The Jade Mage: The Becoming: Volume 1 (37 page)

“Ok Elizabeth, You got me! It’s a great trick. Now call him off!” Tartum said. He tried desperately to keep the panic out of his voice. He hoped he was sounding angry and not as terrified as he felt.

Elizabeth just smiled. “Watch him boy!
Watch him
!” was all she said, and Buddy continued to advance.

Tartum backed into the wall. He had no where else to go, no where else to run. He was scared sick. He didn’t want to be mauled by his dog, yet he didn’t want to hurt Buddy either. Elizabeth was laughing now, she was enjoying this, Tartum realized! She liked having this power over him and his pet.
Hells
, Tartum thought,
she probably had been planning this since the first day they’d arrived
.

Tartum was sick of being toyed with. Sick of enjoying someone’s company one minute, just to be in fear of his life the next. First Jeth, and now Elizabeth had done it. Even Buddy had turned on him, although, for some reason Tartum believed Buddy was just being a good dog and obeying who he thought was his master. Whatever the reasoning was, Tartum had enough.

“Elizabeth! Stop this now! Tell Buddy to stop, or so help me I’ll burn down everything in this room!” He screamed at her. His anger was boiling up inside him.

If his threat had any effect on her, it didn’t show; nothing changed. “Watch him Buddy!
Watch him!
” was all she kept saying with that sadistic grin on her face.

Opening himself up to the magic Tartum’s fury enveloped him. Buddy was HIS dog,
HIS
property! Tartum was the one that had saved this dog’s life, and he intended to remind this ungrateful son of a bitch about that fact. How
DARE
he turn on him like this! His vision went red, and he launched himself at Buddy.

With a voice born of outrage, he screamed into Buddy’s face, putting himself nose-to-nose with his dog. “I SAID ENOUGH! REMEMBER WHO IT WAS THAT SAVED YOUR LIFE, DAMN YOU! I AM YOUR MASTER NOT HER!”

That was enough. Buddy stopped his snarling immediately. He dropped to his back and pawed in the air gently. He whined pitifully and pissed all over himself, throughly soaking the black shaggy carpeting under him. Instinctually, without really understanding why, Tartum realized whatever control Elizabeth had over him was broken, and Buddy had submitted completely to him. Tartum liked that immensely.

Tartum changed the target of his rage from Buddy to Elizabeth. For the first time, Tartum saw fear in her eyes. “I was just kidding around!” she said, “It was a joke! I wouldn’t have really had him hurt you. I just wanted to show off to you a little bit.” She said. Her voice was cracking.

Tartum was across the room in half a heartbeat. Grabbing her by the throat, Tartum picked her up and slammed her against the wall. He wanted to kill her. Wanted to crush the life out of her for this treachery. The magic and fury coursing through his body practically called on him to crush the life out of her. This bitch had just turned his dog against him and had him backed up against a wall while
laughing
about it! He had killed before for much less. He would kill now. Slowly he looked up and into her eyes. She was crying and begging for her life.

Keeping his voice even he spoke; “Did you enjoy your stupid little game? Was it worth it, you bitch!?” he spat at her.

“It was...only a joke! I swear! I just, wanted to impress you...is all.” She said between sobs. Her tears were stopping, she was trying to get control of herself. Something on the outskirts of his rage respected that and stopped him from crushing her windpipe just long enough to ask one final question. Putting his face right infront of her’s, nose-to-nose, just like with Buddy, he hissed at her.

“Why?”

Elizabeth said nothing. Instead she leaned in and kissed him. It was a strong kiss, a passionate one. Tartum was completely unprepared for it. His grip on his magic fell away immediately, as well as his rage and fury. Letting go of Elizabeth’s throat, he caught her in a passionate embrace that she returned with equal passion and enthusiasm. They kissed each other hard. They kissed each other with a fury born of lust and desire they had been struggling against since they first laid eyes on each other. The release was euphoric, and what they had both been wanting for far too long.

They spent the rest of the day and night together, allowing their desires to become manifest.

...

