Free Wartorn: Resurrection by Robert Asprin, Eric Del Carlo Page A

followed immediately and inevitably by a firm hand backed by a strong arm that shoved her face-first into the corridor's stone wall. The stone was cold. It was always cold, even in summer. This was Felk, after all, the Isthmus's northernmost city, and its climate wasn't as gentle as it was rumored to be in the south.
    There was nothing gentle about this place in particular. This was the Academy.
    Raven didn't try to turn her head. She heard laughter and counted at least three among her assailants.
    "I can't," Raven said, slowly and deliberately. She knew it did no good to show either fear or defiance.
    "Of
course
you can," said the girl who now had her tightly pinned. The girl was called Hert, and she certainly lived up to her name. "You're a wizard, aren't you?"
    "She sure thinks she is," said one of the others. More laughter followed.
    "I'm not," Raven said, as steadily as before, keeping control over her fear. Discipline was key to everything. "I'm in training. Just like you."
    "Oh, but you're so smart," said Hert. "So talented. You're the one who always wants the toughest exercises. If it was up to you, we'd all spend every watch studying and practicing. No sleep, no food. Not even a piss break."
    It wasn't true. But Raven didn't expect the others to share her zeal. Many of the Academy's students behaved like undisciplined children. She behaved like a student who meant to graduate to greater things. Much greater things.
    The hand pressed her harder. Raven's forehead and nose were now being mashed against the wall.
    "I said, walk through the wall."
    "I can't." Raven could barely get the words out. She tasted the wall's stone on her lips.
    "Oh, come on," Hert said. "It's just a transport spell. You can do it. And we want to see." The
    laughter that followed was louder and crueler.
    Raven sighed. She didn't have time for this. The long day's lessons were done, but she had studying to do in her room.
    Just a transport spell.
That was laughable, though Raven certainly didn't join in the laughter. The Far Movement magic that opened the portals through which people and even military equipment (so the gossip went) could be moved was very powerful. Only highly skilled and specialized mages could work it, and it required more than one wizard to do it. A mage had to be present at both ends of the transport corridor; the two had to be working in perfect harmony; they had to call upon powers far beyond Raven's present abilities. And even with all these efforts, they could only open portals that were very narrow—just enough, say, for a wagon to get through—and those portals could only be sustained for a limited time.
    There was no point in mentioning any of this to Hert, however.
    "Do it," Hert was saying, and now her tone turned darker with the promise of impending violence. "Do it!"
    There were monitors who patrolled the corridors, but none were nearby at the moment. Of course.
    Raven was going to have to do
something.
    She sighed again, then started gathering herself. She focused her mind and reached for those forces that aided in the acts of magic. Those forces, she'd been taught, were natural and always present. It was just a matter of tapping them, though it required a certain inherent talent and a great deal of discipline. Raven possessed both those ingredients.
    She felt the power move through her in a kind of giddy rush.
    Suddenly a discharge of sparks burst around her head. Her unbecoming dark hair rose up on end.
    The hand left her back. Someone gasped sharply.
    Raven let the minor spell dissipate. At last she turned, being careful to wear an apologetic look on her somewhat homely face.
    "I'm sorry," she said. "I tried but I couldn't get through the wall."
    Hert, who was as large as Raven but far more muscular, retreated a step, then caught herself. It wouldn't do to show any weakness in front of her cronies. Probably she would punch Raven now, just for good measure.
    But luck, finally, was on Raven's side. A monitor came