The Lightning Knight

MAGIC WASN’T REAL-2

“Hi, I’m Oliver,” I declared. As nervous and shy as this little boy appeared, I was the complete opposite. I stood there, curiously waiting for his reply, but the boy was frozen, as unreachable as one of the monstrous stone figures mounted atop the Shearson Library.

Undeterred, I continued to talk without waiting for an answer. Blatantly invading his personal space, I pushed his spectacles back up his small nose. “I like your eyeglasses! Do you wear them all the time? My uncle has a pair, but he only needs them when he reads, which is pretty often since he works at the library in Kandaheart. I usually see him every summer, but this summer we couldn’t because Mother was busy—”

I continued to somersault my way through my entire life story, when the small boy interrupted my babbling. “M-my eyeglasses?” He seemed confused at the mention of the nearly invisible eye shields. “Y-you... like my eyeglasses?”

“Yeah, they’re neat. Though the frames make your head look funny.” I giggled. The frames perched awkwardly on his small nose, not unlike how they would look on his slightly older, more proportional teenage face. The young boy retreated again, his smile dissolving.

“I’m sorry,” I apologized, eager to settle any tension between me and my new friend. “I wasn’t trying to tease, I was only letting you know. My brother says I talk too much for someone my age, but then again, he once fell off a boat looking for water-dragons, so, like, what does he know?”

“You have a b-brother?” The boy’s face lit up.

“Yep! He’s at the Forge with my dad tonight, so it’s just me and my baby sister, but she’s already asleep.”

“I d-don’t have any brothers or sisters.” The boy glanced toward the ground, fidgeting with his mother’s dress as she brushed him aside like a pestering fly. I studied him, this skinny, sad little boy, and wondered what was wrong. Why wasn’t he happy like me? I was always happy and, knowing no other existence for a seven-year-old boy, I was convinced he should be too. Maybe it was because I had a brother and sister and he didn’t. I would be sad too if I didn’t have them, I thought.

“Well... I’ll be your brother!” I said. He needed a brother, and I had nothing else to do that night.

“W-what?”

“You’re sad because you don’t have a brother, so we can be brothers!” Happy with my solution, my thoughts wandered to how I could smuggle to my room some of the tasty lemon cakes being served.

“That’s not how it works, I d-don’t think,” the little boy replied, scuffing his shoe into the floor.

“Who cares?” I said, starting to formulate my plan of attack. First, I could make my way around the back of the table, possibly knock something over to create a distraction, but that would mean I still needed the servant looking after the desserts to leave. It was risky but possible if I had help...

“W-well, if you d-don’t mind hanging out with me.” He let go of his mother’s dress and nervously shifted around. “I can be a little...”

“Yeah, yeah, I don’t mind,” I said absentmindedly. My focus was now on “The Great Lemon Cakes Quest,” but it would take two to pull it off. “You hungry?” I asked slyly.

“W-well, I’m allergic to—”

“Perfect! I need your help. What did you say your name was again?” I asked while I pulled him over to the wall behind a suit of armor. A loud clang sounded against the stone floor where a servant slipped on a cloth I had laid, dropping his silver platter.

After the ringing subsided, I could hear the end of the boy’s muffled response. “-mir Yokel.”

“Okay, Yok, here’s what we’re going to do...”

My mind cleared as I pulled myself away from memory and back to the young man who stood in front of me, spectacles sliding down the bridge of his nose once again. Pushing them back up with my index finger, I smiled.

“Okay, Yok, here’s what we’re going to do. You’re the best tactician I know, and I wouldn’t be here without you. You have everything you need already, right here.” I pointed to his forehead. I walked over to the stool and began to armor up. “So, give me the rundown.”

“Promise you won’t fall asleep this time?” Yokel teased as he straightened his shoulders. “Your final match is against Sir Declan, one of the Old Guards for the King of Mercyhold.” The name sounded oddly familiar, but I brushed off the feeling just as quickly as it had come.

“A real knight?” I asked. My giddy tone couldn’t be held back, but neither could Yokel’s.

“A true knight,” he responded in kind. Knights were rare in Soraya, and it was even rarer to be fighting one in a tournament like this. A win against a true knight would make me famous, even beyond Mercyhold.

Yokel continued with his rundown as he helped me lace my armor. “He won this same tournament when he was our age, some forty years ago, but hasn’t competed since. According to my sources, he’s quite the hero in this kingdom, some say legendary, even at his age. He prefers Form Twelve for offense and Form Seven for defense, but I’ve witnessed him merge Forms Ten and Fourteen, and quite uniquely if I do say so. He’s got strength and skill, but he’s never approached longer than five minutes in any of his matches so far.”

