Way of The Wand

The first thing that caught Tomi’s eyes was Daila’s all black outfit. Her hair was packed in a pony tail, which together with her tight black outfit and thick boots, gave her an imposing look.

Compared to Daila, Tomi looked underdressed. She had her braids in a bun, a pair of fitted trousers and a cropped dashiki shirt.

While Tomi was busy comparing outfits, Daila wasted no time in attacking and unleashed an arc of fire from her hands.

Tomi countered by pointing her wand towards the spray of flames and yelling, “Water.”

Water erupted from her wand and doused the flames, resulting in a cloud of vapour that blocked Tomi’s visibility.

She heard something cut through the air. Without seeing anything, Tomi ducked, and not a moment too soon as a knife flew over her head a second after.

“Clear,” Tomi said, pointing her wand at the cloud of vapour.

The vapour cleared, and Tomi could see once more.

Daila manifested a bardiche axe in her arms and came at Tomi with it.

Tomi backed away from the sharp blade, throwing herself to side as Daila rushed at her with it again.

Tomi aimed her wand at Daila. “Blast!”

Daila jumped out of the way in time to dodge the spell. Angry, she threw the axe at Tomi with all her might.

Tomi pointed her wand at the incoming weapon. “Blast!” She said, and the weapon was blasted back by the spell.

Daila manifested two swords, one in each hand, and cut at Tomi.

Tomi side swept the attacks, but when Daila swept a sword at her legs, Tomi jumped back to avoid being hit.

Landing, she pointed at the area Daila was standing and whispered, “Quicksand.”

Immediately, the soil around Daila changed and started sucking her into the ground.

Thinking Daila captured, Tomi rushed at Daila to finish the fight but was forced back when Daila flung out her swords.

Daila summoned her strength and launched herself into the air, using her power of flight to overcome Tomi’s quicksand spell.

“That was pretty good,” she said to Tomi, “but not good enough.”

Daila then gestured with her hands, using her power to rip the ground apart like an earthquake.

Tomi fell, her wand slipping out her hand and rolling out of reach.

Daila levitated into the air then motioned to the sky and summoned lighting.

Tomi reached into the pocket of her shirt and pulled out an extra wand. “Dome!” She shouted in urgency, casting a protective dome over herself just a second before the lightning hit her.

The dome was shattered by the lightning, but it did its job keeping Tomi safe.

“Impressive,” Daila said, returning to the ground. “You brought an extra wand.”

“I’m always a step ahead,” Tomi taunted in reply.

“You’ll run out of tricks soon,” Daila responded, manifesting a chain and lashing it out so that it wrapped around Tomi’s wand wielding hand.

Daila yanked on the hand, hoping to force the wand out of Tomi’s hand and render her powerless, but Tomi, ever the fast thinker, simply whispered, “Switch,” and the wand appeared in her free hand.

The unexpected move gave her the upper hand for a quick second. She yelled, “Blast,” and Daila was knocked several feet into the air by the power of the spell, before falling face flat to the ground.

The crowd cheered for Tomi, further annoying Daila, who then raised large pieces of the earth that had broken up during the earthquake and rained them down on Tomi.

Tomi dropped to the ground and rolled away to safety. As the last piece came down on her, she sprang back up, pointed to it, and yelled, “Return.”

The piece zoomed back at Daila.

Daila made a crushing gesture with her fist and the piece of earth crushed to dust. She manifested chains again and whipped it out so that the chains caught Tomi by the leg.

Before Tomi could break free, Daila charged up the chains with lightning, shocking Tomi and causing the younger girl to be thrown backwards several feet.

Daila let the chains drop and flew to Tomi, summoning a dagger and coming down on Tomi to stab her with it.

Tomi rolled away. Her wand had been knocked out from her hand again, and this time, she didn’t have a back-up. She knew she was screwed.

The axe that Daila had summoned earlier was lying by Tomi’s feet.

Tomi kicked it up and swiped at Daila when the wizard came at her.

Daila twisted away in the air, manifesting another dagger and charging back at Tomi.

Tomi tried to force Daila back by swiping the axe at Daila’s head, but Daila came still, only bending aside a small angle to avoid being hit in the face.

They ended up hurting each other.

Tomi got Daila in the arm with the axe, while Daila stabbed Tomi in the side with the dagger.

Both ladies roiled back in pain.

Daila simply waved over her injury with her other hand and healed herself.

When Tomi fetched a tiny flask containing a healing potion from her pocket, Daila raised a stone from the ground and cast it at the tiny bottle, shattering it and wasting its contents.

Daila then sent another lightning bolt at Tomi.

Tomi abandoned the axe, dropped to the ground and rolled towards her wand, picking it up as she sprung back to her feet.

She pointed to the other wand and said, “Animate.” The wand came flying straight to her.

Armed with two wands now, one in each hand, Tomi started to feel more confident.

“It changes nothing,” Daila screamed and summoned a powerful whirlwind, sending it Tomi’s way.

“Rock,” Tomi said, conjuring up a rock to protect her from the wind’s destructive force.

Daila had had enough of the games and simply charged at Tomi, tackling her and lifting her into the air.

Tomi wrenched free from Daila’s grasp and fell back to the ground hard. She noticed that in the tackle, Daila had taken one of her wands.

“Explode,” Tomi said and the wand in Daila’s hand blew up, sending Daila to the ground.

Tomi pointed at the chains Daila had manifested and yelled, “Restrict.” The chains zoomed to Daila and wound around her.

Tomi went over to Daila, writhing on the ground as she tried to free herself. “Give up. You’re done.”

“Never!” Daila refused.

Tomi pointed her wand at the chains. “Tighter.”

The chains squeezed Daila tighter.

