“Class, this is Lynton from Keldon. He will be staying with me, for—well, I’m not sure. But with me he’ll be. And today he’ll be watching how amazing you behave in my class.” That brought a brief roar of laughter. Though she was pleased, they were generally quite disciplined; it seemed this discipline came along with loads of spontaneous questions totally unrelated to class.
“You’re from Keldon?” Janon asked. This guy had all the size of the mountain people without being too much. A fear that he had. Janon wanted to be big but not crazy-muscular like his people were.
“Yes. The province of Zar.”
“You’re a mix.”
“Oh.” Janon was hoping that he would be the same mix as himself, so that there was a chance he wasn’t going to turn into an overgrown piece of muscle.
“Oh?”
“I’m part Atorathian,” Janon said. “And I show no signs of it. I’m already tall and solid. I was hoping their perfect balance would stop me from growing too much. But you’re part Mironian.”
“You’ll be fine.”
“That’s what they all say,” Janon said with a sigh.
“Are you a healer? Aren’t Keldonians healers and speakers to the earth?” Tilal asked.
“Yes, I can speak to the plants, and I’m a fairly good healer. But my brother is almost so good that he could bring the dead back to life. Best healer in centuries.” A collective “wow” came from the class. Shalini was also shocked. This brother was full of surprises.
“Okay, today we are going to practice moving our power around an object. Sometimes, there may not be a clear path to the target, and you will have to work around obstacles. It’s extremely hard to do with serious attack spells, but we will only be doing a minor shield or barrier spell. And Lynton has volunteered to be our obstacle.”
“I have?” Lynton was thoroughly unsure about this. He had a sinking feeling he’d been set up.
“Why yes. And we’re going to be in the Other.” A pudgy boy barely stopped a laugh from escaping. Lynton glared at him. He stiffened. Clearly, this kid had some toughening up to do.
“Don’t worry. I’m sure you won’t get hit by anything. And a shield spell won’t really harm you.”
“Djah. It will still hurt—especially in the Other.”
“You’re a big boy; you can handle it.”
“Djah?” one of the students asked.
“Swear word. Just like ‘Mikah’ here in Mironi or ‘Bah’ in Atorath; ‘LiKahd’ is the word in Danais.” Tilal said, and they all nodded. It wasn’t as if they hadn’t heard Janon use it multiple times. It was simple to deduce what it was. It was apparently just more interesting coming out of Lynton.
“Okay, class. You all know what to do.” It had taken many gruelling hours, but ultimately the many hours spent travelling into the Other paid off. The class could go into the Other completely unassisted. Drak was just glad to not be the slowest at the task. His confidence wasn’t growing nearly as fast as he had hoped. Somehow, after that first day, he had a spark he never felt before, but it was short-lived, as his usual uneasiness returned almost immediately the next day when he blew up another apple. This time it was so bad that apple pieces went through the entire class. A seed went up his nose, and he ended up choking till the seed then came out his mouth. Even his two best friends couldn’t help but laugh at that.
“Stop panicking; I doubt you can blow him up,” Tilal said as she saw him appear in the Other.
“Yup. And you surely don’t have to worry about choking him out,” Janon said, and a few other kids had a laugh at his expense.
“Must you always joke loud enough to be heard?” Drak asked, but not with enough hate for Janon to take him seriously. It was funny; he would’ve laughed at himself with his own face covered in apple choking up seeds. “How am I supposed to live this down if you keep bringing it up?”
“You’re not. Your hair is awesome. I’ve never really seen a Dani up close before.”
“Okay, class. There’s an apple behind Lynton on the fence.” Drak immediately tensed.
“Just joking, Drak. It’s a peach. Only one large seed.” The class chuckled together. “So the idea is to send the spell at him, but it shouldn’t touch him. After we master that, then we can try to see if we can attach it to the fruit. I want to see the spell as it moves. It should look like this.”
Shalini sent a blue stream at him, but right before it hit his body: it broke in two, went around him, and then enclosed the peach behind him. It was beautiful and easy to see since Shalini controlled the pace of the spell. Then she did it again to show them what it should look like if they were in battle. It happened so fast no one caught it, but they were still impressed.
Everyone took three turns, and Shalini gave pointers and explained what she saw that was wrong and how they should attack it. Then she let them all go for another round. A few seemed to be making progress. Tilal was the only one who did it successfully. They broke for lunch, and when they came back, it was time for serious practice with no one allowed to stop until the end.
“Now class, Lynton is going to split himself. And don’t worry; he’s fully recovered from all the hits he received. Each of you will have your own target.”
Lynton knew this was as much a help as it was a test. He wasn’t sure if he could keep that many shadows of himself solid or if he had the concentration to not make hundreds in the magnified existence of the Other. Still, he had to do it. When he was done, only about three out of the twenty were a little transparent.
“Good. Not bad at all,” Shalini said.
Before resuming class, Shalini sent a wave at one of the transparent ones to be sure the magic treated it as a solid being. Redoing magic was just as physically exhausting as combat training. And Shalini did not let up. She walked up and down the line, touching the students as they worked to help them see their individual mistakes. Drak, again, was hitting Lynton the most, mostly because of nerves. He was so afraid of hitting him that he kept botching the spell. His concentration went awry. Shalini hit him with a light energy blast and glared at the rest of the class: daring them to stop practice. None did for more than a second.
