The Girl Born of Smoke (37 page)

She saw the anger in the crowd and she began
to feel angry herself as she realized they were too stuck in their
ways to understand what she was trying to explain. “Don’t you ever
wonder why neither side of the war ever seems to grow any stronger
than the other? Don’t you wonder why the Citizens’ Army is always
just a little too late to catch up with the Wizard’s Army? Am I
really the only one who wondered why it seemed like there must be
someone in charge of coordinating both armies, making sure they
both stayed strong with only minor encounters with each other? Even
when there was a big battle, both sides came out fairly even. It’s
not normal for a war to last this long when you’re both so eager to
destroy each other and you’re contained in such a small area!” If
anything, the crowd only seemed angrier and the sound of their
voices started to drown out her own. She raised the amplitude of
her voice slightly.

“Fine,” she said in
disgust. “Maybe I am the only one who questions things like these.
You’re all too self-involved and blinded by ideals to see the
obvious truth. There
is
someone commanding both armies, telling them
where to go and when to fight and the only person who can do that
is a wizard. And no, it’s not me. The wizards from so long ago,
they left one behind to make sure things went according to plan.
He’s been watching me since he sensed my own magic and he’s been
teaching me how to use it. He’s also been keeping this war going,
commanding both sides to keep you all angry and anxious for a new
wizard to arrive. Without all this fighting going on, you might
have actually forgiven and forgotten the old wizards’ actions and
let me decide for myself what I wanted to do. We might have gone
back to the even older ways, when the wizards roamed the world and
tried to help the people.

“But this wizard, he held a grudge against
all of you for the way he was treated during the uprising against
the wizards. You all know the stories; how the wizards retreated to
their school and were mobbed by the people. He watched his entire
family, because that’s how the wizards thought of each other,
killed by the non-wizards.

“Of course he was angry and I can only
imagine he grew angrier still when he was left all alone, forced to
hide or be killed. And the place he chose to hide? A giant cavern,
buried within the planet. Dark, damp, and terribly secluded. It
must have been difficult and time-consuming, but he managed to
create a network of contacts in the upper world that he could
trust.

“He slowly infiltrated both armies until he
commanded both and could keep them in eternal conflict until a new
wizard, me, was ready to take over. And with an entire army behind
me, he expected me to exact revenge on the ones who hated and
distrusted wizardry the most, the Citizens’ Army. It was something
he could not do himself because he contained only a tiny fraction
of the magic in the world.

“The wizards buried the entire reserve of
magic deep within the world, intending for it to surface all at
once in a single wizard who would possess what they lacked: a
powerful magic that could not be splintered apart like they were.
Sure, maybe the Wizard’s Army would have been able to defeat the
Citizens’ Army on their own, but that wasn’t good enough for him.
He wanted a Wizard, containing all the old magic of his family and
friends, to lead the attack.”

She paused, overwhelmed by the enormity of
the situation she was trying to explain to such a large group. She
realized the crowd had gone silent again and was finally listening.
“But I refuse to exact revenge for something that was done so long
ago, out of understandable anger by the people. It wasn’t something
that was done to me and it wasn’t done by most of you. This is a
battle started by our parents and grand-parents and it should have
ended with them.”

“Well-spoken,” a voice boomed out from the
crowd, as loud as her own. Searching the mass of people beneath
her, she finally saw a familiar face standing near the back of the
Wizard’s soldiers.

“Rupert…” she murmured, watching as the
people around him moved back cautiously, creating a bubble of space
around the old man’s body.

“It’s true, I am the last
survivor of the old wizards.” His voice echoed off the buildings
and people turned toward him. “I was the youngest in the school and
the others hid me away to avoid my certain death. Not out of any
duty toward any future
wizard
,” he spat the word, “but
because they loved me as a young boy, too young to die in their
war. After the attacks ceased, I expected to find other survivors,
perhaps even other young boys or girls that had not yet been
detected as wizards, but if they existed, they were quickly killed
as they were discovered.

