Skymaster, p.12
Skymaster, page 12
part #3 of The Guildmaster Saga Series
For a sickening moment, Rasim thought they were the only three in the arena and that they were intended to turn on one another immediately. He gathered what witchery he could, feeling for the water in the hills. It was there, waiting for him. Springs and small streams trickled downhill, but no deep well existed for him to draw on. None, at least, that he could reach. Not yet, at least. He guessed the mindkiller had done its job too well, for all that it had been days since he'd last been dosed with it. He breathed, "I don't know if I can do this today."
Agnet shot him a daggered look over her shoulder. "If you can't, then you're going to have to do whatever else it takes to stay alive until you can, boy. You're still the only chance we've got." Then she lifted her arms, once more inviting the cheers of the crowd to rain down on her, and for a few moments they were at the center of that maelstrom, pounded by it. Rasim still hated it, but Agnet clearly thrived on it. She seemed to grow larger with each step she took toward the middle of the arena, her red-tinged brown skin and white hair glowing under the sun.
There was no mish-mash of weapons awaiting them this time. There were four swords, all of far better quality than the ones Agnet had used three nights ago. She buckled two of the blades onto a belt at her hips, then lifted the other two, as if asking the crowd what to do. Incoherent answers responded, then redoubled in cheers of approval as she turned and offered Rasim a long-bladed sword and Bayar a shorter one that he could wield more easily. "There will be other weapons provided for us if these break," she said under the roar. "Take them, lift them, and look brave. It's what they want."
Rasim, hesitantly, took his. It weighed more than the sticks they'd practiced with, if not quite as heavy as the blades Lorens had taught them with aboard the Waifia. Those lessons now seemed like they'd taken place a lifetime ago. The blade felt well-balanced, though. With an uncertain glance toward Bayar, he turned away from Agnet, thrusting the sword toward the sky. He glimpsed Bayar turning the other way and echoing the gesture. The Shenryalan boy looked like a painting, all gold and black beneath the burning sun, with the blade lifted high. The crowd roared, and both boys stabbed the air again, lifting the audience's voices higher and higher into a frenzy.
For the time between heartbeats—a time that seemed to draw on unnaturally long, as if the cries of the masses had stopped his heart—for that space of time, Rasim understood Agnet's love of the arena. Their voices all but lifted him. If he'd dared to look down, he wouldn't have been surprised to see that his feet barely touched the ground anymore. It felt...not like food or drink, but like a different kind of sustenance, something that could sustain him past the edge of reason and endurance. It felt like unbridled power, raw and energizing.
It felt, he realized with a shock, like Missio's drug.
That brought him back down to the earth, a physical thump that had more to do with his heartbeat than his feet, but the effect was the same. The sun was warm enough, this late in the afternoon, but chills ran over Rasim's arms and left him trembling.
It was bad enough to want another taste of that drug. It was worse by far to find something like it in the arena. Shuddering, Rasim lowered his sword and looked away, like there might be somewhere safe to rest his gaze. Somewhere away from the crowd, even if they were surrounded.
Off to one side, roughly across from the enormous tunnel-like gates that allowed egress and exit from the arena, a single man stood alone in the sands, waiting to be noticed.
His hair was long and worn in myriad strands that swayed like black ropes around his shoulders. From the distance his features were indistinguishable, but his skin tones were a familiar Ilyaran brown, and a gold slave's collar glinted against his collarbones. Cool, calming dread washed through Rasim as he looked for the man's backup.
He had none. Rasim hadn't really expected him to, but he'd almost hoped for bladefighters. If they had only sent one man against them, they thought one was enough. And if they'd sent an Ilyaran, they didn't intend for Agnet to lead the fight at all.
Maybe they hadn't drugged Rasim with mindkiller. They had wanted him able to use his witchery.
Of course they did. The Moranese woman Amdria had said as much. The anticipated profits from selling Ilyaran slaves would be higher if Rasim acquitted himself well in the arena. He just hadn't thought they would set him against another Ilyaran. He hadn't thought at all, not about this, not about their plans and motivations. He'd been too focused on his own. His voice cracked, even in a whisper. "Agnet."
