Battle Mage: Winter's Edge (6 page)

             
Touching the wounded appendage caused her to hiss in pain once more. It was worse than he had thought.

             
“Sorry,” Ashleen said through clenched teeth. “I was having fun too.”

             
“Well, I think I can fix it, but I need more peace and quiet than in here.”

             
Rilena and Dougren came over worriedly along with a few others that had noted the accident. Expressing concern and questioning her health, Sebastian waved them off. “She’ll be fine. I can get her to a wizard for healing, if need be.”

             
With Ashleen holding her robe tight against her legs, the falcon picked her up again. Taking her out of the hall, he walked looking for an empty room to take care of the magic needed. After a longer walk than planned, Sebastian set the girl down carefully to sit in a padded leather chair in one of the rooms down the hall.

             
Taking a deep breath, the man bared her lower leg and removed her silver anklet carefully passing it to the girl’s waiting hand. Another breath and he laid his hands on her ankle gently, calling up his magic. “Heal,” the mizard ordered the spell much as he had on the road for the more severe wound from the beast’s bite.

             
The pain of the twisted ankle had been pretty severe, but there was no break, he found as the magic drew his conscience into the limb. With that being a relief, Sebastian’s mind used his magic to work with the girl’s own body to let it mend quickly. The ankle wanted to be healed and his magic simply guided it to the proper course. In less than a minute, the falcon sat back tiredly releasing the spell.

             
Ashleen pulled the injured leg up onto her left in a wide cross letting the robe fall away carelessly. She removed her slipper and felt for the injury. “Nice,” the woman stated, “it feels like new already. You heal as well as any wizard I’ve ever heard of before. Other than the short call for the spell, I’d swear you were from the healer guild.”

             
Feeling a bit drained from the effort, Sebastian replied, “Thanks. I haven’t found that many mages that can heal either unfortunately. Many can do basic spells like for saddle sores, but few have the knack for many of the battle wounds we’ll see. It’s a shame. If we had more healers, there would be fewer losses caused by the Dark One’s army.”

             
The apprentice nodded and replaced the slipper before standing up to test the ankle. She did have a minor limp as the first step was taken making the mage frown in disappointment. “It doesn’t hurt but it still feels weak. I guess dancing is out for tonight at least.”

             
Standing up to join her, Sebastian shrugged, “I’m sorry.”

             
Ashleen appeared lost in thought a moment before deciding, “You know if you helped me to my room so I could change, maybe we could climb a tower to test if my magic is disrupted by the heights like you asked about earlier. I know it would be some work, but we wouldn’t have to worry about me tripping over my dress again.

             
“Maybe that could be fun. What do you think?”

             
Shrugging only half heartedly in answer despite his curiosity, the two walked off with just a quick stop for a little bread to replace his magical energy. Food equaled fuel for a wizard or mage’s magic. Healing tended to drain him more than most of the spells that he had learned, so even though dinner had been just over an hour earlier the mage needed more for energy.

             
This time the girl led him through the halls of Falcon’s Keep despite his time living at the castle. Ashleen remembered just enough from her short time visiting to find her way back to her room. Sebastian was surprised to find that it was in a very nice wing of the castle that he had never visited before. He had known that it would be a guest room, and the ambassador being a lord would rate one of the better suites, but the apprentice was nearly as well set up, the mage hazarded a guess.

             
Sebastian began to glance around the chamber checking out the many decorations found in the girl’s room. Several wall hangings and paintings decorated the walls and a canopied bed furnished the bedroom along with a writing desk and two chairs. There was also a three paneled, changing wall. Being just a couple steps behind Ashleen, he missed her hands unlatching the belt until she tossed it on the bed and said, “Hold this, please,” as she shrugged out of her robe dress. Leaving Sebastian to gape at her bare back and legs, the girl moved behind the changing wall. Ashleen glanced back at him around the side of the wall as she pulled down the hanging apprentice gown she had worn earlier in the day.

             
“Could you put it nicely on the bed, please, and stop acting like I am giving you a special show. Trust me, if I wanted you to see something you shouldn’t I could have done so. Now close your mouth and have a seat a minute.”

             
Closing his mouth as his surprise slowly wore off; Sebastian laid the beautiful, layered dress on the bed and took one of the empty chairs while he waited.

             
It didn’t take Ashleen very long to pull the dress into place. Taking a silver cord from her nightstand, the girl quickly bound her long hair in a tail and smiled at him. “If we stay inside, I won’t need a cloak or boots will I?”

             
The falcon shook his head and before he knew it they were off again.

             
The walk was long. Her ankle slowed the girl down quite a bit as they negotiated stairs, but Sebastian assisted her as much as he could with an arm for support. Eventually, they were climbing to the top of the south tower. At nearly a hundred feet tall, it was about as high above the ground as they would be able to get in Falcon’s Keep.

             
“Do you notice a difference in energy?” the man asked barely breathing harder due to his conditioning.

             
Holding up a finger to give pause, the apprentice looked quite a bit more taxed by the walk. The battle, the dancing and now all the added stair climbing on a weakened ankle had begun to take their toll. Her strength was physically waning even if there was no change of the power from the earth.

             
As he watched the girl trying to catch her breath, Sebastian wondered if she was tiring from more than just all the walking after all. Her strength seemed to refuse to return even though they waited. Wishing he had brought some water at the least, Sebastian watched as Ashleen finally had to sit down looking exhausted.

