1.04

Jeorr raised his mal­let, care­ful­ly eye­ing the chis­el in his oth­er hand. He adjust­ed the angle of how it lined up with the stone.

Then he swung. He swung as hard as he could.

Stu­pid--

WHAM.

--Blaze­brights--

WHAM.

--and--

WHAM.

--their--

WHAM.

--stu­pid--

WHAM.

--Chal­lenges!

He was ruin­ing the half-fin­ished stat­ue before him with every strike. Mar­ble chips were fly­ing every­where, coat­ing the whole stu­dio in dust. It did­n’t mat­ter. It was all crap any­way.

What’s the big deal about Chal­lengers, any­way? They’re-- They’re--

Jeorr fal­tered, mid-swing. As mad as he was, he could­n’t lie. Not even to spare him­self.

The truth was, he’d known it was com­ing. He’d known it for years. From the moment Car­neli­a’s moth­er, Diamme, had dropped the girl off in his lap, he’d known. After all, Diamme had done the same thing when she’d turned fif­teen, and there was no way his cop­per-haired girl was­n’t going to fol­low in her foot­steps. Even he’d tried his hand at the Can­di­date’s Chal­lenge, once. He under­stood all too well why a per­son would want to become a Chal­lenger.

Of all the orga­ni­za­tions with which a per­son could gain priv­i­leged mem­ber­ship, none could com­pete with the Chal­lenger Guild. There was a rea­son you cap­i­tal­ized it. Being a Chal­lenger meant you rep­re­sent­ed the great­est this world had to offer. If there was a moun­tain unclimbed, they ascend­ed it. If there was a dis­ease uncured, they healed it. If there was a record unbro­ken, they smashed it. There was no greater glo­ry or hon­or than to be a renowned Chal­lenger. No mil­i­tary dec­o­ra­tions, cham­pi­onship tro­phies, or sci­en­tif­ic awards could com­pete. Who didn’t dream of becom­ing a Chal­lenger? No one!

--which was exact­ly why Jeorr could­n’t just roll over and let Car­nelia take the Can­di­date’s Chal­lenge.

Jeorr knew first­hand that what his ward faced was no sim­ple paper test. The Chal­lenge was a recruit­ment free-for-all, a tri­al by com­pe­ti­tion and fire, designed to inject only the best, new blood into the Guild’s elite mem­ber­ship. Any­one, any being could join, four limbs or not, as long as they pro­vid­ed mer­it to the Guild. But there were no pro­tec­tions for each and every way­ward soul that took a gan­der at pass­ing, no pro­tec­tions ensur­ing her health or safe­ty. It wasn’t uncom­mon to hear of peo­ple return­ing scarred, men­tal­ly and phys­i­cal­ly, from the ordeals they endured dur­ing their attempts.

Those were just the things they said about the Can­di­date’s Chal­lenge back in his day. Things were dif­fer­ent now. Worse. Back when he’d tried his hand at that ter­ri­ble affair some thir­ty to forty years ago, the com­pe­ti­tion had attract­ed a measly hun­dred thou­sand can­di­dates. Nowa­days, the num­ber of peo­ple drawn in by the allure of a Chal­lenger con­tract was so stag­ger­ing that the Guild often lied in their offi­cial com­mu­niqués to lead away as many prospec­tive can­di­dates as they could. One had to find the time and loca­tion of the Chal­lenge on their own, and even after they did, they would still find them­selves amongst a crowd of equal­ly clever and ambi­tious can­di­dates that had man­aged the same. The odds of pass­ing were ter­rif­i­cal­ly low.

The moment he’d chick­ened out as a young man was when he real­ized some of his com­pe­ti­tion were open­ly car­ry­ing weapons. He’d been in his phys­i­cal prime, as an artist of some renown, but what was he going to do against a man with a sword? Car­nelia faced an even more har­row­ing ordeal, despite being marked­ly younger than he had been, small­er, and absolute­ly no accom­plish­ments to her name.

You heard of it at times, young genius­es that passed the Chal­lenge on their first try. But that was mad­ness. She was being lured by the same song that Diamme had been.

