by DM Fike
He presented me the same water sigil primer we’d practiced before. “Keep working on these, especially the underwater breathing sigil. Now more than ever, you must advance your water repertoire.”
Behind me, Tabitha snorted in derision. “That is your training regimen? One beginner’s book?”
Guntram raised an eyebrow. “Ina proved herself resourceful during our skirmishes yesterday. She’s come far during her training. She simply needs to improve on the basics.”
Tabitha shook her head. “Your eyas begs for strict rigor. A three-hour run would do her some good.”
I couldn’t help myself. “Some breakfast will do me some good. When in your schedule does Darby get to eat?”
Tabitha locked me into the same nose-to-nose intimidation pose so quickly, I didn’t have time to react. “Are you, a mere eyas, criticizing my opinion as an augur?”
Guntram pulled me backward, causing me to lose my breath so I couldn’t retort. “Ina’s merely tired and cranky, as she is every morning.”
“Like a toddler,” Tabitha sneered.
Guntram pinched my shoulder, silently commanding me not to reply. I held my tongue as he continued, “It’s just her personality. We shepherds have different temperaments as well as skills. It’s what keeps us balanced in the fight against Letum.”
“‘Balanced?’” Tabitha repeated as she adjusted a pouch strap around her shoulder. “There are some personality types we don’t need in the Talol Wilds, one being arrogant upstarts.” She did not leave any room for argument as she bustled out the front door.
Once she was out of earshot, I spilled out my frustration. “What a bully! Did you see what she did to Darby? Darby may be a brat, but she’s just an eyas.”
Guntram surprised me by agreeing. “Tabitha may be a bit harsh toward her student. I can’t say I’ve never been the same.”
I remembered all the little things Guntram had let me get away with recently. “Ah, c’mon, you can’t tell me that you two have even slightly the same approach to mentorship.”
Guntram stared at the wall as if replaying something in his brain. “You do not understand the trials many of us have faced. Tabitha has experienced her share of trauma and grief. Her methods reflect those ordeals.”
“What happened in her past doesn’t give her the right to be a tyrant now.”
Guntram sighed. “You might think differently if you had walked in her shoes. Or my shoes, for that matter.” He tapped the book of water sigils still in my hands. “Just focus on this today. Can you do that?”
“Yeah, sure.” I waved at him. Then he followed his fellow augur out the front door.
I stood there clutching the book. It’s true, I didn’t know much about Tabitha other than the fact that she’d hated me as an untraditional shepherd since the moment I arrived. Maybe Guntram had a point. Shepherds faced some ridiculously frightening situations, and I’d met very few shepherds in their 40s and above like the augurs. I’d always assumed the older folk were out in the woods somewhere, doing their shepherd thing, but maybe it was more sinister than that. Guntram warned me constantly that I could get myself killed at any moment.
Maybe there was more shepherd death than I knew about.
Or maybe Tabitha was just a jerk who liked to establish herself at the top of the hen-pecking pyramid. I placed the primer back on the counter and stretched. I didn’t have the mental capacity for complex rational thought right now. I really did need breakfast.
I lingered making jam toast and tea, stirring about five times the honey into it that Guntram would normally allow. I then soaked my feet in the indoor pool, enjoying the juxtaposition of hot liquid in my throat and cool water at my toes. Earth, water, and air slowly pooled in my pithways. After finishing my meal, I warmed my hands by the oven fire and recharged my fire pith.
I felt like a cliché cartoon hero. With all four elements combined, I was ready to start my day.
Normally I would have dragged my feet to practice sigils, but the pressure of that stack of Darby’s books really got to me. I imagined her executing fire sigils over and over, trying to perfect it for her demanding augur. I decided I had enough tea left in the pot to pour another cup and slathered jam on a second piece of bread. With toast on plate and tea in mug, I tucked the primer underneath my armpit so I could carry it all out the door.
Time to work.
