COP S2.3 Why Water?
I’d read about extreme treatments used on those that couldn’t, or wouldn’t, reject their power.
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Previously on…
Tass took Lyn to a secret cave filled with fryn. There they played question and answer until Tass started to tell the story of when he went into ruins where the chamber was.
Tass stared at the water, a distance in his eyes. “I woke up outside with my father standing over me. He kept asking me about Tae, but I couldn’t remember what happened. Only after. Later, when they brought me to the healer, did it all come back. Now I can remember every bit of it, even when I want to forget.”
“Did you ever find him?”
He shook his head and looked like he was about to be sick. “No. When we got to Kenuport, my father rounded up a search party, but no one would go into the woods. They looked all around it, called out, but he never appeared.”
“I’m sorry. I can’t imagine what that was like. But I know what it feels like to see it, to need to find it.” Only a strong sense of self preservation had made me leave once I realized I would die if I kept going. Something occurred to me then. “Did you try to scan, to find Tae? Is that when you saw it?”
“I didn’t even know I was a senpann. No one in my family has magic. Only after, with the fryn and the healer, did I understand.”
Usually magic skills showed up early in childhood. But after the purge began, many families suppressed them, forcing young ones to ignore or hide them. I’d read about extreme treatments used on those that couldn’t, or wouldn’t, reject their power. Sientin had theorized the trauma had likely caused generations to forget they ever had magic. Everyone probably had some abilities, even if they never manifested in an obvious way. Perhaps the trauma Tass went through had actually opened his abilities.
“You see now, why the healer wanted you to know the stories. I was just an accident. But two of us? Both with the same skills, both befriended by the fryn when young, both connected to the most evil magic in the land…”
I didn’t like where he was going. Those coincidences didn’t mean we were tied to some mysterious ancient magical war. We were tied together with the Demeid, though.
It was time to hear the healer out.
“I’m not saying I agree there’s anything going on here…not like you are implying. But I’ll listen to what the healer has to say about it. Even if it is only so I can get this thing out of me. Will you take me there?”
Tass pointed at the pool. “We just need to jump in.”
I stepped closer and leaned over the edge. “Jump in?” The glow seemed to come from the water itself, not something in it like I’d thought. The surface still rippled, though nothing swam in it. A pattern phased in and out, almost like a whirlpool that formed and vanished faster than the mind could comprehend what it saw. It was a struggle not to read if there was magic in it. The fryn were all around, even if they’d become invisible again as Tass and I calmed down. “You want me to jump in?” What was it with him and water?
“That’s what I said. Feet first.”
I continued to stare at the pool, my feet not moving at all.
“You don’t like water much, do you?”
“I like it just fine.” I leaned forward a little. “In a cup. Added to a stew. A drizzle on high terrain. Those are fine.” My head spun, and I stood straight up and took a step back.
He raised his eyebrow at me. “I see. Someday I’m going to ask why that is, but if you won’t go in the pool, we have to go back to Yiat,” he gestured to the wall where the portal was, “and walk back to the cottage.”
“Sounds good to me.”
“It sounds exhausting to me. Let’s go in together.” He held out his hand.
“How about you go first?” I ignored his hand.
“Because you won’t come in after me. You didn’t even want to walk through the waterfall.” He stepped closer, his hand open even farther. “I have no plans to drown, or to let you drown.”
I looked back and forth between his hand and the pool before shaking my head.
He let out a growl and put his hands on his hips. “You are doing a good job of making me want to drown you, though.” He rubbed his face and returned my stare.
An image popped into my head. The pool had a thin, blue film over it, so thin that from the side it was invisible. I frowned. The pool was filled with water, much deeper than I was tall so what was that image supposed to be? “Did you do that? Are you a telepath too?”
“No. What do you think I did?”
“Nothing.” It didn’t seem like he was lying, which meant the fryn did it. Or something else, something dark and deceptive talking through him. With so many fryn around, could that have happened?
“Have I done or said a single thing to cause you to distrust me?”
“Ah, yeah.” I pointed to my shoulder and feigned being unconscious.
