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Adept

Page 23

by J. P. Larson


  Sytara considered it. "Yes. After the wedding." She paused. "I'm glad your sister is going to be all right."

  "Thank you," Eva said. "Are we done here?"

  * * * *

  I waited until we were home before I told her, "Maybe you shouldn't have threatened to run. Now she's going to be watching us."

  "We're not going to run," Eva said. "She needed a kick in the ass." Then she pulled me into her arms and kissed me deeply. "Thank you for healing my sister."

  "You're welcome," I replied. "You are so sexy when you get mad at someone other than me."

  She laughed. "Sexy, am I?"

  "Uh huh." I laid my head against her shoulder. "It makes me swoon."

  "I'm not Lunia, and if you swoon, I'll drop you."

  "Maybe I'll last long enough for you to steer us into the bedroom."

  * * * *

  I received a summons to Quartain's classroom the next morning. "She thinks so, does she?" I asked Eva after reading the note. "We just got back and she thinks I come when she snaps her fingers."

  "Um. Kia. Don't you?"

  I laughed. "Can we find out if there are any dances coming up?" I asked.

  We headed for breakfast together. I found myself ready to sit down ahead of Eva, but I didn't know where we were supposed to sit. Eva came up beside me and raised an eyebrow.

  "We're not instructors, and the head table was awfully full last night. But we're not students, either."

  "Oh, I see. We're welcome at the head table or the journeywoman table. Well, technically we're welcome at any of the tables, but the journeywoman table has the most room. Once I was an adept, I ate at the head table, but you're right. It can grow very full."

  I smiled. "Whatever Eva says."

  She laughed. "Let's sit here for now," Eva said, and we took a place at the journeywoman table. Breakfasts weren't as crowded as the other meals, as people ate in shifts, but we were setting a new pattern that would last at least for a while.

  "What are you doing today?" I asked her.

  "My report to Sytara," she said. "And then I'll work on what I want to study this winter. I'll probably have to spend some time at the capital, learning from Sytara, but I don't want to deal with her right now, so I'll beg time from the magi here."

  "Studying never ends."

  "I want to ask you something."

  "Sure."

  "Do you mind if I'm one of your teachers?"

  "No, Eva. Why would I mind?"

  "I don't know. Maybe too many memories of lost Sevendays."

  "Push me hard. Maybe not quite as hard as Quartain does."

  She laughed. "All right."

  Twenty minutes later found me in Quartain's classroom. She wasn't there yet, so I moved to the center of the circle and began practicing the things Eva had been trying to teach me during our trip. Quartain arrived a half hour later, quite late, and came in apologizing.

  I left the half-finished spell in the air. "Trouble?"

  "A disciplinary issue. It may shock you to learn you aren't the only student who requires my attention."

  "You mean I'm not the center of your world?"

  She smiled.

  "Quartain, was I that difficult?"

  "If I hadn't pushed you so hard, then other than how you began, you wouldn't have been at all difficult. But I took -- and continue to take -- a very personal interest in you. And I pushed both you and Eva very hard, you harder than her."

  "And look at the results. She's a magus and I'm barely an adept."

  Quartain laughed.

  "Oh, you think that's funny?" I asked.

  "I choose to laugh rather than continue to kick myself for my mistakes. It was my mistake that you are not also a magus."

  "I got valuable experience, and I saved lives. Everyone has forgiven everyone, and now it's time to move forward." I wasn’t sure if I believed all of that, but time and distance was helping me through.

  "Yes." She moved closer and walked around the spell I was working on. "I interrupted you. How long did this take?"

  "I'm not sure. Perhaps twenty-five minutes."

  She frowned. "You should be faster than that by now."

  "Pushing again already?" I asked. "We only found an hour twice a day, and while I can cast simpler spells while riding, I find that my ability to form a Mobius strip while riding to be somewhat limited."

  "Oh, of course." She paused. "Did you want to finish that or start over and let me watch?"

