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<blockquote data-quote="RangerWickett" data-source="post: 5119356" data-attributes="member: 63"><p><span style="font-size: 12px"><strong>Chapter Six</strong></span></p><p></p><p>“So, how does your sister use magic?” Diogenes asked.</p><p></p><p>“She points at things and they catch on fire.”</p><p></p><p>Diogenes took a deep breath. “Alright, obviously this is going to take more explaining than I thought.”</p><p></p><p>Inside the walls of the Castle, Gabal’s school of war wizardry consisted of an array of eight stone buildings surrounding the central tower, a very classical design that suggested Gabal, or at least his architect, was a pantheist. There were so many religions competing in Gate Pass, it was almost comforting to Rantle to see something so old-fashioned.</p><p></p><p>Right now they were headed for what Diogenes had called the dormitory, three-stories tall, its entrance decorated with symbols of the goddess Meliska. Columns resembled clusters of juniper trees, gutter spouts were shaped like coronal eclipses, and the dormitory’s many circular windows were framed with sleeping angelic ophanim, slender women behind whom circled wings like overlapping wheels. There were no lights in the windows.</p><p></p><p>“Is everyone asleep?” Rantle asked.</p><p></p><p>Diogenes shrugged. They reached the building, and Diogenes whispered something as he turned the handle to the front door.</p><p></p><p>“Most of the other students are actually hiding somewhere in the city,” Diogenes said, “or they’ve already run. So don’t touch anything, or go knocking on doors uninvited. They probably have left wards to deter burgulars.”</p><p></p><p>“Where are the guards? There are normally men on the walls.”</p><p></p><p>Diogenes chuckled. “I’m not about to reveal our tricks to an outsider, but we don’t need flesh and blood men to protect our walls.”</p><p></p><p>Once they were inside, Diogenes pulled aside his cloak to reveal a diversity of wands and short coils of multi-colored rope tucked into his belt by his left hip. </p><p></p><p>“Now,” he said, “what I just showed you is my array, the items I use to focus my magic. Without the items in my array, I may as well lie down and let you slit my throat, because I’m just a balding man with a knack for bookkeeping. I was trained in traditional auramancy, so if I’m near some place with a lot of fire energy, I can control the fire, and if it were the first day of spring and we were some place lush and healthy, I might be able to heal wounds, but I need the array to do anything on my own. Follow?”</p><p></p><p>“I suppose,” Rantle said. “I never really paid much attention. Katrina never used things like that.”</p><p></p><p> “Yeah,” Diogenes chuckled. “She sounds like a classicalist. Elemental magic. Not hard to learn, but very easy to predict.”</p><p></p><p>Though annoyed at the implication that his sister was some kind of rank amateur, Rantle followed Diogenes down the hallways, whose gold-painted walls glowed faintly though there were no torches or lamps visible. The hallway was too narrow, the doors of the rooms too tall, setting Rantle ill at ease. Diogenes stopped in front of one door, opened it with a key, and waved for Rantle to head in. Inside, the room was larger than any place Rantle had ever lived. A main suite with book shelves, a desk, and cushioned chairs had two doors leading off from it. The floor was gray-pink marble, and every handle, from drawers to doorknobs, was cast in gold. When Rantle had conned his way into the bed of Councilwoman Bhari, her home had not been as lavishly decorated as this one.</p><p></p><p>Rantle felt Diogenes watching him, and realized he must have looked jealous. Diogenes just chuckled.</p><p></p><p>“I try to keep to a frugal lifestyle.”</p><p></p><p>“Who’s the terrible liar?” Rantle said. “My apologies, ‘lord wizard.’ You were trying to explain something.”</p><p></p><p>“My point,” Diogenes said, “is that there are a number of different ways people study magic, and with the way I know, unless I have the right focus I can’t scry. That’s what we call ‘magic that lets you find people.’ I understand the theory behind magic like that, and if I had the proper item from another mage’s array, I could do it myself. Unfortunately, most wizards rudely keep such things closely guarded.”