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The girls just stared at him. “It’s a thing babies get,” Daja said at last.
Briar made a face at her. “Where was I? ‘Good for wrinkles, indigestion, helps to move the bowels. Also helps mothers produce more breast milk.’”
“Breast milk?” repeated Sandry, blue eyes wide.
“That’s what she said. Then there’s ‘Grown around the home, fennel gives magical protection; hung in windows and doors, it wards off evil spirits.’”
“How can you be expected to remember all that?” Tris wanted to know.
“He just did,” Daja murmured, watching little clouds grow into big ones.
“It’s Rosethorn,” Briar replied. “Believe me, if she told you to remember something, you’d remember it—or she’d want to know why.”
No one argued with this. Weeks of acquaintance with the tart-tongued dedicate had filled them all with solid respect.
“What about you, trangshi?” the boy asked Daja, tickling the back of Sandry’s neck with a straw. When Sandry turned to look at him, the straw was in his mouth, and he was staring at the sky. “What’s that Frostpine teaching you?”
“What does that mean?” Tris asked. “No one’s ever said. That ‘trang—’”
“The others speak Tradertalk; why can’t you?” growled Daja. “It’s trangshi, all right? It means—”
“Forbidden,” offered Sandry.
“Bad luck,” Briar said at the same time.
Tris eyed Daja. “What could you do at your age to be called that?” For a moment she thought the Trader might refuse. At last, in a few short sentences, Daja told her about the loss first of her ship, and then of her people. When she finished, Tris shook her head. For the first time, she felt sympathy for Daja.
“Maybe she doesn’t like to hear that name, Briar,” Sandry commented tartly, banging the boy’s ankle with her fist.
Daja flapped a hand. “I don’t mind,” she said lazily. “Not from him.”
“Because what a kaq says means nothing, right?” Briar asked. When Sandry looked away, he tickled the back of her neck again. She whirled and glared at him.
“That’s right,” Daja said agreeably.
“So what does Frostpine teach you?” demanded Briar.
Daja sighed. “Lately he teaches me about coal. Coal’s very important to a smith. He wants me to know how it’s mined. ‘Why does a smith have to know mining?’ I ask him, and he just says ‘You tell me.’ At least I finally learned what all the basic tools are for. Now he’s teaching me to make them. All of them. And put my magic into them.”
“How goes it?” Briar wanted to know.
“Don’t ask,” Daja replied, glum. She looked at Tris. “What are your lessons?”
Tris sighed. “I learn the names of stars, and the words for different kinds of clouds, and keep a record of the tides. Weather stuff. Sky stuff.”
“Tides aren’t weather,” Briar said.
“In the sea they are,” replied Tris. “They’re like winds, only in the water.”
Scratching her shoulder, Sandry turned away from the boy. In a flash he leaned forward and brushed her neck with the straw. The scratching hand lifted; Sandry pinched her fingers together and tugged. The straw leaped from Briar’s hold and went to her. She turned, blue eyes businesslike, and flapped the hand that held the straw. The bit of grass flew at Briar’s face. He shrieked and covered his eyes with his arms. Undaunted, the straw hopped from his nose to his ears, tickling him mercilessly.
Forgetting where he was, Briar tried to scoot away. Before he reached the roof’s edge, Sandry dropped the straw and grabbed one of his arms. Daja seized the other.
“Now stop it,” Sandry ordered when the boy was settled again.
“Did you know you could do that?” asked Briar, gray-green eyes shining with admiration. “Yours is with thread, you told us.”
“Well, you can weave straw, kind of. I’ll see if I can unravel the string on your breeches, if you don’t leave me alone!”
The clock chimed the hour, making the air shiver. With groans, the four got up and headed back into the cottage.
Midsummer’s Day approached, and Winding Circle prepared for the holiday. The children helped to lay bonfires at the gates and were kidnapped by the Earth temple’s chief dedicate to help scrub the temple floors. Wonderful smells lay in banks around the Hub, as Dedicate Gorse and his cooks prepared a feast, and in lesser billows near the smaller kitchens scattered throughout the temple community.
