The Eye of Elicion: The Kinowenn Chronicles Vol 1 (27 page)

“How does that feel?”

“Better,” Lucy replied, sitting up without the blinding pain.

“Lie back down. You’re healed, but that takes a toll on the body too. Let me check over the rest of you to make sure there’s nothing else seriously wrong that’s going to pop up later.”

Lucy lay back down on the bed and closed her eyes as Justin worked. Justin started at her head. He touched her brow and searched, she didn’t have a concussion. That was good to find out. He was thankful that the problem she had had left her able to communicate with him. If she had fallen asleep in the bathtub with a concussion…He shuddered at the thought. He worked his way down her body. She was black and blue all over, and he healed the bruises as well. He moved the towels around to assess as much as he could and still let her maintain some semblance of modesty. When he was done with the front, he asked her to roll over. There he found three pulled back muscles that were sure to have provided her with lots of pain later. Further down he also found a slightly torn right calf muscle. When he finished, he sat back on his heels and sighed.

“Done?”

“I pronounce you less injured than before.”

“Somewhat reassuring,” she said and grinned at him.

“My professional opinion is that you should take a nap and let your body adjust to everything I’ve done. I’ve messed about with it quite a bit and it needs some time to recover. Where are your pajamas?”

She indicated a drawer and he brought them to her.

“I’ll make sure you don’t miss supper.”

“Thank you,” she yawned.

Justin left. Lucy pulled on her pajamas, moving slowly. She wasn’t in pain anymore, but she was still slightly sore and very tired. She got under the covers and fell asleep within seconds.

“
You know what’s going on?”
Justin called softly while walking down the hallway.

“
Yes?”

“
Were you watching? Did I fix everything?”

“
You did fine. She’ll be ok.”

“
Did you know she was hurt?”
Justin asked, somewhat accusingly.

“
I didn’t know how bad she was until she tried to get out of the bathtub. Then, I could feel her pain. I was on my way down when I heard her call you. You are sufficiently skilled, and she trusts you, so I thought I’d better watch and be ready to help if needed but let you handle it. You did a good job.”

“
Are the others ok?”

“
Mostly bumps and bruises, nothing too serious. By the way, don’t be too hard on Gavin. He didn’t hurt her on purpose, and it is an interesting idea.”

“
You mean it provided you with endless entertainment.”

“
That too.”

Justin ended the conversation and continued down the hallway.

None of the group had any lasting side effects from Gavin’s horse exercise other than an aversion to duplicate the attempt or anything like it any time soon. Any suggestions Gavin had about further training were met with groans from the rest. Mostly they were teasing, but underneath that there was a kernel of seriousness. They made it clear that if Gavin wanted to push his body and skills to ever further limits, that was his prerogative, but he could only make them participate in insanity at their own acquiescence. Secretly, they couldn’t deny the potential possibility of the skill coming in handy some day, but they all hoped they would not end up in a position to need to use it.

In the meantime, Justin kept Lucy busy teaching her or learning with her any skill he could come up with that could be useful. Maya and Gavin usually worked on other skills while they did this because most of what they were working on was much more magically advanced than anything Maya or Gavin had potential for. Justin and Lucy worked on performing illusions of any number, often using the others as guinea pigs. They covered Gavin with snakes, surrounded Maya with flames, made it appear to Gavin that he was missing a hand, and any other number of things that were not designed to hurt, but inspire fear or doubt. They did not want to hurt people accidentally.

Some of the ideas they thought up were good in theory but had the potential for flaws in actuality. In a practice fight, they made Gavin’s sword invisible to him. For the average fighter, this might lead to confusion, especially if they were still at the level where they watched their own weapons. Gavin, on the other hand was completely unbothered as he always knew where his weapons were and had been practicing fighting blindfolded for months. It caused more stress to his opponent who couldn’t respond to an invisible weapon. So, not the idea that Justin originally thought up, but an interesting side idea just the same. A possible advantage to Gavin.

