by Marc Mulero
“Of course it counts,” Kyta splashed lightly. “Don’t say such things… like you’re not a real person or something. What’s wrong with you?” She spoke low, but forcefully. “Don’t shrug at me either, Dawn brat.”
“Okay, okay, I get it. Mustae,” Eres put his palms up in defense, “I know it counts. But it doesn’t matter anyway, because I screwed it up.”
“How?
“Easy. I loved someone else since I was younger. And even years later in Elesion, far removed from everything, I… just couldn’t stop thinking about her. I tried to hide it, tried to forget it, hoping that time would do its thing and make the feeling fade away. But for some reason it didn’t. I couldn’t shake her. My memories of her are always so damn bright.”
“Is why I sculptor, same reason. Visions bright as suns. Only dims when I draw it out. Feels good.”
“Makes sense, but I didn’t have an outlet like that, except for seeing her again. Well anyway, I spent years with my Dawn girlfriend. We survived Elesion together as the only two bright stars in a sea of grey. It meant something, it did,” he tried to convince himself. “We went on adventures when Ilfrid broke us out, we laughed, nooched. But even with all of that, it wasn’t enough when I saw her again in the Scarred Lands all of those years later.”
“Ooh, girlfriend must no like you. Since you use her to see if maybe she make other feeling thing go away. Probably she feel like distraction.”
Eres’s breath caught in his chest for a second - taken aback that Mudry, once again, hit the nail on the head. That’s when he deflated and sunk lower into the pool.
“You’re right… she doesn’t like me much at all. Did I ruin a good thing for a dream of something great?”
“Yeap, but who’s to say whether that’s the right or wrong thing to do? It just simply… is, if you ask me. Feelings are feelings,” Kyta weighed in. “To me, it just means that you chase the stars… and considering that you’re here, with us, and not her, it means you chase them even if they’re unattainable.”
“I did. Until she chose my enemy over me.”
“Oooh.” Kyta made a face like she was watching someone get injured.
“Ouch,” Mudry said. “So you is feel, like ex-girlfriend is feel.”
Eres pointed at him. “Exactly,” he said, “but enough of that, please.” He averted his eyes back to his swirling spiral of tiny bubbles. “So… what do you guys do for school or work?”
“Sculptor, duh! And wall engineer - make sure porum gel and ice are right level to hold up.”
Kyta was quiet for too long afterward, prompting Eres to become suspicious.
“I think you already know what I do,” Kyta said.
“I don’t though.”
“Even though you do, right?”
Eres’ eyes were now slits. “N….no...”
She then pushed off of the rock behind her, swishing her way over, making the heated water hiss before floating down right next to him. He tried to back away, but she was already digging for his hand like plucking a fish from a river. “Give it, stop-” She lifted it above water, all the while her mousy face curled into a smirk.
She tilted her head with annoyance, telling him to relax while she made a fist around his wrist.
“I knew it!”
“Uh huh.”
“You’re searching for fire…”
Just as he said the words, she created a flicker of flame that burned into a tiny trail over the water’s surface, all the way to Mudry. He quickly backed up and got pricked before the whole line poofed away in smoke.
“Ay!” Mudry shook his hand from the pinch.
Kyta blew Mudry a kiss and turned back to Eres. “I’m a Sorcerer’s Apprentice. You guessed it.”
Eres’ face was aglow with wonder. “Oh, I’d love to turn you on Crow,” he blurted.
“Who’s Crow?”
“No one.”
“Enemy man,” Mudry guessed.
Eres gave him a look to keep quiet. “Err… how does one become a Sorcerer’s Apprentice? I mean, you must be the only one in the two spheres.”
Kyta shrugged and shimmied away to give Eres some space. “Well, Ram says there’s more out here… but I’ve never seen them. He could be dreaming of olden days, when Kujins were plentiful and their culture was alive. Who knows? I just know that I found him and I’m never letting go.”
“Yeah, but how? I was tossed here after a very long and winding adventure. I had to challenge a great Judicator to even know where I was going. How did you do it? No, don’t tell me. Let me guess.”
