by Marie Brown
Chapter 5
The next day, Lydia woke to the sound of a bell. She wondered which one it could possibly be, then noticed it was still dark outside and decided it must be one of the ones used to summon servants. She dressed quickly, fumbling in the darkness, and glad there was so little furniture to complicate matters. She remembered exactly where she'd left her clothes the night before. There was a trunk at the foot of the bed, but she hadn't put the clothing inside on purpose, so she could find it easily.
Where did people get light here, anyway? There must be something her uneducated country eyes were missing. Well, worry about that later. For now, she wanted to get down to the kitchen, and see if there was any way she could sneak in and maybe help a little before Sarrin came looking for her.
The kitchen was already in a flurry of activity. The big ovens were blazing away, and people were hard at work with the preparations for the day's baking and cooking. Lydia slipped inside and found a corner, out of the way, yet part of the action. She watched, feeling the longing to join in, with Meeplar investigating the contents of a cabinet at her feet. A little fantasy played out in her head, where she gained permission from a kind, jovial baker to help out in the mornings, because every kitchen could use more prep staff. . .
A crash made her jump. Meeplar looked up at her, filled with pride at her accomplisment, in the middle of a demolished stack of pans.
“Here now, what was that? And who in blazes are you? Students aren't allowed in the kitchen!”
A floury man, obviously the head baker, bore down on her, shaking his rolling pin. “You need to get yourself and that familiar of yours out of here, now!”
Lydia's fantasy popped like a soap bubble. “I'm sorry, Master, I just wanted—”
“I don't care what you wanted. Students are not allowed in the kitchens, now go. No, don't try to clean it up, you'll just make a bigger mess. Go on, out of here.”
Lydia swallowed against tears, scooped up Meeplar, and fled. How bad could her life get? Denied even the solace of watching others in a kitchen. . . She went back to her room. Some light came in now, from the uncovered window, and rather than fling herself facedown on the bed for a good cry, she started examining her room carefully. Bed. Yes, she knew about that, obviously. Chair, desk, trunk, bookshelf. What was in the trunk?
She opened it, sniffling a little and occasionally wiping her eyes, to find a lamp, a pen, and an inkwell. She took the items out and set them on the desk, then tried to figure out the lamp. There was no oil inside, and no place to put oil. It wasn't a candle-lantern, either, because there was nowhere to put a candle. There was a white half-circle where the wick or candle should be, and the chimney didn't come off. What in the world. . .
Just to see what would happen, she turned the knob that should have raised a wick. Instantly, the lamp lit with a calm, steady glow, emanating from the half-circle. Lydia flinched and almost dropped the lamp, but saved it before she could lose her grip. How strange. . . no wonder the base was a solid color! It needed no fuel stored inside, therefore, no need to see through it and check the oil level. She felt at the chimney: no heat. The lamp gave off no heat, no smell, only light. How amazing!
She set the lamp on the desk, enjoying its steady illumination. She put the pen and ink well beside it, then had a look at the desk drawers. Inside she found a blank notebook, but nothing else.
A bell rang out, deep and vibrant. Surely that must be the so-called First Bell, as it was loud enough to wake the dead. She'd better go get some food. She gathered up last night's dishes and returned them to the dining hall, then picked up some bread, fruit juice, and cheese. She escaped the dining hall before anybody said anything to her and retreated to her room. The corridor was no longer utterly deserted. A few bleary-eyed students glanced at her as she moved briskly towards her room. Nobody talked to her, though, and she was both glad and sorry about that.
Lydia ate her breakfast with Meeplar fighting against her bootlace. She tried to put herself in a positive frame of mind, but it was hard, so hard. . . Especially since, after breakfast, she had to meet up with Sarrin, and receive her official schedule for the day. Was it just for this particular day, or every day? She couldn't remember.
She did, however, remember where to meet Sarrin. After returning her dishes to the kitchen tray return area, she made her way to Sarrin's suite of rooms. That was the last thing to go right for a while.
