by Andy Adams
Within a few moments, silver and white robed officials flew through the area, sending revitalizing spells into those who lay immobilized. Brenner felt the magical bonds of the stun spell loosen, and he stood up, smiling.
Sage Vicksman’s voice emanated from above the stands, “Convene at the stadium entrance for individual scores and game recap!”
The violet players looked at Brenner, shaking their heads in disbelief, and then trudged off toward the entrance. Striding from the trees over to Brenner, Gemry appeared, eyeing him quizzically. Brenner saw her small smile, and tried to read her expression.
“That actually worked,” she called to him, “Frankly, I thought you wouldn’t land half as close to the glowbe as you did.”
“Yeah, it worked okay,” Brenner said, cradling his arm against the shooting pain in his side, “whether or not it was the best strategy is up for debate. By the way, great healing shot under pressure.”
“It’s what I’ve learned to do.”
As Gemry came closer to him, she grimaced, probably at the sight of his swollen face and cut up arms. “You don’t look so hot after that fall, Conjurer. How do you feel?”
“Oh, you know, like I fell forty feet onto a pile of rocks. Terrible.”
“Here,” Gemry said, “hold still.” She looked into Brenner’s blue eyes, then sent a spell into him with her mircon.
Soothing energy poured into Brenner: his head, arms and back stopped throbbing.
“Woahhh.” It felt as though he had taken a relaxing bath. “Thank you.”
“No problem,” Gemry said, casting another curious glance at him. “How old are you, anyway?”
“Sixteen.”
“Hmm. Me, too. So, what took you so long to join Valoria?”
Here, Brenner decided to stray from the truth. “My family wanted help on the farm…and initially thought I could do without formal schooling.”
“That’s strange,” she said. She nodded her head toward the base to indicate they should start walking; Brenner followed her lead. “I asked to sign up for Valoria as soon as I came of age,” said Gemry. “I knew since I was six that I wanted to become a sorcerer, actually do something with my life…although my family wants me to just stick with Zabrani. Think I can earn the most money for them that way.”
Brenner’s eyebrows arched. “For them?”
“Of course. All Games of Ganthrea winnings go to parents until tuition and debts are paid…which for my parents will probably be never.”
“Tuition?”
“You are new around here, aren’t you? Of course, tuition. You don’t think an academy like this is free, do you?”
Windelm hadn’t mentioned a cost involved with Valoria, just passing the entrance Agilis.
“Right, of course not…” he muttered. “How long did your family have to save?”
She laughed. “Save? That’s a foreign word to my parents. I do know that tuition’s more than a year’s worth of wages as a pawnbroker, which is what my father does.”
“Well, you played great out there,” said Brenner, changing the subject as the two walked up and over the midfield mountain crest. “Healing teammates at a critical time, ambushing that group before the center glowbe…I think you could dominate at the games.”
“Thanks. If I can win Zabrani at the Games of Ganthrea…the prize money might finally pay for my tuition and make a large dent in their debt.” She was quiet a moment. “They don’t seem to care that professional Zabrani games can be fatal.”
“How so?”
“You haven’t seen one, have you?”
Brenner shook his head, realizing he was ruining his chance of creating a suave, sophisticated image. “No. Not yet.”
“You saw the sages on the field, right?”
“Well…the announcer sage at the beginning…” he thought back, wasn’t there someone else in white flying around? “I think I saw one mid-match.”
“Right. There are at least four sages at Academy games,” she said, matter-of-factly. “But in the Games of Ganthrea—there are none. Stunned players are left alone when hit. If they’re lucky—a healer from their team finds them soon. If they’re not—they hope for the game to end quickly, when the moderators and officials fly around to dissolve stunning spells.”
He jumped around the boulders that had nearly crushed him a half hour ago, and had a chilling thought. “You mean—”
Her raised eyebrows confirmed his suspicion. “Yep. Death. Our bones are strengthened by elixir, so while most flight falls are okay, there are limits. If you fall from way too high—or you plummet into a lake—you better hope your healer is nearby, or you’re gone.”
“That sounds…barbaric.” He wanted to ask why they didn’t just play soccer, football, rugby—or any other of a dozen non-fatal sports. Gemry seemed to read his mind.
“That’s why only the best and often the most desperate play during the Games of Ganthrea, and why crowds pay so much to see live games—every match may be the last game their favorite knight plays.”
“And your parents want you to go pro?”
Gemry shrugged. “I didn’t say they were great parents.”
Brenner gave a short, hollow laugh as they walked along the edge of the lake. “They sound like mine.”
Gemry arched an eyebrow. “How so?”
“Well—my folks, they just cared—er, care more about themselves than about me. With just about everything.”
