The World in Motion
Lander was tired of being roped into Jorns various household improvent projects, so as soon as the aurora appeared in the sky two mornings later, he turned up in Kalens room to volunteer himself as a pack mule.
I need just one day off! he groaned, plopping himself down on top of Kalens recently vacated mattress. Please tell them you need your big, strong cousin to carry things up to your rock.
I wouldn't mind the help, Kalen admitted, pulling a patched and stained shirt over his head. If he wore his good clothes out into the forest theyd only get ruined. I could take a lot more supplies if youre going to co.
Yes! Im a very useful man. You can't do it without . Lander sprawled across Kalens bed. He was all long limbs these days. He was definitely going to be as tall as their fathers, though if he didnt eventually fill out, he would end up looking like a giant grasshopper. I don't suppose youd let take a nap while you packed, too?
Kalen laughed. Its first thing in the morning, you lazy bones! Go to the larder and get so food. I think Ill be gone for around a week this ti.
Lander moaned. I'm just a servant in this house lately.
An hour later, bags loaded to the brim with books, magical supplies, and food, they said their goodbyes to the family and set off into the woods. Lander was in high spirits. Do you think they'd co out to get if I didn't go back ho? I could always say I had to stay to protect you from wizarn-eating beasts.
I think theyd let you stay the week, but then theyd fill our ears with vinegar when we got ho.
Might be worth it, Lander said thoughtfully, leaping over a fallen limb with unnecessary zeal. The huge pack on his back bounced wildly, and Kalen tried to rember if anything breakable was tucked in it.
If I were you, Im not sure I would choose this week to abandon the family, he said. The work Im doing is important, but its going to be deadly boring to watch. Why dont you choose an aurora when I have sothing interesting planned?
Landers smile took on a curious twist. Kalen, I dont know if you realize this, but almost everything you do as a wizarn is deadly boring to . You spend hours drawing symbols and practicing strange rhys and muttering over your books. And it all adds up to breaking needles or lighting fires or that weird thing you did that summoned flies
That was a really difficult cantrip, though! And very unique. Im not even sure what branch of magic its from. For concentrating the miasma of rot
It was disgusting, said Lander, wrinkling his nose. Please don't ever do it in front of a pretty girl.
The ntion of pretty girls set Kalens cousin off on one of his new favorite subjectsa sixteen-year-old with bright red hair and freckles nad Dolana whod recently visited the village from Baitown. Shed co to attend a relatives wedding, and she probably hadnt said ten words to Lander, but he held the mory of her visit dear anyway.
Kalen listened to his cousin ramble, obligingly agreeing that Dolana was the pinnacle of womanhood. Truthfully, Kalen hadnt paid much attention to her, since hed been ntally practicing a cantrip called for the drawing out of impurities during most of the wedding ceremony.
A few hours later, when they finally reached the rock, they dug bacon sandwiches out of the pack and shared lunch. Lander helped Kalen with the tedious business of scraping bird droppings off his various runic diagrams, noting that this was exactly what hed ant when he said Kalen's wizarn powers were boring. Then, they said their goodbyes.
Kalen waved as Lander disappeared into the trees. When his cousin was out of sight, he stretched and looked up at the aurora.
All right, he said, narrowing his eyes at it. This ti were going to make sothing happen.
#
On the first day, Kalen focused on the wind cantrip. Hed long-since morized both pattern and poem, and the only thing left was to do it. Over and over and over
The fundantal act of working magic felt good to Kalenthe drawing in of it and the pushing out again. It was sothing between a physical feeling and an emotional one. It was taking in a deep, deep breath full of the sweetest air in the world, and it was also the particular satisfaction that ca from letting it out again.
Allowing the magic to race through his pathways, or pushing it to do it faster when that was required, was enjoyable, too.
As always, it was in the shaping of it that things beca difficult and frustrating.
At least Kalen had finally mastered this pattern. It still took a couple of minutes to complete, which ant he had to recite the verbal part of the spell with an unnatural slowness to make sure certain syllables matched up with the pace of the pattern formation in the way they were supposed to. But he stood in the middle of his rock, and he did it correctly.
