Shaping Magic (8 page)

“They should be here in a few minutes,” she finished.

“Okay this is the plan: Donovan stays on the other side of the fire. Aina, if anyone gets by me, take them out. If you get a chance, take a shot at the robed one. I will try to keep his attention on me.”

Lindon took his place about ten yards from the fire. He just stood there, seething with anger with the realization that the man who had subjected Donovan to such abuse was going to be coming within his reach.

“Is he insane?” Donovan had to ask the Elf despite his dislike of her race. “Doesn’t he know that five against two is not exactly fair? Because right now I can barely stand and will be of no use in a fight!”

Chuckling, Aina answered, “You’re right, it isn't fair, but it’s their own fault, they should have brought more men.”

Donovan just shook his head in defeat. There was no persuading them to leave him, so he shut up and just sat there, waiting for the inevitable.

The dogs were the first to come into sight, their noses on the ground sniffing out their trail, when suddenly they stopped. They started shaking their heads, then with a high-pitched yelp, both dogs took off running.

Lindon looked over his shoulder and gave Aina a questioning look. She just smiled and gave him a little wave. He had no time to ask what had happened, so turned back just in time to see the men on horses come into sight.

When the men on horseback saw the young man standing with swords drawn, they started to chuckle between them, thinking this foolish boy standing in the way of their master, and his little pet Dwarf was not long for this life.

The men on horses stopped their advance about ten feet from the lad.  “You have something that belongs to me, and I want it back,” the man in the robe snarled.

Lindon asked one word. “Why?”

“Because he's mine,” the man responded.

“Are you the one that caused his injuries?”

  “As I said, he's mine, enough of this. If you get in the way you can join him.” He pointed at one of his men and said, “You go get the little vermin.”

The man slid off his horse, handing the reins to the man on the left. As he went to go around the boy, Lindon suddenly exploded into action and with a single swipe of one of his blades, the man fell to the ground dead.

The men were momentarily stunned at the sudden violence the young man just caused. Lindon was now standing back in the same position he was in like nothing happened.

Back at the fire, Donovan was also impressed with Lindon's speed and accuracy, but he knew the man in the robes would not take the death lightly, and magical death would take Lindon's life next.

Lindon could see the red glow start to surround the leader and gave a silent prayer to whatever had protected him back at the inn would do so again. He was about to find out. As the man jumped off his horse to be on steady ground, he loosed his favorite spell—one that he used often on people that displeased him. A bolt of pure white lightning leaped from his out stretched hand, racing toward Lindon, hitting him square in the chest.

Lindon, bracing for the impact, again only felt a mild warmth and a tingling all over his body. Not waiting for their reactions of him surviving, he ran at the robed man, and before he could shoot another bolt at him—or worse, at Aina or Donovan—he ran the man through. As the man hung on Lindon's blade, there was disbelief in his eyes, and with his last breath he asked, “How?”

Lindon, looking him in the eye, said, “Couldn't tell ya, but you will never harm another again.” And with that the man died.

The remaining men sat staring at Lindon and their former boss; then, as one, they turned and fled. Aina, ever the quick one, captured the reins of the two free horses before they could bolt after the fleeing men.

Having been trained by Arden, Lindon first went through the robed man’s pockets and found a heavy purse. When he opened and poured it into his hands, he was amazed—there must have been forty gold coins. To Lindon, it was a fortune. Having been raised poor and not understanding how the world really worked, Lindon thought that he had enough money in his hands to last a lifetime.

Putting it into one of his own pockets, Lindon finished going through the man’s pockets. After not finding anything else of interest, he moved to the other dead man, but finding nothing of value, walked back to the fire where Donovan sat staring at Lindon.

“Don't ask. I have no idea how, it just is,” Lindon said before Donovan could voice the question. Turning to Aina as she approached with the horses, he asked, “Was there much in their packs?”

