Creation Mage 5

by Dante King

  Dodging through fire and wayward magic, I eventually found Bradley and Lara.

  There was no point hesitating.

  Nigel was in position, tailing Lara from below.

  Rick was cruising in wide circles, keeping an eye out for incoming enemies.

  Where Damien was, I couldn’t say.

  I erected a Flame Barrier at my back and slowed, matching my speed with that of Lara who was now below me. Her plaited hair whipped behind her and her face didn’t deviate from Bradley’s back as she fired shuriken after shuriken at him.

  As I felt Afro’s blades start smacking into the Flame Barrier that was my short-lived protection, I pointed my black crystal staff down at the egg under Lara’s arm. I focused, willing the mana out of my internal mana reserve and aiming it at the egg.

  Then, I used my Telekinesis spell.

  It was just a nudge, enough to tweak the egg sideways. With Lara holding it so tightly to her body, she actually squeezed it out into the air.

  The wyvern egg dropped away. Nigel, cruising underneath, caught it.

  Lara screamed with rage and instantly switched her attention from Bradley to the retreating Nigel. She raised both her hands and let loose with a spell like a hailstorm composed of metal shavings, nails, and shrapnel.

  At the very moment that she unleashed her spell, Damien appeared out of nowhere and T-boned her broomstick from the side. The impact sent her spell off course slightly. The clump of razor-sharp metal death passed by Nigel, although he caught a couple of pieces in his right shoulder. The rest of the woman’s spell struck some unlucky nymph standing on the platform behind. Most of the flesh from the nymph’s torso was flayed off in an instant, leaving gleaming bone and pulped organs behind.

  Afro changed course, leaving me and shooting after Nigel since he now had the egg. Rolling with this sudden change in dynamic, I left Damien to grapple hand to hand with Lara on their broomsticks and took off after Afro.

  I caught up with her as Nigel was about to crest the edge of the final platform. I was just in time to see her summon one of those whirling saw blade discs and fling it at the halfling.

  The blade smacked into Nigel’s thigh and only stopped when it hit the bone. The Wind Mage screamed, clutched instinctively at his leg, dropped the wyvern egg, and toppled sideways off his broom.

  I watched as Nigel fell, wailing. The egg seemed to tumble in slow-motion. Afro, who was only a few feet in front of me now, made a grab for the egg as it spun away, but it bounced off the tips of her fingers.

  There was no time for me to change course on my broom. By the time I did that, either the egg would have dropped too far away or Afro would have turned too and would be on me like white on rice.

  So, I popped up onto the handle of my broomstick like a surfer hops up on their board when catching a wave. I boosted off it, using my legs to propel the broom at Afro who had slammed on the brakes.

  The broom caught her in the small of the back and flipped her off the back of her own broomstick. She cried out in shock and frustration.

  I, on the other hand, was already falling sideways—

  —right into the path of the tumbling egg.

  I caught it, hugging it to my chest, as gravity clutched at me and began to pull me down.

  Fast.

  But I had taken this into consideration.

  I activated my Flame Flight spell, felt the tingle of ghostly flames engulf my body, and began to soar upward. Almost immediately, I felt my mana reserves, and my energy, begin to drain.

  Afro somersaulted past me, falling away toward the ground, her silver eyes wide with fear.

  Below her, I could just make out the tiny figure of Nigel. The Wind Mage, despite his injury, was managing to arrest his fall in fits and spurts, using his ability to fly to slow his descent.

  He’s going to be all right, I told myself. Just worry about yourself.

  I clenched my jaw and willed my mana to hold for the final ten feet.

  I reached the edge of the platform, just as my head went impossibly light. My vision brightened to the point of fading almost completely to white. The color of everything became washed out and unreal.

  I hit the deck hard on my side. Even in my half unconscious state, I made sure to twist my body so that I wouldn’t crush the egg.

  There was one thing for certain, I wasn’t going through that shit again.

