by P. S. Power
The morning’s meditation was peaceful enough, easier for him now than before, what with all his copy work, which was mainly meditation anyway. Dorris the instructor nodded at him as he left, still refusing to speak, but seeming content about it at the same time. In his next class he just asked the instructor how to build a light field. It made sense to him, but Instructor Fines blinked at him as if he’d suggested they dine on another student later.
“Tor! This is novel building, not “copy other peoples work” class. But I'll give you a hint this once… Even though I shouldn't have to… Think about the nature of light. Examine it and reproduce the field. It's basically how everything is done in this class, in magical construction as a whole, and light is one of the most basic parts of reality. So, just since you asked… Have a light for me within three weeks, no fair using an already existing field as a template; I know you can do that. Bonus points if you have if for me faster than the deadline.” The man smiled as if he'd done him a favor.
His mind spun in place for the rest of the day. He skipped lunch as well, hunger starting to become slighting annoying. It wasn't so bad in a trance state, so he made a point of dropping as deeply as he could into his own mind and focus on everything going on around him, so he wouldn't walk into walls or something.
He'd have to make the whole thing that night. Somehow. He couldn't take the hunger otherwise, not and keep up with his schedule at all. Damn Wensa anyway. Why was she so bent on hurting him? He hadn't done anything to her had he? Well, OK, he had sort of told Dorgal and his friends she was a Royal Guard and her stomping over with weapons in hand had kind of confirmed it… But she'd started it. What could he do though, but try and survive?
Tor made a point of focusing even more deeply as he walked to the weapons practice area. The sunlight hit his skin, so he tried to capture the sense of it in the air, hoping that would be enough to distract him. It was amorphous, hard to find and gone instantly. How could he duplicate that? Or… well, did he have to really? He focused harder and stopped walking about ten feet from the stone wall of the practice court.
Light… it was already a field! That's why he couldn't find it, trying to sense it like something physical. Oh, it existed physically, but what made it work, that portion of it, Tor could simply get a feeling for like any manufactured field he wanted to copy. It wasn't too difficult to find, it was too easy. He snorted to himself. No wonder Fines had told him to just find it for himself. He felt a little stupid for having asked now. Well, lesson learned then, look for himself before bugging others or thinking something was hard before even trying.
Inside the practice court he sat down on the ground awkwardly just inside the gate, a little to the left of it near the stone wall and picked up a small stone, about the size of a gold coin. Could he capture the feeling well enough? He focused for about forty-five minutes before the rock in his hand finally started to glow, dimly at first, but then brighter, more so than the sunlight, then the sun in the sky itself. Then brighter still.
Suddenly it got too bright, so he threw the stone away, an instinctual and slightly panicked move. It was leaving spots in front of his eyes even with them closed. He could even follow the arc it took through the air, to the point it landed on the ground.
Right at the feet of two giants hitting each other with wooden weapons and wearing full armor it turned out. He wondered abstractly if they'd like some of the heat equalizing amulets. Maybe they'd accept that in exchange for not killing him? That padded practice armor had a point, he knew, since shields were rare, his kind of shield, but it looked incredibly hot right now. Both people had to turn away from the small rock, which had finally started to dim.
“Blind!” One of them cried, not in fear, just indicating that he couldn't see for some reason. The call was echoed by his opponent, Petra if Tor recognized the voice. Next to him saw a shadow, a little blind from the rock he'd made glow himself. It was a big shadow, but not one big enough to be Kolb, he didn't think so at least. When she spoke he got it instantly.
“Wow. That was effective. New battlefield weapon? Meant to leave the enemy blind?” Karen asked this in a soft voice, obviously trying to not call more attention to herself if possible. Probably to keep the other two from beating him to death for having attacked them out of turn.
“No, I was just trying to figure out how to make light. It worked. Um, yay? I have a new project to work on, and it's going to be a little useful to it. Plus I need it for a class, different project. Sorry!” He called out to the two still standing and not moving, still unable to see. Tor climbed to his feet and stood, his left leg hardly supporting his weight at all, since he'd sat on it funny, not even noticing that he was doing it in the working trance. He dusted the tan earth from his darker brown clothing making a soft cloud in the air.
Karen smiled and had him walk with her towards where the practice weapons were kept.
“So… I was thinking that since you can't run and that's what you normally practice doing, right? Since you can't do that, let's work pells and lifting stones for strength, then we'll do an intense sword and knife drill and maybe head out to the range so that we can practice there for a while.”
That would be different at least, since he'd never been out to the range before. Kolb didn't even let him practice with a bow and arrow, claiming that it would probably be wasted anyway, since no one used them any more to fight with and the aiming system for everything else was just so different.
Karen, it turned out, expected him to be some kind of weapons expert it seemed, and came at him like he was one of the combat giants. He barely managed to hold on and had to resist trying to run away at least three times. They fought first with knives, and then swords, standing face to face, without moving their feet at all. Without dodging it was a lot harder not to be killed by the girl than normal. Not the practice kind of killed, the actual dying kind. She didn't hit him in the leg at least. Just everywhere else.
