by Damien Lake
“Oh, yes, of course! Why didn’t I see that?” asked Marik in a droll voice. He extended his hand to the plant, opening and closing it like a quacking duck. “Ah, it’s so much clearer now! Wait a moment…no, my hand says it’s still just a plant.”
Tollaf reddened, ready to bite stone.
“If you’d tell me what you want me to see, maybe I’d see it, old man!”
“Don’t you waste my time, boy! I have enough to keep me busy as it is without having to waste all the day on young fools who don’t listen.”
“Tell me something worth hearing, and I’ll listen to it.”
Tollaf sighed. “Let’s do this another way. Look at the pot.”
“Fine,” said Marik. Tollaf stepped behind him. He felt the old man’s hands on his temples and demanded, “What are you doing?”
“Shut your mouth! Did I tell you to change position? Look at the pot! Try not to think about anything. I’m sure you’re very good at that.”
Marik bit back the comments he could have made and decided to swim with the current for the moment. Trying to think of nothing is impossible since the act of concentrating on not thinking meant he was thinking about not thinking, making the entire exercise futile. Still, it helped clear the frustrations from Marik’s mind. Perhaps he could tolerate this foolishness longer than he’d thought.
It had begun two days earlier. Tollaf’s greeting had consisted of disparaging Marik for his reading skills, which were still very poor by his standards, before pronouncing him utterly clueless, as he was mystified by the simplest concepts that were obvious to anyone. Marik had responded that Torrance had assigned him a career as a mage and the old man better learn to live with it, so he might as well shove his pretentious snobbery. This had not endeared him to the chief mage, but if he was going to be trapped in this situation then Tollaf could damn well suffer too. Thus began the animosity between the cranky old fart and himself. Not that he cared, except Tollaf had the final say over everything Marik now did.
“This might feel strange. Keep looking at the pot until I say so. Do you think you can handle that?” Irritation laced the words.
“Get on with it.”
What might feel strange? Marik tried very hard not to think about it, and not only because Tollaf had told him to.
He studied the flower. It was hardly interesting, being an ordinary yellow blossom with five leaves protruding from the stem. Sunlight brightened its colors, this being one of the few rooms in the Tower with a window, and it stood out from the other drab detritus littering the room.
Except, he suddenly realized, it was noon. The sunlight streaming through the window formed nearly vertical shafts. It could never have crossed this far into the workroom.
The flower existed separately from everything else, growing brighter while he watched, yet illuminated by a different light. Unlike the sunlight that would merely have fallen upon it, this glow came from within. Its yellow petals seemed strangely more yellow by the moment, and transparent at the same time, as though he might be able to see through it.
No, he amended, not as if he could see through it. Like he could see inside it, at the delicate vein-work throughout the blossom’s structure. And the leaves seemed greener as well, yet less solid as he watched.
The phenomenon continued to intensify. Marik could see all the veins in the plant and a white glowing something flowing through them. It might have been blood except flowers had no blood, could it be water then?, being spread throughout the flower from the roots…which he could also see now. Inside the pot, the dirt had grown translucent, and then he could barely see the flower itself at all. Only the white glowing vein network filled his vision while the glow shone brighter, threatening to draw him in. To absorb his being!
“What in the hells are you doing to me, old man?” Marik shouted, forcing his gaze away. He spun to glare at the man behind him and knocked the chief mage’s hands from his temples.
“Aghh!” Tollaf shouted back, and clapped his hands to his own head. “Gods damn it! I told you not to move until I told you to, you amateur!” Still cradling his head, he shuffled to the tall stool he usually perched upon.
“Tell me what you did!” Marik rubbed his eyes to help the effect wear off. The ghost flower solidified back into its proper state, deciding to comport itself as an ordinary flower ought to.
Tollaf made no response. Instead he clutched a tankard filled with juice and sipped at it. After a moment, he growled, “The next time I tell you not to move, you’d better listen to me. If you do that again, I’ll make sure Torrance sends you flying through those gates with his boot mark imbedded in your ass!”
Marik continued to glare at the old man, waiting for answers.
“I shouldn’t have had to do that,” Tollaf continued. “You could have done it on your own well enough if you’d ever bothered to pay attention.”
“Done what? Given myself hallucinations?”
“No, you moron! Seen the plant! Seen it with your sight!”
“That magesight you’ve been going on about?”
“What in blazes did you think I was talking about?”
“I didn’t know, since it didn’t make any sense!”
“Well, now you’ll know what I’m talking about, won’t you?”
“No. It still doesn’t make any sense.”
Tollaf ground his teeth. “Look, you saw the flow of energies within the flower, didn’t you?”
“Is that what all that was? I guess so.”
“That’s what I mean when I tell you to use your magesight! You open your senses to see the etheric energies all around you.”
“So I guess that was this ether place you’ve been talking about.”
“The ether is something else.”
Marik pounded the table. “You’re not making sense!”
