Mind Forged: Book One of the Enchanters of Xarparion (25 page)

“
When you two despicable jesters are done laughing your heads off, would you mind giving us a hand?”

Nia flew up in front of my face with one of her
famous pixie smiles. Whenever she is like this, she is thinking of an evil prank, and pixies invented the art of evil pranks! I didn’t know what she was thinking, but I was almost scared to find out. I nodded, giving her permission to do what she was planning. Smiling, she flew down the hallway, returning a minute later with a bowl of warm water and hovered just out of reach of Rosa. Seeing what she was holding, the color in Rosa’s face drained away.

“
Nia, don’t do it! Bad pixie, bad!”

I heard the muffled sounds of Maya being pressed into the bed
, “What’s going on?”

“
The evil pixie has hot water!”

“
What? Nia, no! Please don’t do it!

In one fell swoop
, she threw the bowl of water onto the dragons. To Rosa and Maya’s surprise, nothing happened. Well, except for me and Nia rolling around on the floor.

Rosa was completely dumbfounded
. “What just happened?”

Nia was still
laughing but flew up to her. “You should see the looks on your faces!”

“
But you threw water on them!”

“
No. I didn’t! The bowl was empty; I just used an illusion to make it look full!”

Now with
both of them knowing that they had been duped, they struggled desperately to get out from under the twins so they could enact their revenge. After a half hour, everyone was awake, the twins spending most of it apologizing. Nia and I presented the sweets we made last night as a show of good will. It’s amazing how much goodwill can be restored with shared food, and the Enchanters Hall continued to really come together as a group to everyone’s delight.

A couple days later, with Nia on my shoulder, I headed for lunch
. After working heavy shields with Maya all morning, I was hungry and my arms felt like lead. Yet my gorgeous combat instructor was still as fresh as when we started. I shook my head absently, and grabbing some sandwiches and milk from a platform near the entrance, we made our way to our usual table as always piled high with tarts and other goodies.

Approaching the table
, I found a very sad and nervous Julia sitting there. Lin had an arm around her, and they were talking quietly with their heads together.

I stopped abruptly, nearly losing Nia, and looked around for signs of a Naton visit
. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary anywhere in the hall, so I slid in across from them.

“
What’s wrong with you two?”

“
Hey, big brother,” Julia smiled weakly.

I nearly snorted milk out my nose,
“Big brother? Umm, Jules, should I be asking my Mom about something she never told me?”

Julia looked horrified and covered her face with her hands
. “I’m so sorry, Alex - did I say that out loud?”

Lin patted her on the back and explained
“Alex, ever since you started standing up to Naton for Jules, the other Earthies in our tower have started calling you Julia’s big brother, but not in a bad way.”

“
I will tell them to stop it right away, Alex,” Julia vowed, “unless you don’t mind so much.” She glanced at me shyly, twirling some of her curly brown hair around her fingers. At least, she no longer looked like she was about to burst into tears any second. Lin was behind her and out of her field of vision, making exaggerated begging motions at me.

I couldn
’t help but smile, taking Julia’s hand. “Julia, I would be deeply honored to call you the baby sister I never had. We’ve been through a lot together, and it feels right. I’m pretty sure Mom would approve, too.” I winked at her, and Julia came around and gave me a very sweet hug and a kiss on the cheek!

I felt a few tiny drops of water run down
the back of my neck, and I didn’t have to look to realize that Nia was crying silently on my shoulder. Pretty much any discussion about orphans hit her pretty hard. Time to change the subject and quickly.

“
So you still haven’t told me, why the sad face?”

Lin grimaced
. “Reginaldo. Jules needs to take her test today and she’s afraid.”

“
Who is Reginaldo?”

“
More like, what is Reginaldo? He’s a very old earth elemental that lives just outside the walls. One of the key tests for any earth wizard is to summon an earth elemental and make it do your bidding. Nothing major, just move a boulder from one spot to another or smash a tree trunk to smithereens…pretty basic stuff.”

I nodded and she continued
, “Well, as you can imagine, living next to an earth wizard tower, Reginaldo gets summoned hundreds of times a year to move the same stupid rock and perform the same menial tasks and he’s sick of it. To make matters worse, the fire wizards have started firebombing his home for practice and to piss him off, the jerks!” She paused angrily and took a sip of water.

“
Lately, when summoned, Reginaldo has been really scary and mean. Last week, he made a boy from our floor wet himself. He was so scared, the Headmaster had to pull him out of the test altogether, and the kid has to start all his classes over again.”

“
What do your teachers say?”

“
Not much they can do. Reggie is so unhappy he won’t listen to humans anymore, not even the Primus of our tower. They are saying he could go rogue and need to be killed to safeguard the school.”

“
And Julia has to face this thing today? I don’t like the sound of this; do you want me to talk to Hons?”

“
No!” They both loudly blurted out, and Lin continued, “Jules has to do this for herself, no interference, not even from a big brother. Besides,” Lin smiled proudly, “you may not know this, but our girl here is the youngest student to be accepted into full druid training in decades, and not all earth wizards have what it takes to be a druid. We are actually almost as rare as you are. And all the teachers are saying that her powers are going to be awesome. She can handle one grumpy elemental, alright.”

Julia seemed to be buoyed up by the speech and was now smiling and nodding.
I shook my head, not really knowing what to say. Before I finished lunch, we said our goodbyes and the green-robed girls took off looking determined. Walking back to Darroth’s forge, I noticed that Nia had taken off as well and I was alone.