</p><p></p><p>Rantle threw himself into a chair and stretched, smiling at the brief respite from the soreness of a night of being crushed by panicked people.</p><p></p><p>“So,” he said, “who do we have to steal from?”</p><p></p><p style="text-align: center">* * *</p><p></p><p>Rantle had relocated to the red tower in the center of Gabal’s school, on the third floor, which consisted of a single massive room, eighty feet in diameter with a twenty foot high ceiling, all cooly lit by unseen torches. Rantle was fairly certain this room could not possibly have been built without magic, since there were still another thirty feet of tower above it, and no columns to support the weight.</p><p></p><p>Broad windows, some of them cracked for reasons Rantle could only guess, encircled the room, except for a small stretch of wall where a silver staircase climbed up to the third floor. Between the windows hung tapestries depicting mythic scenes of sorcerers and saints – Tochipel the Pyre-Builder, Mazokan Dreamcrafter, Esha of Two Wills, The Trial of Toteth Topec, Merkal beside the Shining Wall, and a dozen Rantle only vaguely recognized – apparently to motivate Gabal’s students to become so legendary themselves. The meager glow of false dawn in the mountains cast the sky outside in bleak grays, reminding Rantle of the color of a funeral shroud.</p><p></p><p>He tried not to look out the window.</p><p></p><p>A ten-foot wide path around the edge of the room surrounded a vast floor mosaic, circumscribed by a ring of solid gold a half inch thick, sixty feet in diameter. Within the mosaic spun more iconic images, these of the elemental spirits, and Rantle was idly walking the wingspan of the Stormchaser Eagle, trying to keep himself awake, when he heard voices approaching up the staircase from the ground floor.</p><p></p><p>“That’s the spirit,” Diogenes was saying. “Just because we’re in a war doesn’t mean we have to abandon proper etiquette.”</p><p></p><p>A woman’s voice with a nearly-hidden Shahalesti accent, replied, “Gabal will be glad to be rid of you, either way.”</p><p></p><p>Rantle’s partner in this deception appeared first, followed a few steps behind by the woman whom Diogenes had called Shealis, a jen student from Shahalesti. Rantle’s charming smile faltered, but he forced it back on quickly. Jen women were supposed to be perfect images of beauty and grace, and compared to the ideal in Rantle’s mind – slender, voluptuous, faces smooth but strong like ivory sculptures brought to life, with eyes like a spring sky and golden hair that shone like the sun – Shealis was disappointingly normal looking.</p><p></p><p>Her face was not beautiful and flawless, and her eyes looked somewhat gummy, though Rantle could forgive some of that since Diogenes had just woken her up. Her face had all the soft and dynamic features of jen, but somehow managed to look mundane. Aside from two bangs on either side of her face, her blonde hair was tied back in a tight bun, and she walked with the posture of someone constantly bent over books, rather than the elegant, foreign dancer’s grace Rantle had hoped for.</p><p></p><p>She wore the traditional red and gold robes of a Gabelese student, with a thick gold sash encircling her waist as a belt. A large, many-pocketed pouch hung at her right hip. That was Rantle’s target.</p><p></p><p>“Diogenes,” Rantle said, “don’t you think we’ve waited long enough? What have you brought this girl here for?”</p><p></p><p>Shealis sneered, while Diogenes laughed and cocked his head at his fellow student.</p><p></p><p>“I told you I had some business to attend to before we left. This is a matter of honor. It should just take a minute.”</p><p></p><p>Diogenes gestured with his left arm for the woman to enter the ring first, his right hand still tucked into the pocket of his robes. Shealis strode into the golden ring, rolling up her sleeves. Rantle realized he had yet to see Diogenes actually move his right arm.</p><p></p><p>“Diogenes,” Shealis said, “who is this peasant you’ve let into our school?”</p><p></p><p>Rantle put on his most charming smile as he walked toward her.</p><p></p><p>“And who,” he said, “is this pleasant beauty? I have to take back my earlier comment. We could use a lady with her kind of spirit on our trip.”</p><p></p><p>Shealis had turned to complain at Diogenes again, and while she was distracted Rantle stepped in and wrapped an arm around her back in a half-embrace. She grimaced and tried to push him away, but he held on, leaning over so their faces were close.