Mind Forged: Book One of the Enchanters of Xarparion (6 page)

“
Thank you, Master Darroth, and I’m sorry, but for some reason, I am suddenly very tired.” I tried to brace myself on the anvil but there was no point, my body felt like every ounce of energy had been leeched out of it. I vaguely remember the sky spinning lazily as I slumped to the dirt.

“
Is he going to be ok?” Darroth said, as he lifted me off the ground.

“
He will be just fine. He just hasn’t used that much energy before. Did you notice that he wasn’t even reheating the last half of the forging?” The dwarf nodded and carefully handed me over to Rosa; she had no trouble with the weight.

“
After all these years, Rosa, you finally found another enchanter. You must be happy.”

She smiled warmly as she looked down at my sleeping head on her shoulder
. “Yes, deliriously so! Teach him well, Darroth, I have a feeling his future is going to be amazing.” She started the walk home with my body limp in her arms and a smile on her face.

Maya

“Greetings Forge Master Darroth!” I grinned and bowed as I unceremoniously dumped a pile of bent and damaged practice swords on a table under a small overhang next to his monstrous cone-shaped forge. “It’s a lovely morning, don’t you think? I think so, the bees are buzzing, the birds singing!”

“
Humph,” the old dwarf grunted, roused to wakefulness. He lifted bleary eyes up to meet mine. “What’s gotten into you? You’re usually grouchier than me in the mornings…you sound as bad as Rosa!” He was sitting, or rather resting heavily, at a large worktable that I had seen him use to pattern out projects he was working on in the past. But instead of pieces of armor or parts of a weapon, there was a single shining long sword resting atop a portable anvil in the center of the workspace. There were several broken steel hammers on the ground below him, as well as a disconcerting number of empty ale bottles. Shaking my head, I walked briskly over to the food stand across the street that catered to tradesmen in the non-student sector. I purchased a large mug of double strength Serro tea and a sausage roll, and brought it back, setting it just under the old dwarf’s red bulb-shaped nose to wake him up again.

“
Darroth! Tea! Drink!” I barked, and helped him wrap his stubby digits around the mug and lift it up to his bearded face. I’m pretty sure most of the first gulp just soaked into his scrubby, braided beard and would eventually drip onto his shirt. And probably make the shirt smell immensely cleaner than it did at the moment. “How late did you stay up last night working? By the way, that’s a nice looking blade you’re working on.”

He growled and took a few more gulps of the beverage before speaking
. “Aye, it’s a fine piece of work, but it’s nothing I’m working on. In fact, I spent most of last night trying to figure out how to destroy it.”

“
You lost me, why would you want to destroy it? If you hate it that bad, give it to me, and I will have the recruits turn it to scrap like they did those,” I said, motioning to the swords on the side table.

“
Ha! A couple of them would probably lose arms or heads if you gave them that sword to practice with. It’s sharp enough to cut shavings off a block of standard steel without dulling, and I broke three of my best hammers trying to snap it in half last night. And guess what the best part is; it’s not even steel, it’s just ordinary wrought iron!”

I pulled up a wooden stool and sat down across from him, pushing the food toward
him and taking a closer look at the sword. “May I?” He waved an affirmative and bit into the roll. I picked up the sword and examined it, checking out all the basic points exactly as my father had taught me years before. “Well, it seems to be well made; it has decent but not fantastic balance. Still, probably worth more than a couple years of my pay just for the sharpness enchantment alone. Where did you find it?” I said, carefully setting it back in place.

“
Maya, I know you’re going to think it’s the drink talking, but that new apprentice of Rosa’s made it from scratch in an afternoon! Right here at this forge, and the last couple hours he wasn’t even heating up the metal. I’ve never seen the like; I might as well pack it in and grow turnips for a living!”

“
Ah yes, the new wonder apprentice who’s been keeping her so busy she hasn’t even been coming to the dining hall to eat. Imagine Rosa not eating!” We both chuckled at the thought. “Well, I will get to meet him soon. She threw in a bunch of favors to entice me to give him private weapons training, but I can assure you, I won’t be as easy to impress as you are!”

