Chapter 4:  Combat Test

When Gailwyn and Lance first met Thane and his friends, they were suspicious.   They would have never trusted the children if it were not for Marcus.  Gailwyn had dropped her suspicions before they set out for the fortress.  Her extreme trust for Marcus, paired with her curiosity about the magic of these children soon led her to accept them  After all, it would be very beneficial for her to have a couple new research and test subjects.

Lance was far less trusting, mostly because when they arrived at the village, he was the one holding the map.  THey saw a farming village, there were dozens, maybe even over a hundred villages just like this one all over the kingdom, each of them documented and taxed according to their production.  The map he carried was an official map given to him by the royal cartographers.  Every stream, road, wooded area and large rock was painstakingly documented, however this Village, and the road leading to it, were nowhere to be found. 

To him, a loyal subject of the crown, this meant that somehow the merchants who passed through here had a more accurate map than the crown. It also meant that these villagers had lived for decades without ever paying a single copper bit in taxes.  As far as the kingdom of Reolve was concerned, this village didn’t exist.  

He would investigate it of course, he would look into the discrepancy and quickly find answers.  But each answer would lead to a deeper darker question.  How turned to who turned to why.  Eventually the line of questioning led out of the village into something greater. When I spoke to him about it later I reminded him of an old family motto.

“Don’t ask a question if you think you aren’t prepared to learn the answer.”  

*************************************

 

The next morning at the Stone Fox fortress.

Thane

 

Thane woke up in an unfamiliar bed for the first time and stared at a new ceiling.  He knew he would have to get used to it, this would be his home for as long as he stayed with the Stone Fox Mercenaries.  He did sleep well, heavy lifting and packing in the morning followed by half a day on horseback and an oversized meal was enough to ensure that.

He grabbed some bread for a morning meal and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes before heading outside.  Across the river he could see Theodore, or Mace as he liked to be called, leading the regular recruits in running laps around the training yard.  Thane looked around at the open field on this side of the river and found it to already be prepared for whatever test that Marcus had in mind.  There were several weapon racks set up with all sorts of training weapons.  Some made entirely of wood, and some with blunted metal.  He noticed a rack that had a few bows of different sizes and a few archery targets across the field.  He started at the targets and counted steps to measure the distance to the bows.  About 30 meters.

He began to fire a few practice shots to warm up as he had hundreds of times before.  He heard the voice of the elf Gryssel as he approached, “Is your shooting style self taught?”

Thane looked over to the wood elf, he looked so different from Mersene.  Being a wood elf his skin had a darker bronze color to it.  He had been told that the hair and eyes of a wood elf match the season they were born in.  Gryssel must have been born in the fall as both were a reddish orange color.

“My father taught me the basics when I was young, the rest is from experience.”

“Have you ever used a long draw bow?”

“I’ve never had the chance.”

“That is to be expected, long bows are usually for soldiers, not hunters.”

The elf picked a long bow and tossed it over to Thane and then handed him a much larger arrow than he was used to.  “Draw it back, you will need a wider stance.  Now turn your body more, the draw should be higher than your chest but parallel with it.  Good.”  Thane followed his instructions and pulled the arrow back.  “Look at the wall by the edge of the keep.  Count over five stones and aim for the middle of the top stone and fire.”

“That's over 100 yards right?”

“Yes, by a decent amount.  Once you are ready, fire.”

He released the arrow and sent it flying at the target.  It was the first time he had fired a bow this size but his aim was good and the arrow struck the middle of the fifth stone.  Thane turned to Gryssel.  His facial expression didn’t change as he blinked with surprise and handed over another arrow.  “Two more times.”

A bit of a crowd began to gather around the two.  Bartholemew and Lily were looking at the two of them, still shocked that the elf was talking to someone else.  Mahs, Sarah and Kisha had joined the group as well.  After Thane fired his third shot one of the men who had gathered around approached the two of them.

He was a tall and muscular man in his late twenties with a clean shaven head.  “Well?” he asked.

“There is no problem with the boy’s archery, if he were born to my people he would be piercing Talhassan necks by now.”  The elf turned to Thane, “You have nothing more to prove with a bow.  Let your friends go first and rest your arm.  You’re going to need to be at full strength.”

The bald man snorted as Gryssel left, “And that's the closest thing to a compliment you will ever hear from him.  Do what he says boy I’ll play with your friends first.”

