by B. T. Narro
They sat against the side, Desil enjoying their silent company. Adriya took tiny bites, but he was glad to see she could keep down her food. Kirnich and Beatrix sat on the opposite side. The two groups gave each other looks, but there appeared to be little meaning behind any of them.
Eventually Leida started to chuckle. Her laughter grew louder as Desil and Adriya looked her way.
“This is strange, isn’t it?” she mused. “Look at our enemies staring at us, as all of us sit cross-legged like children, munching on bread and cheese.”
Desil didn’t see the humor, but Leida’s laugh was infectious and soon started him up as well.
“Right?” she asked him, his laughter causing hers to increase.
“It does feel strange,” he agreed.
“I don’t get it,” Adriya said.
“I don’t know why.” Leida continued to laugh as she gestured at Beatrix and Kirnich. “But it’s funny.”
The two of them didn’t seem to appreciate Leida’s behavior as each took on a scowl. They spoke to each other, Kirnich visibly getting upset as he gestured. Soon he stormed off back to the cabin. Beatrix slowly followed, glancing over at Leida with confusion.
Leida continued to chuckle for a while as she wiped the tears from her eyes, but eventually the laughter stopped yet the drying of her eyes did not. She gave a sigh.
“My whole life, I’ve known nothing but the routine of the Academy. Now I’m eating bread and cheese across from people who want to put my family in prison.”
Desil could hear the fear in her tone.
Adriya patted her leg in what seemed to be Adriya’s best attempt to make her friend feel better.
Desil didn’t know why he dove into this opportunity without one worry before now. He thought about it for a while and soon was ready to offer some advice.
“When your father first came to me, I knew I was getting involved in something greater than anything I’d ever done before. I never thought about backing out. Basen trusted me, and for good reason. I’m fully capable of taking on the necessary tasks. I could say the same about you, Leida. No one else should be here with Adriya and me. You will succeed because you have to. It’s the only option.”
He knew he had chosen the right words when not only Leida but Adriya glanced over with a lift of her eyebrows.
When night came, they descended down to the lower part of the ship to sleep. Each bed was hanging above another, three per column. Every bed was almost touching another in its row, head to foot. Desil counted twenty-one, many of the ship’s crew settling in to sleep while others seemed to be just getting up. Beatrix and Kirnich remained in the cabin above, in more comfortable conditions.
Desil waited to see what Leida and Adriya would do. Adriya took the first empty bed closest to the floor and Leida climbed into the one above. Desil pulled himself up to the third above Leida and made himself as cozy as possible.
The ship creaked as it swayed, but Desil was exhausted and figured sleep would come soon. Someone put out the last lamp, and Desil shut his eyes to rest.
He awoke sometime later to the ship bobbing violently. He heard the sounds of someone beneath him getting into their boots in a hurry and looked over to find Adriya rushing out. The poor woman was probably going to be sick. Even Desil started to feel his stomach turning. He waited for Leida to follow her out, but there was no other movement below him.
He climbed down, past Leida sleeping on her side and facing him, and got his boots on. He came up to the deck and was blasted by wind. The waves thrashed, splashing water over the side of the ship. It was dreadfully cold, and he saw that Adriya had foregone a cloak in her hurry as she leaned over the side. He went back below and found it on her bed, then brought it up to her.
She had finished being sick by the time he returned, now leaning against a pole near the center of the ship with her head bowed, shivering.
She didn’t seem like the kind of woman who would want him putting her woolen cloak around her, so he handed it to her instead. “Here.”
She reached out without looking up, one hand on her stomach. She slid her arms in quickly and buttoned it closed.
“I could be here a while longer as I wait to be sick again. You should go back down.”
“I’m all right here.”
“You don’t have to stay. I’m fine.”
“I know you are, but if I leave then the only person to feel sorry for you is yourself.”
“So?”
“I know what it’s like to feel sorry for myself because of a situation I can’t control. It starts a cycle of loathing that will get worse with time. I don’t want that for you, so you’re going to take my sympathy whether you like it or not. You can even be annoyed at me if that helps.”
She actually smiled. It was faint but still an unexpected victory.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The next day brought rain and cold winds that chilled them to their bones. The only warmth on the ship could be found down at the beds or inside the small cabin, but Beatrix and Kirnich dwelled there. Desil, Leida, and Adriya could only sleep for so many hours to pass the time. By the afternoon they were all antsy for the weather to clear. Desil went up to the deck a few times to watch the crew work against the weather to keep the ship sailing straight. It was good to see them earning their coin, as thirty kymarks was a hefty payment for any task, even split among ten people.
Earlier, he’d noticed water pooling on the deck. With Beatrix and Kirnich tucked away, this could be the perfect opportunity to finally talk to Leida about what he could do. He needed to find out the extent of her abilities in case they found themselves in a dire situation in Kanoan. He went back down bubbling with excitement. This was the conversation he had hoped to have before meeting her father.
“Leida, there’s water on the deck. How about we show each other what we can do with it while Beatrix and Kirnich aren’t paying attention?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean change it. You don’t know how?”