“Yeah, there's a couple of  packs with food and two travel beds, but I recommend we find a creek or somewhere to wash them; they are in need a good cleaning,” she answered.

“That is something we have in common—we all need a good cleaning,” Lindon said, looking at his own clothing.

Donovan, still looking at Lindon with a mix of fear and awe, suggested, “I think we should be gone from this place, before those men return with more solders.”

Aina lightly jumped into the saddle of one of the horses as Lindon nervously held the reins of the other.

“Mount up,” Aina said to Lindon.

He looked at her, then to his horse, before sheepishly saying, “I...um...I don't know how to ride.”

Aina and Donovan looked at Lindon for a minute before both burst out laughing. “How is that possible?” Donovan said. “I mean, just about everyone at some point has ridden.  I am a Dwarf and even I have,  although right now I don't think I have the strength to stay up on one.”

Still chuckling, Aina moved her horse over beside Lindon. “No time like the present to learn.”

“Put your left foot in the loop hanging down, and while holding on to the mane—that's the hair on the neck—pull yourself up. Don't forget to swing your other leg over and put it in the loop on the other side.”

Lindon, following her directions, managed to get seated on the horse, but he was holding on for dear life. It took him some time, but after being on the horse for a bit, he could sit and somewhat relax, without a death grip on the horse's neck.

He thought he was starting to get the hang of it, but the horse gave a little side step and Lindon slipped out of the saddle and fell. As he was sitting on the ground, both Aina and Donovan started laughing again.

Lindon picked himself off the ground and mumbled, “It’s not that funny.” However, that just brought more laughter.

As Lindon was pulling himself back on to the horse, a thought occurred to Aina: With Lindon not knowing how to ride a horse, there was no way for the Dwarf to ride with him. While she had nothing against this particular Dwarf, she had a racial bias against all of them. Looking at Lindon, she knew that there was no way she could talk him in to leaving the Dwarf behind and no way for him to ride with Lindon. The only option was for Donovan to ride with her.

She didn’t have a choice. She brought her horse up beside the still laughing Dwarf. Reaching down and grabbing him by the collar, she hoisted him up and plopped him down behind her.

Donovan sat behind the Elf in stunned silence, knowing that he didn't have a choice either. He decided not to make an issue of it and wonder how an Elf could put aside her dislike of his people all for the sake of this one Human. There was definitely more going on here then met the eye. He would just have to wait and watch to understand it.

Chapter 9

“Lindon seems to be learning a new skill.” Cora and Arden were sitting in a tent on their way to sanctuary.

“Can you see him?” Arden asked.

“No, he is still blocked from my scrying, but I can see Aina and at the moment it looks like she's giving Lindon lessons on how to ride.” Cora paused. “I don't believe it!” she said with astonishment.

“What do you see?”

“Aina and Lindon seemed to have picked up a companion somewhere.”

“Who?”

“Believe it or not, it’s a Dwarf, but the amazing part is that somehow Lindon has gotten Aina to allow him to ride on the same horse as she.” She shook her head in wonderment. “Elves and Dwarfs have disliked each other since recorded history and yet here is an Elf and a Dwarf riding on the same horse.”

“It seems you were right. We had to leave him so that he can find out who he is on his own,” Arden said, “But I just wish that we could be nearby, in case he needed us.”

“I know you do Arden, so do I, but if we had stayed with him, he would always look for us to take the lead. You and I both know that he has to learn to lead or the army we are helping to build will suffer for it.”

“They are on their way and so should we. Don't worry too much, Arden, you have taught him well. Now it is up to him to find his way.”

“I guess you’re right; it is out of our hands now. I will go and see to the men.  Do you need anything?” Arden asked as he stood by the entrance.

“No I don't think so, I will go and check on Aodhan and see if he's up to the next part of the journey.”

