Over the Sea

by Sherwood Smith

  After half-a-dozen or so peeks, I turned to Clair, and she gave a little nod. Dhana was dancing from rock to rock, and once — as I watched — she flickered into a kind of rainbow streak of light, vanished into the water, and then reappeared the same way, taking human form again in an eye blink. Drops flew off her like crystals, and she wasn’t even wet.

  Nobody said anything, so I didn’t either.

  Instead, we walked up the stream a ways, to another clearing. Then Clair touched a ring on her hand and said some soft words.

  Flash! A blue-white glare of light made me squint. The after-reflection lit up the faces of the girls, and glowed in their eyes. My own were bleary with tears, and I realized that I ought to keep them shut, because Hreealdar really was lightning — at least part of the time. The light resolved into the shape of a horse, one with blue-white hair and tail, and blue eyes. A horse?

  “Wow,” I said. “What — where — how?”

  Clair laughed.

  “We don’t know,” Sherry exclaimed. “One day Clair and I were playing at the Magic Lake, and Hreealdar came out of the jewel cave, right to us.”

  “I can’t find any reference at all to horses that turn into light, or with blue eyes,” Clair said. “Now, supposedly in the north there are pure white horses, and they supposedly have all these abilities. What I think is that Hreealdar is another sort of being who takes this form here, for choice.”

  And the horse pranced, nodding its head up and down, the light, almost spider-webby mane hair (not stiff like other horses’ manes at all) floating. I noticed that Hreealdar didn’t have horseshoes, either.

  “You can ride him if you like,” Clair offered, pointing to a big rock on which to climb.

  I moved cautiously over to the rock, feeling deep misgivings. I had been no closer to any horse than TV, and this one was so tall!

  But he (not that Hreealdar was really a he, or a she, for that matter, but the girls had gotten into the habit of saying ‘he’ since Hreealdar was so large a creature) moved to the rock, and waited, and so I climbed up and eased myself onto the broad back.

  He did feel like a live creature — warm, and solid, and when he took a step I jolted alarmingly from side to side. Clair motioned for me to hold the mane, so I did, and Hreealdar pranced around in a circle, with me flopping and hooting in fear on his back.

  I thought I was doing all right until I looked down and saw both Sherry and Dhana convulsed. All right, then, I resolved. When the laughing gallery wasn’t around gawking, I was going to practice this horse business. I’d show them how a princess can ride — and not for my sake, but for Clair’s.

  “He will change to light when you want to,” Clair said. “But you might wait and try that another time.” I could see she was fighting not to grin.

  Not that that mattered right then. Change to lightning with me on? Not likely! I flung my leg over and jumped off, tumbling clumsily onto the grass. Both Dhana and Sherry shook with merriment, and I suppose I did look pretty silly. But I fumed inside.

  Hreealdar pranced a few steps, and Dhana leaped up to his back — no climbing on the boulder first. She sat as though she’d been born there. And once again a flash that made my eyes squeeze tears, and they were both gone.

  “I still think they know one another,” Sherry said to Clair, as if continuing a conversation.

  “Except we had Hreealdar before she came, and his flesh-form doesn’t speak, and his other form is light. At least,” she amended with her usual scrupulous care, “this flesh-form is the only one we’ve seen. As for Dhana, her other form is water-and-light, and her flesh-form is human.” Clair counted up the evidence on her fingers. “Finally, Dhana has never said anything to us about knowing Hreealdar.”

  Sherry sighed. “But she doesn’t tell us lots of things.”

  “All the more reason to not assume anything, then,” Clair said. “Come on, they might be gone all day. And Dhana hates the Shadow.”

  “Euw. So do I,” Sherry said, her light blue eyes going round. “I’m staying here!”

  “All right, then we can practice transfers,” Clair said to me.

  She took my hand and we transferred — and this time I heard the words, and said them to myself, in a kind of inward way. The idea of me doing magic was both intriguing and a little scary.

