Flecks of Gold (10 page)

“It
is
possible because I did it. Ismaha said there was a pattern to everything, even concepts, so don’t be mad if I don’t think you’re the ultimate authority on what can and can’t be done.”

“You know Ismaha?” He looked stunned. I realized that Ismaha really was famous, after all, at least among other magicians.

“I met her after crashing into her, uh . . . land.” I didn’t want to tell him exactly where on her land I’d been dumped.

“Is this traveling dangerous? Does it hurt?” he asked.

“Now who’s asking all the questions and not answering them?” I teased.

“Everything that comes out of your mouth is so outlandish, it cries for questions.”

“Ha, I could say the same to you.”

We smiled at each other, and I felt my previous tension ease. There was something in Breeohan, like in Ismaha, that made me trust him.

We walked for awhile, each in our own thoughts, then Breeohan said, “It is a strange story you tell. Why would this Kelson want to abduct your mother?”

“I don’t know. I think I was really who he wanted the most, but don’t ask me why. He said he was going to take us both since she was useful to him too, but I got away, and he got frustrated so he took her and said he’d come back for me.” I scuffed the ground with my running shoes in frustration. I should’ve done something. I should’ve saved her somehow. It should’ve been me instead of her.

“Well, the king will help if he can. He is a good king, though he worries his people since he won’t marry and produce an heir.”

“I get that. I wouldn’t want to be forced into marriage if I was the king. Who wants to marry a complete stranger? It’s gotta be tough for people in that kind of system.”

Breeohan walked silently beside me, looking thoughtful, so I let my thoughts wander. We reached the stream in the early evening, and I saw that it might be possible to immerse myself in some places. The water was clear and inviting, and I seriously considered jumping in with my clothes still on. I knelt in the sand at the side, dipped my hands into the cool liquid and splashed my face, rubbing vigorously. It felt wonderful, but it made me yearn for a full bath.

I peeled off my sneakers and dusty socks so I could dip my aching feet into the refreshing water. I decided I’d better wash my socks while I was at it, so I rubbed them together under the surface, wishing for soap. Breeohan appeared at my side as I rubbed at my now dun-colored socks.

“Here, use this.” He handed me a bar of soap. It smelled sweet, like flowers, and I laughed. Who would have thought someone like him would use flower-scented soap?

“So, was this soap for you or do you have someone special you were going to give it to?” I asked as I lathered the socks. I looked up and saw him blush. “Ah ha! So there
is
a girl that you wanted to buy presents for, just not your sister. Am I right?”

“It’s for a friend of my family.”

“Does her name, by any chance, happen to be Avana?”

Breeohan looked startled. This was fun.

“You used that as your sister’s name. Remember?” I couldn’t help but smile at his discomfort.

“Yes. I thought I would bring her something from my travels, but the book really was for me. She wouldn’t be interested in it.” He sighed.

I wondered if Avana was a beautiful airhead. Men always seemed to go for beauty rather than brains. “Well, good luck figuring out how to translate my book. You might like chemistry. It’s all about the patterns that electrons make around the atom and how they bond with other atoms to make more complicated patterns.” I stopped for a second, considering whether this strange lacing magic was somehow connected to atomic structures.
It might be distantly related
, I conceded,
but if each object’s pattern was its atomic structure, the patterns would be far too complex to memorize
.

Breeohan looked at me strangely again. I knew that most of what I’d just said hadn’t translated to his language, but I didn’t want to explain in more detail. I wasn’t a whiz in chemistry, and I didn’t want to just spout off some bogus explanation.

“You’ll learn about it when you can read it. Now would you mind trotting off somewhere for awhile so I can take a bath?” I waved a dismissive hand at him.

He gave a low, and I thought, mocking bow. “I will gather sticks for a fire.”

“You promise you won’t peek or anything?”

He gave me the disapproving look I was becoming used to. “Never.”

“Okay, sorry.” He could he be touchy sometimes. It made me feel more confident about actually dipping into the water, though.

I waited until I couldn’t see him anymore before stripping off my dust-caked clothes and carefully feeling my way to deeper water. It was heaven. I soaped myself all over three times with the perfumed stuff. I even used it in my hair, wishing I had shampoo and conditioner. I didn’t want to be caught in the water when Breeohan came back, so I washed at hyperspeed.

Looking at my clothes reluctantly, I decided that I would don my jeans and shirt so I could wash the native garb. The jeans and shirt were dirty too, but even a chicken coop hadn’t made them as dirty as traveling. I was washing the native clothes when Breeohan came back.

He stared at me, taken aback by what I looked like now that I was clean and wearing different clothes. I cleared my throat and felt color rise to my cheeks. He’d been staring long enough. It was fascinating to watch a blush race up from his neck to his clean jaw and high cheek bones, transforming his milk chocolate skin to a brown red.

“I’ve never seen such clothes. Do all your people wear such strange pants?”

“Yes and no. It depends on whether you’re a jeans and T-shirt kind of person. Would you like to take a bath?”

“If you wouldn’t mind.”

“Sure, I’ll just find some rocks to lay my clothes on.”

I grabbed my soggy clothes and walked barefoot over the sandy ground, watching out for prickly plants.

“Mary.” I stopped and turned. “You won’t peek?” He smiled mischievously at me.

“Never.” I bowed even lower than he had.

“Such a bow is treason if done to any but the king,” he said, but he smiled.

“I’ll remember that,” I said, and then walked away.

I
took my time
finding rocks for my clothes, not sure when it would be safe to come back. But after a while of sitting around doing nothing, I decided he’d had time enough.

“Yo, Breeohan, are you done yet?” I called from a distance.

“Yes. I wondered if you would ever return.”