Arden left to help speed the men along and left Cora by herself. Contrary to what she told Arden, she was having doubts about leaving Lindon. Of course, it didn't really matter now they were a day gone, and they couldn't just leave, not with Aodhan being sick and without Arden's leadership, the men and woman who followed them out of Kornas would just scatter, leaving Lindon to face the coming battles alone.

Cora promised herself that she may not have been able to save her son from Tristan, his bastard father, but she would do everything in her power to help her grandson fight the madman. He was once a good man, but his fear of death ate away at his humanity and what little he may have had left died when he ordered the death of his son and grandson.

Since then, Tristan had spent his time conquering the neighboring lands, never satisfied with what he had. His hunger for power had driven him to take over half of the continent and now the war was moving ever closer.

Their only hope that the battles taking place along the border of Sorolan would last long enough for them to prepare. They also needed to find enough fighters that haven't already committed to fighting. Most of all, they had to let Lindon be on his own to learn everything that he would need, to fight and to learn exactly what this power of his could do.

For the hundredth time, she wished that she could be there for him, but she didn't have any more ideas about his strange ability to absorb magical energies than he did. She would most likely hamper his attempts to learn about it just by being there. It was hard for her to let go of the boy she had raised and protected for so many years, and that was exactly why she had to leave him on his own.

She looked around at the men and woman around her. Seeing their faces, she had a moment of sadness, realizing that many of them would not survive what was to come. The guilt at leading them to their deaths only lasted long enough to realize that the alternative was much worse.

Chapter 10

Traveling on horseback was certainly new to Lindon. On one hand, they could travel a lot faster than walking, but after a few hours of riding he could barely feel his legs or his butt. He looked with envy at Aina and even Donovan; they didn't seem to be suffering any ill effects of the riding. They both traveled in silence, neither one willing to neither talk nor even acknowledge the other as they rode.

Lindon moved up beside the pair. “Donovan, may I ask you a question?”

“Sure, my boy, what’s on your mind?” he answered cheerfully. He no longer sounded like the scared creature that they had found in the sewer tunnel.

“Where do your people live? I mean, I have never seen Dwarfs before, and I was just wondering.”

“Its okay to ask, Lindon; if you don't ask questions, you will never learn. That's the way I was raised—my father always said there are no stupid questions, only stupid answers.”

Lindon smiled at that, and then waited for him to answer.

It took a few minutes before Donovan said, “To give you some history of my people will help you understand not only the where, but the why, of where we live.”

Aina, despite herself, was listening intently. This would be the first time she would get to hear about the Dwarfs from their point of view and not an Elven instructor. One of the reasons she had left her homeland was because of their views on the other races of the world. She would never admit it to anyone, but she found the way her people thought every other race was inferior instead of just different infuriated her as a student.

“It was around ten thousand years ago, before humans had existed as they are now. There are five main races of the world. First were the Dragons—no one knows exactly when or how they came to be and no one's brave enough to ask them about it.

“The third race to be were the Elves. And please, Aina, this is the story that I have been taught, so if it differs from yours, forgive me.”

“I understand; to be honest I am quite interested in your telling of the histories. I am curious as to the differences between the two teachings,” she responded gracefully.

Donovan was stunned once again by the Elf; she was not what he had been taught an Elf was supposed to be. Giving her a long look, he decided that if she could keep an open mind, then so could he.

“Thank you,” he said before continuing his tale. “As I said, the Elves were the third race to be. They were created in the image of their god Shu Nola the Bright. Being a god of light and of nature, they naturally followed the paths of poetry and music. They live mostly in large forests scattered around the world. Don't get me wrong, though, they are also fierce warriors and have a speed and a grace that no other race can match.”

Aina didn't think now was the time to say that wasn't quite true. That Lindon himself with very little instruction could match even the best of the Elven warriors in both speed and grace but also fought with something they lacked: passion.

“I don't mean to interrupt, but I was thought that the Elves only lived in one place: Shu Kala Forest.”

