Even more surprised by the last question, Katya forced a breath to think and controlled her words as she had been taught as a diplomacy wizard. "I'm not sure, high wizard. I hadn't truly given it much thought. Hasn't this been set aside for full wizards and maybe apprentices only?"
"Like dragon magic?" the gray haired man asked with a smirk and a raise of his eyebrows. It was a joke obviously, since as headmaster he had given the girl permission to learn the originally forbidden magic. "Occasionally there are novices that we simply have to give in to their natural curiosity. Young Piotr here is a nature wizard with wilder tendencies, though he seems to have the control of a typical wizard. Within his style of magic, we have given him more free rein than a normal nature novice since he has a knack for those spells.
"Then there is a girl like you, someone who had to be stifled by another wizard because her power was too great for her to control. Again you verge on being a wilder, but have pushed through with help and have tamed your power enough to become a solid diplomacy wizard.
"You also have a thirst for new spells and magic. Like your brother, you may have the ability to cross into other areas of magic and may one day be a candidate for the white robes. Of course, that will take a lot of time. We don't hand over the title 'white wizard' to novices or apprentices who have so much to learn, but it can at least be said that you have ability."
Katya blinked in shock. She had always thought that High Wizard Herrol disliked her for learning dragon magic on her own. Maybe a thirst for knowledge, even for a novice, wasn't something he discouraged, but was actually something to be commended? Still the girl was surprised to hear his praise.
Herrol gestured her forward to look at the courtyard which looked empty beyond the addition of guards and the five wizards. The man continued to speak and Katya realized it was his nature to teach as well, even if he was mostly confined to his white tower, "There isn't much to see when the portal isn't open, but can you feel the magic in the air where it can exist with the right push of a spell?"
Katya's eyes looked and felt nothing unusual in the air above the bared dirt of the courtyard. Grass had been removed in an eight foot long line just beyond where Piotr and the other wizards stood now. It wasn't until her eyes looked at the outer edge of the line that she felt something familiar.
The girl walked over to the right end and knelt feeling magic coming from a stone, but it wasn't just a stone, Katya thought. It felt like Darius when he cast his spells. She didn't know why she thought that, but that was the familiarity that the novice felt.
"What is this?" Katya asked wondering if it was too telling that she was a novice when she couldn't indentify such a simple looking thing.
She noted Herrol's smile and Piotr frowned slightly as he looked at the stone just beyond her hand. Wondering why the boy would frown was put aside as the high wizard answered, "I see you have a good eye for magic as well. That is what most wizards call a lodestone. In this case, it is one of a pair anchoring the doorway.
"High Wizard Darius set these points, but as we find more wizards capable of reproducing the spell, he said that shifting them to a common shared magic would likely work better.
"Since you are here, would you like to see what a portal looks like when it is opened?"
Katya nodded. Shocked that she would be included, the girl noted Piotr looking between her and the high wizard. The boy said nothing as they backed up a few steps. The two wizards, one from fire and one from water; moved to stand near each of the stones at the end of the strange line in the dirt. They began casting a spell in a pattern unknown to her. Piotr watched closely as well and she wondered if this was the first time he had seen the spell.
The question must have been on Herrol's mind as he asked, "Did this dark elf, as everyone calls him, cast a spell like this, Piotr?"
"There were half a dozen elves like him there. They worked together to cast a spell. I can't say that I remember the gestures or words they used. The words were powerful, but like the words of power we use, I didn't really recognize what they were saying."
The high wizard nodded, "Most novices can barely make out individual words within the spells. It is a foreign language to you all, but for those who put in the time studying them, words of magic are just as understandable as common. The research wizards understand that more than most, I suppose, but teaching magic before truly comprehending what you are actually saying has been the way of it for generations before us."
As they spoke, a tingle could be felt from the air by Katya and her eyes wandered from the high wizard. Watching the empty air, suddenly a doorway of golden light formed though there was no framework holding the strange glow. A crisp rectangle, the doorway reached from the two stones and rose up almost eight feet high.
"Is this what their gate looked like, Piotr?" High Wizard Herrol asked of the boy, who had been the only one to see the portal in the mountains. A contingent had been left behind with extra supplies and the order to keep an eye on the area, but should the enemy return they would do their best to avoid detection by these creatures from another world.
Shaking his head, Piotr replied, "No, sir, this one ripples a little bit, but it shines with light and is more like a large stained glass window. The one I saw looked like roiling clouds. The edges weren't sharp like this one either.
"It was like they entered a building full of smoke from a fire, but there was no light or heat."
The high wizard motioned for the wizards to close the portal. It had been set to a guarded point in Windmeer, the novices would learn later. The first castle to have a set portal, Darius was sending lodestones to other cities and castles from Windmeer and using the original for training purposes.
"If the magic is not the same, then our hunch is likely correct that they come from somewhere new. Perhaps the damage to the boundaries between worlds has already occurred as the wizards' councils have feared for over a thousand years."
