Battle Mage, The Caves of Time

by Donald Wigboldy

  "Your mentor is really beautiful," the boy dressed in brown said quiet enough to try and keep his voice from being heard outside the circle of apprentices gathered near one of three fires. He was the good looking earth apprentice who had caught Katya's eye. It seemed a little odd that he should be the one to comment on it, but the girl supposed that he was maybe cocky enough to think he might have a shot with the older wizard.

  The girl in brown next to him rolled her eyes. "Yes, she's pretty, but I don't know why you want to mention it to us. It isn't like she'll ever be your mentor."

  "Or girlfriend," a male fire apprentice laughed loud enough to draw a few eyes.

  "I didn't say that I wanted her to be my girlfriend, Pheon, though if she was into younger men..." the dark haired earth apprentice said leaving the idea open for interpretation.

  "Don't you have enough girlfriends back at White Hall, Zav?" his companion earth apprentice questioned in disbelief.

  From what Katya had learned by talking with the other apprentices, the earth wizard definitely had a following of girls that were interested in him. He in turn seemed to like the ladies as well and Venya, the other earth apprentice, had confided to her that he moved on after he grew bored way too often. He was a ladies' man and only eighteen years old. Supposedly he had tried to seduce one of the younger wizard mentors even, though that had blown up in his face apparently.

  "Venya, I don't know what you mean. I have a lot of girls that are friends, but I don't currently have what I would call a girlfriend." His blue eyes moved to Katya and the boy smiled. "There is one or two that I have my eye on, but that is all I assure you."

  "Hmmph, whatever. Don't mind me if I don't exactly believe you, though I guess you can call them what you want, I guess."

  Holding his hands to his chest as if wounded, Zav replied, "Truly, I wouldn't lie to you, my dear friend. On an earth apprentice's oath, I swear that it is true."

  "There is no such thing," the fire apprentice chuckled at the other boy's continued attempts to keep his reputation from being besmirched or revealed depending on which one they might believe.

  Another fire apprentice sat beside Pheon eyeing Katya from time to time. The diplomacy apprentice had done as Ylena had asked and perhaps taken it a step further drawing the other half dozen young wizards into her orbit. The circle by the fire seemed to symbolically prove that the others must like her at least to a point.

  "What do you think, Mabel?" Katya asked causing the older girl to start.

  "About what?" she asked. Her friend, the air apprentice Arwen, sat on her other side and noted the question with a slight frown. The two girls had been slower to thaw as their initial cold shoulders had been there apparently from the brief exchange in the common area almost a week ago now.

  "Do you think Zav has a girlfriend or is he just saying that he doesn't?"

  "Why would he lie?"

  Venya smirked and replied, "Maybe he's hoping to find a new one while on this trip. Are you interested?"

  Eyes widening in surprise, Mabel's attention flicked momentarily to the boy in question and blushed slightly.

  Coming to her defense, Arwen said, "I think maybe he doesn't call them girlfriends so much as dance partners. He's at every dance and usually with several partners."

  He grinned at her in spite of her attempt to take the girl down a peg and retorted, "I've danced with you a few times, Arwen. What is it that you're trying to say?"

  The last apprentice, a male researcher called Lius answered instead, "I think that she was just trying to say that maybe what one person calls a girlfriend you call a dance partner. Nothing more than that I would assume.

  "So dating aside, what do you think we'll find when the gate wizards take us to this marker? Will it be a rift or a new gate?"

  "Is one better than the other?" Venya asked curiously. There might be a bit of worry in their faces dealing with the unknown and what they knew from the attack in the mountains at the end of the summer, but Katya thought curiosity won out for the moment.

  "Well, a rift might send a creature or two through it, maybe more; but all we need to do is seal it. If it is a new gate or portal, a similar amount of creatures might have come here; but that would mean that it was intentional." The boy's eyes moved to Katya. It was known that she had been with the group which had fought the small army of unknown creatures. "They attacked last time without provocation... yes?"

  Katya nodded. "From what I heard, our leaders tried to meet with them peacefully. Whether the creatures understood our language or not; they certainly didn't wait long to attack our main group.

  "I was with the dragon mages practicing when they first encountered them, but we weren't that far behind when the fighting started."

  "What were they like?" Venya asked.

  The topic had been skirted around since Katya wasn't certain how much was supposed to be disclosed, but most of these apprentices had mentioned the battle so it was at least superficially known in the school and among this force gathered to check this new disturbance. Asked directly, the girl lowered her voice drawing the others in subtly.

  "Falconi Martina and the other veterans said that they had never seen creatures like them. There were blue skinned men which reminded me of one of the elven people accompanying High Wizard Darius. They were almost human in shape, though slightly shorter and slim. They had pointed ears too.

  "Those seemed to be the leaders. Another bluish group we nicknamed hobgoblins. They had faces that were more like an animal's in shape, like maybe a dog or ferret. Maybe about the same size as a goblin or slightly larger, they fought with knives and other weapons.

  "There were other creatures too. Men with ox heads and smaller ones that looked like ram heads were strong and fast. The falcons took significant casualties fighting with them even with magic helping them. There were also flying beasts that could pick up a man and fly off with him as if the weight didn't matter."

