Mind Forged: Book One of the Enchanters of Xarparion (28 page)

Great, one of the high and mighty types
. But I have a feeling that he might find that I am harder to blow away than he thought. The match started with him launching a blast of wind at me, kicking up a huge cloud of dust and dirt.

“
Ha! Got him in one blow!”

The look on his face when th
e dust cleared was great. I am glad that I don’t have eye slots in my helm for all that dirt to get in. Normally, I would have fun with the jerk, but sadly, these things are timed and you get more points for speed. I calmly walked out of the dust cloud towards the guy. The look on his face was just as I expected - pure shock. Looking at his magic, that first blast was apparently all he could muster at one time, and I didn’t even flinch in this much armor.

“
How are you still standing? You should be flat against the wall right now!”

He was now
desperately trying to knock me down with several weak wind blasts, but soon he was out of energy and his attacks were nothing more than a soft breeze. When I reached him, he was pale-faced, exhausted, and having a hard time standing.

“
You should take it easy, you have reached your limit. If you cast any more spells, you’ll burn out.”

“
Go to hell!”

Not
really wanting to hurt him, I just grabbed him by the shoulders and tossed him out of the ring. He landed in a heap and didn’t move. Two of the on-hand healers rushed over to him and declared that he over-exerted himself and would be fine. Quickly, the official declared me the winner and I was allowed to leave.

I got a lot more looks on my way back to my tent
. Many seemed to be trying to figure out what I was. Ignoring them, I entered the tent to find Nia there with her list and a quill.

“
Great job! A runner came by and updated me already. He seemed surprised that a pixie was acting as your manager.”

“
Oh, I’m sure it wasn’t just that. So…anything else happen?”

She put her paper down and shook her head
. “Nope, nothing. But your next match is coming up pretty quick, so you have about ten minutes to rest up.”

I put my boot on a chair
to transfer an enchantment before sitting down with her. “Well, to be honest, I don’t really need to rest. Not to be rude, but he was easy.”

She
smiled. “I know he was. I was watching with one of my pixie spells. They seem to be very useful for these events. But seeing that you have some time, the twins dropped off some snacks for us.”

We enjoyed our sweets and talked a little before I
had to leave for my last round of the day. Approaching the arena, it sounded like there were quite a few more people in the stands than for my first two events. When I got there, I was shocked to find that my next opponent was a tall, very attractive blonde girl, and a healer! I didn’t think that they had offensive spells. After entering the ring, the young healer girl smiled, approached, and was kind enough to enlighten me on why she was here.

“
You’re Alex, right? I’m Alera. My friends say good things about you and your bunch of enchanters, but sadly, I have never had a chance to meet you. You honor me with this match.”

“
It is good to meet you, Alera.” I performed a salute with my hammer. The growing crowd for our event let it be known that Alera was a fan favorite, something she dismissed with a quick smile, and then refocused on me.

“
Wow, you really are a formal guy, aren’t you? Well, I’m guessing that you may be wondering what a healer is doing here. My talents lie in summoning magic, as well as healing, so really you aren’t fighting me as much as one of my protectors. I’m told you’re pretty strong and not to go easy on you, so if you are ready, let’s get started.”

Well, you couldn’t say she was a shy wallflower-type of girl. I liked her and her straightforward attitude right away. The match was signaled to begin and she instantly cast a circle in front of her. Out of the pink light came something that I wasn’t expecting. It looked like a man but had a head like a golden bulldog and was wearing heavy armor and carrying a great sword.

“
As you may have guessed, he is a nebulia; he is also my personal protector.”

I have read about them
. They are defenders of good and fight for the weak in their defense. If he was really her guardian, then she must be a good person. No nebulia would ever voluntarily work for evil, and he was by no means restrained.

He saluted me with his great sword before charging the distance between us
. And the battle was joined with him using his two-handed weapon to try and batter me into submission. He was fast and very skilled. Normal armor would have been fractured, dented, or made otherwise inoperable in just a couple minutes of this pounding. But Maya’s training and my armor made me the better combatant, and he wasn’t really even touching me. Unfortunately, this put me in a quandary. If I were just fighting a summoned demon or even a natural animal, I would have taken it out in very short order. But this creature was a defender of good, and I couldn’t kill him for a meaningless victory in a tournament. Consequently, our match lasted much longer than I would have liked, as I was working for his surrender, not a kill. Our weapons clashed a number of times, and he continued to flail away at my shield to no avail. It must have been an exciting show for the audience as we were generating a lot of noise, but we were no closer to resolving the match. Finally exasperated, with time running out, I activated one of the many enchantments on my hammer, and the next time he blocked, my hammer snapped the great sword into pieces, leaving him with just an empty hilt in his human-looking hands. The nebulia stared incredulously at it for a moment; then seeing my hammer back in the ready position for a strike, he knelt, dropped the remains of the sword in the sand, and bowed his head to face his destiny, a defeated champion of good.