  The new place we appeared in dashed everything out of my mind except being scared. At our backs was a solid cliff of Mount Marcus, only on this side there was little growth. To the south lay grassland and field, completely empty save for some birds high against the patchy sky. To the east the same.

  But to the north loomed a very deep gloomy darkness, under a lowering cloud. I looked at it, and hunched up, feeling the urge to hide.

  “The Shadow,” Clair said. “Don’t worry. Magic wards the people from coming out, and no one wants to go in. They don’t patrol the edges.”

  “It’s so dark,” I muttered.

  “Because Mearsies is right above. I don’t know that it’s right,” Clair added, pointing up at the cloud. “There we sit, getting all the light. Kwenz’s people live in that eternal gloom.”

  That didn’t bother me any. Didn’t villains deserve gloom? They even liked it, at least according to the stories I’d read.

  “Yow,” I exclaimed, squinting into the Shadow. Under that low, dark sky I could make out the silhouette of a castle built against the side of the mountain. “If that’s not a villain castle, I don’t know what is!”

  “It’s Kwenz’s,” Clair said. “It’s a Chwahir castle, built for war, all walled and ringed and guarded. The stone is all mossy from the years and years of no light, which is why it looks black. There used to be lots of fighting back and forth, which is why no one lives here.” She pointed south. “Good farmland, but empty — called No Man’s Land.”

  “Looks like no girls or women, either.”

  She gave me a brief smile, then looked serious. “He was gone for a year or so, until recently. But as yet he hasn’t tried anything against us. I know something’s going on in there.” She rubbed her hands up her arms from her elbows, as if she were cold, though it wasn’t chilly outside. “I wish I knew what.”

  I glanced behind me, as if someone had snuck up and breathed icy air on my neck. Above, clouds were gathering swiftly, closing off the light to the south.

  But Kwenz’ Shadowland was much darker.

  “So who exactly lives there?” I asked.

  “Chwahir, of course. You’ll know them at once. They all kind of look the same, at least to us,” Clair stated. “Dark hair, pasty skin, mostly flat round faces with mean expressions. From what I’ve read they don’t have much sun in Chwahirsland — too many black magic wardings, and the weather is supposed to be really awful. They live for war there. All the records say so. War and killing. But I guess Kwenz couldn’t get along with all warriors and no one to cook or clean, and so some Mearsieans are in there, too,” she said, looking pained. “That’s why I feel bad about the Shadow.”

  “Why are there Mearsieans in it? Did they get tricked?”

  “Yes. That’d exactly what happened. The last successful plan of Kwenz’s, just before Jennet got killed. At New Year’s celebration — oh, you don’t know about that. Well, the short explanation is that Kwenz got some people to give out free wine, over in Wesset North, there.” She pointed southwards. “And it was enchanted. The people who drank it — and no one’s supposed to drink on Debt Day of ’Tween Year Week — all turned odd and walked out and went to the Shadow. Most of them had been alone, or in sneaky groups, because of the custom. So no one realized until it was too late, and then they couldn’t stop them. And have been there ever since, because he finished the enchantment when they got there. So there are some of my people living there. As servants.”

  “Ugh.”

  “There was an awful skirmish not long after, when people from the city tried to attack and free the others. That’s how Sherry’s family got killed.”

  “Yeuch!”

>   “I don’t want fighting,” Clair said with conviction. “I have to find some other way to get the people back, and ward Kwenz. He goes back to Chwahirsland from time to time, which is good, but he always returns and tries something awful. His brother is king over there, see, and he’s reputed to be far worse.”

  “And Kwenz is gone now, you say?”

  “No, I think he’s here. Glotulae has sent messengers that way, some traders reported to me just this morning. She wouldn’t send messengers to his guards or servants.”

  “Uh oh. So this old geez knows magic.”

  “Yes.”

  “And he’s got a lot of warrior-creepos.”

  “Yes.”