Sarrin greeted her with a smile, then started quizzing her on what she'd read last night. Naturally, with a teacher's unerring instinct, she went for the facts and concepts Lydia hadn't quite understood. Plus, Lydia had read farther ahead than she was expected to, in her drive to learn fast, so the things freshest in her memory were not what Sarrin was after. Meeplar didn't help much, stampeding around the floor of Sarrin's sitting room and fighting with feet, furniture, and imaginary spots on the wall. Finally the quiz ended.
“You did well,” Sarrin pronounced unexpectedly.
“I did?” Lydia blinked, astonished. Meeplar reacted to her surprise with a quizzical mrrt?
“Yes, you did better than I expected. You not only read a great deal ahead, but you managed to retain the sense of the history, even though I know perfectly well you've never seen a map and have little or no idea about geography. We shall remedy that today, I believe. Now, do you have any questions about your reading last night?”
“Yes,” Lydia said, a little hesitant. “Like you said, I read a lot, and nowhere in that book did I see anything about a familiar. Also, I haven't seen anybody here with a fuzzling following them around, or any other creature. Why is that?”
Sarrin sighed. “I knew you would ask that someday. You see, Meeplar is very special. She came from another plane, just to be with you, because she could sense your abilities all the way through the Veil. Familiars are not unheard of, obviously, but they are also not very common. They tend to come through only for people with exceptional strength, who are capable of amazing things. This is why it is so sad for us, myself and the other Lights, that you have no desire to use these amazing natural abilities.”
“Me? Amazing?” Lydia looked at Meeplar, currently upside down and kicking vigorously at a piece of fluff she'd found. “And Meeplar is really special? Then why does she act so. . . well, silly? Will she ever do anything, you know, helpful?”
“I suspect your fuzzling is very young, kind of like a kitten. I've never seen one myself. Most people with familiars have other creatures, like cats, or owls. Once I saw someone with an elemental air spirit. But fuzzlings, and wuzzles, and fidgets. . . those are things out of old tales for us. When you both get older, your companion will become invaluable. She will probably be able to speak to you with her mind. She will definitely be able to amplify your energy and give you strength when you need it. Also, I believe, she should be able to fetch things for you, since she has hands. Just remember always that Meeplar is very special, and she will stay with you forever. The two of you are bonded now. Her life energy is tied to yours. Without you, she may actually die, and definitely will not remain on this plane.”
Lydia quickly dropped from her seat to the floor to collect the fuzzling from the ground. She cuddled the little creature, which made adorable noises and tangled her tiny little claws in Lydia's hair. “I don't ever want to think about her getting hurt. Even if she wasn't so special, she's still precious.”
“She's a tough little creature,” Sarrin reassured her. “And if you truly do abandon the Art, she will have nothing to trouble her furry little hide. But she may have other ideas. I've heard of familiars that expect their mages to perform extraordinary feats.”
“Why me?” Lydia said, rocking Meeplar in her arms. “Why am I supposed to do great things? All I want is to be a baker. I want to make great cakes, not great magics.”
“I don't know,” Sarrin said softly. “Normally, those born with strong abilities are born with equally strong desire to use them. But you want nothing to do with your power, and
that is horribly sad.”
“I'm sorry,” Lydia said, feeling guilty. Was it selfish to want to do something she enjoyed?
“Enough of this,” Sarrin said. “I am going to send you on your way now. Remember, from Second Bell until lunch time you need to report to the riding instructor. Then after lunch, at Third Bell, you need to come back to me, and we'll start more formal lessoning. That will be your pattern for the next few months, okay?”
“I understand,” Lydia said, apprehensive to the very core of her being about riding lessons. Meeplar sensed her distress and gnawed on her finger to cheer her up, then wiggled to get down. Lydia let her go and watched the fuzzling bounce after a speck of dust in a sunbeam.
“Good. That book you read last night? Keep it on your bookshelf. While you are studying here, you will keep most of the books I assign you on that shelf. There are a few exceptions that must never leave the Library, but those are clearly marked. Also, books you take for personal use must be returned in a reasonable amount of time.”
