VARNA Chapter 5
- "More." said Rhigen. "Add another layer. Shape it! And another layer - make it thicker. Stronger."
Glasha had told me about her father training her in magic. She'd told me what he'd done, and what he'd helped her do, but she wasn't able to explain
how
he'd done it.
- "I can picture it. I can see it." she said. "I just can't put it into words."
But Rhigen could. He taught me completely differently than he had his daughter.
- "Treat the aether you've gathered as if it was a blanket. Fold it over - that should double its thickness. Now do it again."
He taught me how to feel the aether, how to truly manipulate it. Before this, the essence of magic had been like a formless mist for me, like unscented wood smoke. I was only using it to enhance my mental faculties, so it had hardly mattered.
Rhigen showed me that the aether could have weight, and solidity, but also flexibility.
- "You're building a wall." he said. "It can't be strong everywhere." To illustrate his point, Glasha's father tossed a pine cone at me. With my hands occupied, I reacted too slowly: it bounced off my chest.
"Try again. But not that way. If an enemy comes from the rear, then a wall in front of you is of no use - no matter how thick it is. Think of a shield: strong, but under your control."
With that image in my head, it was so much easier. I wasn't spreading the aether all over, but concentrating it into a shape and thickness that I could easily picture. Rhigen casually lobbed another pine cone.
It hit me in the chest. But...
- "Did you see that?" he shouted. "Did you see it?"
I had. The moment the pine cone contacted the edge of my aether shield,
it actually slowed down
. It should have hit me in the face, but the pine cone lost momentum and began to fall. Rhigen was even more excited than I was.
"I thought that I would have to bounce a dozen pine cones off your noggin before you could do that! Well done."
I was eager to continue, but Rhigen insisted that we take a break. In fact, he suggested that I lie down and close my eyes.
- "I can keep going." I said.
- "Just a short nap." he said. "We'll wake you." Glasha agreed with him, and gently steered me beneath the trees.
Just to humour them, I lay down, and re-visualized the pine cone slowing down when it struck my shield. I may have closed my eyes so that I could imagine it better.
When I awoke, dusk was falling.
Glasha was sitting on the ground beside me, gently stroking my hair.
- "We should go in before it gets dark."
- "What happened?" I asked. I was groggy, and slightly disoriented.
- "It's a drain on your energy." she said. "You don't notice it, and you may not feel it until later. But it can be dangerous to over-exert yourself."
- "Are you speaking from firsthand experience?"
Glasha blushed.
That put my great achievement into perspective. I had managed to slow down a softly tossed pine cone, and hours later I still felt weak as a kitten.
- "Rhigen was very pleased with your progress." she said. "You should be, too."
- "Where is he?"
- "With the other musicians. They're preparing to play for your father."
- "We should probably put in an appearance." I said.
- "I might. You probably won't."
Glasha had to help me to my feet.
- "This is embarrassing." I said.
- "It gets easier. The more you practice, the stronger you get."
- "I've been doing Durgulel's exercises for years, but I've never felt this... tired."
- "Rhigen explained it to me." said Glasha. "The practitioner's training is about mental discipline. What he asked you to do required
mental
exertion. Physical, too. Did he not give you the talk about 'healthy mind, healthy body'?"
- "He did - when we first met."
- "There you go, then."
Glasha helped me back to our quarters. She overruled my weak objections, and tucked me into our bed. I don't remember putting up much of a fight.
***
I was ravenously hungry the next morning, and surprisingly sore. The fatigue seemed to have migrated to my muscles and joints. My mind, though, was clear.
Glasha had known in advance how I would feel; she'd asked Seyamka to bring enough food for four breakfasts to our room. Then she let me eat almost all of it.
- "You've been through this." I said.
- "Don't speak with your mouth full. But yes."
- "And you got stronger?"
- "Yes."
We went to meet her father again, down by the river.
- "I'm sorry that I missed your performance last night." I said.
- "I didn't expect you to be there. Not after yesterday. How do you feel?"
I flexed my muscles, and swung my arms. "Better. Much better."
Just to be on the safe side, though, Rhigen did not ask me to practice any magic that day. Instead, we sat and talked: about magic, about Glasha, and about the whole Duchy. It turned out that I was not the only one who was worried about my father's conservative friends, and people of their ilk.
I absorbed everything he said - especially about his daughter. I knew her better, of course, but he knew her in a way that I did not.
The sun was high overhead when Rhigen returned to the subject of magic.
- "I want you to practice the shield whenever you can." he said. "And Glasha will throw pinecones at you until you can block them completely. Then she'll switch to apples. And then rocks." He turned to Glasha. "No knives or spears until I've seen you again."
- "WHAT?" squealed a high, girlish voice. That was me.
Rhigen drew forth his dagger. It was a cleverly fashioned blade of bronze.
- "You can throw this at me." he said. "I can block it."
I looked at the weapon, and back at him.
- "I believe you."
- "You'll be able to do the same, in time. You're strong, Tauma. It will take a great deal of practice - but you can do it."
I was inordinately pleased by his confidence in me.
- "Thank you."
- "Now, if you are willing, I'd like you to try something else." he said.
Rhigen picked up a pine cone, and placed it on his shoulder.