“Now, it's about three miles to the range, I don't know if we can get a wagon out, so… do you think you can walk it?”
Uhg. He could, Tor was pretty sure, but it would ache. The three miles out wouldn't be so bad, but coming back, that would not be fun. He told her this, hoping she wouldn't just think he was a wimp. He smiled. Really that should be, he hoped she didn't think he was more of a wimp. She probably had his measure pretty well already after all.
“Oh… Well, I suppose we could fly, but we'd have to check the gear out and it's all booked for the day, so, since that's not an option I guess we should cancel that. Too bad, because I really wanted to get your take on the state of our practice weapons. Maybe soon?” She didn't seem that put out at least and didn't punish him with a lot of extra work, though she did ask him to walk to his dorm and back as many times as he could without hurting himself, to help build his injured leg back up.
Tor didn't bother with dinner after that, it was still mid-afternoon when he couldn't comfortably walk anymore, so he started working on the poison testing device before he could collapse from hunger. The light turned out to be the simple part, now that he understood it, adding in the proper fields for all the foods he ate was harder. Not that they weren't familiar to him, he ate them after all, so it wasn't that difficult to remember.
No the hard part was holding all the fields at once, in the end he had to do them in a cascading style, adding one to another and into much larger sub-fields that he used for the final make. It took all night and most of the next day. And then the day after that.
Someone fed him something, which he hoped wasn't poisoned, and they gave him water to drink. Right. He added water to the list of things, then juices and cow’s milk, goat’s milk and struggling to remember what it was like from the few sips he'd ever had, wine and hard cider.
The complexity of the field was huge compared to what he'd ever done before. The power levels needed were small, but there was just so much to focus on. It wasn't enough just to know food, he had to separate the plates and cups, from
things that could be used to harm a person as well. Plus hundreds of other things, including just a sense that something might be unbalanced in a food item. Or around it. Diseased food too.
Finally after a long time, the days not making any impression on him anymore, he opened his eyes. Tor was alone, and it was morning. He thought. It was light outside at least. He stood, barely making it to his feet, legs almost not able to hold him up.
How long had he been out? Longer than five or six days at least. He knew what that felt like, having done it before a couple of times now.
Tor didn't make it to the door before it opened and Rolph came in with Kolb and the nice older man with the beard he'd seen before. He looked at them and smiled.
“Hey.” His voice croaked. Tor had to clear it for a while, and drink some water, before it just sounded like a frog lived in there.
“Wow, how long was I working?” He almost apologized for not greeting everyone properly first, but Rolph answered before he could say anything else.
“Eleven days! I'd thought you were just working on something at first, I mean I could see the template in your hand and all, I get what that means, but then you just didn't move. Two days ago you stopped even drinking water, so Trice and I decided we had to get help. I don't know what that is, but is the latest diaper rash treatment or whatever really worth all this?” The look on Rolph's face was stern and more than a little worried.
Eleven days.
Gods. No wonder he couldn't speak. Worse Karen would probably kill him when he went back. Kolb looked worried too, but the girl had been put in charge of his training, and as far as everyone else could tell her new trainee had run away after only one day. He decided to distract them all, if he could. He held up the template, one made in wood, with lines written over both the front and the back of it in tiny script. It was twice the size of the normal wooden planks he got, because he'd found the first two he tried weren't big enough for everything he needed to write down.
He pointed at it.
“Testing device for food, to tell if it's poisoned. It should tell us if there's anything in the food that doesn't belong.” Holding up his hand he grinned tiredly. “Yes, that includes exotic spices and foods that I just haven't encountered… But also poisons, inert materials, and so on. I need to test it, but I don't know how…”
The older man whose name he'd never even heard stroked his beard slightly. “I think I can arrange for that. You… Probably need food, water and sleep first though. Let's say tomorrow at noon? That gives you nearly a full day to recuperate. Do you think that's enough?” The voice sounded like the man was truly concerned about Tor's health and well being.
Nice of him.
Tor nodded and laid back to go to sleep before anyone even left the room. A while later he was woken up by hard punches on his right arm. They hurt, and didn't stop, so he opened his eyes. Trice sat next to him crying, and kept hitting him.
“Don't… ever… do that again! We thought you were dead… or going to die soon anyway! Promise me you won't do this kind of thing anymore!” She looked scared, really scared. Rolph handed him some bread and cheese.
“Bought it in town from a randomly selected shop I've never gone into before. Next we'll send someone else for food, if you need more. I got a lot…” He turned to Trice and shook his head, but gave her a half hug.
“Trice, don't ask him not to do things he may have too. Just…” Rolph turned to Tor and held his gaze. “Just promise that you'll be more careful and try not to die? If you're going to try impossible things, couldn't you at least let us all know first?”
That, he told them, would be doable, he just hadn't realized how hard this one was going to be at all. It was so complex that he wasn't even sure it would work. That earned him a punch in the chest from Trice.
Hard.
Tor rubbed at it gently while she spoke, figuring that it was going to bruise for certain.
