Snowfall

by Brandon Cornwell

  Amethyst frowned and looked at Tika. “What does he mean?”

  Tika scoffed, returning to her food. “Ignore him. He's being an idiot.”

  Fredrick laughed at them. “No wonder Lonwick is as weak as it is. The elf women have no respect for men. In the North, when a man talks, the women listen and obey.”

  Angrily, Amethyst set her plate on the ground and rose to her feet. “Lonwick would absolutely crush whatever puny land you come from. Elves don't obey, we command, and the lesser peoples listen.”

  Fredrick lifted an eyebrow. “Lesser peoples, eh? Is that what you call the rest of us? Lesser? It must be nice, being able to live in the softer lands of the south, where women can afford to raise their voices at men. If you were from Eisberg, you'd have two black eyes and a bloody lip by now. Your pretty face wouldn't last long with a mouth like that.”

  Amethyst clenched her hands into fists. “Maybe in Eisberg, you think that beating on women makes you strong. I'd suggest you remember what happened to Steinhalt the last time they sent raiders into our lands.”

  Fredrick scowled. “Oh, yes, the mighty army of Lonwick, brought to bear against a city over a single raiding party. Maybe you should try it again, now that we're united, eh? The Northlands are far too harsh for the weak constitutions of elves.”

  Tika pulled Amethyst back down to her seat. “He's baiting you, Quartz. Don't bite.”

  “That's right, Quartz,” Fredrick said, gesturing to her stool. “Sit back down and remember your place.”

  Growling, Amethyst started to rise to her feet again but paused as the ground beneath her trembled. The plates that still sat on the tables rattled as the earthquake rolled, and all the Hopefuls in the room steadied themselves until it subsided.

  The door that Rasul had come through the day before burst open and the messenger entered the room.

  “What is going on in here?” he demanded, his eyes narrowed as he glared around the chamber.

  Fredrick bowed to Rasul. “Nothing, sir. Just some playful banter that got out of hand.”

  Rasul locked his eyes on Amethyst. “Well?”

  Amethyst paused, unsure of what to do. Should she tell Rasul the truth, and risk some sort of punishment for their argument, or should she let the issue go and deal with it on her own? She glanced down at Tika, who had her eyes firmly set on her plate of food. She looked up at Fredrick, who was glaring at her, daring her to speak.

  That was all she needed.

  “Sir,” she said, copying the way Fredrick addressed Rasul, “that young man was making crude comments at Tika and me. He insulted me, and I returned the favor.”

  Rasul scowled, not unlike some of her tutors had in the past. “The pair of you are acting like children. If you expect to be taken seriously enough to become apprentices to Master Giriraj, you will conduct yourself in a way that will bring him pride and honor, not force him to act as your nursemaid.” He took a step towards them. “If you cannot abide by these rules, then you will be removed from the Choosing. I had considered myself perfectly clear in communicating this yesterday evening. Do not make me repeat myself again.”

  Amethyst bowed her head. “Yes, sir,” she said, chagrined.

  Fredrick did the same. “Yes, sir.”