</p><p></p><p>“Jen women are so stunning,” he breathed in his best impression of a lovesick poet. “Don’t you think so, Diogenes? And her accent-”</p><p></p><p>Shealis shoved him, and he let go, spinning to put his back to her and hide the fact that he had managed to cut loose the pouch on her hip. He sighed and shook his head, tucking the pouch into his armpit under his coat.</p><p></p><p>“Out of the ring, Rantle,” Diogenes said. “She’s not coming with us, and I don’t want her wasting any of her magic to keep a lech like you away. This will be easy enough already without you wearing her out in advance.”</p><p></p><p>Rantle backed out of the ring, shrugging. Shealis watched him leave, then laughed once at Diogenes.</p><p></p><p>“What are you hoping to prove?” she asked. “Even if you do beat me for once, you’re running away. You’ll be lucky if I even mention this to Gabal.”</p><p></p><p>Diogenes stepped inside the golden ring, and spoke as he moved to the far side.</p><p></p><p>“I don’t have to prove anything to Gabal,” he said. “If he manages to burn and explode his way out of this war, then well, I suppose I’m just a coward. I know he’s got some trick planned, though, so I can hope the old man isn’t just planning to die in a blaze of glory.”</p><p></p><p>Diogenes stopped fifty feet from Shealis, standing atop mosaic stones depicting the Tidereaver Kraken, and she over the Flamebringer Dragon. He rolled his shoulders to get comfortable. Shealis only rolled her eyes. Rantle, standing outside the ring, took a step back, not certain where he would be safe when the two wizards started dueling.</p><p></p><p>“What I do want to prove,” Diogenes continued, “is that even if I think the old man wouldn’t know subtlety if it snuck up behind him and picked his pocket, he at least understands the value of out-thinking an enemy, not just trying to consume him with arcane fire and brute force. That’s a lesson you’ve never learned.”</p><p></p><p>“You’ve never defeated me before,” she said.</p><p></p><p>“Well,” Diogenes chuckled, “brute force isn’t exactly a <em>useless</em> tactic. I never said you’re a weak mage, just dim.”</p><p></p><p>Earlier, when they had designed this plan, Diogenes had explained the simple rules of a spell duel. The enchanted gold ring made all attacks within nonlethal, completely preventing anyone inside from dying of injuries, but not preventing pain or unconsciousness. You lost when you were unable to perform any magic spells or incantations for half a minute, whether by being incapacitated, or by having your opponent disrupt your spell with a counterspell. And the duel began as soon as either mage began casting a spell.</p><p></p><p>According to Diogenes, insults and banter were encouraged. After all, there was usually an audience of other students watching.</p><p></p><p>“You’ve always been a bufoon,” Shealis said. “And now you’re a coward. I hope the inquisitors find you two on the road and take their time torturing you.”</p><p></p><p>Diogenes yawned theatrically, nodding and making a rolling gesture for her to continue, which she did.</p><p></p><p>“Do you honestly think you’ll be safer running to Seaquen than here, with the greatest collection of warmages for a thousand miles? What, is your new friend some mountain man who claims he can get you safely past the Ragesians?”</p><p></p><p>“Nope,” Diogenes said. “He’s a thief.”</p><p></p><p>Diogenes spoke a word that slid out of Rantle’s consciousness the moment he heard it, and then something shifted underneath Diogenes’s coat. The golden ring surrounding the mosaic flashed with light to mark the duel’s start, but before the light could fade on its own, it rolled like water toward Diogenes, as if he were pulling it in, and then he cast his left arm out in a broad sweep. A crescent wave of light swept outward across the ring, leaving in its wake a half dozen images of Diogenes, all of which began to gesture with spells of their own.</p><p></p><p>While Diogenes was sending out the blast of light, Shealis reacted, reaching down to pull some item of power from the pouch at her hip. When she found nothing she flailed her hand wildly, then looked down in confusion to see her pouch missing.