Wizard Tournament: Humans Need Not Apply (Patreon)

Six Days before the Conflux

          “So let me get this straight: this guy only entered the fourth heat of the prelims and he still qualified?” Draevin slumped back in his seat and let his feelings of jealousy, awe and inadequacy war with each other over this news: jealousy won. “He must have cheated somehow,” he decided. Draevin reached a hand up to his pale cheek and gave it a scratch as he thought through this impossibility. He was dressed today in shimmery blue robes of ice that matched the color of his eyes and spiked blond hair that misted slightly as the ice wards in it condensed the nearby water vapor in the air. All were products of his cryomancy magic.

          Sylnya let out a trill of laughter. “This was a guild-sanctioned event, not some street brawl.” She shook her head. “No way he cheated.” Until they stopped to pick up this newcomer Sylnya was Draevin’s only traveling companion in the icy carriage he’d crafted with his magic. Sylnya was a dryad and she preferred to dress in a tight-fitting leather shift and carry a number of dangerous-looking knives at her hip. Were she an elf or an eldrin the amount of skin she flaunted would be considered scandalous, but all the dryads Draevin had ever known seemed to prefer exposing as much of their green skin to the sun as possible.

          “But nobody passes the prelim melee on their first attempt. Let alone in the fourth heat! They only advance two wizards in that heat!”

          “Yeah,” Sylnya agreed, “his sponsor is convinced he’s some kind of prodigy or something. They’re paying me just to show him around and give him all the intel I have on the other contestants.” As he studied her, Sylnya rested with one arm out the carriage window and a lock of the spindly green vines that made up her hair wafted back and forth gently in the breeze. “The turn’s coming up soon. Don’t miss it,” she announced suddenly.

          “Turn? What turn? There aren’t any turns on Beacon Road!”

          “The turn to where we’re picking this guy up, obviously,” Sylnya said. She dug in the pack at her feet and pulled out a map. She pointed to a spot on it she’d marked with an X.

          “That’s where we’re supposed to meet to pick this guy up,” she explained.

          “But that’s… in the middle of the jungle.” Draevin gestured out the window to make his point. The tracks of the icy carriage they were riding on skimmed along silently on a perpetual bank of snow that formed in front of them before being recycled once they went past. The trunks of moss-covered trees and leafy green underbrush whipped past. “What kind of reputable business has you picking up passengers in the middle of the jungle?”

          “I don’t know,” she admitted, “they told me they were a trading company. They just didn’t say what they traded.”

          “What’s the company called?”

          Sylnya flipped the map over and read some notes she’d scrawled on the back. “Haevish Family Mercantile. Heard of them? They’re supposed to be new.”

          Draevin scratched his chin. “Sounds vaguely elvish, but no, I’ve never heard of them.”

          Sylnya skimmed the rest of her notes and rolled up the map. “Well anyway, a family business sounded like a safe bet for a partnership. Or well… safe enough. They’re paying me more than my sponsor just to play babysitter. They even gave me half up-front.”

          “More than the Setsyan Breeders? Really?”

          She shrugged. “Before bonuses anyway.”

          “Syl, have you heard the expression ‘Too good to be true,’ before? Because this is starting to sound to me like—”

          “Stop!” Sylnya suddenly shouted. “The crossroad’s here.”

          Draevin brought the carriage to a gentle stop and looked around. Beacon Road continued forward in a straight line before them and all the jungle around them looked no different than any of the last league of it they’d passed. A few birds chirruped mating calls from the high branches and a warm breath of steamy air intruded on the otherwise pleasantly cool climate of Draevin’s carriage. This was exactly why he didn’t like stopping. “I don’t get it,” Draevin complained. “If there’s a path here my carriage isn’t going to fit. I hope I don’t have to remind you that we won’t make it to registration before sundown if we have to trudge through two leagues of jungle on foot.”

          Sylnya swung open the carriage door on her side and stepped out to investigate. She actually seemed to enjoy the jungle air. “Kot,” she called firmly, “Come.” The shadow at her feet slithered and a panther-like creature pushed up from the ground: Sylnya’s shadow stalker. Kot’s only visible feature in the inky blackness that made up his body were his yellow eyes, and occasionally the white flash of his teeth. As he stepped out of his master’s shadow his form went from liquid to solid.

          Sylnya gave him a pat between the ears and he gave an appreciative purr. “Good,” she said, “now, uhhh… Find the entrance, boy!” Kot looked up at her and cocked his head to the side. He clicked his throat twice and flicked his tail in what Draevin was pretty sure was annoyance.

