I got a weird sensation when we arrived, like
something monumental was about to happen.
The plates of alien food were already served and we
were about the last to arrive. This crew was much larger than on the other ship
and consisted of teenagers several years younger than myself to people who I
was sure were already dead. I stayed away from them. There were women there,
too, and not all the men looked as brutish as on the previous ship.
I noticed the women and the few very refined men were
paler while the less classy men were much darker. It seemed fair skin was
considered beautiful and tan coloring was a sign of hard work, but everybody
was treated respectfully. Judging by everyone I had seen so far, there were no
distinguishable races.
There was also a difference in the way the teenagers
acted. They only spoke to themselves unless an adult spoke to one, and they
were careful to keep their voices down. Though several of the men only focused
on their food, every woman was talking to someone. It wasn’t like on the less
crowded ship, where there was very little conversation while eating.
No one seemed to notice us as we took three seats at
the end of one of the two tables. Edward collected several of the dishes he
could reach and, after putting some on his own plate, passed them to me. I made
sure to go easy on what he didn’t get a lot of in case it didn’t taste good;
however, I had no intention of tasting my food.
I was very disappointed to see that he used his
spatula/spoon thing. I opened my mouth to ask why, but my voice didn’t work.
He smirked but continued eating.
“Never eat with
your hands in front of women, girls, or very young children.”
I heard his
voice in my head.
I wanted him to teach me that. Although I knew it was
somehow detectable, because the man at the bar in the restaurant knew Divina
used magic, it was more practical for me to learn to talk to them in telepathy
than to
think
really hard at them. I frowned at Divina, who was paying
very close attention to trapping her food.
“She’s not the average woman, and on a ship full
of all men with only one woman, it’s customary to be natural but polite around
her. And I naturally don’t like food utensils.”
I picked up the spoon like he did, closer to the
spoon part than Divina did. It was very tricky to eat the different colored
food. One was dry slices of meat. I looked around to see that no one was
watching me before slowly reaching my hand towards my food, keeping my eyes on
Edward to make sure he didn’t see me. Divina slapped my hand and growled at me.
I tried to force my food back on my spoon with no
success. Divina took it from me, turned it over, and stabbed the meat with the
sharp end. She handed the spoon back and I picked the meat off with my teeth.
It was easier, but I had to be very careful not to stab myself.
The boy across from me had immediately caught my
attention the moment I saw down. He was about seventeen with short black hair
and a slight tan, which was fairly average. He was slim, but obviously still
growing. His clothes were comparatively elegant; his shirt was black with a
high collar and a gold emblem over his heart. What I noticed first and foremost
about his appearance was that he had one purple eye one blue.
For most of the meal, I had been focused on my food,
but it wasn’t natural for me to look at my food the entire time. He must have
felt my awkward gawking because he met my eyes. There was no one his own age
around him, so I guess he figured I was in a close enough age range to risk
talking to. When he said something to me, I nearly choked on my food. I
couldn’t say anything back (not that I’d know what to say) and I really didn’t
want to offend him. So instead, I stared at him wide-eyed as if startled. He
frowned and I nudged Divina in the arm, not breaking eye contact with the
teenager.
She leaned forward and said something to the boy. He
sat back, looking as relieved as I felt. I paid exclusive attention to my food
from then on.
Divina, Edward, and I finished eating quickly and
left for the room before they brought out the drinks. It was obviously more
dangerous for me in a larger crowd. When we got to the cabin, Divina pushed me
to the bed and started searching her bag. She pulled out the little spray
bottle, sat next to me, and sprayed the cold concoction down my throat.
I coughed and choked before growling. I was getting
good at growling, which, to my limited experience, was a common method of
communication on Duran. “Never again! Never! You keep your little potions and
magic tricks away from me!”
“Quiet, someone might hear. It was necessary. Even if
you whispered anything, people would hear. We have very good hearing.”
“What did that guy ask me at dinner?”
