The Last Orellen

Chapter 23: Time

Time

Kalen wanted to hold Fanna, but it seemed that every woman in the village was conspiring against him.

It had been seven weeks since she was born, and the house was still flooded each day with ladies scrubbing floors, cooking meals, doling out advice of varying quality, and grabbing the baby up the very moment she was set down.

Kalen was glad everyone recognized that his little sister was the loveliest baby in the world, since it was only the truth. But would it kill them to give him a moment alone with her?

Being passed around this much, poor Fanna might not even know who her own mother was, never mind her older brother.

It had been a hard labor, and Shelba was still mostly confined to bed, though she was well enough to take brief walks around her room now. Kalen had been terrified his mother was going to die during the birth. Hed heard her yell before, but never in such pain. Even now that she was recovering he was ill at ease.

For the past weeks, his attention had been fully devoted to his mother and Fanna. One half of him was always listening for Shelbas footsteps so that he could run to his parents room to stare at her until he reassured himself she was alive. The other half was perpetually busy trying to think of ways to pry his sister from the arms of their helpful neighbors.

It seemed that whenever he did manage to pick up Fanna, someone would appear to whisk her away and suggest some chore for Kalen to do instead.

He was surprised they could even come up with chores at this point. All of his usual assignments had been completed by his father, who had responded to the stress of his wifes pregnancy and his daughter's birth by trying to do the work of ten men.

Carrying a bag of quilting scraps to a storage cupboard, Kalen passed by one of the cabins small windows and spotted his father and uncle through the bubbled glass. They were re-barking a section of the pig barns roof with Lander. It wasn't entirely unnecessary, but the task could probably have waited a few years.

Uncle Holv had skipped his usual trip to the continent this summer, and had instead been making shorter trade runs between islands. Kalen would have been disappointed, since he had a stockpile of enchanted buttons and clasps sitting in his room collecting dust, but he knew his uncle had made the decision so that hed never be more than a few weeks away in case the family needed him. He had done the same when all his own children were born.

Kalen tucked away the quilting scraps, fetched eggs for the women in the kitchen who were making pies full of pork and dried fruit, and ran across the village to get a jar of pain-relieving herbs from a neighbors house in case his mother needed more than the ones they already had on hand.

He carried the herbs up to his parents room and found his mother sleeping peacefully. He crept inside, careful not to wake her, and set the herbs on top of the clothes chest. He was about to sneak back out when a small rustling sound caught his attention.

Kalen hurried over to the green-painted crib beside the bed and smiled widely at the sight of his little sister. Fanna was awake. Her small hands were clenched into fists, and she waved them at Kalen.

Hello, he whispered, resting his hand gently on top of her warm head. She was bald except for a fine layer of velvety blond fuzz. Arent you sleepy?

She made a sweet cooing noise, and Kalen's willpower crumbled. He reached into the crib and lifted her carefully, supporting her head the way his mother had shown him right after she was born. She was heavy in his arms, her dark red baby dress was soft, and she smelled good.

Fanna didnt seem to be in a crying mood, but Kalen didnt want her to wake their mother if that changed. Hed heard everyone talking about fresh air and how good it was for a babys health. And the weather was pleasant today.

Do you want to go outside? he murmured.

One of the babys tiny fists batted his tunic. Kalen took that to mean yes.

A few minutes later, to Kalens surprise, theyd actually managed to make their first real escape from the house.

For nearly an hour, Kalen sat in the grass with his little sister cradled in his lap, telling her about himself and the village and what he knew of the world beyond it. The afternoon sun was bright, and the grass was deep green and flecked with the little blue flowers that sprang up every summer. There were occasional banging noises from the roofing project, the distant cry of seabirds, and the sound of the households laundry flapping in the steady breeze.

Kalen pointed it all out and named it for the baby, going into a lot of detail. Who really knew for sure what went on in an infants mind? Kalens words today probably wouldnt change who Fanna grew up to be in the future, but if they could, then he'd better do a good job of explaining everything.

When he got to the flapping laundry, he sighed. The clothes are moving around like that on the drying cords because of the wind.

He blew lightly on Fannas pink cheeks.

The wind is like that, he told her. Its a feelingno, its a movement in the air. Wind is when the air moves around you, whether its fast or slow. Sometimes it makes noises or shakes leaves out of the trees or sends ships across the sea. It can do lots of different things. But it can never hold still. If it does, its not wind anymore.

