by Clayton Wood
She continued down the cobblestone path, her black boots clicking on the stone below, ignoring the occasional stares from the students passing by. She was still painfully self-conscious of her looks, knowing that she appeared deathly pale to others. She'd still had blood in her veins when she'd been revived, but without her heart beating, it had sat in her legs, leaving them an awful purple color. She'd insisted that it be drained, and when Kalibar had refused, she'd gotten Darius to help her. She'd thought about wearing makeup to cover her paleness, but decided against it after one try. She'd left the makeup on everything she'd touched, and it'd been a constant pain to reapply. After that day, she'd decided to stop trying to fit in, hoping that others would eventually just get used to her.
She sighed, staring at the backs of her hands, at the faint web of blue veins there. They were thin, empty as they were, but she still found them ugly. She had them on her face, too; she often wondered how Kyle could possibly find her attractive now, but he didn't seem to mind, for which she was grateful. She smiled, picturing his face, that sweet smile of his, and his expressive brown eyes. He was the best thing that had ever happened to her. He'd saved her from the Arena, and from the Dead Man, and had risked his life to protect her. He'd been the one to insist that Darius bring her back to life. And despite her terrible strength, her ugly skin and veins, and the icy coldness of her flesh, for some reason he still wanted to be with her.
Ariana veered off the path, spotting a large grassy field to her right. This was where she and Master Owens always met. Again, she was early, so he wasn't there yet. Never sleeping meant spending eight hours every night waiting for the world to wake up; she couldn't help coming early, eager to start her day.
She spotted her favorite tree, and walked up to it, sitting with her back to the trunk. The tree's branches swayed slightly in the breeze, its green leaves rustling pleasantly above her head. It wasn't long before she spotted Master Owens walking out of the double-doors of the Tower, still a mile or so away, continuing down the cobblestone path toward her. Even from such a long distance, she could see his black robes rippling in the breeze, his brown eyes staring off into space. He was clearly lost in thought; she wondered idly about what. She followed his slow stroll down the path, and after a long while, he reached the tree where she sat. He stopped before her, giving her a warm smile.
“Good morning,” he greeted, extending a hand. Ariana stood up and shook it, feeling the powerful pulse of blood in the artery at the base of his thumb. If she concentrated, she could even hear his heartbeat. “Are you ready to spar?” he asked.
“Yes Master Owens,” she replied. They'd been sparring several times a day ever since her revival, supposedly to help her improve her skills. But they both knew the real reason behind the matches; with Ariana having the Dead Man's shard in her brain, Kalibar had ordered a thorough study of its capabilities. For, in addition to keeping her alive, the shard had an extraordinary number of automatic magical defenses programmed into it. Anyone attempting to attack her would trigger these defenses, and Master Owens' job was to catalog them...and attempt to find a way to defeat them. In doing so, Kalibar hoped to gain the upper hand against the Chosen, and against Xanos. Of course, her adoptive father had taken great care to ensure that no one – other than himself, Erasmus, Darius, Kyle, and Owens – knew the true source of her power. The Council would not be pleased to know that a Chosen existed among them.
“Good,” Owens replied. “Grand Weaver Kalibar should be here soon,” he added. Ariana nodded; her father had been attending her sparring matches recently, eager to learn how to combat her shard. He hadn’t sparred with her yet though…and even the thought of facing Kalibar made her uneasy. “Let's get started, shall we?” Owens stated.
Ariana smiled back nervously, taking a step backward. Master Owens was the second-best Battle-Weaver in the Empire, with only Kalibar consistently able to defeat him. But even Owens' considerable talents had been sorely tested by Ariana's shard. He'd won all of their matches handily...up to the point of the finishing blow. It was then that the crystal in her forehead had unleashed a new surprise to counter him, each and every time.
“Ready?” Master Owens said, his eyes narrowing slightly. “Begin!”
