Return To Sky Raven (Book 2) (7 page)

A healer boy stood up in the back and, cupping his hands so everyone could hear, he shouted, “After all the acts of sacrifice and heroism we all saw and heard during the fall of the school, you five come here with this story and expect to be put into a position of leadership? You five are a disgrace and I, for one, will never follow any of you!” He blended back into the group, but the crowd’s ire was still up and the cursing and grumbling continued, making it look like bloodshed was imminent.

While this was going on, Rosa had calmly walked up the stairs and taken a spot near Maya; My master and I had been communicating throughout the fire wizard’s story. Winya had also been taking an active role in the conversation, so I pretty much knew what she was going to say. Rosa motioned for Nia, who darted over and hovered while Rosa whispered something to her. A few seconds later, the new Headmaster’s voice was amplified just like at the tournament.

“Ahem...Thank you, Nia, I appreciate not having to shout. For those of you who don’t know me, I am Headmaster Rosa, formerly the Primus of the Enchanters Hall.” I was pleased and surprised at the fair amount of polite clapping that followed her introduction. “Before I address the issue of the fire wizard students, I have some housekeeping announcements to make, so please bear with an old elf.”

I could already see that the students in the crowd below us were automatically settling in to listen to what the Headmaster was saying, which drastically diffused much of the anger which had been building like a thundercloud. “As Corporal Higs so eloquently pointed out, Xarparion is currently fallen and is a non-entity at the moment; however, most of you are still counted as students and staff of the academy. You still have much to learn and we all have an academy to reclaim. So to provide some normality and structure to our lives that have been so recently sundered, we will retain the school’s structure template that we are all familiar with - Headmaster, tower Primus, journeyman, apprentice, etc. Staff members, of course, are free to leave if they wish, but considering the circumstances, I would highly recommend otherwise.” She stopped for effect and peered calmly down at the group. “Those of you who stay, however, will be expected to perform your old jobs or new jobs assigned to you to the best of your abilities. Back pay will be rendered upon the reoccupation of Xarparion.”

Rosa smiled brightly, and I heard Winya chuckling softly in my head, apparently feeding the Headmaster information as she went along. “Now I have three brevet promotions to announce. First, Hons is promoted to Primus of the Earth Tower. Second, Alera is promoted to Primus of the Healer’s Tower; and third, Corporal Higs is promoted to Captain of the Guard. Captain Jarsin will be heading up the administration of our new civilian contingent and supplies, and will act as liaison to make sure things are functioning efficiently between all three groups. Additionally, I will be retaining the entire enchanters group as my personal staff; please consider any orders from them as orders from me. The few water and air students that we have with us will be temporarily absorbed into our two main towers and will be under Hons’ and Alera’s supervision.”

“Now, as for the thorny issue of what to do with the Fire Tower students…yes, their actions were reprehensible, even unforgivable! But we are deep in enemy territory, and I am loath to cast aside any firepower that is available. I will give them one last chance to redeem themselves. My decision is as follows: effective immediately the Fire Tower is officially disbanded, with the loss of all rights and privileges that go with it, until such time as Xarparion is reclaimed and a suitable new Primus with ironclad integrity can be found to head it. The five remaining fire students will be split up and remanded to the Earth and Healer Towers’ Primuses, where they will have zero contact with each other.” Rosa stopped and pointed a long arm and finger at the prisoners. “You five have only this one last chance; any rules violations, troublemaking, attacks on other students, cowardice in the face of battle, or disobedience to your new Primuses will result in a summary judgment, which I can assure you, will be harsh. Now, get them out of my sight! Pack up everyone, we move out in the morning!”

I watched the guards reluctantly release the prisoners. Four of them had tears of joy running down their faces. Naton, of course, just wore his habitual ignorant scowl, which promised future problems; he would need to be watched. The crowd dispersed slowly, and Hons and Alera took instantly to their new roles and started barking orders. Captain Jarsin, surprisingly, took his new duties in stride and began organizing the servants, staff, and odd lots of other survivors.