          “Find the entrance?” Draevin mocked, “When did you teach him that command?”

          Sylnya shot Draevin a glare and let out a huff of air. “Kot,” she tried again. “Hunt.” This time the shadow stalker knew what to do. His eyes darted around and he dove into the nearest bush. As soon as he was out of sight, he didn’t so much as rustle a leaf. They waited a beat, but he didn’t return right away.

          “So how did you know this was the place, anyway?” Draevin asked while they waited.

          Sylnya pointed a dozen or so paces back down the road. “Those two sticks there,” she explained.

          Draevin followed her green finger with his eye and saw two perfectly normal looking sticks lying innocently on the ground next to the road. “That’s your sign? Those are just sticks!”

          “Exactly,” she agreed, “you wouldn’t even remark on them if you didn’t know to look for them, but look how evenly spaced and straight they are. They’re lying perfectly perpendicular to the road.”

          Draevin had to admit to himself that it was unlikely to have happened by chance. Mother Nature didn’t like right angles. “Okay, so say I believe that’s the mark you’re looking for, why can’t we see the entrance to this turnoff?”

          “They said it was hidden.”

          “Hidden? Syl, this is starting to sound more and more like smugglers to me. What kind of mercantile company hides in the woods?”

          Before Sylnya could answer they both heard a loud squawk from high up in the trees and a black ball of darkness dropped to the ground next to the carriage. It was Kot. He had something very colorful in his mouth. He plopped it on the ground at Sylnya’s feet and Draevin could see it was a gorgeous bird with half a dozen bright colors flashing from feathers that stuck out at all kinds of crazy angles. It was either very good at not moving or dead, and Draevin was pretty sure he knew which.

          Sylnya gave an exasperated groan but she reached down and patted Kot between the ears anyway. “Good boy!” she said in a happy sing-song voice. “Good hunt!” Kot let out another contented purr. She pointed to the ground at her feet. “Now shadow.” He dove back into her shadow like it was a pool of water.

          “Why did you praise him? You didn’t ask him to kill a bird!”

          Sylnya looked offended. “What? I told him to hunt and he hunted! It’s not his fault he didn’t know I wanted him to hunt for a hidden passage instead of…” she looked down at the dead bird. “Is that a Chessian Simptler? I thought those were extinct!”

          “They probably are now. Do you really not know where this entrance is?”

          “I mean they said it was hidden.” Sylnya reached down and delicately lifted the bird by a single feather and tossed it off into the jungle. “I don’t know what else we’re supposed to—”

          The colorful bird flew through the air for about a dozen spans, then promptly disappeared. One second it was there, the next all they could see was unremarkable jungle. “Okay, that was something,” Draevin said into the stunned silence that had stolen Sylnya’s next words. “That looks like magic to me.”

          “No shit. You wanna cast True Sight, Drae?”

          “Me? I thought this was your job!”

          “Don’t be so stingy,” Sylnya said. “Come on, I’ll buy you a sandwich later. You elves practically make mana for free.”

          “Yeah, yeah.” Draevin knew Sylnya enough to know there was no point in arguing. Besides, a sandwich was more than he usually got for helping her out. “Occus at lumin cerbei,” he intoned, moving through the simple hand gestures for True Sight. Though he couldn’t see it, he knew the spell would have marked his forehead with a soft pink glow. While active, True Sight allowed him to see into the magical spectrum and as soon as it did so he saw the hidden path.

          “See it?” Sylnya asked.

          “Yeah. We were right in front of it the whole time. Looks like they used an illusion spell to hide the entrance.” In his magical sight Draevin saw a thin veil of red sensomancy stretched over the turnoff to another path just wide enough to fit a wagon through. It was no surprise they hadn’t seen the entrance with the naked eye though, since it even expanded onto the ground and covered some wheel tracks leading off the main road. “Get in,” Draevin told Sylnya, “we’ve wasted enough time.” Sylnya swung in through the passenger side window in a trivial display of acrobatics.

          Draevin turned toward the new path and urged them forward. With a smooth whisper of ice-on-snow the tracks of their carriage glided forward once more and they were off. They sank into the wall of illusion and on the other side Draevin caught a brief glimpse of the dead bird before passing over it. When he spotted no more signs of magic he let the True Sight drop away.

