Knowing that calling the two 'friends' was stretching it, Ashleen didn't make more of it than she felt necessary. She had heard the stories of how Magnus had bullied Sebastian and other mage cadets here at the school while he was an apprentice. Though leaving the school for a time, including a trip to the wall with Sebastian who had enlightened the wizard as to the true abilities of battle mages from the owl's hands; there was still a lot of tension between the two when they were together. It had become better, but with that history behind them; Ashleen was a bit wary.
"It has been almost two hours I would guess, though I haven't heard the hourly bell to be certain. I guess that your trip to the roof wasn't necessary, Magnus. Maybe you should look for him at dinner?"
"Will he be back by lunch then?"
Shrugging, the girl replied, "Are you in a rush?"
He chuckled before replying, "I have a class in the afternoon, but no. Why are you being so defensive, Ashleen? You don't think that I have some agenda against him, do you? We buried those ghosts long ago."
It had been a matter of months at best, she thought. The two had gone from bully and victim to adversaries or at least rivals. At the Winter's Edge tournament, the two had been unable to meet in their brackets since Sebastian had grown too sick to continue. Magnus had obsessed over finding out who was better. He had become champion, but even then Sebastian had shown him up by saving Magnus' final competitor from a spell gone awry.
Months later, the mage had defeated the fire wizard in a wizard's duel proving that Sebastian could have won at the tournament; though that might be argued. The owl had learned many spells during the summer and certain tricks that might have made that later match an easier win for Sebastian.
The two had fought side by side, however, against the emperor in his fortress. It was said that those who fought together tended to form a bond, but Ashleen couldn't say that it was true with Magnus.
"When a wizard is riding the winds, it is important to keep their bodies safe since they can't watch over them at the same time unless they are just overhead."
Magnus squinted and his eyes appeared to follow a line towards the south. "What could he be scouting here? It isn't like the Dark One has ever had an army this far to the south. Even the disturbances in New Harbor are too far away to need to look around from here."
"He isn't scouting. He is traveling towards his parents' home. Sebastian is planning to visit them, but Mera is too small to have a portal built, so I hear anyway. He's going to sow a lodestone near there so we can travel."
Again the fire wizard frowned as his gaze continued to look to the south. Ashleen wondered if the man was able to see the magic tethering Sebastian's mind to his body across the many miles that he must have traveled so far. He had been gone a long time, like Magnus had said, and she had to admit that it worried her a little bit. As Sebastian continued to test his boundaries and his strength grew, both naturally and through the use of his specially made runes, they found that he could do more and more.
He had been able to move hundreds of miles using his mind to break through the winds rather than riding them as most air wizards had been taught. Ashleen knew the spell and had ridden the winds hundreds of times, but he had shown her once and the speed he attained was terrifying. If the spell had any drawbacks, Sebastian's continued pushing of his and magic's boundaries might have dangerous repercussions. She had already been forced to heal him from nearly dying once and didn't want to find out if she could save him from what might come of this.
"Has he learned a new spell to do that? Mera is almost a week away by horse. I haven't heard of any wizards trying to send their minds so far from their bodies. How long would that take one of you air wizards anyway?"
"The normal way?" she answered questioningly and gave away that Sebastian had discovered another way... again. "Most can't travel that far because it would take too many hours. Their strength would give out before they could make it."
Ashleen paused and tried to do the math. She hadn't realized that Sebastian's parents lived so far from the school. Guessing that it might be the distance between the bigger cities in Kardor that the mage had joined after the Dark One's death, she didn't think that he could make it without setting up a stop in between. His power was great and the speed he could attain was amazing, but it wasn't just about reaching a destination with his mind. His consciousness needed the strength to return. It nearly doubled the distance and time taken. A wizard needed to budget for both or their magic might run out stranding the mind far away from a body.
That could be death, she knew, from her reading of the spells. The books warned to be careful and cited what could happen. A body that was separated from the mind wouldn't die right away, but it would die without ever regaining consciousness again if that happened.
"So he's discovered something new again," Magnus stated looking at the battle mage sitting stiffly on the bench.
As they watched, Sebastian's left arm lifted towards the southeast. "Wind arrow," the mage breathed moving his right into position like he was pulling the string of a bow. Wind concentrated and he opened his right hand. A stone holding Sebastian's magic suddenly hovered just before his fingers. Opening his fingers like releasing the string, the stones seemed to disappear in an instant.
"Gods," Magnus breathed as his head whipped in the direction that the arrow must have gone. It was too quick for a normal human eye to see. Ashleen had seen it before and still marveled at the spell as well.
"He will be back in about an hour, I would guess," the girl stated for the wizard.
"Isn't that too quick?" the fire wizard questioned.
"That is how it has been since he discovered this ability. If he is gone for two hours, the arrow will cross the distance in a quarter of that time or less. His mind will wait for the strike to hit his mark before snapping back faster than he left, or so he tells me."
"You can't do it?" At the shake of her head, Magnus added, "But you're an air wizard."
