Chương 20: Festival

Over the next several days, Arien devoted every spare moment to practicing Lightning. His range had crawled from half a meter to nearly a full meter, though the mana cost rose so sharply that the achievement felt more insulting than impressive. Apparently, magic did not believe in linear scaling. His vision of a mage hurling spells dozens of meters away was becoming increasingly doubtful. Worst of all, he had no idea whether the problem was knowledge, practice, talent, or all three.

After another afternoon spent exhausting his mana for painfully little progress, Arien headed home. He was still in the yard when raised voices reached him from inside the house. Tensions had been high lately, but actual shouting was still rare. Entering the main room, Arien found everyone gathered around the table, including Dod and Zed. Zed had been sleeping at the blacksmith's workshop since beginning his apprenticeship, so seeing him at the family table had become unusual.

Grog expected the forge ready by dawn, which meant Zed usually slept at the workshop rather than walk there in the dark every morning. No one noticed Arien come in. Everyone was too busy eating. He stared at the half-empty bowls in betrayal. They had started without him, and he wasn't even late. Then the smell reached him. His mouth filled with saliva as he trotted to the table and looked at his mother pleadingly.

She smiled briefly, stood up, set her bowl aside, and returned a moment later with something like stew, steam still rising from it. At the sight of the large chunks of meat, Arien glanced at Sari. She was still sitting at the table, which at least ruled out one disturbing possibility. Arien scrambled onto the bench and reached for the spoon before Mari had even finished setting the bowl in front of him.

"Eat, Arien," she said, amused.

"Just remember to thank your brother later." He blew on the first spoonful only long enough to avoid burning his tongue. The meat nearly fell apart between his teeth.

"Th-thank you, brother, for the meat!" he said, already shoveling in another bite.

"Well, well," Dod laughed.

"Someone's grown quite a bit. Last time, you mostly just lay around, staring at the ceiling."

"Not much has changed. Now he just does it in the pasture," Wod shot back dryly.

"Oh, I remember herding cows all day. Not such bad times. Now I roam the forest hoping to find any trail at all. Sometimes we sleep under the open sky for a week."

"I could sleep outside for a month if I got food like this," Zed cut in.

"Grog thinks potatoes and cabbage are enough for us since we're not the ones forging tools."

"Apprenticeship under Grog… I pity you, brother, but blacksmithing is a great Profession. You should be grateful."

"You only say that because you want free arrowheads, right?"

"And traps!" Dod laughed.

"But that's a fair trade for fresh meat, isn't it?" The brothers began joking and teasing each other while sharing their experiences, and Arien, taking advantage of the moment, managed to beg for another portion scraped from the bottom of the pot. He earned a few elbow jabs when caught, but accepted them with grace. There were causes worth suffering for. Meat was one of them.

"Dod, have you ever seen a Monster?" Zed asked, and Arien immediately refocused on the conversation.

"In the Raspberry Forest?" Dod laughed.

"All larger game was hunted out long ago, let alone Monsters. The only real threat is wolves, and even they avoid people."

"Not even one? A goblin? A fiend? An orc?"

"Orcs aren't monsters, son," Terry said.

"And you won't find many Monsters in Wyndor. The king monitors the Portals. When something comes through, the Explorers' Guild hunts it down." Dod nodded in agreement.

"My master says he once came across a fiend, and he doesn't speak fondly of it. I've seen the scars. Better not wish me such a meeting." Terry took the first lull to ask Wod whether he was ready for the adult competition. That was enough. Within moments, everyone had returned to the subject that had dominated their household for weeks: the Festival of Mal. Arien, who had already heard every boast, prediction, and argument several times over, soon drifted off again.

The Festival of Mal, Sul's wife, was the biggest event of the year. After the harvest, villages from across the region gathered for dances, competitions, ceremonies, and enough food and drink to make everyone forget winter was coming. To Arien, it looked mostly like an excuse to eat, drink, and occasionally punch each other in the face. He understood the appeal. For Wod, Dod, and their father, however, the competitions were the true heart of the festival. Wod was especially eager.

After finishing second in the fifteen-to-eighteen bracket the previous year, he would finally be competing against the adults. Terry, meanwhile, never missed an opportunity to remind everyone that he had once reached the semifinals. The year Arien was born, if his father was to be believed. The prizes were hardly the point. A sack of grain or a jug of ale would be gone by winter, while stories about who had thrown whom into the mud could last until the next festival.

