As the carriage came to a stop in front of a desolate mud cottage in the boggy southern section of the town, Veria stifled her sick stomach with a special biscuit the Cook had given her for the uncomfortable symptoms. Tasted like a regular sweet biscuit to her, but there was a tinge of some tangy spice she was not familiar with. She shrugged to herself, finished it quickly, then took a deep breath and exited the carriage.
“This is the address from Master Villicrey, my Lady,” said the carriage driver. “Shall I return midday?”
“Yes, I think that would be just fine,” Veria answered, and with a courteous nod, the driver slapped the reins and the horses pulled the carriage away.
She knocked, rather timidly, and was about to knock again for fear of not being heard the first time, but the door was yanked open abruptly to reveal the last person she was expecting.
“You,” she gasped.
Standing in front of her was the gnarled old fortune-teller from the fair.
“You!” he repeated excitedly. “Come to get your money back?” he joked, gesturing for her to come inside.
The house was very similar to his little tent at the fair. Dark, with candlelight flickering across the dark brown drapes he had covered all the windows with. Golden velvet pillows, probably the nicest items in his house, were scattered around what would have been a den or dining area in most cottages. Veria stood awkwardly near one of the cushions, until the man gestured to her again, this time to sit. He plopped down quickly and began pouring tea from a kettle that sat on a small wooden table between them.
“I came,” Veria explained, “because, well, I was sent here.”
“You were sent here, eh?” he said with a smirk.
“By Willis Villicrey,” Veria clarified.
“I know,” the man chuckled, passing her a clay mug.
She sighed. “Of course you do,” she groaned. “You probably knew everything about me the minute I walked into your little tent.” She sipped the tea, and it had the exact spice of the biscuits that the Cook from home had given her. So he knew that, too...
“I will not bore you with the ways of the Sand Magers, as I know that your particular skill set does not lie in that realm,” the man said.
“Sand...they are the Magers who can see the future?” Veria asked.
“Yes, and many sand Magers also fall into the Diamond category, as well,” he continued. “The two are closely related, but—ah, well, enough about that. What you do need to know is that all futures are merely possibilities in time. I have seen the strongest possibility for your future, and that is the one I foretold at your reading.”
“Foretold? More like hinted at,” Veria corrected.
“I have to make a living! I could have gone into detail for a bit more of your coin,” the old man giggled, winking at her, which she barely made out in the dull candlelight.
“And I will endanger my life? I have to choose between power and love?”
“Well, everyone does that everyday, dear,” the man said.
“So you say the same thing to everyone?” Veria said, a bit more tersely than she intended.
“Absolutely not,” he said. “Sometimes it is pretty close, though,” he added with a grin.
Veria rolled her eyes and sighed at him again.
“So you have decided to develop and train your powers?” the man asked.
“Yes, I suppose I have,” Veria answered.
“Why?”
“Why?” she repeated, puzzled. “I...I—because I have to have some purpose in my life.”
“You do?”
“Do you?”
“Yes,” he smiled.
“Part of something big. Bigger than knowing when men are lying to me or telling vague fortunes at a fair.”
“Bigger than getting married, and having babies, and saving your estate?”
Veria's head dropped in embarrassment, though she did not know why. He knew it already, but nobody ever really talked about it out loud, in those terms.
“Can you give me that?” she asked.
“You have no idea,” he smiled pridefully. “Welcome to a whole new world, Mager Laurelgate.
Master Daloes, as he instructed her to call him, spent the next few hours until the carriage returned walking her through the steps of locking on to the energy that provides her power.
“Remember the lie, the feeling of the lie. How unnatural and at odds it is with your core,” he said.
She forced herself to remember the sensations she had experienced when Rames fed her the lies about his engagement. It was exhausting, dizzying, difficult, to filter out the uncomfortable feelings and focus on the pieces of energy that swirled amongst the buzzing beehive of the lies.
Daloes told her a string of lies and truths, and tested her initial precision. After awhile of the constant humming and snapping and burning of the lies, she started to feel weak and disoriented, and it seemed like the lies just stayed in her mind and slowly drained all of her energy.
“The lies will kill you,” Daloes said. “You have to be above them. You control them. You are truth. If you let them stay inside your mind, you will be at their will, and not your own.”
“How do I get them out?” she asked, but her speech was slurred and she was starting to feel nauseous again.
With no warning, all of the whirring and buzzing and pounding was gone. The pins that pricked her mind, vanished. The heat that baked her head like a pot over fire disappeared. Her thoughts were clear; refreshed, even. She placed a hand on her temple in awe. How had that happened?
“In the future, you will be able to focus on the energy of the truth, and not the destruction of the untruths,” Daloes explained casually.
“You did that?” she asked.
He simply nodded.
“And my training will help me do that, for myself?”
“Many sapphires are innocent, inquisitive people. They want everyone in the world to be honest and forthright like they are. They immediately see the pain a life of deception can cause,” Daloes said. “When they find out that so many around them are dishonest, and raffishly false, they go absolutely mad, and withdraw from the world.