</p><p></p><p>The half-dozen Diogeneses were all waving their hands around and chanting spells, and Shealis looked up with dismay, realizing she had lost track of which was the real one. The nearest one was only ten feet away, with others scattered around the ring in no pattern. Black bolts like from a crossbow flew from the nearest illusion’s hands, and Shealis dodged, then spat some slithering arcane word as another illusion began shouting, “Submit!”</p><p></p><p>“Clever trick,” she said, “but I’m hardly helpless.”</p><p></p><p>Shealis stepped counterclockwise around the ring and knelt between the tiles that represented the Stormchaser Eagle and the Flamebringer Dragon. Sweeping her sleeves in half-circles, she touched a hand to each of the two creatures, and fire and wind rose from the tiles, tracing a path up her arms like serpents. She stood, swaying in an odd motion like she was trying to dodge a punch, and then thrust out her right arm at the nearest Diogenes. White lines of energy skittered through the air and obliterated the illusion with a buzzing crackle, then split and leapt to the next nearest two Diogeneses, destroying them as well. By then Shealis had turned her attention to the floor again, and flames were rising up toward her hands.</p><p></p><p>Rantle was already edging to the exit, and he felt a tap on his shoulder.</p><p></p><p>“No time to enjoy the show,” Diogenes whispered. “Get going.”</p><p></p><p>Though he couldn’t see Diogenes anywhere near him, Rantle forced himself not to look around and give away the trick. Quietly, and out of Shealis’s field of vision, he slipped down the stairs and ran. Behind him he heard Diogenes’s mocking voice.</p><p></p><p>“Talking when you should be defending yourself? Very bad form.”</p><p></p><p>There were no other students around this early in the morning, and it took Rantle less than a minute to sprint down the stairs, out the front of the tower, and get inside the dormitory. Outside the walls of the Castle he could hear the quiet sounds of Gate Pass waking up, and he was sure behind him he could hear thunder and explosions from the third floor of Gabal’s tower.</p><p></p><p>Once inside the dormitory he ran to the second floor and counted the third room on the left, then pulled out Shealis’s pouch and tipped it upside down, shaking its contents onto the carpeted floor – coins, folded letters, vials of perfume, strangely carved blocks of glass, and the occasional wand – all while looking for a key, which according to Diogenes would bypass any deadly magic the jen mage had placed on her door. </p><p></p><p>When he finally spotted it, he picked it up, slid it into the door’s lock, and prayed that Diogenes knew what he was doing.</p><p></p><p>With a twist of the key, the door unlocked, and Rantle pushed it open. He scanned the room quickly and spotted the bookshelf, then began tearing through it, flipping open book after book, looking for the ones he couldn’t read because they were written either in Shahalesti, or in yet older tongues. According to Diogenes, in Seaquen these would be worth more than any gold they could carry, but just in case, Rantle snatched a few precious looking objects around the room.</p><p></p><p>Ultimately he came away with an armful of five books and full pockets that jingled satisfyingly. When he left her room he grabbed the pouch, scooped everything on the floor back into it, and held all of the loot to his chest as he ran, awkwardly carrying Kathor’s two-handed sword tucked under his arm.</p><p></p><p>He kicked open the door leading out of the dormitory, and saw Diogenes already trundling his legs on his way toward the main gate. Rantle hurried over to him, glancing up at the tower, from which he could still hear strange thunderclaps and see flashes of light.</p><p></p><p>“Are you another illusion?” Rantle yelled.</p><p></p><p>Diogenes looked up, then grimaced like he wanted to curse.</p><p></p><p>“You ruined my concentration, you ass.”</p><p></p><p>“Take some of this stuff,” Rantle said. “She’s going to kill us now!”</p><p></p><p>Diogenes sighed. “Pay attention! You took her array. The only reason she could use magic up there was because the dueling ring is set up that way. If she came out after us, the worst she could do to us is yell trite curses.”</p><p></p><p>Rantle could no longer hear the sounds of magic from the tower, but then behind them Shealis began shouting.</p><p></p><p>“Dog! Cur! Thief!”