Thane walked back to his friends who were standing with Bart and Lily. “What’s with all the people gathered here?”

Lily replied, “They want to see the new guys get knocked on their asses a few times.  That guy is the vanguard for the elite adventuring squad.”

“Where is Harland at?”

“Hung over in a corner somewhere of course.”

The bald man addressed Thane and his friends, “All right, I will be seeing how you measure up in a fight.  My name is Liam, former Second Sword of the House of Blades.  For those of you who don’t know what that means, it means that you can count on one hand the people in all of the Southlands who could beat me in a square fight.”

Mahs replied, “If you were such a big shot, what are you doing here?”

He smiled as he turned to look directly at Mahs, “A tragic story of loss and redemption involving trespassing and a lack of pants that should not be repeated in front of the ladies.  Thanks for volunteering to be first, smart ass.”  

Mahs stepped forward and Liam eyed him and the sword at his belt before speaking, “We don’t have any smallswords for training here.  If you tried to use that thin thing on an armored target or a beast with a thick hide it would snap right in half.”

“I can use a longsword, but I don’t like to because they have a bit too much weight.”

“You might want to get stronger then, boy.  Grab a blade and show me what you can do. We will do two spars, one without using mana, and one where you hit me with everything you can.  Assuming you know how to enhance yourself with mana, of course.”  

“Just so you know, close combat isn’t my forte.  I prefer to use magic.”  Mahs took one of the blunted metal swords from the rack and gave it a few swings before facing Liam.  Both of them held their swords in a one handed grip.

Mahs lunged first, taking a wide swing at the open side of Liam, who quickly twisted his body to deflect the blow.  He let the younger man do two more attacks before he countered himself.  The first overhead swing was easily dodged by Mahs, a second horizontal slash was blocked with a loud ringing of steel on steel and visible struggling from Mahs.  Liam clicked his tongue and arced his sword around with a lightning fast swing that slapped the flat of the blade on Mahs’ hand causing him to drop his sword.  With a flick of the wrist he swung the sword up and slapped the flat of the blade across Mahs’ cheek before turning around and walking away.

“Now, use whatever magic tricks you have and come at me again.”

Mahs rubbed his red cheek and picked up the sword.  This time he focused on his mental constructs and started to chant a spell before engaging.

“Fician host, Fician occu.  Let them see only what I wish them to see.”

-Deceive my foes, Deceive their eyes. Let them see only what I wish them to see.-

Despite the fact that there was no flash or change in lighting, the audience began to rub their eyes as if a bright light had been shone in their face.  The battlefield looked exactly the same, only this time Mahs was a bit more confident as he sprinted towards his foe to close the distance. He ran to the left side of Laim taking what appeared to be an extremely wide swing.  However halfway through the swing.

*CLANG*

Metal on metal rang out.  Liam was holding a block almost a meter to the right of where Mahs’ sword was stopped.  Mahs backed up and began to wield his longsword more like the smallsword he carried at his waist, giving several quick thrusts.  He assumed that it would be harder to track the thrusts when his real position couldn’t be discerned.  While this was technically true, each thrust was expertly parried by Liam.  To the audience, it looked like the two were shadow boxing, only the sound of metal on metal gave an indication that Liam was actually parrying the attacks.  Liam put a bit of force into one last parry, sending Mahs staggering forward while Liam turned 180 degrees and used the spinning motion to bring his clenched fist swinging at his invisible target.

It took the audience a moment to realize Liam had rabbit punched Mahs at the base of the skull, sending him sprawling to the ground.  As soon as he hit the ground, the displacement spell was released and he lost the grip on the sword that was now skidding off into the distance.

Liam walked over to Mahs and grabbed him by the collar, picking him up like a scruffed kitten until his feet were underneath him and let him go.  “Two pointers before you go.  You could pick any five of the men Theo is training across the river.  If they all fought you while you were using that technique I would place my money on you every time, HOWEVER.”  He paused a moment before continuing, “That won’t work on someone who is experienced.  If you want to fight using tricks, you are going to have to be far trickier when dealing with a strong opponent.  A true warrior will be able to see through that with ease.  Your image doesn’t leave footprints in the dirt, it doesn’t breathe heavily when exerting itself or grunt when it swings.  Second, your arms are a bit weak, I felt your strain when blocking me.  You should learn to use a spear for fighting nasty beasts.  It’s simple to learn the basics and you can use both hands to put some weight behind it to pierce thick hide.”