Maya, Rosa, and I finally got down off the rock and headed toward Rosa’s command tent and, hopefully, some beverages as my throat was killing me. Of course, a pair of young girls followed us as well. Julia was watching Maya in rapt awe, and we all stopped to watch as Lin rolled her eyes and reached over to shut Jules gaping mouth for her. “She’s been like this ever since Maya took off her helmet.”

Julia reached up and lightly touched Maya’s silver hair. “You’re so beautiful, Maya. I mean you were beautiful in disguise at the First Day dance, but now you’re just…wow!” Maya blushed slightly, unused to this kind of attention.

Lin just smiled sardonically and said, “Jules, if you keep this up, I’ll be taking someone else to the next dance.”

Julia’s eyes shot open in alarm. “Lin, you can’t! I promise I’ll stop looking at Maya…but wow!”

Maya and I looked at each other in confusion. “Um, is there something we should know about?” she asked.

This time, both of them looked at us in shock and covered their mouths with their hands. “Um…eh…no, nothing going on here!” And they both slid out of sight in a rush.

“Well, that was odd.”

We both sighed and opened the flap to Rosa’s tent. We were expecting to see her in there at a table working. Instead, we were looking at the reading room of the Enchanters Hall. Maya looked around the familiar room in wonderment; even I found this to be a bit strange. The only difference was that the furniture was pulled up next to the wall, with the fireplace lit and crackling. And in the middle of the room on cots were five wounded children; judging from their hairstyles, I would say three wizards and two staff. They all looked asleep, and a single young healer boy was tending them solicitously.

Suddenly, Rosa stuck her head out of a door and waved for us to follow. Through the link we shared, I could feel she was using a door branching off the reading room that was not there before. Opening this door, we were greeted with more unexpected surroundings. Inside was a large rectangular table that looked to have a map of the continent as its surface. Around it were several smaller tables as well as five large bookshelves filled to capacity. Rosa was leaning over the main table reading several scrolls at once.

“Where in the world did all this come from?” asked Maya as she wandered around the room poking through various books and scrolls. “More importantly, how are we here?”

Rosa looked up from her books and papers, smiling at us. “You didn’t think I would just leave my home to be ransacked, did you?”

I know I am getting rather good at all this enchanting magic, but I don’t even have a clue how she did this one. Still smiling smugly, she came over to me. “Impressive, is it not?” Then she glanced at Maya who was across the room now. “This space was actually one of the first rooms I added to the hall about 500 years ago. It’s always been here, I just take away the door when I don’t need it so no one can find it. I store a lot of my important papers here as well as the rare books and scrolls.”

Maya had her hand on her hips and glared sternly at Rosa. “Ok, spill it! What is this place, really?”

Rosa was looking more uncomfortable by the second. “Well…you see, its complicated.” Maya wasn’t going to give an inch. “Fine!” Rosa said, throwing her arms in the air. “The Enchanters Hall was never really a building! Ok, there, are you happy now?”

Not really a building? How does that work? Seeing the looks on our faces, Rosa sighed and continued, “The Hall has no real physical place in our world; it resides in a pocket universe, similar to the workings of a bag of dimensions. With that being said, I can now turn just about any door into the entrance to our Hall, but only one door can be active at any time.”

Maya was clearly surprised. “I’ve been sleeping in a different dimension? What about the windows?”

“Those were just images, that’s why none of the windows would open. And since it has no real mass, I can add things whenever I want, like how I taught you to do it, Alex. Now, Maya, I know what you’re thinking and sadly, that won’t work. There is a limit to the size we can make this place. I can change it all I want, but I can’t make it bigger anymore with all the extra rooms we added. So keeping everyone in here won’t work; besides, living corporeal beings require the Hall to expend energy maintaining stability and it’s finite. Should it fail, the chances of the whole thing collapsing or someone walking out with the wrong head increase.” Maya swore under her breath. “But don’t worry, my girl, there are plenty of tents for the others. It may be slightly cramped, but everyone will have food and shelter for the trip. I have the special medical cases in the reading room as you noticed.”

Noticeably impressed, my dark elf continued to walk around the bookshelves. “So if the building was a fake, then how did you add the stables?”

Rosa smiled, “I had Darroth put those up; he’s rather good with wood as well. I always wanted a stable, so I asked him to put them up the week before but he was just too busy. As it turned out, it worked great in helping pass the Hall off as just enchanted instead of a decoy. Even fooled you, Alex.”

