The Unexpected Heir: A Tale of Alus (19 page)

"If you're lucky enough to fight him, I bet that you will win easily," the wizard finished with a grin and tilt of his head. With his well wishes and opinion given, Rieltos took his leave.

Left alone, Xerese asked her cousin, "Do think that he is right? That young man in black handled that weird little wizard pretty handily."

Reynolvan snorted derisively, "Your opponent was correct. We can only hope that one of our wizards gets to fight someone so weak."

Holding her opinion to herself, Annalicia wondered if her companions weren't overlooking the mage just a bit. She had in the meeting where they had chosen lots for position on the field. The wizard from Alcazar had been quite certain of winning, but the mage had apparently had other ideas.

It was still the first day, the second would likely be shorter, but only winners would duel now. Annalicia was glad to have won, but knew things would only get harder.

"How can the sun be so bright and yet hold no warmth?" Xerese complained as she pulled her cloak close around her. It covered a thick, northern jacket that was nearly as long as her dress, which was thicker than those worn in Malaiy as well.

Her cousin wasn't the only one complaining that morning. Their fire wizard, Keith, had already lost at the arena called the Two Houses the previous morning. It was an environment that Anna was glad she had been able to avoid. The circles were set atop a pair of stone houses and a wizard would likely have to defend it as their footing as much as they defended the space above it.

As their leader, Reynolvan had taken the loss as a blow to his Malaiyan pride. No one should have lost in the first round at least. In his mind, all six of their wizards should be fighting for first. The math made no sense to her, but that was his mind set.

It had been a match where both Keith and his opponent had figured out quickly that the house beneath them was the weak point. Both men had hammered the stone beneath their opponent and Keith's base had simply wilted first. He was also the second youngest of their number, which might have made Reynolvan more annoyed that perhaps he wasn't experienced enough to join their team; if the water wizard hadn't then proceeded to lose his match in the North Sea.

His attitude had been grumpy all evening and into the following morning as he continued pushing the others to take the tournament seriously and win. It was as if he was telling them to win to avenge their losses.

Annalicia held the winds around her and Xerese as they walked to the Heights. Even within that magical construct, she had to admit that it was probably colder today than the previous one with its cloudy sky.

"Southwall doesn't seem to register the sun's warmth when it is winter," she laughed quietly to her cousin. "Strangely most of the crowd doesn't seem to notice."

"These northerners are crazy then," the woman declared from within the hood pulled up hiding her face from Anna's angle.

"They might be," she agreed with another laugh that drew a few eyes from the crowd waiting for the matches in the lower arena. They passed along the back wall until they could climb the tower stairs.

Inside of the stone, magic held the cold at bay. It was much warmer, though not anywhere close to the temperature they would be feeling in Malaiy right now.

Having gone to Reynolvan's match before her afternoon one the previous day, Annalicia had caught part of the duel below the Heights where the wizards could use the water from a couple ponds, before heading up to ready for her turn. The duels used other elements making them quite different from the ones above.

Pausing to watch a new duel in the Ponds, they heard the sound of thunder echo down from above making her look upwards in surprise. Air wizards could use lightning, but most needed some skill with the earth to usually make it work, though she had also heard of fire wizards using heat to create a similar effect.

When they reached the top of the stairs for her second match, she was surprised to see the mage and another wizard. Sebastian, she heard the wizard call his name as he won his second duel against a wizard from some place called Kardor. She thought from her studies that it was another of the countries from the north.

The two men appeared friendly enough as she exited the stairs waiting for the word to walk out onto the stone wall of her duel field. While the Kardorian felt powerful enough, he was the one who looked worn down after the fight. The young mage looked to her and smiled.

“Good luck in your duel,” the mage said politely to the girl.

“The Lady Annalicia de Malef Eremia does not speak to commoners, mage,” Reynolvan complained bristling. Annalicia knew that he was still frustrated from his own loss more than he truly cared about any disrespect for the lady of the royal family.

A young blonde haired girl, who looked very similar to the mage snapped, “Then she’s pretty stupid, I think!”