  Mabel hugged her shoulders and admitted, "They sound awful."

  "Frightening," Venya confirmed.

  Arwen crossed her arms as if defying her and said, "That is a pretty descriptive answer for a little apprentice. You're awfully young. I can't imagine that they'd let you fight close enough to know much."

  Frowning at the girl, Katya replied, "I was close enough to touch them and use my magic to control their minds enough to help. I've been to Litsarin and fought already also, since people with dragon mage magic are still few enough. A couple of the others were killed there too."

  "And you made it out of it unscathed?" the girl doubted her with a shake of her head.

  The other apprentices' eyes were moving back and forth watching the war of words. Katya was slowly becoming a master of those, she thought and answered, "Physically more or less, yes, but a lot of people died on both sides. It's easier to kill something that looks inhuman and that is trying to kill you at least. Until you've faced something like that, I don't expect you to understand.

  "I might be younger than you, but maybe I've seen more?"

  Arwen didn't like her answer, but Venya did her best to disrupt the two by asking, "So if we do have to face them, what can we expect?"

  After dinner and answering a few more questions, Katya excused herself. The others noticed the soldiers beginning to leave their fires to head to bed and did the same.

  "So I guess that I have to let you teach me how to fly?" Ylena said sounding awkward in the dark as the two settled into their small tent and bedrolls.

  "I got to know all of the apprentices, so I think that was the deal," Katya replied though she didn't sound as pleased as Ylena would have thought.

  "Is something wrong?"

  "No, it's just that Arwen in particular seems to think that I just hid during the battle or something. It's bad enough that Sebastian and you have done what you could to keep me from really helping Litsarin, but I have been in combat after all."

  Ylena was silent for a moment before she answered, "Then you should know that
it is best to avoid testing your luck too often. Battle is dangerous for everyone, even wizards that do try to hide behind the front lines of soldiers and battle mages. Be glad that we made you come back to learn in the safety of White Hall, Katya.

  "You're still young. You've already seen more bloodshed than someone your age should ever see. It's more than anyone any age should see."

  "Even an old wizard like you?" Katya managed to joke.

  "Thanks a lot. You make me sound like I have a foot in the grave already."

  "Well, you must not be too old. I think Zav has a crush on you. He said that you're really attractive."

  "Who's Zav?"

  Katya sighed and didn't bother to answer as she turned away into her blankets.

  "Ah, Bas, nice of you to join us," Magnus said gesturing towards an empty space on the other side of the table from the fire wizard. There were several other wizards beside him and beside the open space across from him.

  "Ashleen said that you came looking for me for some reason and wanted to have lunch. I didn't realize that you planned on inviting others as well," the mage noted placing two trays on the table across from Magnus. He offered a hand letting the pretty girl sit on the end before placing his body between her the next wizard. Normally he might sit on the end without thinking about how he protected Ashleen, but this time felt different though he doubted that they were truly in danger here.

  "Well, I couldn't be certain that you would join me and surely you didn't expect me to eat alone," the fire wizard joked with a laugh. "Besides they are my friends and associates. We eat together quite often, so it doesn't really have anything to do with wanting to speak with you."

  "Why do you want to speak with me exactly?" the mage asked trying not to sound suspicious.

  "Well, it's been a little while. I've been in Litsarin a lot. You've been busy as well, I'm sure. Did I hear something about you quitting the corps? Are you going to become a wizard now?" he added trying to make it sound like a joke as well. The fire wizard had likely read his aura and discovered that Sebastian had become stronger.

  His rune wells added to the mage's strength and Sebastian could draw on as much power as a wizard now even without drawing directly from the earth to add to his magic. Magnus knew that trick now also. He had warned the fire wizard to be careful with that knowledge. Darius was an immortal and had given warning stories of wizards that had died young being burned out by using staves tapping into the power running through Alus using destructive magic.

  After a time, Sebastian had a feeling that counterbalancing destruction with things like healing and creation might mitigate that danger, but he was still reasonably conservative in his use of a staff to augment his power. Maybe he wasn't as conservative as the high wizard thought he should be, but so far the owl mage hadn't shown any signs of the damage which had made the wizards of a past age into old men prematurely or burn away in fire.

  "I've been in Kardor helping the king directly. Staying in the corps was too limiting and King Alain was willing to use me as both an agent and diplomat. We've helped connect Kardor with gates and are teaching their wizards with the ability to make them."

  "You've given away our portal magic?" one of the other wizards questioned in shock. More of those listening seemed alarmed by the admission also.

  "It isn't like it was just our magic. Besides our other allies have gates in their countries and have wizards trained to open portals as well. Why would we want to exclude Kardor, one of our oldest allies and one that has faced the Dark One's armies almost as often as Southwall has?"

  Magnus stared down the others as he nodded. "That is true. It isn't like sharing with our allies puts Southwall in harm's way any more than it has been with the Dark One's forces knowing it exclusively for centuries. Bas and High Wizard Darius essentially stole the magic from our enemies first. It is only logical to give the spells to our friends to unite our power even more."

  "The Dark One is dead," another of the men said. "Do we still need to worry?"

