by B J Hanlon
Grent showed him the first one. Circular type movements that repeated. Edin repeated it a half dozen times before he collapsed.
Eating the stew was nearly impossible. Edin’s arm shook as he tried to bring the spoon to his mouth spilling more of the meal on his trousers than what made it into his mouth.
Master Horston sat down across from him and watched him while he ate. After a few bites of his food he started to talk, “maybe because you were walking you couldn’t form anything. Since you’re resting, it might be a good time to try again.”
“I can’t…” Edin said somehow getting a nearly full spoonful of the rehydrated meat into his mouth. The stew actually was good, more flavor than Grent’s squirrel, though not as tasty as Ali’s.
“Grent was right, weak willpower,” Master Horston said. “Now do as I say and try again.”
“It’s not willpower…” Edin complained. “I’m not able to move.”
“Your body is exhausted boy. Your mind is a muscle as well, we’ve flexed it for years with your studies, the same concept, only a different subject. Flex harder.”
Edin sighed, set the bowl down and closed his eyes. He rested the backs of his hands on his knees, barely feeling where they touched. He took a deep breath trying to concentrate on forming the ball. Instead, the world around him began to grow louder, the smells stronger, feelings deeper. Claws scratched into the ground, a few birds crowed, a rustle in bushes somewhere behind him. Edin tried to block them out, it didn’t work.
He kept his breathing slow and steady and imagined he was looking at his open palm. He pictured the grape. A few wild vines grew in the forests around Yaultan, some farmers even tried to cultivate them their own for wine, it always tasted horrible, but it was more of a hobby than a profitable enterprise.
Trying to imagine the grape appearing in his hand kept getting harder. His mind kept flittering in and out. What if he wasn’t a mage? What if all of this… the running, the hard travel, the deaths of the two women he cared for most was all a misunderstanding. Despite the evidence… could it be true?
Edin’s breathing slowed even further, suddenly all his senses seemed to cease as something twisted inside of his stomach. The growing sensation was quick and then seemed to leap from his body.
A silvery white object flickered into existence in his mind. The sound rushed back and he heard a gasp and a satisfied chuckle. Edin blinked opened his eyes and saw the glowing grape was real, not just in his head. His jaw dropped as he stared.
He glanced at Master Horston, then Grent. Both were staring.
Despite the implication, a smile came to his face as the laughter built inside of him. Edin chuckled.
Master Horston followed, but the old man’s chuckle sounded more like a dog coughing after drinking too much water. He’d never heard that before.
“Well I’ll be,” Grent said. Edin saw a smile on the man’s face. “That was impressive.”
Edin tossed the grape toward Grent, then as quick as it came, all the energy rushed out of him and he slipped into unconsciousness.
A rough shake to his shoulder pulled him from the sleep. Edin grunted. Another shake. His eyelids felt heavy.
Master Horston was saying something to him. His voice sounded like he was calling through a long tunnel and Edin could barely make it out. Slowly he understood.
“Are you okay?” Master Horston said, his voice a little clearer but still distant.
Edin mumbled. His mind was turning like a waterwheel in a stream. Where was he? Not his bed. There were forest sounds around him, chirping birds, rustling trees…
Slowly it came back to him, the last couple days of horror. What was his last memory? After a moment he remembered the grape. Edin held it and tossed it. Then nothing.
Did it sap his energy that much? He thought about it again, he felt a rush. When he threw it all his strength just vanished.
“I’m not carrying him anymore.” It was Grent’s voice though it was odd.
Edin peeled open his eyes and saw the blurred outline of the old man silhouetted in a noon time sun.
“How long?” Edin asked. Even if he could stand, there’d be no way he could hike through the forest.
“Fifteen hours,” Horston said.
“Magi are able to draw on energy from your surroundings,” Grent moaned. “let the natural power seep into your body. I’ve seen it done before.”
“How do you know that?” Horston said but then he added, “ahh.”
Edin was too tired to talk, his mouth felt dry.
“Concentrate on the world around you,” Grent said. “The sounds, sights, smells become sharper.”
Edin could barely think let alone concentrate. After what felt like an hour, he was finally able to. Edin felt a slight tugging in his stomach like he had a rope attached to his navel. Nothing happened. He closed his eyes and tried to picture the energy in the world. What would it even look like?
“Imagine tiny balls surrounding you, the particles you spoke about, feel them in the surrounding world. Encourage them to join you,” Grent said. “This time do not release it. Keep it in.”
In his mind he started to see points of light. It was like staring into the sky on a cloudless evening. Millions of stars.
A stick snapped somewhere around him.
Edin almost lost it, but suddenly they began to glow and slowly move toward him as if he were calling them. He was calling them. They moved like salmon fighting against the current and joined in his body.
His body jolted awake and sat up, his eyes opened and he looked around. He was next to a pine tree. Edin glanced around and saw Master Horston lying on his back a few feet away.
Grent was unmoved, his eyes seemed distant. “Good work.”
“You were glowing… what happened?” Master Horston said pushing himself to his feet and brushing off his long robe.
“I,” he paused for a second, “I did what Grent said. I pictured the stars as the particles and pulled them in.” He straightened out his arms and moved on his legs. He was sore, but his muscles seemed to be completely invigorated.
