Battle Mage: Winter's Edge (64 page)

A second vortex arose from his opponent rotating in reverse of his own and the two collided. Sebastian’s had momentum, but with a wizard’s strength behind the construct it soon became a draw. Both winds slowed and the water dropped back into the lake.

Before the two spouts faded completely, Sebastian launched three of the wooden spears through the winds and the firewall defense of the wizard. They were in Szurken’s ring before he knew it and the man had to react to their presence with an intense barrage of fire to burn them away before the mage could use his ensnaring spells.

A stream of darkness lashed out quickly towards the tempting blue shields, Sebastian picked up Bairh’loore as he gaged his strength beginning to wane. A shield of darkness met the stream repulsing the wizard’s attack once again. Unwilling to leave the black shield on Sebastian’s side of the field, Szurken called up the beam of light once more.

As the darkness broke apart once more, the mage nodded to himself. The light spell was in his mind and he thought that it could be reproduced. Hoping that the gray wizard’s advantage was gone, he prepared to try and overwhelm the man with a battle mage’s style of fighting.

“Wave!” he commanded pulling strength for the spell through Bairh’loore. A giant wave grew quickly and rushed towards the far shore of the small lake and the wizard’s defenses.

Gathering a strong wind too slowly to stop the massive wave, Szurken hunched down calling up a black dome just as the water tore away his firewall and earth defenses.

“Sun!” the mage called upon a spell that he had once used to dispel the darkness holding the spirits of air wizards. That spell had driven away the darkness of a cloud spell that had captured their minds on the wind, using the spirit of the spell Sebastian recreated the light beam striking the man’s shield and reducing it to simple wisps of smoke.

Surprise and worry could be seen in Szurken’s eyes now. No longer did the wizard play up to the crowd or act amused at the mage’s ability to copy his spells. His eyes also looked at the water between them realizing that the field had an advantage for one of them after all.

Catching the man’s reactions as he waited briefly to see what defenses the wizard might have remaining, Sebastian realized that his abilities encompassed water while Szurken’s spells apparently did not. Earth would be weakened if not disrupted entirely. Fire could be engulfed by water or drained by darkness. Air and his energy spells of light and dark were compromised already by Sebastian’s duplication of those spells as well.

The mage wondered if the wizard had any tricks left up his sleeve, but had to strike while the man’s defenses were minimal. Sending three air spears with cores of iron and three with wood for a distraction, Sebastian hoped to set up a finishing move for the wizard.

Fighting back with strong wind spells and adding fire to them to burn away the wood, Szurken tried to deflect the iron shafts that fought through the fire. With two landing on the shore just outside his ring, the wizard felt comfortably safe that he had averted a disaster. Two large blocks of stone lifted in the powerful winds launching across the lake with incredible speed and power.

“Shield, shield!” the mage cried splitting the massive blocks with a pair of the blue mage spells. Slowing their momentum and breaking up the stones let them crash into his frontline shields where the first one held long enough to stop the mass of rubble. With just his wedge remaining, the mage was already attacking once more, “Wave!”

A second large force of water surged towards the wizard who lashed out with his black shields. Sent out as a pair formed as a wedge, the darkness split the force of the wave, but it didn’t prevent Sebastian from clapping his hands together despite holding the staff in his left hand to direct the two waves to turn in towards Szurken. Again the man barely formed his sphere of dark and again the mage called the power of the sun to destroy both wedges and protective dome.

Szurken began to attack once more, but he had missed one thing that Sebastian had not. In fact, the mage had never planned to sweep the wizard away with the powerful water attack. After the water finished, two of the iron rods had rolled to the man’s feet without his knowledge.

“Bind him!” the mage ordered using something gained from creating his staff. The metal had been bound to him like the wooden shafts and shifted to his will. Like molten metal in liquid form, the dark metal rods changed form and rose up with the speed of an unleashed spring. A cry of surprise from Szurken accompanied the metal as it grasped both arms and pulled them to his chest. Bound in thick metal bands, the gray wizard was finished. Without his hands to gesture and control his spells, the man could do little more than shout at Sebastian.

“The winner: Falcon Sebastian!” the judge decreed.

With the distance between them, Szurken glanced to the metal restricting him and then to the mage asking for help. “Release,” the mage said exhaustedly as the taxing use of his magic and the power of the earth wore on him. The metal slipped free as curved bands of iron. He was much too tired to waste energy on reshaping the tools into rods now.

Using Bairh’loore to lean on as he walked back to the tower door, Sebastian felt the release of power leaving him even more exhausted than that morning. A sense of loss was nearly masked by a nearly crippling exhaustion and the only thing he knew to try and do was eat. Once inside of the tower, Sebastian took a flask of wine, a full loaf of bread, cheese and some sliced meats. He was too tired to even waste time making a sandwich as he sank to the floor sliding down the stone wall.

Voices soon spoke to him but his head had begun to rumble with the beating of his blood. When wizards tried to congratulate him, the mage bit through meat and cheese with gusto never hearing a word said. The flask of wine disappeared, but hands passed him a new container of liquid. Tasting water, the emptiness rebelled and the mage dropped the container to the floor returning to the solidness of meat and cheese.

Darkness tried to overwhelm his sight. Only food directly before him could even be seen as he desperately tried to reenergize his drained body. Shapes and figures moved around him and hands touched his shoulders trying to get through to the mage, who had been reduced to just eating to sate his hunger.

“Sebastian?” Yara asked worriedly. The man looked pale and gaunt. What kind of abuse had his body taken from these last two duels? As a healer, she had worried over how drained he had become after the morning’s match. Like the other wizards watching, they had felt his spike in power, but unlike those spectators Yara knew about Bairh’loore and Sebastian’s discovery of the power he could tap from the earth.

