Academy for Officers of the Imperial Army, The Empire
17 June, Unified Year 1921
It had been about a week since we entered the Academy, and both Tanya and I were perfectly integrated into the difficult rhythms of military life.
As far as I could tell, military life was not too different from any other style of life. You just had to remember some important rules: make your bed every morning, stand up straight and when an officer speaks to you, finish the sentence with "Yes sir".
The environment where I felt most comfortable was the library. Here I could find numerous sources on the most famous battles, war tactics and strategies, from Hannibal to Napoleon, from Julius Caesar to Frederick Redbeard. Learning the strategies and the tricks of these great leaders, I learned how to lead an army, win a battle and especially how to respond to the questions of the Major. Getting good grades was rewarding, but getting good grades while other people barely managed to get by was something that could put you in a good mood even if you had corvee work to do.
However, do not think that being the first in the class is all good and beneficial: to get those good grades I had to work hard, both in terms of time and in terms of concentration. In addition, my good marks on the theory of war were mixed with my "unpromising" physical and motor skills.
Here is something that neither Tanya nor I had thought about when we volunteered: the physical lessons of the Academy were not tailored for eight-year-old children. To survive such exercises, we could rely only on our determination, or to be precise, on that of Tanya, because if it had been for me, I do not know if we would have made it.
Fortunately, apparently wizards already enjoyed a certain privileged position within the academy, so things changed after a few weeks. What we would do from now on would be less traditional physical exercises (although we still did a lot) and more exercises designed for wizards, where our magical ability and not the physical one would make the difference.
Tanya and I were just intent on listening to the words of our magical instructor, a blond man who answered the name of Ludwig. The lesson we were facing today, the first of the "magic" course, was the basic lesson: how to fly. Apparently, learning to fly was the most basic thing a magician could do.
For this, Tanya and I were already equipped for the big test.
Each of us wore the following equipment: over the uniform, we wore a heavy jacket, similar to that of pilots, that in the intentions it would have to protect us from the cold of high altitude. In front of us, at the height of the pelvic region, we wore a large container, used as a storage of magical energy. The container looked more like a military armored backpack: It was all in gray-green color (the only decoration was the imperial cross in white color on the top pocket) and it was made in steel and a fabric similar to Kevlar. The container was connected by a kind of pipe, to a special over-boot we had to wear on the right foot, and that would have allowed us to fly.
Finally, at the height of the neck, attached with a pendant, we had the Operations Orb.
The Orbs were some kind of steampunk tool that we, as mages, should have used for interfere with reality through magic according to our will. From what little I had managed to make me tell about the Orbs, they were some kind of high-performance calculator that allowed us to process the world data and convert mana for the use of the wizard owners.
Furthermore, they were intended to serve as an emergency device: if a wizard found himself overloaded with magical energy, the Orb would allow him to discharge the excess of energy in an easy and safe way. Finally, they would protect us from possible magical influences or corruptions on our mind.
We had been wearing the Orb for a few days already and frankly, it was hard for me not to stop thinking about them occasionally. They were something incredible and fantastic at the same time: technology designed to allow greater control over magic, something that science itself (at least, in my old life) refused to believe in.
It was something that should not have existed, but that I had before my eyes (or rather, around my neck) at the same time.
Tanya nudged me on the side, distracting me from my thoughts. It was then that I realized that Ludwig had stopped giving his speech and was now watching as the first cadets in line started to make their first flight attempts.
"Try to listen to the important instructions, you brainless doll" Tanya hissed in my ear.
"I was listening, miss nuisance!" I replied to her, keeping my eyes focused on the other cadets.
Flying is something that, according to many high intellectuals and scholars of the medieval/renaissance age, the man is not allowed to do (at least, not by himself), and, at least at the beginning, the other cadets seemed to confirm this. Of the first trees, two could not even get up off the ground, while the third, which at first seemed to be on the verge of rising, he ended up turning upside down and bumping into the cadet behind him.
Only on the fourth, the impossible happened.
The man was called Otto Nottebohm, and he was a wizard from Imperial Ostland, a region of the Empire bordering and disputed with the Federation, the local equivalent of the USSR. At first, I thought that he too would have failed, but I had been watching him for just a few seconds before I saw him come off the ground, and then he rose up into the sky to a height of at least ten meters.
I looked at him breathlessly, unable even to think. I was seeing a man who could fly without any mechanical support, supported only by magic. If someone had told me that I would see something like this in my past life, I would never have believed it.
The row proceeded. Other cadets tried to fly, with different success. Little by little, the time when Tanya and I would have to fly approached.
"Tanya?" I said, trying to keep the tone of my voice low.
