‘Till then, she would continue in the same
direction Marmot had been plodding for Ragn knew how many hours. If
she went far enough, she was bound to find something, someone,
eventually.
It was largely stubbornness that helped her
reach her decision; her stubborn decision that she wouldn’t give
in, wouldn’t collapse. That and the strict denial of any memory of
what had happened to her, to her family. Erris wouldn’t think of
it. Not now, hopefully not ever.
With her course of action decided, Erris
pulled herself onto the wagon seat, groaning slightly as she sat
down, and pushed Marmot into a walk. The soldiers’ sword now hung
at the left side of the wagon, easily reachable, and from the sack
of books that she had on her right, she picked up the first title
that came into reach.
She might be travelling for a while. She
might as well see how many of the books she could devour before she
had to put them down, before she must return to reality and solve
more pressing problems.
***
The next morning, Gel woke to Dan’r, frying
up sausages on a newly-stoked fire. It was early, the sun just
beginning to slowly find its way over the hills on the horizon. It
meandered its slow, lethargic way into the sky, and Gel thought he
might like to someday play a song for the Sun as it rose. It would
be ponderous, waddling, and deliberate, but also light and airy. It
would start slowly, a false crescendo that sang of the false dawn
before calming again, and then, with light, quick notes, the Sun
would peek its way over the horizon and rise. Maybe he could do one
for the sunset as well. And maybe noon.
In fact, he could do an entire series,
movements of the sun and moon. The sun would be more energetic, and
then pieces on the moon could be calm, quiet; peaceful.
The more Gel thought about it, the more an
entire concerto devoted to the Heavens intrigued him. Movements for
the Sun and the Moon, and the stars, maybe even the planets and the
seasons.
As such, Gel was distracted, chewing
half-heartedly at a link of sausage as juices dribbled slowly down
his chin. He was humming what would be the beginning of the first
movement to himself while reaching to wipe off the sausage grease
when Dan’r spoke.
‘I’m an Artist. I draw things; and when I
want to, I can turn those drawings into reality. You’re a Musician.
Someday when you play, you’ll be able to change the weather, and
change people’s feelings. As an Artist, I create. As a Musician,
you change. There are also Writers, who control, but we don’t need
to get into them right now.’
Dan’r was seated across from Gel while he
spoke, once again drawing something in charcoal on a sheet of
paper. He rarely looked at Gel when he spoke.
‘For whatever reason, here, on this
continent, I have yet to hear of anyone with any of these Arts.
You’re the first. Where I come from, there are hundreds at any
time. I may seem powerful to you, but…well…I’m only a middling
Artist. The size and complexity of my creations are not terribly
impressive. But I can still create.’
Gel sat and watched silently as Dan’r
continued his explanation, occasionally pausing his speech to rub
at his charcoal with a thumb, or sharpen the edge. The entire
dialogue was awkward, stilted, just as all Dan’r’s interactions had
been. Gel was no better, but it felt like anytime he spoke with
Dan’r, he was speaking with someone who had never really spoken to
anyone before, or at least hadn’t in a very long time.
‘Where I come from, every child is tested. On
their 16th birthday, a Watcher shows up and tests the child in all
three disciplines. Normally they do entire villages at a time, for
simplicity’s sake, but…if a child passes any of the tests, they are
assigned a permanent Watcher, and sent to one of the schools. The
Watchers stay with them, until they die, making sure they don’t
misuse their gift.’
‘Where’s your Watcher?’ Gel cut in.
‘I don’t know,’ Dan’r said, taking a moment
to think, to remember. Gel thought he saw a pained glimmer cross
through Dan’r’s eyes, but it was gone before he could be sure. ‘He
jumped after me years ago, into the ocean. I never saw him again.
That doesn’t matter though. What is important is that the Watchers
exist to make sure we don’t abuse the powers we have. You don’t
have one. So I’m going to do it instead.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean I’m going to watch you, to make sure
you don’t do anything…stupid. I’m also going to try to teach
you.’
‘What are you going to teach me? I thought
you said you couldn’t teach me to play.’
‘And I can’t. But I can teach you some of the
basics, and anything else I think you should know. Starting with
this’ Dan’r said, pushing one hand behind him to stand and shaking
out the piece of parchment he had been working on.