He patted Mahs on the back pushing him to the sidelines, “Next!”

Sarah had already started picking out daggers from the weapon racks while Liam was giving pointers to her brother.  She paused for a moment and held up a weapon that looked like a dagger but was extremely wide and had one curved edge.  “What is this?”

“Beastblade, half dagger, half cleaver.  The weight gives your chops a bit of extra oomph when the meat you are trying to cleave is still moving.”   

She placed the oversized dagger back, “Is throwing ok?”

“It’s fine, I doubt you’ll be able to hit me, but if you do, make sure you aren’t aiming for the eyes.  Same rules as before, 1 round without mana, 1 round with.”

Just like with Mahs, he gave Sarah three attempts to break through his defenses.  She lunged with two daggers at him, first attempting to throw him off balance or force his guard away with feints to allow a second slash through.  This was foiled as he simply dodged her flurry of slashes without even raising his sword.  

She then attempted to break through his defense by throwing her daggers.  The first aimed center mass, something that would be too difficult to effectively dodge and would force him to parry.  When he managed to parry both the thrown knife and the follow up strike just as easily as he dodged previously, she aimed the second knife at his instep causing him to pull his foot back, shifting his balance for the first time.  

Before she could take advantage of this, he swung his sword and slapped the wrist of the hand that was reaching to pull out one of the backup daggers.  She pulled her hand back and started to take a stance again only to receive a second blade slap across her cheek.

“The slap means the first part is over girl.  Now show me what tricks you have.”

She smiled as she pulled out the dagger she was previously reaching for and grabbed a second off the ground.  Unlike her brother who relied on his single spell, she had three spells ready.  The first pulled mana in as a simple augmentation to increase her speed.  The second, created a cloud of smoke at her feat that soon concealed her completely.  Liam gave a “hmm” of approval and quickly leapt backwards a few steps.  He couldn’t see what she was casting for her third spell, but he was increasing the space between them so he would have more time to react.  

When she came running out of the smoke cloud, there were four of her moving at tremendous speed.  All of the images looked and moved identically at the exact same times in a diamond formation.  It took a fraction of a second for Liam to pick out the target.  He made eye contact with one of the four Sarahs that were running at him and raised his sword for a counter attack.  Thane thought at this moment that she might actually get him.

He swung the flat of the blade down, probably aiming to bruise the head or shoulders of the girl he locked eyes with, however, his smile disappeared as the sword passed right through the image.  He heard the skidding sound of Sarah coming to a stop behind him but couldn’t see her.  He frantically turned around as Sara lunged forward to strike.  Realizing he couldn’t parry or dodge this blow properly, he bent his knees backwards 90 degrees, barely using his left arm to keep himself from pratfalling on the dusty training grounds.  The moment her strike swung at air, he was already twisting his body and legs, wrapping her in a leg lock before giving one last twist sending both of them to the ground.  

They kicked up a cloud of dust as they hit the ground, their legs were tangled together, but he was on top and had his sword pointed at her neck.

“Not bad, that’s how you trick someone in a fight.  Did you seriously calculate fake eye contact for an image to get in my blind spot?  It was like I was sparring with the House of Shadows again, you might have got me if I was a bit less experienced.  I say we stop here, If we continue I’ll have to use my own mana, and you don’t want that.”  The two untangled their legs and stood up, “I got no advice for you girl, the way you fight is too specialized, go talk to Onyx for pointers if you can ever find her.  If you need any help with the basics or form, let me know.” 

Kisha was up next and she used her own wooden shield and grabbed one of the training long swords.  The first part of her fight went as expected.  Her style with a sword and shield was too defensive.  She attempted to throw off his balance by shoving and smashing him with her shield, but without mana enhancement the difference in strength between her and the older and much larger man was too much to overcome.  She lasted longer defensively than either of the twins.  She was proficient in using both sword and shield to block and ward off blows.  After a few blocked swings, Liam seemed to make a game of it.  Thane could tell that each strike and feint became faster and faster until Kisha could no longer keep up and she received the same slap across the cheek the previous challengers received.  

“All right now girl, come at me full strength.  Lets see if one of you can get me to use mana today.”