Realizing that the novices were still listening, the old wizard looked at the two and ordered, "You will discuss nothing of what you have seen here or what has been said. We do not need rumors stirring up new fears for the other students or have it spilling out into the city for others to spread."
Piotr appeared surprised by the order as he reminded the head of the school, "The entire company knows about these unknown creatures and the odds that they are something new. I doubt that every mouth has remained closed about the battle and it will be hard to conceal since there were several deaths as well.
"What does our silence buy you?"
Seeming to understand that the boy wasn't trying to resist as much as comprehend the order, Herrol sighed and stated, "While everyone might learn that there was a battle in the mountains, for now it can be spun as a run in with bandits or even a remnant scattered from the fortress in the north, if we must.
"Without your silence about both our new portal magic and that of this new enemy, it might lead others to think of where they truly came from and we don't have that answer. This magic must not be made known to anyone outside the school and wizards using it in the castles, or there may be spies who could get the information back to the Dark One and his people.
"Just do your best, children, to avoid saying more than anyone else needs to know." With that the two novices were sent on their way with Zieran escorting them from the courtyard.
After that day, security on the courtyard tightened even more while only wizards found capable of using the magic or the battle mages and soldiers chosen for portal guards were allowed inside the courtyard. It became off limits to the other students and more wizards would be sent over the next months to test and train for portal magic.
Even the novices knew that such magic was a game changer. Travel between castles around the country would take an instant instead of weeks. Armies could move anywhere along the wall making their ability to defend the country far greater than it had once been.
It was something that would be tested sooner than anyone knew at th
e time and the students went back to studying like nothing had happened.
Chapter 37- The Use of Portals
Summer was nearing its end when news of an attack on Northwall came to the school. It had been just over a month since the return of the novice company. The rumors of that journey had been restrained by the faculty, but the battle which became known as the Battle of the Two Towers nearly unsettled all that they had done.
Requests for assistance for a key point in the wall had been answered as best they could from White Hall. Nearly half the mentors seemed to disappear in the night. The noise had awoken enough of the students for word to get around. The emperor had attacked the great wall in force and one of the rumors was that they had even used portal magic to get behind the wall for the attack.
Again the teachers did what they could to halt any talk of the battle. By the morning, most of those who had gone in the night were returned. The power of the portals had meant that the enemy had been defeated. That much was made known, but days later the river began to change.
Changes in the flow caused a rise and fall of the river's level causing chaos among the ships along the piers of the specially dredged part of the river. A few smaller vessels were ripped from their anchorage and most of those were washed up on shore when the water returned in a flash flood.
Then the color of the river changed. First it was unusually cloudy, and then the Cadhalla turned red with the color of blood. A battle had claimed many lives and even broken the wall between the Two Towers which had once spanned the river. The river fluctuated for nearly a week and worries over a blockage of the major source of water for much of the eastern part of the country were soon quelled as it was eventually restored to what it had been.
Katya had flown over the river for days, often accompanied by Cheleya or Iris. The young women noted the changes in the river as they flew for miles upriver and returned to give reports to High Wizard Herrol and the others in charge of the school. The wizards in turn did what they could to keep the city's waterway under control as much as the water wizards could.
The novice had also taken to flying over the dining hall to look over the portal courtyard. She didn't know what she hoped to see from the air or the likelihood that she would pass over at a time to see something, but Katya still found herself doing it. They couldn't bar her from looking from above as they had by guarding the doors into the courtyard.
Another worry had begun to seep into the back of her mind. Her brother had been gone on his journey for a long time. It had been a secret mission, though Katya knew something of his quest. He was searching for another immortal from their legends who was believed dead during the Cataclysm, and his sister wondered if it had been dangerous.
No word had come from him and she thought that Sebastian would find a way to communicate with her in some way by now, but Spring passed and now Summer was nearly over as well without even a letter. Katya tried to keep her mind on her studies, but when she wasn't preoccupied the worry would return.
"You're making that face again," a red haired girl stated as the two sat on the roof. Most of the dragon mages were flying around mock fighting to continue to strengthen their skills. This girl was someone new and not a dragon mage, even in training.
"What face, Evie?" Katya asked the petite little girl. She looked young, probably younger than the novice; but Evie simply appeared younger and more naive. The girl had slightly wild hair and her clothing looked like an afterthought. Her bare feet and legs stuck out from a tunic that only touched the tops of her thighs. Evie didn't seem anymore concerned with modesty than Cheleya could be and they had another thing in common as well.
Darius had brought the girl to spend time with the dragoness for a good reason. Evie was a changeling. Her skill was beyond anything Niklaus or Piotr had and she was technically a wilder besides. She wasn't locked into one kind of animal like the werewolves or werecats were rumored to be in the Dark One's army either.
The cute little girl made an exaggerated expression on her face and said, "Something like this. Did you eat something bad for lunch?"
Giggling at her idea and the face, Katya shook her head. "No, I was just thinking about my brother. He's been gone for a long time and I wonder if he is safe."