Ariana tensed up, backpedaling away from her teacher. She saw gravity shields shimmer to life around Owens in multiple layers, saw another gravity field appear instantly to Owens' left. The Weaver slid rapidly toward it, a fireball appearing between his hands in front of his chest, shooting outward at her before she could so much as blink. Ariana felt her shard react, magic weaving impossibly fast in the center of her forehead. A dozen gravity shields appeared around her like the layers of an onion.
The fireball bounced harmlessly off of her shields, fiery punk splattering on the grass below.
Master Owens stopped sliding suddenly, flying straight up into the air. Ariana stopped backpedaling...then felt herself sliding backward uncontrollably in the wet grass. She turned around just in time to see herself being sucked into a gravity sphere – filled with a massive burning glob of punk. She cried out, creating a gravity sphere of her own in front of her to counteract the pull of Owens' sphere.
Her sphere winked out of existence.
Ariana flew backward into the flaming sphere, throwing her arms in front of her face and closing her eyes. She screamed as tongues of fire surrounded her, fighting the sudden terror that threatened to overwhelm her. The heat of the flames was unbearable, and she gagged at the awful stench of burning flesh assaulting her nostrils. She grit her teeth, steeling herself as she forcibly lowered her arms. She opened her eyes, seeing her gravity shields still up, the burning punk orbiting around her harmlessly. She blinked, realizing that she could feel no actual heat coming from the flames. She felt her shard weave, saw Owens' gravity sphere vanish, the burning punk falling to the ground. The heat, the smell of burning flesh...it had all been in her head.
Ariana grit her teeth, feeling anger grow in her breast. She hated fire...and Master Owens knew it.
She turned her gaze upward, ignoring the black smoke rising from the burning punk on the ground around her. She saw Master Owens hovering some twenty feet above her head, studying her silently. Even from here she could see that he was completely relaxed, his posture one of utter confidence.
She had the sudden urge to wipe the floor with him.
Ariana crouched low, then leapt upward, her powerful legs sending her high into the air toward him. With her shard protecting her, she knew that she only had to collide with him. The shard would neutralize any foreign gravity shield it got near, leaving Owens completely unprotected.
But as she neared him, she saw her shields vanishing one-by-one, felt herself lurch to the side by some unseen force, missing Owens by a wide margin. She cried out, feeling herself spinning uncontrollably in the air, the world a jumble of green and blue rotating madly before her. She flailed her limbs wildly, then felt her left hip strike the ground with a terrible crunch, a horrid pain shooting down her leg. Her shoulder struck next, followed by her head, and stars exploded before her eyes. She cried out, curling into the fetal position on the wet grass.
Light burst forth into her mind's eye, magic weaving ferociously of its own accord.
And then everything slowed.
The stars in her eyes vanished instantly, her vision clearing. She looked upward, seeing Master Owens' descending toward her, his face twisted in horror, one hand reaching out toward her. She saw his black robes rippling gracefully, light scattering off of the edges of his gravity shields. She saw a single drop of water fall from his left boot, and was mesmerized by the rainbow of colors dancing off of it as it fell slowly toward her.
She stared at that single drop, watching as it overtook Owens, accelerating toward the earth while her teacher slowed his descent. It struck a single blade of grass at her feet, bending it all the way to the ground, then bursting into countless smaller drops, the blade of grass rebounding mightily. She watched as that verdant b
lade sprang upward, vibrating with the memory of its collision.
She felt her shard reacting, power arcing in her forehead, that part of her mind's eye over which she had no control. It wove much more slowly than usual, so that she could almost follow the patterns it created. She saw the air around her shimmer, saw layer after layer of gravity shields come to life around her, pushing her a few inches off of the grass.
Still, her shard wove.
She saw Owens land on the grass before her, now only a few feet away, the gravity shields a fraction of an inch below his black boots slowly crushing the countless blades of grass below. His knees bent slightly with the impact, his robes billowing upward around him. She reached out, her hand moving far faster than everything around her, and cried out a warning just as her shard finished its patterns, thrusting knots of magic automatically toward Owens.
