Battle Mage: Winter's Edge

by Donald Wigboldy

  The man in yellow turned to the fire wizard and shrugged, “In this case, Pheren, I suppose we should, though I notice that it asks for no other wizards to help you. Have you no need to train for a wizard’s duel?”

  “I already have chosen the rest of my team, Wizard Alum. I have wizard duelers from Windmeer that will travel with me. We’ll train as much as we can and hopefully both they and I will be better competitors for it. Though I haven’t dueled your way often, I have managed to fit in a few challenges with my wizards to begin to prepare me.”

  The wizard in red nodded, “I remember hearing your name mentioned around White Hall on occasion as a cadet, Falcon Trillon. Perhaps, if you have the time, you might want to come to the fire training court. There are probably a few wizards and apprentices that would be willing to test you before you go.”

  With a reluctant nod based off some of the trouble he had received from the wizard community of White Hall, Sebastian wondered at the man’s offer. It didn’t matter. White Hall, like the keeps and cities, would send a few champions and he might have to face them as well. If he couldn’t deal with them here, then perhaps it was better to learn now than later, but after working with his wizards in Windmeer, Sebastian was pretty sure that he could face nearly any wizard in a duel.

  “If you’re through with inviting him to duel your school’s pet duelers,” Gregor asked with a sarcastic chuckle, “then maybe we should get around to testing the apprentice. If he’s going to have a full wizard healer, she will still have to pass her tests.”

  “She’ll pass,” Sebastian stated confidently drawing surprised glances from the wizards. He could feel Yara tense again, but they had already passed the first test of gaining the bench’s respect. Going the next steps to make sure Yara passed, was likely to be a lot less painful.

  After a battery of tests, some performed between the healing wizards, others conducted in the medical wing, Yara satisfied the three healers in charge as he had believed. The other four wizards had left shortly after Alum’s team took over the lead. They weren’t certified in healing, after all, so their opinions didn’t matter. It was that division within the schools that Sebastian marveled at once more.

  Inside the medical wing, Sebastian was even thrown a couple tests. Seeing a battle mage performing such a complicated thing as healing had the wizards intrigued. A single word achieved what usually took several seconds to a minute for a wizard to perform. The word was not the end of it, of course, and as they observed his use of their magic, the wizards began to note the differences.

  To Sebastian, there was little difference in the results and even the time taken could vary since his use of healing magic simply started with the command spell. He often had to spend time using his healing focus to find a way to help the body fix itself, so like a healing wizard the spells could take several minutes before completion.

  “Well, my dear,” Alum stated at the conclusion of the long battery of tests, “you can now wear the yellow. Your mistress Deyla trained you well. There are a lot of her nuances to your healing, but strangely your apprentice has his own style completely,” he added with a chuckle.

  Smiling wearily back at the man after using a lot of magic and energy during her tests, Yara confessed, “Well, I worked with Deyla for years, but I simply helped Sebastian discover his talent. Most of his training was done on his own.”

  That brought more looks of surprise from the three wizards again. “Your skill comes just from your own use of the spells?” the woman healer, Saenic, asked trying to understand.

  He nodded. “Much of it, but Yara taught me a lot of what I know. When I left Windmeer, I kept on using the magic, so I may have picked up some of my own techniques along the way. Like I said earlier, between her and Deyla I had very good teachers.”

  Alum clapped the mage on his shoulder in a show of friendship. “If only your magic aura had been more powerful, you could have become a white wizard, falcon. As it is, if you deigned to wear our yellow stripe, we would be proud to see it on you.”

  Smiling back at the wizard, Sebastian was a little unsure of how to answer but muddled through saying, “I’m not sure if I can get that past my superiors, but perhaps I’ll have to see about it. I notice that some mages can only learn certain magic as well, maybe we’ll have to start using the wizards’ colors on our uniforms as well.”

  The third wizard, Davern, looked thoughtful as he mused, “I had heard that this man was changing things, but what kind of new order would it be where falcons show the colors of their own schools of magic? These are interesting times.”

  Alum’s hand shifted to his wrist. As the wizard gripped the mage’s arm tightly, he warned, “I know that Pheren gave you an invitation to dueling practice in his court. Maybe you should ignore his request, Sebastian. Pheren’s mages play pretty rough. I’d hate to have to see you on our table being healed from wizard’s fire burns.”

  Patting the older man’s hands momentarily, the mage smiled back into his worry and replied, “I know, they can. I knew some of his apprentices first hand and not in friendship, but I’ve learned quite a bit since I was in White Hall. If Pheren wants to test me, I think it might be worth the risk to know where I stand.”

  The healing wizards all shook their heads at his response. Only Yara knew his mind was made up. She didn’t bother to shake her head as the girl believed in him. Yara had seen what he was capable of first hand more than once and stories of even more grand feats had made their way to her in the months after he left besides.

  “Be careful, healer mage,” Saenic added to their warnings. His new honorary title in place, Sebastian knew that he was almost one of them.

