Rise of the Retics (16 page)

“I’m so sorry, Coach. You heard the ledge cracking. There’s just no time. Is it tied securely?”

“I found a strong tree,” answered Tyranna as she double checked her knot, “and it’s not going anywhere.”

“Good,” Sam replied before turning toward the ledge, taking a running leap, and diving off.

Everyone else, including Bubble and Bull, gasped in horror.

Tyranna ran to the edge and watched as Sam dove several meters down, twisting her body and waiting for the rope to snap taught. The force of the rope allowed her to throw her legs out and catch herself on the rock face. Tyranna knew that the rope tied around her waist could not have felt good.

“She’s ok, I think!” Tyr said. “She’s stopped right near Rigby. She’s tying the rope around her now. Wait. She had to stop. Rigby won’t stop licking her face. Ok, she’s good again.”

“Pull us up!” echoed Sam’s faint voice.

“Everyone, on the rope,” ordered the coach. “One. Two, Three. Heave!”

Working together, the cohort was able to bring Rigby and Sam up in a few minutes.

“Oh Sam, thank-you,” said Jaxon as he bent down to hug Rigby.

“I owed her,” Sam responded, as she bent down and gently patted Rigby’s head.

Tyranna smiled. She never expected an attempt on her life could turn out so good.

Brakkus, the troll who had still not spoken to anyone since school started, walked up to Sam and handed her a purple lily he had picked from the trail.

Chapter
17

May the rivers run red

                           
Jaxon

Rosehaven: Thales Academy

November
10, 1503

“You are not concentrating at all!” the dark-skinned house lord snapped.

“Yes I am!”

Jaxon lied. Malverne was right. All he could think of was how Bull and Bubble tried to murder him. He was used to people hating him, but he’d always managed to avoid them trying to kill him. Now, between the arena match and the mountain hike, he’d almost died twice in a single season.

“If you were concentrating, Master Miniheart, than you would not be failing so miserably.”

Jaxon bit his tongue to keep the words he was thinking from being released. He had been working with Lord Malverne for three hours a night, every night, for almost three weeks now, and still he was not progressing. He thought by now that he would at least be able to light the hearth from across the room or get the sconces lit with a thought—something to show off a bit. But no, still nothing.

He felt even worse about lying to Tyranna about his progress, but he just couldn’t tell her the truth. Who wanted to be friends with a failure? He knew he wouldn’t. If he couldn’t harness his power, they could both be dead at any moment.

Malverne was the worst part of it all. He was always on his back about proper breathing or learning to control his emotions. Did he think that just because he could perform a few dainty little parlor tricks that he had the qualifications to be teaching a demon sorcerer? The dark elf was clearly both delusional and brain damaged. Jaxon hated him as much as he had ever hated anyone in the world.

“Let us start again, Jaxon,” Malverne said with a sigh. “Remember what I taught you.”

Jaxon groaned loudly, so that his teacher could hear his frustration.

“What is rule number one?” he asked patronizingly.

“Rule number one is understand my emotion.” Jaxon spoke through gritted teeth.

“And what are you feeling right now?”

“Annoyance,” Jaxon responded truthfully, “and anger and tiredness.”

“Good. We can use that,” he replied emphatically. “Concentrate on those feelings. Wrap your whole body around them. Power comes from within. It is amplified with emotion. If you want to control your abilities then you need to learn to control your emotions and not let them control you. You need to harness their innate power and let it flow through you.”

Jaxon tried. He breathed like he was supposed to. He thought about the feeling like he was supposed to. He tried to remain calm like he was supposed to. He tried to tap into it like he was supposed to. And then, when he thought he couldn’t concentrate any harder . . . nothing happened—again.

“Ugggh, I can’t do this,” Jaxon growled. “You’re not showing me the right way!”

“Do not try to pin your failure on me, Demon. It is easy to see that you still cannot control your own inner turmoil. Remember, I’ve been doing this since long before you were born.” To show his point Lord Malverne raised his right hand, engulfing it in a bright purple and orange flame.

