Chapter 6

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The inn was a glorious place, somehow dank and dark while having a strangely golden glow that kept the atmosphere from being depressing. The clientele was dressed neatly in material ranging from sturdy cotton to flowing silk. For entertainment, a well-groomed couple sang, too softly to be heard over the rumble of conversation.

The young wizard found herself a little disappointed.

After a few breaths of earnest conversation with the Tender, the Skald sat the young wizard at a clean table, plopped a mug down in front of her, and said, “Drink long and drink well, Honored. And much health to you.”

“And to you?” the young wizard asked.

Skald Sunny nodded and grinned and took a healthy swallow from her own mug.

Curious and a bit excited, the reluctant wizard raised her mug and drank deep. She almost spat the liquid back in the Skald’s face. “It’s milk!”

“Yes, of course it’s milk. It’s white; it’s cold. What were you expecting?”

The young wizard furled her eyebrows. “I don’t know. I’ve never been off the island, except to get lectured at by R’Majesty. I imagined squint-eyed, desperate women slouched over mugs of ale; tattered singers struggling to earn a name.” The young wizard looked down at her mug. “I expected alcohol.”

“Oh, well, if that’s what you were expecting.” Skald Sunny laughed and waved her hand at a Server. “Though I am duty bound to tell you the following. First, this close to Tara, you’re not going to get desperate drinkers or singers. We’ll talk about your deplorable taste in epics later. Second, alcohol mutes power, even a Skald’s, which I consider highly unfair. Wizards stay away from alcohol. Third, since I’m not sure you’ve received this talk, alcohol impairs your judgment. If you drink too much, you’ll start making stupid decisions and putting yourself and those around you in danger.”

The wizard pouted. “Yes, yes. NeachCook Reglin gives the lecture every time he serves wine at dinner. Watered down wine, I might add. And the Familiar spouted it every day when refusing to let me have watered down wine for dinner. When does a girl get to have alcohol without the lecture?”

“Just about never,” Skald Sunny said firmly. “However, an entitled woman gets to take responsibility for her choices.”

The wizard gasped, offended. “And that’s different from what I’m doing how?”

“Now, you’re working your magic and running your life from breath to breath. Eventually, you’ll figure out how to see beyond the breath. I think hiring the trainees will help.”

The foundling’s retort was interrupted by a Server, who set two empty mugs on the table. With great ceremony, he poured golden liquid into one mug, building a froth that peeked just over the rim. The Server picked up the mug and, with a slight bow, presented it to the young wizard. “Drink long and drink well, Worthy.”

The young wizard took a deep breath and put her nose into the foam; it took a second for liquid to hit her lips. When it did, it was cold and tangy, earthy, with a lingering breath that stayed in the back of the throat. She smiled at the Skald and the Server.

The Server turned to the rest of the patrons and announced, “Family, a drink on the house. This cousin has tasted her first ale, and she did not choke.”

The patrons cheered, and the young wizard flushed. “Do they do that to everyone?” she whispered to the Skald.

“Yes.” The Skald grinned. “A girl’s first ale is important. Fruit alcohol is for dining. Grain alcohol is for relaxing.” She picked up the mug the Server had filled for her. “Light alcohol, like this ale, is for spending time with friends. A girl’s first ale marks the time she begins to make her own choices in her pleasures.”

The young wizard set her mug down with a thump. “Do I have to learn another set of rules if I start drinking alcohol?”

“You’re not going to start drinking alcohol,” the Skald said firmly. “This is merely a rite of passage. Your NeachCook and your secretary know the rules regarding serving alcohol. When you have parties, they’ll take care of the details.”

The wizard rolled her eyes. “Pleasures. Friends. Parties. I don’t think wizards have any of those things.”

“Of course, they do. Otherwise there would be a lot more wizards like the Nameless One.”

The young wizard stared around her, avoiding eye contact. “Well,” she said, ever so casually, “how does one find friends, then?”

“Usually one starts by introducing one’s self.”

The wizard rolled her eyes again. “Everything starts with introducing one’s self.” Before she’d become Acting NeachDare d’Shadowed Rooster, she, who did not know the names of her parents, had never known how to introduce herself. One benefit of having a position and a career, however undesired, was she didn’t need to acknowledge her beginnings if she didn’t wish to.

“Some Entitled expect you to know them by sight,” Sunny continued. “Like the wizard yesterday.”

“I don’t know why they expect that.” The young wizard made a circle with her fingers. “Island.” She pointed to a drop of ale within the circle. “Me.”

The Skald laughed. “I doubt Jernine or Jaylin have been off the island either. You’re only thirteen.”

The foundling wizard laughed also, a little more sharply. “Actually, it could be fourteen. We’re not sure when my actual birth day is.”

“Off topic,” said the Skald with a wave of her mug. “How do you introduce yourself to society?”

“Acting NeachDare d’Shadowed Rooster.”

“I am Skald Sunny a’Tara,” said the Skald grandly. “In a formal setting, we would call each other by title, though you may call me Cousin, if you wish.”

The fourteen-year-old foundling wizard gaped in astonishment. “But I’m still a trainee, technically. You’re entitled.”

