Chapter 3
(Note: the release of Ilona Andrews' eighth book in the series, 'Magic Breaks', necessitated wholesale changes in this story, I hope after the rewrites it is still coherent and entertaining!)
Gym at the academy is mandatory, but very much a free-format period, besides the usual sports, one can choose from self-defence, martial arts, weapons training and firearms. The last two were optional but strongly suggested for high-school level students.
The med mage was supervising the working out - logical, since normally most of her patients would be the result of gym. She was puzzled my "fragrance" had vanished so quickly, so I told her that Yu had magically taken it all off me, which, in a way, he did. I told her I was going to the range and she noted it on her pad.
I went down the wide stairs to the cavernous basement level. The space under the gym was the size of a football field. Half of it was taken up by a 50 yard square of packed dirt where the martial arts was taught. It's square, but, for some reason, it's called the Ring.
Sheila was on one side watching a pair of guys grappling, mostly muy-tai fighting. One of the boys was Toby from the Atlanta pack. He had yet to change into his wolf form, but, judging from the amount of lupe-green flowing in him, he was getting close. He would need constant training to allow him control of the super-reflexes and strength once he finds his creature. He managed a smile and a nod in my direction while tossing his opponent to the dirt.
"The Range-master says magic will be back any time now, so no sense going the range now," Sheila said to me, "Want to do some hand work with me?" She meant hand-powered, non-tech weapons.
"Sure." I nodded and followed her to the changerooms.
"What do we start with?" Sheila asked while she got into her sweats. She has this amazingly ripped body that came with a fully functioning six-pack.
"What are your weapons?"
"I haven't any." She admitted, "I thought you could help me pick one out."
"OK, let's go see what they have."
We went into the Ring's armory, a room lined with racks of sharpened weapons, from sabers and epees to broadswords and scimitars. Another rack held daggers, throwing knives, bolos and shirukens. Next to that were long weapons: spears, javelins and halberts, including, at the end, a selection of wooden staves, from nunchuks, to canes, to the Japanese short staff and finally, the long staffs. I stopped there and picked out one for her and one for me.
"Broom-sticks?" Sheila asked, "You fight with these things?"
"This is a bo, this one's made from red oak strips but it could be rattan as well. It's the best weapon to get started with." I leaned on my staff and, just as Kate had so many months ago, explained, "Their reach is better than most weapons, but they look totally innocent, so no one will expect this…" I whipped mine up and stopped it an inch from her face. "Just now, my pose told you I'm relaxed and not a threat, but I could've hit every major joint on your body, not to mention doing worse if I'd smashed your throat." Kate would be so proud to hear me parrot her words. "Plus they're double-ended," I executed a high sweep-block and bumped the opposite end on her butt, "so your enemy has to worry more. Of course they're really useful when going on long hikes too!"
We went out to the Ring and Sheila made some energetic lunging attacks, using the bo two-fisted like a long kendo sword.
"Unless you're trying to disarm your opponent, avoid smashing with the staff, it's much too easy for him to use your momentum against you." I motioned for her to repeat her move, blocked the strike and followed up with a cross whip against her ribs. "Once I've deflected your strike, both your hands are stuck out of position and you're wide open for the follow through attack."
We went through the different grips, the straight thrust and the high and low blocks. With Sheila's weight work and the karate training, she picked things up quickly. Barka came down to warn us about the magic coming back. Brook and Ashlyn had followed and they watched us.
"I spent a month on the oar blocks before Kate was satisfied with it, and that was a minimum of an hour every day!" I told Sheila, "You're in better shape but I'd still give the basic moves a couple of week before moving on."
In the middle of our next set of kick-lunge exercises, the tech abruptly faded, and the overhead lights went dark. In the subdued fey-globe lighting, I showed Sheila some twirling exercises she could do for wrist and arm strength and called an end to the workout.
We went for a quick wash by enchanted hot water, and were soon joined by the shooters from the range when their guns no longer worked. They were frustrated but they had had some warning. We were all aware that if the tech had died the moment the gun fired, the half-burned powder would foul the entire mechanism, calling for a few solid hours of stripping and cleaning before the gun could be re-used.
Out in the Ring, the weres and other transforming creatures were still hard at their training in the darkened arena. They only needed to eat once a day so, while we had dinner, they had an extra hour for sparring before Study period. And, most of them see perfectly fine in the dark.
"Are you coming with us to meet with Yu?" Sheila asked. Ashlyn had a natural fear of fire, so we had been trying to get her to accept Yu Fong, who can transform into a fire-breathing red dragon.
"The Magic's up, I have to work on the Tree." Ashlyn said it like that, with a capital "T", but we already knew which one she meant.
"What is it that do you do there?" I asked, following her back towards the maze.
"I meditate - to guide the energies."
"Energies?"
"Magical, and Technological energies." She amended. "From the big ley-lines." Ley-lines are age-old streams of concentrated natural magic, blasting at about 100mph from ley-point to ley-point, arrow-straight and unstoppable, even when the Tech was up.
"What will that do?"
"I'm trying to get their energies focused in on the tree, then the flows can be better controlled."
"In what way?"
"Master Gendun can explain it better, but basically it could mean fewer big Magic flare-ups. Like, just now, the Tree smoothed out the conflicting energies for a more orderly transition." The flare-ups are bad, bad news; they can instantly change a pet into a 200lb hell-hound with an appetite for human flesh, or cause a long dormant demon to wake and start making more little demons. So fewer flare-ups would definitely be a good thing.