“I was truly the last one left and I spent
my entire life preparing for the emergence of a new wizard. I made
sure the environment was perfect, that this new wizard would have
the protection of an entire army of non-wizards, something we did
not have. The thing I feared most was for the newly-born wizard to
be quickly killed off, like so many were from my time.”

He glowered at Tarana, his bushy gray
eyebrows narrowing. “And yes, I desired revenge for the ones that
were killed simply because we wanted to keep to ourselves and learn
from each other. Together, we found a family, something few of us
had ever really experienced before. And those non-wizards took that
from us, destroyed everything we had.” He raised his hands into the
air and with a pang of fear, Tarana saw something glitter in the
air above his hands. “But if this young wizard, who understands
nothing of our time, refuses to show you all the pain we
experienced, the pain of losing everything and everyone in life
that you love, let me try to explain it to you.”

“No!” she screamed, sensing the destruction
that was about to follow. Without pausing to think, she threw out
her hands and erected a barrier over the entire crowd, except
Rupert. A slight shimmer, like the wavering vision of heat rising
from the ground, spread out over the heads of everyone around the
stronghold, arcing to the ground around Rupert. A split-second
later, lighting tore down from the tall, thick clouds overhead that
had begun to obscure the clear blue sky.

The lightning was accompanied by immediate
thunder that crashed and boomed across the crowd. The shock-wave
knocked Tarana back a step and she saw many beneath her fall to the
ground. Holding her breath, she saw them all rise back up, unhurt.
Slowly letting out her breath, she kept the shield erected,
trembling slightly with the effort and watching Rupert carefully.
The people below seemed too shocked to move. A few tried to push
their way out of the crowd, but the rest pushed more tightly in
around them to see what would happen next.

“Well, I certainly never taught you to do
that,” Rupert glanced around at the shield. “Decent for a first
attempt, but far too energy-consuming for such a large area. You
see, Tarana, what I might lack in power, you lack far more in
experience.”

She glared down at him, fear turning to
anger. “Why are you doing this? You’ve been the cause of so much
hurt and suffering in the world, isn’t that enough? Just leave us
to figure this out ourselves. I’m not letting you hurt anyone
else.”

In response, Rupert raised a hand and a
strange noise began, almost like the wind but she felt no breeze.
Watching below, she saw in horror as a wind seemed to be sweeping
through the crowd and people began dropping to the ground,
clutching their throats. Reaching out a tendril of magic downward,
she quickly saw the problem. Rupert was moving all the air away
from the people, leaving them without enough to breathe.

They continued sucking uselessly at the air,
not receiving the amount of oxygen they needed to maintain
consciousness. Quickly probing at the area below her, she knew she
needed to determine how he was doing it. Within moments, she felt
the molecules moving upward and understood what was happening.

While her shield was loose and allowed the
movement of small molecules, Rupert was quickly siphoning the air
through her shield, then placing another tighter, extremely thin
shield on top of hers that didn’t allow it to re-enter the area
underneath, where the people were. Gritting her teeth in anger, she
pushed her shield upward, shattering his thin, brittle one. The air
quickly flooded back down as the people lay on the ground, gasping
and finally realizing exactly how much danger they were really
in.

Beginning to feel weak holding up the huge
barrier, she hoped Rupert was nearing the end of his reserve of
energy, but he was already mounting his next attack. It became an
intricate balance of magic. Prodding the entire area beneath her
with her magic, she felt as he began to heat up different areas,
trying to set the buildings and people on fire.

As he heated things up, she cooled them
down, slowing the molecules. As he sent dense packets of air
plummeting toward the shield, dense and thin enough to slice
someone in two, she hardened areas of the shield, so the air
bounced off harmlessly. Leaning heavily against the railing of the
balcony, she felt the strength leaving her body as she continued to
fend off Rupert’s relentless attacks.

