Malcolm gazed across the lake's pale blue mirror-like surface while breathing in the chilly morning air. This early in the day most of the creatures that disturbed its surface would still be asleep, so seamless and peaceful it remained. Indeed the sun itself was only just rising across the horizon, banishing the fog and cold with its warming rays.
Satisfied he'd waited past sunrise proper, Malcolm fished a small wooden token out of his pocket. It was a simple thing he'd carved himself out of a piece of lake jetsam which bore nothing more than a simple swirl pattern as he was not a sculptor by any stretch of the imagination and a simple pattern was enough for its purpose.
He closed his eyes and allowed the image of the pattern to take residence in his mind, pushing out all other distractions and errant thoughts so there was nothing but the vortex. Under his fingers the piece of once-waterlogged detritus began to perspire. Beads of water seemed to well up from its surface and roll down its face before falling to that ground with a muted thap.
"Kali" mumbled the covenanter.
With that simple name, a sound like the distant roar of surf on some faraway beach burbled forth from nowhere and surrounded him. For a moment he forgot he was at the shore of a calm lake, instead he felt as though he was enveloped by the overwhelming presence of the ocean. The feeling, though potent, was fleeting and the din soon died with it leaving nothing but the occasional ephemeral dripping noise.
Malcolm opened his eyes to find a small humanoid made of water standing on the shore. Well, standing in that it was balanced on what appeared to be a swept cone of water instead of legs. Indeed the rest of the body was about as defined as a children's mud doll. It had a round head with light indentations where the eyes and mouth would be on a person. The chest seemed to undulate and flow with invisible currents while whip-like pseudo-pods swayed back and forth in time with the growing procession of waves that slid up along the shoreline.
"Good morning, Kali." said Malcolm as he leaned down to dent-level with the little elemental.
"Greetings Malcolm," it replied with what could be charitably referred to as a modulated burble. "How was your dormancy period?"
"It's called sleep," he sighed while pocketing the summoning token.
"Yes it is... difficult for us to remember something so... human."
"Well you're lucky you don't need it. It's a big time-waster." Malcolm placed his hand on the ground beckoning Kali who slithered up his hand, across his arm and settled on his shoulder. In spite of appearing to be made of water the elemental was more of a spirit than a collection of real liquid so all Malcolm felt as the watery stump moved across his bare skin was a fleeting wet sensation.
Kali wrapped a pair of tentacles around his head as if to stabilize itself while its mount rose to his feet. "What are we doing today?" the tiny spirit bubbled.
"Farm nearby needs a canal but the owner can't afford the time and labor to make it himself. I thought it would be good practice for my abilities."
"Will you receive more metal disks for this service? The squishy companion inquired.
He ruffled his dark hair with a thin, gangly limb. "No, farmers usually pay in produce or occasionally livestock, although the prospect of dragging a pig home isn't an attractive one."
"What use are animals and plants to you?"
Malcolm sighed. "Humans need to eat, Kali."
The elemental shook its head. "Yes I remember now."
"Well let's get started then." Malcolm held his hands out, gesticulating wildly as he rattled off his plan. "I thought to make a new canal we could just drag a river there and let erosion create it for us. Would that be possible do you think?
"Easily, provided you've been doing the proper training exercises I instructed you." A slight twitch of the shoulder it stood on did not escape the elemental's notice.
"Yes, of course I have." He lied.
Kali's body made a rushing noise that somehow sounded accusatory but did not push the matter, instead adopting a commanding teacher's candor. "Close your eyes and imagine the water flowing out to meet you. Do not move closer to the water, draw it out to meet you. Through our bond you are its master."
Malcolm entered a similar trance he had adopted to summon Kali in the first place. He breathed in and out in time with the natural pulse of the shore and the elemental on his shoulder. He imagined the water flowing out of the lake to meet him in defiance of nature. When the water met Malcolm's hand in his mind's eye he felt a cold wetness on his hand and could not suppress opening his eyes to observe his accomplishment.
A tendril of water, just as it appeared in his mind, existed for all of a brief second before crashing to the ground in a wet thud.
"You haven't been practicing." Kali surged with irritation. He could see froth on the edges of the elemental's body from the corner of his eye. "You are too impatient."
Malcolm glanced morosely at the now damp patch of earth. "You know," he sighed laboriously. "I've been at this for almost half a year I thought I'd be better at it by now."
"Our bond alone allows you to skip miles ahead of conventional practitioners but you still do not know how to control your energy properly. You release it wildly and without purpose. For the manipulation of water it requires a constant rhythm of power and ebb and flow. If that stream becomes erratic you lose control." Kali smoothed out into the metered instructor's tone it had before. "Try it once more but this time keep your eyes shut. Listen to nothing but the currents of my form and feel nothing but the wet touch of water against your hand."
Taking the sage advice of his burbling teacher to heart, Malcolm once again summoned the image of a tendril of water and once again synced his breathing with the sounds of Kali and finally felt the same touch of water against his hand.
"Turn around," Instructed the elemental.
Malcolm did so.
