LITMIR.BIZ

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      Tiriwi bowed politely. The name Dakh-Ozz-Han was well-known to the Oas. He was a druid like most of the men that came to visit, and he must have done the Oas a great favor once. But her hopes of finding out something about this mysterious man were dashed. Grimala merely said: “Kelim will teach you the basic magic of the five elements.”

      Tiriwi flinched. The elemental magic was not of the Oas, but of the hated mages. As much as Tiriwi had enjoyed the thought-language, she was sure that she did not want the slightest to do with elemental magic.

      But Kelim taught her more than the secrets of the elements. He let her explore her own body, opened her palms and soles and let her feel the pounding in her veins. Tiriwi learned to understand the calm beat of her body and then the rhythms of nature.

      “Feeling the pulse of life is the first step to healing.”

      And Tiriwi learned drumming. She was not yet strong enough for powerful beats, but she could hold a rhythm for a long time without the slightest mistake.

      She stayed in Grimala’s house for two moon cycles. Two moon cycles she spent with Kelim and Grimala, learning of a life so different that she wondered how she could ever play with her friends again.

      “Tiriwi.” The voice was gentle, but unrelenting, and pulled the girl back into reality. “I know how you must feel. And I know that the task ahead of you is no small one. But you are the only one.”

      “Not to the mages.”

      Tiriwi’s voice almost failed at the word ‘mage,’ and revulsion made her close her eyes.

      The three wise women of the Oa exchanged glances and sighed. “How can we argue with you, for all you have said is right,” Kamana said after a while. “But there are times when the valid is invalid, and what is right and wrong hides behind a higher truth.”

      Tiriwi looked at Kamana, stumped. Sometimes the wise women were all but impossible to understand. All she wanted was for everything to stay as it had been and as she knew it.

      Chiwita continued: “You understood everything. Whosoever changes the world does not just create, but also destroy many things that are good and valuable. It is for the best to weigh up everything before acting. But sometimes the world changes without asking. Then we must also change, and we cannot hold on tightly to that which we know. If we do not succeed, we become strangers in our own world.”

      “Tiriwi,” Grimala began. “The world you love is crumbling, and we must save as much of it as we can. But all we know of the future is that it will be very different to our past.”

      Tiriwi turned her head to the door and looked out to the forest’s edge. A Mistglider leapt from a tree and sailed to the roof of a small roundhouse. I don’t want to, she thought. The world can’t change. Not mine. It’s perfect as it is. Her village, no more than a collection of ten or twenty huts, was very old. The magical wood of the first huts was older than the five kingdoms, it came from a time into which even the wise women could not delve. Something like this could not change. Was it not the task of the wise women to guard the old and deflect the new?

      Chiwita took Tiriwi’s hand and stroked it comfortingly. “Do not fear, my child. It need not be the end of the world. But we know we cannot stop the Change. We must go with it this time. We need a glance into the future. And it looks as though the mages know more about what awaits us than we do, and as though they have a plan. They, though they kept Ringwall shut to everyone who was not of nobility, have opened their gates for all. Every learned person who wishes to study the world of powers. We do not know what they expect to come of this, but with this first step changes have been made. We believe that the changing of the world begins with the mages.”

      Although the wise women had not lost their friendly smiles, and their faces contained no threat, Tiriwi felt disconnected from them, almost cast out from the Oas, and she lowered her head obediently. “But why me?”

      “The mistrust between Oas and mages lies too deep,” Kamana said, “for them to grant us elders entry into their halls and chambers. But they do not see children as a threat. They want our knowledge: you must hide it. And we want their knowledge: you must find it. You will be the first Oa to know two schools of magic. And you will tell us what the mages expect and what they fear. Who knows, the truth may lie in the unification of all magics.”

      “Let nobody know how far your magical talent goes,” Grimala warned her. “Although your studies are not finished yet, and you do not know many of the things the other students do, you still possess more and different abilities than they do. Do not flaunt them, and do not incite the mages’ mistrust. We have prepared you for this task long enough.”

      Chiwita got to her feet. “Prepare yourself. In three days you will leave the village. Grimala has volunteered to accompany you on your journey. You may also choose which mothers you would have join you. You can also choose to take some friends instead if you believe they can make the trip. Your parting will be less sudden then. I can also ask a passing druid to join you.”

      “No, no druids.” Tiriwi’s voice was strong and certain. “I don’t want to travel with a man.” She pressed her lips together. Like all her friend she had not yet properly met a man, but that which she had seen was enough for the rest of her lifetime.

      *

      The air stood still and quietened every sound. Nill sat on the stone rim of the well, dangling his legs, the hard edges cutting into his skin. The village well was special, because stones were rare in this part of Earthland, and they were usually of low quality. They were found only on top of the hills, and even there they were rarely more than thin flat plates that splintered easily. They could be used to scrape fat and blood from the fur of freshly killed game, if one had no better tool at hand. But they did not work well for building houses. The well was built from the few stones that possessed, by chance, a little more strength and durability.

      Nill was watching a couple of skinny dogs that were sniffing each other and the corners of the nearby huts. A group of swift cloud-arrows cut across the sky, appearing out of nowhere and swooping down, stopped just short of the ground and was gone the next moment before anyone could turn to see. Nill liked those little hunters, but he was wondering what they were doing here at noon. As hunters of the dusk they woke only when the first feverflies rose from the damp depressions in the land.

      The sky was blue. Far too blue, Nill thought, and a little too dark also. Nill squinted and sought the sun’s white sphere, around which the air looked nearly black. The dust’s dry taste had not changed but the air tasted of resin, and nature had become restless. Even the wind had hidden from the piercing sun, and so it was blisteringly hot. But the silence was deceptive. Now and again the wind woke up, broke its silence with small flurries that whisked up dust and made the eyes sore. Nill tilted his head back, flared his nostrils and drank in the air. He was not the only one who watched the sky and the gentle slopes of the hills with a worried look. The elders who spent their days sitting in the shade of the village’s huts had got up and gazed anxiously at the first tiny wisps of clouds that had appeared in the deep blue sky. They seemed like riders, transparent and swift, messengers of a coming event who had only stopped their horses for a very brief time.

      Nothing indicated that a storm was brewing, whose winds were feared but whose rain was always welcome. Only the flurries grew more frequent, and the dust devils spun ever faster. Nill saw that the dust was gathering more and more leaves, although the closest bushes stood high upon the slope.

      Nill looked along the dirt track that snaked among the hills and disappeared somewhere in the direction of the Waterways and Woodhold in the haze. All Nill knew about these two realms was that the sun rose between them and one had to follow the path for a very long time before one came to the next human settlement. The path was the only safe connection to the rest of Pentamuria, the civilized world that the village possessed. Beyond the village lay waste land which grew ever more barren the further it reached, until it finally merged with the Great Belt of the Borderlands. Even the most experienced hunters and shepherds knew no more to tell about the Borderlands than horror stories

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