The Weight of Magic, page 23
part #1 of Restriction Series
“She’s just trying to teach you?” Jakob asked, shooting him a glance as they took care of the horses while stopped for the evening. The work was somewhat regimented. Each time they stopped for the night, Torian and Jakob were tasked, with several of the others, to help unhitch the horses, make sure they were brushed and fed and watered, and then tied so they wouldn’t run overnight if spooked. “I don’t understand why she would want you to learn how to use your power more.”
“It’s not just that she wants me to learn to use it more. It’s that she thinks that I’m”—Torian leaned close, dropping his voice to a whisper—“valsahir.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Jakob said.
“I know. And I tried to tell her that it was ridiculous because I don’t have any real potential, but she wanted nothing to do with it. She believes that regardless of what I am telling her, Aldrich detected something from me that night and that she is to draw it out.”
“For what purpose?”
That was the answer Torian still didn’t have. In the impossible chance that he actually could be a valsahir, his developing of that potential would be dangerous. He didn’t want to say that to Sylvia, as there was a part of him that loved the idea that somebody finally thought that he might have some potential, but he also understood that if Rusav were to gain a valsahir, then they would be far more capable of destroying Navarin. Not that they had any real difficulty doing so previously, as the destruction of his town, and everything that he had known, could attest to.
Every so often, Torian would look out through the trees and he would see the wolf that had guided him to Aldrich in the first place. The wolf had never gotten so close again that Torian had been able to see him very well, but it did have a distinctive stripe down its back so that when he saw it, he knew it was the same one.
“I don’t know. I don’t know much about valsahir other than stories, and most of those are impossible to believe.”
“You mean that the valsahir single-handedly kept Rusav from destroying Navarin?” Jakob asked with a hint of a smile.
“That and quite a few others,” he said. It was power. That was the real concern that he had about Sylvia’s belief that he could be valsahir. Torian simply did not have power. He never had.
They finished their work for the evening and sat by the fire to get something to eat. The others in the caravan had welcomed them more than he would have expected, other than Visthor. Torian suspected Visthor was playing the role that he was asked to play; the others had been almost inviting. It was a far cry from when he’d been captive with the soldiers and terrified that he wouldn’t survive the march.
He and Jakob sat off to the side as quietly as possible. Neither of them had said anything to the other, but they had both decided to sit away from the rest as if some mutual understanding had passed between them to avoid drawing the attention of anyone in the camp.
“Why you boys sit away each night?” an older man named Invat asked. He looked as if he’d once been as large as Visthor, though time had diminished some of his size.
“It’s because you smell,” Astrid said.
She was a bit younger and pretty. She’d always seemed welcoming to Torian.
“Maybe because they smell,” Johan said. He was Astrid’s brother and had always sat close to her as if she needed his protection. “They’re from Navarin, so of course they do.”
“We’re in their lands. So we all smell,” Invat said, raising his hands. “I think it’s the trees. They don’t have same clean to them.”
“You wouldn’t know clean if someone dunked you in Ysiran Lake,” Charlek said. He sat off to the side as well, though normally was quiet.
Torian didn’t know him that well, but he helped with the meals and was quick to offer a measure of help when they were caring for the horses. From what Torian had been able to tell, Charlek had been involved in caring for them before he and Jakob had been given the assignment.
“Ah, the lake,” Invat grumbled. “It’s been too long since I sat along her shores. I miss the way the water splashes there.”
“You should’ve done more than sit, old man,” Astrid said, getting to her feet and scooping some of the food for the evening into a bowl before carrying it over to them. She held it out. Jakob was faster and took it. Astrid gathered another bowl, bringing it to Torian. “There is food for all. No need to tear my fingers off. The hunting is good in these lands. That is why we travel.”
“That’s not the only reason,” Charlek said.
“That is the reason,” Astrid said.
“Sylvia has been clear that she—”
“We don’t need to talk about Sylvia and what she plans,” Astrid said, glancing briefly to Johan before taking a seat. “She’ll reveal it in time. We know what we must do.”
They fell quiet at Astrid’s urging.
Torian had hoped that he might get some more insight about what the others intended, but without any of them having a willingness to share, he doubted that he’d learn anything. Tonight was venison, and they’d roasted it well, leaving the meat tender. He plucked at it, chewing it slowly. Were he not so acutely aware of what had been going on, he might actually think that he was on some grand adventure. The people were pleasant enough, the food was plentiful, and he was in no obvious danger.
Then Sylvia came to join them. She ate, whispering something to Astrid before pointing to him and motioning for him to follow. As he did, he had the sense that Johan gave him a heated stare, though Torian did his best to ignore it.
“You have been too sloppy. I am tired of the sloppy. You must show me that you can do what Aldrich claims you can do. Otherwise…”
When she didn’t explain what would happen otherwise, Torian shivered.
