Chương 35: Marriage

The ship was only planning to stay at Elder Twin for three more days. Intending to make good use of the time, Kalen arrived at the enchanters' house at dawn, carrying the recording jar he'd been trying to build on the journey over and the healing magic book. Everything else was still stored in the cabin back on Ester Ivory.

No one came to the door when Kalen knocked quietly on it, and he eventually determined that everyone in the house was still asleep.

At this hour?

he thought.

The sun was up. The village had been bustling when he passed through it. And at his own home, the adults and older children would have long since risen and begun their day.

Maybe it's different for Ben and Polla. Maybe they stay up late in the night doing magic.

At the back of the house, there was a small garden. A work table covered in scratches, paint blotches, and chalk lines was sheltered by a tarpaulin roof stretched over poles. Kalen placed his things there and looked for something to do. They'd said they would let him help out in their shop. Perhaps if he finished some of the more mundane chores for them quickly, there would be additional time available for handling the magical objects he'd seen yesterday.

Nearly an hour after he'd arrived, the curtain over the back window opened, and Polla stared out at him. She wore a dark gray quilted robe and held one of the enchanted porcelain cups in her hand. Whatever was inside it was steaming.

Kalen waved at her enthusiastically.

"I've almost finished weeding the garden! And your eggs are by the door!"

"Thank you?" she called through the glass. She peered from him to her cup and back again.

"Did you want to come inside for breakfast?"

Kalen hastily pulled the last few weeds, brushed the dirt from his hands, and headed inside.

The family ate breakfast together every morning at the table by their wood stove, and Gare had his lessons for the day.

"If I'm interrupting, I can come back later," Kalen offered.

He had no intention of leaving if someone was about to get magic lessons, but he would pretend to go and listen from outside.

"No, it's nice to have you," Polla said, carving dark orange cubes out of roasted squash. She seasoned them with salt and honey and passed Kalen a plate.

"Gare could use someone to compare himself to. He doesn't like reading and studying. Gare, you should see Kalen's penmanship. It's lovely."

"Kalen's not a water practitioner," Gare said around a mouthful squash.

"So it's normal for us to be different."

"That has nothing at all to do with reading and writing, darling."

Ben, who'd headed to the village smokehouse to pick up the rest of their breakfast, returned just then with his prize. He had a whole smoked fish and a crock of soft cheese.

"Saw the current finder in the harbor!" he said brightly.

"It's grown since last year, and it's as shiny as a gold piece."

Gare gasped and tried to leap up from the table, only to be pushed back down by his mother.

"Lessons first, and then you can go to the beach to watch the fish all day if you like. The captain will let it swim for a while, won't he, Kalen?"

"He plans to let it play in the whirlpool this morning and then hang around the island until nightfall as long as it doesn't seem like it's going to try leaving. He says it usually wants to stay between Elder and Younger Twin while they're here."

Kalen had wondered what Captain Kolto would do if the fish did escape. Would they raise anchor and set sail after it right away?

While Polla and Ben asked Gare questions about the lesson they'd apparently had yesterday morning, Kalen listened quietly. Gare was supposed to be memorizing runes and their hierarchies. Some of the runes were the very same as those Zevnie had included for Kalen in the little booklet she'd made him when she'd still been under the impression he was an enchanter.

The others were specifically useful for water spells.

Kalen did his best to commit every new scrap of information to memory. After the review, the family meditated together, sitting cross-legged on cushions on the floor of their shop. Kalen joined in, though he couldn't get himself in the right mental state. He was supposed to keep his eyes closed, but he kept wanting to peek and see if the older magicians were doing something special that he wasn't aware of.

Every time he peeked, he caught Gare peeking at him. So neither of them were getting anything done.

After a brief time meditating, Polla started to talk Gare through a pathway development technique. Like the gyring Kalen had learned from Zevnie and never found a real use for, it involved moving your magic through your pathways in a specific manner. But this method was apparently perfectly suited to Gare's needs as a magician with a water affinity.

There was a lot of metaphor and imagination involved. Kalen didn't know if it was normal or a concession to Gare's age. The younger boy was supposed to think of his nucleus as the deepest reaches of the ocean and the pathways around it as the hidden currents that flowed around the world. The small pathways he had the best control over and used to form his spells were the water's surface—fluid, changeable, and connected to the sky above.

