by Sever Bronny
“He said that legend had it that the orb could summon dragons,” Bridget interjected. “There’s a difference. Augum, even Mrs. Stone said he was, you know—” Bridget twirled her finger by her temple.
“All right, fine, he was a little nuts, but still—” He threw up his hands. “Argh, Bridget, you don’t always have to be so … so … damn practical! I’m telling you, dragons once existed. They’re on the Arcaner shield for a reason, all right? Heck, they’re on our Dreadnought breastplates! They’re not just legend or myth or fanciful children’s tales—!”
The girls stared at him with pity.
Augum groaned as he rubbed his face, then turned away. “Gods, I’m so sorry …” How many apologies was that now? How embarrassing. He couldn’t even control his temper, let alone run a castle.
Bridget placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. “You want to mean something to the kingdom, be useful beyond the hollow title of prince and hero. You want to live up to what’s inscribed on those golden breastplates. Defendi au o dominia. Defender of the Kingdom.” She sighed, her voice compassionate as she said, “And that’s why we’re doing this. That’s why we’re making a serious attempt at becoming Arcaners.”
“It’s not enough. I’m going to lose the castle. I’m going to let everyone—” He couldn’t say it.
“You’re going to do the best you can with what you know,” Bridget said softly.
“Besides, don’t forget our own motto,” Leera said. “Adversi alua probata.” She gave him a few tickling prods. “Come on, forget this dragon nonsense and get in the game here.”
He squirmed away. “All right already. Fine.” He forced a smile. “Let’s get back in the game, then.” He expelled a long breath. “Before we start figuring out a way to open the portal, I want you two to memorize the Arcaner Code of Chivalry.”
Leera groaned. “You sure it’s necessary?”
“Based on my research? Very necessary, especially since we might have to do the test separately.”
“Ugh. Fine.”
They spent time on it until the girls could practically recite the code backward. Then they reviewed his notes and discussed some ideas on how to trigger the portal before trying those ideas out. But nothing worked.
“Let’s go back to the beginning,” Augum said, idly flicking the edge of a parchment. The three of them were sitting cross-legged on the desk in a triangle. “Opening this portal has to involve specific knowledge that even a 1st degree warlock would know, otherwise they wouldn’t be able to take the first test. Knowledge that’s somehow connected to Arcaners.”
Bridget waved a finger at him. “You’re onto something here. Which pertinent spell does a 1st degree know?”
They smiled at each other before saying in unison, “Unconceal!”
The trio hurriedly jumped off the desk and splayed their hands. Augum tuned his mind to pick up on the subtle reverberations of the arcane ether that would guide him to the afterglow of what remained of the human intent to hide something. He had already repeatedly cast this spell in this room, just not with the floating bleacher ring activated in this position.
“Un vun deo,” he said, and concentrated, the girls doing the same. To his surprise, he sensed a subtle pull and followed it to one of the blocks near the bottom of the ring. The girls joined him there. And sure enough, there were three mechanical levers camouflaged on the bottom edge of the floating ring.
“Well I’ll be,” he said, flicking one of the levers. There was a rough click, but nothing happened. “Hmm, I think it’s broken.”
“Which means we need to use another 1st degree spell, right?” Leera said with a grin.
“Repair. Actually, that makes sense.” He splayed a hand over the mechanism, picturing it whole even though he didn’t quite know its inner workings. But that didn’t necessarily matter with the spell, for as long as the idea of it working was strong enough, the spell would function. “Apreyo.” He heard parts reform with a jingle. There was a flash of light.
The girls finished performing the same spell on the other two mechanisms. Then they each flipped the levers. Three small trap doors opened beside each lever, releasing three keys that plopped into the sand. One was light blue and watery, one dark blue and crackling with miniature lightning, and one green and laced with tiny ivy strands.
Augum tried to pick up the light blue watery one, but it refused to budge, as if it was glued to the spot. “Huh, that’s odd …” He stepped back and focused his telekinetic arcane might on it, but it was like trying to lift the entire academy.
