by Andy Adams
Gemry didn’t answer, just held his gaze and flicked her mircon in a quick circle.
Brenner raised his eyebrows, but when he turned backward, it was too late.
The brown and green carpet had zoomed down from the sky and crashed into the back of his legs, bowling him over and onto its surface.
Gemry giggled, her hair waving as her shoulders bobbed up and down. “That never gets old!”
Brenner awkwardly propped himself up into a sitting position. “I’m glad you find it so funny. But can we call a truce on further sneak attacks?”
“I suppose…for the night.”
“Thanks,” he said wryly, smoothing out his robes.
Gemry hopped onto the carpet next to Brenner, sat cross-legged, and pointed her mircon ahead. The carrier carpet obliged, lifting the two of them up and flying over the forest next to the academy.
He looked over at her as a light evening breeze pushed against them. Gemry’s long brown hair fluttered behind her, and small dimples formed on her cheeks as she smiled—her eyes caught Brenner watching her.
“Yes?”
Brenner looked away, his face turning a trace of red. “Nothing…just …you look nice tonight.” The moment he said it, he became self-conscious. Nice? Of all the words I could say, I chose ‘nice’?
Gemry didn’t seem displeased—on the contrary, she gave a demure smile. “Thanks. You don’t look so bad yourself, Conjurer. By the way—thanks for showering.”
Brenner laughed. “Hey, for special occasions, and with advance notice, I clean up pretty well.” Not wanting to linger on that topic, he quickly switched gears. “How was your weekend?”
“Definitely not the best. But not the worst. You go first.”
As she steered the two of them past the Zabrani stadium, the walls of Valoria, around massive trees into the heart of Arborio, Brenner relayed the Contendir street fight, meeting Finnegan’s father, getting his mircon nearly stolen, as well as his bungled attempts at levitating himself—Gemry laughed.
“I’m glad you’re trying,” she said. “Let’s see if we can fix that tonight.”
She landed them on a grassy bank overlooking a large river—“The Arborio River,” Gemry informed him—big enough for boats to travel up and far down to the sea, with dark blue current foaming by boulders near shore. There was a splash by one boulder, and a large reptilian tail disappeared beneath the surface.
“Let’s see your progress,” Gemry instructed. “How are you doing with lifting inorganics?”
“Levitulsus,” Brenner said, and a collection of rocks by the water hovered waist-high and moved down the shore before falling to the ground.
“Good.”
He then pointed his mircon at the wet soil, and a large clump obediently lifted and flew across the dark river, depositing itself with a loud squelch on the opposite pebble bank.
“Nice going. Now, let’s see you fly.”
Brenner thought hard and squinted his eyes: Levitulsus.
It was as though his feet became magnets and repelled a few inches up from the ground—but not for very long. Like brittle ice, the air under his feet cracked. He fell back to the ground.
“Not bad—you’re getting there,” said Gemry. “Two things: what spell are you using? Levitulsus?”
“Yes.”
“That’s what I thought. And second—what are you imagining?”
“Floating objects of course—sticks and mud hovering in the air.”
“Ah… I see. Well, Levitulsus is best used for moving objects around you through the air—usually shorter distances. The spell you need is Volanti. You’ve been trying to fly using a short-range hovering spell. No wonder you’ve had trouble.”
Brenner rolled the spell around in his mind.
“Remember our flight last week on Velvo?” she asked.
“Do you forget your near-death experiences?”
Gemry laughed. “Of course not. Okay, think of our whole ride. To fly, you have to visualize all parts of it, from lift-off to gathering speed to gliding, then maintaining flight…and maybe we’ll hope for graceful landings after everything else comes together.”
Brenner nodded.
“You ready to try?”
“As ready as I can be.”
Gemry extended her hand toward the river. “After you.”
Welling up inside of Brenner was excitement, fear and giddiness. Would this really work?
He faced the swift flowing river, and imagined mountain eagles taking off from cliff-faces over the forest, then pumping their wings.
Holding this thought he said the word, “Volanti.”
With an unexpected burst of energy, his feet jolted from the ground, and he was suddenly flying—if you could call it that. To all accounts he looked extremely awkward, like a baby bird unexpectedly caught in an updraft—plunging forward a dozen feet in the air, faltering, then shooting up and down in zig-zags.
“Does this count as flying?!” Brenner called out anxiously, then looked back at Gemry, who pumped her fist and let out a whoop.
“It’s a start!”
When he turned forward, he realized with rising panic that he was well away from the safety of the pebble beach and now over the racing river—which was wider and more formidable than it had first seemed. He was now halfway across, and—what was that? Something large cracked its jaws open, then splashed and swam under the murky surface as Brenner lurched in a haphazard flight path. Whatever it was, it was not helping his concentration. Brenner felt himself losing his grip of the Volanti spell.