Justin and Lucy worked on more complicated illusions as well. After a couple of days of hard work, Lucy was able to multiply herself into the illusion of six different people. What she had trouble with was trying to make them not all move the same. On one hand it was a thoroughly impressive display of arms to have six people run through a drill at the same speed, timing, and accuracy. On the other hand, she couldn’t surround a person with her illusionary people. The whole effect was rather odd. Justin could make his illusions do different things, and that helped as a distraction technique.

They experimented with different ideas until Lucy found something that was more effective for her. Rather than make many multiples of herself, she only needed one. She could control one illusion and make it do what she wanted. At the same time, she was able to bend light or blend in enough with the background that she was invisible. She worked until it was hard to figure out when she did it. As an exercise, they had her do an experimental spar with Gavin. They started out sparring with swords. When Gavin disarmed her, she rolled away, stood up, and duplicated an image of herself right on top of her solid body. Then, she stepped out of her image while bending the light and disappearing at the same time. She formed a fireball in the hand of her illusion as a threat. Gavin paused at this. He wasn’t sure if Lucy would really throw a fireball at him or not or if the fireball was an illusion. Gavin’s best defense against fireballs was dodging. His physical reflexes were much more honed than his magical abilities. Magically deflecting the fireball was a less reliable option for him than dodging. Thus, he paused. Justin hadn’t told him precisely what Lucy was going to be trying out on him today. His pause gave the real Lucy enough time to slip around behind him and hold a dagger to his throat. At this point, she reappeared and her illusion vanished. Gavin was impressed.

“I did sense you at the very last minute though,” he said. “It’s a subtlety you’ll want to work on in time but nothing to worry about at the moment. I could smell you when you got close behind me. The illusion is effective, but illusion cannot duplicate the natural smell of a beautiful woman,” he said with a smile and wink.

Lucy laughed back. Smells and other things they could work on later. Besides, if they were traveling around she doubted she was going to smell good for very long. For now, she hoped, the basic illusions would suffice. It was interesting to think about the competition. Lucy doubted that any other group was training as hard as they were or had reached their level or adeptness at so many different skills. At the same time, Lucy was filled with inadequacy and doubt. She felt she still had so much to learn. There was always more. Lucy was not simply preparing for the competition; she was trying to be as ready as she could be for whatever was in store for her. She felt a sense of urgency from somewhere. She sensed she was needed for something and she did not have as much time to prepare for whatever that was than the average student got. Or even Justin for that matter. How long had he been there? He claimed to be a student, but he knew much more than most students. He was almost as much a teacher to her as her actual teachers. That couldn’t be a common practice.

Speaking of Justin, he was enjoying the weeks leading up to the competition more than he had enjoyed anything else recently. He had been challenging himself in every aspect he could since the age of two. He rarely found peers or playmates he could actually enjoy spending time with. Although Gavin was a godsend when it came to being able to spar with someone, Lucy was the first peer he’d worked with that was up to his level of magic. She learned so quickly and stepped up to every challenge he threw at her. At times, she even challenged him back. His usual sardonic humor was still there, but added to that was a lightheartedness he had not felt since Taren left.

Even after all their preparation, they were still nervous the night before the competition. Everyone was. The Dining Hall was the quietest it’d ever been since the existence of the school. Lucy glanced around at her fellow students and noticed them picking at their food, their faces varying shades of green and gray. It was almost a relief to watch Gavin and Justin eating with their usual, though semi-unbelievable vigor. Gavin was on his third helping of meatloaf. Maya shuddered in his direction. She had carefully avoided the meatloaf on the basis that it did not specify what type of meat. Lucy was about ready to suggest they leave since the whole atmosphere was either going to depress her or make her really nervous when Darren appeared.

“Hello,” he said to everyone at the table.

“Hello,” replied Justin with an ironic smile.

