Needing to focus on something to keep Corrigan out of my head, I headed straight up to my little room and the mysterious book that kept tugging at me. I was bitterly aware of just how long it was going to take me to translate the sodding thing – but the one thing that I
had ample amounts of now I was stuck at the academy was time. So I positioned myself cross-legged on my lumpy bed, opened both the book and the dictionary, and pulled out a pencil and notepad that I’d managed to snarf earlier on.
Unfortunately I
was more than prophetically right at how slow-going my weak translation efforts were. Not only that, but looking up individual words on their own wasn’t aiding me particularly in making total sense out of what was on the page. After an hour of trying, I’d ended up with “In times past, tends steel dragon breathing fire was in the possession of the sky and the earth.” Ummm. Steel dragon? What the fuck was that? I supposed that I should probably be grateful that the book wasn’t actually some ancient romance or pulpy thriller, and actually was about something that seemed like it might be to do with me. But that just added to my overall frustation with the thing. If this sodding book kept trying to find me, and was indestructible enough to avoid being burnt to a cinder when the Clava Cairns bookshop burnt down, then why on earth couldn’t it help me work out what it actually said?
I kept Bryant’s techniques in mind, and took a few minutes out to breathe deeply. Somehow or other it did indeed have a calming effect, and I eventually relaxed, and tried the next sentence. Chewing hard on the end of the pencil, and furiously flicking through the dictionary from one end to the other, the end result was, “
These majestic creatures ruled with no small scarcity of mercy and grace, their innate strength of mind and body power allowing the poise and compassion through every dimension.”
Okay,
that seemed to make virtually no sense whatsoever. The dragon or dragons (made of steel?) were in charge but still full of grace and mercy? For some ridiculous reason, I had sudden visions of a benign dragon-shaped version of Ming the Merciless wearing armour and pirouetting down a street. Not helpful. That translation was then followed by, “Is written and said and passed down through generations, that one such creature breathing fire and fell under the spell of the witch who were so impressed this charming dragon force they needed to harness their capabilities. Thus, worked her magic and true woman was able to convert the beast to the human form.”
I paused for a while, biting my lip. Dodgy pronouns and
bizarre grammar aside, I thought I might just understand what was going on. Some female mage (of course it was a mage – who else would be stupid enough to stick their nose in where it didn’t belong?) had weaved some kind of spell to turn a dragon into a man because she liked the look of him. This was all becoming just a little too Greek myth-esque for my liking. I sighed and gave up for the time being, heading down to get some food from the cafeteria instead. At least the weekend had virtually arrived so, other than my promised session teaching Mary and the few other Level Fours who weren’t too scared to talk to me some ‘real’ Protection, I was confident I’d have more time to attack the next few pages of the book with some renewed gusto and verve.
Chapter Nine
I had been tempted to sneak out again during the night to go for a run, as I’d done previously, however I’d had to admit to myself that my muscles were feeling more than a little tense and sore – surprisingly so – after the t’ai chi bout with Thomas. By the time I woke up on Saturday morning, with screechingly bright sunlight saturating my little room, I felt even more stiff. Cursing Thomas under my breath, I stood up painfully and did my best to stretch out the kinks and knots. I forced my fingertips upwards, aiming to reach high enough to brush the ceiling, then held that position for a few moments before curving first to my left side and then my right. My spine in particular felt sore, so I sank down to all fours onto the floor and worked on arching my back like a cat. Unfortunately doing this just put me in mind of Corrigan’s muscular yet lithe and feline like body, so I cursed again and instead got up to force myself into the daily torture of fighting my way into my blue robes. At least I now had some clean ones that weren’t ripped to shreds.
I’d arranged to meet Mary, Brock and the others out towards the end of the back garden, far behind what I now thought of as the ‘oath-taking’ statue. My midnight jog the night before at least meant that I was more confident at finding my way there and more able to get my bearings around the whole campus. I swung by the cafeteria, picking up one quick cup of steaming hot syrupy coffee and downing it, before re-filling it so I could take it with me on my way to meet them.
