by Eric Vall
My knuckles met hard, unyielding rock.
Aurora grinned widely at my triumph, but Abrus shrugged as if he wasn’t impressed.
The next hour passed in much the same pattern. Abrus threw every test he could at me. Deconstruct the wall. Fill in the trench. Turn a piece of the field, according to specific dimensions, into quicksand. Revert the quicksand back to dirt.
Every asinine task he could think of, he gave to me, and I passed every single one with flying colors. Slowly, but surely, Abrus’ sour expression went away and was replaced by a bemused look. I knew I was starting to impress the crotchety old man, and while I wanted to thank Nemris for her gifts, something deep inside of me said that the goddess had little to do with my prowess. This was merely pure, concentrated power and will.
However, as time went by and the sun continued to rise into the sky, fatigue and exhaustion pulled heavily at me. My limbs began to feel leaden, my shirt was soaked with sweat, and I had a faint metallic taste on the back of my tongue.
Right when I began to truly wonder when this herculean test would end, Abrus finally stepped forward and held up his pale, bony hand.
“That is enough,” he announced.
I dropped my hand, and my magic evaporated from my veins. I tried to draw steady, even breaths to mask how fatigued I was.
“Satisfied?” I rasped as I met Abrus’ two-toned eyes. Even though I was nearly wavering on my feet, I refused to show any weakness to him.
“Nearly,” the Lux Mage responded evenly. “I have one last test, and then your assessment will be completed.”
Of course, he had one last test.
I rallied the last of my strength and squared my shoulders. “What is your last task?”
“A duel,” Abrus declared as he met my gaze and blatantly smirked, “between the two of us.”
“Uhhh, are you serious? Why?” I asked.
“So I can determine your strengths during combat,” the Lux Mage replied smoothly.
“Is our presence here while the drake lies at the bottom of the grave not testament enough?” I countered.
“I would like to see your skill for myself,” Abrus answered with a casual shrug. “This is standard procedure. You are not expected to win, and I will, as they say, ‘pull my punches’ so as not to damage you. We just need to see how well you do in combat.”
“Are there any rules or regulations to the duel?” I asked as I glanced at Aurora. She didn’t seem surprised by what the old man said, so I guessed that this really was how the process worked.
“No attacks with the intention of mortally wounding,” the mage replied. “Other than that, the objective is to subdue.”
“Alright,” I said with a nod. “So, how shall we begi--?”
Before I could finish my question, the Lux Mage sprang into action. Quicker than I thought his feeble looking body could move, he jerked the staff he had been leaning on out of the dirt and whipped it over his head. He was too far away to strike me with it so for a moment I was bewildered. However, as he swung the staff in an arc over him, a bright white light began to gather at its lugged end.
In the time it took me to blink, Abrus fired a stream of light from the butt of the staff, and it shot across the distance between us. I tried to dodge, but the spear of light moved too fast and struck me in the center of the chest with the force of a wrecking ball.
I grunted as the air exploded out of my lungs, and I flew back and smashed into the dirt fifteen feet away. My exhausted body cried out in protest, but I painstakingly jumped back onto my feet.
Everything hurt like I’d just jogged a marathon carrying two thirty-pound dumbbells, and I almost wanted to quit.
But I never quit.
I reached deep down inside of me and ripped down the gates I had constructed to channel my magic for all those precise tasks earlier. Now, I let the power flood through me like a deluge and let myself be swept away by it.
The ground bucked twice and then broke apart explosively under Abrus’ feet. I watched surprise flicker across the older mage’s face, but he quickly reined it in. Instead, he lifted his staff high above his head and the air charged with electricity.
All the hair on my body stood on end an instant before a bolt of lightning speared down from the sky and struck Abrus’ staff. I dove to the side a mere millisecond before he sent the lightning rocketing straight toward me.
“I thought you said no lethal attacks,” I shouted as I came out of my roll.
“It is only dangerous if you are slow on your feet,” Abrus called back as he smirked at me.
