Battle Mage: Winter's Edge (11 page)

             
The remainder of the evening passed by in a rush. Dougren actually managed to get a few of the women to dance with him, which made the young man much happier. Rilena, meanwhile, discovered that even her boots could only prevent her toes from being injured so long by Wendle before they gave out. After a time, the poor girl was actually limping and finally had to sit down. Looking genuinely beside himself, Wendle kept apologizing to the pretty woman over and over as she sat. Rilena had the apprentice help remove her boots so that she could rub her feet.

             
Noting his friend’s dilemma, Sebastian led Ashleen over for a quick spell to relieve the injuries and removed her pain. Not willing to try anymore that night, however, Rilena gave Sebastian a thankful hug and, carrying her boots, decided to head to bed. Wendle sighed at the loss of his partner and excused himself. The falcon assumed that the man wasn’t willing to risk injuring two women in one night.

             
“Wendle’s going to be a good water wizard with a good feel for air even,” Ashleen said as she watched the two go, “but he will never be a good dancer.”

             
Sebastian and a few other people nearby who had watched Rilena’s rough night all had to laugh. For all her bravado about teaching anyone, even the brave mage had to give up this time.

             
It was shortly after the others had left that Ashleen asked the mage to walk her back to her room.

             
Holding his hand, Ashleen leaned into him. Sebastian began to feel a little uncomfortable. Though he liked Ashleen a lot, the man also had feelings for another young woman from Southwall, who was an apprentice wizard he had gotten to know traveling from White Hall to Windmeer the previous summer. Unfortunately being members of the country’s army of magic users, they had been separated since early fall by the powers that be. His current assignment was at Falcon’s Keep while she went back to White Hall for more training and that meant they were half a country away from each other. Now there was Ashleen in his life. She was from another country and Sebastian knew nothing lasting would come of it, but somehow he couldn’t help longing for more.

             
As he began to look at his career, Sebastian thought a mage’s life looked to be hard on relationships.

              Breakfast finished, the mizard returned once more to the courtyard of the previous day’s training. The sun wasn’t high enough to even light the enclosed yard as the morning brightened slowly in the first hours of day. Removing Bairh’loore from an archer’s long bow case, Sebastian pulled the enchanted staff back into the light. Bairh’loore remained warm even in the winter’s cold embrace and nearly a day after its creation.

             
With a final admiring gaze, Sebastian closed his eyes setting the butt of the staff onto the stone of the courtyard path. Figuring that it should act as a good base while his planned use of the extra energy was attempted, he had come to attempt a spell that had continued to elude him since the previous summer. The mage hadn’t even been a part of the spell since the fall, when an air wizard named Fala, had last taken him to ride the winds with his mind. The only time the mizard thought that he had managed to use the spell, had actually been in dream and Sebastian had no idea how it had happened that time. This go at it he hoped to finally succeed where he had failed so many times before.

             
Feeling the flow of power coming from the earth to supplement his own, Sebastian began to try and release his mind the way Fala had shown him almost half a year ago. He had never seen a wizard execute the spell standing up, but Sebastian hoped the staff would also prevented his body from falling over if the spell should work.

             
“Flight,” he murmured and tried to order his thoughts with a single word. After a moment, Sebastian opened his eyes and shook the newest failure from his head. Perhaps it wasn’t the right word or perhaps his mind just wasn’t prepared to separate itself from his body as he knew air wizards could do as they rode the winds. The mage had actually ridden the winds several times that summer but only with the help of talented air wizards that knew how to coax his mind free. Mulling the word over, Sebastian decided that must be what his mind needed. “Freedom,” the mizard tried his new link as he set his mind to trying to attain the wind.

             
Defining what happened to him next might be impossible for Sebastian to communicate to any other mage, he feared, but as the spell came to life, his mind seemed to lift free. His body remained standing there below him drawing power from the ground and Sebastian could still feel the strength reaching from his flesh out to his mind.

             
Like a bird on the wing, Sebastian rode the wind within the courtyard. Being hardly a breeze to someone not connected to the wind, the mage remembered this part from his summer’s lessons. Riding the currents and even controlling his direction on them, was familiar. It had always been the ability to free his mind properly that had stopped this spell before and now having conquered the first step, Sebastian let himself enjoy his new ability. Riding the winds with his mind gave him complete euphoria. Bird like as his spirit soared he rode the currents up and around the castle effortlessly. The view of the land below him was like a wondrous painting to be enjoyed.

             
Unfettered by his body, the mage’s mind moved away from the castle and its keep wandering towards the great wall. He could see smoke curling away from chimneys near the formidable towers designed to help keep the men of the watch warm on these winter days as he moved closer. Sweeping closer to the wall, the mage pulled the breeze towards a soldier near his fire.

The man shivered and the flame wavered under the directed wind.

              Releasing the northerly pushing current, he once more wandered back towards the castle. As he continued to experiment with the abilities of this barely understood magic, the mizard tested for gaps around the windows attempting to resist the wind and cold. If an air wizard could squeeze through any gaps in the winterized portals, the mage could find none.

             
Sebastian wandered to the chimneys and found that he could fight against the heated air rising from the flue. Fearlessly the mage forced his way down through the darkness between the brickwork.

             
The winds began to change. Only mere currents to work with now, the castle was full of eddies and flows unique to the inner workings of a manmade space. The mage decided to check his tether between mind and body and realized that travel like this might have severe consequences.

