Flight Mage Seraph

Students

Flight students, Seraph had told his pupils, had one building dedicated to their training. Sara had hoped that it would be the large, white one that stood opposite her dormitory, but it turned out to be a squat structure with a low ceiling and narrow windows, most of them smashed. Inside, dusty equipment was shoved against two of the remaining three walls; the fourth wall was a huge hole. Sara and the other pupils were unimpressed and, from the scowl on his face, so was Seraph.

"It seems the builders haven't started here yet," he said, "I'm sorry about the damage, but we'll simply have to make do."

"Do we have to train here?" Bee whined.

"Yes," he sighed. "The low ceiling and the padding on the floors and walls prevent serious injuries among beginners. For safety's sake, you must remain inside until you reach intermediate level."

"And when would that happen?"

The other students gazed at Seraph expectantly. Every one of them preferred the freedom and space of the open air, especially compared to this claustrophobic room.

He shrugged helplessly. "It varies. Some of you will be ready to progress in months, others years and a few never."

Several children began to protest.

"Quiet!" Seraph cried. "Now, listen up. We'll need only half of this space today, so I need you to keep away from the damaged wall. Anyone seen near the opening will be detained after class. I am serious about this. You cannot fly outside without adult supervision and I can't supervise everyone."

"What about Chinze?" Bee insisted. "Can't she do that?"

"Indoors only," Seraph said, and he looked so stern that nobody dared to argue further.

Without further ado, he began his training, which turned out to be the same floating exercise that Sara had practiced during their journey. To her surprise, about half of the students not only fell the first time they attempted it but also continued to tumble after he'd taught his balancing technique. Soon, curses spewed from several pupils and Seraph was flying from student to student.

"You're counting too fast, Bee. Here. Use this hourglass.

"Relax, Paul. Floating's more difficult if you're tense.

"Imagine that giant lifting a higher part of your body. No, not the neck!"

Unfortunately, he now had no time to instruct the more advanced students. Sara gave Rosalie an exasperated look.

"Seraph's supposed to have an assistant," Rosalie said, "but Chinze is—"

"Not at geography class."

Chinze flew through the hole and smoothly landed before the started students.

"Bronze had a panic attack," she informed Seraph. "It's not for the first time, so Din wants to find a replacement teacher before resuming geography classes. Looks like you'll have an assistant for a while."

Seraph was clearly shocked. "He wasn't at all like that before the invasion!"

"I know." She seemed upset too.

"We must visit him later then," he said grimly. "In the meantime, could you teach Hawk, Rosalie and Kite horizontal flight for me?"

"Sure thing!" she replied and when she turned to face the trio, she had a large smile plastered on her face.

"Horizontal flight?" Sara asked.

Somehow, those words had left a queasy feeling in her stomach.

"It's one of the best things you'll ever learn," Chinze assured her. "It helps you fly faster and longer, and it makes turning easier. Once you learn horizontal flight, you'll never use vertical flight again!"

"The hardest part is going from vertical to horizontal," Rosalie told Sara.

"And vice versa," Chinze added. "Most flight mages start with the three-point method, where you support three parts of your body instead of one."

"And this the method Seraph learned?" Kite asked.

"You should ask him," she grinned. "He skipped beginner-level training and rumour has it that his very first flight was horizontal! But that's why he's Seraph and we're not.

"As I was saying, that's actually the harder method. The blanket technique is easier—although traditionalists insist on teaching the other method—and flight mages eventually learn something similar anyway. What you do is imagine yourself tightly wrapped in a blanket. Imagine it lifting and then tipping…"

It turned out to be the best lesson Sara ever had.

---
Seraph rushed to his spirit class. He was already late and it would not do to leave an even more unfavourable first impression on the Master Mage himself. Seraph hoped that Fade was not as harsh as Din—or worse.

He flew through a corridor window, ignoring the shocked and annoyed looks from nearby mages, stepped in front of a door and knocked.

"Enter," a gruff voice said.

Seraph winced. The man certainly did not sound pleasant.

"Sorry I'm late, Master Mage," he said as he pushed the door open.