Before I could retort, he shot another round of pure white light from the end of his staff. I dodged again, gritted my teeth, and decided to change tactics.
When I came out of my roll and landed on my feet, I pulled a small beach ball sized boulder out of the earth and threw it at the Lux Mage. The heavy rock sailed through the air but before it could reach Abrus, the elder mage lifted his staff into the air again, and a bolt of lightning blasted the stone into a million little pieces.
As the rock rained down between us, I saw Abrus smirk, and then he swung his staff over his head again and fired another stream of pure white light at me. I rolled to the side and felt the heat of the magic energy pass only a foot or so from my back. I knew I couldn’t keep dodging his attacks. I needed a way to protect myself so that I could go on the offensive.
As quickly as I could, I pressed my hands to the ground and summoned my magic again. The dirt rumbled beneath my fingers, and I jumped back a foot as a rock wall exploded upward. It stretched eight-feet into the sky, and I ducked behind it as Abrus fired another attack of light at me.
The lightning bounced off the thick dirt wall I’d just made like a tennis ball off the side of a building, and my lips curved into a smile.
“Alright, how do you like this,” I muttered as I molded several boulders from the dirt in front of me. The largest had to be over two hundred pounds and the size of a small child, but with my magic, it felt lighter than air. It floated up above my head, and I peeked around the wall to gauge the distance between Abrus and me.
“Take that, you prick,” I grunted, and I channeled my magic to fire the boulder over the wall and straight at the Lux Mage.
Abrus, however, summoned another bolt of lightning to destroy the boulder before it even got near him, and when I rapid-fired the rest of my ammunition, he either used his staff to obliterate them with his light magic or jumped to the side to avoid the projectiles entirely.
The guy was really good, and the exhaustion was seeping into my shoulders like a three-day long hangover.
“Bastard,” I hissed. I turned back around to make some more boulders, but then the air super-charged with static electricity. I jerked my head around the corner as Abrus’s hands and staff had gathered a massive pile of lightning energy, and then I dove behind my wall just as he unleashed it. The sound of thunder rang in my ears like someone had sandwiched a pair of cymbals over my skull, and my vision went white.
I rolled through the grass away from my wall, and when I looked up, my jaw fell open.
“Holy shit,” I breathed.
The entire rock wall had been transmuted into glass. Beyond the semi see-through structure, I saw Abrus slowly approaching me. He had an arrogant swagger to his walk that rubbed me the wrong way.
“Care to yield?” the Lux Mage called as he came around the wall. Or at least that’s what I thought he said. It was hard to tell because my ears were still ringing.
“You haven’t won yet,” I shouted back as I summoned my magic again.
“Oh?” He smirked and then lashed out with his staff. The glass wall shattered from the force of his strike, and shards scattered into the grass like a million different colored prisms.
It was impressive, but my magic was ready to use again, and I had a plan: I needed to make sure that the Lux Mage couldn’t dodge my next attack. That was the key to victory.
“Now it ends,” I thought he mouthed a
s he raised his staff toward me, but I drove forward into the grass and slammed my palms as hard as I could against the earth.
The ground beneath Abrus’ feet turned to quicksand and sucked him in down to the ankles. I saw my chance. I hauled myself to my feet and sprinted toward the trapped mage. When I was less than ten feet away from him, he lifted his staff again, and a blinding, white light emanated from the end.
“Ugh!” I cried out as the light seared into my retinas. My feet stumbled, but I had enough momentum to carry me forward. I pictured Abrus in my head, how he stood, where his staff had been, and then I lashed out.
My fingers crashed into the end of the mage’s staff, and I poured all my magic and will to win this duel into my hand.
Lava roared through my veins, and my hand heated to the point of pain. A moment later, the white light faded from behind my clenched eyelids, and I heard Abrus gasp in shock.
I blinked open my eyes. For a moment, all I could see were flashes and spots of bright color. However, as my vision cleared, my gaze traveled to my hand, and I found a mess of molten metal oozing between my fingertips.
I’d somehow melted the man’s metal staff around my hand like it was putty.
Oh hell yeah.