  Alum put up a warning finger between them as the older, wizard warned, “Be careful not just with this tournament. If you’re skill as a healer continues to grow, you may find that these duels and the destruction they bring could begin to interfere with your healer side. If you get too out of synch, the rest of your magic could begin to fail until you regain the proper balance.

  “I am actually surprised that you are such a good healer. The nature of being a combat mage would seem to imply that it would be in conflict with healing magic. Most of our studies have always said that the two sides are impossible to merge. If you begin to suffer from either side, remember to either balance them or pick a side or you’ll suffer.”

  The other two nodded looking concerned. Sebastian had heard of the warnings before, but in his use of the two types of magic he had not seen such a problem yet.

  “I’ll try to watch for any signs, but from what I’ve read, no wizard has been able to use both sides comfortably since before the cataclysm. No one seems to know for certain that the two sides of destruction and healing can’t work in one person, but all I can tell is that so far I haven’t come across any problems.”

  “You may be the first to use both sides, so be careful. We don’t know for sure what can happen, but as a healer we see illness caused by those imbalances in patients we treat. You must have seen it during the last several months as you’ve healed soldiers.”

  He knew what they meant. The pain and injury balanced against the natural order of a body was one of the patterns he worked to right when he healed. That may be the hardest part of healing, the ability to set things right. Sometimes he had even had to use uninjured parts of a body to help reconstruct an injury since the chaos of the destruction no longer left him a pattern to fix the damage. He then used the pattern of order to right the chaos to recreate the balance the healers mentioned.

  “I’ll have to try and monitor myself to look for any complications. For now, I’ll have Yara to help keep watch at least through the tournament and she’ll probably catch something before I will,” Sebastian agreed with the wizards. “Until then, I will do my best to maintain balance, I guess.”

  Having taken their warnings to heart, the couple left the testing chamber to wander back through the halls that had been home for so many years. Yara took his arm as the mage escort
ed her through the wizards’ corridors. The sudden sense of freedom had made the girl more daring. She was a full wizard and, while there were still rules, she was less under a microscope than as an apprentice.

  “Finally, we can be a real couple,” the pretty blond stated as she clung to his arm leaning against him as they walked. “There is still the superstition that being with a man can mess with a woman’s magic, but at least no one will be enforcing any bans on me like as an apprentice.”

  Beginning to redden at the implications of her words, Sebastian tried to change the path of the conversation by joking, “You can also wear something other than white with yellow, if you want.”

  She looked up at him acting shocked as the girl asked, “You’re tired of me wearing white? I thought that I wore the color well.”

  Knowing that she had caught him with his own words and now toyed with him, Sebastian had to laugh in return. “Well, you do look good in white, but after almost eight years I would think that you’d be getting a little sick of the same thing. Now you can wear yellow or whatever color you may be in the mood for whenever you want.”

  With a little hum as Yara considered the thought, the wizard suddenly realized, “Now I need to buy a new wardrobe! All I have are apprentice robes and dresses. We’ll need to go to the school seamstress before leaving for Hala and pick up the yellow clothing for being a full wizard so that I am not confused for a runaway apprentice.”

  A far off explosion echoed down a crossway as they walked causing the couple to pause. Sebastian turned towards the noise even as he felt a rumble in the stone at their feet.

  “Sebastian, that’s the direction of the wizards’ courtyards. Didn’t you hear Master Alum’s warning about Pheren’s duels? Can’t we just relax for one day?” the girl complained as the battle mage continued down the hall.

  “I’m just going to look. I may as well begin scouting my competition, since I will be running into the school’s best representatives also. White Hall is bound to have a good showing with the amount of talented wizards that come in and out of this school.”

  Groaning, the young woman followed but let go of his arm showing her disapproval as she followed just a few steps behind the mage.

  Chapter 22- An Old Rival

  The orchestration of explosions from beyond the thick wooden door continued to get louder as Sebastian led Yara down the corridor. Opening the portal brought the pure volume of the noise in a rush to the mage’s ears as he tried to take in the brilliance of flames striking ice. Two duels were going on in the large open area between the surrounding walls and school.

  Called a courtyard, Sebastian looked on a space that could have held easily twice the number of duels. The area was at least twice the size of his old training ground in the battle mage section of the school, he thought. With all the training for the duels going on, the wizards had even brought in a few sets of bleachers and dozens of benches for the spectators that would inevitably come. Wizards came to see their competition just as Sebastian was there to see who and what he would face from the men and women of White Hall.

  A pair of fire wizards was in the closer of the two duels. Fireballs met constructs of fire, but unlike the duels at Windmeer, these two stood before each other in ten foot circles directly attacking one another. With self preservation part of the challenge, he thought that the wizards fought even harder than those at Windmeer. Waves of fire met streams twisting through the air in an explosive impact negating both of their attacks. The power in each had been beyond what any mage could do, Sebastian noted as he settled his chin on a fist after crossing his arms.

  The mage watched each man as closely as he could. Their spells weren’t known to him, though Sebastian hadn’t taken on some of them since they required larger reserves of magical power than he possessed. In a pinch and drawing power from the earth, the mizard thought that he might be able to cast similar spells and still have the ability to continue on after more than a few attempts. It would be his hidden knowledge of drawing on the earth that would be the mage’s ace in the hole during the tournament. Having the ability to draw on the extra energy would give him the strength needed to fight the wizards on their own terms. The only other problem that he needed to overcome was the drastic lack of long range spells needed to counterattack in the duels.

