The Eyebright's Dimension

Chapter Eleven: The First Special Class

Finally, Cooperative Economic Living was over, and Kasity could take a real Special Class for the first time. She, Karynn, and Aidan had signed up for a Defensive Magic class first, mainly under Calixte’s direction.

“You haven’t learned enough to really get much out of an Offensive class,” she had told them, and Kasity privately agreed. In their Intro Magic class, they hadn’t done much other than making things float in the air, which she had already done several times on her own by accident.

Yetta apparently disagreed, and Macom and Shant were taking an Offensive.

“I can’t even make things float,” Shant moaned as they walked down toward the Training Quad for their Specials for the first time after classes were over.

Most other students were heading from the Centre Quad to their dwellings, which were located south of the Quad, and the first steps struggled against the tide, a cool autumn sun shining in the cloudless sky above.

“You’ll do fine,” Karynn reassured him. “Offensive is different than theory, according to Synnove.”

“Besides, I would rather do Offensive than Defensive. My class sounds so boring,” Aidan whined.

“Oh, stop complaining,” growled Kasity. “You wouldn’t be able to handle offense anyway.”

“Where’s Tal and Claia?” Macom asked, interrupting their bickering.

“They signed up for Stealth classes,” explained Karynn, ignoring Kasity and Aidan glaring at each other. “So they’re staying here in the Centre Quad. Where’s your class? We’re on Training Field Four.”

“Field Six, I think,” replied Macom. “I’ve never even been to the Training Fields before. Have you?”

The rest of the first steps shook their heads. The Centre Quad, located in the middle of the campus, held most of their classrooms, so there never had been any need to venture away from it. To the northeast stood the Training Quad, and the northwest the Contest Quad, where the amphitheatre and other performance structures were located.

There were two cobbled paths stretching between the Training and Centre Quad, and the first steps stuck to the right-hand one, following the small stream of students in front of them. As they left the well-groomed lawn of the Centre, Kasity saw that the jungle once again claimed the scenery. Slapping at mosquitoes and chattering with excitement at the classes to come, the first years quickly arrived to their destination. On their right-hand side, Kasity saw a large, wooden building from while many students exited and entered. Directly in front of them stood two smaller structures labeled Armory and Range. Glancing to the right, Kasity spotted an even smaller building with Training Fields blazoned onto it in red letters.

“I guess that’s it,” said Karynn behind her, motioning, but Kasity didn’t move.

“How is that place supposed to hold a bunch of training fields?” she asked, frowning.

“How are we supposed to know?” muttered Aidan.

“Let’s just get going,” Shant decided, and they continued on, gawking at older students holding conductors, others wielding dangerous-looking, curvy swords, and still more with bows and arrows slung across their backs.

The building looked smaller and shabbier up close. It had no windows, but the cobbled path led right up to the door, which was open. Kasity led the way into the building, wondering how they would all fit inside. As she stepped in, she gasped.

The ground sloped downward at a terribly steep incline right from the entranceway; the further it went down, the wider the floor became. All along the ceiling little light-baubles hovered, and from where the floor curved into darkness, Kasity could hear voices. She turned around and glanced at her stepmates, who looked similarly shocked.

“Better get going, then?” called Karynn, and her voice echoed down the tunnel.

Kasity started slowly, her shoes sliding a little on the hard, earthen floor. From the corner of her eye, she could see the others start the slow decent. The further she traveled, the more momentum she gained, and soon she was running, her arms waving madly, the light-baubles flashing as she passed. At the height of her speed, something ran straight into her from the back. Her neck cracked as her feet flew straight into the air, and she hit the ground and began rolling, another sweaty body entangled in hers. Her head bounced in the dirt as she struggled to stop herself, then the ground leveled out and she crashed, her entire body aching.

“Get off me!” she croaked, struggling.

“Stop pushing!” snapped Aidan. "Get your smelly self off me!”

Kasity disentangled herself and stood up slowly, the blood pounding in her head.

“And get your big feet off my bag!” Aidan growled.

She snapped.

“It was your big feet that tripped into me in the first place!” she screamed, kicking his bag as far as she could. “You fell into me because you couldn’t keep your stupid balance! And then you don’t even bother saying sorry?”

“I—”

“I have news for you, Aidan,” she interrupted, still furious, curling her hands into tight fists. “Back home at the castle they probably let the little princey push people around, but here you’re nothing. In fact, you’re just a big-headed jerk—”

“Kasity—”

The others had arrived. Karynn grabbed Kasity as Shant and Macom helped Aidan up. He was pale and looked completely shocked.