Only it wasn't the Master Mage. Fade, according to Combustion, was a thin, old man who was bent over a stick. The teacher at the front of the room was stout, at least 30 years younger and ramrod straight. Several of his students sniggered.

"S-sorry, sir. Wrong room."

He began to close the door, but the man stopped him with a commanding gesture.

"Stay," he ordered. "The Master Mage is ill, so I am taking over for a while.

"You are Seraph, are you not? The Master Mage has told me that you would arrive late from a prior class. You may sit here." He tapped the desk directly in front of him.

That was the last place Seraph wanted to be, but he hurriedly obeyed, hoping that attention would shift back to the teacher.

His hope was in vain. It soon became clear that the other pupils were much more interested in him. The two on either side kept casting suspicious glances in his direction and he could feel the hostile stares of the 30 or so students behind him. Increasing he felt too unsettled to concentrate on the lesson. And when he did listen, he couldn't understand a word that came from that man's mouth.

The teacher suddenly pointed to the back corner of the room. "You!" he said. "Let's see you perform that task."

A nervous boy nervously walked to the front of the classroom and gestured towards the teacher's desk. Seraph leaned forward, trying to see just what it was he was meant to learn, but the tiny ghost disappeared almost as soon as it had appeared.

"Pathetic," the teacher snorted. Again, he pointed to the back of the classroom. "See if you can do better."

And so he continued, moving methodically from left to right and back to front. To Seraph's puzzlement, most students performed no better than the first. The teacher, meanwhile, grew increasingly frustrated.

"Imbeciles!" he raged. "If you had paid attention to me instead of the flight mage, you wouldn't be squeezing those little spirits out of the living realm!"

Fortunately, at least two students managed to please him. The first produced a fly spirit that flew halfway across the room before vanishing. The second kept a caterpillar ghost in her hand for a lengthier time. From his seat, Seraph marvelled as he gazed upon the fragile soul, which seemed so content crawling along her palm. Soon, however, it shrank back and began to fade. The girl gasped in alarm and extended firm tendrils around the insect, but as soon as these tightened, it imploded.

"At least you paid attention," the teacher said. "We have time for one more student. You!"

His finger almost jabbed into Seraph's face.

"S-sir?" the flight mage stammered.

The man grabbed his arm and hauled him to his feet. "Yes, I know it isn't your turn yet, but you look like you have no idea what I've taught today."

"Well—"

The teacher cut him off. "That was not a question. Of course a mage from an 'action' school such as yours would flounder in a more intellectual school like mine. And since you've skipped beginner and intermediate classes, so you wouldn't understand our vocabulary either, would you?

"Now, you will require much practice to become as competent as your fellow students, so Fade and I will give you simpler versions of the tasks and…"

Seraph rolled his eyes. He wondered whether this teacher and Din came from the same cradle. Both took an instant dislike to him and both seemed to regard him as incompetent. Muttering softly to himself, the flight mage rolled up a sleeve and gestured towards his desk.

Without the demonstrations, Seraph would have been unable to produce an insect spirit, let alone keep it from disappearing, but he'd gained enough information now—he hoped. This magic consisted of two stages. The easier part was shunting the ghost into the 'living realm'. After that, he had to keep the spirit without using his tendrils of compulsion, since these would push the fragile soul back into its own world. That meant he had to use gentle persuasion, but how could he gently persuade an insect?

The creature Seraph summoned turned out to be a hairy, black spider almost the size of his palm.

"That's too big," the teacher scoffed. Seraph noticed the surprise in his voice though; the man clearly had not expected the flight mage to produce any small spirit.

The ghost, however, was fading. In desperation, the flight mage sent a mental image of a fly. The phantom stopped its retreat and produced its own picture: of a fly in its own awful jaws. Seraph almost threw up, but he persisted. He knew how to communicate with the spider in a non-verbal manner now and he would not give up.

Seraph followed up with images of other prey and the ghost responded by showing him moving pictures of itself, boasting of its hunting prowess. Slowly, Seraph relaxed. This creature was not that repulsive.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

He jumped. He'd forgotten that he was in a class. Then, remembering the spider spirit, Seraph looked down again, but it had disappeared.

