WinterMaejic

Woodbury, Minnesota

WinterMaejic
© 2007 by Terie Garrison.

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First e-book edition © 2010

E-book ISBN: 9780738724980

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Editing by Rhiannon Ross

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To

Mrs. Erelene Christensen, Hilltop High School

Dr. Sharon Yaap Caballero, Hilltop High School

and

Dr. Alida Allison, San Diego State University

“It is the supreme art of the teacher
to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.”
—Albert Einstein—

Acknowledgements

Thanks, as ever, to the members of the
South Manchester Writers’ Workshop,
who make magic happen every week.

And to Sally. Always.

The Candles

The Candlesticks

~
from
The Book of Lor

Maejic is a difficult gift with which to be blessed. Or cursed. I should know, for I have lived with it for eighty years and more. I wonder now whether being the leader of a vital mage community is sufficient recompense for my sacrifices. Would it not have been easier to deny this . . . this . . . this skill and immerse myself in the safer realm of magic?

But it is too late—far too late—to change my course. I have a new task ahead of me now, one entirely unexpected and not altogether savory. For a powerful new mage has appeared, and it has fallen to me to train her.

Her raw talent leaves me speechless and, all unknowing, she has done things few mages have the power to do. I know I should consider it an honor to teach her. But I begin to doubt that I have it within me. When she first appeared, I suppose I was harsh with her. But in truth, you can scarcely blame me. For, full sixty years too late, I found myself face to face with my soul mate.

“Hey, that’s brilliant!” ten-year-old Traz said to me, his big brown eyes shining. “Do it again!”

I cocked my eyebrows at him mischievously, then looked back at the fire. It took only a moment for the anger I still felt toward Yallick to course through me again, and as I stared, the flames turned green. And stayed that way this time.

An idea occurred to me, and with scarcely another thought, I held my hands cupped in front of me. I imagined some of the flames flowing into them, and they did. A moment later I held a glowing green ball of light.

Traz’s jaw dropped, and his eyes widened. I couldn’t help smiling: Traz was hard to impress.

The ball didn’t burn at all, although it made my palms tingle. I held it in front of my face and looked through it. Traz still stared at me, and through the green light, his face looked sickly.

Without warning, I tossed the ball at him. Quick as lightning, he raised his staff, and when the light hit it, the ball burst into thousands of bright sparks.

Before either of us could say a word, the door of the cottage opened and Yallick strode in. The grumpy old mage barely glanced at us as he closed the door behind him, took off his cloak, and hung it on the row of pegs.

“I have told you before,” Yallick said in his gravelly voice, “that I do not wish for you to play with fire.”

Beside me, Traz let out a small noise as he tried to hold in a snicker. I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing myself.

“You,” Yallick said, his gaze falling onto Traz, “go outside and gather up kindling. And then bring in some more firewood. You shall be staying here for supper tonight. And you, Donavah,” I looked straight into his icy, blue-green eyes without flinching, “please go to your room and continue translating the manuscript I sent you last night.”

I gave him a small nod, but waited until Traz passed me on his way out before I actually moved. I had agreed to let Yallick become my teacher, and I was learning a lot, but I still felt uncomfortable around his unpredictable moods. Whenever possible, I tried to exert some small degree of my own will in a vain effort to feel more like a partner than a student.

In my room, I sat at my desk under the wide window that looked out across the back garden. My eyes flicked back and forth between the manuscript of herbal lore, the lexicon, and my translation. Absorbed in the pleasure of unlocking the treasure of knowledge for myself, I completely lost track of time.

A sudden sound of click-clacking outside startled me. If it was already time for Traz’s training session, it must also be time for my afternoon meditation. I still didn’t understand why Traz didn’t have to meditate. At Roylinn, everyone from Master Foris down to the youngest serving girls and boys had to take morning and mid-afternoon meditation. But once when I’d asked Yallick why Traz didn’t have to, he’d said that it was none of my business and directed my attention back to the star chart I’d been studying.

