One of the judges conferred with another, then turned and yelled, "The novice Felecia is disqualified! The win goes to Hennet Dragonborn!"
What a world, Hennet thought as the crowd cheered. He was going to the final round!
Though physically mended, Hennet was tired. He felt he'd be lucky to dredge up the strength to cast even one more spell, let alone the three or four he would need to put up a real fight in the final round.
He looked around, up into the loud, surging stands. Ember was still there, waving. He gave her a thumbs-up sign, despite his doubts. She smiled back. Her smile was like ambrosia. She had seen him win twice against difficult odds. Knowing she was there had helped him in those matches. How much better would it be if she saw him win the Golden Wand? Perhaps she'd give him a victory kiss.
How much better would that be than winning the Golden Wand?
Hennet didn't know whether he could win against Aganon. He did know, however, that he couldn't back down, he couldn't even do less than his very best. Ember might understand if he lost, but not if he gave up. During the past few days, she replaced the wand as the prize he sought. Ember was the goal.
A tap on his shoulder brought Hennet around. It was Nebin. If Hennet hadn't known already, he'd have guessed the gnome was out from the way his goggles perched askew on his head.
"I'm sorry, Nebin," Hennet consoled. "I half expected us to face each other in the final."
Nebin waved away his concern and said, "Don't worry about it. Look at you! I never really thought I'd get as far as I did, and here you are a step from the Golden Wand, worrying about me. You'd better concentrate on Aganon. He's a beast." The gnome pointed.
There Aganon stood, grinning like a demon with his eyes closed. His mouth moved as if he spoke to someone, but no one stood nearby. He clasped his hands as if praying; Hennet realized he was offering obeisance or thanks to some god, and wondered which. Hennet's eyes were drawn to Aganon's scroll-stuffed satchel.
"He must have friends willing to contribute to the cause. I hope those scrolls are just messages wishing good luck. If they're all spells…well, I'm pretty tired."
Nebin snapped his fingers and said, "I almost forgot! Here, take this." The gnome produced a scroll tube. "This is a spell we retrieved from the catacombs. It's not a sure-fire winner, but it's better than nothing."
Hennet examined the scroll, sealed with wax stamped with the gnome's personal symbol. To the gnome, every penned scroll was precious. Hennet realized that Nebin was making a real sacrifice, though he played it down.
"Thank you, Nebin. I appreciate your friendship, you know," said Hennet.
"Ah, you'd do the same in my boots. Now listen, here's what you need to do…"
The gnome leaned close. Hennet bent over, and Nebin whispered his plan, such as it was, into the sorcerer's ear. Hennet grinned on hearing it. He wondered about the wizard sometimes.
A judge wearing the badge of the Floating Tower summoned Hennet and Aganon to the central ring. Because this was the final round of the novice competition, the other matches paused. The whole stadium focused on Hennet and Aganon. Hennet steeled himself. He had to ignore the distracting roar of the coliseum and approach the bout like any other. Despite his resolve, he realized the duel's outcome was all that stood between him and the Golden Wand-and, possibly, Ember.
He stared at Aganon with hard eyes, and the man glared back undaunted. Aganon held one hand half raised, ready to cast at the drop of a copper. Hennet raised a hand in the same manner, though he had no spell clearly in mind.
And so it began.
His tried-and-true barrage of enchanted missiles was unlikely to win him the match. Hennet didn't know if he had the resources to call even one. He had Nebin's scroll, but it wouldn't work immediately, not while Aganon remained where he stood. Hennet had to get the man to move. No spell he'd ever learned could do that.
That left one option. Hennet had to reach for magic he'd never before cast. During his daily meditations, hints of power whispered from the caves of his subconscious. What was the meaning In those whispers? Something was there….
An arrow of liquid acid stabbed into his forearm. Hennet yelled as the glob bubbled and burned on his arm, wispy tendrils of smoke winding up from a point of agony.
"You make this too easy!" taunted Aganon. "Continue standing still, and save yourself some grief."
The pain from the acid was intense, like a drill…like a goad…or better yet, like a torch of brilliant flame. Was it a torch Hennet could use? He imagined that torch probing the edges of his conscious mind, casting a dimly flickering illumination into the whispery shadows where subconscious revelations hid. And there he found something. It was only a strand of power, maybe the tail of a racial memory of spellcasting, but Hennet saw himself grasping it, grappling with it, pulling it into the full light of consciousness. It was none of the things he'd imagined, and it was all of them and more. It was one more piece of the knowledge that lay latent within him since his birth, a legacy shared through countless ages by every sorcerer, thanks to imperceptible traces of dragon blood running in their veins.
Hennet uttered a string of syllables new to his lips and disappeared.
Aganon paused. He looked around the ring, then at the judge, who merely shrugged.
Aganon frowned and said, "Hiding isn't going to help, you know. There is a time limit. All I have to do is stand here, and I win."
Hennet wasn't sure the spell had worked until Aganon spoke. He looked down, exulting to see himself only as a vague, ghostly outline. No one else could see even that much. This was a moment of discovery to savor, but there was no time. As Aganon pointed out, invisibility alone would not win the match. Meanwhile, the acid in his forearm continued burning, weakening him slowly. He couldn't risk brushing it off for fear of spreading the caustic mess and making the injury and the pain worse.
He crept toward Aganon, aware that invisibility would neither conceal his footprints in the gravel nor cover the sound of grinding pebbles. His opponent stood closer to the center of the ring than the edge. Hennet wanted Aganon near the edge.
Hennet also knew, through his subconscious, that casting a spell at Aganon would dispel his own invisibility. The simplest solutions are often the best, he reminded himself. Moving as slowly as he dared under the match's time limit, Hennet stole to within a foot of Aganon, who stood unmoving, listening. When Hennet was just beyond arm's reach from Aganon, he lunged forward and clapped his hands, creating a mighty thwack! inches from Aganon's ear.
The wizard shrieked and scuttled backward. In fact, he tripped and almost--almost-fell right out of the ring. That would have been too easy, thought Hennet as he carefully unrolled the scroll Nebin had given him.
Aganon's features resumed their stoic cast. "Crude, and sad, too," he chided. "A magical strategy suited for children, perhaps. You make a mockery of the Duel Arcane. Show yourself. Is this a contest of magic, or buffoonery? Ah, there you are!"
Hennet faded back into view. In one hand he held Nebin's scroll. As he finished his quiet incantation, the inked arcane syllables faded from view, indicating that the magic stored in the parchment was expended. There was no obvious effect.
There was no shortage of excitement near Aganon, however. Roaring flames fanned from his outstretched fingers. They washed up against the sorcerer and kindled Nebin's scroll. Hennet dropped the smoking parchment and backed away, avoiding most of the spray of flames. Aganon followed, flames still spewing from his splayed fingers, in an attempt to force Hennet out the other side of the circle. Hennet knew that if his gambit didn't pay off soon, he would have to either step out of the ring or be burned alive.