He stumbled over to the training area behind the guard’s barracks and found two decently balanced swords to practice with. His body protested at the extra exertion as he started. It took a little while for him to get his second wind, but this was a different kind of exercise than running and stressed different muscles. Soon he had a measure of his energy back and fiercely went through the sword forms.
He pushed the incident that had happened earlier in the morning away from his mind and tried to concentrate on the pure artistry of his movements. When he finished, Justan saw Zambon sitting to the side looking at him with concern and realized that he had been scowling the entire time.
Justan wasn’t in the mood to speak with anyone at the moment. “What do you want, Zambon?”
The guard shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve just been watching how sloppy your forms are this morning and wondering what could possibly have you so riled up.”
“Sloppy?” Zambon’s easy tone goaded Justan all the more. “Well why don’t you come in and take me on, then? You are the only academy graduate here that I haven’t sparred with yet. Why is that, anyway? Are you afraid that I’ll beat you?”
Zambon seemed taken aback by Justan’s tone. “Actually, if you must know, I didn’t want to embarrass you,” he said. Justan gave him a derisive snicker and the guard couldn’t resist. “Sure I’ll train you. And I’ll do it with pleasure.”
He stepped over to the side where the guards kept a practice closet and pulled out a small shield. He usually fought with a single sword, but he had seen the way Justan’s dual blade style harried the other guards and didn’t want to make the same mistake.
He turned to Justan. “I haven’t used one of these in a long time. But since you are practicing so horribly this morning, I think I’ll chance it. You need any help you can get.”
As Zambon stepped in with his sword in hand, Justan grinned. This was a perfect opportunity for him to blow off some of that steam. He wasn’t worried about Zambon’s skill. He had seen the guard fight during the goblin ambush and hadn’t been too impressed. Justan was certain that he had become far better than the guard since his bonding with Gwyrtha. He growled and attacked Zambon with tight intertwining strikes of the twin swords.
Zambon fended off the first few strikes shakily, unnerved by the voracity of his friends' attack. The guard had fought angry people before, but Justan wasn’t just attacking with anger; he was reckless. The cadet was leaving huge openings in his defenses, but his attacks were so intense that the Zambon couldn’t take advantage of them without seriously hurting his friend and putting himself in danger.
Justan had thought that the sparring session would end quickly, but Zambon was proving better than he had expected. Since sharing his secret with Justan, the guard’s persona had changed. Perhaps his fighting ability had been impaired during the battle with the goblins. Justan didn’t understand the depth of the change in the guard, but right then he didn’t care. The sense of betrayal from earlier in the morning was still burning in his heart.
Zambon took on a combat style the opposite of Justan’s. While Justan fought madly and without cohesion, Zambon watched his opponent’s movements carefully. He had an answer for every one of Justan’s attacks and it was soon obvious that Justan was exhausted and that was adding to his recklessness. It was getting harder for Justan to control his weakening muscles and his attacks soon began to falter.
Zambon waited until the right moment. Justan spun around with a double slice of his swords. Zambon knocked them high with his shield, knelt down and swept Justan’s feet out from under him with a kick to the back of his ankles.
Justan landed on his back with a grunt. Before he could recover, Zambon’s sword was at his neck. The fight was over and though it had only lasted a few minutes, quite a crowd of guards had gathered. The academy graduates roared in delight. Finally, one of their own had beaten the young student.
The two combatants had been so focused that they were both quite startled by the outburst. Even Riveren was clapping. Zambon smiled and bowed to his fellow guards and then bent over and held out his hand to help Justan up.
Justan lay on the ground breathing heavily. As he looked up at the hand being offered to him and saw the worry on his friend’s face, he came to his senses. He had been reckless and rude. All because of a girl. To the astonishment of the gathered guards, Justan laughed.
He accepted Zambon’s hand.
“A fine fight!” he said loud enough that all could hear. Perhaps this fight would disperse some hard feelings. “You have beaten me soundly and with style.” Justan stood and bowed to his friend. “I guess I still have much to learn.”
The guards erupted in applause again. Justan left his friend to be congratulated by the other guards and put the two swords he had borrowed away. As he left, Zambon and Riveren jogged up to him. The muscular red-headed man caught his arm
“Is everything alright?” Riveren asked.
Justan was surprised at the concern in his friend’s voice. “Yes,” he said. “I’ll be just fine.”
The two guards looked like they wanted to ask more, but they could tell by the tone in his voice that he didn’t want to talk about it. They nodded and walked back to take their posts.
By the time Justan changed back into his robes, he was glad that Zambon had ended it that way. He had needed reality jolted back into him. Besides, perhaps it would take some of the guards’ resentment away. He needed all the friends he could get around here. After what he had seen that morning, he didn’t need any other enemies.