Every tiny rivulet of his mana structure hed called on to form the pattern was set with precision. Every word was in place. The magic gathered and poured into him willingly. It began flowing faster and faster through the internal pattern he was building then, as he reached the final line of the cantrip, everything ground to a halt.
No. Not again. Not this ti.
Kalen struggled against the sudden inertia, but he didn't even know how to struggle properly. He could hold the pattern in place for a while. He could speak the next syllable. But his magicusually so mobile and obligingwas locking itself in place.
Why? he thought desperately as the pattern began to fray and the spell lost stability.
Hed had workings he should have been able to do fail before, but it was always because of so mistake hed made. Or occasionally because hed attempted to cast when he didnt have enough magic available to draw on.
This awful freezing-up feeling was different.
The cantrip passed the point where it could possibly be recovered, and Kalen cursed in frustration and let it fall to pieces.
Imdiately, his magic started behaving normally again, and he could move it through his pathways with ease.
There had to be sothing he was missing, but hed spent months thinking about it and he couldn't figure out what. And when the aurora was here, he couldnt afford to sit around and ponder. Hed done all the thinking, and it was ti for action.
After a brief break, he tried again. Faster.
Then again. Slower.
He spoke louder.
He skipped random intersections in the pattern in case there was so error in the copy drawn in the book.
He tried everything. Then he tried it all again.
Ill get it, he told himself. Ill get it if dont give up.
But he didnt.
And as the days passed, Kalens frustration turned into sothing more like desperation.
#
With the exception of the gold coin and Arlade Glimonts token, the most expensive thing Kalen owned was a bottle of silver magepaint.
It was the real, undiluted, alchemical grade stuff, imported from the continent and sealed in a tall glass bottle etched all over with preservation circles.
The paint had been necessary for the array in Kalens bedroom, but hed hesitated to ask his parents for it. Can I pour liquid silver all over the floor? was a hard request, even if Jorn and Shelba were fairly doting.
Kalen was afraid theyd only agreed because they felt guilty about telling him he couldnt attend the apprenticeship tournant. He hoped that wasnt the case, because he considered their opinion on that matter more of a suggestion than a rule.
At any rate, Kalen had used half the paint for the array and a bit more experinting on his magnetic wood enchantnt. Hed had every intention of making the rest of it last for years.
So it was with a feeling very much like physical pain that he found himself standing on top of his rock, three days into the aurora, mixing the powerful silver paint with the cheaper, gooey black and red stuff that could be found in Baitown.
Kalens hair was tangled. His feet ached from standing on stone for hours at ti. He suspected that he slled like armpit.
Stupid cantrips. Stupid Zevnie. Stupid, stupid wind, he muttered, shaking the bottle furiously. Suddenly in a praying mood, he asked Veila and her mighty sling if they could do anything about getting the paints to mix. And then he shook the bottle even harder.
There was writing on all three paint bottles telling you not to combine them with paints from other sources, as the magical ingredients might conflict. They didnt bother telling you not to mix them with entirely different classes of magepaint, because what idiot would think that was a good idea?
A poor one who hasnt had a bath or a good nights sleep in days! Kalen shouted at the bottle so loudly that he startled a blackbird out of a nearby tree. The paints were just swirling around each other sluggishly. Please, please work.
His voice was starting to go hoarse from reciting the wind cantrip. His ability to focus when he cast was severely reduced. Hed sucked in magic and thrust it out again so many tis that he was starting to feel hollow.
Or maybe he'd just forgotten lunch?
Finally, suffering from the kind of sleep-deprived and magic-fueled state in which a person should never make important decisions, Kalen had co up with a plan.
If Zevnies nucleic casting thod didnt work, and Brous wind cantrip didn't work, Kalen would make up his own spell.
There were a lot of problems with this idea that he was aware of but choosing to ignore.
The most significant was the fact that lower level practitioners couldnt actually make up spells.
They could stumble upon things that worked, especially for really old arts like enchanting where the basic rules were agreed upon and patterns had been in use for millennia. Kalens magnetic wood enchantnt was made up of a rune pattern copied from the Orellen coin, after all. Probably it had been repurposed a few tis over the years, and hed ended up hitting on just the right combination of elents to dredge up an old enchantnt that was little used these days, or used frequently but in a context where its end effect was different.
