Battle Mage: The Dark Mage (Tales of Alus) (35 page)

Finding some free shelving on which to place her pack, Rilena wondered if it would air out enough to not corrupt her clothing again with the smells. A bench let the woman pull off her boots that felt like they had become grafted to her feet. Even in the shared tents and using heavy blankets to keep warm, she had rarely taken off her boots, except to change stockings.

Her stockings were next and discarded on the bench next to her letting her feet breathe luxuriously. She sighed. The rest of her clothing joined her stockings before she took a towel to wrap around her torso. Stowing the dirty clothes inside the empty pack, Rilena set her cleaner clothing next to the bag for her return and walked to the next room feeling warm, humid air after opening another door.

Female voices could be heard and Rilena spied a group of pools and two doors marked as steam rooms. The heat of a steam room sounded good, but the warm water of the baths sounded even better.

“Welcome,” an attendant greeted her entrance. A half dozen women dressed in short, white cotton dresses held more towels, soap and shampoo for their hair at different stations.

Nodding to the girl, she took supplies and found one of the smaller pools. Dropping her towel at the edge, Rilena left the supplies in arm’s reach and settled into the hot, clean water of the bath. The heat soaked into limbs chilled for too long. It was even a bit painful as her bare feet absorbed the unexpected temperature into them.

“You must have been on the campaign to the Dimple Mountains,” another woman soaking in the next pool said with a knowing smile.

Rilena nodded looking at a blond haired woman with her crystal blue eyes. Her hair was wet and stuck to her skin as it ran down her neck into the water. Like most people this deep into winter, her skin was pale as porcelain, but it seemed to work to make her even more beautiful.

“We’ve just returned and I realized how bad I must smell to anyone aside from those in the same condition,” Rilena stated leaning back against a cloth pad that acted as a buffer to the hard stone. “A friend had said that she was coming here and I thought that it sounded like a good idea.”

The woman sat up a little more, though most of her chest remained in the warm water. Looking over the battle mage’s face, she shrugged saying, “Your skin still looks nice enough. You are barely red after all that time in the cold. We’ve been practicing for the duels regularly for weeks. If I don’t create a wind screen, my skin turns so red it looks like someone beat me.”

Splashing some of the water onto her face with her cupped hands, Rilena relished feeling the warm water on her cheeks. She took a small cloth and a bar of soap to create lather; but her neighbor shook her head and waved the girl off.

“Oh, don’t use that thing. It’s very hard on the skin. Here try mine,” the blond said offering a small bottle. With the distance between tubs being far too great to reach, she stood exiting her pool. Revealing a slender body, as the young woman stepped out of her bath. She handed the bottle to Rilena, who could see her smooth skin beginning to pimple as the cooler air made her shiver.

Instead of returning to her own bath, the blond carefully stepped into the falcon’s without appearing to care over boundaries. “Trust me. This cleans well but is gentle on your skin. I am a water wizard. A few of my friends and I worked on it. The ladies of the castle swear by it.”

A sudden realization popped into the woman’s mind as she stood in the water which came up to her waist. “Oh, I am Teven by the way. How rude of me to forget to introduce myself,” she giggled sounding younger than Rilena had thought.

“Falcon Rilena, I was just transferred to Windmeer from Falcon’s Keep,” the brunette replied tentatively. While Teven seemed harmless enough, Rilena found herself a bit uncomfortable with the woman’s apparent comfort with her nudity. The falcon preferred private baths over the communal ones, but having to wait for a wash tub and jars of water brought to her room had seemed inconvenient at the time.

As a draft of air caught the wizard’s skin bringing another shiver, she sat on the far step in the small pool submerging to her shoulders. “I was hoping to go to Hala, but that journey will be a long and cold one as well. Maybe I should just let Ruus win from now on and let him go to represent Windmeer instead?” The woman grinned and shrugged her shoulders above the water. “Well, I could refuse, but going to this tournament should be interesting as well. I have heard that they have sent invites to dozens of other countries from around the world. I wonder what countries and styles of magic they will bring.”

“Don’t they have to stay with mostly elemental magic?” Rilena asked as she rubbed the solution from Teven’s jar on her face. She figured if the wizard’s skin looked so beautiful, it couldn’t be too dangerous to try. Smelling flowers, she grew side tracked and added, “Flowers?”