"What happened?" she said without even looking at me "Are you too afraid to try?"
"Not at all. Rather, I want to ask you something…"
After another ten minutes, Tanya's turn finally came. I watched with excitement as I saw her little body rise above the ground and rise higher and higher in the sky. Mentally, I counted how many meters Tanya rose from the ground: one meter, two, five, and ten!
At ten meters off the ground, I saw that Tanya had stopped and looked down at where we were gathered. I was tempted to ask her how the view was from up there, but then I realized that it was useless: as soon as she would come down, it would be my turn and I could see with my own eyes the spectacle that now stood before her eyes.
Finally, after a few more minutes, Tanya began to descend. Little by little, like a leaf carried by the wind, her altitude diminished until she landed, regaining contact with the ground.
"It's up to you now doll-face," she said passing next to me.
"I'm born ready, princess," I answered her while walking to the launch point.
As soon as I was in position, I started to focus and concentrate myself on the duty, following the directions of Ludwig. As I concentrated, I felt the Orb around my neck lightening up as the magic of my body flowed into it. And then, I felt my body begin to rise and rise in altitude, like a balloon.
The first thought that came to my mind as I pulled away from the ground was a complete wonder: I was flying. I was really flying. There was no way to describe how cool this was. It was like being in a child's dream, so beautiful that you would never want to wake up again.
But immediately I chased away those thoughts. This was not the time to get stupid child fantasies: I was a cadet of the Academy, a soldier, and I had an objective to reach.
"Higher, higher" I said to myself looking up at the infinite celestial sky. Mentally, I wondered how high I could get up. Certainly, an imperial wizard had to be able to operate at a height sufficient to be practically safe from most of the enemy's land-based weapons, and at the same time sufficiently low that he could hit the enemy with his own weapons. And that meant ... how much? Twenty meters of altitude? Thirty?
At that precise moment, a bird flew by me. I followed him with my eyes, bringing me to realize something that until then, immersed in my thoughts, I had not noticed.
The sun was setting, right in front of us. Its golden rays, albeit in a waning phase, still illuminated the Academy and the whole valley in front of it, up to the mountains in the background, and made the vision look like a romanticist painting to me. Now I knew how the wanderer felt in the famous painting "Der Wanderer über dem Nebelmeer" by Caspar David Friedrich.
It was a magnificent sight, of the kind that makes the man feel small in front of Mother Nature.
Someone else in my place would have felt entranced, and would have wondered if such a spectacle was proof of the existence of a superior being. I was just annoyed. I did not need to ask myself philosophical questions; I already knew from direct experience of the existence of something that had the arrogance of calling itself "God". And I knew that he was also a cold-blood bastard with delusions of grandeur. The fact that I had irritated him could also be discussed, but being reincarnated as a small orphan of a nameless orphanage in the middle of a war meant being cruel to the core.
"…König, do you hear me?" a voice rose from my wireless communications speakers.
I stopped reasoning about Being X and answered "Cadet Frederick König speaking"
"You'd better stop rising and begin the descent before I accuse you of attempted desertion" answered Ludwig with an authoritative voice.
It was then that I realized that I had risen too much. Definitely too much.
I stopped focusing my energy on the rising and in a few minutes, I started to go down again. Gradually I saw the world below me expanding gradually, until I re-entered the same place from which I had risen.
"Well" said Ludwig looking at me with a grim look "It seems that the idea of a firing squad is still enough to keep you in line…"
I stood still, at attention, motionless as a statue. What punishment would I have received for this? The penalty for those who deserted was death by firing squad. And though I was just distracted, I doubted that a military officer could have distinguished the difference.
"Sorry for what happened, sir" I said "but I wanted to test at most my limits"
"Oh yeah?" said Ludwig looking right into my eyes "Well, I can assume you're telling the truth, that you're just distracted. This time, I will let it go, but try to be more careful. Do you understand me?"
"Yes sir!" I said, relieved that I had been pardoned "By the way, sir, can I ask you how much high I was?"
"Why do you want to know it?" Ludwig said.
"Just curiosity, sir"
Ludwig nodded "You've managed to reach a height of eighteen meters, cadet!"
"Thank you sir!" I said, trying to get on the back of the line as fast as I could.
"Good work into almost getting a punishment, you dumb head," Tanya said as soon as we were together again.
"Sh-sh-sh, little princess" I said, pretending to listen to something she could not hear by herself "Do not you hear it? Apparently, I have risen to a height much higher than you have. This makes me the official winner of our small competition"
She looked at me with a disinterested look "So? We did not make a bet or something"
"It still proved I fly better than you!"
"In your dreams!"