The thing about magic was that it was a battle against nature. It took great power and understanding to push nature hard enough and in just the right way to create sothing new.
That was why so peak level sorcerers created cantrips and wrote them down. It wasnt because cantrips were useful. Generally they did things that an established spell could do better and easier. But creating a new one was a way to prove to your peers that youd achieved a level of mastery beyond that of normal sorcerers. Verbal spells that relied on minimal patterns were considered particularly impressive, since you were pushing nature around with less help.
Magical workings grew more established in the fabric of reality as ti passed and more people used them. As they grew more established, they usually beca easier and easier to use. New spells, even ones with weak effects, were harder to use. They required more power.
Thats what youre for, Kalen said to his bottle of paint, which was finally beginning to mix. He was panting from the effort of shaking it.
The aurora was currently at its peak. Kalen had suddenly wondered what would happen if he used a gathering arraya big oneright here on top of his rock?
He didn't think he'd entirely taken leave of his senses. I'm not making up a new spell from scratch. I'm just combining two or three different techniques into one.
Probably there was a reason none of his books had ever explained how to do that, but theyd also never told him not to.
If he built the pattern for Brous wind cantrip around his primary nucleus, and he recited the cantrip at the sa ti as he used the technique for nucleic casting, and he stood in the center of the gathering array drawing in more power
Well, sothing was going to happen.
Kalen didnt really care what it was at this point as long as he stopped getting a whole lot of nothing for his efforts.
When he finally got the paint mixed, it looked like sparkly mud. But at least it was cohesive sparkly mud. He'd already laid out the pattern for the array with asuring strings. Now he just had to paint it. He hoped hed have enough.
Kalen grabbed his case full of carefully maintained brushes and set to work.
The project took hours. He had planned on painting the array over the course of a couple of days, but after a while, he realized his paint was slowly coagulating. If he took ti to sleep, hed never get it laid down before it turned into sothing too thick to spread.
He worked fast and ssy, and he was grateful hed decided to do the asuring in advance. It was depressing to see his runes looking so sloppy, but at least the outline and intersecting points of the star pattern were crisp and accurate.
When it was finished, just after dawn, Kalen shoved most of a loaf of bread into his mouth and collapsed on his bedroll. He resented the necessity, but he was too tired to activate a simple heating circle at the mont. Hed probably pass out if he tried sothing as complicated and power-intensive as what he had in mind.
Exhausted, aching, and reeking of pungent-slling paint, he finally gave himself permission to sleep.
He dread soone important was angry with him.
The two of them stood in a frightening place, where the sky was black and starless, and the ground was nothing but sand.
I didnt an to, said Kalen.
He wasnt sure what he was apologizing for.
I didnt an to, the person repeated, his voice quietly furious. But I did it anyway.
Who are you? Kalen asked.
No matter how he looked, he couldnt see the angry persons face or body. He blinked and thought he was alone. Then, he blinked again and knew the other person was there.
Youre going to ruin everything. The words echoed around him as if they were coming from every direction at once.
The strange dream ended there. Or at least Kalen couldnt rember any more of it when he woke, hours later, to the unpleasant feeling of a cold raindrop splattering on the tip of his nose.
Annoyed, he stared up at the sky. Dull gray clouds roiled over his head, but it wasnt pouring. Yet. Well, I can just wait it out. A few more hours wont
Sudden realization had him scrambling to his feet. The paint! Had it dried? If it hadnt, then the rain would destroy all his work.
He rushed to the array. The star pattern was huge, spanning more than half the rocks surface, which made it look rather magnificent despite the ugly paint color.
Scarcely daring to breathe, Kalen reached out and touched one of the lines gently with his finger. When he pulled it away, paint with an unpleasant, gluey consistency adhered to it. It was more like snot than wet paint, but it definitely wasnt dry.
Kalen stared at it in horror. Shit, he said quietly. Shit. Pig shit. What do I do?
He couldnt cover the array with any of the materials he had here. He couldnt make it dry any faster, and he definitely couldnt stop the rain from falling.