Bridget tilted her head. “Hmm.” She reached down and effortlessly picked up the green key.
“Ah, figures.” Augum picked up the lightning key and Leera the water key.
Leera looked around as she tossed the key from hand to hand. “Now, where do they fit …”
“I think I get it,” Bridget said. “We’ve used Shine, Unconceal and Repair. The one spell remaining for the 1st degree is—”
“—Telekinesis,” Augum and Leera chorused. The trio stepped backward to see the entirety of the floating ring. Sure enough, Augum soon spotted it.
“There, at the apex. Three tiny holes.”
Leera squinted. “You sure? I can’t see squat.”
Bridget glanced at her. “That’s because you need—”
“Don’t you say it,” Leera warned, a stern finger pressed to Bridget’s lips. “Don’t you say I need spectacles.”
“But—”
“I refuse to look like some four-eyed ugly freak!”
Augum shrugged. “I don’t know, I think you’d look cute.”
“Exactly—wait, what?”
“Yeah, you’d look adorably cute.”
“You’re just saying that.”
“No, I’m n—”
“Enough! We’re not discussing this right now.”
Bridget sighed and glanced back up. “Well, the keyholes are up there, anyway.” She let her key float before her and guided it up.
“That’s, like, thirty feet up though!” Leera said, tossing her key above her before telekinetically catching it and racing it up behind Bridget’s.
Augum did the same.
“Oh, this is tough,” Leera muttered, squinting while gritting her teeth in concentration as she maneuvered her key to a keyhole.
Meanwhile, Augum’s key refused to fit in the first hole he tried. He tried the second one, and it slid right in. Then, with a practiced motion of his hand, he twisted the key in the lock. The effect was immediate—the portal burst with loudly crackling lightning.
Bridget fit her key into a lock next, and an overlapping green-leafed layer snapped into existence.
Leera’s key kept thunking into the stone. She squinted, cursing under her breath, but simply could not match the key into the tiny hole. With a loud cry of frustration, she sent her key flying into the bleachers, where it clanged loudly.
Bridget’s tone was soft as she said, “Lee—”
“I don’t want to hear it—!”
“I know.”
Leera crossed her arms as she spoke through her teeth. “Fine. Fine! I’ll get my stupid eyes checked someday, but that doesn’t help us right now, does it?”
“Then we’ll resort to what we’ve always done,” Augum said, demonstrating what he had in mind by pointing at her feet and raising his hand while making a mechanical crick-crick-crick sound with his mouth, one that rose in pitch with each word.
Leera snorted. “Is that what levitation is supposed to sound like?”
“Only my interpretation of it. Like one of those mine elevators or whatever.”
“Sounds stupid.” Nonetheless, she walked to stand before the rippling portal. “Well?”
Augum and Bridget smiled at each other before taking their places on either side of her.
Bridget gently cleared her throat. “Forgetting something?”
“Oh, right.” Leera ran to the bleachers, found the key, and ran back. “Okay, go.”
> Augum and Bridget each extended an arm toward Leera.
“Love this sensation,” she said as she lifted off the ground. “Like I’m flying. How come we don’t do this more often?”
“Because it’s dangerous,” Bridget said, wincing from the effort. “Now hush and let us concentrate.”
For Augum, the lift was rather easy. After all his Telekinesis practice, it was hardly a strain on his stamina. Although to be fair, he was sharing the load with Bridget.
“That’s good!” Leera said at about the halfway mark. She tossed the key above her and telekinetically guided it the rest of the way, easily slipping it into the remaining keyhole. The portal flared with a third superimposed layer of shimmering water.
Augum and Bridget lowered Leera back down to the sandy arena floor.
“Everyone ready?” Bridget asked. Augum and Leera nodded. “Then let’s do this.” She climbed up onto the dragon desk, putting her level with the base of the portal. “Good luck, you two.” She took a deep breath and jumped through. Her shimmering green layer disappeared behind her.
Augum caught Leera’s hand before she jumped onto the desk and drew her close. They shared a soft, tender kiss.
