The Bowl of Souls: Book 01.5 - Hilt's Pride (11 page)

“That night wizards from the
Mage
School
knocked at my parent’s door. They called what had happened an awakening, that I was the right age for it to happen, and that I was to be taken to the
Mage
School
to learn to control my magic.”

“Amazing,” Hilt said. “I have never heard of a wizard with the ability to control animals.”

“Neither had they. They told me that awakenings were strange and instinctual, that wizards are often not able to duplicate what they had done the day their powers revealed themselves. When it comes to calming animals, it’s something I’ve always been able to do, but then again it was never something I had control over. It just happens.”

“How did your parents react?”

“My parents were devastated. Their plans were ruined and no amount of begging or bribing could get the wizards to change their mind. The wedding was called off. It would take years of training at the school before I could return. To me this was heaven. I was glad to get away from the nobility. My only sadness came from the fact that I had to leave Coulton behind. I didn’t even have a way to tell him what had happened.”

Beth finished the last stitch on the bodice and flipped the dress around to work on the skirts. She turned it inside out and took up the jagged edges she had made when splitting the skirts with her knife. She started at the bottom and began stitching together a new seam. When she was ready to continue her story, she looked up and noticed Hilt shaking his head in bewilderment.

“What?” she asked.

“All this time, I thought I was escorting a poor housewife, and now I find out that you are a wealthy mage? Couldn’t a little magic have helped us somewhere along the way?”

“I’m not finished yet,” Beth reminded him. “When I first got to the
Mage
School
, I was amazed by the place. The grounds were beautiful and the teachers amazing. Then they tested my power levels and I was so disappointed. All my elements were pretty low. My strengths were air and fire, but even those were minimal. I soon discovered that my only true strength was in
runework
. I didn’t have much magic of my own, but I had a knack for manipulating magic that was already there.”

Yntri clicked and Hilt translated, “He says that is one of the prime qualities of a great archer. Wait, I don’t get that Yntri. What does archery have to do with magic?”

The ancient elf explained, using broad gestures with his hands as he spoke.

“Huh,” Hilt said. “This is a bit hard to translate, but he says that the best swordsmen are creators at heart, while the best archers are shapers. Did I explain that right, Yntri?”

The elf shrugged and waggled one hand to show that it was close to what he meant.

Beth paused in her stitching. “I don’t know that I quite follow, but I think it’s a good way to describe me. I was a shaper. I got better at it the longer I was there. A few years later I became an apprentice. My master was a stern woman, but kind and very enthusiastic about my potential.

“Then one day not long after I turned twenty,
I was
put on a new project. The council had decided to add another wing to the testing center at the school. I was one of the students adding
runework
to the new walls to strengthen them. One day while I was working, someone tapped me on the shoulder and when I turned around, I about died. It was Coulton.

“He had heard where I was and had hired on with the laborers brought in to help. At first I was furious at him for disappearing on me, but it turned out that it wasn’t his fault.”

“Your father?”
Hilt asked. “My father did that to my brother once. He got too fond of one of our scullery maids and father had her shipped off to another nobleman.”

“My mother,” Beth said. “But worse. She had him jailed. They never even told him why. He sat in the dungeons for a year before they let him out. He came looking for me, but my parents had moved to another part of Dremald. Eventually he found out what had happened to me and spent a long time searching for a way to see me. The
Mage
School
limits visitors to family members and even that’s a rarity, so it wasn’t possible.”

“He couldn’t have sent you a message?” Hilt asked.

“He didn’t know how to write,” Beth said. “At any rate, the building project only lasted three weeks. We saw each other as much as we could, but when it came time for him to
leave,
I didn’t want him to go. When I told him so, he told me he loved me. He told me he was willing to wait for me until I left the school. But that would take too long. It would be years until I would have the freedom to leave.

“I couldn’t stand being away from him again. I went to my master and asked her to plead my case before the council, but their rules were firm. Coulton could not stay at the school and they would not allow me to leave. There was only one choice left to me . . .”

Hilts jaw tightened in understanding. “They quelled you.”

“It was my decision,” she said.
“Their rules, but my decision.”

Students in the
Mage
School
were not allowed to leave until they had at least become mages, fully aware of their abilities and the responsibilities that came with them. If a student wanted to leave before they were deemed ready, there was only one option; to voluntarily have their magical abilities ripped from them. It was offered as a merciful option, but Quelling was permanent and only used otherwise as a punishment to dangerous wizards gone mad with power. The rule had existed from the beginning of the
Mage
School
and perhaps of all the rules, this was the most controversial.

Yntri clicked a question.

“He wants to know if it hurt,” Hilt said.

Beth nodded, biting her lip. “They warn you all about it before they let you make the decision. The pain was bad, but perhaps the cruelest part is that even after being quelled, your mage sight still works. M-my magic is gone, but I can still see the magic in the world around me. I can see it but I can’t touch it. Imagine this, Sir Hilt. What if your ability to fight was taken away? What if you could see your swords, but whenever the time came to use them, you had no way to pick them up? That’s what it’s like.”

“I am sorry,” Hilt said, meeting her gaze with genuine sadness in his eyes.