She shouldn't have been able to hear him beneath the screaming crowd, but she did, glancing casually at him and then more sharply in the direction he was looking. Her incredulous snort was loud enough to be heard, too. "One man? They don't think much of me, do they?"
"He's Ilyaran," Rasim whispered. "He's a witch. This isn't your fight at all."
The huge Northerner didn't even blink. "Have you got enough magic to defeat him?"
"I don't think so." He should, though. It had been days since he'd last had mindkiller in his system, and he knew experience that it didn't last that long. His witchery should have returned full force by now.
Unless it wasn't the mindkiller at fault. Rasim's knees buckled. Agnet lashed her hand outward, catching him so he didn't fall, and hissed, "What is it?"
"I used a drug," Rasim whispered thickly. "A week or so ago, I used a drug that made my witchery stronger, and I did something impossible. Something the whole crew together couldn't have done. I fainted afterward, and when I woke up I couldn't reach my witchery at all. I thought it was the mindkiller stopping me since then, but...what if it's the other drug? What if I used up all my magic?"
Agnet's expression went flat. "You've been lying to me all along."
"No! No. But I might..." Rasim faltered. "I might have been wrong."
The death of hope and the lack of forgiveness in Agnet's eyes was worse than the idea of being left with what little witchery he'd once commanded. "If you get out of this alive, boy, I'm going to kill you myself." She turned away from both the boys, facing the sole opponent far across the ring, and lifted her swords as she shouted defiance at him.
In response, a howl ripped through the arena, drowning out even the crowd. A familiar howl, the shriek of a killing wind. The arena wasn't large enough to let a wind like that kick up, not really. Agnet nearly fell back a step. Rasim saw her stance change, and then how she stiffened, refusing to let anything like fear show. Bayar came to stand beside Rasim, and said, carefully, "Wind sorcerer."
"Skymaster," Rasim agreed in a whisper. "I don't even know how to fight a sky witch."
"He's only a man," Agnet snapped. "He'll die like any other." She surged forward with the same astonishing blur of speed and grace she'd shown three nights ago, leaving Rasim's cry of protest far behind.
The invisible force of wind snatched her up and threw her halfway across the arena. It cushioned her fall, too, catching her just before she hit the sand so that the impact would jar, not kill, her. Admirably, she came to her feet again almost instantly, a combination of rage and fear contorting her features.
To Rasim's surprise, the audience, so passionate in its opinions, roared disapproval. Agnet's anger turned to instant agreement. She spun to face the nearest tiered seats and, through body language alone, expressed her disbelief and outrage. The gestures couldn't have been more clear. She, like the audience, was offended by the use of magic, against which she had no defense. They were in this together, she and the audience: they were all being cheated by a witch in the arena. Hisses and jeers turned to agreement, and then, slowly, a word became distinguishable in the noise: "Il-yar-an! Il-yar-an! Il-yar-an!"
As they chanted, two more slaves joined the Skymaster. Both of them carried blades: one a spear, the other, two swords. Agnet spoke over her shoulder, somehow knowing the slaves were there without ever seeming to look away from the crowd. "They're calling your name, Rasim. Bayar, stay behind me. I'll take the spear first. Don't engage the swords. Go!"
She and Bayar both broke into a run, with Agnet pacing herself so the boy's shorter legs could keep up. Rasim gasped, expecting another onslaught from the commanded winds, but the Skymaster ignored them, clearly watching for—waiting for—Rasim's response.
He had to try. Even if he didn't know how to fight a sky witch, even if his witchery was weak, he had to at least try. Rasim braced and reached deep into the Moranese hills, calling the streams to his need, searching for the stone itself beneath the soil, and commanding it to move.
Nothing happened.
15
A quiet cry of despair slipped through Rasim's lips. The bladefighters were mere seconds from engaging. Agnet bore down on the spear-carrier, who spun her weapon with ease and confidence. Rasim barely saw the flash of metal before their clash jarred the whole stadium. The other woman was clearly as strong a fighter as Agnet, who also watched the swordsman. Bayar had not put down his own sword, but neither did he look prepared to use it.
The Shenryalan boy was going to die, if Rasim couldn't waken some kind of witchery. Agnet would, too. They were counting on him, and he'd effectively led them into a trap.