             
Sitting next to her, the falcon took her hand feeling for the excess energy she had shown every time he had touched her. There was barely a tingle.

             
Taking a few moments to rest, Ashleen tried to play with the sparks across her fingers as she had earlier. Sebastian watched as a couple glimmers tried to flash in erratic little pops before the girl gave up on the test.

             
“Well either I am just very tired or apparently my power does weaken the further from the ground I get,” the apprentice stated wearily.

             
Nodding, Sebastian added, “It could just be that you’re worn out from the climb. It has also been a long day and you were in a battle after all. We can wait a little longer and let you get your energy back and see. Maybe you could try feeling for the power through the stone and see if it’s still there while we wait.”

             
Ashleen shook her head as she felt for the power that had always been there trying to fill her up. “It’s barely a trickle from here. I didn’t notice the change right away, but there definitely seems to be a connection between how high we climb from the ground and the power that I can draw.”

             
“I’m actually surprised that the stone of the castle doesn’t continue the flow, but I supposed that cut stone isn’t like the living earth,” Sebastian mused aloud as he stood offering a hand to the young woman. “Well, I guess we have our answer. We should probably head back down then.”

             
Sighing, the girl replied, “This is going to be a long walk.”

             
Taking her hand, Sebastian smiled before calling on his magic again. “Heal,” he ordered sending his own energy into the apprentice feeding her strength. The effect was immediate and Ashleen looked at him in surprise.

             
“But I wasn’t injured from our climb, just tired.”

             
He agreed but answered, “True, but I just use the word to channel my thoughts. If I want to heal a wound I use my mind to control that part of the spell, but if I want to use my strength to supplement yours, then that’s what I make it do.”

             
“Well, it’s very helpful and thank you. I do already feel better too, but let’s not push our luck. We should head back down while I am still feeling well.”

             
The curious pair, now sated, hurried back down the stairs and by the time they were exiting the tower Ashleen was already feeling much stronger as her bond with the earth seemed to strengthen. After a short trip to the kitchens for refueling, Sebastian walked the girl back to her room. He thought that she looked to have wanted a bit more, but the falcon went back to his room none the less.

             
Glad that they had tested her relationship with the earth, the information brought some new thoughts about the nature of his individual magic into play. Maybe when he had a chance, Sebastian could test some theories that were just beginning to mull around in his mind. As he lay down in his bed tired from the long day, the falcon realized such things would simply have to wait for another time.

              Early morning bells awoke Sebastian to the start of another winter day. His mind had begun playing some ideas over and over causing the mage to turn restlessly until it finally let him sleep despite having been tired. It wasn’t the first night that he had lost sleep to his need to analyze new and future spells as his head touched his pillow. Such bouts of insomnia had become all too regular of late.

             
Lighting a candle in the dark of a windowless interior room, Sebastian washed and dressed before heading down to the dining hall to break his fast. Few others of the castle had made it that far as early as the mizard apparently as a mere handful of soldiers and falcons were in the room. Falcondi Warner was there and half nodded to him as he sat eating with one hand and reading through some paperwork in the other. Serving as Saren’s second this season, the man was about as busy as any mage in the keep despite the winter slowdown outside.

             
After wolfing down a plate of eggs, pancakes covered with syrup and some diced potatoes washed down by a couple cups of kaffe, Sebastian asked for a loaf of bread and some cheese along with gathering a large canteen of water. He planned to test some things about magic that had come to mind after experimenting with Ashleen’s relation of her magic to the earth.

             
Even though Sebastian was a battle mage, he had heard that long ago in history there had been wizards that could control more power than any caster on North Continent could achieve today. It was a mythical fact that they had lost something used in magic of the past age and that, if someone could crack the mystery, current wizards and even the battle mages might double or triple their magical strength. Now whether this was true, no researcher wizard of the three schools had ever rediscovered the lost trick believed in the myth for well over two hundred years.

             
Sebastian was hardly so full of himself as to believe he had somehow unlocked any answers in his musings of the night before, but it was just something about the strangeness of how Ashleen, a wilder, seemed to tap into the earth at all times that made him wonder. Whether she could control the power wasn’t the question he dealt with here. Was she tapping the earth for more strength than she had on her own? That was the true question which might lead to greater answers.

             
“Air shield,” he spelled the filter which both kept out falling snow and also trapped some of the heat his body created when he wished it. A trick learned from the air wizards that he had modified in the busy summer of last year, Sebastian found it one of his favorites. The air shield often drove his students crazy since no other battle mage had deciphered how to produce it yet and even many full wizards couldn’t tap into the air mage magic causing more friction between him and their ilk. With his protective shield locked in place, the battle mage proceeded to the local smith of Falcon’s Keep to procure some supplies for his newest experiment.

             
It was still early in the morning, but the man was already starting to build his first fires for the forge work in his plans. Winter kept the smithy busy since it was hard on the horses’ hooves and shoes. A mare was stalled nearby and Sebastian knew that it wasn’t one of Halthor’s since he had only seen the stockier wagon teams in the man’s personal stables. Halthor greeted him as he entered the main work room. Though not exactly a regular customer since the mage didn’t actually own Stormy, the horse he had been riding for most of the last year, Sebastian had still made a few visits for weapons and had brought horses out for a favor to the stable master.