Battle Mage: The Lost King (Tales of Alus) (7 page)

“There will be other wizards heading back as well. Perhaps checking with Magnus and the others from White Hall would make it easier. It doesn’t just have to be you, Brenner, but I’d feel better knowing that someone she knew was with her.”

Sighing, the excuses seemed to dwindle with the idea of traveling with one of the other teams returning west. After a slow nod, Brenner added, “I had thought to check with Shirama and the others from Windmeer, but perhaps those from White Hall would be more appropriate. If you entrust me with her, then I guess that I can’t refuse.”

Returning a smile for the less than enthusiastic words from the wizard, Sebastian thanked his friend and added, “I still need to tell Katya that I have to leave, but at least now I can tell her that you will bring her to school.”

With a shake of his head, Brenner grumpily replied, “You speak as if it is a simple walk down the block to a neighborhood school. I wish it were that simple.”

The mage chuckled at the idea. “True, but that’s why I can only ask the favor of someone I can call friend.”

“You know Magnus. Why not ask him?” the air wizard countered realizing the fact in retrospect to having already agreed.

“True, but I wouldn’t exactly call us close friends, in fact last summer he was still making my life miserable. I did help save his life though so perhaps I could have asked, but Katya still doesn’t know him. You’ve taken the time to talk with her. Perhaps you could look at her as an apprentice until you two reach White Hall. Katya still needs help learning how to tap into her power the way that she needs to be able to do. We can’t have her turning into a wilder and unleashing her mind control on helpless people,” Sebastian finished thinking of his sister’s natural ability. Had they come across Katya even a year later, she might have become a hazard to everyone around her with little hope of removing her bad habits. She would have become a wilder.

“Well, I guess I will just have to put up with the girl,” Brenner grumped as he fully gave in to the idea. “I wouldn’t want to be the one blamed for setting a wilder loose on the country. So what do you think her reaction will be to being sent on her way by her brother?” the man asked turning the discussion back to Sebastian’s own worry.

“She was always supposed to go to White Hall, which means that I wouldn’t be around to watch over her anyway. Separating here just means the break begins earlier than I might have planned. She should be able to understand that.”

The older man began to chuckle and genuine mirth entered his eyes. “Well, good luck telling her even so. Teenage girls love unexpected change like this I am sure.”

With the strange backhanded warning, the air wizard left Sebastian to consider just how he would explain sending Katya off to White Hall without him.

Chapter 5- Light and Dark

The morning air was brisk as Sebastian entered the courtyard, but held promise of warming to more spring like temperatures as the sun shown brightly. Shadows were cast by the dark keep, but even its black stone couldn’t dampen the day’s energy.

Set behind the king’s castle, this was one of two large courtyards that had been set aside for the Winter’s Edge tournament. It had been known as Two Ponds with those obvious features creating the name. Stone walls rose up around the courtyard preventing prying eyes from watching unless they were with the king’s guard or perhaps a visiting noble from one of several overlooking windows. Maybe it wasn’t the most secure of all spaces, but no prying ears could overhear without being noticed as the mage set to teaching what he had learned to more than three dozen men and women.

Seeing the dark uniforms of the falcons and even higher ranks of falcondi was not surprising, but about a third of those gathered wore the colorful robes of wizards. It was a first for one of his classes, though he had worked with his team of five wizards over the last few weeks teaching mage casting techniques. In fact, at his back followed his team, but even they were just there to learn this morning.

As he took a deep breath and watched as all those faces looking to him eager to learn, Sebastian began to feel disheartened as he often felt working with mages in these trainings. It wasn’t like they were discouraged to come learn from him, but he continually wished that he wasn’t always being called to train others. Only a full falcon since last summer, the mage still felt like he had more to learn and needed to train still, but they kept coming asking for him to do more and more for them.

Still the wizards were a new variable to this training. Mages knew the basics on which all of his own casting derived. He created spells the only way he knew how and that was as a battle mage.

“Well, we have quite a large amount of you gathered this morning,” the young man started nervously. “Raven Leros and High Wizards Culmore and Neferen wanted me to try and teach the new spells that I picked up during the tournament.” He paused to swallow feeling that his words were becoming a ridiculous jumble. This was the largest group he had ever spoken to before, yet competing before much larger crowds during the tournament he had never felt so nervous. Perhaps it was because that had been more of a faceless crowd and now all these eyes were directed on him alone. “I’m not sure that I will be as helpful to our wizard students if you haven’t studied any mage casting, but hopefully the wizards from my team will be able to break it down for you once they learn the spells that I know you have come to learn.”

“Can you teach us the black shields of Gray Hall?” a wizard dressed in the light blue robes of an air wizard asked. The man had been a contestant in the tournament, if Sebastian’s memory didn’t let him down.

“Wizard… Themenor, if I remember correctly?” Sebastian queried the man. He had been one of the many wizards to get derailed by the third round match’s four way duel.

The man nodded looking slightly surprised that his name had been remembered by someone that had never been his opponent. “Yes, I am surprised that you know me since I lost in the third round,” his smile slipped slightly towards a frown as he still felt the strangeness of the fight had let him down so early. “I wasn’t as lucky in that duel as I could have hoped.”

Whether the wizard meant that Sebastian had been lucky to get through the four way match, the mage had no idea but apparently many of the other mages and even wizards felt the man’s words implied it. Frowns and glares were directed at the wizard, but Sebastian merely smiled and replied, “I admit having the others in my match underestimate me was very helpful, though it was a bit of strategy to play to their beliefs. Still, you had it much rougher with a pair of water wizards ganging up on you, if I recall.
A wizard of Gray Hall drew most of the attention in my group, so I assume that you are quite strong as well since the others attacked you first.”

