The HaRT Knight Decaverse

Heir of Magic

Chapter 09

Aeroturgy Exam

Alexander’s stomach felt as if he had swallowed a cloud of bats that desperately wanted to escape. The sun seemed too bright and warm and the crowd that gathered in the erected stands that lined the obstacle course only helped to increase his unease. It was not normal for this many people to attend the final examination of someone who completed their basic and advanced training, but then again, he was the first ‘land walker’ to attempt the final exam known as the gauntlet.
The gauntlet comprised four buildings of varying heights, and the test would require Alexander to move from one rooftop to the next, until he reached the end of the course on the far side of the last building, which was the second tallest building in the entire city. A giant conch horn occupied the first rooftop where Alexander waited which he would have to sound to start the exam. There were few creatures in the world that would possess the lung capacity to sound the horn by conventional means, and none of them were on Moondrake. Instead, it would require the examinee to demonstrate aeroturgic power and precision to force enough air, fast enough, through the mouthpiece of the conch.
The other device that took up the rest of the rooftop was a medium-sized air-trebuchet which would launch the examinee across to the second building in the obstacle course. Only, it wouldn’t be Alexander who would launch himself, but the person who trained the examinee. In Alexander’s case, this was Claus. The two of them had worked towards this day, and even though the moondrake admiral was amazed by how little it had taken, Alexander had still taken a full two weeks longer to finish his advanced training than he had estimated.
“You ready?” Claus asked as he landed next to Alexander.
“I suppose. But do I have to wear this? I look ridiculous,” Alexander said, pulling at the strap digging into his shoulder. The weighted harness was meant to strap down a moondrake’s wings for the test. But because he didn’t have wings, there were a lot of straps wrapped around other extremities, causing him to look half mummified.
“I’m sorry, but yes, the extra weight they add to your body is part of the exam. Besides, you don’t want the others to say you had an advantage by not having to wear the vest.”
What others? Alexander thought. Apart from Claus, the only moondrakes who ever talked to him were the servants and messengers, and they only ever said enough to do their jobs. Everyone else was too afraid of incurring the king’s wrath by appearing to fond of the ‘land walker’ who offended him. Even Faulkner avoided him. The kite-moondrake, whom everyone viewed as a prodigy and had always been top of Claus’s class, grew irritated with his incapability to keep up with Alexander.
“Right, it's time. Sound the horn so we can start the exam,” Claus said.
Alexander, who had been so deep in thought, whipped his head around at Claus and said, “What? Oh, yeah. The gauntlet. Right.” He took up his stance on the launchpad of the air-trebuchet and took a deep breath to calm his mind. He blocked out the discomfort caused by the harness. The sounds of the crowd faded away. The cloud of bats vanished. He smiled.
Alexander snapped open his eyes and sent his aura out in every direction. He pulled all the air in a five-foot radius around the rooftop towards himself, then sent it all rushing through the mouthpiece of the giant conch horn. The call of the horn rang out across the city, signaling the start of the exam. The moaning cry from the conch still echoed through the city when Claus activated the air-trebuchet that launched Alexander towards the rooftop of the second building.
To pass—and survive—required speed and perfect timing to soften the landing. Too soon or too late and all that would remain of the examinee would be a blood-soaked leather bag filled with shattered bones. Too little power and the same thing happens, too much and the person would blow themselves off the roof and they would be lucky if even the leather bag remained.
Alexander, however, managed a gust that caught his plummeting body and carried him onto the rooftop like a dandelion caught in the wind. The second his feet hit the solid stone, he darted to the next part of the gauntlet: a tightrope that ran from the second rooftop to the third. On either side of the rope were eight rings set up in decreasing size. He balanced himself with aeroturgy and walked out across the near two-hundred-foot drop. One examiner launched a clay disk through the air, and Alexander hurried across the top to reach the marker that signaled the moondrake next to the first ring to remove the net in front of it. With his aeroturgy, he manipulated the path of the disk and guided it through the ring. The moondrake who removed the net blew a horn to indicate the successful demonstration of precision. The examiner launched another disk and a second later, another horn sounded. Just before the halfway mark, two disks were launched simultaneously and after them, the last four flew together. One after the other, Alexander guided them through their rings.
Perfect score, he thought as he stepped off the rope and onto the third building. On the other side of the rooftop there waited a ten-foot convex wooden board. He grabbed the board and hesitated only a second to take in the expanse between the third and fourth building which was large enough for the moondrakes to build at least two more structures in the gap. The bats returned for a moment, so violent they might have been killing each other, but then he dove headfirst off the building and it felt like his stomach—along with the bats—remained behind.