  I heaved my legs up onto the final platform and blinked hard a few times. I raised my head and saw that the rock under me had been painted in a black and white checkerboard pattern.

  The finish line…

  Somehow, I managed to heave myself to my feet. I stumbled, my legs feeling like they had been deboned or reconstructed using wet clay instead of flesh. My hearing was fading in and out, but I could tell one thing.

  The crowd was absolutely losing their shit.

  Feeling like the damned thing weighed as much as a sixteen-pound bowling ball, I raised the wyvern egg above my head.

  We had done it.

  We had passed the first day of the Qualifiers.

  Our fraternity had won.

  Later, the boys and I were sitting on low couches in the competitor’s holding area and sipping on well-earned alcoholic beverages.

  Nigel had his leg stretched out in front of him. One of the legs of his breeches had been cut off by a medi-mage and his skinny pin was wrapped from thigh to knee in a clean linen bandage.

  “How does it feel?” I asked, sipping on the bottle of moon mead in my hand.

  “It’s numb,” Nigel said. “The medi-mage said I m-m-might have a hell of a scar.”

  “You look pretty pleased about that,” Damien said.

  Nigel rotated his shoulder. His shrapnel wounds had been covered in some sort of blue salve that smelled of mint and ginger. He shrugged, smiled shyly, and said, “Well, they d--d-do say that chicks dig scars, don’t they?”

  Rick chuckled and shook his head.

  “Have we got all the broomsticks?” I asked, thinking about the one I had used as a missile on Afro. I had been carried down from the top platform by Bradley, once the announcement had been made that our team had qualified.

  Bradley pointed to the corner where ten broomsticks now leaned against the wall.

  “Hoodah—one of the troll security guards—was so impressed with our display that he practically begged to be allowed to take them back to the frat house,” Damien said.

  “We have fans.” Bradley laughed delightedly. “Bloody unbelievable.”

  “It was unbelievable teamwork out there, fellas,” I said. “It’s hard to beat a person that never gives up, and there are five of those kinds of people sitting here. That’s why we won.”

  “Although, let’s face it,” said a voice from over by the velvet curtain that shrouded the exit, “you shouldn’t have.”

  I looked over and saw that Afro was standing there in the shadows. Her steel-colored hair glimmered in the light that shone through the enormous magical viewing window. Beyond that window, the stadium was almost completely empty; only the very enthusiastic, or extremely inebriated, fans were left.

  I got to my feet, motoning for the other lads to keep chilling. I walked over.

  “I’m glad you didn’t just head back out to the carnival with all the other contestants,” I said. “There are a couple of questions that I wanted to ask you.”

  Afro cocked her head to one side. A wry look came into her all-silver eyes.

  “And what would they be?” she asked.

  “Firstly, what’s your name?” I asked. “I can’t keep thinking of you and your sisters as hairstyles.”

  The young woman snorted.

  “My name is Acer Blade,” she said simply.

  “Okay, Acer Blade,” I said, “tell me this now. What the fuck were you and your sisters trying to do out there? You had an egg. You could have qualified first. Why were you making it your mission to try and take us out, to sabotage our chances?”

  Acer flashed me a
smile that was both condescending and attractive.

  “This is the Mage Games, Justin Mauler,” she said. “There isn’t any room for you to be so sensitive.”

  “Humor me,” I said.

  Acer clacked her teeth together thoughtfully a couple of times and then said, “Your reputation precedes you. You and your fraternity group are considered by those outside of the Mazirian Academy to be the—what’s a good way to describe it?—top dogs.”

  “So?” I said.

  “So, where my sisters and I come from, there is certainly glory in coming first in something. But, there is even more renown to be had by besting those who are considered the most skilled and dangerous on their own turf.”

  There was something that I quite liked about that mentality. Sure, it had been pretty goddamn annoying to be the object of the Blade Sisters’ eye, but there was something I liked about that nonetheless.

  “So, you like a challenge?” I asked.