“Kas, calm down,” Karynn whispered, and Kasity tried, tears threatening to spill from the corners of her eyes.

She ducked her head a little so that Aidan couldn’t see her tears as an awkward silence filled the air. They all waited in the gloom until Kasity regained her composure. “Let’s get going,” she said, and they trotted after her, Aidan hanging toward the back of the group and Kasity ignoring him.

Kasity realized the ceiling was getting higher, and higher, and suddenly it opened up into a magnificent, round room, brightly lit by the hundreds of baubles hovering in the air. Ten archways stood along the room, with its practice field number painted above it. About a dozen other students milled around, clearly waiting for the start of class, or perhaps a Cloud practice.

“There’s Four,” said Karynn, pointing. “We’ll see you later, then.”

They parted, and Kasity, Karynn, and Aidan headed through the archway marked Practice Field Number Six. They emerged in a cavernous room, also brightly lit, although Kasity could see a source of the light. She strolled across the dirt floor and shivered. She could feel the magic here, although it wasn’t anywhere near as strong as the Terrain Stadium.

“Here for the defensive magic class?” called a voice, and Kasity looked around wildly until she spotted a figure in the far corner of the room.

He came closer, and closer, until she could see he was a stout man, slightly balding, wearing leggings and a loose tunic.

“Can call me Mr. Rance,” he started amiably. His eyes traveled over their sky-blue uniforms (Karynn and Aidan’s were dirty) and said, “You must be the Sylph students. We have kids from two other Clouds, but there’s only ten students in the class. I think the others might have a little difficulty finding the place. They always do in the beginning.”

He looked expectantly at them, and Karynn said, “My name is Karynn, and this is Kasity Ké and Aidan Aé.”

He did not hide his surprise about Aidan’s name as well as some of the other teachers; his eyebrows rose straight into his graying hair as he looked Aidan over more carefully. Kasity snorted.

“Ah, I hear footsteps,” Mr. Rance said after a moment’s silence. “Must be the others.”

A student from Gargoyle Cloud emerged from the archway, looking as confused as Sylphs had.

“Over here!” called Mr. Rance, and the two wandered over.

Aidan looked over them, dislike etched on his face, but Karynn smiled at them. The boy, who had dirt in his blonde hair, smiled back.

“Sylph?” he asked conversationally.

“Karynn,” she introduced herself. “And this is my friend Kasity. And over here is Aidan.”

Aidan scowled again.

“I’m Jaxith,” he said. “I’m Gargoyle. I have to say I like your uniform better than ours.” He tugged on his black and gray one. “Who else is coming?”

“Not sure,” replied Kasity, warming up to Jaxith’s friendly personality. “Why’d you take defense?”

“No choice. Council just divided up the first steps,” Jaxith explained. “Sent one to offense, one to defense, one to stealth. I think the rest stayed in CEL, though.”

Everyone winced. Cooperative Economic Living was definitely no fun. Another thundering of footsteps awoke them to the next group of arrivals. Kasity’s stomach turned as she saw the uniforms.

“Fantastic,” she muttered.

“Wyverns,” whispered Karynn, though there was no need to.

Then she saw the familiar glint of blonde hair, and groaned again.

“Oh. It’s you,” sneered Adely, looking Kasity over. “Surprised you’re even in a Special. Shouldn’t you be in CEL?”

Her usual cronies laughed, and Kasity recognized Cairbre and a couple others whose names she did not know. Then Adely’s attention turned toward the Gargoyle, and her smirk widened.

“Who let the statue in?” she asked.

“Shut up,” said Jaxith, flushing bright red.

The Wyverns laughed louder as Jaxith crossed his arms over her chest and looked a embarrassed.

“Settle down, children,” called Mr. Rance, and the Wyverns settled on one side of the room as the others sat on the other.

“Welcome to the Defensive Special class. We’ll be teaching just basics here, so you can get used to using shields and learn the elementary steps of defensive magic. Now casting shields require a bit of concentration, so I want all of you to lay down on your backs and close your eyes…”

They did so dubiously, and Kasity looked around at all the other kids to make sure they were doing it, too, before she closed her own eyes.