Arien, on the other hand, found little enjoyment in watching drunken, roaring men rolling around in the mud. The previous year he had spent most of the tournament watching the women's dances instead, and they had been simply mesmerizing. What amazed him most was how the mature women of the village transformed themselves. The hardworking housewives with roughened hands became graceful nymphs who seemed almost to float above the earth.

He had been convinced his jaw would hit the ground when he saw Mari in a dark green dress embroidered with intricate crimson patterns. Dancing in the great circle of women, she spun effortlessly at its center, as though gravity had forgotten about her. As he sat there watching in awe, he could have sworn that mana itself pulsed in time with the music and the dance.

For a long time afterward, he wondered how, with something so beautiful unfolding before their eyes, most of the men preferred to shout themselves hoarse cheering on their sweaty companions. He still remembered the moment Mari broke away from the circle, smiling brightly as she pulled him into the dance. Aside from discovering mana itself, nothing in his new life had made him happier. You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. This year's festival began the next morning.

After breakfast, everyone stepped out onto the road, joining the villagers already making their way toward the field beside the village. The early autumn sun warmed their backs pleasantly, while the cloudless sky promised a day free from rain. Before long, they joined the rest of the villagers, who were assembling tables, setting up food stalls, marking off the competition grounds, and generally preparing the site for the festival.

Every member of the family split off immediately, already knowing where their help would be needed. Arien ended up staying close to his mother, who had gathered with a group of other housewives beneath a great ash tree standing alone in the middle of the field. It was evidently serving as the command center. Their main responsibility was coordinating the flow of temporary workers between the various teams and tasks.

Thanks to their efforts, within a matter of hours the empty field had transformed into a bustling fairground filled with stalls, awnings, temporary shelters, campfires, and marked competition grounds. Like the other younger children, Arien was assigned as a runner, dashing back and forth carrying instructions and reports. Now and then someone ruffled his hair, shoved a slice of fresh bread into his hands, or thanked him before sending him off again.

By midday his legs burned, but the excitement around him was strangely infectious. The festival began without any formal opening. At some point, Arien simply realized no one was giving orders anymore. Someone thrust a mug into a worker's hand, musicians struck up a tune, laughter spread from one campfire to the next, and within minutes the entire field had transformed into a celebration. The opening tournament rounds began on one side of the field, drawing clusters of spectators.

A group of women nearby commented loudly on both the competitors' skill and their physiques, while elsewhere musicians played, children raced between the tables, and villagers wandered between food stalls, games, and campfires. With everyone occupied, Arien soon found himself wandering the festival without any real destination.

He drifted between the food stalls, games, and clusters of villagers until he noticed a group of boys pretending to enjoy their watered-down beer while stealing glances toward the girls nearby. The girls ignored them with remarkable determination, only to burst into laughter the moment the boys walked away. Watching them, Arien felt an unexpected pang of envy. The flirting did not matter much.

What he wanted was the ease of it: friends his own age, stupid jokes, and conversations where he did not have to measure every word. That still felt painfully far away. Arien spotted Sari and Lisa several times, their hair braided into long plaits and white dresses covered by red embroidered vests. They wandered arm in arm through the festival with their noses held high, occasionally rewarding some older boy with a smile before disappearing into the crowd and leaving him wondering what had just happened.

At one point, Arien noticed Sari talking with one of the travelling musicians beside their painted cart. She laughed at something he said, then glanced toward the horses and wagons gathered near the road. When she caught Arien watching, she rolled her eyes dramatically, grabbed Lisa by the arm, and disappeared into the crowd before he could tease her. Unaccustomed to crowds, music, and constant shouting, Arien eventually escaped to the ash tree where the women would dance later that evening.

With magic out of the question in front of so many people, his thoughts returned to the boys and girls he had watched earlier. He had a family now, and he cared about them far more than he had expected to. That did not make him any less lonely. He could not remember the last time he had spoken freely to someone as an equal. Being four gave him an excuse for now. Eventually, however, he would have to figure out where he belonged in this world. His thoughts were interrupted by footsteps approaching.

A few meters away stood Sir Samwell, dressed in a black doublet beneath a dark green mantle.

"Good evening, boy. I was hoping I might find you today." Arien scrambled to his feet and gave an awkward little bow.

