White Hall (The High King: A Tale of Alus Book 10) (19 page)

“I will come with you to make the introductions,” the high wizard said all but ignoring the stable boy. “Unlike the others, we will need to meet with who will in charge of you, since your case is rather special.”

She nodded dismissing the boy from her attention to join the procession walking back through the open field between the soldiers’ barracks and the armory or smithy depending on one’s need. The second building was unlikely to be someplace the girl would ever have a use for since she was going to become a wizard.

At that point Qeyr became their guide. As the leader of the search wizards, he would be the one to file those who had been brought to the school, while Magnus and his wizards separated to find their current living places.

Entering the massive school building, Katya was surprised to see so many young people in white sitting on couches or benches reading books. Some seemed to be trying to cast spells as well, while others were merely socializing with their friends.

“This way, recruits, to the admissions office,” Qeyr stated gesturing for the rest to follow. Darius’s wizards looked at him questioningly and he gestured for the men to find seats to wait for him.

Entering an apparent office with those who had magic and those who did not, Katya was surprised at the mundane look to the entry office. There were more rooms which could be entered from there, though some had closed doors preventing her from seeing where they led. People looked over stacks of paper, more paper than the girl had seen in her life in one place, and others took the sheets and folders to the file cabinets placing them in the proper drawers.

Qeyr was handed a board with several sheets that looked like the most precise of penmanship that she had ever seen. She wondered who could write so exactingly and noticed with each flip of a page, that the next sheet was exactly the same.

As the wizard noted down the name for each of the new recruits from Delanne, he handed the individual their sheet to hold until he came to Cheleya. The girl handed him a protected piece of paper and Qeyr leaned over telling the woman to call some other wizard to come to the office. A small tube took a message and disappeared into the wall, but Katya wasn’t sure that magic was involved. The woman who had sent it had none at least.

He had Cheleya sit with Kel’lor, who was the girl’s continual shadow, before asking, “Who is mentoring diplomacy mages right now?”

Eyes widening, the woman thumbed through a few sheets before she answered, “Wizard Ylena for the girls.”

The woman looked like she wanted to ask more, but apparently it wasn’t her place so the woman tried to go back to the work she was doing. Qeyr filled out another form and Katya noted both her name and that of the Ylena person. When he was done, more canisters were sent through other tubes.

One by one, the others began to disappear from the little waiting area in the office. Finally, a boy in white with a gray stripe came to call for her and Darius. Looking closer, she thought that the stripe was too shiny to be gray. Silver, she decided and wondered if the apprentice before them was from the same school of magic as Falther had been.

They were told to sit and wait in another room. Finally alone and thinking that it would likely be the last time she would get a chance to speak to the high wizard alone, Katya began to talk of something that had been bothering her for days. She had been unable to get the man alone either at the inns or on the road. His grandson and other wizards always seemed to be his shadows.

“Master Darius, can I ask you a question about something?”

“Of course, Katya, and you can just call me Darius. You will have mentors for you here now,” the man said with a fatherly smile.

“Have you heard of amulets that let people transform into other creatures or other creatures into a human?”

Looking a little surprised, the wizard nodded and said, “It is a rather rare type of magic, but I have known a few different people to make use of such things. Why do you ask?”

“Have you ever heard of someone breaking their amulet or having it broken and then becoming stuck in their new body?”

Darius didn’t even bother to look at the girl as he replied, “For most, if the amulet is broken or separated from them for a long time, they will simply revert to their original form. Sometimes that change is quick and other times it takes a little while.

“To force a change to be permanent, there is usually a second spell that prevents the change from happening,” he replied surprising the girl with both his apparent knowledge and his being candid in the sharing of such information.

“If an amulet was say, broken and magically bonded to the person’s bones, would that be something that is reversible?”

Glancing to the girl, Darius got to the point surprising her, “You know someone caught in this spell?”

“She calls it a curse. Apparently another wizard broke the amulet and placed the pieces inside of her to prevent that change.”

Sighing, the wizard looked thoughtful and somehow slightly annoyed. “I know that Kel’lor is a mar’goyn’lya, so that means that Cheleya is most likely the one cursed then. Without knowing the spell which was cast on her, especially if it is a curse level spell; I am not sure that I could help the girl.

“I could duplicate the magic to achieve the affect, but without the original spell or the caster who did it, it might be impossible. Can the man responsible still be found to make him release it?”

“I believe that he is dead from what Cheleya has said,” the girl said as candidly as the high wizard. If her friend would be mad that Darius knew of the problem, she could no longer help that. Even though she had tried to be vague, the ancient wizard had seen through her easily.

Letting out a low whistle, he replied, “Yes, that sounds like a curse spell. The Dark One has been known to use such spells and his warlocks as well. They would need to be powerful or use blood to seal the spell.

“To hear that he is dead means it was very potent magic since many spells disappear with the caster’s death.”

Katya sighed at the bad news, but Darius continued, “I will be here for a little while before heading out to Windmeer. Maybe the girl will let me examine her to see if I can discover anything. Until I can look at her closer, I can’t do anymore than guess.”

“I will try to let her know. Since I have no idea what kind of schedule they will have us on or if they will have a schedule even, I’m not sure when I will see her either.

“But you said that you plan to stay in White Hall for awhile?”

Darius nodded, “I plan to have an exchange of ideas between our two schools. I also have letters of introduction given me by the high wizards of Hala.” The immortal wizard smiled and added, “I will see what I can do about talking with the girl before I go as well.”