Kyta was about to open her mouth, but sighed instead.
“Daughter of a Skrol, taken because your father,” he scrutinized her, testing her, “mother,” he corrected, “had nowhere else to take you. And of course, she had to complete her training. So she brought you here and you fell in love with the idea of it.
“How am I doing?”
“Awful.”
Eres sunk all the way into the water so only his eyes were showing before rising again.
“I grew up in Ralfas, Dagos mainland-”
“I know where Ralfas is.”
“Good! Do you also know how not to interrupt?”
He sunk back down, defeated, feeling playful for some reason.
“My parents were ordinary herbalists, contributors to a revered mystic near the coast – Donus Poao. I believed in him, just like ma and pa did, even though they all treated me like an unni that should consider herself lucky she wasn’t being stepped on.”
Eres wanted to ask why, and Kyta knew.
“Because I couldn’t transform, I couldn’t run on all fours. We Dagos pride ourselves heavily on being able to race… it’s a great symbol of strength and speed for a tribe’s offspring to be able to compete against others. There’s glory in winning, honor in losing, and nothing but shame if you can’t even show up. Kids my age told me to go to Steen with the Swul exiles, to be eaten and forgotten… or to Sklar Ben Dee to be poked and prodded by the Eplons.
“Wasn’t a very nice experience, especially for a kid.”
“Doesn’t sound like it,” Eres agreed.
“Thankfully though, there was one person who didn’t share that glare of hatred everyone else seemed to. The mystic himself - Donus. Don’t get me wrong, Eres, he wasn’t a nice person, not to me or anyone really. He was harsh. Guess he had to be because all of the daily requests, offerings, what have you. But anyway, he did regard me. And I guess that’s all a girl needed after a few years living like a second-class citizen.
“So one day I summoned the courage to tiptoe into his hut, past the wooly drapes… head down, sulking. Don’t give me that look, I wasn’t trying to be cute… I was defeated. Done. If you were in my tribe, you’d know, a child does not go into a Mystic’s chambers unaccompanied, and especially without an appointment.
“I was desperate. I flat out asked him to cure me, said I’d gather the rarest herbs in the world if he’d just fix my bones.
“He regarded me starkly, but not with the same cruelness of others. ‘Mystics alter the weather,’ he said, ‘request harvest from the All-Mother, summon spirits from Gushda… but, little girl, we do not alter anatomy. That is reserved for a sub-sect of Sorcery spoken by no one on the sphere. A dead art, and for good reason.’”
“No one on the sphere,” Eres repeated, grinning. “I guess you took those words to heart.”
“If you were in my tribe, you’d also know how cryptic a Mystic could be. You have to be clever – ask the right questions, because they had no time for the wrong ones. ‘If a Mystic can request things from the All-Mother, can they also request answers? Do the buried tomes of sorcery exist in Gushda?’ I asked, pleading, literally on my brittle knees.
“He looked down on me, Eres, his wide-brimmed hat had Sur fangs dripping from its edges. It was tangled in roots from uncommon regions. His chest was bare but for the crisscross of thorns forming an X at his heart. Wrist-guards, long ones, with faces etched into t
hem. Imagine this image from a child’s point of view.”
“Scary,” Eres agreed.
“Terrifying.” Kyta nodded. “He looked down on me for a long while and saw, I think, that intimidation no longer had an effect on me, because there was nothing left to take. My parents hated me, my peers wished I would perish and stop giving my tribe a bad name. He knew all of this; I saw it when he dropped to his knees in front of me. He cupped my face, more to examine it than to comfort and said, ‘Child, we would be enemies if you sought this art.’
“’I already am,’ I responded to him. Another long stare. ‘You would never be able to come back,’ he told me.”
“’I’m already gone,’ I responded.”
“’Very well,’ Donus said, ‘there are texts that when you read them in order, will lead you to where you’re going. A trail, a map, however you choose to see, it will become. Not in one reading, no. After many, you will understand.’
