by Duncan Pile
He was sure he’d hit on something, but he sensed it was only part of the truth. He continued his pacing, looking at his life in Helioport with critical eyes. Okay so he was a guard, but he kept pretty much to himself. He had the occasional beer with the other guards, but that was about it.
It came to him in a moment, as if scales had fallen from his eyes. He was building a solitary life here in the city, just as he had back in the village. To begin with, life in Helioport had been enough to satisfy him: the sense of duty he got from being a guard; the excitement of the tournament; helping to train Taurnil; and looking after his young charges when they needed his advice. But it wasn’t enough anymore. Taurnil was sufficiently skilled as a fighter and didn’t need his help, and the others didn’t need him in the same way either. In the absence of a greater sense of belonging, life had become humdrum, and he was doing exactly what he’d done in Aemon’s Reach – isolating himself into a life of quiet routine.
The solution came to him as clear as day - he needed to live his own life. Since Rhetta had died he had found some kind of purpose in helping other people, but he didn’t do anything just because he enjoyed it, and he never let people in far enough to become true friends. He felt confident he was onto something, but struggled to think of a way to change things. The most obvious thing he could do would be to try and spend a bit more time with people he got on with. His natural tendency to live a solitary life meant that he missed opportunities to develop friendships that could be much stronger. The two men he felt he could get along with best were Erik and Sabu. Erik already had a close circle of friends among the guards but Sabu tended to keep himself to himself. Maybe the blademaster was in need of a bit of company too. He wouldn’t tell Sabu why he was making an effort of course, but perhaps he could ask him to go for a beer sometimes after training. It wasn’t much but it seemed like a reasonable place to start.
He sighed deeply. The realisation that he was dissatisfied with his solitary lifestyle gave him a tiny bit of hope, but in some ways it made things worse, considering the scale of the mountain he had to climb. Why was it always so hard? Unable to shake his pensive mood, he continued his rounds shrouded in a cloud of self-doubt.
Twenty-Seven
Gaspi dropped the dagger, yelping in pain and clutching his forearm. “Easy!” he cried, giving Taurnil a wounded look.
“Sorry Gasp,” Taurnil said, but Gaspi didn’t think he looked like he meant it. “It’s hard to ignore my training. You left an opening; I took it.”
“Yeah but I leave openings all the time,” Gaspi said, exasperated. “I’m terrible at this.”
“True,” Taurnil said flatly. Giving in to a fit of pique, Gaspi summoned a thread of power and stamped on the hard-packed dirt of the arena floor. A wave of force shot out from his foot, rippling through the ground towards Taurnil, throwing the large boy from his feet as it passed under him. He landed on his backside with a loud thump, his breath rushing from his lungs at the impact. He held up a hand defensively.
“Okay, Okay I get your point,” he said quickly. “I’ll go easy on you if you don’t use magic.”
Gaspi walked over and reached out a hand, helping him to his feet. “You weigh a ton!” he said as he hauled Taurnil’s well-muscled bulk upright.
Taurnil harrumphed. “And you’re a scrawny bag of skin and bones.”
“Seriously,” Gaspi said, ignoring the insult. “Why do I have to learn how to fight again?”
Taurnil’s jocular air disappeared in a flash. “You heard what Voltan said. The best teams competing in the Measure don’t pit magician against magician and fighter against fighter. They find a way to combine both and work together.”
“I can see how enchanting your armour would help, and your knives too,” Gaspi responded. Taurnil had become really serious about knife skills over the last few months. What he lacked in natural swordsmanship he made up for with the shorter blades. He carried two heavy, wickedly serrated knives on his person all the time now, their scabbards strapped around his waist on a broad leather belt. “I guess I just can’t see the point in trying to make me into a fighter,” he continued. “I’m terrible.”
“You’re not actually that bad,” Taurnil said. Gaspi looked at him incredulously. “Seriously,” Taurnil explained. “Much as it pains me to admit it, you’re actually okay. You react pretty quickly and hold your weapons properly. You don’t have to become a real warrior, but just learn the basic skills. No-one will be expecting a magician to pull out a knife and stick them with it.”