Thane gathered a bit of his own mana in an attempt to see what Kisha was going to do.  She layered two enhancements, strength and perception.  He was a bit surprised she didn’t go for strength and speed in order to really try to overpower Liam, but he soon realized what she was doing once she reached in her pocket and tossed a bunch of small objects over the training field.

“Impressive”, Liam said.  “You’re able to hold two enhancements at the same time at such a young age.  But what did you just spread over my training yard?”

Bart, who was standing next to Thane, asked, “What did she toss out there?”

“Seeds” Thane replied.

With her enhanced strength, Kisha was no longer worried about being able to overpower Liam, so she charged straight ahead, shield first, towards the man.  The raised shield served a second purpose, to block the view of her mouth as she chanted another spell to take advantage of the trap she had laid.

Rather than completely dodging it, Liam accepted her charge.  He switched his sword to his left hand and placed his left foot back to brace himself as her round wooden shield collided with a metal bracer on his right wrist.  He kept his eye on her sword as they circled each other, deflecting a few swings as she tested his defenses.  With the magical enhancements, the smaller girl now had the advantage in strength and it took bracing and footwork for Liam to keep himself upright as Kisha pressured him.  

It only took a second for that footwork to be lost. 

Once Kisha had finished her spell the dozens of tiny seeds erupted into masses of entangling roots and vines.  She backed off and began to circle around to the left awhile the roots did their work.  His right and left leg were completely entangled and she had circled around to his open right side.

For the first time he looked worried, Kisha charged him with both sword and shield ready, and he barely managed to free one of his legs in time.  He let out a loud grunt as he pulled his right leg free and twisted his body.  He brought up his sword to parry and grabbed the shield with his right hand but that only made his situation worse.  As soon as his foot was back on the ground it was entangled once again, and now that he had grabbed her shield, she triggered her second trap.  

More tiny roots and vines erupted from her shield to wrap him up and in a flash they had crept up his arm.  She had been overpowering him with strength, both his legs and one of his arms were now useless.  With his last free hand he dropped his sword and pointed his palm towards the sky.  At first Kisha thought he was going to surrender until she heard him shout.

“Qua ur ircum eg!”

-Burn everything around me!-

A pillar of fire erupted around Liam, and Kisha jumped back before the flame could touch her.  She took several more steps back as the magical flames spread across the ground like a carpet.  When they faded, the yard was empty again save for the two fighters.  The seeds that she had scattered all over the ground were now ash.

Kisha was pondering her next move and Liam was standing upright with his body turned so his left side was facing her.  His sword was back in his right hand, pointed at the ground, and his left arm was extended towards her, open palm facing up.  Thane could sense the mana tingling in the air and he knew Liam had one more spell ready to go, and was just waiting for a chance to release it. 

When Kisha reached into her pocket and tossed out another handful of seeds, Liam curled his fingers up towards the sky and a wall of fire erupted upwards, consuming her seeds in mid air.

“Do you have anything else?”

Kisha bit her lower lip in frustration, and shook her head, she was so close to winning.  

“Your problem is obvious, you spend a bit too much effort on defense, and when you can’t overpower your foe you need another backup plan that doesn’t involve seeds.  You should at least take pride in the fact that you are one of only a handful of people that have made me use mana for this test, even if I didn’t have to use any body enhancement.”  

Thane was the last up.  He had no idea how he would be able to beat this guy.  Thane never really relied on tricks, he always focused on skill and strength.  What was he supposed to do against someone who obviously was far above him in both.  Liam hadn’t had to use any body enhancement yet, he would probably be even more of a terror if he did.  

As Thane was racking his brain trying to figure out what to do, someone else interrupted them.  “Mind if I test this one?”

“Oh, the high and mighty paladin wants to challenge the new guy?  Why are you so keen on taking this boy on?”

Thane looked up at his challenger, the blonde representative Lance was already checking the training weapons on the rack.  He wasn’t wearing his heavy full plate armor anymore, instead having a much lighter breastplate that looked more ceremonial than functional.  “I need a question answered.”

“Fine, but if he really is the toughest of the bunch you’d better watch yourself, he may surprise you.”

“I hope so, if he’s only at the same level as his friends then this won’t be much of a fight at all.”

OK, now I need to knock the crap out of that pretty boy, Thane thought.

Lance tossed around a few long spears in his hand before settling on one that seemed appropriate.  “So what weapon do you specialize in?”

“I don’t really have a specialization, I use swords, spears, greatswords-”

“You fought those bandits with a spear right?”