The crowd went
absolutely stone cold silent. I looked over to a pale and stricken Alera who had tears streaming down her face, probably thinking I would kill him.

“
Alera, could I ask for your surrender?”

She was confused for a second
, before she lit up with a relieved smile. “Yes, please, I surrender!”

I sheathed my
hammer and offered my hand to the nebulia. He accepted and I pulled him to his feet. The stunned audience finally seemed to take a breath and there was a thunder of applause in appreciation for the show. Alera came running over and hugged the exhausted big guy, sobbing softly the entire time.

“
I’m so sorry! I should never have entered this tournament. I never wanted to endanger your life, please forgive me.”

He put a hand on her head and said something that I didn
’t understand, but I could tell they were words of comfort. Her tears died away and she looked up at him. “What do you mean?” More strange words were exchanged between the two before she turned back to me, with him by her side.

“
He wants me to tell you that you are the best fighter and the most honorable opponent that he has ever fought. He also knows that you passed up many chances to kill him in favor of surrender, and he thanks you sincerely for your mercy, as do I.”

“
The honor was mine. I would be glad to fight beside you one day. But please, a warrior is broken without his weapon, so it’s only fair that I fix yours.” I pulled off my helmet and dropped it on the ground, as I did my gauntlets. I quickly collected the pieces of his great sword and kneeling, sorted them in the proper shape in the sand.

“
Alera, could I borrow the shawl you have around your shoulders for a moment. It won’t be harmed.” She pulled it off and handed it over, curious about what I was doing. I spread the shawl over the sword parts to hide them and willed the parts of the blade to reform, stronger and sharper than they were originally. I sensed a small amount of innate resistance from the metal, telling me that this was no ordinary steel weapon. But the metal desired to be whole again and in a few seconds, it was. Sliding the cloth back, revealing the repaired weapon, and giving Alera back her shawl probably looked like some cheap parlor trick to the people still in the stands, but I didn’t care. I picked up the great sword and presented it formally back to the nebulia. As a warrior would, he accepted it reverently.

Returning
the sword back to the nebulia produced interesting results. He took one look at the renewed blade, and his canine face became very animated. Instantly, he dropped to his knees, spewing out words in a gush in his strange language. Alera was having a hard time keeping up with what he was saying.

“
Slow down, I didn’t get all that. What’s this about a prince?” His wide-eyed gaze found her face, and he quickly pulled her down to a kneeling position beside him. He slowed down a bit to explain to her, and as she understood more of what he was saying, her blue eyes grew very big as well. She, too, was now bowing earnestly to me.

“
Please forgive us, I had no idea you were…” The nebulia clamped a hand on her mouth; she was not supposed to say that apparently. He let go of her and she froze, framing her words very carefully. “Just know that we are forever in your debt and that we will come if we are needed.”

And with that
, they both rose, backed up respectfully, and then turned and quickly passed through the portal that the nebulia originally came through, leaving me to wonder again just what did everyone else seem to know that I didn’t?

Alex

Last night had been an interesting one. Lin and Julia had come over for dinner to celebrate with us. Thankfully, Rosa had the idea of ordering food to be delivered from the dining hall so Nia and I didn’t have to spend the night cooking and the twins could have a break. Part of it was I don’t think she could stomach any more bacon! As such, we all had a wonderful time together. Just as dinner arrived, Darroth stopped by to join the party, bringing some dwarven ale with him.

But
despite the fun we were having, we all knew that we couldn’t get drunk or stay up too late. The first three rounds had gotten rid of all but the best combatants. Only four rounds remained with about thirty opponents left, so we needed our rest. Rosa originally planned to lock both Maya and me in our rooms for the night, but then remembered that none of the locks in the house would stop me anyway. So she made Maya sleep with her, quoting obscure house regulations about a ‘dark elf that cares too much’!

The next morning after a large breakfast
, Nia and I returned to our tent to get ready. When we got there, we found a new roll of paper with the new schedule. Nia swooped down and snatched it away before I could read it. After she read it over, she told me what it said.

“
Ok, we have today’s plan. Looks like there’s another short speech before the last rounds. Says something about ‘judge’s rules’, whatever that means. Oh wait, here it is. Apparently, the various headmasters will have the right to pick extra rules at the start of each round.” She looked concerned for a second. “Well, that’s not good. We don’t have anyone up there to support rules in our favor. Needless to say, your opponents will have an advantage now.”

