White Hall (The High King: A Tale of Alus Book 10) (24 page)

Magnus took position in the middle of the wide expanse between the buildings and created a circle on the ground roughly twenty feet in circumference, Arrimus followed the gesture leaving about eighty feet between the two wizards.

Embrell was joined by the healer, who had been in Magnus’ group to Hala, a young woman named Pierum. The air wizard, Wellas, and the female fire wizard, Estraya, moved to form the protective magic for Arrimus.

“How many seconds do you want, Arrimus?” the fire wizard asked looking cocky as he took the center of his circle.

“Twenty for defenses and about ten to kick your butt, Magnus,” the apprentice stated confidently. A former friend of the wizard, the time away from White Hall had apparently served to create a schism between the two, Katya thought briefly. Either that or it was stupid territorial, male behavior.

Having been near the nucleus of the argument, the shorter girls were quick enough to be near the front of the crowd which remained in front of the dining hall to give the fire wizards room. Magnus pointed at Katya and asked, “Would you mind counting out twenty seconds for him and tell us when to go? You saw enough duels at the tournament to know how this works.”

Surprised to be pulled into the duel in anyway, Katya reluctantly stepped forward crying out loudly, “Prepare your defenses now!”

Counting aloud, though she didn’t yell, Katya watched as the apprentice formed three quick walls of fire. They were thick and a fire wizard’s typical defenses. Unimaginative at best, Magnus shook his head before summoning three quick battle mage shields. The front shield angled back towards the wizard and leaned against two more set on an angle should the first fall. It was a similar strategy to her brother in the tournament. He had told her once that the three shields were more for show than actual protection for him. Preserving them against an opponent could also serve to unnerve his enemy, if they could never even take the basic shields down.

“Time is up! Commence in three, two, one. Fight!” the girl shouted loud enough for the entire crowd to hear. Those still inside watching from the windows might have missed her words, but as Arrimus called fireballs to assault the wizard’s defenses, they knew the fight was on.

Magnus called, ‘Shield’ seven times to catch the seven balls of flame. The apprentice countered with a small tornado of fire, but Magnus used the blue shields to block and cut the flow of the apprentice’s power to the tornado.

“If that is all you can do, then I will end this farce now,” Magnus replied feigning boredom in the face of the apprentice’s attempts to do anything to the champion wizard.

Several fire attacks launched, but were only used to obscure a wave of power pushing along the ground. An earth spell, the apprentice tried to vary his tactics in the hopes of throwing off his opponent.

Magnus dropped three of his blue shields into the ground dissipating the earth attack, while his other blue shields caught the fire, but failed under the stress of the apprentice’s attacks. Instead of creating more or using an attack to drive Arrimus’s defenses back, Magnus surprised the crowd as he called, “Night shield.”

Katya gasped. It was a spell used by a school called Gray Hall. Only her brother Sebastian had managed to recreate it during the tournament. The battle mage had been forced to delay his mission long enough to pass on the knowledge of its creation to other battle mages and wizards alike. Since his night shield was called like a battle mage and it looked fairly easy for the wizard to create, Magnus must have learned it from Sebastian before leaving Hala.

Designed to bring dismay to his opponent, Magnus let the black shield do most of the work from then on. Making the shield catch more fire from Arrimus’ spells, Katya watched as the flame appeared to be eaten by the darkness and it strengthened with each hit besides feeding off of each elemental attack.

Arrimus tried to maneuver the fire around Magnus’ impenetrable defense, which merely forced the wizard to create a second shield. Looking like a conductor manipulating some orchestra, the blonde wizard made the two black shields weave and twist through the air catching each flaming attack. Instead of withering away after a time, Katya was pretty sure that the two shields were actually getting stronger as they ate the fire apprentice’s magic.

Even in the darkening light, she could see Arrimus beginning to sweat. Each burst of flame sparkled on his face, even though the air was quite chilly.

Magnus must have finally decided that enough of a statement had been made as he sent the two shields flying forward to strike the outer two firewalls. Like shovels moving dirt, the darkness scooped away the fire; but actually consumed the walls instead of just moving them. They intersected destroying the inner, third wall of fire snuffing that as well in seconds.

The evening suddenly brightened as fire erupted from Magnus side of the field. Like a winged beast of fire, his construct lashed out at the defenseless apprentice washing over him in a deluge before Arrimus could react in time. He had been trying to come up with a new defense, but it was too late and only the protection magic of the other wizards prevented the younger boy from being burned alive.

Magnus pointed to Katya as referee and the girl started at the gesture. A moment later she pronounced loudly, “The winner is Magnus.”

Arrimus looked at the wizard seething and he yelled at his former friend, “You cheated! What kind of spell is that?”

“I would call it a game changer,” the wizard acknowledged in a succinct way. “It was used by wizards in the tournament and deemed legal, though it is perhaps a death knell for common elemental wizards. Don’t worry though. High Wizard Herrol has already decided that it will be added to the curriculum for all wizards and mages.”

The last part made the younger man lose a bit of his anger for Magnus as he asked, “Why would it be a spell for battle mages, if that is a wizard’s spell?”

Magnus raised an eyebrow questioningly and replied, “I said wizards from another country used the spell, but did you not hear the words of the spell behind your fire? The one who taught it to me was the battle mage who reproduced it for Southwall. This is a battle mage’s spell. Be glad that we can learn it as well or we would be replaced by the mages in a matter of a month.”

The announcement created a murmur which rippled through the crowd as Magnus and his team of wizards moved from the courtyard towards the dining hall. They seemed to ignore the apprentices and cadets all trying to figure out what they had just seen. The champion had just destroyed a solid duelist with a single spell no one yet knew and it was a battle mage's spell.