“’Why would you send me to be your enemy?’ I wiped away the snot and tears, I remember my entire face being wet! Then, the next thing he said still replays in my head, in his voice, to this day. He said, ‘Even my enemies start somewhere. They are on a sure path that I am powerless to stop, but, just maybe,’ I remember his calloused hand on my shoulder, which scratched like sandpaper, ‘maybe we can find understanding amid our oppositions. Maybe enemy does not have to be hate, but rather disagreement. But here, in this case, that will be up to you.’”
“Deep,” Eres commented.
“Like UnderSpire.” Mudry’s joke got an eye-roll and a laugh, Eres realized his first one.
“So then he took my hand like I anticipated he would, but he didn’t bestow some grand vision from Gushda. No hidden power. Instead, he chanted lowly, in a voice reserved only for his summoning – usually in the presence of an audience. Never just for one, and in no way for me. You can imagine my shock, Eres. Fear, even. I had no idea what to expect. The man cast me as a future enemy for Mustae’s sake.
“I had goosebumps as his voice deepened more and more until at the crescendo, he squeezed my hand hard. A dirt patch beside us suddenly opened up like a miniature sink hole, and up from within it, on a bed of sand pushed up a stack of tomes all locked with metal bearings. Ominous things. Forbidden-looking. And when they settled, the Mystic was silenced, the silence left a ringing in my ears. Why are you smirking?”
“Because it reminds me of the first times my fata used Reach around me. That novelty is like no other.”
“Yes. Like no other,” she agreed. “So he swiped a tome from the middle of the pile, dusted it, traced a symbol that unlocked the metal casing, and handed it to me. ‘Ilsadri doke monoband,’ Donus said in Dagos, which means, ‘A long journey for the unwelcome.’ Back then, I thought it a mean thing to say to a little girl… but over time I’ve come to realize that the smile he shared was not an evil one. It wasn’t sarcastic… I think he saw a bit of himself in me that day. Mystics can be unwelcome creatures too. To dedicate a lifetime to something most others can’t see or feel… that must come with its own crosses.”
Eres folded his legs on one of the seats within the spring. “Weird how that works, isn’t it? I thought Agden to be cruel for abandoning me. Well, still do, but every year that goes by, I recognize how much differently I view him, understand his choices, even if I don’t wholeheartedly agree with them.”
Kyta exchanged a brief look with Mudry.
“What?” Eres caught them.
“Nothing,” Kyta said, “we just miss Agden.”
“Hmm.”
“Anyway, after he gave that book to me, it became my treasure. He taught me how to unlock and re-lock it, but the rest was up to me. I skipped most tribe events. No one cared of course, preferred it probably, which was good for me and my new purpose.” She smiled, thinking back. “There were words in there I didn’t understand, pages of scratched off text. A strange read – a mix of ancient sorcerers’ experiences and beginnings. And after my first run through, I still had no idea what kind of map or patterns Donus was referring to. But after the tenth… things started to connect, to click. I can’t explain it really, but eventually I put the puzzle together. It was everything I hoped. A fresh restart. A purpose. Enough to abandon my home tribe and leave the Dagos mainland behind me in search of the next tome.
“I did nothing but obsess, Eres – deep into the night, until suns up, and then until suns down again. Rinse, repeat over and over with this desperation pushing me to keep on. My eyes burned from forgetting to blink, rereading the same lines – ‘The lineage with eyes like Surs: one the color of the moon, the other, night. Say the words in the most ancient tongue, and say them right.’ I had to learn Umboro – the language of the first people, find an Eplon with different color eyes, in the most heavily guarded spire I’d ever run into, no less.”
“And what were the words?”
“Pfft. That’s a whole story in itself. But anyway… finding meaning can push a person to amazing limits. Right? I didn’t search for food until my belly was scratching at me from the inside. I didn’t wash until I couldn’t stand my own stench. It was a weird time in my life, to be that alone and vulnerable. But there was a silver lining… turns out that people outside the Dagos tribes were less scornful when they didn’t expect much out of you. My journey was long with many twists and turns, like I’m sure yours was, and I eventually landed here with Ram. Just like you.”
Eres swished the water around just to feel resistance. “Great beginnings, Kyta. Sorry you had to go through all of that. And if it’s any consolation, you carry your burdens well.”
