Halfway (Wizards and Faeries) (12 page)

    
In the hallway, Temet saw three wizards approaching him. He recognized them as faculty of the University:
 
Esilor Emrol, Miran Sparkus, and a third he didn’t remember by name.

    
“We’ve come to take you to the Ten Ring,” said Esilor.

    
“I know.” He tested the waters. “Do you know why?”

    
Esilor and the others shook their heads. The letter with the message about the Sanity Test was still safe in Temet’s pocket. They didn’t know he was taking it today. Hopefully they would never know.

    
To get to the highest tower, Temet and the others rode one of the floating platforms that had become so familiar to him in his time at the Order. The familiar crank of the gears, the familiar chill of the air… he felt calmer already. He could almost forget he was on his way to have his sanity tested.

    
Esilor adjusted the platform’s sails and muttered a curse. The other stood in silence as the platform began its journey, guided by the network of heavy chains.
 

    
Temet walked to the railing and looked down. He wasn’t afraid of heights, of course; anyone afraid of heights at the Order soon had that fear torn out of them from repeated exposure to the platforms. Eventually, even the most timid wizard got used to it.

    
The world below was covered in snow, casting a foggy white blanket over the land. He smiled. Winter. Winter was the best time of year at the Order—nothing like summer, which always reminded him of Nessy and Cemagna, his long-dead family. Winter was calm, beautiful, predictable.

    
They had never found Cemagna’s body when they found Nessy’s. Everyone assumed it had been carried elsewhere by the sea.

    
Poor little girl
, mused Temet
. I wonder where her final grave is
.

    
The Order was his home now, for better or worse. Even if Temet had run away ten years ago, he knew he had no family to return to. So he had stayed, determined one day to become a powerful wizard, too powerful for anyone to stop him. Then he would break free of the Order and their slavery. He would live as a free man, with no one to control him the way the Order did. He would walk among people without the looks of fear and distrust he received for wearing the moon-eye. And most of all, he would force the Order to cease stealing children from their families the way he had been stolen.

    
This was his dream, and he had buried it deep in a dark corner of his mind. But each day, with each spell he learned, he worked towards that dream of freedom.

    
A burst of cold wind hit his face, and he savored it. Behind him, Esilor adjusted the sails again as they rose upwards. Some of the platforms, especially the ones equipped with air masks and designed to go into the higher altitudes, were equipped with a complex network of sails. Some of the larger sails were even horizontal, to help them along. The platform they rode was one of the lightest, with the most sails, designed to go to the Ten Ring’s tower, the uppermost tower of the Order.

    
The Ten Ring’s tower came into view. A large, spiny thing, it was anchored with a myriad of chains to the towers below. Emblazoned upon the tower was the familiar moon-eye emblem of the Wizardly Order.

    
Esilor handed Temet an air mask as they grew closer to the tower and the air grew thinner. Absently, Temet put it on as he began to feel the tightness in his chest. The air was so much thinner up this high! The air mask barely seemed to help, but he gulped gratefully at it anyway.

    
The ground was so small below them. He could see the distant city and the forest that separated the Order from it, bathed in white.
 

    
His head started to hurt. He shook it, realizing he needed to stop worrying.

    
As they approached the Ten Ring tower, Temet heard
thuds
behind him. He turned, a strange drowsiness coming over him. His head hurt.

    
The three wizards were lying prone on the deck. What had happened? His back had only been turned for a few moments! Fighting back a wave of drowsiness, he rushed to the side of the nearest wizard, Miran.

    
He dropped to the deck to check Miran’s breathing. To his relief, he found that Miran was unconscious but still breathing, though shallowly. Had his air mask malfunctioned? Had all of the air masks malfunctioned except his? Another wave of drowsiness swept over him. Drowsiness… his was malfunctioning too! He would pass out if he didn’t get proper air soon!

    
Gulping more air, Temet crawled to the helm of the platform. They were almost to the tower. In the tower, there would be air… good air.

    
Temet gulped another breath and he eased the platform towards the docking bay at the Ten Ring tower. How could the air masks have malfunctioned? They had never malfunctioned in his ten years at the Order… and why all of them at once?

    
He needed to use Magic. Why was he so drowsy? He couldn’t focus.

    
The platform clicked into place. Grabbing Miran by the arms, Temet gulped another breath. Everything felt foggy and dizzy. He dragged Miran towards the safety of the tower portal, where there would be proper air.

    
Dropping Miran just inside the portal, Temet gulped a breath of sweet, full air… and ran outside into the thin air again to grab the next wizard.

    
He dragged Esilor inside, deposited him beside Miran, and breathed again. “Help!” he yelled into the empty tower hallway, hoping there were people somewhere nearby. “These men are dying!”
 

    
He staggered outside to grab the last wizard, hearing a blur of voices behind him as others approached, alerted by his call.

    
Gringwell, the first wizard he had ever met, appeared beside him. Or was it Gringwell? Temet couldn’t focus. He needed air. But he had to save the last wizard.

    
He felt himself swaying. Raising a hand, he pointed to the floating platform.

    
Then all went dark.

    
Chapter 16

    
Temet

    
“Temet.” The voice was so familiar. “Temet.”

    
Temet opened his eyes. He was lying on a couch, a blanket covering him, some sort of tube in his mouth, feeding him air.

     
Gringwell stood over him, surrounded by a few of the Ten Ring’s servants in their crimson uniforms.

    
“Temet, you were lucky I had some business to attend to in this tower, or we might not have found you,” he said. “I was the one who heard you yelling for help.” Another wizard stood by him, looking equally concerned.