Kalen thought about telling his sister that he and the wind were currently at odds with one another, but on the off chance she could understand him on some level, he didn't want to make her afraid of the weather.

Instead he waxed poetic about a bumblebee hed just spotted, stopping every now and then to make funny faces at Fanna.

Peace settled over Kalen. He wished he could pause the moment and keep the two of them inside it forever.

Then he drew in a deep breath, and he suddenly felt something tingling against his skin.

Really? he said, looking up at the cloudless blue sky in exasperation. Right now? Months of nothing and you choose this particular minute to appear?

The aurora wasn't here yet. But it was coming.

Kalen was surprised to find he felt annoyed by its arrival rather than excited. It had been almost a year since Arlade Glimont and Zevnie had left Hemarland, and until these past few weeks, hed been doing everything he could to improve his magic.

He was far from where he needed to be. And, to his shame, he was even farther from the place where hed imagined himself being when he watched the sorcerers boat depart.

But he'd been working tirelessly all that time, studying his books and taking full advantage of the four upsettingly weak auroras that had appeared. And now that he didnt have time to spare, here came another opportunity he ought to take if he was serious about his magic.

Can you feel that? he whispered to the baby in his arms.

Fannas lips parted, and she blew a spit bubble at him.

Exactly, said Kalen. The rift has stupid timing.

His mother wasnt yet well. His father was working on everything and anything in sight with frightening intensity. And Fanna might decide she liked one of the cousins better than Kalen if he disappeared for days right now.

It wouldnt be the end of the world, would it? he wondered. If just this once, I skipped going to the rock?

Kalen debated the matter as he carried his sister back to the house.

At the door, a middle aged woman in a dark brown skirt tried to pluck the baby from his arms and send him off to chop wood, but this time, Kalen resisted. Have you seen how much wood Da has piled up out there? he asked incredulously. Weve got so much that nobody in the village will need to chop any this winter! Anyway, I can carry my sister to her crib as well as anyone else here.

He was definitely being too rude, especially to a person whod spent most of her day cleaning his family's house out of the goodness of her heart. But reallydid Kalen look like someone who regularly dropped babies on their heads? For that matter, did he look like someone who knew how to split firewood?

Well, he did. But the last time hed volunteered to do it, his cousin Caris had come outside and taken the job from him because hed been so slow at it. And shed done better work in a dress while shouting about how Kalen would freeze to death if he were ever lost in the forest and his stupid wizarn powers malfunctioned.

Kalen told Fanna about the wood-chopping while he carried her back to their mother. She wriggled in his arms, less than invested in the tale. But it would be a funny story when she was old enough to understand it.

Caris is the second oldest in the house after Lander. And then theres me. Then Veern and Terth, who are year twins. Salla is next. Then Iless. And youre the youngest, which means we all get to look after you. Me especially.

In spite of himself, Kalen suddenly found himself doing the same math hed been doing ever since Fanna was born.

She would only be three years old when the next apprenticeship tournament happened. Shed be eight if Kalen waited until he was nineteen to attend.

Three was still a baby. Eight didnt feel much better.

When had time turned into such a precious resource? And what was Kalen supposed to do with his?

#

That evening, after dinner, Kalen sat on the bed beside his mother and sister and read a story aloud from The Book of Veila.

Veila was an obscure god, but strangely, there was still a temple built in her honor in Baitown. One of the priests had retired to Kalens village years ago, and with books being in short supply, Kalen hadnt said no when he was offered this one.

Instead of being recognized for anything particularly wondrous, Veila was best known for her keen hearing and her skill with a sling. She spent a lot of time napping, and whenever she heard one of her worshippers call for help, she would wake up to fling rocks at their enemies.

Many a robber had met their end when one of Veilas stones had dropped out of the sky on top of his head.

In the story Kalen read that night, Veila heard the hungry cries of a righteous man, and she woke from her nap to smash up a melon vendors stall he was walking past so that he could have something to eat.

Kalen didnt have any real experience with religious texts, and he wondered if Veilas weird manner of assisting her followers was typical.

His mother laughed as the melons rolled around a city street, a sleepy Fanna bouncing against her chest. Kalen closed the book and set it aside.

