White Hall (The High King: A Tale of Alus Book 10) (73 page)

Guards turned to look at the novice giving her questioning looks. The newly taken over courtyard wasn't exactly off limits to the students, but the guards had been set to watch over the portal. Since no one knew if the emperor could find Darius' portal points, the school wasn't taking any chances. The courtyard had even been modified the girl noticed. It had never been a common area for her to visit though it had been the place of Niklaus' fight with Krevahs, so she had seen its original set up.

New towers and walkways were set up for guards to look down on the courtyard. Archers had bows ready; though the girl had no idea how much time they would have if a portal opened to spew the enemy into the courtyard. She hadn't seen the portal Piotr had spoken of in the mountains, so the novice was unsure of pretty much everything about the use of the magic.

Katya noted that she wasn't the only visitor to the courtyard. The boy who had seen the beast army's retreat was there with four wizards. Zieran stood just behind his student while Piotr discussed something with three other wizards. A fire and water wizard she had seen in the compound, but had very little contact with, seemed to be the main ones involved in the discussion with the novice.

The last wizard wore white, but it wasn't a novice or apprentice's uniform. His gray hair made that evident as well unless there was a career apprentice that had never graduated she had never heard of at the school. Such an idea was more of a joke in her mind as Katya knew that it must be High Wizard Herrol. What was so important to drag the white wizard out of his tower was perhaps the biggest question the girl could think of seeing him here.

Along with the gazes of the guards, the four wizards turned to see who had entered the courtyard. Piotr looked a little relieved to see a comforting face. She smiled and received one in turn from her friend, but to her surprise High Wizard Herrol brightened as well.

The high wizard greeted her saying, "So one of our other curious novices has come to see the portal?"

Unsure of what to say, Katya nodded and approached the four trying to appear calm. "I was told that Master Darius had been here and was disappointed that I had missed him, so I guess that I figured the next best thing was to see what he had made here," the girl finally said and was glad that her voice didn't break with any nervous energy.

Herrol nodded and continued his conversation with the girl, "Your friend has apparently researched and duplicated the magic used to make the enemy's portals. He set one here and has a plan to create one in every major city in the country.

"Master Darius has only two worries concerning the portals. First, there is the potential worry that has always been there. Can using portals weaken the barriers between dimensions creating untold trouble?

"Second, is the fear that others might be able to hijack our portals for their own use." He gestured to the guards and added, "The second we can prepare for at least."

Surprised that the leader of their school would be so forth coming Katya was even more surprised when the man asked, "So is this a type of magic that you are interested in as well, novice?"

Even more surprised by the last question, Katya forced a breath to think and controlled her words as she had been taught as a diplomacy wizard. "I'm not sure, high wizard. I hadn't truly given it much thought. Hasn't this been set aside for full wizards and maybe apprentices only?"

"Like dragon magic?" the gray haired man asked with a smirk and a raise of his eyebrows. It was a joke obviously, since as headmaster he had given the girl permission to learn the originally forbidden magic. "Occasionally there are novices that we simply have to give in to their natural curiosity. Young Piotr here is a nature wizard with wilder tendencies, though he seems to have the control of a typical wizard. Within his style of magic, we have given him more free rein than a normal nature novice since he has a knack for those spells.

"Then there is a girl like you, someone who had to be stifled by another wizard because her power was too great for her to control. Again you verge on being a wilder, but have pushed through with help and have tamed your power enough to become a solid diplomacy wizard.

"You also have a thirst for new spells and magic. Like your brother, you may have the ability to cross into other areas of magic and may one day be a candidate for the white robes. Of course, that will take a lot of time. We don't hand over the title 'white wizard' to novices or apprentices who have so much to learn, but it can at least be said that you have ability."

Katya blinked in shock. She had always thought that High Wizard Herrol disliked her for learning dragon magic on her own. Maybe a thirst for knowledge, even for a novice, wasn't something he discouraged, but was actually something to be commended? Still the girl was surprised to hear his praise.

Herrol gestured her forward to look at the courtyard which looked empty beyond the addition of guards and the five wizards. The man continued to speak and Katya realized it was his nature to teach as well, even if he was mostly confined to his white tower, "There isn't much to see when the portal isn't open, but can you feel the magic in the air where it can exist with the right push of a spell?"

Katya's eyes looked and felt nothing unusual in the air above the bared dirt of the courtyard. Grass had been removed in an eight foot long line just beyond where Piotr and the other wizards stood now. It wasn't until her eyes looked at the outer edge of the line that she felt something familiar.

The girl walked over to the right end and knelt feeling magic coming from a stone, but it wasn't just a stone, Katya thought. It felt like Darius when he cast his spells. She didn't know why she thought that, but that was the familiarity that the novice felt.

"What is this?" Katya asked wondering if it was too telling that she was a novice when she couldn't indentify such a simple looking thing.

She noted Herrol's smile and Piotr frowned slightly as he looked at the stone just beyond her hand. Wondering why the boy would frown was put aside as the high wizard answered, "I see you have a good eye for magic as well. That is what most wizards call a lodestone. In this case, it is one of a pair anchoring the doorway.

"High Wizard Darius set these points, but as we find more wizards capable of reproducing the spell, he said that shifting them to a common shared magic would likely work better.

"Since you are here, would you like to see what a portal looks like when it is opened?"

