Chapter 5
“Miss Morn.” Karenna stopped and turned around, holding her hands behind her to hide the napkin-wrapped leftovers she had pinched from lunch. Headmaster Tavrinal approached her across the courtyard, walking with the sedate grace she had noticed before. He paused when he was a few feet away, waiting for the other students to file out of the mess hall and out of earshot before speaking. “Miss Morn,” he said again.
“Headmaster?” she replied.
“I am not one to avoid the obvious, so let me just say that your behavior last night impressed me, as did certain…reports concerning your journey here. I should like to have you officially classified as a Possible Wizard Class 3.”
Karenna felt the panic rise within her. She dropped her eyes, trying to act indifferent. “Why ask me first, then?”
“Because of your eyes,” he said bluntly.
She started, and raised her head to stare at him.
His gaze was steady. “I know it can’t have been easy for you, growing up with eyes like yours. I want you to know right now that I don’t much care how you came by them. But we both know it would be difficult for you to avoid unpleasantness if you were officially classified and began taking classes in advanced magic. I have no desire to see you suffer, Miss Morn.”
She meant to say thank you. What came out was, “Why do you care?”
He blinked. For a moment, she saw his expression waver between a smile and a frown. It remained neutral. “Despite what you may think, Miss Morn, not all men like me, not all wizards or—dare I say—humans have a desire to see every person with Gypsie eyes beheaded, hung, or enslaved.”
“I’m not a Gypsie,” she hissed, not meeting his gaze.
“I’ve already said I don’t care,” he replied coolly. “But may I take your reaction as a ‘no’ to my proposal?”
Karenna forced herself to be calm. “You may.”
“Very well, then.” With that, he turned and left. She watched him go for a long time, then shoved him from her mind and continued to where she was headed.
* * *
Boom sat happily munching leaves at the edge of the Gypsies’ Forest. Karenna hadn’t come all day, and now it was well into the afternoon. He hadn’t moved from the spot she had led him to, but the day hadn’t been boring. Boom had a very hard time getting bored. He could watch the shadows move and lengthen; he could listen to the rustle of the wind in the leaves and the distant sounds of Gypsie movement; he could smell the sweet, vibrant scent of the carpets of leaf litter that covered the ground; he could feel the activity of the tiny insect communities moving below and around him. Boom knew what the word “dull” meant, but he had never had occasion to use it.
Just as he reached for another fresh twig, there was Karenna. She looked tired and faintly annoyed, but she smiled at him all the same. “Hello, Boom.”
“Hello, Miss Morn.” He extended the leafy twig towards her. “Would you like some?”
Karenna looked at the twig. “You eat leaves?”
Boom smiled. “And bark, but leaves are better. Sometimes in winter I’ll eat the wood as well, but leaves are the best.”
"Um, why do you eat leaves at all?”
“The spell did more to me that make me grow,” he said, smiling. “I don’t eat or sleep like normal people, and I can see magic as a kind of glow.” He cocked his head, “Like the glow coming from your wand.”
She had tucked her wand in her belt beneath her tunic, and now she grabbed for it. Boom raised a massive hand dismissively. “No worries, Miss Morn.” The comfortable, un-threatening magic he pulsed with calmed her. “So, do you want some?”
Karenna gave him a weary smile and sat down next to him, setting the leaves carefully to one side. “No, thank you, Boom. I brought some leftovers, though, if you like.”
He eyed the slightly squashed contents of the napkin she held out to him. It wouldn’t have even registered in his digestive system. “That’s all right.” She shrugged and tucked the napkin away before leaning back against a nearby tree.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t get here sooner,” she said. The fading sunlight and dancing leaves above sent vibrant shadows swirling across her face. She closed her eyes and exhaled a long, frustration-laden breath. “It’s been very… tiring.”
Boom had noticed her tendency to pause before select words. He wasn’t sure if this was to draw attention to them or make sure that they were the right ones. “Tiring?”
Karenna shook her head. “It’s nothing you need to worry about, Boom. I’m just glad to have the chance to rest.”
The giant glanced in the direction of the Academe. “Won’t they wonder where you are?”
“It’s our ‘free time’ now.”
“Oh.”
They sat in silence for a long time. Not an uncomfortable silence, but the silence that comes when two people have said all that is necessary for the moment. Boom listened to the trees grow for awhile and then said, “Do you know yet?”
Karenna’s eyes were still closed and she was breathing slowly. “Know what, Boom?”
“If you’re a Gypsie or not?”
The two different-colored eyes opened very deliberately. “What?”
“I said, ‘Do you know if you’re a Gypsie yet?” Boom repeated patiently.
She stared at him for a few long moments, until Boom began to worry that he had said the wrong thing. Finally, she said, “No, Boom.”
“Oh.”