Master Horston and Grent exchanged glances then looked to Edin.
“So, you drew in the energy then… and when you tossed the ball?” Horston said after a moment.
“I used the energy in my body,” Edin paused. “It felt like I opened the spigot on a cask.” In his mind, the words made sense to him, though he wasn’t sure where they were coming from. He moved his gaze between the two men.
Grent began stroking his beard in a way reminiscent of Master Horston.
“So, you can create things with energy, but if you lose the energy you… pass out like a damsel in distress?” Master Horston said.
“I wouldn’t say like that,” Edin said.
“I would.”
When the white spike ran through the crillio he passed out but when the shield hung around him, he didn’t. He really didn’t know? What could he really do then, besides the shield? A sword or armor maybe, how long could he hold it?
“So, you are able to work with the sword?” Grent said.
“We should leave immediately,” Master Horston said. “We only covered a league today.”
“Cause I was carrying the damsel. He needs to learn to fight without the powers. One hour.” Grent turned to Edin, “Next section of the first set. Are you ready?”
“I guess…” Edin said not sure if he could.
Grent moved through the first moves and then the second stopping after about two minutes. “Your turn.”
Edin furrowed his brow, the first part was still difficult to remember, his mind still groggy but he got through them. Then he moved slowly to the second sequence with Grent stopping him and whacking at his blade in the same fashion as last time. Most times Edin lost grip, a few times though, he held on but his hand stung from the impact.
Edin worked on the form slowly, it was as if he was combining the stance training with the forms. His thighs burned but he kept going. He
found that if he didn’t think about the pain in his legs, it didn’t bother him as much. At least until he’d collapse.
He was sweaty and sticky by the time they finished. His chest heaved for air as he sucked down a waterskin and snacked on apples and stale bread.
“I wish we had horses,” Edin said thinking about the hike before them. By the height of the sun he estimated it to be about one.
“We were in a bit of a rush. Anyways, we’ll be descending the Great Cliffs, we won’t be able to bring any horses.”
“I still don’t know how we’re going to do that. Isn’t it almost a three-hundred-yard vertical drop?” Edin asked.
“Near vertical,” Grent said, “the only accessible trail is a week’s march south, but we’ll never get passed the boarder guards on either side. Only the Por Fen and special merchants can cross.”
“What about further? I know the cliffs cease some thirty leagues from the sea.”
“My geography lessons actually stuck,” Horston said with a surprised look.
“It’s still patrolled, and the forest down there is thick with bandits and wild men.” He shook his head.
“And it’s an extra two months… my old bones can’t take that,” Horston put in.
“But if we use the horses to go south…”
Grent shook his head. “We have our route. Today we reach the road and head east. We need to sneak into Dunbilston, there’s no way around it.”
“I’m not happy about the cliffs either, but it is the best way,” Master Horston said as he finished crunching on the bread.
They began gathering their supplies and started for the road, it’d be near evening when l they reached it. Grent estimated they’d traveled thirty leagues through the forest and would come out just west of a town called Oakside.
“Edin, continue creating the ball, but not releasing the energy. Like the terrin said we’re not carrying you.” Horston said.
They walked through the forest, toward the North Road that traveled the length of Resholt to the cliffs. In a time long past, it was said to have run the length of the entire continent in a near straight line as fitting the old Kingdom. Back then Yaultan wasn’t just a backwater town.
Edin wondered how far they’d be if they’d just grabbed horses from some stable on the road. Probably at Brisbi.
He kept working at manipulating the energy around him and within him. Starting with a grape he was finally able to get an apple sized ball as they reached the tree line. It would appear and then flow back into his body. He kept pushing himself to make larger objects.
“Nothing overt now,” Master Horston said. “It won’t do if the Por Fen hear of something magical. They’ll be on us quickly.”
He once saw a drawing of a mountain man from the cold land far to the north of them, past the Darkener Pine Forest and the Esto Mountains. In the drawing the man held an axe that was as tall as he was and it probably weighed a hundred pounds or more.
Edin wondered if he could create that, but attempting it would have to wait. Edin kept creating the smaller objects he could keep hidden and after a few hours it was coming easier.
A little pull and twist in the stomach and he had an apple. Many hours past when they stopped for supper in a field only a stone’s throw from the road. Near to their left were the remnants of a camp with a circle of stones and cold ashes.
They were beneath a single oak tree. As Edin looked at it, he found someone carved UT and NE inside a heart. Edin ran his fingers across that. He’d once done the same for him and Kes. She blushed when she saw it but said nothing.
Edin’s legs were tired, but not as bad as previous days. After a quick meal of dried fruit and meat Grent made him work the Oret Nakosu in the stances. When finished to Grent’s satisfaction, the warrior stood and came over to him.
“Normally, I wouldn’t move so quickly to new forms… but I’m not sure how long we’ll be together so I want to finish the first form then move to the second. It is more complex than the first, but not too bad. There are two hundred distinct moves you’ll need to master. When perfected, you can be called an adept.”
Edin watched and learned, a few moves at a time. Finishing both forms took at least two hours to get through. As he practiced, the men watched by the fire in silence.
