by Awert, Wolf
Before Nill, Brolok, and Tiriwi had arrived, the Hermits’ Caves had been nothing but dead holes in the grounds connected by dark and clammy halls, slumbering like a beast for ages. But the anxious expectations, wishes and first cautious steps into the world of magic had stirred something in the earth and the stone. It was like a sleeping person turning to the other side, unsure whether to wake up or keep sleeping. The three young students noticed none of this, yet the earth was no longer impassive to the happenings around it. A nervous tension surrounded them all, and it was doing them little good.
Brolok sat like a massive rock in the weak light from the softly shimmering walls. For him, the most important thing right now was tearing the loaf of bread he held into little pieces, followed by chewing them deliberately. He was worried about the discord between them and their fellow students. He expected new attacks daily and knew he would not last in Ringwall without Tiriwi’s help. Yet he could not really understand the Oa. Metal was something solid, something reliable. Humans were not. Girls especially. And this girl was an Oa on top of everything else…
Nill wasted no thoughts on his noble schoolmates. He had banished them from his memory. Instead, he suffered the pain of being unable to satisfactorily complete the tasks set to him by his teachers. But there was something worse that troubled him. The fixed rules and order in his village had always been a source of annoyance to him, but here he would have liked to have it back. In Ringwall he did not know where he belonged.
Tiriwi had the worst of it. She avoided the common room between the three sleeping chambers and spent most of her time lying listlessly on her bed, staring at a ceiling she could not make out through the darkness. She had given the wise women a promise. She had prepared for days of hard work and plight, had come to terms with not being able to see the sun for long stretches of time. But the bitterness of the unknown had taken the upper hand; in Ringwall she was the enemy to everyone, and she had no way of countering them. Nobody had told her she would live with two boys less familiar to her than the thorny thickets of the Drylands. It was only a matter of time before the fragile band connecting them would break. Tiriwi no longer cared.
Nill was the one who took the initiative in trying to rebuild some of the common ground between them one evening. He asked casually: “Who taught you two to work magic?”
Tiriwi swallowed her bite of meat and bit her lip uncertainly. After a while she answered: “We Oa are taught by our godmothers. Our real mothers teach us things like song and finger-games. But our godmothers show us the connection of magic and energy, and the understanding of nature and life.”
Nill had no idea what a finger-game was, but he did not ask.
“My father taught me everything. He showed me all a blacksmith needs for his work,” Brolok said.
“Can you show us? Make a fire or something?” Nill asked as carefully as he could.
Brolok shook his head. “I can do a few things, but I don’t really know why. I just… do them. I don’t think I’d be much of a teacher.”
Nill said nothing and looked back at Tiriwi. Tiriwi returned the gaze and looked deep into Nill’s gray eyes and suddenly felt like an arrow had pierced her heart.
The room she was in contracted and went black. A small circle in front of her shone in a murky violet light. Tiriwi saw Nill lying on the floor, hair singed and clothes scorched, and saw herself kneeling next to him. Horrified, she clapped her hands over her face. She leapt up and ran back to her cave. The boys looked after her, thoroughly bewildered.
From that evening Tiriwi, Brolok and Nill went their separate ways. The boys had no way of understanding Tiriwi’s harsh rejection. The feeling of approaching danger filled the caves like smoke, making the very air stand still. Tiriwi felt it, and Brolok and Nill felt it too. She felt like she had done wrong early on, but she saw no way to backtrack and set it right. She longed for something to give her comfort. The soft touch of a petal, or the feeling of dew becoming too heavy for the leaves, running down and pattering upon her. Tiriwi dreamed of lying in the moss, the gentle tickling of a tree’s bark at her back. Here in Ringwall there was none of that. It was hard and unrelenting, stone and earth. She wondered how the magic of Wood was even taught here, if even the water flowed only underground.