Those odors had more power over Briar than even his lessons. He was late to the garden every day for a week, often arriving with stains on his shirt or smears around his mouth to betray where he’d been. Two days before the solstice, Rosethorn tracked him to the Hub itself. Gripping one of his ears, she marched him away from Gorse’s lair.
“But there was this tremendous smell!” he protested. “Like the spices you want me to memorize. I knew if I saw them being used, I’d learn them better. I was doing it for you—ow!” She had given his ear an extra twist.
“No humbuggery from you, my lad,” she replied as she pulled him along. “Green Man wrap us, you’d think we never fed you!”
“You do! You do! It’s just—”
She turned him to face her and gripped his shoulders. “I don’t know what’s to become of you,” she informed him, brown eyes fixed on his. “You may grow to be a true earth-mage. Maybe you’ll join a temple; you might be the most sought-after gardener north of the Pebbled Sea. That’s up to you. One thing is certain—hunger is a thing of the past. You may skip a meal or two, but you’ll never starve. Take my word for that and don’t make me come after you again.”
Suddenly he wrapped his arms around her, squeezed, and let go—then set off toward Discipline. Rosethorn, her cheeks red, followed him.
The day before Midsummer, Tris woke near dawn, full of restless energy. Since the day Niko had brought it up, she had wanted to try something. It was an itch that grew as she studied tides and winds, until it was more than she could stand. With their stretch of coast recently cleared of pirates and preparations for the holiday going on, the watch on the temple gates would not be as sharp as usual. She could experiment now, before her housemates rose.
Dressing hurriedly, she slipped downstairs. Little Bear came out of Sandry’s room as she passed, and whined. Outside, when she turned to latch the gate behind her, the pup was there. “If you come, be quiet,” she ordered in a whisper.
Silently the dog followed. A few people were opening shutters and doors, but the spiral road was empty. The guards at the south gate had opened it for a wagon driven by a sleepy-looking novice. While they talked, Tris and Little Bear slipped through the open gate and across the road. They climbed down the trail, past the meditation cave, until they got to the beach.
The rock shelves on both sides of the cove were bare of water, showing seaweed, mussel beds, and tide pools. Now at its lowest point, the tide had just begun to turn. By noon all but the tiniest sliver of beach would be covered in seawater.
“Let’s see how good I am,” the girl told Little Bear, sitting on a rock at the foot of the trail. The pup sat down as well and yawned.
Closing her eyes, Tris started her meditation breathing, listening for the voice of her magic. In the weeks since beginning her studies, she had learned how to take strength from currents in the air or sea, if she were tired. She thought she could use that same magic to keep the tide from coming in, by pulling its strength into herself, or through herself, at least. The rock she chose as a seat looked like a good place to store the rest of it until she chose to set that power free.
As a wave came in, she called to its strength, taking it in. Without letting it go, she reached for the power of the next wave, and the next, draining the tide of force as it tried to cover the shore. With her eyes closed, she couldn’t see that the water now lurked around the far ends of the rock shelves, bubbling and churning like a pot on the boil.
She grasped as much power as she could
stand—to her surprise, she couldn’t hold nearly as much of it as she had expected to. Like a sailor trying to empty out a sinking boat, she hurried to dump the strength from other waves into the rock beneath her. The sea fought hard, surging and pulling on her magic, trying to shake her loose.
Just a little longer, she thought. Just a bit more, so I know I really did it….
When Tris opened her eyes, the first thing she saw was Niko’s face. “Uh-oh,” she whispered, and closed them again.
“Now you know why only one in ten Trader windmages lives to adulthood,” that clipped voice said.
She tried to sit up. The rock under her felt strange—hardly like stone at all. For one thing, she’d had to crawl onto it; now she could just step off, once she had the strength. For another, it gave, more like a sack of grain than a proper boulder.
When she tried to lever herself off the stone with both hands, it collapsed, dropping her amid a shower of gravel, shattered into a thousand small pieces. Tris rolled onto her back, staring up at Niko. Little Bear came over and licked her face.