  Acer Blade pushed the curtain back and turned to leave. “Only the weak do not enjoy a challenge, Justin Mauler. Challenges are the nuts you have to crack if you wish to find the fruit that will enable you to grow.”

  Then, she was gone.

  There goes trouble, I thought.

  I walked back to the boys, pondering Acer Blade’s words.

  Challenges were all very well and good, but it was our preparation that had really benefited us in that first round. If it had not been for Barry the poltergeist and the spells we had learned and mastered, we would have been out for the count early on.

  Still, we had won in the end.

  I finished my mead and reached for another.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The boys and I wandered back out into the carnival atmosphere of the Mazirian Academy’s training colosseum after we’d polished off a few more bottles of tissue restoring mead. Nigel was riding on Rick’s back, his injured leg sticking stiffly out to one side.

  I was feeling good. The exhaustion of my almost complete mana depletion was slowly leaving me, to be replaced by the elation of having got through the Qualifiers. We had won, which secured us a position in the final, mysterious round that would take place at the end of the week. Having been among the contestants to compete first meant that we would have the rest of the week to prepare while the other teams went on their own respective egg hunts.

  We walked through the joyous, excited crowds, receiving more backslaps and giving out more handshakes than we could count. The War Mage Games fans, especially the locals, were reliving the highlights with us. Men, women, and children of all races would approach us and tell us how they had loved particular bits of the action.

  “Oh man, and when you took that blade to the leg, I thought you guys were done for!”

  “Rick, you’re my fucking hero, man!”

  “Flamewalker, Flamewalker! That cannon arm thing is so freakin’ sweet, bro!”

  “I can’t believe you jumped off your broom to grab that egg, dude! Me and my sister thought you were toast!”

  “Can you guys sign my shirt?”

  “Can you guys autograph my tits?”

  “Oh my gods, Damien you are so cute!”

  And on and on it went.

  It was a bit of a relief when we stumbled across my girlfriends. Cecilia, Janet, and Princess Alura were firing miniature mana-rifles at pottery targets, while Enwyn, Madame Xel, and Odette Scaleblade cheered them on.

  When she saw us, Odette sashayed over to me, hugged me, and kissed me on both cheeks. Then she looked around at the rest of the boys and said, “That was one of the most exciting aerial battles that I ‘ave ever seen!”

  Damien grinned and puffed out his cheeks. “Yeah, it was a bit of a pulse-raiser, huh?”

  “We could have really done with your dragon up there, Madame Scaleblade,” said Bradley who, as a born aristocrat, always found it harder to call our death Mage teacher by her first name.

  Madame Xel and Enwyn came over then and delivered hugs all around.

  “Hey you,” Janet said, punching me on the arm and handing something to me. “Those were some pretty slick moves you pulled out there.”

  I looked down at the thing she had just handed to me. It was a stuffed toy: a snake.

  Janet laughed at the look on my face.

  “Well, you know, I didn’t realize what a softy you were until I saw you release that hexviper in the maze without killing it,” she said. “So, I just won this one for you.”

  I put the stuffed snake in the pocket of my pants and grinned at her.

  “My secret is out,” I said. “There goes that hardcore badass reputation I’ve been trying to cultivate. At least now I can stop drinking beer and switch back to herbal tea.”

  Janet laughed, hugged me, and then planted a kiss on my mouth.

  “Some chicks might be into the animal-friendly guy who is also a dab hand with a flaming machete,” she said.

  “Yes, darling,” Cecilia said coming in to hug me. “That sort of dichotomy in a personality may speak volumes to the right woman.”

  I smiled at the elf and touched her cheek. “These women you speak of, they’d be batshit crazy, right?”

  Cecilia slapped me on the arm, and Janet laughed.

  It was while Alura and I were embracing, and the Gemstone Princess was getting a surreptitious feel of my ass while she did it, that Reginald Chaosbane arrived with Mallory Entwistle and Barry in tow. Reginald and Barry struck up a conversation with my girlfriends while I conversed with Priestess Entwistle.