“I want you to concentrate like you’ve learned in Meditation or Magic class. It’s the same sort of concept. Now, pretend the air around you is very hard. Nothing can get through it! Imagine it like glass…”

Kasity rubbed her neck, which was still sore, before squeezing her eyes shut. It was easy to imagine herself in a little glass bubble, impenetrable to the world.

“Stretch your senses. Feel to the limit, and concentrate on blocking out everything outside of your pretend glass…”

A period of silence reigned on them all for a couple minutes. A sudden cacophony of shrieks and yells interrupted the peace, and broke Kasity’s concentration. She suddenly felt a splash of cold water on her face and rolled over into Karynn, who was considerably more wet.

“Okay, everyone,” Mr. Rance yelled over the noise. “Stand up, please!”

They all did so, and Kasity surveyed her classmates as she wiped the water off her face with her sleeve. Most were sopping wet; others were a bit muddy. Adely, to her great dislike, seemed drier than others.

“I threw a quick spray of water over you all,” Mr. Rance told them. “Most of you were able to keep off the water for a short amount of time.” There were a couple moans and complaints that silenced as the teacher held his hand up. “I enchanted the water so it would slowly disappear over the time span of 30 seconds. None of you reached that mark, but those that held it for a longer time are not as wet. Now we’re going to move to a drier section of the field and try again.”

They did, and Kasity, prepared this time, thought especially of making her glass bubble waterproof. The second time the squeals came a little bit later, and Kasity felt only a little bit of water.

“How do you do that?” Karynn whispered as she wrung her dress out.

“Just imagine you’re in a waterproof bubble,” Kasity muttered back before Mr. Rance silenced them again.

They did the exercise again and again until class was over. Kasity exited much happier; she had been especially good at the shields and Mr. Rance had complimented her.

“It’s not too hard once you get the hang of it,” said Karynn cheerfully.

“Except I never did,” said Jaxith, who was sopping wet from head to toe. “How do you do that? Is there some sort of special trick?” he asked hopefully.

“It’s just a matter of concentration,” said Karynn.

“Then he’ll never get it,” said Adely as she swept by with the rest of the Wyverns.

“Is she always like that?” muttered Jaxith.

“She’s usually worse,” growled Kasity.

They filed out of the field, Aidan bobbing behind them. He still seemed wary of Kasity, and for good measure: she didn’t feel like even looking at him just yet. As they emerged out of the hallway into the round room, they saw a group of ten Wyverns standing near the walls. Kasity watched them with apprehension. There were more than just first steps in that crowd.

“Sylphies!” someone shrieked, and all the Wyverns turned toward them. Kasity suddenly felt very self-conscious as some of the Wyverns began to titter. She looked around and didn’t see Shant or Macom anywhere.

“Let’s go,” Karynn said to Kasity, and she nodded.

The only problem was they had no idea where to go.

The steep slope they had tumbled down from couldn’t possibly be meant to climb…and even now she saw a couple older students flying up the pathway, but they couldn’t fly. In the middle of trying to figure out this dilemma, she spotted Jaxith out of the corner of her eye approaching the group of Wyverns.

“Excuse me, but do any of you know the way out?” he asked politely.

They all stared at him with incredulous expressions on their faces.

“Well, you see, we certainly can’t fly out, and it seems that we aren’t meant to climb out the other way, so—”

Then came the eruption of laughter.

“Gargly wants to know how to get out!”

“Thought he’d want to stay underground, like the rock he is!”

Jaxith looked more and more confused, and Kasity scampered forward, grabbed the back of his gray uniform and dragged him back toward the other side of the room, which just made the Wyverns laugh even harder.

“Come back, Sylphie!” one of them taunted. “You still don’t know the way out.”

The anger which had momentarily calmed during the lesson bubbled again. “What are you all doing here, anyway?” shot Kasity. “Standing around and looking like a bunch of idiots? You can do that elsewhere, you know.”

A deadly silence filled the room, and Kasity instantly wished she had kept her mouth shut.

“If you really must know,” said Adely, eyes narrowed. “We’re here for a Division practice.”

Kasity’s mind whirred. A Division practice? In the fields?

Adely jumped on Kasity’s momentary confusion. “Don’t tell me you haven’t practiced in the fields yet!”

Kasity didn’t say anything, still not sure how the fields could be useful for division practices. They had only used the Terrain Stadium up to this point.

“Of course they haven’t!” roared one older Wyvern. “Sylphies only practice with terrains, they don’t practice manipulation or magic or tactics.”

“Sariel,” Adely said suddenly. “They’re from Calixte’s Division.”