Every drop of water that hit the paint was going to slowly degrade the pattern until it didnt work at all.
Use it. Just use it as best you can so that it doesnt go to waste.
It was the only choice. Kalen leaped to his feet and ran to the cubby carved at the top of the rocks staircase. Thanks to Landers help, it was absolutely packed with supplies.
After a monts worth of agonizing, he picked up the seven books he liked slightly less than the others and one of his recording jars and rushed back over to the array. He placed a book in each of the settings that were ant for reagents, with the jar in the eighth.
Technically, practitioner texts were magical objects, since they were almost always enchanted in so way, whether it was to increase the durability or preserve the ink. None of Kalens had very powerful enchantnts on them, and whatever they did have protecting them would no doubt be destroyed when he did this, which was why he had never resorted to empowering his bedroom array in this manner before.
He wished hed brought his enormous supply of enchanted buttons along to use instead, but he hadnt known he was going to be doing this when he left ho.
And there was no ti for second guessing now.
Teetering wildly on his tiptoes to avoid the wet paint, Kalen dropped the last book in its place, and then he hopped over the lines and runes to take his place in the center of the array.
There was plenty of atmospheric magic already, but he wanted more than plenty. He thought if the environnt was even more saturated he might be able to cast the working back to back. Maybe he could thrust magic through his nucleus and then draw more in again before the cantrip pattern collapsed.
Hed planned to practice, but now there wasn't ti.
Thunder rumbled, and Kalen closed his eyes. He felt nervous, but he shoved his doubts aside. He began to build the internal patternnot in the way he usually did, but around the tangled mass of the nucleus hed decided to think of as his main one since it was larger and more complicated.
Kalen might have practiced the pattern a thousand tis, but he hadnt done it in this particular way, in this spot inside where his magic felt denser and more essential than everywhere else. It was difficult, as hed known it would be. But though he'd assud working in such a snarled area would be next to impossible, for so reason
Its not too hard. Its at the limit of what I can do, but it's not beyond it.
Around him, the magic was building. The array was working as it was supposed to, pulling power toward Kalen so that he could gather it as quickly as he had been able to during the peak of the enormous aurora that had brought Arlade and Zevnie to the island.
A couple of minutes later, he finished the pattern. Fixing the route hed taken to complete it in his mind, he let it collapse. He had his pace down now. He could begin in truth.
For the stirring of the air, he said quietly.
The title wasnt part of the cantrip, but saying it aloud felt like making a promise.
Kalen took a mont to glance at the world around his rock. The sky was darkening, and the wind was picking up.
I might not even notice if it works, he thought, fighting back a bitter wave of disappointnt.
Zevnie had said the effect of pushing magic through your nucleus was subtle. And cantrips werent exactly flashy themselves. He doubted combining the two together was going to result in sothing more apparent than an actual storm.
But theres no help for it. Ill just have to hope.
He took a deep breath and began the chant with the first, sowhat mortifying, line: A gentle kiss at break of day
The patterns first intersection locked in at kiss, the second imdiately after on break.
It was working. He could do this.
A gentle kiss at break of day,
beat of wing,
and bite of smoke
I..
I have felt you.
The next line was I have felt you. But Kalen couldnt say it yet because his magic was slowing down without his permission again. Before he was even halfway through with the pattern! It had never done that before.
This is bad.
I have felt
Kalen forced the next intersection, pushing his magic through his channels with all his might.
You, he thought, grasping frantically for the next critical point. But there was nothing to work with now. It was like his magic had solidified into mortar.
What do I do?
Kalen held the pattern in place. His shirt was half soaked, and the raindrops that were slowly destroying his chance to complete the spell were loud as a drum.
He could...draw in more power. It was building and building around him, tingling against his nerves, eager to be let in. Whether he could hold the pattern at the sa ti was a gamble, but maybe?
Kalen let the waiting magic in, and as if the act had broken a stalemate, his pathways were once again under his control.
you!
Kalen shouted it with far too much enthusiasm, but the working held. Maybe this was it. This was the way to break through the uncomfortable stillness.