“How did you…” the Lux Mage began to say as his eyes opened wide and his jaw fell slack.
Not one to pass up an opportunity, I swung my leg behind Abrus’ knee and shoved him backward. He tried to hold on to the staff, but it seemed welded to my grip, and the older mage tumbled backward into the grass. I immediately leaned forward to place the non-melted end of his staff against his chest.
“I win,” I rasped hoarsely. The vindication felt satisfying even when it was coupled with an exhaustion so bone-deep that I felt nauseated. But I kept on my feet and refused to look away from Abrus’ eyes until he nodded.
“I concede,” he grunted.
I grinned and immediately stumbled backward, falling on my ass with the Lux Mage’s staff still attached to my hand.
I wiped at my mouth with the back of my wrist as I sat panting in the center of the demolished field. The earth had been destroyed from both of our attacks, dirt and rock shattered and scattered to the winds. A few black scorch marks still sizzled quietly in the grass, burned from Abrus’ lightning.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Aurora racing toward us, but my attention was focused on Abrus as he slowly came into a seated position.
“What?” I coughed as my vision swam dangerously.
The Lux Mage regarded me cautiously as if he didn’t know what to make of me.
“In all my years leading the Order,” he said slowly, “I have never encountered a mage that could control and manipulate metal.”
“Really?” Surprise and pride flared in me, but it was quickly drowned out by how much my body had begun to ache. As I sat there trying to come up with something clever to say while at the same time trying to stay conscious, Abrus leaned forward and held out his hand.
“Let me see your Mage’s Mark,” he ordered.
Aurora had finally reached us, and she skidded to a stop in the grass. She looked between the pair of us before her gaze landed on the melted staff in my grip. Her eyes widened in amazement.
“What?” she gasped as she lifted her green eyes to mine. “How did you...?”
“Your hand,” Abrus repeated loudly, and I dragged my tired eyes away from Aurora and held out my arm.
Abrus’ fingers latched onto mine, and I couldn’t suppress the chill that raced up and down my spine. My magic might be depleted, but its remnants shied away from the Lux Mage’s clammy touch.
The older mage’s skin felt paper thin and dry as he flipped my hand palm down and inspected the mark etched below my knuckles. His long index finger immediately went to the odd silver line that I had noticed before.
“This… this is the alchemical symbol for iron,” he mused in confusion. His two-toned eyes lifted to mine, and underneath the shock I saw in them, I thought I saw a flicker of anger. “You are obviously a Terra Mage, but I believe you might also be a mage of metal. Perhaps the only one in existence.”
“A metal mage?” I laughed. “So I can do what I do with earth, only with metal? Can I shape it and mold it how I want?”
“Yes,” he said after a few moments of hesitation. “At least, I believe so.”
A lopsided grin worked its way onto my mouth. “Cool.”
Chapter 6
I blinked open my eyes and found myself looking into the greenest, most beautiful emeralds that I had ever seen.
Then, they blinked back.
Muddled confusion permeated the deep fog in my brain as I tried to make sense of what I was seeing, but then Aurora touched the back of my hand, and the sharp, electrical surge that raced up my arm shocked me back into my body.
I gasped deeply as feeling returned to my limbs. Everything ached. Even my eyelashes felt sore. A part of me yearned to fall back into the dark oblivion of sleep, but my vision had already begun to clear, and Aurora came into focus before me.
“Good morrow, Terra Mage Flynt.” The blue-haired maiden met my gaze as she smiled at me. Her lilting voice was teasing, but I saw relief flash through her bottle-glass green eyes. “How are you feeling this morning?”
I pried open my parched mouth to respond, but the only thing that came out was an unintelligible groan.
If anything, Aurora’s smile widened. “As I expected.” She then leaned back and reached for something out of my line of sight. When she returned, she pressed a warm cup into my left hand and helped me wrap my stiff fingers around it.
“Drink this,” she instructed me. “It is a tincture that will relieve some of your pain and bring back some of your strength.”
