by Andy Adams
“No,” said Windelm, “What’s happened?”
“The city guard came through yesterday,” said Patrick, “interviewed the whole family. Phillip McRorin is missing.”
Windelm stiffened and turned his head to the side, “Missing? How?”
“Well, he was out huntin’ with a group of other mages, far out on the western region of Silvalo, and they were supposed to have picked up more supplies from Barringer Point two weeks ago, but thing is, they never came back.”
A concerned look swept over Windelm. “I saw Phillip at Oswald’s Outfitters a month ago…and he never showed up?”
“Nope,” said Patrick. “The Guard did their own search of the Silvalo wilderness in that area, but you know they can’t check everywhere. The jungle stretches out for leagues in every direction, it could take a man a good year to walk the sand border with Arenattero, let alone the whole southwestern side of Silvalo.”
“My cartographers are due to classify some of that region this summer. I’ll be sure to have them on alert for any evidence of his expedition.”
Patrick’s voice lowered, “You don’t think they were overtaken by Arenattero spellcasters, do you?”
Windelm paused, seeming to choose his words carefully. “It’s been over a century since the last battle between Silvalo and Arenattero, and their sovereign wizard, Amal Jadula, had just visited Arborio last year. He seemed to be on good terms with our sovereign, Donovan Drusus. I don’t think he’d be stupid enough to start a war with us, especially with the Games of Ganthrea happening in a little over two months.”
Patrick shifted his weight. “It had to a’been spellcasters. McRorin is a seasoned hunter and a mage; he’s too clever to be taken down by a creature. Could be slavers…or assassins, maybe…”
“Maybe,” said Windelm, his eyes looking off in the distance. “Stop by the cottage later this week, or the Mindscape, and we can discuss more.”
Patrick nodded, then stepped back to the street and put on a cheerful facade, “The Mindscape? Ha! You just want another excuse to show off.”
“I’m just trying to keep you young, Patrick! Doing my part to help work off that gut you’ve been feeding over the years.”
“You old goat! We all know Sherry pumps you with potions to keep you running like a young buck.”
“Nonsense!”
“I’m on to you, Windelm. Alright—my missus needs some boar meat and moltifrutes, and is probably wondering what’s keeping me so long. Windelm, one last favor.”
“Yes?”
“Don’t mention the Surly Spellcaster, eh?”
Windelm chuckled. “Consider it forgotten.”
“Great. Best be off!” He turned, raised a hand, and waved back at them. “Watch out for that one, Brenner!”
Brenner suppressed a smile.
Windelm shook his head and laughed. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s buy your supplies and head back to the cottage. You’ve got some practicing to do.”
Chapter Ten
The Entrance Agilis
The extra three weeks staying at Crestwood Cottage felt like a mix of vacation and boot camp: quick meals in the morning, dinner at evening with Windelm and Sherry, and the rest of the day, tough challenges in what was quickly becoming Brenner’s favorite place: the Mindscape.
He scraped his sides badly the second day while trying to climb the pillars, and then got a black eye on the third day when he was caught off-guard by the sphinx’s tail. Even still, he kept at it each day that Windelm and Sherry worked, testing the limits of his jumps, stretching his upper body climbing up and over walls, turrets, and ledges. He took Windelm’s earlier advice to heart, and whenever Windelm joined him on the course, he studied how his great-uncle practically flew around grabbing glowbes, skimming over water, and Brenner imagined himself doing the same.
The second week brought fewer injuries, and the third week, none. Now, his body quickly did what his brain told it to, and when he saw himself in the mirror after a bath, he was surprised to see a lean, strong, flexible young man staring back at himself.
During his meals, Brenner listened to Windelm and Sherry share about Silvalo customs (people here didn’t give handshakes: men locked right hands on another’s shoulders; women put their right hand on the other person’s waist), and what their work was like (Windelm scouted places where the government should add vias, or roads, and noted where resources were flourishing or dwindling; Sherry, the entrepreneur, made, bottled, and sold potions). With Windelm he also rehearsed his own ‘story’ about his previous sixteen years in a farming community called Cormith.
At the end of April, Brenner stood outside the Crestwood cottage in the warm morning sunshine with Windelm and Sherry, ready to give the Entrance Examination a shot.
He wore the usual tunic and garb of spellcasters, and also fine leather boots that Windelm had bought; they were firm yet lighter than any shoes he’d had. Sherry had given him a new rucksack, packed with spare clothes, a couple spellbooks, homemade toothpaste and brush, as well as the Essence of Spungelite and home-made Alacritus potions. He was delighted to discover the rucksack had the same magical, inner-expanding ability as Windelm’s satchel.
“Do be careful at the academy,” Sherry said, catching him off-guard with a firm hug, “And you’re welcome back here whenever you’d like!” She beamed at him.
“He’ll be just fine, dear,” Windelm said. “And I should be back for supper.” He gave his wife a kiss on the cheek.
“Thanks for everything, Sherry,” Brenner said.