“There are books for personal use? Like what?”
“Have you never had a chance to read for fun?” Sarrin's eyes widened. “Well, I can understand that, I suppose. Out in the country books must be much harder to come by. Let me recommend one for you that you might enjoy. Let's see. . . When I was your age, I really enjoyed one called A Thousand and One Tales of the Elder Days. Try reading that in your free time, that should be a wonderful introduction to reading for pleasure.”
“I will look for it,” Lydia promised. She wrote down the title in her notebook. Sarrin had confirmed what she'd suspected, the blank notebook was for her use to keep a record of things she studied and any questions she came up with. Then she attracted Meeplar's attention and took her leave with a heavy heart. Between the assumption that she carried the potential for awesome power within her and the utter terror at the thought of riding one of those great beasts in the stable, she felt so much anxiety it made her somewhat ill.
Every step of the way to the stable was harder than the last. Meeplar couldn't even cheer her up, although the fuzzling definitely tried. Watching the little ball of fluff frisking along in the bright sunshine, Lydia wondered about what Sarrin said. Like a kitten, that part was obvious. But the whole thing of fuzzlings only being attracted to people with extraodrinary power. . . Nana never said anything about that. Wouldn't she have said so? Nana knew everything. She knew about the fuzzlings in the first place, didn't she?
Her conscience presented her with an overly clear memory of the very sober look on Nana's face when she told Lydia about the need for training her unsuspected abilities. Maybe Nana had known, after all.
The stable loomed ahead. Lydia's steps slowed until she was barely moving. Meeplar attacked a flower gone to seed fluff. Lydia smiled. Well, everybody thought she was so special, even Meeplar, so maybe she'd better act a little braver. She picked up her pace again and marched into the dreaded stable resolutely.
She found the riding instructor right away, in an office tucked beside the main stable door. Or rather, the riding instructor found her.
“Are you Lydia?”
She jumped. The voice came from a woman fussing with papers on a desk, who promptly dropped the papers in an untidy heap.
“Yes,” she said, heart in throat. Oh no, it was really going to happen now, there was no escape. . . “Are you the riding instructor?”
“I am. My name is Kara. Sarrin said you're a little afraid of the horses?”
Lydia blushed. “I don't know anything at all about horses. Yesterday was the first time I ever even saw one up close.”
“Well, we'll fix that problem, and see if we can't get you more comfortable around the beasties. Come with me.”
Kara led the way to a stall that contained a much shorter horse than the monsters she'd seen yesterday.
“This is Hervy. His breed is from far to the north, and they're called Figro. He's a very kind, gentle, and patient old soul, and you will learn a lot more from him than you will from me.”
“He's a lot smaller than the ones Sarrin showed me.”
“Yes, Figros are short, barely larger than ponies. But they don't have the nasty temper that most ponies have, so we use them to teach our youngsters. Now what's going to happen is I will teach you the basics of riding in private lessons. You'll learn how to catch the horse, how to groom him and saddle him, how to mount and dismount unaided, and how to stay on top of him when he moves. Then, once I'm confident you can control Hervy, you'll be in a group lesson with a few other youngsters just starting out. How does that sound?”
“Fine, I guess,” Lydia said, trying to keep her fear to herself. At least this one was small.
The lesson started well, because Kara did most of the work. Lydia had to lead the horse to the hitching post, which was really pretty scary. Kara showed her how to tie the lead rope properly to the rail, how to groom the big creature—somehow, he got bigger when Lydia tried to reach his back with a brush—and how to put a confusing mass of leather on him. It wasn't an ordinary bridle and saddle, the instructor explained, because she needed to learn balance. There was a halter with big rings on the noseband, a strap that went around the horse's middle, called a surcingle, and more straps to wrap around chest and rear. Kara made it look easy. Somehow, Lydia doubted it would go that well for her.
Then Kara led both Lydia and the horse to the center of an enclosed round pen, and the real lesson began.
Getting on top of the horse used muscles Lydia had never known she had, even with Kara's help. The riding instructor got her settled, then unclipped the normal lead rope and snapped a new, much longer line to the top ring on the halter's noseband.