Kalen didn't have any trouble following along. But as with gyring, he didn't really see a benefit. Zevnie had said it was because beginner's techniques were designed to increase the practitioner's ability to call mana into their pathways and move magic through them quickly. That was something Kalen was already "frighteningly gifted" at, so he probably wouldn't need to work on it at the magician level at all.

I really hope she gets my letter soon. And gives it to Sorcerer Arlade.

It was going to be a long, long trip to the Archipelago without the sorcerer's aid. He was afraid of tackling a journey of that length for his own sake, but it would be even worse for Yarda.

Gare's morning training ended not long after that, and he fled from the house like his parents were terrible beasts instead of dedicated teachers.

"I'm sure he'll gain a fondness for it as he grows," Ben said.

His wife snorted and marched over to eat the remains of Gare's half-finished breakfast.

They both glanced at Kalen like they weren't quite sure what to do with him. He smiled brightly at them, trying to appear both eager and patient at the same time.

Ben ended up sitting down at the table again to examine Kalen's attempt at a recording jar. He was familiar with the devices. He said he had made a few of them during his studies on the continent, but it had been years since he'd tried his hand at it. There was no market for them on Elder Twin since they could only be activated by practitioners.

"I want to know how to make them so that I can ship them home with messages for my family," Kalen explained.

"There's a wizarn—a practitioner—in our village who can probably make them work."

"You'll have to have better materials I think," said Ben, examining the roughly stretched canvas Kalen had used for the top.

"It will still make sounds if you don't, but your parents would be lucky to pick out anything like a word."

"Could I buy something from you that would work?"

It would be worth it if it wasn't too expensive. The jar was something he could practice on even when the ship traveled for days through areas with no mana. And hearing Kalen's voice would be much better for his family than having Nanu read them one of his letters.

Maybe, if Nanu didn't mind figuring it out, they could even send one to him.

"Now he's a customer!" Ben said, rubbing his hands together.

"And a practitioner customer at that. I told you we'd have one some day, didn't I, Polla?"

Polla sighed.

"He's a little young, but I guess he counts."

They opened a locked door and showed him the interior of a cramped closet that had once been the house's larder. It was only big enough for a single person to stand inside, and every shelf and drawer was crammed with supplies.

"Enchanting requires a lot of special materials," Polla said.

"More than we can justify keeping out here, if I'm honest."

"You have everything," Kalen said, astonished at the wealth displayed before him. There were jars of colorful powders and stacks of papers. Glimmering inks. Boxes full of dried herbs. Wooden carvings and blown glass bottles and spools of magic thread.

"I wish we had everything." Ben laughed.

"We've been selling off more and more of our collection every year, stripping it down to the essentials. If only Gare had been an enchanter we could have kept it, but…"

"But he's not," his wife said firmly.

"And it's no good to force him down our own path."

"I know." Ben stood in the closet sorting through supplies.

"Let's see now…a recording jar. Just for a simple message home. Not too fancy. Not too expensive. The jar you've brought is fine. It's the membrane we have to think of…actually it might be better if we didn't use a membrane cover at all."

"It would?"

"Too easy to damage," Polla agreed.

"The person who made the jars you studied wasn't thinking about how well they would travel. To work well they need to be thin. One little puncture in the top, and they're ruined. They're also impossible to re-use."

"Do you think we could do a wooden box? I think we could," Ben said.

"Let's not experiment with messages from a son to his mother." Polla nodded at Kalen.

"We'll stick close to what we know works."

They settled on a design quite different than the one Kalen had studied, even if it was going to function similarly in the end.

Ben walked Kalen through the process slowly. They painted patterns onto a small metal bell, and after it had dried, they removed the clapper and glued the bell to the bottom of the jar. Instead of a membrane, they sealed it with a cork that had been soaked in a potion they assured Kalen even a novice could brew.

"Don't look so nervous," Polla said.

"Even if you've never done a potion before, this one's basically just boiled grass. We'll give you plenty of the ingredients. You can hardly get it wrong."

After the jar was sealed, Kalen carefully painted on the rune circles while Ben explained the various functions of each part. When it was finished, they set it aside to dry again, and Kalen swept the floors and dusted the shelves in the shop.