“Our pleasure!”
Windelm said something under his breath to engage their flight spell, and in an instant he and Brenner were soaring above the green trees of Vale Adorna, past the cottages, marketplace, and fountains, and north toward Valoria Academy, which lay within the giant city of Arborio. Wind swept across Brenner’s face and his feet floated behind him. Windelm’s green cape fluttered behind him. In the distance, Brenner could see massive oakbrawn, magnayan and mahogany trees rising up like a thousand water towers, standing shoulder to shoulder.
Brenner noticed other things flying toward the vast city. A shimmer of white wings in the distance proved to be a winged-horse hauling a caravan filled with goods. A blur of green came into focus as a pack of spellcasters, flying with mircons in hand.
But something flying to the west made Brenner twist his head in a double-take: jumbo eagles with enormous wingspans circled down to their nests, clutching limp deer in their talons. He tugged on Windelm and pointed. “Should we be worried about those?”
Windelm looked to where Brenner gestured, and then turned back to him, saying calmly, “Aviamirs. And yes. But they’ve already captured their meal, and at this distance we can out-fly them.”
Brenner breathed out a sigh. “Well, that’s good news.”
Giant stone pillars, built about half a mile apart all along the city’s perimeter, grew on the horizon. They looked like space elevators ascending up to the cloudline. While he couldn’t see the end of them—the city curved for miles on each side—they probably formed a ring around it. Windelm flew them down through the treetops to a wide, well-trodden dirt road—“Via Arborio,” he explained—and hovered to a stop on the ground. They walked toward one of the stone pillars, above them city guards perched on its balcony.
“We’ll fly again in a moment,” Windelm said, “but walking gives you a better perspective of the city. Here,” he motioned to the pillar, “is one of the Shell Towers.” He led Brenner off the road. The height of the pillar, and the trees behind it, made Brenner feel insignificant. “The magic in them forms a powerful Aura field that, when activated at night, keeps spellcasters and beasts out of the city.”
Brenner reached his arm tentatively toward the air by the base of the structure. “Is the field invisible?”
“It’s not on.”
“Oh, right,” said Brenner sheepishly. “What happens if you touch it when it is on?”
“You ever touch a bolt of
lightning?”
Brenner cringed.
“No one needs to be reminded twice of the painful electrical energy the Aura field releases. Come along.”
The two walked back to the path and past the Shell Tower into Arborio, weaving between a couple of trading caravans, as city guards inspected the back of a wagon.
Monstrous trees—mahoganies, ironclads, redwoods, and oakbrawns—stretched up five hundred to a thousand feet tall. He could see canopy bridges built between the giant trees, a flurry of people crossing them, as well as apartments built onto the side of the trees. There was a small stream of people flying just above street level, and some spellcasters were so high up they looked like hummingbirds flitting through the open air. The streets around them were more crowded than Vale Adorna.
“Why doesn’t everyone fly?” Brenner asked.
“Couple reasons,” said Windelm, “First, they need an amulet with elixir to power their magic, which costs more money than half of the residents can afford. So, they travel by foot, animal, or pay for magical transport. Second, you need spell training for flight, which is a physical type of magic usually learned around the mage levels. And not everyone gets that far in their education.”
Brenner rubbed the back of his hand, feeling a little daunted.
“With the right training, you’ll get there,” Windelm said, putting an arm out to stop Brenner before a group of horsemen cantered across their path. “That way,” Windelm pointed. “Take my hand. Valoria Academy lays on the east side of Arborio.” He levitated them off the street and soon they were flying between the beautiful trees.
As they flew above the crowds, Brenner noticed that important-looking spellcasters flew solo or in pairs above the street, along with some families on carrier carpets, while merchants and most people walked between buildings and trees. Below, shopkeepers held up leather sandals and touted their soft rugs; chefs piled steaming yellow rice with curry onto plates; in the shadows of alleys, men pulled their cloaks close. Twice Brenner spotted a pair of city guards patrolling through the air.
Finally, the two came to a set of tall, wrought-iron gates with a centerpiece of spirals and trees.
“Welcome to Valoria,” Windelm said, landing; then he tapped his mircon to the gate, which swung backward. “After you.”
Brenner stepped forward, and lifted his gaze to Valoria. With tall turrets, green-tinted windows and dormers scattered like jack-o-lantern faces atop walls of turquoise limestone, Valoria Academy was a grand castle, but what fascinated Brenner as he walked up the mossy stone path, was how its rock walls merged into living oakbrawns and cedars, so that it was hard to tell where nature stopped and the castle began. Many of the turrets, he now realized, were actually built around giant trees—some carved with windows and spiral staircases.
They came to a brick booth, where an old man in faded green robes was writing on a scroll. He looked like he’d entered into a competition to grow the biggest beard—and with the wisps of his silver-white beard nearly reaching his belly button, Brenner thought he was clearly winning.
