“Ready!” Micah called, and two combatants in the pit adopted a ready stance with the sword.
Cursing himself, Tommy realized that he still hadn’t enchanted his eye sight, and he quickly cast the spell that would allow him to see magical energies. Suddenly, things burst into view. He could see the strong shields surrounding the man and the woman in the pit, and even stronger shields inside those linked to and being provided by the crystals on the pedestals.
“BEGIN!” Micah cried and the stands erupted into cheers as the man and the woman began flowing across the bare earth toward one another.
The male combatant opened up with a spell that shot a dozen flaming arrows into the air. The arrows arced out in a fan, forming a huge semi-circle around the woman, before changing course and speeding in toward her from above and all sides. Tommy’s breath caught – with the attack coming from all sides, it would be very difficult for the woman to defend against this assault. Tommy was surprised to see, then, that she didn’t even attempt to deflect the attack, but simply allowed the flaming arrows to impact upon her shields. Instead, she flung her free hand out, and a brilliant arc of white-hot lightning lept from her hand to strike the man’s shields. The lightning flashed once, twice, and three times, each time upon the exact same course through the air, leaving a glowing after-image in Tommy’s eyes and causing his seat to vibrate with a huge, thunderous boom.
The man staggered from the attack, and Tommy suspected it was almost as much from the noise as the actual assault on his defenses. But he was not to be deterred. He regained his stride and continued moving toward the woman, casting a spell of his own that caused a giant ball of fire, at least two feet across, to appear behind the woman and streak toward her. She let out a yell as the fireball struck her shield from behind, the shock of the blast knocking her forward ever so slightly. But she wasn’t beaten; she merely rolled forward from the blast, tumbled, and rolled back to her feet, continuing to move toward the man.
He paused for a second, evidently surprised at the lack of a retaliatory spell, and began casting another fireball identical to the one that had just worked so well, but this one forming off to the woman’s right flank instead of behind her.
Both Tommy and the male combatant both were surprised, then, that the woman actually had cast a spell. She had used the impact of the fireball and her subsequent roll to disguise the casting. Large, jagged fingers of rock stabbed upward from the floor and around the man, scraping along his shields before closing tightly in a cage around him, crushing and draining the energy from his defenses. His fireball spell faltered and vanished, and the crowd went wild with cheers at the display. Tommy thought the young man was beaten, but he paused only momentarily before spinning rapidly to the side, using the force of his own shield to crack and shatter the rock prison.
And then the two were on each other, engaging with swords as they continued to batter one another with fire and lightning. The man was clearly the more aggressive of the two, and launched a wide, double-handed swing of his sword horizontally across the woman’s chest, while flinging a fan of flames that sprung from nowhere and flew at the woman’s face. The crowd cheered approval at the attack, but the woman simply rolled forward again, dodging the flames and rolling underneath the sword attack. As she rolled to her feet behind her opponent, she brought her sword up in a long, drawing attack that scraped along his shield from his feet to his shoulders. She turned back toward him and flung a spell at him, a freezing spell that caused the very air to freeze solid for just a second as it flowed toward the man, but he cast the exact opposite of the spell, performing all the motions backwards, and when the two met, they cancelled one another.
Now, the two circled one another, panting. Although they’d just been at it for a few short minutes, Tommy could see them both panting with exertion. The woman lunged forward at her opponent, but he danced to the side and dealt her shield a brutal cut across her waist. She returned with another bolt of lightning that he tried to counter, but was too slow, and Tommy saw him grimace in pain at the impact on his shield. The crowd roared, some screaming in encouragement, others crying in vexation, depending on which combatant they favored.
In and out they danced, attacking and parrying, launching spell and counter spell. Neither seemed to have an advantage, but then Tommy noticed something. The man was surreptitiously pouring a portion of energy out of his shield and into a fireball spell immediately behind the woman. He was merely using his sword and his other spells as a diversion to keep her attention while he crafted the fireball, which he was able to make much larger and more intense with the additional time and energy he siphoned off his shield.
Finally, the fireball spell was done, and the man launched himself toward the woman in an all-out attack, swinging his sword at the front of her shields while he let the fireball go and streak toward her back.
Shockingly, though, the woman slid her feet forward and fell flat on her back with a grunt, causing his sword attack to miss. The man had released control of his fireball spell, too, once he let it fly, but the woman had apparently been waiting for that – she took control of the abandoned spell, adding her own energy to the effect and increasing its speed, causing it to fly harmlessly over her body and strike him full in the body.
He shouted as his shields, already drained from the combat and from the energy he had pulled from them, cracked and faltered. The woman, still on the ground, launched one more, much smaller lightning bolt that passed the man’s shattered defenses and impacted upon his emergency shield. As soon as the impact took place, all the magical energy in the arena ceased, and the man’s shoulders slumped in defeat.
Micah stood again. “Jennifer Riley is the winner! Well fought, both of you.”
The male combatant strode over and offered Jennifer a hand up, helping her back to her feet, and the two shook hands. She gave him a consolatory grip on the shoulder, and the two spoke to one another for a moment, although Tommy couldn’t hear what was being said over the cheers of the crowd. The two then bowed to one another again, sheathed their swords (causing them to vanish again), and strode formally away, each returning through the door they’d come through.