“I don’t know, I wasn’t paying attention. Sorry about
that,” Divina said. “I will need to replace the spell when we leave, but it’ll
only be for a few minutes. There’re just too many people here.”
“Why can’t you just teach me a translation spell?” I
asked.
They both frowned. “Magic doesn’t work that way,”
Edward said.
“What do you mean it doesn’t work that way? In my Guardian
dream, my book translated for me.”
“That is beyond us. The books were created by the
gods with their superior power. I don’t know everything, and I don’t know every
spell, but in my many years of experience, I never found a way to use magic to
translate languages. Now, I’ll teach you to set a fire. From there I can teach
you to actually make something blow up. Where are your old shoes?”
“I used them to scare away the draxuni,” Divina said.
“I have a science book you can set on fire.”
Edward growled with annoyance. “You cannot burn
books.”
“It was written by Fustaka-so Shimiro on his
perspectives.”
Edward’s expression softened. “Oh. Well, I guess that
it’s okay then.”
Divina fished around in her bag before pulling out a
big black book with many Sudo words. It occurred to me once again that I would
have been able to adapt to Duran better if I were Asian.
“This is going to be very dangerous. Whatever you do,
remain calm,” Edward warned.
“Are you sure he has to learn this?” Divina asked.
“Do you know how easy it is to burn down a wooden ship? Not to mention the mogi
in my bag that will blow this ship to Anoshii.”
That was a great thing to say to keep me calm.
“You really shouldn’t carry that stuff around with
you,” Edward said. He took her book and handed it to me.
“Why can’t I just light the little lamp?” I asked,
looking at the lantern on the table.
“It’s important right now that you hold the object
you burn so you don’t set anything else on fire. The book is larger, so you
aren’t actually setting the fire under your fingers. We can put it out if you
accidentally set anything else on fire.”
“What if I burn myself?”
“That’s a very likely possibility. Clear your mind
and gather your energy,” he said. I gathered a lot more energy than usual
before he told me to stop. “It is easier to control fire than to create it, but
it’s still one of the four elements. Imagine the book heating up as you pour
energy into it. The energy is hot but you’re immune to it. Don’t forget that it
cannot hurt you.”
“Because then it can hurt me?”
“Right. Your energy will heat it because you want it
to. It’ll become so hot that it sets aflame,” he said.
I focused. It was simple like the water. I imagined
the book getting hot enough that it started smoking as I poured energy into it.
I imagined it so strongly that I was almost surprised to realize that it was
actually beginning to smolder. The hard black cover was crinkling up and smoke
was starting to rise.
“More energy. Fire takes a lot of energy. The book is
fuel, but you have to create the fire with energy. ”
It wasn’t difficult to push more energy into the
book. I was careful to keep the energy flowing only out of my hands and into
the leather cover. The smoking increased before it finally burst into flames.
Well, more like the edge lit up with a tiny little flare.
Divina looked up, clearly listening to something,
before adopting an angered expression. She stood, but Edward pulled her back
down. “Leave it,” he said.
“I want to find out what’s going on,” she argued.
“What? What’s going on?” I asked. There was a loud
crackling and the flame grew much wider, seeming almost as if it were angry.
“Do not worry about it; it’s only a delay in the
ship’s arrival. Focus on the fire. Don’t let it burn out of control,” he said.
I focused on controlling the flames, which sounded
simple, but it started dimming down. I didn’t think leather was particularly
good fuel for fire, and it hadn’t reached the paper within the cover yet.
“Keep it going. You need more energy.”
I started gathering energy and I pushing it out
faster and the flame flared up enthusiastically. I couldn’t control where the
flame spread, but I could control whether or not it spread by how much energy I
gave it.
“Good. Okay. Let it go. Slowly stop the flow of energy.
Keep your focus.”
I stopped taking energy into myself and slowed the
output until the flame died. “Why is the ship delayed?” I asked when the energy
flow was fully cut off and the smoke faded. I was kind of dizzy.
Divina ignored me, stood, and left.
