Dawn (18 page)

“
Okay Dad, what is so important that you woke me up at three in the morning?”

Llewellyn’s fur flickered and churned. It was almost incandescent as he stood and opened a small sack and poured out two small red stones into his hand. They were each about the size of a pea and were glowing on their own accord. “Toch the Red wanted me to see if these still worked.”

“
And they are what? I am needed why?” asked Dawn.

“
Oh, these are gate stones. They’ve been off world for about two hundred years. You did so well with the regular gates I figured you’d have the best chance of talking to them.”

“
Gate stones? As in the ones given to the Shukurae?”

“
Yep, yep! Here, take one. See if you can make contact. Lynn! Try the other!”

Dawn cocked her head, “Okay, mister ‘I have to wake everyone up at three,’ what is in it for us? Maria said there should be some sort of
quid pro quo.
”

“
Maria!” Llewellyn pouted, “That’s not fair…”

“
Neither was waking me up at three! The pouting isn’t going to work. Now if you had waited until civilized people got up…”

“
I’m not civilized?” asked Llewellyn as he cocked his head. “Eh. On second thought, don’t answer that question. Okay, fine. A trip to the dress shop for both of you?”

Dawn smiled, “Sounds fair. Now hand me the little stone.”

Llewellyn beamed as he passed out the two glowing stones.

“
Okay, it knows my name,” commented Lynn immediately. “That is four flavors of weird.”

Dawn’s mind flared as she touched the stone. She could feel it rummage through her brain in a very impersonal way. With gritted teeth she passed it back to Llewellyn, “That. That was creepy.”

Llewellyn looked disappointed, “That’s it?”

“
Growl at it, Llewellyn,” beamed Lynn. “Growl a location to it…”

Llewellyn held the stone out in his hand and
growled
. Both Dawn and Lynn recoiled as the sound hit their brain before it hit their ears. As the sound vanished, so did Llewellyn.

“
Dad!” screamed Dawn. Both girls quickly spun around in panic.

“
I’m fine!” came his voice from the front hall.

Dawn and Lynn raced to the front of the Citadel just in time to watch Llewellyn walk through the gate from Blackhawk River.

“
That was fantastic! It took me straight to the other portal! Good call, Lynn!” He frowned as he looked down at the stone. It wasn’t glowing. “Well, that is no fun. It isn’t glowing anymore.”

“
Is it broken?” asked Dawn, more worried about Llewellyn’s ‘pretty toy’ than about the stone in itself.

“
History books say it took a while for them to recharge. It was a short distance, so I had hoped it would be quick. I guess not!” Llewellyn beamed as he looked at the girls. “Okay, let’s go out front and try the other!”

“
Someone is giddy,” mused Lynn.

“
You should have seen him at three in the morning. Kid with a new toy,” joked Dawn as they walked out front.

“
Dawn, what is the name of this Citadel,” Llewellyn asked suddenly.

“
It has a name?”

“
When you touched a portal, it said your name. Did the Citadel not reply?”

“
Well, I remember ‘Llewellyn’ but I thought that was in reference to you.”

“
Eh, it’s a common enough name. Dawn, take the stone and call the Citadel’s name.”

“
Seriously?”

“
Seriously! I have a theory,” replied Llewellyn with eyes wide like a kid in a candy store.

Dawn took a hold of the stone again. She was ready for it this time, but it was still creepy. She tried to fight through the unpleasant feeling and focused instead on the Citadel. As she did, she squirmed in discomfort. She could feel the stone pulling at her until she finally realized what was causing the discomfort. She quickly undid the back of her dress and, with a relief of pain she didn’t know she had, winked her wings into being. The stone all but smiled at her. Instead of the feelings of discomfort it was radiant and supportive, she felt stronger and happier just holding it! With a happy heart, she tried again. She concentrated on the Citadel, calling it out by name and she felt the stone start to throb in her hand. She placed it on the ground and stood back. She could still feel it and she concentrated further. She relaxed her breathing as if it was a fighting exercise and slowly spread her wings. As her wings lifted and spread, a blue spiral erupted from the gate stone and grew and grew. With a song in her heart and her wings at full extension, the portal stabilized floating there in space.

