Planet B

Ch.13

The three crested a dusty ridge a short way from their impromptu shelter to find what they could only describe as the largest army they'd ever seen. It was astounding. Immediately the wizards hunkered down so as not to be seen. Havlik squinted in the distance, trying to make out any of the forms. A cough at his shoulder caught his attention.

"Forgot your spyglass?" Barun asked. He held his hands out and spoke slowly, preparing to show Havlik a spell. "Follow my lead. First, take air," he said, rotating his fingers around a wide sphere, "then fill it with the deep air," he continued, pushing his hands together. Havlik immediately copied Barun's motions, reaching for the elemental magics. The hand gestures weren't required for the actual forming of the spell, but it helped to conceptualize how to make the magics interact with one another. Air was one of his stronger elements, though deep air proved more difficult for him. Nevertheless he focused and followed his old teacher's direction.

"Finally, capture this with spirit," he again circled around the space in front of him, performing the basic gestures for a spell containment. Always the teacher he was. Havlik did so and looked at the results. Suspended in the air, roughly the size of a fist, was a distorted patch of, well, air. He peered through it and found that it magnified what he was looking at. Havlik sat back on his heels and grinned.

"That's amazing Barun. How does it work?"

The older man crawled back over to when he'd been lying before and Havlik noticed a similar distorted section of air in front of Barun.

"When you see you look through the air. If you look through more air, or different concentrations of it, what you see will look different. If you play around with how much air and deep air you use you get different levels of distortion." Barun took Havlik's look of wonderment in and chuckled. "Looks like you're never too old to learn something new."

"I think the moment you're too old to learn is the moment you die," Havlik said.

"Ha," Barun chuckled, smile still on his face, "that's one of the truest things I've ever heard. Be careful there, you'll end up a wise old codger like me if you keep that stuff up." He nodded his head back to the army and Havlik turned his attention to the massive force before them.

Through the distorted air he could make out the features of the creatures. From a distance they looked almost like people, however with this clarity he could tell that was definitely not the case. They stood at attention, seemingly mindless and without direction. Their vacant eyes were large in their grey heads, muscles visible through transparent skin. They did not have a large amount of mass, but looking into their bodies he could see there was no fat to be found. He expected these creatures would be surprisingly strong. He began to look back to Barun to get his old teacher's opinion when he saw her. Standing near the edge of the army was a young woman, maybe even a teenager still, a large brimmed hat covering her face and flanked by a dozen people. People he knew. Wizards. He started scanning their faces. One, two, three of the missing wizards on the girl's left. Another and...

Havlik's jaw dropped as he saw the face. Kar, he thought, turning to look at her. She was already sprinting toward the army.

Havlik charged after the younger wizard. He could feel the pulse of magic from her, hands working as she continued down the slope. He could hear Barun huffing behind him and knew he'd just have to trust that the old wizard wouldn't come tumbling down on top of him, bringing them both down in a heap. Havlik wasn't sure which spells Kar was preparing, it was only possible to feel the pull of magic, knowing the specifics was impossible.

Below them the creatures began to turn toward the approaching wizards. Instead of preparing for battle they simple stood waiting, none reaching for weapons or even seeming to care. He looked to the platform of wizards and the teenager standing between them. They were holding hands. Havlik was baffled by that. Hands were needed by most wizards to do their magic. The learned habit was so strong that few let it go. The line of wizards looked intently at Kar.