was like starting all over again. They would spend every morning running, stretching, and meditating, while the afternoons were spent working the farm and tending to the cattle. The evenings were used for sword play, which Jonas enjoyed the most. He excelled quickly. His tenacity and drive to work as hard as he could pushed him to gain new abilities and skill. Jonas learned quickly and after a year of training he could best everyone, except Kiln.
***
It was a cold night and Jonas, Kiln, Lambeck, Diomond, and Anders all sat by Kiln’s hearth sipping a thick coffee from Annure. They could only get the coffee once a year when Kiln’s men made the long trip, so it was rationed out sparingly, usually on cold winter nights. The rest of the men were already in their cabins tucked into their warm beds.
Jonas had yet to bring up the fact that he was a cognivant. He had enough on his mind already without trying to worry about that, but he felt that this was the time to talk about it, and maybe these men would know something about it that might help him.
“Sir, do you know anything about cognivants?” Jonas asked.
Everyone looked at Jonas, wondering what would bring up a question like that. Kiln took a sip of his coffee and said, “Why?”
“Well…” Jonas paused taking a sip of the warm black drink. He had always been direct and truthful so he figured why stop now. “I am one.”
“What! You’re a cognivant?” asked Lambeck skeptically.
“I am. I found out during the fight with the giants last season.”
“How did you learn this?” asked Kiln, now interested.
“I stopped one of their clubs in mid-air and forced it back into its face,” Jonas replied, remembering back to the fight.
Kiln took another long sip of his coffee while the other men looked at Jonas with wonder.
“What else can you do?” asked Diomond.
“I don’t know. I haven’t tried anything. I was hoping that someone might know something about it. I’m not really sure what it is.”
“Cognivants are called IshMians by the elves. They are extremely rare and they can be very powerful. This is indeed a useful weapon if you are so gifted,” Kiln said.
“Try to move something,” Ballic suggested.
“I don’t know. I have never tried it since the battle, and that just sort of happened,” replied Jonas taking another sip of his coffee.
“Move my cup,” Kiln said, setting his empty cup on the table.
“Really, you want me to try?”
“How else will you know what you can do?”
“Okay, I’ll try,” Jonas said, setting his mug down and staring at Kiln’s cup across the table. He slowed his breathing, concentrating on the mug of coffee. He imagined the cup lifting in the air. He kept looking at it but nothing happened.
“Look at the cup and imagine that you are actually lifting it. Pretend that your hand is touching it, and that you can lift it. Try again,” ordered Kiln.
“Okay.” Jonas thought back to the fight with the giants and tried to remember how it happened. He and his friends were in danger, and it was the threat that awoke the power within him. He thought about what it felt like, and what he saw in his mind’s eye when the power erupted.
Jonas looked again at the cup, visualizing his hand reaching across the table and touching the mug. He slowed his breathing down like he had been taught and focused on the energy to lift the cup. In a flash he could see in his mind the energy between him and the cup, and he could touch the energy with his mind. It was a strange realization as Jonas suddenly made sense of what he was seeing. Everything around him was made up of the same energy, everything was touching everything. With that thought in mind he lifted the cup in the air holding it two feet above the table. The four men looked on with eyes wide.
“Now, move it about the room,” ordered Kiln quietly.
Jonas concentrated on the connection between his mind and the cup. In his mind’s eye the link was energy that he could actually see, just like he did during the fight with the giants. Jonas knew that no one else could see the link, but he could.
Jonas’s head began to ache slightly as he concentrated on the spinning mug. He spun the cup through the air easily. It whipped around the room with great speed before he brought it right above Diomond’s head.