She began to realize, unwillingly, that Brolok had been right. If she kept pining for her forests, stewing in self-pity, and denying Ringwall, she had already failed at her task. She had to understand the mages – she had to learn their ways. Tiriwi left her bed and exited her cave, climbed up the stairs and passed through two portals. She was somewhere between Water and Wood. There were not many young girls wandering around Ringwall alone, especially not at night-time. It was only a matter of time until, after countless wondering and questioning looks, one of the mages offered his help.
“I’m looking for the place where the mages retire to after they’ve finished the day’s work, or when they need a break from their research. The place they go to in the evenings before they go to bed, where they talk to the other mages about anything and everything.”
The mage gave her an astonished look. “Who says there is such a place in Ringwall?”
Tiriwi smiled. “Every person has such a place, and besides,” she continued hastily as the mage opened his mouth to retort, “I’ve already asked someone about it. He told me I’d find it if I looked carefully enough. Tell me, is that a polite answer?”
The mage nodded, then shook his head confusedly, then nodded again. This girl really had a way of befuddling people. “Go down the stairs over there. Once you’ve reached the bottom floor, wander around a bit and follow the noise. I can’t take you there myself, I still have things to do.” He said the last sentence with a deliberately mocking sense of self-importance, and Tiriwi was kind enough to laugh. She stopped short quite abruptly when she reached the first step of the stairs.
The lower floors of Ringwall were often lonely corridors or cold halls. This part of the city seemed different. Tiriwi realized that she really only had to follow the noise. She had expected a large hall where the mages convened, but that was not the case. There were a few rooms, roughly the same size, all with enough space for two long-tables and four benches. All rooms were well filled with people and loud chatter, making it impossible to make out any sense. Each room seemed similar enough, so Tiriwi just sat down on a free seat. She had noticed that pleasantries were dispensed with; those who arrived simply took a spot and were engaged in conversation almost immediately. She saw that many of the newcomers carried with them bowls, bottles or water skins that they had apparently obtained somewhere around here.
Tiriwi had found a seat at the end of a long bench. The man next to her gave her a friendly nod, but turned back to continue his conversation. The fellow opposite her gave her a long, intense look and looked as though he wanted to say something, but the words were lost when his attention was caught by a group of white mages having a heated discussion led by an old man.
“Give it up already, Marsili!” one of the younger mages was saying. “You know as well as the rest of us that no being will ever be able to cast a spell of Nothingness.”
“Really, do I now? Let me tell you something. Is there or is there not a connection to the Nothing in our Sanctuary?” the old man, evidently Marsili himself, asked agitatedly.
The younger man nodded reluctantly. “Well, yes, in the center between the five elements.”
“Then tell me how it got there in the first place if no being could ever cast a spell of Nothingness – or however you just put it.”
“I presume the Archmage of Nothing brought it to the field,” the young mage replied.
Marsili snorted scornfully. “Archmage of Nothing, indeed. Have you ever even seen him? All this hocus-pocus with that empty chair, it’s all a charade. I’ll tell you another thing: there is no Archmage of Nothing, and there never has been.” There was an incomparable finality in the authority of Marsili’s voice.
Tiriwi was amazed. She had
thought to pick up on talk about the coming change, and now she was listening to some mages arguing about the Nothingness. To her right two other mages were discussing the effect of a fire spell when cast underwater. The wise women had given her the impression that nothing in Ringwall was of more importance than the Great Change.
“Not exactly your subject of interest, hm?” she heard herself being asked. Tiriwi had not noticed that the seat opposite her had been occupied. The newcomer’s hair was neatly parted down the middle, but still fell over his eyes, making his face difficult to distinguish. “Marsili is an old fool. He’s determined to understand the secrets of Nothing. Been that way for ten winters now. Did you expect to learn about magic here?”
“No, I thought everyone here would be talking about the Great Change.”
The mage gave a short laugh, that was in reality more of a cough. “That’s the Magon’s business. Even the many-colored you see here don’t know much about it. The archmages do, maybe the elemental masters too, but I don’t think anyone below the rank of master would know any more about it than you or I.”