As Alexander plummeted down towards the street, obstacles popped up in his way. He used concentrated blasts of air to steer out of their way, all the while avoiding projectiles that differed in shape, size, and weight. Once he reached his terminal velocity, he leaped onto his haunches to start the next and most difficult part of the test. He needed to maintain perfect control while splitting his focus between maintaining balance, using enough power to propel himself to the fourth and final roof top, and blasting away the projectiles launched at him by the examiners. He swerved side to side as he continued to climb ever higher.
Everything was going perfectly, which in Alexander’s experience was the point where life liked to pull the rug out from under him—or in this case, the wooden board. It happened seconds before he reached the final rooftop. He had underestimated the height of the railing by a few inches, and the nose of his board caught the edge of the building. Time froze just long enough for him to look down at the two-hundred-foot drop which his vision stretched to be twice as much. Time returned as the crowd gasped as one. Alexander leaped from the board, using aeroturgy to launch himself over the railing. The board snapped in two and the pieces fell down to the street below.
Alexander hit the solid stone of the rooftop and rolled back to his feet in the middle of a ring where five moondrakes waited for him, spears in hand. When they saw him, four of his opponents sent blasts of air at him to push him out of the ring. As he dodged their attacks, they rushed behind pillars that provided them with cover. While all this happened, his fifth opponent remained still, staring daggers at him.
“Faulkner?” Alexander said in surprise. “What are you doing here?”
Two of the other moondrakes sent blasts of air around their pillars and Alexander dodged them with near perfunctory effort.
“I volunteered,” Faulkner said, his voice calm but filled with malice. Before Alexander could ask another question, the kite-moondrake moved so fast he was just a blur and sent an air arrow at Alexander’s chest.
Alexander swiped the aeroturgic attack away with an even more powerful blast of air before he said, “What are you doing. That attack would have killed me if I didn’t block it.”
“Scared?” Faulkner asked derisively.
The other four moondrakes tried to take advantage of the distraction and attacked together. Faulkner chose this moment to send four rapid air arrows at Alexander. He leaped out of the way of the first nonlethal attack before he switched all his focus to the ones that could kill him. He danced around each of them just in time, the fourth passing so close to his head that it shaved off a few strands of hair. Just as Alexander let out a breath of relief, one of the nonlethal blasts hit him in the chest and would have lifted him off his feet and out the ring if he didn’t create a wall of wind behind his back. If he stepped one foot out of it, he would fail the exam.
The next second, the wave behind Alexander and all the other air around him vanished. He frowned as he tried to take a breath but couldn’t. It quickly became clear what was happening when he saw Faulkner’s sadistic smile and iron gray aura that pulled all the air on the rooftop away from Alexander, depriving him of his weapons, defenses, and oxygen.
Alexander looked into the eyes of the kite-moondrake, searching for a reason behind this animosity, but all he saw was hatred. He tried to ask his old friend what he did to deserve this, but without air, he couldn’t even speak. As his vision began to blur, Alexander remembered a conversation he had had with Dante a few weeks earlier when he told him how Faulkner wouldn’t even greet him anymore.
“I am sorry to hear that my boy. Though I can’t say I’m surprised to hear it,” Dante had said. “I’m afraid what you are describing has always been a very common problem for Angelians. It’s one of the major reasons your people only ever lived with their own kind.”
“I don’t understand,” Alexander had said.
“You read that scroll I gave you. Raziel designed Angelus to be as close to perfect as possible. You are of his blood, and thus, you too are a near perfect being. Perfection has always been a very dangerous idea. It creates enemies faster than anything else I know.”
Jealousy? Alexander thought as he stared into Faulkner’s eyes. All of this just because he resents me for taking away his feelings of superiority.
Anger bubbled to the surface and for a split second, Alexander lost his temper—but with an angelian, that split second might as well have been a month. He reached for the power stored in one of the invisible argentari feathers floating behind him in his aura. The power stored in the crystalline disk rushed through his body and exploded out of him. He wrenched all the air away from Faulkner and dragged even more towards him. Once he took a lung-full to ensure he would remain conscious, he released it all in the form of a small, but intense, tornado. The five moondrakes—including Faulkner this time—dove for cover, but one of them didn’t move fast enough. The gale-force wind blasted him out of the ring and smashed him so hard against a wall he crumpled unconscious to the ground.
Through the roar of the winds at the rooftop a horn sounded, signaling that the examinee had completed one of the five obstacles, and bringing Alexander back to reality. He regained control and focused the tornado into four focused funnels of air that slithered around the pillars to blast all the other moondrakes out of the ring at the same time.
Four more horns sounded, and the crowd cheered, impressed at the display of power. But Alexander could only stare at Faulkner who got back to his feet outside the ring and it took three of the examiners to restrain him. A profound sadness filled Alexander as they led the incensed moondrake away.
My people withdrew from the rest of the world and settled together in Tír na Angelus because this is how others treat angelians. But there are no more angelians, just as there is no Tír na Angelus. So where will I fit in, in this world?