Katya followed with Cheleya and their friends wondering what Magnus hoped to achieve by stirring things up in the school.

Chapter 13- Orientation

While Katya had wanted to ask Magnus about the reasoning for him stopping Arrimus from bullying the girls, and in turn his thought of using unknown magic against the apprentice; she never got the chance again that night. The girls were lined up to dance with the wizard from the start and eventually she gave up worrying over it. He had stopped the bullying, but practically did the same to the apprentice in turn, she thought as her friends began to distract her along with the music.

“Did you see the way Magnus controlled that apprentice like he was nothing?” Niklaus questioned the others on what they had all seen.

Although it was meant to be rhetorical as the mage cadet gushed over his new personal hero, Piotr had seen what the others had from beginning to end and commented, “He goaded Arrimus into a fight that the apprentice had no chance to win. Once that new spell was used by Magnus, it was over,” the twin said to his brother, who was still grinning about the match.

Job didn’t bother to return to their table as he took Briahnna’s hand after asking her to dance. The two had become nearly inseparable on the trip, though no one had told the other the girl about Job's involvement in the boys' prank.

Ignored by Niklaus, the elder twin nodded looking pleased by the turn out of the duel. “He crushed him for trying to beat the champion of the tournament in Hala. As if a mere apprentice could challenge a full wizard.”

Katya informed the boy, “Magnus was just an apprentice last year, though he is a couple years older than Arrimus. Still, that wasn’t why he could beat him so easily. That darkness shield was a problem for dozens of wizards in the tournament. Only a powerful light spell can beat it easily.”

Looking surprised by the girl’s input, Niklaus nodded as he asked, “You saw the tournament. Did you figure out how to do it too?”

“I’m not a wizard yet!” the little blonde retorted in surprise that he would ask. “I can’t even control the magic I have. No one’s really taught me anything, though I’ve read through parts of a wizard’s text book, Sebastian gave to me. Just reading it, I don’t really understand a thing; so a darkness spell that isn’t in the book is unlikely to be something I can do very soon.”

Piotr mused, “If Magnus is right and the spell is a game changing piece of magic, then what about all the other magic that has been taught until now?”

The small group remained standing by the table unsure if they should even bother to sit as students began to flood the floor. A few wizards in their colorful robes could be seen moving among them.

When a familiar looking red headed apprentice appeared through the crowds of people around them, Piotr in particular noticed the girl and smiled.

“There you all are,” Iris stated as she joined the group. “Can you believe that a full wizard would duel an apprentice in the central courtyard?”

Since they were all new to the school, they were little less shocked than the apprentice about the duelers' audacity. Iris had been training at White Hall for years and knew the rules of the school better than those given handbooks only a few hours earlier.

Piotr asked, “Is that common? I mean having people call out a duel like that?”

Sidling closer to the boy, Iris’ hands wrapped around his lower arm possessively. Her infatuation with Piotr had been a source of amusement to most of them during the trip and she seemed unwilling to let their friendly relationship disappear with their arrival in the school, at least for their first night of dancing.

Iris shook her head and replied, “No, if they want to have a duel it is usually done during the day in one of the courtyards behind the school. The fire wizards’ court is the most popular since it is one of the biggest and they consider themselves war wizards.”

Niklaus shook his head as he countered, “Wouldn’t battle mages be the war wizards? I mean, they’re already telling me all the weapons’ training that I will be going through from almost the moment tomorrow starts. They use magic and weapons, so they’re the ones who fight the most.”

Shrugging, Iris replied, “I said they call themselves that, not that it is true; though some would say that since battle mages are weaker in magic, that they could only be called war mages not wizards.”

The boy frowned.

Piotr tried to ease his brother’s feelings as he said, “I wouldn’t worry about it. If Magnus is correct, you will be able to fight wizards stronger than you with that new darkness shield, if not in other ways.”

Iris looked concerned by that point and uttered why, “If that spell can absorb all elemental magic, I hope that the Dark One’s warlocks can’t use it too. All our attack magic would be a waste of time with those things out there.”

“When my brother fought in the tournament,” Katya began trying to ease her fears, “other wizards did manage to overload the shields with their magic to win. Only Bas figured out how to make the darkness shields, so when he used it against that wizard, the other man used a spell of light to destroy it.

“The shield is like nothing to that, so if everyone is using it, then I would guess that every type of spell will count. Knock out the darkness and you can work with your elements again.

“Or maybe that is just too simple a way to look at it, since I don’t really know magic yet.”

It was Cheleya who jumped in with a smile and said, “Dragon magic isn’t affected by those shields either. For those who learn both, eventually like you say, it becomes a game designed to outmaneuver each other in a fight.

“In a battle, as opposed to a duel, it would be the same.”

Iris looked a little less worried as she asked Cheleya, “Have you ever been in a battle?”

A ripple of darkness seemed to shadow the usually happy girl’s face a moment before she confessed, “A full scale battle, no, but I have been in a fight for my life against a half dozen enemies or so a couple times with my friends at my side. You need to keep your head about you then and your eyes open. Once you know some magic, there will always be a way to win. Sometimes you just need to wait for it to open it up and remain alive until it does.”

Surprised by Cheleya’s candor, the group looked unsure what more to say. The future was ahead of them, but the night was still there to have fun.

Pulling Piotr with a grin, Iris said, “Well, I guess until I need to worry about it, I would rather dance. Come on, Piotr.”

As they danced to a quick song, he noticed that few of the dancers ever moved in the tighter holds he saw at the inns. “No one dances closer together or is it just this song?”

Smiling at him, Iris leaned a little closer to be heard, or so she made it look. “The teachers don’t want us getting too close for fear that it will lead to other things. They police it closely, though occasionally some girl will get herself pregnant.