The Mage's Grave

  Chapter Eleven

  Darek first expected to hear Jiku cry out in pain when Aorja killed him. Jiku was a strong man, but even the strongest of men were afraid of death.

  Then Darek expected to be killed next. He didn't know what kind of spell Aorja would use on him, but he fully expected it to be painful. Aorja was not much of a fighter, but considering how she had managed to blow up the Third Dorm, he had no doubt that she knew far more dangerous spells than she originally let on.

  Though I do wonder how her magic even works, Darek thought, even though this was not the most appropriate thought for this moment. She's a mousimancer. That means she swore fealty to Yaona, the Goddess of Music. I wonder how Yaona feels about Aorja working for the Ghostly God instead.

  Not that any of that really mattered. Soon, Jiku and he would be dead and Aorja would escape. He doubted that anyone would even realize what had happened until well after Aorja was gone, which of course was part of her plan.

  But rather than hearing a burst of energy and Jiku crying out in pain, Darek instead heard the sound of glass shattering and Aorja cursing in surprise. He opened his eyes to see who had broken in, because he had also heard a pair of heavy boots land on the marble floor of the medical wing like boulders dropped from the sky.

  To his shock—but delight—Mom stood opposite Aorja amidst shattered glass scattered on the floor underneath. Behind Mom, one of the windows was completely broken, like someone had tossed a rock through it. It was somewhat sad because the windows in the medical wing of the Arcanium were beautiful works of art in themselves, but he forgot all about how beautiful the window was when he realized that he and Jiku were saved.

  Or were going to be saved, anyway. Aorja had whirled around and was aiming her wand directly at Mom. Mom had drawn out her own wand, however, and was pointing it at Aorja like a gun.

  “Aorja?” said Mom, her wand arm steadier than her voice. “What … what is going on here?”

  “Nothing you need to know about,” said Aorja. “Now, Miss Takren, why don't you put your wand down? I'll spare your son and his best friend if you do.”

  Seeing an opportunity, Darek shouted, “Don't listen to her, Mom! She's trying to disarm you so she can kill you.”

  “I know that, Darek,” said Mom, her eyes focused completely on Aorja's wand. “I'm no amateur. I've run into far worse than a silly, scared little girl with a glowing stick before.”

  “Silly, scared little girl?” said Aorja with a laugh. “That would perhaps better describe you. Although, seeing as you are not quite so young anymore, maybe you would be better described as a silly, scared old hag.”

  “Really? Old hag?” said Mom with a chuckle. “Is that the best insult you can come up with? I've been called far worse before. Your insults aren't the most creative.”

  “So what if they aren't?” said Aorja. “Let's cut the crap. If you don't drop your wand and stand down, I will kill Darek and Jiku. Actually murder them in their beds.”

  “How do you plan to do that?” said Mom. “Your wand is aimed at me and if you take it off me for even one second, I will take you out.”

  “I am quite aware of that,” said Aorja. “That's why I made sure to do this.”

  Aorja shook her other arm and another wand fell out of her sleeve into her hand. Without even looking, she pointed the other wand in Jiku and Darek's general direction. The second wand began to glow even more brightly than the first.

  “Hold on,” said Mom, her eyes widening. “Two wands? Mages are only supposed to have one wand each. Where did you get another?”

  “This was Jiku's wand, actually,” said Aorja. “Stole it when I tried to kill him.” Then she addressed Jiku without looking at him. “See, Jiku? You didn't lose everything in the explosion. Just most of your things.”

  “Give me back my wand,” said Jiku, holding out one of his hands. “Now.”

  “Why should I?” said Aorja. “Then I'd have two armed opponents, and I think one is more than enough, in my humble opinion. And if you try to get up and take it, you'll be dead before you even realize it.”

  Jiku lowered his hand, but he clearly wasn't happy with the situation. Darek wished he still had his own wand, but right now it was probably little more than burnt wood, if not ash, amidst the ruins of the Third Dorm. His hands were still blue and he could barely feel them, so he couldn't even use his hands to channel his magic again.