The other Ilyaran came closer, not with any obvious intent. His head cocked to one side in apparent curiosity, and when he was certain Rasim was looking at him, he raised one hand and beckoned, as if inviting Rasim to strike back. Rasim shrugged, then, on impulse, called out in Ilyaran. "What's your name?"
His opponent's mouth twisted. "Mikkel."
It was not a Skymaster's name. Pain tugged at Rasim's heart, but he didn't press it. Perhaps the man didn't remember his Ilyaran name. More likely, though, that it was dangerous to even acknowledge he'd ever had another. "I'm not your enemy. I don't want to fight you. If we work together maybe we can escape. Will you try?"
Harsh, soundless laughter broke from Mikkel's mouth, and a shocking blast of wind forced Rasim back several steps. The Skymaster kept coming, though, and Rasim unconsciously tightened his fingers around his sword's hilt. "Fool," Mikkel said, his lips barely moving. They didn't need to, though. His witchery carried the words to Rasim's ears easily enough. "You think any of us will survive if we try to fight our way out? I don't want to fight you either, journeyman, but there are men out there with killing knives."
"You're a sky witch," Rasim said in disbelief. "None of them can even get through your winds, if you want to protect yourself."
"They're not at my throat," Mikkel replied flatly. "I've been permitted a family. Now fight with whatever witchery you have before they decide we're conspiring, or I have to kill you in cold blood."
"I have no power left," Rasim whispered, and with sudden ferocity, rushed the other Ilyaran with his blade.
Genuine surprise flickered over Mikkel's face. He swept his hand across his chest, sending wind to knock Rasim's feet out from under him. Rasim collapsed in a heap at Mikkel's feet, panting and angry. If he'd waited another second or two, he might have been close enough to strike before Mikkel could react.
And then what? he wondered. Would he have killed Mikkel and broken his promise to himself? There were no good answers here. The crowd was screaming, either at him or the bladefighters, he couldn't tell. Mikkel, standing over him, looked uncertain. "You're supposed to be a sea witch."
"I was never much of one anyway." Rasim swept his feet around, knocking into Mikkel's knees and—well, anyone but a sky witch would have fallen. Wind leaped up, steadying Mikkel before he collapsed, but Rasim launched himself from the sand to attack the other Ilyaran again.
His hands were empty: he'd dropped the sword. That was all right. It was harder to kill someone with your fists anyway, and he didn't want to kill the other Ilyaran. Rasim swung hard, and struck with no more power than any boy of fourteen might.
It was still enough to stun Mikkel, although Rasim was certain the other man's wobble came more from surprise than pain. Rasim had a chance to land a second punch before irritation—not even anger, much less rage; just irritation—flickered over Mikkel's face and he twitched his fingers.
Wind snatched Rasim and threw him halfway across the arena. He landed in a skid of sand not far from Agnet and Bayar. Agnet's swords blurred against the spear-bearer's attacks, but the other woman stayed just far enough out of Agnet's reach that the giant Northerner couldn't end the fight. Bayar gripped his blade with an expression caught between resolution and despair, as if he was no longer certain that he should abide by his own code. The swordsman approaching them flinched at Rasim's sudden arrival, and Rasim, with a shout, scooped a handful of sand and flung it at the swordsman's eyes.
It flew with unerring accuracy, as if guided by more than chance, and Rasim froze in momentary surprise. The swordsman snarled and wiped his forearm across his eyes, never letting go of his blades. Rasim cast another handful of sand at him, thoughts churning. He had no sense of stone. He never had. And he had been reaching for it from so far away: from the hills, beneath the topsoil, through the knobbled roots of trees, because that was where the nearest stone seemed to be.
But sand was nothing more than ground-down stone, and the arena was full of sand. Heart hammering, Rasim looked at his palmful of golden grains.
He had sculpted a stone monument in Hongrunn from the side of a mountain. There had been no doubt that it was all one single piece. A grain of sand was an individual stone, tiny but unique, not belonging to a whole. Shaping that into a wall or a shield—even the thought fell apart into grains, slipping away before he could do anything with it.