Rosa was obviously very proud of herself and the work she had put into this place. I complemented her heavily through the link so Maya couldn’t hear as she still didn’t seem at ease with things. Rosa just smiled and sent her thanks back to me. “So what’s our next move?” I asked as we gathered around the large table.

Rosa cleared away the papers she was working on. “Ok, here is where we are.” She tapped the map twice and, suddenly, it zoomed into that location. The mountain we were on and the surrounding forest and lake now took up the entire table. Mesmerized, both Maya and I tried tapping the map and it refocused on the area that we tapped each time.

“I sooo have to get me one of these!” Maya grinned as she continued playing with the map.

Rosa laughed at us. “This isn’t even the best part!” She tapped the mountain again and then seemed to pinch the map and pull up. Amazingly, the map moved with her, forming a three dimensional model of the area, complete with trees and flowing water.

Maya was just awestruck. “Ok, now I definitely want one, can I have it for my birthday?”

“I'll see what I can do. But in the meantime, here is where we’re at.” She pointed to a flat area halfway up the mountain. “We need to scale down the mountain and into the forest to find the river here.” She pointed to a dangerous fast-moving river that wound its way through the forest. “We then follow it upstream until we come to the back edge of the forest were we will have what looks like our only major land obstacle.” She zoomed in on that area, and instantly I knew what she meant. We were on the wrong side of the river. “We will need to cross here where the mountains end and the first plateau begins. I know it doesn’t look like the best place to cross, but it is actually the safest place. This is where the water is the slowest, so if someone falls in, the water wizards will have time to get them out safely.”

Maya interjected, “I scouted all the way to the river crossing today, even getting across at that point isn’t going to be easy. But we shouldn’t have any problems up to that section, the forest is a dead zone.”

Rosa looked uncomfortable and I knew she had accessed the day’s events from my mind and was aware of what had happened at the pixie camp. She was also concerned about the prospect of whatever kind of monster that killed the pixies catching our party of wizards out in the open, but she put that concern aside. “As you both know, I’m counting on you two to lead the group. I may be 700 years old, but I am not a real leader. If it hadn’t been for Winya, I’m sure I would have messed up today’s meeting beyond repair; her counsel will be invaluable to us all on this trip. I also need you both to be able to deal with anything that would be in our way, be it troll, undead or dragon.” Maya growled under her breath at the mention of dragons, but Rosa continued, “I would be up at the front with you but the captains both insist that I stay in the middle so the guards can protect me.” She huffed a bit. “Stupid men, the safest place I could be is behind you two.”

“So what do you need us to do now?”

Rosa looked stern. “I need you two to get some sleep. Tomorrow is going to be trying for everyone and I need my best people able to function.”

“We can find a tent or just sleep outside in our armor if Alera needs our rooms for more patients,” I suggested.

Rosa snorted, “No, I’m going to be selfish on this one, and you two are staying here tonight. As I said, I want you rested and out front tomorrow. Besides, I don’t want any civilians past the reading room in this place; who knows what would happen if someone wandered down into the workshop!”

“Yeah, they might accidently clean something,” I muttered.

Rosa pulled back her hand like she was going to whack me a good one but then noticed I was still in my armor and thought better of it.

Maya smiled, “Well, if Alex and I don’t get out of this armor soon and get baths, everyone is going to want us out front - way out front! I have to admit the thought of a good night’s sleep in a real bed has some attraction too; it’s been a long hard day.

“There might be a little food left in the kitchen if you search,” Rosa commented, and then went back to scrutinizing her papers, dismissing us with a wave.

I dumped my outer armor, made a tray of sandwiches in the kitchen, and brought them up to check on Nia. As I expected, she was sound asleep on her warm pillow, wrapped up in her blanket on the fake window ledge. I knew she needed to eat, but I didn’t want to wake her. Sleep and time would be her friends in getting over the shock and grief of what happened to her people. I left a thick cucumber sandwich, her favorite, near her bed. After a much-needed bath, I came back to the room and found a clean, gorgeous dark elf sitting cross-legged on my bed devouring all the remaining sandwiches.