“On this continent, that is where they live, and it was their birthplace. However, when humans came to be, their growth was such that many of the Elves decided that to challenge them would mean their demise. So they built great ships and left this continent; they now live across the oceans. No one but the Elves know exactly where, and the ones that stayed now mainly live in Shu Kala. They now defend the last of the great forest most fervently and anyone not an Elf or invited are killed instantly by some kind of magic ward.”

Lindon looked to Aina if she was going to add anything about the ward but all she did was nod that Donovan spoke the truth.

Donovan continued. “The fourth race to come to be were the Dwarfs. We too were made in our god's image. Gal Nola is the god of the earth—not just the ground that we stand on, but also underneath the surface. When we first came to be, we lived on the surface. Dragon kind pretty much ignored us, and we prospered, for a time. Then when we made contact with the Elves. At first they were kind to us, but as more time passed we found ourselves more servants to them. We were treated well enough as long as we never forgot our place as second-class citizens of the world. To make a long story short and not to go in to all the details, we left the surface world and for two thousand years we lived and prospered underground.

“Then the fifth race was born, Humans. At first, we feared that the Elves would try to do to them what had been done to us. And they did start too, but in a very short time the Humans grew at an astonishing rate. Before long, there were five humans for every Elf. Their leaders, seeing the combative nature of the Humans and with their ever-increasing number, abandoned their original idea of trying to use the Humans to replace us as their servants. They also could see early on that if they tried to hold all their territory, there would have been war, one the Elves would lose. So they collapsed in on themselves back to the original size, but there were too many Elves to live there, so a decision was made that many of them would leave to explore the world and find a new homeland away from the Humans.

“And we Dwarfs lived underground unknown to the Humans for a long time. Our numbers never grew and we rarely ventured forth. Then one fateful day there was a group of Dwarfs traveling underground in one of the tunnels when a great rock-slide buried one of the Human villages nestled at the foot of a mountain range. Feeling the ground shift, the captain of the Dwarfs decided to go to the surface. Seeing the humans in trouble decided to help them, breaking tradition of not interfering with the Humans, he led his group in a rescue of the village saving most of them.

“And since that day, Dwarfs and Humans have had tentative contact with each other,; we would trade metal and gems that we mined from the earth and the Humans so desired. They would pay with food, cloth, and other necessities that we were unable to produce ourselves.

“Lately, however, things have been changing. Some of our people would go missing; no trace of them could be found. A group of us had been given the task of finding out what was happening to them. Unfortunately, we did. We were exploring the city where you found me when we were attacked. My comrades fought bravely, but in the end they all perished, and I was captured.”

“How long ago was that?” Lindon asked breathlessly; he had been hanging on his every word learning what was never taught to him.

“As far as I can tell, I have been a prisoner for almost two years in that foul place,” he said with a slight shudder. He didn’t want to remember his time there, but something told him that it was important for this Human to know.

  “There is something truly evil residing there; I never actually got to see who or what. Guards would come to my cell make me drink some foul tasting drink and when I would wake I was always back in my cell, not knowing what they did to me, only seeing the results.” Donovan shivered on the back of the horse, remembering his time in captivity. He then asked Aina, “Are there major differences in the tale from your own teaching?”

“One or two. According to what we are taught, when the Dwarfs came, we treated them as equals, but they turned on the Elves, and at a time we needed them, they were gone. Since then it has been frowned on to help a Dwarf for any reason. However, for myself, I don't know which version is the truth, and I for one will not hold any individual responsible for something that may or may not have happened two thousand years ago.”

“Agreed,” Donovan said, and with a little smile, added, “You know, we may be the first of Elves and Dwarfs to actually talk to one another civilly in a very long time.”

Chuckling, she responded, “You might be right about that, and in that case, let me introduce myself. I am Aina Bow-Strike.”

  “And I am Donovan Steel-Heart.”

They rode in silence for a while when a thought occurred to Lindon. “You said there were five main races, but you counted the Elves as third on the list. Who was the second race?”