Overcome as I was with the simple yet heady joy of caffeine, I didn’t immediately notice that the Dean himself was blocking my path outside. I’d not seen him since the oath, and I was pretty sure that I didn’t really want to see him again so if I’d registered his presence in time I’d probably have found some way to manoeuvre round and travel via an alternative route. No such luck, however. When he saw me approaching, he raised his eyebrows and folded his arms, clearly waiting for me to get close enough. Giving myself up to the inevitable, I walked up to him.
“Initiate Smith,” he stated drily.
I inclined my head. “Dean Michaels.” I made to move past him but he blocked my way.
“So, you think that you can train our Initiates better than our own teachers, do you?”
One, two ,three, four, five. “Uh, no, I don’t. They asked me to give them some extra help, and I said I would. You know, in the interests of the academy and all. In order to make them the best possible graduates you can ask for so that when they enter the real world they are fully prepared.” Six, seven, eight.
“I hardly think that you are best qualified to do so. Your track record in the real world as you call it, is hardly exemplary.”
Nine, ten. It wasn’t working. Fucking Corrigan and his big mouth. “Well, if you think it’s a bad idea, then I will happily tell them so.”
“And have you turn my own students against me?” he hissed. “Don’t think I can’t see your own petty machinations for what they are.”
Wow, did this guy have a god complex or what? “I have no machinations, Dean. Nor do I have any designs or plans or ulterior motives.” I looked at him directly in the eye. “All I want to do is to get through your training so that the Arch-Mage will release my friend. That’s it.”
He glared at me. “And what do you hope to achieve by meeting clandestinely with the Lord Alpha?”
I must have looked surprised at this because he laughed without humour and continued. “Oh, did you think I wouldn’t hear about your little assignation? Do not suppose for one moment, Initiate Smith, that you can get away with telling the Pack all about us. I will not permit it.”
Assignation? I blinked furiously, feeling the inevitable surge of heat. “It wasn’t me who told him that I’d be there. It was one of you lot
. So if you don’t want me to talk to him, then you’ll have to do a better job of keeping your mages in line. Besides, if I want to talk to the Lord Alpha, then I’ll talk to the Lord sodding Alpha.” I didn’t, of course, in the slightest want to have further tete-a-tetes with Corrigan, but the Dean didn’t have to know that.
“Oh, ‘my mages’ as you so eloquently put them, are more than loyal. But don’t worry, I’ve already put in a report to the
Arch-Mage. I don’t expect it will be long before you hear more from him.”
Oooh, scary, I thought sarcastically. I visualised a calm sea of tranquility inside myself, one of the techniques that Bryant had encouraged I utilise. “Then so be it, Dean Michaels. I shall look forward to his orders.”
The Dean’s face twisted momentarily, then he managed somehow to smooth over his features and dissemble. Without saying another word, he side-stepped from the doorway, unblocking my way, and gestured outside with a flourish as if to highlight that it was only through his whim that I was being allowed to venture outside. For my part, I didn’t even bother trying to smile at him; I just kept my expression blank and slid past him and into the sunny freedom of the outdoors.
As soon as I’d gone a few steps from the building, I began to stomp, kicking up a spray of gravel as I went. Bloody guy. He seemed to be under some bizarre delusion that I was a threat to his stupid academy, or that I was meeting Corrigan voluntarily in order to undermine the entire Ministry. Idiot. Then I took several deep breaths and instead congratulated myself on not going nuts and attacking him. Perhaps I was making some progress after all.
By the time I made it out towards the back of the garden, I was feeling considerably calmer. Mary, Brock, Aqmar and Deborah were already there and waiting. I could feel a buzz of excited tension about the entire group of them. I felt a surprising twinge of trepidation. Sure, I’d coached Tom a few times on his technique back in Cornwall, but this was entirely different. I thought about what had been said about my failure to take down Iabartu on my own and wondered if it was just because I wasn’t good enough. Maybe I’d just end up disappointing this group of over-eager teenagers too. Trying not to let my doubts show on my face, I strode up to them with purpose, and smiled.