The girl named Sariel turned toward them, and Kasity recognized her as a Wyvern council member. She had to be the Division leader.

“Oh, that explains it,” Sariel replied, her dark eyes flashing in the light. “Calixte’s. Experimental. Always unpredictable.” She was tall and thin, with gaunt features. “I’m supposing their newest tactic is sending first steps into the fields without explaining to them first.”

A couple chuckled at that.

“Though it’s not like Calixte would know what she’s doing, anyway,” Sariel continued, leaning against the wall in an effortless way. “Most of her brilliant moves came because of complete stupidity on her part and the quick reactions of others around her. She’s so swollen with pride that she doesn’t even need to practice on the fields, does she? Everything will fall into place, like it always does for Miss Calixte, whose head is so big I’m surprised it still balances on her neck—”

“Shut up!” yelled Kasity.

Sariel turned toward her with the barest hint of anger on her face. “What did you say?”

“I told you to shut up,” said Kasity. “That’s not true. She’s not bigheaded. Calixte knows more about—more about everything than you’d ever know. If you see what she has us doing right now—it’s special. We don’t need the stupid fields for what we’re training to do.”

That was a barefaced lie, and one that just tumbled out of her. Karynn and Aidan were looking at her as if she had announced that Calixte had wings growing out of the sides of her head, but Jaxith looked impressed.

“Morwenn was right, then,” Sariel breathed. “She is planning something.”

“What is happening here?” called Eunae as she emerged out of one of the practice fields.

Adely’s smirk widened as Sariel’s expression turned to disgust. “Oh. It’s you.”

“Hello, Sariel,” said Eunae, her expression unreadable.

“Practicing your Sensory?”

“No,” Eunae replied, then turned toward the first steps, Sariel still glowering at her back. “Why are you still here? Calixte said division meeting right before dinner. You’ll be late.”

“We don’t know the way out,” whispered Karynn.

Eunae glanced at them. “There’s a secondary exit off of Field Four tunnel. I’ll show you the way.”

She herded them toward the right way, the Wyverns still snickering. They hurried down the tunnel until they saw it: a shaft of light pouring down from above.

“But how are we supposed to get all the way up there?” asked Aidan.

Eunae smiled, jumped up, and flew up toward the light. For a moment all they saw was her dark silhouette; then there was a loud clunk, and a ladder notched down creakily until the first rung hovered just above their heads.

“Anyone need a boost?” Eunae called down.

“We’re good,” said Karynn. "This is the way Shant and Macom must have gone," she said to the other Sylphs as Aidan jumped up and started climbing first.

Karynn followed him. Jaxith tried but couldn’t reach the first rung. Eunae had to come back down and carry him out into the sunlight.

“Thanks,” Jaxith said in a fervent tone, looking at Eunae with an expression of deepest respect.

Then he spotted a couple of his fellow Gargoyles, and smiled. “I’ll see you guys tomorrow,” he said, waving.

The Sylphs said bye, and Kasity’s heart sank a little. She would have to see the Wyverns tomorrow again.

They started walking toward the main Training Quad pathway when Eunae asked, “I have to know—how did you get afoul of that group, anyway?”

Kasity launched into an explanation, Aidan for once not interrupting. She left out her lie about their special training, although she swore she saw a hint of understanding in Eunae’s eyes as she glossed over that part.

“Who was that girl, anyway? Sariel?” Karynn asked after Kasity finished her tale.

“She’s a Wyvern Council Member, and leads a Ground Division,” explained Eunae as they entered the Centre Quad. “So she’s Calixte’s equivalent. She specializes in Sensory.”

“But I bet you’re better,” Karynn piped, and Eunae smiled a little.

“Sariel is very good. She’s one of the best, actually,” Eunae replied. “Were they waiting for a field to open up? I’m surprised they didn’t book ahead of time.”

“They practice on the fields,” murmured Kasity.

“We’ll get to them, too,” said Eunae. “Calixte’s convinced that the next round will focus mostly on terrain, so we've been concentrating on the terrain ranges. The fields are good for practicing with obstacles, but the Terrain Stadium and ranges are really the best.”

That explained quite a bit, and Kasity again felt ashamed for her lie. They said goodbye to Eunae in front of the Centre Quad Dining Hall; Eunae headed toward the dwelling and the first steps into the Hall to eat. Kasity spotted the other first steps waiting in line and hurried toward them; she had the best dinner story, in her humble opinion.