It didn't matter. Rasim flung another handful of sand, watching it strike the swordsman's face with pin-prick accuracy. Even that shouldn't be happening, not really; he didn't think he could guide it through the air so precisely, not unless—
Bayar cried, "Rasim!" and so many terrible things happened at once.
A fresh sky witchery attack slammed Rasim into the sand. As he fell, the swordsman surged at him and Agnet, with flawless accuracy, spun and threw one of her swords. It caught the swordsman in the chest, but as he collapsed, the spear-fighter closed the distance and thrust her weapon at Agnet's back. Bayar dropped his sword and jumped on the woman's back, an arm around her throat.
And then Rasim saw nothing else as the wind pressure drove him face-first into the sand.
He didn't have enough air. In a few seconds he was going to try to breathe, and then he would start the swift business of dying. He struggled to hold on to his clarity of thought, and an unexpected memory came to him.
He had lain in the awful heat of the sea witch prison in Ilyara, surrounded by licking flames. Those flames had died momentarily, just long enough for him, Desimi, and Guildmaster Isidri to escape. Rasim had thought that Desimi and Isidri, working together, had somehow reached a little water, and quenched the fires, but he remembered now that they'd looked confused when he'd said as much. He hadn't thought anything of it then, though. They were all exhausted and dehydrated then, and almost nothing seemed to make sense in the moment.
But if their confusion had been real, if they hadn't freed them all, then either a Sunmaster had freed them...
...or Rasim had.
If he, untrained, unaware it could be done—because by common Ilyaran wisdom, it couldn't—had used a second magic that day...or if he had, indeed set fire to the Waifia's ropes as Nasira believed he had...then he had now used three magics.
And if he had used three, he could use a fourth.
Rasim dug his hands into the sand, struggling not to take a desperately needed breath. Sand was stone, and stone was all but immutable. It couldn't be forced where it didn't want to go, not easily, not even by pummeling winds. He willed that strength into his own muscles, into his own bones, as if he could turn himself to stone, and then, stubborn as the stone itself, he pushed himself up to his hands and knees.
For a shockingly quiet instant, the wind stopped, and Rasim imagined he could feel Mikkel's surprise flowing across the arena. He had that instant, the space of a gasping breath, to see the lay of the land, and tears rose in his eyes.
Agnet's sword had flown true, and the swordsman was dead, but she had taken the spear thrust to her left arm and had dropped her other blade. She held the spear that had pierced her in her right hand now, and knelt in front of Bayar, whom the spear-bearer had thrown off. Agnet leaned heavily on the spear she'd taken, so heavily that Rasim couldn't tell if it was theatrics or real pain, but Bayar was behind her, and she looked prepared to defend him to her final breath.
They would love her, Rasim thought in heartbroken horror. The crowd would finally love her, for dying to save a boy. But it would be too late for her, and that was no good at all. He turned away from them, one hand still deep in the sand, as a new screaming attack of skywitchery rushed across the arena.
Head lowered, Rasim lifted his other hand and sought the leading edge of the shrieking wind with witchery.
It felt nothing like the other magics. Sunmastery lived, in its bright and fatal way. Sea witchery endured, the most abiding element in the world. Stonemastery held fast, a huge vast silence that didn't speak to him at all, even in the throes of its power.
Sky witchery danced.
It darted and spun like eddies in the water, but with an exhilarating lightness, impossible to even see unless it carried particles in it. It laughed and teased, ruffling over surfaces; it shoved, taking unwilling partners in its dance. It gusted and jumped, as if taking pride in its capriciousness. No wonder Skymasters rarely flew, Rasim thought. Air was mercurial, unreliable. It would take tremendous witchery and the steadiest soul in the world to coax it into calm flight.
Lucky for Rasim, he didn't want calm.
It felt as though a wedge extended from his fingertips, a somehow-sharp edge of air that cut apart the screaming, rushing wind that hurtled toward them. It was barely wide enough to allow Rasim's narrow shoulders through, but it broadened swiftly, leaving Agnet and Bayar in a safe and silent space behind him. For long moments, he didn't even dare look up, just stayed where he was, one hand in the sand, the other stretched out in front of him, slicing the attacking wind into two.