          Sylnya skimmed her notes one more time and commented, “My contact’s name is Alex.”

          “Good for you,” Draevin said, “but when we get there I’m not getting out of this carriage.”

          “What! Why not?”

          “Oh, you mean besides the fact that they’re definitely smugglers?”

          Sylnya groaned. “So what if they are? They’re not going to attack me after they hired me for a job. They probably just have a few goods they want to sell at the tournament grounds that they didn’t want to pay Setsyan customs on.”

          “Ooooor,” Draevin finished for her, “they’re carrying goods that are illegal in Setsya, but not by the Guild. I’m not risking my career in the arena getting in bed with a bunch of smugglers. We get our guy and we get out, and I’m going to search him before he gets in, too.”

          “Yeah, you’re going to make a great first impression,” Sylnya muttered.

          They passed the rest of the trip to the smuggler’s camp in a sullen silence, but they both perked up when they saw the first signs of people. Strangely the first person they saw was a human. He stepped from the surrounding woods with a spear slung over his shoulder and held up a hand to stop them.

          “Hold up,” he said when they got close. “Where ya headed?”

          Though they could see the man through the blue-tinted front window of the carriage Sylnya poked her head out anyway. “I’m here to see Alex. I’m Sylnya. I should be expected.”

          The beefy human nodded. “You are.” He gestured to Draevin. “Alex didn’t say nothing about friends. Who’s he?”

          Sylnya glanced at Draevin and flashed him a mischievous grin that he didn’t like one bit. “Oh, him?” she said. “He’s just my driver.”

          The human nodded as though that made sense enough to him. “Alright,” he said and stepped aside, “off you go then.”

          Draevin jerked the carriage forward roughly and caused Sylnya to knock her head on the side of the doorframe as she ducked her head back inside. “Hey!” she complained.

          “Oops,” Draevin said, giving her a flat look. “It’s my first day at the new job.”

          “What’s your problem? It just seemed like the easiest way to get past that guy.”

          “Oh, really? Easier than just ignoring him?” Draevin’s nostrils flared. “He was just a damn human, Syl. They can’t even do magic! What was he going to do if we ignored him? Chuck his spear at us?”

          “You know you’re really coming off as a huge elf today,” Sylnya said.

          “Nice try, but being called an elf is a compliment,” Draevin countered.

          “Well we’re still in Setsya right now, and in my country slavery is illegal. I swear you elves and eldrin can’t even comprehend the idea of a free human. This guy hired me for a job and I can’t have you disrespecting his employees before we even know how this company works.”

          In the midst of their argument, Draevin glided into the camp. There was a circle of mundane wagons and humans were bustling all around it. Draevin wrinkled his nose at the smell of them. The bulk of the work they seemed to be doing involved loading and unloading barrels of wine to one central location where the only non-human in the camp stood. An elf was bent to work pressing his hands to the sides of the wine barrels and working what Draevin assumed was lithomancy though he was too far away to be certain. He looked to be scrambling the words on the sides of the barrels from one thing to something else.

          “There.” Draevin pointed to the elf. “There’s Alex. Go talk to him so we can get out of here.”

          “I will,” Sylnya said, “but I want you to stay put.”

          Draevin huffed out a dry guffaw of laughter. “As if I wasn’t already going to!”

          Sylnya rolled her eyes and slammed the door to the carriage a little harder than necessary. She walked off toward the elf. She got to the man and the two of them exchanged a few words before he pointed her to someone else and went back to work. Sylnya followed the elf’s directions and walked up to an older balding human that Draevin could see had some grey in his hair that he knew to mean the man was dying of something called “oldness.” He seemed spry enough despite his affliction and slapped Sylnya on the back before leading her over to another human.

          The human they walked up to was much younger but very plain looking. He had a layer of grime covering everything from his leather boots to his unremarkable brown robe and sported a greasy mess of longish brown hair on his head. His most interesting feature was a pair of box-framed glasses that looked homemade. He appeared to be reading a book when they approached him, which was strange because Draevin wasn’t aware humans could even read. The three of them — two humans and a dryad — chatted for a bit and Sylnya shook hands with each of them. In short order the younger human with glasses gathered a few belongings into a satchel and followed Sylnya back to Draevin’s carriage.

          “Draevin,” Sylnya said happily when she reached him: their earlier fight forgotten. She opened the door to the carriage. “Meet Peter. Alex is sponsoring him to fight in this year’s Wizard Tournament.”

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