A very different sort of silence filled the space between them this time. A third voice, cheerful and from high above, broke it, “Well, you two are certainly some of the most sparkling conversationalists I’ve ever encountered.” Tannar dropped languidly into the small clearing, grinning like a cat.
* * *
Karenna rose instantly, a little unsteady on her feet. For a moment she allowed herself the luxury of a small, inward curse. She knew better than to use magic that long when she’d never tried the spell before. But she quickly turned what energy she had on the intruder. “What are you doing here?” she demanded.
To his credit, Tannar sobered quickly. “I know you snuck off last night,” he said. “I didn’t follow you because…well, I really don’t know why not. But I had the feeling you’d do the same thing today. So here I am.” With that, he sat down cross-legged on the carpet of leaves and looked up at her expectantly.
Her anger slipped away. She didn’t let it go, it wriggled out of her grasp and slid away before she could catch it again. She snorted, just for show, and then sat down heavily on the leaf litter. “What do you want with me, Tannar?” she asked, almost pleading. “Why don’t you just go find someone else to bother?”
He didn’t say anything for a long time, just looked at her in that penetrating way he had. That treacherous part of her began to purr again. Finally he broke eye contact and scratched at his bronze bands. “No reason,” he whispered.
“It’s because you’re an Elementar,” said Boom, addressing Tannar with something akin to awe.
Tannar stood quickly and backed away; Karenna stared at him. “What are you talking about?” he said, trying to sound scornful and failing.
“You’re glowing,” said Boom, still fascinated. “I can see the magic just…just pouring off you, even more than it pours from Miss Morn’s wand. And I can see your real form, too, at first I thought it was just a trick of the light.”
Now Karenna stood as well and drew her wand. She saw Tannar flinch slightly at the sight of it. That’s right, Elementars had always been afraid of a wizard with a wand; only magicians, with their power to capture and control the immortal spirits, could hurt them like a wand could. Karenna was still weary from her extended eavesdropping and knew she couldn’t put much energy behind a spell. Even if she could have she knew few attack spells. But that was all right. The virtue of a wand was that you didn’t have to say the words aloud.
She pointed the sixteen inches of magic-charged wood at him and he froze. “Is it true?” she demanded, surprised at her own calmness.
He put his hands out, palms up. “Look, Karenna, I…”
“Is it true!”
He swallowed, lowered his hands. “Yes,” he said softly. “Yes, it’s true.”
Panic gripped her, and she seemed to hear Obern and Shanna’s conversation again in her mind, she seemed to hear Shanna talking about what a threat an Elementar—or, more specifically, their magician—could be to a Gypsie in hiding. And Tavrinal, he had protested he didn’t care whether she was a Gypsie or not. What wizard wouldn’t care? “Who is your master?” Karenna’s wand hand was shaking now, but she didn’t notice. She knew what happened to solitary Gypsies the government found on their territory. “Some politician in the capitol, some bloody magician to the king, who!”
Tannar scoffed. “Yes, right, some big nob at the palace sent a member of the most powerful race in the world to track down a single, Gypsie-looking student.”
“Who!” Fear found one of the spells in Karenna’s head and shot it out the tip of the wand. A bolt of blue light hit Tannar in the chest, knocking him to the ground. Smoke rose where the blast had burned a hole through his clothes, but the skin beneath it was undamaged. He half lifted himself and looked at her. “Karenna, listen…”
“Who!” Another blast connected, even weaker than the first. The use of magic and the fear drained her like no amount of physical labor could, but she knew that even in this state two attack spells like that should have had a normal human groaning in pain. “Who sent you!” Another blast, charged with all the energy left in her and the terror of discovery connected, and this time Tannar let out a soft cry.
Tears were blurring Karenna’s vision and her hand was shaking violently. This wasn’t like with the Werewolves; she had never before used her magic to hurt anyone, only defend herself and others.
“This isn’t you,” said a voice. It took her a moment to realize it was Tannar’s. “This isn’t who you are, Karenna, this is the human-bred fear they’ve forced on you.” His eyes, dark and depthless, were looking up at her, almost pleadingly. Gently, he took the hand not holding the wand and drew her towards him. She went down on her knees by his side, still crying quietly.
Almost tenderly, he placed her hand over one of the smoldering holes in his shirt and pressed it to the skin beyond.
There was a flash of darkness, of the nearby rumbling of thunder and the pounding rhythm of a thousand raindrops. “This is my birth,” said Tannar, a mere voice in her ear now. The storm was building around her, dark, cold, and windy. She was inside the thunderhead. “This is who I am.” The clouds grew darker, the sky beyond them black and starless. Below her, far below, she could see mountains rising from the swirling sable mists.