“What happened to my rock?” she demanded lazily. “It’s all to pieces.”
“It’s where you placed what you took from the tides, isn’t it?”
She nodded.
“You put in more than the stone could hold. It’s dissolving. Now, let me ask—have you had a lesson today?” inquired the mage.
“You look very tall from down here,” Tris remarked. His eyebrows came together in a scowl. Hur-riedly she said, “When my teacher tells me it’s a bad idea to try and fight the power of nature, I should listen.”
He grasped her hands. “I don’t know that I can walk,” she admitted as Niko helped her to rise.
“I know very well that you can’t,” he said. “Your luck is in. The moment I knew you were in trouble, I enlisted a friend.”
“Hullo,” Kirel said. Tris hadn’t seen him waiting on the path. “You must be Daja’s friend—the crotchety one.” Grinning, he knelt, folded her over his shoulder, and stood.
“This is so humiliating,” grumbled Tris. She was too weak even to struggle.
“Let’s go,” Niko said. Little Bear, yapping with pleasure, danced around them as they began the long climb back home.
Winding Circle kept the Midsummer holiday in style, with a feast, music and dancing, and rituals. One and all thanked the sun for its gifts on the longest day of the year, and prayed for a good harvest. Freed for the holiday, Briar, Sandry, and Daja wandered through Winding Circle, listened to music, and ate until even Briar could not manage another bite of meat or cake.
Tris remained at Discipline. Her experiment with tides had left her weaker than an overboiled noodle. She slept in a chair; when she lay flat and closed her eyes, the tide dragged at her bones, trying to pull her out to sea or dash her against rocks.
Little Bear kept her company all day. Now and then someone would look in—the other children, or one of the dedicates. Niko came by and gave her a book called Daring the Wheel: Those Who Defied Nature’s Magic. Reading it was a sobering experience for Tris. She had gotten off lightly; she was still alive.
As the longest day of the year drew slowly down to night, her stomach began to roll. Her pulse thumped in her ears; her feet and hands tingled. She fought to stand, trying to get a body no stronger than soup to carry her through a door a few feet away. Little Bear whimpered and circled her, barking, as she gave up on standing and crawled.
She had reached the outside doorstep when the ground shuddered and flexed. Little Bear raced to the outdoor shelf that held Briar’s shakkan, barking madly: the tremor had made it slide forward. Gulping against the need to vomit, Tris realized that yet another shake was on its way.
There was no time to think. She scrambled for the shelf as the shakkan leaped toward her, thrown off its support by the new tremor. With a yelp, Tris caught it and held it steady. Little Bear whined and tried to crawl into her lap underneath it.
Briar was the first to reach Discipline, at a run; Rosethorn was not far behind him. When they came through the gate, they stopped to stare. Tris leaned against the cottage, asleep. The shakkan was in her lap; Little Bear was draped over her shins. The new shelf on Briar’s window hung only by one strut—the other had broken in the second tremor.
Tris woke as Briar lifted his treasure out of her lap. Guessing what caused his scowl, she said, “Don’t thank me. You’ll just scare me worse than I’ve been already.”
Instead he reached his free hand down to her. “C’mon, old lady,” he said. “Time to hobble inside.” Rosethorn took the girl’s other hand. Between them, they helped Tris into the house.
12
Niko had just started the next day’s meditation when someone knocked briskly on Discipline’s front door. He frowned and went to answer it himself.
“I’m sorry, Master Niko.” The novice was gasping for breath. “They want you at the Hub, now.”
“I’m teaching—”
“Honored Moonstream said it can’t wait.”
“I’ll take them, Niko,” called Lark from her workroom.
Niko hesitated, then followed the novice out of the cottage.
He was absent the rest of that day. Tris, waiting for her afternoon’s lesson, gave up and continued to read Daring the Wheel. The residents of Discipline had just settled down to the night’s spinning when Niko returned. “Lark, Rosethorn, if I may have a word?” he said, with a nod to the children.