He had been acting like a fool. What went on between Vannya and Valtrek didn’t change anything. He would do as planned and he wasn’t going to let anyone get in his way. There was nothing that the two of them could do that would divert him from his path.
Professor Beehn stood in front of the new cadets with the other members of the Mage School High Council and cursed the fact that he wasn’t able to join Justan and the other students in their morning run. Even though he still ate as much as ever, he had lost a lot of weight in the last two months and his body always felt better when he got his morning exercise.
Instead, he was forced to stand in the center square of the school while several of the older wizards gave their welcome speeches. He had been to every one of these ceremonies in the last ten years and could practically recite their speeches word for word. All, that is, except for Headmaster Latva, who always found a way to give a new speech and made it interesting for everyone present.
The new cadets were met at the front gate by the faculty, escorted away from their parents and loved ones and led down the center road of the school. The road was lined on either side with cheering students, watching their new classmates enter. Professor Beehn tapped his foot as he waited for the procession of the new cadets to enter the main square.
This year there were thirty-two new cadets, which was a fairly large group. Each year, the wizards scoured the countryside for fresh talent. This was mostly done in secret for most cultures were uneasy about wizards and magic in general. Whenever a potential student was found, the wizards did all they could to make sure that they came to the school for proper training. It was dangerous to let magic run wild.
Professor Beehn couldn’t help but smile at the looks of wonder on the faces of these young people as they entered the main square and stared up at the clock tower. It wouldn’t be long before these fresh-faced cadets became true students of magic. He recalled his first few months at the school learning the limited extent of his abilities and puzzling out his place in the world. It had been a trying time, but he remembered it with fondness and wished that he still had that intense sense of wonder at every new piece of knowledge. On top of that, he wished that he had his teenage body back.
That last thought was particularly true, for as he stood on the hard pavement watching the new students line up, his back begin to ache. A sharp pain crawled up the back of his neck, through the center of his head to settle right behind his
eyes.
These headaches had been growing in intensity over the past two years until they were becoming unbearable. He hadn’t told anyone about them, but they were increasingly difficult to hide. The only time now that they were manageable was when he had run several miles in the morning. The exertion seemed to put his body in order.
With reluctance, he leaned over to Master Latva and asked if he could be excused, explaining that he wasn’t feeling very well. After one look into the professor’s eyes, the old wizard could tell that the professor was in pain.
“Have these headaches been bothering you for long?”
“Off and on, sir. This one is just particularly bad.”
“I see,” Master Latva said. “By all means, Professor, slip away. I do have one condition though. You must stop by the infirmary and let Matron Guernfeldt have a look at you.”
“As you wish, Master Latva,” Beehn agreed, though it left a sour taste in his mouth. He had never been particularly fond of the woman.
Professor Beehn left the square intending to go straight to the infirmary, but as he walked, the ache in his head grew stronger until he wanted nothing more than to drink a cup of strongly herbed tea and lay down.
He was the only wizard besides Matron Guernfeldt to live outside of the RuneTower. As the wizard in charge of school grounds, most of his work was done outside of the tower and he had been given a small house of his own not far from the MagicTestingCenter.
Instead of visiting the infirmary, he decided to stop at his home and rest. If the headache continued, he would then go see the matron. Besides, the calm clean order of his tiny home was just what he needed to untangle his mind and put the headache to rest.
Justan walked out of the barracks physically exhausted, but with his world much more firmly in place. The sky was clear and it was looking to be a beautiful day. The sun peeked over the great school wall and took the morning chill out of the air. The warmth of the sun hit his back and gave him a shiver. It felt good.
Justan still had a full day planned. He started toward the RuneTower excited to get his studying started and put the events of the morning behind him, but his spirits fell just about as soon as he started. Most of the MageSchool students were crowded around the center square of the school by the clock tower where the new cadets were receiving their welcome speeches. He didn’t want to have to wade through all of the other students to get to the library. He wasn’t in the mood for the smiles and stares his appearance always caused.
The school was a big place and the walk from the guard barracks to the RuneTower was nearly a mile. Usually Justan ran the entire way, but he was too tired from his morning exertions. When he reached the main road, the new cadets were already in the main square listening to the opening day speeches. He tried to walk by with a sense of purpose and not make any eye contact, hoping that the students would be too intent on the proceedings to notice him.
Despite his caution, several students called out to him and waived merrily. He forced a smile back in return and picked up his pace despite his protesting legs. Even that small bit of recognition grated on him that morning. He decided to take the long way around the crowd.
This path took him past several rows of buildings and along the side of the MagicTestingCenter. He had spent quite a bit of time in that building over the past months as he was prodded and tested by the wizards. The building’s quiet strength had always comforted him. He didn’t know why. Perhaps he just liked that there was a place built that was as impervious to magic as he wished that his life was.