</p><p></p><p>Diogenes laughed and began sauntering to the gate. Rantle followed, looking back as Shealis went running to the dormitory, shouting for help.</p><p></p><p>“Diogenes,” Rantle said, “how will the other students feel when they find out we did this?”</p><p></p><p>Diogenes stopped laughing suddenly. He pulled the lever to open up the side door, and Rantle led the way out, now laughing himself. Diogenes came after, pulling the door shut behind them. The two of them jogged past confused townsfolk picking up bodies in the streets, and soon were out of sight of the Castle.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="RangerWickett, post: 5119356, member: 63"] [size=3][b]Chapter Six[/b][/size] “So, how does your sister use magic?” Diogenes asked. “She points at things and they catch on fire.” Diogenes took a deep breath. “Alright, obviously this is going to take more explaining than I thought.” Inside the walls of the Castle, Gabal’s school of war wizardry consisted of an array of eight stone buildings surrounding the central tower, a very classical design that suggested Gabal, or at least his architect, was a pantheist. There were so many religions competing in Gate Pass, it was almost comforting to Rantle to see something so old-fashioned. Right now they were headed for what Diogenes had called the dormitory, three-stories tall, its entrance decorated with symbols of the goddess Meliska. Columns resembled clusters of juniper trees, gutter spouts were shaped like coronal eclipses, and the dormitory’s many circular windows were framed with sleeping angelic ophanim, slender women behind whom circled wings like overlapping wheels. There were no lights in the windows. “Is everyone asleep?” Rantle asked. Diogenes shrugged. They reached the building, and Diogenes whispered something as he turned the handle to the front door. “Most of the other students are actually hiding somewhere in the city,” Diogenes said, “or they’ve already run. So don’t touch anything, or go knocking on doors uninvited. They probably have left wards to deter burgulars.” “Where are the guards? There are normally men on the walls.” Diogenes chuckled. “I’m not about to reveal our tricks to an outsider, but we don’t need flesh and blood men to protect our walls.” Once they were inside, Diogenes pulled aside his cloak to reveal a diversity of wands and short coils of multi-colored rope tucked into his belt by his left hip. “Now,” he said, “what I just showed you is my array, the items I use to focus my magic. Without the items in my array, I may as well lie down and let you slit my throat, because I’m just a balding man with a knack for bookkeeping. I was trained in traditional auramancy, so if I’m near some place with a lot of fire energy, I can control the fire, and if it were the first day of spring and we were some place lush and healthy, I might be able to heal wounds, but I need the array to do anything on my own. Follow?” “I suppose,” Rantle said. “I never really paid much attention. Katrina never used things like that.” “Yeah,” Diogenes chuckled. “She sounds like a classicalist. Elemental magic. Not hard to learn, but very easy to predict.” Though annoyed at the implication that his sister was some kind of rank amateur, Rantle followed Diogenes down the hallways, whose gold-painted walls glowed faintly though there were no torches or lamps visible. The hallway was too narrow, the doors of the rooms too tall, setting Rantle ill at ease. Diogenes stopped in front of one door, opened it with a key, and waved for Rantle to head in. Inside, the room was larger than any place Rantle had ever lived. A main suite with book shelves, a desk, and cushioned chairs had two doors leading off from it. The floor was gray-pink marble, and every handle, from drawers to doorknobs, was cast in gold. When Rantle had conned his way into the bed of Councilwoman Bhari, her home had not been as lavishly decorated as this one. Rantle felt Diogenes watching him, and realized he must have looked jealous. Diogenes just chuckled. “I try to keep to a frugal lifestyle.” “Who’s the terrible liar?” Rantle said. “My apologies, ‘lord wizard.’ You were trying to explain something.” “My point,” Diogenes said, “is that there are a number of different ways people study magic, and with the way I know, unless I have the right focus I can’t scry. That’s what we call ‘magic that lets you find people.’ I understand the theory behind magic like that, and if I had the proper item from another mage’s array, I could do it myself. Unfortunately, most wizards rudely keep such things closely guarded.” Rantle threw himself into a chair and stretched, smiling at the brief respite from the soreness of a night of being crushed by panicked people. “So,” he said, “who do we have to steal from?” [center]* * *[/center] Rantle had relocated to the red tower in the center of Gabal’s school, on the third floor, which consisted of a single massive room, eighty feet in diameter with a twenty foot high ceiling, all cooly lit by unseen torches. Rantle was fairly certain this room could not possibly have been built without magic, since there were still another thirty feet of tower above it, and no columns to support the weight. Broad windows, some of them cracked for reasons Rantle could only guess, encircled the room, except for a small stretch of wall where a silver staircase climbed up to the third floor. Between the windows hung tapestries depicting mythic scenes of sorcerers and saints – Tochipel the Pyre-Builder, Mazokan Dreamcrafter, Esha of Two Wills, The Trial of Toteth Topec, Merkal beside the Shining Wall, and a dozen Rantle only vaguely recognized – apparently to motivate Gabal’s students to become so legendary themselves. The meager glow of false dawn in the mountains cast the sky outside in bleak grays, reminding Rantle of the color of a funeral shroud. He tried not to look out the window. A ten-foot wide path around the edge of the room surrounded a vast floor mosaic, circumscribed by a ring of solid gold a half inch thick, sixty feet in diameter. Within the mosaic spun more iconic images, these of the elemental spirits, and Rantle was idly walking the wingspan of the Stormchaser Eagle, trying to keep himself awake, when he heard voices approaching up the staircase from the ground floor. “That’s the spirit,” Diogenes was saying. “Just because we’re in a war doesn’t mean we have to abandon proper etiquette.” A woman’s voice with a nearly-hidden Shahalesti accent, replied, “Gabal will be glad to be rid of you, either way.” Rantle’s partner in this deception appeared first, followed a few steps behind by the woman whom Diogenes had called Shealis, a jen student from Shahalesti. Rantle’s charming smile faltered, but he forced it back on quickly. Jen women were supposed to be perfect images of beauty and grace, and compared to the ideal in Rantle’s mind – slender, voluptuous, faces smooth but strong like ivory sculptures brought to life, with eyes like a spring sky and golden hair that shone like the sun – Shealis was disappointingly normal looking. Her face was not beautiful and flawless, and her eyes looked somewhat gummy, though Rantle could forgive some of that since Diogenes had just woken her up. Her face had all the soft and dynamic features of jen, but somehow managed to look mundane. Aside from two bangs on either side of her face, her blonde hair was tied back in a tight bun, and she walked with the posture of someone constantly bent over books, rather than the elegant, foreign dancer’s grace Rantle had hoped for. She wore the traditional red and gold robes of a Gabelese student, with a thick gold sash encircling her waist as a belt. A large, many-pocketed pouch hung at her right hip. That was Rantle’s target. “Diogenes,” Rantle said, “don’t you think we’ve waited long enough? What have you brought this girl here for?” Shealis sneered, while Diogenes laughed and cocked his head at his fellow student. “I told you I had some business to attend to before we left. This is a matter of honor. It should just take a minute.” Diogenes gestured with his left arm for the woman to enter the ring first, his right hand still tucked into the pocket of his robes. Shealis strode into the golden ring, rolling up her sleeves. Rantle realized he had yet to see Diogenes actually move his right arm. “Diogenes,” Shealis said, “who is this peasant you’ve let into our school?” Rantle put on his most charming smile as he walked toward her. “And who,” he said, “is this pleasant beauty? I have to take back my earlier comment. We could use a lady with her kind of spirit on our trip.” Shealis had turned to complain at Diogenes again, and while she was distracted Rantle stepped in and wrapped an arm around her back in a half-embrace. She grimaced and tried to push him away, but he held