Day two of training was more endurance building exercises. Stairs, stairs, and more stairs until the back of her calves ached. Akira was more prepared. She tied a sweatband around her forehead. She needed it. Her skin glistened as she perspired in the already warm sanctuary. With her mother's assistance she had fashioned a halter that went around her neck crisscrossed over her breasts with soft gathers, wrapped around her back, and tied at her waist. It was comfortable and secure. With a skirt sawed off short just above her knees, slit high on both sides she would be able enter the rejuvenation pool with the men, after their hard work outs and not worry about losing her towel. Day two saw her do two chin ups and almost another. She grunted as she tried to pull herself up. The rope climb seemed impossible even with the fat boy cheering her on. Her legs had rope burns where she had slid down willy-nilly, uncontrolled, after being boosted up by once again, the fat boy. Climbing ropes not only required upper body strength but technique. After the first painful lesson she grasped the technique but still lacked the physical strength. It seemed the more nervous she was of failure the weaker she got. The more she worried about not being able to do the chin ups the heavier her body felt. Akira was on the verge of tears. She bit her lip and refused to cry. Crying was for girls.
Mage Morgan watched in the background. Surely the girl had more upper body strength than what was being demonstrated. He watched as the weeks passed. There was more muscle definition in her arms. She carried heavier stones up and down the stairs. Her legs looked more athletic, but still she could not master the rope climb and chin ups. In order to go onto her next level of training, she had to master the first skill level. Even the fat boy, who was not so fat anymore, was able to move to the next level. A girl who could float above her bed could not climb a rope or do chin ups. Something was amiss. Finally, the mage stepped out of the back ground.
“Cronus! I’m stealing Akira away from you this morning, and from now on for a few hours each morning for a while. I’m certain her lessons with me will help her pass the level she is stuck on right now.”
Akira looked at the mage. How could anything he do give her arms the strength they needed?
“Follow me Akira.”
Grateful to escape the humiliation of failure again, Akira obediently followed the white robed man. While her mother liked him and trusted him, Akira still had not decided if she did. He took her to a large hall and had her sit in a chair facing his own chair.
“Akira, close your eyes.”
Eyes closed, Akira again wondered what mumbo jumbo he could come up with to make her stronger.
“Picture yourself walking down a path. The breeze is cool. Birds are singing in the trees. The sun is warm against your skin. There is an energy in the air. You feel relaxed yet vibrant. The colors around you are brilliant. The scent of flowers is sweet. You smell lilies. There is nothing you fear. Your feet feel as if they are dancing on air. You can do anything you put your mind to. Your body is light as a feather. There is a golden rope hanging down from a very strong and sturdy tree limb. On the limb is a beautiful basket. You want to know what is in the basket. You know that you can grab the rope and effortlessly pull yourself up. You feel light as a feather. Hand over hand you pull yourself up. Your feet float out behind you. The rope keeps you from drifting away. You are so light the wind wants to play with you like a leaf. Relax, breathe deep and feel yourself float.”
The mage's voice was soothing. The word picture he painted was lovely. Akira took a deep breath. She did feel lighter. She focused on his voice.
“You are getting lighter and lighter, floating closer and closer to the basket.”
Akira took another deep breath.
“Now open your eyes.”
Hanging from a ceiling beam was a golden rope. Akira looked at it. He wanted her to climb the rope. She just knew it. A heavy feeling came over her.
“Did you notice that when you feared I’d ask you to climb the rope and you were afraid of failure, you suddenly felt heavy?”
“Yes, that is how I felt.” Akira looked at the mage with a puzzled expression on her face.
“Do you believe I’m strong enough to lift you?”
“Of course you are.”
“May I try lift you off your feet?”
“Why?”
“Because if I’m right, you are going to feel like a cart load of bricks I cannot lift. But I want you to imagine that if I lift you, I’m going to drop you on your ass.”
Akira looked at him with misgivings and doubt clearly etched on her face.
Morgan put his arms around her, one arm around her waist and the other under her knees. Much to his delight he could not lift Akira. He took a deeper breath and grunting with exertion as he tried again.
He smiled as she said, “Aren't you going to lift me? I’m ready.”
“I can't lift you. You are too heavy.” He grunted as he tried to sweep her upwards.
“How can that be possible? What tricks are you playing with me?”
Akira felt foolish. Mage Morgan was a strong man. Perhaps not as strong as Cronus, Crow or Dimitri, but if he said he could not lift her this was some kind of trickery. She stepped away from the smiling mage. Now he was about to laugh at her expense. His smile was a satisfied looking smile. Akira wondered how this all was going to help her master her current training level.
“You have a gift, Akira. One that you can learn to control. Wonderful it is!”
“A gift? What gift? I cannot climb the damned rope, do my chin ups. What is wonderful about that?”
Morgan laughed. “Trust me, you have a gift. Your mind is controlling your gravity!”
“You, sir have been sniffing too many of your herbs and eating your mind bending mushrooms!”
“No my child I’ve not. If you do as I say one more time you will climb this rope as if it is nothing you haven’t done thousands of times before.”
