Mind Forged: Book One of the Enchanters of Xarparion (29 page)

“
Thanks, but I need to get moving, my manager will be mad if I’m late.”

We shoo
k hands and went on with our day. When I got back to the tent, Nia was done with all her paperwork and was treating herself to some fresh fruit. I sat down at the table with her and she silently slid the fruit bowl over to me before speaking.

“
I have good news…sort of, and bad news. Which do you want first?”

I sighed
, “Let’s start with the good.”

“
Ok. You did great last round! That gauntlet thingy worked great, better than I thought it would.”

“
And the bad news?”

“
Your next match is against Hons.”

“
Well, crap!”

This is not going to be fun
. Hons is a good man; in fact, one of the best guys I know, and a friend. He is the strongest earth wizard to come through the academy in a hundred years. He is also the next in line for headmaster of the Earth Tower. So a duel with him was not really one of the things I had planned on.

What made
the situation stink even more was I only had ten minutes before I had to leave for the ring. So, with no time to spare for a plan this round, I scooped up a bunch of iron practice rods and brought them with me. I might be forced to trap him instead of fight him. And I still didn’t know the wildcard rule for this match.

When I got to the staging area
, the judge told me that I may have the advantage in this match. It turns out that most of the earth combat spells are fatal and can’t be toned down, so I won’t have to worry about being dropped in a hole and crushed. For this round, the new rule was a larger ring. I was expecting something terrible, but I could work with this.

I
went out into the ring with my bundle of iron rods under an arm. Hons was already out there waiting, looking confident, but not cocky.

“
Good to see you again, Hons.”

“
I still can’t believe it’s you in there, Alex. Lin and Julia where concerned when they first learned that you entered the tournament, and I had to agree with them. Now it seems you have made us rethink that. You have beaten all your opponents without even getting touched.”

“
Well, I guess I’ve been lucky.”

He
laughed. “I don’t think luck has anything to do with it. You beat Alera’s nebulia and she was thought to be the victor this year. Well, let’s get this over with, but don’t think I’ll go easy because I count you as a friend.”

Once the match started
, I threw the rods I held around the ring. I had just enough time to get my shield up to block a large chuck of earth cast at me. It shattered off my shield but still had the force to push me back a few feet.

“
Very impressive, Alex! That had enough force to punch a hole in Xarparion’s main wall!”

“
What can I say, I’m hard to move.”

I rushed
forward to close the gap between us. Using my mage sight, I could see he had a plan for that, but I didn’t have time to react. At soon as I was within twenty feet of him, large stone spikes shot out of the earth. At the last second, I was able to dodge the spikes, but my maneuver had forced me to dive away from him.

Getting close to him was not going to work, and the spikes now blocked him from my ranged attacks
. But before I could come up with a plan, more spikes shot out of the ground around me. I was fully surrounded by a row of six foot tall spikes on all sides.

“
Would you like to surrender now?” I shook my head. “Well, I gave you a chance.” Hons moved in closer and was just on the other side of the spikes now. He then ripped a five foot round bolder out from deep beneath the ground and levitated it over my head. I could tell from my mage sight that he planned on carefully lowering the boulder onto the spikes and trapping me for the win. If I tried to break through the side spikes, the trap would collapse, the boulder would fall and I would subject myself to a flattening that I wasn’t sure even my armor could absorb. It was the perfect trap!

While I was pondering my predicament and watching Hons maneuver the boulder over me
, suddenly my mage sight detected a mote of magic zipping out of the section of the crowd that was predominantly red robes. In an instant, it impacted the middle of Hons’ back and he flinched, losing concentration and, more importantly to me, control of the boulder still fifteen feet above my head. It dropped immediately like a deadly eclipse blotting out the sky!

With no
place to escape, I only had one option. Just before impact, I planted the end of my tower shield on the ground and desperately aligned the top edge to catch the bulk of the weight of the rock. I swiftly crouched down next to the shield so that it would take the force of the drop instead of my head. Grabbing my hammer, I slammed the head into the ground and commanded the handle to elongate until it contacted the plunging boulder. Something like eleven tons of granite impacted the top of the shield driving it a foot or more into the ground. The momentum slowed, it teetered slightly, and then fortunately the boulder started to tip over to the side where I had placed the hammer. The entire colossus sagged to a stop with a groan and a cloud of dust.

T
o the casual observer in the stands, I had completely disappeared under the rock, with the stone spikes still hiding me from all sides. The crowd groaned and there were a number of screams of horror and dismay. The reality was that I was pretty uncomfortable but not quite dead. I had precious little room to move, however, in the precarious balance of boulder, shield and inch thick hammer shaft. But my feet were still under me, which was about the only positive I could think of at the moment.

Using my mage sight
, I saw a very concerned Hons run up to the spike wall and one of the referees was sprinting toward us, no doubt to call the match and allow Hons to recover my lifeless body. At this point, I think my brain went a little haywire, probably from lack of oxygen, and I decided the obvious course of action was to simply push the boulder sideways. Bracing myself against the inside of the spikes, I reared up, screamed, and pushed with everything I had. It’s fortunate that my armor was built as strongly as it was, as the overlapping plates locking together kept my muscle groups and internal organs from blowing out completely and probably saved my life.

I managed just enough momentum to encourage the boulder to fall on the other side
as I tipped the shield, dropping the final five feet or so, and it crashed noisily through the side of the spike wall and rolled past an astonished Hons and the referee. I staggered clumsily through the opening and fell on my backside, facing the two, dirt and dust streaming off my smooth armor in rivulets.