His shields vanished.
Ariana watched as a huge sphere appeared around her teacher, stared in horror as the sides began to press inward toward him. She saw his black robes collapse inward, the cloth crushing against his limbs and body. She saw his eyes roll backward in his head, watched him slump forward, unconscious...even as the sphere around him continued to shrink. The sides closed in on him slowly, pushing his arms against his flanks, forcing his shoulders forward and inward.
Still, the sphere contracted.
Ariana's eyes widened with horror, and she tried to get up, to push herself off of the ground, but her left hip was useless. She felt her shard start to weave again, and clawed at her forehead with her fingernails, feeling pain lance through her skull.
Still, the sphere contracted.
She saw Owens' left elbow get shoved deeper into his side, heard a snapping sound as the ribs cracked underneath.
No!
Owens head was shoved downward and forward as the top and bottom of the gravity field contracted, his neck arching severely under that relentless pressure. She heard another crack as his right elbow dug into his right flank.
No, no, no!
Still the now-oval field around Owens shrank, and all Ariana could do was watch as her teacher was slowly crushed to death.
“Master Owens!” she cried.
And then it was done.
Chapter 5
“Try again,” Lee ordered.
Kyle grimaced, stopping his magic stream to the cube he'd inscribed his first rune into. Or rather, his first attempt at a rune; he'd butchered the ring-shaped inscription at the beginning. It had to be a nearly perfect circle, not the squiggly mess that Kyle had managed. Streaming magic to the rune had resulted in nothing.
“It's hard,” he protested.
“Quit whining,” Lee scolded. “It'll be hard until it isn't.” She pulled another brown cube out of the air, smacking it down on the table in front of him. Kyle sighed, then grabbed the small cube, leaning over it until his forehead was nearly touching the top facet. He closed his eyes, weaving the inscribing pattern, then sending the pattern outward carefully into the cube. He streamed magic into the pattern, moving the pattern – and the stream – in a tight circle downward, then upward. He shot his stream straight down, then back up, and then stopped.
He opened his eyes, lifting his head and staring questioningly at Lee.
“Go on,” she ordered.
Kyle pushed the cube away from him, then streamed magic to it.
A massive jet of flame burst upward from the cube, its roar shattering the silence of the Archives. Kyle cried out, cutting his magic stream, and the flame slowly shrank, until it at petered out at last.
Kyle stared at Lee, then at the cube, swallowing in a dry throat. The once-brown cube was jet black.
“What did we learn?” Lee inquired, completely unfazed by Kyle's pyrotechnics.
“Uh,” Kyle stammered. “Stream less magic next time?” Lee shook her head.
“Your runes are too thick,” she corrected. “The thicker your wires, the easier it is for magic to flow through them. Thin wires resist magic flow.”
“Got it,” Kyle replied. It made sense; when he wove the fire pattern in his mind, the more magic he put into the pattern, the larger the flame. The more magic he streamed to it, the hotter the flame. It was, apparently, similar with runes.
“Again,” Lee commanded. She conjured another cube, tossing it onto the table with a clatter. Kyle grabbed it, placing it in front of him as before. He leaned over it, weaving the inscribing pattern again. This time, he put far less magic into the pattern, knowing that this would make for a thinner wire. He inscribed the fire rune as before, then leaned back, pushing the cube a bit farther away from himself than before. Lee smirked.
“Okay,” Kyle stated, rubbing his hands together. He streamed a small thread of magic to the cube. A tiny, wimpy excuse for a flame popped up a fraction of an inch from the cube's facet.
“Not bad,” Lee conceded. Kyle broke into a smile, stopping his magic stream; the flame continued to burn for a long time before being snuffed out, undoubtedly feeding off of the magic the crystal around the rune had managed to store. The first flame must have burned through that stored magic quickly, extinguishing itself much sooner.
“It's getting easier,” Kyle replied.
