Rise of the Retics

by T J Lantz

  “Gnipper, I know you’re tired,” Tyranna said, “but you have to admit the views from up here are fantastic.” She took a second to look upon the city, watching hundreds of retics buzz about their daily lives like insects in a hive.

  “Besides Gnip,” added Sam, “think how proud of yourself you’re going to be once you can tell everyone that you climbed Rosehaven’s highest peak.”

  “It does sound nice,” she agreed. “Do you think the professor will be impressed?”

  “Of course,” Tyranna lied. She didn’t know much about Professor Tallhat, but she did notice that he didn’t seem to get impressed by anything he didn’t come up with himself.

  “Get out of the way half-bloods,” snapped Bubble she pushed past. “V.I.F. flying through.”

  “V.I.F?” asked Tyranna as she took a step to the side of the narrow mountain path.

  “Very Important Faerie,” snapped Gertrude, Bubble’s dwarven stooge. “Don’t you half-bloods know anything?”

  “You know they don’t, Gertie. “ Bubble said. “My sister says all half-bloods should have their legs encased in stone and dropped in the middle of the ocean. She says it would make Rosehaven a much better place to live. I agree with her. “

  “Yeah, Bubble,” Jaxon snapped back, “but your sister is also a lunatic.”

  “How dare you speak ill of my family, Demon. At least my mother didn’t abandon me out of embarrassment.”

  “Take that back, Bubble. No one insults my mother, but me!” Rigby began to growl at Bubble’s hovering form.

  Tyranna could see anger forming inside Jaxon’s body. She’d seen his emotions snap fast in the short time they’d been friends, and she knew it was about to happen again. She needed to step in.

  “Leave him alone, Bubble,” she said Why don’t you just go fly up front and walk with Creek and Coach Yogee and we’ll stay back here?”

  “Oh look Gertie,” said Bubble mockingly. “The new girl thinks she can tell us what to do. How rude of her. Perhaps we should teach her some manners?”

  Gertrude placed her fingers together and loudly cracked her knuckles. The sound echoed off the mountain side.

  Tyranna took a step back. That wasn’t how she expected the conversation to go. She’d never been in fight, but she could feel her body beginning to tense as it suspected that might change soon.

  “Try to touch my friend and you need to deal with me,” snapped Sam, stepping in between Tyranna and Gertrude. She shoved Tyranna and Jaxon back, clearing space in case she needed to fight.

  “Sorry, Samantha,” said Bubble, her words dripping with sarcasm. “It was supposed to be the half-bloods standing there when this happened, not you. I hope you understand this was nothing personal. You just picked friends really, really poorly. Oh well.”

  “What are you talking about Bub . . .?” Sam stopped in the middle of her question.

  Tyranna wasn’t sure if she heard, saw, or felt the vibration of the ground first, but no sense gave her time to react. Bull had started to charge, and was already at full speed. Bubble and Gertrude had been in in charge of setting up positioning so that Bull could rush out and knock Jaxon and her off the trail, over the cliff, and to their death. Now Sam was in the position they should have been in.

  ROOF! Rigby let out a large bark as she ploughed into Sam, sensing the danger before any of the rest of them. Sam went sprawling into a somersault, landing near the rock face and away from the ledge. Rigby took over her former position in front of the charging minotaur.

  Bull didn’t care that the targets had changed; he was already committed. He continued his charge, lowering his shoulder into the four-legged defender. Rigby yelped as he hit her, trying her best to hold her ground against the much larger opponent, but his momentum proved far too much. She flayed on the dusty path trying to find something to hold onto, but the ground was bare.

  “Rigby!” screamed Jaxon as she disappeared over the side of the cliff.

  “What’s going on back there?” screamed Coach Yogee, noticing the loud commotion at the back of the line.

  “Accident!” yelled Bull putting his hands up in a gesture of innocence, “Total accident. Sorry about that. She walked in front of me and I didn’t see her. I told you this was dangerous for an untrained animal!”

  Jaxon, Gnipper and Tyranna rushed to the side to the cliff, peering down after their fallen compatriot. Sam, on the other side of the path where Rigby had pushed her to safety, drew her swords.