Darroth finished eating, jiggling his beard to shake out the crumbs.
“I appreciate the breakfast, Maya, and I’ll get right on those practice swords for you. Say, you might want to give this boy, Alex, a chance. I think there’s something special about him. Must be - only the second enchanter to come along in how many centuries? Hey, weren’t you going out with the lads on perimeter patrol today? I thought they were going to check out your favorite view up by portal seven.”

I got up to leave and went around the table
to give the smith a goodbye hug. “Not this time. Something told me I needed to stay close to Xarparion for a while...that and I have a ton of paperwork to get through.”

....
.............................................................

Alex

The next day, or more precisely, when I woke up, I found that when I overdid it at the forge, I slept for an entire day plus a few hours. Muzzy-headed and sore, not to mention enormously thirsty, I was motivated to hit the bathhouse, drink a couple ladles of lukewarm water and pull on one of my fresh white robes. I tried not to think of how I got out of the old one. A much more urgent thought, however, was hammering in my mind - food! Not finding Rosa anywhere, I reached through our bond and generally sensed that she was near the main gate.

“
I’m sorry I wasn’t there like I should have been when you woke up. I am also sorry if this causes you any pain; this is the first time I’ve tried sending my thoughts to you. But for now, go to the dining hall and eat! I can feel your hunger from here, and I’ll see you this evening after your class.”

I didn
’t care in what form that request came, I was more than happy to comply. And if I left now, I could get there before the midday rush. I quickly put on my shoes and ran out the door.

The dining h
all was not what I expected. From the outside, it looked like another boring hall tucked into the large tower that was Central. Wizards, as I found out, at least non-enchanters, like to gather in groups and announce to all who will listen how wondrous they are and how amazing their feats are. I thought there would be at most fifty tables and some sort of line for food. Instead, there were at least a hundred tables, each set for five to eight people depending on the shape. Nearly every table was set up family style with mountains of food. From the looks of things, they didn’t even have the same things on them, some had sliced cold meats and breads, some had pots of hot porridge, cheeses, pastries…pretty much anything you were hungry for was someplace in the room. I slowed up as I rubber-necked through the entry area, hoping no one could see me salivating as I decided which table to attack first.

There were also more people here than I was expecting
. About half the tables were occupied by at least one person. I started for one of the vacant round tables loaded with eggs and breakfast ingredients, when I heard my name. Looking around, I spotted a green-robed figure with huge brown curls. Julia, the girl from the orphanage in Foalshead, was jumping up and down from behind a pile of sweet rolls to get my attention. She dashed my way and gave me an enthusiastic squealing hug.

“
Alex, come sit with me! You gotta, I haven’t seen you in forever!” Hurriedly grabbing food off multiple tables and shoving the lot onto my plate, I allowed myself to be dragged back to her table.

“
Julia, you look great, school really seems to be agreeing with you.” And it had, she looked like she had gained weight and height, and the listless look that seemed to characterize all of Miss Stal’s wards was gone, replaced by a vibrant young woman. I had a little bit of a homesick twinge when I thought about how happy my mother would be to see Julia thriving.

“
Where have you been?” she asked. “I’ve been trying to find you for weeks now but you’re never here!” As soon as I sat down, I tore into a large plate of small breads with ham and cheese fillings.

“
Working and learning a lot,” I said in between frantic bites, all the while trying not to look like too much of a pig. “Sorry, I moved in with Primus Rosa and she has her own kitchen so I’ve been eating with her.” Then I dived back into my food.

“
Wow, she must not feed you very often! So what’s it like to have a master? I have a teacher, but I’m told it’s not the same. I have also heard stories about your Primus being mean, evil, and crazy.” Hearing that last part made me almost choke on the pastry I was wolfing down.

“
What? Where did you hear that stuff?”

“
Mostly the hot air apprentices. They like to show how mysterious and in-the-know they are…you mean they’re not true?”

“
No! Primus Rosa is the nicest person I know, and she really cares about me. In many ways, she is more protective of me than my mom. True, sometimes I think she’s crazy, but never a bad crazy; and evil, never!” She frowned, but seemed satisfied and went back to her plate.