In the early afternoon, a woman with a wart on her forehead came in to buy a set of bottles no larger than a man's thumb.

"Those are enchanted to keep the contents' fresher," Polla explained when she'd left. She frowned.

"It's some of my best work, and she's a regular customer. So I shouldn't complain. But there's not much point in her buying those. Most of the herbs she keeps in them don't do anything at all."

"Is she the island herbalist?" Kalen asked.

"Some other children mentioned her to me yesterday, and I was wondering if she could help my cousin."

"The woman you mentioned yesterday?" Polla said.

"With the poor heart?"

Kalen nodded.

"I saw her on my way into town," Ben said.

"She was buying a lamb bun. Biggest person I've ever met!"

Kalen explained more about Yarda's situation, then asked, "Do you think there's anything the herbalist could give her that would work better?"

The magicians exchanged knowing looks.

"She makes a fine pain killer," Ben said at last.

"And a fever reducing tea. Though Polla could make you better ones. Beyond that…"

"You won't find anything like a real healer on this island," Polla said.

"And Ben and I know next to nothing. Your best bet is to hope she holds on until you reach the continent and get help for her there."

"She seemed merry enough this morning," Ben said.

"I'm sure she'll be fine.

"She's always happy. She never complains for even a moment," Kalen fretted.

"But…"

"I saw you brought Sigerismo's Twelfth with you," Polla said, her tone sympathetic.

"Were you hoping we could help you find some way to heal her?"

"It's the only healing book I have," Kalen replied.

"I don't know what else to do."

Ben scratched his head.

"I'm not even sure I would understand what Sigerismo was talking about in one of the latter volumes. Never mind being able to do anything he suggested."

"The Sigerismo set is popular in practitioner families," his wife explained.

"He was a very weak practitioner himself, but he made studying other healers his life's work. It's not uncommon for even non-healers to learn from Volume One. I've heard it teaches you to develop some of the same senses for living beings that healers need as a foundation for their work. But Volume Twelve would be the second to last book. I'm sure it's largely theoretical. It's probably for mage-level healers who've already mastered the earlier texts."

"So there's really nothing I can do to help her?" Kalen said, trying to bite back his own frustration.

"At all?"

"Keep your own spirits up," Ben suggested.

"So she doesn't have to worry. And fresh air can't hurt."

"Fresh air is always good."

Kalen nodded woodenly. He couldn't help thinking that if fresh air were a cure-all then they'd all live forever.

Not long after that, he finished by empowering the enchantment on the jar, and he said his goodbyes. He went straight back to the boarding house to check on Yarda. She was learning a board game from an old man she'd met in town, and she'd saved Kalen a lamb bun.

"My little cousin here is a practitioner!" she told the man proudly after Kalen had explained to her what the recording jar was for.

"He's off to the continent with me to make something of himself."

"Good for you, lad," the fellow wheezed.

"I saw the continent in my own youth."

Kalen ate his bun and briefly feigned an interest in their game. But when he leaned over to watch them move the carved pieces across the board, he caught a strong whiff of the liniment. He worried his face showed his mood too clearly, so he excused himself.

If the only thing he could do to help right now was pretend to be in excellent spirits, then he would do his best at it.

Kalen spent the last couple hours of the day on the beach with Gare. Unlike the previous afternoon, it wasn't only the two of them. Several local children were there along with a few sailors and Captain Kolto. The men were drinking and betting on something.

It took Kalen a while to figure out that the subject of their gambling was the current finder. The golden fish would soar above the water, disappear for a moment, then fly up again, heading in a new direction. The sailors were trying to guess which course the fish would take with each leap.

The younger children were running up and down in the surf shouting every time the fish appeared as if the sight of it was a complete shock. The older ones sat in the sand or on driftwood logs chatting with their friends.

Poor Gare was attempting to show off Summon Blob—Kalen absolutely had to find out the spell's real name before that silly one stuck in his mind—to a disinterested girl around his own age.

The younger boy was chattering seriously and sweating with concentration while he tried to perform the working.

Kalen headed toward them.

"Oh my goodness!" he exclaimed as the mist finally started to form.

"That's got to be the best spell I've ever seen!"

Gare looked up at him, eyes widening, and Kalen winked.

"Is it really good?" the girl asked, gawking at Kalen.

He nodded.