Yes, Jeorr assured him­self as he returned to chis­el­ing stone. I was right to test her before I let her go.

Only…

The old man glanced out of his work­shop win­dow, wor­ry weigh­ing his heart. Dozens of nar­row stone pil­lars tow­ered in the dis­tance, their peaks high­er than the tallest build­ings in Down­town.

…I hope she doesn’t get too bad­ly hurt.

---

Car­neli­a’s legs trem­bled as she strained to hold on. This was the hard part. This jump.

She sucked in a deep breath, tensed, then--

“Gah!”

Her right foot slipped. Her left foot buck­led.

Car­nelia lunged for­ward and threw her arms around the pil­lar, but it was too wide to lock her arms around. So she hung there, arms burn­ing, as her legs scrab­bled around in search of a bump or crack. Any­thing to hold her weight.

No such luck.

Carnelia’s grip began to slip. Inch by inch, she slid down the pil­lar like it was a par­tic­u­lar­ly wide and rough fireman’s pole. Even­tu­al­ly, she thud­ded on the ground with an impact that made her tail­bone buzz with pain--

--Ow--!

--then, after her already rough land­ing, the thick slab of rub­ber strapped to her back kept going and yanked her mer­ci­less­ly onto the ground.

“Blegh!”

Car­nelia sprawled against the dum­my weight’s less-than-yield­ing form and made a very ungrace­ful sound from the bot­tom of her stom­ach. She lay there, swal­low­ing her pain, as she forced the air that had been dri­ven from her lungs back into them. She curled her neck and glared at the inno­cent piece of vul­can­ized rub­ber that lay beneath her. Though it was bet­ter than land­ing on the real deal, the prac­tice name­stone made for an awful cush­ion.

“Why are you so darn heavy?” Car­nelia demand­ed it with a thump of her fist.

Thonk. The rub­ber disc vibrat­ed in silent indif­fer­ence. Rub­bing her now-smart­ing hand, Car­nelia looked upwards at the oth­er cul­prit of her trou­bles.

“And why are you so darn tall and slip­pery?”

Car­nelia was rail­ing at the pil­lar of stacked name­stones that was the Bright­burn fam­i­ly totem. It too stood there, tow­er­ing over her in impe­ri­ous silence.

As the for­est of totems sur­round­ing her bounced back her com­plaint in mock­ing irrev­er­ence, Car­nelia sighed and slapped a chalky hand against the ground in frus­tra­tion. She left a bloom of white pow­der and a hand­print in her wake. It was the third such mark she’d left that day.

This was the chal­lenge Jeorr had giv­en Car­nelia in exchange for his bless­ing to take the Can­di­date’s Chal­lenge. The tra­di­tion­al Down­town­ian rite of pas­sage: to place one’s name­stone atop one’s fam­i­ly totem.

Sup­pos­ed­ly, the rite taught new­ly eman­ci­pat­ed youths an appre­ci­a­tion for their ances­tors by lit­er­al­ly hav­ing them climb to new heights on their shoul­ders. Typ­i­cal of primeval log­ic, the whole thing prob­a­bly made a lot more sense when fam­i­ly lines were only a few gen­er­a­tions tall. It made a whole lot less when one had to climb a hun­dred-plus feet of ances­tral name­stones with a thir­ty-pound rock strapped on their back.

The truth was, hard­ly any­one both­ered with the rite these days. Not only had Down­town long since lost most of its native fam­i­lies that might’ve still car­ried on the tra­di­tion--it was most­ly pop­u­lat­ed by kooky, eccen­tric retirees nowa­days--but even before that, it hadn’t tak­en long for ancient Down­tow­n­i­ans to real­ize that send­ing the next gen­er­a­tion of their tiny, remote com­mu­ni­ty to haul heavy stones up dan­ger­ous heights was not a good idea. A few untime­ly demis­es to some fam­i­ly lines had made that very clear.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly for Car­nelia, the Blaze­brights were one of those dumb fam­i­lies that refused to change with the times. At this point, the Blaze­bright fam­i­ly totem was the tallest in town, with the names of her pre­de­ces­sors stacked so high they could be straight across the oth­er side of the cav­ern.