“Listen, damn it, and pay attention this time. I’m tired of repeating myself!” Tollaf fortified his patience with a swallow of juice. “You have the mage talent, which draws on etheric energy. This energy is created by everything you can call ‘alive’. Most of it is used by whatever generated it, but there is always a bleed off. The excess energies bleed off into the etheric plane and gather.
“It acts mostly like water, collecting together and flowing in a stream. We call these rivers of energy ‘lines’. When two or more lines converge, they form a kind of ball. These are called ‘knots’, but they are rare.”
“Like rivers forming a pond?”
“Yes, for the most part. Keep listening. With the mage talent, you can see this energy, as you have finally done yourself, and manipulate it. You saw with the magesight, or if it’s easier to understand, with the mage version of your eyes. You manipulate the energies with the mage version of your hands, but you can’t do that until you can see it!”
Marik ground his teeth. “You said it goes into some other plane, but the plant is sitting here on your table.”
“I’ll explain that, and then I want you to spend the rest of the day working! Do you know anything about the ether at all?”
“No.”
Tollaf sighed. “I could have guessed. The etheric plane is very close to our own. I’ll get into other planes later but for now lets stick to this one. If our own physical plane is like the ground, then the etheric plane is like the air. Both coexist with each other and both occupy the same space, but they are separate from one another. The shape of the ground affects the terrain of the air, and the objects in the air can affect what happens to the ground.
“The etheric is not solid, like our physical plane. Its shape is determined by the physical plane. They are separate yet exist together simultaneously. Like ingredients for bread. Once all the flour and water and the rest have been mixed together, it’s impossible to separate them out individually. The yeast and the flour all occupy the same space, even though they are different.”
“That’s still confusing.”
“It will make sense once you see it all. For now, go study your fl
ower and try to do it for yourself. You can’t leave until you do it at least once.”
* * * * *
“Are you having trouble?” Tollaf seemed dangerously close to displaying concern for his unlikely apprentice.
“I’m fine,” Marik snapped back. “I thought you said a mage could find these things from miles away.”
“Of course a mage could. It’s too bad you’re not a mage yet. It could have spared us the walk.”
“Then allow me to apologize for my many shortcomings,” Marik waspishly replied, not meaning it in the slightest.
“I’d rather you put as much effort into your work as you do at irritating me.”
“Which one is likely to give me greater satisfaction in the long run?”
“Up there,” the old mage pointed toward the trees overlooking the horses’ vale. At the bottom of Kingshome’s hill, the land rose where it surrounded the sunken corral, making the valley appear deeper than it truly was. “That will do. The shade will keep me from developing sunstroke while I wait the day through for you.”
“I told you I’ve been practicing,” Marik grumbled, irritated both by the need to do so and by the fact that he could.
He knew the commander expected him to make a genuine effort, so he reluctantly practiced this ability to open his vision to the magesight. Since he had no intention of staying in the Tower any longer than he must, he practiced around the town and in the barracks. During meals, his odd behavior had drawn comments.
“What are you looking at?”
“Nothing.”
“Then knock it off!”
“I can’t.”
“If you’re not staring at anything then quit it!”
“As soon as I see something, I will.”
“What?”
Many such conversations had taken place. His friends and unit mates knew it concerned whatever unfathomable training the officers required of him. They tolerated it without much comment.
Marik had improved his control over it, though the old man remained unsatisfied. Tollaf’s argument stated that if a child stopped as soon as he learned to walk, he would never learn to run. That same argument appeared whenever Marik asserted he could read his way through most words now if he worked at it, so should be allowed to quit the time-wasting exercises Tollaf kept forcing on him.
Once they reached the trees, Marik needed to lean against a trunk to catch his breath. His body still mended. This short hike from the walls taxed him.
“I thought you said you were well,” Tollaf commented without sympathy.
“I am! I’m just enjoying the fresh air now that we’re out of that mausoleum of yours.”
“Then let me know when you’re done ‘enjoying’. I’ll be waiting over here.” He walked to an old, flat-topped stump near the steep slope ringing the vale. The slope nearly formed a drop-off rather than a hillside.
Marik braced an arm on the tree, resting his head against it. The position gave him a clear view of the ground within this stand. Peculiar patterns in the scuffed dirt caught his eye. Though never a woodsman and unlearned in tracking, the sweeping glides dug into the loose pack were familiar from his own sword practices. He identified them easily.
Someone enjoyed coming here to work on their skills or practice a new technique away from the eyes of others. Probably they liked the solitude, or perhaps they had an affinity with the horses below and enjoyed watching them between sessions.
Seeing the marks of training reminded him he had yet to take his sword from the closet and renew his own training for the winter. All his time had gone into his letters lessons or into the old man sitting ten feet away. Had he been more faithful to his sword, his body would not be so weak that a short walk exhausted him. The last wounds were nearly healed, but his muscles needed attention.
If he could finish this business quickly, Tollaf should call it an early day, then Marik would spend time in a training area. Straightening, he asked, “What’s so special out here anyway?”
Tollaf looked over his shoulder. “Come here and you’ll see. Or at least, I hope you will. I have matters to attend to after this. Don’t take all the day!”
