“That smells nice,” Shawna’s voice piped up from her bedroll, “what is it?”
“It’s called sweetpenny tea,” Dormael greeted her, “would you like some?”
Shawna yawned and climbed from her blankets, nodding absently. She made to stretch, pushing her slender arms toward the sky, until she had a visible twinge from the wound in her side. Thinking better of that, she simply bent over at the waist to stretch her legs. Dormael and D’Jenn both watched the slender, pretty girl bend and stretch with masked expressions, and then seemed to catch each other doing it. Hastily, they each looked back to the fire, shooting sheepish expressions at each other as Shawna stepped over to the fire and sat down between the two wizards.
“It’s sweet, but it has a kick,” Dormael told her in warning as D’Jenn poured another cup and handed it to her. Shawna nodded dismissively and took a short pull from the cup, then a slightly longer one. After a moment, her eyes seemed to focus and she took a deep breath.
“Evmir’s Hammer,” she complimented, “that’s very good, and you’re right, it does have a kick. Where does it come from?”
“The sweetpenny plant,” Dormael replied in a tone that suggested she had missed the obvious, “many Sevenlanders drink the tea made from its leaves. It is, of course, very sweet, but it also has many benefits. You’re already beginning to feel them, I wager.” Shawna nodded in answer and sipped another pull of the tea.
“Dormael’s mother grows it and keeps us well supplied with dried leaves,” D’Jenn told her, “she also makes the finest firewine in all of Soirus-Gamerit. Dormael’s mother is somewhat of a local celebrity. People from miles around come to buy firewine from her.” Shawna regarded Dormael with a surprised expression and nodded with a slight smile on her face.
“It’s strange,” she began somewhat cautiously, “to hear about the mother of a wizard being so…normal. I don’t mean any offense at that, it’s just that you hear so many stories about…well, I’m sure you know.”
“Of course,” D’Jenn said with a smirk on his face, “let’s see…oh yes, here’s one. We are born deep in the bowels of the earth, like the demons of olden times. We only come up to this world to entice young women into the ground with us to spawn our evil love-children.” Dormael laughed and slapped his knee at that one.
“I’ve got one,” he chortled, “we are born from the mating of the stars and the moon, and we fall to earth as old men. We live our lives backwards and are all slowly becoming babies!” The two wizards were laughing and punching each other in the arm good-naturedly. Dormael suddenly rose with a serious expression on his face and grabbed Shawna lightly by the arm.
“Now you know the real reason we brought you out here. We’ve got a lot of demon-children to spawn, my dear. Now if I can just find that damned cave…,” he mimed looking around, and Shawna laughed and slapped his hand away. D’Jenn was laughing uproariously. Shawna was giggling at the sight of the cousins practically rolling with laughter, and though she was a little embarrassed, the smile stayed on her face.
“I didn’t mean that I believed those stories,” she admonished, “I just meant that there were stories about wizards used to frighten me when I was a child, and here I am laughing with two of them.”
“Oh yes,” hooted D’Jenn, “let’s just hope we can get that bracelet of yours to Ishamael before I’m in swaddling clothes.” Dormael gave another half-hearted bark of laughter, but he was out of breath and wiping tears from his eyes. D’Jenn was in a similar state. Shawna shook her head and after about a minute, the laughter finally died down. D’Jenn poured the three of them more of the sweetpenny tea.
“We are just like you, Shawna,” Dormael told her, “You have a talent: the sword. In fact, you’re island-trained. Marked, as they say,” he indicated her wrists where the tattoos were imprinted into her skin, “we are the same. We have a talent, and we use it. It’s just that simple.”
“It’s not that simple,” Shawna objected wryly, “anyone can pick up a sword and learn to use it. True, not everyone is good at it, but it is only a tool.”
Dormael sighed and looked to D’Jenn for help, but D’Jenn just shrugged and took another pull from his tea. Wrinkling his brows, Dormael clasped his hands together in an expression of contemplation.
