Clash (The Arinthian Line Book 4) (13 page)

“There is no ‘but’. We train with it all day, every day, until we get it. At the academy, we have other classes. At the academy a day ends in the afternoon. But here, we can focus.”

“It’s going to take a lot of practice obviously,” Augum said, “but we can do it, I know we can. Oh and by the way, Jengo discovered something. Jengo, can you flip to that page again?”

Jengo gave a furtive glance over his shoulder. “All right, but make it quick, I don’t want to get in trouble.”

The trio hurried over, Augum and Leera careful not to touch each other accidentally lest they receive some kind of shock.

“The counterspell to Object Alarm,” Bridget mumbled. “Can’t believe I haven’t thought of that before …”

“I’m not allowed to touch the book,” Augum said, “but you are. Think you can learn the counterspell and teach it to me and Leera?”

“I’ll try.” Bridget looked to the forest. “We better break this up.”

They scurried back to their places and lay down.

Mr. Harvus soon returned with Mr. Goss, who was holding a basket. Mr. Goss placed the basket before them and adjusted his spectacles. “I am sorry you are unable to join Leland and I for lunch, but I am sure we shall see you at tonight’s feast. Good luck everyone! Work hard!”

They ate quietly, Augum and Jengo together, Bridget and Leera separately, and Mr. Harvus inside the cabin, swatting at flies.

“Look at him,” Jengo said under his breath, “it’s like he exists just to cause us misery.”

“I don’t want to look at him,” Augum said. “Might not be able to finish my lunch.” Mentor or no mentor, Harvus had a particularly punchable face, and Augum was not ashamed to think it.

Jengo smiled. “Where do you think he hid the Agonex and the Orb of Orion?”

“If we’re lucky, in his room at the inn. If we’re unlucky, well … I should’ve cast Object Track on both when I had the chance.”

“Spell would have expired anyway—you’re not practiced enough yet.”

Augum ceded a grunt and took a bite of the sandwich Mr. Goss had provided. “You’re really taking arcanery seriously, aren’t you?” It was interesting to watch. He wished he took as much pleasure studying the yellow and blue books as Jengo did.

“I
dream
of it, Augum. All the complexities, the nuances. I dream of performing them precisely and successfully. But the healing element is
hard
. I have to memorize all these internal body functions and stuff, not to mention weird names. Tibia. Femur. Those are names of bones!”

“Huh.”

“It’s ridiculous. Though lightning is more dangerous, Bridget told me healing is three times harder to master than any of the other elements. And I love that book. I’d spend all my time reading it if I could. Can’t actually put any of it into practice yet, but I’ll get there.”

“You’d make a great arcaneologist.”

“You really think so?” Jengo brightened before suddenly lowering his head as Harvus peeked out of the cabin suspiciously. When he disappeared, Jengo, while pretending to fiddle with his burgundy robe, whispered, “By the way, I know you didn’t get that far, but the counterspell verbiage to Object Alarm is just the reverse.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, you literally say the words to Object Alarm backwards, inflection and all, every letter.”

“Are you jesting? How am I—”

But Jengo shushed him as Harvus’ face once again popped out from the cabin.

“No talking!” he snapped.

They finished in silence, Augum’s mind racing for a way to learn the verbiage backwards. His brain couldn’t do it though. Then it came to him rather suddenly—all he had to do was
write
the words out backwards and read them. The inflection was the tricky part though, and without someone trained telling him how to say it, he didn’t even know where to start. Luckily, that was exactly the kind of thing Bridget was good at.

The afternoon was even more grueling, with Harvus demanding they cast all the 4th degree spells, even though the trio wanted to focus on the Summon Minor Elemental spell. He made Bridget and Leera square off, casting Confusion, Deafness, and Fear on each other, while Augum was made to cast the same spells on Jengo, who proved a most susceptible opponent. Augum felt so sorry for him constantly stumbling about blubbering like a fool, that he purposefully bungled the spell when Harvus wasn’t looking.

Yet the more success they saw with the spells, the stricter Harvus became, until his twitch returned. What he failed to realize, Augum thought in satisfaction, was that he was their primary motivation to learn—they would succeed out of spite.

“Unacceptable, you sun baked beanpole!” Harvus sniped when the boy had failed to locate a stone Harvus hid halfway up a tree. “You must concentrate!”

