The Academy Volume One

by Maxine Mansfield

  The barbarian prince sputtered, and his face reddened. “There’ll be no leaving me out here cowering in the bushes while all of you rush headlong into the cave. I didn’t come this far to miss witnessing you face down a dragon. There has never been a beast born who frightened me, and if you’re to wed my sister, I’ll be a witness to that same bravery in you. To think an elf would march into a dark cave and face the wrath of a dragon while a barbarian prince waits outside is beyond ridiculous.”

  Sarco smiled.

  Adan turned and pointed a finger at Sherman. “If you’re truly worried, then leave the halfling out here as a lookout. His knees are knocking together so loudly, I bet even the townspeople down at the castle can hear them, and he looks near ready to pass out. He’d probably even thank you.”

  Sarco chuckled. “You think Sherman’s frightened? If you do, then you don’t know the halfling at all. He might be small, but I’ve never seen him turn from danger. Can you say the same of all of your men?”

  Adan glared, but Sarco simply folded his arms across his chest and stared at the big barbarian until Adan looked away.

  Leeky winked at Sarco, then poked Adan in the side. “What the smelly belly button lint under the fingernails of a one-platt troll trollop dancing nakey in the moonlight are ya thinking? The purpose of Sherman’s knee-knocking is ta prevent himself from running in ahead of everyone else and stealing our glory. Don’t ya be worrying about the Shermanator here. Even though he knows how much dragons love the scent of halfling, let alone him smelling like a fine, aged Limburger himself, when things get hot, he’ll be right there mixing it up with the best of us. I guarantee it.”

  An idea formed in Sarco’s mind, and for the first time in hours, he relaxed. With purpose, he stepped across the threshold and into the cave.

  The moment darkness surrounded him, warmth once more invaded his being. This time he knew it wasn’t Lark. This time he was better prepared when the power of Carnelian’s voice slid deep into his mind. Still, the intensity left him with shivers running like rivulets of water from head to toe.

  “Sarco the Elf, which of your companions is going to assist you?”

  Sarco smiled into the darkness as he formed a fireball to light their way. “If you don’t mind, Carnelian, I would have the help of the halfling. It would go a long way to raising his status with the barbarian prince. May he be the one to do what you’ve asked as payment?”

  He felt her sigh in the very marrow of his bones.

  “I suppose, if you feel he’s big and strong enough. I like it rough.”

  Sarco chuckled. “I’ll make sure to explain to him exactly what it is he must do.”

  “So, Sarco the Elf, what then of your brother? Will his duty be to make sure you do not falter?”

  Surprise flowed like waves through him. “How did you even know my brother is one of my companions, and why would I need his help? Trust me, I may be an elf, but I’m quite capable of taking care of myself. I am also a fire wizard, as you can see, and I can withstand the heat. I won’t put my brother in danger, Carnelian. We can do this, the two of us. We need no other.”

  The shaking of her head made him dizzy. “Arrogant species. No wonder your lifespan is so short. And here I was beginning to like you. You know nothing of the forming of a Spirit Alexandrite, do you? Did you really think all you need do was hold up two rocks and get a dragon to melt them together for you? If that were the case, anyone could do it.”

  Dread filled Sarco. He really had thought that all he’d have to do was hold the rocks.

  “The bond it takes to form a Spirit Alexandrite is special, Sarco the Elf. It is true, the heat forms it, but it’s the slice of the holder’s spirit that keeps the Opal and Alexandrite forged together forever. You must give a piece of your very soul to the stone. Therein lies the danger. It’s a risky and painful proposition, and not always survivable. And though I’m sure you’re a brave and strong elf, you will need help.”

  Sarco shook his head. “No, I can do it alone.”

  “Why, then, did you choose companions to accompany you? To chronicle your brave deeds? To sing your praises around the campfire at night? I sense your brother, Cyrrick, has as much a need to see this quest accomplished as you do.”