Finally, long after the sun had disappeared and he could no longer work by the dim firelight, did Edin stop.
Wind rustled the grass around them as crickets began their nightly call. The breeze chilled his sweaty body. Despite the warming days, at night it was still cool. Spring was barely half over, though they’d received little rain. Edin pulled the cloak over his body.
“What are you doing?” Grent said, “I didn’t say you could stop.”
“I’m exhausted,” Edin shot back. “I can’t move…” He added a bit quieter.
“You’ll never be a blademaster,” Grent said.
Edin scoffed but said nothing.
The next morning, they continued. It was a well-travelled road, kept intact by local minor nobles. A duty his mother made sure was completed around Yaultan.
They passed groups of travelers, warriors and merchants heading in the opposite direction. One caravan with a heavyset man ridding atop a large wagon forced them from the road. Edin counted ten guards, a few of them eyed him and his companions but most were content to march. He wondered what it was they were carrying that was so valuable and why it was headed toward Yaultan.
“Gems from Brisbi,” Master Horston said as if reading his mind, “They’ll turn south and head to Aldenheim.”
For the next week and a half they traveled east passing through small hamlets and only stopping to pick up more food for the journey. In one, he spotted a poster, a poor likeness of him but it held his name. One-hundred Gold. Dead or Alive.
Edin pulled his cloak up and was wary of people leering at him.
Over time, he was gaining more endurance. The muscles throughout his body began to take less time to recover and he had moved onto the third set. They passed small copses of trees next to stone fences that separated plowed fields. By the look of the farms, he was certain seeds were planted in the barren mounds and they were waiting to sprout. At one point, he heard the gurgling of a stream and saw a man-made channel flowing toward a large barren field. If it was a part of a tributary to the Crys or another river he didn’t know.
They reached the gates of Kurban at almost six on the twelfth day. The structures were built in the same fashion as his village, timbers with thatched roofs and mud stucco plastered about them to keep the elements out. The town was smaller than Yaultan and run by another noble. A baron, though Edin had never met him.
The North Road ran through the village and was lined exclusively with shops. Butchers, smithies, a general store… he could smell the tanner on the southernly wind. He couldn’t see any manor or keep. Like at his own manor, he assumed the ruler wouldn’t want to live near the constant banging of the hammer or the eye watering stench of the tannery.
Grent kept scanning everything as they walked. For some reason, Edin felt that someone was watching them. Grent suggested Edin walk with a small limp but soon the weird hobble wore his on his legs. The sword and hunting knife at his side would’ve stated that he was at least healthy enough to use them.
Grent steered them toward an inn, “stay here.” He spat and nodded to the wanted poster next to the sign. Edin sighed. A night in a warm bed would be wonderful.
It was rough the way Grent said it and as Edin noticed a bit more of the people around them, he knew why. There were boards on many of the windows, ragged men staggered, others hunched under small porches with only the glow from their pipes letting anyone know they were there. A woman dressed in very low-cut gown called to a passerby. “A silver for a good night.”
A gaggle of about ten kids, some only a few years old, others as old as ten were dodging in and out of the surrounding stores laughing.
One shop owner chased, but only get a few feet out of hi
s front door before he yelled and turn back inside. Clearly, he didn’t want to leave the shop unattended.
Edin figured that large theft was rare, but small-time theft, a loaf of bread, a pair of boots was common enough. A man a few seasons back was hung in Yaultan for trying to steal a sword from Jassir. The man claimed it was for protection, however, it was difficult to understand him at the trial because of the many slashes from Jassir’s blade. The man told Edin that if a blacksmith couldn’t handle a blade, he wasn’t a trustworthy smith.
The door opened and Grent waived them in.
Edin entered the raucous room. A large fire blazed in the corner, men drunkenly swayed as they spoke. A lot of it with their hands. In the corner a woman sat facing the crowd playing a lute. They were sad songs, one’s he’d heard before.
“It’s her…” Edin whispered. The bard from the Dancing Crane. The night he killed Dexal. Near her was the huge man, her protection, probably a family member or a lover. The woman never saw Edin, but he kept his head down and shuffled toward a corner table on the opposite side of the inn from the bard.
The smell of a roast came to him a moment before a grungy serving woman. She gave a half-hearted smile. The lady was probably Grent’s age and wore a green dress with a light-yellow vest. Her arms were spindly but she moved with the knowing grace of someone who could be crashed into by a drunk and still hold onto a few platters.
“What’ll ya be having. Got roasted duck with vegetables, we also got ale, wine, and cider.”
“Three orders of the duck and three ales,” Grent said.
“Two ales and a wine if you please, my dear,” Master Horston said.
The bard’s throaty voice was melancholy but men tried their best to drown her out. He could barely catch three words strung together. The lute was almost unheard but he somehow could feel the song.
The serving woman took an inordinate amount of time to grab their drinks, but when they came, Edin drank the ale quickly. He ordered another, his mind was turning back to his mother and Kes. Kesona said once that bard’s tales were sorrowful so that we’d cherish the good times because they never last. She was sad at that moment, though wouldn’t tell Edin why.