Faculty of Fire

by Alex Kosh

  I promptly shut up, because I was really interested in the story. The historical facts had been selected rather well ... and they hardly diverged from accounts in historical treatises.

  “And then the dragon looked at his visitors and said: “‘Golly-gee, lunch. With free delivery.’

  “The vampires immediately decamped to the ceiling.

  “‘A lively lunch,’ the dragon remarked.

  “The Magician began to mutter a spell under his breath.

  “‘He’ll get away!’ one of the vampires screeched, diving at the Magician.

  “‘No one’s going anywhere!’ the dragon retorted, and with a gentle wave of his tail he batted the vampire into the furthest corner of the cave.

  “Meanwhile, the air above the Magician’s head started thickening and sparkling.

  “‘He’ll get away,’ the vampire repeated, slowly picking himself up off the floor.

  “‘Cool it, Vel,’ the second vampire advised him from the ceiling.

  “‘That’s right, cool it,’ the dragon said, and then he looked at the Magician. ‘And don’t you go making a fool of yourself with that childish magic of yours, you’ll hurt yourself if you’re not careful ...’

  “The fireball exploded above the Magician’s head. From the dazed look on the Magician’s face as he lay on the floor, it was clear that this was not at all the result he had been hoping for.

  “‘Come unstuck?’, the dragon asked with a sympathetic sigh. ‘Man-magicians are no match for me, nor are the most subtle vampires. So I advise you to relax and enjoy ... the conversation.’

  “‘Conversation?’ the vampire on the ceiling asked warily.

  “‘Yes indeed, conversation. Sitting in a cave for hundreds of years happens to be rather boring, and decent conversation partners come along so very rarely ...’

  “The Magician gave a sudden start.

  “‘And after our conversation ... will you let us go?’

  “‘Anything’s possible,’ the dragon said with a smile.

  “Have you ever seen a dragon smile? A nervous shudder ran down the Magician’s back, and also down the backs of the hard-boiled vampires.

  “‘And what would you like to talk about?’ asked the vampire on the ceiling, recovering his wits rather quickly. ‘And by the way, allow me to introduce myself – Kel.’

  “‘Decordianis,’ the dragon replied. ‘Dec for short.’

  “‘Vel,’ said the second vampire.

  “All three of them looked at the Magician.

  “‘Leonis,’ he muttered, looking embarrassed.

  “And now that they had heard the magician’s voice and looked at him more closely, the vampires suddenly realised just how young he was. Under all those layers of dirt there was young lad ... and that was amazing, since all the magicians who had any kind of skill at all were quite a respectable age.

  “‘Now that we’ve all been introduced, I’ll ask you the first question. What is such a strange company doing in my cave?’ the dragon enquired.

  “‘Playing tag,’ Kel joked. ‘It’s our turn to chase the young man, and he has to run away.’

  “The dragon nodded.

  “‘Don’t think that I’m ignorant, just because I live in a cave. I’m well aware of the present situation in your lands ...’ – he looked hard at the vampires – ‘... So you are head hunters then?’

  “The vampires smiled.

  “‘Why just heads?’ Kel asked. ‘We hunt all the parts of the body, the full set, you could say.’

  “‘So you want me alive?’ the magician piped up.

  “‘If possible,’ the vampire Kel agreed.

  “‘It’s a bit too soon for you to start dividing up the body,’ the dragon laughed. ‘It’s quite possible that not all of you will actually leave this place.’

  “The vampire Vel smoothly morphed into battle form.

  “‘And it might just be you, toothy,” the dragon Dec responded immediately.

  “‘You worry about yourself,’ the vampire muttered.

  “But even so, Vel’s eagerness for a fight evaporated in an instant.

  “‘Please forgive my friend,’ Kel said calmly. ‘Now, what was it you wanted to talk about?’

  “‘Why are you pursuing the Magician?’ the dragon asked.

  “‘Because the people from his village asked us to,’ Kel said with a shrug.

  “‘Why did they ask you?’

  “‘Because he was causing harm.’

  “‘Why was he causing harm?’

  “‘Because he practises magic ...’

  “Listen, Alice,” I interrupted, trying to suppress a yawn. “Tell me right me right now, just how long is this stupid conversation of theirs going to last?”

  “Well ... the legend says that they spent several days in the cave,” Alice replied, annoyed.

  “I’m sorry for interrupting you,” I apologised, “but I don’t see the point of this legend. All these useless conversations ...”

  “That’s it, now I’m really peeved.” said the vampiress, getting angry. “I’m not going to tell you any more.”

  “I won’t say another word,” I said hastily.