“Oh, it'll work. If you scared me like that for nothing, then the weddings off, because they'll never find your body!” She growled this at him in a way that made him swallow hard and blanch a little.
OK, so it would work. Or else. He could get behind that. Casually he tried to work his way over to his shield, which sat on the table next to the bed.
Rolph laughed, getting what he was trying for, and made him eat as much food as Tor thought he could without getting sick, which wasn't much after the long fast and then slowly sip cool water until he fell back to sleep. When he woke it was black outside, so he lay there for a while, not wanting to turn on a light. Eventually, board and stiff, he decided to make some copies of the field into metal.
They copied fast. Almost too easily, given all the work he'd had to do originally. The copper pieces he'd gotten for it were about the shape and size of his little finger. Each had a tiny sigil on it already, just a mark he'd cut into each with the little cutter that he still had from when he built the first shield. It made a groove that should work well enough as an activation focus.
A tiny area of extra shiny copper on each piece, he thought it looked nice. Not glorious or stunning in any way, but clear and easy to use. That counted, right? This was just for him and, if it worked, his friends. It wasn't like most people had to fear being poisoned by Wensa after all. They probably should, but if they didn't know her, that might give most people a little protection at least. Even she wouldn't just break into homes at random to get people.
Would she?
Tor could feel the fields on the metal, or else he would have thought he'd just screwed up and it hadn't worked. After that, tired as he was, he got up and ate some more. Yellow cheese and half stale bread, but it tasted surprisingly good for all that. There was even some dried fruit. The real kind, slow dried in the sun, not magically. Chewy apple slices that felt velvety to the tongue.
So, all Tor had to do now was go to each class, beg forgiveness for missing, and pray that Karen would decide that murder was too harsh a punishment. Tor thought for a second… Maybe he could bribe her with gifts? She'd mentioned not having flying gear yet, and he'd brought extra back with him, the new version even, and a shield? It wasn't much, but maybe it would distract her from being too angry with him? If she hadn't just written him off already and moved on to the next thing.
Dorris took his return with aplomb, of course, and simply indicated that he should sit with a hand gesture and that small half smile she almost always wore. After class he explained that he'd spent eleven days straight working and she bowed slightly, then sent him on his way with a tiny smile and another small wave towards the door. The novel build instructor, Fines gave him a long look and told him that his project was due soon.
“Oh, the light! I figured that out the same day, it took about an hour, so I kind of forgot about it and moved on to harder things. I'll bring something in tomorrow…” The man smiled and waved his hand.
“Oh, don't worry about it, what did you come up with that was so important you missed class for two weeks?” His voice made it clear that he trusted totally that Tor hadn't just been skipping at least. That was heartening.
The man seemed impressed, in a reserved fashion. He wanted to wait for it to actually work or fail before passing judgment. That was kind of him too, since Tor had no clue if it was even really possible. It did have a light incorporated, he let the man know, which earned a smile and a promise of a good grade if the whole thing worked. That would count as a light well enough, unless it was inferior in some way, the man assured him with a serious smile.
His other classes went about the same, much to his relief. He had to apologize and grovel a bit, but no one suggested he leave school over it yet. Tor went back to his room for lunch, ravenous already, even though he'd eaten just a few hours, five, before. Half way to the room, in the center of the cobblestone commons Trice and Sara found him.
The blond girl smiled at him, seeming friendly, but Trice stood facing partially away, refusing to make eye contact. She crossed her arms and huffed.
Tor wasn't really ready; he had to grab the fields from the room. With a bit of math he decided to take half the metal pieces and the big wooden template. That would leave him enough for his friends if the others were needed for testing. Taking a deep breath, he walked out, not knowing where they were going at all. No one had given him a location for it.
Sara patted him on the back, her hand lingering for about fifteen seconds. Trice didn't react to it, so Tor figured it wasn't outside of what was proper really. Finally the pretty blond spoke.
“Oh, it's in our dining hall. You get to have lunch with us today…” Sara looked at him and winked.
It made sense that they ate daily, he'd seen them do it after all, but he hadn't been aware that they had a dining hall like his section had. The buildings were smaller, and set back from the rest of the school enough that no one would have ever gone into one by mistake. The walk wasn't that long, even if they had to walk at his pace, which still kind of limped along. Tor almost wished he had something better than browns to wear, since the girls both wore blacks, and really nice ones at that, made of fine, airy materials. Meant to keep them cool in the late summer heat? Neither looked hot, no sweat or anything, so they probably wore their amulets for that. He did. Otherwise even the school would have been too warm for him. Never the blistering heat of the Capital, but hot enough to annoy and make him damp in all the wrong places.
The room they took him in to was filled with people. Most in black but a few in much livelier colors, some of the girls in pretty dresses even. Many of them ate already, which made him more than a little hungry in response. The food smelled really good too. Maybe not palace level good, but at least two or three times better than what they got at the other dining facility across campus. At the front of the room the older bearded man, wearing a large, well draped black velvet coat, a bright green shirt under that and a red floppy hat, along with black trousers made of something that Tor couldn't identify and didn't bother trying too, watched him enter.
