Water, page 13
part #1 of Tales of Elemental Spirits Series
Then she did the same to her other stone, and sat back on her heels, and watched as the air and the water around the two stones changed, and she felt the change float and expand, almost like scent, and wreath itself around her, almost like smoke. This was the first magic she’d ever done without the Guardian telling her how. “I—I’ve tried—I’ve done—” she said in a voice rather higher than her usual one. She swallowed. “I’m ready now. I will—I will now stop waiting for you to send me home.”
“Thank you,” said the Guardian, and she moved off her chair, and knelt by Tamia, and put her hands just above the two stones, as if feeling heat rising off them.
Tamia had been with the Guardian nearly a year when the Guardian said one morning, “It’s time you had a look at the sea. The way I want to go, it’s a long walk, we’ll take lunch—and perhaps tea.” She tied up food in two bundles, and they set out, towards the Eagle’s peak behind their small meadow.
They often went for long prowling walks along the shoulders of the mountains, following deer trails when there were deer trails, and even rabbit trails when there were those; the problem with rabbit trails was that they were made by and for creatures no more than a foot tall. On some of their walks there was a good deal of scrambling. But the Guardian showed Tamia what plants had leaves or berries or roots that were good to eat—or at least nourishing; or possessed healing properties. And they always looked out for stones that might fit in the water-garden, though they had to wait for the traders to bring them new supplies of the gold that their magic used. Tamia now knew the name of the trader with the red feather in his cap—Traetu; and his pony, Wheatear, for the long curly hair-whorl on his neck, like a stalk of wheat bent by the wind.
Tamia talked to the traders—and their ponies; she also greeted and was friendly with the deer, and the rabbits, and the foxes, and the hrungus, and the birds that visited their meadow or that they met on their walks; and the Guardian said to her thoughtfully, “If you were not so suited to our work, I would wonder if I had called you to the wrong craft; for the wild creatures love you, and no Guardian in all the long list of our Guardianship has ever had a familiar animal.”
Tamia shook her head. “It is only that my best friend—before you, dear Guardian—was a pony.”
But they had never climbed the peak of the Eagle. Tamia, like many inlanders, had never seen the ocean; and she had been too busy and too happy in the last year to think about it, although in the back of her mind she was aware that what she was here for was to learn to protect her land from the ocean, to become a member of the Guardians, who built and patrolled the boundary that kept the land safe from the water. She had no very good picture of what the ocean might be like; she knew that fishermen travelled upon it in boats, like the inlanders sometimes travelled on their ponds and streams and lakes; but when she thought about it at all, she thought of it as a kind of nightmare thing, perhaps a little like a sky full of storm-clouds.
When, in the early afternoon, they finally stood on the top of the Eagle and looked around them, she was amazed. This great, dazzling, every-colour-and-no-colour expanse was like nothing she had ever imagined, let alone seen; and she thought of the cousin of her mother’s who had married a fisherman, who described the sea with a shrug as “A lot of water you can’t drink,” and she could not understand how anyone could think this way. But then, she had probably never stood on the Eagle’s head with the wind in her face—and the Guardian she was apprenticed to standing at her side. The salt smell of it was very strong. She knew the smell from her village; sometimes on wet, foggy mornings when the wind was coming steadily from the west, a faint tang of it was just noticeable as the fog was pushed farther inland to shred itself on tree-tops. It had never seemed to her any more interesting than any other smell. But where they stood, with the wind bucketing around them, this tallest peak of the Eagle seemed to lean out towards the shore while the Cloudyheads on either side seemed to draw back in alarm, the water was on nearly three sides of them and the land seemed little more than a memory behind them. Here the ocean smell was wild and tantalising and full of mysteries.
This is the best, Tamia thought. There is nothing better than this. Not even doing my first magic by myself—not even meeting Southern Eye and Four Doors when they came to see my Guardian, or talking to the traders when they come here, not even Traetu, who told me my Guardian wanted me and will always be my favourite—this is almost as good as being my Guardian’s friend. She glanced at her Guardian, who looked away from the sea long enough to meet her apprentice’s eyes, and Tamia was sure, as she had been sure many times before, that the Guardian knew exactly what she was thinking.