I looked out my window to find Traz and Klemma, the martial arts instructor, just outside. They were working with staffs today, and as usual, Traz used the one he’d found when we were traveling together. Not that we’d known it had any special powers at the time; we’d thought it was just a really good walking stick. Now, each time Traz’s staff crashed against Klemma’s as he blocked a move or tried to get past her defenses, I winced. But the staff always came through the most aggressive of sessions without even a scratch.

As I watched, Klemma stepped backwards, and Traz danced toward her. He swung his staff low, then up under Klemma’s outstretched arms. The tip of the weapon touched Klemma’s breastbone, and with a yip of delight, Traz sprang back and raised it into the air.

“I gotcha!” he cried.

Klemma smiled at the boy, small for his ten years. “Indeed you did. Of course, your opponent won’t always be obvious about leaving you an opening,” Traz’s face fell, “but you’re catching on very quickly.” His smile reappeared. “Very quickly, indeed. Now, again.”

They both assumed battle stances. I enjoyed watching Traz train, and I looked forward to beginning my own martial arts lessons, but for now, I needed to find someplace quiet to meditate. I reached into my desk drawer, grabbed two taper candles without paying any attention at all to which ones they were, and went into the front room. No sign of Yallick, so I went outside. And immediately returned to get my heavy cloak. Winter was almost here and despite the bright sunshine, it was cold outside.

I followed a path into the wood that led in the opposite direction from where Traz and Klemma were making all their racket. About a fifteen-minute walk from the cottage, there was a meditation shelter that I loved to use when weather permitted. The shelter had been carved from the bottom half of a huge boulder. Somehow—I suspected it must be by maejic after Yallick hinted as much—it stayed dry inside, and the wind couldn’t get in to put out the candles. Yallick used the shelter for his morning meditation, but had yielded it to me for the afternoons.

As the dry leaves on the path crunched beneath my feet, my thoughts turned to my older brother, Breyard. I hadn’t been able to break the habit of worrying about him, not after spending a month trying to rescue him. Why had Yallick sent him away so soon—only a day after we’d arrived at his cottage? Why wouldn’t Breyard explain what had happened to him? And what exactly
had
happened? He’d told Traz and me about what it had been like in that awful prison they’d kept him in, and about his sham trial. He even had some vague memories about the execution fight. But about what happened after Xyla, the dragon, had snatched him away, he wouldn’t tell me any more. He just gave me a maddening smile and said, “All in good time.” Then Yallick sent him away, home to our parents. And he’d seemed glad to go, almost as if he were grateful to escape.

When I reached the meditation shelter, I dragged my thoughts away from their pointless spiral and ducked inside. A wooden seat, carved from a tree trunk, faced out, and in front of it stood a stone table. I sat down and looked at the bare trees interspersed here and there with evergreens.

In this quiet place, meditation was easy. I placed the meditation candles—blue and purple today, as it turned out—in holes in the surface of the table. After I lit them, light flickered on the rock above and around me, twinkling where it struck bits of mica.

I stared into the flames for a moment, then closed my eyes. One deep breath. Another. My mind’s eye closed, leaving my imagination blank. I felt the vibration of the life of the forest surrounding me, and matched my heart’s rhythm to it. The vibrations flowed through my body, which began to feel as if it had turned into something fluid. I swirled and spun round, celebrating the dance of life and my own place in it.

Eventually, the flow stopped and my eyelids fluttered open. The candlelight still flickered, the forest still surrounded me, and I still sat in the same seat as I had every afternoon since my return to Crowthorne. But power still surged within me as it never had before. I looked at my hands, half expecting to find them glowing, but they looked just as they always had, right down to a thin line of dirt under my fingernails that I never seemed to be able to get entirely clean.

I blew out the candles and took them with me when I returned to the cottage. Yallick, sitting at the table reading an ancient illustrated manuscript, looked up when I walked inside. He smiled.

“You did it,” he said in his slightly raspy voice.

“Did what?” I asked.

He stood up and walked over to me, looking closely at my face. “You accessed the power.” He touched my cheek with surprising gentleness. “You glow from it.”

I looked at my hands again, confused. “No, I’m not.” I showed him my hands. “See?”

He actually laughed. “No, no, not that kind of glow. But I can see it in your face. Come; sit down and tell me.”