Frowning at the man in front of her again, she replied, "It is his version of the spell. He has shown it to me once, but I haven't tried to learn it from him yet."
It was his turn to frown, though from being perplexed with the girl's answer. "Why? If it is superior to the regular wind wizards' spell, why not learn this one too?"
"It isn't superior!" she argued momentarily feeling that she should defend the hundreds of years of spell casting from air wizards. "It wouldn't be good for scouting at least. He says that he just pushes for speed and looking down would make most people dizzy or sick. I've let him show me, but I agree with him.
"It is only good for going fast and using his wind arrow spell, which is also strangely his," Ashleen added with a sigh.
Again Magnus chuckled before turning around. "So he annoys even you at times with how much he keeps figuring out, huh? Well, when he gets back, tell him that I would like to speak with him at lunch then. He should be hungry from this, I would guess."
Watching the fire wizard walk to the door before disappearing the way he had come, Ashleen thought about his last parting shot. She wasn't so much annoyed with the magic he discovered, the young woman thought.
Ashleen sat beside him again and leaned into the mage. Her head rested against his shoulder while her arms encircled him as she held him tight.
No, it didn't annoy her, but it did cause her to worry, the wilder thought sighing once more. She loved him too much to stop him, but Ashleen also loved him too much to not wish that he would at least slow down from time to time.
It was like this version of her magic. He always seemed to be rushing from one problem to another. Never stopping long, the girl feared that this might be his undoing as well one day and she refused to let it happen if she could do anything about it.
The land had been rising slowly but surely as it had almost from the point of leaving White Hall, Katya thought. Rises and falls turned into full scale hills. Some they found easier to ride between. Other hills were low enough to ride over, though t
he girl often felt bad for the poor horses having to carry all of them mile after mile. Of course, if they had been forced to walk; this trip would have taken twice as long at least.
It was a thought that made her wish that they would let her use her dragon magic to fly. They called it dragon magic and it had come from a race that men called dragons, but she wasn't certain that it was truly dragon magic. She had seen a girl turn into a fabled dragon. That was something different entirely.
The land continued to grow steeper and soon they were forced to move through tall hills until they became small mountains. The Dimple Mountains weren't naturally created from what legends said. They had formed from the Dark one creating the Cataclysm. Land had been torn from North continent while some islands sank and new ones formed. Whatever this land had been before the Cataclysm, it was now a vast mountain range splitting Southwall almost completely in half.
Northwall was less than a hundred miles from the northern reaches of the closest mountain and the range nearly extended nearly all the way from the sea to the south. There were some steep, tall mountains even this close to the outer edge of the range. Katya had flown through some of them while training. Of course, that had been just before they had run into the alien forces in their land.
The creatures had attacked, but they weren't mindless beasts. They wore armor and clothing. Some had metal weapons and then there was the one she had fought who used magic.
Chills ran up her spine and her skin tightened with goose flesh as if a breeze had crossed her skin.
"Are you feeling alright?" Ylena asked moving a little closer with her mount.
"Sorry, just remembering those creatures that we fought near here. Do you really think that they've come back?"
Though Ylena had trained her face to mask unwanted emotions from showing, Katya was equally trained to spot them. The older wizard was nervous. Katya could feel it with her magic intuitively.
"We brought a large force just to be safe, but Ukor said that this marker is less powerful than the ones registered at the end of summer when we ran into them. It is likely that either there is a smaller tear caused by their previous portal or a small group was sent. Either way, we will be vigilant and be ready for whatever we might find."
Katya had spent a little more time with the gate team on the ride and watched them at dinner. Ukor brought her close while his assistant, Wizard Beyrieth, used the strange device they called a compass. Set into metal that might be steel, a green emerald like stone was nearly flat and smooth. In that stone, a light appeared and no matter which way the compass might turn, the direction of that light remained pointing west.
"Beyrieth and Ukor say that we will likely find it in less than two days ride from now."
"If it was a normal path maybe," Ylena corrected. "These mountains don't have roads and they aren't open like the plains."
"It wouldn't matter if you learned to fly," Katya teased her mentor again.
"I tell you what. If you do your best getting to know the other apprentices here, I will let you try to teach me dragon magic to fly.
"You still haven't done much to try. I've seen you with the gate wizards and some of the others, but I want to see you do your best."
"Is this some teaching lesson then?" the younger girl sighed in complaint.
Ylena chuckled and nodded. "Sure, if you fail... well, let me think about your punishment. If you succeed, I'll test to see if I can do dragon magic properly. Kel'lor is returning when it is warmer, isn't he? Maybe I should wait for someone with more experience, but I'll do it if you do."
Given a little more motivation, Katya smirked before replying, "Fine, if you promise."
Looking like she just had fallen into a trap, Ylena hummed, "Hmm, don't tell me that you planned this. I'm the one who came up with the idea."
"If you say so," the younger girl said before turning her horse towards a group of earth wizards. They had two apprentices in their group. One was an older girl while the other was a reasonably attractive boy. Katya had noticed him eyeing her already and thought that she had seen him around the school at the dances. They had never formally met and he was likely older, but with the added incentive from Ylena, the apprentice moved forward to start her teacher's assignment.
