by Curtis, Greg
He was everything Marjan had read of the sylph, average height, thin, impossibly pale skin with a slight sheen that made it almost look like polished marble, with piercing blue eyes and elf like ears, but in saying that and seeing him he knew the descriptions had never done the sylph justice. If the elves had the grace of the finest dancers then the sylph, their cousins according to some legends, had the grace and beauty of the gods themselves. They had their wealth too, who else could afford to wear vestments made out of woven precious metals under his white robe, and who else would have armour that seemed to be a mix of pure gold and silver, adorned with a white linen cloak so bright that it almost glowed. But it was their magic that truly shook him.
As the sylph covered the last few feet between them on foot, Marjan could feel his magic, strong and sharp, and held like a sword poised to strike in an instant. Yet he felt nothing of threat in his presence. The sylph was a soldier, deadly but restrained, and his weapon of choice was the elemental magical storm that flowed through him, though in truth what he could feel of it was so overpowering that it might have been fairer to say that the sylph was a part of it.
“Greetings pale friend.” The captain spoke trade to the sylph for which Marjan was grateful. His mastery of the elven tongue was still pitiful at best, and some days he feared the language might be eternally beyond him. But at least he was learning the customs, and as the captain bowed low to their guests he did likewise. Yet on the other hand he had to wonder about the affectation. Pale friend? That sounded a lot like stranger to him, much as the elves had once greeted him before Essaline had talked him up and given him some status. Now they called him either by name or mage. Were the elves and the sylph not close? Maybe he should have studied a little more of the other peoples in his time in the guild.
“And you woodland cousin.” The sylph greeted the captain just as coolly adding to his impressions, and then without warning turned his attention to Marjan, catching them both by surprise.
“So you must be the spellbinder we’ve been noticing so much of late. I should have guessed you wouldn’t be a druid or even an elf. Too strong in your elemental magics though you have some of their touch with the wild.”
“Ah, no good sir. I’m just a human wizard, outcast and taken in by these good elves.” He thought it best to be polite, especially with the captain standing next to him the spear in his hand, especially when he didn’t quite know what was going on, or how the sylph had identified him, let alone what he meant when he said they’d been noticing him.
“There is no just about you young human. The spider queen is still angry and confused by her defeat and will hopefully remain that way for centuries until she finally works her way loose, and since then your magic has only grown, as it should in a time of conflict. Grown strong enough that we could feel you even in the royal silver chamber. It was because of that that I was sent to seek you out. You are an eldritch battle-blade, what others would call a warrior wizard, a spellsword, or a battlemage, and it is time to unleash your potential for the war ahead.”
“I am Argus Ivorycast, High Spellbinder of Stirren, and for the next few tendays at least I hope I will be your teacher. If you have the skill and strength, and the will to learn. Come!” With no more than that the sylph called to his corn, mounted up and then trotted right past him heading for the village while Marjan wondered what to do. No doubt he was expected to follow him, but he still didn’t know why or even if that would be acceptable to the elves. He already knew from staring at the captain’s face that he wasn’t enraptured with the idea. In fact he looked somewhat angry under his usual practiced calm. Still it seemed he had little choice.
“Apologies captain. It seems I must go.” With no more than that he started hurrying after the sylph, wishing he’d thought to bring Willow with him as a trotting corn set a fast pace for a mere human to keep up with, especially one who didn’t do a lot of running, and he discovered he was out of shape. So much so that well before he was half way back he was breathing heavily and thinking about collapsing on the soft ground. A little later he realised, as he ran like a servant after his master, that the sylph didn’t even know his name. He’d come all this way to see him and yet he hadn’t asked.
Maybe it wasn’t important.
One thing he could be certain of he realised as he finally broke through the edge of the forest into the clearing where more elves were staring at them, his life had not become any easier this day.
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Chapter Nine.
“No, no no! Stop thinking about your riposte, just react. You’re a battle-blade and this is a battle, thinking is the last thing you need to do.” Then, just to make certain that he wasn’t wasting his time thinking the sylph cast a fireball at him, and Marjan jumped as it fizzled on his shield with a flash and a bang. He was always doing that, which was one of the reason’s Marjan’s skill with that particular spell was growing in leaps and bounds. It was that or suffer the painful burns, and he had already endured more than a few.
Master Argus was in fine form Marjan thought, as he had been for the past month, always critical, always riding him hard, and his life had not been pleasant since he’d arrived. But then he wasn’t the easiest person to get along with anyway. Certainly the elves seemed to have the right of it as they stayed away from him in their droves, just as he in turn avoided them.