             
An air mage usually traveled the winds outdoors where mind and body would not get separated, at least without foul play like from the Dark One or his black wizards. An air wizard’s mind could retrace its steps along the tether and find its way safely back to one’s body. The previous summer, some of Southwall’s wizards had been cut off from their bodies by the dark wizards of the north, but luckily his magic had been different enough to break them free to return their minds to their bodies. Sebastian had no one watching over him now and fearing that a door closing could damage his escape route, the mage retreated quickly up the warm currents of the chimney.

             
As his mind contemplated what to do next, Sebastian felt a disturbance. Like a jabbing finger into his chest, his mind felt this uncomfortable prodding. Responding as swiftly as an arrow in flight, the mage launched towards his unprotected body.

             
The sight of an apprentice with the black and silver near his helpless form investigating his status caused him a bit of annoyance. It was the same apprentice, Gildoyne, whom he had teased the previous day. The mage briefly wondered if it was mere happenstance which brought about the common choosing of this courtyard even so early in the morning, though his doubts were strongly against it.

             
Sebastian watched as the apprentice seemed to be attempting some sort of spell which was directed at his entranced form. Whether it would be harmful or disruptive, the mizard didn’t know but he wasn’t willing to test his gut. Instead of returning to his body, however, the mage pulled at the winds nearby and began to assault the apprentice with the stinging breezes. Amazingly, the young man seemed unperturbed. The winds dipped to the ground scooping snow and flecks of ice up in a swirl that twisted around the mage’s body to drive the wizard back.

             
At that point, Sebastian could still look at the situation as just a playful game despite the possible negative intent. Meanwhile, the apprentice grimaced with the new attack. “Your attention must be closer to the surface than you were letting on. Would you like to see what happens when I use my magic? I can make your body do whatever I want, you know.”

             
The man took a moment to cast a spell at him looking smug. “There now walk to me,” Gildoyne ordered. Much to the young man’s surprise the mage’s body remained motionless despite the magic cast on it, however, and the apprentice’s expression quickly turned to frustration. Trying again, the apprentice cast as Sebastian’s consciousness rode the breezes safely untouched by the magic as he toyed with the young wizard.

             
It was rumored that those designated as diplomat wizards could control others’ minds with their deceptively powerful magic. Their spells were all about the manipulation of a situation and people in particular. Sebastian smiled and despite the separation of his mind from body the mizard’s face echoed the thought.

             
“Walk to me!” the apprentice tried again thinking that his spell must work on the man before him.

             
Again the spell failed.

             
Like some puppet master pulling strings, Sebastian decided to manipulate his body from the remoteness of the winds and teach the apprentice a lesson. If the magic was designed to assault a mind and control it, what better way to resist than to keep his consciousness separate and safe. Raising his left hand, the mizard’s voice slipped free from his lips as if coming from afar off. Gildoyne looked surprised by the motion. “Lightning,” was the even more shocking order.

             
The apprentice stumbled away in fear and well he should, Sebastian thought. With his staff being used to gather power, the stream of lightning seemed to flow out of the earth instead of descending from the sky. Thick tendrils of powerful energy lashed out at the air where the apprentice had been only a moment before. Sebastian had intended to miss and waited for Gildoyne to back away, but this massive bolt of lightning was more than he had planned.

             
The apprentice cursed in response and summoned a group of flaming balls launching them towards the mage determined to end his existence. Their flight true, the fire would have done great damage to the mizard had he not called forth a blue shield. It was no ordinary shield as he had often called forth in battle. This shield erected between the two of them extended from ground to two feet over his head and was more than eight feet abreast. The strength and thickness were easily five times as powerfully made as any shield Sebastian had ever raised with just his strength alone and all this while simultaneously holding two other spells.

             
The apprentice changed tactics trying to assault his mind once more since the mage’s defenses were surprisingly strong. The tactic remained useless much to Gildoyne’s dismay. Able to fly about on the winds anywhere he wished, the mizard’s mind was not there to ensnare or destroy. Sebastian could tell that the wizard was truly playing for keeps but his arsenal of mind spells was no match for the mizard since his mind was free of the man’s ability to harm.

             
As the battle continued to rage on, he watched as others in the area rushed to find out the source of the noise. With a little regret, the mage realized that he had just unveiled Bairh’loore and some new magic besides. Needing to wrap the matter up quickly, the mage decided to risk a spell he had only read about.

             
“Engulf,” he declared and called once more to the earth.

             
The apprentice yelped in surprise as two tendrils of rock and earth ensnared his legs nearly to his knees. They had sprung up like waves of water, but the mizard wasn’t done as even more tendrils followed the first two. Leaping up the apprentice’s body like waves crashing upon a shore, Gildoyne found that he could do nothing as his body was quickly engulfed up to his neck in solid stone. Sebastian made sure that the rock was amazingly gentle during the capture, but it solidified so swiftly and completely that the apprentice didn’t have a prayer of countering the spell or even moving.

             
“Gildoyne!” a cry of shock from the apprentice’s master, Leryn, rang out as he witnessed the complete domination of the young man and by a mere battle mage. The man looked ready to try and cast his own magic to save his charge in the heat of the moment.

             
Turning his body calmly to face the possibility of a new threat, he was right to guess as much, when the wizard merely tried a sleep spell. When the first attempt failed, Leryn looked as surprised as his apprentice. A master of his magic, the man was not used to such a spell being resisted by anyone let alone a battle mage. Another spell designed to control his mind was cast while Sebastian watched the attempt with good humor.