Chapter 39: In Which The Surface Wobbles

I felt my jaw drop in amazement. The main stadium looked distinctly impressive from outside, a bulking monster of stone, wood and metal. But standing within, with thousands upon thousands of people looking down at us, the building came to life and become an enormous stage on which we were the performers. In order to keep the peace between countries, the Tournament had been created and thus magicians had been turned from men of action into entertainers.

Perhaps some magicians viewed the Tournament as a blow to their pride, but I enjoyed the surge of excitement that passed through my body as I stepped onto the round stone platform and raised my head to look at the faces looking down at me. For once in my life I felt every nerve ending, every blood vessel, every hair and every cell in my body filled with life and power. With all these witnesses I felt for the first time as if I really, truly existed.

I lowered my eyes to gaze at the terrain before me. With every competition, the terrain of the arena would be changed. It was as much part of the competition as anything else. We stood upon a round bright-grey stone platform, one of many platforms that covered the entire arena. From where I stood, I noticed a drop of roughly thirty feet to the sandy ground. There was nothing evident holding these platforms airborne, though my sensitive vision detected the thin, filmy, nearly invisible ribbons of magic around the base of every one of them. I could tell that these spells had been masked so that average magicians could not sense them, the fact that I could would come in useful.

The platform wobbled and swayed underneath our shoes, apparently sensitive to every movement. Instinctively we spread out evenly across its surface, preventing it from tipping over. I scanned the platforms; some of them were no more than stepping stones, while others were large enough to accommodate both teams. The distances between the platforms changed with the wind. Some were far enough to step across to while others would require a touch of magic to reach.

Then a voice louder than any voice I had ever heard, boomed over the excited cheers of the crowd, rumbling in the air and in our ears.

"On the east side, I present before you, ladies and gentlemen, the Auranora team of War Magicians, Mirgul Rife, Jea Seminorget, Salan Hortigery, Lord Burgen Winterstarch and, uh, Ret Cooper!"

The crowd roared, but I could do nothing but scowl, feeling my ears boil with anger. Not only did they get my name wrong, but they gave me a last name that wasn't even mine. Having a last name was not a requirement for participation anyway. In Majarist every person had only one name; families were not united by name but by village. As the announcer began introducing the Alavan team standing opposite to us according to age, Burgen turned his head and wriggled his eyebrows at me. I shrugged my shoulders in reply. I was already plotting how, later that day, I would uncover whomever was behind this mistake and wring their necks. If there was someone out there who didn't like my name, it was their problem and I was going to make sure that they knew it.

Then a red-clad Tournament official came out from one of the many doors leading to the labyrinth of rooms underneath the stands, spread a pair of golden wings and rose into the air. I gasped along with everyone at the sight of him, a man almost as tall as Salan, broad-shouldered, strongly built, whose skin, hair, eyes and yes, wings, seemed to have all been dipped in molten gold. The sun bounced off him, its rays breaking into a multitude of colours. He held an empty torch in one hand, and a scroll in the other.

A Sky Monk. A real, living Sky Monk. There is beauty in our world that cannot be grasped, neither with the human eye, nor with Wielder sight.

"Competitors!" he called out to us in a deep, rumbling voice. "In a short moment, the 13th Wielder Tournament shall commence. I remind you, competitors; fight with honour in your hearts. While your wish to win is sound, do not bring permanent harm to your rivals. There is a special rule for this round: if you remain on the ground underneath these platforms for more than two minutes, you will be disqualified from the Tournament."

It was not rare for there to be a special rule, they were made either to add some interest or challenge to the competitions or, in the case of the platforms, the rule was made for the sake of the watching audience. While the loudspeaker was there to narrate all that was happening inside the arena, even the announcer from where he sat would have a difficult time seeing anything happening underneath the platforms.

I looked past the Sky Monk at the Alavan team; they were dressed in the deep green with a blue triangle sewn on their chests – in accordance with the Alavan flag. We were in the Auranoran grey with the Auranoran symbol of the "Wave and Mountain" sewn in gold thread onto our shirts. The colours were important to the on-looking audience because that would be their only way of telling the competitors apart.

I couldn't tell from a distance across the arena if the Alavans were feeling sick as well. I would discover how badly off we were or weren't in a short moment. The Sky Monk finished his speech with a midair bow and then, his wings lightly stroking the air, he flew up to the torch holster over the stands and placed the torch within it. I bent my knees ready to spring, my mind already going over the attacks I had planned. Then, with a touch of his golden finger, the torch burst into flame.

"Begin!"

We leapt forward, hopping across the platforms. My feet barely resting on each platform as I advanced to the next. The method we planned was to push the opposing team backwards, against the wall. Across the arena, they drew forward as well. I linked my mind with Salan briefly before I started my attack, choosing the oldest member of the Alavan team as my target. I was too far away to determine yet which one of them was the Centre, but the oldest member was always the prime suspect. In most cases, the older you get, the stronger you are at magic. I sent a small invisible whirlwind at him, meant to bring him down mid-jump. It flew at him in a half-arch. I knew he was rather far and had enough time to deflect it, and just as he was noticing it, I whispered at his shadow, tying a strand of it to the platform he was upon.

Jea and Rife briefly touched my mind, pretending to communicate with me as the Centre, Burgen followed their example and so did Salan. It helped me because I instantly knew what everyone was doing. Burgen and Jea were playing defence, while Salan and Rife suddenly joined in on attacking the one I chose. He was a silver-haired middle-aged man and was just untangling himself from his shadow when a flame rolled off a sunbeam toward him. I didn't linger to see what would happen next, as my focus fell upon the other four members of the team. Two were attacking and two were trying to defend.