“But they sent you here though—that’s something.”
“Yeah,” Brenner nodded…if only she saw their ecstatic faces when they heard I would be taken off their hands…
“What do they expect of you after the academy?”
Brenner thought on his feet. “Use my magic to enhance the crops…help the family business.”
“Oh,” Gemry said. “So, they want you around to use you…I can relate…but what do you want after Valoria?”
“After?” he said, not having the faintest idea. Then he had a wonderful thought: when you know how to fly, what else could you want? “For now, just survive each day.” As he said it, two things just occurred to him that made him smile: one, that a beautiful girl was talking to him longer than the record of five seconds back at high school, and two, while Gemry could have easily flown back to their base by now, she instead chose to walk next to him. She seemed different than girls at his school—more perceptive, more friendly.
“Anything else?” she asked.
“I do want to develop better control of magic—and fly half as good as you do.”
Gemry blushed a little. “Tell me, what are you doing after evening meal tonight?”
“I was thinking I might practice my mental spells in the courtyard.”
“Oh,” she said softly.
“Why?”
“Well,” she said, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear, “if you wanted…I could try teaching you how to fly.”
Brenner’s heart raced. “Really? You’d do that?”
“Sure,” Gemry replied, as they came closer to the buzz of talking teenagers ahead. “Just be prepared to fall.” She raised her eyebrows. “A lot.”
“Don’t worry,” Brenner said. “In that department, I’m an expert.”
“So I’ve seen. Let’s meet on the eastern side after dinner.”
“Okay,” he said, not believing his luck.
They joined the crowd of teammates at the base of their tower, where their orange teammates congregated below Maverick, who was floating above. From the bursts of colors shooting in the air over the wall, Brenner could tell the other match was still being played.
“Hey,” Gemry called to him, “Tap your shield and mircon over here.” She gestured to a silver metal sphere at the foot of the tower. Following her lead, Brenner touched both items to the smooth orb. It pulsed with life and sent a flicker of light along a coil, growing up the sides of the tower like ivy.
“All players have reported,” Maverick called out.
As he s
aid that, from the silver sphere a pulse of energy shot up and around the tower. Then a plume of white mist emitted from the top of the tower and floated down, forming a tall ivory wall. Letters started to appear in bold oranges, bunching together, and Brenner realized that names were coalescing from the mist, creating what looked like a giant scoreboard. He started at the bottom, scanning the list of players for his own…there was Sorian’s name…a little later was Girard’s name…muffled murmurs broke out among his teammates…he was halfway up the list when a voice interrupted his reading.
“Well played, spellcasters!” the now familiar voice of Sage Vicksman rang out from the arena. “A very close match! For team Violet, the first glowbe was captured by Mage Lanera Meyero for twenty points, and the second by Sorcerer Sullivan Kuehl. Their high scorer was Kuehl, with his sharpshooting of Orange’s king and several knights bringing him up to forty-six points.”
From across the arena, there was a subdued cheer for Kuehl.
“And now, our victors—team Orange!” Vicksman proclaimed.
The players around Brenner raised their fists and let out rowdy shouts.
Vicksman built off their energy, adding, “The first glowbe captured was done by a conjurer—Brenner Wahlridge!” The orange spellcasters applauded, but looked unsure where to direct their attention until Maverick flew down and clapped Brenner on the back.
“The second glowbe—caught by Mage Juma Oswanna.”
Students rallied around Juma, shouting louder. Juma stepped forward and modestly waved to his teammates.
“The final glowbe capturer,” Vicksman boomed, although students chattered in knowing groups, pointing, “and high scorer for the team—well, that’s unusual—was also Brenner Wahlridge! With forty-eight points!”
The applause was louder this time; most students had either their mouths hung open or their eyebrows scrunched at Brenner, all seeming to wonder the same thing: Who was this kid?
“Excellent match! Great work!” Maverick shouted to him.
“Thanks,” Brenner said, feeling pleased, but also uncomfortable from all the attention of his teammates. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other.
“How did you do it?” Maverick asked, and the shouts died down to hear his response.
“Well—it was three of us, really.” He described the effort Gemry, Girard and he had put into getting the second glowbe, and then the push toward the last one. Someone clapped Girard on the back.
“And the final glowbe?” asked Maverick. “How many did you stun to get it? Five?”
“Well, none actually—I just jumped for it,” Brenner said.
“That’s all?” said a teammate.
“Did you snag it mid-air?”
“No, I didn’t get it at first—I wouldn’t have, without Gemry.”
Gemry stepped forward and the players shifted their attention to her.
“He looked like a dragon whelp trying to fly for the first time: leaping out from the trees a good twenty feet forward…floundering…getting shot by a bunch of spells midair—and falling to the ground like a rock. I’ve seen a lot of falls—I thought he was unconscious.”
