by Greg Curtis
“Diplomacy, history, custom, philosophy, negotiation, science, commerce, law, languages, draconic studies, as well as working on your magic as well. The next three or four months will be a busy time for you young Alan.” He even managed to smile as he said it, making Alan wonder just what he was in for. It sounded like school, except that he was already well past the age of schooling for most while as a spellcaster he should have been purely at the stage where he did nothing more than concentrate on his magic, and that was something that was mostly done alone, in the hours that one could find apart from the rest of the daily duties. As for the rest of it, he wasn’t even sure he wanted to study it at all. Not that it was apparently a choice.
“But -.” Ant had apparently guessed the direction of his thoughts.
“Careful now. You don’t want to upset your new masters on your first day in the House. They might well assign you extra homework. Besides, how can you possibly imagine you could be fit to carry out your duties as a member of the House of Sera without having completed your training? You have many years of hard work and study ahead of you.”
Many years? Alan was shocked more than he could even admit. The last time he’d done any formal study was when his parents were alive, and that had been in the halls of the Order where his study had mainly consisted of learning the history of the Order, combat and magic. That had been a difficult time for him, though useful as the Order also had an extensive library which allowed him a lot of freedom to pursue his own interests.
Yet one thing more than that surprised him, Ant had called him a member of the House of Sera. Sera herself had inferred something similar when she’d called him one of her chosen mages. He assumed she had “chosen” him because of the nature of his magic. But surely magic alone wasn’t enough to raise a mere outcast of no formal status to one of the highest stations in the land?
“Neophyte?”
“Yes, and be grateful for that position. Though it was always expected that you would join us in due course, many thought it should be at least another five or ten years before that time. Others, after your shameless display with King Umber, wondered if you should come at all.” Ant looked at him strangely as he added the last, and Alan felt distinctly uncomfortable. They knew what he’d done to the king? Maybe that wasn’t so much of a surprise since they knew him and had surely heard the reports from Calumbria. By now the actions of the demon spirit was gossip across a thousand inns and they clearly knew he was that so-called creature. But still it suggested people were watching him.
“By the way, what did you do with him? The seers report that he isn’t dead, but none can seem to find him.”
“I dropped him and his assassin off on a rock in the western ocean. I assume they’re still there, learning to fish.” Or more likely starving and eyeing each other up as a potential meal. They weren’t exactly good people.
“His assassin?”
“A man called Virris. A horrible little man with a soul of pure poison. Umber sent him after me, and after I had defeated him it left me with a problem. I could have ignored the attack but then Umber would have thought me weak and my word poor, and sent another and another. Maybe even an army. So I had to act.”
“And in doing you so sent an entire kingdom into a state of panic and started a power struggle that will likely not be resolved for years to come.” He was right too Alan knew. Though he didn’t go into the city a lot even in Silver Falls they heard the gossip, and he knew that several prominent families of merchants and nobles were busy positioning themselves against one another as they vied for the throne. The king was gone but the Council had not returned thus far.
“It is still better than Umber.” Alan felt the need to defend himself even as he was beginning to see the direction of his thoughts. It was his fault. It was always his fault. That was one of the reasons he so enjoyed living alone. There was no one to blame him for anything.
“Perhaps.” The acolyte nodded slightly to him, acknowledging that he had a point, maybe. “The baron was a most difficult man to deal with, short of temper, reluctant to listen, and that was before he became king. How long he would have been happy to honour the ancient agreements for, I’m not sure.”
“But at least he honoured them for the moment. With his absence and the kingdom in anarchy, there will be no one to honour them for some time to come. Unfortunate in a time of war.” And Alan suddenly understood that the ancient agreements he was speaking of had to do with the rise of the necromancer.
“Still, that’s a matter for us to deal with in the fullness of time. It is not a matter for a young neophyte to concern himself with. Especially one who it seems has not yet mastered the difficult art of flying.” He was so tactful and polite as he said it that Alan knew he’d seen him arrive, and quite probably enjoyed a chuckle or two. He was grateful it was dark enough that hopefully the redness of his cheeks would not be too obvious.
“It’s not the flying, it’s the landing that’s an exercise in clumsiness.”
“Very acrobatic too if what Han’gre has said is true.” And he was so careful as he said it that Alan knew he was laughing, silently. Not that he would ever show such an emotion.
“But not to worry. We have some excellent instructors who will spend as much time as you need to help you perfect your technique. After all what sort of message would it send for a member of the House and a First Kingdom Druid, to crash down like a child in front of dignitaries? A poor one at best.”
“First Kingdom?” He’d actually read the term somewhere in his studies, but couldn’t quite place it.
