Page 28 of Witchcraft and Fury (Chronicles of the Divided Isle #1)
As Solar made her way to the fire for lunch, Loveday came up to walk beside her.
He spoke so that only she could hear. ‘I have never stopped believing in your potential, Solar. Good to see that you haven’t either.
That was exceptional magical aptitude you showed in the mind-raiding lesson.
Your performance with Gib Ralston was clearly just the start of a promising career. Keep it up!’
Solar went to her seat grinning from ear to ear.
‘My father always said you can tell everything there is to know about a man from his eyes. I never knew how right he was till learning to mind raid,’ she said to Pingot as they ate their lunch.
Cal snorted dismissively from across the fire.
Solar felt a stab of annoyance and resisted the impulse to shoot him a withering look.
Against her will, her mind filled suddenly with thoughts of Cal’s eyes.
She wondered if it would be as easy to raid his mind as those of the trainees, or whether she would be distracted by those startling twin sapphires of his.
*
Over the next few days, the imps volunteered to be practised on, hovering in the air before the students’ faces. They seemed to think it was the perfect excuse to offer encouragement by means of darting forwards unexpectedly and pinching the trainees’ noses with abusive shouts:
‘Come on fatty, concentrate!’
‘Is that your thinking face or your best constipated mule impression?’
‘Don’t scowl, it makes you even uglier!’
But they had no insults for Solar. She had discovered through successfully raiding the minds of one of them – a scrawny specimen with large eyes and knobbly knees – that they had been secretly pillaging Pingot’s food supplies each night since leaving Ravenbridge.
She was going to spill their secret until she remembered Loveday’s words, spoken during their first conversation within the walls of Falcontop: ‘ I have always found cause to sympathise with beggars, thieves and smugglers. ’ If the famous wizard Loveday sympathised with thieves, she reasoned, then so would she.
She didn’t tell a soul, and the imps continued to eat with abandon under the cover of darkness.
On the fourth morning Pingot also succeeded in raiding the imps’ minds, listing off for the class a list of trivial secrets – food pillaging not among them.
Loveday then had him try his hand again on each of his classmates.
He raided the minds of Solar, Bear and Oswald in quick succession, sharing trivial details of their thoughts and memories after just a few seconds of eye contact.
Solar was relieved that being mind raided by her friend came without the horrible cold sensation that she had experienced with Ralston.
But when Pingot reached Wyman he seemed to lose his flow.
His cocky grin vanished and he frowned in concentration, staring hard into Wyman’s eyes.
After a minute of this silent struggle he squatted slightly and rested his hands on his knees, looking up with renewed intensity as if he thought a new angle might help.
His frown turned into a look of bafflement.
He straightened and walked to Wyman’s left side. He peered into Wyman’s ear. Then he walked round and peered into the other.
‘What the devil do you think you’re doing?’ spluttered Wyman angrily, a furious blush reddening his cheeks.
‘You’ll never believe this,’ said Pingot, walking back to his original spot to stare at Wyman again. ‘I got into your mind but it was completely blank – a clean slate. I just had to check if there is anything between your ears at all. The answer is no. Sorry, my friend.’
Solar and Bear collapsed with laughter, and even Oswald joined in.
‘I do not care for your jests,’ growled Wyman, trying to glower, but his mouth betrayed him with a flicker of a smile.
Cal joined them as usual for their afternoon combat sessions with Binns.
They continued to practise swordplay, but only ever for the first hour or so.
They then moved on to throwing the javelin and learning the rudiments of fighting with a non-magic practice staff.
Each staff was five feet in length. Solar took an immediate liking to hers: it gave her a longer reach than her sword, and she knew that mastering the weapon now would be invaluable once she was allowed to fashion her own magic staff.
For the first time Solar began to truly enjoy her training, both magical and combat.
Oswald and Wyman no longer took every opportunity to remind her of how different she was from the rest of them, and the three of them sometimes went on hunting trips together to bring back game for evening meals.
It was during these trips that Solar started to learn more about the lives they’d lived before beginning their training, including the fact that Oswald had endured a painful and messy parting from his lover, a minor lord sworn to his father, ahead of leaving for the encampment, and that this still caused him much anguish.
Cal was still rude to her, and dismissive, but in sparring practice he no longer landed punishing blows on her body when opportunities presented themselves.
Bear, too, was spared. Solar wasn’t quite sure what had brought about this change, although she liked to think that perhaps, somewhere deep down inside, Cal recognised that she had saved him in Ravenbridge and was grateful for it.