“Be safe,” he said, not wanting to let her go.
She kissed his cheek. “You too.”
He watched her jump into the portal, stepped onto the dragon desk, took a calming breath, and followed.
Trials
The portal spit Augum out into a cool darkness that smelled of ancient dust, and his feet connected with a stone floor.
“Shyneo,” he said. His hand crackled to life with lightning, which he brightened to an intense glow that breached the darkness forty feet in every direction. The floor was made of huge, polished black-and-white tiles like the ones commonly seen in a castle. But that was all Augum could see within his circle of light.
“Hello?” he said. “Anyone there? Bridget? Leera?” The thick darkness ate up his voice. It did not echo back, indicating there were no walls. The silence was so profound he could hear his heart pumping.
Something burst into flame some distance away. The flare was a monstrous bright white plume that lit up an infinity of tiles. Augum shielded his eyes. The fire subsided to tones of raging blue, then guttering crimson, and shrank until it was a speck of orange flame.
Since there was nothing else to do, Augum strode toward it. The flame steadily increased in size as he drew nearer. At half the distance there, which he estimated to be a thousand feet, he discerned a shape. At a few hundred feet, he saw it was a figure. At a hundred, a man.
Augum stopped twenty feet away, mouth agape in awe. The man who stood before him lived only in stories. In tales woven into tapestries. In great yellowing tomes that gathered dust. His Frock of Perpetual Fire burned hot, the heat penetrating Augum’s robe. He had fiery orange hair and a matching beard and brows. His skin was night-black; Augum knew from history that he had been born in Sierra, but became a Solian citizen after attending the academy.
Augum took a knee and inclined his head once. “I am honored, Sir Bladeofbright.”
Trintus Bladeofbright, the most famous Arcaner to have ever lived, stood proud and strong. His eyes burned with arcane fire, the flames lapping at his brows, threatening to set them alight. His hands, folded before him, unfurled in an inviting gesture.
“We shall conduct a series of brief trials,” the man from ancient times said, voice a quiet crackling flame that evaporated into the soft velvet fire that burned around him from his cloak. “I shall gauge your physical prowess, your cerebral reactions, and your answers to my questions. These you shall be judged on but once, never to take this test again. Do you understand, Aspirant?”
“I do, Sir Bladeofbright.” Augum was surprised the man spoke clear common. Someone from his era should have spoken a mix of old tongue and common.
Trintus strode around Augum in a wide circle. Judging by the gray streaks through his fiery hair, Augum guessed he was about fifty-five years of age. Yet the man had lived over nine hundred years ago. Thus, this had to be—
“—an illusion?” the man concluded for him.
“You can read my mind.”
“The same question is always asked.”
“Are you real?”
“I am enough. I am … your foe.” The man stopped directly behind him.
Augum’s finely tuned war instincts warned him of an impending attack, so he whirled around while summoning his black lightning shield. Something fiery slapped into his shield, sending a shower of sparks skidding across the floor. Augum jumped back a few paces and lowered his shield enough to see over it. Trintus stood serenely as if nothing had occurred. Augum disappeared his shield with a reverse crackle.
“You have demonstrated one of the edicts of the sacred chivalric code of the Arcaner, Aspirant.”
“Thou shall never turn thy back on a foe.”
“Indeed.” Trintus flexed his right arm and Augum gasped, for it had burst with a full sleeve of fire, indicating he was a true master warlock. After the 20th ring, with enough diligent study and training, something called The Sleeving happened, fusing all the rings into one. The amazing thing is it happened on its own when the warlock was truly ready for it.
Trintus gave the slightest bow. Taking the cue, Augum flared his seven lightning rings and bowed in return.
Trintus stood silently, and after a moment, Augum realized what he was waiting for.
“Thou shall always show thy stripes before thine enemy,” Augum said.
“And I am your enemy. Guard thyself.”
Augum summoned his shield and made an unsheathing motion while snapping, “Summano arma!” A weighted lightning longsword blasted to life in his fist.