“The first of the druidic spell-casters to arise after the ancient wars. They had powerful gifts such as yours which they needed as they set about repairing a world. You’ll be taught that too young Alan. Your education will be thorough.” Ant laughed and Alan tried not to groan as he realised that whatever lay ahead was going to be a long and difficult time.
Yet he was already learning. First Kingdom, he remembered that from so long ago when he’d been a young student. They were legendary druids and though he remembered nothing of them having elemental summoning abilities like his, he did know two things about them. They could shape shift like him, and they flew with the dragons.
Maybe these people did know him better than he’d thought. Maybe they could help him. Maybe they could even teach him to land!
Chapter Nine.
Alan leaned back against the wall of the cavern and tried to keep his eyes open as he listened to the teacher's history of ancient times but it wasn't easy.
The cavern was warm and dark - the dragons liked it that way - and he'd just eaten a very large dinner after another long day. And Tyrel's voice was deep and strangely melodic even through the rumbling. In fact his words vibrated through the entire cavern. It was also the end of his first week in the House and he was exhausted. But that he gathered was normal. It was expected. Especially of the newcomers who had no idea what to expect of their new school. The others who had been there a little longer knew better and prepared themselves for the long hard days though he suspected it wasn't easy for them either. It wasn't meant to be easy.
Members of the House of Sera were supposed to be highly skilled and educated in all things, no matter their duties. Spy, agent, emissary or teacher, there were no exceptions.
Study had begun the first morning after his arrival, immediately after breakfast which was served at seven bells on the dot and despite having been at the assigned classroom well before eight, he’d been immediately reprimanded for being late. Study began the instant breakfast was over, not when a particular bell rang. The rest of the class, both of them, were already sitting at their seats, translating dwarven runes into trade, and neither had even looked up at him as he’d been directed to a seat. He suspected they knew better.
Acolyte Germaine was a tough mistress, as she paid close attention to them every second that they were in her class, and that was four or five long hours. The morning session was the longest class of the
day, though they did at least get some short breaks during it. She was also more than knowledgeable and willing to help, and as he’d struggled through that first morning, she’d been more than happy to explain each new rune he’d encountered, which was unfortunately quite a few. There were few dwarves living near his home and he’d never gone further a field to trade with them, so while his Elvish, Human, Dryadic and trade were all reasonable, his Dwarvish was lacking. Of course that was only his own opinion, and he’d had the very real concern that the masters might not be so accepting of his other language skills either.
The classroom hadn’t helped his studies any. The seats and desks were comfortable enough and well designed for the task, though they reminded him too much of his younger years as a student, and the tomes and scrolls of knowledge left him almost envious. But whoever had thought to convert an entire mountain lair into a series of classrooms had overlooked one basic problem; it came with fantastic ocean views. He’d spent far too long simply staring out the window at the endless blue of the ocean, and he had to admit the artisans had made a wonderful job of the glass which ran from floor to ceiling and all without the slightest sign of a defect. It even had a glass door within it so that he could wander out on to the balcony beyond. Of course that wasn’t permitted.
But he'd wanted to.
After a light, hurried lunch, commerce had been his next subject of the day, and he’d spent hours simply learning to calculate the different costs of doing business in different realms. Some were simple like those of most of the elven provinces where they simply charged a daily fee of a few coppers to a silver to run a stall. Others like those of the gnomes, wanted a small percentage of whatever trade a man did. The dwarves of course, used both systems. So it became a balancing act for a trader, trying to work out what goods would fetch what prices in which markets, and then how much profit you would make after tax and expenses.
Alan wasn’t entirely sure why he was being taught the subject. It didn’t seem particularly relevant to a wizard who never traded very much anyway let alone set up a stall, but it was surprisingly interesting, and Journeyman Mika who took the class was a good teacher. He could make you laugh as he told you stories of his endless travels through the world, and he made even a dull, highly mathematical subject seem almost interesting. He also had the longest and thinnest arms and legs Alan had ever seen on an elf, and several times he’d wondered if the man would snap in two if he fell over.
Next that afternoon had come the one lesson Alan had not been told of, and he could guess why; physical training. With the entire dozen students from the lair all together for the lesson, they’d begun with the simple stuff, stretching and running, but then moved on to the combat arts and weights. It had been a dozen years since Alan had held a sword in a combat arena, even a wooden one, and he’d soon discovered that during that time his skills had waned. He still knew the moves, even those for the quarterstaff, but he was comparatively slow and weak, especially after running up and down the mountain a few times. The teachers loved to make them do that for some reason.