“I had a spear and an old halfsword I use for-.”

“Are you fine with a spear then?”

“That’s fine.”  

Lance tossed him the long spear he was holding and picked a new one.  Liam backed off once the fighters were ready and shook his head slightly irritated.  “All right, you two can just skip the warm up, feel free to use mana at the start.  Go whenever you are ready.” 

The two men stared each other down as the mana entered their bodies, each with his spear pointing at an angle towards the ground.  Like Kisha, Thane could hold two enhancements at the same time, he increased his speed and strength hoping to end the fight quickly.  Unlike when he charged up everything with his “forbidden” technique, his mental perception and reflexes were not increased.  It made it difficult to keep up with the speed he was moving sometimes, but he couldn’t just use that technique whenever he wanted to.

Thane moved first, lifting the spear up with a quick thrust to the center mass of Lance, it was quickly parried by his opponent and countered with a horizontal sweep that hit nothing but air when Thane jumped back.  They began to circle each other like predators and conducted similar exchanges two more times until Thane grew impatient.

He completely changed his stance, choking up on the spear until he held it by the middle completely forsaking the spear's extended range in order to attack with both the sharp and blunt ends. He lunged inside his opponents attack range as fast as he could, spinning the spear in his hands to confuse which end had the spear tip.  He knocked away his opponent's spear with the blunt end before stabbing with the speartip aimed at his chest.  There were four more quick exchanges with Thane alternating between blunt and sharp ends of the spear.  Face, shoulder, stomach, and neck, each blow was lightning fast and barely parried or dodged by Lance.  When the last blow was dodged he performed the maneuver he had practiced with Castor dozens of times before, with the opponents attention drawn up, strike the knee and sweep his leg out from under him.

Lance, however, did not lose his balance as expected.  Instead he felt a heavy thud as his sweep smacked against the shaft of Lance’s spear, it was almost if…

Thane jumped back, barely avoiding the counterswing and he found himself at a distance again, after he put in so much effort of closing it.  The confusion on his face must have been visible since Lance was quick to speak up.

“Yes, “ Lance said, “I knew exactly where you were going to swing.  Anyone familiar with the style would know exactly what you were planning when you follow the training moves so closely.  You lack real combat experience.”

Frustrated, Thane stabbed his spear into the ground and walked over to the weapon rack.  Most of the audience was speechless, although it had only been around a minute since the fight started, countless blows had been exchanged, some of the rookies had trouble following what exactly was going on.  “When I said I didn’t have a specialty, I wasn’t exactly telling the truth.”  He thought for a moment before grabbing two identical longswords from the rack. There were actually two styles he specialized in, both were deemed “highly unusual” by Castor, but they were taught to Thane by his father many years ago.  Most of the advanced learning had to be done from manuals in his teenage years, but Castor knew enough about them to assist him in learning.

“Two long blades? Thats...” Lance paused as Thane began walking towards him with both swords lowered at his side like an upside down V.  “Twin Wing stance?”

Thane didn’t know the stance had a name, but Twin Wing seemed fitting.  He watched Lance shift his grip to the middle as Thane had done before as preparation to intercept two weapons at once.

What happened next was difficult for half the audience to follow.  Thane’s attack was a flurry of a confusing mix of wide slashes, quick stabs, and seemingly unnecessary spinning and body twisting used to gain momentum and crush attempts at guarding.  Lance’s counterattacks were quickly dodged by Thane and neither man seemed to be getting an advantage.  Lance began to slowly lose ground, stepping back as Thane pressured in with relentless attacks.  Soon it was Lance’s turn to get frustrated and he gave an angry shout and used all the force he could to shove Thane back, making space between the two again.

This time he held the spear by the end with both hands, holding it vertically towards the sky and Thane felt a large magical force gathering.  

With a mighty shout, Lance yelled out the name of the patron deity of nobles and rulers “ASHRAN!”.  The holy energy of the Father of Dynasties began to flow through his weapon glowing with a bright holy light and the paladin brought the empowered weapon down on Thane.

Thane brought his swords up to block as he gathered magical energy of his own.  Almost too late he realized that the blow coming down was too strong to block and he used all his strength to leap backwards, not caring about how graceful his landing would be. The ground shook as the holy power infused weapon struck the ground, followed by Thane falling unceremoniously on his buttocks.