“Good morning, deputy, I’m Windelm—”
“Crestwood, ah,” said the man, looking up. “Thought it was you. Made it to rank of sorcerer, if I’m not mistaken.”
Windelm looked pleased. “That’s right,” he said. “My great-nephew, Brenner Wahlridge, would like to apply for entrance to Valoria.”
The deputy looked down at a different sheath of papers on his desk, muttering to himself, “Wahlridge…Wahlridge…hmm…this will be his first attempt then.” He looked up. “Brenner will need to take the Agilis entrance examination.”
“We know,” said Windelm.
The deputy turned his gaze from Windelm to Brenner. “And how old are you?”
“Sixteen,” said Brenner.
The official shook his head, “Sixteen…my, that will make it harder… yes, much harder. Usually students apply when they are eight, nine at the latest…he will be placed in the eldest entrant category.”
He consulted another piece of paper and looked up with solemnity. “And are you aware of the dangers for older entrants?”
“We are,” said Windelm, pointedly ignoring Brenner’s sideway glance.
Brenner’s eyebrows furrowed. If Windelm had known the dangers, he certainly hadn’t shared them with Brenner.
“Very well,” the deputy said, handing them a long piece of parchment. “You will need to sign here as his guardian, and Brenner, you sign here.”
Brenner tried to read the tiny words as Windelm hastily scrawled his name.
At first the language was foreign…then goosebumps rippled on his arms as he read unmistakable warnings:
You accept all responsibility for mental and physical dangers of the Agilis Entrance Examination, which include but are not limited to: partial or full paralysis, loss of appendages or limbs, blindness, mind-warping, death by falls, death by impalement, death by drowning, death by fire, death by mauling, death by…
And the list of ‘death by’s’ went on and on for another three paragraphs.
Brenner’s insides lurched. “Windelm,” he said. “Are you sure I can do this?”
Windelm put an arm around his shoulder, “Of course you can! Brenner, sure, the test is a bit harder for older entrants, but you are capable of handling it; I’ve seen you succeed on a tough Mindscape for the past three weeks. Just sign here,” and he pointed to the bottom left corner which read, ‘Applicant’s Consent to Agilis Examination, All Liability Hereby Waived’.
Gingerly, Brenner scribbled his name.
The deputy took the parchment dispassionately, then said, “As you’re his guardian, you may come along to the observation level with me, and watch if you’d like. Follow me.”
He turned and marched them from his brick station to a dark tree painted on the limestone wall of Valoria, which, once he put his mircon on it, melted away and revealed a long corridor. Windelm and Brenner followed him through the tunnel, lit with glowing torches.
Brenner picked up his pace to be closer to the deputy, then asked, “How often do you get older entrants?”
“Older entrants?” he laughed. “There are so few. Most have calculated the odds against themselves…” he held up a fist and started raising fingers one-by-one…“Hmm…in the last twenty years…five entrants.”
Brenner grew warmer. “And how many have passed?”
“Let’s see, who passed…” he started curling down his fingers, “Two were impaled…one drowned…another was crushed…and one boy yelled for help a quarter through the course. The last time I’ve seen someone your age pass…goodness,” he brought a finger to his chin, “it must have been forty or fifty years ago.”
Brenner felt a heaviness settle across his shoulders. Combined with the blunt death warnings, this was probably the most discouraging news he could’ve been told.
He was silent for the remainder of the walk. Their footsteps echoed in dark tree tunnels, then across a long pavilion. Finally, they followed the deputy through a wide doorway onto a gray stone platform, the entrance to an open-air stadium under the cloud-speckled sky.
Brenner’s jaw dropped from the immensity of the field. It was like standing in a Coliseum built for giants.
The oval stadium walls stretched far and away until he could only see a blurred blob of brown seats in the distance; in the arena itself was a lumpy woodland filled with hills, gnarled trees, a rockslide, a scattering of stone structures, and that was only before the midway point. Beyond it, he could only see treetops.
He exhaled and looked at his feet, and then noticed a thin line of darkness just beyond the lip of the platform. His heart thumped irregularly.
The deputy held up his hand.
“Windelm, this is as far as you may go.” He pointed to another archway near the wall, and motioned to Windelm. “Brenner, this is the beginning of the Agilis test. You may use your amulet, abilities, and whatever you can find along the course to make it to the other side. I will be
judging you based on technique, speed, and glowbes captured. And, of course, you must survive the Agilis course to gain a place in the academy. You may call for help at any time, but doing so will immediately disqualify you from acceptance to Valoria.”
Brenner rubbed his clammy hands against his pants. “How do I know when I am done?”
“If you reach the other end of the field,” the official said, “look for this crest.” He motioned to a silver emblem on the wall, consisting of a shield bordering a tree with two mircons crossed in an X. “Touch the Valoria crest, and you have finished the Agilis examination.”
Brenner nodded slowly.
“One last thing,” the old man continued coolly, “the more glowbes you reach, and the faster you get through the ordeal, the higher your initial placement will be in the school. Well, good luck to you then.”