There was only the briefest pause, and then Micah was announcing the next set of competitors.
The contests went on and on throughout the evening, and Tommy found himself getting swept up in the excitement. He began discussing the matches with the other students around him, arguing different opinions on what each competitor did right or wrong, and trying to pick favorite combatants or predict the winner. Some of the matches were between extremely skilled opponents – a few of them even more skilled than the first match– and the combatants fought each other with a barrage of magical spells and swordplay that Tommy found dazzling and almost difficult to follow. Other matches were between students who were much less skilled, some of whom Tommy thought he might be able to out match. However, the skill of the combatants didn’t matter one lick. The crowd cheered the less skilled students just as hard as the one who were more proficient, and there was just as much discussion of a relatively unskilled match as there was of a battle between masters. One thing impressed Tommy about the whole thing, although it took him quite awhile to realize it – there was never any jeering or booing when a mistake was made, or when someone’s favorite competitor took a bad fall. Instead, the whole thing was on a positive note, celebrating the successes of the competitors without dwelling on their failures.
Tommy’s voice grew hoarse throughout the night from his shouting and cheering at the matches, but he didn’t care. He was having too much fun. He’d never been into sports in school, but now he thought he saw the appeal – all that it took was being interested in and excited about the event you were watching.
It was late in the event when someone interrupted Tommy’s cheers by tapping him on the shoulder. He looked up to see one of the school’s workers – one of the huge cadre of personnel that were neither students nor teachers, but who lived and wor
ked at the school and kept things running. Most of them were friends or family of the students and other mages that had taken refuge in the school. They wanted to be with their loved ones, so they found a spot to fit in and contribute to the school however they could. Everyone at the school contributed in some form or fashion.
The man bent down double to whisper in Tommy’s ear. “Mr. Nelson? I’ve been asked to fetch you for the next competition.”
“What? Me?” Tommy asked, befuddled.
“Yes, the Lord Archmage has asked that you compete in tonight’s final event.”
Tommy looked around frantically for support. His eyes fell upon Micah, clearly watching him from across the room. Their eyes locked for a moment, and then Micah nodded subtly.
“Ok, lead on,” Tommy sighed.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Tommy followed the man up the risers and back through the door that he’d come through. Instead of continuing back up into the school, however, they took an immediate right turn down a long, curved hallway. Tommy quickly recognized that the hallway curved around the entire arena. After a short walk, they came to a set of stairs that branched off and lead down even deeper. The workman led Tommy down these stairs, which turned out to be several flights of steps, broken only by brief, unadorned landings, and which lead much deeper into the ground. Finally, just as Tommy’s legs were starting to complain about the abuse, the stairs ended in a set of double doors. The workman gestured for Tommy to enter before turning and starting the laborious climb back up the stairs.
Tommy pushed through the doors and found a small carpeted sitting room, with chairs arranged around small tables bearing lamps. It looked to Tommy like a doctor’s waiting room. There was another set of double door across the room, and seated in one of the chairs, much to Tommy’s surprise, was Ryan, who groaned when Tommy entered the room.
“You! Why’d it have to be you?” Ryan lamented.
Tommy chuckled at that, and went to take a seat next to the other boy. “Pffft. I could say the same thing about you.”
Ryan grinned. “You and me again, eh? Looks like it’s always you and me. Well, don’t think I’m going to go soft on you.”
“Right, like you’ve ever gone soft on me before, ” Tommy laughed.
“Well, just don’t expect it now. I was never into sports, you know? My family just didn’t do that. We didn’t play sports. I’ve never had someone cheer for me. You do think they’ll cheer for us, don’t you?”
“Of course they will, they cheered for everyone else! They’d better cheer for us, at least! I’m so nervous, I could…” Tommy was cut off short by Chancellor Duvey, who burst through the doors and into the room.
“Alright, time to get ready. There’s one more match before you both are on. We’ve got to get you ready. Come with me, please,” the Chancellor barked, not slowing as he crossed the room and not even looking to see if the boys were following. Both Tommy and Ryan glanced at one another before leaping to their feet and hurrying after the man.
Chancellor Duvey led them into the next room, which looked like a combination armory, cloak room, laundry room, and locker room to Tommy. There were sets of lockers with benches in front of them in the center of the room. Tommy recognized a couple of the competitors from previous games sitting on the benches and chatting while they changed clothes. One side of the room was filled with rows and rows of pegs containing the robes that Tommy had seen each competitor wear, in sizes ranging from diminutive to gigantic, and everywhere in between. Opposite the robes was a wall hung with swords of every size, shape, and length, from fencing foils to enormous two-handed broadswords much like the one Tommy had seen Lord Kalish wield.
