Chapter Six

The next day, near the end of their class with Jataal, the battle mage asked Tannar to stay after the hour was up. The Elementar waited suspiciously while his fellows left the armory, talking amongst themselves. Karenna shot him a look, half of caution, half of pity. He grinned wryly at her, pretending a confidence he didn’t fully feel. She was the last to leave the classroom, and Tannar turned to face the teacher once they were alone. “Well,” he said, “what do you want?”

Jataal tossed Tannar the broadsword he’d admired the other day. Tannar caught it instinctively. “On guard,” said the battle mage, and tugged a similar weapon free from its display sheath.

Tannar didn’t move, but held the sword to his side. “What do you want?” he repeated, shifting his weight.

Jataal attacked, bringing his sword around in a simple thrust. Tannar blocked it without thinking. “Excellent reaction time,” commented the teacher. “Your form could use some work. Where did you learn to fight like this?”

“What business is it of yours?” Tannar frowned. He shoved Jataal’s blade away with his own and attacked in a graceful swipe that should have caught the old man lightly on the shoulder. The battle mage laughed and jerked his body so that the sword split the air mere inches from his skin.

“But not perfect, for all your speed,” said Jataal, still jovial. His next attack was no beginner’s move; Tannar had to scramble to counter it.

“Won’t someone complain if you slice up the students?” Tannar said, grinning in spite of himself.

“So don’t let me slice you up.” Again, the sword moved faster than Tannar had expected—he was just barely able to block it. He smiled and, knowing it was stupid, abandoned the human-leveled pretense. If his opponent was going to fight at a higher plane of ability than most mortals, then so was he.

The next few moments were pure joy. Tannar had been born with the strength, speed, and instincts to defeat almost any mortal opponent, but he had never truly been trained. Instead he’d learned what he could from Avarn’s vast library. Jataal was, for all his mortality, better than Tannar, and for the first time in his life the Elementar found himself having to devote serious energy to his own defense.

Jataal swung from the elbow. Tannar parried with a wrist-flick. This deflected the heavy weapon just enough, but before Tannar could press his opening the battle mage spun into a waist-high slice. Turning your back on an opponent, even for an instant, would have been a stupid move for anyone without the warrior’s speed, and Tannar hadn’t expected it. He flung himself backwards as the tip whistled by, mere inches from his bellybutton. Tannar caught Jataal’s sword with a left-handed parry and the blades locked for an instant before whirling back into action.

Suddenly, Jataal stopped and leaned against the wall, breathing hard and putting a hand up. Tannar halted his attack mid-swing. “What’s wrong?”

Jataal smiled. “Fifty-six years, that’s what’s wrong. Not as young as I used to be. By Werenna, you’re a talented thing.”

And the common sense Tannar had abandoned came crashing in too late to do him any good. “Not as talented as you,” he tried anyway, knowing how hopeless it was.

The battle mage laughed, wheezing slightly with fatigue. “Not as educated, yes. Not as talented, well, I don’t know about that.” He straightened and looked Tannar in the eyes. “I want to start training you, kid. Personally. You’re better than any Possible Battle Mage here, and the first student to come along in years who’s worth my time.”

For a moment Tannar ached to accept. “I can’t,” he said.

“Why not? The government would love someone like you; they’d pay you whatever you’d ask—”

“I just can’t,” snapped Tannar. “It’s…complicated.”

“Ah…” said Jataal. He replaced his sword and took a seat on one of the few wooden chairs scattered about. “It’s complicated, is it? So complicated you’d throw away a job many people would kill for?”

“A job that many people would get killed for,” countered Tannar.

Jataal smiled, and this time the expression was knowing. “It’s not the violence you have a problem with, my boy.”

“Well then,” said Tannar, annoyed again. “What is ‘it’ then?”

“I’m a battle mage. There’s none better at telling what’s in a man’s attack stance, his strategy, his tactics. And your tactics are all evasive.”

Tannar snorted. “I’ve heard enough. I said no and that’s that.” He turned his back and started to leave.

“It doesn’t have to be official.”

Slowly, Tannar revolved until he faced Jataal again, a barely controlled eagerness burning in his eyes. “How’s that?”

“If it’s complicated, then maybe it’s complicated,” Jataal said. “Then maybe I don’t get the credit for training one of the best natural-born warriors to come along in fifty years. But maybe I get the satisfaction of seeing him get better, maybe I get the satisfaction of being the only one who can say ‘I beat him once.’ And maybe that’s good enough for me.”

“Maybe I don’t want to risk it.”

Jataal shrugged. “It’s up to you. The offer stands, however long it takes.”

For a moment, far too long of a moment, Tannar hesitated. And when he finally spoke it wasn’t “Forget it” or “I’ve had enough.” It was, “I’ll think about it.”

“You do that.”

* * *

Karenna walked the twins to the door of their first healing-magic class and waited with them while they worked up the courage to go inside. “It’s not like they’ll make you actually use any of the spells today, not for months as I understand it,” she said as they all but cowered behind her.

“We know,” replied Menee.

“Then what’s the problem?”

“Um,” said Laroo. “The teacher knows our father.”

“So?”

They gulped in unison. “Well, you see,” Laroo explained. “The fact that we didn’t turn out as battle mages was…frankly a disappointment to him. But our mother’s a healer, and she convinced him that healers can do just as much important stuff as battle mages.”

“So now,” Menee picked up the account, “he’s rather convinced that we’re going to be fantastic healers. The words ‘Class 1’ don’t register with him.”

“And he’s told this teacher to give him regular reports on what he calls ‘our progress.’”

“Which we will consider very good if we manage not to kill the first animal we try the spells on,” finished Menee.