Katya nodded. Shocked that she would be included, the girl noted Piotr looking between her and the high wizard. The boy said nothing as they backed up a few steps. The two wizards, one from fire and one from water; moved to stand near each of the stones at the end of the strange line in the dirt. They began casting a spell in a pattern unknown to her. Piotr watched closely as well and she wondered if this was the first time he had seen the spell.

The question must have been on Herrol's mind as he asked, "Did this dark elf, as everyone calls him, cast a spell like this, Piotr?"

"There were half a dozen elves like him there. They worked together to cast a spell. I can't say that I remember the gestures or words they used. The words were powerful, but like the words of power we use, I didn't really recognize what they were saying."

The high wizard nodded, "Most novices can barely make out individual words within the spells. It is a foreign language to you all, but for those who put in the time studying them, words of magic are just as understandable as common. The research wizards understand that more than most, I suppose, but teaching magic before truly comprehending what you are actually saying has been the way of it for generations before us."

As they spoke, a tingle could be felt from the air by Katya and her eyes wandered from the high wizard. Watching the empty air, suddenly a doorway of golden light formed though there was no framework holding the strange glow. A crisp rectangle, the doorway reached from the two stones and rose up almost eight feet high.

"Is this what their gate looked like, Piotr?" High Wizard Herrol asked of the boy, who had been the only one to see the portal in the mountains. A contingent had been left behind with extra supplies and the order to keep an eye on the area, but should the enemy return they would do their best to avoid detection by these creatures from another world.

Shaking his head, Piotr replied, "No, sir, this one ripples a little bit, but it shines with light and is more like a large stained glass window. The one I saw looked like roiling clouds. The edges weren't sharp like this one either.

"It was like they entered a building full of smoke from a fire, but there was no light or heat."

The high wizard motioned for the wizards to close the portal. It had been set to a guarded point in Windmeer, the novices would learn later. The first castle to have a set portal, Darius was sending lodestones to other cities and castles from Windmeer and using the original for training purposes.

"If the magic is not the same, then our hunch is likely correct that they come from somewhere new. Perhaps the damage to the boundaries between worlds has already occurred as the wizards' councils have feared for over a thousand years."

Realizing that the novices were still listening, the old wizard looked at the two and ordered, "You will discuss nothing of what you have seen here or what has been said. We do not need rumors stirring up new fears for the other students or have it spilling out into the city for others to spread."

Piotr appeared surprised by the order as he reminded the head of the school, "The entire company knows about these unknown creatures and the odds that they are something new. I doubt that every mouth has remained closed about the battle and it will be hard to conceal since there were several deaths as well.

"What does our silence buy you?"

Seeming to understand that the boy wasn't trying to resist as much as comprehend the order, Herrol sighed and stated, "While everyone might learn that there was a battle in the mountains, for now it can be spun as a run in with bandits or even a remnant scattered from the fortress in the north, if we must.

"Without your silence about both our new portal magic and that of this new enemy, it might lead others to think of where they truly came from and we don't have that answer. This magic must not be made known to anyone outside the school and wizards using it in the castles, or there may be spies who could get the information back to the Dark One and his people.

"Just do your best, children, to avoid saying more than anyone else needs to know." With that the two novices were sent on their way with Zieran escorting them from the courtyard.

After that day, security on the courtyard tightened even more while only wizards found capable of using the magic or the battle mages and soldiers chosen for portal guards were allowed inside the courtyard. It became off limits to the other students and more wizards would be sent over the next months to test and train for portal magic.

Even the novices knew that such magic was a game changer. Travel between castles around the country would take an instant instead of weeks. Armies could move anywhere along the wall making their ability to defend the country far greater than it had once been.

It was something that would be tested sooner than anyone knew at the time and the students went back to studying like nothing had happened.

Chapter 37- The Use of Portals

Summer was nearing its end when news of an attack on Northwall came to the school. It had been just over a month since the return of the novice company. The rumors of that journey had been restrained by the faculty, but the battle which became known as the Battle of the Two Towers nearly unsettled all that they had done.

Requests for assistance for a key point in the wall had been answered as best they could from White Hall. Nearly half the mentors seemed to disappear in the night. The noise had awoken enough of the students for word to get around. The emperor had attacked the great wall in force and one of the rumors was that they had even used portal magic to get behind the wall for the attack.

Again the teachers did what they could to halt any talk of the battle. By the morning, most of those who had gone in the night were returned. The power of the portals had meant that the enemy had been defeated. That much was made known, but days later the river began to change.

Changes in the flow caused a rise and fall of the river's level causing chaos among the ships along the piers of the specially dredged part of the river. A few smaller vessels were ripped from their anchorage and most of those were washed up on shore when the water returned in a flash flood.

Then the color of the river changed. First it was unusually cloudy, and then the Cadhalla turned red with the color of blood. A battle had claimed many lives and even broken the wall between the Two Towers which had once spanned the river. The river fluctuated for nearly a week and worries over a blockage of the major source of water for much of the eastern part of the country were soon quelled as it was eventually restored to what it had been.

Katya had flown over the river for days, often accompanied by Cheleya or Iris. The young women noted the changes in the river as they flew for miles upriver and returned to give reports to High Wizard Herrol and the others in charge of the school. The wizards in turn did what they could to keep the city's waterway under control as much as the water wizards could.