on, leaning over so their faces were close. “Jen women are so stunning,” he breathed in his best impression of a lovesick poet. “Don’t you think so, Diogenes? And her accent-” Shealis shoved him, and he let go, spinning to put his back to her and hide the fact that he had managed to cut loose the pouch on her hip. He sighed and shook his head, tucking the pouch into his armpit under his coat. “Out of the ring, Rantle,” Diogenes said. “She’s not coming with us, and I don’t want her wasting any of her magic to keep a lech like you away. This will be easy enough already without you wearing her out in advance.” Rantle backed out of the ring, shrugging. Shealis watched him leave, then laughed once at Diogenes. “What are you hoping to prove?” she asked. “Even if you do beat me for once, you’re running away. You’ll be lucky if I even mention this to Gabal.” Diogenes stepped inside the golden ring, and spoke as he moved to the far side. “I don’t have to prove anything to Gabal,” he said. “If he manages to burn and explode his way out of this war, then well, I suppose I’m just a coward. I know he’s got some trick planned, though, so I can hope the old man isn’t just planning to die in a blaze of glory.” Diogenes stopped fifty feet from Shealis, standing atop mosaic stones depicting the Tidereaver Kraken, and she over the Flamebringer Dragon. He rolled his shoulders to get comfortable. Shealis only rolled her eyes. Rantle, standing outside the ring, took a step back, not certain where he would be safe when the two wizards started dueling. “What I do want to prove,” Diogenes continued, “is that even if I think the old man wouldn’t know subtlety if it snuck up behind him and picked his pocket, he at least understands the value of out-thinking an enemy, not just trying to consume him with arcane fire and brute force. That’s a lesson you’ve never learned.” “You’ve never defeated me before,” she said. “Well,” Diogenes chuckled, “brute force isn’t exactly a [i]useless[/i] tactic. I never said you’re a weak mage, just dim.” Earlier, when they had designed this plan, Diogenes had explained the simple rules of a spell duel. The enchanted gold ring made all attacks within nonlethal, completely preventing anyone inside from dying of injuries, but not preventing pain or unconsciousness. You lost when you were unable to perform any magic spells or incantations for half a minute, whether by being incapacitated, or by having your opponent disrupt your spell with a counterspell. And the duel began as soon as either mage began casting a spell. According to Diogenes, insults and banter were encouraged. After all, there was usually an audience of other students watching. “You’ve always been a bufoon,” Shealis said. “And now you’re a coward. I hope the inquisitors find you two on the road and take their time torturing you.” Diogenes yawned theatrically, nodding and making a rolling gesture for her to continue, which she did. “Do you honestly think you’ll be safer running to Seaquen than here, with the greatest collection of warmages for a thousand miles? What, is your new friend some mountain man who claims he can get you safely past the Ragesians?” “Nope,” Diogenes said. “He’s a thief.” Diogenes spoke a word that slid out of Rantle’s consciousness the moment he heard it, and then something shifted underneath Diogenes’s coat. The golden ring surrounding the mosaic flashed with light to mark the duel’s start, but before the light could fade on its own, it rolled like water toward Diogenes, as if he were pulling it in, and then he cast his left arm out in a broad sweep. A crescent wave of light swept outward across the ring, leaving in its wake a half dozen images of Diogenes, all of which began to gesture with spells of their own. While Diogenes was sending out the blast of light, Shealis reacted, reaching down to pull some item of power from the pouch at her hip. When she found nothing she flailed her hand wildly, then looked down in confusion to see her pouch missing. The half-dozen Diogeneses were all waving their hands around and chanting spells, and Shealis looked up with dismay, realizing she had lost track of which was the real one. The nearest one was only ten feet away, with others scattered around the ring in no pattern. Black bolts like from a crossbow flew from the nearest illusion’s hands, and Shealis dodged, then spat some slithering arcane word as