She had been there when Darius had warned the mage of the potential danger of using too much and now the girl was witnessing many of the wizard’s predictions coming true in front of her. Trying to use her healing powers, Yara sent her consciousness into the man she loved and tried to save him from what he had done to his body. A dark hunger seemed to try and suck her in immediately. Like the driest sponge, his body seemed to be trying to steal her magic directly from their link. His hunger was too strong and the healer had to retreat.

The others from the team were there and several new friends like Shirama and Sharamar. As Yara pulled back from the mage who continued to ignore all but the food and drink in front of him like some animal, they could tell that she was worried.

“Yara, what is it?” Collin asked worriedly about his friend. They could all tell that this was not usual behavior for after a duel. Despite having seen people drained to the point of unconsciousness, never had anyone acted like this. “Do we need to try and force some energy into him? He’s still standing, but I can’t even sense any of his magic aura now.”

“I’m not sure,” the woman said slowly never releasing Sebastian from her gaze. “When I tried to heal him, it was like he was going to try and feed off of me instead. It’s like a hunger beyond hunger. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“That is a pretty apt description for it,” a new voice agreed as Darius and his wizards entered the tower, “but like you said, this is no normal hunger. That Falcon Trillon is still moving is impressive to say the least, but his basic instinct to find something to fill his missing energy seems to be strong.”

Pulling a large canister from a pack carried at his side, the wizard uncapped it and pushed it into the mage’s tunnel vision. Sebastian grabbed hold of the container and began to drink. Coughing and screwing up his face at the bitter taste, the mage continued despite the horrible flavor and viscous nature of the thick liquid.

“Good, his survival instinct is overriding the taste,” the silver haired wizard said with a smile. “Once that is gone, you should be able to treat him as normal. It will get him past the dangers of being too low on magic and energy.”

Yara questioned him with a look and then her words, “What is that?”

“A concoction of my own making. I haven’t had to use it in a few hundred years since most wizards stopped trying to harness the earth because of the dangers inherent in taking on something greater than one’s self. Since our friend here chose to ignore my warnings I came prepared with this replenishing tonic.

“I won’t go into the exact ingredients, but suffice it to say that it holds concentrated magic along with everything else that his body is craving now,” the immortal wizard stood up and moved away from the mage. “Now I need to watch my granddaughter, Annalicia, in the Ponds. Come get me if he doesn’t respond to it soon. If I haven’t underestimated his need, he should slow down on his eating after the tonic and be more manageable for pushing some of your energy into him to restart his aura.”

Leading his people to the viewing area, Darius climbed the tower to go take their seats for the next match.

Yara remained worried, but did as the High Wizard from Eirdhen told her. In moments, she could tell that whatever he had given the mage was working. That was all she needed to instill belief that he was the immortal wizard Darius claimed to be. As well known as the Grimnal was to the people of the north, the immortal wizard known as Darius was equally known to the wizard community.

“What do you think, Yara?” Serrena asked worriedly. The fire wizard had stepped back to the point that she knew Sebastian only had eyes for the healer, but Yara knew that the woman still wished that he would be interested in Serrena instead. Whatever had happened during their duel back in Windmeer had made the wizard permanently infatuated with him.

Sebastian released the container from Darius and not one drop was left to be consumed. The mage still held a wedge of cheese, but he ate it much more slowly now. Eating like he could taste the food and enjoy it once more, Sebastian seemed almost sated.

“I think High Wizard Darius knows more about this than anyone in the north. Whatever was in there worked. I’ll still check him and give him more power if he needs it,” the blond haired healer in her yellow wizard garb bent to touch the mage’s head and chest once more. In such a situation, those two points were the ones most affected by loss of magic.

As she entered his body once more, the healer felt the change. There was energy in his stomach and chest now. Veins pumped the power of the fluid to the rest of his body without the lengthy time to digest a drink. It was magic and such basic laws of biology couldn’t hold over that kind of power.

Like a kiss, Yara left some of her own energy to mingle with his and the foreign infusion from Darius. Her love for Sebastian meant such an intimate touch between them held as much emotion as any
amount of sex could ever hope to hold. She felt as his hand loosened on the wedge of cheese and his breathing deepened.

Exhaustion had finally claimed the mage, but he was no longer in danger and it was just the sleep of a man who had fought bravely.

Darkness threatened to engulf the lamp turned down low in the room when Sebastian awoke. His head hurt and he felt hungry, but other than that the mage thought that he had come through the wizard’s duel fairly well. The only thing he wasn’t sure of was where he was and how he had arrived there.

“Finally,” Yara said from a chair in the corner. “I was beginning to think that you’d be asleep for a week or something.”

“What time is it?” he asked in confusion and sat up. The movement caused his head to spin and ache a bit more. Closing his eyes a moment to slow the spinning helped and the healer was already moving to sit next to him before he opened them again. Maybe he hadn’t come through the battle as well as he had thought.

“People are still eating dinner downstairs, though I am not sure exactly,” the girl confessed and lay a hand on his forehead. A brief spell eased some of the dizziness and he could feel her magic intermingling with his own to keep his energy going. That was the final piece that revealed his close brush with death to the mage.

“I pushed to far, didn’t I? Wizard Darius warned me, but I thought I could feel when I was going to far. Guess I was wrong,” the mage sighed. “So much for the owl, huh?”

Laughing quietly, Yara shook her head gently and replied, “That’s why you told me that you weren’t sharing this knowledge until you knew the repercussions. You felt that using so much power might be able to kill you even before you spoke with Darius, Sebastian. Just because you had to be the one to test your luck, doesn’t mean that you didn’t have the wisdom to avoid this. At least you aren’t dead, though I think Darius using a special tonic on you might have something to do with that too.”