Ascendant

The sound of arguing woke Nym up. Ciana and another man were talking, and the conversation was getting heated.

“I’m not bringing you food to waste on some shipwrecked orphan who’s going to die by next week!” the man shouted. Nym could see him throw his hands up through the wall slats.

“No one asked you to bring me anything! I’ll take care of myself and him too!” she yelled back. Though the man was a foot taller than her, she had no problem getting right up in his face. “I appreciate all the help you’ve given me since my father died, but I don’t need your permission to live my life however I want. If you don’t want to help now, then get out and stop trying to tell me what to do.”

“Ciana,” the man said in a quieter voice, trying to regain control of the situation. “You will starve. Food is already tight. You can’t afford to feed this kid. You’re too nice. You did him a good turn, and no one can fault you for saving him, but he’s through the worst of it and you need to cut him loose.”

“Get out,” she said coldly. “You’re a worse person than I thought if you’d leave him out to die. The boy doesn’t even remember his own name.”

 “That’s very sad,” he said, stomping to the door. “But all you’re doing is dooming yourself along with him.”

The door creaked open on rusted hinges, then slammed closed. Ciana sat down on the driftwood log heavily and let out a huff. “The nerve, trying to run my life for me,” she muttered.

“Who was he?” Nym asked, once again wrapped in the ragged blanket and standing in the doorway to the bedroom.

Ciana shot the front door a sour look and said, “His name is Senman. He’s been sniffing after me for about two years now trying to get… Well, never you mind what exactly he’s trying to get from me. Point is he’s not getting it, no matter how many times he shows up with a cony. And he’s got no ground to tell me what I can and can’t do.”

Nym thought about it for a minute. “But was he right? Am I too much of a burden?”

Ciana crossed the room and folded him into a hug. “Don’t you ever think that,” she said into his hair. “I’ll figure something out. For now though, let’s get you into a pair of pants and a shirt.”

The clothes weren’t even close to his size, but they were better than wearing a blanket around his body. He held the pants up with a length of twine Ciana gave him after rolling the legs up several times so they were snug against his calf. The shirt was sleeveless and about a foot too long, stopping just a bit above his knees. Nym was tall, but so was Ciana, and she was more than twice his age.

There were no shoes for either of them, and he lacked the callouses she had, so it was a slow trip into Palmara. The town was only three miles away, but it took about two hours to get there and Nym’s feet were thoroughly blistered and bruised by the time they made it. Once he saw it, he thought that ‘town’ might have been a bit of an exaggeration.

It was barely more than twenty or thirty shacks that might have been a bit better quality than Ciana’s all huddled together around a dirt road that snaked its way through the center. She led him into it and straight to one particular shack that was maybe in a bit better shape than average. Unlike hers near the cove, the ones in town had some sort of earth packed into the slats to give them some weather-proofing, and the one they stopped in front of had some carvings running up and down the door frame. There was a plaque mounted next to it.

“What does this mean?” Nym asked as he studied it. A symbol was carved into it, a solid circle in the center with a pair of rings going around it. A single line was drawn from the center circle to bisect both rings.

“This is Magister Tormin’s home. He’s the one who looked you over when I first found you and said you had arcana poisoning.”

“The one who said I was going to die from it?” Nym asked.

Ciana nodded. “Good thing he was wrong, huh? I guess you’re tougher than you look.”

The door opened to reveal a middle-aged man with a receding hairline, a bushy beard, and a pot-belly. He was wearing the same style of clothing as Ciana, but with a brown robe loosely belted over them and a pair of shoes.

“What’s this then?” he asked, staring down his nose at the pair of them. “Standing at my door gossiping about me? How rude.”

“No, Magister,” Ciana said, soothing his ruffled pride. “Nym here was just curious about what the symbol on your sign means and I was telling him it’s a magister’s symbol.”

“Yes, quite,” the magister said. “Second circle, you know. My talents are utterly wasted here, but that’s life for you. I see your stray managed to survive his arcana poisoning.”

“Uh, yes, Magister. Thing is, he can’t seem to remember anything. We’re not even sure Nym is his real name. I was hoping you might be able to help him.”

Magister Tormin cocked an eyebrow at her before turning his gaze to Nym. “And how exactly do you propose I do that?”

“Well, uh…” Ciana gestured helplessly to the sign next to his door. “Second circle?”

The magister let out a heavy sigh. “Come in then,” he told them, moving to the side and gesturing them through his door.

Unlike Ciana’s shack, the magister’s home had two doors off the main room. Even the main room itself had a large bookshelf and a table with two chairs. The fire pit was set in the back corner, which had some metal sheathing to keep the heat of the flames off the wall.

