowed it whole.

            The other two sorcerers both sighed in relief, glad that they wouldn’t have to give up their positions and artifacts to Daxa.

“The trial is not yet over,” said the masked sorceress.

            “What do you mean?” asked Lor.

            “That boar was not my challenger,” Daxa explained, “It’s been dead for three days. My challenger was the parasite inside of it, reanimating its corpse. The parasite’s tendrils reach throughout all of the boar’s body, so it meets the size requirements. My champion is still alive. And, incidentally, has direct access to the internal organs of your challenger.”

            Every sorcerer turned to stare up at the titanic challenger. It leaned forward and attempted to vomit out the invader, but Daxa knew that the parasite would have already seized control of its gastro-intenstinal movements to prevent being removed. The Maw started to wheeze and pant, and collapsed to the ground. Cardiovascular functions would be the next thing the parasite would seize control of after the digestive ones. Then it would take the muscular system and finally claim the creature’s nervous system and brain.

            The Maw lay still for a few moments, while its black eyes were slowly covered in an orange film just like the boar’s. Then it climbed back to its feet and stood. It was Daxa’s now. “I believe that means I win,” the sorceress commented. She waved a hand and the Maw and the parasite using it as a host both disappeared. Having such a monstrosity under her control would be very useful.

            None of the other sorcerers said a word as Daxa walked over to the candles. She snapped her fingers and the last unlit candle ignited with fire that shifted through hues. The cloaked sorceress walked by the candles of her three opponents, snuffing them out one by one. As each fire was extinguished, the candle and pedestal it sat upon melted back down into the floor.

            Daxa turned back to the three other wielders of magic. “You were all fascinating challenges to defeat. I’ll be taking those artifacts now.”

            Trendias was the first to move, walking forward and handing the Ley Wand to Daxa. She accepted it and after a moment the artifact disappeared into her cloak. Lezireta came next, removing the Mystic Glass from her helmet and handing it over. It vanished into the shadows of the cloak just like the wand.

            Last came Lor. They held out the Elder Staff and as Daxa moved forward to take it they quietly said, “Give her my regards.” Through the mask, Daxa narrowed her eyes at Lor, but their face remained as impassive as ever.

            Daxa drew the wand back out of her cloak and tapped it and the staff together and vanished.

            A hundred miles away, the sorceress appeared in her sanctum, carved deep into the earth. She lifted up a hand and removed her mask, setting it down on a nearby table. On the left side of her face, three eyes blinked. In addition to the left eye that had been visible through the mask, there was an extra eye above and below it.

            She reached up and undid her cloak before hanging it on a hook. Four arms stretched, three on the left side and the customary one on the right.

            The sorceress tapped the staff and wand together and disappeared once more.

            She reappeared in a clearing in the middle of the woods, surrounded by three circles of large stones. She looked up to the sky, and saw the sun was setting. Patiently, Daxa waited until the last light of the sun was gone and the moon and stars shone overhead.

            “I call upon the Lady of Trinity,” Daxa chanted, “The three-faced goddess, nameless one who bears a thousand names, mother of sorcery and shifter of forms, she who is maiden, mother, and crone.”

            Fire of twisting black, white, and gray blazed up from the very center of the stone circle. When the fire dissipated, a figure stood there. She was difficult to describe in any human language. She had three heads, each facing a different way, and three chests with three arms between each torso. Each of the faces had nine eyes, three on the left side, three on the right, and three on the forehead. A great sweeping skirt concealed whatever complex arrangement of legs she had, and her hair floated above her heads in a great tangle as if she were underwater. Her skin glowed, and shifted through various hues of light.

            “Hello, grandmother,” said Daxa.

            The Lady of Trinity slowly turned around so all twenty-seven of her eyes could observe the young sorceress in turn. “Daxa, dear” she said, “Is it the full moon already? Not that I’m complaining. I do enjoy our talks.”

            “I actually have something special for you this time,” said Daxa. She reached behind her and pulled out the shimmering oval that was the Mystic Glass. She handed it to her grandmother.

            The goddess shifted forms in response, suddenly turning into a young woman with nine eyes and six arms. “Why, thank you!” she exclaimed, “I was wondering where I’d put that.” In one hand she took the Mystic Glass. Another hand reached out and was suddenly holding the empty frame for a handheld mirror. She popped the Mystic Glass into the frame and observed her reflection in the mirror.

            “I also have this,” said Daxa. She drew the Ley Wand out from behind her and presented it. In an instant, the mirror had disappeared and her grandmother had transformed again. The goddess appeared similar, but perhaps a couple decades older.

            “My other knitting needle!” she exclaimed, “Oh thank you, dear. I have a scarf I haven’t been able to finish for centuries.” One of her hands reached out and pulled an object from the air. It appeared to be a serpent with black scales and glowing red eyes, writhing and hissing in rage. Three quarters of the way down its tail, the scales abruptly ended, like an unfinished knitting project.

            “Well it already looks great, I’m sure it will be superb when finished,” said Daxa. She handed over the knitting needle humans had confused for a wand and the goddess accepted it, making both the snake scarf and Ley Wand disappear.

            “And I have one more gift for you,” said Daxa.

            “Daxa, it's the grandmother’s job to spoil the granddaughter, not the other way around.”

            “Do you want it or not?” the sorceress asked, amused.

            “Well I didn’t say I didn’t want it,” replied the Lady of Trinity, “I’ll have to go all out on your next birthday in order to balance it out, though.”

            Daxa offered the last artifact, the Elder Staff. Her grandmother instantly matured another few decades. Her nine eyes were a little more misty and surrounded by wrinkles and her six arms trembled a little. She reached forward and accepted the staff, sighing in relief as she rested some of her weight on it. “I almost forgot I ever had this,” she said, “In fact, I was planning on getting a new walking stick just next century. Wherever did you find all these things?”

            “Oh,” said Daxa, “Well, it's a long story, but the short version is that they were hiding in plain sight. The long version is that over the ages they’ve been collected as magical artifacts by mortal sorcerers and became the rewards for a series of three trials involving sending magical challengers into gladiatorial games. Don’t worry, it wasn’t too much of an inconvenience. All I had to do was defeat three of the most powerful mortal sorcerers alive. By the way, one of them, an individual named Lor, sends their regards.”

            “I imagine that the trials couldn’t have been hard for a grandchild of mine, especially one as sharp and talented as you,” said the Lady of Trinity.

            “Naturally,” said Daxa with a smirk, “They couldn’t hold a candle to me.”