The ground suddenly heaved up near him, huge
boulders tumbling into the air, ready to crush anyone nearby. Too
weak to harden the entire shield, she flung her arm out and sent
her own thin blast of air to break the boulders into small pebbles
that bounced harmlessly off the barrier in a shower of dust.

Breathing hard, she realized with dread that
Rupert might have been right. His experience might more than make
up for her power. She knew he was trying to wear her down and she
knew he was succeeding. Her shield began to weaken slightly as he
magnified the effects of the sun to a small point, trying to pierce
through to incinerate the people underneath.

Glancing up, she saw the heavy storm clouds
were still slowly moving across the sky, but not fast enough to
obscure the early morning sun. She was concentrating so deeply on
bending the sun’s rays to cancel out the effects of his
magnification that she didn’t even notice the thin bolt of
electricity he guided from the sky. As it jolted down from the dark
clouds and struck her directly in the chest, she stumbled back,
eyes wide and limbs locked in place, losing all control over her
magic. She fell straight backward onto the cold stone floor of the
balcony as everything went black.

When she could see again, only a moment
later, she thought for a moment that she was flying through the
stars. Small glittering orbs of light flew downward in massive
numbers all around her. As she gradually regained her senses, she
felt a cool, flat surface beneath her back and she stared up at the
orbs falling out of the dark sky, finally realizing that it was the
orbs that were moving, not her.

Reaching up a hand to catch an orb tumbling
toward her, she watched warily as it passed through her hand. As it
continued its fall past her ear, she thought she heard a whisper
break the thick silence of the world around her. Taking a deep
breath, she climbed to her feet.

She looked down and tottered uneasily,
seeing the orbs disappear into the darkness far, far below.
Although she could feel the flat ground under her feet, she
couldn't see it. Quickly fixing her gaze on an invisible horizon,
she began to walk unsteadily forward. The only sound was the
occasional whisper, from which she strained to make out individual
words, but could not. It seemed to grow colder as she shuffled
forward and she shivered unhappily. The only light came from the
orbs, which were growing dimmer. She paused and looked around
desperately.

“Hello?” she cried quietly, trying to find
her voice. “Please, I'm lost. Please help me.” Her voice rose,
wavering. “Djerr! Kirian! Roxanne! AURORA!” She screamed the last
name, but her voice was quickly swallowed up, leaving not even an
echo as company.

About to slump to the ground in defeat, she
froze as she heard a new noise, a barely audible hum hidden beneath
the whispers. Dashing forward, she tore through the dimly-lit orbs,
looking around frantically as the humming grew louder and she made
out a voice, singing. Desperate, she tried to sweep away the orbs
obstructing her view, but her hand passed harmlessly through them.
The motion threw her off balance and she stumbled forward, skidding
across the invisible ground.

Breathing hard and shaking, she didn't stand
back up right away. Instead, she sat up, clasped her knees to her
chest and closed her eyes, focusing on the distant singing. The
voice grew steadily louder. It was a young girl's voice, tenuous
and carefree, seemingly ignorant of Tarana's own unhappiness. When
at last the singing stopped, she slowly opened her heavy eyes.

“Heya, Aura,” she said wearily and started
to stand, but immediately had to catch herself, head spinning. She
was terribly tired and cold.

Aurora shook her head and sat down across
from Tarana. “Best to stay sitting, I think,” she said
cheerily.

“What was that you were singing?” Tarana
asked. “I couldn't make out the words.”

Grinning, Aurora grabbed one of the orbs
raining down around them and idly tossed it from hand to hand. “Oh,
that was just the song they're going to write about you someday.”
She beamed at Tarana. “You did it, you know? Can you believe it?
You, a hero!”

Tarana felt a great
sadness weighing down on her. “But I lost, Aura. Rupert won. And
now I'm stuck here.” She reached out a trembling hand to touch
Aurora's arm and as it feared, her hand passed right through. The
dim light still fading, Tarana worked hard to make out the other
girl's face. She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “Please
Aura, I just need to know...who
are
you?”