Renegade's Magic
“I want to see the rock.” My father spoke with sudden strength. “I want to know what is so unique about it. Let me see the rock.”
“I told you before, sir. It has been misplaced. I cannot show it to you. You must take my word for it that it shows a most uncommon mix of elements. It will be of great interest to those who study geology, but likely laymen will only find it boring. Scholars of the origins of the earth will be intrigued if they can view its place of origin.”
As I danced, I shook my head. The man was lying. He had no scholarly interest in that stone. There was something else about that rock, something of monetary value. I was sure of it, though I did not know enough geology to say what it might be. Then, unnervingly, my father’s eyes met mine. He did not stare through me; he seemed to really see me. In response to the shaking of my head, he slowly shook his own. “No,” he said, and swung his gaze to Stiet. “No. You are not telling me the full story. And even when Sergeant Duril returns, he will not help you. Not until you are honest with us. And if my son lives”—his voice grew stronger—“if my son lives, he will come home. Don’t dangle that pale little boy before me like bait. He’s barely out of short trousers, and my daughter has told me she does not wish to marry so young. She’ll tell you so herself.” He lifted his voice suddenly. “Yaril! Yaril, I want you!” And for a moment he sounded like the father I recalled from my youth rather than the man crazed by my failure at the Academy and broken by the grief of his plague losses.
The dancing of my distant body intruded again in my thoughts. Kinrove knew how to express the magic only as dance, and at his bidding, at his summons, I danced. How had I expressed the magic? I suddenly wondered, and then speculated that perhaps words had been my strongest manifestation of it. The journal, the hastily sketched map, even the letters that had flown between Carsina and Yaril and Epiny and myself. I felt something in the distant physicality. Water flowing down my back. Feeders were pouring cooling water over me. I felt it trickle and flow. Somewhere, I thirsted. I did not stop dancing, but opened my mouth and someone trickled water into it. Olikea? Perhaps.
When Yaril entered the room, I knew what I had to do. A furrow creased her brow and she suddenly clasped herself in an embrace. “Is there a draft in here?” she demanded, and then hurried about the room, drawing curtains and checking to be sure that the casement windows were securely closed and latched. That done, she hurried up to my father, her skirts rustling and her feet tapping on the floor. Those simple sounds, so often ignored, suddenly seemed a part of the music and I danced with her. Her words seemed a song when she said, “Here I am, Father. What did you need?”
“I need an answer!” Abruptly my father slapped his palm against his leg, as if somehow Yaril had been deceiving him and he was upbraiding her for it.
“This man’s son—his adopted son, this Caulder. Do you wish to be engaged to him?”