Far off, in Trickby, Lorit lay ensnared in the web they’d cast over him. He was tightly bound, unable to move. He experienced the pain of each cut the priest made on his sister. It seared deep into his soul, infusing him with anger at each new stroke of the knife. He struggled to escape, or just to reach out to her.
He had to save her from the priest.
He renewed his struggle, consuming the last of his energy recklessly, but unsuccessfully, trying to break free until he could only lay there, exhausted. The pain went on for what felt like an eternity. Lorit felt every cut the priest made, but he was powerless to do anything about it.
Anger raged up in him. He kicked at the marble tomb, trying to break free. He cast about, looking for any source of power he could use to help Onolt. There was nothing he could use to power his magic.
The pain abruptly abated.
He reached for the connection he’d shared with Onolt since her illness had brought them so close.
It was gone.
The previous winter.
The fever had already taken two of Lorit’s cousins. It came on with no warning. One day they were laughing and playing without a care in the world, the next, they were deathly ill, burning with fever. Those that the fever took had quickly wasted away and died. Now it had Onolt. The priests said it was punishment for some wrongdoing. The doctor said it was a disease the swine carried that had learned how to survive in humans. Whatever the source, it had taken hold of Onolt.
Onolt had been an annoyance to Lorit for most of their lives together. She was the baby girl in the house and always underfoot. She had followed him everywhere when she was little. Shyenn said it was because she adored her older brother. Lorit thought that was what mothers were supposed to say. He'd often thought that his life would be better off without her, but he didn’t want her to die. Just to leave him alone once in a while.
Lorit heard her groaning and went to comfort her. He navigated the house in the dark, making his way to her bed. He leaned over her, listening to see if she was awake, or just calling out in her sleep. She’d cried out in her sleep often enough in the last few days.
“Lorit? Is that you?” she asked.
“Yes.” He reached for a match and lit the candle on her dresser, then sat on the bed beside her. The thick covers were heaped on top of her, until she was almost lost amidst them. He reached out and touched her forehead. It was ablaze with the fever.
“I’m so thirsty,” Onolt said. She shifted beneath the mound and reached out to him.
“I’ll get you some water.” He found the pitcher that his mother had filed before they retired for the evening. He poured the rest of it into her cup and held it out to her. She grasped his hands in hers and guided it to her lips. Even her hands were burning up as she quickly downed the entire cup.
“More,” she said simply when it was gone, panting from drinking the entire cup without taking a breath.
“I’ll have to go get some more.” He started for the door.
“Leave the candle,” she cried out weakly.
“Why? Are you suddenly afraid of the dark?” he asked, setting the candle back on the dresser. There was enough of a moon that he could make his way to the kitchen and back without the aid of the candle.
“No. It’s the dream. When I close my eyes all I see is someone coming after me. They tie me up and throw me in the fire. It’s horrible. Don’t let them get me.”
“It’s just the fever,” Lorit said. “No one’s going to get you.”
“I know… But it feels so real. Lorit, I’m scared.” He could see that she was genuinely afraid. She was a pest, but she was also his sister and Lorit felt sorry for her.
“Don’t worry. I’ll be right back, and I’ll sit up with you,” he said. He made his way to the kitchen and pumped the pitcher full of water. It felt cold as ice coming from the cistern in the dead of winter. It was winter that made the fever so bad. You couldn’t open the windows and let fresh air into the room. It was far too cold.
“Here,” Lorit said as he filled another cup for her. Her small hands burned his skin after handling the cold water. Lorit took the cloth from beside the bed and dipped it into the bowl of water his mother had left on the dresser. He wrung out the excess and placed it on her forehead, gently guiding her to lie down.
“Lorit, it burns,” Onolt said weakly.
Lorit held her hand in his. He didn’t say anything. He let the heat of her skin soak into him until his hands were sweaty. He saw his sister lying there, not sick and burning with fever, but healthy and full of energy, the way she usually was. He focused his entire being on recalling how she ran and played in the yard on a sunny day. He recalled how she was quick with a joke and how she was always following him like a puppy dog.