Yokel’s assessment was, as it always was, thorough and concise. The best fighters in the world, whether in a tournament like this or on the battlefield, always fought using the Elven Forms of Fighting. There were twenty-four forms in all, twelve offensive and twelve defensive, and although each weapon had its own variation, they all used the same forms as their base.

Based on what Yokel was saying, the knight would use a mildly aggressive offensive attack form with a very conservative defensive attack form, which told me everything I needed to know about the man. He was cautious when attacking but would take calculated risks. The same could not be said about his defensive technique, which would take no risks at all. It made all the sense in the world how Sir Declan had defied the short life of a knight.

“So, I wait him out and then take him on the back fifteen points?” I asked, shoving my arm through the uncomfortable chest plate.

“That would be the strategic thing to do, yes, but a knight doesn’t get to be his age by being predictable,” Yokel acknowledged, tying my laces to an almost unbearable tightness.

Bursting into the tent like a tornado, Roc began yelling. “What are you two doing?! Oliver was due in the ring minutes ago!”

“But we haven’t finished going over my notes and—”

“No time for that, nerd! Any longer and we’ll be disqualified.” Roc snatched my helmet with his enormous hands and shoved me out of the tent into the blinding light of the afternoon. Yokel trailed close behind, his portfolio of unneeded notes still out of order.

Bouncing off spectators as we rushed toward the ring, I heard Yokel spewing more tactics as I fidgeted inside my armor. The heavy steel never allowed for the full range of motion I so desperately desired. I guess belonging to the most famous smithing family in the South hadn’t afforded me any unique advantages. Having the most famous inventor in history as a father hadn’t afforded me any advantages either.

Roc pulled my shoulders around and craned down. “You ready? You win this and you’re undefeated this summer. Can’t think of a better way to start off your career. And I bet Iris would love to be courting a...”

Iris. I suddenly pictured her in my head, and fragments of a vision flashed before me. Iris. Magic. Po. A door.

But there wasn’t time to think about these things. I ignored his last comment and ended the conversation.

“You mean we won’t have to spend the ride home listening to Yokel complain about not preparing enough.”

Roc slapped the top of my helmet with gusto, pushing down my visor and spinning me around once again. “Exactly!”

Twirling my sword, I let my body relax within the metal shell. This was the last match I would have as the Summer Tournament Series concluded. Victorious in the five previous tournaments within Sunset Mountains Circuit, truth be told, I was a bit spent. My mind wandered briefly, back to magic and the mysterious Po—

BONGGGGG!

I snapped back to reality and to an immediate clash of sword on sword. Sir Declan saw my mind wander and took the opportunity to introduce himself forcefully, to shouts of delight from the crowd.

We circled each other, weighing one another’s movements. Sir Declan appeared much nimbler than a man his age ought to, and he held his sword with a balance that confirmed his practiced knowledge. He wore the same light steel armor I did, but whereas mine was smooth and blank, his was adorned with designs and details marking his battles. In the middle of the chest plate sat an ornate blue sapphire that caught rays from the setting sun. My admiration became critique as he began his attack with Form Twelve, just as Yokel predicted.

We danced, the ting of our weapons keeping the count as the motions came naturally to us both. With a quick shift in tempo, Sir Declan began to embrace the unexpected, improvising deftly into Form Two, a basic attack every swordsman mastered early in their training. However, he took the form and stretched it, sprinkling hints of more advanced techniques to throw me off my guard. Perplexed, I struggled to counter each small manipulation of the assault.

A quick glance at the scoring wall showed twenty red flags to my lowly eight blue flags, a strategic eight-point sacrifice on Sir Declan’s part that allowed him to amass such a lead so quickly. For every defensive parry and block I managed, he responded with a slight variation of the perfect counter, all within the construct of Form Two.

The simple elegance of his strategy made it hard for me to focus and not applaud the knight’s brilliant tactics. Sixteen years and I had convinced myself I had learned and mastered all there was to know about the Fighting Forms. My arrogance had cost me valuable points in the match, and Sir Declan’s technique had restoked a fire within me; the joy of indeterminate combat flooded through my heart. The rush of facing an opponent of such high skill and ambiguous strategy brought a broad grin to my face. His strategy was bold and tested successfully against every opponent before bringing him to this final match today. It was perfect. Simply perfect.

I almost felt sorry for him.

Almost.