  Her words rang true to the core of his being, and Sarco hung his head for a moment. He had been arrogant for so long, it had become a way of life. Carnelian was right, even about Cyrrick. Especially about Cyrrick. Although he wished to keep his brother safe, he also realized the outcome of this quest was as important to Cyrrick as it was to him. And not just the quest, but their relationship for the rest of their lives, hinged on what would happen in the next few minutes.

  He let his mind merge once more with the dragon’s. “Tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”

  The response he heard was no louder than a whisper of wind in his mind. “Come to me now, Sarco the Elf, and we shall do this thing.”

  The narrow passage of the cave wound around and up and down. Every once in a while, a soft green light flickered in the distance. Sarco had seen Carnelian the year before when she and Uthiel had been forced to work together, and the thought of the huge dragon traversing the narrow hallways struck him as funny. He laughed, and immediately the warmth infused him yet again.

  “Is there something you find humorous, Sarco the Elf?”

  He chuckled. “I was just wondering how you got in this cave, Carnelian, and if you’re feeling cramped. I’ve seen you, remember?”

  Bright lights flickered behind his eyes until Sarco was blinded, and he stumbled headlong into the hard rock wall in front of him.

  “Pathetic creature, did you forget my kind brought magic to this world? Dragons were here long before those without scales walked this land, and magic is strong in us. Don’t concern yourself with my comfort or how and where I get about, Sarco the Elf. It’s your own smooth, thin hide you should worry about.”

  The passageway opened into a cavernous room. The sound of gasps, gulps, and groans echoed off the walls as the source of the flickering green light was finally revealed. From the face of a huge, blood-red-scaled, talons-as-long-as-boat-oars dragon, two bright, blinking, intelligent eyes glowed eerily upon the group that had followed Sarco inside.

  Carnelian’s mouth opened wide and a stream of fire warmed and illuminated every crevice of the inner chamber. The walls glowed opalescent and upon the dirt floor were strewn numerous chunks of greenish metal.

  Sarco almost didn’t recognize Adan’s voice as stuttered words tumbled from the man’s lips, “Ma-ma-mother of God Draka, that’s gotta be the big-biggest dragon I’ve ever seen.”

  The fifteen barbarian soldiers took up positions behind their prince.

  It was on the tip of Sarco’s tongue to put Adan’s fears to rest by telling him the true relationship with Carnelian, but the man’s next words put a quick end to that thought. “Bet you wished now you’d left the halfling outside. Look at him. I think he just peed himself.”

  Instead, Sarco motioned for Sherman to come near.

  With visibly shaking legs, the halfling complied. Leaning down close, Sarco whispered in Sherman’s ear. “When I point, I want you to climb the side of that big rock over there and punch that dragon in the jaw as hard and fast as you can. Don’t quit until she stops breathing fire, okay?”

  Sarco had always realized Sherman was pasty-white, but now, with the blood draining from the halfling’s face, he was beyond white. He patted the little wizard on the shoulder. “Do you trust me, Sherman?”

  The halfling gulped. “With my life, my lord.”

  “You won’t be harmed,” Sarco promised.

  Sherman took three deep breaths and pushed the rims of his glasses firmly up the ridge of his nose. “Well, I did take a class on rock climbing and pugilism once and have never gotten to use my knowledge, so, I’m ready. My life for you, sir.”

  Sarco braced himself as he allowed the warmth of his thoughts to flow toward the dragon. “Carnelian, the halfling
is ready. He’s never ‘petted’ a dragon before, so go easy on him. Are you sure all you wish is to be petted, and that is how one goes about petting a dragon?”

  Carnelian smiled, and the full impact of it sent ripples of pleasure skittering down Sarco’s spine. “Oh, yes, it has been so very long since I felt the gentle caress of a hand. The last time was back before the war, when I was but a dragling. And it must be done hard in order to feel it through the scales. Make sure he doesn’t hold back. I will know if he does. I’m quite excited.”

  Sarco pointed toward Carnelian.

  Sherman gulped once again, squared his shoulders, lifted his head, stood to his full five feet and one inch, and climbed.

  Adan sputtered, “What are you doing, Sarco? I didn’t mean to taunt you into trying to prove anything. That dragon will kill him.”