Thank you for the story, Kalen, said Shelba, reaching over to stroke his hair. Youve been so helpful lately. Your sister is lucky to have such a brother.

I took her outside today and taught her about the wind and laundry and gulls and bees.

All good things! His mother smiled softly down at the baby. I think it is also a good thing to be able to read. Maybe youll teach Fanna when shes old enough?

Kalens heart leaped. Hed tried to teach his mother and father to read before, but they didn't have much interest in it or patience for it. I will! he said at once. I can teach her. And thenthen

Whats the matter? Shelba asked, a frown wrinkling her forehead.

Oh, itsnothing. I was just thinking well need to buy her some storybooks. I doubt shell want to read anything Ive got.

Maybe we can find more stories about Veila, Shelba said. And well get Fanna a sling so that she can protect us all from evil.

Kalens mother loved the Veila stories. Shelba had a vengeful streak to rival the gods own.

She can have a sling, but I want to do the protecting, said Kalen.

Your father and I will protect you both, Shelba said, tousling his hair again. You can watch our backs. And Fanna can watch yours. Thats how it should be with a family.

Kalens stomach tightened, but he smiled at her. Can we rob a melon seller together, too?

His mother leaned toward him. Only if you swear never to tell Aunt Jayne.

He crossed his arms over his chest in the gesture for a solemn oath. Do you want me to put Fanna in her crib before I go?

No, Im going to hold her a while longer. Just give us both a kiss, then go find your father and remind him that a man needs to sleep more when hes got a new baby in the house, not less.

Ill try, Kalen said, leaning over to kiss her goodnight. He dimmed the oil lamp hed been using to read by. Hes probably outside chopping down half the forest or training the pigs to walk in straight lines.

Shelba laughed again. She was so happy these days despite being stuck in bed.

The laugh cut through Kalen like a knife this time, and he was grateful hed already dimmed the lamp so that she couldnt see his face. He left the room quickly, and instead of going to find his father as hed promised, he headed straight for the privacy of his bedroom.

Once he was alone, Kalen shut the door behind him and collapsed against it, his hands trembling with emotions too mixed to identify. His own oil lamp had been left burning, and in the flickering light, he could take in the details of the room.

In the year since High Sorcerer Arlade and Zevnie had left, almost everything in the village had returned to normal. There were a few precious healing potions tucked away in peoples cupboards, and Fanna was here now. But for the most part, nothing had changed drastically.

Kalens bedroom was the exception.

The space had once held little evidence of magic beyond his small bookshelf and his heating circle. Now, it looked so mysterious that none of his cousins save Lander and Iless would enter.

The heating circle was still in place, but it had been eclipsed by a gathering array shaped like an eight-pointed star. The pattern covered the floor from wall to wall. Zevnie had told Kalen it was the simplest version of such an array, suitable even for a lone magician. And it had looked plain enough when she drew the sharp lines and graceful curves out for him on a piece of Arlades fine white paper.

But the effect of so much silver mage paint arcing across the pale wood was striking in daytime, and at night, by lamplight, the array sparkled eerily.

Kalens bedding was placed in the center of the pattern. In theory, the array would draw in power and increase the atmospheric magic within its boundary. In practice, it was just a little better than having nothing at all.

Different magical reagentsvarious plants, crystals, and the likewere supposed to be placed in painted circular settings at the base of each of the stars points. The use of such items was what made the design an array rather than a mere circle of magical runes.

Zevnie had left Kalen a bundle of herbs when they parted, but he had long since used them up. And Hemarland was as devoid of mystical plants and powerful artifacts as a place could be. Kalen searched the shore every week, and he occasionally found something mildly magical that had washed in on the tide. Broken baubles, driftwood from other lands, a shell, even a random crab once.

Although he had hopefully placed these items in their proper positions in the array, they didnt do much good.

And it turned out that crabs werent the most willing participants when it came to magical workings

Kalen snorted at the memory and let himself flop over onto the floor. His hands shaking less now, he traced the nearest painted rune with a fingertip. The faint sense of magic he received from it was a little stronger than usual, courtesy of the approaching aurora.

He rolled over onto his side and stared at the wall. Megimon Orellens beautifully detailed map of the worldborrowed from Nanu and never returnedhung there.