Then suddenly there was a pain as if she were being ripped apart, and just as abruptly it stopped. She floated, motionless, only a few feet above the craggy mountainside. Rain poured down around her, soaking her through. Somewhere in the distance, she heard someone crying.
“You asked me about my master,” Tannar’s voice was barely audible over the thundering rain. The crying, more a sound of fear than sorrow, came closer, and Karenna could faintly see a shape in the gloom. The figure came closer, stumbling over every loose rock and falling with every other step. His hands gyrated wildly as if he were trying to keep his balance. Karenna could see him clearly now; he was only about twelve years old with long, streaming black hair and pale skin that almost glowed in the dark. The breath left her body. Avarn! She tried to cry out to him but no sound emerged. Avarn!
And suddenly she was back, in the Gypsies’ Forest, in her own body, in the present time. Tannar lay on his side below her, his dark eyes serious. She was breathing hard, her exhaustion forgotten in a rush of adrenaline. “What happened!” she screamed. “That was Avarn, that was my friend, what happened!”
Tannar was quiet for a moment, and when he spoke, he didn’t fully answer her question. “I…I pitied him,” he said quietly. “He had just been blinded, painfully, and I had compassion. I…joined to him. Willingly.”
Karenna stared, her panic forgotten. Never in the history of their world had an Elementar willingly submitted to a human. Magicians had to train for years until they could control even the weakest of Tannar’s race, and even then many died in their first attempt. “You’re the gull,” she whispered.
“What?” Tannar looked annoyed. “Just because I’m a being of air and water doesn’t mean you can go around name-calling.”
She smiled faintly and shook her head. “No, it’s nothing. By the three flowers, it’s been so long since I saw him…” her voice trailed off for a moment. Abruptly, she demanded, “What happened to him?”
“You remember when his mother came for him, to train him as a magician. You remember she was married, to a man not Avarn’s father.”
Karenna nodded.
“It turned out the husband was just about totally insane, with plenty of arrogance to complement it. He tried to take control of an Elementar more powerful than he anticipated. It killed him and blinded Avarn before his mother could take control. He fled, and…well, you saw.”
She closed her eyes, fighting back tears. “I should have been there,” she said despairingly.
“No offense, but what could you have done?”
Karenna glared at him sharply.
He sighed. “Look, I’m sorry, all right. But even if I’d been there I probably couldn’t have stopped it, we’re talking about a serious magical power-house of a being.”
For a moment, her face lost its accusatory look as she calculated in her head. “But, if I last saw him eight years ago and you found him when he was twelve, then you’d be only—”
“Six years old, yes, I know,” said Tannar, levering himself to a sitting position.
“Six years,” she said softly. “Why did he wait so long to send you to me?”
Tannar stared at her. “How do you know he wanted to send me?”
Again, she smiled her own, private little smile. “Something he said to me just before he left.”
The Elementar looked a little suspicious. “Well, to answer your question, he waited because if I’d left him too soon, he might have died. My joining to him gave him the strength to survive his burns and his fear, and because of the way we were joined I could act as his eyes as well. He probably could have sent me a couple of years afterwards, but I convinced him to wait until your training at the Academe was done.”
“Then why are you here now? My training isn’t done. And why wait in the first place?”
Deliberately, Tannar closed his mouth and looked at her. “That’s for him to tell you, not me.”
Tired, overwhelmed, crashing from her adrenaline rush, Karenna sank back to a cross-legged position, her hands pressed to the ground behind her for balance. It was all too much, all at once. She glanced at Tannar. “So you’re only six years old?”
“It’s not that strange,” said Boom. Karenna started—she had forgotten he was there. “Look at me,” the giant continued. “I’m thirty-five and I look like I’m eleven.”
Tannar laughed and fell back again. “I like him,” he declared, fighting his way upright once more. “He’s almost as strange as me.”
Boom chuckled, a deep, rumbling sound that shook the earth. With one hand he reached out and picked up the Elementar, bringing him close to his face. “Friends?” said the giant.
“Friends,” said Tannar, dangling between the solid fingers.
Boom grinned, revealing large white baby teeth that could probably bite through bone. He put Tannar down carefully and turned to Karenna. “Friends?” he asked, holding out one huge hand palm up. She dragged herself into a sitting position on it and he brought her to his shoulder, where she perched like a skinny, wingless parrot.
“Friends,” she whispered in his ear.
Tannar stood on the ground with his fists on his hips and looked up at her. “And is all forgiven?” he inquired.
She waved a hand in assent. “But not forgotten. I still have questions.”
He smiled a little. “But later.”
“Later.”
hehe...I'm so glad you guys like it! Myth, you're vonderful, dahling. Your eagle-eyed catches shall be integrated forthwith.
Explain if it makes her shake, makes her breath quickly (or deeper than normal), is she flushed, or has chills?