“I’m not going to “stick” anyone Taurn!” Gaspi said incredulously.
Taurnil’s nostrils flared. “When are you going to start taking this seriously?” he demanded. “This isn’t about winning the stupid Measure. Voltan wants us to enter so we can learn to fight as a team. I’m not talking about sticking a knife in someone in the blooming tournament. I’m talking about when it really matters and we’re fighting for our lives. It’s my job to protect you and I’m damn well gonna make sure we’re ready for that when it happens.”
Gaspi stood in stunned silence for a moment, shocked by Taurnil’s angry tone, but any defensiveness he felt melted away moments later as he realised that his friend was speaking the truth.
“You’re right Taurn,” he said. “I’m sorry. You’re just better at keeping sight of the big picture than me. I was just thinking about winning the Measure.”
“I want to win too,” Taurnil said, a smile cracking his serious expression. “But we have to remember the real reason we’re doing it.”
“As if you’d ever let me forget!” Gaspi said. “Can we quit for today though? I think you broke my wrist.”
Taurnil guffawed. “I didn’t, but okay. Let’s quit for now and talk about how you’re going to enchant my armour.”
Gaspi bent down and picked up his knife. It was smaller than Taurnil’s two blades and it had almost no crosspiece. “I’m still not sure what use this thing is going to be.”
Taurnil took it off him, sighted a nearby wooden training dummy, and flung the knife at it with a smooth motion of his forearm and wrist. It flipped end over end several times and stuck into the head of the dummy with a heavy thunk. Taurnil looked back at him, raising an eyebrow.
“Sometimes you scare me Taurn,” he said. Taurnil grinned. It was a feral grin, all teeth and glinting eyes, and in that moment Gaspi caught a glimpse of his friend’s enjoyment of combat. It went beyond duty, or a desire to be good at something. Taurnil liked being dangerous, and the more deadly he became, the more he enjoyed it. Strangely, Gaspi didn’t have a problem with that. They lived in dark times and needed to be able to deal with whatever came, and having a skilled fighter on your side was no bad thing. In his mind’s eye, he pictured the battle they’d fought at the college. That large warg would have torn him to pieces without a moment’s thought, and those demons, Bale-beasts Hephistole had called them, had nothing but hate in their hearts. They couldn’t afford to be soft with enemies like that set against them. That didn’t mean he and his friends should become hateful, but they definitely needed to become dangerous. Looking at his friend as he walked over to retrieve his knife, Gaspi could see some of the cat-like grace Sabu exhibited when he moved, and realised that his friend was well on the way to becoming a truly dangerous man. If that’s what it took for Taurnil to fulfil his part of Martha’s prophecy, then so be it.
After washing off the sweat of exertion, they went to the Rest and settled into their favourite snug. It was too early in the day for a beer so they ordered in a pot of tea – a crude version of the sophisticated beverages Hephistole enjoyed, but refreshing nonetheless. Gaspi reached into his bag and retrieved a sheath of parchment, a pot of ink and a quill.
“So which bits of your armour should I enchant?” he asked, dipping his quill in the ink.
“Depends,” Taurnil responded. “In a tournament I’ll need to be mobile, so I won’t want to be stuck in plate mail. I reckon it’ll have to be chain mail belted over
a leather tunic. The mail will go down to my knees. I won’t carry a shield, but I can wear armoured boots and a chain coif.” Gaspi scribbled down each item as Taurnil listed them.
“Coif?” he asked.
“Helmet,” Taurnil clarified.
“Okay so what about your leggings?” Gaspi asked.
Taurnil looked confused. “I’ll wear leather leggings, but they’re not armoured.”
“If I can enchant it, it’s armour,” Gaspi said.
“Oh, right!” Taurnil said, scratching his head. “This’ll take a bit of getting used to.”
“Well I won’t be able to do much with your leggings if they’re only made of leather anyway. How about the knives? You’ve already got your staff, but we should enchant your blades too. What will help you out in battle?”
Taurnil scratched his chin. “How about making them hard to break?”
