White Hall (The High King: A Tale of Alus Book 10)

by Donald Wigboldy

  “Feel free to try it, but avoid looking in girls’ windows and baths,” his brother retorted with sarcastic wit.

  “Very funny. Katya caught me and used you and Job to do it besides. You should at least feel a little guilty. They still have me working in the kitchens and assisting the janitors cleaning up.”

  “Well, you used a janitor’s closet, so I guess they figured you might have a talent for it,” Piotr continued to jest with his twin. “I don’t think I’ve ever asked you, was it worth it?”

  A slight smile touched Niklaus' lips and the elder twin replied, “Well, I didn’t get to see a lot, but Katya... well, let’s just say that it was worth it.”

  He finished with a chuckle. After the incident, even Xara and Uliya had given him the cold shoulder for a few days; but bygones were bygones soon enough among the young. Xara was still interested in him and he thought that if he asked she would show him her body easily enough. For now, Niklaus knew better than to find new trouble. It wasn’t like his urges were so much for the sights as the knowledge that he could tease the girls.

  While he was fourteen, there was still that little boy inside him that showed more of his affection by teasing girls than trying to romance them. Romance was a foreign concept to the cadet and no girl had officially pushed him to evolve to that point to try.

  Piotr sighed at his brother’s infantile behavior. While he was the younger twin by about an hour, the boy had always been the more mature and quiet of the two. He had an interest in girls like most boys his age, but Piotr wasn’t willing to go to the extremes that Niklaus was.

  Besides just seeing a girl naked through a bird or from a vent, like Niklaus had, was more of a tease to his thinking. Seeing what you couldn’t have only made you want it more, he thought.

  “Katya is pretty, but I’m not kidding when I say tread lightly around her.”

  “Pfft,” Niklaus scoffed, “I’m not afraid of her.”

  Thinking of the petite, beauty as frightening or dangerous was hard, but both boys had experienced the strength of her magic. Even at thirteen and just a novice, Katya was likely to be more powerful than both of them put together. She also had talent for magic and could use either mage casting or wizard. Her using of single word spells had made the mentors complain that she shouldn’t be using short cuts, but Piotr understood that she was already comfortable enough in her magic to be doing so and often the short cuts led her to other breakthroughs.

  “I would be, if I were you,” his brother continued the conversation. “You felt her spell in the bathhouse and nearly gave yourself up then. She used us to play you into giving yourself up without any investigation. Not only can she use magic, but she can outsmart you pretty easily, Niki.”

  “I’m not exactly dumb, Piotr; but you aren’t answering my question. Is it hard to fly as a bird? You’ve been in their minds, so if you could change could you fly?”

  Pulling his thoughts from the novice diplomat wizard, Piotr thought of what he had experienced through the eyes of birds and wondered about his brother’s question. “When I fly with the birds, I let them do the work; but it might cross over to someone who can shape change. I don’t see why it wouldn’t. You feel the natural abilities of the animal you shift into, don’t you?”

  It was Niklaus turn to think. He had managed to turn into dozens of animals though he favored the bear and lynx. The wolfhound was excellent as well, though the shape changer often wondered if he could go beyond the natural animals. “My senses are better. My agility as a lynx and my strength as a bear are beyond human. My mind controls what I do, but I guess that counts.”

  “Those are all land animals, so you might be more in touch with them than a bird though,” Piotr said putting out his hand for the field shrike to return once more. The bird had taken a perch on a tree branch on the far side of the courtyard. At the signal, it took flight and found his hand easily. Wings beat hard to make a controlled landing and the novice thought perhaps that was the most difficult part.

  The two boys were silent for a moment. Niklaus was busy thinking, while his brother reached into a special pouch to produce some raw meat for the bird. He had a glove on, but he knew that even with that his hand would stink for hours even if he tried to wash it with scented soap over and over again. It was aged enough to stink, but that was what shrikes preferred.