"My lord."

"I'll get straight to the point. I have good and bad news. The good news is that I can fulfill your request. You will learn to read and write. The bad news is that the teacher will not arrive from the capital until the end of winter."

"A teacher will come all the way to the village to teach me?" he asked, surprised. Bringing someone educated and willing to teach a farmer's child couldn't be cheap.

"Oh no, the teacher is coming to teach Syl and Will. You will join the reading and writing lessons. I hope that suits you?"

"Of course, my lord." This was even better. Joining Will's lessons was easy enough to explain; a private teacher from the capital for a farmer's four-year-old son would have raised far too many questions.

"Go ahead."

"How will we explain this to my family and the village?"

"Very simply. You will be chosen as a companion for Will. His brother Riztor also had a village companion in his youth, so it won't be unusual. Malbek… Well, Malbek was Malbek. It also comes with a small payment for your family, so they won't object. And your second question?"

"The journey from Wayhold to our village takes months. How did you find a teacher so quickly?"

"There is an official in Ribenne with a strong telepathy Skill. His twin brother lives in Wayhold. For a small fee, one dictates the message here and the other writes it down in the capital. From there, the letter can be delivered normally. Very efficient. That way we maintain contact with my son Malbek at the Academy." The Knight sighed and looked somewhere distant.

"Though what he usually writes can barely be called correspondence." Samwell glanced toward the growing noise of the festival.

"I should return before someone comes looking for me. Enjoy yourself, Arien."

"Thank you, my lord." The knight disappeared back into the crowd. Arien spent the rest of the festival resting under the tree, watching the dances again. This time, thanks to his improved Perception, he could see the strange mana behaviour even better. Particles were gathering in dense currents around the dancers and they shifted whenever the dancers moved together, making Arien suspect that multiple Skills were interacting at once.

His observation was interrupted by Mari, who once again dragged him into the circle. He put up only token resistance. They returned home tired but in good spirits. Most of the village was still celebrating. Wod, Dod, Zed, and Sari stayed behind, while Terry and Mari took Arien, Alia, and Lisa home despite Lisa's protests that she could return later with Sari.

Wod made it into the final sixteen before narrowly losing to a man who went on to reach the semifinals, which he celebrated so heavily with friends that Arien later saw him vomiting in the bushes. Zed lost in the final of his weight category in arm wrestling, while Dod won archery. Combined with Terry's run to the wrestling quarterfinals, it was enough for many villagers to congratulate them on being such a talented family.

The mood was contagious, and Arien found himself pointing out constellations as he rode on his father's shoulders: Werin's Spear, Azog's Anvil, the Great Staff, the Elven Rope, the Red Bull.

"Father, what about those stars near Werin's Spear and the Glowing Dragonfly? Do they have names?"

"Yes. But don't look at them, son. Better to ignore them."

"Ignore them?"

"They are the stars of the gods of the Abyss. Looking at them too long brings misfortune." Arien's gaze lingered on the crimson patch of sky for one heartbeat longer before he forced himself to look away. He had wanted to ask about the Abyss for a long time, but questions like that were dangerous at home. Here, with everyone distracted by the festival, it might pass for childish curiosity.

"What is the Abyss?"

"Arien, we'll tell you when you're older," his mother cut in sharply.

"Just don't look at them, understand?"

"Yes, Mom." Well, he would have to find a better way to learn more about the Abyss. Years had passed since what he had seen, but Arien had never managed to convince himself it was a hallucination. Mari's reaction made it clear he would learn nothing more tonight. That night, thoughts of the coming lessons competed with the crimson stars for his attention. He fell asleep long after the house had gone quiet. He did not sleep for long. Before dawn, someone started shouting.

At first, Arien thought there had been a fire. People were moving through the house, doors opening and closing, voices overlapping in the dark. Mari's voice cut through them, sharp with worry. Terry cursed. Wod ran outside without even taking his cloak. Sari had not come home. At first, they clung to the harmless explanations. Maybe she had stayed with one of the village girls. Maybe she had fallen asleep somewhere after the dancing. Eventually, Wod came back from the village with news.

A group of traveling musicians had left before sunrise. One of the wagon drivers had seen a blonde girl with them. Young. Pretty. Carrying a bundle. The house went silent. No one wanted to say it, but they all understood. Sari had run away.