  "I'll show you how much further we got," I said. I then turned back to the spell and continued where I left off. It took another ten minutes before I said, "that's as much as I've learned so far."

  She frowned.

  "Please don't yell," I said.

  "I'm not going to yell."

  "Eva's never taught anyone, and she doesn't have the stamina you have to hold a spell up for a few hours for me to copy. And when it takes me a half hour to get this far, we only get two tries at it."

  "I'm not yelling, Kia," she said. "Do you know the next step?"

  "Another Mobius strip surrounding all of it, then connections. I tend to blow the spell up when I try it."

  "Show me."

  I tried to form the new Mobius strip, but when I did, I lost control of the work I'd done so far, and it exploded.

  "Every time," I said. I sighed. "And it takes forever to get this far, so I don't get to practice."

  "It exploded because you didn't tie off what you'd done," she said. "Here." It took her ten minutes to catch up to my thirty. "You see how I'm still connected?"

  "If I let go, it dissipates."

  "You don't let go. You tie off. Like this."

  And I watched what looked like her snipping the connection from her to the spell, but I knew she had simply treated it like it was a completed spell. I stared.

  "It's stable?"

  "Yes."

  I stared at her spell. I'd been fighting at this point since midway through our trip. I didn't tell Quartain that.

  "Did Eva know you were struggling at this point?"

  "Yes, but she couldn't explain what to do."

  "Teaching the spells is a lot harder than learning them," Quartain said. "She got you this far. That's progress. And it's almost done. Watch." She wrapped a Mobius strip around it then added the final connections. "Can you do that?"

  I nodded. I grabbed a chair for Quartain then set to work. Forty minutes later, I held the completed spell.

  "I did it," I said softly. And I hadn't had to even refer to her copy. I grinned at her. "Are you going to let me test it?"

  "I don't think so," she said with a smile.

  "Why this spell, Quartain?" I had learned the spell that the adepts cast for Sevenday that let the swordsmen numb us with their practice swords. "If I don't ready-spell it, it's nearly worthless."

  "It's the easiest we have with this basic structure," she explained. "You have a complicated spell that is then wrapped inside another Mobius strip."

  "If I ready-spell it, I can help on Sevenday."

  "We have plenty of adepts here who cast this spell, Kia. If you become a permanent instructor here, then we'll ask you to ready-spell it. But you have more important spells to learn. Did you work on any of the other spells on your list?"

  "We didn't get to them," I said. "I'm sorry."

  "It's not your fault. Learning to teach is training for Eva. I am going to make her your trainer, but then I am going to oversee both of you. We'll have to find an hour twice a week."

  "Neither of us were willing to try to teach Lillyanne," I said.

  "Good. The adepts that work with the initiates get a lot of training specific to the problems of initiates, and you two haven't had it."

  "I worked with Magus Philene."

  "You're the first initiate she's taught, and you were well past what our initiate trainers normally encounter. They wouldn't have known what to make of you and would have had you staring into candle flames."

  I laughed. "That's what I was doing wh
en I was four. Do you wish you'd had me since I was so young?"

  "I would have liked to have known you, and we would have guided your earlier education, but I would never want to take you so young from your family."

  "What do you want me to do with this?" I asked.

  "You may test it on yourself if you like."

  I laughed. "Will I be able to dispel it?"

  "I doubt it. We don't dispel them on Sevenday; we neutralize the paralysis instead. That's part of what makes it so complicated. And it has to be affected by the spell we cast on the practice swords."

  "And that you cast on Eva's gloves and mine one time."

  "Yes, exactly. And we also need to be able to neutralize the paralysis without removing the spell." She paused. "Would you like to learn the other spells?"

  I smiled. "Yes. Are they difficult?"

  "Quite easy. Trigger that." She pointed to my spell, so I stepped into it and felt it wrap around me. "All right. I'll teach you the spell we cast on the swords." She built a spell; it was actually quite simple.

  I duplicated it. It only took a few seconds. "Easy!"