“Alex!” an exasperated Claus yelled from the sidelines. “What are you doing? Finish the exam.”
Alexander strode out of the ring and onto a platform from which he could see the giant conch in the distance. To show his ability to produce the same power, control, and precision needed to start the test, only from a distance, he sounded the horn and the exam ended.
The crowd cheered, and from his grandstand covered in lavish multicolored curtains, Ogie’iso spread his large iridescent wings and swooped down to land next to Alexander. Using aeroturgy to augment his voice so it would carry over the entire crowd gathered around the gauntlet and even to the people below, he said, “It is with true delight that I congratulate Prince Alexander on passing his final exam. With that, your training in aeroturgy is complete. An extraordinary feat. Only one other person in the history of Moondrake has ever finished their training in less time.” He gave Alexander a scornful look and added, “Let’s just hope that when he faces his uncle, he doesn’t end in second place again.”
Alexander imitated the king’s obvious false decorous tone—and using the same aeroturgic technique to allow his voice to carry—as he said, “I hope so as well. After all, I don’t have the luxury of a lax conscience that would allow me to just watch from the sidelines as innocent people are harmed.”
Scandalized murmurs rippled through the crowd before they all fell silent to watch the king’s reaction.
“Well, then I suppose we better wish you a great deal of luck. All of Moondrake will miss you,” Ogie’iso said, and everyone could tell from his tone that he did not mean once Alexander left the city. He ended the aeroturgic augmentation of his voice and he said, “I’ve already organized for a ship to take you away from my city first thing tomorrow. I expect you to be gone before mid-day.”
“What? No party to celebrate me passing?” Alexander asked feigning hurt feelings, but with too much venom in his voice to be believable.
“Oh no, we’ll celebrate, but only once you’ve left.” Without another word, the king stalked off.
Claus took his place in moments, and laughing, he said, “Well done, Alex. Well done indeed. Very impressive.”
“Thanks, but apparently not impressive enough,” he nodded toward Ogie’iso flying towards the palace.
“I wouldn’t worry about the king,” Clause said.
“He didn’t mention that you beat the course record.”
“I did?” Alexander said in surprise. After his near fall to his death accompanied by the moment, he lost himself in his thought after they dragged Faulkner away, he’d felt certain he must have achieved one of the lowest scores in the gauntlet’s history.
“We have the same score, but you beat my time by a full five minutes,” Claus said and Alexander couldn’t help but beam with pride. “That being said, you’re nowhere near a master yet. Especially compared to your uncle.”
“Gee, thanks.” Alexander snorted.
“It’s not my intention to discourage, only to motivate you to continue to work hard. And to aid you with that.” He handed Alexander a bag filled with thick scrolls. “These are for you. It’s a collection of training manuals I started to write for you after Dante first reached out to me to train you. They contain advanced to master level techniques. You’ll have to work hard if you want to beat your uncle.”
“I’ll do my best. I promise,” Alexander said with determination.
“Good,” Claus placed a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. “Remember, my boy, you have talent, but talent only determines how fast you can grow; not how strong you already are.”
“You can only grow stronger with hard work. Talent may increase the rate with which you grow, but infinity times zero, is still zero,” Dante said as he came walking up.
“Really?” Alexander rolled his eyes in exasperation at the wizard. “We were having a nice mentor-student-moment here, and then you had to ruin it with math?”
Dante laughed. To Claus, he said, “Thank you, my friend. I can see I chose well when I asked you for your help.”
“It was my pleasure. I doubt I’ll ever have another student as gifted,” Claus said. “Speaking of. I think I need to go have a little chat with Faulkner about that stunt he tried to pull during the exam. If you do not object, I would like to stop by your chambers tonight to say my farewells.”
“If you do not mind, perhaps we could instead have breakfast in the park before we leave tomorrow,” Dante said quickly. “It will be quite the trip for us to reach the Pride village, so Alexander will need to be fully rested for it. I think we’ll both turn in early tonight.”
“Breakfast it is,” Clause said, and spread his wings.
“Did you have to make it sound like I have a curfew?” Alexander asked in disgust.
“Well, I had to tell him something,” Dante said. “He may be a friend, but I still don’t think it wise to have the Grand Admiral of Moondrake with us when we execute a robbery.”
“Probably not,” Alexander agreed. The cloud of bats that had occupied his stomach earlier returned once more. He had never been nervous about his exam. The thing that plagued him was the fact that come sunset, he would have to do something that he was still having a moral struggle over. He still did not like the idea of stealing, even if the things he was stealing were already stolen. But he knew he needed to do it, and so he would. But he knew that his actions were likely to hurt Claus, a friend. And judging by Faulkner’s behavior, I can’t really afford to lose many friends.