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edenfalling---------------------------------------------
Ashes, part 2
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At lunch, Nabim passed on a report from the owl tower that the magician's pursuit had been dealt with -- Riam mentally translated that to 'killed,' and wished people would stop tiptoeing around violent death in his presence. Zalir was heading home via the taint-house, which meant at least one serious injury. Riam hissed through his teeth, hoping the magician had taken any hurt he caused on his own body instead of bringing ill luck to anyone from Zerlon.
Then he closed his eyes and pressed against the cool weight of the binding in his mind until he felt calmer. The magician didn't deserve his anger, and Riam hated to wish harm on anyone.
He would have worried about Zalir and the others all afternoon, but Tir never tolerated distraction during weapons practice. In the interest of keeping himself uninjured, Riam shoved away everything but the body-mind rhythm of arms and feet and his bronze-capped staff, poring all his attention into guessing his sister's next strike.
He guessed wrongly or too slowly, as always, and only the greater reach of his staff kept Tir from knocking him down more than twice. As he lay on the packed earth of the practice room, catching his breath, Tir sighed and sheathed her sword. "You have the height and the strength, and there's nothing wrong with your speed. I don't know why you're such a hopeless waste of good fighting blood."
"Nobody can be good at everything," Riam said, and shrugged.
"I suppose I'd rather know you're safe at home holding the boundaries than out riding the tainted lands," Tir conceded. "Still. There must be a way to make this come clear in your bones. But not today. Go train Sular like you wanted to do."
Riam scrambled to his feet, propped the staff in its rack against the wall, and hurried away from the guards' wing as fast as he could while still pretending to dignity.
Unlike Tir, Sular was easy to find -- he simply eased into the freestanding building that held the various kitchens and asked the gangly boy chopping onions where Purrar had put Riam's apprentice to work. Then he slipped between busy people over to the baking room, and leaned in the doorway to watch Sular as she worked.
Her broad fingers were steady and firm as she kneaded dough for whatever dish Purrar had planned for supper, or perhaps for tomorrow's breakfast. Her face was peaceful, marked only by laugh lines around her eyes -- a warm face, a kind face, a face that spoke of ease in her skin and her soul. Sular looked like a proper binder, the way Riam thought he never would, no matter that he had been marked out for his gifts before he was twelve years old.
Sular swore her sense of self and community were simply the result of life wearing away her hard edges, but Riam thought she held peace in her bones in a way he never could.
Sular, after all, had no secrets to hide.
Riam thought of Zalir riding to the taint-house, isolated on its tiny island at the river's bend, and pressed his hand against the oven-warmed stones of the doorway to remind himself where he was. Then he cleared his throat and said, "Sular?"
She looked up, hands stilling. "Riam! Are you free after all?"
"Until someone catches me and puts me to work," he said, smiling. "Meet me in the altar room as soon as you can slip away." Sular nodded, and Riam hurried out of the kitchens before Purrar could catch sight of him and claim his hands and time.
The altar room was still dim and cool, now lit through the west window -- blue water, a pure untainted ocean no one living had ever seen -- as much as the north. Two lamps flickered on the ledge that ran under the windows, near to exhausting their small allotments of pressed oil.
Riam picked up a lamp from the floor to the left of the curtained doorway and took a jug of oil from the other side. He poured oil into the shallow leaf-shaped lamp, made sure the wick was soaked, and clicked the sparker tongs until a tiny flame caught and grew.
"Zalir returns safely home. All in her care return safely home. The magician carries no disaster on the hem of his coat," Riam murmured. He set the lamp under the earth window, its colors muted without morning sun streaming through, and clapped his hands to seal his words.
Then he sat cross-legged on the mosaic floor and ran a mental hand along his bindings until Sular arrived in a clatter of beads.
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1) This is significantly shorter than yesterday's section, but I am tired and I need to be careful of metaphysics in the next part, because I am using Sular as an excuse for Riam to explain what being a binder is all about... and therefore explain some of what has gone wrong in their world.
Then on to supper and Morgalen's introduction.
2) The reason everyone assumes the as-yet-nameless magician is male is because of the cost of becoming a magician -- buying flashy personal power by cutting your life short and dooming your soul to be swallowed by an alternate universe when you die (and yes, in this world there are such things as souls, and people know they return to the world-as-a-collective-entity at death) is the sort of suicidal insanity displayed more often by young men than by women of any age. Obviously some women do make themselves into magicians, but Morgalen is the exception rather than the rule.
3) I have broken my no-editing rule already, but only because I'd made an egregious factual error in part 1. I forgot Zerlon is in the southern hemisphere, which means the midday sun should be slightly to the north, not the south. Oops. Anyway, that's fixed now and hopefully I will not forget again. Feel free to point out if I slip, though!
4) 775 words today, 2,600 total.
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In unrelated news, it looks as though Andrew Cuomo will win the New York governorship, rather than Carl Paladino. To which I say, thank goodness. Not that I am particularly enamored of Cuomo, nor do I find him especially trustworthy... but a dancing flea would be better than Paladino. That man is a bigoted loony.
I may comment on the rest of the election tomorrow, when all the results are in.
