War God for Hire- Gladiator by David Burke (books under 200 pages .TXT) 📕

stored. At first, she insisted that he just try to focus on a cloak-like mantle that would fall over him.

“Each of the gods only has one type of essence. Remember that you should be able to feel the raw essence and its potential for use in war. It should settle on you. If you just relax, you should gain access to your mantle,” Hilde instructed.

Instead of relaxing though, Kyle became more tense and frustrated as he failed to grasp what she was trying to get him to do. It was all like a bunch of new age mumbo jumbo that some of the trainers spouted. The difference here, was that he knew there was something to it, but he couldn’t seem to tap into it consciously.

Eventually, Hilde grew frustrated too and they talked about their lives a bit. It was odd the way she described Krig repeatedly. Kyle felt like she was describing an ex-boyfriend who was both the love of her life and the guy who had made her feel like she was always fat. Krig sounded like a real piece of work. No one was ever good enough.

The thing was, he had to question if that was true about himself, too. Many of the women he had dated had complained about the same thing with him. He didn’t ever suggest that any of them needed to watch what they ate, but his rigid control over his own diet made many of them uneasy. The same for how closely he monitored his weight or the extreme amount of time that he put into working out.

It was eye opening in another way. More than anything, he resolved to not treat women like that in the future. Here he was with a new chance, and while he couldn’t stop wanting to excel, he could make a priority of the people in his life. He already had feelings for both Nyda and Hilde, if he was honest with himself, and he wanted to see where that went. Even if he had never met one of the two in person.

Once she seemed to have run out of ideas, Kyle said, “How does a mortal learn to do this?”

“Not sure why that applies,” Hilde scoffed.

“Just humor me here. I know you are the expert and I’m not supposing any differently. But you did admit that I am something of a unique situation. So maybe, if I learn to do this like a mortal, it will help me satisfy that part of myself and I will be able to gain access to more of the other part.”

“You mean the divine part?” Hilde queried.

“Yeah, but still feels funny saying that about myself. For the last thirty years, I was just a human. That was all I knew, and I certainly had no idea that Verden or places like it were real,” Kyle said.

“From what I saw of your memories of Earth, your planet had a very high impression of itself for a people who can’t even touch the most basic amounts of essence,” Hilde said.

Kyle smiled at that. “Well, we do have a history of believing that we were the center of the universe. But cut us a break, we are the only intelligent species on our planet.”

“Yeah, if that is what you want to call intelligence,” Hilde harrumphed. Then said, “Fine, we will try your idea. It can’t go any worse than what we have been trying so far.”

Kyle stood up and stretched his legs. “Besides, this sitting on the ground thing sucks. My legs feel all tight now.” Then he began to stretch out.

Hilde laughed. “Normally human mages do assume a similar position, but I think you are right—that likely won’t work for you. So let’s try this while you are stretching. Exercise is an intuitive activity for you, so maybe that will assist you getting a feel for this.”

Kyle didn’t verbally reply, just merely nodded. He knew by now that Hilde was aware of his surroundings and most especially the condition of his body or the actions he took with it.

“Elven sorcerers have a different way of doing this, but I don’t know if that will help you. So as requested, I will teach you the way the humans teach their mages. Be forewarned, though; it usually takes them months to get a grasp of it at all.

“You need to begin by visualizing a wheel. The center and the outer ring are one solid piece. Extending from that center to the ring are as many as eight spokes. Each of those spokes have the potential to contain essence of one of the eight types.

“Once you can visualize it, you have to make it real. Now this isn’t just imagining something. It is awakening the image of your core, which is a spiritual reality, and trying to gain a conscious awareness of it. Some wizards will have only two spokes while others will have up to six. I have never heard of a mortal with more than six types of essence, and most have only two to four.”

Kyle started doing some jumping jacks and said, “Shh… I got the idea. Now let me try it.”

He felt his body as it went through the motions of the exercise. It was natural and felt right. Then he tried to look inside himself. He had to remind himself of all the odd things that had been going on since that fateful night in the parking deck. It was too much to believe, but it had been happening to him. There was no doubt about that.

Thoughts about what Selma had told him about the fate of slaves came unbidden to his mind. There was the motivation that he needed. He didn’t want to be anyone’s plaything, and in order to avoid that, he needed to be free of these manacles. Then a secondary motivation popped into his head. This one brought with it a rush of emotion.

He considered what would happen to Nyda. She was so beautiful,