  “If I become something small, like a peregion or field shrike, my clothes won’t shift with me. It would make using birds for transport or scouting awkward. Do you think we could use magic to make an animal form larger?

  “Maybe a cat or mouse could be made into the size of a bear?”

  Piotr’s brow wrinkled at the thought and he replied, “Can’t magic do pretty much anything that you can imagine? You’re questioning whether you can make a cat larger, but you are already becoming a cat. You never question that part and shouldn’t changing your body into a tiny mouse be harder than imagining a mouse the size of a bear? I would still just pick the bear, of course, but maybe a giant mole would be handy for digging or something like that.”

  Mulling the idea over, Niklaus exposed why he had asked saying, “The Dark One has wolves and mountain cats that they say are shape changers, but I haven’t seen a cat larger than the lynx here. We have dogs but no wolves to mimic also, but they are different in strength, aren’t they?”

  “Wolves and the wolfhounds are close enough, but if you wanted to sneak through the wilds, a wolf would likely be less noticed than a dog out on the prairie. I’m sure there are wild dogs, but they are probably less common than the wolves.”

  While the boys were still mulling the idea over, shadows overhead drew their eyes upward. Three winged forms flew over the outer wall descending towards the large courtyard. Piotr recognized all three quickly and smiled.

  Tethered by Cheleya’s magic, Iris and Katya tried to land without help. A quick last double beat right before their feet touched threw gusts into the two boys from ten feet away and made the shrike move instinctively to fly upward into the tree once more. Iris stumbled and the novice wizard stepped forward catching her with his left arm.

  The girl turned to look at him in surprise and blushed. Nearly eye to eye, Iris thought that maybe the boy had grown slightly since she had last seen him. Certainly his arm felt strong and Piotr barely budged as he steadied the red haired apprentice.

  “Well, hello, this is a surprise,” the boy said still holding her with his arm. Their faces were only a few inches away and she felt his breath on her skin.

  “Um, yes, well Katya asked to try to land and the grass is softer than the stone roof of the school, s-s-so Cheleya spotted you and Niklaus and thought this would b-b-be a good place to land,” the girl stuttered uncomfortably. Her eyes looked at him and she thought that seeing him again made her feel even more awkward than the last time she had talked with him. That he held her so secure and she didn’t want to leave his embrace only served to make the older girl more embarrassed as well.

  “I haven’t seen you very often since we got here, so it is still a surprise,” he stated before realizing the other name mentioned. “Wait, Katya is flying now?”

  Niklaus moved closer to the other girl looking uncomfortable also. Since the bathhouse incident, the cadet had been giving her a wide berth, though his punishments had also kept him busy and away from her almost as much as his inability to work things out with Katya.

  Smiling at Piotr after giving Niklaus a brief frown, the other girl mentioned moved closer to the two still holding onto each other. “I was unofficially allowed to join the class as of yesterday, but I’ve been hanging around the roof during their practice as often as I could the last couple weeks.”

  The novice continued smiling, but she looked between the two curiously waiting several beats before she asked, “Should we leave you two alone for a little while?”

  Realizing that they were still only inches from each other’s face and leaning against each other beyond that closeness, the two broke apart. Iris f
elt a little disappointment and wanted to yell at herself as she tried to remember that Piotr was just a boy and they were too young to think about liking anyone in that way besides. The girl had tried to distance herself from Piotr without admitting it to him. She was busy with her duties as an apprentice after all. It didn’t really have to do with any feelings she had for him that actually worried her greatly.

  Niklaus spoke up as Cheleya landed between them looking curiously at Iris and Piotr as well, “We were just talking about whether a changeling could become a bird and fly. Now you three come to land after flying, but as humans with wings. What are the odds?”

  Katya raised an eyebrow and gave her short rebuttal, “In this school? I would guess pretty good actually.”

  Interjecting an answer towards the reason he had been speaking with Piotr, Cheleya stated, “It should be no harder for you to fly than for us. If you have any of the bird’s abilities remaining within you, it should probably be easier in fact.”