Full morning had broken somewhere behind the mountains, but the homestead remained as chilly as night in the shade. A spotted towhee with her orange and white chest swooped in front of me before landing in a bush, morning clicks and whistles warbling from her delicate throat. Kam, Sipho’s chocolate-colored mountain lion, sauntered past me toward the forge with a wide yawn, tired after a night on the prowl.
I found my own prey swimming back and forth at the longest and deepest pond on the homestead. Darby hadn’t bothered to take off her clothes as she stroked across the water. Her long locks of hair remained dry, though, even as her head wove from side to side in a front crawl. It took an advanced drying sigil to pull that off. I wasn’t sure I could do it.
I stood at one end of the pond and called out to her.
“Hey, Darbs! I brought you breakfast.”
She came up for air with a little gasp not far from where I stood. She eyed the food suspiciously. “Why did you bring this out to me?”
“I thought you’d be hungry.” I placed the plate and mug on a relatively even patch of grass so the toast wouldn’t slip off.
Her lips curled in a snarl. “I don’t want your pity.”
I threw up my hands in surrender. There was no winning with these people. “You don’t have it, yeesh. I still loathe you with the fiery passion of a thousand stars.”
“Your little jokes don’t impress me.” She pulled her upper body out of the water. “They’re just another reminder of how different you are from the rest of us.”
“Yeah, I’m a haggard. Blah blah blah.” I flipped around to leave.
Darby yelled at my retreating back. “I won’t eat it!”
“Then don’t!” I yelled over my shoulder.
My feet traveled parallel to the pond in my escape. The saying “no good deed goes unpunished” came to mind. It had always been this way with Darby. Tabitha hated me the moment I stepped foot on the homestead, and Darby followed her example. I’d never make any inroads with either of them, so I don’t know why I bothered.
As I was about to walk past the opposite end of the pond, the water’s calm surface suddenly stirred. Soggy brown hair on top of a hooked nose shot out to reveal a smiling head. I yelped in surprise.
“Yo, Ina!” the head bobbed up and down, eyes hidden in his bangs.
“Baot!” I forced my heartrate to slow down. “What are you doing down there?”
He inched toward the shore, slowly revealing the rest of his soggy clothes. Unlike Darby, he didn’t care if he walked around soppy. “Just relaxing under the water. I need it after hanging out on dry land so long.”
“You’ve barely been on land for a day,” I said. “How could you possibly miss the water?”
Baot laughed, the pleasant sound of someone with few cares in the world. “I generally only come up for air a handful of times per day. I prefer it, actually.”
“Wow.” My eyes bulged at this information. “Zibel mentioned you practically live in the ocean.”
Baot nodded. “There’s a lot of work for a shepherd to do off the coast. Vaetturs attack down there pretty regularly, and the aquatic dryants appreciate my presence.”
I clutched the water primer in my hands. “It must be nice to feel so comfortable in the water. It’s not my favorite element.”
Baot chuckled. “I saw that crazy charm you had to wear to breathe underwater, remember?”
I took a step back. I wasn’t up for someone else pointing out my flaws. “Well, I should get cracking at it.”
“Hey, now,” he said, softening his voice. “I didn’t mean anything by it. Everyone’s gotta start
somewhere, yeah? Maybe I can help. Let me teach you a trick.” He motioned me to join him in the water.
I hesitated. “Right now?”
“No time like the present.” He continued to hold out one hand to me.
I tossed the primer onto the grass and removed my hiking boots. I then waded out waist deep to where Baot stood in the pond.
“Absorb water pith,” he instructed. “As much as you can.”
I obeyed, allowing water pith to fill up my pithways. It didn’t take long for me to reach peak water capacity. “Okay, now what?”
“We’re going to dive completely under. Once there, draw the underwater breathing sigil.”
I held back a sigh. Here we go again with the Vs and Ss. Eighteen strokes of torture. I seriously doubted I’d be able to pull it off, but with Baot’s infectious encouragement, I gave it a try.
We walked a few steps until the pond floor gave way beneath our feet and we could comfortably immerse ourselves. I glanced over at Baot, who flashed me a thumbs up. I tried to perfect the sigil. I wanted to show Baot I could do it, but as usual I floundered, messing up the pattern. It took me three tries to get it right.