Annalicia felt power in the younger girl that eclipsed the mage and wondered if she had been trained in magic yet. She certainly didn't appear dressed like a wizard of Southwall, but perhaps this was the way that their apprentices might dress.

“Pardon her, though I still wish the lady well. As a competitor, I have heard good things about her so far. Perhaps we will meet in a later round and have a good battle for the people," Sebastian said trying to ease the situation.

Reynolvan and the rest of her wizards seemed ready to fight right here. Annalicia headed her team off from any more retorts as she quickly replied, “I have heard of your battle as well. Apparently, you have won your second challenge just now. I will take your words of encouragement to heart, falcon. Would that Wizard Reynolvan had your fighting spirit, perhaps he would be less grouchy today. You see he lost in the sea yesterday.

“It is sad to say, since Malaiy is known as the Point of Taltan and is bordered by two seas. You would think a water wizard of such a country would last longer in a tournament, especially when they placed him in the sea for his start.

“I wish you well, falcon. Perhaps we shall meet later as you say."

“Thank you, my lady. Good luck once again,” the mage said politely before watching Annalicia walk out onto the stone wall.

Water buckets were brought out like in her previous match. She figured that it had helped her once, so keeping a second line of magic available to her was just good strategy.

Her opponent walked out to face her. He wore red and as the moderator for their match announced him, Annalicia discovered that he was another wizard from Southwall.

"For this second round match, we have Odenal from New Oapril facing off against Lady Annalicia from Malaiy!"

The expected loud cheers for the Southwall wizard were expected. To hear cheers nearly twice as loud for her part of the introduction was more of a surprise. People were shouting her name to get her attention and Anna felt herself start to blush. Even as a member of the royal family, this was more than she was used to in Malaiy.

Pushing the crowd's attention back as much as she could, Annalicia looked at this new opponent dressed in red. When he called forth three thick fire walls before him as defenses, it made her realize that Southwall wasn't doing much to avoid telling her what they would bring to a fight. She had seen water wizards in dark blue, air wizards in light blue and this fire wizard in red. Only the battle mage seemed to hold any mystery.

Checking on her competition, she would later learn that the mage had used air, nature and even disrupted the stone of the wall before stopping the fight by casting a powerful bolt of lightning that danced along the wall into his opponent driving him from the ring. It was odd to think that the one believed weakest would be the one to bring so much surprise to the tournament.

Her wind defense rose around the wizard and she noted her opponent's eyes looking wary. While his defenses were probably adequate, they didn't protect him as well as her own could, she thought.

When he began by testing her barrier with fireballs and streams of fire, the winds batted his attacks away. Annalicia was already ahead without even attacking. The stalemate didn't last more than a few seconds as the girl began her dance of magic once more.

Water rose from the buckets. What should have been mere gallons amplified into a flood thanks to her magic and was spun around her wind defense towards the wizard's three powerful fire walls. The flood struck the first snuffing it out and Annalicia used her power to pull it back creating a writhing serpent of water.

Her opponent was far from defeated as he created a pair of fire dragons. They nipped at the massive serpent, but Anna countered pulling more water from the inexhaustible buckets. Two more serpents fought the dragons creating steam with each strike as the two elements fought for dominance in the air.

While the newer water serpents fought the dragons, the first construct crashed into the second firewall mercilessly. Unlike the fire dragons, the wall was no match for the serpent and quickly the third and final wall of fire was doused as well.

A fiery bull charged from the circle through the serpent snapping the spell while Odenal cast two torrents of fire as one of the dragons expired. The bull charged towards Annalicia's defense ignoring the remaining water serpents.

Smiling Anna turned the defensive whirlwind into an offensive tool. She gestured forward with both hands sending the tornado surging forward to confront the bull of fire. The girl was forced to take a step to catch herself as the wind whipped past her petite frame. Hair swept across her cheeks, but her eyes remained on her target.

The remnants of the water serpents joined into the tornado becoming a water spout. Fire exploded as the bull was torn apart in the onrush of wind and water. The last fire dragon attacked the water spout in a suicidal move before breaking on the spinning tornado.

