On the Shoulders of Titans

by Andrew Rowe

  And, if that was the case, did that mean they had no effect?

  It seemed so, since the students were stepping on the white squares on their way to the opposite sides of the arena — and there were two white squares for each team on the far sides.

  There seemed to be no traps on those initial squares, but I couldn’t be confident that all white squares were the same. Teft often liked to subvert expectations.

  “Bow to your opponents.”

  The teams bowed respectfully.

  “Begin!”

  A dome-shaped barrier flickered into life around the arena as soon as Teft spoke.

  The combatants surged into motion.

  Kyra whispered a word, then vanished in a torrent of swirling shadows.

  Instinctively, I activated my attunement to see where she’d gone — and the answer was nowhere. She was still standing in the center of the shadow cloud, reaching out with her hands.

  The shadows began to spread.

  Rupert and Loria turned toward each other, but Loria was a hair faster. She hurled a bolt of lightning at him. It got within inches before a glowing shield appeared in front of Rupert and deflected the blast.

  That was a Shaper spell, but I hadn’t seen Desmond move. There was a good reason for that, and it wasn’t because he was too fast to perceive like Keras. He’d stuck his hands in his jacket pockets so his opponents couldn’t predict his spells based on his gestures. Simple, but effective.

  A hail of glowing swords appeared in the air above Loria, descending in a glimmering flash. She dodged to the side, but that meant jumping onto a colored square. A bolt of light erupted when she landed on it, and I saw cracks flicker across her shield.

  The glowing sword-storm struck the tiles where she’d been standing a moment before, sinking into the stone several inches before vanishing.

  The tiles themselves aren’t shielded, I realized. I might be able to work with that.

  Rupert was still gathering energy in his hands. A swirling ball began to manifest, glimmering with heat while he whispered. His Elementalist mark was on his left hand, so he didn’t strictly need to use incantations, but it looked like he’d learned to use his lungs to augment his spells further.

  From the intensity of the glow, I’d say it was paying off.

  The globe seemed to solidify over the following seconds. Loria hurled another blast of lightning, this time at Desmond, but another phantasmal shield appeared in the way.

  This time, the lightning shifted in mid-air to arc around the shield, blasting Desmond back a step and leaving a crack in his barrier. He landed on a green square. Vines burst from the ground beneath him, wrapping around his legs in a moment. His expression was more perplexed than furious.

  Near me, Patrick whistled appreciatively. Controlling lightning mid-flight like that was impressive.

  So, however, was the ball of flame that was gradually solidifying in Rupert’s hands.

  Kyra’s shadows were still spreading — they now encompassed a half-dozen squares, almost reaching where Loria was standing. Assuming she could see within her own shadows, it seemed like a valid strategy — her opponents wouldn’t know where to attack.

  Desmond ducked down, forming a phantasmal blade to cut away at the vines that were binding him, while Loria hurled another lightning blast. Rupert took this hit head-on, but he managed to retain his focus on the spell he was gathering.

  And, without any further delay, he hurled the sphere in Loria’s direction.

  Kyra’s shadows shot out and covered Loria’s square, then seemed to thicken as the fireball approached.

  The flames diminished as they entered the enclosure of shade, and not just visually. With my attunement active, I could see the intensity decrease as it crossed inside. An unexpected effect; I hadn’t known that shadow magic could diminish the power of other spells.

  But it wasn’t enough.

  The fireball detonated with tremendous force, burning away a section of shadow and crashing into Loria. The impact hurled her backward, shattering her barrier. Then she vanished.

  It wasn’t one of Kyra’s tricks this time. Loria’s barrier was gone, and she’d been eliminated from the match.

  Kyra dropped to the ground when the fireball detonated, and it left her mostly unscathed. Her shadows began to spread again immediately afterward, but it didn’t seem like a sustainable tactic.

  Desmond was almost free of his vines, and Rupert was already preparing another ball of fire.

  I was expecting Kyra to do something sneaky. Maybe create a bunch of illusions, or manipulate the shadows into attacking from a direction opposite from her own location.

  Instead, she braced herself, took a breath, and jumped.

  The remaining shadows jerked inward, pulled as if connected by strings, and condensed until they were pressed against her skin.

  Kyra’s features vanished as the shadows stretched across her entire body, covering her like paint.

  I’d seen that kind of spell before, though; it was more than a cosmetic change. The shadows would enhance her physical capabilities further, and protect her like a suit of armor.

  The leap didn’t take her far, but it did draw her opponents’ attention upward. That meant that her opponents didn’t see that she’d left something behind when she jumped — a tiny metal rod.

  She landed on another white square, just a few feet away from where she’d started, and began to slowly advance. Nothing happened, seemingly confirming that the white squares were safe.

  Desmond was free now, and he conjured another hail of glittering blades in the air above Kyra. They descended, jamming into the writhing shadows around her — and vanished without a trace.

  The shadows seemed to diminish for a moment after the attack, but Kyra exhaled a breath, and they solidified again.

  Kyra advanced, hopping from white square to white square.

  Rupert turned to his partner, still focusing on conjuring a ball of flame, and yelled, “Slow her down!”