The two swords that were in Thane’s hands that he tried to block with were now shattered, but the magical energy Thane had gathered was ready to go.  Using a trick he learned from Castor he didn’t form a true magic spell, instead layering three identical projection circles on top of each other.  The result was a blast of pure magical force that sent Lance flying backwards several meters to land in the same position Thane was in.  

Thane was already preparing a second spell as his opponent tried to stand up.  “If it’s a light show you want, I can help with that.”  His hands began to crackle with lightning, and as Lance was standing up ready to get back into the fight, he let a powerful bolt fly.

The air crackled with energy, but the lighting bolt disappeared before impacting anything.  Standing between the two men was Liam, his bracers were crossed in front of his face and were generating a soft glow.  Whatever enchantment was on those bracers, it was enough to stop a bolt of lightning.  “I get it, both of you hate to lose, but if you keep escalating like this someone is going to get seriously hurt, and more importantly  YOU'RE GOING TO BREAK MORE OF MY WEAPONS.” 

He emphasized his last words with a stomp that almost sounded like a thunderclap, and Thane felt like the ground beneath him suddenly dropped five centimeters almost causing him to lose his balance. 

Whatever people that were in the fortress but had not come to watch the fight were now there after the explosion caused by the fight between the two.  They found Liam standing in a large crater between two men with shattered swords and a broken spear.  Liam looked over to Lance, “You’re paying me back for the weapons you broke, and make sure you get this hole you made filled in.  Also you might want to pay me back for stopping the spell that would have left you twitching and drooling on the ground.  ….so did you get the answer you were looking for?”

“Yes, and a few more questions to go with it.” 

Liam shook his head in frustration and went back to address the recruits he had just sparred with.  He found Marcus waiting for him there.  “So what’s your verdict?”

“The kids are smart, usually kids like them come in all cocky thinking they can beat me.  These three all treated the fight like it should have been, as if they were fighting against a superior opponent.  Not one of them came at me with the usual swagger and overconfidence.  It was actually disappointing since humbling the young ones is why I do this with an audience.  I really think I need to give Thane a good thrashing though, I never got to put him in his place.”

“Maybe later, I will have you observe them on their first job tomorrow.”

“Oh, will the fun never end?”   

Before they parted Thane had one last question. “You said you could count the people in the Southlands who could beat you in a fair fight on one hand, who would they be?”

Liam smiled and brought his and up with fingers extended, he brought down his fingers one at a time as he listed the names.  “Since I was the second sword, obviously Lugh the first sword could beat me, I honestly think I could take the new second sword in a fight so let's not count him.  Second would be a fine cambion fellow who simply likes to be called the Red Hand.  I’m not calling him a fine fellow sarcastically, after the hole he put in my gut healed we went out drinking a few times.  Third is Cante the Blackstone Wolf, and fourth would be Queen Serras.”  He wiggled his thumb, now the only finger left extended, “I like to keep the last one open just in case there is someone out there who can surprise me.”

“Wait...the Queen?  Our queen?”

“Have you ever heard of the five city slaughter?  She did that when she was not much older than you.  Don’t think that just because she has a few kids now that she can’t introduce you to your great grandparents.”

“Before you commit lese majeste in front of a royal observer, I’m going to stop you there. Gailwyn still wants to take a look at their magic.  Make sure you four come to see me after she is finished with you, I’ll have your first job ready.”

------------------------------------------------

Unlike the public display that Liam put on with his testing, Gailwyn examined the new recruits in her study in private.  They each took their turns once again leaving Thane for last.  Her study was fairly empty, only a single small bookshelf and a large desk with a few mounted crystals on it.  The book she always carried with her was placed open on the desk and already had the shimmering screen floating above it.  She motioned to a chair on the other side of the desk for Thane to sit in.

“To be honest, you were the only one I was really interested in.  It will be amusing to study Kisha’s nature magic, but I already knew everything I needed about the others.  I saw you used lightning magic in your little scuffle with Lance.”

Thane nodded and she continued, “Interesting choice, lightning is considered extremely difficult to use.  Unlike, say, fire, it is difficult to form a concrete mental image of lightning, and due to the nature of electricity, many mages end up shocking themselves without a conduit of some sort.”

“Castor always said I was extremely skilled at manipulating mana.”

“Hmm…” she was looking through the distortion over her book at Thane, but this time, the magic was much thicker.