Even then the fire wizard wasn't through. He cried out in defiance calling up a fire vortex to counter her whirlwind. While the fire turned the opposite direction of her tornado, Odenal had forgotten the second element in her spell.

Annalicia continued her dance and surprised the wizard releasing the water within the tornado. Surging around the fiery vortex, the rush of water turned back into several water snakes. With no other defenses between them, the serpents struck the fire wizard.

He screamed, but only from shock and fear. No magic rose to protect him this time and Odenal was thrown into the air. Cast from the wall, the crowd gasped. Annalicia did as well lifting her hand to her mouth worriedly. Her view had been masked and the power of the water attack had been more powerful than even she had expected.

The wizards protecting the Heights were put to the test once more, but Odenal seemed to hover above the castle grounds far below him. In a crueler time, the wizard would have certainly fallen to his death; but they returned him to the solid stone of the wall. He was pale and shaken, but Odenal was both alive and safe.

“Your winner is Lady Annalicia from Malaiy!” the voice of the diplomacy wizard declared for the crowd.

Their cheers brought Annalicia's eyes from Odenal to the stands built on the outer wall. A second glance to make sure that her opponent was alright let her feel good enough to wave to the crowd cheering for her. She could have sworn that they actually grew louder, but that seemed impossible to the lady from Malaiy.

Walking back to the tower, she once more shook the hand of her defeated opponent. Even Reynolvan seemed happy now, Annalicia thought with a bit of humor.

Chapter 11- When a Duel is Not a Duel

People moved along the walkways of the street while carts hauled by horses and mules occupied the center. Karlaan could hear sea birds on the air, but he was at least half a mile east of the Talmoth Sea, the closer of the named seas bordering Malaiy. It was still early and the sun's rays cast long shadows as the glowing orb made progress through the sky.

He leaned against the building discussed as a meeting place and shortly the gardener Needaly could be seen in her green apron. Her brown hair looked darker in the early morning light, though gray strands could be seen when she came closer. Another woman walked beside her who was both younger and prettier in Karlaan's opinion and wore the colors of a castle maid. She had been one of the women with Needaly, who he had met with in the temple weeks ago and begun working his charms on her while listening to their individual problems.

"Oh, Master Karlaan, I am so glad that you were willing to meet us along the way," Needaly greeted him with a smile. She coughed a couple times and attempted to clear her throat. "Excuse me. I am afraid that I must be coming down with a cold."

Smiling back at the woman sympathetically, Karlaan noted a bit of yellowness to her skin and eyes. He cautioned her with apparent concern, "Perhaps you should ask for the day off to go to a healer, Needaly. It won't do you any good to get too sick to care for your children after all."

"I wish that I could, young master, but we only get paid if we work. Besides it is nothing but a cold, I am certain. There have been a lot of people in the castle suffering similarly of late, so it must be going around. It has made me a little tired and this cough annoys me as well, but I have had worse."

Her friend held Needaly's arm like a companion might while walking to work, but Karlaan wondered if she might be helping the older woman to remain upright as well. If Needaly was simply tired from a cold, maybe he was wrong.

Pulling a pair of flasks from a pouch at his side, he asked, "Does the fertilizer seem to be working well? If it fails, perhaps I can look into another idea to help nourish the castle flowers."

Needaly seemed to brighten as she shook her head quickly, "Oh no, it has been working very well. Actually the flowers have grown up so thick that Kamaal asked me to tend some of the other gardens as well on the property. This fertilizer has worked so well that he has treated me and the others working with me much better also. I can't begin to thank you, Master Karlaan."

"Well, if you don't shake this cold soon, then thank me by tending to your health. We can always see about raising some money for a healer and to cover a day or two of leave from work," he offered.

"No, no, I hate to take money when there are certainly others in worse shape than I," the woman said patting the air before her. "You already do too much for me. I can't ask you to do more when you have come up with the answer to my prayers. When Kamaal is so happy about the garden; he praises his workers and seems like a whole different person, one who is quite tolerable in fact."

She laughed and the pretty girl joined her with a nod. Apparently the head gardener had a reputation that had made it to the rest of the staff, unless it was merely passed on from Needaly.