Akira looked at him suspiciously.
“What do you have to lose, Akira?” He smiled at her.
Akira sighed. She listened to his voice again, closed her eyes and let his words guide the images in her mind. He took her by the hand and placed her hands on the rope. He made her feel light as a feather, feel as if she could not fail to practically float up, using the rope to keep from floating away. He told her to pull herself up hand over hand. She pulled on the rope and imagined lifting herself up higher and higher. She wrapped her leg around the rope as she had been instructed. She used her foot to lock the rope against her leg. She imagined she was scooting up the rope almost effortlessly. She wondered how imagining success was going to help.
“Open your eyes Akira.”
Blue eyes opened, disbelieved, closed and opened again. Akira found herself near the top of the rope. “Holy shite!” she exclaimed. “Wake me up!” She laughed. She did want to come down. “Where is Cronus? Send for Cronus! Seriously send for Cronus! There is hope for me still!” She cared not that the rope was biting into her legs and uncomfortable.
Morgan laughed and said, “Hang on, I'll get the man for you. He was beginning to think his training methods were useless on you.” Morgan ran to the barracks, leaving Akira swinging triumphantly from the rope tied to the ceiling beam.
She wondered what magic Morgan used to help her... no matter ...it worked. She was still smiling from ear to ear when Cronus followed Morgan back into the mage's hall to see Akira swinging like a bird on a vine.
Cronus put his hands on his hips and nodded his congratulations. “Whatever potion you fed her or spell you cast, I want it bottled and delivered for future use.”
“She did that by herself...|”
Cronus gave him a disbelieving look.
“You might say mind over weight.” Morgan felt a considerable amount of pride. “I can help her to control her gift of gravitational resistance. Fear of failure made her weigh herself down. If she had not been so fearful of failure, she probably would have had enough of her normal strength built up to complete her strength te
sts.”
“Gifted?”
“Yes gifted, as in Akira is a halfling.” Morgan looked up at Akira. “Come down before I get a kink in my neck.”
“I'm a what? A half-wit?” Akira felt insulted. She scooted down the rope. Her technique was flawless. She stood on the floor. “Perhaps I’m a half-wit because I don't how I did that,” she said as stood in front of the men.
“You are not a half-wit, you are a halfling.” The mage patiently explained. “You are a half-blood, or some would say a half breed.”
She stared at him in disbelief.
“It means your father was a mage, my dear.” Cronus’ eyes danced over her bewildered face.
Akira's jaw dropped. Apparently, she and her mother needed to have another talk. It had been a relief to learn Baron Rolfe was not her father. She had not pressed her mother about her real father. She closed her mouth firmly. But now? It was time. A mage for a father? Who was this bastard mage that left her mother alone to fend for herself with a halfling baby? What gifts did halflings possessed? How was she going to control this gravitational thing she did not understand? She felt grateful for Morgan's help. She wondered if she would be indebted to him and how. Men always wanted something in return. Perhaps he wanted nothing from her at all. Perhaps what he wanted involved her mother. The mage spent far too much time around her mother.
“Well, well, well,” was all Cronus could say. Akira's warrior potential just increased faster than rabbits in spring. Her gifts, it seemed, had worked against her for weeks. What exactly her gift was, was clear as mud to Cronus, but he surmised it had made her physical endurance training most difficult. What a relief. Dimitri was just about ready to take over her training himself. Now Akira could go up to the next level and join the hand to hand combat and wrestling training exercises. He wondered how her gift or magical abilities would affect the next stage of her training. Dimitri was going to be in for a pleasant surprise. Cronus could not wait to tell him Akira was a halfling. Seldom did he know something before Dimitri, and it was going to be a nice change to have one upped his friend. At least that was what he hoped. Then it occurred to him, Dimitri already knew. He seemed to not worry their female candidate would catch up to the men. He had told Cronus to be patient, that Akira just might surprise him.
Cronus groaned. Dimitri knew all right. Cronus suddenly smiled. It was doubtful Crow knew Akira was a halfling, for he too expressed some concerns about Akira's difficulty in mastering strength tasks. He could one up Crow.
Competition was a given fact among the elite men fortunate to call Dimitri friend, as well as brother in arms. Good natured competition kept them sharp. He whistled as he returned to the workout arena. The good mage was working with his pupil. Work hard on that gravitational thing Akira, work hard! he thought. Cronus looked forward to sharing this new tidbit of information with Crow.