-----------------------------------

Julia clung to Lin’s hand right up to the entrance to the testing field. There was a small section of wooden rough-sawn seats built into the side of a small hillock on the sunward end of the field. Seated there were a couple of faculty and a handful of younger students close to the bottom. Hons gave her a confident wave, and Lin joined him on the bench. Closer to Julia was a chalk circle where the tested was to stand. Ranging out from the circle was the rest of the field, mostly flat and partly grassy with a number of large boulders and tree trunks scattered unnaturally about. Of course, it was only partly grassy due to the large scorched areas where fireballs routinely detonated, marring what would have been a benign pastoral setting. The druid part of Julia’s mind hated it. As she entered the circle, her eyes caught a flash of small wings that rocketed up from behind one of the boulders and was immediately gone.

“
I wish I could fly away from here as fast as you, little bird,” Julia whispered with a sigh. Quickly, she set up her spell cast precisely as she had been taught, and with a glance and a nod to her teachers, she raised her arms and barked the command word.

Nothing happened for a few seconds
. Finally, the ground shook, escalating into a decent tremor that actually jostled a few spectators out of their seats. Dirt, stones, and smaller boulders began to draw to one spot in the field very close to Julia. The effect was very similar to water being pulled down a drain but, in this case, instead of going down, the column of debris was rising to tower above the small curly-haired girl. Finally, it coalesced into a humanoid shape easily twenty feet tall, with a head as big as a wine barrel and boulders for articulated arms and legs. The being, Reginaldo, peered down at the diminutive human female.

Julia looked up in awe; she had never seen an elemental appear this size before
. Even Reginaldo, when she had watched other students take the test, rarely bothered to produce an avatar taller than ten feet. And instead of the harsh, angry scream she was expecting, she heard nothing externally, but inside her mind, a warm mellow voice hailed her.

“
I greet you, and I am yours to command, Lady.”

Jules continued to gaze up at the featureless rock, but now instead of fear
, she felt great warmth, like heat stored from a sunny day. She smiled as if seeing an old friend.

“
I am druid apprentice, Julia, but I am baseborn, an orphan and no lady.”

He rumbled slightly, some rocks grating together
. “You are held as kin by the Ore Minder,” he stated flatly as if that said it all.

“
Ore Minder?” Julia rolled that name around in her mind and came up with only one possible conclusion. “Do you mean Alex?” An affirmative wave of sun-baked warmth pulsed across their bond.

“
Lady, you have a powerful call and strong earth magic, but your human body is frail and you require protection to complete your role in the destiny of this world. The small spirit of the forest has spoken of this to Reginaldo.”

On the hillock benches, Lin and Hons were watching in a growing panic
. The rest of the spectators were murmuring nervously as well.

“
Why are they just standing there saying nothing?” Lin demanded, grabbing Hons by the arm.

“
I don’t know. I’ve never seen him manifest that big before. Usually, he just appears, booms out a rude ‘Command me and let me be gone!’ Does what he is commanded and vanishes. Something’s not right.”

Hons stood up, pull
ing himself from Lin’s grasp, and began readying a spell.

“
Hons, wait,” Lin gasped. “Jules is doing that twisty thing with her fingers in her hair…she only does that when she’s happy.”

Jules was indeed
doing the twisty thing as she continued to listen to the elemental, losing track of time, her fears, and the presence of her friends and peers a hundred yards away. It was like she suddenly opened a window into another world, and the views and sounds were spectacular!

“
Grave winds of change have begun to blow, and even the hardest stone can crumble before relentless evil,” Reginaldo intoned. Julia watched as the stones shifted and the huge figure went down to the equivalent of one knee before her, his giant head at her level.

“
I pledge myself to you, Lady, and the noble path on which you are about to embark.”

Back at the seating area, the small group watched as Julia put a firm hand on the head of the manifestation, and her hand seemed to glow as she patted him with seeming affection
. He then stood back up to full height, seemed to consider something for a moment, then carefully walked over, moved a large boulder, and smashed a tree trunk into several pieces before dissolving back into the field as if he had never been.

Hons stood stiffly off to the side of the seating area and watched as Lin ran out and flung her arms around a beaming Julia, while the rest of the spectators clapped mildly, and he had to wonder
“What the hell just happened?”

Alex

Two weeks went by smoothly, at least until I returned to the forge one day. It’s not that something bad happened; I just had an astonished dwarf on my hands. As usual, I was working on my armor, and at the rate I was going, it should be finished on time. But as I was working, I fell into an odd (even for me) sort of trance. I was aware of what was going on but wasn’t really in control of my body. Instead of swinging my hammer, I placed it on the anvil and sat cross-legged on the ground. Then the block I was working on floated in the air in front of me. In my mind, I pictured the shape that I needed, and as I did, a small part of the block melted into liquid and took the shape that I was imagining before re-hardening to a completed piece.

This took me by surprise
as enchanters aren’t supposed to be able to control things without touching them. But for now, I was more interested in what I could do with this new ability. I kept working for about two hours, making unbelievable progress. The work I had done in two hours would normally take me almost a week and a normal smith about a year. Now with time to spare, I tried to do the same thing with a chunk of steel and, sure enough, it worked.

I tried all sorts of thing
s until something in my pocket felt warm. I reached in and found the letter that Dad sent me; I could have sworn I had left it in my room. I opened it up and watched the words write themselves across the page.

‘
Hello son. I have been watching you work, and I must say that it’s very impressive. I know that giving you that gift was the right choice. Your mother and I feel that it is time to unlock some of your more…basic talents. As you have already discovered, you have the ability to shape metal from a short distance into any shape you would like. This is something that you got from me. Your mother has activated two of the talents from her side of the family, as well; one you may have noticed a few nights ago with your sweetheart, the other she won’t say - just that you will use it when you need it. Also, I want you to know that I’m proud of you, both of you. You and Maya are becoming everything we had hoped. I wish that the day we can finally show ourselves to you was now, but it’s not. But soon, my son, soon we will tell you everything. But for now, you seem to have a confused dwarf to deal with.’