“Besides that, and that was necessary for your own good and your friend’s. And I told you how I did it.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“I told you as much as I could.” He let out an exasperated sigh. “The fryn trust me. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
The whole fryn friend thing was still pretty new to me, though my childhood memory made me trust them. The friend of my friend is…my friend? That wasn’t how things usually played out in my experience, but then, the fryn weren’t just any old friend.
“Ok.” I cringed on the inside as I said the word. I rarely trusted this easy. “We can go together, but if I drown, I will come back as a dragon, hunt you down and burn you alive.”
He opened his mouth, then closed it again before saying, “Fine. Come here next to the edge.”
An irrational fear that he was going to push me in made me want to run in the opposite direction, but I took his outstretched hand. He pulled me close, then wrapped his arms around me.
“Now.”
I stepped off the edge into the water with him, as if letting him lead in a dance. Still, I braced for the impact of the water, but it never came. There was a sense of water rushing over me, like when I went through the waterfall, but nothing like being submerged and unable to breathe.
“You can open your eyes now,” Tass said.
I did. In front of me was his chest, the slit of the tunic showing a silver spiral pendant against his skin. He radiated warmth and his hands still held me firm. I pushed back, and he released me, slowly, then gripped my hand. I tried to yank it away, but he motioned behind me. I had almost stepped off the stone bridge into the pool below the waterfall. It all clicked. One portal from the front door of the cottage, one in a back alley of Yiat, another in the cave, and probably the waterfall, too. At least three. How did a backwater healer have access to the forbidden, at least hidden, magic of portals?
“How many portals do you have?” I asked after I’d extricated myself to a safe spot.
He shrugged and gave me a half grin.
I didn’t like the flutter in my chest when he did. “Shall we then?” I glanced over at the cottage and the luminous flowers dancing in the garden.
“Of course.” He turned and headed toward the door.
I followed him, not too close. The magic in the space thrust itself on me again, but I could handle it now that I knew it was there. When we got to the door, I paused, preparing myself for when it all disappeared. I’d be dammed if I was going to faint into his arms again.
And I didn’t, but I faltered as the sea of patterns and energy that almost overwhelmed my senses was sucked away in an instant. No one seemed to notice.
The healer, Tass’ uncle, and Steffan were at the table, the familiar cups resting in front of them. Steffan’s face lit up, then she looked away and fiddled with a napkin under the drink. I could see the purple mark on her bottom lip. It was smaller than I’d thought it’d be, but still obvious even from a distance. The fact she seemed otherwise fine helped push away the guilt from my part in how she got it. Though if anyone asked me, I’d still argue I had nothing to do with it.
The healer stood and came toward us. “I was hoping you’d come back.”
“He didn’t give me much choice,” I said and pointed at Tass.
He gave me a stunned look. “You came looking for me, remember?”
“But I didn’t ask to come here. I just wanted to talk in Yiat.”
“You did ask. And here I was thinking you were going to be less of a pain now that you know…now that we talked.”
I wanted to smack him. I wasn’t trying to be a pain. Not then, at least.
The healer gave him a knowing look and glanced back at Steffan. “Well, however you got here doesn’t matter.” He stared at Tass’ uncle.
The man’s eyebrows lifted, and he nodded. “Well, young lady, now that you’ve had time to rest, would you like to see the garden? I think it will surprise you.” He stood and offered Steffan his hand.
I had to wonder if offering hands was a skill they taught from the time they could walk in Tass’ family. Maybe I just never met such polite people. Well, Tass wasn’t exactly polite all the time.
Steffan got the hint and stood up without taking the hand.
When she passed me I asked, “You feeling ok?”
She still wouldn’t make eye contact with me, but nodded and hurried after Tass’ uncle.
“I guess she’s pretty mad at me,” I said, looking at the healer for confirmation.
“No. That’s not why…but that’s for her to tell you.” He moved back to his chair. “Please sit down.”
I hesitated as Tass took one of the open seats. Was I really going to do this? It felt like a turning point, like once I’d heard what he had to say, I’d never be able to go back to the life I had before. I’d already lost that though. The thought settled like a ball of lead on my chest. The plan for my life had already changed. I just didn’t know what this new version was. At least if I heard them out, I might get back some control instead of feeling like a barrel rolling down a rock-strewn mountainside about to burst at any moment.
The healer watched me as I sat, then launched into his tale.
Next episode on Saturday January 25, 2024.
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