  “I was also asking Piotr if he thought I could adjust my magic to make a larger animal or bird that would be able to absorb my clothes and still fly. A small bird wouldn’t let me do that and flying somewhere else too far away would mean having no clothes or provisions when I got to my destination.”

  Niklaus was already moving from the theories of someone else to himself, Piotr noted. While the novice knew that he could change like his brother, these questions were for the cadet and not for Piotr.

  Looking a little distant as if her mind had left the area for somewhere else, Cheleya took a moment to add, “The mountain shrikes are much larger than this one,” she finished pointing at the bird perched on the lower branch. “Kel’lor and I actually fought man size shrikes sent by the Dark One or at least his minions. If you were to shape shift into one of those, you could lift a pack easily and your clothes should merge as you change.”

  Katya listened to the two speaking with a curious look on her face. Her mind touched on something and the younger girl asked, “You said that you were stuck in your human form, Cheleya. Maybe if you worked with Niklaus and Piotr, you might be able to use their magic to change back into a che’ther.”

  The dragoness nodded and replied, “But if I use magic to become a che’ther, then it would take my strength to remain one. It would mean that I am now human by default and not what I was.”

  Listening to her words, Katya and the others realized that if Cheleya gave in to using Southwall magic to change her body, it meant that she had given up ever being truly che’ther.

  “It might just be a temporary fix though,” Katya assured her friend. “You could use your magic until Darius or someone else discovers a way to break the curse.”

  Niklaus looked a little disappointed at thinking the girl would be returning to her land dragon body. It was almost like a part of him felt Cheleya disappearing back into a che’ther was a regrettable loss of her beauty. The girl was stunning, though he knew that she was never likely to be someone he might find love with, or at least temporary fun.

  “We would be happy to work with you, Cheleya,” Niklaus volunteered.

  Piotr nodded and added, “We aren’t exactly experts, since Niklaus has only been shape changing for a couple months and I can do it, but rarely have.”

  Taking the answer back from his twin as Niklaus thought about sharing time with the pretty dragoness girl, the elder twin said, “Well, he can speak for himself. I am becoming quite the expert actually.”

  Though the idea was tempting, Cheleya replied, “Perhaps later. For now I am quite busy helping Kel’lor with training the first dragon mage class. It is a large number of people to help. Our master only worked with three students at a time, though he had other character flaws as well,” she finished with a grimace.

  Katya eased them out of the conversation saying, “Well, maybe later then. So what have you boys been up to lately?”

  Chapter 27- A Trip to the Office

  “Come on, Katya,” Ylena waved for the younger girl to move her feet as she stalled for time. It had been just over two weeks since she had joined Cheleya on her first flight as a dragon mage, though perhaps she wasn’t officially a dragon mage since her mentors hadn’t stated that she was free from her studies as a novice. If anything, she had been told by Ylena and the other mentors that she should finish the novice curriculum set before her though they hadn't stopped her from learning on her own time, but they hadn't said no so Cheleya had been unofficially helping her anyway.

  Now the girl had been called to Wizard Gregor’s office. He was the leader of the school of diplomacy magic. Within the school, only High Wizard Herrol held more power than the various heads of each department, so being called to see the head wizard of her order was a little frightening for the rarely intimidated young novice.

  Hiding a smile at the girl’s unease and understanding her charge’s reticence to see Gregor as a high level authority figure, Ylena did her best not to get caught enjoying herself at Katya’s expense. A diplomacy wizard was trained to hide their feelings, but Ylena was attached to the younger girl and couldn’t help finding amusement at her distress.

  Katya glanced at the door marked by a metal plate mounted to the door with his name. Throughout Southwall few inns or stores would put a name on a plank instead of using some painting to signify the name of their establishment. Within the school where everyone could read at a high level, White Hall seemed to take pleasure in marking every door worthy of it. Even the janitor’s closets were named, and some of those probably couldn’t read beyond the basic words.