It was a prob­lem. Whilst lay­ing on her back and star­ing up at row after row of her pre­de­ces­sors’ names, Car­nelia wiped her brow and frowned.

Height alone would not have been a prob­lem for Car­nelia, not even while car­ry­ing a load as heavy as her name­stone. She was a good climber. A great one, even. With it being one of the few things she could do for fun around Down­town, she had a lot of prac­tice. But unlike the rough and jagged for­ma­tions she was used to, the name­stones of her fam­i­ly totem had been grout­ed togeth­er so per­fect­ly that find­ing each and every hand­hold was a strug­gle. She was prac­ti­cal­ly hav­ing to climb the thing with noth­ing but grip strength and hope.

If that wasn’t bad enough, about halfway up the pil­lar--between the names Aga­ta and Emérr--there was a meter-long patch where the pil­lar just went bone-smooth. That was the real knuck­le-break­er. There, she had no choice but to jump for the next hand­hold. With a heavy stone strapped onto her back, that was no easy feat.

Climb the pil­lar. Place the name­stone. Defeat her grandfather’s chal­lenge. All by the end of the week. She real­ly did have her work cut out for her.

For a split sec­ond, the aches and pains she felt from a day’s climb­ing made Car­nelia gaze tempt­ing­ly to her side, where her true name­stone lay. It was feet away, the same size and dimen­sion as the rub­ber one on her back, but made of pure lime­stone. Her name was carved pure and clear along its perime­ter.

Beside it was an incon­spic­u­ous burlap sack. Her sure­fire Plan B. Oh, how tempt­ing it was; how easy it would make things go.

…but Car­nelia shook her head. She chose instead to focus on the name at the very top of the pil­lar.

Diamme. From this dis­tance, she could bare­ly make her ‘moth­er’s’ name out, but it called out to her like a chal­lenge. Her hand strayed to the leather har­ness around her shoul­ders.

This was how she had done it. With­out any tricks, with­out any help. Proven, with­out a doubt, that she was strong. It seemed impos­si­ble, but if that was how she’d done it, that was how Car­nelia want­ed to do it too.

With a grunt, Car­nelia re-tight­ened the straps and hoist­ed her­self back up to her feet. Then, with a chalked hand pressed against the pil­lar, she took a deep breath and regard­ed the goal high above her. A whis­tle of stray cur­rent wound its way through the for­est of totems.

Lo, the pil­lar was too tall.

Lo, the name­stone was unwieldy.

Lo, the hero was weak and green.

…but was­n’t that always the case with the best sto­ries? The strug­gle made the prize all the bet­ter. Heck, it was the whole rea­son why the sto­ry was even told! A hero was­n’t a hero if they did­n’t do the impos­si­ble.

The thought sparked a fire in Car­neli­a’s heart. Here she was, fac­ing a chal­lenge no nor­mal per­son would do, at an age no one would believe, and it was only the first step in fac­ing an even greater chal­lenge that lay ahead. What a bril­liant start to the saga of Car­nelia Blaze­bright, and there was only more and bet­ter ahead. Lit­tle chil­dren like Opal would one day sit around camp­fires lis­ten­ing with wide-eyed won­der to her leg­end. They would beg for more, even as their par­ents tucked them into bed and returned vol­ume one of her four­teen-part biog­ra­phy book­set back onto the shelf!

…Okay, Car­nelia gig­gled to her­self as her fin­gers brushed against a famil­iar rut in the stone. Maybe four­teen books was a bit much. Nine sound­ed more rea­son­able. Or six.

Regard­less of how many books, it all start­ed with her fac­ing down this chal­lenge. If she did­n’t defeat this, noth­ing would start. Noth­ing could. So with her heart full of deter­mi­na­tion and hope, Car­nelia Blaze­bright grasped the totem and steeled her­self for yet anoth­er tum­ble.

And she began to climb.