Even though I sputtered as water filled my lungs, Baot cheered me on, his voice clear underwater. “Good. Now prepare yourself for another round.”
Because my first underwater breathing sigil was so sloppy, I had to redo it almost immediately. My lungs strained as it alternated between desiring more water and needing air. Despite my best effort, I failed miserably at drawing the sigil. I kicked my legs to return to the surface before I ran out of oxygen.
But Baot held me back with his easy smile. “Not yet. You can do it.”
I shook my head violently at him. Wasn’t going to happen.
He seemed to read my thoughts. “You only yearn to breathe air because that’s your default mode. Close your eyes. Let the water pith wash through you, wherever it flows, as if you’re part of the current.”
I tried to follow his directions, I really did. I closed my eyes. I tried to let the water in. It strained in my pithways, dampening the other elemental types.
“Good. Once it’s soaked in everywhere, and I mean everywhere, draw the sigil. Don’t worry about stroke order or any of that. Just draw. Draw with the water. Then boom! Piece of cake.”
Well, Baot was right in one sense. My lungs did feel like they had absorbed a piece of cake. Water pushed past my pithways to take over my lungs. I tried to let it happen, but I couldn’t shake the drowning sensation. I could no longer concentrate on the sigil. My natural survival instincts kicked in, throwing me into a panic. Before I even knew what I was doing, I broke the surface, the sweet rush of air forcing water pith back into pockets of my pithways.
As I sputtered water out of my nostrils, Baot broke the surface beside me. He laid a kind hand on my shoulder. “Nobody ever got it right in the beginning. Just practice. You’ll get it.”
I couldn’t speak without hacking, so I merely nodded. Baot waved as he got out of the water, then strode back toward the lodge.
I kept practicing for a while longer, but it was no use. Every time the water threatened to overwhelm my lungs, my body would force me to the surface. I finally gave up, throwing my drenched butt out of the pond like a bloated rat.
Defeated, I strode by the other end of the pond. I wondered if Darby had seen me flounder like an idiot. Then, I found the mug and plate I’d left for Darby, completely clean of food. A happier realization took over. She had obviously enjoyed the food I’d left behind. I smiled as I scooped the dishes up in my hands. First, Baot had taken time to try to teach me some pointers and now this.
It was slow progress, but I’d take it.
CHAPTER 14
LATER THAT DAY, I ran into Sipho near the homestead’s storage barn. Or I should say, Sipho almost ran into me holding an eye-level stack of metal bars. She dashed out of the double doors so quickly that I barely dodged out of her path. She must not have noticed me until the last moment because she jerked in surprise, one bar falling from her arms and onto the ground.
I picked it up for her. I recognized the ingot as iron, which Sipho used to create all sorts of charms and tools. “You busy at the forge today, Sipho?” I asked as I handed it to her.
“Yes.” She tucked it back into her embrace. “I finally finished reinforcing the border after last week’s strange weather, and now I’m forging something new.”
I gave her heavy load a once over. “You must be busy if you’re making that many charms.”
“It’s not for charms,” she corrected. She tilted her head to indicate I should follow. We walked in-step across a wide field back to the forge building. “It’s for a weapon.”
That news caught me off guard. Shepherds rarely used weapons, since sigils generally did the work for us. Sometimes, though, a weapon could aid us in banishing a particularly tough vaettur.
“You know something about the mishipeshu that Guntram doesn’t?”
“No,” she admitted, “but his stories do give me pause. I do not like protecting so much vitae at the homestead. Normally, the Oracle or the augurs would imbue dryants, so all that energy would disperse as Nasci intended. Having it here makes us an attractive target.”
Well, that made my stomach churn. I had never heard of a vaettur attacking the homestead. Sipho had so many defensive sigils surrounding this place that even the U.S. Army couldn’t find us with satellites in space flying overhead.
“You really don’t think it will find us here, right?” I asked nervously.