From up here, the ground seemed very, very far away. Lydia wrapped her hands around the handhold on the surcingle and hoped she didn't look as terrified as she felt. Then the horse moved.
Lydia hung on for dear life. The creature moved in a way she couldn't begin to describe. She could feel every muscle she sat on working, and the lifting and placement of each hoof. She felt like she was going to slide right off, then what Kara was saying made sense: hang on with your knees. She squeezed her knees together and felt a tiny bit more secure.
Then Meeplar popped into existence out of nowhere, right under Hervy's nose. Startled, the horse tossed his head, snorted, and jumped to the left. Lydia fell off. Meeplar chirped triumphantly and pounced on her chest.
“Easy, Hervy,” Kara called. The horse snorted again, then turned mildly curious eyes to its former rider and the fuzzling on her chest. “Are you going to make it, Lydia?”
“I think so,” she replied, picking up Meeplar and moving her. She sat up. Sore, but not too bad. “I'm sorry, I didn't think to tell her to stay away.”
“No matter,” Kara said cheerfully. “She probably wouldn't listen anyway. Familiars rarely do. But now you've experienced the worst that can happen, and you know that you can survive.”
“Yes, I survived,” Lydia said, picking herself up slowly and brushing dirt off in clouds. “Is that really the worst of it?”
“Other than sore muscles, yes. Everybody falls off eventually. It's part of riding.”
“Really? I thought good riders would be able to stay on top.”
“They can, but they also know how to take a fall. Now back up you go, and we'll carry on, now that Hervy's met your fuzzling.”
“I just realized. . . forgive me if this is rude, or impertinent, but are you a mage as well? You see Meeplar!”
“Nah, I'm no mage, but there's enough witchery in my blood that I can see creatures from other places when they're around. It's a necessary ability around all these mages.”
“And you've met other people with familiars? Sarrin said it's unusual, and I haven't seen anyone else with one yet.”
“Up you go. . . one, two, three! Yes, I've seen people with familiars. Never a fuzzling, though, always a cat or a bird, or even a wolf. That really causes a ruckus when a wolf comes
around the stables. You'll meet people with critters soon enough. Right, Hervy, back out you go.”
Lydia survived the rest of the lesson and came out of it a tiny bit less frightened. It helped that Hervy seemed to like her. He snuffled in her hair and rubbed his face on her when she was trying to groom him afterwards, and he leaned into the brush, which wasn't really all that good because he almost knocked Lydia over. Maybe riding wouldn't be as bad as she'd feared when she first saw those enormously tall beasts yesterday.
After lunch, the rest of the day passed in Sarrin's quarters. Lydia felt unbelievably grubby after her lesson and resolved to make time during her lunch break to clean up before the rest of the day. She didn't want to smell like a horse, and she felt like anybody that looked at her could see the marks of her fall and know what a fool she'd been, tossed off a walking horse and sat on by her own familiar.
Sarrin walked her through a basic geography lesson, including what geography meant. Lydia had never heard the word itself before today. She learned a lot. They also covered how to read a map, which made sense out of a lot of last night's history, and then came the absolute basics of magecraft: how to see and recognize her own power.
Lydia struggled with what Sarrin told her at first. It made no sense. How could she look without eyes? How could she see inside herself? Then, just as she was ready to give up and go back home, madness be damned, she caught a glimpse of a glow. Then it blazed to life, a vivid, intense white glow, emanating from somewhere within her, and reaching little tendrils out to everything around her. There was a thick cord running between herself and Meeplar, and a much thinner wisp connecting her to her teacher.
“I see it!” she gasped. “It's all bright, and glowing! Why does it connect to Meeplar, and you, and other stuff?”
“That's how your power works, on the most basic level. It connects you to living things. Not everybody is like that. Again, you're special that way. You have a strong bond with Meeplar, and now you can see it. Your bond with me will grow stronger as we progress, because that is the way with mentor-student bonds. As for everything else, once you know how to use it, your power will give you constant information about every living thing around you.”