Even the elders seemed unimpressed with Master Argus, the more so when immediately after arriving he had set up his quarters in Marjan’s home saying that it would be more comfortable away from the crowds, and had then failed to go and introduce himself to the council. That had not gone down well and the following day a messenger had been sent to enquire politely about his lack of an introduction, and been sent back with a curt message about interfering with the business of Stirren. Marjan was glad he hadn’t been in the debating chamber when that message had arrived.
Since then Master Argus had been into the heart of the village precisely twice, both times only to buy things that he needed, and each time he’d managed to offend sensibilities and step on people’s metaphorical toes. He seemed to have a gift for it. Marjan’s role on both occasions, other than to carry his purchases and bear up under his constant complaints, was to apologise for him, and then to be told off for it. It seemed that courtesy and respect were not commodities that High Spellbinders dealt in, and neither should trainee eldritch battle-blades.
Yet that fitted in well with most of the rest that Master Argus was teaching him. He wasn’t being shown much that was new, he was being untaught what he had learned as a student.
Caution was not the way of a battle-blade. As a warrior wizard he had to be able to strike hard and fast, without concern for the consequences. The magic was only about fighting, only about winning, and those who waited and thought about their actions, those who worried about who might be hurt or whether their actions were right or wrong, they simply died. Speed and strength, those were his new watchwords.
Guilt and shame he was also taught, were wasted emotions, and they were crippling him in the sylph’s opinion. It didn’t matter that he had killed another student, in Master Argus’ opinion that was simply an accident that should never have happened, and sometimes Marjan wondered if he even considered it a fault at all. Certainly he seemed to have nothing of concern for the student who’d died. All he would say about it, again and again, was that he was an eldritch battle-blade and only an idiot would ever get into an arena with him, and that should have been impressed upon him and his classmates from the very beginning.
Master Argus believed the Guild was responsible for his accident as he called it, for failing to maintain proper discipline, failing to recognise Kyran’s unfortunate nature, and not properly assessing Marjan’s own gift, and perhaps there was some truth in that. But then he had come to understand that if the sylph had little respect for the elves and their druids, he had no more for the Guild. They for their part didn’t like him either, and each evening in the council
chamber after he’d set up the lens for the elders, he’d have to listen to their own complaints about the sylph. Naturally they were opposed to his training, and they’d said so, but surprisingly the elders weren’t, and kept insisting that he continue much as he would have liked to have ceased it.
Marjan hated his training, or perhaps more correctly he feared it. He feared what he might do with it, yet at the same time he had to admit it was working. Freed from at least some of his normal doubt, his magic was sharper and cleaner than before, and it came faster and with more strength than he’d known he had. Trust in his talent to know its own limits Master Argus kept telling him, and he was right.
Despite that the sylph wasn’t happy with him. He considered his progress too slow and constantly moaned that his former masters had crippled him with their foolish rules, endless moralizing and pointless drills. But he also blamed him for his failure, constantly telling him he was resisting too strongly, that he had to let go and trust in his talent. But Marjan couldn’t do that. Not when he knew only too well what the consequences of his striking back blindly might be, and so he did exactly what the sylph told him not to, he held back. He did that and he did the laundry.
Actually he did more than that. He did the cooking and the cleaning, the washing and drying of dishes, making the beds, the grooming of his unicorn, a beast that didn’t like him and would cheerfully gore him if it got the chance. He was fast becoming disillusioned with the magnificent beast as well as his rider. It seemed that along with becoming his student, Marjan had also become his personal servant, and that didn’t particularly please him either.
Just then the sylph took him away from his list of grievances, real and imagined, as he lobbed an acid ball at him, a nasty looking fizzling globe of green fire that threatened to eat his skin off him, and he had to cast it aside with a blast of pure force. The shield of vitality wouldn’t have stopped it, the first time he’d tried that he’d discovered that it was good against the furies of fire, light and lightning, even sound and cold, but not biting liquids, and had paid the price for his mistake. He’d leaned that lesson well while sitting with the healers for many hours that evening.
“At least your defences are stronger boy.” Marjan wasn’t fooled by the sylph’s seemingly accepting words, and he wasn’t surprised when the trio of lightning bolts came from out of nowhere to smash against the shield he was still holding tight. He didn’t even jump. The sylph had tried that trick one too many times. More than one too many actually.
“But you can’t win by defence alone. You have to fight back.” Even as he was speaking Master Argus was busy launching a series of sunbeams against him, some of the most powerful of all the light spells, akin to fire in their strength but with the power to cut through things as well as burn them, and it took all of Marjan’s focus to resist them. Had he not he knew, he would have been killed. The sylph was not about to let him rest on his achievements. He had to keep pushing, every day and to work as hard as he could he had to have a chance of becoming a true battlemage. Surviving each day’s training was simply his incentive to make sure he did just that.
