Chapter 25

“Over time, Merith turned green with all manner of vegetation. Yet the mightiest of all plants were the trees, for within their cores rested a hint of their mother's magic.”

Origins by Grand Arboler Parley, year 1989

Ebony

Oliver twirled his wand with his left hand and Cast elm. A glowing red shield appeared six feet before him. He used it to block the torrent of fire Ilan shot at him. Oliver leaned into the billowing flames, struggling to stay upright. Fiery tendrils reached around the shield threatening to consume his flesh. Ilan didn’t relent. The fire kept coming; smoke filled the air. Oliver fought to breathe.

“Get out of there,” Silas instructed. “He can keep that going for five minutes. You’ll suffocate in less than two.”

Oliver sidestepped, but Ilan followed him, maintaining pressure. Oliver managed to get a whiff of fresh air and twirled his staff with his right hand while holding up his shield. First, he Cast ash, and then willow.

A jet of fire burst out of his own staff. He aimed it at Ilan. When the two lines of fire met in the middle, a swirling cloud of flames erupted between them. The heat was intense. Oliver had to back away.

Fortunately, this training took place in an open meadow, away from the camp and away from trees, so nothing could catch on fire. The flames lit up the night sky, competing with the stars and two moons. Over the past several days, they trained in the morning, rode horseback to catch up, and then trained in the evening as the soldiers set up camp.

A couple of minutes into the duel, Oliver recognized one of Ilan’s series of attacks. He did a set of sweeps and pushes with his magical extension, and every time he managed to move Oliver’s shield just enough to get his flames past his defenses. But this time—after losing so many times—Oliver knew what to expect.

Guessing when Ilan would do his hardest push, Oliver pulled. He guessed right. Ilan pushed too hard and fell forward, off balance.

Now’s my chance.

Oliver swatted Ilan’s shield to the right and aimed his fire-Casting staff at Ilan. A roar of flames shot at the younger man.

Looking surprised, Ilan expertly twisted to the side, dodging half of the flames. With a flick of the wrist, Ilan moved his shield inside and pushed Oliver’s farther to the right, creating a larger opening. He aimed his staff at Oliver, shooting past his defenses and hitting him with a face-full of fire.

Once again, Oliver felt like dying. His skin crawled with pain as it threatened to melt off his skull. He couldn’t breathe. Sucking in air would mean painful suffocation. All he could do was wait.

A second later, a spray of water hit his face, soaking his upper body and putting out the fire. His skin stung from the instant change in temperature. He kept his eyes closed; even his eyelids were burnt.

He felt a gentle poke from a wand on his arm and it shot a cold-hot wave of relief throughout his entire body. The pain vanished immediately and seemed like a distant memory. His burnt hair and singed eyebrows regrew to their normal length. He opened his eyes to see Silas touching him with a maple wand.

Taking a relieved breath, Oliver offered thanks, and then Silas ran over to Ilan and administered the same treatment.

“Well done, Oliver,” Ilan said with a smile once he was healed. He brushed his right shoulder; his robes were blackened there. “This is the first time you got me.”

Oliver looked down at his own robes. They were completely black from the chest up. Most mages didn’t change them or throw them away but wore their burnt marks as a matter of pride. “I wish I got all of you,” Oliver said.

“You lowered your defenses when you attacked,” Silas said. “It was a good move, but you have to keep up your shield.”

I’m getting better, Oliver thought. Dueling is painful to practice, but practice will keep me alive in this era.

“General!”

The three men turned to see Ashley with an oak wand illuminating her face, running through the meadow toward them.

“What is it?” Silas asked.

“A messenger from Cambium, General….” Ashley spoke between panting breaths. “Said Lennox’s army will reach Cambium by morning!”

Silas grew stiff. “By tomorrow morning?”

Ashley nodded, hands on her knees.

“Flames! He struck sooner than I thought! We should’ve left a week ago!” He paced in spot, scratching his beard. A second later, he clicked his tongue and said, “Ready the mages! Tell the soldiers to start marching! Grab ebony! We depart at once!”

