He couldn’t stop his hands shaking. He’d just completed his fourth spell, summoning a fifth-rank demon all on his own, one of the powerful kinkalaman, a servant of lamentation from Mekesta’s pits. It had drained him, mentally, seeing that awesome killing-fiend pacing there on its sword-blade appendages, awaiting his command. He’d only succeeded at it once before, but the gamble had paid off; the reagents (including the dreadful sword-shard, of course, but also a slave’s fingers unwillingly taken) were consumed to ash as the circle burst into crimson fire and the deadly shape appeared, a thin silhouette in the flames.
He went for his second bathroom break, and on his way back he ran into the elf-maiden drinking a cup of watered-down white wine at the little refreshment table. She offered him a smile and a nod so he stopped and took a cup for himself, pouring only a half-measure from the jug – he needed his wits about him, and, even watered-down, wine went straight to his head.
“You’re up soon?” he verbally prodded her – number ten had to be done by now. “Last go, eh?”
She sipped her drink and sighed. “I can’t wait. I don’t know why I’m still here – I’m not going to win. Stupid pride won’t let me let it go, I suppose.”
Dan shook his head, admiring her elfin beauty. “Don’t be too hard on yourself. We all know it’s between the gnome and Mr. Confident. But none of us are going to give up now, are we?” He grinned ruefully. “We should’ve run at the start when we still could…”
She fluttered her peach-flecked eyelashes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about… Yeah, the gnome lady right after me, she’s great – Mr. Confident, number seven, right? He’s in the lead, I think. But you – you’re better than the gnome. You’re still in the running.”
He flushed with the praise, coming from her. “I don’t know about that… but I plan on trying.” He cocked his head at her. “How would you fancy commiserating with me afterwards? There’s a nice place on the corner –”
Her eyes widened. “Oh – I’m sorry – I would, but I’m – I’m betrothed…” Before he could recover or apologise or make some stupid excuse she gulped down what remained of her drink and put down her cup. “I’d best get back, before my turn comes around… good luck!”
She strode off, her curtain of sweetly-scented coral hair swishing behind her as she vanished around the corner into the testing hall. The old man, number three, came out and headed past him to the bathroom.
Dan sighed and finished his drink, then had another half-measure before joining her. The elf was just starting, performing the opening gestures to an enchantment. He moved along the wall to the back so as not to distract her, watching as she ran through a complex series of gesticulations.
It was a fine casting – the best illusion they’d seen yet. A hunting dog appeared, and then another, and another, slipping around from behind her, from nowhere, loping around the room, sniffing hands, tongues lolling out… ten, fifteen, twenty of them… they even stank like dogs…
Everyone applauded when she let them fade away, and the elf curtsied before returning to her place.
“Fantastic!” the Grandmaster cried. “And now – number two.”
Hush swiftly fell. Everyone knew number two was a real contender. No one would suggest aloud that Nelesto might be biased – and his existing students would have a hand in the decision – but this particular comely-looking older gnome wearing her voluptuous little robe… Whatever their faults, no one in this room was stupid. The fact she was a virtuoso at the arts of magic would’ve sealed the deal, if not for number seven… and, if the elf-girl was to be believed, number nine, Danaphrim himself.
The gnome bowed deeply, facing Nelesto directly (showing off her flexibility, is she? Dan thought scathingly) then reached for her reagents.
Number two sang her spell, and grew as she did, reaching four feet, five, six – ten, twelve –
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Finally, at something like eighteen feet, she stopped swelling up. Her head went almost halfway to the high ceiling.
Everyone clapped again, and she spoke in a thunderous, fearsome voice rather than her own: “I can maintain the transformation for thirty-four minutes!”
Nelesto was laughing as he slapped his old hands together. “Oh, my dear!” he called. “That shan’t be necessary! Please, come down now, before the beams buckle! Not that I make a habit of discussing a lady’s weight.”
The gnome woman received a handshake from him – a warm, two-handed clasp – and Dan chewed on his lower lip in worry.