"I'm a practitioner, so I can tell. It's very good."

Gare turned red from his chin to his ears, but he looked so pleased that Kalen felt sure it was payment enough for him teaching the spell to Kalen yesterday.

The younger boy eventually managed to get a small drop of water to form, and Kalen clapped along with the little girl. She ran off to tell another child that the practitioner from faraway lands had confirmed Gare's prowess as a magician, and Kalen bent to touch the damp sand inside the containment pattern curiously.

"I meant to ask you yesterday," he said.

"Is the water safe around here? Obviously it's not safe to swim around the whirlpool, but I mean elsewhere?"

"There's a bad current to the south that will pull you out to sea," said Gare.

"But we swim in in the harbor. And on this side of the island you can swim when the tide's right, or always if you keep between that big piece of driftwood there and the place where the sand dunes have all washed away."

"Thank you," said Kalen.

"You could still be eaten by a shark."

"Are there a lot of sharks around here?"

"Someone got eaten by one once. I heard."

"How long ago?"

"I don't know. But it definitely happened."

The current finder leaped out of the water near the two of them, and several of the sailors shouted at it, telling it to, "Fly in the right direction for a change!"

Kalen watched it for a while, fascinated by the way it danced so easily above the waves and through them, even as the water became more and more turbulent.

"I know I should call her in before nightfall, but it's harsh to do it when she's having such a good time," said the captain, gazing at his pet like a proud parent.

"She's hungry now, but give the whirl a moment more to build and there's no way she'll come to my whistle."

The fish's magic barrel was there, full of fresh sea water and positioned right at the edge of the high tide line. Kolto whistled for her, and all the locals cried out at the sight of a fish flying over the beach, its gold scales flashing and its translucent fins stained orange by the sunset.

Kolto let everyone who was interested feed the current finder a tidbit of the rotten meat it seemed to prefer, and then he sealed the lid on the barrel.

"We'll leave her here for the night," he said.

"She can have another outing in the morning."

Almost everyone headed home to their suppers after that, but Kalen stayed longer.

"Are you going to open the barrel?" Gare asked in what he clearly thought was a stealthy whisper.

"Why would I do that?"

"We could watch it swim in the whirlpool. That's what it wants to do!"

"It swam in one this morning, and it will again tomorrow. We can't risk it getting lost. Anyway, it's getting too dark to see well."

Gare's lower lip stuck out.

"Maybe if you suggest that your parents give you tomorrow morning's magic lesson tonight instead, you can come first thing and see it?" Kalen suggested.

The little boy's face looked enlightened. It was obvious that the idea had never crossed his mind.

"What if they could give me a whole month's worth of lessons tonight?!" he cried.

"I could learn everything and then do whatever I liked!"

"I don't think it's going to work out that—"

"Thank you, Kalen!" Gare shouted, his bare feet kicking up sand as he raced away.

"I'll see you tomorrow!"

"You've left your shoes!" Kalen called after him.

"You can't just leave perfectly good shoes out on the beach overnight. What if it rains?"

The boy ignored him.

Sighing, Kalen bent to collect the small sandals from where Gare had dropped them. He set them on top of the barrel.

He was sure he'd never been that irresponsible when he was younger. He'd take them back with him later.

Now that he was alone, he wanted to think and plan. At home, he'd spent a lot of time doing just that, and he hadn't had any opportunity to really be alone since he'd set sail on the Ester Ivory. He felt out of sorts and anxious. And surprisingly directionless even though he had a clear direction.

He went through it all in his head, just to prove to himself that he'd done all he could for now.

In three or so weeks, assuming they had fair weather, the ship would arrive in Circon. Yarda and Kalen would say goodbye to Captain Kolto and his crew. The best case scenario would be if Arlade Glimont was waiting for them when the ship came in. She would welcome Kalen with open arms and find a way to help Yarda or speed her along her way to the Archipelago, where doctors interested in her case would give her the care she needed.

The second best scenario would be if Arlade was not there yet but a letter from her was, telling them to wait patiently or meet her at some other location.

The third best outcome—and perhaps the most likely one—would be if they arrived and discovered that Kalen's letters to Zevnie's family on Makeeran and to the Archipelago itself were still on the way.

The letters were only a month ahead of them on their journey, and they had to travel much farther.

