Faculty of Fire

by Alex Kosh

  As far as I could tell, they were pleased with the way I looked. And they were right, they had been handed a rather weak adversary ... So why waste time and power on a complicated strategy, when you have the advantage of numbers? Better simply to finish the opponent off with a swift attack before he can recover his wits.

  And that was what they went for.

  They started walking forward unhurriedly, without saying a word – probably because they didn’t have a resounding battle cry like ours.

  The first one walked straight towards me, looking into my eyes and trying to anticipate any attacking move I might make. He didn’t slip on the ice at all, no doubt because was using aerial steps.

  The second was using steps too, so that he could attack me from the air. The “aerials” still couldn’t fly properly (thank goodness for that), so he was walking up an invisible stairway, getting closer and closer to the dome ...

  What could I do against the two of them? Nothing. My only chance was to grapple with the first one, so that the other one couldn’t attack me from above.

  There was no point in waiting.

  “Burn them!” I yelled in desperation and ran towards the “aerial”, whose face was hidden by his hood.

  And then I got lucky.

  My opponents’ failure to coordinate their actions played into my hands. Just when I had covered half the distance, another “air wave” came blasting at me from above. I couldn’t possibly have dodged it, because the opponent who launched it was only a few yards away from me, but the second “aerial” helped me out. He probably hadn’t seen the wave coming, and he decided to deal with me himself, by putting up an obstacle for me to trip over and then finishing me off when I fell. But thanks to his obstacle, I fell face-down on the ice, flattening my nose ... and slid of out the path of the air wave. My inertia carried me across the ice and I crashed into the legs of my unfortunate opponent.

  Afraid of taking a blow to the head from above, I started floundering about and grabbing at the “aerial”, hoping to use him as a living shield. But he offered no resistance, which was very suspicious. I took a closer look at the lad, still using him as a shield. Aha, he was obviously unconscious! He must have hit his head against the ice. So now it was one against one.

  I managed to break free of the tenacious embrace of panic ... and my brain was once again in a fit state to calculate the various possibilities.

  It seemed pretty clear that it was about time for me to creep out from under my opponent. It’s one thing to shield yourself during a fight, but quite another to cover yourself with someone who’s unconscious. It’s just not right ... it’s low and mean.

  I prudently erected a wall above me – fortunately I had enough strength left to do it – and threw the unconscious body off me.

  I was thankful for my prudence when the wall instantly shuddered under a blow from an aerial fist. Or rather, the air under the wall shuddered, but the wall could take a lot worse than that. So for the time being, I let my opponent waste his strength in the hope of punching a hole in it. And meanwhile I could prepare another nice little surprise for him ...

  I didn’t have enough strength for anything really serious, after all, a temporary loss of consciousness takes its toll. In fact, to be quite honest, I didn’t have the strength for anything much less serious, either. But for something really small and sneaky ... well, what did you expect? We could do stuff like that too, you pick up things like that when you spend time with a vampiress

  “Burn them!” I shouted, and jumped out from under the shelter of the wall.

  An aerial fist came at me straight away, but I dodged it easily enough. Now it was my turn to attack. All I had the strength for was a small fireball that the “aerial” could fend off without any real difficulty ... provided that he had nerves of steel. Because just before the fireball, I launched my all-purpose snake, which immediately whipped the support from under the lad’s feet – and he was standing on an aerial staircase almost twenty feet above the ground.

  So he went flying towards the fireball, and they met somewhere about halfway ... the effect was sensational. Anyway, it was enough...

  On that day we were sent to a special treatment station. First of all, it was on the same level as the Main Hall. Just to be on the safe side, probably. It had lots of space, and there twenty beds in our ward alone. For the sake of comparison: our faculty of fire treatment station had only three small rooms, with two beds in each of them.

  Only the white colour of the walls – my favourite – was the same as I was used to ...

  There were twelve of us in the ward: all the “aerials” who had fought in the duel, our team and another two lads, whom we quickly recognised as Steel and the “waterboy” who had won the duel against him.

  Strangely enough, the atmosphere was very friendly, no one was sulking or swearing ... on the contrary, everyone was eagerly discussing the details of our duel, sometimes interrupting each other impatiently. Every now and then there was jolly laughter.

  “I really hit you hard with that wave, didn’t I? I spent a long time getting it ready, not using any energy, saving it up especially for that!”

  “Yes, you caught us right royally with that one,” Neville agreed. “Knocked all the breath out of me.”

  Only Alice was saying nothing, as usual ... and the “waterboy” was still suspiciously quiet in his corner.

  “Alice, how are you?” I whispered, turning away from the general discussion.

  “Just wonderful,” the vampiress replied coldly.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, surprised.

  I thought we’d more or less made up, but in any case I’d never seen her so angry with me before. Or had I done something wrong again?