"The garden is growing so well, that we have had to prune away the extra growth," Needaly added with another smile as her thoughts went to other benefits at her work. "Our cuttings often get brought into the castle living chambers."

"They are in the halls near the windows as well," the pretty woman reminded her encouragingly.

"Oh yes, I heard the princesses had complemented the gardens and through them Kamaal, Tareina," the older woman said with a nod to her friend. "I think that is what has changed his personality so much. He has drawn their attention, but also gained favor in the court; which means he has to be nicer to us or get in trouble," she finished with a laughed that ended in another short coughing fit.

Karlaan winced and said, "You are sure that you wouldn't like a donation to go to the healer, Needaly?"

Again she waved him off. "I will be fine. Working in the garden is probably the best cure anyway with all the fresh air and sunshine. If I get any worse, maybe I will ask for your help that way; but I have one of the healers' cures for colds at home anyway from last winter."

Unable to convince the woman to take a rest, they soon separated to avoid making them late for their work at the castle.

"She looks ill," a man who had been watching said as he approached Karlaan after the women had left. "Like they said, I have heard that there seems to be something working its way among the staff of the castle."

Two other men around Karlaan's age seemed to come from the crowd as if the women's leaving was the signal to join him. The good looking man brushed his hair back from his forehead even as his smile slipped from his face. "Perhaps the criers need to start saying something about Orlaan's misfortune if the people working for him seem to keep growing ill."

"A cold can move through a castle quickly," the first man said. "I am not sure that is exactly Orlaan's misfortune."

Shrugging off the comment, Karlaan responded, "Perhaps you're right for now, but you never know."

A haze of fog had delayed the third round of the Winter's Edge tournament. Annalicia sat with her grandfather waiting for the fog to dissipate enough for both the crowd to see the duels and the duelists to see each other.

Calling this round a duel was also a little odd. Annalicia had trained in the forms of a typical wizard's duel. Duel, meaning just two wizards fought to win; but the tournament officials had changed things for this round causing quite a stir amongst the contestants. Anna hadn't complained; but the new wrinkle, four wizards fighting at once in the same field, did make her quite nervous. She was just glad that someone else had the first match of the day. Her foursome would be the second match, so Annalicia hoped to learn something from watching how the first group managed the change.

"You're nervous," Darius said quietly with a chuckle.

Turning to look at him, Annalicia could see her cousin Elias on his opposite side only paying partial interest to the start of their new conversation. Darterian, along with most of the wizards from Eirdhen, had gone to another arena. There were only three being used for this round. Sixty wizards remained of the original two hundred thirty-four. Grouped in quartets, each of the three fields would see five matches and by the end just fifteen champions would move on with one other duelist from the losers.

She didn't want to risk losing to see if she had gained enough favor with the judges to move onto the next round. That made her stomach tense with nerves that much more. The field had been nearly reduced to a quarter after the first two rounds and it would be quartered again.

"Of course I am nervous. Why wouldn't I be? This round is like nothing that I have trained for."

Darius nodded in sympathy and replied, "Well, no one else has either at least. That makes you all even."

Forehead wrinkling at the comment, Anna said, "That is far from comforting. Doesn't this leave it open to more accidental losses?"

"The duels are simply training for war. In war, you are unlikely to just fight one on one in battle. A wizard or soldier can flank you or an arrow can kill from any direction. At least here you can set defenses and know that only three people can attack you."

"I only have two hands, grandfather!" she complained again raising her hands. "Most spells require them both to be used on a single spell. If they gang up on one wizard, I doubt any defenses of a single wizard will prevail."

Darius nodded. "That is true too; but the question is, can three wizards all decide to work together when only one can be a winner?"

The conversation was laced with more questions, Annalicia thought. She looked out at the field thinking that the fog was to the point that the first match would begin soon.

"So how was Yaron when you left?" the immortal wizard asked the girl changing subjects.

"I told you the other day; father doesn't use his first name anymore. He prefers Philip."

"Hmm, yes, you did, didn't you?" her grandfather noted distantly. "I told your grandmother that using elven names might be difficult if they left the elven towns to venture into the rest of Taltan. She loved the name Yaron and I only got to choose his middle name."