Three also summoned a kinkalaman, but made at least three errors to Dan’s ear, which delayed him considerably. Four summoned a small lightning-storm. Five changed into a bear, which was awesome, but far less impressive than an eighteen-foot gnome.
Six – curses be upon him – pulled out a divination orb similar to Dan’s only better, the model that cost thirty gold with the built-in magnification array, the trance-aversion safeguards…
When number six finished telling Grandmaster Nelesto what he’d had for breakfast, Dan was feeling sick. He’d planned on finding out just the same piece of information for his own concluding remark.
Still, the clapping was unenthused, the laughter tinny, half-faked. Perhaps Dan had chosen poorly; his idea being stolen might’ve been a blessing in disguise… This way, he had a little while to adjust his plans.
“Number seven?”
All eyes turned to Mr. Confident.
“Well…”
For the first time, he made a comment as he stepped up. For the first time, Mr. Confident seemed ill at ease.
Dan smiled.
Let him feel the pressure, for once.
“Well, I’ve saved my enchantment for last and I don’t quite know why.” Seven buried his hand under his hair and had a good scratch at the back of his neck, looking up at the Grandmaster from his lonely spot at the front. “I suppose I could put something together…”
He sounded – what, drunk? Drugged? Dan had hardly heard him speak, and he hadn’t noticed anything back when they first arrived… Had Mr. Confident been under the influence of something all along – something to enhance his performance, maybe, which was now leaving his system…
He started an enchantment incantation; Dan was no enchantment specialist, but it sounded like number seven had lost a wheel on the last lap. Whatever it was supposed to sound like, he knew it shouldn’t have sounded like this. It was as though a whole bunch of spells had been put in a cauldron and whisked to a fine paste. Mr. Drug-Addled didn’t even seem to know what he was doing with his components – his hand jerked from one pouch to the next in a dance that could’ve been beautiful if only there were some meaning, some purpose behind the motions. He’d barely crushed the sun-seeds before he’d pulled out a dessicated bat-wing, and Dan couldn’t follow what happened to either of them, abandoned in favour of a double-handful of gold powder, left to drift aimlessly on the air as his chant’s cadence changed yet again…
It was almost sad, to see such a strong contender lose it like this.
Almost.
It was a long spell, and Dan caught himself stifling a yawn –
All of a sudden number seven clapped his hands together smartly, stepping back.
“Hope you like it!” he said brightly.
It was the understatement of the millennium.
At first it was just a pair of marble-like trees flanking him, designed more for prettiness than as a simulation of reality. A flock of white birds appeared in the branches and started wheeling about the room.
Then it got started.
The train of hounds appeared, but this time they were chasing a fox – the prey went wheeling around the legs of the audience and the dogs followed, snapping and panting – then, just as they were about to catch it and Dan prepared himself for a grisly change to the illusion, the white birds descended, fighting off the dogs –
The hounds that made it through the cloud of razor-like beaks and shining talons were faced with no ordinary fox. Living swords whirling about its red-brown shoulders, it expanded, shuddering up to gargantuan proportions; the monstrous thing had stopped running, turning to glower at its pursuers –
As Dan watched a black storm gathered above its head, fingers of lightning flickering down about it like a terrible, majestic crown –
But it’s an illusion.
It wasn’t that he’d forgotten it wasn’t real – but the spectacle still managed to elicit feelings in him all the same, his body reacting to the sounds, the smells, the rush of purified air that swept down at his nostrils from the storm-cloud, stirring his hair…
Number seven let the glamour fade.
“Is that okay?” the youngster asked a bit uncertainly, beady eyes gleaming from the shadows beneath the hat. “Will that do?”
“Young man!” Nelesto cried. “To do that… improvised, without rehearsal, or foreknowledge of your competition’s spells –”
“I wouldn’t quite say that.” Number seven gave the room an exaggerated wink. “I’d have to be a fool not to scry ahead, eh?”
Nelesto offered the youngster a blank expression; after a noticeable pause the Grandmaster did manage to produce a faint, slightly-strangled chuckle, but when the old gnome went on to wave at the next contestant it was without the faintest bit of interest.
* * *