On one side of the map was Hemarland and everything Kalen loved. In the center was the continent, where strangers who shared his blood were being hunted by power-hungry, elite practitioner families. On the opposite edge of the map from Kalens home, skirting the rift, was a line of boiling cloud shapes to indicate mist, and inside that mist was a single wordArchipelago.

The islands that made up the Archipelago werent even drawn; it was just the word, floating there at the edge of the world. That had always seemed strange to Kalen given the cartographers attention to detail elsewhere.

On the day Zevnie left, Kalen had taken a piece of chalk and made a calendar on the wall. It was still there, beside the mapa series of hundreds of boxes divided up into months, the months separated into years, all of it for the sake of a single day that hed marked with a simple rune that was usually used to close off a spell circle.

It meant something like the end or maybe complete.

Maybe he should have chosen something less ominous. It was the first day of the next apprenticeship tournament, the one Zevnie had assured him he really must attend for the sake of his future as a practitioner.

Kalen remembered drawing the calendar and thinking that day would take foreverto arrive. It was around four years from the day Zevnie left. Three years from now.

But reality had been asserting itself in many unpleasant ways lately.

Not long after the sorcerer and her apprentice departed, Kalen had mentioned the tournament and where it was located to his family. Hed been told by all four adults that he obviously couldnt leave home to study magic at fourteen. Both of his parents had looked close to fainting at the thought.

At the time, Kalen had thought it was ridiculous, since Zevnie was fourteen and shed been away from her family for a year when he met her. And hed barely given any consideration at all to the point Uncle Holv had made against him goingthat it would take a year for Kalen to travel to the Archipelago. And that was assuming he only ran into the normal amount of trouble associated with a long journey.

Since that conversation, Kalen had realized that even setting aside a full year for the journey might not be enough. The delegation Zevnie had traveled with arrived months in advance of the tournament so that their candidates could settle in and prepare.

He didnt have forever to think about it. He had no time at all.

Fanna will be three when the tournament starts. But even if I leave at the last possible minute, shell only be two when I go.

Assuming Kalen didnt die crossing two oceans and the entire width of the continent, a contract with a master plus the time it would take him to get back home after the contract was over meant his sister might very well be his own age before he saw her face again.

Theyd be strangers. Kalen would be grown up. Lander would probably be married.

Those adventurers in tales who traveled around the world on a whim to fight legendary monsters or chase after girls with hair like silk must all be insane. Sea travel was unpleasant. From what Kalen had heard of them, extended overland trips sounded even worse.

Maybe adventurers hated comfort and warm meals and safety and their families and semi-regular baths. But Kalen didnt.

I do love magic, though. Even if I am a garbage practitioner these days.

And there was the real problem. Kalen wanted to learn magic. He didnt want to leave home. He wanted to protect his family, but he wasn't sure how. Should he stay here and live a simple life and hope nobody ever noticed him? Should he risk interacting with other practitioners in hopes of growing powerful enough to fight enemies who might eventually find their way here?

It's not the kind of decision you flip a coin over.

He glanced over at his bookshelf. The coin sat on top of it beside the crystal skull token, both of them gathering dust.

It's really starting to look like a wizarns library over there.

Once home to just a few mismatched books and scrolls, the bookshelf now held thirty-seven texts. Kalen owned nineteen books of varying thicknesses, sixteen neatly rolled scrolls, and two recording jars. These last were squat clay pots twice the size of his fist. They were sealed with a thin leather membrane, and when he ran his magic through the runes etched into a pot, a recorded voice could be heard.

Kalen had been so excited when he pulled the jars from the crate full of magical supplies Lander had brought for him. Normally such a device would have been far too expensive, but the shopkeeper who'd sold them to his cousin had said they were only the practice work of beginning enchanters. Each contained a single basic lesson on the theory behind the creation of the recording jars themselves, and they would no doubt break down after a few uses.

Forewarned, Kalen had only listened to them once apiece, taking copious notes so that he could memorize the lectures without wasting the jars themselves. After much study, he thought he could make some of his own, if he just had a reason to do it.

His library might have expanded, but to Kalens distress, it was still a hodgepodge of information. It was nothing like the curriculum he dreamed of, and even less like the one Zevnie had assured him he would need if he wanted to move forward properly.

It wasnt Landers fault. Hed sold the enchanted buttons for good coin, and hed taken the money along with the letter and shopping list Kalen had given him to a renowned magical bookshop in the city of Lerits Tare.

