White Hall (The High King: A Tale of Alus Book 10) (32 page)

"That would be if I could use the magic on something attached to my bones at all anyway. I can alter my hair color, but I can see it. I can’t see inside my body to use alteration on the amulet, I don't think.”

Taking Katya by the hand, Cheleya pulled Katya after her once the younger girl had put her white novice jacket over her dress. The two hurried down the stairs and into the central courtyard. They hadn’t found anymore of their friends, so the two girls hurried to the front gate.

Cadets halted them as security, but Cheleya merely told them they were going to the earth grounds west of the school to get approval. The boys at the doors didn’t really care so long as the two girls signed out for them, though Katya wondered if part of that was the charm of the dragoness and her magical scent that made people love her.

After a bit of a walk, the girls found Darius and his grandson, Elias, standing with a small crowd of wizards. One of those was Saenic and Cheleya looked askance of her at the crowd. The white robes of the high wizard and several other heads of their school guilds stood looking at Darius with a mix of distrust and curiosity.

“Why are they here?” the dragoness asked without anger. She was curious about the decision to bring so many other wizards to watch Darius try a form of magic that would be hard to see aside from a tremendous result like her changing into a che’ther.

Saenic looked like a younger girl facing her teacher’s annoyance, even though she was the elder and the teacher. “I had to tell High Wizard Herrol and Wizard Alum. You are still a student here and your well being is also our concern. Since this is a highly untested bit of magic Darius is about to use, I thought that there should be witnesses at least.”

“My parents won’t be coming all this way to complain, I don’t think,” the little blonde said thinking of two che’ther making such a long trek to White Hall. Of course, her future sibling was still gestating in his or her egg as well. Her mother wouldn’t leave the egg even if she found out her daughter had been killed. It would make the egg that much more important to her as the remains of their family.

“Still...” Saenic tried again.

Katya looked to Darius and said, “I think he is ready.”

Before they could take a step, the sound of leathery wings flapping overhead brought all their eyes to the sky and the wall to the east of them. Kel’lor flew in, a majestic mar’goyn’lya, larger than a human man with the strength of a giant. He landed beside Cheleya and asked the same question most of the others had before him, “Are you sure about this, little sister? We don’t know much about this human.”

“He is an immortal high wizard and a friend to the battle mage, Katya’s brother. If the king of Southwall trusts him, then why can’t I?”

Growling as the gargoyle crossed his arms in annoyance, the creature Cheleya called ‘big brother’ had no other arguments for her. The girl had always been quicker witted when it came to arguing and could use her words better than he could as well. He also knew when she had committed to a course of action that Cheleya wouldn't be dissuaded no matter what he said.

The pretty, little, blonde haired girl walked over to Darius without bothering to argue or wait for anyone to convince her of a different course of action, but even Darius said, “This is the last chance to back out before I start.”

“I will not back out, as you put it. I have faith that this will work in one way or another. There is nothing that will happen to harm me from what you are about to do.”

Darius looked less convinced and Katya wished that the girl would listen to reason. No one seemed as sure as she was though and Cheleya was a force as the dragoness nearly bullied her theory into being.

With a tight nod, the wizard turned the girl in case she should transform into a che’ther or dragon so that she wouldn’t crush someone behind her. Darius might be crushed as well, but he was immortal. Death was merely temporary for such a being.

The high wizard began with his spell for seeing and his grandson joined him. Darius spoke quietly to Elias before a second spell began.

With a curious smile on her lips, Cheleya said to the wizard, “Interesting, I don’t need to cast like I do for elements with that kind of magic. It is more like applying my mind to a problem.”

Elias answered for his grandfather, “It may be an innate magic to you, but we need to call on the power. Now sit still and we will try to remove these shards he told me about.”

The girl gave a nod and watched as Elias cast a different spell. She was unsure of what it was until she felt a pinch from her skin over her collarbone. Wincing in a bit of pain, the dragoness watched as a gray fluid was pulled from her skin through the pores. Like sweating liquid stone, the dragoness watched as the first shard was removed and placed in a metal bowl.

She looked on wondering if the two wizards would manage to restore the shard to its original shape, but a simple round stone formed as it hardened. The pain was echoed from the right side of her collarbone as the second piece was changed to liquid and pulled out of her body by the two wizards. Unsure which was doing what; Cheleya tried to stay still to let them work. It was for her and at her request that they were doing this magic after all, the least she could do was try to be a good patient and let them work.

The center of her chest was next and sweat formed on the girl’s forehead with the pain. It wasn’t terrible, but the discomfort of the foreign material leaving her body through openings which weren’t designed to pass it was still not pleasant.

He worked each lower rib first and Cheleya wondered if her breasts would need to be accounted for with the next two. While they weren’t large, they were still fleshy enough to block the bone with a few extra inches. Through the cloth of her blouse, which was colored pink today since Cheleya wasn’t confined to the uniforms of a student of Southwall; the stones under her breasts followed the ribs to the side with less material in the way and lifted free from closer to her arms.

Six of eight were removed and Cheleya felt no different aside from the minor pain.

Darius pointed with his fingers towards her forehead where Cheleya felt the annoying pinch, but could watch as the liquid stone passed through the skin above her eyes. Going cross-eyed watching it for a moment, the dragoness looked at the container in Elias’ hand as his other hand seemed to summon the stones as they curled towards him over and over coaxing the pieces of amulet into the bowl.

“Turn,” the high wizard commanded sounding distracted. While it was hardly the most pleasant of bedside manners, the girl understood. Using magic outside of one’s body often brought that distance from emotion.