Hons was looking wildly at me
, and then the boulder, and then back at me again! My mage sight showed him standing almost on top of two of the metal rods that I had distributed across the field - it was about time I caught a break! The first rod coiled around his ankles like a pissed off anaconda, dropping the earth wizard to the ground roughly, while the second steel snake slipped around his throat in slow motion and then shot down to his wrists and pinned them together. Trussed and tied, the earth wizard wasn’t going anywhere.

“
How in the hell did you live through that?” Hons gasped from the ground.

I painfully levered myself up using some still
-standing stone spikes and limped over to him. The referee looked at me questioningly and, for convention sake, I drew my dagger and absently pointed it at my friend and earth wizard opponent. The judges signaled an immediate end to the match, and I sheathed the dagger wearily.

“
I’m sorry about this, Hons, truly I am; you deserved to win.” And with that, I collected my things and released the still astonished mage, then slowly made my way back to my tent. I almost didn’t make it. The adrenaline rush of competition petered out, and I was beset by unrelenting pain in every joint, and most of my muscles were on fire. I think I drifted in and out of tunnel vision, concentrating solely on putting one foot in front of another. I stumbled into my tent to find that Nia wasn’t alone. She was sitting at the table chatting with Alera. When they saw me enter, Alera got up and moved the chair to the middle of the tent and gestured for me to sit. Nia flew up to me.

“
Alex! This healer girl came in and said you were hurt.”

“
Yeah, I think I overdid it.”

Alera came over and walked
around me, inspecting me. “That’s an understatement. This is the kind of damage I would expect to find in someone who had been tortured on the rack for a week and then rolled off a cliff! Basically, every bit of skeletal muscle tissue in your back, legs, and upper arms is either torn or damaged. You also have some bone fractures and a great deal of bruising.” She put her hands on her hips and shook her blonde head. “By any measure of health that I am aware of, you should be unable to move right now.”

“
You can tell all that even with me in all this armor?”

She looked shyly away
. “Um, I know I’m not supposed to know this, but you enchanters have a power that lets you see magic. Well, some healers have a similar sight that lets us see injuries. It’s one of the reasons that the other towers hate us, we both have unique sights and they don’t.”

Even sitting down
, the pain in my back and legs was getting worse. I tried my best to remove my helmet, but raising my arms was no longer an option. Nia was starting to get concerned. “Is he going to be ok? Can you fix him?”

“
I can heal him, but I need him out of that armor.”

I sighed
. “Well, I can’t move much anymore, my body is locking up. So I’ll have to ask that you stay calm and promise not to tell anyone what you see.” She nodded, and I started to use my powers to float the pieces of my armor off of me and back into my box. It took longer than normal, but I got everything in place. Alera didn’t even flinch. Nia and Alera helped me out of the leather under suit. Nia gasped when she saw the bruises that covered my shoulders and back. “By the gods! Mr. Alex, your whole body is hurt. You must be in a lot of pain!”

“
Well, it wasn’t so bad in the ring, but now it’s really starting to hurt.”

Alera placed her hands on my shoulders and almost instantly the pain started to fade
. “Don’t worry; the pain will be gone shortly.” She was right; I was feeling better in minutes. She worked quickly and quietly. I could feel my body being repaired as she went. But it didn’t feel like I thought it would. I was expecting a healing spell to feel good, but it didn’t. It felt like things were moving under my skin, like snakes or something. Creepy! Thankfully, she was done very quickly, but I could see that the effort had cost her. She now looked much more pale and tired than when I first entered the tent.

She bent down and looked me
straight in the eye. “Alex, you need to remember, you may be inhumanly strong, but you still have the limitations of human bone structure, tendons and muscles to contend with. You’re not going to like this, but as a healer, I have to recommend that you do nothing strenuous for a couple days.”

“
But I thought you fixed him,” Nia said.

“
I have repaired the damage and he can move now, but his body’s reserves have been badly depleted. The healing arts can only redirect and strengthen the body’s natural repair mechanisms, but the energy to do so, came right from Alex. He needs food, lots of it, and rest.”

“
Alera, I don’t have the option of sitting this out, the final match is in…?” I looked at Nia.

“
Less than an hour,” she replied morosely.

Alera smiled sadly and nodded, she stood up and placed a cool hand on my shoulder
. “Please be careful, Alex Martin, the world cannot afford to lose one such as you.” Then without another word, she bowed to me and left. Now it was just me and Nia.

“
So what happened out there?” she asked.

“
Well, that boulder was a bit heavier than I thought it was.”

“
You think? Your armor may be able to take something like that, but you can’t! You’re lucky your new friend is a healer. Alex, do you think we should take her advice and withdraw? It is just a stupid contest.” Her big eyes reflected the concern she felt and her wings buzzed in agitation.

I shook my head vehemently
. “No way, we’ve come too far, and I’m pretty sure me being out of the tournament would fall right into the hands of whoever’s behind all this.” I told her about the strange incident with Hons in the ring.

Nia, of course, became very agitated, as she now felt she had failed me in the bodyguard department. “I am a horrible bodyguard,” she sniffed.

“
You are the best bodyguard anyone could wish for Nia. But I have to ask you not to mention Alera’s advice to anyone else, especially to Maya, and don’t even think about it with Rosa close by.”

We left
to eat a quick lunch before having to return to the tent. I had a feeling that the final match was going to be interesting, and as Alera had predicted, I wasn’t feeling all that strong. As I was just starting to suit up, Rosa and Maya stormed into the tent.