  Rasul folded his hands into his sleeves. “Good. When you have finished eating, assemble in front of the temple. We will begin with some basic lessons within the hour. I suggest you pay attention to them, as you will need the understanding that they will impart for the Choosing.”

  ~~~

  Amethyst helped Tika spread the canvas of the other girl's tent across the cold ground. They had folded the thick felt into thirds and lay it across the stone to cushion them somewhat from the hard surface of the crater. There was no sense in leaving Tika's tent standing empty if she was going to share Amethyst's with her, so they had decided to use it to cushion the stone as much as they could.

  Tika flopped down, wincing as her head bumped against the still rather hard ground. “Ow.”

  Amethyst lay down on her back a bit more carefully, staring up at the ceiling of her tent, exhausted. They had spent the day out in the bitter cold, drilling in the manipulation of energy with Rasul. Some of the Hopefuls were already quite skilled at it; the blonde boy and Fredrick were amongst the first of the youths to be able to effectively follow Rasul's instructions. They had each been given a stone cylinder and a block of ice, with the goal of channeling enough energy from the mountain into the stone to melt the ice.

  “Any fool can move something with their hands or with a tool,” Rasul had told them, “but it takes a master – someone truly skilled – to move something with their mind. Energy is no different from anything physical; it has the ability to change our world if appropriately directed. It is your task to change the world around you without physically manipulating it with your hands.”

  Fredrick and the blonde boy were able to melt their blocks immediately. Fredrick had spent most of the lesson idly molding his cylinder into different shapes, while the other boy had simply gotten another block of ice and done it again and again.

  Tika had been able to melt her ice without too much trouble, though being unable to touch the stone had slowed her down. She was used to being able to draw the energy into herself before pushing it into another object – the change in technique had thrown her off, though she was able to adapt quickly enough.

  Amethyst, on the other hand, struggled for the entire day. As the sun sank towards the horizon, her block of ice remained unmelted, tiny frost crystals forming on the base of the stone cylinder that sat on top of it.

  By the time the day came to an end and everyone went inside to eat, Amethyst had been the only one unable to get the stone to heat enough to melt the ice. At one point, she had seen the frost crystals dissolve, but as soon as she noticed, the water droplets solidified into ice again.

  She lay in her tent, frustrated. How was she going to compete with the rest of the Hopefuls if she couldn't even pick up the most basic of lessons that everyone else seemed to grasp with ease?

  Tika rolled onto her stomach, looking at her. “Don't worry, Quartz. You'll do fine. When it finally makes sense to you, I know that you'll be able to channel energy faster and more powerfully than anyone else.”

  “It already makes sense,” Amethyst protested, rubbing her face with her hands. “It's just making it happen that eludes me. I don't know why it doesn't just work, like it does for everyone else.”

  “Here, let's try this.” Tika moved to sit up, folding her legs in front of her. “Hold your hands like you did when you pushed the energy into the stone.”

  Groaning, Amethyst sat up as well, copying Tika's position and sitting cross-legged. She set her arms on her knees, holding her hands in front of herself as if she were holding a sphere.

  Tika held her stone in her hands on the other side of the tent. “Alright, let's try not to break this one.”

  Amethyst opened her eyes, deadpanning at Tika before closing them again.

  “Alright, so picture the glow again, but don't picture it coming into you. Instead, see it collecting between your hands like smoke. Don't feel it in your hands, feel it between your hands.”

  Amethyst kept her eyes closed, furrowing her brow. “How do you feel something outside of your body? You have to touch something to feel it.”

  “That's not true. You don't have to touch fire to feel heat, or touch the clouds to feel wind.”

  “I suppose not,” she said, frowning. “But this energy isn't real, it isn't here. At least wind and fire are real.”

  Tika scoffed. “Okay, well, if it isn't real, then why are you here? How did we melt the ice? How did you crack that stone? Shut up and focus.”

  Scowling, Amethyst tried to focus, and slowly, she managed to construct the picture in her mind. This time, she was sitting on the top of the Temple of the Summit, and the whole mountain shimmered underneath her. She lifted her hands a little higher, turning her wrists so that her palms f
aced each other instead of the sky, and obediently, the glow from the mountain lifted with her hands. A tendril of it reached up from in front of her crossed legs, slowly swirling and twisting like a snake as it wound itself into a ball between her hands.