“
It just wanted me to be ‘me.’” She laughed, “And I guess ‘me’ includes the wings.”

“
No discomfort this time?” asked Llewellyn.

“
No. Not once I invoked my wings. Far from it. It was comforting and happy. Very strange, but fun.”

“
Um, guys. Is that us in the distance?” asked Lynn as she pointed at the image in the portal.

Llewellyn smiled as he looked at image, “Yep, the back blank wall. It has opened. Everyone wave at yourself!”

Dawn laughed at her father’s antics. He was definitely a kid.

“
Be right back!” smiled Llewellyn as he stepped through the threshold. He seamlessly passed through the wormhole and walked at the far side, the interior of the barbican. He took the ‘long’ way back as he walked the halls back to the pair of astonished girls. “Okay, that is enough fun for the day! We’ll try more of this later. Off to the dress store we go! How many do you want?”

Dawn and Lynn laughed.

“
Well, if you are feeling generous,” mused Dawn.

“
Whatever you want girls, seriously…,” beamed Llewellyn.

Dawn almost felt guilty, like she was abusing her father’s obvious giddiness. Then she remembered being awakened at three in the morning and the guilt faded away. “One each is fine. But they have to be nice!”

“
Tobias,” began Llewellyn, “Gavin is very fast and very skilled for his size and age. He has also had the advantage of seeing you fight a lot. He knows what type of patterns and rhythms you tend to get into. Those patterns offer you speed of muscle memory but also set you up for predictability. Be aware.”

Dawn squirmed nervously on her perch by the side of the practice field. It was another day of Live Steel work for the older boys and it looked like it was going to get serious. While she knew Gavin couldn’t get seriously physically hurt, she knew that Live Steel practice could be excruciatingly painful.

“
Don’t worry,” comforted Lynn as she tried to burp Lily. “Gavin knows what he is doing.”

“
Oh, I do hope so,” replied Dawn.

“
Gavin,” continued Llewellyn, “Tobias is tall, very strong and has been doing this for two years more than you. He has taken full power body shots and shaken off the pain in less than thirty seconds, so you are
not
going to be able to intimidate him in any way. He has seen you mix weapon types in rapid succession, so he is not easily going to be caught off guard by that.” He took a deep breath and addressed them both, “This is
practic
e
. Your blades know that and I know that. Someone is going to be in a lot of pain in the next 5 minutes―that is a simple fact of practice at this level. You are here to learn, and the one thing I want to stress to both of you today is to think―concentrate!―on what you want the result of a strike to be. Don’t worry about the how, it is the what. Are both of you ready?”

Tobias gave a short nod and Gavin did likewise.

“
I think I want to crawl down a hole and hide,” murmured Dawn.

“
Don’t you dare! If he wins, he will want you to have seen it. If he doesn’t, he’ll really,
really
want to have a friendly face around.”

Dawn had to agree with Lynn, but that didn’t mean she had to like it.

“
The field is yours, gentlemen!” announced Llewellyn.

The two just stared at each other for almost a minute, until Gavin suddenly cracked a smile and laughed. With that Tobias winked in a great sword and charged Gavin. As he started his swing the blade metamorphosed into a great long, and quite sinister looking, pole ax. Gavin responded at the last second with a pair of swords, longer straight sword in his right hand, shorter but heavier sword in his left, and plowed the latter down on the end of Tobias’s weapon trying to send it into the earth while attacking his exposed arm with the right. Tobias brilliantly split his weapon into two similar swords expertly parrying both. The flurry began once again as both sides danced across the field sending a vast arsenal of weapons winking in and out of existence in a never-ending fireworks display of blue sparks.