  “You tried to kill me, you horned murderer. I demand retribution.”

  “Samantha, put your weapons away!” screamed Coach Yogee in a deep that showed there was no room for negotiation. “Bull said it was an accident, and there’s no reason to believe that’s not true.”

  “But Coach,” Sam snapped back, “they set it up. He was trying to knock one of us off the cliff. Rigby just saved my life.”

  “Wait,” interrupted Tyranna. She saw a small black and white speck a few meters down. “I think I see her!”

  “Wh..What?” asked Jaxon through tears. “Where?”

  “Down there, to the right. On that ledge.”

  “Rigby?” called Jaxon hopefully. “RIGBY?”

  Roof!

  “I see her! I see her!” exclaimed Jaxon, the terror gone from his voice. “Rigby are you ok?”

  Roof!

  “She’s alright! I can tell from her bark. How are we going to get her from up here?”

  “I have a rope!” exclaimed Coach Yogee. “Bubble can fly down and tie it around her and we can bring her up that way.”

  “Sorry, Coach,” answered Bubble, “just can’t do that. My mother only lets me fly ten feet or lower off the ground. And with these winds, anything could happen. I could get knocked into the side of the mountain or my hair could get knotted. I’m just not willing to risk the health of my body or my luscious head of hair for some mutt that was too stupid to stay on the path.”

  “That’s a lie, Bubble, and you know it!” Sam was seething as she spoke. “Bull knocked her off, and that’s only because she jumped in the way to save me!”

  “I already said it was an accident,” Bull added loudly.

  “Enough, you two. Bickering over how it happened isn’t solving anything. Sam, you’re our fastest runner. I need you to go and get Sheriff Quicktrigger and have him deploy someone from air patrol to come help.

  CRACK!

  The sound made Tyranna’s heart jump. Someone needed to do something quick. What if she changed into a bird and flew a rope down? She hadn’t practiced flying so high up…”

  “Coach, the ledge is cracking!” she Tyranna. She started breathing at a steadier pace, thinking of the black hawk form that she’d been working on. She tried to change, but her emotions were too tense. She needed to be calm or she wouldn’t keep her mental faculties. It would be like the woods with Branchy all over again, where she didn’t even know what happened.

  Roof Roof! Rigby’s bark was quick and panicked.

  “Oh no,” cried Jaxon, “Someone do something!”

  “Hold these!” snapped Sam, handing her sword-belt to Jaxon as she grabbed the rope from Coach Yogee.

  “What are you doing, Sam?” asked Gnipper. “I’ve seen that look on your face before. It’s your honor-is-going-to-make-me-do-something-stupid-look. You get it every time you have to save me from something bad.”

  “That dog saved my life. I’m going to return the favor. Tyr, tie this off and make sure it’s strong.” Tyranna took the rope and followed Sam’s instructions. Sam tied the other end around her waist.

  “Samantha Bushytail, I told you to go get the sheriff!”

  “I’m so sorry, Coach. You heard the ledge cracking. There’s just no time. Is it tied securely?”

  “I found a strong tree,” answered Tyranna as she double checked her knot, “and it’s not going anywhere.”

  “Good,” Sam replied before turning toward the ledge, taking a running leap, and diving off.

  Everyone
else, including Bubble and Bull, gasped in horror.

  Tyranna ran to the edge and watched as Sam dove several meters down, twisting her body and waiting for the rope to snap taught. The force of the rope allowed her to throw her legs out and catch herself on the rock face. Tyranna knew that the rope tied around her waist could not have felt good.

  “She’s ok, I think!” Tyr said. “She’s stopped right near Rigby. She’s tying the rope around her now. Wait. She had to stop. Rigby won’t stop licking her face. Ok, she’s good again.”

  “Pull us up!” echoed Sam’s faint voice.

  “Everyone, on the rope,” ordered the coach. “One. Two, Three. Heave!”

  Working together, the cohort was able to bring Rigby and Sam up in a few minutes.

  “Oh Sam, thank-you,” said Jaxon as he bent down to hug Rigby.