“That is a deliberate hit. That is what you are doing. There is no way you can hit him that many times by mistake. Odds are that even by accident, you should’ve succeeded by now. And if they are mistakes, maybe magic isn’t meant for you. Confidence. Relaxation and control. You have to believe you can do it. Stop worrying about your unstable power. Focus on what’s right in front of you. Breathe. Clear your mind.”
Drak did as she told. He stopped, concentrated, and breathed. He relaxed almost so much that he was in the state it took to get in and out of the Other. Then, knowing that Shalini’s deliberate jest was in actuality a command to be more deliberate, he spoke with more deliberation and confidence—so much so it stopped the class. He had gotten into the magicians’ whisper and sent out a stream of energy just as slow as Shalini’s. Not only did the barrier go around Lynton, but the shield was also large enough to cover the whole table, not just the peach.
“Just believe.” She leant in close to be sure only he could hear. “I strongly believe you have the potential to be one of the greatest wizards of all time. Let go of your fears. You will conquer your instability, and you have two friends who would do anything for you. Trust in yourself, and this is what you’ll be able to do.”
Drak was amazed. He didn’t want to be king—didn’t want to be great. However, here it was, staring at him: proof that it was his destiny to rule the realm. He did even better than Tilal though with much more concentration, he was sure she would outdo him.
“See. We told you that you could do it!” Janon said.
Shalini called an end to the lesson. Lynton pulled himself back together. He was clearly more than a little bruised. But it had all been for a good cause.
“I’ll get you checked out. Class dismissed. Straight to bed after dinner and don’t forget to read up on the herb list I gave you. Maybe Lynton could assist us. Seeing as he is a Keldonian. And I expect nothing but perfect understanding from the other Keldonians. Especially you, Janon.”
“Me?”
“Yes, seeing as how you want to be a healer.”
“And an assassin,” he threw in. Being an assassin appealed to him more than being a warrior.
“What did you want to be when you were eleven, Mr. Lynton?” asked one of the students.
“A warrior. For the Alliance. I’ve always wanted to help heal the world. I am a healer by trade in truth, and the plants and healing potions are the fun part.”
“We’re just doing theory. This class is more about control.”
Everyone had returned to their bodies and were back in class. There was a collective “aww” at that statement. “And there will be no more talking to him. Clearly, he doesn’t know how to filter out the good bits of his thoughts, so you don’t hear them. Class dismissed. Absolutely, this time.”
The two of them took a walk on the town. Magician’s Way led straight through the middle of the town. The school was in the sub-province of Daltar. Unlike Atorath, Mironi wasn’t designed in such a way that all the sub-provinces met the main city. None of the provinces in the realm were designed equally, so it was pure coincidence that Atorath happened to be sectioned in such a way that all the sub-provinces connected with the main city. Daltar was the only province that didn’t touch the main city of Mironi, but it was also the biggest of the sub-provinces.
The central town of Daltar was designed like a four-petal flower. The only straight roads in the form of a cross went from the centre of each petal to the opposite one. Magicians Way had the school at one end, and on the opposite side of town was Datori Garden, named after the Vardon who allegedly killed his brother in The War of the Beginning. The Other Road was also rather obviously named Magicians Road. It had a temple to Miron at one end, and at the other side of the town was the Mironi Builders Museum of History. It was always expanding and held discoveries of building with all materials, styles, homes, palaces, and many other things that may or may not have been discovered by the Mironians, but their talents were used to perfect them. It was an architectural dream. It also held things like the first wheel and the first water pump— all advancements in plumbing were peasant discoveries. And the Danis let them also house a lot of their advancements: the wheel being one of them. As they were fellow craftspeople, and with their museum on weapons, it just seemed to make logical sense to have all mechanics and buildings in one place.
The roads in each petal followed the contour of the circle with the main road splitting them. There were alleys and roads in between that connected them, but the overall scheme was a circle split in half by the main road. The circular roads got smaller as they got closer to the middle of the floral formation where they met another circle. One large road called Pilal made an entire circle around the outskirts of the middle of the four outer rings. Seen from above, it looked like a flower with a perfect circle of pollen in the centre. Again, the roads circled all the way around: splitting the town into four wedges as both Magicians Way and Magicians Road went through it. In the centre was the market. It was the only part of the city that was void of streets.
It had a large fountain in the middle where people would gravitate to read and children would play, and even some lessons were taught here when teachers left the school property. Between the ends of the roads and the feature, which had a large statue depicting the likeness of Miron, were stalls set up in a very intricate maze circling the fountain. The maze shifted its entrances and exits often but once in the maze, it seemed to adhere quite closely to the same paths and dead ends.
The Mironians loved shapes. Making the city circular appealed to their sense of design. The buildings were never entirely one shape. They blended circular structures with square, conical and triangular structures. There was a reason they were the builders. When the dwarves roamed the lands more frequently, Mironi was the place most loved to be in, apart from their mountain homes. That in itself was a great honour to the builders. The main city had many buildings designed in dedication to the Dwarves, and the largest temple was dedicated to the Dwarvish king who had made Mironi his second home. It could have been easy to see how a province could have too much self-pride when the immortals had once given them such praise. But maybe things were about to change. Maybe the equality was on its way back.
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