  Ashleen answered first and said, "One of the western cities attacked Kardor thinking to start a new empire."

  Nodding, Sebastian added, "Without their emperor to unite them, there has been fighting inside their capitol city. Orcs seem to have been trying to take over in places. They might be fighting internally for now, but if a strong enough leader comes to power we might wind up seeing a new threat from them in the future."

  Magnus sighed and shook his head sadly. "I guess it was too much to hope that we might find peace after killing their emperor."

  After a momentary silence at the table as they considered the implications, Sebastian said, "So you didn't go with the expedition to the mountains?"

  Magnus felt glances from the other wizards. While it wasn't broadly spoken of, the trip to the mountains wasn't a secret either. The fire wizard didn't seem surprised by the question, though some of the others appeared confused.

  "I have enough commitments here at the moment. A possible problem in the mountains didn't require my attention."

  "I would have thought that they might want someone with your credentials just in case. You're one of the few wizards that can use dragon magic to fly, if there was a repeat of the previous attack."

  The fire wizard didn't appear to take offense or otherwise react more than to say, "They have at least one wizard that can cast a gate to the school. If it turns out to be something more dangerous than they can handle, we can always back them up.

  "Kardor isn't the only one benefiting from High Wizard Darius discovering the magic after all."

  Ashleen frowned, "Sebastian figured it out also."

  "True, but he wasn't the first," Magnus nodded and smiled looking a bit too happy with the knowledge that it was a wizard and not the battle mage who had come up with this discovery first. "Admittedly, Sebastian has added a few refinements, but wizards are the ones using the spells aside from him. I'm afraid that battle mages don't seem to have the power to create the gates aside from you."

  "Elzen can make them on his own," the mage stated, "and Falcon Kharrik can do it with a wizard's additional magic. I think if other wizards who can't make the gates are willing to share power with our mages, there might be others. I first learned to create them with Ashleen's help after all."

  "Who wants to waste their time lending their power to find out which mages can do this?" one of the other wizards asked appearing unwilling to be one of those to volunteer. "There are relatively few wizards capable of figuring out the gates, correct? It will be like hunting for a needle in a haystack, if there are even any more battle mages capable."

  "A cadet and apprentice are doing it as well," Ashleen added frowning at the man. "Sebastian worked with three battle mages personally and all three can do it. Maybe wizards think too much and it will be the combining of the two groups which will make portal magic more common?"

  Though she was a wizard, her words caused the other men to frown before several began to argue the point. Being that there were only wizards, few argued in her favor.

  As the table fractured into smaller groups deliberating the idea of wizards working with battle mages to simply give them power, Magnus leaned closer and said, "If you are so good at training mages in portal magic, perhaps you would consider teaching me. Having such a trick in hand would certainly be handy."

  Trying not to show shock, Sebastian's question still revealed some of his surprise as he asked, "Are you asking to apprentice under me to learn something?"

  Wrinkling his face in distaste, Magnus clarified to avoid the stigma of one word, "I would call it more of a collaboration. I am a full wizard and think my days of being an apprentice are over. It isn't like wizards don't learn new things once they have attained their full rank."

  "I will consider taking you on as a student," Sebastian replied intentionally using the new word to tease the slightly older wizard. He was unwilling to completely let Magnus off the hook, though admittedly the idea of the fire wizard officially being
his apprentice or student was just a joke. Doubting that Magnus could truly spend more than a day or two learning from the battle mage, Sebastian remembered that the cocky, champion of Winter's Edge couldn't even spend more than a few minutes learning the light and darkness spells after the tournament the last time Magnus had worked with him.

  He also had to admit that the fire wizard had managed those spells in that short time as well, so perhaps his cockiness had been warranted that day. Portal magic had proven more challenging than those spells for wizard and mage alike, however. Sebastian had been forced to accomplish the spell after more than a month of being shown the basics by a pair of warlocks willing to trade the secrets for a way to get home. Making a gate wasn't easy for anyone.

  Feeling Ashleen's satisfaction that he had won the war of words, Magnus let the matter go. "If I would like to learn this magic from you, when could we begin?"

  "I don't know. I will get back to you on that. Right now I have other things on my list to do. We're heading out after lunch after all."

  He thought that Magnus would let it go, but the man asked one more question. "What are you trying to accomplish on the roof anyway? Ashleen said that you plan to make a new gate just to see your parents, an unprotected gate, I would guess?"

  "The stones will be safe enough until I retrieve them. Trust me. I know enough about this magic to know that much."

  The fire wizard examined the mage's face in front of him for a moment before nodding. "Of course, I trust you. I guess we have to trust your judgment in this as well."

  Looking up at a clock on the wall, Magnus rose up taking his tray. "Well, I need to prepare for class. It was nice speaking with you again, Bas. Don't be a stranger and keep me in mind for the portal magic. Those trying to teach it here haven't had the kind of success that you seem to have had. I would like your expert advice, when you have the time."

  With the fire wizard's leaving, the remainder of the wizards began to disappear as well. Some didn't seem to have finished their entire meals, but thought better of staying when their leader seemed finished with the battle mage.