Chancellor Duvey began busily pulling robes off the wall and holding them up against Tommy, Ryan, or both of them. While he was trying, and rejecting, various robes, the Chancellor explained the rules of the combat to both boys. Apart from the formalities that Tommy had already witnessed – bowing to one another before and after the match, how weapons were to be held during the bowing, and to always be honorable and courteous to one another – the only rules that Tommy could discern were that there WERE no rules. Any spell, any attack, any strike with a weapon, it was all legal and permissible. At one point, Ryan joked that it was even legal to pull dirty tricks, “like throwing sand in the other guy’s face”. Chancellor Duvey however, was not amused and simply replied that, if Ryan could find Sand in the pit, he was welcome to throw it, for all the good a handful of sand would do against an opponent’s shields. Tommy thought, not for the first time, that the man was totally devoid of a sense of humor.
Finally, Chancellor Duvey had picked a robe for each of them that he felt satisfied with, and he took them across the room and allowed them each to pick a sword from the wall. Ryan selected an unusually long, straight bladed sword like he had favored in class. Although Tommy had spent a lot of time training with a similar sword, he found that he was most comfortable with something long but narrow, with a blade that came to a very sharp point but was only sharp on one side, the reverse side being thick and hard for blocking. Tommy tested the blade with his finger, and gasped as the razor-sharp blade drew blood.
Chancellor Duvey clicked his tongue in a vexed sound at that, and grabbed Tommy’s hand, casting a brief spell that caused the wound to disappear.
“Please be more careful. Try very hard not to injure yourself with the blade. It won’t look good if you are bleeding before you even step on the field,” the Chancellor chided before chivying them away from the swords and over to the benches. “Put on the robes. Leave on whatever you want. I suggest shoes, socks, and underwear, but the choice is up to you. You’re going to be hot enough out there without all the extra clothes. The rest of your belongings can go in any locker you want.”
Tommy decided to take the man’s advice and shucked his clothes. The decision was easier because, without taking off his pants, Tommy had no way to stash the spellbinder that Micah had given him into the locker unseen, and with several people, including the Chancellor, around to watch, it was a sure thing he’d be noticed with something as obvious at that. When both boys were changed, the Chancellor took them to a set of double doors opposite the ones they entered through, and bade them wait for this return.
Wearing the robe felt odd to Tommy. This robe was lighter than the one he’d worn at Lord Nence’s school. It was an unusual sensation, having air free to blow up his legs, and evidently Ryan was feeling the same way, because the other boy quipped, “I wonder if this is what girls feel like? In a dress, I mean?”
Tommy had to snort a laugh at that, and quickly both of the boys had dissolved into a bout of anxiety fueled laughter.
Once their laughter had died down, Tommy asked “Hey, big boy, take a girl on date? Is that a longsword in your hand or are you just glad to see me?”, and that set them both off in a huge round of guffaws. Both boys were still laughing and snickering when Chancellor Duvey returned, quirking a single eyebrow at both of them.
“If comedy hour is over, we can proceed…?” the man said, and that dried up the laughter from both boys.
The Chancellor lead them through the doors and down a hallway, which ended in a T. Chancellor Duvey paused and turned to face the boys with his back to the T. Without a word, he pointed to Ryan and gestured down the left-hand hall, and then point to Tommy and down the right hand wall. Then, he simply turned and walked between the boys, back the way they had come. Tommy watched the man go for a minute, then revised his opinion – it wasn’t that the man had no sense of humor. It was that he hated laughter and everything to do with it.
Tommy turned to head down the hallway that the Chancellor had indicated was his, aware that Ryan had turned down his own hallway.
“Hey, Good luck!” Tommy called over his shoulder.
Ryan made no reply, and just kept walking.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
The hallway was long and curved, just like Tommy expected it would be, given that it had to lead him a
round the arena and to one of the doors into the pit. After a short walk, Tommy’s intuition turned out to be correct – the hallway ended looped around to a small room with some chairs, a large stone door in it, and one of the school’s workmen sitting and waiting. Tommy noticed that the hallways continued its long journey on the other side of the room – probably continuing on to another locker type preparation room on the other side.
The workman gestured toward one of the chairs. “You’ve probably got about five minutes, so you might as well sit and rest.” Tommy nodded and took the seat. He should probably be doing some stretching exercises or something like that – he knew Ryan probably would be – but it had been a long, stress-filled day, and he just wanted to sit and relax for a moment.
However, a moment was all Tommy got. He was just starting to settle in and relax when the stone door swung open, and a young woman a few years older than Tommy strode through. She smiled briefly at Tommy as the door swung shut behind her.
“Good luck, kid. Hope you have better luck than I did!” She said with a rueful but good-natured grin before continuing past Tommy and down the hallway he’d come through.
The workman jumped to his feet and approached the door, motioning Tommy to join him.
“Okay, this is it. They’re about to announce you. Don’t forget to bow when you go out there.”
As he approached the door, Tommy was shocked to find that he could clearly hear what was going on in the arena. Sitting in the chair, just a few feet away, it was totally silent, but here, even with the door shut, he could hear the muttering of the crowd behind Micah’s booming voice, which was announcing Ryan. Tommy was both surprised and impressed with the things that could be done with magic, then annoyed at his own surprise – he needed to start thinking more like a mage or his own lack of faith in the strength of magic would hold him back.
The Channeler Page 21
