Just a Bystander

Power Ladder

There was a definite change in the way the rest of us viewed Kevan now. My initial impression of him had been a laid-back, happy-go-lucky individual who wasn't serious about his studies. I had wondered how someone like him even managed to get into the Academy in the first place. I made the classic mistake of judging a book by its cover.

He refused to explain how he had beaten Jerric. 'Watch me duel with Lynus and see if you can figure it out,' he smirked.

'Do I have to?' Lynus' grumbling was obviously in jest. He was already rolling up his sleeves and stepping forward, looking determined.

'You were on the receiving end,' I said to Jerric as he came over to where the rest of us had been observing the duel at a safe distance. 'What did you see?'

The frown on Jerric's face was equal parts disappointment and frustration. 'I didn't see anything. I think maybe he shifted the bolts out of the visible spectrum.'

As far as I knew, in student duelling circles there were no widespread glyph sequences that featured something like invisible bolts. That meant Kevan had either picked it up somewhere or it was homebrewed. If it was the latter, that would be seriously impressive.

The duel between the brothers had a completely different energy to it. After they conjured up the body shields and I counted down for them, they simply waited. Neither of them had prepared any defences or started any offensive weaving. The tension in the air was almost palpable.

'I don't believe it,' Jerric whispered after a few seconds.

'What?' I looked from him to the two brothers who were still facing each other, unblinking.

'Look closely. The air between them,' Jerric pointed.

Ambrose nodded, looking very impressed. 'It's almost perfect.'

Devon and I squinted, and it took me a few more seconds before I finally saw a faint flicker, like a wisp of a heatwave, but even subtler. Once I spotted that, it was a little easier to pick out more of such disturbances in the air. Even though I knew what to look for, it was hard to follow.

'What is that?' Devon asked in an awed whisper.

'I think they're the standard bolts,' Ambrose explained. 'It's just that they've been made invisible like Jerric said.'

'How are they doing that?'

'Our vision depends on light in the visible spectrum,' Ambrose continued, his eyes still fixed on the battle. 'So one way you can make something invisible to someone is to shift the wavelength. I'm guessing they isolated the glyphs that manage the colour of the standard bolts, then modified those. But whatever they're doing, it's not perfect, which is why we can still see something.'

This was the chattiest I had ever seen him over the last two days, and he clearly knew his stuff. If what I had seen in the logbook earlier was anything to go by, it seemed that Ambrose had a particular interest in duelling.

Jerric snapped his fingers. 'So that means they're doing that for their shields, too. The one I brought down in my fight was just for show. And Kevan's obviously capable of bending the bolts like me, too. Damn, I really underestimated him.'

'I think we all did,' I muttered.

Devon shook his head. 'This is crazy. How are they even defending against bolts they can't see?'

'You can still see them, you just need to pay really close attention,' Ambrose said.

'Figured it out yet?' Kevan called out nonchalantly. He took his eyes off Lynus for a moment to glance at us and in that instant the air around him rippled violently. His attention immediately snapped back to his brother.