The Attack of Ganhai Mountain by Jason Richard (fox in socks read aloud txt) 📕

a spell of his own. Big deal. He still hasn't been that useful."
"Yeah, he never contributed anything to other meetings," said Dalib.
"You never let him!" said Kemra. "Besides, he's save our lives plenty of times."
"I don't care," said Maelin. "We don't need him."
Leevan was getting really angry, "Would you please stop talking about me as if I'm not here? I'm not invisible you know."
They all looked at him funny.
"I mean not right now," he covered quickly.
"Everyone shut up," said Jaxia, who had never looked so scary.
All eyes turned to her, dressed in her green robes. Leevan realized it was true. She could really make you terrified just by looking into people's eyes. The thing was, Leevan wasn't certain if she even needed magic to do it.
"Bendon, Dalib," she began. "Many of us have been playing follow the leader with Maelin a long time, especially when it came to being snotty to Leevan, but you two have acted like a couple of sheep forever. That's your business, but now it's annoying, so stop it."
Bendon nodded, and Dalib just stood there nervously.
"Maelin," continued Jaxia. "I don't know what problem you've have with Leevan here, but now it's getting out of hand. At first it seemed like you might have a point about him, so it wasn't worth making trouble, but now this borders on ridiculous."
Funny, Leevan was thinking the same thing.
"Jaxia you" began Maelin.
"Shut up," she replied quickly. "I don't know what it is with you, but it's your problem. You better sort it out with him, or it will be you who doesn't join this talk."
"You're not in char" Maelin was cut off by a sharp look.
"That's it," said Jaxia. "The rest of us will keep talking, and then either Leevan or both of you will join us. After all that's happened I think his opinion will be more trustworthy anyway."
Maelin scowled and walked off. Jaxia looked at Leevan as if to say 'go on,' and Leevan reluctantly followed. Kemra nodded at him encouragingly, but he still didn't feel like talking to Maelin. Still, he had to try.
Jaxia might kill him otherwise. That girl was scary!

Chapter Twelve
Unintentional Confessions

"Maelin wait," said Leevan.
They had wandered away from the group and behind a large boulder. Maelin was holding and looking at his sun amulet. He seemed confused, though Leevan couldn't guess why. Maelin looked at him angrily. Leevan had to ask, once and for all.
"What is it?" said Leevan. "Why do you always put me down? I've always just tried to help and I've never done anything to hurt you."
"You've never done anything useful either."
Now it was Leevan who was angry. "You know full well that isn't true."
"Well, no one believed in you before today, so what does that tell you?"
"My father" Leevan started to say.
"Your Father?" Maelin looked offended. "You're Father believed in you? What a joke. My father pushed me to be the best. And I am. I am the most respected magician here."
"I won't argue with you there."
"So tell me this. Why is it that your father respects you when you're only second rate, but my father doesn't when I'm the best in my league?"
At that moment, Leevan understood. "You really are jealous of me aren't you? Just not in the way I thought. That's right isn't it?"
Maelin turned away angrily, but Leevan wasn't done yet.
"You know," he said. "My father didn't believe I could be the best."
"No?
"No. That would imply he expected me to be the best. All he wanted was for me to be the best I could be, not the best of all."
A moment of silence and then, "That's silly."
"Maybe so, but let's forget about that now. Right now we have a job to do. We're supposed to be figuring out how to get up this mountain. There's more at stake than you and me. Let's forget everything and focus on the task at hand, and that's defeating Hurvun."
Another moment of silence, and then. "Fine."
They turned back to join the other magicians, hopefully they would be able to complete their mission. Leevan looked at Maelin, but Maelin looked away. At least they wouldn't be at each other's throats anymore.
Or so Leevan hoped.

Chapter Thirteen
This is good?