I came closer and saw him sitting in front of a fire, getting out food.

“Well, excuse me for thinking that you might want a long bath.”

His skin looked a shade lighter than before, a light milk chocolate, and his wet hair was tied back in a tight ponytail. I still had mine loose, so it would dry faster. He wore a different outfit, and I wondered how he could fit so much stuff in one bag.

I sat next to him on the big rock, noticing that he didn’t smell like flowers. He did smell good, though. It was nice to smell clean after so much dirt and body odor. Breeohan was putting various food bits in his small pot before he settled the pot within the fire’s coals. I took out a piece of stale bread, gnawing on it without much enthusiasm, despite my hunger. I yearned for American food. What I wouldn’t give for a cheeseburger.

“Don’t you have any travel rations you could cook?” he asked.

I shook my head. All I had was smoked meat, stale bread, and some chewy stuff that I suspected was dried fruit.

“Why don’t you share your bread with me, and I will share my stew with you,” he said.

“Okay, but you’re getting the bad end of the stick. The bread’s stale.”

“You speak very strangely. What is it like, where you are from?”

“Well, we don’t have a king in my country. It’s a democracy. We vote for a representative to decide what action is best. If enough individuals don’t like what that representative has done, they can elect a new person when that guy’s time is up. It’s a government ‘for the people, by the people, and of the people,’ ” I said dramatically.

“So the citizens of your country actually determine what will happen?”

I shrugged. “Mostly. What’s it like to have a king?”

“He makes the decisions, but he does take a vote from the counselors on major problems. There is a counselor from every region, so that all may have a voice.”

“Are there nobles?”

He nodded.

I continued, “I’ve never understood how that works. What makes one family noble? Their relationship to the king?”

“That and individual struggles for position through marriage.” Breeohan scowled at the pot in the fire.

“How weird. What about the people who aren’t lucky enough to be somehow related to the king?”

“They are merchants or artisans or whatever they want to be.” He sounded bitter.

“And what are you?”

“A magician.” He looked at me with an expression that clearly said he didn’t want to talk about it. Maybe he had been thwarted by a noble. Maybe he was a poor noble and didn’t have much power to do anything but look pretty.

Breeohan got the pot out of the fire and produced two spoons.

“I only have the one pot, so we will have to share.”

“Wow, no offense, but have you been sick recently? Do you get cold sores? Have you kissed anyone who may have a disease of some kind?”

He looked offended. “I have not been sick, and I haven’t kissed anyone.” After a moment he asked, “What are cold sores?”

I sighed. “Oh, never mind. I’m sorry if I offended you.” I paused. “Do you mean you’ve never kissed anyone at all?” I couldn’t help but ask.

He blushed, caught. “It is not proper to speak of such things.”

I was surprised. Breeohan was almost too good-looking for me to be comfortable around. The thought that he hadn’t ever kissed anyone both reassured me and made me shift uneasily. “Don’t be embarrassed. I think it’s admirable. Not many of the boys my age at home could say the same thing. I’ve never been kissed.” The last sentence popped out of my mouth without permission. I wanted to pull it back but instead kept my expression nonchalant.

Breeohan looked surprised, and I laughed at the absurdity of it all. “You may be shocked to learn that I don’t talk to people often.”

“You? Silent?” He laughed as well.

“It’s true, but I can’t afford to be a complete recluse now. I have to find my mother.” My face fell, and I picked at my shirt.

“Well, with that outfit, those strange shoes, and that unusual bag of yours, you will have a hard time avoiding notice here.”

“That’s okay. I’m used to being a freak,” I said, thinking of the girl from my chemistry class.

“I’m finished with my portion of stew. You can have the rest if you think it won’t harm you.”

“I said I was sorry,” I mumbled, grabbing the stew and spoon. It needed salt, but I was too hungry to care.

I rolled out my blanket, but wasn’t able to fall asleep. I kept thinking of Mom, of Kelson, of impossible plans that would allow me to find her, of the hopelessness of it all. A tear rolled down my cheek, but I made no sound.

In the morning we packed up quickly and started walking again. My hip felt sore from sleeping on packed dirt, but I was becoming more used to taking long strides. I didn’t ache as much as before. The day passed quickly, and I searched for patterns in objects as I went. I was staring at my fingers, trying to determine their lacings when Breeohan asked what I was doing.

“I’m finding my finger’s lacings,” I said, a little embarrassed at being caught, though I didn’t know why I should be.

“You see that clearly? You can see the whole lacing?”

“I guess, but I don’t know what to do with the things once I see them. How did you learn which line to change to do whatever you want it to do?”

“I was taught, and I practiced.”

“How long did it take you to learn?”

“I have been learning lacings and other subjects for ten years, since I was ten.”

So that made him twenty. I wondered how hard it would be for me to catch up to someone my age in pattern magic. That was, of course, if I ever learned it. I had too many things I was already worrying about. I didn’t need to add magic training.

“I could teach you how to manipulate the lacings as we travel, if you like.”

I hesitated. All this magic stuff was strange and a little scary to me. But if—no,
when
—I faced Kelson again, it would be better for me if I knew how to use the magic he could wield with such ease.

“All right. Where do we start?”

“To every change on any part of a pattern, there is a reaction of some kind.”

I gathered that. That’s why I hadn’t dared experiment with the delicate strands on my own. I didn’t say this to Breeohan, however. I just looked at him expectantly.

“You can start to anticipate what strands will cause what reaction after you have studied many lacings and can see what parts are similar or dissimilar in each pattern. Sometimes that will not help you, however. That is why lacings’ reactions must be passed from master to pupil.”

All right already
, I thought.
Get to the action
. The term “master” made me uncomfortable, and I wanted to start
doing
rather than
talking
about it.