Bridget had gasped and was about to say something but held herself in check at the last moment, probably remembering one of them should stay on the demented mentor’s good side.

Jengo meekly stared at his feet.

“Jengo?” came a soft voice from the trees.

Jengo glanced between Harvus and the forest. “Priya! Ms. Singh! You should not be here, we are training—”

Priya, a thin, sienna-skinned woman with very long black hair, gracefully helped an old woman down the slope, who Augum recognized as Ms. Singh, Priya’s temperamental and quirky mother. The old woman had gray hair wrapped in a tight bun and was hunched over a cane. Large clunky spectacles dangled off her nose. Both women wore ornate coral cloth wrapped around their waists and draped over their shoulders.

As the women shuffled forward, Harvus straightened.

“Jengo, why have you not come to the festivities?” Priya asked in hurt tones. “I have been waiting and waiting.” Jeweled studs piercing her lips and nose caught glints from the sun.

Jengo cast a sidelong glance at Harvus. “Priya, my love, please—we have been training.”

Harvus cleared his throat in a perfunctory manner. “It is rude not to introduce people, Jengo.”

But Augum swore Harvus knew exactly who they were, as he had undoubtedly seen them in the village, not to mention heard talk of them numerous times.

Ms. Singh swung her cane Harvus’ way. “Panjita certainly agrees with the pasty toad.”

“Mother that is
very
rude—” Priya quickly turned to Mr. Harvus. “Do please forgive us, Mr.—?”

“—Harvus,” the man said as his twitch renewed. “
Mr.
Harvus.” He was glaring at Ms. Singh.

“Mr. Harvus, I am sorry, Mother has a way of—”

Ms. Singh smacked Priya’s hand. “Daughter will not condescend Mother!” She turned her unruly gaze back to Harvus, who actually matched her height. “Is the pasty marmot from Canterra? Is that why he holds himself in such stiff bearing, as if a stick were jammed—”

“Mother,
please
!”

Jengo quickly cut in. “Mr. Harvus, this is my betrothed, Priya Singh, and her mother, Ms. Singh. And this is my—our—mentor, Mr. Harvus.”

Ms. Singh turned to Jengo. “Will the tall brute who has stolen Panjita’s daughter please explain why there is a dead animal on the pasty marmot’s head?”

Harvus turned a dull shade of pink. A second twitch joined the first, the two firing off at different times and from opposite sides of his pudgy face.

“Uh, we really ought to get back to training, Ms. Singh,” Jengo stammered, wringing his hands.

Ms. Singh glared at him. “As is right! Lazy dogs need to learn how to work hard! That is how Panjita has earned her way through life—with hard work! Now Panjita must put up with all these asinine Solian customs, and out of courtesy she is forced to escort her silly daughter every—”

“We’ll be going now,” Priya said, smiling lovingly at Jengo. “It
is
Lover’s Day though, my love. I guess I’ll see you at the feast? There is a dance after, and music.”

“Y-yes, sure.” Jengo did not dare to look at Harvus, who Augum suspected was concocting other plans for Jengo, if not for all of them.

They watched the two women amble back up the shallow valley. Augum chanced a glance at Leera, who was staring at him, expression full of sorrow. How he longed to hold her then. Above all, how he longed for them to be rid of this cursed man.

Plans

After the Singhs left, Harvus snarled terse commands for Augum, Bridget, Leera and Jengo to sit apart in silent study, though what they were supposed to study was not clear as Harvus had forbidden them access to study material. Meanwhile, the man patrolled in a slow circle, muttering under his breath. The facial twitches worsened, with one of his eyes joining in now and then.

He’s coming undone at the seams, Augum thought, watching the man snap at Jengo as he passed. Jengo immediately sat up straighter, back against the tree he had been assigned to—as they all had, in opposite corners of the small clearing. They were not to look at each other or communicate in any way. The whole encounter with Ms. Singh must have really set him off, though to be fair, she did have that effect on people.

Augum glanced at the clear sky, wondering how much of the feast they were going to miss. Probably the whole thing, he surmised, tearing a blade of grass and placing it in his mouth.

“Take that out of your mouth,” Harvus barked when he strolled by. “You are not a cow.”

Augum spat the grass out with a scowl.

Harvus stopped walking. “Correct your attitude, Augum, lest you find yourself without a mentor of any kind, trading stolen goods with bandits to get by.”