Three more knives came flying at him, faster than before. Elizabeth wasn’t going easy on him today. Tartum deftly knocked two of them away with his staff and ducked under the third, barely in time. He was getting better, but it still wasn’t enough. Rebounding from his momentum, Tartum turned to face Elizabeth and waited for her to attack again.

It had been a month since that fateful night when he had been ready to kill her, and instead ended up making love to her. It had been a strange and wonderful month. He still didn’t fully understand how it had all come to pass, nor why she had been so difficult with showing her affections. Setting Buddy on him in order to impress him and show that she cared still made absolutely no sense to him. However, Tartum couldn’t argue with her strategy. Her tactics had ended with the desired results, and now he and Elizabeth were together. Tartum was truly happy. They would wake up in the morning together, wash, eat, train, wash, eat, and then spend the night together; only to repeat the whole thing the following day. Tartum couldn’t think of a better way to spend his days. Sometimes they would walk with Buddy, up and down the compound. Recruits weren’t allowed to leave until their training was complete and they were a full member of the guild...or until they failed severely enough to be dead. So far Tartum had met neither of those criteria.

No matter how much Tartum thought they cared about each other, when it came to training Elizabeth gave him no quarter. Tartum knew if he didn’t give it his all, Elizabeth would kill him, or come as close to it as Vaund would allow. Sure, she might be sad if she killed him, maybe even shed a tear or two, but bottom line was, no matter how much she let her guard down outside of the combat room, inside she was his nemesis. Today was proving this point all too clearly.

Tartum was bleeding from a few cuts on his arms and one on his leg. A dagger had cut through the back of his shirt but he didn’t think it had caught flesh. As he was contemplating this, Elizabeth threw four more knives at him. Tartum jumped to avoid them, and just as he reached the zenith of his leap, he saw that Elizabeth had held back one knife for just this moment and threw it directly at his groin. Too late, Tartum tried to block the blade, just as the handle scored a direct hit on his most sensitive of areas. Tartum fell hard on his face and grabbed at his groin.

“Damnit, woman! He gasped, “If you break them I won’t let you play with them anymore!” he said, through clenched teeth.

Two more daggers thunked down through his shirt, at the shoulders, pinning him to the ground. Elizabeth sauntered over to his prone form and leaned over him seductively to retrieve them. Something, he fully knew she didn’t need to do, due to their enchantment.

“If you don’t start avoiding my knives better, I’m afraid I’ll have to find someone new to play with, sweetheart.” She retorted. With a wink, she nimbly danced back to her place and waited for Tartum to stand up for round two.

Taking his stance, Tartum nodded to Elizabeth, and in an instant she sent three more knives zipping through the air at him. Today was going to be a long day.

...

It had been four months since that fateful kiss, and Tartum had loved every second of it. He had learned, through many failures and even more cuts and bruises, to anticipate, not only when the knives were coming, but where they were going to strike. With his magic enhancing his senses, dodging Elizabeth’s knives was becoming easier and easier. Jeth was coming to appraise him today, to determine if he was ready to move on to his next phase of training or not. Elizabeth thought he was ready. She had told him as much last night.

Tartum was a little nervous about seeing Jeth again. They hadn’t been in the same room, let alone seen each other, since Tartum took his eye during melee combat training. Although Savall had assured him Jeth would take no revenge on him, Tartum wouldn’t put it past him to find a loophole in that promise and exploit it to get his revenge. It was as Tartum was contemplating how Jeth might try to exact his revenge that he came strutting into the room. The lost of an eye had done nothing to deplete his arrogance, apparently.

Jeth walked into the combat room with an easy smile on his face. He seemed like he didn’t have a care in the world and that everyone in here was his best friend. Tartum found it difficult to believe that this man had any friends. Jeth waved a greeting to Vaund and Elizabeth and then favored Tartum with a long, appraising look. It was then Tartum noticed the eye patch Jeth wore. It was a large, black piece of leather as far as he could tell. It wrapped tightly around his head and looked like it bit into his flesh slightly. On the patch itself, over where his eye had been, it looked like Jeth, or someone, had sewn into it a smiley face with bright yellow thread. Tartum just smiled and shook his head. Even with his eye patch, Jeth had found a way to be an asshole.