“Yes, sir!” She ran back to the camp, her green mage robes flowing behind her.

Oliver jogged back to the camp along with the others through the tall grass. Silas Cast oak to light their way. “But I thought Cambium was still two days out,” Oliver said.

“It is,” Ilan said. “If you go by foot.”

“How—?”

“We will fly to Cambium through the night,” Silas said as he ran ahead. “We should arrive by midmorning. Unfortunately, we haven’t had enough time to teach you how to fly, and it is quite dangerous to attempt without practice.”

“So, how are we going to get him there?” Ilan asked. “Or should we have him march with the soldiers and get there in two days or so?”

“No.” The General frowned as he ran. “The men will grow suspicious if the Guardian doesn’t fly ahead with the rest of the mages.”

As they drew near the camp, Oliver saw torches and glowing wands swarming. mages and soldiers hustled in every direction, preparing to journey through the night.

“Ilan,” Silas said. “you and Ashley will help Oliver fly to Cambium. I will lead the rest of the mages. You two will need to make sure Oliver keeps up with us.”

“Yes, sir!” Ilan replied.

Silas veered to run toward a different part of camp, shouting his final instructions. “Teach him the basics while I gather the mages. And do it at a distance so no one sees.”

Ilan led Oliver to one of the weapons wagons. “Are we really going to fly?” Oliver asked nervously.

“We’re really going to fly,” Ilan said flatly. “Don’t worry, Ollie. You’re a fast learner. You’ll pick it up easy.”

Oliver sniffed. Now he’s calling me by my nickname?

A few tired-looking women were inside the weapons wagon, scurrying back and forth to give mages their wands, staves, and arrows. An oak-lit log stood beside the wagon, making it one of the brightest spots in the camp. One of the women gave them bundles of staves and wands. The wands they placed in their robes. The staves, they tied to their backs. “We’ll need these to fight with when we land,” Ilan explained. “Now grab a log.”

A second wagon was filled to the brim with the most bizarre logs Oliver’d ever seen. They were black. Though not entirely; a layer of the outer ring was brown, but most of the center was pitch black. Each one was as tall as a man and as thick as his leg. The bark was removed, and a pinewood node poked out of its center. They also had two small wooden poles that ran through the top and bottom of the logs at a perpendicular angle. Handle bars, Oliver realized.

Oliver followed Ilan’s lead in picking up one of the logs, hoisting it over his shoulders, and running it toward the edge of camp. The handle bars made it easier to grab, but it was still heavy to carry, rubbing into his shoulder. After they were just outside the camp, they stood their logs on the ground.

“Will the magic in these logs last us all the way to Cambium?” Oliver asked.

“Aye,” Ilan said. “With a little to spare. Ebony burns slow.”

Oliver looked at the big log in front of him and blew air through his lips, his hands nearly too sweaty to grip it.

“Nervous?” Ilan asked. “As you should be. And not just about flying, but also what we are flying towards.” He took a deep breath himself. “A siege, Ollie. A real battle. And against Lennox Elmson, the ashen false guardian.”

He doesn’t look nervous, Oliver observed. He looks eager.

“Do you remember the Carving for ebony?” Ilan asked.

“Sort of. I mostly remember it’s the hardest one of them all.”

“Right. It looks complicated in writing, but it’s easier if you think of it as a progression of numbers. A set of four spins, thrust left. A set of three spins, thrust right. A set of two spins, thrust backward. A set of single spins, thrust to Casting position. Do you see what I mean?”

“Hm.” Oliver slowly nodded his head. “It’s sort of like a countdown before liftoff.”

“Sure,” Ilan said. “I don’t know what that is but name it with future words all you want if it helps. Go ahead and Cast it. We need to hurry.”

Although he felt rushed, Oliver had to twirl the log slowly due to its size. Thinking of the carving as a countdown made it easier to remember all the spins. When he finished the routine, nothing happened.