“I was talking about you figuring out to put less magic in the inscribing pattern, to make a thinner rune,” Lee explained. “At least you're capable of some thought.”
“Gee, thanks,” Kyle grumbled.
“Most students aren't,” Lee continued. “Usually have to hold their precious little hands all the way through, feeding them all the answers.” She shook her head. “That's why I don't teach anymore.”
“You're teaching me,” Kyle countered. Lee gave him a wrinkled smirk.
“You're not giving me a reason to stop.”
Kyle nodded, feeling proud of her endorsement. But he knew that he would continue to have to earn it; he wiped his sweaty palms on his white uniform, then took a deep breath in, letting it out slowly. Lee plucked another cube from the air, then set it in front of him. Kyle frowned, leaning over it and trying again. This time he put a little more magic into the inscribing pattern. When he was done, he pushed the cube away, streaming magic to it as before. A respectably-sized flame shot upward from the cube's surface.
“What are you doing wrong?” Lee asked. Kyle blinked, then frowned.
“It's working great,” he protested, gesturing to the flaming cube.
“Oh really?” Lee shot back. Kyle frowned, stopping his magic stream, then waiting for the flame to wink out. He stared at the surface of the cube, realizing that it was stained black.
“Oops.”
“You'll be real popular when your runics scald everyone who holds them,” Lee stated wryly. “Put the rune deeper in the cube,” she counseled. “Like this...”
She drew on a piece of paper, resulting in this:
“Okay,” Kyle replied. Lee produced yet another cube, and Kyle did as she instructed, creating a rune deeper within the cube, making a longer wire to the surface. Then he streamed magic to the cube. A small flame appeared, hovering slightly above the cube's surface. Only a small circle of black marred the surface.
“The longer it takes for magic to escape the surface after the rune is woven, the farther away the pattern will be executed from the rune,” Lee explained. Kyle nodded, cutting off his magic stream.
“Got it,” he replied. Lee snorted.
“No you don't,” she replied. “But you will.” She pulled yet another brown cube from thin air, placing it before him. “Again,” she ordered.
Kyle sighed, grabbing the cube and leaning over it, weaving the inscribing pattern yet again.
* * *
Ariana lay on the wet grass of the Secula Magna campus, pain lancing down her left hip and leg as she struggled to get up. The world was still moving in slow motion, as if time had ground to a near-halt. She rolled onto her stomach, crying out as her hip crunched with the movement, shattered bone grating on bone. Not ten feet in front of her, Mast
er Owens hovered unconscious in the middle of the shimmering oval her shard had created...and slowly, inexorably, it contracted around him. With her unnatural hearing, the sounds of her teacher's ribs cracking as his elbows sank into his ribcage were as loud as thunderclaps. Still the walls pressed inward, threatening to crush the life out of her gentle teacher.
“Master Owens!” she screamed. She wove magic frantically, creating a pushing gravity sphere around Owens to try to counteract the pulling field around him, but it was no use; her shard's gravity field would not be denied. She tried again, shoving as much magic as she could into the pattern.
Nothing happened.
She saw Owens' head arching downward and forward, so severely now that at any moment his neck would snap. She could hear his heart beating rapidly in his chest, heard his breathing stop as the gravity field's crushing force made breathing impossible. His heartbeat became fainter, until it was barely audible, even to her ears.
And then it stopped.
“No!” Ariana cried, covering her eyes with her hand and turning away. She slumped onto her belly on the wet grass below, burying her face in her hands. Great sobs wracked her thin frame, a feeling of utter hopelessness come over her. If she could've cried, if she had been able to make tears, she would have.
She felt her shard's magic stream stop suddenly, heard a dull thump as Master Owens' body fell to the ground before her.
Oh god, she thought, balling her hands into fists, gritting her teeth so hard she thought they might crack. She didn't dare open her eyes, knowing that the vision of her teacher's mangled corpse would haunt her memory for the rest of her life. I'm so sorry.