Unable to bear the pain any longer, Daila gave in. “I surrender.”

The crowd broke into a spiritous cheer. Never in the kingdom’s memory had a witch beaten a wizard in a duel.

“Release,” Tomi said, and the chains uncoiled around Daila.

Tomi’s mates charged into the stage and swept her off her feet. “Tomi! Tomi! Tomi!” The chant rang out, even louder than the previous times.

Kalinda sat transfixed on her chair. A witch hadn’t just beaten a wizard, a child had beaten her oldest daughter, the most powerful student at her school.

Her pale face became as white as a ghost’s, especially when the king rose and turned to face her and Jira.

“Your Majesty,” Jira bowed, elbowing Kalinda in the side to snap her out of her shock.

“Your Majesty,” Kalinda repeated, bending low.

King Bolu smiled. “Your champion won,” he said to Jira. “Impressive. You must be a great teacher.”

“I don’t know Your Majesty,” Jira blushed, “I think it’s more that Tomi is an especially talented witch.”

“That may be so,” King Bolu agreed, “but props to you for knowing how to manage that talent.”

He beckoned on his daughter beside him to rise. “This is my daughter, Toye. She’s interested in studying witchcraft. At first, I dismissed it as a child’s ignorance, but given what I’ve seen here today, I now believe I was the ignorant one.”

Toye waved shyly to Jira and Kalinda.

“Jira,” the king continued, “it would please me greatly if you do me the honour of taking in my daughter as your student.”

Jira’s throat dried up. “What? You want…you want me to be your daughter’s, the princess’ teacher?”

“If it’s not too much trouble.”

Jira covered her mouth with her hands to contain her excitement.

The king nudged with his head, indicating he still hadn’t received an answer.

“Of course,” Jira said, “I would absolutely love to be your teacher.” Jira shook her head. “I mean your daughter’s teacher.”

The king laughed off Jira’s mistake. “I’ll have my guards bring you to the palace later. We’ll talk more then.”

“As you wish,” Jira bowed, still smiling.

The king took Toye by the hand and led her away.

After the king departed, Kalinda turned to Jira. “You were right, and I was wrong.”

“I’ve waited all my life to hear those words from you.”

Kalinda laughed. “Well, you and all the witches in the land have earned my respect, and it’s safe to say you’ve earned everyone else’s too. And, I’m proud of you. I guess those are the words you’ve always wanted to hear from me.”

For the first time she could remember, Jira was truly grateful to her Mum. None of this would have happened if she hadn’t suggested they had the tournament. She pulled Kalinda in for an embrace, one filled with love and warmth.

Jira backed away and stared into her mother’s sky-blue eyes. “Thank you, Mum. None of this would have happened without you.”

Kalinda’s heart filled with joy. She smiled as Jira left her side to go join her students in celebrating. She was so engrossed in watching them celebrate that she didn’t even realise when Kano crept up on her.

“Mother what is this?” Kano asked, showing Kalinda a diary bound in black leather.

Kalinda grabbed the diary from Kano. “Where’d you get that?” She scolded.

“I caught a glimpse of it when I was in your office, which was weird, because I know that’s where you used to write down your dreams, but I thought you’d stop having them. So, last night I snuck back into your office and took it.”

Kano stopped for breath. “It says in that diary that you knew this was going to happen, that you had a vision and everything you’ve done up till now was to make that vision become reality.”

“Not exactly. You know how those dreams of mine work. You can’t never tell which is just a dream and which is a prediction of the future. Besides, I wasn’t sure what was happening. None of my dreams have come to pass in years and I was beginning to think I’d lost the gift.”

Kano shook is head. “So, you knew Daila was going to lose from the start?”

“I didn’t,” Kalinda said, “I didn’t see that part. But I did see Jira coming home after the tournament. And that’s what made me do it.”

“Daila isn’t going to believe this.”

Kalinda’s head dropped. “You can’t tell your sister.”

“Which one?”

“Either one,” Kalinda snapped back.

“Well you were right Mum. I had no idea what your grand plan was.”

Metres away in the distance, in the heart of a jubilant crowd of witches converged around Jira, Daila swallowed her pride and walked up to her sister.

The crowd dispersed on seeing Daila. She might have lost, but she still commanded the people’s fear and respect.

“Congratulations,” Daila said, and this time, her words bore no venom. “Your pupil won fair and square.”

Jira gave her sister the most generous smile. “Thank you. It’s means a lot coming from you.”

Daila exhaled heavily. She still had more to say. She was good at many things, but not at this, communicating her emotions in non-destructive ways wasn’t one of her strengths.

“This isn’t easy for me but, I guess I had to be beaten to realize I was wrong to have been angry with you all this time. You’re your own person. You have a right to make your own choices, to forge your own path, to have and follow your own dreams. I tried to make you walk in my footsteps, and when you turned from it, it made me bitter, but not anymore.”

She paused to exhale again. “I guess what I’m trying to say is, my Dad was right. We always have something new to learn, and something old to unlearn. Today showed me a truth you’ve always tried to teach me. Witchcraft is just as awesome as wizardry.”

Jira was all smiles as her sister drooled on her and on. “Maybe even slightly better?”

“Don’t push it,” Daila cautioned, making Jira laugh even louder. Daila put her right hand forward. “Truce?”

Jira ignored the hand and hugged Daila, squeezing as hard as she could.

Daila hugged back, at first hesitantly, then losing herself in the embrace.

“Gods I’ve missed you,” Jira said.

Daila abruptly pulled back from Jira causing the latter to develop a fazed expression.

Daila lolled her head to the side. “The embrace was getting too long, and I still have a reputation to maintain.” She winked at Jira and whispered, “I’ll be seeing you around sis.”

Jira smiled. This was one day she would never forget.