Feeling a little better, Katya lapsed into silence as they waited for someone to come speak to her.

The wait wasn’t overly long, though it had felt like ages to the girl who was nervous about all the unknowns of a wizards’ school. A dark haired woman wearing black with silver banding on her collar and sleeves nodded to the pair. With a practiced smile that still managed to feel warm, though Katya wasn’t sure that it was; the wizard introduced herself, “I am Wizard Ylena Werlon. I am a teacher of diplomacy and its magic. The office sent word that we have an exceptional new wizard about to join us.”

Katya smirked and replied, “When she gets here I would like to meet her too.”

The older woman seemed amused and nodded even as Katya wondered why she had said that. She wasn’t normally a girl who would throw out humor in such a tense situation. Still the woman didn’t seem to mind that much and she looked from Katya to Darius. Surprisingly for a woman who taught diplomacy, Katya caught her smile drop for a moment and her eyes widened as she looked at the older wizard.

As brief as it was, the smile returned and Ylena said, “So she is Katya Trillon, a surname that has become quite well known of late, if Sebastian is any relation.”

“He’s my older brother,” the younger girl acknowledged with a little surprise that she would know him, since he was a mage and not a wizard.

Looking to Darius again the woman found that she had to lead the introductions as the high wizard had remained silent as the two women began to get to know each other.

“I am Darius Eremia, High Wizard of Eirdhen, the Enchwold school if the name means anything this far north,” the silver haired wizard stated with a slight bow of his head.

The introduction brought another frown to the woman’s forehead as she said, “That is a long way off for any wizard to be bringing a recruit or wilder to our school. How did you find yourself so far from home..., High Wizard Darius?”

“Well, we were invited to the games of course, but a friend asked if I would bring his sister here for him. Since he is doing a favor for me, I felt that it was only right to do one for him,” he said with another warm smile for the wizard. It was as if the immortal was teaching Ylena the art of diplomacy instead of the other way around.

“I am afraid that, unlike Falcon Sebastian, Katya has both more power and less control. As you might have noticed, I had to cast a restraining spell on her magic temporarily. Her emotions already trigger her magic, though I would say that it takes fairly extreme swings to create an accident.”

Taking in the clinical observation of the young girl, Ylena looked at Katya and nodded. Producing a necklace with a clear white gem attached to the silver metal, the wizard placed it over the girl’s head with her assistance.

Though the diplomacy wizard was a few inches taller, the girl’s long blond hair was still an obstacle that required assistance for her to chain the clasp to secure it around her neck. Katya picked up the pretty gem in her fingers to look at it catching the light before her eyes returned to the dark haired wizard once more. The girl assumed that there was more meaning behind the necklace than being a lucky new student receiving new jewelry.

“You know of the restraining gems?” Ylena asked of Darius, who looked like he knew enough about them to teach the wizard, but he let the moment pass as the woman acknowledged the man’s understanding with a nod. “Then for Katya, let me explain how this will work.

“Master Darius will begin to release your magic and I want you to concentrate on the gem. Keep your eyes focused on it until I tell you to stop.”

Nodding at the simple instructions, Ylena said to Darius, “If you would, sir, please let her magic flow slowly.”

Katya had a feeling that this was definitely not the first time he had performed such an act. The girl could also feel the fuzziness beginning to lift from her head. Like a stuffed up nose on the verge of opening for the first time in weeks of experiencing a cold, her magic began to return to her.

A minute passed and Ylena began to look from the immortal to the girl as if the process was taking longer than she expected. The gem, on the other hand, had begun to change early on and picked up more and more color. Katya continued to look at the crystal and soon thought that even if she wished to look away that she could not. It was like the flow of her magic to her was tied to looking at the gem and no matter what else she might wish, it would not release her gaze.

When at last a final last push made Katya feel like the cold was gone, the girl couldn’t stop herself from having to sneeze. Her eyes slipped off of the stone as they closed because of the reaction of her body, but when she opened them again to look at the gem, the stone had turned deep purple like an amethyst.

“That is a rich color,” Ylena complimented the girl, though Katya didn’t know what the significance of it actually was.

Darius informed the girl, “The stronger a wizard is, the darker their gem will turn. While the colors vary with the type of magic and the caster involved, one thing is always consistent. The darker the color the more powerful the wizard is who is linked to it.”

Katya looked up to the high wizard and asked, “Is my magic stuck inside of it, because I don’t feel like I have a cold anymore? When you had the spell holding my magic in, I always felt like my nose was stuffed up or on the verge of getting a headache. I don’t feel that anymore.”

Taking back over the teaching, Ylena said, “While you are connected to this necklace, you will have full access to your power. The necklace acts as a buffer, however, so when you try to release it, the magic won’t just gush out affecting everyone in its path. The flow will be slower, than without it, but this will give you control that only a trained wizard has.”

“What if I should lose it or someone takes it from me?” the girl asked with a frown worrying that maybe her magic was actually resting in the stone.

“Your magic is tied to it. If you are too far from it, you will barely be able to cast; though you still possess all your magic. Eventually your power would come loose without the stone, but that would take close to a month if you were never able to get the necklace back.

“If someone were to steal it or it is lost, your magic can lead you to it like you are following a compass; so in theory you should never need to worry about being apart from it for long,” the wizard finished with a reassuring smile.

Darius nodded as Katya looked from Ylena to the high wizard. She wished that he could stay as her teacher. Katya had a feeling that the ancient wizard could teach her more than the entire faculty of White Hall combined, but he wasn’t from her country and she wasn’t from his.