Trintus wordlessly summoned his weapon, a flaming ball-and-chain flail. He jogged forward and smoothly swung the spiked ball at Augum, who blocked it with ease. Augum swung his longsword, but Trintus blocked the attack with an instantly summoned shield of fiery embers, causing sparks to fly. The shield disappeared almost as quickly as it had flashed into existence, leaving an afterglow of the Arcaner crest.
Trintus, who had kept jogging past Augum, loped in a large arc and came at Augum again with a slightly quicker strike. Augum blocked the fiery ball and countered, only for the flash of the legend’s shield to stop his attack once more.
The formality of the entire affair gave Augum the impression it was all rather ceremonial.
Trintus disappeared his flail and flicked a wrist at Augum’s head. “Voidus aurus!”
The Deafness spell was immensely strong and sliced through Augum’s Mind Armor like a hot knife through butter. Augum now heard nothing, yet he had the presence of mind to snap his arm out and mouth, “Flustrato!” But his 7th degree casting seemed to have no effect. He watched the man’s lips as he had been trained to do in the event of failing to block a Deafness casting.
“Voidus lingua!” Trintus snapped.
Though deaf, Augum had read the man’s lips and threw up a solid mind defense. Yet the Mute attack was simply too strong. Augum’s throat constricted and his tongue went numb.
Unable to cast verbal spells and unable to hear, Augum yanked on Trintus’s foot with all his telekinetic might. Trintus was flipped backward and silently crashed onto the polished floor, the flaming cloak billowing around him like a fiery serpent.
Augum sprinted at the man with a rising blade, but Trintus disappeared with a dull reverberation Augum felt through the ground.
Augum skidded to a halt and turned around, hunkering behind his black lightning shield just in time for the shield to receive a triple thrumming wallop from jets of flame. The fire licked around the edges of the shield, each hit nudging Augum back and making him grunt. The moment the attack ceased, Augum moved to counterattack, but an arcane bull of a spell hit him. His body froze in place, paralyzed.
Too fast, he thought. The man is simply way too fast and too strong. He felt like a mouse dueling a lion.
Trintus took
his time striding forth. He flicked his hand.
Sound flooded into Augum’s ears, yet he remained paralyzed and mute, his sword crackling by his head, shield angled before him.
“You are strong for your degree, Aspirant,” Trintus said in his fiery voice. He flicked his hand a couple more times and Augum unfroze, feeling his throat loosen back up. “Do you fear death, Aspirant?”
“I do.”
“What else do you fear?”
“Many things. I fear losing the girl I love. I fear losing my friends, my castle, my kingdom, and all my money.”
“Is that all?”
“No, Sir. I fear humiliation. I fear hitting the ceiling. I fear not living up to everyone’s expectations of me. I fear making the wrong decisions. I fear … failure.”
Trintus studied him. “And now the rest of the edicts of the Chivalric Code of the Arcaner, Aspirant.”
Augum repeated the remaining edicts from memory, hoping the girls remembered them as well.
Trintus’s full-sleeved arm and fiery flail vanished in a whoosh. “I am no longer your foe.”
Augum allowed his arm rings, sword, and shield to disappear as well. “You are no longer my foe.”
“If you were pinned under a hail of arrows, which rune would you use as cover?”
Augum was surprised by the question. “I would use a Shield Rune, Sir Bladeofbright.”
“Demonstrate.” Trintus slowly began raising his arm.
Augum bolted into action, dropping to his knees and muttering under his breath, conscious of Trintus’s ever-rising arm. As he neared the end of the rune casting, Trintus dropped his arm, and there was the twanging sound of a hundred arrows loosing from bow strings. Despite hearing the oncoming rush of arrows in midflight, Augum dared not rush the last sequence of the rune.
“Shiendarro!” he called, and a wide black lightning shield sprang up before him while he summoned his own in time to cover his head. Arrows thunked into both, lodging in place. Once the rain of death had ended, Augum relaxed and extinguished his shields. A slew of arrows fell to the ground with a gentle clatter before also disappearing.