another illusion began shouting, “Submit!” “Clever trick,” she said, “but I’m hardly helpless.” Shealis stepped counterclockwise around the ring and knelt between the tiles that represented the Stormchaser Eagle and the Flamebringer Dragon. Sweeping her sleeves in half-circles, she touched a hand to each of the two creatures, and fire and wind rose from the tiles, tracing a path up her arms like serpents. She stood, swaying in an odd motion like she was trying to dodge a punch, and then thrust out her right arm at the nearest Diogenes. White lines of energy skittered through the air and obliterated the illusion with a buzzing crackle, then split and leapt to the next nearest two Diogeneses, destroying them as well. By then Shealis had turned her attention to the floor again, and flames were rising up toward her hands. Rantle was already edging to the exit, and he felt a tap on his shoulder. “No time to enjoy the show,” Diogenes whispered. “Get going.” Though he couldn’t see Diogenes anywhere near him, Rantle forced himself not to look around and give away the trick. Quietly, and out of Shealis’s field of vision, he slipped down the stairs and ran. Behind him he heard Diogenes’s mocking voice. “Talking when you should be defending yourself? Very bad form.” There were no other students around this early in the morning, and it took Rantle less than a minute to sprint down the stairs, out the front of the tower, and get inside the dormitory. Outside the walls of the Castle he could hear the quiet sounds of Gate Pass waking up, and he was sure behind him he could hear thunder and explosions from the third floor of Gabal’s tower. Once inside the dormitory he ran to the second floor and counted the third room on the left, then pulled out Shealis’s pouch and tipped it upside down, shaking its contents onto the carpeted floor – coins, folded letters, vials of perfume, strangely carved blocks of glass, and the occasional wand – all while looking for a key, which according to Diogenes would bypass any deadly magic the jen mage had placed on her door. When he finally spotted it, he picked it up, slid it into the door’s lock, and prayed that Diogenes knew what he was doing. With a twist of the key, the door unlocked, and Rantle pushed it open. He scanned the room quickly and spotted the bookshelf, then began tearing through it, flipping open book after book, looking for the ones he couldn’t read because they were written either in Shahalesti, or in yet older tongues. According to Diogenes, in Seaquen these would be worth more than any gold they could carry, but just in case, Rantle snatched a few precious looking objects around the room. Ultimately he came away with an armful of five books and full pockets that jingled satisfyingly. When he left her room he grabbed the pouch, scooped everything on the floor back into it, and held all of the loot to his chest as he ran, awkwardly carrying Kathor’s two-handed sword tucked under his arm. He kicked open the door leading out of the dormitory, and saw Diogenes already trundling his legs on his way toward the main gate. Rantle hurried over to him, glancing up at the tower, from which he could still hear strange thunderclaps and see flashes of light. “Are you another illusion?” Rantle yelled. Diogenes looked up, then grimaced like he wanted to curse. “You ruined my concentration, you ass.” “Take some of this stuff,” Rantle said. “She’s going to kill us now!” Diogenes sighed. “Pay attention! You took her array. The only reason she could use magic up there was because the dueling ring is set up that way. If she came out after us, the worst she could do to us is yell trite curses.” Rantle could no longer hear the sounds of magic from the tower, but then behind them Shealis began shouting. “Dog! Cur! Thief!” Diogenes laughed and began sauntering to the gate. Rantle followed, looking back as Shealis went running to the dormitory, shouting for help. “Diogenes,” Rantle said, “how will the other students feel when they find out we did this?” Diogenes stopped laughing suddenly. He pulled the lever to open up the side door, and Rantle led the way out, now laughing himself. Diogenes came after, pulling the door shut behind them. The two of them jogged past confused townsfolk picking up bodies in the streets, and soon were out of sight of the Castle. [/QUOTE]
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