Augum made his face blank but Harvus still stood there. What an odd thing to say. Then he recalled that golden flatware of his and how the initials did not match up to his name. Was it possible Harvus had stolen the items? No, couldn’t be …

Harvus stared at him with his nasty little eyes. “You know, the more I look at you, the more I am convinced of your inevitable failure. You are a useless child with a banal talent. Maybe you should think about joining one of those bandit camps as an outlaw, the gods know you would certainly fit right in.”

It took a lot of self-discipline for Augum to keep his face blank. It paid off though, for Harvus smacked his lips together before finally strolling away.

Augum leaned back against the tree. It was like being imprisoned all over again. He worried about Nana. She usually contacted them at least once a day to check in. Though without access to the Orb of Orion, there was no way for him to know if she had been trying to contact them.

The fact Harvus had claimed the Agonex and the orb made Augum’s shoulders tense up. After catching a glimpse of Bridget, with her legs pulled in and head resting on her knees, he realized he was wasting time. He decided to mentally rehearse all his spells, especially the newer ones from the 4th degree. When Harvus was not looking, he even moved objects with Telekinesis, summoned his shield, or quietly repaired a stick. Before long, the others were doing it too, but always behind Harvus’ back, playing a daring game of cat and mouse.

At one point, Leera floated over a small piece of bark. Augum turned it over to find a heart scratched into it. Using a sharp stone, he etched in a plus sign and another heart, and sent it back to her. Her face lit up after receiving it. Then an idea came to him. He surreptitiously tore a piece of bark off the tree behind him and began etching in the Object Alarm trigger phrase—
concutio del alarmo
. Then, painstakingly, he wrote it backwards underneath—
omrala led oitucnoc
.

As Harvus patrolled, Augum tried to make sense how in Sithesia he was supposed say it backwards
with
the right inflection. It sounded utterly ridiculous, especially the
oitucnoc
word. Then he had another idea, and wrote, “Help pronounce” on the bark, before stealthily sending it to Bridget. She caught it, examined it carefully, and immediately went to work practicing saying it to herself.

The sky steadily ripened from a gentle saffron to glowing amber, and finally to a dusty crimson. The feast had to be going strong, Augum thought, and they were still stuck here. Harvus had long stopped patrolling, instead sitting on one of the logs, studying Mrs. Stone’s blue arcaneology book, the Orb of Orion by his side. He had evidently brought the orb with him last night, perhaps hiding it in a pillow or blanket. But where was the Agonex?

Augum watched as Harvus read a passage in the book before placing his hand on the orb, muttering something. He did this again and again, until Augum suddenly realized Harvus was trying to manipulate the orb. He quickly scratched out a bark note—
Harvus messing with orb
—and sent it flying to Bridget, who promptly passed it on to Leera.

“Mr. Harvus, sir,” Bridget began in a polite tone, hand raised. “May I please borrow the book on arcaneology? I would like to better apply your teachings by reading on the 4th degree.”

“Can you not see I am using it, girl?” Harvus snapped.

Bridget stared with an open mouth.

“Err, excuse me, dear child, I am quite busy at the moment.” His attention returned to the book.

“Then perhaps you will allow me to borrow the book on elements, Mr. Harvus?”

Harvus looked up. “Book on elements? What book on elements?”

Bridget gave him a pleading smile. “Inside our rucksack you will find a book with the cover burnt off. It’s a book on the elements, sir.”

“Indeed? I thought that was mere refuse, having such a desecrated cover.” He tapped his chin with a gloved hand, muttering, “Certainly could be useful.” He closed the blue book and paced over to Bridget, handing it to her. “You have been a studious apprentice and have earned this.” He turned to the rest of them. “As for you all, you are to sit in quiet and studious contemplation. I shall return shortly.”

Jengo raised his hand. “Mr. Harvus, may I be excused? I would like to, uh, meet my betrothed—”

“Absolutely not, you have done very poorly today, boy.”

Jengo’s head fell as Harvus strode off, taking the Orb of Orion with him.

The moment Harvus disappeared over the valley lip, Augum and Leera raced to Bridget.

“Jengo, can you keep watch for us again?” Bridget asked.

“Sure, put my life in mortal danger,” he muttered, assuming a lookout position just below the lip of the valley.