Sir Declan finished his sequence with a flourish, hesitating for a moment to gather his breath and composure. His five minutes were up. The nimbleness and energy he had started the match with had quickly faded, matching the faded sapphire in his armor. The moment he took to collect himself was one moment too long. I pounced. He had relied on the wide point margin to afford a break from our dance, but my quick succession of slashes and forward thrusts broke through, turning his strategy into a handicap. His simplified offensive tactic never translated into a defensive scheme, and appropriating his gambit, I began an intricate reworking of a highly modified attack myself.

The result was a blitz of strikes he was unable to defend, and within minutes, the scoring wall read twenty-nine red flags to twenty-nine blue flags. As we entered into a final contest of blows, we both knew what would transpire. As it had so many times before, the world seemed to slow down, if not stop altogether. Various paths illuminated before me, showing me the result of each different action I could take. A thrust on one path might lead to my defeat, whereas a parry and s***h would lead to victory. I saw it all clearly before me, as well as the path to victory. But I had seen beyond that too, beyond the final flag on the wall and past the ceremony to the world that followed after. It was a world I’d seen in a river of stars. One full of outcomes I felt no control over. It was as if I had no choice in the matter, and something about that felt wrong.

So, I forged a path I had not seen.

The final sound of the gong rang loudly, and the audience was silent as they vied for a look at the scoring wall. A red flag posted, and an exuberant crowd burst into cheers. Exhausted, Sir Declan knelt to the ground, his armor rising and falling viciously with each breath he tried to collect. It had looked like a clean match, with Sir Declan scoring the last point on my final missed thrust, but we both knew what had truly happened. It was in fact a draw, with my unseen strike scoring at the same time as his. I stood there, victorious this summer no more, and smiling all the same.

Roc and Yokel jumped into the ring, rushing toward me.

“What happened?”

“We thought you had him!”

I didn’t answer but rather watched Sir Declan across the ring, still on one knee. He looked up at me and I shook my head, conceding the match to him. He was holding himself up by his sword, and with every breath he took, years of fighting released from his body like a vapor of worries and troubles. He was savoring this moment, this final match of the tournament.

The crowd began to clap slowly, and Sir Declan rose, leaving his sword and helmet standing in the hard-packed ground as he began to unlace his boots methodically and deliberately. Walking to the center of the ring, the old knight placed his boots down somberly. Allowing one final pause, he gazed out into the crowd, tears streaming down his cheeks as he received the admiration of his screaming fans. They adored their old hero, and he loved them back.

He eyed the three of us, a smile creeping along his wrinkled face. He nodded slowly and the full weight of the moment overtook me. He would never fight in this, or any tournament, ever again, and the finality of his retirement sent shivers down my spine. It was rare to meet a knight old enough to see his hair turn the pale gray that Sir Declan sported. He had chosen to leave on his own terms and in his own way, not face down on the ground but on his own two feet.

I raised my fist over my chest, beating it softly, and Sir Declan responded in kind. He knew the match should have gone to me, but I had chosen the path I wanted instead of the one everyone expected. I had chosen, and that was all that mattered to me.

We departed, leaving Sir Declan to revel in his final moments in the arena. Instead of remaining for the closing ceremony, we gathered our gear and headed straight to the station, waiting for a steam locomotive, an invention of my grandfather’s, to arrive against a setting purple sky.

“Where are we off to next? We never did make it to the Northern Tribes,” Yokel asked, picking up his bags while Roc leaned against the post in giddy amazement at the rumbling machine.

Peering out along the tracks, I thought back on the summer, the tournaments I had competed in, the parties at my uncle’s house in Kandaheart, and all the mischief the three of us managed to accomplish. I thought of my mother for the briefest of moments before shutting that door in my mind once more. After her death I had left my life in Starfall to travel the country under the presumption of competing in tournaments. I thought the time away would help, but the thought of her stung all the same.

So instead I thought of my sister and wondered what adventures she must have had without me. I thought of my father, undoubtedly spending his days at the Forge, as he always did.

And I thought of Iris, who was the singular obsession of my heart. I thought of the girls I had rejected, much to Roc’s chagrin. I thought of how I missed Iris’s smile and her laugh, and the way we would spend all night talking about nothing and yet seemingly everything. Finally, I thought of the kiss she gave me as I boarded a train to leave her. The same train that was now blasting a cloud of steam as it rolled slowly to a stop in front of us.

I looked at Yokel, his figure silhouetted against a setting sun and stationary planet above, and I smiled. “We’re going home.”

Yet even as my voice charted our course, my mind lingered on a different topic.

Magic wasn’t real.

Or was it?