  “I owed her,” Sam responded, as she bent down and gently patted Rigby’s head.

  Tyranna smiled. She never expected an attempt on her life could turn out so good.

  Brakkus, the troll who had still not spoken to anyone since school started, walked up to Sam and handed her a purple lily he had picked from the trail.

  Chapter 17

  May the rivers run red

  Jaxon

  Rosehaven: Thales Academy

  November 10, 1503

  “You are not concentrating at all!” the dark-skinned house lord snapped.

  “Yes I am!”

  Jaxon lied. Malverne was right. All he could think of was how Bull and Bubble tried to murder him. He was used to people hating him, but he’d always managed to avoid them trying to kill him. Now, between the arena match and the mountain hike, he’d almost died twice in a single season.

  “If you were concentrating, Master Miniheart, than you would not be failing so miserably.”

  Jaxon bit his tongue to keep the words he was thinking from being released. He had been working with Lord Malverne for three hours a night, every night, for almost three weeks now, and still he was not progressing. He thought by now that he would at least be able to light the hearth from across the room or get the sconces lit with a thought—something to show off a bit. But no, still nothing.

  He felt even worse about lying to Tyranna about his progress, but he just couldn’t tell her the truth. Who wanted to be friends with a failure? He knew he wouldn’t. If he couldn’t harness his power, they could both be dead at any moment.

  Malverne was the worst part of it all. He was always on his back about proper breathing or learning to control his emotions. Did he think that just because he could perform a few dainty little parlor tricks that he had the qualifications to be teaching a demon sorcerer? The dark elf was clearly both delusional and brain damaged. Jaxon hated him as much as he had ever hated anyone in the world.

  “Let us start again, Jaxon,” Malverne said with a sigh. “Remember what I taught you.”

  Jaxon groaned loudly, so that his teacher could hear his frustration.

  “What is rule number one?” he asked patronizingly.

  “Rule number one is understand my emotion.” Jaxon spoke through gritted teeth.

  “And what are you feeling right now?”

  “Annoyance,” Jaxon responded truthfully, “and anger and tiredness.”

  “Good. We can use that,” he replied emphatically. “Concentrate on those feelings. Wrap your whole body around them. Power comes from within. It is amplified with emotion. If you want to control your abilities then you need to learn to control your emotions and not let them control you. You need to harness their innate power and let it flow through you.”

  Jaxon tried. He breathed like he was supposed to. He thought about the feeling like he was supposed to. He tried to remain calm like he was supposed to. He tried to tap into it like he was supposed to. And then, when he thought he couldn’t concentrate any harder . . . nothing happened—again.

  “Ugggh, I can’t do this,” Jaxon growled. “You’re not showing me the right way!”

  “Do not try to pin your failure on me, Demon. It is easy to see that you still cannot control your own inner turmoil. Remember, I’ve been doing this since long before you were born.” To show his point Lord Malverne raised his right hand, engulfing it in a bright purple and orange flame.

  “The elements do not wish to be conjured or controlled Miniheart. It is up to us to force them to obey our will. We accomplish that only by learning to master our emotions, to bend that power in any way we see fit. It’s why you were able to defend yourself in the arena. Your fear took over. It protected you when you could not. Now try again.”

  Jaxon clenched his fists and tightly closed his eyes. He tried to concentrate completely on his anger, on how much he wanted to show Malvern that he was stronger than him, but again nothing happened.

  “Uggh, I just can’t do it,” Jaxon yelled, dropping to his knees.

  “Enough!” Malverne snapped. “I see that we are going too fast. You are still letting your emotions overpower you and take your mind away. You need to be in control—to concentrate and focus the energy. It is not about suppressing the anger, it’s about focusing it toward your goal. Emotion is energy, and energy can be manipulated with a disciplined mind. I don’t believe that you are ready yet. Tomorrow we go back to breathing exercises and meditation.”

  Jaxon grunted loudly and stormed off toward his room. He didn’t get it. Control the emotions, use the emotions, tap into their power. He was doing all of that and nothing was working. He obviously wasn’t the problem. Maybe it was time to try something different. As always, he had a plan.