  “Too late,” Alice snapped. “You can keep quiet for as long as you like, but you won’t hear any more.”

  “All right then,” I retorted. “Chas can tell me what happened next.”

  Chas gave a sudden start. What a swine – he’d made me listen to some stupid legend, and then fell asleep!

  “Eh? What?” he said.

  “Nothing,” said the vampiress, offended. “I’m sick of the lot of you, I’m going to bed.”

  “What about the rest of the legend?” Neville asked indignantly. “I’ve never heard all these details before. They tell a much shorter version where we come from.”

  “I’ll tell you later,” said Alice, getting up off the bed.

  “Shall I walk you back?” I suggested feebly.

  Alice thought about it.

  “All right,” she agreed unexpectedly.

  It took me a moment to realise what she’d said.

  “What did you say?” I asked.

  “You can walk me back,” Alice repeated. “As far as the teleports.”

  Just as far as the next door, if you like!

  I leapt up off the bed, afraid of letting this opportunity slip.

  “At your service!”

  I shot out of the room, almost treading on the vampiress’s heels. But this time Alice had no intention of disappearing.

  “I have this strange feeling that there’s something you’d like to say to me,” Alice said as soon as I closed the door behind us. “Am I right?”

  Oh, yes. There were so many things I’d like to say...but, instead, I said, “Listen, I was talking to our tutor Caiten the other day, and he told me that when we started at the Academy your relatives came to the Craftsmen and made threats ...”

  “So what?” the vampiress asked in surprise.

  “And Caiten asked me to ask you if we ought to take their threats seriously, and to ask you a few more questions too.”

  Alice stopped.

  “What is all this, have you signed up as an informer?” she asked, frowning.

  “No, of course not,” I answered hastily. “I just suddenly remembered that he asked ...”

  I should never have started that conversation. As if I didn’t have anything else to say to her ...

  “Tell him there’s no need to be afraid of my relatives. They have enough problems of their own.”

  By this time we had reached the teleports.

  “Alice ...” I began.

  “Goodnight,” she said quickly and disappeared in a brief flash.

  It was true, I really didn’t have a clue about how to talk to girls. What business of mine was it what Caiten wanted to find out? When you’re afraid to say what you want to say, you start spouting all sorts of rubbish ...

  I wandered slowly back to my own room, cursing myself for a total idio
t.

  “That was rather quick,” Chas said in surprise as soon as I opened the door.

  “Drop it,” I said with a feeble wave of my hand.

  Chas knew right away that he’d better leave me alone.

  “Okay guys, let’s wind things up,” he said with a yawn. “Come on, Naive, off to bed! The food’s all gone anyway ...”

  “It’s a shame we didn’t hear the rest of the legend,” Neville sighed.

  “Yes, by the way,” I exclaimed, “how does it end after all?”

  “Ah! Well, you see, they chatted away about this and that, and then the dragon decided to help the Magician. He let the vampires go, after making them swear that they wouldn’t hunt Magicians any more, and he kept the young lad with him for a couple of years. During that time the Dragon taught him what we now know as the Craft. He’s the dragon in the symbol of the Craft ...”

  “Just a moment,” I said, interrupting Neville. “Where’s the difference between the Craft and the magic of that time?”

  “It’s dead simple,” Neville said with a smile. “I’m surprised you don’t know it. The magic of that time was unpredictable, because they only used verbal formulas. You must admit, it’s pretty hard to express everything you want a spell to do in just a few words. But the dragon taught the first Craftsman to weave energy patterns through the effort of thought, that is, to work directly with energy.”

  “Is that all,” I asked in amazement. “And Alice was telling us that endless legend for the sake of a simple explanation like that?”

  “You know, Zach,” said Chas, looking at me very closely, “sometimes you simply amaze me. How can someone who is so indifferent to art write such fine songs?”

  That had become something of a sore point with me. Ever since Romius had explained where my songs came from, I hadn’t even gone near a musical instrument. I’d tossed my beloved musicale under the bed, and I didn’t feel the slightest desire to take it back out again.

  “Forget about those songs,” I told Chas angrily. “Right then, goodnight.”

  I showed the guys out of my room and flopped onto the bed with a groan.

  What sort of life was this? The things that used to be really important to me – music, for instance – no longer meant anything ... The only thing I was concerned about now was my relationship with Alice ... and the Craft. Strangely enough this dragon’s magic (which, according to the legend, was exactly what it was), was really starting to take a hold of me ...

  Suddenly I heard a quiet knocking.

  Struggling to fight off sleep, I got up off the bed and opened the door ...

  “Good evening,” Velkheor said with a radiant smile.

  “I’m not so sure,” I replied philosophically.