Changing the
awkward subject, I asked, “So how are your studies going? Do you like it in your tower?

Julia
’s face lit up, literally radiating happiness. “It’s hard, but nothing like the orphanage! For once in my life, I don’t feel like a cast off and I’m actually good at something. My teachers think I will make a great Questing Druid someday.

“
What’s a Questing Druid?”

She
giggled. “Sorry, I forgot for a moment that you aren’t an Earthie. Have you ever seen a kangaroo or heard of mangos grown near our village? Of course not, someone had to venture out into the world and discover all these wondrous things and bring the knowledge back. Sometimes, if the plants are similar, a druid can even convince a plant that grows locally to repurpose its production to a fruit or vegetable that normally only grows far away; it really helps in food production.”

“
You mean like growing figs on an apple tree?”

She made a brief
, condescending grin. “Yeah, something like that, but not exactly.

“
I just assumed that there were portals to all those places and it worked like food and animals coming from Foalshead.”

Julia
’s pretty face clouded. “Yeah, well, it used to work that way, but more than half of the portals open up into dead lands now, so they have been closed permanently. At least from the other side anyway. It would be so much fun to see other places and people!”

After a few
minutes of quiet eating, I looked around and asked, “So why did you pick this table?”

She
smiled again. “Because this is the table with the most sweets, silly!” She held up a large platter with all kinds of goodies on it, most of which I didn’t recognize but looked really good. “And the best part is you can eat all you want. I love this place! I am starting to make good friends now and no one picks on me, well, no one from the Green tower, at least.” Her mood shifted at the last part; now she seemed scared for some reason.

“
You said no one in your tower picks on you. Are there others who do?” She nodded and I could feel anger rise in my chest. “Who?” She pointed behind me at four fire wizard students who were headed straight for us. They halfway surrounded our table before one of them pointed at Julia.

“
Hey runt! What are you doing way over here? Trying to hide from your weekly beating behind some buns?” The leader, who was also the jerk talking, was skinny but a little taller than me with dirty, curly red hair and a baby face but hard contemptuous eyes. The others just looked like run-of-the-mill schoolyard bully-wannabes. Julia was already shaking with fear, and to make things worse, this jerk was calling a fireball to his hand. My anger had reached its limit; I put myself between him and Julia, getting right in his face.

“
Who the hell are you? Did the laundry peasants screw up and bleach your robe?” He snickered, “Don’t tell me you’re friends with this farmyard runt. I’d stop trying to play the hero unless you want to get hurt.”

“
Leave her alone!”

“
Or what?” Instead of answering, I used a trick Rosa taught me a few nights ago. I reached my left hand out and grabbed the fireball he still had in his hand. Instead of letting it burn me, I transferred all the magic through my body and used it to power a heat enchantment that I put on the fork still in my right hand. I didn’t break eye contact the entire time. Once the enchantment was complete, I could feel that the fork couldn’t take the heat and was now running through my fingers onto the floor. I would have been fine, but the molten metal dripped onto my boot and I felt the sizzle as it bit into my foot. Still, I couldn’t hop around like an idiot and maintain any sense of decorum in this situation, so I settled for narrowing my eyes in what I hoped was a menacing squint and glared at the wizard. Thankfully, the pain subsided quickly, but I would have a burn to treat later.

“
Who the hell are you? And why aren’t you wearing the robes of your tower? What kind of newbie are you?” Absorbing his fireball seemed to make him mad; I’d remember that for later. I had a feeling we were destined to be at odds.

“
These are the robes of my craft, I am an enchanter.”

All
four looked surprised, immediately breaking out in laughter and not the feel-good kind of laughter either.

“
Idiot! You’re only a stupid enchanter and you think you can take me on? Me, Naton Rad! A fire wizard! I could kill you with a single spell!”

“
Doesn’t matter who or what you are. You have no right to threaten anyone, let alone a fellow student.”

“
We’ll see how noble you are when you’re a pile of ashes. An enchanter, what a joke,” Naton spat, as he readied two more fireballs, his cheer squad stepping back to give him room. “Any last words before you die?”