  “All right, Miss Takren, I hope you see the situation that you're in,” said Aorja. She cracked her neck. “If you attack me, you might—might—succeed in taking me down. But you might not be fast enough to stop me before I kill Jiku and Darek.”

  “Of course I'm fast enough to stop you,” said Mom. “Back in my younger days, I was one of the fastest Dark Tigers in the Guild.”

  “But you aren't quite so young anymore, are you, old hag?” said Aorja. “No, of course you're not. Your joints are getting stiffer and stiffer every year. Would you really risk the lives of your son and his best friend like that?”

  “You'll kill them either way,” said Mom. “And if I drop my wand and surrender, you'll kill me as well. There's no way to win if I listen to you.”

  “Of course there isn't a way to win,” said Aorja. “Because I made sure to set up this situation so that I would win. Even if the Magical Superior himself were here, I'd still have the upper hand over him. He may be the most powerful mage in the world, but he's also a sentimental old fool who can't bring himself to sacrifice his students or anything else for the greater good.”

  Darek slammed his hands on his lap. “Shut up! The Magical Superior is a thousand times better than you will ever be. Just because he's not a traitorous psychopath like you doesn't mean—”

  A flame bolt shot out from Aorja's second wand and flew past Darek's head. The heat scorched his eyebrows, causing him to sit back in his bed instinctively. The flame bolt struck the bed next to Darek's, sitting it on fire, although it was not a large fire, thankfully enough.

  “Be quiet,” said Aorja. “I don't need any of your moralizing bull. I'm going to kill all three of you and get out of here before that idiot Superior or anyone else manages to break the seal.”

  “Shouldn't be long now,” said Mom. She gestured at the broken window behind her with her head. “The window is open. Now the others aren't as nimble as me, but I think it's only a matter of time before Eyurna tells everyone and sends them this way.”

  “By which time Jiku and Darek will be corpses and you will be a pile of ash on the floor,” said Aorja. “And I will be long gone from this dumb, boring school.”

  “What are you waiting for, then?” said Mom. “Why don't you attack us? Do you lack faith in your own speed or are you just bluffing?”

  Aorja's hands shook, but she didn't run or let her guard down. “Neither. I'm just … I was hoping you would make it easy by dropping your wand, but I can see that's not how it's going to work today. Fine. I can kill you regardless of whether you have one wand or one hundred.”

  “Don't do it, Aorja,” Mom warned. “Remember, I am one of your teachers. I have a far better understanding of your own weaknesses and strengths than you do.”

  “No, you don't,” Aorja said, although her voice trembled. “Stop trying to throw me off. It won't work.”

  Mom shook her head, although she didn't move her wand arm at all, even though several minutes had already passed. “No, I do. That's one of the things I've had to learn about being a teacher ever since I got this job ten years ago. Each individual student has their own strengths and weaknesses that they don't share with anyone else.”

  “No,” said Aorja. “You don't know me. Not the real me. I've been hiding my true colors for years. You only know what I chose to show you.”

  Mom tilted her head to the side. “Really? You aren't a Hollechian. You think you're clever, but while you managed to fool even the Magical Superior into thinking you were innocent, that doesn't change the fact that your strength and weaknesses have been on display f
or me and the other teachers to see for years.”

  “Does it matter?” said Aorja, although she tripped over the words in her hurry to get them out. “I'm the one with the power here. Two wands over your one and over Jiku and Darek's none.”

  “Do you really have any power?” said Mom. “Think about it. I am a professional mage with three decades of experience. You have almost nine. I may be older and a bit slower, but I have a deep knowledge of you, both as a person and as a mage. And I am confident when I say that I can beat you, even without backup from the others.”

  “Stop lying,” said Aorja. “You're lying. You can't beat me. You're old and slow, like you said.”

  Mom's eyes briefly met Darek's. It was a very brief glance in his direction, so brief that he at first thought he must have imagined it. After all, why would Mom risk taking her eyes off Aorja's wand for even a second?