In order to gauge wha
t their skill set really was, I began by pitting them against each other, Deborah against Mary and Brock against Aqmar. They spent a lot of time circling each other aimlessly, occasionally jabbing out with a fist here and there. At one point, Aqmar lunged out with probably more force than he’d planned, and he caught Brock’s cheekbone with his outflung hand. Hissing in pain, Brock reacted without thinking, jetting out a shot of blue flame not dissimilar to that which I’d seen from the mages up in Inverness. However Aqmar blocked it easily.
I watched them, thinking carefully. They just knew each other too well
and were simply too cautious. Not only that but they had all been trained in the same way and probably by the same mages, so they knew exactly what the other was going to do before they did it. As all their training up till now seemed to have been focused on the defense element of Protection, I decided to test my theory. I had the boys and Deborah line up, with Mary facing them. Then I instructed Mary to attack them and for them to block whatever came their way. As I’d expected, every time Mary tried any kind of assault, the three of them easily managed to dodge, ward or even duck her attempts. I did the same with the others, rotating them round. The results didn’t change.
Nodding to myself, I told all four of them to line up to block my own attacks. I decided to keep things simple for now, and avoid potentially hurting any of them with my own personal experimentation, so I kept my green fire carefully extinguished within. Then I feinted left but twisted right and managed to knock over both Aqmar and Deborah with one shot. I danced back, trying not to smile at them both sprawled in an ungainly fashion on the wet grass. My robes were proving rather cumbersome and, whilst the handicap against would probably not be a bad thing, it was just too annoying to deal with in reality. Figuring that mages were definitely not as used to nudity as shifters were, I resisted the urge to extricate myself entirely from the blue material and fight in my underwear and instead bunched the folds up in a corner next to my hip and tied them into a knot, all the while keeping Brock and Mary clearly within my sights in case they tried anything. I think, however, they were a little too stunned at the speed with which I’d managed to dispatch their peers to consider trying an
y kind of counter attack.
Feeling a bit freer, if no doubt looking rather ridiculous, I judged the distance between myself and the remaining two. It seemed do
-able, and there was a large tree right behind the pair of them that would suit my needs perfectly. I ran towards the pair of them, Brock starting to cower automatically whilst Mary, bless her, at least managed to form a weak ward with her magic in front of her body. But I wasn’t attacking them from the front. Rather I leapt over them, using Brock’s shoulder as a step to aid my ascent, then pivoted off the tree behind them, spinning in the air, and hitting both on the back of the necks. I didn’t hit them hard, but they both still went down, groaning. I dusted off my hands and strolled back in front of them. I didn’t want to acknowledge how glad I was that I hadn’t entirely lost all my fighting skills, even if my opponents were green students who would probably lose against a nymph, let alone someone trained by shifters.
Eventually they gathered themselves to their feet. There was a note of awe on all their faces that made me feel rather uncomfortable, so before they could say anything, I spoke up loudly.
“You’re too complacent and too used to fighting, or rather defending, in the patterns you’ve been taught. If you do the expected, then you will always lose. The best fighters, the ones who win, are those who take the element of surprise and make it their own. You need to get yourselves out of the box that you’ve been trained into and play more dirty than that.”
The four of them nodded vigorously, as if they were hanging off my every word. Again I felt a wave of discomfort, so I quickly assigned each of them their own tree, telling them that they had five minutes to ‘fight’ the tree, each time hitting it in a different way or in a different place.
It took them a minute or two to get into the swing of things, but once they did, there was no denying their energy or enthusiasm. Each one of them jumped around the poor trees like maniacs, hitting them first one way then another. I was pleased to note that they all attempted ducking and leaping, as well as lashing out. By the time they were done, the four Initiates were panting hard.