  #

  Jaxon let out a small sigh of relief as he plopped down on his bed. It had been another exhausting day and the only thing that ached more than his muscles was his brain.

  “Oh, just a few more days, Rigby. Then we’ll be back home living our lives as free as we want.” He reached into the small ceramic jar next to his bed, took out a piece of dried meat, and ripped it in half with his teeth. He tossed the other half to Rigby, which she greedily snatched from the air.

  Soon he was going to be away from Malverne and his terrible training methods. He had a full twenty-one days with the most powerful student in the entire school and yet nothing. Nada. Zilch! No flames, no sparks, not even a tiny little billow of smoke. Nothing.

  It was abundantly clear that Malverne was the worst teacher of all time.

  It was also just as clear to Jaxon that he needed to stop wasting time here and move on. He would teach himself to control his magic. How hard could it be, anyway? Malverne was probably holding him back out of jealousy. The next time someone tried to kill him, or Tyr or Rigby, he’d be able to do something about it.

  It actually was a simple plan that he had been formulating, but certainly had enough built in disrespect to get him kicked out of Thales in a hurry. The key, as always in life, was simply to annoy the right individual.

  At first, he figured if he made Professor Tallhat mad enough the kooky old gnome would certainly kick him out, but Jaxon soon discovered that the headmaster cared far more about his current science experiments than about the behavior of a singular unruly student. Most of the time when Jaxon got in trouble, he ended up dealing with the professor’s secretary, a heavyset dwarf woman with an intimidatingly large mole above her lip. Her name was Ms. Brunhild. Most of the other kids loved her because she would give out small candies whenever they went to her office. Jaxon never got a candy. Instead, he always got a talking-to. Jaxon was pretty sure that if you timed one of her lectures, it would have clocked in at slightly longer than forever.

  No, the professor wouldn’t work. Jaxon needed to irritate higher up the command chain. He needed to go right to the source of his punishment. He needed to incite the wrath of the lord protector himself.

  Jaxon knew that angering Lord Laszlo wasn’t going to be easy. He had a reputation for wisdom and poise and would clearly see through any ruse that Jaxon attempted.

  Laszlo could not, however, instill that same calmne
ss in the people he ruled. That was where Jaxon needed to lay his trap. If he could anger the community enough to force them to demand that Jaxon be punished, then what choice would Laszlo have other than to expel him?

  Once again, Jaxon got his inspiration from one of Saan’s long-winded tales.

  It seemed, according to her stories, than when Savnock would lead his armies up from the Underworld, as he did against the Florensians so long ago, he would signal his coming first by turning all the water around his enemy into blood. This would cause terror and panic among the people and make them that much easier to conquer.

  Jaxon planned on doing the exact same thing. Well, almost exact. He didn’t have the ability to change water into anything other than yellow water, but he did have an extensive collection of red cloth dye that he had procured (stolen) from the ridiculous class on tailoring they made him take during his first week at Thales. They said it would be good to know if he was ever stuck somewhere and needed to make a disguise, but he didn’t see the point.

  Regardless, throwing a few bottles of the dye into the lake surrounding the Alabaster Tower and the entire island would be in a panic by morning.

  “Alright girl, it’s time,” Jaxon said as he jumped up from the bed. “Let’s go get ourselves thrown out of this place.”

  After packing a small bag with the dyes, Jaxon snuck out the door. Luckily for him, no one had been willing to be his roommate, so getting in and out was fantastically easy. Though up until today breaking curfew had been with the intention of a stolen cookie from the kitchen, not the possibility of inciting a riot. This was going to require a whole new level of sneakiness.

  “Hey, Rigby!”

  Jaxon cringed at the first complication. At no point in his ingenious plans was he supposed to run into anyone, especially not Tyranna. He couldn’t even make it six seconds without that popping up.

  Roof, responded Rigby in her usual loud, excited hello-bark. Tyranna, bent down to rub the dog’s ears. Rigby responded by flopping over and offering her underside. Tyranna was more than happy to oblige with a vigorous scratching.