Gel tried to pay attention again as Dan’r
threw the parchment to the ground at his feet with a wide, sweeping
gesture, but once again the air shimmered and Gel found he couldn’t
focus. When the shimmering stopped, Gel saw an assortment of
weapons lying on the ground at Dan’r’s feet.
He also saw Dan’r breathing heavily, his
chest heaving in and out, and his hands on his knees as if to hold
himself up.
‘That’s…about as many as I can do at a time’
Dan’r said as he straightened, and shook out his hands.
On the ground Gel saw two light leather
bucklers and two wooden practice swords.
‘You’re going to teach me how to fight?’ he
asked excitedly.
‘We’ll practice for a few hours each morning’
Dan’r said, bending down to pick up a sword and shield, ‘If you
want revenge so badly, you’ll have to learn how to take it.’
Gel hurried over to the weapons while Dan’r
strapped a buckler to his left arm and twirled the wooden sword
once or twice, to get the feel of it.
Eager, Gel strapped the second buckler to his
left arm, picked up the second wooden sword, and frowned as it
shifted in his grip. He swung it down through the air once,
experimentally, and it was all he could do to keep a hold. With his
missing fingers…
***
‘I don’t know if I can…’ Gel started, looking
angrily at his mangled hand.
‘Look, we’ll start slow. Just do what you
can. I’m going to attack you now, just…try to protect yourself.’
Dan’r said as he advanced slowly, his sword hand raised high above
his head.
He swung, slowly, arcing the sword down from
right to left towards Gel, who lifted his left arm with the buckler
and awkwardly fended off the strike.
‘Good’ Dan’r said as he brought his sword
back up, making a slow, low cut at Gel’s midsection. Gel twisted
awkwardly and parried the second strike with his buckler as
well.
‘Right, try to hit me now,’ Dan’r said after
Gel parried three more slow strikes with his buckler.
‘I can’t!’ Gel said, angrily, ‘I can’t hold
the stupid sword.’
‘At least try once before you give up’ Dan’r
said, taking a low stance with his buckler held forward. ‘Just
swing.’
‘Fine’ Gel said, frustrated, as he swung at
Dan’r’s buckler. The wooden sword felt awkward, heavy, in Gel’s
hand, and as soon as it struck Dan’r’s leather buckler, Gel lost
his grip again.
‘See?’ Gel yelled angrily, turning and
kicking at the sword as it fell to the ground, ‘I can’t do
anything!’
‘Calm down, Gel, just…let me think for a
minute.’
‘I’m not going to calm down! I can’t even
swing a sword. I’m useless now!’ Gel yelled again, tearing the
buckler from his arm and throwing it away from the small camp.
‘Gel, just…pack the bags, and get ready to
leave. I’ve got an idea’ Dan’r said, sitting himself down and
starting to sketch again.
Gel muttered, but with little choice, he did
as he was told. It didn’t take him long to pack up the small camp,
as neither he nor Dan’r had much in the way of possessions. Still,
by the time Gel finished packing and turned to Dan’r, Dan’r was
standing, shaking out a piece of parchment in front of him, the air
around his hands shimmering.
Gel stood, staring, wondering what would
appear this time. It was strange, each time, watching something
appear out of nowhere. It didn’t make sense. Still, Gel shook his
head, furrowed his eyes and forehead as he tried to make out
something, anything, through the shimmering air around Dan’r’s
hands. His head started to hurt, and he blinked quickly to try to
dispel the pain, and then there was Dan’r, standing with a bow and
a quiver of arrows in his hands.
‘Okay, you’re right,’ Dan’r started, ‘you
might not be able to fight with a sword. Still, no reason we can’t
teach you to shoot.’ Dan’r said, holding the bow and quiver towards
Gel.
Gel looked at the bow for a second, then
shrugged and walked to grab it. Dan’r might be right. Gel couldn’t
think of a reason he couldn’t use a bow.
***
They walked all day, with a break at noon.
While they walked, Dan’r talked about life in Alta; about magic,
about the different countries, about how different Dohm was, and
his ideas on why that must be. About how the church of Ragn
stifled, limited creativity, limited art, just like the Ghastians
did at home. About how wrong it was.