Evie cocked her head slightly to the right and almost made the novice laugh again. The girl reminded her of one of the dogs on their farm. They too had assumed such a position as they pondered whatever it was that dogs tended to ponder. Being a changeling, Katya had a feeling that the girl had picked up some of the mannerisms of the animals she could change into over the years.
"He went away on a ship, I think you said. Is that dangerous? I've seen the ships on the river, but I think they look safe enough," the girl said with big green eyes peering at her curiously.
"I don't know if it was dangerous or not, but others have tried to find what he is looking for and never come back. Maybe that means it is dangerous, though no one has searched in a long time from what I was told."
"Your brother is a strong wizard like you?"
The blond haired novice shook her head and replied, "He's a battle mage, but he's a very skilled mage who has used magic like a wizard. Many thought he would be weak when he went to compete in the Winter's Edge tournament, but he beat quite a few powerful wizards in the competition.
"Depending on how you would judge him, I think you could argue whether he was powerful or not. I think he is though," Katya finished looking a little sheepish at her proclamation. Maybe it was because Sebastian was her brother, but she believed that there was something that made him more powerful than just looking at his aura and judging him.
The two sat for a moment and Katya decided to ask a question of the red head in turn. "Have you and Cheleya gotten anywhere on teaching her how to change shape?"
Shaking her head as Evie peered up at the sky looking for the dragoness, the girl replied, "I am not sure that she can, but we are still trying."
"Cheleya has changed before. Why do you think that she won't be able to again?"
Shrugging, the little redhead stood up stretching as she did. "Maybe she doesn't want to change after all?"
That was an odd choice of words, Katya thought. Cheleya had told her that she wanted the choice to become a che'ther. She had used an amulet to become human, but it was meant to be temporary. Now she was trapped, but the dragoness wasn't human even if she looked and acted very human.
Why would Evie believe that her friend no longer wished to change back into a che'ther?
Not wanting to argue, Katya was distracted by a winged form coming in quickly from behind Evie. Shouting 'Boo!' as he swept past to land a dozen feet beyond, Arrimus was laughing as the little redhead seemed to disappear leaving only her tunic which dropped to the ground.
The wizard walked over laughing at the sight. Evie was a little tentative and had a habit of shape changing when frightened. It was a source of humor to the apprentice and a few of his friends, who unfortunately had discovered the girl's sensitive nature.
Katya frowned and was about to angrily scold the older boy when the apprentice closed the distance and kicked gently at the tunic on the ground. There was still a shape wriggling within the cloth. Often Evie would turn into a mouse or something else as small, but this didn't look like the smaller body of a mouse to Katya.
"Oh, come on now, Evie, you make this too easy!" he proclaimed still prodding the cloth trying to get the mouse or whatever she was to come out. Like the twins had discovered months ago. Small animal shapes wouldn't absorb the clothing with the change, so that was another added bonus for the boys since Evie wasn't overly shy and would turn back to recover her tunic. "Where are you, mouse?" he continued to taunt as the apprentice finally bent over to tug the tunic and shake out the transformed Evie.
An inarticulate scream followed as a black snake slid free to bare its fangs at Arrimus. He scrambled backwards even as Katya's eyes widened in surprise as well, but the novice suddenly realized that Evie had tur
ned the tables on the bully. Assuming the shape changer had noted his coming as well, Katya guessed that the target of his teasing had chosen to get her revenge.
The boy had been squatting to grab the tunic and lunged back so quickly that he was still lying on his back side sliding back from the surprising serpent. Katya began to laugh and the other dragon mages practicing on the roof turned to see the panicked apprentice facing the annoyed snake.
Katya stood to pick up the tunic to hold it between her and the snake. She was also positioned between Arrimus and Evie as the girl transformed back into the pretty girl that she was when she wasn't in an animal's form. Evie leaned around Katya sticking her tongue out at the fire apprentice before taking her clothing from the other girl's hands.
Evie wasn't shy, but knew societal conventions well enough to replace her nearly scandalous covering. Children might wear such things among the poor who couldn't afford better, but for a teenage girl who had already developed into quite a pretty one besides, it wouldn't normally be considered appropriate. While she had wanted to scold the changeling, Katya also realized that more complicated clothing made it harder for her transformations to escape the tangle they could become as she changed.
Arrimus picked himself up swearing under his breath before he complained, "You nearly scared the life out of me!"
Turning on the apprentice wagging her finger admonishingly at the older boy, Katya scolded, "It serves you right for always picking on her. Were you one of those annoying little boys who pulled the pig tails of the girls he liked, but was too shallow to express his feelings properly?
"If you actually like Evie, then maybe bringing her flowers would be more appropriate and if not, then just stop acting like a child for the rest of us!"
While he blushed at the dressing down from the younger girl, a novice of lower rank besides; Arrimus looked unable to reply for a moment.
White Hall (The High King: A Tale of Alus Book 10) Page 57