  “Why did Neville and I practise all the time, and then you go and beat three of our opponents? It’s not fair!” Alice suddenly whispered angrily.

  Well, what can I do about it? I can’t play the whole thing over again, and even if I could ... if we’d lost, would that make you feel any better?

  Naturally enough, I didn’t actually say that out loud.

  “Ah, come on,” I said, trying to pacify the vampiress. “It’s all a matter of luck. I was just lucky.”

  “I know you were just lucky,” Alice said a bit more gently. “But it’s still annoying. We trained so hard, and then it turns out that everything is determined by sheer luck, not by skill.”

  Now that was going too far. If we hadn’t trained every day (I could even say every hour), then we wouldn’t have lasted a minute. But as it was ... according to what the spectators said, the duel had lasted ten minutes. For novices that was a very, very long time. Now we all had to recover our strength under the vigilant supervision of ... well, under HIS vigilant supervision, actually.

  The grey-haired old man walked unhurriedly into the ward. The most absolutely typical druid that I had ever seen. All right, I admit it, he was the first druid I’d ever seen. But he was so typical ...

  “Well now, young people,” the druid said to us, “are we on the road to recovery?”

  “We are,” we agreed.

  He walked over to the “waterboy” and passed his hand above him.

  “Has the weakness gone?”

  “Yes,” the “waterboy” replied.

  “Then lie down for another ten minutes and then go to the Main Hall. The second team duel will be starting soon. And if I understand right,” the druid said, chuckling into his beard, “you’d better not be late for that.”

  After inspecting the “waterboy”, the druid turned to look at us: “And you lie there and rest. You have a whole hour at your disposal.”

  “But can we go sooner?” one of the “aerials” immediately asked.

  “You can,” the druid said, with a nod to the “aerials”. “But you,” he said, looking at us, “should stay here until the start of the last team duel. Rest while you can.”

  In actual fact, there wasn’t anything for us to do but rest. None of us who h
ad fought in the duel had any serious injuries, only bruises and scratches. That was down to really good work by the Monitoring Party – they’d protected us as if we were their own children. The moment one of us laid ourselves open to a blow with any real power, the Craftsmen in the Monitoring Party instantly made a rough estimate of the likely damage, and if it was too great, they put up defences that absorbed all the force of the blow. And it was only the Monitoring Party who made the pupils lose consciousness – so that duellists who had been put out of action wouldn’t get in the way of the others. I wondered why they hadn’t taken such good care of us during the training duels. Then I wouldn’t have suffered all those injuries ... or spent all that time lying in the treatment station.

  But this time, thanks to being so well protected by the Monitoring Party, all we had to do was lay there, recovering our strength. And by the way, the spells that the druids had put on every bed worked just wonderfully. I was feeling better than I had for the last two months! So good, in fact, that in another hour I could have taken on a whole team of “waterboys” singlehanded.

  The druid walked out as unhurriedly as he had walked in. And after he left there was a strange fresh, forest-morning smell hanging in the air. Amazing. Where could he find a forest in a tower eighty stories high?

  “That’s the first time I’ve seen a genuine druid,” Alice said delightedly.

  “You naive vampire girl,” Chas chuckled from the next bed.

  Alice promptly put on her aloof mask again, and I realised it was pointless trying to talk to her right then.

  All I could do was reward Chas with a “grateful” glance that he didn’t notice anyway.

  Meanwhile, the “waterboy” had quietly gathered up his things and left the ward. I didn’t think anyone else but me had noticed his departure. Well, I thought he didn’t seem like such a creep as the trio we already knew so well. So I personally would have liked to wish him good luck. And, in general, it would be good thing if the “waterboys” won. I’d enjoy shooting a couple of fireballs into Lens’s face.

  Soon the “aerials” left too – they didn’t want to miss the duel between “earth” and “water”. And Steel went with them, he was already feeling annoyed because he hadn’t seen our duel.

  We discussed the duel that we had just fought for a while, and then we discussed the tactical details for a future “friendly” bout with the “aerials”.

  “Hey, lads,” Naive suddenly piped up. “Let’s make a quick dash to the dining hall?”

  “What?” we asked, astounded.

  “Why not? It’s lunch time.”

  “I doubt the dining room is open,” Neville laughed. “The staff is probably in the Main Hall. So you’ll just have to wait until supper.”

  Naive scowled and shut up, but his face soon lit up in a joyful smile.

  “I’ve got a little stash left in my room. A couple of apples, pears, tomatoes, salad greens ...”

  We started at Vickers junior in amazement. A fine little stash that was!

  “We realise your stash is really very small,” said Chas, interrupting Naive’s daydream. “But surely you can hold out until supper?”

  “No, I can’t!”

