Ascendant

With the loss of the oars and Ciana’s general refusal to let Nym go out by himself, they no longer had the ability to check the crab traps. Unfortunately, that combined with Senman’s interference with the snare lines left them with nothing but vegetables to eat and not much to trade or sell in Palmara.

The two of them stood next to a snare line which had been very obviously cut with a knife. “This is too far,” Ciana muttered. “Senman’s messed with my traps for the last time.”

“What do you want to do?” Nym asked.

“Go talk to the guard captain again. I’ve got evidence of tampering this time. If he won’t listen…” She trailed off as she reached down to pick up the remains of the trap.

“If he won’t listen, what?” Nym prompted.

“Senman’s not the only one with a knife,” she muttered darkly. “I’ve had enough of him messing with me.”

“That seems like a bad idea,” Nym said.

“Trying to starve me because I won’t let him between my legs is a bad idea. He’s about to find that out. You head back home. I’m going to Palmara.”

Nym gave her a look of surprise. “You don’t want me to come with you?”

Ciana shook her head. “This is going to be messy. You’re still a kid. I’ll handle it.”

“Okay. I will… uh… weed the garden?”

She gave him a playful shove. “Why don’t you work on that fancy magic? Maybe you can get another memory back. It sounds like you were part of a rich, important family. Someone is going to come looking for you eventually and the more you remember, the better prepared you’re going to be.”

That was true. He’d explained what he’d remembered the night before and together they’d gone over every detail he could recall. They had a lot of theories but nothing concrete, though the fact that the techniques he’d remembered learning all seemed to work was strong evidence that it was a true memory. Ciana had started calling him ‘Prodigy’ to tease him. It beat being called ‘Shark bait,’ which was her other nickname for him now.

Truth to be told though, if he used Amos as a measuring stick, it was kind of impressive. He’d apparently been significantly younger than the other boy, who was being groomed to attend a prestigious magical school by Magister Tormin, when he’d achieved his breakthrough into the second layer.

Even now, barely a month after washing ashore with no memory, he was reconstructing enough of what he’d learned to start catching up. Nym wasn’t sure he’d win in a serious fight with Amos, but he suspected he’d give a better showing if it came down to it again.

What he really wanted to do was talk to Lathia again. Now that he had a stronger foundation, he had all sorts of other questions. He wondered if she’d let him sit in on some of the lectures she eavesdropped on. Maybe he could trade her some of the things he’d remembered for access. That presumed she could actually do magic, which he hadn’t confirmed and wasn’t going to push her on. If she wanted to keep that to herself, he wouldn’t try to pry the secret out of her.

That was a plan for another day though. For now, he finished checking the rest of the snare lines with Ciana, where they found another three lines cut and nothing caught in any of them. Then they parted ways, with him going back home and her going to town by herself with the sabotaged traps. He occupied himself on the walk back by flying instead of walking.

It took a fair bit of concentration, but it was only half a mile and he could actually fly faster than he could walk once he’d gotten a chance to practice at it. It wasn’t much faster, not even twice as fast as walking, but the novelty of floating above the trail made for a nice change of pace. At least, it did until he accidentally smacked his head on a tree branch when he wasn’t paying attention.

“Ow! Damn it!” he cursed, his concentration broken and his butt in the dirt. Now he had a headache and his tailbone hurt. Nym decided to just walk the rest of the way. Soon enough, he’d reached the two-room shack he shared with Ciana and found a nasty surprise.

Senman lounged in the main room, sprawled on the carved driftwood log they used for seating and idly carving out chunks of it with a hunting knife. He glanced up when Nym opened the door and snorted.

Nym froze, trying to process what he was seeing. “What are you doing here?” he asked, his face darkening in anger.

“None of your business. Where’s Ciana?”

“Went to town to talk to someone about someone messing with the traps,” Nym told him. “Sure hope you weren’t involved. You could get in trouble.”

Senman didn’t play along though. He went still for a second and his eyes got an evil gleam in them. “So if what I’m hearing is right, you’re saying that she won’t be back for an hour or two. It’s just you and me.”

That didn’t sound good. All of the sudden that knife in Senman’s hands seemed a lot more sinister, and Nym recalled how the older man had argued to get rid of Nym when he was still sick and recovering. It was very clear to him that Senman was possessive of Ciana in a way she wouldn’t tolerate and refused to accept any decisions she made that didn’t line up with what he wanted her to do.

In a flash, Senman was on his feet and lunging across the room to grab Nym. Nym danced back out of the door frame and spun around to run, but he didn’t make it three steps before Senman grabbed hold of him. “Guess I didn’t waste my time coming out here after all,” he said.