“
Well, not much we can do about it. Maybe Rosa will have some luck if she can find one of the headmasters cheating. Although, to be honest, I still don’t see how this will help her find the traitor.”

She shrugged
. “Don’t ask me, I’m just your humble manager.”

The
headmaster’s speech announced basically what Nia had said. From now on, the headmasters will draw extra rules for each match to be voted on by them. So these next few matches should be fun. Sadly, I had no time to go back to the tent; my first battle was right after the speech.

Waiting in the standby area
, I was read the new rules. This match was to be done in half the time and to be in a much larger ring. When I went out into the ring in my full armor, the stands exploded with applause. Nia had told me that my win over Alera had won me some support from the crowd and that she had asked her supporters to cheer for us, but I wasn’t expecting this.

Once out in the ring
, I found that it was easily four times the size of the other ones and I was at a loss how this would matter. On a whim, I asked one of the judges if I could still use and change anything in the ring or the ring itself. He said as long as I didn’t leave it, I could do anything I wanted.

My opponent turned out to be another nameless wind user
. Rosa told me last night that they don’t like to give out their names to others, something about them trying to be secretive and ‘like the wind’, whatever that means. I don’t know about secretive, but this new opponent looked almost like a clone of the first one, only a bit shorter yet.

Once the match started
, I knew I would have to end it quickly, but that wouldn’t be as easy as I thought. This wind wizard was apparently very skilled at illusions because I was now looking at about a hundred of him. This could be a problem from what I know of Nia’s illusions. I won’t be able to tell the fake one from the real one, even with my mage sight.

“
What’s the matter, Enchanter? Don’t know who the real one is?” The voice seemed to come from all of them, and he punctuated it with an evil chuckle.

“
Well, just so you know, I guess this means that I will have to cut down each and every one of you until I find the real one.”

The color drained from his face
. My best thought was to use my speed to do just that and it would be the best way to finish this, but I promised the girls that I wouldn’t kill anyone. But my chat with the judge brought an idea to mind. I am an enchanter and this arena is powered by one big enchantment.

I sheathed my
hammer and dropped my tower shield on the ground, then sat down to concentrate on figuring out the enchantment. This one was done in stone, which is Rosa’s specialty and not so much mine. As time slipped by, the wind jerk was apparently getting impatient, so he started throwing mild wind blasts in my general direction, probably wary about getting me mad, but wanted to look like he was actually fighting. Seeing that it wasn’t working, he gave up and was happy to let the time run out. I was down to a few seconds before I finally broke down what Rosa had done to this place. A second after that, I had full control and shrunk the size of the ring down to a five foot ring around me, trapping him and all of his illusions outside the ring.

The stadium was
deathly quiet as people processed what just happened. My opponent dropped the illusions and kept looking around him and then back at me with an open mouth. I turned to the judge who was also shocked.

“
You never make this easy for me, you know?” He was frantically flipping through the rule book before looking up to the headmasters. “Seeing that we have never had an enchanter compete, we don’t have rules set for them. But by all set rules, he is in the right and the victor of this match.”

The
heads of the towers argued amongst themselves before coming to an agreement of sorts. The headmaster stood. “Alex, seeing that we don’t have a rule against what you did, we will allow it. But from now on, there is a rule against it, so please keep the field the way it is. It would be unfair to the others if you could do that for a win every time.”

My opponent started to protest
, “But Master, he cheated!”

The
Headmaster raised his hand to stop him. “From the way I see it, Alex would have been forced to do what he said he would do. And if he had done that, you would not only have lost, but certainly have been seriously hurt, if not killed. This was the only way for him to win without risking your life and the only reason we are allowing it this time.”

With a wave of his hand
, several of the servants appeared out of dark corners and escorted me back to my tent. Nia was there, and she wasn’t too happy.

“
What’s wrong?” I asked as I entered the tent. Nia was sitting with several rolls of papers all over the table.

“
Just so I make myself clear, I’m never going to work at a desk again. This is as crazy as a cross-eyed squirrel in fall!”

“
So what’s happening?” I sat down at the table, now spelled to take the weight, with her.

She sighed and
rubbed her eyes. “After I sent you off to the speech, several people came by. Most of them demanded that you step down immediately, claiming that it is an embarrassment for real wizards to have to fight a mere enchanter. Others had the guts to even say that the wizards can’t go all out for fear of killing you. This last hour has been so insanely stupid!”

“
What are all of these?”

She sifted through the papers
. “From what I have been able to discern, there’s a big betting game tied to these tournaments. From what I have gathered, this is one of the main ways Xarparion makes its money. Normally, I wouldn’t have a problem with that, but there’s also a nasty underground game to this as well. Rosa came by with most of this, and from looking at what she found, I would say the Fire Tower Primus has the most to gain if a fire wizard wins, and I mean by a lot.”