  “Very impressive display out there, Mr. Mauler,” the disguised Mallory said. “I have to say that I found myself getting quite… excited watching your antics.”

  There was the suggestion of an innuendo in her words, but Mallory’s face was as free from guile or double-meaning as it ever was.

  “Well, I can’t think of many ways that it could have been anymore… exciting. Not when I was in the thick of it. Any more excitement, and Nigel would have lost a limb.”

  Mallory smiled at me, and her ice-blue eyes shone.

  “I have to admit that I was surprised to see you center stage with the Headmaster,” I said. “I thought that, if he agreed to let you out, you’d be keeping your head down. Not living large at the Headmaster’s side in the best seats in the house.”

  “Mmm yes, I can see why you might have thought that,” Priestess Entwistle said. “But people often do not see what is in front of their very eyes—even when they think they are looking. The Arcane Council’s collective self-conceit often gets in the way of what it is looking for. It has been that way for many years. When our little league worked side by side with the Council, this often proved to be a bone of contention. However, once your father and mother broke away from them, the Arcane Council’s short-sightedness and their blinding ego actually became one of our most powerful tools against them.”

  This sounded interesting, but my brain was still pretty laggy with fatigue, so instead of asking the numerous questions that had bubbled sluggishly to the surface of my mind, I said, “Isn’t Reginald Chaosbane worried that you might go off and pursue your own agenda or something?”

  Mallory held up her skinny wrists and shook them.

  A pair of ghostly green manacles linked by a chain appeared between her hands.

  I stared at the Priestess, and she gave me a rueful grin.

  “Reginald gave me some freedom and a disguise,” she said. “But it seems his trust, like a piece of chewing gum, can only be stretched so far.”

  “Ah, young master,” Barry Chillgrave said as he approached me, “I see that you’re admirin’ some of me handiwork there, matey?”

  I ran my gaze over the disguised poltergeist. Where he was usually green, he now gave off a sort of dirty pink light.

  “And you’re a… ghost?” I asked tentatively.

  Barry waved his hands around airily. His fingers were more flesh than bone now, and he looked quite different without his skeletal grin and with smooth skin stretched acro
ss his countenance.

  “Ah, we need not get too stringent with our labels, sir,” he said. “Ghost, spirit, or wraith, suffice to say that I am playin’ just another part in the spectral realm.”

  “So you’ve gone from jailbird to gaoler, Barry,” I said.

  A pained expression suffused the disguised poltergeist’s face. He shot a quick, worshipful glance up at the angelic form of Priestess Entwistle.

  “Don’t say that, sir, don’t say that, I beg of ye! As a former prisoner, I know how it rubs to be deprived of your freedom. The good Priestess Entwistle here knows that I much prefer havin’ her walking around with us, sir, then keeping as pretty a woman as her cooped up in a dungeon.”

  Mallory looked down at Barry. “I know that you’re only doing as Headmaster Chaosbane bids, Barry,” she said. “Do not fret unduly.”

  Barry bowed his head appreciatively. “Anyway, sir,” he said to me, “the Headmaster is also making use of the lady’s particular talents while she is out enjoying the festivities, sir.”

  “Oh yeah?” I said neutrally. “Um, and what talents would they be precisely?”

  “I am rather good at detecting any malevolent magic in a twenty yard radius—ill intent and black curses too. Reginald told me that he wants everyone to be on their guard during the Mage Games. We made a bargain: he would let me out, and I would keep my senses attuned for anything out of the ordinary.”

  I looked around at the shenanigans taking place on every side. People levitated other people just for kicks, insane magical drinking games had started up, and the ubiquitous fireworks and flares were becoming ever more pronounced. Personally, I couldn’t think of a harder job than having to sift through all this madness and look for people doing anything “out of the ordinary.” Finding the one person doing something bland and unremarkable would be the real trick.

  Mallory Entwistle seemed to read my thoughts on my face because she said, “I don’t use my eyes to detect these anomalies, Mr. Mauler.”