  “And they want to take over Mearsies Heili.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you don’t have an army?”

  “No. The Wessets can raise a kind of militia, but I don’t seem to have any influence over that. I did try, but the mayor of Wesset North smiled and nodded like he was patting my head. I know my mother never bothered with them, and he was angry that I might start taxing them again. So I can’t really do anything there, but I do know this: if people get killed, then I have failed my job,” she finished, her brow puckered.

  “So there’s just us girls. Watching out over everything.”

  “Just us.”

  Well, I’d always wanted a life of adventure, I thought.

  But nothing felt quite real yet, and so I laughed. “Maybe we should start those magic lessons at once!”

  EIGHT — My First Plan

  “So black magic is what villains do, right?”

  We were back in Clair’s magic chamber, where all the magic books were kept. There weren’t nearly as many magic books as there were books in the library, just down the hall. That one looked like the kind of library I was used to. There she had all the records of the kingdom, plus other ones. All these books were hand-written, too.

  But she’d only showed me them, and before I could ask if there were any good ones written by girls my age, we’d gone on to the magic chamber, and she took some books off a low shelf.

  “We’ll get to kinds of magic in a bit. First, here’s your practice book,” she said. “I keep these blanks here for practice, and for records, but you know what, I haven’t begun to keep records. I don’t even know where to start.” She wrinkled her forehead again. “I guess I ought to start with those awful days before my mother died, but every time I think about it, I can’t write about it.”

  “I like writing,” I said. “Want me to try?”

  She looked relieved. “I’d be grateful if you would.”

  “But I don’t know everything you do. Especially your government stuff.”

  “I already have someone who writes down the government stuff. Just write what you see and do. That’s good enough. Someday maybe I can read it and add bits. I think I could do that.” Clair nodded. “But I’d like an account of our lives. There’s so much about grownups in the records, and I learn a lot, but I can’t help thinking there should be records for future kids who might have the responsibilities that I — that we — have.”

  “Got it. About us,” I said.

  And that’s when these records began.

  Clair touched the blank book. “So. This here will be your own practice book, for you to write down spells you learn, or figure out, the way you need to write it down in order to remember best.”

  I took the bound book she handed me. The stiffened cloth cover smelled like some kind of plant. The paper was a little see-through; I found out later that most paper in this part of the world was made out of rice and boiled-down rag. The rice grows plentifully pretty much all over the world just above and below the equator — or Fereledria, as it’s called here, as it’s all mountain on land, and kind of its own realm. That is, there isn’t any king or queen (that we know of) but it’s got a weird twisty kind of space and time, and the people who live there aren’t humans.

  “Here’s a quill, and ink,” she added, handing me one of each.

  “Quill,” I repeated, turning the feather over in my hand. “Wow.”

  Clair grinned. “I noticed that you had different sorts of writing-things on Earth. We hunt up feathers for writing. Duck and goose work best, or feathers from big birds. I put a little spell on the tip once it’s shaped, and it lasts for quite a while.”

  “You don’t have, um, fountain pens?” The word translated slightly differently, but the idea was the same.

  “I’ve heard of them, but we don’t have them here. Maybe in the really big, rich kingdoms overseas, or way down south,” she said. “And some places have steel tips, but we don’t make steel here in Mearsies Heili, we have to import it, and birds drop feathers all over. So quills work well enough.” She added, “I’ll write out the alphabet afterward. Right now we can start with the beginning things.”

  I nodded. “So you’re going to teach me spells that will blast the Chwahir if they try to blast us first?”

  Clair laughed at the word ‘blast’. “Well, no, because I don’t know any black magic. Brings me back to your question. What we all understand as black and white magic is really the same thing, it’s just different ways of using it. ‘White’ is a ... a nickname, kind of. Light magic is the old term — for magic that doesn’t diminish. Sheds light, you see? ‘Black’ is the nickname for magic that spends magic. Makes light go out, like a candle, leaving the black of night. That’s because black magic spells are mostly used as force. Not to build or to mend, but to bind or destroy.” She paused, looking at me expectantly. “Even a lot of their regular spells are shortcuts that use too much force.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “White magic spells don’t work if you don’t do them right. Each stage in those spells is a little like being on a ladder, where you check the rung for safety before you go up one more. If a rung doesn’t work, then you don’t go up.”