(I voted this morning on my way in to work. It is remarkably convenient living four very short blocks away from my polling place. *grin*)
Ashes, part 2
---------------------------------------------
At lunch, Nabim passed on a report from the owl tower that the magician's pursuit had been dealt with -- Riam mentally translated that to 'killed,' and wished people would stop tiptoeing around violent death in his presence. Zalir was heading home via the taint-house, which meant at least one serious injury. Riam hissed through his teeth, hoping the magician had taken any hurt he caused on his own body instead of bringing ill luck to anyone from Zerlon.
Then he closed his eyes and pressed against the cool weight of the binding in his mind until he felt calmer. The magician didn't deserve his anger, and Riam hated to wish harm on anyone.
He would have worried about Zalir and the others all afternoon, but Tir never tolerated distraction during weapons practice. In the interest of keeping himself uninjured, Riam shoved away everything but the body-mind rhythm of arms and feet and his bronze-capped staff, poring all his attention into guessing his sister's next strike.
He guessed wrongly or too slowly, as always, and only the greater reach of his staff kept Tir from knocking him down more than twice. As he lay on the packed earth of the practice room, catching his breath, Tir sighed and sheathed her sword. "You have the height and the strength, and there's nothing wrong with your speed. I don't know why you're such a hopeless waste of good fighting blood."
"Nobody can be good at everything," Riam said, and shrugged.
"I suppose I'd rather know you're safe at home holding the boundaries than out riding the tainted lands," Tir conceded. "Still. There must be a way to make this come clear in your bones. But not today. Go train Sular like you wanted to do."
Riam scrambled to his feet, propped the staff in its rack against the wall, and hurried away from the guards' wing as fast as he could while still pretending to dignity.
Unlike Tir, Sular was easy to find -- he simply eased into the freestanding building that held the various kitchens and asked the gangly boy chopping onions where Purrar had put Riam's apprentice to work. Then he slipped between busy people over to the baking room, and leaned in the doorway to watch Sular as she worked.
Her broad fingers were steady and firm as she kneaded dough for whatever dish Purrar had planned for supper, or perhaps for tomorrow's breakfast. Her face was peaceful, marked only by laugh lines around her eyes -- a warm face, a kind face, a face that spoke of ease in her skin and her soul. Sular looked like a proper binder, the way Riam thought he never would, no matter that he had been marked out for his gifts before he was twelve years old.
Sular swore her sense of self and community were simply the result of life wearing away her hard edges, but Riam thought she held peace in her bones in a way he never could.
Sular, after all, had no secrets to hide.
Riam thought of Zalir riding to the taint-house, isolated on its tiny island at the river's bend, and pressed his hand against the oven-warmed stones of the doorway to remind himself where he was. Then he cleared his throat and said, "Sular?"
She looked up, hands stilling. "Riam! Are you free after all?"
"Until someone catches me and puts me to work," he said, smiling. "Meet me in the altar room as soon as you can slip away." Sular nodded, and Riam hurried out of the kitchens before Purrar could catch sight of him and claim his hands and time.
The altar room was still dim and cool, now lit through the west window -- blue water, a pure untainted ocean no one living had ever seen -- as much as the north. Two lamps flickered on the ledge that ran under the windows, near to exhausting their small allotments of pressed oil.
Riam picked up a lamp from the floor to the left of the curtained doorway and took a jug of oil from the other side. He poured oil into the shallow leaf-shaped lamp, made sure the wick was soaked, and clicked the sparker tongs until a tiny flame caught and grew.
"Zalir returns safely home. All in her care return safely home. The magician carries no disaster on the hem of his coat," Riam murmured. He set the lamp under the earth window, its colors muted without morning sun streaming through, and clapped his hands to seal his words.
Then he sat cross-legged on the mosaic floor and ran a mental hand along his bindings until Sular arrived in a clatter of beads.
---------------
---------------
---------------
1) This is significantly shorter than yesterday's section, but I am tired and I need to be careful of metaphysics in the next part, because I am using Sular as an excuse for Riam to explain what being a binder is all about... and therefore explain some of what has gone wrong in their world.
Then on to supper and Morgalen's introduction.
2) The reason everyone assumes the as-yet-nameless magician is male is because of the cost of becoming a magician -- buying flashy personal power by cutting your life short and dooming your soul to be swallowed by an alternate universe when you die (and yes, in this world there are such things as souls, and people know they return to the world-as-a-collective-entity at death) is the sort of suicidal insanity displayed more often by young men than by women of any age. Obviously some women do make themselves into magicians, but Morgalen is the exception rather than the rule.
3) I have broken my no-editing rule already, but only because I'd made an egregious factual error in part 1. I forgot Zerlon is in the southern hemisphere, which means the midday sun should be slightly to the north, not the south. Oops. Anyway, that's fixed now and hopefully I will not forget again. Feel free to point out if I slip, though!
4) 775 words today, 2,600 total.
---------------
In unrelated news, it looks as though Andrew Cuomo will win the New York governorship, rather than Carl Paladino. To which I say, thank goodness. Not that I am particularly enamored of Cuomo, nor do I find him especially trustworthy... but a dancing flea would be better than Paladino. That man is a bigoted loony.
I may comment on the rest of the election tomorrow, when all the results are in.
(I voted this morning on my way in to work. It is remarkably convenient living four very short blocks away from my polling place. *grin*)
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Date: 2010-11-04 02:55 am (UTC)(no subject)
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