There was something about Sylvia that made him uncomfortable. She obviously had some understanding of the primary patterns, but she never demonstrated anything beyond the primary patterns. Maybe she didn’t want to, or maybe she didn’t know anything beyond the basics. That was a possibility that he had considered but hadn’t known whether he should be worried that she was the one who decided to teach him.
“I don’t know why you believe that I can do this.”
Sylvia looked at him. “Why do you not believe?”
Torian shrugged. “Because I understand my own limitations. I’m not capable of being a valsahir.” Let alone Torian didn’t know that he believed in the valsahir, though he wasn’t willing to tell her that, as it was obvious that Sylvia did.
“The wolf brought you to Aldrich.”
“I understand.”
“No. You do not. The wolf brought you. They recognize something in the valsahir. They always have. They help lead others to learn.”
Torian blinked. “They do what?”
“You did not know?”
Torian shook his head. “We don’t have any valsahir in Navarin.”
“No. Not any longer. They were targeted. They were responsible for ending the war long ago. Some believe the valsahir were no longer needed, so they faded into memory.” The hint of a smile, which appeared on her face as she said it, suggested to Torian that she didn’t believe that.
“Why now? Why did Rusav attack now?”
“I don’t know. I suspect Aldrich does, and that it is tied to Tamish, though there are certain things Aldrich does not explain.”
“Why didn’t he teach me, then?” Torian had felt Aldrich’s power, even if he didn’t fully understand it. If anyone could be valsahir, Torian believed it was him.
“He no longer teaches. Now, let us get back to what brought you here.” She shifted. “You talk of these primary patterns as if they are something basic,” she began once they had moved away from the camp and settled on a pair of stumps that had been set out for them. Torian suspected that Visthor had been asked to bring them out and could only imagine the reaction the large man would have at the request. “They are not basic.”
“What I’ve been taught—”
“Is sloppy. Do you want me to show you how sloppy?”
He didn’t answer fast enough, though partly that was because he did want her to show him. If there was anything that she could teach about the patterns, he wanted to learn. There was no denying that she had a way of using the patterns that was different than what he’d learned, but he couldn’t say that it was better—just different. The problem came when Sylvia decided that what Torian did and the way that he did it was not as she wanted.
She began to move her hands in the primary patterns that Torian had seen before. She had a fluidity to them, but it wasn’t only the fluidity that she used as it was the technique that she used. She pinched her fingers together in a way that felt different. Still, there was no denying the result. As she worked, Torian could feel some of the power that she was calling, and then there was a faint gust of wind that swirled away from her, billowing toward him, followed by a brief flash of light.
“Do you see?” Sylvia asked, her accent making it difficult for him to follow. “And do you feel? This is different.”
Torian wasn’t entirely sure what it was that she just did, but it felt both similar and dissimilar to his primary patterns. It was the dissimilarity that worried him. If what she wanted to show was the basis of some valsahir primary pattern, he wasn’t sure that he had the potential for that.
“You are using some sort of a primary pattern. I don’t know what to make of it, only that I don’t recognize it.”
“What do you know about the strands of power?”
“The strands?”
“You have different patterns, yes?”
“Patterns based on different aspects of power,” he said, realizing what she was getting on about. “So this is tied to light, dark, air, earth—”
“It is all connected. And what you call primary are not basic. You can learn different strategies of controlling even simple patterns. That is what I will teach. That is how we will prove that you can be valsahir. Now begin.”
He began to work through some of the primary patterns, shifting from one to the next, having pushed that weight aside enough for him to feel some of the energy beginning to flow so that he could use the patterns. He didn’t attempt to use anything stronger, as he didn’t know if it made a difference or not. First tier was not beyond him at this point, though he didn’t feel as if he had pushed aside the weight enough for him to reach the second tier.
“Not basic,” she said.
“I know they’re not basic, but they’re what we call primary in that we use them to help us learn how to begin to make other patterns.” Torian felt like he had been through this argument with Sylvia a few times and, unfortunately, had not gotten any closer to convincing her. “The next tier begins to build on it.” He had started to show her the first-tier pattern, when she reached across and slapped his hand.
“No. We focus on this. You are still too sloppy.”
“I don’t know what you mean by too sloppy,” he said.
She got up, standing behind him, and leaned over his shoulder. She took his hand in hers and began to force his fingers to bend in the patterns. She went from wind to light, then back to wind. The sequence was familiar to him, as he still felt as if these were nothing more than parts of the primary patterns, but it was the way that she bounced from one to the next that wasn’t quite familiar to him. He recognized that she had him holding onto a connection while changing from one to the next, something that he didn’t do well normally using the primary patterns.
“Do you see?”
Torian nodded, as he did understand what she was trying to show him, even if he didn’t know if what he wanted to do, nor how he wanted to do it, would make a difference with her. “I can see what you’re trying to tell me, but I’m just telling you that I do things differently.”
“Sloppy,” she said. She separated her index fingers and then brought them together very slowly, deliberately enough that Torian thought that he understood that his index fingers were the issue. “See how you hold?”