Maya and Lucy smiled while Gavin simply nodded, his mouth full of meatloaf.

“Good luck on the competition tomorrow,” Darren said.

“Thank you,” said Maya kindly. “We wish you luck as well.”

Justin arched an eyebrow at Maya, but didn’t say anything.

“Can I talk to you?” he asked Lucy.

“Sure,” Lucy got up and walked with him out of the Dining Hall. Once they were in the hallway she smiled at him. “So are you guys ready for tomorrow?”

“As ready as we can be,” he smiled and shrugged. “We’ve worked hard, but I’ve been watching your group a little, and there’s no way we’d ever be close to you.”

“Don’t say things like that. I’m sure you’ll do fine,” Lucy said, trying to sound encouraging rather than placating.

“Oh, we’ll do fine, but not as good as you. I can fight well, and Chloe is good with fighting and potions and such, but none of us have the raw magical talent that you and Justin have, much less the practice and training to use it as you can. Also, we are all new students. There are other groups that will do better simply because they have been here longer and have more training. On some level we can’t compete with students that have had classes we won’t even take for a couple of years yet.”

Lucy simply nodded. She wasn’t sure what to say to that because it was basically true. Groups with students who had been here longer were bound to do better. For younger groups the competition was more for fun and experience rather than winning. Her group however, intended to win. Even with her small amount of time at the school, she did not think she was going to be too much of a detriment to her team. From what she had seen, few other students had the magical talents of Justin and, not to sound too egotistical, herself. The fact that Justin had Lucy in his group and was training her to his standards put every other group at a disadvantage. Unless, of course, one of the challenges was more academic than practical; she feared she would not do well with a challenge on magical theory.

“Anyways,” he smiled, “I mainly wanted to say hi and find out how you were doing. I haven’t seen you much lately outside of class.”

“I’m good, and you?”

“Fine, are they pushing you too hard?”

“Not too bad. It’s not so much them pushing me that worries me. I get more worried when they think up crazy ideas to push themselves and expect me to keep up. Asking me to try things they can do is one thing. Asking me to try things that might even be beyond their talents is a bit scary.” She shrugged and told him about Gavin’s horse training.

“Wow, we are no where near even thinking about trying something that crazy. It sounds like a useful skill to have in battle in the real world when you’re with an army against an army, but it seems a bit over the top for this competition.”

“I know and that’s what I’m talking about. It’s almost as though this competition is an excuse for them to train in even more extreme ways.”

“I watch Gavin practice and see the things he can do. I’m glad that I only fight him to spar and in a friendly environment. I would not want to come up against him in battle.”

Lucy laughed, “Definitely. The thing that really worries me is that he looks for a challenge. I shudder to think that he might see being grossly outnumbered as giving the other side a fighting chance. Here that’s fine, but can you imagine going to another land with him?”

“Yes, it would go something like… ‘Wait here for me if you please, there are only 30 of them. It will take me but a minute, and if they see any more of us, they might get scared away.’”

Lucy laughed even harder, “Exactly. However, in his defense, he might really be that good.”

They walked down the hallway in silence for awhile, both picturing Gavin doing insane things like that and smiling. He might really be that good, reflected Lucy, but it was different beating people in a fair sparring match set up for physical training than fighting against people who didn’t just want to win, but wanted to kill you. How would Gavin fare under those conditions? Following that thought, how would she fare under those conditions? Darren interrupted her steadily disturbing train of thought.

“I also wanted to make sure you were still coming with me to the banquet,” Darren said quietly.

“Of course, why wouldn’t I be?”

“Well, you have been spending a lot of time with Justin, and I wanted to make sure you hadn’t changed your mind.”

“Justin and I spend time training together. I said I would go with you and that is what I intend to do.” Was he jealous of Justin? Was there a reason he should be?

Darren looked like he wanted to say something else but decided against it. They reached the staircase that Lucy went up, and he went down and paused.

“Good luck tomorrow.”