“You did the Carving right,” Ilan said. “But your vertical spins weren’t quite vertical. Do it again.”

Oliver did it again, slower, focusing on getting the right angles in his twirling and keeping his grip on the heavy log. When he thrust it back to Casting position, Oliver’s feet left the ground.

“Whoa!” Oliver shouted, his stomach dropping to his ankles. “I’m flying!”

“You’re not flying,” Ilan said with a smirk.

He was right. It was more like floating. Moving was close to impossible. Oliver’s entire body floated less than a foot off the ground… and it was spinning slowly. He flung his hands forward to right himself, but overcorrected, causing him to spin upside down. “What’s going on?”

“Ebony,” Ilan said, “doesn’t make you fly, necessarily. As long as you’re touching it while it’s Casting its magic, it will detach you from the Merith. In other words, Life’s magical force that pulls everything to the ground no longer has an effect on you.”

Oliver thought about that as his body continued to spin slowly. He noticed no blood rushed to his head when was upside down. It was hard to tell what upside was down. “Zero gravity!”

Ilan tilted his head. “Is that what you call it in your time?”

“Yeah, but gravity is a force of nature. Not a magical force from Life.”

Ilan shrugged. “Nature is Life and Life is magic. It’s all the same to me.”

He picked up his log and twirled it slowly, Casting ebony and floating a foot off the ground with Oliver. “As you can tell,” Ilan said, “ebony alone isn’t too effective for flying. If you were to push off the ground, you would keep going up until the wind stopped you and blew you in every direction, and then you would fall as soon as the magic extinguished. That’s why almost all ebony has willow combined with it.” He pointed at the brown half of his log. “It will Cast wind, which will push you in the direction you want to go.” He looked up. “Watch and see.”

Ilan reached to plant one end of his log on the ground and grabbed Oliver’s shoulder, stopping his constant spinning. Oliver finally managed to turn around to see what Ilan was referring to.

Thousands of mages stood in the middle of the camp, ready to fly, each with his or her own ebony-willow log. He noticed there were nearly just as many women among them as there were men. Magery, it appeared, was far from a male-only expertise.

Like acres of tall grass, their mage robes glimmered green under the pale light of the two moons. They stood far apart from each other, giving themselves enough room to twirl their logs. Silas stood at the front with his own log, waiting for each mage to fall in line.

“By tomorrow morning, Lennox will lay siege to Cambium!” Silas said. “We cannot delay! The soldiers will march to catch up! We fly through the night! We will arrive by morning to aide our forces there! Haste… is essential this night! Let’s fly!”

With two hands, Silas twirled his massive log above his head and around his body in the Carving for ebony. The thousands of mages followed suit, spinning their logs in a synchronized routine. Oliver’s jaw hung open and he forgot his nervousness and weightlessness for a moment as he witnessed their skill and uniformity.

When Silas finished the ebony Carving, he went straight to Casting willow while he floated just off the ground. With his final twirl to Casting position, a gust of wind shot out the log’s tip, pushing it downward. Before it hit the ground, Silas firmly gripped its handles and pulled the bottom of the staff upward, launching into the sky like a human rocket. The grass around him doubled over, blown downward by the roaring wind.

Seconds later, the rest of the mages completed their routine, Casting wind downward as they clutched onto their logs, soaring upward. As thousands of mages rose into the sky, the air beneath them swirled in a frenzy. The sound was deafening, like a fully-developed hurricane surging through the camp. The night sky filled with thousands of silhouettes of flying mages, the moons’ light behind them.

The stories Oliver had heard as a kid. The legendary mages he had read about in his adolescence. They flew above him, like a flock of eagles. He could have stood there, gaping at the flying mages for hours, but Ilan nudged Oliver’s shoulder, bringing him back to the nerve-wracking task at hand.

“You’ve seen it,” Ilan said. “Now do it.”

“Okay….” Oliver took a deep breath, his heart pounding, his mind reeling. I’m going to die!