Night after night, Lorit sat up with her like this. Most of the children had succumbed to the fever in just a few days. None had lasted more than a week. Onolt held on for almost three weeks, drifting in and out of her fevered sleep. Lorit sat with her quietly, talking about the farm, and how he wanted to see the world, and what he wanted to do and be when he grew up. Constantly he poured his thoughts out, visualizing her as healthy and vibrant once again.
He sat with her and woke her when the dreams came. He washed her forehead with water and brought her a cup when she was thirsty. Their mother cautioned Lorit that few children survived the fever, and he should not get his hopes up. It made him all the more determined to sit with her, until the end, if that was what was coming.
One night, Lorit felt her skin cool down. The fever broke, and she started to sweat profusely. She threw off the covers, kicking the heavy blankets back. This time he needed a dry towel to soak up the sweat, and he knew she was going to make it.
Early the next fall.
Lorit and Onolt were working their way to the high pasture to count the kine so they could prepare the barns for the herd where they would all have a warm place for winter. Lorit reached into his pack and pulled out a large green apple. He took a bite. It was juicy but sour. “I wish the red apples were ready,” he said.
“They’ll be ready soon,” Onolt said as she carefully polished her own apple. “It won’t be but a few weeks. By the time we gather the kine in, they'll be ready. They always are.”
“I can’t wait,” Lorit complained
.
He sat back against the old oak tree and closed his eyes. “I really miss the taste. Just imagine it, Onolt. You grasp that shiny red apple in your hand. I can see the skin. It’s almost smooth enough to reflect your face, like a mirror. The dimples on the bottom make a perfect stand for all that crispness. The curve of the stem with its little knobby end, where it was picked from the tree, pokes out of the dimple on the top.” He smiled at the thought of it, describing every delicious sensation as if that would make it real.
“You take your fist bite, and as your teeth break the skin, the sweet juice rushes into your mouth. You don’t so much hear it crunch as feel it through your whole body.”
Lorit,” Onolt screamed. “What are you doing? What’s happening?”
Her sudden panic pulled at Lorit who was still lost in his reverie. Thoughts of the juicy red apple fought him as he opened his eyes. He could faintly see Onolt looking at him in stark fear. She was unclear, somewhat fuzzy around the edges. She pointed excitedly to the blanket in front of him.
Lorit felt light-headed. He struggled to turn his attention towards her. The vision of the apple in his mind fought for his attention as he tried to make sense of what Onolt was saying.
She was clearly terrified by something, but he couldn’t quite pull his thoughts together…
There, on the blanket in front of him, was a tiny ball of mist. It gradually assumed the shape of an apple. It grew more solid and darker. Finally, it took the concrete form of the apple he’d just portrayed in his mind. It turned red and solidified right before his eyes.
As the mist faded from around the fresh red apple, his mind slowly cleared. He took a moment to absorb the vision that now sat peacefully before him. Then he saw the look of shock and horror on Onolt’s face.
Gingerly, he reached out to touch the apparition. It was precisely as he’d imagined it, plump and red with the promise of sweet juiciness. He picked it up and turned it over, examining it carefully. He could find no flaw.
“What did you do?” Onolt demanded. “Where did that come from?”
“I don’t know. I was just picturing this in my mind when you started screaming. I was wishing I had a sweet red apple instead of one of those sour green ones. I didn’t do anything. What did you see?”
“You were sitting back and describing the apple when the mist just formed in front of you. It was light and sort of large and fuzzy at first. Then it started to shrink and get denser, taking on the form of the apple. It finally solidified into that,” she said pointing to the apple.
“What happened, Onolt? It was all so fuzzy in my head.”
“I think you’re a Wizard. You just conjured up an apple!” she exclaimed. She still looked frightened, Lorit thought, but not just of the mist that had settled into the form of the apple. She looked as if she were afraid of him.
“Don’t be afraid, Onolt. I’m sure it’s nothing.” He put the apple into the pack and started to pick up the remainder of their lunch hoping that the normal activity of clean up would ease the tension.