  Unless Mom was trying to tell me something, Darek thought. Which isn't an entirely illogical conclusion, now that I think about it.

  Over the years, Mom and Darek had developed their own ways of speaking to each other without actually saying a word. It wasn't telepathy or some other form of magic. They had simply become so good at reading each other's body language that sometimes they could communicate without saying a word.

  The look Mom gave Darek just then … he was sure it hadn't been some kind of fluke. No, she had been trying to tell him something. He might have missed it under other circumstances, but now he understood what she had been trying to communicate to him.

  She's going to attack Aorja, Darek thought. And she wants me to help, somehow.

  At first, he was at a loss for how to help. He was still too worn out from his fight with the chimera. Not to mention his hands, while slowly warming up, were still basically useless. His wand was gone and he did not have access to another.

  How does Mom expect me to help when I can't really use my magic at all? Darek thought. Has she forgotten why I'm in the medical wing in the first place?

  But then he realized he was looking at the situation all wrong. He didn't need magic to help Mom. In fact, Aorja was probably expecting a magical attack. Granted, she most likely expected the attack to come from Mom, but she was probably ready to kill anyone who even tried to attack her with magic, including Darek.

  Therefore, Darek needed something he could use to hit her with that she wouldn't see coming. He needed to throw something at her. His fingers had recovered enough feeling by now that he felt confident he could pick up and throw something. The only question was, what?

  Then it hit him like a ton of bricks.

  Darek slowly reached for his white, fluffy pillow behind him as Aorja and Mom's stare down continued.

  “Ran out of clever comebacks?” said Aorja. “Good. I was getting tired of listening to your stupid old voice anyway. I always liked you better silent.”

  “I'm just waiting for the best opening in which to attack,” said Mom. “Should be any minute now, I think.”

  “Takren, you must be getting senile early if you think that you'll ever get an opening,” said Aorja, seemingly unaware of Darek, who was now holding his pillow in front of his chest. “Do everyone a favor and stop trying to play the hero. It won't—”

  In one smooth motion (or as smooth as he could be, considering how tired he was), Darek aimed and hurled his pillow at the back of Aorja's head. Aorja's head whipped around to see the pillow coming, but it didn't even get halfway to her before she raised Jiku's wand and unleashed another fire blast that completely incinerated the pillow in midair.

  As the ashes that had once been Darek's pillow fell to the floor, Mom acted immediately. She jabbed her wand in Aorja's direction, sending an electrical burst from her wand that flew through the air like a throwing disk.

  Although the pillow had only distracted Aorja for perhaps three seconds at most, it was more than enough time for the electrical burst to strike the traitor directly in the chest. Aorja gasped and dropped both of her wands as she fell face forward onto the marble floor with a loud thump. She did not rise again.

  Mom approached their beds, keeping her wand trained on Aorja the entire time. She flicked her wand to the right and both of Aorja's wands flew up into her hands. Another flick and thick ropes appeared out of thin air and wrapped themselves securely around Aorja's unconscious body.

  “There we go,” said Mom. Then she looked up at Jiku and Darek. “Are either of you hurt?”

  Jiku shook his head slowly. “No, teacher. Just … betrayed.”

  He said that while staring at the unconscious Aorja, who lay at the foot of his bed.

  “Good,” said Mom. “I was worried for a moment there that she might have hurt you two.”

  “Don't worry,” said Jiku. “She wouldn't have done it. Right? That was your whole game. You were betting that Aorja was a scared and frightened little girl, like you said she was.”

  Mom nodded. “Exactly. I wasn't lying when I said I know Aorja better than she knows herself. While she is magically gifted, she's not very brave or much of a fighter. She isn't even faster than me. The only reason I relied on Darek attacking her is because I needed to be sure that I could outrun her.”

  “Looks like your plan worked out after all,” said Jiku. “Teacher Takren, I've always respected you, but I think that my respect for you has just increased tenfold today.”

  “Same here,” said Darek. Then he frowned. “But what are we going to do about Aorja now?”