  “Good, good!” she heard Tika whisper. “Keep going! Not too fast, just keep it slow. See if you can make it bigger!”

  In her mind's eye, she saw Tika sitting across from her, empty hands held out before her, looking at Amethyst. She wasn't dressed in the warm clothing that she had been wearing a moment before, instead wearing a painted and dyed leather halter, covered in beads and small coins. Along her arms were bangles and armlets of gold, silver, and copper, dark brown designs tracing their way along her hands, running from her fingertips up to her biceps. Around her hips and covering her lap was a flamboyantly colored patchwork skirt, tied with a bright gold cord at her right hip.

  Amethyst's eyes snapped open, and she was back in her tent, looking at Tika, wrapped up in her warm leathers and furs once more.

  “Get back here,” Tika murmured, keeping her eyes closed. “If you don't concentrate, you'll drop it.”

  Amethyst closed her eyes again, and she was back on top of the temple, sitting across from Tika once more. The young woman reached out, beckoning for Amethyst to give her the ball of energy she had called up.

  She extended her arms towards Tika, moving her hands as if she was pushing the glowing purple ball away from her, and the other girl took it between her fingertips, pulling it towards her without touching it. Slowly, the energy shifted from being purple-tinged to amber, and as Tika spread her hands apart, the ball grew larger.

  “Alright, now your turn.”

  Tika pushed the ball back towards Amethyst and she caught it between her hands, guiding it back towards her lap. As she moved it, it shifted back to the purple color that it had when she had created it.

  “Now, open your eyes, and see the stone on your blanket between us. Imagine feeding all of that light into the stone, but slowly, like you were pouring a bucket of sand into another container. Don't spill it, don't dump it all at once, just a nice, steady pour.”

  Slowly, Amethyst looked down at the stone between them, and, with the picture of the energy still fresh in her mind, she imagined letting it slowly collapse and flow into the sphere, pouring over it like melted wax and soaking into the polished obsidian. As she did so, heat and light sprang forth from the depths of the stone, but not as much as it had the night before.

  “Good,” said Tika, her eyes still closed. “Now, the tail that connected it to the earth, attach that to the stone, but don't move your hands. Just move your mind.”

  Amethyst watched the tendril of light between her hands as it slowly traced through the air, tethering to the stone and settling back into the ground. Between them, the stone now pulsed with a faint purple light, filling the tent with an even, radiant warmth.

  Tika finally opened her eyes, looking at Amethyst with a grin. “That was perfect, princess!”

  “It was!” Amethyst said excitedly. “I didn't even notice any difficulty once I let myself just do it! It was like not believing I could was the only that was stopping me!”

  Tika chuckled, flopping down next to Amethyst. “That's generally how it works. If you don't think you can do something, you can't. You stop yourself by not believing it's possible, and then take your failure as proof that it's not.”

  “That's right! As soon as I stopped thinking about it and just did it, it worked perfectly!” She stopped suddenly, looking down at Tika. “Wait. Why did you call me princess?”

  Tika waved her hand at her. “Because of your clothing when we're in our minds. You saw how I was dressed; I always wanted to be a dancer, but that wasn't meant to be. You wear a long purple dress and a crown, so I figured I'd tease you for it.”

  Amethyst let go of a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. “Oh. I didn't know that. I thought I would just be dressed like myself, now. I wonder why we wear different clothes in our minds than we do here, in the tent?”

  Tika shrugged. “I guess that's just what we see ourselves as, so that's what we put out there for others to see.”

  Suddenly, the tent canvas flapped and buckled as something hit it, scattering over the oiled cloth and startling both Amethyst and Tika. They scrambled out of the tent just as something else struck the front point of the peak, showering them with snow and ice.

  Amethyst squinted against the light of the setting sun but didn't see anyone nearby. A disgusted snort from Tika drew her attention to the ground in front of the tent.

  Standing erect before them were two crudely shaped phalluses – one made out of stone, the other from ice. A sheaf of parchment was tucked underneath the stone erection, held down by one corner. Amethyst snatched it up, scanning the crude northern text. She had been taught to decipher many languages, ranging from the several dialects of elven to the awkward right-to-left script of the Burning Sands, and the sharp, angular lettering of the Northlands was no exception.