Gel, for the most part, ignored him. As they
walked, he practiced with his new bow. He would stop, take aim, and
launch an arrow a few dozen paces ahead, watching the curve of the
arrow as it flew. He had wondered why the arrow wobbled in midair,
but Dan’r hadn’t known. Gel would then catch up with Dan’r, and
they would walk in the direction of his shot, where he would search
frantically for the arrow. He only lost three the first day.
It was simple, but still fun somehow. He only
needed three fingers to draw back the bow, and his fingers were
already calloused from years of playing lute, so they didn’t even
hurt much.
That night when they made camp, Gel played
again, this time keeping the notes tight and fierce, close
together, and fast. He was trying to race the fire that Dan’r had
started. Or he was trying to feed it, to make it grow larger, Gel
wasn’t entirely sure. He liked the tune though; liked how the base
was the same always, but the rest of the song shifted and changed
seemingly at random, starting and stopping like the tongues of
flame the fire sent out; reaching out to the sky, seeing how far,
how free they could get, before swiftly dissipating back into the
white center of the fire.
The notes that drifted through the dark
finally stopped when Gel put down his lute, echoing only briefly
through the night before disappearing entirely. But in Gel’s head
as he lay down to sleep…the notes continued. Those notes, and many
others. Ideas of what he could compose on; on the winds and the
seasons, the heavens and the elements; they haunted his sleep like
good dreams, and then just like dreams, they disappeared when he
awoke the next morning. The notes, the timing and the phrasing, the
very construction of the songs he had woven in the dark just before
sleep, they all disappeared with the dawn. But just like dreams,
they left him a feeling, a vague memory of what the songs should
sound like.
Gel promised himself on waking that soon he
would write them down; soon he would make the ideas in his head
real.
***
Gel had just let another arrow loose into the
sky, watching as its wobbly parabola drew it in a dark line across
the blue, sunny sky.
‘Where does it come from?’ he asked as the
arrow lazily reached the apex of its flight, watched as it slowly
decided to come back down to earth.
They had been walking all morning in silence.
Dan’r had been able to make a bow, but had no insights on how to
use one, so Gel was left to his own experimenting. And Dan’r was
left to his own musings. He had been walking along, seemingly lost
in how bright and, well, beautiful, the day was, when Gel’s
question snapped him out of his peaceful reverie.
‘What?’ he asked, shaking his head briefly,
drawing Gel’s question up from half heard memory, ‘where does what
come from? Gravity?’ he guessed, watching as another of Gel’s
arrows sped towards the ground.
‘No, magic; well, gravity too, but…magic.
Where does it come from?’ Gel’s gaze was fixed on where his arrow
had fallen, and he didn’t look in Dan’r’s direction as he
responded. He had lost a few arrows already that morning, and was
determined to not lose anymore.
‘Oh. I….I don’t know.’ Dan’r answered,
rubbing his hand through his hair, as if that might help him gain
previously unknown insight. ‘I mean, there are theories and stories
in Alta, but…I never really listened to them. It just always has
been. It’s there, and some people can do it and most others can’t.
What more needs to be known?’
Gel stopped briefly and plucked the arrow
from where it had skewered the ground as Dan’r fought with his
brain to find more words.
‘Until recently, I couldn’t even, well,
couldn’t do Art. Not all the time anyway. I mean I could, but
sometimes when I would try, nothing would happen.’
‘But why?’
‘Do you answer everything with another
question?’
‘Only if my first question isn’t answered’
Gel replied glibly as he drew another shaft as far back as he could
and released the arrow into the sky. Sometimes the bow-string
slapped back against Gel’s left arm, and it stung, but Gel was
learning to hold the bow at an angle, with a slight bend in his
left elbow. It made his shots less powerful, but also less painful.
He wondered absently in the space between his question and Dan’r’s
answer if he could make some kind of guard for his arm, so he could
use his full power.
‘Well, it’s happened other times too, but…if
I’m drunk, and I draw badly, then…then nothing happens. It’s easier
to make small things; the bow wasn’t very hard. But, say, a
fireball, or food, or drink, those are a bit harder to make…ironic
that I can’t be drunk if I want to make myself alcohol. Unfortunate
too.’