  Sarco shook his head. “Never underestimate the power of the little guy in a fight, he’ll always surprise you.”

  Bending to the floor of the cave, he picked up a chunk of the greenish metal Alexandrite then faced Cyrrick. “Would you help me, brother?”

  Immediately, Cyrrick stepped forward. “Whatever you wish.”

  Sarco drew out a blade and chiseled away a piece of opal from the wall of the cave, then held both the stone and the metal together in his raised hands. “I need you to hold up my arms, Cyrrick. No matter what happens, don’t let them drop. Even if I scream or plead with you to make it stop, you must promise you won’t listen to me until the last flame has died away. I’ll put a Protection from Fire spell around us to shield us from the heat.”

  A fine sheen of sweat broke out on Cyrrick’s forehead that even in the dim light of the cave Sarco couldn’t miss.

  “I’ll do whatever you wish, brother, but perhaps you should ask Uthiel in my stead. He’s stronger than I.” Cyrrick leaned in close to Sarco and whispered, “And he’s friends with the dragon. Surely she would let no harm come to you if he were close.”

  Sarco looked his brother in the eye. “It’s your support I need. No other will do.”

  “So be it,” Cyrrick nodded.

  Sarco glanced at Adan, his fifteen men, Leeky, and Uthiel. “I suggest you step back. It’s about to get…warm in here.”

  He looked toward Sherman, who was now level with Carnelian’s snout. The dragon leaned and swiped the halfling with her tongue from head to toe. Sherman almost toppled.

  “Are you certain I can’t eat him, Sarco the Elf? He smells and tastes so yummy.”

  Sarco shook his head and chuckled, “Not if you want to be petted, you can’t. And you gave me your word, remember?”

  Her sigh wafted through him. “As you wish.”

  Sarco filled his lungs to capacity and yelled to Sherman, “Now!”

  He almost laughed as he watched the halfling ball up his stubby little fists, close his eyes tightly, and, with a flying flurry, punch Carnelian square in the jaw, over and over.

  The last thing Sarco heard, before the deafening roar of the dragon’s blaze drowned out all other sound, was Adan’s expletive, “For the love of Draka. That’s gotta be either the bravest or stupidest halfling I’ve ever—”

  Sarco held himself erect. A wave of heat radiated up and through him. The very act of breathing became almost an impossibility. Tender, scorched airways burned and even the blood coursing through his veins heated so much he wanted to shriek.

  He burned. Not the burn of flames licking at exposed skin, but a deep, consuming, incinerating burn from the inside out. A burn that seared all the way to his soul. Pain coursed through every fiber of Sarco’s being as he fought back the desperate urge to scream.

  He opened his eyes and concentrated on Cyrrick’s face, but his vision was partially obscured by the heat from the wall of flames enveloping them. Time stood still. His consciousness threatened to abandon him. His knees buckled more than once under the onslaught of the slashing pain, and his heart raced, as if it were trying to escape his chest.

  Still, the security of Cyrrick’s arms beneath his own never once wavered, not even when every muscle, every fiber of Sarco’s essence was begging for the relief only oblivion could afford. From somewhere far away he heard himself plead for the end to take him, yet with the help of his brother, he stood.

  A sudden, shearing, cold-as-death gash shot through his belly, across his ribs, to finally land and explode deep within the recesses of his mind. Sarco’s world finally became what he had wished for—nothing more than a floating sea of cool white.

  As if from a far distance, he heard someone ask, “Is he alive? Did it work?”

  Slowly, Sarco cracked open a lid and peeked up into the concerned face of Uthiel. He stirred, but the arms of his brother tightened about him. It took more energy than he had to resist, so he smiled instead and let his hand fall open.

  What he held pulsed with a life of its own. A stone, no bigger than his thumbnail. Warm to the touch, almost hot. A deep metallic green with ribbons of opalescent fibers dancing within. To his eyes, it was the most beautiful stone Sarco had ever beheld. A perfect Spirit Alexandrite.

  He tried once more to move and was reminded of the price he had paid as pain exploded up his chest, all the way to his neck.

