Messenger of the Dark Prophet (The Bowl of Souls: Book Two) (11 page)

For a while Justan just sat behind the hedges, letting what he had learned sink in.
Vannya and Valtrek, together.
It just didn’t feel right. He had noticed that she defended the wizard a lot, but Justan had assumed that it was out of a sense of loyalty to the school or just wizards in general. Now he felt the fool.

He had thought that she was his friend. He had even begun to think that she felt something more than that. Now he knew that she was no real friend, just a flirt and a spy for Valtrek. The ache in his heart let Justan know that his feelings for her had been changing as well, but he refused to let that thought germinate. He wouldn’t allow himself to think that he could ever have feelings for someone that would so betray a friend.

Justan shoved his hurt feelings aside. He had just caught a glimpse of the underbelly of the school. All was evidently not as it seemed and now his perceptions of the place seemed a bit darker. He needed to keep an eye out for betrayal. At that moment he was more eager than ever to be done with the place and get back to the academy where he belonged.

Chapter Seven

A swirl of pure hatred raced through the ether, shattering any innocent bit of intelligence it came upon. This angry force enjoyed nothing but destruction and instinctively sought out anything that resembled the past it could not reclaim. This was common in the Realm of Forgotten Dreams.

Few know how to reach this realm, though it is impacted by the every day lives of every thinking creature. It is where the random thoughts and patterns of the subconscious end up, a depository of haphazard bits of awareness,
a
place full of forgotten memories and desires. When a thinking being awakes from a dream, the emotions and feelings evoked by the dream break away from their conscious mind and float into this realm.

Most of these random particles have no sense of direction or purpose. They are just aimless thoughts, small morsels of almost-nothingness lazily wafting in the ether. These drifting pieces of consciousness are short lived and usually fade away into non-existence within a couple of hours after the dreamer awakens. That is, except for dreams of a particularly powerful nature.
A dream that is powered by intense emotions like love or fear or anger can sometimes last longer and take on an intelligence of its own.

From time to time wizards call into the Realm of Forgotten Dreams and pull forth some of these fragments to be used in complex
spells
. They were useful in giving intelligence to an inanimate object, like creating a door that will know only to let certain people enter. This was an advanced kind of magic seldom used, because if a wizard was not careful, he could bring in an intelligence he could not control.

This day, three humans were using magic to extend their voices into this realm. Two of the voices were weak, one strong, and a summons was being put forth. Their magic promised renewed life, a body to inhabit on the physical plane. Many leftover pieces of dreams that had been drifting without purpose were drawn towards the power and promises of these users of magic.

Another, far stronger, force heard this summons as well. The mother of the moonrats laughed. The seed she had so long cultivated was finally bearing fruit. She reached into the ether and found the swirl of hatred that so mirrored her own. It took little more than a nudge to send it in the direction she wanted.

The hatred raced to the summons of the three humans. The smaller fragments of dream drawn to their call were no match for its intensity. It dispersed them with the power of its passing. Soon, this run-away nightmare found what it had hungered for, a place to reside, a place of immense power.
Life.

The three human voices rose to a crescendo as their magic told them that their creation was ready. With a final shout, they demanded that it awake. There was a sudden silence and then the glowing eyes of their construct opened. The three humans in the room opened their mouths to shout in triumph, but that note of joy was cut short. The construct that they had labored so long to create advanced on them with a roar of pure hatred.

Justan ran hard and he ran fast. The meeting between Vannya and Valtrek that he had chanced upon an hour earlier still burned in his mind. He couldn’t get over the thought of their fierce embrace.

He raced along the wall of the
Mage
School
, running harder than he had since his encounter with the Scralag. He ran until his breathing was labored and his muscles felt like lead. He ran until the extra energy that his bond with Gwyrtha had given him dried up. Finally he stumbled and fell on the edge of the wall in exhaustion.

He lay there until he heard voices coming from below. With a grunt, he pushed himself to his feet. Some of the other students that ran with him every morning finished climbing the stairs to the top of the wall. They smiled and called out when they saw him.

Usually, Justan greeted each of the runners with a friendly hello. They were quite surprised when he ignored their calls of greeting and pushed past them to descend the stairs on shaky legs. Justan grimaced as he felt their stares of surprise on him, but he didn’t have room for regret in his crowded heart and continued on his way without looking back.

He stumbled over to the training area behind the guard’s barracks and found two decently balanced swords to practice with. His body protested at the extra exertion as he started. It took a little while for him to get his second wind, but this was a different kind of exercise than running and stressed different muscles. Soon he had a measure of his energy back and fiercely went through the sword forms.

He pushed the incident that had happened earlier in the morning away from his mind and tried to concentrate on the pure artistry of his movements. When he finished, Justan saw Zambon sitting to the side looking at him with concern and realized that he had been scowling the entire time.

Justan wasn’t in the mood to speak with anyone at the moment. “What do you want, Zambon?”

The guard shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve just been watching how sloppy your forms are this morning and wondering what could possibly have you so riled up.”

 “Sloppy?” Zambon’s easy tone goaded Justan all the more. “Well why don’t you come in and take me on, then? You are the only academy graduate here that I haven’t sparred with yet. Why is that, anyway? Are you afraid that I’ll beat you?”