The magister fished a book off the shelf and started flipping through it. After a minute or two, he stopped and started reading a passage. “Very well,” he told them. “Hold still and stay quiet. It will not look like I am doing anything, but trust me, I am. And it’s not easy.”

Magister Tormin closed his eyes and steadied his breathing. Nym waited as seconds turned into a minute, then two. Finally, he saw a faint movement around the magister, like a shadow crossing over his face and stretching out into the distance. It slowly strengthened and grew until it enveloped his entire body in a misty blue light.

The mist rolled across the magister as it sunk into his skin, disappearing and being replaced by more and more, slowly building in brightness until he was almost glowing. Finally, almost five minutes after he’d started, the magister’s eyes snapped open and he laid his palm on Nym’s hair.

The mist spread out from the magister’s hand to encompass Nym’s head, but didn’t seem to do anything else that he could tell. Then again, it wasn’t like he could see into his own head. If the magister saw anything though, he didn’t say a word. Sweat started to bead on his forehead which was steadily turning red despite the veil of blue covering it. A single vein stood up near one of the magister’s eyes and started pulsing rapidly.

Another minute of awkward silence passed with Nym shooting Ciana a look and her rolling her eyes behind the magister’s back. “Stop fidgeting” Magister Tormin said when Nym shuffled in place.

“Sorry, sir,” Nym said.

Finally, the magister let go of him and let out a soft wheeze. He wiped his face on his sleeve and plopped down heavily in the chair. Ciana opened her mouth to say something, but paused when he held up a finger. “Give me a minute,” he said.

It was more like five minutes, but Magister Tormin did eventually catch his breath. “Alright,” he said, addressing Ciana. “I’ve used the most powerful targeted body diagnostic spell there is in the second circle. There are definitely remnants of arcana poisoning like I already told you. There are a lot less than there were a day ago, which would be a mystery to take to the healers at the Academy if you could afford it. He shouldn’t have survived, and he shouldn’t be in as good a shape as he is right now. I don’t know how he did it.

“As far as this supposed memory loss goes, there is no physical basis for it that I can find. Nor is there any magical malady here, though who would bother to curse a little kid with something powerful enough to completely obliviate his memories is beyond me.”

The magister turned to glare at Nym. “Now, come clean with me. I’ve wasted a good deal of energy on this farce. Who are you really, and why are you playing this game? There’s nothing wrong with your head.”

“I’m not lying!” Nym protested.

“Either you are a liar or this is related to your mysterious case of arcana poisoning. I am not a medical expert when it comes to magical maladies, but any second circle magister knows that some snot-nosed kid can’t even pull that much arcana into his soul well, let alone survive the backlash. You haven’t even pierced the first circle. Whoever you are, and whatever you’re playing at, I advise you to come clean before you make it worse.”

“I’m telling you the truth,” Nym said hotly. “I don’t know what you want from me.”

The magister sniffed. “I wash my hands of this. Don’t bring this child back to me unless it’s to offer an apology for his behavior,” he told Ciana. “There is nothing wrong with him and he’s making a fool of you. I won’t waste precious time and energy I could be using to solve actual problems on him.”

That said, Magister Tormin promptly threw them both out onto the street. He refused to listen to either of their protests and slammed the door in their faces so hard that his plaque rattled against the wall.

“You believe me, right?” Nym said.

Ciana gave a long sigh and told him, “I do. But I don’t know what to do to help you now. I guess let’s just go back home and figure out later. Maybe your memories will come back in a few days when you start feeling better.”

He didn’t have a better idea. “What can I do to help?” he said. “I don’t want to put you in a bad spot because you gave me too much. Let me help.”

Ciana gave him a small smile. “Sure, Nym. You can help. Not tonight though. You’re still not recovered. Maybe in a day or two.”

“I can help now!” he told her. “Just tell me what you need me to do.”

“We’ll see. For starters, we’ve got to walk back. How do your feet feel?”

They hurt. Every step was a small agony on each of the blisters he’d acquired, and they’d get worse on the walk back. That wasn’t something she needed to worry about. There was nothing she could do. She didn’t even have shoes for herself, let alone a spare pair to offer a stranger. He’d suffer through aching feet and soon they’d be calloused over.

“They’re fine,” he lied. “Let’s go home and I’ll help you get lunch together.”

It was a slow walk back, even slower than the first trip, but Nym did his best not to hobble along and if Ciana noticed, she didn’t say anything.

That was a small mercy. He had his pride too, after all.