“Let go of me!” Nym fought, but he was no match for the older man’s strength. Senman got an arm around his chest and lifted him off the ground, then carried him the hundred feet or so to the bluffs overlooking the cove.

Nym kicked at him, but the angle was all wrong. He felt his heels connect against Senman’s legs, just not in a way that did anything. One kick that landed a bit higher up caused the man to curse and punch Nym in the head, at which point the boy fell limp and stopped struggling.

“Sure is a shame that the sharks got you after all. But honestly, who could expect to get lucky twice swimming in that cove? No one will ever know for sure where you went. Don’t worry though, I’ll console Ciana and convince her it was for the best that you moved on. You got what you wanted, you little vagrant, and hit the road to find your next mark.”

Nym didn’t bother answering. He wasn’t going to outrun or outmuscle the man, so he needed to rely on the one advantage he had over Senman: magic. The problem was that he was finding it difficult to concentrate, and he didn’t have much time to pull everything together.

If Senman had been content to chuck him off the bluffs right in front of the shack, Nym never would have made it. The hunter-turned-murderer had a different plan in mind though. The closest spots all had beach below them, but farther down they led directly to the water and it looked like Senman wasn’t planning on taking any chances on Nym surviving the drop.

This meant he had to go almost three times farther though, and that was where he made his mistake. Nym doubted he would have been able to pull together any magic while he was laying in the sand with a few broken limbs or a concussion. Senman could have easily tossed him over the edge, then taken the trail down and finished dragging him into the water.

Instead, he gave Nym the time he needed, and the boy was determined not to waste it. He controlled his breathing and reached out into the layers of adjacent reality. The first one couldn’t give him the strength he needed, but the second layer was far enough removed to allow for the impossible. Conduit forged, he began drawing in arcana and forming it with his will.

They were ten steps from the edge. Eight. Five. Two. Nym struck. Magic roared through him and the ground under Senman’s foot erupted. They were both flung into the air and Nym used the opportunity to shove away from the older man. Senman was so surprised that he let Nym go without a fight, and then they were tumbling end over and end towards the cold water below.

He landed on a cushion of air and skidded sideways across it, almost sliding off completely. Desperate, Nym curved the edge up to catch him and slide him back into the middle. Below him, Senman let out a hoarse, panic-ridden cry as he splashed into the water. He immediately resurfaced and clawed at the slick stone walls of the bluffs, trying to gain purchase and haul himself back up to safety.

Nym stared down at him, no mercy in his eyes. There below him was a man who had casually planned to murder a child in a bid to manipulate a young woman into a vulnerable state so he could take control of her. If Nym hadn’t been able to defend himself, it would have been him flailing desperately at the rocks below, trying to haul himself to safety while being tugged around by the currents running up against the bluffs.

It was within Nym’s power to save him still. There was even a chance the man would make it on his own. Nym didn’t think he’d make the climb, but he might make it to the beach. It was only a few hundred feet of water. If Senman was lucky and a strong swimmer, he could make it.

It was also within Nym’s power to finish the job, to make a barrier of solid air to force Senman’s head underwater, or make the water itself drag him down. He considered his next course of action, his gaze cold and calculating.

Senman was a problem, plain and simple. Ciana probably didn’t want to kill him though, however mad she was at the moment. Nym doubted she’d lose much sleep though if he just… disappeared. He doubted there would be any repercussions at all, unless someone knew Senman was here. If questioned, it would be easy enough to say he’d never seen the man.

Decision made, he cast a spell to form a tendril out of the water and snake it around Senman’s leg. “What was it you said?” Nym called down to him. “No one will ever know for sure where you went.”

He willed the tendril to pull down, and Senman had just enough time to take one last desperate lung full of air before he was pulled under. The tendril dragged him away from the bluffs and out towards the middle of the cove, where Nym held it in place for a few minutes, long after Senman stopped fighting.

Nym floated gently back to solid ground. Except for the ruptured patch of dirt, there was no trace that anything had happened. The blown-out rocks rolled back towards the hole he’d made and piled in, then covered themselves with a blanket of dirt that inched along like some sort of fat slug. It wasn’t perfect with the grass patches missing, but he doubted anyone would notice.

Nym walked slowly back to the shack and sat down. His father had been right after all.

Understand this, son. All of the world is against you, and the only thing you can truly rely on is your own strength. You will grow strong, stronger than anyone else, or you will break one day when it turns out you are too weak.