Anita
I watched the first few matches from the stands, sitting among my fellow apprentices and their demons as the crowd cheered the displays of magic below. A thick magical shield kept the stands safe from the roil of spells in the arena below.
Apprentices of the same level were rarely friendly. Marian and I were the exception, not the rule, and we'd only dared become friends because she'd never expected to be down in the arena. Trev was also an exception. He was a manipulative bastard, but everyone, including our fellow twelfth level apprentices, seemed to genuinely like him. They laughed at his jokes, and listened to his advice. I had never been popular among my peers, but I would be downright hated after I killed Trev.
I looked over at Saban. He was watching the fighting below intently, his eyes darting around to follow the action and his brow furrowed in concentration. "You ready?" I asked. "This fight isn't going to last much longer, and we're in the fight after the next. We should go below, and prepare."
He nodded and rose as Terian broke Lizbeth's shield. As she cowered, defenseless, he raised his hand, crackling with magic, and the crowd roared for blood.
Below, in the ready room, it was blessedly quiet. Jann, who would be fighting Yeth in the next battle, waited, white as a sheet. Her demon, in the form of a clawed, robed figure, waited with her, cackling softly. It quieted as Saban entered behind me. I wondered at that, a bit.
The only other person in the room was the journeyman wizard who maintained the sound dampening spell over the room and the shield over the opening to the arena. She looked away from the aftermath of the last fight at Jann. "You ready, kid?" she asked. Jann nodded, though she didn't look ready at all. "Ok, ready on this end," she said into a hand mirror.
"Ready on this end," replied a voice from the mirror.
"Count of three," said the journeyman. "One, two, three!"
On three the shield over the entrance vanished. Jann walked into the arena on one side as Yeth entered on the other. The journeyman wizard swiftly pulled the shield back up as the fight began.
"You Anita Kirith?" she asked me.
"I am," I replied.
"Great. You're up next," she said as she peered out through the shield. "Don't think this one will last long," she added as blood splattered the ground outside. "Oh, yeah, not long at all, he's already through her shield, and his demon is..." she shuddered. "Poor kid."
Saban looked at her coldly. "Do you mind? I think my mistress would prefer not to have a play by play."
She ignored him. "Oh, she's losing a lot of life force! Ouch, broken leg, that's got to hurt."
Saban was next to her in a blur. He gently placed his hands around her throat. "I said shut up."
"Hey! Anita! Control your demon!" she gasped, eyes wide with terror as Saban tightened his grip.
I glared at my familiar. "Saban," I began, and he released her.
"It looked like it was bothering you," he explained as he came back to stand at my side.
I opened my mouth to speak, but the journeyman wizard cut me off. "Anita, you ready?" she asked, massaging her throat and glaring.
"Ready," I confirmed.
"Okay, ready at this end. On the count of three?"
"Yeah," confirmed the mirror. "Count of three."
"One, two, three." And the shield was down. Heart pounding, I entered the arena to the roar of the crowd.
Saban
"You have my permission to shapeshift," said my mistress as she cloaked herself in a swirling blue shield. "And to harm or kill Trev and his demon."
I felt the binding lift slightly, and I nodded, glaring out over the arena at Trev, the wizard I needed to kill, and his hulking beast of a demon. "It will be as you wish, mistress," I promised. "He will die."
Then I charged. I dodged one fireball, which fizzled out harmlessly against the dirt, but blocked the next so it didn't hit Anita's shield. It hurt, a bit, but I could take it.
"Ignore protecting me!" Anita called. "I can take care of myself. Head for Trev's shield!"
"Marmoth!" Trev ordered his demon. "Charge!"
The hulking demon lowered its head and charged. I grabbed it by the horns and hurled it away as electricity crackled past me, heading towards Anita's shield. She yelped as it hit, but her shield held. Marmoth came at me again, to Trev's shouted orders. This time, I materialized a sword, and impaled the hulking beast. Time to take it out of the fight. As I was hacking its legs off, another bolt of lightning joined the first, this time streaking out of Anita's hand toward Trev's shield.