  Desmond gave a nod and a reply, then closed his eyes and focused.

  A glowing wall appeared in Kyra’s path.

  She punched it. The wall rippled as umbral mana met with gray, tearing a fist-shaped hole.

  Seeming satisfied, she struck the wall again and again, widening it until there was almost enough room to jump through.

  The wall vanished just in time for Rupert’s fireball to pass through where it had been a moment before. It hit Kyra straight in the chest.

  The shadows rippled on contact, sizzling and burning away as the fireball drilled through. Kyra reached into a pouch at her side, twitching her hand just as Rupert waved his.

  The fireball exploded at Rupert’s command, but Kyra had already vanished.

  She was right back where she’d started, standing near the metallic rod on the white square.

  I hadn’t heard the chime, but I understood what she’d done —

  She had a jump bell in her bag.

  And now, with Rupert’s fireball detonated harmlessly, she charged.

  The lingering shadows around her must have augmented her physical abilities. She was too fast to be running — and then jumping, to clear a section without white tiles — based on muscle alone. I knew Shadows had access to enhancement mana as their secondary type, but I hadn’t seen it in action before.

  As she ran, more shadows began to collect around her. Rupert tried to start to gather another fireball, but he was panting with exhaustion, and his forehead was dripping with sweat.

  And Kyra was too fast.

  Desmond conjured another wave of weapons, but Kyra avoided them entirely this time, dodging and weaving through the flurry of glowing blades.

  Then she was nearly on top of Rupert, hurling a knife from her belt. It hit his barrier and made a crack just before she landed in front of him, widening that crack with a solid punch.

  Rupert stumbled backward, landing on an orange square. The blast of energy that surged upward enveloped him, shatter
ing the last of his barrier.

  Then there were two left on the field.

  Desmond gestured upward, and glowing wires rose from the square below Kyra, similar to the vines that had enveloped him earlier. She jumped over them, but Desmond gestured again, and a glowing shield appeared and flew forward, slamming into Kyra’s midsection.

  The force knocked her back, forcing her to land on a yellow square.

  A warm glow emanated upward, and as I watched, it began to slowly repair some of the damage to Kyra’s shield. She grinned, stretched, and made a “come hither” gesture to her opponent.

  Desmond waved a hand again. “Finally, you’re visible and standing still.”

  A glowing metal box appeared around Kyra’s entire square.

  I blinked.

  The box shook a moment later, no doubt due to Kyra’s attempts to break it from the inside. She couldn’t use the jump bell again so soon without recharging it.

  Desmond shook his head, then made another gesture. Another box appeared around the first box.

  Then another. And another.

  Then he closed his fist — and the boxes began to collapse inward, as if crushed by an invisible hand.

  I could hear the sounds of vibrations from inside the box for a few more seconds before Teft stood up.

  “That’s enough.” He clapped his hands. The light from the squares vanished, as did the boxes.

  Kyra was still there, breathless, huddled into a ball on the ground. It must have been the only place she could find the space to breathe.

  “Master Desmond wins by incapacitation. You may both exit the arena and rest.”

  And that, I considered, is why I should never fight a Shaper in a duel.

  ***

  My own match was, unfortunately, only a few minutes later.

  On the plus side, I’d figured out a few little things from that first one.

  On the minus side, it was safe to assume that Sera had noticed the same things, and she was probably already a step ahead of me on formulating a strategy.

  We made our way to the arena, clipped on the sigil monitors, and headed to our sides of the ring. We only had moments to prepare before the match started.

  I saw Sera on the other side of the arena bending down and pointing at the tile beneath her, making a sweeping gesture with her hands, and Patrick nodding in assent, then whispered something I couldn’t hear.

  Then Sera turned toward us, pointing her dueling cane at me and smirking as she made a mock salute. She couldn’t cast spells, but she could still use a dueling cane with deadly efficiency.

  I turned to Marissa and leaned close to whisper to her. “I need you to cover me for a minute. I’m going to try to do something with the squares.”

  “Can’t be makin’ promises, but I’ll do what I can. Not at my best right now. Ye sure we shouldn’t just charge?”

  I nodded. “We’d win that fight if we could get close, but Sera will be ready for that. Not sure what they’re doing, but they’re up to something.”

  “Bow to your opponents.”

  We bowed.

  “Begin!”

  We had no more time to plan. I ducked down to look at the nearest tile, an orange one.

  Marissa apparently took my instructions to mean “literally stand in the same square as me”, which didn’t give us a lot of space, but it did allow her to deflect the first couple of shots from Sera and Patrick’s opening barrage.

  And barrage was definitely the right word for what they were doing. They were firing fast — and Marissa still too sick to move as quickly as usual. The distance was giving her time to batter blasts out of the air with her fists and the occasional kick, but she was struggling with it.

  I had to help.

  I looked at the tile, and by the goddess, it was complicated.

  There were seven sets of runes on it. Not seven runes, seven sets.

  At a glance, I could tell that five of them corresponded to different functions — presumably for white, red, orange, yellow, and green. They each had a different function rune, as well as mana storage and regeneration runes.

