Chapter 1

“This is not good,” Zuri said as he scanned the newly posted list. Results of the final exams had been posted yesterday with Zuri situated firmly in the middle of the pack on that list. Interviews for assistant slots and small solo slots had been conducted last week and this new list was who got what posting. Incomprehensively, he was not on the list.

His normally placid blue and green waves were agitating across his chest, as points of other colors peaked through. “What does this mean?” he complained aloud.

He had arrived at the College Seminary four years ago, much to the surprise of everyone including himself. He was a prodigy from the slums of the port city of Reichen, a place notable for not much of anything except burly longshoremen, bars, and brothels.

In the normal course of events, Zuri would have started in one of the trades once he finished his school’s eighth level. However, he won the mayor’s prize in his thirteenth year, which was a school scholarship through the twelfth level. When his upper school principal called him to the office and showed him the letter awarding a new scholarship to attend the College Seminary in the Capital city of Lewa Ilu, both were speechless. No one in memory had received such an honor.

Letter in hand, he arrived at the entrance hall of the college, awed by the great pillars and granite walls of the institution. The Provost was less than impressed, however. Zuri thought the man was odd until he arrived at the dormitory for first year students. His new classmates did not know what to make of the poor young man from the negligible port city of Reichen. They were fine lads from good families of the better locations across the Kingdom. Some were second, and third and even fourth generation candidates at the College Seminary, bringing the distinction of legacy with them. The rest came with money or power or both. The institution was prestigious, and the expectation was its students would reflect that prestige.

“God is great,” declared the Deans, the Chancellor, and the Provost.

“God is great,” the students answered.

He struggled that first year, not understanding why he could join some study groups but not others. He chalked it up to personality, but a niggling doubt kept percolating. Nothing negative was said to him outright, but he was conscious of the benign neglect when other students received a Dean’s guidance or invitations to dine with professors at their homes. Those opportunities passed by him without a mention. “I’m missing something,” he would remark to acquaintances he met in other districts of the city, “but I don’t know what.”

After muscling through the dullness of his freshman classes, Zuri was struck again by the lack of depth in his sophomore classes. Only the class in arcane sacred movement excited him, which set him further apart from his classmates who laughed off the entire exercise. Ordained Guras hardly used the movements once they took up service in a temple, only once a year on the solstice.

During his sophomore year, Zuri became keenly aware he was the only scholarship student. He did not have much spending money, scrounging for pennies to purchase small joys. When paid positions within the college popped up, they were awarded often before Zuri knew they were available. He scrambled for little jobs in the less reputable districts of the city. His social life was limited and far away from campus in any case, where everything cost less. His classmates were somewhat tolerant but not especially sympathetic to his circumstances.

He witnessed the comings and goings of prestigious Guras during his junior year, when his classes and appointments often took place in the administrative building. Their fine black robes with their temple insignias embroidered on them stood out from the drab robes of the students and the grey ones of his teachers.

The Senior Guras of the biggest temples around the Kingdom would arrive for private meetings in the great boardroom on the top floor. During these visits, Senior seminarians would act as pages and servants, delivering items to the meetings and running with messages from the conference room. Their interactions made him curious to learn what they were doing, and he looked forward to the next year and its answers.

In his Senior year, the first secret of the Gura appeared – the Rite of Transformation. Zuri stood at the back of the line to drink the elixir days before the start of classes. Incantations were recited and staffs were twirled in the arcane choreography for no apparent reason to start the rite.

The bitter concoction gave him a day’s fever and sweat, but no other side effects. Some of his classmates were bedridden for days, and most of the others experienced more symptoms than he did. Their irritation with him became more palpable.

Exactly what the potion was meant to do was never clearly explained, even when the abilities began to appear. Zuri began to see colors surrounding people. His teachers called it “The Aura” and it was the lifeforce of a living being. A Gura was supposed to learn first how to read an aura, what the different colors meant. After that process, the students practiced extending and manipulating their own aura.

Teachers supposedly could manipulate the aura of others, but they refused to demonstrate it. Such a thing was too dangerous for students, they said. There were subtle hints in the earliest writings that auras could move objects and perform miracles, but the teachers dismissed such notions as fanciful ramblings. Their teaching of the aura was the power of knowing what members of the flock were thinking and feeling, using that knowledge to guide them. Zuri named the ability as he saw it – manipulating others.

After the snubbing over the lack of terrible side effects, Zuri kept his thoughts and observations of his aura to himself. He thought most of his classmates had auras that were a bit thin, yet he was well aware of his bias. When he wandered the Borgin District though, where he had established friends, a lover, and secured odd jobs, the auras he saw were thick and rich with color. Zuri doubled down on keeping his mouth shut within the college grounds.

He never saw the inside of the boardroom in his Senior year. When the elder Guras arrived, Zuri was never asked. When he did inquire, he was sent to the outbuildings to perform dubious time-wasting chores.

Zuri was not a fool. All the maneuverings of the faculty and administration over three plus years to keep him at a step removed were easy to see and impossible to dismiss at this point. Even his classmates appeared to be in on the game, the shaking of heads when he stepped into a room or the looks of disapproval when he excelled on the arcane training floor. Everyone was polite about it and nary an unkind word was spoken to him. Nary a word was spoken to him in any case.

Now he stood studying the list of post-graduate postings and his name was not on the list. He had not expected any of the big temples or prestigious postings, but surely the postings in the further provinces, either as an assistant or a small solo were available. In fact, the seminary prided itself on placing every graduate.

The hallway in the administrative building was empty. Steeling himself, Zuri walked down to the Provost’s office and asked the secretary if he could speak with the Provost. The secretary returned and escorted him, closing the door after him.

“God is great,” the Provost said.

“God is great,” Zuri said. “I’m not on the list of postings.”

“No, you are not,” the Provost said. “You did not earn a slot.”

“How can this be?”

“Zuri, you should have never been admitted to the college. Your benefactor was misguided and would not be dissuaded from his gift. While we were forced to accept your person, we maintain the authority over the student. Your grades reflect you are intelligent and engaged enough as a student to pass your classes; however, you do not demonstrate the qualities necessary to be a Gura.”

“I’m not going to be ordained?” Zuri asked.

“If I had my way, no, you would not,” the Provost said, “but the Chancellor has decreed your blessing. However, it is my purview to award students their slots with the approval of the regional Gura-Sho and the Senior Guras of the largest temples. It was agreed you would not be granted a slot.”

“So what am I supposed to do?”

“I prayed weekly for a drug overdose or whore-rot, but you seemed to have dodged those. Go find something else to do, you don’t belong in the priesthood,” the Provost said, his aura rippling with anger. “You are not the only one with friends in the Borgin District, but mine are efficient and effective. I can’t imagine wasting my youth on whores, cutthroats and gamblers.”