Beth felt tears beginning to well up at his kind sentiment and it made her angry. How dare he make her cry? She swallowed the tears away. Why cry for this? This was old news. Worse things had happened since.

“Oh, it’s all right. I was stupid and stubborn and I paid for it. I spent a day recuperating and then they released me. Coulton and I left the
Mage
School
and got married in
Sampo
. After that, we traveled for a while. I took up the bow again. It felt good to have that skill with something. For a while we used it to make money. We’d come upon a group of tough men with bows and Coulton had this line he’d use.” She smiled at the memory. “He’d say, ‘You don’t look so great. Even my wife could beat you.’ Most fools couldn’t resist that. They’d accept the challenge and I’d win.”

“That must have made them angry,” Hilt said.

“Oh yes. They would usually pay up at first, if just to save face with their friends, but sometimes they would come after us later. We got very good at running and hiding.” She sighed. “But it didn’t last. We tried it one too many times and word got out. After a few very close calls and after Coulton took one severe beating, I put down my bow. He got a job with a carpenter in Pinewood and that’s where we stayed.”

“And your parents?”
Hilt asked.

“I heard they were looking for me for a while, but I didn’t want to see them. Not after what they did to Coulton. Last I knew they were still in Dremald, rich as ever, still scheming for nobility. Ridiculous!”

She finished the last stitch on the inseam of the garment and tied it off. “There, done! Oh, I wish I had some scissors to shorten the legs a bit but this will have to do. Now turn around for a minute you two while I put this on.”

Once the men had dutifully obeyed, she
unwrapped
the blanket from around her and shivered in the cold air as she put her creation on. “Okay, I’m finished. It really isn’t made for this, but I stitched it pretty well. It should stay together I think.”

“I am quite impressed, actually,” Hilt said with an appreciative nod. “I daresay that outfit could be the start of a new fashion trend.”

Beth snorted and tied one leather strip around the bottom of each leg, gathering the material together to avoid another snag.
“Oh, sure.
First, sleep under the leaves for a few days. Second step, fall down a mountain. Then all you have to do is cut your dress in half and sew it back together. This will spread like wild fire.”

Hilt chucked, “Say what you will,
I
think you look charming.”

“Charming . . .? You’re teasing me, aren’t you?”

“Not at all.”
He smiled at her for a moment, but then his expression turned serious. “Beth, what happened to your husband?”

Beth draped the gauzy blanket back around her shoulders and stared into the fire. “That’s what it comes down to, isn’t it? Here I’ve gone and told you my whole life story just to put off this part . . .”

Hilt folded his arms and gazed into the fire with her. “You don’t really have to tell us if you don’t want to, Beth. Yntri and I are going to help you finish climbing this mountain tomorrow whether you tell us or not.”

Beth blinked and looked at him questioningly. She hadn’t expected him to say that. Suddenly it seemed to her as if this was an important moment. She gazed back into the flames and the fire flared. She saw two pathways stretching before her. On one path she stopped her story there and finished her quest the next day, burying her past behind her. That path ended rather abruptly. On the second path, she opened up and told Hilt the rest, reliving the entire horrible truth of it. That path was hazy and had a variety of possible endings she could not see. She waffled back and forth, but finally closed her eyes, cutting off the vision.

“You are risking your lives to help me. You deserve to know the rest.” She took a shuddering breath. “Coulton died almost a year ago.”

Hilt nodded solemnly. “I’m sorry.”

“It was, um . . . an odd month. His father had come to town. Just out of the blue,
Coulton’s
father that had left him when he was just a child showed up and wanted to see him. He told us that he was dying and he wanted to reconcile with his son. Coulton listened to his story and hugged that ragged little man.

“Coulton told me that he wanted to let his father stay with us. He wanted to care for him until he died. I didn’t know how to react. I was both repulsed by the idea and more in love with him than ever. If my father had come to me with the same story, I wouldn’t have been able to do that.” She sighed. “So it was just the three of us for a while.”

“Just three of you?
What about-.”

“No.” She shook her head. “We weren’t able to have children. Quelling does that sometimes to a woman. It doesn’t work that way with men, but . . . they warned me about that too, before I made my decision, so I only have myself to blame.”

Yntri frowned and clicked at her as he shook a disapproving finger.

“He says you are blaming yourself too much,” Hilt said. “And I agree with him. Quelling is a barbaric tradition. I can’t believe they still do it today.”

“But it is also necessary,” Beth said. “You may not have seen all the things these students could do, how out of control they were. If the
Mage
School
didn’t teach them to control their magic and just let them go . . . No, this was my decision.
My consequences.
If I hadn’t been so unwilling to wait a few years, I would still have my magic. I could have had children. I would have made more than enough money as a Mage for us to live differently. Then again, maybe Coulton wouldn’t have waited for me. He might have found another woman and had a different life. Either way, he would still be alive. No, this is my fault. Mine! Don’t you try to take away my
guilt!
”

“Beth-.” Hilt said, reaching out to her.

“Shut up and let me finish my story!” She snapped. He let his arm fall back to his side and Beth looked back at the fire.