“That’s easy,” Gaspi said. “Whatever enchantment I do will include making them unbreakable, as well as stopping them from rusting. But we want more than that. Some main enchantment to tie those other bits into.”
Taurnil frowned. “We’ve gotta think beyond the Measure. The staff is already good for fighting demons, so it should be something physical that’ll work against wargs.”
“Or people,” Gaspi said grimly.
“Or people,” Taurnil repeated. “I guess we should just keep it simple and make them cut through anything.”
“That works,” Gaspi said. “It’s good to stick with something that works with the weapon’s natural strengths. We enchanted the staff to hit extra hard, so we should enchant the blades to be extra-sharp. But you’ll need to get some metal scabbards to replace those leather ones.”
“How come?”
“Same problem as the leggings. Leather doesn’t hold enchantment particularly well and metal does, and if I don’t enchant the scabbards too your knives will cut right through them.”
“Oh yeah,” Taurnil said. “Good point.”
Gaspi peered critically at his list. So we’ve got three pieces of armour I can enchant: the vest, the helmet and the boots. I’ll make all of them extra tough of course, but I can’t think of much else offhand. Can you?”
“Nah that makes sense. I don’t hit anyone with my armour so making it strong sounds like a good idea. Let’s keep it simple and focus on the actual fighting. We need to practice working as a team.”
“Well that’ll keep Voltan happy,” Gaspi said wearily. The warrior mage had drafted Jonn into their morning sparring sessions, and the two of them showed no mercy. They fought hard, stretching Gaspi and Taurnil to their limits every single time they sparred.
Taurnil laughed. “It certainly will.”
Twenty-Eight
It was a frosty winter morning, and Gaspi was meditating in his usual spot. The cold might have put him off if it wasn’t for his enchanted cloak, which kept him at a comfortable temperature in any kind of weather. Loreill was draped around his shoulders, his translucent body glimmering with sparkling green light.
The gentle burbling of the stream enhanced his meditative state. It wove itself into the fabric of his inner visualisations, soothing him as he allowed himself to explore. He was particularly aware of Loreill today. The elemental normally infused his meditative experience with an added layer of tranquillity and joy, but on this occasion there was something unusually insistent about the spirit’s presence. Immersed in his own experience, Gaspi was trying to ignore him, despite the spirit’s increasingly obvious attempts to communicate.
Meditation was always relaxing for Gaspi, but sometimes it went beyond mere relaxation and became transcendent. On those occasions, it was as if the experience was underpinned by a distinct sense of love: vast as a mountain and yet utterly personal. On this day, he felt so tremendously cared for that tears started in his eyes as he allowed the overwhelming sensation to wash over him. He had once talked to Hephistole about this, about the possibility that he might be having a divine encounter, but the chancellor had not known any more than he did, and had just encouraged him to explore the experience with an open mind.
Loreill nudged insistently at the walls of his consciousness. Gaspi was loath to step out of the experience he was having, but the elemental was rarely this demanding, and he knew it must be something important. Focussing his attention on the spirit, he tuned into what he was trying to tell him. The spirit’s communication never came in words, but somehow Gaspi just knew what was being said. It was like a thought he didn’t think simply arrived in his mind.
As soon as he turned his ear to Loreill, he understood that the spirit wanted him to visit Hephistole, and he specifically wanted him to take Lydia along. Gaspi had absolutely no idea what he had in mind, but if Loreill thought it was important, then he’d do it without question. He sent a mental acknowledgement back to the spirit and tried to return to his meditation, but the interruption had broken his concentration, and the sense of love he’d been experiencing felt more distant. Sighing gently, he slowly re-orientated himself to his surroundings and opened his eyes.
Feeling refreshed, he stood up and stretched. Loreill unwound himself from around his shoulders and soared into the air, flitting joyfully through the trees. He swooped playfully over Gaspi’s head as he headed back towards the little gate that led out of the garden. Gaspi smiled at Loreill’s playful mood. The spirit always exuded an infectious sense of joy, but if he wasn’t mistaken there was an extra intensity to the spirit’s exuberance today. Something had Loreill very excited.