From what Kalen knew, it used to be common for large batches of churchmail to cross the continent via portal. But he doubted that was happening anymore, so his messages would travel overland, then onto ships bound for their respective destinations.

Zevnie's family had some means of easily reaching her, she'd said, so once the letter made it to her little sister, it should quickly find its way into her hands.

From there, she would do what she would do. And Kalen could only hope she kept her word.

So many things can go wrong.

Arlade could just say no.

Kalen had been careful not to bring up this possibility, since it would reveal the fact that he'd hung the entirety of their plans on his own hopes that Arlade would want him as an apprentice rather than the surety of it he'd presented to his family. But it stayed at the forefront of his mind, grinding away at any peace he managed to find in quiet moments, accompanied by an even more frightening possibility: What if Arlade didn't come and there was never any message from her?

It would be worse than a firm no. Because if they simply never heard back, how would they choose what to do next? Yarda needed help. She'd brought enough money to book passage to the Archipelago on her own. Kalen would go with her.

But when?

How long did they wait if no message arrived? Weeks? Months?

Did they send more letters and hope they arrrived? Did they give up on the idea of help quickly?

And if they had to go overland by themselves, there was another decision to be made.

I have to decide what I'll tell her, he thought. He was sitting on the sand, and the cold breeze tossed his hair around his face as the first stars began to appear.

Kalen could just keep his mouth shut and agree to take whichever way across the continent was quickest, heedless of whether the route took them through Orellen-hunting country or not. Maybe it would be all right?

A year ago, according to the rumors Zevnie had heard, they'd only found forty children like Kalen. And he knew how much larger the real number was, so perhaps he and his kind weren't that easy to locate.

But if he didn't tell the truth, and they went somewhere dangerous, and something happened to Yarda because of him…

It was a problem that might never become a problem, but it weighed on him.

"I'll tell her," he said quietly, trying out the words to see how they made him feel.

"If we have to travel on our own, I'll tell her."

Terrified.

"I won't tell her," he said.

Guilty.

He switched back and forth between the two until all he really wanted to do was get away from himself for a moment.

He stood and ran down the beach, ignoring the sharp bite of the occasional buried shell. The whirlpool was gone again. When he came to the stretch Gare had told him was safe for swimming, Kalen pulled his breath thrawning into place, grabbed a large, round chunk of coral and walked into the waves.

He let himself sink as he had so many times before at home.

I'm not even a little afraid of it anymore, am I?

he realized.

It used to make his heart pound. He used to have to force himself to stay below the waves.

Now, the dark, cold pressure of the water steadied him. The sting of salt water on his cut thumb grounded him. He found the thrawning held better and longer than it ever had before he'd made the short leap from novice to magician.

He still hadn't figured out what all the differences were.

This is nice. I should bring the coin down here with me sometime.

He was always trying new ways to put himself in that special frame of mind where he could see the mysterious line of magic that ran from the coin toward the continent.

I think I could do it here. Maybe I could even understand the current finder better.

He remembered how the fish's magic felt. Streaks and whirls of energy around a core of absolute peace.

It wasn't just around it thought, was it? There was something else there.

He'd thought it was beautiful. He didn't know why. He'd never been able to explain it to himself or to the captain.

As he turned the thought over in his mind, Kalen lost track of time and gained a welcome new focus.

All those roiling swirls and curls of magic, moving around and around the calm center, never stopping…

He was shocked when the thrawning collapsed, his body spasmed, and he realized he needed air immediately.

He dropped the coral and kicked off the bottom as hard as he could. Only the fact that the depth wasn't too much saved him from getting a lungful of ocean.

Kalen gasped in air.

Spots popped in his vision, and his heart thundered in his chest. But he felt better than he had in weeks. Maybe even months.

His anxieties were all still with him, but it was like they'd been placed on a shelf just out of his sight. Even the magic in his pathways seemed to have relaxed.

He headed back onto the beach, only half aware of the discomfort of his wet clothes as he turned toward the current finder's barrel. He was in the right mood still, or near enough to it, and he wanted to hold onto it if he could.

He approached the barrel, his earlier warnings to Gare forgotten, removed the sandals from the top and unsealed it. He shoved the lid off just far enough for his own skinny arms to fit inside, then stood on his tiptoes and thrust his hands into the water as deep as he could.