“The elements do not wish to be conjured or controlled Miniheart. It is up to us to force them to obey our will. We accomplish that only by learning to master our emotions, to bend that power in any way we see fit. It’s why you were able to defend yourself in the arena. Your fear took over. It protected you when you could not. Now try again.”

Jaxon clenched his fists and tightly closed his eyes. He tried to concentrate completely on his anger, on how much he wanted to show Malvern that he was stronger than him, but again nothing happened.

“Uggh, I just can’t do it,” Jaxon yelled, dropping to his knees.

“Enough!” Malverne snapped. “I see that we are going too fast. You are still letting your emotions overpower you and take your mind away. You need to be in control—to concentrate and focus the energy. It is not about suppressing the anger, it’s about focusing it toward your goal. Emotion is energy, and energy can be manipulated with a disciplined mind. I don’t believe that you are ready yet. Tomorrow we go back to breathing exercises and meditation.”

Jaxon grunted loudly and stormed off toward his room. He didn’t get it. Control the emotions, use the emotions, tap into their power. He was doing all of that and nothing was working. He obviously wasn’t the problem. Maybe it was time to try something different. As always, he had a plan.

#

Jaxon let out a small sigh of relief as he plopped down on his bed. It had been another exhausting day and the only thing that ached more than his muscles was his brain.

“Oh, just a few more days, Rigby. Then we’ll be back home living our lives as free as we want.” He reached into the small ceramic jar next to his bed, took out a piece of dried meat, and ripped it in half with his teeth. He tossed the other half to Rigby, which she greedily snatched from the air.

Soon he was going to be away from Malverne and his terrible training methods. He had a full twenty-one days with the most powerful student in the entire school and yet nothing. Nada. Zilch! No flames, no sparks, not even a tiny little billow of smoke. Nothing.

It was abundantly clear that Malverne was the worst teacher of all time.

It was also just as clear to Jaxon that he needed to stop wasting time here and move on. He would teach himself to control his magic. How hard could it be, anyway? Malverne was probably holding him back out of jealousy. The next time someone tried to kill him, or Tyr or Rigby, he’d be able to do something about it.

It actually was a simple plan that he had been formulating, but certainly had enough built in disrespect to get him kicked out of Thales in a hurry. The key, as always in life, was simply to annoy the right individual.

At first, he figured if he made Professor Tallhat mad enough the kooky old gnome would certainly kick him out, but Jaxon soon discovered that the headmaster cared far more about his current science experiments than about the behavior of a singular unruly student. Most of the time when Jaxon got in trouble, he ended up dealing with the professor’s secretary, a heavyset dwarf woman with an intimidatingly large mole above her lip. Her name was Ms. Brunhild. Most of the other kids loved her because she would give out small candies whenever they went to her office. Jaxon never got a candy. Instead, he always got a talking-to. Jaxon was pretty sure that if you timed one of her lectures, it would have clocked in at slightly longer than forever.

No, the professor wouldn’t work. Jaxon needed to irritate higher up the command chain. He needed to go right to the source of his punishment. He needed to incite the wrath of the lord protector himself.

Jaxon knew that angering Lord Laszlo wasn’t going to be easy. He had a reputation for wisdom and poise and would clearly see through any ruse that Jaxon attempted.

Laszlo could not, however, instill that same calmness in the people he ruled. That was where Jaxon needed to lay his trap. If he could anger the community enough to force them to demand that Jaxon be punished, then what choice would Laszlo have other than to expel him?

Once again, Jaxon got his inspiration from one of Saan’s long-winded tales.

It seemed, according to her stories, than when Savnock would lead his armies up from the Underworld, as he did against the Florensians so long ago, he would signal his coming first by turning all the water around his enemy into blood. This would cause terror and panic among the people and make them that much easier to conquer.

Jaxon planned on doing the exact same thing. Well, almost exact. He didn’t have the ability to change water into anything other than yellow water, but he did have an extensive collection of red cloth dye that he had procured (stolen) from the ridiculous class on tailoring they made him take during his first week at Thales. They said it would be good to know if he was ever stuck somewhere and needed to make a disguise, but he didn’t see the point.