“Okay,” he began, “first let me explain this: there are two kinds of wizards in the world. The first kind, like my cousin and I, are called the Blessed. We are born with the talent, the ‘spark’ if you will, and are generally more powerful than the second kind. We cannot deny the magic any more than you could deny breathing or eating. It’s there and it will come out eventually in one way or another. In fact, to deny it and not to learn how to use it would be very dangerous not only to us, but also to everyone around us. The second kinds, called the Learned, are those who are not born with the connection. They aspire to be wizards, and so through training and practice they learn to use magic. Generally they are not as powerful, but this is not always true.”
D’Jenn was nodding at Dormael’s explanation, but Shawna looked quite surprised.
“You mean to tell me that you don’t have to be born a wizard to use magic? That…that even I could learn to do it, or Bethany?” Shawna asked incredulously.
“That’s exactly what I’m telling you,” Dormael said, “First of all, magic is not something that D’Jenn and I have inside of us. We all have it; you, Bethany, Alton, everyone. Magic is sort of hard to explain, but I will try. I’m sure you know the Epics of the Gods, and how Evmir made the world and so on?” Shawna nodded. “Well, after Evmir forged the world, his brother Eindor gifted it with magic. Magic is sort of its own entity. It is inside of everything, but it also moves through everything. Magic is just there. There are theories that state that magic is the same sort of energy that was used to create the world. Ever since the day you were born, Shawna, you have been breathing it, eating it, sleeping in it, and so forth. It is everything.”
“If that is true, though, how can you be born with the ‘spark’, as you called it?” she asked.
“Well, being born with the ‘spark’, which by the way isn’t a true description; it’s just a term that people use, means that you are born with an inherent connection to magic. Think of it like being born with a third arm, as funny as that sounds.”
The discussion was interrupted as Bethany came barreling out of her blankets and plopped down between the two wizards. D’Jenn took her and made sure that she cleaned her teeth, because like all children, Bethany had a natural aversion to staying clean. When that was over, the wizard and the young girl walked back over to the fire, where Dormael had pulled some of the dried rations from their bags and was handing them out.
“So, if that is true then, why are most of the wizards in the world from the Sevenlands?” Shawna queried.
“Well, my dear, that isn’t, or wasn’t always, entirely true either,” Dormael replied.
“There is the School of Magic Arts, in Lesmira,” D’Jenn added, matter-of-factly.
“Yes, but that was built with Sevenlander help, as was Tauravon,” Shawna retorted in the same tone of voice.
“Ok, in order to explain this, we’ll have to go back in time a bit, back before even the First Great War. Back to when both of our civilizations were just tribes roaming around the land looking for a place to settle,” Dormael went on, “As far back as anyone can remember, as far back as anyone has recorded, the attitudes of the east and west were at odds about almost everything. The attitudes about magic were no exception to this rule. Magic has always been a part of Sevenlander life; we embraced it and welcomed it.
“However, in Alderak it is different. There are, or were, many easterners born with the ‘spark’, and there were many who used magic. Every story you’ve ever heard about witches, incubuses, demons, and so forth probably all originated with someone using magic. The general practice of the east is to shun these types, send them into the forests and the hills away from everyone else. Later, the practice became persec
ution. So, since the Blessed of the east were driven away, they usually didn’t reproduce.
“Over time, that caused the trait of being born with the ‘spark’ to be culled slowly out of your civilization.” Shawna nodded in understanding as Dormael went on. “It wasn’t until after the Great War, before and during the year 300, that the wizards of the east began to band together, and they sought out the only place that accepted them here: Lesmira. The Lesmirans were always a more learned and open-minded folk compared to the rest of the easterners, and they began to give solace to the persecuted magic-users. Together, the magic-users were a force to be reckoned with, but they were still afraid of persecution, and they were also afraid of endangering the Lesmirans, who had taken them in so graciously. So, they sent word to the Conclave in Ishamael and sought to be allies with us.”