“
How much are we talking?”

She
sighed and sifted through even more papers. “Well according to what Rosa found out, if a fire wizard wins, he will get a number that I can’t read. It’s a three with six zeros behind it. But she thinks that it would be more than enough to buy what he would need. Rumor has it he’s not a fan of enchanters or even healers.”

“
That would be bad for everyone but the Fire Tower. But what happens if one of the other towers wins?”

“
He would get nothing and his backers would be pissed. One, in particular, has not been named, and he is putting up over half the money. We think it could be a neighboring kingdom or a very powerful duke. But either one is not good.”

“
So, basically, I have to make sure I at least knock out the rest of the fire wizards.”

She slammed her tiny fist on the table
. “NO! You’re going to kick all their asses! It’s the only way to make sure all the towers stay equal. If you win, everything goes to the treasury, not an individual tower. That, and if I have to deal with more of this crap, I think I’ll vaporize the messenger, and no, I don’t care that it’s not his fault!”

We laughed
. “I’ll do my best.”

The next match was only a few minutes later
. I was waiting in the starting area for a judge to come by with the new rules. Within a minute, the same harassed judge who overlooked my last match came over to me, looking like he hadn’t slept in a week.

“
Look kid, I don’t know who you pissed off, but I suggest you quit now while you can. Your next match is a cage ring match against a fire wizard. Basically, you’re in a ten-foot round ring that you can’t leave with a fire wizard in a separate ring throwing spells at you. Don’t get me wrong, I hope you win, but I just don’t want to see you get killed.”

I thought on this for a moment, Nia and I had actually planed for something like this
. But not having mobility will be a problem, then again, it might not be. I had a plan, sort of…

“
No, I’m staying in. I can still use my ranged weapons, and he can’t dodge my attacks either.”

“
You’re one gutsy kid. Alright fine, just make sure I won’t have to sweep your ashes out of that arena.”

With that
, he left and started the countdown to the start of the match. My opponent happened to be one of Naton’s buddies, so I didn’t have any nagging moral problems with what I was about to do. We entered our rings which were about seventy feet from each other, just far enough for me. One of the other rules for this match was no time limit, you have to make your opponent surrender, or nearly kill him, and it was easy to see by the look on my opponent’s face which end game he was looking for.

Before the match started
, I slammed my tower shield into the ground to make myself a wall; I would like to see him move that! One positive note, the guy I was facing was at least the quietest one of the two goons, so I probably wouldn’t have to deal with non-stop insults this time.

As s
oon as the match started, my shield was hit with a large fireball that splashed harmlessly off of its surface. I sat down with my back leaning against my shield and waited. My waiting was rewarded with several more fireballs as well as a few boos from the crowd, though I don’t know if they were directed at him or me. After a very boring half hour, I used my sight to look at the fire wizard, and he was well on his way to being out of juice. He also had a staff with him that I didn’t notice before, that’s probably what kept him going as long as he did. A half hour may not seem like a long time, but in a duel it’s an eternity.

Deciding
now was the time; I got back to my feet, stretched leisurely, and pulled my shield from the ground.

“
You look like you’re about out of magic, would you like to surrender?”

He snarled at me
, “Not on your life! You can’t reach me over here and my strength will come back. All I have to do is wait and watch you burn!”

“
By chance, do you know what a loaded gauntlet is?”

“
No, and I don’t care either. Why does that matter?”

I held up my left arm
. “Well, you see it’s an armored gauntlet with a small crossbow built right into it, and it looks kind of like this.” I fired the small bolt and struck him in the shoulder. He cried out in pain and dropped to his knees, clutching his wounded shoulder. “So would you like to surrender now? I have lots of those bolts, you know.”

“
N-never!”

I fired another one into his other
shoulder. This time, his mind couldn’t take the pain and he keeled over face first in the sand. I didn’t have to wait long for the judge to call that match. As the healers were tending to him, the judge came over to me.

“
Why didn’t you start with that instead of taking all those hits?”

“
Well, as you can see, I’m not hurt; in fact, my shield only has some soot on it.” I brushed some of the black charring off the shield to show him that it just needed to be cleaned. “That, and if I did, he would have used a firewall or something to burn my bolts before they reached him. This way, I made sure he didn’t have the strength to block them.”

“
That’s…very good thinking. I have been refereeing these matches for years now and you’re the first one who actually came in with a plan! Typically, all these contests are is a mindless slugging match to see who has the strongest spells. I think enchanters are more powerful than everyone thought. You seem to be perfect for taking down wizards.”