Edward shook his head. “She’s going to find out now.
There’s likely to be a crowd of angry people up there. I guess this is fine;
more practice time. However, now that Divina isn’t in hearing range, do you
think you can go on without a rest?”
“Um… I think I can go on until I’m too tired. I don’t
know how much I can do before I get tired. You’re probably a better judge than
I am, since you have trained people before. I don’t know where my limit is with
magic.”
“I think you’re much stronger than my former apprentices,
but I also have a history of working them too hard.”
“They weren’t Guardians and the books weren’t in
danger.”
“I’m not trying to push you too hard, only to get you
ready to protect your book if something happens. I don’t know if anything is happening,
but you need to be ready even if it isn’t. Divina is right, though; I can only
hurt you by pushing you too hard.”
“But who’s to say what’s too hard? So far, the only
thing that really knocked me out was the combat training, and I’m already
thinking up excuses to get out of that.”
“Do you really think I would fall for silly excuses?
Do you think none of my other apprentices ever tried to smart his way out of
chores or lessons?”
“Did any of them make a sport out of excuses? I
tortured my gym teacher for making me do sports. He knew it was me but he never
had any proof.”
“Ronez got paid leave from work for almost a year for
a heart transplant when he never had one; all that happened was he got in a
fight over some girl and got cut. I know the little tricks on your world and
mine. I’ve had many years to learn them. Excuses are child’s play.”
“Well, I’ve always found that the older the guy is,
the easier he is to run circles around.”
“I’m not old; I’m immortal. How did we go from
talking about your endurance in magic to talking about my age? You don’t even
know my age.”
“Two thousand and forty-seven years. Give or take
months or something till your birthday,” I said. He frowned. “On that book
Ronez gave you for your two thousandth birthday, he wrote the year below his
name. It was forty-seven years ago.”
Edward grinned. “That is very observant of you. If
you really want to be impressive, try to figure out how old Divina is.”
I nodded acceptance at the challenge just as she was
walking in. “Divina, how old are you?” I asked.
Edward laughed and she gave him a look. “Did this
idiot tell you to figure out my age?” she asked me. I nodded and she sighed
before sitting down. “I would tell you if he wouldn’t find out, but he’d
probably get it out of you.”
“Why would you tell him but not me?” Edward asked.
“He’s cute,” she beamed. Then her grin faded. “The
ship got turned around and now we won’t get there until about sunrise. That
could work out well if we arrive before sunrise; very few people will get up
before then.
“We need to change our plan.” She regarded me with
grim seriousness. “There were more people heading to Anoshii than I had
expected. We were talking about it and decided my potion wouldn’t work with so
many people around when we get there.”
“But I was convincing,” I said.
“Yes, you were,” Edward said. “You don’t seem to
understand how unusual it is for people on Duran to be deaf, mute, blind,
autistic, or suffer psychological disorders. It just isn’t normal. Now, people
have no problem with wizards as long as they follow the rules, but they can’t
know you’re from another world nor have anything to do with the gods.”
“In other words, playing deaf and mute will be too
unbelievable when there’re many people to pick at it. You may not realize it,
but you respond to sounds reflexively. Most of them have never met a deaf or
mute person, so they shouldn’t notice anything weird, but it only takes one
mistake. Instead, when people talk to you, I’m going to tell you what to say
with telepathy and you pretend you know what they are saying,” Divina said.
“But talking in my mind is magic, and you can’t use
magic on Anoshii.”
“That’s right. However, they can’t say anything about
it if they don’t catch me. I’m very good at shielding my magic. Talking while
in the city might be difficult.”
“No one is going to be paying us any attention,”
Edward disagreed.
“Save for merchants.” She looked at me. “If there is
a lot of noise around and nobody is trying to talk to us, we can deflect sound
so that nobody can hear us. Just be careful where you speak. Now, what has
Edward taught you in Sudo? I think we should take the chance to develop your vocabulary.
Do you agree, or would you whether push more magic at him?” she asked Edward.