  “A dragon take you,” Neville sighed. “Come on, I’ll go with you.”

  “Then we’ll all go together,” Chas put in. “Or else somebody will get lost just before the duel again.”

  Alice pretended not to notice the significant glance cast in her direction by my best friend.

  “Time to get up!” Chas roared flinging his pillow at Neville, who dodged it neatly, and it hit his brother.

  “What are you doing?” Naive growled resentfully. “Let’s go and get lunch quick, by the time we eat it, and then digest it ...”

  He received three well-aimed pillows in reply.

  We got dressed quickly, since by now we could manage the fastenings on the livery in only a couple of minutes. Experience is a great thing.

  The boys got dressed first, then the girls. Or, to be more precise, we were simply thrown out of the ward before we could finish getting dressed. That’s the modest kind of girl our vampiress was.

  We walked out of the ward straight into the corridor. Which was empty. And that was very helpful, because we didn’t really feel like explaining to the druid the reason why we’d discharged ourselves early.

  Then our vampiress came out of the ward.

  “Why are you just standing there?” she asked.

  “Why are we standing here?” Chas answered. “We’re waiting for you.”

  “Guys, stop torturing me, I want to eat,” Naive whinged.

  So we took pity on him and scurried off to the teleports.

  Naive dashed into the teleport first and we took our time following him.

  There was no one on our floor either.

  The duel had to be in full flow by now. I thought belatedly that it would have been extremely useful for us to see a duel fought by our future opponents, the “waterboys”.

  And then it happened. When we were about halfway to Naive’s room, the tower swayed. And it didn’t just sway like a young tree in the wind, it SWAYED!

  We were knocked off our feet.

  “The Academy’s under attack!” Chas yelled at the top of his voice. Tabernacle must have invaded.”

  ACT THREE

  Uncompromising

  Who was it that said a stab in the back is villainous? If you’re careless enough to allow your enemy to stab you from behind, you have only yourself to blame.

  The most popular joke in the League of Hired Assassins

  Treason is by no means the worst way of passing the time.

  A traitor

  Only the most mediocre of wars consist of long and bloody battles. For a real general, one precisely judged blow is enough.

  A textbook of tactics

  Scene 0

  I think the time has come for brief historical interlude, in order to acquaint you in greater detail with origins of relations between Lita and Tabernacle and the history of Tabernacle as such. The tension between the two powers began a long time ago, long before the Academy of the Craft was established in Lita. It should be noted that prior to that the tension was exclusively economic and political in nature. But after the stronghold of the Craftsmen appeared in Lita, everything changed.

  In the Tabernacle Caliphate any manifestations of magic (the Craft or the Art) were regarded as appalling crimes. There were not many left who could remember how it all started, but Tabernacle had been ruled for a thousand years by the Inquisition, an Order that devoted its efforts exclusively to eliminating “infidels”. Craftsmen, vampires, druids and even dragons were condemned to death in the torture chambers of the Inquisitors’ temples. But interestingly enough, in their struggle against magic, the Inquisitors themselves were willing to resort to any means, including the use of magic.

  The Inquisition was infuriated when Tabernacle’s closest neighbour gave refuge to the universally persecuted Magicians. But now these “infidels” didn’t call themselves Magicians, they used a different, more acceptable name – Craftsmen. Only that did nothing to change the way the Tabernacle Inquisition felt about them.

  The army of Tabernacle was tens of times larger than the army of Lita. Primarily because the Empire of the Elirs didn’t really have an army as such – nothing but municipal guards in the cities and small garrisons in the Borderland that were good for nothing. Tabernacle could have occupied the whole of the Empire of the Elirs with ease, if not for one big “but” – the Academy. One Craftsmen was worth a thousand soldiers, and one Higher Craftsman could win a war on his own. That was why the Elirs had disbanded almost their entire army, and that was the reason why the Academy could still dictate terms to the Emperor. Of course, there were also the Schools of the Arts, scattered throughout every city, and the castles of the vampires, but the schools could no more than delay the onslaught of enemy forces, and as for the vampires ... What could you expect from vampires? You never knew
what weird ideas they might get into heir heads.

  To guard against a possible invasion, several hundred Craftsmen were always on duty along the border with Tabernacle, scattered among the frontier posts and castles of the Borderland. And if something serious were to happen (after all, let us not forget that the Inquisition had no inhibitions concerning the use of magic against “infidels”), Higher Craftsmen could always reach the border posts via teleports, and then ...

  Tabernacle had actually opened its own equivalent of the Academy, intended for training individuals who could effectively oppose the Craftsmen. Spies of the Magical Order had often been caught in Lita, trying to sniff out the secrets of the Academy. But they had little success, because no one ever got inside the Academy without going through dozens of checks that laid bare every single thought – open, secret and even latent – that an adept might have.