He started drawing in magic faster, pouring it into the pattern, trying to keep everything flowing and moving as it was supposed to. Simultaneously pulling in power and building the spell instead of doing just one at a ti was like trying to juggle a dozen eggs at once.
I have heard you.
I have slled you
as you stir the air.
Eternal, endless,
lonely howl.
Howl across sand and sea.
Howl for .
Howl.
Kalen gasped. His eyes were clenched shut in concentration.
It was done. Hed finished the pattern. But it was wrong.
The cantrip wouldnt cast. It was locked inside him, the sa as before. It was still and unwilling to be brought into being. Hed poured far more magic into the working than usual, and while his pathways couldnt exactly ache like theyd suffered a physical injury, this was pretty close to it.
He breathed hard, thinking.
The one thing he could do was draw in still more power and direct it toward the pattern and his nucleus.
It sounded like a bad idea, but it was the only one he had.
So he did it until he was soaking wet and dizzy. But as soon as the magic approached his nucleus, it just stopped. It was building and building at the edges of Kalen, flooding little-used pathways, battering against everythinguntil even those parts of him stilled and froze over like the winter sea.
I have to push the magic through, he thought desperately. If not through the cantrip, then through the nucleus itself. It will be less specific. Less difficult. More like a powerful shove. But a nucleic casting with the cantrip pattern set in place simultaneously...it should do sothing. That was what I had planned.
But he couldnt make anything move.
What would happen if he just kept drawing power into his frozen mana structure? Where would it go when there was no more room?
Stop. You have to stop.
Kalen assud it was his own doubt talking, but he didnt want to stop. He wanted this to be over, and it wouldnt be if he stopped. He would just have to try again a thousand more tis, or ten thousand, while his choices weighed down on him and the tournant approached and people hunted Orellens and Fanna grew older.
Fanna.
Kalen suddenly rembered how hed blown puffs of air onto her cheeks to explain what the wind was and how it worked. There was sothing theresothing he hadnt thought of
Dont do this.
What had he told Fanna about the wind? It was sothing simple and obvious because she was only a baby.
It can never stop moving, he murmured. Because if it does, its not the wind anymore.
Sothing was there. Sothing true that he couldn't quite grasp.
Kalen opened his eyes, blinking away the drops of water that fell into them. He looked around him. The sumr rainstorm wasnt a violent one, but the trees all around his rock were swaying. Here and there, pine needles and leaves tore themselves free of their branches. Overhead, the clouds rolled across the sky.
He felt enlightened. And at the sa ti he felt bothered by that enlightennt.
The wind moved. It wasnt a revelation. Hed always known it. So why did knowing it feel important in this mont?
It suddenly seed obvious to Kalen that his magic shouldnt be freezing up during a wind spell. That it couldnt. When he cast a wind spell, he was supposed to be more alive than ever.
No.
The feeling was so strong, Kalen heard it as clearly as a word spoken aloud. He narrowed his eyes. He searched his mind. That no wasnt mine.
At least, it wasnt consciously his.
He didnt quite understand what was going on, but there was sothing he wanted to try. He reached inside himself and checked over the intersections of the cantrip pattern. Shockingly, it still heldmaybe because his magic was impersonating a rock right now.
Kalen straightened his spine. He stared at the swaying trees. Then, in a gesture that felt strangely familiar even though hed never done it before, he lifted a hand and drew it through the air in a sweeping motion, making a shape.
Kalen didnt recognize it. The part of him that had said no did, and as it did, that part crumbled away until only Kalen and his newfound certainty remained. And he understood. This shape was like his own nucleus, but it was minimized sohow, stripped to its very essence.
As he finished drawing the the shape, words ca to him. They bubbled up like they'd always been inside him, just waiting to be freed.
The wind moves, he said. And so do I.
Kalen's magic roared to life.
Everything that happened next happened so fast he couldnt keep up.
Like a river bursting free of a dam, power raced through him. All of it had been brought to life in an instant, and any control he might have had was wrested from him before he even realized he needed to bring it to bear.
Hed been pushing all of that powertoo much of ittoward the cantrip pattern and his nucleus. It punched through the cantrip as easily as a fist through glass. Kalen scread in terror as his nucleus caught the entirety of it.
