A Cup of Inland Tea

“So, Mage, where is it that you were heading before you became entangled in our business?” The matronly voice of the old tinker snapped me out of my reverie. She was very much in control once again, the moments of panic she had shown me the night before buried beneath wisdom, responsibility, and practicality as deep as the ocean we lived off.

“Mage?” she asked gently.

“Sorry. And please, call me Carl, ma’am.” I rubbed the sleep from my eyelashes and took a sip of the hot tea she had provided me with. We were alone with one another, sitting on either side of the plain wooden table built into one of the tinkers’ caravans. Disconcertingly, we were moving, making the table bump and jolt every few seconds, my hot drink always spilling a little out of the copper cup and landing on my borrowed travelling outfit.

“Well, I certainly won’t do that if you insist on calling me ma’am now, will I?” She scowled, but her eyes twinkled with amusement. I grinned.

“Well, Madam, as you have not seen fit to supply me with a name, and as I am drinking an expensive, imported luxury supplied by none other than yourself, I feel obliged to remain at least slightly formal towards my host.”

“Oh, you speak like an aristocrat, dear. Try not to, you’ll offend someone.” This time, she grinned openly. “People call me Marjorie, if they call me anything.”

“Well, good morning, Marjorie, and thank you for the tea.”

“Good morning, Carl, and...” Her smile dimmed a little, becoming simultaneously sad and heartrendingly sincere. “Thank you for letting us all be here to see it.”

There was silence for a moment. I felt my face heat and ducked my head. Neither of us said anything.

I cleared my throat.

“So then, Carl,” Marjorie said finally, “where were you heading?” I flicked an annoyingly long strand of my dark hair out of one eye.

“Nowhere of importance,” I murmured, still looking down. Marjorie remained silent. When I glanced up, she had a pained, sympathetic look colouring it.

“You have no idea what to do next, do you, dear?”

I was about to ask what she meant, or feign an emotion, or even just lie, but instead I nodded.

“It happens,” she said, softly. I sipped my tea, spilling some on my face as the caravan went over a bump.

“I’ll tell you what, son.” Marjorie sat up straighter. “How about you stay with us, and teach a few of our children a thing or two. We can’t pay you much, but we’ll give you food, clothes, and a warm bed. Then, when we get to Miricella, you can decide what to do.”

I closed my eyes. I hadn’t been back to Miricella since I’d first travelled there, gathering coin for my son. I still didn’t really want to go back. And I definitely didn’t feel ready to teach anyone anything.

But a warm bed and the nomadic tradespeoples’ even warmer welcome were very inviting.

I told her I’d try teaching them something that night, at which point she offered me a second cup of inland tea. I refused this on the grounds that I’d gotten more of it on me than in me, and had burnt my tongue, my left leg, my right arm, my shoulder and my right cheek; and my hands were in danger from the hot metal of the mug.

She laughed. I smiled.

---

“Okay. Um.”

The nine children stared up at me, wide-eyed. I wished one of them would speak.

“So. Magic.” One of the children nodded an affirmative. I felt very much out of my depth. I cleared my throat.

Lilia scowled at me from outside the little half-circle formed by the young ones. She was the mother of two of them - twins - and I got the feeling that she didn’t like me much, and disapproved of Marjorie’s decision to bring me partway into the fold.

I decided I didn’t like the look on her face. I pooled my power in my fingertips and lit the circle up as bright as the sun, Sol flaring and flooding the area with a green-blue magelight. A few of the children gasped. I allowed myself a little smile.

I was, and still am, proud of my art, even in regards to something so simple as an application of Sol.

“Magic. People think it is divine, inaccessible, godly. Others think it is all lies, flashes of light and trickery. True magic is neither - it is somewhat a fusion between mathematics and music, between the cold, hard power of a metal blade and the gentle power a wife has over her husband.” I allowed the magelight to fade. “But like any trade, any skill, magic requires dedication and constant practice. Many of the exercises I give you will feel silly, but if any of you have talent in this area and are focused enough, you will begin to see the fruits of your labour.” Two of the children, who looked fit, strong, healthy, and (dare I say it) a little mean, were grinning openly, and worried me with the slight greedy tint to their eyes.

“Know this, however.” I realised my voice was cold and harsh, and made no effort to contain it. “My lessons are not to be used to harm another. Yesterday, I chased off five horsemen with my power.” I did not mention that it had mostly been with my trickery.

“Think before you disregard my words: magic is a tool like any other - it neither helps nor harms by its own nature. But the men that wield it are like any other men; corruptible, good, bad, and ignorant. Use magic as you would a knife - to make a living, to aid in everyday tasks, to threaten in order to maintain peace if absolutely necessary. But if you cut a man’s throat, that falls on you no matter whether you use metal or the Art.”

Lilia was looking concerned, but no longer doubtful of me. The children looked downright frightened.

“So. Magic at it’s most basic involves the use of runes. Each rune has multiple different forms, but they are essentially shapes, that can be drawn on a page. I am proficient in about eight different runes; Sun, Ice, Force, Mind, Progression, Regression, Dispersion, Location, Sound and Patterning. Some runes are useful just on their own, such as Ice. But all runes can be combined in an enormous number of ways. More runes are discovered all the time, as are new forms of currently existing runes. Some runes are only really functional when used in combinations with others. An example of this would be Progression.” I drew the shape of Progression in it’s Tonic form in the sand, using the bottom of my staff. “It causes the effects or the things affected by other runes to occur not just more quickly, but with an increased level of acuity.”

I scuffed out Progression with my foot. “Before we get ahead of ourselves, however, know that combining runes can have unexpected effects, so don’t try it without asking me first.”

I looked at the tiny crowd. No one looked as scared now, though an undercurrent of nervousness remained.

“So. Any questions?”

A tiny boy, shorter than the rest and thin, slowly raised one arm. He seemed to be composed almost entirely of elbows, knees and neck.

“No hand-raising with me. Just ask!” I exclaimed jokingly.

“Um...You say runes are always being discovered...but...around how many are there?”

I thought about it. “I have heard of about two hundred. But don’t think of it quite that way. Any process imaginable has a rune associated with it, the question is whether we have discovered the rune yet. So, really, the amount of potential runes is infinite.” I grinned at him. He grinned nervously back.

“Right!” I clapped my hands. “Enough talking! Time to learn things! I think that first we should--”

The little, thin one interrupted me; “Can you teach us how to call light, like you did before?”

I smiled inwardly. “Of course.”

It would take a lot of practice, and they wouldn’t have the background knowledge - sort of like knowing how to answer a single mathematics sum without knowing the broader rules and techniques that could be applied to all sums.

But it would no doubt engage them, and with more than a week until we reached Miricella, it was achievable if they focused.

“All spells involving light are based off Sun, or Sol, the archaic name for the same rune.”

The bright eyes stared up at me, absorbing, soaking in my words. Even Lilia looked interested. I flicked dark hair out of my eyes and began to teach.