But when the shop assistant had read the list, the price hed quoted for the books had been insurmountably high.

Id only have been able to bring you back one or two of them even if I added my own money to yours, and I didnt think that was what youd want, Lander had explained.

Kalen's cousin suspected the prices the shopkeep had quoted him were inflated and that the man simply thought he was too stupid to know better because he couldnt read. So hed gone to a less renowned store and done most of his own shopping by matching some of the words on Kalen's list to the titles on the books and the tags on the scrolls. When he was done, hed asked the owner what he could afford with the change, and that was how hed ended up with the recording jars.

The end result was an even odder library than Kalen had been in possession of previously. And he still wasnt sure if Lander had gotten him the healing magic book with the unnecessarily detailed nude drawings as a joke or if he thought it was something Kalen could actually use.

At this point, he was too embarrassed to ask.

On the positive side of things, Kalens cousin had managed to find another book of cantripsthough it was thinner and the patterns were more difficult to use than Brous. And because it was a good value for its size Lander had purchased an enormous tome called Theoretical Advancements of the Fourth Age, which was the thesis work of a junior magical historian from two decades past.

The authors writing style was tedious and meandering, but although it was painful to read, Kalen had been able to glean a lot of the basic information about magic that he was lacking from it. After several torturous trips through the book over the past winter, he had cobbled together a little booklet of his own that he had whimsically entitled Basic Magical Practices of Kalen from Hemarland.

From this exercise, Kalen had learned that terrible, hopeless fates awaited practitioners who didnt complete the novice stage of their training before the age of twelve. He didnt quite believe everything in Theoretical Advancements to be true, since there were at least a few things about magic that the author seemed unaware of. (Hed only given a few footnotes to the Archipelago, and there was no mention at all of the peculiarities that existed in magical islander families.)

Still, the dire descriptions of magicians whod been stunted by their poor early educations had made him anxious. Over the past year, hed worked harder than ever before, eager to set himself on something like the right path.

And here I am, lying in the floor. An eleven-year-old novice with no direction.

Thanks to Zevnie and his books, Kalen now understood what the difference was between the early ranks of practitioners.

In some cases, the distinction was firm and practical. Magicians became mages when they experienced redendrification of their pathways, meaning the small flexible paths used for internal pattern formation had grown substantial enough to branch into even more channels. For most types of practitioner, this process made an entirely new class of working possible.

In other cases, moving up a rank was more of an academic matter. The line between low magician and full magician could be extremely well defined in some families or for certain affinities, but for others it was less relevant and largely left up to the magicians personal determination.

But the boundary between novice and low magician was generally agreed upon by just about everyone. And Kalen was thoroughly stuck at it.

Three basic requirements that had to be met.

First, a magician had to fully map their pathways, which was defined as having memorized them.

That was fine and all if your magic was normal. But even though Kalen thought he had a better-than-average memory, it had taken him months. Inspired by Zevnies use of yarn as a metaphor for magical pathways, hed covered one of his bedroom walls with nails hammered in at varying depths, then hed used large quantities of string and thread to recreate the more complicated bits of his internal map to test himself.

He still had to review his pathways in their entirety a couple of times a week, just so that he didnt forget any of the fiddly little parts.

The second requirement for being recognized as a magician was easy at least. You had to be able to move your magic through every one of your pathways at will.

After a bit of practice, Kalen could even perform Zevnies gyring technique on his entire mana structure simultaneously, never mind a single branch. He wondered if doing that was hard for some people.

He hoped so. He wanted to have at least one place he excelled.

Kalen had managed the mapping. He had mastered moving his magic through himself. It was the final step that was proving troublesome.

It was a step that would have been easy if he was born into a magical family.

Well, if I was born into one that didnt randomly create children and then drop them into the ocean, he corrected himself.

He just needed to establish his affinity and then perform some beginner workings that were tuned to that affinity. That was it.

Castings that aligned strongly with your affinity would naturally strengthen your magic, sort out various quirks, and help you to quickly gain understanding. Especially the first few times you performed them.

A novices first properly aligned spells were like first milk for babies. They created the foundation for everything that came next, and if you didnt get that foundation soon enough, you apparently had no hope of making it to the mage level and beyond.