After a little while, the Guardian said thoughtfully, “This island is a strange place; I believe there is no other place like it in all the wide world, though there must be other places just as strange. It is our strangeness to be a threshold between land and water; and the boundary between us is striven for, and fought over, and it shifts sometimes this way, and sometimes that. Perhaps there are Guardians on the other side of the boundary, as we are the Guardians of this; perhaps it is only on account of our angle of vision that it seems to us that the forces of water desire to overwhelm us. Perhaps whatever lives in the deep of the water does not understand that if it succeeded in bringing the dry lands under its sway, it would kill a great many people and plants and animals who love their lives, for I assume plants and animals love their lives too; perhaps it does understand, and does not care, for we are mere land-dwellers. I do not know. But I do know that it is over this one island that the war is fought, and if once we yielded, then all those lands behind us—farther from the boundary we protect—would immediately come under threat; and they have no Guardians. We are the Guardians, and here we hold the line.”
Tamia listened to her Guardian, because she always did; but she was still in thrall to the great beauty of the ocean, and did not understand. It was not until half way through her second year as the Guardian’s apprentice that she saw her first great storm.
There were dangerous storms every winter, storms where people and animals might be lost, if they were unlucky. But she had only seen one or two storms as great as this one when she lived in the valley, storms that uprooted trees and drowned sheep in the fields, that levelled houses, and might occasionally do the same to whole villages. “Island weather,” everyone called it, and the old people nodded sardonically after it was all over and the losses were never as great as first they appeared, and said to people like Tamia’s stepfather, “Are you so sure the Guardians do not earn their tokens?”
But she could not have guessed how much wilder and more fearful such a storm would be near the crest of the Eagle, and, as a Guardian’s apprentice, what it would be like to be one of the people trying to help throw back the deluge that threatened to drown their land like a fishing-boat in a sudden squall. She knew about rain and wind, about the prying fingers of storm under the eaves, the whiplash of sleet and the terrifying lift of a strong wind, if you were so unfortunate as to be caught outdoors in it; she did not know, when she lived in the valley, about the high mad voices in it, and the faces that almost shaped themselves from the roiling mists, nor the clinging of wetness that looked like rain, and first ran down your body like rain, but then seemed to wrap itself about you like a bolt of heavy cloth, and pull you under.
She did not know that the stones in their own water-garden would hide in the cloud- and fog-shadows scudding across on the pool’s surface, would elude them by the rain in their eyes and the pounding of the wind against their bodies, by the sudden inexplicable water-spouts in the garden itself, which created deep scoured trenches in the sandy floor of the pool, where the stones they had so painstakingly placed then rolled and tumbled. She did not know that the flakes of gold that lay in the sand or floated in the water would become sharp as flints, and cut at her, that the golden pebbles would become dazzling, dizzying, vertiginous, that the rainbows that often hung round the water-garden would turn a muddy, treacherous brown, and twist around her, hampering her, tangible as vines. Tamia knelt and crawled at her Guardian’s side, straining to hear her Guardian’s shouted words through the shriek of the wind, knowing without being told that the water was being called to rebel, to rise up in mastery and dominion over the land, and that while the stones in their own garden dodged away from them, shifted in their places and slid into unexpected holes, that the water was winning.
Several hours they waded and crept and floundered through the water-garden, the gritty stones slipping through Tamia’s cold fingers, her forearms and forehead sore from sand rubbing against skin when she tried, uselessly, again and again, to wipe the wet from her eyes, while she expected at any moment to discover that she had become the tiny gap in the wall through which the conquering water would at first seep, and then trickle, and then blast and roar.
But storms like these were very rare. And Tamia, who had nightmares for months after this one, was glad of it; because for the first time since she had made her first magic in the water-garden, she wondered again if perhaps her Guardian had made a mistake about her after all, that she was not strong enough to be a Guardian. But there were no more savage storms, and Tamia’s other lessons went well, for she was not, as her Guardian had said on their first meeting, afraid of hard work.
