by Ann Macela
He moved the tip closer to Chuck. The boy swallowed like he might throw up, but his body stayed rigid. Saxt held the point about six inches from the kid’s center. “Can you feel that?”
“Y-y-yeah.” Chuck grimaced and ground out, “It hurts like hell. Something’s … it’s chewing at my center.”
“Now do you understand? We can and will take your Sword talents away. We will try not to lower your level or harm your job talents, although we can’t guarantee it. The final result will be, you are no longer a Sword.”
“Yeah, man, I get it,” the kid said between clenched teeth.
To be certain Chuck did understand, Saxt let the pain go on for another few seconds before he canceled his sword spell and the pentagon.
When the blade vanished, Chuck groaned and doubled over, falling to his knees. Estelle whimpered, probably feeling the pain more than her son did. Charles murmured into her ear, “He’s okay.”
Saxt kept his attention on their son. “Look at me, Chuck.”
Agony and fear all over his face, Chuck raised his gaze.
When the boy exhibited no belligerence, Saxt said, “We’ll give you one chance and one chance only to redeem yourself.”
“What? I’ll do it, whatever it is,” Chuck moaned, his voice tinged with both pain and hope.
“Let’s put the boy in his chair,” Saxt told Charles, and the two men lifted Chuck and helped him sit down again. Saxt circled the table and sat also.
“I’ve prepared a list of requirements for you, Chuck. Failure in even one of them will be cause for taking your Sword talents. First, sign the preliminary Sword oath and abide by every provision, both in letter and in spirit. Second, copy this list in your own handwriting and pledge to do what each item requires.” Saxt slid over to the boy the pad he’d been writing on.
“Among the requirements is one stating you will bully no one, ever again. In fact, you will protect victims from other bullies. You will cooperate with your parents in counseling. You will follow every rule, every order, every wish of your trainers with no hesitation, no backtalk, no shirking.”
Chuck nodded at each provision.
“Do you agree? We need to hear you say so.”
“Yeah, I’ll do it. Everything,” Chuck groaned and rubbed his center.
“Is that acceptable to you, including the counseling?” Saxt asked his parents.
They exchanged a glance. Estelle nodded, and Charles cleared his throat before he answered, “Absolutely. Thank you.”
Saxt turned to Jake. “He’ll need a special teacher for individual instruction.”
“I know the perfect man.” Jake picked up the phone, punched buttons, spoke to whoever answered. “Harlen, we have a new student in need of your special ministrations. Can you come to Conference 101?”
Saxt watched the blood drain from Chuck’s face when Jake hung up and said, “Harlen Grimstead will be happy to take you in hand.”
“Noooooo,” Chuck wailed. “Not the Grim Reaper!”
Chapter Four
When she left the conference room, Johanna headed first for the restroom. She was so furious, she was shaking, and she couldn’t face her students in this condition. Fortunately, no one was in the facility.
One glance in the mirror told her she’d made the right decision. Her face was an angry mask carved in stone, and she had to consciously relax her jaw before she ground her teeth into dust. She splashed her face with water, dried off, and began to pace the area in front of the stalls. Anything to calm down.
She’d really like to cuss a blue streak, but after years of watching her language around the students, she wasn’t certain she knew how anymore.
What had happened to her in the conference room? She was usually cool-headed, steady in a crisis. What had caused her to react this time with such visceral anger?
Fear and reaction about what had almost happened to the boys, definitely.
Fear of what might have happened in the future if Chuck had decided to do what Billy had—go after bigger game without waiting for proper training.
Anger at herself for not noticing, watching for what Chuck had been doing under her very nose—both the sword casting and the bullying. She had forgotten—no, not forgotten, neglected—the vow she made on Billy’s grave. She hadn’t had a problem student for at least five years. Johanna, your middle name has become Complacency.
Her stupidity wasn’t the only cause of her anger, she knew that.