“I hope not, but I didn’t become a forger by sitting back and hoping for the best.”
Her conviction put me a little at ease. “What kind of weapon are you crafting?”
“I’m still poring over some old designs that may need some modifications. I will draft a few and meditate with Nasci before I decide which direction I shall go.”
I opened my mouth to ask more about these designs when suddenly, a sharp quack cut me off.
Sipho reacted as if someone had slapped her in the face. “Where is that fowl?” she yelled in frustration. “I’ve been hearing her all day.”
I, of course, recognized the sound instantly. “That’s my phone. Someone sent me a text message.”
Sipho heard me incorrectly. “‘Test message?’ Is this Vincent Garcia testing you?”
My heart leapt in my throat. “Have you been receiving text messages from him?”
She patted the right side of her tunic until she found the pocket, then pulled out the phone she’d been holding for me. “His name pops up on this device at odd times. He never writes a full sentence, just half-written nonsense and odd face symbols.”
Vincent had been trying to get ahold of me. Maybe he knew something about the martens that we didn’t.
I reached out. “Give me the phone.”
She hesitated. “Are you sure it’s wise to contact someone from the outside?”
“Guntram doesn’t care and he’s my augur.” I did not push the part where Guntram thought I was only keeping in contact with my family, not some random game warden. “Please, Sipho.”
Sipho relented, handing me the phone. I pushed the button to review my messages.
Vincent had been trying to get ahold of me for hours. He wrote that he had another situation away from the dunes at Foster Lake, but with the same MO as before. He wanted to meet up to talk about it.
Sipho tried to lean over my shoulder to read the screen. “Is something the matter?”
“Nothing serious,” I said, clicking the phone off. I hated lying, but the less Sipho knew about Vincent, the better.
Sipho didn’t appear quite convinced. “Why is he so persistent?”
“He’s just a persistent guy.” Odds were slim, but Vincent might have something that could help with the mishipeshu situation. “I probably should go check on him.”
“Away from the homestead?” Sipho frowned. “Would Guntram allow it?”
“Guntram just told
me not to go to the dunes. He didn’t say I couldn’t leave at all.” This, at least, was true. Probably not in the spirit of what Guntram wanted, but true.
“I’m not sure it’s such a good idea.”
I decided to sweeten the pot for her. “I need some new batteries anyway. I’ve used mine up. Should I pick you up some?”
Sipho wavered at this. “I am on my last set.”
“Then I’ll kill two birds with one stone. I’ll go visit Vincent and get us some more batteries.”
“I’m not so sure that killing birds is a proper metaphor for this task, but your plan has merit. Just don’t be gone too long.”
I shoved the phone in my hoodie, already walking away from Sipho. “Don’t worry. I’ll be back before you know it.”
Famous last words.
* * *
Foster Lake is a decent distance from Florence on the coast. You had to cross the I-5 interstate and travel into the Cascades. It seemed a bit far for Vincent, but only 50 miles from Sipho’s.
I plotted a course through the wisp channels toward the lake, texting Vincent whenever I could get cell reception. It took him fifteen or so minutes to reply, but we eventually connected. When I told him I would be there soon, he told me to meet at Calkins Boat Ramp on the east side of the lake. He said he could get there as fast as me, which piqued my curiosity even more.
Stopping only at Carol’s and Dennis’s convenience store to snag some batteries, I arrived about a half hour later to find Vincent waiting for me. He wore a light windbreaker, jeans, and a baseball cap for the Oregon Ducks. A bulge on his hip indicated he’d packed heat this time. He leaned against a silver Subaru—a civilian car, not the black state-issued SUV he usually favored. A handful of other pickup trucks scattered around the lot, all people likely out on their boats on this sunny, if chilly, spring afternoon.
Vincent had his eyes focused on the road leading into the parking lot, so he didn’t notice me sneaking up from the tree line. Given our past history, I knew how trigger happy he could be, so instead of confronting him directly, I gathered some air pith and summoned a gust of wind that blew the cap right off his head. He floundered as it whirled at his feet.