Oh no—not good.
His body started dropping toward the water, where river rapids loomed a dozen feet below. His heart beat frantically against his chest, as if seeking its own emergency exit.
“Volanti! Volanti!” he called out, falling fast.
For the final seconds before impact he did the only thing that came to mind: he flapped his arms maniacally, which, to onlookers, must have been quite comical, but to his dismay, did absolutely nothing.
Dark water rushed up to swallow him—
And then a green-brown animal swooped underneath, catching him like a taut trampoline.
“What?!” he yelled, as his thoughts raced—How am I dry?!—It took him a good moment to realize what had happened.
Velvo zoomed him back to the beach, where Gemry waited.
“You almost had it,” she said casually.
Brenner didn’t respond, as his chest was still heaving.
“Why’d you stop flying?” Gemry asked.
Brenner looked up at her with disbelief. “Oh, I dunno…maybe the crocodile circling me below? Or the rapids that would bash my head in? Take your pick!”
Gemry gave a small laugh. “None of which would have touched you if you had just focused on your spell. Here—come over to the grass. I’ll fly with you.”
He balked and turned his head to the side. “Don’t I get a little break?”
“Tired already? How old are you again?” she pressed. “I thought you were sixteen—not six.”
Brenner let out a huff. “Fine. But no over-the-river flights, right?”
“Right,” she said reassuringly, “This time, focus on directing the flight—not on what’s beneath you. And don’t let the wind have its way. Come on.”
“Okay…” Brenner said, following her up to the grass.
Gemry turned and held out her hand. “Ready?”
Brenner took a deep breath. He reached for her palm, which was softer and warmer than he expected.
“When I give the signal, we both launch the spell, okay?”
He nodded. Here we go again. “Alright…”
Gemry locked eyes with him and winked. “Now.”
“Volanti,” they said together. The same rushing sensation greeted him again, but this time Gemry was by his side, and her presence gave him a boost of confidence. They rose up together—five feet, ten feet, fifteen—as lightly as dragonflies fluttering by a pond.
“Woah!�
� Brenner shouted, feeling surreal and trying his best to hold tight to the thought of the spell.
Gemry kept them at about twenty feet high, and then, hand in hand, they began cruising above the Arborio streets and below the branches of giant oakbrawns and mahogany forest. The summer breeze felt refreshing, and sweet floral scents floated to them from red bromeliads on the trees.
“How do you feel?” Gemry asked.
When he didn’t respond, she squeezed his hand. His mind registered her words, but when Brenner started speaking, he dipped from his flight.
“Keep the loop going,” she encouraged him, “Remember, you’re an aviamir, or a Pegasus, or a bird—you’re meant to be flying. As long as you have that in the back of your mind, the flight will take care of itself.”
Brenner visualized the eagle from the mountain peaks. He became it. He felt his chest puff out a little and his fingers and toes become lighter, as if they were really wings and talons.
As he flew more steadily, Gemry lifted her hand, and the two rose higher—forty, sixty, eighty feet in the air. If Brenner could have seen himself from a couple months ago, he would have stood wide-eyed and gap-mouthed.
Yet, here I am. Flying. With a girl. A beautiful girl.
Gaining enough confidence to look somewhere besides his flight path, he glanced over at Gemry, and smiled. Their speed increased, which made the wind sweep back Gemry’s hair, and formed a light whistling sound. She saw him watching her, smiled back, and then, with a nod and a mischievous wink, did the unthinkable: she uncurled her fingers…and let go of Brenner’s hand.
His eyes dilated and his heart beat madly. Grimacing, he expected to drop like a rock, but, to both his credit and immense relief, he remained in flight.
“Good!” Gemry shouted to him, waving over the wind current. “Now, let’s have some fun.”
She shot forward in front of Brenner, then turned her body to face him as if swimming the backstroke and called out, “Come on! Catch me—if you can!”
Suddenly she flew higher, up past a spiraling row of condominiums built on the side of a five-hundred-foot oakbrawn, up and up through the middle branches.
Be a bird, she had said…be a bird…
Brenner pushed himself forward, then up, like an eagle seeking to break through the clouds. One hundred feet…he saw her slender figure high above. Two hundred feet…she was fast!
But I can be fast, too.
Thrusting forward, he flew above the wooden condos, now below him like toadstools on a tree. Gemry cut through the tangled upper branches of the canopy. A moment later, as if shot from a cannon, Brenner burst through the treetops after her.
Intense sunrays blinded him.
Squinting, he hovered above the tree line and looked around, one hand blocking the sun from his eyes, the other gripping his mircon tightly. He hovered further up…so high that the canopy looked like a seamless green blanket.
Where did she go?