She was angry at Chuck’s parents for not paying more attention to their son and his activities.
She was especially angry at and disgusted with Phil. Ever since she and Billy had become soul mates, so long ago, Phil had looked down his nose at her, for reasons that escaped her. She’d never done anything to him. Nevertheless, he bad-mouthed her from time to time and always goaded her to duel with him. Even if Phil acted like a gold level twenty, he was only a fourteen. Phil didn’t know she was a fifteen. She wasn’t about to tell him, either.
She’d seen Phil duel once. He wasn’t interested in practice. He really wanted to humiliate the other Sword, a poor level twelve, and he had. Johanna made a face as she remembered how ugly that fight had been. No way was she going to face Phil in an arena. If, by some miracle, he won, he’d never let her forget it. When he lost, he’d spread awful lies like he had about another Sword who’d beaten him.
Her friends and colleagues knew she didn’t care, although a couple of jealous non-friends made sure she heard his rantings about how afraid of him she was. His attacking her didn’t matter. What did was his appointing himself a trainer. What really did was his extremely poor teaching.
My God, the boy thought he could fence. And he didn’t know how to cast a pentagon to protect himself or others.
She’d let Jake take care of reporting Phil’s conduct to the masters, and she’d stay out of whatever was decided at higher levels—censure, probably. Saxt and the Committee on Swords would definitely have a reprimand to add. She had to be patient and let the procedures run their course.
Johanna paced some more and tried to think of other matters, like how she’d train Ben. Like how glad she was that Saxt had been there to take care of Chuck when the boys drew swords. She’d have had to stun the bully if he didn’t sheathe his sword—definitely not a good idea when the person was holding a magic blade. Who knew where the energy would go when suddenly released?
Saxt had handled Ben perfectly, too. The man was right. Benjy was no name for a Sword.
“Saxton,” however, was a perfect name.
Lord, what was she thinking? What did names matter? The man, on the other hand, was turning out to be quite a leader, quite a Sword.
Her magic center purred, and calm finally relaxed her muscles. Pacing always helped. When she peered at the mirror again, her normal self looked back. She took a deep breath and let it out. Time to go to work.
In the anteroom to the arena, she noticed someone had brought in the training aids she’d dropped in her rush to reach Ben. She was organizing them when she heard the door to the hall open.
The man she least wanted to hear said, “Good, you’re here.”
She whipped around to watch Phil enter. In the room’s close confines, the smell of his cologne enveloped her. Its heavy scent was guaranteed to give her a headache if he stayed long—an added incentive to get rid of him quickly. Why he wore it had always been beyond her comprehension. She couldn’t imagine even one woman—practitioner or non—being attracted to it.
He gave her one of his totally confident smiles, the ones that made her want to search for whatever he was hiding. “Listen, I—”
“Phil,” she interrupted, holding her hand up, “whatever you have to say, I don’t want to hear it.”
He ignored her statement, of course. “Listen, that kid got it all wrong. I never called you a coward.”
“Oh, you never do,” Johanna replied, as her anger abruptly returned, doubled. Phil’s denials and complaints had finally gone too far. She’
d really had it with him, and for a change, she wasn’t going to walk away or to pull punches. It was time she made herself perfectly clear.
She stood tall and faced him squarely. “You never make nasty statements totally out loud. Whenever something or someone ticks you off, you mutter and curse under your breath and stomp around, no matter where you are. You complain and blame the other person for whatever happened. If you’re called on it, you come up with a poor apology or a platitude to wiggle off the hook. Do you ever listen to yourself when you do that? Do you even know you’re doing it? What are you hoping for? Sympathy? Agreement?”
He was staring at her like she’d punched him in the stomach. The man must have no clue about his effect on others.
“All right, let me spell it out.” She spoke slowly and distinctly, as if she was speaking to one of her students and trying to explain a difficult concept. “I will not duel with you. You can’t make me. Nothing exists in a rule or a guideline or a Council decision that says I must. I refuse your challenges. Stop asking or demanding. Stop even hinting that I won’t duel because I’m afraid of you. Stay away from me and my students.”