He left the garden, followed by Loreill, who zipped out of the gate, and in a last sparkle of green light, changed back into bodily form. He scurried along at Gaspi’s feet as he walked through the campus, his pace driven by the thought of Lydia’s cooking. Even though they could eat in the refectory any time they liked, the gypsy girl had taken to cooking breakfast for the three of them, along with Taurnil when he could make it, and her concoctions outstripped anything the refectory could produce.
Loreill squeaked in protest at the pace he was setting, so Gaspi stopped to let him scramble up his leg and around his shoulders, and then set off again, his long strides eating up the ground. He entered the tower, waving cheerfully at Dorys. She never responded, and he strongly suspected that his unrelenting friendliness irritated her, which was in part why he insisted on doing it. He didn’t have much tolerance for rudeness! As he didn’t have to ask her permission to go to the Warren, he passed on by and went to the fourth plinth, saying the password and transporting up into the tower.
Walking quickly through the long, winding corridors, he soon arrived at Lydia’s room, but the door was wide open and the room was empty. The smell of eggs, mushrooms and warm spices told him where they were. Each section of the Warren had a little kitchen in case the students wanted to cook for themselves, and Lydia made good use of the one nearest her room. He stepped round the corner and entered the kitchen, walking into billowing clouds of fragrant steam. Pans sizzled enticingly on the stove, but to his amazement, it was Emmy and not Lydia who stood over them.
She looked up, pushing a ringlet of golden hair out of her eyes and beamed at him. “Look! Lydia’s teaching me how to cook an omelette.”
Gaspi grinned. Emmy didn’t do much in the way of cooking, and any help Lydia could give her was very welcome in his book. Of course, he’d never say that out loud! He’d learned very swiftly last summer to accept whatever she offered him and pretend to like it, even if it was burned to a crisp, which it often was. But if the delicious smell was anything to go by, she seemed to be making progress.
“Smells great,” he said sincerely, earning an even bigger smile from Emmy. She lifted the pans one at a time and slid the large, golden omelettes onto plates. Picking them up, he led the way back to Lydia’s room. The girls followed with a large pot of coffee and three mugs to drink it from. They cut the omelettes up, dividing them up between the three of them and he quickly got stuck in.
“What do you think?” Emmy asked
, and for once Gaspi didn’t have to lie.
“Delicious,” he said, around a mouthful of food. She beamed at him, looking very pleased with herself.
“Good meditation?” Lydia asked, lifting a forkful to her mouth.
Gaspi forcibly swallowed the mouthful he had before answering. “It was amazing,” he answered. “I had that sense of being loved again,” he said, looking off into the distance for a moment as he tried to remember that feeling, but he couldn’t recapture it. It was the kind of experience you can only have in the moment. Trying to remember it didn’t bring it back in any satisfying way. It was like a stream you immersed yourself in, but once you were out you were out.
“Something else happened today too,” he continued, turning his attention to Lydia. “Loreill was pretty clear that I should go and visit Hephistole, and you should come with me.”
“Really?” Lydia asked, frowning in confusion.
“Yeah. Don’t ask me why,” he said with a shrug.
“How strange!” Lydia responded. “We may as well go right after breakfast.”
“Sure,” Gaspi said, tucking back into his food.
“Can I come?” Emmy asked, clearly not wanted to be left out.
“Can’t see why not,” he answered, taking a sip of coffee.
They finished quickly and did the washing up before they left. Lydia never let dishes sit around unwashed, and as she usually cooked, the other two insisted on doing the washing up. Normally Gaspi washed and Emmy dried, but Lydia wouldn’t hear of that today, taking Emmy’s place with the dish towel. Once they were done, they transported back down to the Atrium and approached Dorys.
She had her head bent over a stack of parchment as they approached, scribing on them meticulously with her stubby little quill. She didn’t look up when they reached the desk, leaving them standing there stupidly. Gaspi opened his mouth to speak but was stopped by her uplifted palm. He bristled with indignation as they waited for her to finish whatever she was doing, and at last she looked at them, peering at them critically over her thick glasses. Her eyes widened when she met Loreill’s intelligent gaze.