Kinetomancy

Sprinting. Running. My breath becoming heavier, but not unsteady - I’d put a bit of weight over my whip-chord frame, but the hard muscles underneath were solid. My recollection of the run towards the house is blurred, quite unusually for me. Sitting here writing this, I suppose my lack of recollection was simply due to the number of thoughts racing between my ears. Perhaps I was not focusing on my surroundings, but rather on the huge list of things I had to consider - were the tinkers safe? Who had attacked me? Why had they attacked me? Could Kelvin help me? Would he even bother?

 

My memory comes back to me as I stand before the heavy wooden door of Kelvin’s brick city house. There was apprehension in me, more than anything else.

 

Fear is something all living things feel, and I felt it perhaps more often than others. I realized my own frailty, and understood that there were any number of people and circumstances that could end my existence. So I feared these people, these events.

 

I did not fear Kelvin.

 

Well, I have written a lie upon these pages. It would be more accurate to say I did not merely fear Kelvin - I also respected him. Kelvin filled me such dread mostly because he knew me, and had the right to judge my actions. After all, I’d worked with him, mostly worked for him, in fact.

 

I remembered his gruffness; so unlike Karsh’s cool excitement and joy and polished language. Kelvin was a man of earth and salt - an impressive and severe man, quietly brilliant. A twinkling eye when I did something perfect for a customer, the unvoiced disappointment when I did it wrong. The reluctant compromise to teach me a few things in exchange for helping him with his Kinetimancy. The white mark on his left palm where he cut himself with a knife at age six. The way we never raised the subject of his divorce. The harsh sadness in his eyes when I told him I would be returned to Ikilm after hearing about son. These were the very tip of the mountain of moments, the fountain of memories that made a man - a man who had taught me the so much more than the rune Force, he had taught me how to bake bread, how to live in a city, and how to earn a truly honest living with the Art magic.

 

Kelvin was a Kinetomancer - that is, he worked with the rune Force, producing inertial barriers, frictionless boat hulls that repelled water and creating Force Patternings that would lock boxes shut until a certain word was spoken. Before I had talked to Kelvin, I had known one use for the Force rune - pushing things. Now I knew over thirty different uses for the rune, all told.

 

I must have stood in front of the door for a full minute, beset by memories and reservations. I hadn’t talked to Kelvin since I’d left for Ikilm.

 

So there I stood on Kelvin’s front step, the city street behind me filled with people. Beset my indecision, rendered impotent by my recollections of the very man I needed help from.

Kelvin was my only contact, the only ace I had in the hand I’d been dealt.

 

I dreaded explaining to Kelvin why I hadn’t talked to him in months, but I dreaded my attackers far more.

 

I did not want to die. Not like my son, a tiny package painted red, so still and cold on the ground.

 

I rapped on the door.

 

There was no sound from within, so I rapped again.

 

The door creaked open a crack, a dark eye appearing in the dark line between it and the doorframe. The eye somehow managed to look wary all on its own. It glanced at me and widened in surprise.

 

“Carl?”

 

I nodded, the way a bird ducks its head. “I need your help, Kelvin.”

 

 

We sat on Kelvin’s worn wood chairs, a wooden table in between us that reminded me of the one in Marjorie’s caravan. The slight smokiness of his house soaked into my core, comforting somehow. He faced me, his eyes flat and his expression concealed behind his scruffy beard.

 

We sat in silence for what felt like eternity. Then;

 

“A year, Carl. You disappeared off the map for a year.” I nodded. “And not once did you come to collect your things from me. You didn’t collect the money you’d left with me in order to save up.” More silence for a few seconds. I felt as though I was choking. “I thought you’d done something terrible.”

 

I bit a lip. I had, almost. I had come terribly close to killing my brother. I felt all the guilt and the fear and the primal rage bubble up again, but I pulled it all back down, packed it into a white-hot point of light and shoved it downwards, buried it.

 

“Or,” Kelvin mused, “maybe I thought you’d died.” He shrugged.

 

I’d always been able to keep myself under control before, been able to keep the white-hot light buried; but at that shrug the fear smashed its dam.

 

I realised, in that instant, that I was absolutely terrified. I was prey - a rabbit being hunted before a hawk, running for my bolt hole.

 

Somewhere between my inner emotions and my outer façade, the fear changed to anger.

 

I slammed my hand down on the table and leaned forward into Kelvin’s face.

 

“I came here because I need help, not because I wanted to chat.” Kelvin sat further back in his chair, his eyes somehow even colder. There was a pause, before -

 

“Well, boy. I am a professional, so I offer you my services. I will construct a spell at a cost proportional to its complexity. I charge fifty rupiah and hour for ongoing maintenance of my runes. You should know my costs, you’ve worked here for long enough.”

 

Sad as it is to admit, those words only made me angrier. Still, I forced my voice to be cool rather than heated.

 

“I was just attacked by a group of armed assailants, and I wanted…” I stopped. I didn’t know exactly what it was I wanted from Kelvin.

 

“You knew no one else in the city, had no where else to go, had no friends or contacts and needed to leave the city in one piece,” Kelvin responded quietly.

 

I bowed my head agreement. Kelvin grunted. “At least you weren’t stupid enough to leave on your own. However, you were stupid enough to offend me. Unfortunate, really. You are a genuinely decent young man, in your own way. Or at least, you were.”

His eyes glinted in - recognition? Curiosity? Pity? It was as difficult as it had ever been to read Kelvin’s emotions, hidden as they were behind his facial hair. “What happened in Ikilm? What happened to your son?” The questions were harsh, sudden.

 

I glanced away. Kelvin grunted again. There was silence.

 

“Please.” I still didn’t look at Kelvin. My face was hot, and my eyes prickled.

 

He remained silent for a full minute.

 

“Fine. I’ll help get you out of the city, on one condition.” I nodded, still looking away. “You tell me everything " and I mean everything, Carl - that you have done since you left for Ikilm.”

 

I nodded again and began to speak.

 

 

Kelvin leaned back in his chair, chin resting on his fist.

 

“And after you fled your attackers, you ran here?”

 

“Yes,” came the affirmative from me.

 

“Well, it’s clear what these people will do if they want to get you.” I looked at Kelvin’s face; and, for the first time, it was obvious he was frowning.

 

“What?” Kelvin didn’t immediately respond, so I asked again: “Kelvin, what?”

 

“If they’ve been watching your movements enough to know you’d be at the academy, then they’ll know who you were travelling with. They’ll probably find those tinkers who you left at in town and try to extract information--"

 

I was out of my chair before he finished, dashing for the door. Kelvin’s voice cried out behind me; “No, Carl, you idiot! Come back!”

 

I plunged through the door and began sprinting towards the Marketplace where I knew the tinkers had set up shop.