  Ylena opened the door, but gestured for the younger girl to precede her. As if waiting to make sure that Katya wouldn’t bolt, the novice sighed and stepped into a fair sized room.

  The school was massive and offices were often the size of classrooms divided into three or more smaller rooms. Still, Gregor’s office was as large as any head of a division and impressive enough to a girl living in a room about the same size holding two bunk beds, wardrobes and desks enough for four girls to live in the room. A dark, stained wood desk held several trays marked as inboxes and outboxes as well as other duties which needed to be separated for the man to keep track of all the wizards beneath him as well as correspondence from the cities around Southwall. Katya knew little of the latter information, but could see that he was kept busy if only from paperwork.

  The wizard looked up at their entrance with little apparent love for the novice before him. While Katya didn’t think he exactly hated her either, his level of ambivalence wasn’t making her feel any better about this visit.

  “Do you know why you are here, Miss Trillon?”

  That he knew her last name and chose to use it rather than her first name made her even more uneasy, but Katya swallowed and tried to settle herself as she had been taught by her mentors. A diplomacy wizard should always be the coolest head in the room choosing to reveal only what they wished to in any given situation.

  Managing to smile, and not look sickly, the novice shook her head and replied, “Not exactly, sir, no. Wizard Ylena only told me that I was called to meet with you today. She told me at lessons yesterday morning.”

  “So she told you nothing of why you are here,” he stated as the wizard stood up pushing his chair back. The legs made an unfortunate screeching sound making Katya want to wince, but she managed to fight it off for the most part. “She told you early and gave no reason for it. What do you think that you have done to bring you here this morning, young lady?’

  Wanting to glance to Ylena for support, the young girl doubted that she would find any there. Back rigid, Katya tried to remember to breathe. Steady controlled breathing, sometimes using deeper breaths to ease her mind and body; was one major part of how to avoid giving one’s self away during a situation. The biggest thing was not to appear to be using breathing techniques at any time. A sigh or nervous deep breath could alter the playing field. Down to the minute details of stance and breathing, Ylena and the other diplomat wizards had be
en working with her and the other novices to strengthen their wills along with their magical skills.

  “I couldn’t say, Wizard Gregor,” she said choosing his title. It was also important to show the proper respect unless it was time not to, and that was another thing that had to be felt and conceded by instincts that could be trained according to the other diplomat wizards.

  “You have been here about two months, correct?”

  She nodded.

  “You were brought to us with your magic chained by this High Wizard Darius fellow. Apparently your brother... a battle mage of all things, brought you to his attention after discovering your burgeoning powers.” He wrinkled his nose in disdain at the facts, but Katya’s eyes reached for his unblinkingly and the girl noted something false about his eyes. It was subtle and likely only allowed to slip because he didn’t think the novice had the instinct to see such things. “Your power was so close to the surface that we had to bind it with a training gem.”

  Katya merely nodded and said nothing in her defense. Was she being tested? Her mind wondered and the girl tried to find the details of the situation that would explain why she was there. Something wasn’t quite sitting right. While there were probably reasons that she might find herself in trouble: the incident with the bathhouse, learning dragon magic or using mage casting instead of wizard casting at times; Katya would have thought that those would have brought her there sooner.

  She had been there two months, he had said. Was there something that she had heard about in reference to two months? The girl couldn’t quite remember.

  “What have you achieved since coming to White Hall, Miss Trillon?” he continued with being formal and refusing to use her first name at all.

  Letting her brow wrinkle with thought, the girl knew that he required an honest opinion. Her reply was as thoughtful as she could make it while being unprepared, so she spoke slow enough to keep her thoughts ahead of her words while maintaining comfortable speech and eye contact. It was more of her training that had been drilled into her to be a strong ambassador or leader, which were two of the main services her kind performed for Southwall.