Regardless, throwing a few bottles of the dye into the lake surrounding the Alabaster Tower and the entire island would be in a panic by morning.

“Alright girl, it’s time,” Jaxon said as he jumped up from the bed. “Let’s go get ourselves thrown out of this place.”

After packing a small bag with the dyes, Jaxon snuck out the door. Luckily for him, no one had been willing to be his roommate, so getting in and out was fantastically easy. Though up until today breaking curfew had been with the intention of a stolen cookie from the kitchen, not the possibility of inciting a riot. This was going to require a whole new level of sneakiness.

“Hey, Rigby!”

Jaxon cringed at the first complication. At no point in his ingenious plans was he supposed to run into anyone, especially not Tyranna. He couldn’t even make it six seconds without that popping up.

Roof,
responded Rigby in her usual loud, excited hello-bark. Tyranna, bent down to rub the dog’s ears. Rigby responded by flopping over and offering her underside. Tyranna was more than happy to oblige with a vigorous scratching.

“Definitely not your sneakiest move, Rigby. This was supposed to be a stealthy operation, not a frontal assault for a belly rub. You’re jeopardizing the whole plan!”

“Sneaky? Why are you guys being sneaky? Are you stealing cookies again?”.”

“Sorry, Tyr, can’t talk. We have big plans.”

Tyranna scrunched her nose up in a questioning manner.

“Plans that require you to be sneaky? What kind of plans are those? You’re not going to pull another prank on Sam are you? She’s getting sick of having to get new fur-brushes every week. Putting glue all over the last one was kinda mean anyway.”

“No, no, nothing like that. This plan is much bigger than that. But I really can’t talk about it, so don’t ask.”

“Jaxon, you’ve already had nine demerits this month. Anything else and Professor Tallhat is just going to lock you in your room and never let you out. You don’t want that do you?” Tyranna gave him a look that someone would give a three-year-old that they’re trying to teach right from wrong.

“Tyr, I can guarantee you that in a few hours that will not be a problem at all. The only place they are going to want to lock me is out of this building!” Jaxon gave her his slyest smile as he spoke.

“What are you talking about, Jaxon?” The tone of Tyranna’s voice changed to show that she was annoyed with his evasive answers.

“Ok fine, fine I’ll tell you. I can trust you, I guess. We’re going to dye the lake to look like blood so the people think that the army of the Underworld is about to invade. Then, we take credit for it, tell everyone it was a big joke, and wait while the community clamors for our removal from Thales. In a few days there will be no more ridiculous classes, no more stupid students, and especially no more of Lord Malverne’s pathetic training. It will be wonderful.”

“Jaxon Miniheart, that has to be the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard! First of all it’s only been a month, surely things can’t be that bad already? Besides, it’s dangerous to go out on the city streets alone at night, you know that. You could get hurt and no one would even know where you were.”

She looked at him with compassionate eyes. It wasn’t a look Jaxon saw very often. He was impressed at himself for even noticing it. He couldn’t let it stop him though. If he was going to be able to defend himself, and her, he needed to be free from Malverne.

“I need to go, Tyr. I’ll be fine. I’ve been out this late hundreds of times before. Just, whatever you do, please don’t tell anyone. My plan kind of relies on the surprise factor.” Jaxon tried to rationalize that he wasn’t actually lying. He had in fact been out hundreds of times at this hour, just never alone . . . or out of the house. Ok it was a complete lie anyway he looked at it.

Lying to Tyranna gave him a strange feeling. Normally it was his greatest skill, something he could do with confidence, finesse, and poise. He loved to lie, as it challenged him to see what people would believe and how he could manipulate them, but lying to Tyranna wasn’t nearly as much fun. She stood up for him to Bull, ate meals with him, and helped him take Rigby for walks. She was his friend. Leaving Thales meant leaving her alone for as long as it took to teach himself magic.

For a second he thought about not going ahead with his plan. Then he remembered the last words Lord Malverne had said to him that night—“I shall see you tomorrow.”

Jaxon couldn’t let that happen.