She tried to tell herself that, either way, she didn’t care.
Once or twice she thought that she caught him staring at her across the campfire, but he was so quick to look away upon her noticing that it was hard to tell why, or indeed whether he really had been.
Even Binns couldn’t dampen her spirits. He always selected her to demonstrate new moves on with the staff, meaning that several times a day she found herself flat on her back having received a thwack from him.
But the lessons were fascinating and instructive, and she relished the competitive spirit between her and her classmates when they duelled.
*
Some three weeks after reaching the clearing, Solar was on first watch.
She sat on a log next to the campfire, cloak pulled tight around her and hands outstretched to the heat.
The sun descended, leaving the canvas of the night sky a brilliant profusion of stars.
The constellations were on perfect display, unobstructed by any passing cloud, the formations of the minotaur’s horns, phoenix’s tail feathers, warlock’s staff and many others shining bright.
Across Solar’s knees lay Gib’s staff. She took it out often when she was alone, staring at it and turning it over in her hands for no particular reason.
It was cold and lifeless, and wreathed in shadow despite the illumination of the flames.
Solar was suddenly seized with the uncontrollable urge to be rid of it. She remembered the evil look on Gib’s face as he had stood over her, staff in hand, ready to kill.
She rose and wandered down to the riverbank. The waters were swift, deep and silent. The trees around her rustled as the wind swayed their branches, almost as if they were talking – urging her, or maybe proffering a warning.
She stood there for some time, feeling the cold breeze on her skin.
Then, slowly and deliberately, she took aim at the middle of the flowing waters.
She took a deep breath, adopted the javelin pose she had been practising with Binns and hurled the staff with all her might.
It cut through the surface without so much as a ripple.
Solar felt a weight lift off her chest, as if all her worries and woes had left her and disappeared along with the staff. She made to turn back to camp, but a strange sensation made her stop suddenly. The hair prickled on the back of her neck as she felt eyes watching her.
She was not alone.
A figure was perched on a rock that jutted out over the far side of the river, illuminated in the full light of the moon.
Solar’s heart pounded. How long had he been sitting there?
The figure was tall and well built, and as she stared he lifted a hand and swept aside long hair that tumbled into his eyes.
He was broad-shouldered, with the large hands and arms of a craftsman such as a blacksmith or … a carpenter.
‘Father?’ whispered Solar, her mouth dry. How can it be him? she asked herself. He is meant to be lost in the Arid Lands. He would have gone straight home to Mother if he had returned to the Divided Isle.
She ran into the water, consumed with the need for a better look. She didn’t even notice the icy embrace of the current swirling round her legs.
‘Father!’ she called out, shouting this time. The man stood up, smiled encouragingly and beckoned to her with an outstretched hand. He did not speak.
Solar threw herself forwards in a half-dive and began to swim. She knew that face – it was surely him. She, Solar, was going to speak to her father again! After all these years … What would her mother say when she found out?
She jolted to a stop. Something had grabbed her ankle. Something with a cruel, firm grip.
She wrenched free, panic lending her strength. Spluttering, she turned around and found herself nose to nose with Binns. His wet tunic clung to him. His eyes were black pits, soulless and terrible.
‘Sir Dirk!’ gasped Solar, shocked to see him in the river with her. ‘My father is on the far side! I have to go and see him.’ She gestured wildly with one hand over her shoulder and towards the jut of rock.
It was strange, but when Binns smiled it dawned on Solar that she had never noticed just how yellow and jagged his teeth were, not truly. They were like rows of yellow stalagmites and stalactites, vile and menacing in the moonlight.
Then his hand was pressing down on the crown of her head.
There was no time to breathe, no time to shout for help.
Binns pushed her under the surface. Solar flailed and thrashed in alarm.
A lucky kick caught the master-at-arms in the knee, and his grip slackened for a moment.
She rushed to the surface, gulping at air that seared the back of her throat .
Then Solar was in his grasp again, a two-handed lock of iron. She went under, and water gushed in through her open lips. She kicked and punched, and when that did not shake Binns’ hold she clawed at his hands, trying vainly to prise them off her.
Solar felt her lungs protest as an intense pain blossomed in her chest and worked its way deeper inside. Red spots appeared before her eyes, and Solar realised she was dying. Her throes grew weaker. She heard a savage grunt of triumph as darkness closed in.