“I still don’t know what you mean.”
“I figured because you can make memories…” He stopped himself as he tried to recall when his abilities had come to him. Manipulating water was first. Manipulating land came later. Eventually he was able to read memories and make his own. He’d figured the same skill was needed for all three, but perhaps not.
Or perhaps she just doesn’t know what she is capable of.
“Let me show you.” Seeing her reluctance, he added, “It’s important. Both of you, let’s go.” He gave a smile to match his friendly tone as he tried not to order them. Fortunately it worked. Adriya shrugged and stood up. Leida followed.
The wind was howling as they came back to the deck, every sailor busy with his own task. Desil wasn’t worried about them seeing him change the water, only about them telling Beatrix or Kirnich.
Desil had to raise his voice to be heard over the roar of the waves crashing against the boat. “What do you feel with this water?” he asked Leida.
“Do you mean besides freezing?”
“What do you feel with your mind?”
“I feel bastial and sartious energy, as I always do.” She lifted her hand and gathered bastial energy into a white hot ball as two vertical lines formed in her forehead. She looked capable of great power after a quick focus of her mind, but Desil was beginning to doubt she had any control over the elements. He had no skill over sartious energy, like she did. Even his power over bastial was limited. Nearly all of his training had gone into the manipulation of water and land instead. It was here that he felt the most in control.
“Do you feel any connection with the water?” Desil asked.
Leida let the heat disperse. “I’ve always had a predilection toward water. I swim whenever I have the chance.” She thought for a moment. “I suppose I do feel a connection of some kind. I’ve never focused on it before.” She squinted as she lifted her hand over a small puddle in front of them. It scattered in all directions.
“Ah, that was just bastial energy.”
Desil nodded. He had felt it. “Try to disconnect yourself from the energies in the air and water and see if you can feel the water on its own.”
“What does it feel like?”
“You should be able to grasp it with your mind like you do with bastial or sartious energy.”
“And why do you think I can do this?”
“You’ve been coming to Lake Kayvol all this time. I didn’t think it was only to leave memories for me.”
He was surprised when he caught her blushing. “Not only that. You’re right.” She crouched over the small puddle and put her hand on top of it.
Adriya said, “My mother told me of one mage who could change water into ice or vapor. He went to the Academy before we were born. I haven’t known of any since.” She glanced at Desil skeptically.
“Do you remember the name of this mage?”
Leida continued crouching over the water. “I think it started with a W.”
“Could it be Wade?” Desil asked with a hinting cadence.
Leida popped up as she gasped. “Yes, Wade Fogg!”
“Why didn’t you say something!” Adriya sounded angry for some reason.
“I was planning to talk to Leida about our abilities before all of this happened,” Desil explained. “I just had no way of finding her until her father came to me. I suppose I would’ve eventually mentioned my father. I don’t see why it’s something I should’ve brought up earlier.”
“Because your father killed—”
Leida cleared her throat to interrupt Adriya. “We never met him, but my father knew him well many years ago.”
Desil nodded. “They were friends.”
An awkward silence followed.
“He wasn’t a bad man while he was sober,” Desil felt inclined to tell them. He was my best friend. The awkwardness only worsened after his comment. He pushed away his grief and lightened his tone. “Have you felt something yet, Leida?”
“I think so, similar to energy. I’ve felt this before, but I don’t know what to do with it.” She took on a smile as she glanced at a puddle. “I enjoy the predictability of water. It comforts me in the same way as walking through a forest and knowing the trees will stay standing. It almost feels like I can have a conversation with it.”
Adriya’s pouting expression showed her obvious pique. “You never told me any of this.”
“Because I thought it was nothing more than a quirk.”
“It might be that,” Desil told Leida in case he was getting her hopes up for nothing. “But it’s worth exploring. I never thought about it like a conversation before, but you’re right. It is just like that. When you’ve spoken to the water, what did you say?”
“Nothing. I didn’t think it would listen.”
“I think it will.”
She stood up and looked into his eyes. “Show me.”
Her anticipation reminded him of his excitement when Wade began teaching him how to change the water. After her comment, he would think of it like speaking to the element. It was a wonder he’d never considered that before.
When he began training, he spent hours screaming at the water, in his mind, for it to change. He’d been able to feel it resisting, the water wanting to stay the same. The solution was to delve mentally deeper into the element to find what made it water in the first place, then alter that.
Now it was far simpler as he raised his hand to help him focus his thoughts on the shallow puddle. The less water he was manipulating, the easier to convince it to change.
The water went from liquid to ice in a blink. Leida gasped, but Desil wasn’t done. He changed it back with a simple urging of his mind, then continued to convince it to alter as it disappeared into the air.
“I have never seen that before!” Leida marveled. “How did you do that?”
“I spoke to it. I told it to change to ice and then to a gas.”
Before he could continue, Leida walked over to another tiny puddle and pointed her palm at it. “Change to ice. Change now! You will change to ice!” She looked back at Desil over her shoulder. “What am I doing wrong?”