Annalicia wrinkled her nose at the comment and said, "Most people only use their first and family name. You gave him too many, so he chose the one he liked the most, I guess."

Laughing at her logic, Darius replied, "I suppose that you are right. While I actually like that he uses the name I gave him, though I kind of wish that he would use the first if only because Electra gave it to him."

Noting his wistful tone, the pretty blonde mused aloud, "You still miss her, grandfather."

A sad chuckle came out of him as he looked at the girl and said, "Though you two look different, I still see a bit of her in you. Your grandmother was so beautiful that I couldn't help fall in love with her. Our meeting was as much a coincidence involving a fall as the love we found.

"She was long dead by the time you were born. Yaron... I mean, Philip was very young when she died; but we were together almost six hundred years. Elves live a long time. We just didn't know how long someone like me would live at the time. There was Gerid Aramathea to look at and he was centuries old by the time we met him; but it never occurred to me that I would outlive her this long."

It was the sadness of an old man, Annalicia thought; but her grandfather didn't seem to age. He had visited a few times in her young life, but he never changed.

"Does that mean you will never marry anyone else again?" she wondered.

Releasing a sigh as he thought about it, Darius answered, "Who knows? I suppose that if I live long enough my feelings for your grandmother might fade or at least dull enough to find someone else to share time with; but if I am never going to die, I don't know that I would want to dare."

The thought had sobered them both, and the sudden announcement of the first match competitors drew them out of their thoughts once more.

"That weak mage is in this match," Annalicia stated without intent to put him down. "How can he hope to win against three full wizards? No one gave him a chance when the matches were just one on one."

Again Darius laughed and his face proved that the sadness he might have felt thinking of his lost partner had been put aside. "I don't think Southwall would have put the young man into this tournament if they didn't see something in him that made them believe he had a chance."

"In the meetings, other wizards have spoken ill of him, even wizards from Southwall. A few other northern countries use these weaker mages as magical swordsmen, I believe; but he is the only one here."

"Have you watched him fight before?" he asked curiously. "I believe that he was in your field for the first two rounds."

She nodded. "He was, but I didn't come in the morning the first day. I was surprised to see that he had made it past the wizard from Alcazar actually. Then I was too late to see him beat the... what was that country again... Kardor?"

Defenses were raised in the field. A man wearing a strange amulet on the far side of the field from her position was supposed to be a dragon in human form. The amulet had been approved since it didn't affect the match, but apparently one of the other dragons had lost their amulet and turned into a dragon during her match. Being too large for the twenty foot circle, the dragon had been considered out and thus lost her duel.

Annalicia wished that she had been able to see that and kind of wished that this one would have a similar mishap, if only to see a dragon in person.

A man dressed in Gray seemed to have the dragon man's attention. He was introduced as being from a place called Gray Hall, while the last wizard was from the neighboring country to Southwall called Staron. She wondered if the two neighbors might work together, even if one was a battle mage.

Annalicia thought if it was her, she might try to use the mage for as long as he might last. If the two of them could prevail, then he would likely be an easy defeat once the match went to just the two of them. Of course, the woman didn't have the advantage of fighting the mage or being a close ally, so the thought didn't help her.

She watched as they raised their defenses and was surprised to see the mage raise a low wall of earth. That meant he could use yet another element. His strange blue shields of magic energy were set facing each of his threats and lastly he created an air shield similar to Annalicia's, while the other wizards created their own types of defenses. The dragon and man in gray used earth walls as well, while the wizard in the red uniform created fire.

When the match began, the fire wizard threw out a whirling tornado of fire between him and the mage. It was large enough to block out the view between them and should be strong enough to resist anything that the weaker man might think to try, though Annalicia looked at the mage closer with a frown. Though still weak compared to the other wizards, the girl sensed a change in his strength. He leaned on a wood staff, but that was apparently one of his tricks. Wood and iron rods had been used in each of his prior matches.

Annalicia wondered if he was being so repetitious because his school of spells was so limited or if it was merely the beginning of what he had planned. She had held things back as well. The wizard was certain everyone had to a point.