Lifting her blouse slightly to expose more of her spine, the raised cloth which bared her mid drift above her pants was no real distraction for the wizard, but the movement felt right as Darius worked on the last piece of amulet.

Moment’s passed and Darius frowned. Waving to the gathered wizards, he called, “Saenic, I could use your skills here.”

It was a risk to the woman’s health if Cheleya should change into a massive monster of legend, but Elias was no more immortal than the healer and he had remained throughout the operation.

“What is it, Darius?” asked the woman brushing at her light brown hair nervously.

“This piece seems attached in a different way from the rest. Can you see it?”

Saenic called on her spell as she touched the dragoness on the bare skin of her lower back before letting her magic look beneath the skin. The stone seemed wrapped around the piece of bone in the spine. Liquids and flesh surrounded the area, but the fact that the piece almost felt like it had taken the place of the bone was what worried both of them.

“I can use my magic to bare the stone without harming anything else. Pull the shard through the opening, so we don’t risk paralyzing the girl.”

‘The girl’ The healer's need to push the feeling of familiarity away to protect herself more than the patient came out in her words. She liked Cheleya, but it was easier to think of her as just another girl being treated by the wizard.

Though Darius nodded, Saenic waited only a moment until she was ready, not worrying about the man's state of preparedness since he had never lifted his magic from Cheleya. Working with the flesh of the girl's back, the woman created a channel that was about the length of her thumb and nearly as wide, but it reached to the stone covered bone upsetting nothing of a girl who could remain standing as they worked. She was not paralyzed as long as Cheleya remained standing. If her legs collapsed beneath her, the patient would have been harmed.

It wasn’t a thing that anyone wanted to see.

Taking a deep breath, Darius altered the stone bonded to her spine. It was the most dangerous piece of magic since the wizard wasn’t an expert healer. His job was to remove the material, not preserve the flesh like a healer. Saenic stepped in working to maintain the health of her patient as the man worked his magic.

The last stream of gray stone flowed through the hole made by the healer and soon Darius was finished and wiping his forehead, while Saenic eased flesh and muscle back together as if it had never been apart.

Cheleya didn’t change spontaneously or even in a slow manner as feared however. She looked to Kel’lor with disappointment, but it was Katya who tossed her spare amulet to her. Placing it around her neck, the dragoness tried her last hope.

“Neruter emis ot flesym sa et sawen,” she called on the spell which should revert her to che’ther form. There was no change or glow. It was as if the amulet was defective and merely a piece of stone. Trying the words three times without result, the girl tried reversing the spell as she had done during the emergency of a battle almost a month ago. “Ekam emet tahway et ma desopus ot ebem.”

Again there was no change and after three tries, Kel’lor brought over his amulet. They knew it worked for him; therefore it was a working amulet. Though they didn’t doubt the other amulet in truth, it was still worth an opportunity to try. Unfortunately like the first amulet, the spell refused to change her body in any way.

Feeling disappointed, the girl handed back the amulet to her friend and said to Darius, “Well, we tried. There was no guarantee that it would break the curse, but the amulet itself is gone.”

Darius nodded looking sad for the girl. “We will leave the pieces with you. Maybe with your magic and familiarity with the spell placed on your amulet, you might be able to reassemble it with the spell intact. It is possible that should you be able to remake the amulet, you could find a way to reverse the curse as well.”

Smiling with less of her brightness, Cheleya returned his nod though the girl appeared less sure of the idea. It would take incredible luck to remake the amulet and figure out how to keep the magic of the design. She touched the other amulet still in one piece and thought that maybe it might be possible with the other as a template, but her hopes were not high.

The immortal wizard looked thoughtful and said, “I will keep my eyes open and my mind will consider any other magic that I can. Perhaps I will come up with another idea that will work. At least, you are still in a familiar form and healthy.”

“Well, there is that and I never truly thought that this would work. I may have hoped, but it was unlikely. The magic he used came from the darkness of the emperor’s warlocks. One of them might have an answer, but I would have to capture one to drag it out of them.”

She sighed and patted the wizard’s forearm as if to comfort him instead and said, “Oh well, as you said, I am here and in good health. I have my magic and my studies after all. If I were stuck as a che’ther, I would have to go home.”

Looking to the bright side, Cheleya took Katya and Kel’lor’s arms dragging them back to the entry of the school. Dinner was coming and she was going to be hungry after having all that magic worked on her.

Chapter 17- The Magic of Mages

“Reflex,” Niklaus called on the spell he had been working on with Jeraan and the girls for a week. He had asked Falcon Elijah to show him once, but the man had told him that there was little his eyes would see unless he achieved the spell for himself.

It was also the only spell that Niklaus thought would help them deal with Krevahs. While the falcons had sent him to the kitchens to work on his attitude, it became an exercise in futility. Each sparring session followed a time working on magic spells.

The mage shield had been introduced as had stone skin. These were protective spells and best learned early, according to their teachers. While stone skin did slow a fighter’s speed by having to deal with the drag created by the spell, it could catch a weapon without taking damage. Unfortunately that just meant that Krevahs could grab and pound on the others without having to go to the healers as often as Niklaus had warned Jeraan.

It wasn’t the answer to dealing with the bully, but then again neither was ganging up on him. Admittedly they had all considered it, but Xara and Uliya weren’t overly violent. Just sparring was pushing them beyond their conditioning as young women living in Blackwall. The city might be near the wall, but even the guardian cities had become quite civilized rivaling the finery of the southern cities. Only the harsher winter seemed to keep the northern cities from attaining the finery of those to the south where they could enjoy it nearly year round.