  “May I come in?” asked the vampire.

  “Come in if you like ...”

  The vampire walked into my room as if he owned it and sat down on a chair.

  “How are your studies going?” Velkheor asked.

  “Just fine,” I said with a yawn.

  “So I see from the state you’re in,” the vampire laughed. “Well, have you had any interesting dreams recently?”

  I told him about all my dreams for the last few days, the way I usually did.

  The vampire laughed for a long time. Yet again. The trouble was, I had absolutely no idea what he was laughing at. He could at least have explained something to me, the rotten skunk ...

  “You know, I have to leave the Academy for a while. Business in the Borderland,” the vampire said suddenly. “So I won’t be here for the next month. Write your dreams down, will you.”

  I looked at him, feeling rather puzzled.

  “Leave the Academy? But is it that easy to get out through the exclusion field?”

  “Get out through it, no, but it is possible to leave by teleport.”

  “A-ah ...”

  So there were teleports that led outside the Academy? Very interesting.

  “I decided to drop in and wish you good luck before I go,” said the vampire, absolutely dumbfounding me. “I think you have a competition in a month, don’t you?”

  I nodded.

  “I hope you win.”

  “Thank you,” I replied in amazement.

  What had happened to him? I’d never seen him show that kind of consideration before.

  The vampire got up off the chair and walked across to the door.

  “And in general, you take care,” Velkheor advised me. “You’ll be useful to me again.”

  I was struck dumb by his sheer impertinence.

  But the vampire had already left.

  “Creep,” I remarked in a quiet voice, and went to take a shower.

  Scene 6

  It’s physically quite impossible for me to describe the next two weeks. More than half of the time that I was awake (which happened to be about eighty per cent of all the time), I was walking around in a kind of fog. I seem to remember that all sorts of things happened, but ... I was watching it all from the outside, I didn’t actually live through any of it.

  Through all of my trials and troubles, my friends were always there at my side. Chas and I worked in the dining hall three times a day, slowly turning into total and absolute zombies, and Neville always covered for me during the team duelling sessions. And every day one of our team went with me to the treatment station, which was all because, instead of reducing the pressure on us, Shins actually stepped it up. That’s right – the pressure on us. All five of us were now the target for his carping and fault-finding. Sometimes we suspected our malicious teacher didn’t want us to survive until the competition. In my case the nervous tension was so great that I started having nightmares – about being burned alive, about a thousand fireballs all coming at me at once, about running away from a huge firebird ... basically, I was teetering on the brink of a nervous breakdown.

  Ever since Alice and Neville found out that they could practise magic in my room without worrying about being punished for it, my few free hours had become a continuation of my nightmares. I was often woken by the bang of a fireball exploding or lulled to sleep by the whining of a fiery whirlwind. All these experiments left the walls of my room covered with a thick layer of soot, which did nothing to improve the quality of the air, or of my brief periods of sleep. I could only hope that soon we’d be taught a few useful spells from the repertoire of water magic, so we could clean up my humble abode a little bit. But for the moment, unfortunately, we didn’t have either the energy or the time for household chores. Just training, training and more training. Who was it that said Higher Craftsmen can do anything they like with a single wave of the hand? If he only knew everything that lies behind that wave – all those formulas and flow designs ... it would blow his mind! In any case, my mind was all set to blow already. Things got so bad, I didn’t even notice when I rose a few inches into the air during the evening meditation session. I wasn’t trying to do anything of the kind, I didn’t know how to do it, I just got absorbed in my own thoughts ... and it happened. After that Chas kept saying that if I could fly in my sleep, I must really be growing fast. But he wasn’t being spiteful, just feeling envious. After all, he couldn’t fly yet.

  So this whole period was very productive, but very tedious. And believe me, there’s nothing more to be said about it.

  A gentle voice said decisively: “The victory is yours, the reward is ours.”

  Or maybe what it said was: “Your victory is our reward...”

  But what difference did it make what the voice said? I’d been having very strange dreams, and most of them were to do with events awaiting me in the future ... or was that just a wild guess?

  “So how long are you going to hold out on us?” Chas yelled.

  “What are you talking about?”

  I had to shout above the roaring of the flame that was blazing at the very centre of my room.

  “Alice, switch your lamp off!” Chas yelled, exasperated.

  “It’s not a lamp,” the vampiress reto
rted indignantly. “It’s a pillar of flame!”

  She glanced at the pillar of flame, and it obediently blinked off.

  “Looked like a perfectly ordinary lamp to me. No good for anything much, just a bright light, but I still wouldn’t use it for reading,” said Chas. “But I guess it would make a passable heater too.”