She hooted. “Uhh thanks, I think?
“It’s definitely a compliment. I had no idea. But now that I do, it makes me feel like I’m not alone in being an outcast.”
“Yeah well, beginnings are what shape who we are, right? I’m sure between the three of us there’s enough struggle to fill the UnderSpire, and if we keep visiting these springs… I’m sure we’ll be able to finish each other’s sentences about our journeys.”
“If me had me way, Kyta’s tribe get fire chambers. Story makes angry all time. Pah.” Mudry splashed water over the side.
“Oh, don’t worry Mudry.” She swam over, wrapped herself around his arm and rested her tiny head on it. “I’ve got you to protect me now.”
“So,” Eres pulled back from some thought-filled trance, “Sorcery is the enemy of Reach… fascinating. Makes sense why you rarely here of it on the Osa Sphere – because somehow, Reach overtook it. Maybe because the Kujins were the heart of sorcery? And when their numbers dwindled, the Umboro and Dagos ways began to dominate. Mustae… so few books detail this.”
“Maybe in your sphere! Just wait until we show you our consortium.”
“I want to see everything. Do they speak to tech? It must be viewed as the enemy of both Sorcery and Reach here. Back in my land, there’s a pretty hard divide.”
“Those are the traditional views, sure. Modern view is that technology reigns supreme. Sorcery and Reach are just useless to the current generations.”
“No can blame them, Kyta, is what they know.”
“Well anyone can use technology, and no one really wants to be left out,” Eres said.
“Speaking from experience?”
“Well, yeah. I don’t have the slightest connection to pull from Gushda. No Sindah. And if it wasn’t for this esper, or some of the things I’ve seen, I’d never have given Reach, or Sorcery, or any of that a second thought. Without tech, without my Glite, I wouldn’t stand a chance against a Sorcerer or Reacher. But I can kick your ass with it.”
Kyta sent a sudden shockwave over the surface of the water, straight to Eres.
“Ow!”
“Not in here you can’t!”
“Oh, so you just lured me in here to prove a point?”
“Maybe.”
“Jerk.”
They all laughed.
“Mudry, I want to hear your story.” Eres shunned Kyta playfull
y.
“Me, no, no. Today no good day for this. Long, sad. Well, not long. Just sad. I like happy. No today, please. Listen more fun.”
Eres shrugged. “Only if you promise to tell the next time we’re in the springs.”
“Fine. Promise.”
Eres then looked at his fingers – raw and wrinkled from the hot springs. How long had he been in there? His skin was tinted red from heat, the parts of him outside of the water were steaming. Maybe it was time to take a break.
“Ready for the play tonight?” Kyta asked.
“You guys and your plays… no idea.”
“We got you proper attire for the theater too. Please,” she put a hand up, “don’t look at me like that. What kind of hosts would we be if we didn’t set you up right?”
“That face was because I’m fearful of what these clothes will look like.”
Splash.
Eres spit up hot, murky water that found its way into his mouth. “Did you design them or something? Sheesh.”
“Well, uhh, no, but we did pick them out… and we have impeccable taste.”
“Hmm.”
Mudry lifted himself up from his seat, creating a few waves as he shuffled to get out. “Up. Up. Go is time. Food, more tour, then play!”
“Was thinking the same thing, Mudry.” Eres followed.
Eres picked at his shirt to let his skin breath… at least a little bit. His thin biceps were nearly pulled into his armpits from the tight material. “So uncomfortable,” he murmured under his breath, fidgeting, and then held his hands up to see bell sleeves falling an entire foot under his wrist.
“I feel like a clown.”
Whack.
“Ow! Why do you get so offended Kyta?”
“Is look handsome, Eres. You get used to.”
The truth was even though his clothes felt like they were ironed onto him… his body was otherwise relaxed. Really relaxed - still warm from the springs, joints loose, arms limber like rubber - in a good way. He was in the perfect mood to go see a show. No restlessness, no pressure. This trip really was like a vacation.
“How far away is the theater? Feel like we’ve been walking for an hour.”