Teven smiled noting her new friend enjoying her face scrub. “We mixed dodera and tremara flowers in for a nice smell and, yes, elemental magic will be the main styles used since it has to be a visual, concrete battle magic for judges to see. If a diplomat wizard entered, she couldn’t use her mind magic just her elemental styles.

“You seem to understand some of the rules. That is a little strange for a battle mage. Unfortunately, you wouldn’t have the strength to keep up with the duelist spells to join us I fear,” the wizard finished looking almost sad at the fact.

While Teven spoke, Rilena scrubbed at her arms and chest. She had to admit that the cleaner in the bottle did seem to be working and felt very nice. Shampooing her hair before continuing with the rest of her body, the falcon was almost growing comfortable with Teven’s sharing of her pool. The larger communal version often had women sitting around talking with one another with no thought to their appearance after all, and the smaller pool could hold four or more women with plenty of space for each.

The falcon liked men, however, and was used to trying to fit in with them as she had learned to fight and cast magic. Admittedly, the girl hadn’t shared a bath with any of them either, but maybe one day a bath or a bed would be involved anyway. The thought caused her to blush and Rilena hoped it would just be blamed on the warm water.

Movement and her name brought the falcon’s eyes up to see Zerra hurrying over so quickly that she hadn’t even bothered to wrap a towel around her. A splash as the brown haired falcon entered her pool meant the party had just gotten larger, much to Rilena’s discomfort.

To her surprise, Zerra suddenly noticed the wizard sitting across from her and greeted her by name, “Oh, hi, Teven. I see you’ve met my friend Rilena.”

The two exchanged a quick hug without any compunction letting Rilena know these two were both unequivocally more veteran in visiting the communal baths. Zerra remained sitting next to her friend and began unfolding her wash cloth.

“Is that your special soap?” the falcon asked as her blue eyes spotted the bottle sitting on the stone floor next to Rilena’s shoulder. 

“Of course,” the blond replied with her amused giggle. Passing the bottle to her friend, Rilena eased back to her side uneasily. “You look like you can use it. That trip to the mountain must have been awful,” Teven added looking troubled.

Standing up to show a faint scar on her side, Zerra stated with a sigh, “I picked up a new scar. It was far from just a trip to a mountain, and with the blizzard that would have been enough. A goblin nearly made me bleed out.”

Teven nodded noting the faint line that looked like it had been healing for years after originally being a minor cut. “Whichever healing wizard got to you in time, she did an excellent job. It’s hardly a mark.”

It was Zerra who laughed in turn, “He was a battle mage and apparently is a remarkable healer already.”

“A battle mage healed you? I didn’t know there were healers among you,” the blond wizard stated shaking her head incredulously.

Rilena nodded and added feeling like she should stand up for her corps, “He learned to heal from Sebastian Trillon, who is heading to the Winter’s Edge tournament to duel wizards in their own game. I think, even though we are weaker than you, Bas will teach a few wizards to respect battle mages more.”

Realizing that her comment had been taken wrongly, Teven started to get up to leave as she begged, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it. I have heard of your mage friend and know that he has surprised quite a few wizards already and not because they didn’t try to fight him as they would any other wizard either.

“I am just saying things as they have always been after all. No battle mage would have dared try a wizard’s duel before your friend. This change in the skills your people are suddenly learning, like healing of all things, is hard to keep up with for me. I would never intentionally insult a battle mage for trying to become greater than they have been.” Teven winced realizing that her words weren’t coming out as the apology she wanted.

Rilena thought that she was about to cry as the pretty, young wizard started to exit the pool. Zerra caught her wrist and shook her head. “It’s all right, Teven. Rilena is just in a bad mood because of the trip and our prisoner is setting her on edge.”

Nodding, feeling sorry for her misplaced antagonism, the dark haired falcon apologized as well, “Sorry, Teven, Zerra is probably right. The battles and weather were bad enough, but Garosh being here makes me even more agitated. I wish that I could have gone back to Falcon’s Keep, if only because of him.”

Teven glanced between the women and asked, “This prisoner is that bad?”