  Mom glanced down at Aorja. “The Magical Superior will have to know about her betrayal. He'll be the one who decides her ultimate fate.”

  “She deserves to be kicked out of the school,” said Jiku, his tone firm. He put a hand on his chest. “She betrayed us. She tried to kill us. She's a threat to everyone here. She does not deserve to learn along with the rest of us.”

  Mom scowled, but it didn't seem to be because of what Jiku had said. She looked like she was remembering something that had happened a long time ago. “I understand the feeling. I once knew someone who I thought I could trust, who everyone thought we could trust. Turned out to be a psycho who deserved what he got coming to him.”

  Darek didn't know who Mom was talking about, but he didn't ask, either. Based on how angry she looked, Aorja's betrayal was bringing back memories she hadn't thought about in a long time and was in no mood to be questioned about, despite having been the one to bring it up in the first place.

  “You guys will need to fill us in on the details later,” said Mom. “Why did Aorja betray us? What did she think she was doing? Is she working for someone or is she on her own?”

  “I can answer all three of those questions right away,” said Jiku. “She was bored, she was following orders, and she's working for the Ghostly God.”

  “The Ghostly God?” said Mom. She groaned. “By the Powers, it just had to be one of the southern gods, didn't it? Oh, never mind. I'll go undo the seal she put on the door and tell the Superior what happened. You two stay put.”

  Darek was about to say that he and Jiku weren't going anywhere, but he didn't get a chance because Mom was already making her way down to the door. Outside the broken window Mom had used to enter, Darek heard the sounds of the students and teachers gathering outside, which made him feel safer, knowing that the others were close enough to help should Aorja somehow wake and free herself.

  Then he looked down at Aorja. She was so still that she might have been dead. Tiny, barely visible wisps of smoke rose off her body, most likely from the burst of electricity that Mom had hit her with. She obviously wasn't dead—Mom wasn't a killer—but Darek doubted she would awake for a very long time.

  He then looked at Jiku. His old friend was lying back in his bed now, looking worn out from the excitement of the past ten or fifteen minutes.

  “Well, what do you think?” said Darek.

  Jiku didn't look at him. “I think Aorja should be punished to the fullest extent of the Academy's law. In other words, what I just said a few minutes ago
.”

  Darek nodded, but somehow he found it hard to agree with. The pain of Aorja's betrayal did not seem to have hit him yet, at least not in the same way that Jiku had been hit. That wasn't very strange, as over the years, Darek had learned that he did not seem to handle trauma the same way as everyone else.

  “What do you think?” said Jiku, looking at Darek. “Do you think she deserves to be expelled for good? Or better yet, shipped off to some miserable prison somewhere to rot for the rest of her sorry life?”

  Darek bit his lower lip. “I think … I will leave that up to the Magical Superior and the teachers.”

  Jiku sighed. He looked much older now than he had before. “You're right. Still, as a Grinfian, I can't just sit by and let this kind of injustice be swept under the rug.”

  “It won't be,” Darek said. “The Magical Superior is a fair but just headmaster. He won't let Aorja get away with this.”

  “Let us hope so, Darek,” said Jiku. “Now if you will excuse me, I must rest. All of the tension has worn me out, not including the fact that I'm still recovering from the explosion.”

  Darek yawned. “I would like to join you, but someone has to keep an eye on Aorja until the rest of the teachers get here.”

  “Very well,” said Jiku. “We can talk more later, after I've rested up a bit.”

  With that, Jiku closed his eyes and sank deeper into his pillow and mattress. Darek wished he still had his pillow, but all that was left of it was a small pile of ashes on the floor near his bed and he certainly couldn't rest his head on that.

  So he kept his eyes on Aorja, looking at her prone body until he heard Mom succeed in opening the door. Then he looked away as Eyurna, Noharf, Junaz, and the rest of the North Academy faculty entered and took Aorja away. He would rest like Jiku and then, later on, if he was feeling better, he would try to see Aorja one last time before her sentence was handed to her, whatever it was going to be.

  ***