  “To the lovers,” she read aloud. “Try not to melt the first one too quickly. If you do, we have given you a backup. Maybe the elf can figure a way to heat this one up. Enjoy.”

  She crumpled the paper into a ball and threw it to the ground while Tika rolled her eyes.

  “Do they really have nothing better to do?” Tika asked, loud enough for anyone nearby to hear her. “Maybe they're unable to be in the same room with someone else without trying to polish their stems, but we've got more important things to focus on.”

  Amethyst was furious at the display. Holding her hands outstretched, she glared down at the vulgar arrangement in front of her, drawing the energy of the mountain into her hands. With all of her will, she pulled from the earth, until she felt the electric tingle across her skin again. When she knew that she had built up enough elemental force, she released it all, instantly, into the stone erection that mocked her.

  The statue exploded with a resounding crack, shattering into a thousand pieces that flew away from her and scattered over the frozen stone ground of the crater. Some of the larger pieces ricocheted off the outside of the temple, bouncing back over the thin covering of snow, leaving steaming trails in their wakes.

  She moved her hands as if she were reaching into the mountain itself, and drew out handfuls of energy. Raising her hands once more, she cast them at the icy effigy and gave it the same treatment as the stone statue. It instantly melted, crumbling into slivers of ice that evaporated into steam from the force of her magical assault.

  Amethyst stood in front of her tent, clenching her fists and looking around the crater, searching for anyone who may have been watching for her reaction. The only person she saw was Tika, who was standing back, her eyes wide in surprise. A small chip of stone had landed on her shoulder, sending a wisp of smoke up before it cooled.

  “Well. That might have been a little bit of an overreaction,” said Tika. “They might be right. You might just need a good bedding to calm your nerves.”

  Chapter Six

  4th Waxing Moon of the Long Night, Year 4367

  If Amethyst had thought that the road from Castle Lonwick was cold, her time on the mountaintop was redefining the concept. The air outside the Temple of the Summit was bitterly cold; the stiff breeze flowing over the crater cut through Amethyst's clothing like it wasn't there. Even Fredrick, as arrogant as he was in the front row, shivered in the wind.

  The Hopefuls were standing in four rows of five, each with a short pillar of stone in front of them. Amethyst and Tika had taken their places in the back of the crowd, along with most of the women; when they assembled, the young men had all pushed their way to the front. This annoyed Amethyst at first, but Tika mentioned that the back row had the advantage of being able to see everything that the other trainees were doing. This would let them learn from their peers' mistakes.

  Rasul stood at the front of the crowd, dressed only in his brown robes. Amethyst had no idea how he wasn't freezing to
death; he wasn't even shivering.

  “Your lesson for today is the forming of stone with your hands,” he said, resting his palms on the frozen rock. “By flooding the pillar with the elemental energy, you can make it malleable, though there are limitations. If you work the stone too thin, it will shatter. If you put too much energy into the stone itself, it could become volatile.” Rasul drummed his fingertips on the surface of the pillar, leaving divots in the surface where his fingertips struck. “The key is to find the balance that makes the stone bend to your will without destroying it or injuring yourself. Some of you have already demonstrated skill in this area, misused though it may have been.” His eyes settled briefly on Fredrick before moving on. “Do you have any questions?”

  Silence greeted him, and he nodded. “Very good. You may begin.”

  Immediately, Fredrick and the blond boy pushed the stone with their hands, forming it like clay. Next to Amethyst, Tika pouted at her pillar.

  “I've never done this before,” she said. “Here goes nothing...”

  As Tika concentrated on her stone, Amethyst sighed and looked at the pillar in front of her. While everyone else had their new lesson, Amethyst was left with the lesson from the day before. She closed her eyes, shivering in the cold, and focused on the fist-sized stone cylinder that sat on top a large block of ice. With what she had learned the night before, heating the stone and melting the ice should be the work of an instant. She was tempted to give it the same treatment that she had given the crude statues the night before, but she tempered herself to stay on the task at hand.

  She felt the humming energy of the mountain around her and reached out to it. Holding her hands up to the stone as if she were warming them at a fire, Amethyst concentrated on pulling the light from the mountain and pushing it directly into the cylinder.

  “Someone want to help the elf out, so she can catch up to the rest of us 'lesser people'?” came Fredrick's voice from the front of the crowd.