    
“We were able to heal you, Temet,” Gringwell continued. “How do you feel?”

    
Temet removed the tube from his mouth and throat, gagging. “Better,” he rasped. He swallowed; his mouth was so dry!
 
“The air masks were deficient,” he said. “That’s never happened before, Gringwell. Thank you for saving me—for saving us.”

    
“The other wizards are resting and the Ten Ring are expecting you. Best not to keep them waiting. Do you feel well enough for the test?”

    
So they
did
know about the Sanity Test.
 

    
Temet nodded. Much better to get the test over with. “Was it difficult when you took it?”

    
Gringwell shook his head, helping Temet to his feet. “Just a few questions. My professors submitted reports about me, as I’m sure yours have, that I was perfectly mentally sound. It’s really just a formality, so they can see for themselves if Magic hasn’t made you insane.”

    
“Do people ever fail?”

    
“Rarely. Good luck to you, lad.” He followed Temet to the door. “It’s down the hall. Take a left. Can’t miss it.”

    
“Thank you.” Temet’s stomach was swimming with anxiety again. He tried to calm himself. Only rarely did people fail. The test was just a formality. He would do
excellently
.

    
He walked down the hall and soon came to the door to the Ten Ring’s chamber. It was a large gray thing with spires at the top. Temet bit his lip, staring. It was obviously designed to awe and terrify.

    
He reached out to open it, but the door opened of its own accord into a dark chamber beyond. There was a single pool of light in the middle of the chamber. Temet could see ten unnaturally tall figures, robed, standing in a circle around the light. He peered closer. The figures were standing on daises, wearing cloaks long enough to cover the daises and make them appear taller.
 

    
It was all about intimidation. Temet refused to be intimidated.

    
“Enter, Temet Islander.”

    
That was the surname everyone had given him after he had described to the Order his home on the cliff, even though when he got older he had realized his home had been on a peninsula, not an island.

    
Heaving a breath, Temet entered the room.

    
“Stand in the light,” the voice boomed again. He couldn’t tell which of the tall figures it came from. He moved to the light, obediently.

    
He could only see the lower part of their faces. Some were men, some were women, all a variety of ages, but none as young as he was. The top parts of their faces were veiled in black to hide their eyes from him. More intimidation. On their cloth-covered foreheads the moon-eye glowed, probably through Magic.
 

    
He stood in the light in front of all of them. He must
not
feel uncomfortable. That was what they wanted.

    
A woman spoke. “Temet Islander, you have been a part of the university for only two years, but you far outstrip your peers in most fields of Magic. Why is that?”

    
What was the title used for a member of the Ten Ring? “I am not sure, One-Who-Holds-The-World-Together.” There, he had said the title right. “I study hard.”

    
“Things come easily to you.”

    
“Yes, One-Who-Holds-The-World-Together.”

    
“You think it has nothing to do with your being a Halfway?”

    
Temet swallowed. So they knew about that, then. Only a few in the Order had the knowledge to recognize him as a Halfway. Faerie and half-faerie studies were obscure branches of knowledge, and only those who bothered to look in the right books—as Aesath had—could recognize him on sight as a Halfway. Or so he had thought.

    
“I don’t know any others who are Halfway, so I can’t compare. I suppose it may have something to do with my accelerated learning rate.” He swallowed. “One-Who-Holds-The-World-Together.”

    
“Mmm.” Another of the Ten Ring, a man this time, spoke up. “Do you consider yourself superior to your classmates because of this?”

    
“No, One-Who-Holds-The-World-Together, only different.” He didn’t mention that one of those
differences
was that all his classmates, even the girls, were a full head taller than he was. Being Halfway was a mixed blessing.

    
“Hmmm. Now, to your manner of arriving here: most… unorthodox. You say you were picked up by an Order ship containing one Aylward, no known surname. Yet no ship was sent out, and a man by the name of Aylward, who matches the description you gave us, died years before you were supposedly retrieved by him.”

    
“He kidnapped me, One-Who-Holds-The-World-Together. I know nothing about him, except that he was very much alive when he kidnapped me, but was lost with the ship in a storm at sea.”

    
A few of the Ten Ring murmured to themselves.

    
“So he was alive?” the Ten Ring man asked. “This is a most puzzling mystery. As to the ship, the truth is much clearer: a convoy of three of our ships, sent out some months before you were discovered at sea, never returned.”

    
Another Ten Ring wizard spoke, a much older man. “Do you think it is possible this lad destroyed the ships and made up the tale about this Aylward?”

    
“No!” cried Temet. “How could you even
think
that? I was
ten years old
! I couldn’t have destroyed three ships—”

    
“We questioned the men from the ship that brought you in. They said that just before they spotted you adrift in the lifeboat, they felt as though their ship was being pulled against the wind, the wrong way if you will, towards your lifeboat. That certainly suggests enough power to destroy the convoy and make up the story.”

    
“I was
kidnapped
!
Stolen
from my
family
! I didn’t
want
to come here! I hated it here for the first year I was in the Orphan House! I had family back home when I was taken; why would I want to leave them?”

    
More murmuring among the Ten Ring.

    
“You say all of this, yet the mystery remains: who was this Aylward, so conveniently lost at sea?”

    
“I don’t know, One-Who-Holds-The-World-Together! Maybe he wasn’t really dead!”

    
“Why would he fake his own death to do what he could do just as easily alive?”

    
Another wizard broke in, one with a gravelly voice. “And there is the matter of the accident on the way here.”