Crow and Cronus had both noticed Dimitri paying more attention to Akira than he would any other candidate’s progress. It was not as if he needed to provide her personal protection, as all his men would run a sword through any man who would harm her. They all noted that as much as she struggled, she did not complain. She encouraged the boy who had been fat. She never belittled her comrades, and she kept her distance. No flirting, no using her gender as an excuse. The only person she let her eyes stray to was Dimitri. Cronus reasoned that was because Dimitri was the leader and ultimate judge of who passed into the Order of the White Rose, or perhaps it was something else. He hoped it was the something else. Dimitri for all his protests was a lonely man. And the time at the inn was still a mystery. And Akira was a handsome young woman. A lonely man in need of a wife, a beautiful young woman in need of a protector, Cronus the practical romantic thought the conclusion should be obvious.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Baron Rolfe was certain the servants were laughing at him. Even the looks his sons gave him seemed to be looks of derision. Akira still eluded capture. Her whereabouts still not known. Ann had escaped. That his own daughter thwarted him worked on his pride. Akira had probably assisted Ann’s escape. It ate at him like a disease, making his temper flare frequently. He drank harder, played harder with as many wenches as he could fill his bed with, and still lost sleep. He would call all his mages together and demand a curse, some magical elixir so he could find her. He had lost face in his imaginings. For one used to ruling with fear, he was desperate to re-establish his fierce reputation, prove his strength, and maintain his iron fisted rule.
His mages gathered, conferred, and provided a solution for Baron Rolfe. Magic combined with harnessing the abilities of the most skilled hunters in nature would provide the most powerful solution to his requests to hunt down his rebellious daughter. The only place hunters had not gone in search of Akira was the mountains. The winter snows would make it difficult if not impossible for a man to ascend the mountains. A wolf could survive where a man could not. Wolves could be harnessed by a’kil magic to do the mages’ bidding. A powerful mage could see through the eyes of a wolf, influence it to kill, and report on the visions provided, by possessing the animal, seeing through its eyes.
The biggest problem for the mages was deciding which mage would control the alpha wolf. The mage selected would have to remain in a trance for the duration of the wolves’ hunt for the baron’s daughter. Each wanted to be the one to please the baron. For as much as they were gaining power over him they had did not have total control. No mage wanted to be the mage who failed. The mages did not trust each other. The baron had secret alliances and spies even amongst themselves. With their services provided to the baron, the baron would continue the practice of banning the hunting of witches, mages, wizards, all the feared unnatural beings. It had been a relief to practice their arts without fear of reprisals in the lands the baron controlled.
It was decided the youngest mage would go into the trance. They would have to imbue the young mage with some of their own powers. It was a difficult thing to do, more correctly, it was a dangerous if the young mage refused to relinquish his borrowed powers. When he came out of his trance, he could be dangerous. They picked the youngest mage, hoping his inexperience would be to their advantage. A young mage was less likely to be as power hungry as some of the older mages, having had little time to be driven for power while trying to learn the dark arts.
As the mages argued and schemed, the baron was becoming more volatile and unpredictable. Even his sons seemed like they were walking on eggs around him. They talked about him behind his back daily. That he would be so violently angry, disturbed, over Akira's disappearance was disconcerting. It was as if he was possessed. Perhaps, the sons wondered, all their father’s affairs with many bed partners gave him the disease that entered through a man’s sex organ that traveled upwards, that ate away at men's brains. They had talked about it. The old man would hump anything he wanted, how he wanted, especially since the death of their mother. That he could still perform in bed was a mystery. Surely he had almost worn it wear it out they joked. The jokes were hollow as they realized the danger to everyone around their father. Sometimes they suspected he could not perform. His fury was directed at any unfortunate wench who failed to help him arise to the occasion. Often a badly beaten half dead woman would be whisked away in the dark.
The older the sons of Baron Rolfe had grown, the more the brothers despised and distrusted their father. They had helped with the searches for Akira, reluctantly, after all, she was their sister. She had shown incredible courage to run away. Had they found her on their own they would not have told their father. It was agreed among the brothers to whisk Akira to a city close to the King and ask for royal protection. Ben voiced the opinion that they should have taken Akira into their confidences. Marcus agreed in hindsight it would have been better had they done so. They knew they been hard on her as a child, for it was expected by their father. All of the brothers expressed remorse. As much as their environment shaped them, there was a part of them that carried their mother's blood, her influence. T
here were hints of compassion in their conversations regarding their young sister.
They each had longed for more contact with their beautiful mother. Each had been jealous at one time or another of the sister their beautiful mother kept close under her wing, and close to her heart. Each son had been told their mother preferred that their aunt should be in charge of them. They grew to doubt that as they grew older and recognized a longing in their mother that did not match the lies they had been told. She always seemed to call out to them with her eyes. They had to pretend to not notice her tears when they were ushered away from her as children. Their aunt would twist an ear if they looked back at their mother when their short visits were over.
If they had any idea where Akira was, they would keep it to themselves. They made a pact. Without their mother to protect her, she was better off far away from their father. The brothers agreed they owed him familial loyalty, but they did not owe him respect. He would turn on them, cast them away, if he sensed any disloyalty. Cast away, they would find little assistance from anyone in the kingdom, for Baron Rolfe was hated. Baron Rolfe's family was hated. However, time was on their side. He was ageing fast before their eyes. All the excesses he indulged in were showing. They waited. When his power slipped, they hoped it would be because he was dying. Anything less would bring chaos, and a sudden death would be a good death. As much as he deserved to suffer, a sudden death would be best for all. In the interim their only option was to have him placed in an insane asylum. It would be a dangerous maneuver and would take allies in high place.
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