Sebastian stretched before leaning forward to rub his legs. He pulled a canteen of water from the pack at his feet and drank close to half of it before he felt refreshed.
Ashleen handed him a travel bar. Bonded together by honey, it had grains, nuts and fruits mixed together. The calories were more noticed than the taste as the battle mage seemed to swallow it in one bite. It was more than one, but the bar was gone quickly enough. The girl unwrapped a sandwich filled with meat and cheese next.
"Magnus has requested to eat lunch with you," the young woman stated holding the sandwich up until Sebastian took it from her fingers gently.
"When was he here?"
"About the time that you called for your arrow."
"Well, I doubt that it is magic that he will request that I teach him," the mage replied and moved enough to send a crackle along his spine as he stretched. "I don't think that he can do air magic at all."
"He's learned fire and dragon magic as well as trained on mage spells, hasn't he? Maybe he's started to adapt," Ashleen suggested. "He was the champion of Winter's Edge and is considered a bit of a prodigy, isn't he? Maybe he has it in him to learn more of the guilds of magic to become a white wizard.
"Of course in Kardor, we don't have those divisions. They teach us a little of everything and see what takes beyond the most obvious schools."
"Southwall loves their eight schools of magic, though in truth some of them learn more of the other guilds than others," the mage replied. Somehow he had managed to eat the sandwich while they were talking. Drinking the rest of the water to wash it down, Sebastian stood up and stretched a little more to remove the tension from his body. Rubbing his rear end, he felt Ashleen's hands suddenly cover his.
Turning over his shoulder to look at the smaller woman, he laughed and questioned, "Now you want to help with this too?"
"I wouldn't mind," she giggled.
He turned around dipped down to pick the girl up to lift her high enough to be eye to eye. "You are incorrigible," Sebastian said with a shake of his head.
Ashleen's arms encircled his neck before she leaned forward to kiss him passionately on the lips. "Well, I love you, so sue me."
Still held to him, her eyes suddenly seemed surprised and she asked, "Oh, did you make it all the way to your parent's house? Magnus made it sound like it was too far to do in one try even for you."
Wincing slightly, Sebastian shook his head. "I can finish this afternoon, but I think the stone is by... Pirea."
The name meant nothing to the Kardorian.
Clarifying for her, Sebastian added, "If I went by horse I'd say it was less than two days from Mera, so I am more than halfway to the town. There should be a place to sit there while I push the last of the way."
Ashleen groaned and complained, "More sitting?"
"Hey, at least you can walk around if you want."
She nodded before kissing him again. It was something that the two still hadn't grown bored of doing. They had known each other for about a year now, but only half of that had been after Sebastian had let himself truly be with her. He had been with another wizard when they had first met, not physically but emotionally. Then they had been together, but something hadn't worked between the two. Sebastian was a battle mage. Yara was a healer. Though he could heal too and had learned from her in fact, they were still too different to last.
Ashleen had been there before they had broken up and there had always been an unspoken connection between them. Once the other girl was out of her way, and technically slightly before, the wilder was more than willing to let Sebastian know that she wanted him.
Some might say that she stole him, but the man wouldn't have allowed it, she knew. If Yara had said that she still wanted to be wi
th him, he would have kept the wilder at arms' length even though they both could feel something. He was just that way, loyal to a fault.
As he put her back down onto her feet, the girl sighed, "I know that I am the one who asked you to do this, but I think that I'd rather just spend time with you in our room at the Black Smith Inn."
Sebastian picked up the pack after replacing the empty canteen. Chuckling he said, "Come on. We can't live in one room forever. There is too much to do in the world, but we'll keep making time for that also.
"So Magnus requests my presence for lunch, huh? This should be... interesting," the mage finished as his free hand took hers and they walked towards the door into the southern tower. It would lead them down to the bottom floor and the hallway leading to the dining hall.
If he had to meet with Magnus, the mage decided that he should get it over with. In spite of their past, he didn't exactly hate the wizard after all. Magnus just wasn't among his favorite people even after setting aside their past. He had forgiven the other man, but it didn't mean that made them friends by any means.
"Did he say what he wanted?"
Ashleen shrugged. "What does any wizard want from you?"
Giving a grunt of acceptance, Sebastian knew what she meant. It wasn't just the wizards who wanted to discover what he knew, but his fellow battle mages. The whole problem of the mage corps was them wanting to keep what he had learned for their personal gain and it was echoed by the wizards. If they felt his magic was greater than only mages should have, the wizards wanted to know it too.
Magnus, at least, had gone to the battle mages of White Hall and trained in how to cast like a mage without making the request from Sebastian first. In fact, the fire wizard had only come to a training session back in Hala after the tournament to learn how to cast night shields and light. The man hadn't really demanded anything from him.
It was odd to think that his one time nemesis was actually maybe the one person who had never seemed to want something from him.
Chapter 6- Tasks
Battle Mage, The Caves of Time Page 7