  Sebastian’s attention moved to the second duel. Earth and air waged war as two wizards from their rival schools fought for the pride of their elements. Interestingly enough, the air wizard had raised low earthen walls before him as a defense. They were simply waist high versions of walls similar to his competitor who had raised walls to nearly head height angled towards a nonexistent point in front of him. The earth wizard had left a central point open above the waist so that he could see his opponent to focus his spells. With the dirt and stone being thick, solid walls, the earth wizard couldn’t just wall himself in without leaving the opening as a weakness.

  On the opposite side, the air wizard’s earthen embankments were just the lower base of his defense. Sebastian could feel the swirling tornado like winds encompassing the wizard. Dirt from the ground was slowly being pulled up into the tornado as well so the defensive winds were slowly darkening with the debris.

  Stone spears lashed out to be spun aside or sucked up into the swirling mass much to the earth wizard’s disappointment. He had tested the strength of the winds before and the same results happened every time.

  Sebastian noted the spears cast aside seemed to hit an invisible wall on either side of the wizards. Four more wizards stood in casters’ poses chanting in four corners around each duel. Having four to contain the individual strength of the two combatants within each zone, he assumed that it was done for more than one reason. First, they kept the spectators safe from harm. Second, they kept each duel separated from each other and, of course third; they kept the courtyard walls from being destroyed by the unrestrained power of wizards releasing war magic on each other.

  When the nearer of the two duels suddenly reached its fiery conclusion, the mage found the fourth reason for the four wizards working together. The losing wizard’s defenses failed and a wall of fire washed over the man. What should have killed the wizard was caught on a last defense not his own. A protection shield using the strength of the power of four wizards caught the destructive spell and turned it aside leaving the wizard unharmed for the most part. The man was still exhausted from the duel, but only that and his wounded pride would be the pains he walked away with from the loss.

  He now knew how Winter’s Edge could be safely waged within the capitol city’s walls.

  “Fireball!” the spell came from Sebastian’s left side drawing panicked stares from those nearest the mage, Yara included.

  “Shield,” the falcon responded casually with a gesture of his fingers toward the left but with the grand result of a large, blue cylinder of energy rising from the ground to over two feet above his head and extending nearly ten feet from either side. Such a large defense surrounded both the mage and Yara beside him as well as three other onlookers nearby.

  Turning his head to look to the left, Sebastian watched as a large fireball came at the shield but instead of striking the blue energy it circled the cone several times before soaring up into the air. As the fireball shot straight up, it stopped as suddenly as it had changed course. A gentle puff as the ball was magically snuffed was all the more consequence of someone’s practical joke. Unfortunately, Sebastian knew both the voice and the behavior to be that of someone who was once almost an enemy, despite them both being from White Hall and Southwall.

  A familiar face wearing the red of a fire wizard smiled at the mage before giving a nod of acknowledgement and crossed the space between them.

  “Hello, Magnus,” Sebastian said coolly as the wizard walked up beside him. His former bane of existence wasn’t someone that he had necessarily wished to see in White Hall. The mage hadn’t even known the wizard was here, since all ties had been broken between the two after Sebastian had
left Windmeer. Yara’s letters had never bothered to make mention of the man and he had not asked. With all the baggage of their apprentice years behind them, Sebastian had thought after last summer that things were better between them at least to the point of stopping the annoying pranks often practiced at White Hall.

  “Sebastian, it is good to see you. Your reflexes seem to have gotten even better since I had last seen you and certainly your use of magic seems to have grown as well. I haven’t seen such a large shield last summer’s battle,” the fire wizard commented casually as he smiled making the comments seem genuine in their compliment.

  “Magnus Trekanus, you jerk!” Yara was far less calm as she laid into her former suitor. The fire wizard had never actually acted on any claims he may have thought he had on the girl, but only thanks to the strict rules applying to apprentice wizards. Males were given a certain amount of leniency, but the female wizards, especially healing wizards, were guarded as virgins like they were in a temple. “How could you be so reckless as to send a fireball into a crowd of people? Haven’t you grown up yet? Maybe I should go find Wizard Pheren and ask that he punish you by making you an apprentice again? Maybe a second try at becoming a wizard will help you grow up!”

  Blinking at the harsh words, Magnus managed still managed a smile. A tall, good looking young man, blond hair and silver eyes could often sway the girls in his favor, but Yara was no fawning school girl for him to manipulate. For a healer who was one of the gentlest people Sebastian knew, Magnus seemed to find her anger quite easily. “I’m sorry. It was just a joke and I had full control of where the ball would go. Really. Didn’t you see that I made it miss both your shield and everyone between us before I sent it away?”

  Crossing her arms in a huff and stamping her foot angrily, the healer retorted, “That doesn’t matter. It was still reckless and I thought that you were done with trying to pick on Sebastian. You know after he saved your life, one would think you might actually be a little grateful.”