The second year passed more quickly than the first, and the third quicker yet. She saw Southern Gate again, and Four Doors several times—“Four Doors is always a wanderer, whoever it is; the Four Doors when I was an apprentice was just the same, and my Guardian told me that the two she could remember before that one were wanderers too”—and White North once took Tamia away for three days, on one of those Guardians’ walks through the villages of more ordinary folk. “I should take you myself,” said Tamia’s Guardian, “but I told you I’d grown too old for mountain-climbing. White North will look after you. You should see the people you guard occasionally, and remind yourself of what their lives are like, especially when you’re still young and unused to this work; it makes what we do here more real.” Tamia hadn’t liked being away from her Guardian—and had not enjoyed the looks on the faces of the villagers they met—but White North was a pleasant travelling companion, and her Guardian was right, the experience had made her feel for the water-garden much keener. She had gone walking once more, this time with Four Doors, early in her fourth year as apprentice.
But some time during that fourth year Tamia began to notice, although she fought against noticing, that her Guardian was slowing down. She went to bed earlier in the evenings, and while she rose as early as she had when Tamia first came, it seemed to take her longer to wake up, and Tamia took over more of the ordinary checks and guards and sightings and alignings of the Guardian’s tasks, and she bid the old yew good-day and good-evening, and when she went for walks—or rather, when she was sent on them, for she would not voluntarily leave her Guardian alone—she went by herself. But when the Guardian spoke, she was the same Guardian she had always been, and so Tamia tried to ignore the rest.
Soon after the beginning of Tamia’s fifth year as apprentice, her Guardian fell ill.
Tamia found her, one afternoon, returning from gathering mushrooms on the gentle slopes of the Dove, slumped by the water-garden. She had fallen into the edge of the pond, and the first, horrifying thing Tamia noticed was that she had fallen with her cheek propped against one of the stones Tamia had placed during the first magic she had ever done by herself; and because of this, her Guardian’s nose and mouth had been held just clear of the surface of the water.
Tamia did not allow herself to think about this for long. Her Guardian’s face was a strange, chalky-grey colour, her breath rasped, and her body lay in a twisted huddle. Furthermore, the wind down the mountain was cold today, and her left side lay in the pond. Tamia had dropped her basket halfway across the meadow, and had run to her Guardian; but even when she raised her head and shoulders onto her own lap, she could not waken her; and the sound of her breathing was dreadful.
Tamia did not remember how she got her up the house-steps and indoors, but she managed it somehow. She pulled her Guardian’s wet clothes off, and towelled her dry, and wrapped her in her warmest dressing-gown, trying to be as gentle as possible with the heavy inert weight of her beloved mentor, trying to fight against the battering strength of her own fear. She noticed that the left side of her Guardian’s body was chilly and stiffer than her right, but she thought this was only on account of her having lain in the water. She lit a great fire in the hearth, and made up a bed for her Guardian near it, and then sat by her side, holding her hand, trying to make her own mind less blank, less frozen with dread and grief, more able to think what she must do.
At last, near dawn, it seemed to Tamia that her Guardian’s sleep shifted a little, and became more like normal sleep. She put an arm round her shoulders and raised her up, and tried to make her drink a little water; and her Guardian seemed to half-rouse, and her lips closed on the rim of the cup. When Tamia held it up higher, the liquid trickled out of the left corner of her Guardian’s mouth; but Tamia saw her Guardian’s throat move in a swallow, and for the first time since Tamia had found her lying in the pool, her own mind came out from under the deep shadow where it had lain.
There were ways for the Guardians to send messages among themselves, but Tamia did not yet know them, for messages were tricky, and ill-handled could disturb or confuse the intricate network of protection which was the Guardians’ chief task. No trader was due to visit them for weeks, and in her Guardian’s present condition, Tamia could not leave her long enough to look for help. The first day passed while Tamia continued to sit at her Guardian’s bedside, and fed her water and broth when she could, and cleaned her up when her body failed her in other ways, and spoke softly to her so that her mind, if it had been cast adrift by whatever had seized her body, might hear her voice and find its way home.