“Lorit!” she demanded. “What are you going to do?”
Lorit could see that she was not going to let this pass. “I don’t know what happened,” he said. “This doesn’t mean I am a Wizard… I’m not sure what it means.”
Lorit grabbed the pack and stood up. He shook out the blanket they’d used for lunch and folded it into his pack. He slung the pack onto his shoulder and headed for the trail without looking back at his sister.
“Lorit, you know what this means,” Onolt insisted as she caught up with him. “You have to present yourself to the priest at the temple. You can’t just pretend nothing happened.”
“Don’t worry about it, Onolt.” He stooped down and pried a stubborn rock out of the hard-packed dirt. He tossed it into the rough grass of the meadow. “I never really dreamed of being a Wizard, but I sure don’t want to be a priest. That much I know.”
“They’ll find you, Lorit. They always do. I don’t know how, but everyone says they will eventually find you. If you try to hide, they’ll kill you.” She grasped his hand and pulled him to a halt. She straightened her diminutive frame as if to reach his height. She looked him straight in the eye.
“I don’t want anything to happen to you, Lorit. I need you around to take care of me,” she scolded him. “When I get old and married, you’re going to be the favorite uncle to my children. You can’t run away from this, and you can’t hide either.”
“Please, give me time to think, Onolt,” Lorit replied. He gently took her hand from his arm and grasped it in his. He turned and started walking again, pulling her along with him. “I just don’t know what I am going to do yet. This is all so sudden.”
They walked along in silence for a while. Lorit was lost in his thoughts but kept hold of Onolt’s hand as they climbed to the next rise in the meadow. From the top of the rise, they could see the homestead spread out before them. In the distance, Mistbury Tye was clearly visible, now that the morning fog had burned off.
Near the center of town sat the temple of Ran. It stood out from the rest of the buildings, not so much because it was any larger or fancier, but because of the towering spire that jutted upwards as if trying to pierce the sky. “That’s where I would have to go,” Lorit muttered.
“I know you don’t think much of the priests. They’re a little strange, I’ll admit that, but you really have to go and tell them what happened. Maybe they’ll let you live at home while you’re training.” She didn’t sound as if she believed her own words.
“You know better than that, Onolt. If I go to the temple, they’ll send me away. I won’t see you again for years, if ever. I don’t want that. It’s not that I want to stay here. I just don’t want anyone else dictating my future. How would that be any better than father deciding what my life will be?”
Lorit picked a small stone out of the grass and threw it with all his might into the meadow. “How would that be any different?” he demanded.
“I know you, Lorit,” she said softly. “You’re going to get yourself in a lot of trouble over this.” She just looked at him in silence, waiting for him to answer.
Lorit stood silently gazing at the town, wondering what he was going to do. He’d certainly had no indication that he was anything remarkable; he just knew that running the homestead was not his lot in life. Now he was starting to believe it.
“Are you going to tell me what happened yet?” she asked.
“I think so,” Lorit replied. He leaned back and put his hands behind him for support. “It was all so strange.
“I was thinking about the red apples, remembering how delicious and juicy they were. The vision of the apple in my imagination got more and more real as I described it to you. Then I got a little caught up in the vision. That’s when I heard you scream.
“I was light headed and couldn’t pull myself out of the vision,” he went on. “It was as if I was trapped in my imagination, until finally I was able to see you pointing at something.” He sat up again and brushed the dust from his hand before continuing. “It was all so strange. I couldn’t force myself to think clearly. I couldn’t see you clearly, or the apple, until everything finally started to sharpen up.
“It was only as the mist cleared around the apple, that my head cleared. Then I was able to think clearly again. It was scary, Onolt. I didn’t know what was happening.”
“I don’t think we want to take this home with us,” he said as he reached into the pack and pulled out the apple. It looked just like an ordinary red apple, except that it was nearly flawless. Lorit hefted it in his hand and looked it over carefully. He took out his knife and sliced into it. The core made a perfect star shape, just as always when he cut it into pieces.
He raised it to his mouth, anticipating the crisp sound as he bit into it.