Seeing Tartum smile as he looked at his eye patch, Jeth spoke. “I see you approve of my new eye ware, recruit.” he said, with his usual sarcasm.

Tartum said nothing but stopped smiling immediately. This man held the power to allow his training to continue or for it to come to a screeching halt. Although the prospect of spending the rest of his time with the guild, training with Elizabeth wasn’t a terrible notion, he wanted to move on. He felt his training was complete here and wanted to learn something else.

Jeth realized Tartum wasn’t going to reply. If this bothered him, he showed no sign of it. “Very well, then. Elizabeth, show me what you’ve taught this recruit.”

With that command, Elizabeth didn’t hesitate. Five knives wizzed at Tartum. All five had different parts of his anatomy as their targets. All five were killshots. With a wave of his staff Tartum knocked them away sending them flying into the floor and walls adjacent to him. Without a second to recover, Elizabeth threw five more knives at him, this time at different intervals. Tartum had seen this trick before and dove backwards, while using his staff to deflect the first two away from him. The next three zipped past him, missing him by fractions of an inch. Recovering immediately, Tartum had just enough time to spot three more knives, moments from connecting with his stomach. Jumping up in the air, he narrowly avoided what surely would have been a painfully slow death. As he reached the zenith of his jump, Elizabeth sent two more knives at his throat. Tartum had expected this and snatched both knives out of the air and threw them down. Landing well balanced on his feet, Tartum stood ready for the next wave. Jeth held up his hand. Elizabeth stopped.

“Very nice, very nice indeed. However, Elizabeth...I believe you’re going easy on our recruit here. I know for a fact that you can throw more than five knives at a time. I would suggest you stop being so nice to your boy toy and start showing me what he can do!” Jeth ordered. His usual mirth was gone, and in its place was the venom Tartum had expected when he walked into the room. Elizabeth looked a little pale.

“Never has it been necessary for me to go all out on a recruit before, Jeth. Are you sure you’re not just trying to seek revenge because he bested you. Stop being a bastard!” Elizabeth said. The concern in her voice was obvious.

“Do not question me, Elizabeth! I was appointed as his appriaser, and since we have such high expectations of him, we will not go easy on him! I didn’t, and it cost me an eye, but because of it he was ready. Now do your job, or I’ll inform Savall that your twat has interfered with your ability to train. Make your choice!” Jeth spat at her.

Tartum saw how stongly Jeth’s threat had hit home with Elizabeth. Ten knives appeared in her hands, and the misery in her face was apparent. “I’m sorry.” was all she mouthed to Tartum, as she sent the blades at him. Tartum was terrified, he had no idea she could throw so many blades at once, and with such force. There was no where to run, no way to dodge all of them. His only hope was to use his staff to bat them away before they could find their mark in his flesh. Opening himself fully to the magic, Tartum’s enhanced reflexes took over. His staff was a blur of green, as he deflected the first few knives. He kept his staff spinning in place, for as soon as he deflected one knife, Elizabeth threw another at him. If it hadn’t been for his magically enhanced ability, he would have been dead ten times already. As it was, they were in a perfect stalemate. He was able to keep up with her ceaseless barrage of knives, and she was able to keep them coming as fast as they hit the ground. This went on for what felt like hours, yet neither Jeth or Elizabeth showed any sign of stopping the test. Tartum wasn’t sure how much longer he was going to be able to keep this up. Already his muscles were on fire, and his mind raced. The magic coursing through him was invigorating, but in order to keep up he had to take in more and more magic. He was begining to worry he would have to face burn out, if something didn’t stop this soon.

“Jeth! I think...I have...passed your...little...test!” Tartum said between gasps. He was soaked with sweat, and Elizabeth was showing signs of fatigue too. Her hair was matted to her face with sweat, but the determination in her eyes let Tartum know she wasn’t going to quit.