Tea, by the time it had come around, had not been a meal he’d really enjoyed, and that in turn had left him lacking for the final session of the day, magic, or in his case counter-magic, as he learned to deflect fire spells and had been singed a few times. If he’d been fresher he might have done better, but by the end of a long day all he really wanted to do was fall into his cot and sleep. The other students he noticed weren’t that much better. Even having endured this for however long they had, they were being pushed to their limits, something a man who had once been a boy dreaming of becoming a knight could appreciate.
The strange thing was that when he’d finally been released to his quarters, he’d been unable to collapse. Instead he’d spent a fair amount of time in the common area with some of the other students, learning at least their names and playing board games in front of the roaring fire. He'd actually been too tired to go to bed and in the end had fallen asleep in one of the oversized and surprisingly comfortable armchairs.
The second day had actually been tougher. The classes were different, and the only luck he'd had was that the language of the morning was Dryadic. He had a reasonable command of it. But the next class of the day had been negotiation and he knew nothing of it. Nothing that was, save that he had absolutely no skill at it. Hours of exercises in the art had proven that.
Then had come the afternoon and the physical education, and combat which he had at least some skill in, had given way to exercise. Though exercise was a poor word to describe the physical torture that it actually was. It had begun with the run. Not really a run so much as a crawl as the entire class had had to scale the mountain from the sea shore to the peak. There was a trail, but it was narrow and steep and most mountain goats would have had difficulty with it. He certainly had.
Still he'd somehow made it in only a couple of hours and felt proud of himself as he collapsed on the floor of the classroom. Before the instructor had informed him that that was only the warm up. After that there was more running, jumping, climbing, lifting weights, swimming and suffering. The long session had not been about defence. It had been about endurance. And a chance for the dragons who were all watching with interest, to lay bets with one another. By the time dinner had arrived he'd been unsure how he was still standing.
But that wasn't the end. The final session of the day was magic, and this time not counter spells. Rather it was potions, and he'd been forced to spend hours simply trying to learn the ingredients of at least a score of different healing drafts while his brain wanted nothing more than sleep..
And so it had gone on for the entire week. Every day there were new subjects to study. There was more physical torture as he was pushed harder than he had ever been pushed before. More magic to master as they stretched his concentration and endurance as well as worked on his knowledge.
And there were no days off.
So he'd got to the end of the week and hoped for a little free time, only to be told by his classmates that the next day they would start again. This would not end until his three months was up. And even then there would be homework.
But as hard as it was there were some good things to come out of his first week. The masters were good. They pushed him hard, that was their job, but they were fair and never unwilling to help him. And the other students were decent. Actually they were more than decent. They had become friends.
They were an eclectic group. A mix of humans, dwarves, elves, dryads, and even a gnome, and they ranged in age from his own meagre twenty nine years to nearly fifty. All of them were really too old to be students, but the House wasn't teaching them the basics of school. They were training them to become everything from envoys and advisors, to agents and statesmen. They didn't want school children as their students. They wanted men and women with life experience. And then they wanted to train them for at least a decade.
But for all that they were welcome company in a strange place, and a source of comfort as he hadn’t needed in many years. They were also people who understood what he was going through. After all they were enduring it too.
They didn’t judge him for his race either, and that was a true blessing. Apart from the Huron themselves, and of course the humans, that didn’t happen a lot. Not for a dark elf. And the humans had no idea that he was a wizard. To them he was just another forester. They liked him, accepted him in their towns and establishments, but they didn't really know him.
But here – everyone knew him. They knew his ancestry. They knew his magic. And they didn't care. They even knew what he'd done, something for which he was constantly being told off. His actions had been rash and ill thought out. He had given no thought to the consequences. In that they reminded him so greatly of his father that it was almost as if he was back with the knights.
And here he had the chance to speak with other elves about anything from the weather to their studies with not a one of them gave him a second glance. Here he was accepted
. That was something more than he’d ever considered possible from elves. Much more.
For that alone he would be happy to spend the next three months here. But the studies were useful too, and he wasn't stupid enough to think otherwise.
He'd been raised among the humans and he was half human so it didn't seem such a terrible thing. Often he thought of himself as one. And with his father being a knight he'd always imagined that that was his path in life as well. That one day he would wear armour and ride for their cause. Until his magic had come bursting through.
After that his life had been thrown in turmoil. The strength of his gift meant that it dominated his thoughts, and would forever prevent him from any other occupation than spellcaster. Though it had hurt, that was something that he could live with. But where he failed was in finding teachers.
The chapter house had a few teachers of spellcraft, but he'd swiftly outgrown them. His father could guide him in a few simple spells, his mother a few more. But his were simple spells and hers were of her faith. Largely he'd been forced to teach himself. He did so by working through the libraries he had access to, listening to the tales his parents and the other knights could tell him, and practising what came naturally to him.