They went outside and talked so quietly that none of the four could eavesdrop, although they tried. At last the adults came back into the cottage, looking troubled.
“Come with me, Briar,” Rosethorn ordered.
The boy carefully put down his spinning and followed her to her workroom.
Niko gave another book to Tris. “Something’s come up, and I am needed at the Hub for a while. Study this—it’s about weather patterns in Emelan and her neighbors, and how one kind of weather may spark another. Meditate daily, record the tides and the moon’s phases as I requested, and do whatever Lark and Rosethorn say. I’ll look in on you as I can.”
“Niko, what’s going on?” inquired Sandry.
“I don’t know yet,” he replied. “That’s the problem. There’s a tremendous amount of activity in the seeing and hearing places of the Hub—omens and portents are being reported from everywhere around the Pebbled Sea. We must sort through all that is being foretold and try to put together the alternatives we are being shown.”
“I don’t understand,” complained Daja, winding newly spun thread onto her spindle.
With a sigh, Niko sat on a chair. “When seers view the future, it isn’t a lone, solid image. The various choices that people make change any one future into many. Each choice in those futures gives birth to still more. Omens and visions are pictures from all those futures. Our task is to find the single event, or events, that started them. Once we find it, we can learn where and when that event takes place and try to prepare.”
“That sounds like work, if you ask me,” Daja said firmly.
Niko smiled. “It is.”
Rosethorn and Briar returned, the boy carrying a basket full of packets of herbs and bottles of liquid that Rosethorn had just measured out of her supplies. “I labeled everything,” Rosethorn explained. “If they need more, tell them to send to me.” Her mouth twisted wryly, and she added, “Perhaps mention that Crane’s keep-awake tea is a hair better than mine.”
Everyone stared at her.
“But just a hair!” she said crossly. “And don’t tell Crane I said it!”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Niko reassured her, taking the basket. “Dedicates, thank you. Children, I hope to see you all soon.”
“Mila bless,” Lark said gently. “May the knot come undone, and the threads be laid out straight for you to see.”
Sandry blinked: as Lark spoke, the girl saw golden strands of power drift through the air and twine gently around the mage. The other three sensed the magic’s passing
and shivered.
Niko bowed and left. The dedicates and the children drew the gods-circle on their chests and returned to their work.
Over the next two weeks, whenever any of them saw Niko, his thick, black eyebrows were knit in a thoughtful frown. He gave Tris more books and scrolls to work from. For several days he turned her over to Frostpine, who taught her and Daja the properties of metals. Niko rarely visited the cottage for meals; Briar was left to bathe on his own most nights. Even when Niko came to eat or teach, he was easily distracted.
Standing on the temple’s northern wall with the others one hot afternoon, Daja saw a cloud billow from the windows of the Hub. “Is that—?” she asked Briar.
“The bird-cote,” he replied. “It surely is.”
The cloud of messenger birds broke up and spread, headed in all directions. Less than half an hour later, mounted couriers galloped out of Winding Circle.
“Something big,” Tris remarked.
“Maybe someday they’ll tell us what’s going on,” grumbled Briar. “That would be nice.”
Two nights later, Niko joined them for supper. He looked worn out. His eyes were puffy and bloodshot; the lines that framed his nose and mouth were deeper than usual.
“I think we’ve done all we can,” he announced. “They got the word in time, certainly, and the message has gone to the coast cities and to the islands. Now all we can do is wait.”
“What message?” asked Sandry.
“You’re going to tell us what’s up?” Briar wanted to know.
The man nodded. “Ragat will have an earthquake tomorrow, sometime before noon. Word’s been sent to Ragat and her neighbor Pajun to prepare, and to everyone on the surrounding coasts who might be hit by a tidal wave.”
“A quake? Are we in danger?” asked Tris, nervously.
“None. If there’s a wave, the east shore of the Emelan peninsula will take the brunt of it, not our side,” Niko told her. “Ragat is too far away for us to feel the quake itself.” His fingers tapped restlessly on the table.