Out! I have to push it out, or itll tear apart!
But before thought could beco action, sothing else went wrong.
A vast, horrible, foreign sothing grabbed hold of Kalen. Not his body, but him. His magic. His soul. Everything he was.
And then it tried to climb in.
For less than a breath, Kalen felt pain that seed to consu the whole universe. But his selfeverything about him that the monster was grabbing atrejected the abomination utterly.
Kalen imagined he heard the thing howl in agony as it clung to him for a mont.
Then, the place he thought of as his second potential nucleus flared, and the monster vanished.
Kalen didnt have ti to celebrate. Sothing had just torn inside of him. Whether it was from his own explosion of magic or the abominations assault, he didnt know. He didnt even know what the torn thing was. He only felt the rip and knew sothing very important to his being had just co undone.
He panicked and searched himself, trying to find the damaged place and fix it. But it was useless.
He couldnt even seem to find his own mana structure at the mont.
Kalen was in darkness.
Am I still ? Am I still alive? Kalen wondered.
He decided that he was.
I should open my eyes, then. He needed to look over his body and see for himself what damage had been done. He was sure it was the stuff of nightmares.
After what seed like an eternity, he finally managed to look around him. Then, he closed his eyes and opened them again. Several tis.
Whered my rock go?
For that matter, where had the rest of the island gone?
Kalen was standing in a practitioner's cluttered study. It was beautiful. Thousands of magical books, scrolls, and mysterious baubles lined the dark wood shelves. A thick, richly patterned carpet covered the floor. A desk full of inkwells and sheaves of paper and strange tal devices was situated under a large mullioned window.
And beyond that window was a wet, green world that was definitely not Hemarland.
Kalen walked over to the window to examine the view. The plants growing in the dappled afternoon sunlight were lush and healthy and all wrong. A cloud of insects that glittered like new snow sward over a pond full of slimy-looking moss.
There were no fir trees. No mountains. No ocean.
And as Kalen stared, lost and growing worried, a large orange fish jumped out of the pond and flew on scaled wings to snap up a small furry animal that was running across a nearby tree branch.
Kalen staggered back from the glass, bumping into a chaironly instead of bumping into the chair, he stepped through it like it didnt exist at all.
What? Kalen gaped at the piece of furniture.
Was it so kind of illusion? Hed read about them. He understood that it was possible with advanced light magic, but the chair looked so real.
Kalen walked back and forth through it a few tis, trying to analyze the situation instead of panicking. He wasnt hurt, obviously. His body looked fine. An illusion of a chair was unexpected, but not necessarily threatening.
The flying, carnivorous fish was threatening, but it was outside. And since Kalen had just determined that hed never set foot near that pond, it couldn't harm him either.
Kalen walked over to the desk full of all the interesting magical things and discovered it was an illusion too. His hand fell right through it. For a few minutes, he went around the room, jabbing things and kicking them. Nothing was solid!
And when he stomped solidly on the floor, his foot pushed through with no resistance.
Calm down. Take a deep breath. Think it through. Youve got to get back ho.
Kalen tried to take a deep breath to soothe his nerves, and things imdiately got much, much worse.
He could make a motion that was like breathing. In fact, he had been doing it automatically ever since he got to this place. But now that he was focusing on it, there was no feeling of air rushing into his chest.
He wasnt breathing. He was fake breathing. And co to think of it
Kalen reached out and put his hand through the desk again. Was the desk really an illusion? Or was Kalen just not able to interact with anything?
Even the ground beneath his feet couldn't be felt properly. It was more like he was standing on it because he assud he should be.
Kalen heard a door open and close, and as he did, he realized he wasnt hearing as he usually did. It was more like hed beco aware that the sound existed.
A middle aged man in long white robes entered the room. He had large ears and neatly combed brown hair. Maybe he was the one whod done this to Kalen, but if that was the case, at least he would have answers.
Kalen bowed hastily. It was his first ever attempt at a bow, but he felt it was necessary, since he needed help badly and this man must be a powerful practitioner if this was his study. Excuse , sir. Can you please tell where I am and whats going on? Im not sure how I got here.