Next he used the darkness of crushing against him, a spell that was once considered the bane of all wizardry, and too evil to use since it had a nasty habit of killing wizards. But that was long ago, and once the proper defence had been created, a blast of pure light combined with a shield of force, it had become a training spell for wizards. The only difference between him being trained in the attack and others, was that the others were all wizards of artisan level or above. Journeyman could be too easily killed by it, which spoke highly of how strong he was becoming.
Marjan cast the light shield with all haste and plenty of power and watched as the crushing dark simply disintegrated all around him. Every time he cast the defence he seemed to get stronger and faster, but then he had to.
High up on the cliff walls surrounding them, they practiced in a deep granite quarry to ensure that no one else could be harmed, he heard applause, and looked up to see Essaline sitting there, watching. Every day they had an audience, and though Master Argus had either not noticed or not cared, Marjan knew that some of that audience were there to report to the elders. Why else would there be captains of every troop and druids sitting there on a regular basis along with the children? Today he figured must simply be Essaline’s turn, and he was pleased to see her.
He bowed briefly to her as was proper, but he was careful never to let his attention wander from the sylph as he did so. The magma cannon blast that came at him then made him grateful for his caution, and the shield of force and shield of vitality he held tight kept him from harm, the balls of magma hitting the force shield hard and then giving up all their heat to fall to his feet as piles of rubble. It was a powerful attack but as the sylph had said, his defence was strong.
And so the afternoon wore on, pretty much as had every one before it for a full month. Three full tendays of surviving magic attack after magic attack of every conceivable type, and occasionally lobbing something back at the sylph just to show he could, until finally they both saw the shadows approaching as the sun began falling below the cliffs above them.
That was the signal as always for them to finish and when Master Argus nodded to him and told him their practice was done, he bowed back as he always did and thanked him for his time. One thing he was learning from living among the elves, was politeness. His ability with their tongue might still be rudimentary at best, and he looked and felt distinctly out of place among them, but he was learning how not to offend. Unfortunately Master Argus was not an elf, and this was apparently not a normal day.
“Do not thank me boy. I have failed you, just as you have failed yourself, and it is time for me to accept that and move on.” Marjan was caught by surprise as the sylph told him that, though not completely by the fact that he wasn’t happy with his progress.
“Move on Master Argus?”
“Curses, I hate that stifling elven politeness, and especially from you, from an eldritch battle-blade. It is unseemly. Yes move on child. There are others who need my aid, and others who will be better able to accept it. Already I have wasted too much time on you, believing that your talent is greater than theirs.”
“I’m sorry Master.”
“No you’re not. If anything you’re relieved, and not for the usual reasons, not because the training is arduous, dangerous or frightening. Just because it means you don’t have to fight any more. But sooner or later you will have to fight, and I don’t know if you can.”
“I can fight master. As long as I know my enemy.” For some reason Marjan felt as though he had to defend himself, even though he knew the sylph was right.
“No you can’t. I want to believe you, you want to believe yourself, but the truth is that you are crippled by guilt and the fear of harming others. Crippled beyond my ability to overcome. It is a terrible weakness, and your enemy will learn it and when he does he will use it against you.”
“Your talent is strong boy. Your casting is pure and clean, your ability to read the magic being used by others is sharp, and your strength in countering it, far beyond that of anyone else of your years. That is why I came to you first. But it was a mistake. Until you can let go of that fear, until you can strike with all your might, without hesitation or doubt, your ability as a battle-blade will always only be half what it should be, and the irony is that that may well cost the very lives of those you try to protect.”
“I will not let them down.” On that at least Marjan was determined. He was also slightly upset, he’d never failed before, and he didn’t like it. He didn’t like being told it either, least of all in front of an audience, in front of Essaline.
“Of course you will. And I cannot allow that. Your weakness could kill us all.” With no more than that the sylph launched a punishing attack at him, fire and lightning far more powerful than anything he’d ever seen, and it was all Marjan could do to get his shield up in time and hold it while wondering what was h
appening. The battle was over. Except that it clearly wasn’t and neither were the more normal restraints and rules being followed. Master Argus wasn’t holding back and even the splash backs of his power were exploding with ground shaking power as they impacted into the surrounding cliffs.
For the longest while Marjan had all he could handle as he tried simply to keep his attacks from breaking through, and then when that wasn’t enough he had to start dodging and leaping like a gazelle as the sylph started turning the ground under his feet into pockets of lava, all the while wondering if or perhaps finally realising that, the sylph was actually trying to kill him. Yet somehow he held it all together, and after maybe a minute was almost beginning to think he stood a chance. He should have known better.