Phil went red in the face, drew himself up to his full height, and glared down his nose at her. Before he could say a word, however, another voice came from behind him.
“Listen to the lady, Bellman.”
Saxt. Her muscles, which had tightened almost to flight-or-fight stage at Phil’s entrance, relaxed slowly. She even breathed easier. This man brought fresh air into the room.
“Particularly about the students.” Saxt walked around Phil to stand beside her. “These days, the last problem we need is a man in his thirties inviting boys over to his house without their parents—for whatever reason.”
“What?” Although Phil opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, no words emerged. Finally he put one hand on his hip and pointed the other at Saxt. “What exactly are you implying?”
“Nothing,” Saxt answered calmly. “That’s simply another factor to take into consideration.”
“I was only trying to help, for crying out loud,” Phil said through his teeth, and he crossed his arms over his chest. After glaring at the floor for a few moments, he raised his head, leaned back slightly, and scowled. “If you don’t believe me …”
Johanna had seen that stance before. Phil was about to issue one of his challenges.
“For the record,” Saxt continued as though he was simply passing on dry information, “Swords don’t have trial by combat to prove a point, and I don’t duel either.”
Johanna didn’t know if Saxt could read minds, but his statement pulled Phil up short.
“Fine,” was all Phil said. He made an abrupt about-face and stalked from the room.
Johanna watched him go and the door close before she turned to Saxt. “Thanks. It would have taken me at least another ten minutes to chase him out.”
“Why does he want to duel so much, especially with you? You’re a higher level than he is. A fifteen, the same as I am.”
“How did you find out?”
“I checked the Committee records, not the public ones. I wanted to see your teaching history.”
“Oh. Well, Phil isn’t aware of that, and I’d appreciate it if you’d keep my level to yourself. Very few know outside of my team and the teaching masters, of course.” She wasn’t about to mention the reason for her raised level or the tragic circumstances at the time. “We never broadcast it, and I never tested publicly. It doesn’t matter to me or to my students. Only to Phil.”
“Who has to prove himself better than everyone else?” Saxt rubbed the back of his neck like the very idea made it ache.
“Exactly. He’s three years older than I am, and I don’t remember him being different growing up. Thinking about it, I do wonder if he ever was a teenaged bully like Chuck is, using his fists. Somehow I doubt it. Of course, Phil’s used his physical size to intimidate. He has provoked almost all the male Swords into duels—let me amend that to the male Swords his level or less. None of the women, of course. We’re too smart for that.”
Johanna picked up her training aids and placed them in the cabinet. “Enough of him. What did you decide to do with Chuck?”
“We’re giving him one and only one chance to straighten up. Jake assigned him to Harlen Grimstead. I left before he arrived. Who’s he?”
Johanna chuckled. There was justice in this world. “Ah, the Grim Reaper. He’s a notoriously strict teacher, a Marine drill instructor before he retired from the military to join the teaching masters. He requested all the ‘slackers’ with the promise to make them true Defenders and Swords. He’s extremely effective.”
“I hope so, for Chuck’s sake, and for the sake of his parents. They’re going to counseling also.”
“I hope they all benefit from it.” She sighed and concentrated her thoughts on the present. “We have students waiting on us. Let’s see how they’re handling the excitement.”
The class, Ben included, was sitting on the floor in a circle, tossing lightballs back and forth.
“Everybody okay?” Johanna asked, and the students nodded or said yes.
“This is Mr. Falkner, everyone. He wanted to visit our class, and I think he found a little more excitement than he expected.” The students laughed.
“Thanks, Ellen,” Johanna said to the Defender who’d been helping.
“They did really well with energy control,” Ellen said. “Let me know if you need me again.”