Zambon seemed taken aback by Justan’s tone. “Actually, if you must know, I didn’t want to embarrass you,” he said. Justan gave him a derisive snicker and the guard couldn’t resist. “Sure I’ll train you. And I’ll do it with pleasure.”

He stepped over to the side where the guards kept a practice closet and pulled out a small shield. He usually fought with a single sword, but he had seen the way Justan’s dual blade style harried the other guards and didn’t want to make the same mistake.

He turned to Justan. “I haven’t used one of these in a long time. But since you are practicing so horribly this morning, I think I’ll chance it. You need any help you can get.”

As Zambon stepped in with his sword in hand, Justan grinned. This was a perfect opportunity for him to blow off some of that steam. He wasn’t worried about Zambon’s skill. He had seen the guard fight during the goblin ambush and hadn’t been too impressed. Justan was certain that he had become far better than the guard since his bonding with Gwyrtha. He growled and attacked Zambon with tight intertwining strikes of the twin swords.

Zambon fended off the first few strikes shakily, unnerved by the voracity of his friends' attack. The guard had fought angry people before, but Justan wasn’t just attacking with anger; he was reckless. The cadet was leaving huge openings in his defenses, but his attacks were so intense that the Zambon couldn’t take advantage of them without seriously hurting his friend and putting himself in danger.

Justan had thought that the sparring session would end quickly, but Zambon was proving better than he had expected. Since sharing his secret with Justan, the guard’s persona had changed. Perhaps his fighting ability had been impaired during the battle with the goblins. Justan didn’t understand the depth of the change in the guard, but right then he didn’t care. The sense of betrayal from earlier in the morning was still burning in his heart.

Zambon took on a combat style the opposite of Justan’s. While Justan fought madly and without cohesion, Zambon watched his opponent’s movements carefully. He had an answer for every one of Justan’s attacks and it was soon obvious that Justan was exhausted and that was adding to his recklessness. It was getting harder for Justan to control his weakening muscles and his attacks soon began to falter.

Zambon waited until the right moment. Justan spun around with a double slice of his swords. Zambon knocked them high with his shield, knelt down and swept Justan’s feet out from under him with a kick to the back of his ankles.

Justan landed on his back with a grunt. Before he could recover, Zambon’s sword was at his neck. The fight was over and though it had only lasted a few minutes, quite a crowd of guards had gathered. The academy graduates roared in delight. Finally, one of their own had beaten the young student.

The two combatants had been so focused that they were both quite startled by the outburst. Even Riveren was clapping. Zambon smiled and bowed to his fellow guards and then bent over and held out his hand to help Justan up.

Justan lay on the ground breathing heavily. As he looked up at the hand being offered to him and saw the worry on his friend’s face, he came to his senses. He had been reckless and rude.
All because of a girl.
To the astonishment of the gathered guards, Justan laughed.

He accepted Zambon’s hand.

“A fine fight!” he said loud enough that all could hear. Perhaps this fight would disperse some hard feelings. “You have beaten me soundly and with style.” Justan stood and bowed to his friend. “I guess I still have much to learn.”

The guards erupted in applause again. Justan left his friend to be congratulated by the other guards and put the two swords he had borrowed away. As he left, Zambon and Riveren jogged up to him. The muscular red-headed man caught his arm

 “Is everything alright?” Riveren asked.

Justan was surprised at the concern in his friend’s voice. “Yes,” he said. “I’ll be just fine.”

The two guards looked like they wanted to ask more, but they could tell by the tone in his voice that he didn’t want to talk about it. They nodded and walked back to take their posts.

By the time Justan changed back into his robes, he was glad that Zambon had ended it that way. He had needed reality jolted back into him. Besides, perhaps it would take some of the guards’ resentment away. He needed all the friends he could get around here. After what he had seen that morning, he didn’t need any other enemies.

He had been acting like a fool. What went on between Vannya and Valtrek didn’t change anything. He would do as planned and he wasn’t going to let anyone get in his way. There was nothing that the two of them could do that would divert him from his path.

Professor Beehn stood in front of the new cadets with the other members of the Mage School High Council and cursed the fact that he wasn’t able to join Justan and the other students in their morning run. Even though he still ate as much as ever, he had lost a lot of weight in the last two months and his body always felt better when he got his morning exercise.

Instead, he was forced to stand in the center square of the school while several of the older wizards gave their welcome speeches. He had been to every one of these ceremonies in the last ten years and could practically recite their speeches word for word. All, that is, except for Headmaster Latva, who always found a way to give a new speech and made it interesting for everyone present.

The new cadets were met at the front gate by the faculty, escorted away from their parents and loved ones and led down the center road of the school. The road was lined on either side with cheering students, watching their new classmates enter. Professor Beehn tapped his foot as he waited for the procession of the new cadets to enter the main square.

This year there were thirty-two new cadets, which was a fairly large group. Each year, the wizards scoured the countryside for fresh talent. This was mostly done in secret for most cultures were uneasy about wizards and magic in general. Whenever a potential student was found, the wizards did all they could to make sure that they came to the school for proper training. It was dangerous to let magic run wild.