“While most Sapphires are under the impression that they need not train, for their gifts are inherently precise from early on, it is, for their sanity, imperative to learn control,” he finished, a warning in his tone.
Veria nodded, and slowly rose.
“I must also warn you,” Daloes said, joining her at her side, and offering to assist her, “there are some Magers who have concerns about the effects of intense elemental rituals on the unborn.”
“You are saying that this could do something to the baby?”
“There is no evidence, but...”
“Will it hurt him?” Veria cut him off, realizing that it was the first time she had had something that resembled care for the thing inside her.
“Goodness, no!” Daloes giggled. “In fact, there is little to draw on, because, unfortunately, many young women never develop their skills. But there is a general notion that major fluctuations in elemental energy during pregnancy will enhance the likelihood of having a child who is extremely adept. I think it is, in part, why you are here today, to be honest.”
“Because of my mother?”
“She began training at a very young age, and still develops her abilities to this day,” he confirmed. “Smart woman.”
“Were you...?”
“Ha! No, no. Magers only take apprentices in their own element,” Daloes explained. “Although, it is highly curious that you are here, with me, and not off learning how to plant deceit like a vegetable garden with Master Strelzar.” Daloes visibly shuddered when he said the name in a disapproving drawl, and Veria figured he must be referencing Tanisca's Master. “Just another reason why you are very special, Miss Veria.”
Veria felt her brow furrow in confusion. She was fairly certain no one had told her she was special, except maybe her father, long, long ago.
&n
bsp; “You are,” Daloes nodded, as if reading her thoughts. “You do not know it, and you will never accept it. And you do not have to, because you just are. Now go home and rest. Come back in two days and pack a bag.”
“Am I staying here?” Veria asked as she exited the dim hut, squinting into the offensive brightness of the midday summer sun.
“We are going camping!” the little old man squealed in delight, adding a joyful spin on his toes before he slammed the door in her face in his excitement.
-XII-
Veria had never been camping. She was fairly certain she did not know anyone who had, outside of the military. Why would you sleep outside of your house if you had the choice? She hoped, as she packed the bag that Daloes told her to pack, that they would not be making camp in the swamp.
“I will not be home tonight,” Veria told her mother as she passed her den on the way out the front door.
“Be careful with Daloes,” Tanisca muttered, without looking up from her book.
“And what compels you to say that?” she napped.
“He's a crazy old coot, that is what compels me to say it,” Tanisca explained. “He has a very radical idea of how powers should be used.”
“For the common good? For a bigger purpose?” Veria suggested snidely.
Tanisca did not respond.
“I do not have to stretch my imagination to fathom what Strelzar thinks powers should be used for,” Veria added, rolling her eyes.
Her mother smirked, and finally looked up at her over her reading spectacles.
“Powers are for power, dear,” she purred in condescension. “Anyone who thinks they are using them otherwise is naive, and an idealist. Or worse, the pawn of a more powerful person.”
Not dignifying her mother with a response, she left the house and boarded the carriage, the driver tossing her bag on the deck with him. When she arrived at Daloes' house, he had prepared a large luncheon, which they ate while exchanging light conversation. It was while they sipped the after-luncheon tea, however, Daloes took the conversation deeper.
“So, my most successful apprentice is on another mission around the world, I hear?” he asked with a raised eyebrow. She knew he was starting something, trying to bridge to another topic. One she had not discussed with anyone.
“Yes,” she answered plainly.
“With his son as his apprentice?” he asked.
“Not an elemental apprentice,” Veria clarified. “A diplomatic apprentice.”
Daloes nodded.
“But you knew that,” Veria muttered. How frustrating it was to talk to these Magers who already knew everything.
“How does that make you feel?” Daloes asked, cocking his head toward his shoulder, and following his question with a casual sip of tea.
“It is good to know that Master Villicrey is protecting the peace of the nation, I suppose,” Veria said.
“Not what I mean,” Daloes shook his head. “How does it make you feel that his son went with him? That he left?”
Veria's throat constricted around a ball of spiky hot steel.
“What does this have to do with my training?” she managed to utter, though she could hardly breathe with the pain of the mention.
“Just answer the question, and I will tell you.”
“I do not want to talk about it,” Veria snapped.
“Well, I know that,” Daloes sighed.
“So why are you asking me about it?” she retorted.
“Because it is important for you to say it,” he explained.
“Say what?” she groaned.
“The truth,” Daloes stated plainly.
His nonchalance about the subject infuriated her further.
“The truth is he left me,” she muttered. “I loved him, he left me.”
“And how does that make you feel?” Daloes repeated, calmly, which enraged her.
“It makes me feel like I died!” she screamed, loudly, but with a shaking, unsteady voice. “Like someone killed me! Like they ripped my heart out and didn't put anything back! It feels like I failed at something, but I don't even get to know what! Is that good enough? Is that what you want to hear?” she asked, and she realized tears had escaped her eyes and dripped down her cheeks.