The sun set in the distance, casting twilight over all of them. General Hevman surveyed the camp of soldiers and magicians at the foot of the mountain. He had everyone's attention so far. He nodded approvingly at Leevan, who nodded back. Leevan was thankful for the respect and listened attentively to the General, who spoke loudly and clearly.
"Night has fallen. We have one spell that can help us defeat Hurvun, and now comes the final question. Magicians, do you have a spell to get us up this treacherous mountain?"
Maelin replied, "We do sir. We all worked on getting it ready, but the actual spell was Kemra's idea."
"Well then Kemra," said the general. "let's hear your idea."
Kemra stepped forward. As she did Leevan glanced out of the corner of his eye and saw Normir, still out of his armor. He seemed downhearted. It was then that Leevan realized he had looked like that before going up the mountain the last time...any time mentioning that he would have to fight his own people, the cyclopses, and he looked as he did now.
It wasn't hard to guess why.
"As you know," said Kemra. "The mountain is too slippery to climb due to Hurvun's spell, however the obvious way to get around that would be to fly up. That fog that our eagle men ran into would leave us open to attack, however, and therefore there is only one place we can go that will keep us out of harm's way."
"And where is that?" asked the general.
"Somewhere in the middle. The spell we've created will let us walk on the air itself a few feet above the ground. Too high for the slippery spell, and even the traps for that matter, and too low for the fog to catch us."
Leevan was impressed. The spell had eventually been sorted out by appealing to the fact that one must breath air to live. This means that air wouldn't want to take lives, so it will let them walk on it and over the danger.
General Hevman smiled and clapped. The soldiers clapped along. "Well done magicians!" said the General. "Well done! Alright, magicians, get to work readying these spells; walking on air and invisibility. We march up the mountain tomorrow, and then...we will attack Hurvun without him knowing it!"
"Hoorah!" cried the army as one! Everyone shouted, over and over again...except one.
Leevan saw Normir again, still downhearted. He had seemed fine not long ago, even optimistic, when they couldn't go up, but now...Leevan wanted to help him. He walked right up to him amid all the cheering.
"Normir," he said. "I'll find a way to show your people the truth."
Normir looked at him sadly and said, "Thank you...but you don't even know what spell Hurvun used to deceive them."
"It's dark magic. He forced the spell to work. He doesn't negotiate like we do with our magic."
"That's not what I meant. Does literally change what they hear and see? Does he affect their minds directly? If the latter, why does he need to deceive them at all? If you don't know what the spell is how can you change it?"
Leevan couldn't answer.
"Don't get me wrong," said the cyclops. "I'd like nothing more than to free my people of that deception, but we can't. I'm going to have to fight them, even if I don't want to. There is too much at stake."
Leevan wasn't sure if Normir even believed that, but the young magician nodded his head anyway. Normir was right. How would he beat a spell when he didn't know how it worked? You don't necessarily need magic to break a spell, just step outside of its needs, but you do need to know how the spell works to do it."
"Follow me," said Normir. "I have something for you." He put his hand on Leevan's shoulder. "Don't worry, I'll be fine."
Leevan, surprised, followed. He did worry, and he wondered how he could help Normir.
He decided, if there was a way, he would do it without question.

Chapter Fourteen
I've got it!

Leevan's jaw dropped when he saw it. It was a suit of armor, not unlike that which Normir wore, but it was obviously made for a human as it had a visor instead of a single eye hole. It rested off to the side of the camp, in the shadow of one of the larger boulders, and it was fantastic! It was so intricately woven that it seemed to have no weak point!
"It's Hideous," said Leevan.
"Thank you," said Normir. "That was the criteria for you invisibility spell wasn't it?"
It was. Leevan even saw a place engraved in the armor where his sun medallion would fit. It was ugly, covered in barbed spikes and with metal that looked tarnished, but that just meant he could fight invisible in it, and aside from that it was such a fine piece of metal that Leevan had to ask
"This is for me?"
"Yes," said Normir proudly. "I had some metal hidden at the foot of the mountain and I was trying to figure out what to do with it. Naturally this is what I came up with."
"But" said Leevan, confused. "Wouldn't general Hevman be the obvious choice?"
"I spoke with him, and we agreed we should protect the magician who has the best chance of beating Hurvun."
Leevan didn't know what to say, except, "Thank you."
"You're welcome. Go ahead, try it on."
Leevan grinned.
It took a while to put the armor on, for it was every bit as intricate as it looked. Normir had to help, but eventually Leevan was able to stand there in full battle armor. Again, it was hideous, but that was the point. Besides, Leevan thought it made him look rather scary.
"It's great Normir," he said. "But...why give it to me? I mean why really?"
The cyclops sighed. "Well, you were the first person not to judge me for being the same species as our enemy. Well, second actually. General Hevman didn't either...that's why he let me tag along but...you were the first one to ask why I was the only cyclops fighting Hurvun. I can't thank you enough for that."
Leevan smiled. "It just seemed like an obvious question." He admired his hideous armor some more, and then asked. "I guess you aren't too concerned about people finding out your metalworking secrets."
"No, not really. I doubt you could guess our craft, even if you studied the armor for a thousand years. Although, I was probably the only cyclops who wasn't afraid of that."
Leevan stopped and looked at Normir very seriously. "You were the only one? Are you sure?"
"Positive."
Leevan had a sudden revelation, "Normir, we need to speak to general Hevman now."

"Normir is the only cyclops who doesn't fear us stealing his metal craft!"