Several teammates laughed good-naturedly at this.
“Anyway, I acted as a decoy for the ten orange fighters,” continued Gemry, “and when I knew I couldn’t hold out any longer, I used my last healing spell on Brenner. He had a second to turn, jump and grab the glowbe before they realized I invigorated him. And somehow, that worked.”
The players nodded their approval, encouraging shouts began anew, and the students surged around Gemry and Brenner, clapping their shoulders and offering them high-fives. To Brenner it felt surreal, like a hot spotlight beamed onto him.
“Bold move, Conjurer!”
“Good goin’ out there!”
Having never been the center of such attention, let alone triumphant cheers, Brenner wasn’t quite sure what to do next. In a brief gap in the crowd around him, Brenner saw there was only one teammate standing away from the group, studying the score-cloud with a scrunched nose, as if it was a most-disappointing magic mirror: Sorian.
After ten more minutes, the other match finished, and all the players massed together near the entrance tower to hear the results. Finnegan approached with a couple younger spellcasters, cradling his arm; he gave Brenner a curious look as he walked into the middle of the smiling group of spellcasters.
“How’d it go then?” he asked.
“Pretty good,” Brenner said offhandedly.
Finnegan looked up and read the giant score-cloud, which now posted all players’ results. Then he looked at Brenner, shaking his head with a smirk and a look of utter disgust.
“I—don’t—believe it,” he said. “High scorer?”
Chapter Fourteen
The Girl Unafraid
of Heights
After Zabrani, the students rejoined their ranks, and in talkative clusters walked from the stadium through the corridors to the Banquet Hall. As their squad ate evening dinner, Finnegan shared the details of his own Zabrani game.
“Our king, Riswalt, lumped all nine flightless groundlings together and made us go on a suicide mission up the middle hills. The first two over the crest were stunned immediately by flyers, but another guy, Lucian, and I were able to take cover by some boulders. We kept the yellow groundlings and flying knights busy while our blue knights flew stealth to both sides—the rockwall and forest barrier.”
“Hit anyone?” asked Brenner.
“I was just getting to that part.”
“Carry on.”
“A yellow flyer sped past us and stunned my teammate, but he wasn’t expecting two groundlings, so I was able to stun him midair, and since he had so much momentum he made a spectacular fall into the ravine on our side.” Finnegan mimed the boy’s crash landing with his hands and said, “Thoom!”
“Nice going, Finnegan.”
“Thanks, then just as I turned around to blast the next knight, some girl jumped over my boulder and froze me.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah…thankfully, there was still a healer left on our side. After fifteen minutes, he found and thawed me, and I was able to help in the final push for the yellow glowbes.”
Brenner didn’t need to ask if he got one. He saw the second score-cloud for the blue spellcasters, and knew that Finnegan racked up just two points.
“What was the final score again?”
“41-98.”
“Bummer,” said Brenner. “Better luck next time. Hey—there were a couple scoreboard numbers I wasn’t sure about.”
“Yeah?”
“So, the first number after your name is glowbes captured, then stuns, then some mystery numbers and a total.”
“You mean the stun number for a full hit—chest or head—then the partial stun numbers—like a leg or arm for a quarter of a point each—next, the amount of spells successfully shielded, rounded down, which gives one point for every five shielded.”
Oh…Brenner thought to himself, visualizing the numbers next to his name: the large 2 for both glowbes—each netting him 20 points—then 6 full stuns for an equal amount of points, 0 partial stuns, 11 shielded spells for 2 points, creating a grand total of 48 points. Finishing the mental calculations, he realized that he loved playing this game: challenging terrain, fluctuating battle strategy, game-play of near infinite possibilities, and best of all, he now had control over his performance. If only his parents could have seen him play this…I wonder, have they even thought about me much since my departure? Their rapt expressions came to mind, when told Brenner would be gone for two years. I doubt it.
“So, tonight,” Finnegan said, licking the last traces of vanilla custard
from his spoon, “you want to join some of the guys and me shooting spells during open practice?”
Gemry’s face crystallized in Brenner’s mind’s eye. “Actually…one of my Zabrani teammates wanted to teach me something.”
“What? Who?” Finnegan looked a
round their table, pointing and guessing.
Brenner shook his head. “They’re not from our conjurer group.”
“Huh? Unless your older sibling is at the academy, students usually don’t mix ability levels. Which group?”
“Well…she’s a…” and Brenner had to think back to the start of the game, to her jade green robes, “magician.”
“Okay, woah—it’s a she? And a magician?” Finnegan stared, not knowing what to jab Brenner about first. “What’s her name?”