He was pondering this when he heard a peculiar sound. He stopped and listened. It came again, a thudding noise. Strangely, the noise came from inside the testing center. Those walls were so thick and so heavily protected that no sound should have been able to make its way out. Justan started towards the sound when a plume of rock and dust erupted from the side of the building in a violent explosion.
The blast knocked Justan off his feet and he found himself on his back for the second time that morning. Pieces of magically strengthened rock bounced along the ground in front of him. He looked up in amazement as a huge horrific figure stormed out of the jagged hole left in the wall.
Chapter Eight
It was massive, perhaps twelve feet tall, bulky and wide, and seemed to be made of bark and vines. The monster stomped out of the rubble on two legs as thick as tree trunks with feet tipped in what could only be thick roots. The ground shook when it walked.
Its enormous arms were corded with tight bundles of glistening vines that flexed like muscles as it moved, and it had a stump-like head capped with wisps of grassy hair. The monster’s face was an expressive mask of anger, with a thick rigid jaw and eyebrows made of thorns. As it stomped away from the testing center with a cloud of dust in its wake, Justan saw its eyes glow an eerie green.
He knew that it was trouble the moment that his eyes lighted on the thing. The monster radiated intense power fueled by anger and hatred. Its presence sent fear seeping into his bones and Justan was hit by an instinct to scream. Scream and run and never look back. But as the shock of its appearance wore off, his analytical side took over. The fear was overridden by curiosity. Justan stood up and stared after it in amazement. What was this thing and where had it come from?
His question was partially answered a moment later when a ragged group of students stumbled out of the hole after the creature. It was Arcon, Pympol, and Piledon and they were covered in dust. Piledon collapsed to the ground, coughing out bits of mortar and trying to gasp in the clean air, while Pympol and Arcon stared after the beast with horrified expressions on their faces.
The massive monster stomped over to the nearest decorative tree planted at the side of the walkway. It wrapped branchlike fingers around the trunk and with one straining heave, ripped it completely out of the ground. All four of the students watched in stunned silence as it raised the base of the tree to its head and started biting the roots off.
Justan ran over to the battered mages. “What is that thing?”
Arcon didn’t even acknowledge Justan's presence. “It’s amazing. Look at him. The raw power . . . ” His voice trembled with awe and a slight grin touched his lips. “Look, Pympol. He’s doing just as you built him to do. He’s seeking energy!”
Pympol ignored his friend and lurched over to Justan in a panic. He grasped the front of Justan’s robes.
“I-it’s a plant golem,” he stammered. “My wizard project. We could not handle it! It- it broke free!” Pympol’s shoulders slumped and he gasped, struggling not to cry with the pure abject fear welling up within him.
“This can’t be good.” Justan breathed.
He had read about golems in the library. They were powerful creations of magical power. How these students had managed to create one was beyond his comprehension. Golems were usually the unthinking agents of a wizard, just a servant or a guard unable to do anything unless it is commanded to. But something was wrong with this one.
The golem had finished biting the roots off of the tree. It turned to the nearest building, which was used to house stores for the school, and threw the remains of the tree with all of its might. The tree tumbled through the air and smashed into the brick, denting a section of the outer wall of the building. The golem roared in delight at the destruction. It shoved its way into the building, caving the side of it in.
Its hideous voice sent shivers up Justan’s spine. He turned to Arcon who was no longer smiling. “Did you instruct it to do that?” he asked.
Arcon shook his head slowly. “This is not going as planned.” He muttered, suddenly going quite pale. “Pympol, stop it. Tell it to await instruction.”
“I don’t think it will listen.” Pympol winced as sounds of destruction and eerie laughter ensued from within the storehouse.
Piledon looked up from the ground, his face white. The cadet whimpered as a section of the roof of the building started to collapse. “Oh, we are in big trouble,” he moaned. Justan saw no choice b
ut to follow the creature.
“Pympol! Is this thing supposed to listen to your commands?” The mage reluctantly nodded. “Then you are going to go and command it to stop just like Arcon said.”
“No!” Pympol shook his head and started backing away. “No, you don’t understand! I tried the moment it awoke. The golem just laughed at me and started pounding away at the wall. It won’t listen!”
Justan grabbed the mage by the front of his robes before he could get away.
“Well you are going to try again. That thing could hurt someone.” He turned to the others. “Arcon and Piledon, you two had better go and alert the faculty just in case this doesn’t work.” The two glanced at each other, uneasy at the suggestion. Neither one of them looked forward to admitting that this was their fault.
“Just do it!” Justan commanded and the two of them nodded.
Justan’s legs still ached from his early morning exercise, but adrenalin was pumping within him now and he easily dragged the unwilling Pympol towards the building where the golem was causing the destruction. The mage wept the whole way, moaning about the huge amount of trouble he was going to be in.
Messenger of the Dark Prophet (The Bowl of Souls: Book Two) Page 8