Johanna faced the class and smiled. Despite a harrowing ordeal, they all appeared eager to go on with the lesson. “I know we were supposed to cast fortresses today. Doing so, however, requires calm minds, and I doubt many of us have those. Therefore, we’ll tackle that spell next Saturday.”
Several children made faces, and all were manifestly unhappy. She couldn’t blame them. The lesson, however, could go on. “Let’s review for a minute. Who remembers what pentagons do?”
The students supplied the correct answers: Keep out harmful magic, keep in the magic from evil magic items, and let out the magic of the Swords inside the pentagon.
“None of you have ever been inside a pentagon, have you?” All shook their heads. “Everybody stand up and come with me. You, too, Mr. Falkner.”
Johanna led the way to the middle of the arena.
“It’s one thing to look at a fortress from a distance and quite another to be inside one. To give you a taste of what it’s like, see that line right there, the one that goes around in a five-sided box?” She pointed to the etchings on the floor. “That will be the wall. Defenders usually cast fortresses together. Mr. Falkner, if you’d help …”
“I’d be honored to,” Saxt said.
“Let’s make it a simple level one,” Johanna suggested, and he nodded. “On the count of three. One, two, three.”
The students gasped when red-tinged walls shot up around them, shimmering brightly.
At the same time, a surge of power washed through Johanna, as though she stood under a waterfall of delightful and awesome enchantment. It caught her breath and tightened every muscle in her body, particularly the ones low in her belly. Her center heated, sending warmth to those tight muscles and leaving the distinct impression it was smiling. She looked up, straight at Saxt, who was staring back wide-eyed, evidently as startled as she was.
She had the most ridiculous impulse to throw herself into his arms. She might actually have done so, except that one of the students asked a question, and the noise penetrated the fog in her brain.
“Ms. Mahler, can we touch it?”
Somehow she found the strength to break the eye contact. Her muscles slowly relaxed, and she started breathing again. Frantically she forced her thoughts to the business at hand.
“Go ahead and touch the walls,” she told the students in a voice that sounded slightly breathless to her own ears. “They won’t hurt you. Any physical object can cross the barrier. Walk through them. What does it feel like?”
; “Ooooo, it tingles,” said one of the girls. A boy whispered, “Cool.”
Johanna shot a glance at Saxt, who was explaining the structure to Ben and two other students.
Thank goodness. Another meeting of the eyes like that and … she didn’t know what she’d do. She needed some time alone to process the past few hours, especially the past few minutes. She’d beg off lunch with her team. She needed to think. What in the world was going on with her?
Her center purred. It wasn’t acting normally either. After the events of the morning, the thing ought to be highly agitated. Why was it so content?
As she dismissed the class, her hopes of solitude vanished when Jake appeared and said, “Your mother’s here, Ben. Why don’t the two of you have some lunch with me, Mr. Falkner, and Ms. Mahler and discuss your future?”
Chapter Five
At a quarter to two that afternoon, from high up in the large arena’s second balcony and out of earshot of the rest of the audience packed around the first and second balcony railings, Johanna and her team observed the preparations for the energy-measurement test on the floor below. Considering that the large arena was about a hundred by a two-hundred feet, twice the size of the small one, they were happy Dorothy had brought her bird-watching binoculars.
Within the line of a twenty-five-foot-radius fortress etched into the floor, the engineers had erected a contraption inside and between two of the points of the pentagon. Measuring by the people standing around it, the structure consisted of a large, four-to-five-foot-high letter C standing vertically on a two-foot columnar base. None of her team could tell what materials it was made of—the guesses ran from titanium to ceramics. A wire stretched between the tips of the arms of the C. From the bottom of the base, a cable ran across the floor to disappear behind a side door. The C, the wire and the cable glowed with heavy-duty spells.
The team members had been telling Johanna what they’d heard at the reception and at lunch while she’d been with the group of Jake, Saxt, Ben, and his mother—his father was in the army and stationed abroad.