Daloes poured her more of the spiced tea and slid it across the table until it touched her plate of unfinished cheese and berries. She took a sip, and the almost magical spice in the tea reinvigorated her appetite, and washed away the nausea with its comforting tangy bite. She took a slice of cheese and nibbled at it nervously, slightly embarrassed about her outburst, even though Daloes had pushed her into it.
“It is not for me to hear, it is for you to say,” he lilted in that vague mystic tone he gave his fortune-telling customers.
“And that is important to my elemental education for what reason?” Veria questioned between finishing the morsels of her lunch plate.
“I promise I will tell you later,” he answered, “and you know that I am telling the truth.”
His eyes twinkled in the glow of the candles and firelight. Veria found it very disorienting that he covered all the windows, as she could never gauge what time of day it was. She felt as though it was dusk, or early evening, but she knew it was probably mid-afternoon with the bright blazing sun right in the center of the sky.
“What kind of cheese is this?” she asked to break the silence. “It is delicious.”
“Mule cheese,” he answered. Her ears tingled and popped.
“What is it really?” she smirked.
He laughed and rolled around in his seat. “I have no idea!” he giggled.
She could not help but laugh, too. It was an odd feeling, as she could not remember the last time she had done it.
After she helped him clean up lunch, and a short session of what he called 'energy focus' that left her dizzy and depleted, Daloes cleared Veria's mind as he had done in their first meeting, and suggested that they head to the campsite.
Much to Veria's relief, they headed north into town, and then west out of Bermedge—away from the swampy marsh she had been hoping to avoid. They took the trip on foot, and it was not a long walk. It actually felt nice to move, to warm the muscles and feel her heart pumping energy through her. There was a breeze on this particular summer evening, and she was grateful for that.
After a trek off the path and through some forest and farmland, they came to a clearing, with tall chartreuse grass and a variety of wildflowers in bloom. Birds chirped, the sun glistened off of marbled boulders and the breeze brought fresh air that cleansed every part of her.
It was the most peaceful she had ever felt in her life.
Tucked away beneath a towering berry bush on the south end of the clearing was Daloes' tent, looking suspiciously like his tent from the fair, already set up and waiting for them.
“You may put your things away in the tent,” he said, “and then we will get back to work.”
Veria obliged her master quickly, ready to continue her lesson.
“Stick your hands in the dirt,” Daloes instructed when she reemerged from stowing her pack in the tent.
Silently, though with question, she crouched down and did as she was told, rubbing the palms of her hands across the silty granules of the forest floor.
“Listen to the grasses rustle in the breeze,” he practically whispered.
She closed her eyes and listened to the almost inaudible whir of the thin blades swishing back and forth with the summer wind.
“Picture yourself as a giant boulder, connected with the dirt, and the grass, and the entire earth. Focus on where your hands touch the dirt, and your feet touch the ground, and your ears hear the grass, and you do not need your eyes to see the truth.
“The truth is solid ground,” he recited as if it were poem or song. “The truth is tangible, like a rock or a tree or a blade of grass. It lives. It has energy. And you can find it. The earth is truth.”
She tried to pinpoint the energy of her fingers in the dirt, and
she imagined she was a giant rock, her feet connected to the ground. And then he started:
“It is winter,” he said.
Her head whirred and clicked, but she did not move or open her eyes. She acknowledged the lie, and it disappeared.
“It is dark out now,” Daloes continued.
These were too easy, since she knew they were lies to begin with. She quieted the uncomfortable reaction with very little effort by focusing on the energy radiating from the ground through her fingertips. Or was it coming from inside her and connecting to the ground?
“My name is Strelzar Plazic and I am a Red-Listed Fire Mager,” he said, with more gusto.
Veria's head steamed with agitation. She knew it was a lie, obviously, but there were truths in there with them. Strelzar Plazic was not Red-Listed...but how would she know that? She had never met him—never heard of him until three days ago. Regardless of how it was in her mind, she latched onto it, and the rest faded away.
“I have slept with your mother,” Daloes said.
“Ew...” Veria groaned. Daloes giggled.
Daloes had not, but Strelzar had. Again, she did not want to think on it any further, at all, so she focused on the truth until the lies fizzled out and then she made him move on: “New lie!” she snapped “Quick!”
“Sorry! I am really terrible at lying!” he squealed. “Okay, okay, got one!”
“Hurry!”
“You can save Longberme Estate,” he said.
Her face winced in pain as the overwhelming flame of the lie exploded around her like an eruption of lava.
“I thought you did not like to give away futures for free,” she said through gritted teeth as she dug her fingers into the ground until the surface cracked and crumbled under her hands, plummeting them down several inches into a layer of cool, moist soil beneath. She found the truth in the molten rock, bubbling inside her, burning her mind. A floating rock, pulsing with energy. She grabbed it and focused on it.
Longberme cannot be saved.
She tried to focus on it, but realized she had been holding her breath against the discomfort, and she faltered forward.
Lord and Servant: (Book I of the Elementals Series) Page 9