The group that had been animatedly discussing the Nothing just a moment ago had fallen apart and new arguments had begun. This time, however, they were much quieter. They were hissing or whispering, growling from deep within the throat. Tiriwi did not understand much of it. Only the word Magon was discernible, occasionally barked out quickly. It took some time until she began to hear sentences in the commotion.
“Our Magon sits around, day in, day out, and he’s frozen all of Ringwall. Since he’s been here the five kingdoms are merely being governed. Have the archmages done anything at all under his leadership so far?” The speaker was a tall, thin, middle-aged man wearing the black cloak of Metal, and his words were directed at a few white mages.
“Keep quiet, that’s treason-talk. Words like yours will endanger us all.”
“I see you’ve become quite as soft as the High Council. But just think what you, of all people, stand to gain! If the Magon, bless his name” – the mage gave a dark, spiteful laugh – “were to finally stand up and push into the Borderlands, we’d have the opportunity to expand our influence and you would have access to a very different kind of magic.”
Tiriwi had heard enough. The Great Change seemed of little interest to today’s chatterers.
“I’ll tell you something about the change, if you’re so interested,” the mage with the carefully parted hair said. “Give me a moment, it’s rather dry.”
The man stood up, walked a little way away and returned after a few seconds, two large bowls in his hands. They were filled with a transparent liquid on which a petal was floating.
“Here, drink this.”
Tiriwi hesitated. Accepting a drink she did not know of was not a good idea. “What’s it you’ve got there?” she asked cautiously.
“Gorb juice. It’s very fruity and refreshing, but take care – it’s got a lot of aroma. Don’t drink it all in one go, take tiny little sips. It tastes best when enjoyed slowly.” The mage finished talking and fastened his hands around his bowl. He drank a little and put it back down.
“I’m not so sure.” Tiriwi was not convinced.
The mage gave her a smile. “You don’t have to drink it – I can drink all of yours, too.” After a short pause his expression became serious again. “I’m surprised, to be honest, that you even know of the change.”
“I’m an Oa. They keep talking about it, but I’d like to know what the mages intend to do in face of it.”
The mage barked out a short laugh. “Nothing. We’re in Ringwall. The center of all power. There’s no stronger place in the world than this sacred city. We will see the change in time and stop it from happening.”
“And how do you intend to do that?”
“By destroying everything and everyone connected to it. Soul, body and spirit.”
Tiriwi winced. She had not anticipated anything like this. She had expected the mages to look for a way to live with the change, like the Oas did. But to stop the march of fate? There was not a creature alive that could make the flow of time move the other way. Not even the mages.
Lost in thought, Tiriwi sipped at her juice. She had the curious sensation of sweetness and sourness exploding on her tongue. Surprised, she took a second sip. This really was a wonderful flavor – but, as the mage had said, pauses had to be made between sips to let the tongue work itself back to normal. Tiriwi giggled.
“You see, I did not promise too much!” the mage said.
Tiriwi shook her head. “My tongue feels like it’s split into thousands of tiny pieces and then mended again,” she laughed, then continued in the same breath: “And who is part of the change?”
“How should I know?” the mage asked back. “Do I look like an Archmage?”
“So that means it could be a student of Ringwall for all you know?” Tiriwi gave a silly laugh. Silly laughs were generally a safe way to hide dangerous thoughts.
“Indeed, you for example, or any of us.” The mage played along, seemingly not concerned by any of this.
Tiriwi smiled back, but her heart felt like it had been doused in ice-cold water. She knew that the mages would not hesitate for a moment to eliminate the threat, once they had a fair idea who it might be. Even she, as a representative of a different people, was not safe once the mages had chosen to act. Nill and Brolok were in even greater danger than she was, as they had nobody to protect them. Tiriwi decided to be very, very careful from now on.
“I don’t know whether the Great Change is actually a good subject to talk about. Tell me about your homeland instead. I’m fairly well-versed in the comings and goings of Earthland, and I know a bit about the Fire Kingdom, but I’ve never even laid eyes upon Woodhold,” the mage said, interrupting Tiriwi’s thoughts.