I struggled upright into a seated position, with Aurora’s hand at my back, and blearily looked down into the cup I held. The liquid was dark brown and smelled distinctly bitter. The taste couldn’t be worse than how I felt though, so I took a shallow breath and knocked back the contents in one swig.
Immediately, I realized I was wrong.
This was the worst thing I had ever tasted.
I coughed violently as the lukewarm drink somehow burned its way down my throat. For an instant, I worried it would come right back up, but after I took a few gasping breaths, my stomach settled. My mouth still tasted like brackish water, and an odd film coated my tongue, but as my eyes slowly stopped tearing, the tincture began to take effect.
It spread through my body like a warm wave. It started in my chest and worked its way outward, trickling through my veins all the way down to the tips of my fingers and toes. My muscles still ached, my bones still felt tired, but the fatigue no longer crushed the very air from my lungs. I inhaled deeply and felt like I was waking up all over again.
“Better?” Aurora asked, a smile still plastered on her face.
“Much,” I rasped, my throat still dry. I stretched my neck, and the vertebrae popped satisfyingly in succession. Then, I sat up straighter and looked up at the half-elf maiden who stood at what I realized was my bedside. “Thank you.”
“It was nothing,” Aurora shrugged nonchalantly. Then, she turned to sit on the edge of the bed and face me. “It is a remedy I became quite familiar with when I first began my training with the Order. You are not the first novice mage to overtax themselves.”
Suddenly, all my memories from Abrus’ test crashed down on me at once. The destroyed field, the harrowing duel, and the metal staff melting in my grip. I looked down at my right hand and found it wrapped and bandaged. I flexed my fingers, and while the movement smarted a little, it didn’t hurt nearly as bad as I thought, considering the fact that my hand had been encased in molten metal.
“You only obtained a few minor burns along the knuckles,” Aurora said to me as I continued to inspect my hand. I lifted my eyes to find her looking at me curiously, her head tilted to the side. “The healer’s only explanation was that your magic protected you from the overheated metal like an invisible
coat of armor around your skin. At least, that is how it works for Ignis Mages.”
The half-elf maiden held up a hand between us, and flames ignited from her fingertips. The fire rolled over the backs of her knuckles like a coin as it danced back and forth. When Aurora extinguished it, her pale skin was unmarred and unblemished.
“It seems that I still have a lot to learn,” I joked as I flashed her a tired, crooked smile.
Aurora pursed her lips, and her eyes dropped to my hands in my lap. She reached out tentatively and brushed her slender fingers across the silver line that winked up at us from below my Terra mark.
“It seems that we all have a lot to learn,” she mused as she lifted her gaze back up to mine.
“So, I’m really the only metal mage in existence, huh?” I asked as I recalled what Abrus had said before I passed out after our duel. I couldn’t help the dopey grin that stretched wide across my face.
“Do not sound so enthused,” the half-elf maiden chastised as she rolled her eyes at my cocky tone. “We still don’t know what this means.”
“I think it means I can control and manipulate metal,” I offered, unable to keep the unrestrained glee out of my voice, “which, you have to admit, is pretty freaking cool.”
Aurora’s brow furrowed in confusion. “How is it cold?” she questioned.
I couldn’t help but laugh even though it stung a little. The beautiful maiden’s bewildered expression was just too adorable.
“It’s an informal phrase used in my kingdom,” I explained to her. “It kind of means ‘amazing’ but a little less intense.”
“Ah, I see,” the half-elf responded, but I could see by her thinned lips that she still didn’t quite understand.
“So,” I said as I stretched my arms above my head until my spine and shoulders cracked, “when can we start?”
“Start?” Aurora echoed as she cocked her head to the side. “What do you mean?”
“My training,” I replied as I looked around the large room I found myself in. “Is Abrus around? I’d like to begin as soon as possible.”
Lines of cots stretched to the left and right of me and along the wall across from the foot of my bed. It looked like an infirmary of some kind, and a faint, sterile smell even permeated the air. I didn’t remember coming here after the cranky old man’s “test,” but I had been beyond exhausted.