“That’s different than last time, the strength feels like at least a sixth circle spell.”

“You can tell that just by sensing it?  If you were trying to convince me about your mana manipulation skills I should tell you that I never doubted you.”

“No it’s just, I was wondering why you were using such a strong spell this time.”

“Well, if basic scrying doesn’t give me the information I need, I just have to look deeper right?  So tell me, have you summoned any demons recently or have you had contact with any demons?”

“No. I used chthonic mana by accident a couple days ago though.”

She paused for a moment, "Explain please.  Chthonic mana isn’t something that can be used by accident.”

He related the story about how he got so angry when one of the villagers was killed.  “It wasn’t just the bandit I was angry at, I was angry at myself for quibbling about so much without taking action.”

“Emotions shouldn’t be enough to break through the aether...well, maybe for shadow magic, but the night realm is tied to emotions by its very nature.  Getting so mad that you pull mana from the hells isn’t exactly something that happens normally.”

“But that is exactly what happened.”

“Hmm….do you think you can duplicate it?”

“That doesn’t sound like the best idea.”

“What about the opposite then?  I wonder if you can pull mana from the high heavens just as easily as you can pull from the hells.”

Thane remembered the voice he heard when the chthonic mana entered his body, “Won’t whoever or whatever I take the mana from immediately know about it?”

“What do you think priests and clerics do on a daily basis?  Borrowing power from the gods is nothing new, you saw Lance do it earlier today.  The only difference is that you will be doing it without permission.  But I doubt he will notice or care.”

She seemed really excited for a moment and  sketched a magic circle on a piece of paper, before sliding it over to Thane.  I’ll summon another looking glass for you to use, I want you to memorize that circle and prepare to make a mental construct of it.  Also can you make a base scrying circle?”

“Yeah I should be able to.  This circle... single...answers a single question?”

“Exactly, but it is still fairly weak so it will only give you a single phrase or image.  I want you to think, think very hard about a question you want answered.  Something that is important to you that you really want to know.  Do more than just think about it,you need to really want it, almost like a prayer even, but don’t think of a god directly.  Perhaps it would be good to think of the question as something only the gods know.  Can you do that?”

Her instructions seemed all over the place, it was apparent she didn’t really know herself what exactly needed to be done.  It was true that Thane did have a question like that, it had been bugging him for a few days now.  The woman that was spoken of by his teacher and master.  The one that his father and Castor used to love.  He knew this woman was important, extremely important, but nothing else.  It seemed like both Castor and Maria were unwilling to speak of her.  Thane wanted to know more.  

“I’m ready.”  He constructed the two circles in his mind, and made a prayer seeking knowledge.  The energy from the spell was like nothing he ever expected, so strong, yet cold, dispassionate.  When he looked into the scrying glass, he didn’t see what he expected.  

What he saw was a young girl, probably less than 10 years old.  She was cold, sitting in front of a campfire at night wrapped in a thin cloak and hugging a sheathed sword tightly.  It was a longsword made for an adult, but to her small stature it seemed about the size of a greatsword.  Just as quickly as the image appeared, it disappeared, leaving Thane lost in thought.

“I can’t believe it worked, that was definitely Orin’s energy, the mana of the god of knowledge.  That should have been impossible for anyone but a priest.”  She smiled and turned to Thane, “Congratulations!  You just successfully stole from a god!” 

“Do you have to put it like that?”

“Tapped into the power of a god then.”  She stood up and walked over to the door. “Okay, your examination is over, I have a lot of research to do so go along to Marcus.  He has a job for you and your friends.”

This was the most animated Thane had ever seen her.  He couldn’t believe this was the same stoic woman full of suspicion that he met a few days ago.  He looked at his hands and clenched and unclenched his fist.  His body was still tingling from the divine mana and still didn’t quite feel right.  She did say that she could help him with his magic, and this was already a big breakthrough.  

“Come on Thane, we’re about to go speak to the boss.”  He heard Mahs calling for him and hurried to join his friends.

When they met with Marcus he didn’t bother with any greetings or questions and got straight to the point.  “I need you guys to go hunt some orcs.  Maybe more than a few, maybe more than orcs.  I don’t know yet.  I’m sending Liam with you to watch and observe and make sure you get out alive if it’s too much.  We don’t know if it’s a few castoffs, a raiding party, or a full Malkin horde, but I want you to find out.”