Tiriwi was grateful for the excuse to drop the topic. She took another sip of her drink and considered what to tell him first. Much-loved, familiar images rose before her inner eye, and she began to speak enthusiastically about the trees and plants of her homeland. The longer she talked, the clearer the images became. She was very young and had just stolen away from her mother to pick some flowers. She saw herself running through the tall grass, swinging from branches and watching for birds. It was glorious, and even better was the fact that she was not alone; friends made everything better. A pity she couldn’t properly make out her companion. It was a man, not one of her many friends at home. She turned around, but every time she tried to focus on him his outline became blurred, as though she were seeing through fog. The figure dissolved and reappeared somewhere else. Tiriwi laughed. This kind of hiding game was new to her. She felt more and more as though she herself was the hiding place. She felt something in her head, in her ears, eyes and even on her tongue. She drank another gulp hastily to rid herself of the unfamiliar taste. The drink succeeded at replacing the taste – once again a thousand little bubbles exploded on her tongue, but the foreign presence in her mind grew, and suddenly she was not at all sure whether she still liked the game, and whether she should let it continue. It seemed benign enough. Whatever was in her head, it was neither a foe nor an enemy; it was not even a person. It was simply a presence, gentle and light as a shroud. Tiriwi felt helpless, she could not make a decision. She could not even talk in mind-speak, because she did not know who she ought to speak to. A bead of sweat formed on her brow, indecisive in its movement.
The shroud broke.
“You should be ashamed of yourself, Orgol-Fei.”
Tiriwi opened her eyes. She had not even noticed that they had been closed, and now she saw a distinctly angry-looking Empyrade standing before her. Empyrade had her hands on the shoulders of the mage whom Tiriwi had been talking to. The man looked a little confused and had lost his smile.
The green mage looked at Tiriwi. “Come with me. We’re leaving this table, and this company.”
Tiriwi was not used to the commanding tone she was being addressed in. She wanted to resist, but she felt
far too weak. The presence in her mind had vanished. It was replaced with Empyrade’s strong will, which she could not resist either. She swayed a little on the spot as she got up, then she followed the green mage. They passed through a few portals until they arrived in a comfortable room that smelled homely. Tiriwi looked around and saw many plants covering the walls, taking in the nets draped below the ceiling, adorned with thousands of vines with little violet blossoms. Tiriwi felt elated, and some of the muscles she had never realized existed relaxed.
“Lie down on the bed, or sit in that chair over there. Whichever is more comfortable for you. I have to get you awake first.”
Tiriwi glided to the chair and sank into it. The last few bubbles that had forgotten to explode vanished, and the fruity taste dissipated. Her will, the absence of which she had barely noticed, returned.
“What happened?” she asked in horror. “Was I poisoned?”
“Well, yes and no. You took a mild plant-poison that was combined with Wood magic. It wasn’t all too dangerous,” Empyrade said.
“He told me it was gorb juice,” Tiriwi recalled.
Empyrade nodded. “Indeed, the juice from the white gorb. What Orgol, the little rat, neglected to mention, is that your drink contained a lot more than just juice. Swampleaf, krakanberry seeds, plants from the Waterways that only grow there. And even the water-folk have troubles harvesting them from the swamps and fever holes.”
“But if it’s a poison, why didn’t it affect Orgol? He drank as much as I did, or was he pretending?” Tiriwi was still busy sorting her thoughts.
“Oh, it did. It worked on him as well as on you. Gorb juice opens up the mind, making it accessible to anyone who’d like to take a stroll in it. It’s not mind-reading as such, rather feelings and wishes. You can see happiness and hatred, many memories that concern none but yourself. You could have done the same to him as he wanted to do to you. Of course, you didn’t know that, so the whole thing was a one-sided affair. That’s what made me so angry. If you drink gorb juice, you’d better know what you’re in for.”