“That’s what I was doing.”
“No,” she snapped. “That is not what you are doing. I don’t know what to call what you’re doing.”
“Other than sloppy,” he muttered.
Torian attempted to mimic how she was holding her fingers and shifted them a little bit more, but every time he did, he noticed a slight shake of her head, the irritation in her eyes, and started to wonder if he really was sloppy. Maybe she was right.
“How is what you are doing that much different than what I am doing?”
“You can’t even see it?”
“Apparently not,” he said. “So why don’t you help me know what it is that you are doing that I am not.”
She leaned back again, her fingers flickering through a series of patterns. As they did, he noticed that not only did it seem as if the patterns were linked, much like he had believed when she had been demonstrating it to him, but there was also a strange flow that he could feel more so than he could see. He wasn’t entirely certain what it was that she was doing, only that every time she shifted the pattern, he felt some part of it beginning to surge.
A rhythm.
That was what seemed to be different from what she did compared to what he was doing. He didn’t have the same rhythm to his movements that she did.
“I think I understand,” he started, and when she gave him a mocking look of annoyance, he shrugged. “Or maybe I don’t. Let me try.”
Some of it came from the pattern. He didn’t hold it quite the same way that she did, and he wasn’t sure that it mattered. She certainly seemed to believe that the pattern itself made a big difference, but Torian thought that it was the connection that she formed that made the difference, not so much the pattern itself. As he began to follow that connection, trying to weave up from one to the next, he felt the pattern flowing in a way that it had not before. He couldn’t say if it was better or worse, only that it was different than how he had traditionally used the patterns. His training in school had involved using a single pattern at a time. He had never attempted to mix them like this and certainly had never tried to get them to flow the way that she did.
For the first time while working with Sylvia, Torian felt as if he understood what she was trying to show him. It wasn’t so much that he was sloppy, though maybe there was a part of it that was true. It was more that his technique was different than hers, and he struggled to replicate it. These were all part of the primary patterns and all patterns that he had trained to use while at school, but the technique was different than anything that he had been shown before.
“Better,” she said. She nodded at him, and he noticed a hint of smug satisfaction on her face. “You can listen. Maybe you can learn, too. And if so, you can prove that you can truly become a valsahir.”
“What happens if I can’t be valsahir?”
That was the part that left Torian more concerned, especially as he didn’t know if he would end up disappointing her through his inability to be what she thought him capable of becoming.
She regarded him for a long moment. “You will be what you will be.” She nodded at him. “Now practice.”
She got up, leaving him alone to practice.
Torian let out a heavy sigh, but maybe it was for the best. He did need to practice. He felt as if he were getting closer to making an understanding about the primary patterns. If there was some way of linking them together, blending them in a way, he might be able to use his weak pattern better than he had ever imagined. He might not ever become a valsahir, but if he could blend the patterns, then he could at least progress in a way that he had never considered before.
So she left him alone, and he sat in the darkness, working through his patterns, searching for an answer that never came.
Chapter 27
OTHERS WHO HAVE LOST
Torian watched the wolves as they followed them through the trees. He still hadn’t seen the brown-furred wolf that had led him to the others, though he suspected that he was out there. Every so often, he’d catch a flash of brown fur, enough that it made him think that it had to be there and that he didn’t imagine it, but then it would disappear into nothing.
There were no ravens.
Astrid hopped between the wagons as they lumbered onward, making their way steadily to the east. Her long robes looked as if they’d get caught between the wagons, but she didn’t seem to have that much difficulty. When she dropped down next to Torian, she flashed a smile.
“What are you looking at?” she asked.
He hadn’t spoken to her that much. Not enough that he felt comfortable talking to her, especially not with her brother watching—which he often did. “The wolves,” he admitted.
“They are impressive, aren’t they?” she asked, leaning forward and resting her elbows on her knees. “But blinded. That is why they are with us.”
The comment took him aback. “Blinded?”
She nodded. “You do not see?”
“I guess I don’t,” he said.
She twisted her fingers through the fabric of her dress, doing so in a rhythmic sort of fashion. “Do you have the wolfahar in your lands?”
The way she asked it sounded harsh but surprisingly fitting. “We call them shadow wolves. And no. At least, I didn’t think we did. Most believed they had been hunted out of these lands.” As he said it, he wasn’t even sure that they were in Navarin. The wagons had been moving steadily enough that he didn’t pay that much attention to where they were going, only that he could tell that they were heading somewhere. After what happened with his parents, that was what he thought he wanted.
What of Liana?
Torian sighed, pushing away those thoughts. He wanted to find his sister but didn’t know how. If Sylvia told the truth about what Aldrich claimed, then he didn’t have to worry. Someone else—and more powerful—would be going after her. And hopefully, the others.
Liana wasn’t the only sahir from Sarot who’d been captured. She wasn’t even the only one that he cared about. Torian would help Jensen if he could but didn’t know if there was anything that could be done for the boy.