  "The complexity is in the spell you're already wearing."

  I dispersed it and then built it from memory a half dozen times. "What should I cast it on?"

  In response, Quartain stepped forward and poked my spell with her right hand. Then she grinned at me. "Hold still."

  I backed away from her, and she laughed. "Give me your left arm, Kia."

  I sighed and held out my arm. She patted me firmly, and the arm grew numb.

  "Neutralizing the paralysis is a little more complicated, but it's not bad," she said. She assembled a spell. It took me twenty minutes before I had it memorized. By then my left arm was no longer numb, so I held it out for her to pat, and she numbed it again. Then I used my spell to neutralize the paralysis.

  I grinned at her. "I suppose that would give me an advantage if you let me play on Sevenday."

  "We don't stop you from playing, Kia," Quartain said. "It's up to the journeywomen if they wish to invite you. But if you use the neutralize spell, then you can expect me to get involved."

  I laughed.

  "I don't think we need to worry about that," I said. "What else did you want to do this morning?"

  "Let's get you started on the next spell."

  Instructor

  It was three weeks later I received a mid-morning summons to Quartain's office. I was in the greenhouse at the time, practicing spells while surrounded by all of Iladarta's plants. I found it a soothing place to study. I cleaned up and headed to the senior magus office.

  When I arrived, I heard coughing from inside. I wondered if Quartain were ill. I knocked and was bade to enter.

  Quartain wasn't alone. There were two people with her, a man and woman. It was the woman who was coughing, and it wasn't a good cough.

  "Come in, Adept Kia," Quartain said. "I believe you know my guests."

  I stepped into the room, moving to the side of Quartain's desk so I could look at the two people. I didn't recognize the man, but I recognized the woman.

  "Fremara?" I asked. This was the woman whose cough I had tried to cure.

  She looked up at me. "It came back, Adept Kia."

  "You waited too long!" I said. "You should have come sooner."

  "We had to bring the harvest in," the man explained. "I am Migor." He held out his hand. "Fremara's husband."

  "Fremara has been telling me how you told her to come here if the cough came back. She suggested we'd take care of her."

  I turned to Quartain, and I couldn't read her expression. "Did I do something wrong?" I asked her.

  "You and I will discuss that later," she said. "Perhaps you should see to your patient."

  Quartain didn't have enough healing magic to do anything with it. I raised the examination spell and turned to Fremara. "I'm going to take a look," I said, "just like I did last time." I waited for her to nod, and I sent the spell into her.

  Her lungs were terrible, absolutely terrible. I didn't think it was the wasting sickness, but I didn't know what it was. I gave myself a real good look before I withdrew. "We'll start with clearing your lungs," I said, "but we're going to need to ask Magus Erin to help. I still don't know what is causing this."

  "Magus Erin can't help, Kia," Quartain said. "You are the only one at the school with the magic and training to address this."

  I turned to Quartain. "Um."

  "Yes," she said. "Um." I colored badly, deeply embarrassed. I had sent this woman here, and they wouldn't have been able to help her.

  "One of the queen's healers? Or Senior Magus Tybeenia?"

  "We'll discuss that later, Kia." She turned to Fremara and Migor. "I need you to step outside," she said. "There's a bench near the exterior doors. If there are any students occupying the bench, tell them I said to yield the space to you."

  "We couldn't-" said Migor.

  "You can, and you will. Kia and I will be down shortly."

  "Did I get you into trouble, Adept Kia?" Fremara asked.

  "No, Fremara," I said. "Senior Magus Quartain and I are going to discuss how to get you the best treatment possible." Migor helped her to her feet and they thanked Quartain for her time before stepping out. Once the door was closed, I turned to Quartain.

  "This is not a medical facility, Kia," Quartain said.

  I gestured to a chair, waited for her to nod, and sat down. "I thought she could trade for her healing. The students could be involved."