  Cyrrick placed a steadying hand on his shoulder. “Careful, brother. Lie still or you’ll have it bleeding again, and I just got it to stop.”

  His mouth was dry as cotton, but still he fought to speak. “Bleeding?”

  Cyrrick yanked back the front of Sarco’s tunic to expose his chest. There, between the fourth and fifth intercostal spaces of his ribs, right at the point of maximum impulse of his heart, was an angry-looking, lightning-shaped scar.

  Warmth infused his mind, and Sarco welcomed it. “I am glad you still live. I warned you it would require a piece of your soul. You and the stone are now one, Sarco the Elf. And thank you for the petting from your halfling friend. Tell him for me he did well.”

  The warmth faded away and even without looking up, Sarco knew Carnelian was gone.

  ****

  Lightning streaked across the angry-looking, midday sky. Thunder clapped loudly in the distance.

  Lark’s gaze flew toward her sisters and the rest of the group. “It’s not me, I swear.”

  Aryanna shrugged but didn’t bother to look up. “It doesn’t matter. I say let it rain, let it storm even, so hard that it washes away every book in the land. At this point, nothing much matters. I really believed we’d find a way around the stupid human rule in the Chronicles of Shak-spere. What are we going to do now?”

  The tears Lark had been trying valiantly to hold back all day flowed, and she was just as powerless to stop them as she was to prevent the rain from pelting the group as they hurried across the bailey on the way back to their rooms.

  All the long hours of research had been for nothing. In the end, they had failed.

  The Chronicles of Shak-spere, written thousands of years ago, and most probably very specific at that time concerning the order of marriage, were now nothing more than a tattered group of paragraphs and pages with entire sections missing. In the three fragile volumes, it was difficult to make any sense of what must have once been beautiful prose.

  Granted, the writings of the great historian, Sir W. Shak-spere, even now were regarded as the ultimate authority on all things human. The entire culture of Albrath had been closely fashioned after his writings when they’d first been discovered.

  The castles, the monarchies, the knights, the lords of the realm, even their speech and mannerisms, were taken straight from the crisp, printed pages of the three volumes when they were still new to this world.

  The books were nearly the most researched and coveted writings in the whole world, second only to the Alarian Scrolls of God Draka.

  From what was left of the original writings, Lark couldn’t decipher how the humans had gotten the ill-conceived idea to embrace such a rule of marriage. And if what there had been left to read was any indication, she wasn’t sure the historian himself ha
d agreed with it, but simply stated random facts.

  It would have been helpful to read Sir Shak-spere’s writings in their entirety when they had been consistent within the world he lived in. All that was left now wasn’t consistent with anything.

  The very-much-in-demand chronicles were now no more than scattered thoughts with large sections missing that made no sense. They spoke of a far away world called England-Rome, in a cold and foggy place dubbed London and a barbaric city named Verona that was now no more than some other world’s ancient history.

  Lark sighed. Why should what happened on a tiny, inconsequential planet light years away and more than a few millennia ago so impact her life today? It wasn’t fair and it wasn’t right.

  The wind picked up, and thunder roared so closely the ground beneath her feet shook with it. Lark thought to deny once more she was the cause, when it occurred to her perhaps she was responsible after all.

  She tried her best to quell the turmoil within herself as she quickened her pace. Stopping for a moment, she closed her eyes, lifted her face toward the heavens, and whispered, “Sarco, I pray you’re having better luck than I am.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  If ever a man was more confused about how to make separate parts of a quest come together, Sarco would definitely like to see that man.

  He stood in the middle of the icy cold vault in the Barbarian city of Alaria with the Maiden’s Desire bloom frozen solid in one hand and the warm, pulsating Spirit Alexandrite stone in the other, and no clue how to proceed.

  Cyrrick had recited the quest to him again less than a turn of the hourglass ago. The words still ran through Sarco’s mind.

  “It’s ice and fire that forms a maiden’s desire.

  It’s searing heat where metal and gemstone first meet.

  It’s with love in mind that a treasure becomes divine.

  It’s a champion you must defeat for a heart you wish to seek.

  It’s your choice to make for the wife you will take.”