On Kalens bookshelf, tucked away between the pages of Cantripy of the Sorcerer Brou, was a note in Zevnies curly handwriting. He had read it so many times the paper had begun to tear at the creases, and he could recite it from memory.

Staring up at the map again, he ran through it in his mind.

Kalen,

Remember that learning your affinity is the first thing you must do during the next aurora. Everything else will stem from there. I do not know where my travels with Master Arlade will take me, so send a letter to my sister Vardnie on Makeeran when you have an answer. I will explain the situation to her in a letter of my own, and she will be able to get word to me more easily than you can.

We will help you find the materials you need to study your affinity at the low magician level.

Completing your book of cantrips should give you an answer. If (and only if!) it does not, what I have copied below is a method for casting through your nucleus. Please remember that it is not a spell intended for self-use. The effects will be subtle. You must pay close attention. If your affinity isnt made obvious to you, write the results you observe down in detail and include them in your letter to Vardnie.

As a last resort, if you give her permission, she can ask my grandmother for help.

The method is simple

The method might have been simple. But after all these months of trying, Kalen still didnt have his answers.

Driven by stubbornness and lots of very strong tea, hed made it through forty-six of the forty-seven cantrips in Brous book. As Kalen had thought, each cantrip represented a different sphere of magical influence, and Zevnie had agreed with him that going through them all was a good way to find his affinity.

There was no firm consensus on how many types of magic there were, but Brou had covered almost all of the common ones and a few esoteric ones besides. If one of them matched his affinity, it should have triggered something inside of Kalen. Zevnie had assured him that the feeling of casting a spell that aligned with your nature was unmistakable, and he wouldnt be confused when he found it.

Unfortunately there was no spatial magic cantrip. People didnt play around with spatial magic unless they had the knack for it, even at the high sorcerer level. And now that Kalen knew about the Orellens, he would never ask Lander to try to find a book on the subject. He had no desire to paint a target on his own back.

Besides that, to Kalens immense frustration, the one cantrip he still couldnt cast was the wind magic one hed thought might have some potential. It was infuriating.

Hed nearly wept at times, lying in his bed for endless nights, utterly drained of magic despite his array, picking away at his pathways until he could finally, finally form the proper pattern for the cantrip. It was the most difficult thing hed ever done. Hed finished it four months after Zevnie left.

And when the aurora had come and hed gone to the rock to try it out, it didnt work.

He did everything right, and it wouldnt work at all. Every other cantrip in the book worked, but not the one Kalen wanted. If Brou had appeared before him in that moment, Kalen would have kicked him in the nethers.

Which wouldnt have been fair, since Zevnies simple method for nucleic casting also didnt work.

A practitioners nucleus was an intersection point for all of their pathways. According to Theoretical Advancements, it was formed at the moment of your birth and shaped in your early childhood by the atmospheric magics youd been exposed to. Your nucleus either created your affinity or took on a certain shape because of it; there was some scholarly debate on the matter.

It was a bit of a guess, but Kalen had two places he thought might be his nucleus. All he had to do, according to Zevnies letter, was concentrate every bit of magic he could gather into those spots and then push it through.

Something would happen when he did, she said. It wouldnt be a real spell but a sort of undirected magical wobble you could interpret to figure out your affinity. It was a smaller scale version of what practitioner families did to test their children.

After casting through his nucleus, Kalen was supposed to be on the lookout for tiny changes in the world around hima blade of grass growing too long or a butterfly lighting on his forehead or a spark of static electricity making his fingers tingle.

Only nothing happened. He couldnt write down a single observation because there was nothing to observe. In one of his potential nucleuses, the cast felt like it was working at first. He gathered the magic in and pushed it through, and thenit was like it just disappeared into nothingness.

In the other nucleusthe one that reminded him of the pattern for the wind cantripKalen couldnt finish the cast. The harder he pushed, the more the magic inside him locked up and refused to budge.

Maybe theres no need for me to worry about what Ill do in a couple years time, he thought, staring at the illustrated mists covering the Archipelago. I doubt theres much point in traveling around the world if I cant even make it to low magician.

Only it couldnt stay that way. Whether he tried to hide from the world of practitioners or he deliberately sought it out, he couldnt afford to be weak if it ever found him.

He had to go to the rock. He had to make the wind cantrip or the nucleic casting or something work.

And until he did that, there was no point agonizing over the future.

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