  “All right,” I said. “Like in math, if you don’t do part of a long division problem right at the beginning, then the rest is a mess, and you don’t get an answer?”

  “That’s kind of it,” Clair said. “I think. I don’t really know maths well, I have to admit. Maybe you can show me, for I ought to know them, I am convinced.”

  “So you don’t have recipes for magic? Cauldrons and so forth?”

  “Cauldrons are for soup, not for magic.” Clair grinned. “This is something I read: that the words, the gestures, are all symbols, to help our minds shape what is otherwise unshapable, or very difficult to shape. It’s like needing water for building things, so you put some in a cup first, and then soak some into a rag, and then pour a third measure into a plate, all for different purposes. You can’t just gather the water in your hands and shape it as it needs to be shaped. You need the cup and the sponge and the plate to hold it.”

  I frowned, trying hard to grasp the idea behind her examples. “I think I get it,” I muttered.

  “Well, supposedly our ancestors could do all this directly with their minds, but I don’t know. Stories that are very old tend to take on bits that sound wonderful but aren’t really true, and the time they’re talking about — the Fall of Old Sartor — was four thousand years ago.”

  “Four thousand?”

  She nodded. “More. If they counted right. Some of the older records seem to hint that there was some footling around with estimating how much time passed after this or that thing. But we now say we’re in the seventh century since the turn of the fourth millennium.”

  “Yikes!”

  Clair grinned. “So anyway, black magic magicians learn all the same basics, but their spells pull far more magic, so much that if they don’t work right, they can destroy the magician. That much magic all constrained makes the safeguard part impossible. So you go up the ladder as the rungs burn behind you, and if you lose your grip, or aren’t fast enough, the fire gets you too. It’s very dangerous, and it spends magic that takes a very long time to come back into the world.”

  “E
ugh.”

  “So what you have to learn are what we call the basics, the ones that gather bits of magic, and when put together in various combinations can do things. It takes practice, just like learning the symbols of reading and writing — how you first learn the letters, and then learn the letters in clusters, which is an idea you already understand, so you’re a bit ahead of most.”

  I nodded, and without any more explanation, we began on the basics.

  o0o

  No use in describing that. Too boring, really, too much like describing how you first learned to read. Drill, over and over, until — slowly, so slowly — the symbols came readily to mind and hand. After that we worked on little combinations of symbols, just like she said.

  Meanwhile, I had all the free time I wanted when I wasn’t studying. Clair kept asking me if I was happy, if I liked everything; after a time I realized that she really did need my help, desperately. But she didn’t want me to feel rushed, like she had her whole life. She wanted all us girls to be happy. It was as if she couldn’t be happy if we weren’t happy.

  And so I didn’t say anything, just started practicing the magic basics at night before I went to sleep.

  Did I miss Earth?

  Never.

  Strange, that. I really never missed that life. In fact, almost immediately it receded into my mind like a long dream, and if I hadn’t written this record, I wouldn’t even remember this much. My Earth life seemed to belong to that girl who took my place down there, who now lived instead of being dead and who stared sometimes up at the sky over the ocean, daydreaming about me.

  Our memories were the same, at first, but as the days went by and she lived there and I lived here, our memories split, just like a plant splits off another plant. For a while I’d wake up after dreaming about there and find that I was still here, and realize that I would not have to go back. And so I’d bounce out of bed, joyfully launching myself into a new day.

  The rest of my free time I went down to the forest alone and summoned Hreealdar, who always came. How very strange it seemed, this creature that picked horse form. But then we never did know if Hreealdar chose other forms too, and we just did not see them.