“There is too much to try and explain,” Rilena started.

“He tortured her and apprentice Nereith when they first found the fortress and were captured before being rescued,” Zerra said spilling just about every secret in her friend’s mind. “Now he is here and been harassing her subtly enough to avoid being caught.”

Teven slid through the water to sit beside Rilena and stared at her for a moment before giving her a hug, making the brunette even more uncomfortable much to the amusement of Zerra. “You poor thing,” the blond said compassionately. “No wonder you are on edge.”

Thanks to Zerra, Rilena spent the next half hour being doted upon by the wizard, much to her embarrassment. They spent time in the shallow communal pool talking more and, as much as the falcon wanted to hate the strange setting, the two women did manage to make her feel better.

When she retreated to the dressing room finally, Rilena found her fingers a bit pruned, but her spirits were buoyed by her friends’ attention. Unfortunately, when the young woman checked the clothes she planned on wearing, she found that she could smell them from a distance. Wrinkling her nose in distaste, Rilena borrowed one of the long robes used for the steam rooms and tied the belt. It was a short distance to the laundry and the girl hoped that they would tell her that everything could be cleaned before dinner. While there was no way she could go to the meal hall in nothing save the robe and her boots, she decided that the short trip to the laundry and back to her room would avoid drawing too much attention.

Rushing to the laundry, Rilena only had to pass the guard at the door along the way. The head woman of the laundry took pity on the girl as she could smell the odorous clothing easily. “Go on to your room, poor girl. We will make sure to get it back to you as quickly as we can. Even if I have to beg a water wizard to take the water from the material, I will find a way to have your other clothes to you before the dinner bells,” the graying matron declared before turning her around to send her off.

“Well, this is a surprise,” a boy’s voice greeted her as she turned around.

“Oh no,” Rilena breathed turning red with embarrassment.

Green eyes sparkled with mischief beneath a tousled mop of brown hair as Elzen eyed the girl in her white robe. His eyes strayed to the cloth belt tied at her waist keeping the remainder of the garment closed tight and secure. Even so, Rilena’s arms crossed her chest gripping her shoulders as she kept her eyes on the younger male. While he had always behaved over all, his antics did inspire worry over a prank at her cost.

“That robe does become you, but I have to say that belt is awfully tempting to pull,” he chuckled feigning grabbing it with his left hand while still holding his bag of clothing. Apparently Elzen had decided to get his clothing cleaned as well and picked this inopportune time to come to the laundry. Unfortunately for the boy who was teasing her, he turned enough to miss the angry woman behind him.

Grabbing hold of Elzen’s right ear in a death grip, the enraged washer woman hollered in his ear, “Leave that poor girl alone, you little pervert! She has had a hard enough time of it that she certainly doesn’t need you to add to her pain!”

“Yes, ma’am!
Yes, ma’am! I was only teasing her. She’s a friend. Tell her Rilena before I lose my ear! That’s my favorite ear. I’m gonna need that,” the brown haired boy yelped somehow maintaining his sense of humor.

The girl nodded to the woman and said, “He’s an annoying friend. Can you give me a head start before letting him go?”

“Sure, sweet girl, you go on ahead and we’ll bring you your clothes this afternoon. Now as for you, little man...” the woman began to add a threat to Elzen’s life.

Rilena didn’t wait to see how he fared. The idiot had brought it on himself for acting like a pervert. She still wasn’t sure that he wasn’t, but then again all boys seemed to be to one extent or another.

Deciding to avoid anymore potential embarrassment, the falcon intoned the stealth spell and disappeared from sight. The trip was only slightly more difficult while using the spell, so she found her room without incident and hid inside.

Pulling off her boots, the girl slipped underneath the blankets on her bed. The robe was warm but even with the fires running throughout the castle, her room was a little cold. Winter in a castle was beyond normal heating and few bothered the wizards about magically adjusting it to a more comfortable level.

The only problem for Rilena, as she lay beneath the covers, was that she was a bit tired from the ride and had nothing to do. Without clothing, beyond the simple robe, there was nowhere she could go, save maybe the bath house again. Once settled in her bed, the days of sleeping on the cold hard ground and long rides caught up to her.