Small white clouds floated high overhead. She couldn’t have disappeared behind them so quickly…
He lowered his gaze to the green foliage beneath his feet.
And then she hit him.
“Ah ha!” Gemry shouted, crashing into him like a tiger, grabbing his shins and shoving them backward, which caused him to flip forward uncontrollably.
“What are you doing?!” Brenner blurted as he tumbled from the sky back to the canopy, only righting himself from the somersaulting fall when he was within fifty feet from the treetops.
“Just helping you get your wings,” Gemry replied with a grin, hovering upside down in front of him, gravity pulling her long hair down so that it looked like a chocolate stalactite.
“You seem to forget that this is my first solo flight! And we are something like a thousand feet up in the air!”
Gemry waved off his concerns. “Relaaax, you’re fine.” She turned herself rightside up. “You’ll either adjust quickly, or you won’t. Just choose the right option.”
Brenner shook his head. “Oh, I’ll choose the right option!” He zoomed toward her, nearly catching her ankle—but she nimbly zipped away, above the treeline.
Like hawks the two dove and raced through the sky.
Gemry always kept several yards in front—looping and spiraling and diving—and again Brenner almost grabbed her foot before she veered and wove down into the canopy. The two threaded above and below giant limbs and, at times, barely around other flying spellcasters, who threw their hands up and shouted, “Look where you’re going!” to which Gemry shouted back, “We are!”
All the while, Brenner was learning her methods of flight—how to feint one way and carve the other, how to spiral and turn into a dive for extra speed, and how find and use thermals, rising up on the warm air currents to regain energy, instead of constantly fighting against gravity, air, and wind.
Finally, he surprised both of them. Guessing her next move down and around a large branch, Brenner beelined over it and tagged her ankle on the other side, calling out, “Gotcha!”
She smiled over her shoulder, then said, “Well look at you, conjurer. I suppose we can take a breather now. Come on.” She pointed up and led them above the trees. Slowing her speed, Gemry shifted from a horizontal, face-first flight to a more casual, upright floating position.
“Not bad for your first flight,” she said, waiting for him.
“Thanks,” Brenner said, and unlike Gemry, was breathing heavily from all the mental and physical exertion.
“Let’s cruise a bit more before the twilight sets in,” Gemry said. She nodded to her left and said, “Those vultures will show us another thermal.”
They followed the birds, and soon Brenner felt the warm air push against his body. “Ah…that’s better,” he said, soaring alongside Gemry as the orange sun dipped closer to the horizon. He noticed that flying slowly and riding the current eased the amount of energy he had to channel into the Volanti spell.
“Are you liking level five?” Gemry asked.
“When Sage Ochram remembers to tell me the spell names beforehand, it’s fine.”
Gemry laughed and then said, “Yeah, he always seemed to have too many things on his mind.”
“I had the opposite impression. Like his routine was set on cruise control and he was spaced out.”
“Cruise control? What’s that?”
“Oh…” Brenner thought quickly. “That’s just when you’re…riding in a…boat…and you’re keeping a steady paddle.”
“Uh huh,” she said with a raised eyebrow. “Must be something ordinary folk do. Spellcasters would just use a propulsion spell.”
“Yeah. It is.” Brenner nodded, hoping that was the end of it.
The evening breeze pushed her long hair back. “Well, now that you are capable of flying, the Games of Ganthrea are a little over a month away—are you going to try out?”
Brenner felt at turns thrilled and terrified at the prospect of playing a game hundreds of feet in the air. “I’d like to…but, isn’t it difficult to get in?”
“Of course. But the prizes are great enough that most students try to compete. I am.”
“Which event?” he asked.
“Contendir and Zabrani.”
“That’s cool. With your flight skills and spell ability, you can clearly handle it,” Brenner said. He thought again about her question. “Honestly, do you think I could make it?”
“I’ve seen you play pretty well…I think you could do it. That is, first you have to make the cut for the Silvalo Zabrani team. Usually they don’t accept any spellcasters below level nine.”
“Oh,” he said with a frown.
She noticed his expression and added brightly, “But the Agilis team accepts a few mid-level spellcasters each year. And if anyone at your level could qualify—you could.”
“Thanks,” Brenner said, feeling a surge of pride at her compliment. Then he wondered if there was a cost involved with joining the team…and who would pay for that? Windelm? The thought of money trig
gered an earlier conversation into his mind. “Hey, Gemry, does your dad go to Hutch & Son’s?”
“I wouldn’t doubt it. He doesn’t usually say where he goes during the day—just that he has to meet with suppliers or negotiate business deals. Why?”
“I thought I saw him talking there with someone…and the guy was not happy…”
Gemry was quiet a moment before muttering, “Probably because my father owed him golders…which means my mother and I will have to work more to pay for his mistakes.”