The air wizard began to smile a bit more. He was feeling appreciated and thought the mage had really understood the unfair circumstances leading to his early loss. Not wanting to continue with tournament stories during the training session, Sebastian brought the conversation back from the wizard, “I think most here are looking to solve the night shields so I guess that I will start there.”

Nods and brightened faces revealed that he was right. The only drawback to teaching this spell lay in the way he thought as a battle mage. “I will try and break it down for everyone to learn, but remember for our wizard students less familiar with mage casting please save your questions until the end. I am hoping that my team of wizards will understand the spell and be able to make it easier to understand for you better than I can. Since we all know that I am a battle mage, my grasp of spells may not translate as well as I hope.

“For those who understand and can cast our mage shields, this will probably be easiest for them. I liken the blue shields as a living magic. When we cast them we put our energy and strength into the blue shields. They can be refreshed and strengthened by adding more energy to them.”

A man in the black uniform of a falcon was the first to blurt, “We understand how to cast mage shields. What does this have to do with the night shield as you called it in your spell?”

Many others looked to be thinking the same thing. A mage shield was one of the earliest learned spells for a battle mage and considered basic by both mage and wizards’ standards.

Smiling sympathetically, Sebastian stated, “Bear with me. This does have a point.

“When I look at the basic shield I find that it represents and uses life. It’s a life line and we add our strength to it.

“A night shield is almost the opposite. The black shield seems to draw in the elements without ever taking on any of their properties. It demands energy and pulls at life to strengthen the shield. Look at it as a void trying to fill itself perhaps.”

Too many faces looked blankly at the mage standing in front of them, but Sebastian tried even so. “Night shield,” he ordered the spell and conjured a conservative size version of the black shield.

“Fireball,” the mage drew out perhaps the most basic of all spells between both branches of magic. Leaving it to hover over his right hand, Sebastian brought the flame closer to the black shield. As it balanced several inches away from the shield, the fireball seemed to begin to change shape. Flames began to pull away from the main ball and moved to the black shield, which seemed to feed on the elemental magic, until soon all the fire was gone.

A general murmur had begun to rise from the start of the demonstration and grew as the flames died. Even the wizards and mages from his team seemed to be surprised by the display. Soon the questions came as they inevitably always did in these groups.

The next hours passed as Sebastian continued to try to put the spell into terms that would help battle mages sort the spell for their minds. He also tried to reconstruct not only the shield spell but that of the light in such a way that at least the team that had been working with him for several weeks could figure out how it worked for them. Surprised that few took to the dark shields easily, the mage recalled that the Gray wizard he had first used the spell against had told him that it had taken him almost two years to perfect.

Though a few seemed to understand the light spell, especially among the wizards already used to calling fire for their own magic, the night shield took many failed attempts before even one of the others could call up a weak version of his own. With such slow progress, Sebastian realized that his training for the day would be consumed with just the two Gray Hall spells. Whether he could move on to other spells
like his lightning with the battle mages tomorrow was questionable. It was also frustrating, since he had hoped to pass on his knowledge and maybe find a way to leave for his mission early.

“So let’s see what the mighty mizard has figured out now,” the voice came from behind him as Sebastian stood working with a pair of mages trying to grasp the night shield. Turning, the mage looked over at Magnus and a pair of wizards flanking him.

“They’ve started calling me an owl now,” he replied with a self conscious smile.

Feigning a horrible loss, the wizard in red shook his head and lay a hand on his forehead. “How could I, the Winter’s Edge champion, be so wrong?”

“You’re only as good as your last win, I hear,” joked the mage in return. Despite the bad blood between them, he felt that it was in the past. At least things seemed to be much better that had involved them since the previous summer.

“This is true,” the red wizard nodded in affirmation to his friends to either side as he finished crossing the distance across the courtyard. “It’s been almost forty eight hours since I won, but even then you had to upstage me with that water spell. My moment was tragically short.”

Cringing a bit even if the sarcastic remark was meant as humor, Sebastian added, “It only worked because of your quick thinking and those mage cylinders you made. The water probably wouldn’t have made it inside the wind wall without your help.”

“That is also true. Maybe you are an owl spilling all this truth after all,” Magnus smiled lessening the bite of his words. “Now maybe you’ll be able to show me the truth of these wizards from Gray Hall or at least their spells.”

“Night shield,” the mage ordered the spell completing the black defense that seemed capable of defeating almost every elemental spell. “You have a better knowledge of our mage shields than most of your comrades. Think of this as the opposite. Where our shields are made of energy, these draw magic into them.” It was a simplistic version of the information he had given the others a few hours earlier and, after such a long time teaching, the mage didn’t truly want to get into yet another explanation of the spell.

“And you lock it in place letting an opponent charge it?” the man in red half questioned thoughtfully. He had been training in battle mage techniques since the previous Fall and did have a much stronger grasp of the quick spells of a battle mage, even some of those created by Sebastian more recently. “I see that it is also the opposite of fire magic. We throw ourselves into our magic. There is a passion to our art, but this darkness is hollow and lacking.”

Sebastian was surprised at the more artistic and philosophical approach to the night shield Magnus was bringing to the conversation. Even in his consideration of the spells not only of Gray Hall but from the wizards of Southwall, the mage had not thought of the passion a wizard put into a spell. It seemed a little theatrical, but at the same time it described the difference between magic quite well.