  The sixth was the most important part - the ones that controlled which set of functions currently in use. I wasn’t able to identify all of these, but I guessed one of them tied the tile into some kind of central organization system, and at least one of them was a rune that responded to voice commands. Presumably Teft’s.

  The eighth set involved a trigger rune for pressure, very similar to the one used for activating a return bell. It had another rune adjacent to it that I didn’t recognize, but that gave me something to work with.

  I realized that not only was this whole situation absurdly complex, but that the floor of this arena was probably worth more than everything I owned by multiple orders of magnitude. Even if the enchantments were weak — and they almost certainly were — this was a crazy investment for just a couple tests.

  Maybe they get some of the enchanting classes to build things like this as class projects? Wouldn’t take long if they’ve got hundreds of students...

  A blast that just missed my head brought me back to focusing on my work.

  Fight now, research later.

  I turned on my attunement, observing the paths of mana flowing in the runes in front of me. As I suspected, only one of the five initial sections of runes was currently active. I couldn’t tell exactly what it did, but it had something to do with earth magic.

  I grimaced, thinking about how much easier this would be if I could read all the runes.

  Behind me, Marissa took a hit and staggered, nearly knocking me off my tile. She managed to steady herself quickly, though, and I braced my hands on the ground to prevent myself from falling.

  I had to work fast.

  I looked at the function tiles as a set.

  First one is earth related.

  Second one recharges shields.

  Some kind of energy blast from this one. Maybe the one that was orange last time?

  Not sure about this one. It uses enhancement mana, though, so it may be good.

  Last one...disables all functions, maybe?

  That was good enough information for now.

  I pulled my engraving rod out of my bag. We weren’t allowed to have magic weapons, but Teft hadn’t said anything about tools.

  I started carving a new rune. The tile already had a system for changing functions — I just needed to add a new way of doing that. One I could control.

  It was a decent idea up until the point where an energy blast knocked the engraving rod out of my hand, sending it flying three tiles away.

  I looked up.

  Patrick and Sera were advancing, firing while they walked. Marissa was struggling even harder now, taking a hit to her left leg while I watched. As Patrick and Sera got closer, it was getting easier and easier for them to fire accurately.

  “Corin, little help ‘ere?” Marissa had switched into a sideways stance that exposed less of her own body to attacks, but that meant that more of me was exposed.

  “Almost got it.” That was almost true.

  I glanced at one more tile — a green one right next to me — and identified that rune as the beam blast one.

  I stood up, thinking while I pulled the dueling cane off my belt and finally began to return fire.

  Patrick and Sera scattered as I fired, stepping on colored squares.

  Nothing happened.

  I blinked.

  Our opponents advanced.

  I didn’t have any idea how they were managing that, nor did I have time to think about it. Patrick hurled a bolt of lightning that split into three.

  Marissa managed to jump and smash one of the branches of the bolt, which was pretty impressive, but the other two smashed into me and left deep cracks in the barrier. I felt the mana in my phoenix sigil sink to just over half.

  Panic got my mind working.

  If I was right that earth magic meant vines, that meant orange and green had been directly swapped.<
br />
  I dodged Sera’s next attack directly onto a red tile.

  Slowly, gray mana began to trickle upward and recharge my shield.

  Now we’re talking.

  I aimed at Sera and fired three shots in rapid succession. She dodged easily, still ignoring the color of the squares below her entirely.

  I leaned closer to Marissa, who was still standing on our starting tile. “Red is helpful, so you can dodge to those. Think green is the energy blast one, don’t get hit by that.”

  I knew yellow was probably beneficial, too, but red seemed like a better bet until I could identify the function.

  “Got it.” She nodded, immediately scanning the ground for red squares. Patrick tried to take advantage of her distraction to hit her with a lightning blast, but she just swatted it out of the air without even looking.

  Marissa hopped to a red tile, and I saw the same kind of energy wash over her.

  We were both recharging now, which was good. The problem was that it was slow, and we weren’t doing any damage in return.

  When I turned to fire at Patrick, he was more sluggish in his response than Sera, but he still managed to blast my own attack out of the air with one of his.

  I hopped to another red square to dodge Patrick’s return fire, but Sera anticipated my movement and hit me with a shot from her cane as soon as I landed.

  Their teamwork was better than ours, too. They’d been practicing together for months at this school alone — and known each other for years before that.

  We needed to even the odds.

  But I was taking too long, so Marissa was the one who acted.

  She ducked a pair of shots, plunging a fist into the ground. A fist that was, as it turned out, surrounded by a cutting aura like I’d seen her demonstrate for Keras.

  In a moment, I understood. I jumped closer to Marissa, deflecting two shots from Patrick and returning an ineffective barrage of my own.

  It only took a few more moments for Marissa to cut the green square out of the floor, then pull it up by the edges. It fired a harmless blast into the air.

  Sera must have seen what she was doing, too. I couldn’t parry her attacks fast enough, but I stepped into the way and took two hits. This was worth the cost.

  Marissa flipped the square to face Patrick and shook it.