“It’s not that easy.” He and Adriya came over to join her. “I’m not literally speaking to it. I’m speaking to it in the same way you tell bastial energy to gather when you want to form a fireball, but instead of commanding the water to move, I will the water to change. It’s important to note that I’m not grabbing hold of the water the way you hold bastial energy. I am understanding the water and altering why it wants to be water instead of ice. I’m not actually changing the liquid. I’m telling every drop of water that it no longer wants to be liquid. I’m talking to the essence of what makes it water.”
“I thought I was understanding you at first, but now I’m lost.”
“I think I understand,” Adriya said. She lifted her hand at the new puddle. Desil and Leida watched for a while as Adriya made a face of concentration and let out little grunts, but nothing happened.
“Please explain it more,” Leida said.
The complicated process had become simple to him over the years. He had to think back to his father’s lessons.
“Everything is made out of something too small for us to see. The air, for example, contains traces of many elements. We know there’s bastial energy, sartious energy, and a number of other things that every animal on land needs to breathe. There must be more to water, just like there’s more to everything.”
“As a mage,” Leida said, “we can pull bastial and sartious energy out of the air from far distances, moving it to our will. Are you doing something like that with the water that’s causing it to change?”
“I’m not. I can feel bastial energy within the water—you can probably feel sartious in there as well—but I am ignoring it. When my father taught me how to do this, he told me I have to understand the water before I can change it. This is different from manipulating energies, so try to let go of your notion of that and start thinking deeper about the water. There’s something in every drop that makes it behave as it does. What do you know about water’s reaction to heat?”
“With the right amount of heat, water boils and changes to a gas,” Leida replied. “And with the right amount of cold, it freezes.”
“The same happens to everything,” Desil explained. “So why does water stay a liquid in this cold weather yet the wood of this boat remains solid?”
They thought for a while before Adriya answered. “No one knows.”
“No one knows for certain, but we can assume something that will help you understand water better. Whatever makes water has given it rules.”
“Are you talking about a god?” Leida asked.
Desil had asked his father the same question, and now he gave Leida the same answer. “I’m not talking about the creation of water, so no, I don’t want to get into whether a god is behind any of this or not, as it will just make it harder to understand. Instead I’m focusing on the nature of water. It’s predictable, like you said. All water is the same everywhere in the world. Whatever makes water what it is has also given it rules. It freezes, becomes a liquid, or changes into a gas at specific temperatures. It sticks to itself but refuses to adhere to oil. Ice floats on water instead of sinks. We might not know the reason for its exact behavior, but do you see how it has these rules?”
They nodded.
“Are you saying you can break these rules?” Leida asked.
“I can bend them. I connect to the essence of water and manipulate that. I tell it to become ice. We already know it has the capability, so I’m not changing that. I’m not changing anything, in fact. I’m telling it to alter itself, to become ice or a gas.”
He walked toward the largest puddle in the corner of the ship as they followed. “I’ll show you that I’m not breaking any rules,” he said as he stopped. “Put your hands over it and tell me what you feel when it changes to ice.”
They crouched down, their hands hovering just above t
he water. With a slight groan of effort, he changed it to ice.
“I felt some heat,” Leida said.
“I felt it too,” Adriya added.
“Water contains a certain amount of heat that must be lost for it to turn to ice,” Desil explained. “I’m not changing the temperature, so that heat has to go somewhere. Most of it rises out. Now you should be able to predict what’s going to happen when I shift it back.”
“It will take the heat out of the air,” Leida said.
Desil changed it back to a liquid and then kept going to make it evaporate. The process took less than the span of a breath.
“Cold,” Leida said.
“Yes. Now I think both of you are ready to try, but follow me first.”
He took them back down into the sleeping quarters. They took off their wet cloaks, but he kept his in hand and wrung a few drops of water out onto the wood floor. Then he sat in front of it and motioned for Leida and Adriya to join him.
“I should warn you, Adriya,” he said, “that I don’t think it’s possible for someone to learn this in a day. But I believe Leida has already been speaking to the water without realizing it. This could be possible for her.”
Adriya gave him a look as if she would prove him wrong even if it meant forgoing sleep.
They sat around the tiny puddle of water for hours. Desil continued giving them advice as best he could, but the connection to the water was nothing like riding a horse. It didn’t start off possible yet difficult and then become easier. It had come to him in a breakthrough moment, when he suddenly knew his commands could be heard. The same had happened with land, though his ability to convince it to change was nothing near his command over water. He had no hope of turning rock to liquid, for example, only softening it.
With Leida’s help, however, who knew what might be possible after they practiced enough together. Desil’s father had never been able to turn a rock to liquid by himself, either, but the two of them had done it together. They’d celebrated the entire day the first time they’d accomplished it, getting together a feast for all their patrons who had no idea why they were being treated but were happy to partake. Desil’s mother didn’t care as much, opting to make sarcastic remarks like, “Be careful you don’t tear down the Fjallejon Mountains with all that power.” But Desil and his father had refused to let it dampen their mood.