He closed his eyes, and…

there it is.

That same magic was there. Clearer and more enchanting than the one other time he'd seen it.

"You're graceful, aren't you?" Kalen said.

It was a strange word to apply to a fish, but he couldn't think of a better one. All of that swirling magic worked in harmony, pushing and redirecting other forces away from the animal, protecting her. It was why she was impossible to catch unless she wanted to be caught.

"Everyone thinks you're swimming through a storm under the sea when you're playing in your whirlpools," Kalen told the fish.

"But you're not. The dangerous currents never touch you. Your magic…it makes a way for you. And you only ever swim in peace."

He kept his hands in the barrel until his sense of the magic faded, then he let the fish nuzzle his fingers curiously a few times and sealed her in.

He walked slowly back to the village, dropping Gare's shoes off at his house.

"Did you fall in?" Ben asked when he answered the door and found Kalen standing there dripping wet.

"I went for a swim," Kalen said absently.

"Do you think water magic and wind magic could be the same thing?"

The older magician laughed and ran a hand through his brown hair.

"Ah, no. I guess some people classify forces of nature and elements together, but they're different aren't they?"

"Yes," said Kalen.

"Of course they are. It's obvious that they aren't the same at all. But somehow…"

"Somehow?" Ben prompted.

Kalen blinked.

"Oh, I'm sorry. All the warm air is rushing out. isn't it? And I'm just standing here. I don't really have any idea what I'm saying. Good night to you all."

"Good night to you, too!" Ben called after him.

He stood at the door for a while, though, watching the soggy young boy disappear into the darkness. His wife stepped out of the kitchen.

"It was nice of him to bring back Gare's shoes."

"It was. He's a good boy. Little strange.""

Very strange," his wife replied.

"But I don't see how he could be anything else. Island-born practitioners all tend to be odd birds, don't they? Bizarre magical types with cobbled-together educations."

"Wind magic isn't a bizarre type, though. It's not common, but there are several small lines. I wonder which he's found to take him in."

"Maybe that little clan in Kashwin? And isn't there one somewhere in the far north? He didn't ever say his teacher's name."

"Hope it's a good one," said Ben.

"Boy's got a hard road ahead of him. He meditates worse than Gare."

"He's too old," said Polla.

"It's a shame. Maybe he could go far as a theoretical scholar…but you can tell by that hungry look in his eyes that he wants more."

"The great practitioners all have that look, don't they? Like they're sure the whole universe is a few inches from the tip of their nose and they'll reach it if only the grab fast enough."

"They do. But he's miles away from them, and he'll never catch up."

Ben grunted.

"Makes me sad."

#

"You're late tonight, little cousin!" Yarda said, when Kalen strode into the living room of the board house.

"And you're wet all the way through! What have you been up to?"

The giantess was grinning. Her feet were propped up on her favorite bench and a mug of sweetened milk was in her fist. The old man who'd been playing games with her earlier was gone, and the sound of people cleaning came from the kitchen.

"I was doing wizarn stuff." Kalen grinned back at Yarda.

She laughed and slapped her leg.

"Haha! Look at your little face! You look like you found your enemy's purse in the street."

She glanced around the empty room, then leaned toward him and whispered, "The scrubby little thing they call a forest…?"

"It's still there."

"Awww…"

"I'm just happy is all," said Kalen.

"It's not like I did anything impressive. Or learned anything that important. Tonight just reminded me how much I like it."

"What do you like?" Yarda asked curiously.

"Magic," said Kalen, smiling down at the puddle he was leaving all over the floor.

"I've been feeling unsure and out of sorts ever since we left Hemarland. It's hard to be away from home. But tonight I remembered that I like magic. I like it so much sometimes I think it might kill me."

"Sounds like you're in love!"

"If it were a woman, I'd marry it."

Yarda screamed with laughter, which was partially what Kalen had intended.

She wiped at her eyes with the sleeve of her dress when the laughing fit ended, and waved Kalen away.

"Ah, go dry yourself off! Go dry yourself off before you ruin the floor! If it were a woman…hahaha! That is probably a good way for a wizarn to feel."

"Probably," Kalen agreed.

"If I'm not here when you wake up in the morning, don't worry. I think I'm going to go swimming again."