The teacher shook himself out of his stupor. "Right! Now that three pupils have shown how it should be done, I want everyone to practice the art of detaining mini-souls. And Seraph?"

"Sir?"

"In addition to learning the spirit vocabulary, practice on smaller souls tonight. I expect a fly ghost next class."

His tone remained haughty, but when he winked, Seraph knew that he'd earned the teacher's respect. Filled with renewed optimism, the flight mage left in search of Chinze. He found her outside his room, trying to remove a dead bird nailed to his door.

---

After a week, Sara had an idea of what subjects she did and didn't like. Her favourites were Flight: Practice, Flight: Theory and Sports. Close behind were Literacy, General Magic and Music. Religion was rather boring, but she always listened eagerly when her teacher talked of angels. Sara liked Mathematics too. As for Geography and Science, maybe she would come to appreciate them—eventually.

The one subject she hated was History. Most of the lessons consisted of blood-drenched stories from the Mage War, tales that made her feel ill. Each of the accounts detailed the assaults of the Eastern forces and, unfortunately, they often depicted horrendous acts made by generations of flight mages, including Seraph's own. Even after hearing his confession and seeing the results of his battles, she couldn't imagine him doing half of what her History teacher, Fray, said he did.

Her fellow students were even more upset, and Bee actually confronted him with the allegations during a Flight class. To her surprise, Seraph denied only one of them outright, although he question a few others. Nevertheless, he was concerned enough to complain to Din, with no discernable result. Fray continued repeating every claim.

The tales may not have troubled her so much if she didn't share History classes with students from other schools. It was the reactions of 'West-school' children that she truly feared. So far, they have only glowered and made obscene gestures towards the East-school students, but under Fray's apparent indifference, the bullying was becoming more obvious and indiscriminate. Even Sara, who had lived in West Sentralia almost her whole life, no longer felt safe.

To her left, a trio of West-school boys whispered among each other. Her ears unwillingly strained to hear them, even though she knew that whatever they're saying was insulting.

And then one of the boys, the Easterner, turned to her. Their eyes met only briefly, but she knew she was in trouble. That sneer, from an Easterner—the line was being redrawn!

Clang! Clang! Clang!

Sara quickly gathered her books, glad that her desk was closest to the door. She was the third to leave, just after Rosalie.

After Rosalie? Sara blinked. How did a girl five years her junior and two desks behind move so rapidly?

"Rosalie!"

The little girl whipped her head back and Sara saw terror in her eyes.

"Let's go together," she said kindly. "We'll put away our books and then we can go to the hall for lunch."

Rosalie accepted the proferred hand with some relief, but she looked back nervously. Sara knew why; the boys were following.

Her mind raced as she considered the possibilities. Sara was certain they wanted to attack her and Rosalie; what she didn't know was when they'd pounce. It couldn't be in the dining hall, or on the path linking the hall to the main building. At both places, students and teachers willing to rescue the girls would outnumber the boys. But in the corridors? The main building had many of them, and there were several between the classroom and the flight school's dormitory.

"Pretend you don't know they're there," she whispered, keeping her face resolutely ahead. "Eyes forward and don't walk so fast. They won't attack while there are people all around us and we're safe when we reach Seraph."

Rosalie looked up, startled, and then she nodded.

They turned into a small, shadowy corridor. Sara knew it was often empty and therefore a perfect place for the bullies, but only if she wasn't prepared. Without a sound, Sara launched herself into the air and, alerted by a tug on her hand, Rosalie followed. They landed on top of a dusty cupboard, and in a particularly dark corner.

The trio arrived a moment later. They stared into the corridor, mouths agape.

"Did you hear them walk through?" one boy asked.

"They must have flown!" another said. "They'll be in big trouble, flying outside class like that."

"Shut your face! We'll be the ones in trouble if they find a sympathetic teacher—we and half our school! After them!"

Sara watched as the boys sped away. Half the sound school, huh? She and Rosalie would have to avoid more people than she'd anticipated reaching Seraph, and probably more if other Western schools were involved.

"Come," she said and floated down.

"Where would we find Seraph?" Rosalie asked. "He's never in the hall for lunch."

"He's in the library, with Combustion. Where else?"