Another day passed, and another. Tamia had to leave her Guardian’s bedside to brew more broth, to dip up more water from the well; even to sleep, and eat, and wash herself, and to do the laundry, that the Guardian might always have clean sheets to lie on. But Tamia was not without hope, for while the Guardian had still not opened her eyes and recognised her, sometimes her right hand moved towards the cup that Tamia was holding, and sometimes, while she drank, she was almost sitting on her own.
On the fourth morning, Tamia went outside, down the house-steps to the water-garden, and paused there, for the first time since she had found her Guardian stretched out at its edge. The last few days she had crossed the stepping-stones quickly, intent on some errand. The water-garden had had to look after itself in the much greater need to look after her Guardian; Tamia had barely remembered to wish the yew tree good-day and good-evening. But the water-garden could not look after itself; and besides, Tamia had thought of something she might try—a message she might be able to send.
This was much harder than that first solitary magic she had done—lifetimes ago, it seemed now. But that had not been truly solitary, any more than any of the other magics she had done since had been, because her Guardian had been there. Even if she was indoors or on the other side of the meadow and could not see what Tamia was doing, she was always there if Tamia needed help. And what Tamia was doing now was something new, something she had not been trained to do.
She walked three times round the house before she felt the presence of any stones that might do for her purpose. When she knelt beside them, their presence seemed to waver, like the reflection of a disturbed pool; she had to wait till everything—including her anxious breath—had calmed. Yes, these would do. She chose one, two, three—oh dear—four, five, six and seven—this was too many. She sat with her stones in her lap and looked at them; the gold flecks blinked at her hopefully. Well, it was the best she could do. A real Guardian could do new things with her water-garden, things she hadn’t been trained for, because she felt its water like a part of the tidal rhythm in her own body, the individual stones as thoughts she had thought or might one day think. But Tamia was only an apprentice. An apprentice’s standard service to a Guardian was twenty years—and Four Doors, who liked to talk, had told Tamia stories of apprenticeships that had been thirty or fifty years. Tamia had had only five years. She would have to create a rough, clumsy magic because she could not create a subtle one.
The golden flash, when it came, was blinding. When her vision cleared, her seven stones lay in a sandy-grey bed, and the golden glitter even on the far side of the water-garden seemed muted. She swallowed with a suddenly dry mouth; but it was done, and she had done it.
She was so exhausted, she could barely drag herself up the house-steps again, and into the front room where her Guardian lay. There she dropped down beside her, clasping her Guardian’s right hand, her head on the edge of the mattress, and fell asleep.
It was her first deep sleep in days, and she was woken out of it by a sense of uneasiness. It seemed to her that she heard her name being called, very softly, but over and over again, and that she should recognise the voice that spoke it, but she did not; and that there was something wrong with her name as it was spoken. . . .
She woke up, and found that her Guardian was holding her hand firmly enough to be giving her tiny squeezes as she repeated her name—“Tamia, Tamia”—but why did it sound so strange? Tamia said, or half-groaned, “Oh, I am so glad you are awake!” and bent towards her and kissed her, and then as she turned away from her to look for the tinder-box and kindle the lamp, she saw the rain streaming in through the open shutters on the far side of the Guardian’s bed.
She lit the lamp first, and saw the pools of water the rain had left, and had a nasty, sick feeling in her stomach that the pools were too regularly shaped, and looked rather too much like the shape her seven stones made in the water-garden. She closed the shutters and then flung all the rags she could find in the pools of rain-water, just to disturb their shape, till she had time to go round them one by one and mop them up properly. She blew on the red heart of the drowsy fire, and stirred it, and fed the tiny flame that wavered into being (rain stung her face like embers, hissing down the chimney); and then she went to the water-ewer, and was glad to find that it was still half-full, because it was now quite dark out, and drawing water in darkness and heavy rain would have been unpleasant.