“In that same year, the year 300,” D’Jenn continued Dormael’s tale, “The Conclave sent a party of emissaries to Lesmira, to meet with the King, and the group of wizards. You have to remember that during this time relations between the east and the west were incredibly strained. Trade had only begun between us ten years before, and communication was still very sparse, and there was a lot of mistrust. We, the Sevenlanders, were freshly out of a war with Rashardia, which we had mistakenly believed at the time was receiving aid from the east. As I said, there was a lot of mistrust.
“So, this party of wizards that went to Lesmira actually went expecting to bring the easterners back with them. What they found instead was the first true ally of the Sevenlands in the east. The visiting wizards were treated with great respect and friendships were formed between the eastern and western wizards, and the King. That year they hammered out an agreement that set up the School of Magic Arts in Tauravon, which at the time was just a normal riverside city.
“The wizards who had come from the west decided to stay there and teach the easterners how to use the magic they were born with, and to educate them about it. The next year, the Mekai and the Tal-Kansil from the Sevenlands visited with the King and the teachers from the School. It was an unprecedented event, and there were many who objected to it, in the east and in the west. To commemorate, the new Lesmiran wizards and their Sevenlander teachers designed and created modern-day Tauravon with magic. I don’t know if you’ve ever been there, Shawna, but it is one of the most beautiful cities in the world.
“The King was stunned, and from that day on, relations with Lesmira and the Sevenlands has been good. Since the creation of the School of Magic there, the trait has slowly made a comeback in Lesmira, and lately we’ve seen it cropping up all over Alderak. It is true that there aren’t nearly as many wizards here as there are in the Sevenlands, but it’s hard to reverse generations and generations of culling.”
“There are some here in the east that still are born with the ‘spark’ outside of Lesmira,” Dormael continued, “though in an eastern society, children aren’t educated about magic and such things, and for that matter, neither are the adults; when you’re thirteen and strange things begin to happen to you and because you want them to, it’s hard for the people around you not to notice. So the cycle continues, with younglings hiding what they can do, not understanding what it is and eventually being persecuted if they don’t learn of the Lesmiran Magic School.”
“There are wizards here in the east,” D’Jenn added, “whose sole mission is to seek out these youths and bring them to the School, where they will be accepted and educated. What most Alderakians don’t realize is that wizards are people too.” The last comment was enhanced with a sardonic wink at Shawna.
“It must be so hard for them,” Shawna mused, “I had never thought of that before. There’s this entire world that you two live in, and I haven’t known anything about it until the past week.”
“Strange, isn’t it?” Dormael remarked. At that, he stood up and began to roll up his and Bethany’s blankets in tight little bundles and tied them to the pack horses. The rest of the party followed his example, and soon the camp was cleared and D’Jenn was eliminating all signs that they had been there. Shawna watched him with interest, and then mounted her horse to wait on him to finish. Dormael and Bethany were already mounted.
The day was bright, clear, and cold as the companions set out onto the packed dirt road. The sun shone down into the trees which lined both sides of the road, and the effect was one of a quiet, resting beauty. The wind that had whipped their cloaks and frozen their noses back in the valley that Ferolan rested in was greatly reduced here by the forest. Every time it blew in from the west, the trees would whisper and wave with the wind, dancing to the rhythm of the earth as it rustled through them.
The forest was mostly deciduous trees, though there were some evergreens scattered to the east side of the road. Looking around, Dormael saw the small and bare frames of maple and birch trees to the west side, and the same to the east, though he did spot a few oaks and maybe some chestnut further out. Brown and golden leaves still dotted the forest, though autumn was waning and winter was just around the corner. To some, the forest would appear dead and forbidding with its grayish bare trees with reaching limbs like skeletal fingers, but to Dormael it meant that the cycle of life was right on course. After the Spring Equinox new growth would shoot from the skeletal fingers to sprinkle the forest with deep green once again, a testament to the life that was sleeping inside the trees all around them.