Endurance.
Thought Dawn.
Does Gavin have the endurance? Tobias is just going to wear him down.

The pair separated and slowly started to circle each other. Gavin closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Tobias didn’t fall for the opening, so Gavin kept his eyes shut and took another deep breath as his swords winked out and were gone.

Dawn’s hair stood on end. She knew there was getting ready to be a tremendous exchange and the anticipation was gnawing at her.

Gavin opened his eyes and then charged Tobias empty handed. Tobias obliged Gavin and counter-charged with two swords at the ready. Just as they closed, Tobias swung high with one sword and thrust to the middle with the off hand. Gavin ducked and turned into a spin where he slapped his bare hand against the flat of the thrusted blade and continued the spin, putting his elbow in Tobias’ ribs. As the larger boy recoiled from the pain, Gavin produced a pair of short swords and made for a body blow. To most everyone’s surprise, Tobias was able to rake both of Gavin’s swords out of line with his own sword as his spun clear of his shorter opponent.

“
That didn’t work,” mumbled Dawn.

“
But it almost did,” countered the still eager Lynn.

Gavin’s fur rippled briefly and then went black. Not an almost black like previous times, but a solid even black from tip to toe. He looked up at Tobias and narrowed his eyes into slits, looking like a feral cat.

Dawn broke into a wild grin; she had seen that same expression on her father when the kartivalds had attacked, “Gavin has him. Game, set, match!”

Lynn looked up with some confusion at the sudden change in heart, “Um?”

A blue flash raked across the ground and Gavin started his charge. Blue flash but no real sign of a blade!

“
Freeze!” yelled Llewellyn with such force that several startled spectators fell over. He raced to put himself between the two boys. Fortunately both heard and understood him through the brain fog of combat and held their arms wide and open as they dismissed their weapons. Llewellyn let out a sigh of relief when it was clear both had stood down. “Gavin, off the field. We need to talk. Tobias, take a break. We’ll find someone else for you to spar with.”

Both parties looked confused but obeyed without question.

Dawn laughed and pointed, “Look at the flowers!” Indeed there were two long races of tall flowers that now graced the field where Gavin’s phantom swords had swept. She jumped off her perch and ran over and embraced a very confused Gavin. “That was fantastic!”

“
But I didn’t get a chance to close,” he protested very confused.

“
Look at what you did to the field! Look at the flowers!”

Gavin blinked and stared a bit. The flowers were nothing special to look at, but they were of full height and bloom right in the middle of the field where they had been practicing. A field that was, until very recently, quite thoroughly trampled. “I did that?”

Llewellyn clasped Gavin on the shoulder, “Indeed you did. If I hadn’t stopped you, you would have made a serious mess of the field and possibly those houses there on the edge.”

Dawn was positively giddy, “That was beyond fantastic!”

Gavin was no more enlightened than he was 30 seconds earlier. “Huh?”

“
When you started to close, what weapons did you have in your hands?” asked Llewellyn.

“
I don’t recall. I wasn’t paying attention; all I was thinking about was where they were going rather than how they were shaped.”

“
Excellent! That is exactly how it should be. I think you are done with practice here. From now on it is private practice or not at all. I’m serious. No pick up fights.”

Gavin nodded, happy for the praise but still a bit overwhelmed. “Yes, sir. No pick up fights.”

“
Gee, I guess that means you will be spending more time over at my house,” teased Dawn.

Gavin brightened at that, “Like I needed an excuse. Now it’s an order!”

The pair had a quick laugh.

Dawn wiggled her nose excitedly as she hugged Gavin again, “Oh, I did like how you were able to finally do a true black. That was quite flattering.”

Gavin shrugged and smiled, “I didn’t know I had it in me. I just did it.”

“
You and your baby Forest Wall,” Dawn giggled. She stole a glance at Llewellyn, “So does that make him number nineteen?”