“Why am I so different? Why do I have to have special mage power? I just want to be normal, and a baker. . .”
“I know. But you aren't. You were born with the kind of power we see maybe once in a generation, and I have to help you learn to use it before it begins to use you. Can you see now why this is?”
Lydia hung her head. “I see, but I don't want to. . .” She used this newfound way of looking at things to look at Sarrin. Her power was dimmer, more of a sparkle than a glow. “Why do you look so different?”
Sarrin blinked. “You can see me? Oh, my. You really are strong. My power looks different because it is less strong than yours, but it should be masked entirely, because I didn't want it to interfere with you seeing your own.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
The lesson progressed fairly smoothly from there. Sarrin showed her a few things that supposedly laid the groundwork for everything she would do in the future, how to tell what was “her” and what wasn't, how to anchor herself to the earth, and other such things. Part of her wanted to dismiss the words as nonsense, but after seeing her own power blazing away brighter than a fire, Lydia just followed the instructions without complaint.
She went to the library when Sarrin dismissed her and found a copy of the recommended book, then stopped at the dining hall for some dinner. All the excitement of the day had left her tired and hungry. Very, very hungry. She took her tray back to her room almost without incident.
“Mrrr?”
“Mrack!”
Meeplar's startled vocalization shook Lydia out of the daze she'd sunk into, carrying her tray back to her room. The fuzzling stood stock still in front of her, with all fur on end, facing a longhaired black cat. The cat stretched forward to sniff the fuzzling.
“Hello there! Finally, someone else has a familiar around here!”
Lydia looked around and found the speaker, a boy that looked a few years older than her. He had red hair, freckles, and a nice smile.
“Hello,” she said, shyness making her voice soft. “I'm glad to see another familiar. I'd thought Meeplar was the only one.”
“No, but they're rare these days. Well, I'm hungry, and I see you've already got your dinner. I'm sure I'll see you around. Bye! Come on, Sashie.”
The cat sniffed Meeplar one more time, then meowed and followed her partner to the dining hall. Meeplar flattened her fur back down to normal size and resumed the trek to their room.
“That was interesting,” Lydia remarked to the fuzzling's round backside. Then they reached the sanctuary of their room and shut the door firmly against the outside world.
Lydia attacked her dinner ravenously, with a new book in hand, one that Sarrin had given her. She was to read the first three chapters, and continue reading Magic. She wanted to get the studying out of the way, then have a bath, and then tackle the Elder Days book. She'd glanced at the table of contents, and it looked fascinating, like stories a minstrel would tell on feast days.
While she worked through her reading assignments, the thought of her power, her vibrant, glowing poower, was never far from her mind. Somehow, she'd never believed what everyone said, despite Meeplar's presence and the fire calling incident. How could she, a simple country girl, have magical power? But it was there, blindingly bright, for anyone who know how to see it.
By the time she finished studying, Lydia was more than ready for bed. But she made herself get up and go have a bath, knowing how much better she'd feel once she got rid of the smell of horse and the lingering grittiness from her fall. She wondered, as she walked through the once again empty corridor to the equally deserted bathing room, just how many students were here, at this immense complex. She'd seen an awful lot of them in the dining hall, but nowhere else. Where did they all go? What did they do with themselves? And could they all see Meeplar? So far, everyone she'd met had seen her familiar, a pleasant change from the world outside. How many mages were there in the world, anyway?
The bath felt fantastic. Lydia wallowed in the hot water until it cooled, happy beyond words to have such an amazing bathing room to play in. If she was going to be forced to stay away from her home and chosen profession, at least she would be comfortable doing it. This tub, big enough for her to sink completely under the water, beat the living daylights out of the little tiny tub she'd used before.
After her bath, Lydia yawned her way back to her room, and positioned the light so it shone on the bed. She crawled in with book and fuzzling and set off on a reading adventure like none she'd ever dreamed could exist. She fell asleep with images of djinn and centaurs, dryads and fauns, dancing in her head, all laced through with exciting adventures and magic.