Lindon noticed Aina tense when he mentioned the second race before Donovan answered. “To tell the truth, I was hoping that you wouldn't notice that omission.”

“Why? Who are they and why I have never heard of them?”

“We believe they were a mistake of the gods and when they proved to be too destructive. They were hunted and killed by the Dragons and the Elves. They were beings of pure hate; they hate all living things. They would kill any not of their own kind without provocation, and they were all powerful sorcerers.

“As far as we know, the last of them was hunted and killed not long after the Dwarfs came to be.  Even their name has been wiped from history, in case they would be able to be called back from whatever hell they belonged in. They were a people that didn't belong in the natural order of things; even the Humans with all their war and strife serve a purpose in nature. What exactly it is I don't know.” The last he said with a slight chuckle to take the sting away from offending Lindon.

Lindon rode in silence, thinking about all that he had heard today about the beginning of the races of the world, when another thought came to him. “Both Elves and Dwarfs have been around a long time. In all that history, have you ever heard of the thing that happens when magic comes in contact with me?”

Aina looked behind her at Donovan before answering, “No, from all I have ever heard or read what happens to you is impossible. You should be dead from what that spellcaster sent at you.”

Looking at Donovan to see if he might have, the Dwarf said, “Nor I, Lindon. It is a mystery to me as well.”

“It was as well to my grandmother; there were times when she almost seemed afraid—not of what I would do, what it might do to me.” Lindon recalled when he carried Donovan away from Kornas. “Donovan, do you remember when we found you?”

“Yes.”

“You were near death at the time, right?”

“Yes.”

“And what about now—how do you feel?”

Donovan gazed at Lindon, not sure what he was getting at. He said, “I feel pretty good; I mean, I still hurt in places and a little weak, but other then that, it looks like I will live.”

“And don't you wonder why in such a short time you have recovered?”

“Now that you mention it, yes. By rights I should be dead, not sitting on the back of a horse chatting with you like I haven't a care in the world.”

“I think I might have a reason for it, but I am not sure how. When I was carrying you away from the city, I could feel a tingling in my arms where I held you and when we stopped and rested, I could not stay awake no matter how much I tried.”

Both Aina and Donovan were looking at Lindon, not quite sure what it was he was saying. “What I mean is that I believe when someone attacks or transfers magic into me, I kind of store it, and I am able to pass it on to others in a beneficial way. At least that's my theory.”

“I've never heard of anyone being able to do anything remotely like that, but it kind of makes sense if you think about it. Look at when we were attacked today. That bolt should have burnt you to a crisp, and if it had hit either of us, we would have been. I was looking right at you when it hit and if looked like it just flowed into you,” Aina said with wonderment. “And you would think that it has to go somewhere, but where is anybody’s guess.”

Aina was thinking of the possibilities when she noticed that the sun was starting to set. “I think it will have to wait, it’s past time we find a place to camp for the night.”

The supplies they had gotten from the dead men made camp quite a lot nicer having food and supplies to cook with. They still hadn’t been able to find a stream to wash the bedding in nor their clothes for that matter; all three of them still had the stench of the sewer on them.

After they ate, Lindon had an idea he'd like to try but wasn’t sure if Donovan would agree or not. He decided that the only way to find some answers was to take the risk and find out if what he suspected would happen.

Lindon walked around the fire and sat down beside Donovan on the ground. “Donovan, you said that you still hurt?”

“Yes,” he answered guardedly.

“I would like to try something.”

“You want to see if your theory is right, don't you?”

“Yes I do; I mean since I was hit with magic, my body is tingling all over looking for a place to go, and since I had used what energy I had before to help you, I would like to try to do it on purpose. I believe that if I can learn to control it, we will be better off. What do you say?”

Donovan sat looking into the fire for a few minutes before answering. “I don't know if it will work, but I owe you my life more than once and I am yours until you no longer need it.”