Wyrd: Book One of the Witch War Trilogy - WATTYS 2018 WINNER!

Chapter 18: Where Professor Joel teaches Swordplay and Magic

              The choppy waters of the open ocean stretched out beneath the clear, robin-egg-blue sky as far as the eye could see. It was an ideal sailing day, with nary a wispy cloud in sight. Except maybe one.

Laina Aary was... she was ... she was absolutely infuriating, Joel decided. Beautiful, certainly. But also stubborn, opinionated, confusing, and a huge pain in Joel's ...

Trying to help her discover her magical aptitudes was like getting in the ring to wrestle a Nainamsat devil. He had wanted to toss her overboard on more than one occasion, and this was only the afternoon of the first full day on a five-day sail.

Will Aary, on the other hand, was much more amenable. He seemed friendly and capable, if a little overeager to please — and show off for — the aloof Valkyrie, Sky.

***

Joel had dedicated day one of the trip to kinetics and sword training. He'd set up the perfect training course by casting a duplicate raw material spell over and over and over again; wooden deck boards had unfolded out of the boat on either side as if thrusts had been tucked underneath, giving them ample space to work with. The single mast stood tall and proud in the middle of The Lady Nerthus, the yellow crows' nest at the top, the white sails and rope ladders draped off the yardarm of what was now a strange looking boat.

"How did you —?" Will asked, clearly amazed at the show of magic. Laina's jaw had dropped before she quickly rearranged it into an expression of nonchalance.

"Where does the wood come from?" Laina asked. She cast a disparaging look at Joel's haphazard boat construction techniques.

He ignored the look because he was perplexed, and drawn in by her big stormy blue eyes, which were glinting with curiosity. "I ... hmm ... I hadn't really thought of it like that. I learn the spell, I do the spell. I tell the wood to duplicate and ta da! So if I'm honest, I'm not really sure where the wood comes from."

"It's like copy and paste," Will suggested to Laina.

She rolled her eyes. "Yes, but more importantly how? Did you steal it from somewhere? Is there a ship out there missing wood from its deck?"

"No. It's the exact same board that I create each time." His shoulders came up in a shrug as Will stepped over the gunnels onto a part of the new addition and inspected the wood for all the same flaws and markings as the original board.

"So then ..." Laina pointed to two of the Winnifreds who were manning the ship, "is that how...?"

Joel laughed, surprised. He was expecting a prompt "hells no" of protest from the little ladies, but they seemed buried in concentration as they guided their magic to move the ship along.

"No, no. They came into the world as duplicates," he answered grinning. "I don't think I could do that with a human being ... unless it was an illusion. Except maybe if I —." Then Joel's brain was whirring and whizzing as he thought of all the ways he could attempt such a feat. He cut his own train of thought off, realizing that he had other urgent matters to attend. This was a rabbit hole he couldn't afford to go down right now.

Joel called out to the Winnifreds: "Can you handle her like this?" The boat looked as if it had strange straight mahogany wings sticking out at the sides, and it was going to make her a trickier vessel to navigate.

Fred was at the helm, captaining the ship and grappling with a wheel almost as big as she was. Joel thought she was likely giving the other girls directions telepathically. Frederica was at the stern, directing wind into the sails and Winnie was up at the bow, coaxing the current of the water. Sky was supervising, which really meant she was admiring their obvious skills. All three tweenagers had stopped for a fraction of a second to give Joel their most 'unimpressed' expressions.