"Yeah," added Barka, "I knew by the fluctuations the change was coming, but usually there are some wild spikes before things settle, but this time, nothing - it was like a switch, off one moment, then on. No fuss at all. That's the Tree doing it?"
Ashlyn nodded, "We're making progress slowly, but we're learning to handle the energies better. But for now it only affects the small area around the school."
"How far along are you?"
"Maybe a tenth of the way. Perhaps a bit more." Ashlyn said, "It's a very long term thing."
As Ashlyn turned to go, I stopped her, "Wait, wait, one more question - how long have you and Gendun been doing this?"
"We've been working on it since he started the school, fifteen years."
I gave her a long blink, "Whoa, does that mean that you... and the Tree..."
"The Tree, and I were created for this purpose. Yes." She waved jauntily to us and disappeared behind the hedges.
"Okaaay..." We looked at each other. "Is it just me, or are we all having the same weird dream?"
"That takes a bit of getting used to." Barka nodded.
"Dream or not, good thing you have a god conveniently close by for some answers!" Brook pointed at Yu, still seated at the bench beside of the entrance.
"Do you know what Ashlyn is doing?" I asked as we approached.
"Somewhat. I'll give you my understanding if you, Julie Olsen, would continue what you had agreed to do."
"I'm on it..." I sat next to him and, not wanting to start any baboon jokes, held my hands on my lap and concentrated on pulling the blue stuff back to me.
Yu put on his professorial face and continued. "As you no doubt know, the switch from Technology to Magic was extremely violent. Within weeks of the first Change, most of our society collapsed and we've been rebuilding since. And every few weeks, we get the big flare-ups; Magic erupts and destroys more of what man has built. But the same unbridled Magical power runs through the world, every day, we've all seen it and we call them Ley-lines."
"But they are useful - we use them to travel and to move goods everywhere!"
"Quite. And Gendun believes that they are like metaphysical faults where Magic and Technology run close to each other. Somehow they are feeding on each other, but at the same time, creating more and more tension, which culminates in the flare-ups. There are historical records that say these para-physical eruptions could last for upwards of 300 years."
"Then what happens?"
"Then, theoretically, technology fades enough that magic will become a stable force that can be used to build rather than destroy."
"And until then, we're looking at flare-ups all the time?"
"It is likely... When Tech took over a few millenia ago, we had decades-long wars, droughts, extreme weathers and plagues." Yu confirmed, "Hence Gendun's big dream. He believes that by harnessing and controlling the raw power of the ley-lines, the Magic can be 'tamed,' in a manner of speaking, to be more adaptable, more malleable to our needs."
"What exactly does Gendun want to do?"
"He wants to link the major ley-lines in Atlanta to each other, through Ashlyn. On the map, if you extend the ley-points of the Savannah, Richmond, Columbia and other major lines, they all end in this area." He waved at the vicinity of the Tree.
"So the school's location was not an accident?"
"No, it was specifically chosen..."
"Wait, was the name of the school specifically chosen as well?"
"You could say that. This location is the meeting point of seven ley-lines, the highest concentration in the U. S."
"How does Gendun know it'll work?"
"There have been similar efforts with positive results. And we are noticing encouraging signs."
"But Ashlyn said that it took fifteen years to go only a tenth of the way, wouldn't that mean a hundred and fifty years to get it finished?" I said, showing off my arithmetic skills!
"Ah, she was, I believe, speaking of what she has accomplished in terms of bringing all seven lines together. Don't forget that ten of those fifteen years were spent cultivating the Tree and Ashlyn to be able to recognise and work with the energy-lines."
"So... five years times ten is still fifty."
"Yes, it has taken all this time to get to this point, but we are expecting to make contact with the Richmond line very soon now. Once that energy is available, we'll likely reach the others quicker."
"You keep saying 'we.' How are you involved?"
"My role, once the pathways are achieved, is to act as a buffer for the magic... a reservoir, if you will..."
"There, you're clean," I told him, as the last of my blue 'aura' threads drifted back to me. I was surprised that it did not take as long as I had feared, but my skill at handling the threads had improved with practice. "Is it the same as storing magic you mentioned before?" I asked, "what exactly does it involve?"
"I don't think I can explain it..." He frowned, "I'm not exactly certain how it works... I can feel it flowing into me..."
"Are you doing it now?" He nodded and I focused on the semi-transparent stuff that is Magic around him. It looked like Yu was right, it touched him and was absorbed into... No wait, the Silvery god-powered strands were doing it - like they were eating the Magic, getting larger in the process. So...
"Julie! Julie!" Barka was yelling in my face. "Are you alright?"
"Y-yeah," I blinked, "just thinking..."
"You looked all spacey-like!"
"Besotted is a better word," smiled Yu, "there's no shame in it, many are affected by being too close to my presence."
"Ha! You wish!"
The dinner bell went and we stood to get washed up.
"Julie Olsen, a moment," Yu stopped me, "What I said, it is not conceit," he looked intently at me, "Think about it, gods exist purely on the will of their followers. Their prayers and sacrifices provide the necessary sustenance for their deities to exist. So it is only natural that a god has to be able attract a fair share of followers or he'd fade away in no time!"
"Yeah, you'd promised to tell me your story..."
"Ah, perhaps we can continue after...?"
"No, she can't. Julie has Algebra. With me." Brook said with almost demonic glee.