He laughed. "Is that the best you can-" Then he turned white as the ground began to shake beneath him. He darted to the side, narrowly avoiding ending up inside the fissure Anita had opened. With a growl, the intensity of his lightening increased. So did Anita's.
I threw Marmoth's legs across the arena. It would take him some time to get to them. In the meantime, I charged Trev's shield once more.
My impact into his shield cause Trev to turn white and whimper. "Marmoth!" he gasped. I smiled. "Marmoth can't-"
Something wrapped around one of my legs. Shit! Had Marmoth been given permission to shapeshift as well? Of course he had, I chided myself as I was dragged off my feet, away from Trev's shield, by a long, scaly tentacle. As I wrestled with the other demon, the wizards' duel continued. The ground beneath Anita started to turn to mud as water bubbled up from below. She, with an effort of will, levitated off the ground, and increased the intensity of the spell, causing the entire stadium to go muddy. Trev slipped and fell. His shield went off briefly. Wrestling with Marmoth, I couldn't take advantage of the fact, but Anita could. She just floated there, face pale. The crowd booed.
With a growl, I plunged my hand into Marmoth's chest, ripping out a handful of organs. He writhed beneath me, fighting to regrow them as I ripped off more and more of his tentacles. Soon Marmoth went still. At that exact moment, Trev set another bolt of lightning hurtling toward my beloved. She gasped as it hit. Her shield flickered, and then faded as she came crashing down to earth.
Trev raised his hand. I sprang to my feet and ran forward through the mud, knowing I would be too late. A fireball began to form around his hand. I was too slow, too slow!
Anita's shield came back on, and the fireball splashed off it. I gasped in relief, then changed my trajectory, so that I was headed directly toward Trev.
The fireball seemed to have taken the last of his reserves. His shield was flickering. As I slammed into it, it shattered. Trev grunted, and crumpled to the ground. My hand plunged through his chest.
Anita glided over to where I stood, contemplating Trev's still beating heart in his split chest. He was using magic to keep himself alive, but that wouldn't last very long.
Trev looked up at Anita. "Just tell me one thing," he gasped. "Why did you kill Antona?"
Her eyes widened in surprise. "What? She attacked me! On your orders, I thought."
Trev coughed up some blood. "I never... Told her to do that..."
"Then who?" Anita wondered, frowning.
Trev began to cough up more blood. "It... must have been..." With a last gasp, he died.
Anita
I left the arena deep in my own thoughts, none of them good. If Trev hadn't asked Antona to kill me, who had? How many of the other things I had previously attributed to Trev had this mysterious someone been responsible for? Had I just killed an entirely innocent man?
Not that I had really killed him. It had been Saban, in the end, who had done the deed, albeit on my orders. I had hesitated at a critical moment, and it had almost cost me dearly. And this had been while I believed Trev to be a killer, intent on taking my life even outside the arena. Was I just too weak to do what needed to be done? My magic was, and always had been, more geared towards war than anything else. The council of masters had decided long ago that, if I survived to become a journeyman, I was to be a warmage. How could I be a warmage and defend my kingdom if I couldn't kill?
As I exited the arena, I looked over at Saban, walking beside me. He looked angry, and was walking as if he expected trouble. He saw me looking at him. "May I speak?" he asked. When I nodded, he continued, "If Trev was telling the truth, and if Antona wasn't just acting alone, there is still someone out there who wants you dead."
"True enough," I agreed, wondering where this was going.
"Well, right now, you're worn out from the duel. If I was them, I'd try something now," Saban said, looking around the room where I was to receive my journeyman's certification.
"Quite clever, for a demon," said a voice from nowhere. Suddenly we were surrounded by an orb of green light. "Also surprisingly forthright."
Saban growled. "Show yourself, coward."
"Gladly," said the voice, and Master Wizard Yuriel stepped out of thin air.
Saban slammed against the barrier.
"None of that," said Master Yuriel, waggling his finger. "You'll just hurt yourself."
My eyes widened. "Master Yuriel! You were Antona's mentor! She attacked me because you asked her to."