“Tell me where to look and maybe this can go faster.”
“The closest line of flowing energy near Kingshome runs beneath the vale. Open your magesight and find it.”
“Move over. I need to sit down.”
“Can’t stand?”
“Not when my eyes are all buggy. Move over.”
Tollaf slid to the stump’s edge and Marik perched on the corner left to him. He gazed down at the horses running free below him.
Marik had learned the trick to this only a short while ago. Even so, knowing how and making himself do it were two different sides of the coin. It was actually simple, as most tricks tend to be. When he saw an object he needed to pick up, his hand reached out and his fingers closed around it, because that was what he wanted them to do. His mouth opened for food and his jaws chewed it because he wanted them to and his mind told them to. Opening his eyes in the morning resulted from his desire to see, and his mind instructing them to do so.
Seeing with the magesight was merely a matter of wanting to, once he knew he could. His difficulty lay in the fact he hated the magesight to begin with, so wanting to use it persisted as a struggle against his own nature.
It became easier every time, in much the same manner his successive strikes with the sword became easier the longer he practiced. Which only proved the old man right, not that he would ever admit it aloud. Marik studied the valley, clearing his mind the way he did prior to battle.
In his mind’s eye, where he pictured his imaginary foes attacking him, he instead pictured the network of lines and veins that had formed the flower. It grew there, like a true flower. Shortly he felt as he had during those moments in Tollaf’s workroom. He opened his eyes.
First he saw the horses and the vibrant life they contained. Their shining forms crossed a field of glowing energy composed from every single grass blade…yet what he saw differed from what had seen every time before this.
He could see the individual networks that comprised the horses, as though he peered through their skin at raw muscle and sinew, but only if he peered closely. The horses were surrounded by a faint blue glow, as candle flames inside a hazy nimbus of light. Watching the herd reminded him of stories from Puarri’s Tavern, stories where men encountered floating swamp lights in the fog or of the ghostly willow-wisps that led hunters astray in the deep Rovasii. They moved as glowing balls, bouncing and rolling according to the whims of a giant, invisible child.
The same held true for the grass and shrubs covering the vale floor. Marik could distinguish the individual plants, except they, too, radiated a strange nimbus. Plants were all a bright green, which seemed appropriate enough, though their glow shone fainter than that of the horses. All the vegetation merged together to create one continuous green background against which the horses’ light blue stood out as beacon fires.
He saw that the rocks and bare dirt patches were dark, almost black. The water in the pond looked black as well at first, until he decided a very dark shade of blue colored the liquid, matching the furthest reaches of the sky immediately before the sun sets.
Marik turned to see a giant orange fireball burning beside him and, memories of past encounters erupting in his mind, he jumped away. He remembered an instant too late that he had been sitting on a tree stump. He tumbled roughly backward and crashed to the ground before he could catch himself.
“What in thunder are you about now?”
Tollaf stared down at him from his stump. Marik realized Tollaf must have been the fiery glow beside him, and then further realized his magesight had switched off during the fall if he could see the old man staring at him with scorn.
“Did you see the line before you took up acrobatics?”
“No, I didn’t.”
With a sigh that had quickly become habit around Marik, Tollaf pulled a water skin from b
eneath his robes. “I knew I was right to bring this. There was always a faint hope otherwise, but that’s experience for you.” He took a pull.
“Something’s wrong with me!”
“You can say that again.”
“I mean with my magesight, you old fool! I knew I would never be able to do this!”
“What’s wrong?”
He listened to Marik, learning about the change, then nodded and said, “You see? What did I tell you?”
“Tell me? About what?”
“Your sight’s improving every time you use it. You can distinguish auras now, and color as well.”
“Auras?” The word sparked childhood memories from the Summerdawn festivals in Tattersfield. “What’s fortune telling have to do with this?”
“Oh, listen to yourself and still your tongue! An aura is the bleed off I explained about. It’s the excess energy generated by living things. Plants have a faint aura and animals have larger ones. People give off the biggest auras of all.” He snorted contemptuously. “Fortune telling indeed!”
“Then what’s the color have to do with anything?”
“The colors can change, depending on different factors. Plants are either green when they’re alive or black when they’re dead. Animals are usually different shades of blue or red. When they’re sick, their auras will dim and look off color. People are the tricky ones.”
“I saw you. You were orange.”
“That’s me. I’ve noticed people, with few exceptions, usually occupy the red side of the color field. Yellow, orange, red and those types, with all the different shades.”
“How about black and white?”
“For ‘good’ and ‘evil’ you mean?” Tollaf nearly snorted anew. “No, I’ve never seen a person’s morality affect their auras in that manner. Usually it’s a reflection of their nature.”
“So you’re temperamental, huh? A ball of fire?”
“Only when you’re around! Are you going to finish today or do I need to send for the Homeguard to bring me my dinner?”
“Where’s this line? I didn’t notice it before.”
“Are you deaf? I’ve told you it’s right down there!”
