fashion. Following his first step into the insubstantial air from the height of a tower he might one day hope to occupy, he readied himself for his second. Meralonne expected no less… but he was old enough now that the fulfillment of expectation was its own peculiar joy. The mage rode the wind, inches above the ground; the students tumbled into the streets like flotsam carried by unnatural tide. They would right themselves, or they would not.
It had become immaterial.
The last thing the mage was peripherally aware of before he drew his blade and spoke its name to the wind was Gyrrick's long shadow across the broken ground.
That and the enemies who turned, as a single creature, to face blue fire and elemental air.
"They told us," one said, rising as if ground were illusion, "that you were here." Red fire seeped out of his fingertips in lazy circles, becoming brighter and darker as Meralonne approached. "But I hardly credited the reports as truth. I did call your name when I arrived, but perhaps you failed to hear it."
"Perhaps I considered it inconsequential."
"Judge, then," the creature replied, its lips spreading in a smile that split its slender face.
"You did not come here for me."
"No. You are considered less of a concern than the Warlord." Fire became sword; sword became the symbol of all battles, past and present. This battle would become one of many to the victor. The loser would become memory.
But he wanted the experience that would form that memory, be it insignificant or not. Because this creature was a creature he understood. He asked for no quarter; he offered none. He had spent his existence fighting for survival and supremacy, and clearer proof of his success could not be found than this: his sword was his own. Red light and fire, grace and death.
The clarity of combat was a joy Meralonne APhaniel had dutifully ordered his students to be wary of seeking. Proof, if needed, that observation was a substitute for personal experience in the classroom—and only there.
Sigurne's face wore the shadows well. She took comfort in them.
The city was burning.
She watched in silence as the light and the fire of Meralonne's students burned themselves into the unblinking field of her vision. The men who lay dead in the Common had done the demons no harm.
She wondered how many of her own would join them.
The demons were fast.
The mages expected speed. They had not been given leave to summon demons in order to hone their craft—
Sigurne would have had them all killed had they attempted it, and if rumors were true, slowly—and what they had been left to study did no justice to the truth of this first meeting.
But Meralonne had taught them. No summoned enemy? It mattered little. Their lack of knowledge was matched only by their pathetic skill. Had Sigurne taken sudden leave of her senses—or come into them, depending on who one asked—and allowed them the use of demonology, they would all be dead. Sigurne aside, they would all be dead when they eventually encountered the enemy in something other than song, story, or faded, crumbling book, and
that
would be an embarrassment that he would not tolerate; it had been costly to gain the Council's permission to create their small division within the Order's more peaceful fold.
Therefore, they would
learn
. And as there were no demons, they would have to content themselves with facing something superior: the master himself. Meralonne APhaniel made it clear that he would stop short of killing them. They discovered that he didn't differentiate between "short" and "just short"; the healers grew fat the first year.
Gyrrick had learned the hard way—they all had, and Meralonne was not a kind master—not to close with the magi. He bore three scars, one of which earned Meralonne the dubious distinction of being the first member of the Council of the Magi to be suspended in over a century.
But more important, that scar had taught them clearly— what Gyrrick learned,
It had become immaterial.
The last thing the mage was peripherally aware of before he drew his blade and spoke its name to the wind was Gyrrick's long shadow across the broken ground.
That and the enemies who turned, as a single creature, to face blue fire and elemental air.
"They told us," one said, rising as if ground were illusion, "that you were here." Red fire seeped out of his fingertips in lazy circles, becoming brighter and darker as Meralonne approached. "But I hardly credited the reports as truth. I did call your name when I arrived, but perhaps you failed to hear it."
"Perhaps I considered it inconsequential."
"Judge, then," the creature replied, its lips spreading in a smile that split its slender face.
"You did not come here for me."
"No. You are considered less of a concern than the Warlord." Fire became sword; sword became the symbol of all battles, past and present. This battle would become one of many to the victor. The loser would become memory.
But he wanted the experience that would form that memory, be it insignificant or not. Because this creature was a creature he understood. He asked for no quarter; he offered none. He had spent his existence fighting for survival and supremacy, and clearer proof of his success could not be found than this: his sword was his own. Red light and fire, grace and death.
The clarity of combat was a joy Meralonne APhaniel had dutifully ordered his students to be wary of seeking. Proof, if needed, that observation was a substitute for personal experience in the classroom—and only there.
Sigurne's face wore the shadows well. She took comfort in them.
The city was burning.
She watched in silence as the light and the fire of Meralonne's students burned themselves into the unblinking field of her vision. The men who lay dead in the Common had done the demons no harm.
She wondered how many of her own would join them.
The demons were fast.
The mages expected speed. They had not been given leave to summon demons in order to hone their craft—
Sigurne would have had them all killed had they attempted it, and if rumors were true, slowly—and what they had been left to study did no justice to the truth of this first meeting.
But Meralonne had taught them. No summoned enemy? It mattered little. Their lack of knowledge was matched only by their pathetic skill. Had Sigurne taken sudden leave of her senses—or come into them, depending on who one asked—and allowed them the use of demonology, they would all be dead. Sigurne aside, they would all be dead when they eventually encountered the enemy in something other than song, story, or faded, crumbling book, and
that
would be an embarrassment that he would not tolerate; it had been costly to gain the Council's permission to create their small division within the Order's more peaceful fold.
Therefore, they would
learn
. And as there were no demons, they would have to content themselves with facing something superior: the master himself. Meralonne APhaniel made it clear that he would stop short of killing them. They discovered that he didn't differentiate between "short" and "just short"; the healers grew fat the first year.
Gyrrick had learned the hard way—they all had, and Meralonne was not a kind master—not to close with the magi. He bore three scars, one of which earned Meralonne the dubious distinction of being the first member of the Council of the Magi to be suspended in over a century.
But more important, that scar had taught them clearly— what Gyrrick learned,
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