I knew they were watching the complicated web of signals passing between us in the same way that I was watching theirs. I had to make them suspect me for being the Centre, so while drawing forth my next attack, I contacted each member of my team.  Then I hurled forward a clumsy surge of power, pushing back all the platforms in front of us in a dizzying wave, as if they were no more than water-lilies on a pond. With one hit, two members of the Alavan team lost their balance and fell.

It would not be clear to the other team which one of us sent this attack. An outburst of such magnitude left so many magical repercussions that to my Wielder eyes the air became a mess of shapes and colours. But if they swallowed my bait, then that would mean –

I was attacked from three directions at once – from the left, from the right, from above. I took a millisecond to seem as if I was confused, to send signals to my teammates and also to make sure that there weren't hidden spells coming my way before I broke myself into seven pieces and ran to every corner of the arena. To all eyes, every part of me looked exactly like me, and in essence, I am and will always be every single part of myself. I cannot begin to explain how difficult it is to maintain seven of yourself at the same time. It is hard enough to maintain just one self. As a seventh of me, every part of me could move faster, and immediately I was pursued by four of the opposing team.

One of those who had fallen did not come up again, the young one with the blue eyes. I did not have the mind to assess who was their Centre or even their Mock Centre. I was too busy hopping and flying from platform to platform in a mad race; the only thing I could notice was my own head-count.

All seven of me cried out when one of me was hit by a small little mine set by one of the Alavans. That part of me fell to the sandy floor and I had to send another one of me to retrieve him. I united the two parts, but still did not have enough energy there to continue avoiding the Alavan attacks and to bring myself back up. I felt tired of having my thoughts scattered in such a way so in the end I summoned all my parts into one spot and became the whole me again.

By then there were only three Alavans and they were busy holding the fort against  Burgen, Salan and Jea. Rife was nowhere in sight and I didn't really miss him all that much.

A thin purple thread of magic tried to sneak its way toward me, I didn't even know what sort of spell it was, I pulled a mirror out in front of it and sent it straight back to its source – the middle-aged man I had started to attack. I had no doubt that he was the Centre now, and the big fellow with the red beard was the Mock Centre. I turned the stone at the silver-haired man's feet to sand, making his shoes sink in before the spell upon the platform went into action and turned the platform into stone again, trapping the Alavan Centre's feet within. I then began messing about with the nearly invisible spell holding his platform in the air, cutting them off one by one. The platform began wobbling violently; the man's arms flew in all directions as he fought to keep his balance. Finally, the last spell was cut off and the platform came down, but not before the Alavan Center managed to break himself free and fly to the next platform. He aimed a clumsy attack at me, but I was already moving, it was so far from me that his spell lost its address and dissolved in midair.

I turned myself invisible. Turning invisible is an easy enough task if the people you wish to hide from are non-Wielders. But the task becomes vastly more complicated when facing other Wielders. Invisibility is an art of deception, and there is a web of options that a Wielder must choose from to achieve the desired effect of deceiving another Wielder's eyes. The degree and cleverness of deception depends on the degree and cleverness of the other's Wielder-sight. My sight was extremely acute, therefore I could see the filmy spells of levitation upon the platforms, but to most of the Wielders present, those spells were invisible.

To be on the safe side, I chose the most complicated degree of invisibility I knew how to achieve, weaving the light and shadow about me into a pattern so detailed it would be impossible to break. Then I took to the air and glided over several platforms, stepping onto a relatively large one to regain my balance and jumping up again. I couldn't maintain flight and invisibility for long, but the distance I wanted to achieve wasn't very large.

With me gone, the arena fell into confusion, my teammates sending frantic signals in search of me. I cloaked my mind and did not answer anyone. Without me, three Alavans against three Auranorans seemed particularly balanced. Wasn't that what Cooper had proven? One man was enough to tip the scale for an entire Kingdom.

I landed on the platform upon which stood the Alavan Centre and shed my invisibility. I thrust my arms forward and with all my strength, pushed him over the edge. Caught by surprise, he cried out as he fell. I watched as he hit the soft sandy ground below, ready to prevent him from getting up.

Something hit the small platform I was standing on, making it explode into a million pebbles. I didn't have a moment to react; I was sent hurtling down to the earth.

Instinct took hold in the milliseconds as I fell, I grew a long tail and my body changed in size and shape. I landed on all four paws. While rats have a wonderful balance and such falls mean less to them than they do to a human, my sudden transformation was unexpected and unintentional. I was being attacked the moment I landed and it does take a moment to get used to the new proportions the world takes when I change from boy to rat.

The Alavan's attack – whatever it was – missed me by a whisker; I scurried sideways and then hurriedly burrowed into the sand until the Alavan centre couldn't find me anymore. He walked right over the spot where I was without realising it. I chose that moment to change back into a boy, thrusting my hand out of the sand and catching hold of the man's ankle. He fell over and I was atop him within a second. I used a simple spell to glue his pant legs together and I improvised a shroud of darkness and put it on his head before I flew up, returning to the platforms above.

I waited, ready. Two minutes had passed and my man didn't rise to the platforms in time, I was still too fixated on the fight to notice. There were only two remaining Alavans, which meant their team had lost. They raised their arms in the sign of surrender. The horn signalling the end of a competition blared, and the torch was extinguished.

"Auranora – is – victorious!" announced the Sky Monk, the Auranoran crowd exploding with delight.

Even before I could catch my breath, Burgen ran over to me across the moving platforms and engulfed me in a tight rib-splitting hug. It had been easy, simple. My first victory, handed to me on a silver platter.

Fizzegretta, I wondered, are you watching? Did you see what I could do?