The man plucked a book off the shelf. Then he walked right up to Kalen, and without even glancing away from the book in his hand, he kept walking right through him.
Kalen straightened up from his bow.
Can you hear ? he said. Sir? Please?
When he got no response, he walked right up to the mysterious robed man and scread in his ear.
Hey, gimon, said a voice from another room, what are you doing in there?
What? the man answered, his tone distracted. Im reading Lajulians Twelfth. Why? Are we out of tea again?
A mont later, a short creature appeared in the doorway. Kalen thought she was a she, but this assumption was based mostly on the fact that she was wearing a crown of ugly, oozing flowers in her long, dark green hair. Her skin was a paler green. She had thin arms and legs, and she wore a gray shirt with no back. Presumably so that her one large translucent wing could move freely.
All of this was unsettling enough, but the creatures eyes were the most disconcerting part of her. They were set in her head in the expected place, and they were shaped like a humans. But they were shiny and iridescent and pupil-less. Like a bugs eyes.
As soon as she entered the room, those eyes landed on Kalen. Her mouth turned up at the corners in a too-wide grin.
Before Kalen could decide whether to try talking to her or running away from her, she spun across the carpet on her small bare feet like a festival dancer.
Scratches, you ca back! she cried joyfully, spreading her arms wide. Give Mother Lutcha a hug!
Kalen jumped away from her, looking around for anyone who might be nad Scratches.
Are youare you talking to ? he asked finally, when the toddler-sized green person didnt change positions.
Her arms still held out for a hug, Lutcha frowned. Scratches, have you already learned speech? Wow, that was fast! Has soone else been feeding you? I dont like that. Youre my kitten. Tell mother who it was so she can deal with them.
Oh, Scratches is a cat.
Kalen wasnt sure if he was relieved or disturbed.
If youre talking to , Im not Scratches. Im Kalen. Im here accidentally, and I really, really want to go back ho. Please. Maam.
The green womans arms dropped to her side. She glanced toward the desk, where the man was rummaging around in a drawer like he hadnt heard a single word they'd said. Then, she leaned closer to Kalen, and a shimr of light ran back and forth across her eyes.
HmmmIm not as good at making out astral entities as I used to be. Better at hearing than seeing. What kind of spirit are you, Kaaliin? Minor demon? Ghost of an ascended? Outcast god? Nondescript chaotic being? I dont judge! But Im contractually obligated to protect that idiot over there who cant even perceive the plane youre on, so I need to know whether you're for eating or for using or for friendly banter.
Well, thought Kalen. At least she's soone I can communicate with. You can see then? And hear ? Im not any of those things you nad. Im just Kalen. Im a regular boy. From Hemarland. II love friendly banter.
Friendly banter was much, much better than those other two options.
Hemarland? Where is? She blinked a pair of eyelids that moved sideways,andthen a look of realization crossed her green face. Do you an the island? Erald of the Northern Sea and all that?
Yes! Kalen cried, his fear diminished if not entirely forgotten in his relief. He took a step closer to her. You know it! Can you help get back? I was casting a spell, and I made a mistake, and I ended up here.
Lutcha had a very peculiar expression on her face now. She chewed on her bottom lip with pointed teeth, then spun on her toes like a dancer again and headed over to the bookshelf. She climbed up it, ignoring the white-robed mans sigh of exasperation, and she peered for a mont at a large golden disc covered in runes.
She hopped back down after only a second and ca back to Kalen.
She walked in a circle around him, and he tried to hold still while she examined him closely. He hoped good behavior would get him ho faster. The lightwas it magic?shimred over Lutchas eyes again and again.
When she finally stopped, she stood for a while just staring at him, head tilted so that her chin rested on her hand.
Hey, she said, what kind of spell were you casting to screw yourself up this bad? Because this is really sothing else.
A wind cantrip.
Wind? Her face brightened at once, and she leaped toward him.
He dodged her.
Its you! she trilled happily, running at him once more. Youve nearly killed yourself again! And this ti you did it in such an exciting way! This is wonderful. Co give Mother Lutcha a hug!
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