  Quartain leaned back. "Maybe," she said. "If we had someone to teach them. Erin can't do it. We have two apprentices and one journeywoman with disease healing magic. None of them are as strong as you, but one of the apprentices will probably become a healer. It is early to teach this."

  I looked away. "Was I supposed to tell her she was going to die when it can be cured?"

  "We don't know it can be cured. We do know it will take a great deal of effort for you to do so, don't we?"

  I nodded.

  "How many people could you be seeing while you're seeing to her?"

  "I'm supposed to triage her because she's too much effort?"

  "Yes."

  My throat closed off. "I can help her," I said in a small voice, barely getting the words out. "You want me to let her die."

  "I didn't say that. You shouldn't have told her to come."

  "You're going to send her away?"

  "No. If anyone is going to send her away, it will be the adept who told her I would heal her."

  I looked back at the senior magus. "She'll die."

  "If we send her away, yes, probably, from the sounds of that cough. Did you see anything reassuring?"

  "Her lungs are full. I don't know what's causing it. I can clear the lungs and help her breath more readily, but I don't know how to cure the cause." I paused. "She's weak. That might be from the disease or just because of the rigors of travel while not feeling well."

  "Kia, there are twenty-two sorceresses in all of Ordeen with enough healing magic to be useful. Of them, three are students at the school. Erin is an instructor. You are the fifth. We keep two near the queen, and Tybeenia and her staff represent another eight."

  "The military gets eight?" I asked, outraged.

  "Yes. The military gets eight. They want more. There are seven others, including Hallow. So counting you, we have eight healers for the entire country."

  "I-" I looked away, then gestured. "I should be out there, healing people, not here, learning spells I won't ever use."

  "Those spells are part of a progression," Quartain replied. "But do you understand?"

  "You want me to send her away."

  "No, actually, I don't, if you can come up with a plan for helping her without neglecting your own studies. As you say, you should be out there, healing people, but you're here, learning to become a magus. I cannot allow one patient to slow that process down, and I think you understand why not."

  "This sucks," I said.

 
"Did you have any plan at all?" she asked.

  "I didn't realize no one here could help."

  "You can help. Tell me how."

  I thought about it. "They can stay with us," I offered.

  "On the floor? Or perhaps you'll ask your swordswomen to move back into the barracks."

  "Is there another house for them?"

  "No. There are other houses, but they get used."

  "There are open rooms in both the novice and journeywoman dormitories."

  Quartain didn't respond immediately. "Maybe," she said. "Then what?"

  "I could..." I thought about it. "I need to see her daily, but only for a few minutes. I can keep her lungs clear and try to figure out what's causing them to fill again. I can see if it's attacking her in any other way. Maybe Hallow will come to visit for the solstice, and she can take a look. Maybe one of the queen's healers would lower herself to help a simple farmer's wife."

  "Keep going," Quartain said.

  "If I see her in the hour before lunch, it's after students are done with morning classes, and your three possible healers could help. I can teach them how to clear her lungs at least. If it's the wasting disease, then I've cured that before. Hallow taught me. I can teach them."

  "That requires magus level power, as I understand it," Quartain said. I nodded. "You helped Hallow?"

  "When all of you were hunting me, I hid in a village and cured a woman. Your searchers went right through town and kept going." I paused. "They probably would have found me otherwise. I was there for six weeks."

  "Do you want to know why Sytara dislikes you?"

  "She's disliked me from the beginning. She thought I was too immature for journeywoman. It didn't help when you ordered me to throw a truth spell on her."

  "Well, true, but now she really dislikes you," Quartain said. "She was leading the search personally. She didn't care for being outwitted. She also isn't pleased it was Eva who found you when she couldn't. It doesn't help that you insist on using your skills as a healer instead of doing the tasks she feels are more important." She shook her head. "We're off track."

  We sat there looking at each other for a moment. "I'm not going to tell you to send her away. But I'm not going to let you neglect your own training, either. There is staff housing available. I will make arrangements. You may see to her care for now. This is not a permanent arrangement, and I do not want you doing this again."

 

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