“It’ll be fine,” Ilan said, reading his thoughts. “Once you get the hang of it, it’s fun. The first time is always a little rough, but I will be right there with you.”

“Me too.”

They turned to see Ashley approaching, two staves strapped to her back. “Hurry up, Shorty! Let’s go!”

Oliver nodded, still in a daze, and began to spin the log around his body. He twirled it slowly making sure he got the willow Carving right. He held his breath as he came to the end of the routine.

He gasped as the log plunged downward. Since the tip was point upward, it blew wind up which pushed the log down. Quickly, he clenched onto the two handle bars at the bottom and pulled up before hitting the ground. Because it was weightless like him, it was surprisingly easy to maneuver. As soon as he aimed the log’s bottom skyward, it pulled him up with it.

Wind kicked at his feet, threatening to pry his fingers loose. Frantically, he hefted himself upward to place his feet on the two handles on the bottom of the log, making it easier to hold on. Looking down, he saw the ground growing more distant by the second. The tallest treetops were already far below his feet. His stomach churned at the sight and he tightened his grip, his knuckles turning white.

The log tilted inward, causing it to fly in a backward arc. Realizing that soon his back would be facing the ground, Oliver pushed the log away from him in an attempt to return his flight to a vertical direction.

But he pushed too hard.

He angled it downward, his head soaring back toward the fast-approaching ground. He’d been holding his breath thus far, but at this point he let out a terrified scream, his eyes as big as saucers.

He didn’t notice the two figures flying up toward him until they were right there next to him, with hands on his log. Ashley on the left and Ilan on the right, they redirected him to fly in a nearly horizontal position.

Once Oliver could hear over the thumping of his own heartbeat, he heard Ilan laughing. “Never gets old,” he said with a wide grin. Ashley, on the other hand, wore a scowl, not looking at Oliver, as if this was the last thing she wanted to be doing.

The wind blew hard, so he lowered his body to cut through it. The movement caused his log to angle downward again, but Ilan and Ashley pulled it up.

“Any subtle movements will change your direction,” Ilan explained over the howling wind. “The trick is to move only your arms and legs while keeping your body completely still. It takes days of practice just to master flying straight.”

“Then how do I lower my body to keep from getting blown back by the wind?” Oliver asked, eager to find a comfortable position.

“You hug the log with your torso—like this—and then push or pull with your hands and feet until the log is in the position you want.”

Oliver thought about trying it but didn’t want to risk falling off his log. He held still, letting the other two guide his flight. “You need to angle your log a little upward,” Ashley said. “We’re keeping you from nosediving, but you’re still dragging us down.”

Ilan nodded. “With your feet, push ever so slowly downward, and lift with your hands until your log is flying just a few degrees above level. Try to match the angle of our logs.”

He did as instructed, trying to shift angles slowly, but pushed too fast. Ashley and Ilan kept a firm grip on his log. Oliver grunted, pushing and pulling in the opposite direction, surprised by how much his core muscles were burning. After several minutes of trying, he finally got his log at the same angle as theirs, to the point where he didn’t feel their hands holding his log still.

Looking forward, he could see thousands of mages flying ahead of him, their figures illuminated by the moons’ light. They seemed to fill the entire sky. A magical migration of thousands.

They all flew at slightly different speeds, depending on the size of their logs. Some logs were thick and short, and some were long and narrow. Most were as thick as a man’s thigh and as tall as Oliver.

“We have to let go now,” Ilan said quietly as they passed by a couple of mages on the left. “I think you’ve got it.”

They let go and Oliver wobbled a bit, and then found his balance. One of the mages noticed Oliver, recognized who he was with wide eyes, and gave him a solemn solute, fist over heart.

Oliver saluted back as fast as possible and returned his hand back to his log, trying to hide his tension. He peered over his log at the distant ground. It scrolled by swiftly; the oak lights from the war camp grew distant.

“I’m flying…” Oliver muttered. A wide grin spread across his face. Mages, I’m flaming flying!