The floor of the forest was littered with the castoffs of the trees that inhabited it, and there was surprisingly little scrub here. The ground was dry and only slightly warmer than the air that resided above it (as Dormael had found out the night before) and with every gust of wind smatterings of dead leaves and forest litter would scatter across the hard packed dirt that the party now rode down in a moderate walk. Dormael pulled the hood of his cloak further over his head at one particularly cold gust, and watched his breath mist as he exhaled. The autumn, though not his favorite season of the year, held a beauty that rivaled that of any other.
“So what is it exactly that you two do,” Shawna asked, stealing him from his revelry, “I heard you mention wizards from Lesmira with missions. What is your mission?” Dormael looked over to his cousin for help, but D’Jenn just shrugged and signaled to him with his hands behind Shawna’s back.
It won’t hurt to tell her, now. She’s just as deep as we are in this, and if we can’t trust each other we might as well stop now, he signed. Dormael ground his teeth slightly and thought about how to address this without it seeming too bad. He took a deep breath and carried on.
“First of all, let me explain that once a wizard completes his training at the Conclave, he has different choices of where he wants to go and what he wants to do,” he explained, “he can become what we call a Hedge Wizard, where he would basically go back home afterwards and serve his community in different ways; helping with crops, advising the local gentry and such things as that. Many wizards end up in that position even if they do not choose it outright, they get old or just get tired of doing other things.
“Some wizards become Infusers, imbuing objects with magic and giving them certain abilities or advantages, such as those swords of yours. It is not a widely studied area in the Sevenlands, but in Lesmira the eastern wizards have become quite adept at it. The blades your father had made for you are testament to that fact.
“One could become a Scout, which we discussed earlier. Scouts travel the land and seek out young boys and girls with the ‘spark’, or those who wish to learn. The Scouts also teach younglings who do not wish to go to the Conclave how to control the magic so that they do not harm anyone, but this does not happen often in the west, though I have heard of it several times in the east.
“There are the Philosophers, who sit around in the tower all day coming up with new ways to use magic and new theories about the world around us. They do travel abroad sometimes, but usually they would send one of us. That is, a wizard such as D’Jenn and myself.
“The other department within the Co
nclave is one that isn’t spoken about to Alderakians. So I hope you understand that in telling you this, I am placing a great amount of trust in you not to speak of it to anyone, not even a Sevenlander. If anyone discovered that you knew, D’Jenn and I would be in no small amount of trouble. Can we trust you, Shawna?”
Shawna looked slightly confused at this last comment, and her right eyebrow rose in a cautious and questioning expression. She looked to D’Jenn who regarded her with his intense blue eyes but didn’t say anything. Looking back to Dormael, she nodded wordlessly.
“This other type of wizard is known as a Warlock,” Dormael imparted with a sideways smirk upon his face, “D’Jenn and I are Warlocks. A Warlock works for the Mekai and the Tal-Kansil, that is to say the central leaders of the Sevenlands, and our mission is somewhat of a generalization.
“We investigate things; murders, strange magical anomalies, anything that is a danger to people. We also go abroad in the world to make sure that the interests of the Conclave and the Sevenlands are kept safe. We are trained with magic in ways that other wizards are not, we are trained with weapons, and we are trained in survival and stealth.”
“You’re spies!” Shawna whispered in exclamation, but Dormael held up his hand in protest.
“Not exactly, my dear, though some of that does come into play. We do not spy on other countries because we want to know what they are doing. We only act when certain things that the Conclave believes to be threats to us or the rest of the world are put into play by other people.”
“What do you mean by that? That could only mean that…you were spying on Cambrell, weren’t you?” she accused, her patriotism showing through.
“No, no, no….we weren’t spying on Cambrell,” Dormael explained hastily, “we were on vacation. We were supposed to meet in Ferolan so that we could travel together to Tauravon for the Winter Solstice. Cambrell and The Sevenlands are allies, Shawna. Like I said before, we are not exactly spies. D’Jenn, could you help me out here?”
The Sentient Fire (The Seven Signs) Page 16