Karenna sighed. “I see. Well, I have class, too, boys, I’m afraid I can’t hold your hands all the way.”

“We know,” said Menee.

“Thanks anyway,” said Laroo.

She pushed each of them into the classroom and waved before continuing on to her own class. They stood there for a moment, then crept to two seats in the far back corner. The door at the front of the room slammed open and a tall, sallow man strode in, his teacher’s robes fluttering. Again, the twins gulped.

“I am Professor Nebonava,” he announced, glaring around with large brown eyes. “And I understand that I have two members of the famous Vocilia family in my class.”

This time, the twins groaned.

* * *

Shana’s hand shot up for perhaps the hundredth time that period, and Karenna sighed as the teacher beamed and called on her. Not as though Karenna herself wanted the attention. But she knew the answers as well as the young snob did, and not being able to show her up rankled. “There are five types of human mages,” said Shana primly. “Wizards—general magic uses; magicians—who bind Elementals; fordges—who create magic items; battle mages—the warriors; and healers, who are also called menders.”

“Very good,” said the teacher, a thin woman with straight black hair. “Now, would anyone care to name more of the specific talents of each mage?”

The blonde girl’s hand rose again, but she didn’t wait for permission before she spoke, “Madame Illitta, why are we bothering with this? All of us know the answers already.”

Several heads nodded, and there were various murmurs of agreement.

Illitta flashed a look at Shana. “Not everyone has your privileged upbringing, Miss Liam, or your magical talent.” Her gaze flicked around the room quickly before coming to rest on Karenna. “Miss Morn, for instance,” she said, “can you tell us the specific talents of a type of human mage?”

Karenna felt her cheeks flush, and this time there were suppressed chuckles from around the room. She knew the information, but she had been foolish with her knowledge before and the ordeal of Tannar’s revelations yesterday had made her wary. But because Avarn was on her mind, she said, “Magicians control Elementars, right? The two are bound together, and whatever one feels, so does the other.”

“Very good,” said Illitta, a thin-lipped smile twisting her mouth. “Can anyone tell me how many Elementars one magician can control at a time?”

“The most ever recorded is four,” said Shana without bothering to even raise her hand. “But that has only happened in rare cases. Most average magicians can only manage one or two, perhaps three if they’re very talented. Of course, most die trying to gain control of their first. And even if they don’t, they feel whatever pain their slave goes through in the process.”

“Shouldn’t they?” said Karenna quietly. “The magicians do steal their freedom.”

Shana sneered. “Why should you care what a non-human feels?”

Karenna bit back a retort. She lowered her head and said, with a trace of venom, “Whatever you say, of course.”

She heard Shana open her mouth for an angry comeback, but the teacher interrupted. “Girls, girls,” she said, waving her hands for peace, “debate is not the object of this class.”

“But truth is,” muttered Karenna. “Or it should be.”

“What was that, Miss Morn?” snapped Illitta.

“Nothing, ma’am.”

Madame Illitta went back to her lecture. Shana waited until the teacher’s attention was elsewhere then twisted in her seat to throw a glare back at Karenna, who smiled sweetly, and didn’t meet the other’s eyes.

* * *

Tannar sat amongst the constant bustle and noise of the mess hall, picking at the food before him and thinking. “And he made us stand up in front of the whole class and introduce ourselves,” Laroo wailed.

“And he said, ‘I only hope the rest of you can measure up to the natural talent of these Vocilias,’” Menee added, pitching his voice to imitate the offending teacher.

The late afternoon sun that filtered through the high windows darkened with the gathering storm-clouds. Still the twins talked, babbling about their simple anxieties and temporary problems. A peal of thunder ripped through the noise of the dinner chaos, and for a moment there was silence.

Karenna glanced from the ever-thickening clouds outside to Tannar. He didn’t look at her. Another thunderclap, louder than the first, resounded, again silencing the hundred conversations that buzzed through the large room. “Tannar,” said Karenna softly.

“Frustration,” he muttered. “Let me get it out in a thunderstorm or it’ll come out in a hurricane.”

There was the noise of a million raindrops slamming into stone. Several of the students jumped, and those sitting near the windows shuffled away from the pervasive rain that clawed its way through the slits. “Tannar,” said Karenna again.

But Tannar wasn’t listening. Jataal’s offer tore at him. To learn from a real warrior, to train under a master battle mage such as he. It was a dream he had never dared have.

Then why don’t you?

Tannar started, another thunderclap manifesting his surprise. Avarn?

Why not let him train you, my friend? The magician’s voice was faint and very distant, but achingly familiar. If this will make you happy, I trust you. For a few perfect seconds Avarn’s heartbeat filled his mind, soothing the ever-present pain of the distance that separated them. Then it faded to silence. The clamor of the storm died and the constant pounding of rain-drops became the pitter-patter of isolated showers.

Karenna put a hand on his arm and he started again. “What’s wrong?” she said.

He realized that he was breathing hard, and for an instant he felt his eyes glow blue. “Nothing,” he said, standing and carrying his tray of untouched food to the waste bins. He strode out into the fading afternoon light and stopped. The buildings around him were drenched, every slab of stone dark with moisture. Tannar inhaled the clear, alive scent of after-rain air. He glanced up at the dissipating storm-clouds, smiled, and saluted them before swaggering off.

* * *

Jataal was sitting alone in the corner of the armory, watching the quickly-dissipating storm-clouds, when the door behind him slammed open. He turned and caught the hilt of the broadsword that Tannar flung at him. The boy held the same sword Jataal had tossed to him that morning.

Tannar grinned impishly. “On guard.”