“However young you are, you are Head of your Household,” Skald Sunny said seriously, looking the wizard in the eyes. “You’re not so much a trainee as a wizard-elect. You are due the respect of a full wizard because you are acting as one; and you are allowed some of the privileges. Calling a member of your household “Cousin” is one of those privileges.”

“Oh, blessings fall upon my head,” the young wizard moaned.

“Yes, they do.” The Skald raised her mug and held it up until the wizard tapped it with hers. “And they will continue to fall, if you’ll just open up a little.”

“You were lecturing me about friends, not about blessings.”

“A good friend is a blessing unsought.”

“So I need to not want a friend to get one?” the wizard asked, eyebrows furled in confusion.

“No. Sorry. Platitude. I’m finished. Hold on.” The Skald signaled the Server, who brought over a plate full of fried dough, and refilled the mugs. “Okay, first try these, they’re wonderful. Second. Friends. We could be friends, you and me. We’ve shared a drink and some conversation. We’ve known each other for a year. You hugged me.”

The wizard was instantly contrite. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to; I was just so happy you weren’t dead.”

“It’s okay,” the Skald said, soothingly. “Really. I’m glad you did. I’d like to think we are friends. So you may call me Sunny.”

“Sunny.” The young wizard took another drink of her ale. She wiped her lips, took a deep breath, and asked, very carefully, “And what, Sunny, will you call me?”

“Well,” said the Skald, just as carefully, “it depends on what you want me to call you. If you’re more comfortable, I can continue to call you Honored…”

“No!” The wizard shook her head vehemently. “No, no, no. I am so tired of being “Honored” all over the tower. I don’t remember a lot, but surely one of the benefits of having a friend is to have them use your name.”

“I’ll be happy to call you by name.” The Skald paused and stared at the wizard. The wizard stared back. “But you’ll have to tell me what it is,” the Skald continued.

The wizard scowled and put her chin in her hand. “I was hoping you knew, because I don’t have the spark of an idea. I’ve been so focused on trying to deal with this power, I didn’t even realize I’d forgotten my name until yesterday in the WorldView. Maybe wizards don’t have names, and that’s why they didn’t introduce themselves. It’s all about the tower,” she finished pensively.

“No, they all have names. You heard R’Majesty address them. Surely your household, your friends…”

“No one has called me anything but Honored for a year,” the Acting NeachDare d’Shadowed Rooster said stoutly. “Except R’Majesty, who occasionally calls me Cousin.”

“Well, that explains a lot,” Sunny said, pensive in her turn. “How do we go about discovering your name?”

“If the wizards expected us to know them, maybe they know me.”

“And which wizard do you feel comfortable enough to ask?”

The youngest wizard looked down at the table. Again.

“Besides, surely there’s a faster way to get information than sending messages to random wizards.”

“The fastest way I know of is to ask Acting Savant Deibra. Surely there’s a record of my name somewhere and she would know where, right?”

“Don’t ask me. Acting Savant Deibra and I stay out of each other’s way.” The Skald rose.

The young wizard sighed. “Deibra stays out of my way, too. Everyone stays out of my way.” She drained her mug and pushed back her chair.

As Sunny led the way toward the Stables, the wizard tried to watch everything. She was curious about the cousins on the walking path, and the way a low wall divided path from street. She was curious about the lamps that automatically lit as the sun sank lower beyond the sea. She was insanely curious about the vendors who were lugging things from the edge of the path back into their shops.

“Why do you think everyone stays out of your way?” Sunny asked.

“What?” The young wizard tore her gaze from a barrel of day-old apples. “Well, I did master the statue spell rather quickly.”

Sunny made a wordless, encouraging noise.

“I found it on the first page of NeachDare Destin’s notebook, may he spend an eternity being the victim of each spell in that book. I used it because, well, because I was in a bad mood and I do not want to be a wizard and I hoped if cousins were afraid they’d petition for a new one. And because it kept cousins from yammering at me.”

“Everyone but me.” The Skald grinned.

“Well, you and Acting Savant Deibra. But Deibra won’t look me in the eye and there isn’t sign one that she remembers we used to be friends.”

“What did she call you when you were friends?”

“I have no idea; I’m lucky I’m able to remember we were friends.” The young wizard shrugged. “It is what it is.”

“Have you tried to renew the friendship?”

The young wizard shrugged again. “I’m a wizard.”

“You’re also a thirteen-year-old girl.”

“Possibly fourteen.”

“Either way,” pressed the Skald gently. When the wizard continued walking without comment, Sunny changed the subject. “I’m surprised you’ve held out this long.”

“Held out what?”

“Your temper. You haven’t lost it and turned the whole place into statues.”

“I’ve thought about it.”

“I know.” Sunny stopped in the path and put a hand on the young wizard’s arm. “You may control your temper, but it’s clear when it’s close. Or when you’ve cast a spell, even if none of us can figure out what it is.”

The nameless wizard grinned briefly and then sighed. “What good would it do?”

“What?”

“What good would it do to scream and cry and have a tantrum? Even if I had time, which I don’t, what good would it do?”

“How can you not have time to throw a tantrum?”

The young wizard pulled herself up to an almost regal bearing. “I have been given the magic of the oldest tower in the Nation. I have responsibilities. I have chores. I have years of learning ahead of me. With all of this, how do I have time to do anything else?”

“We’re definitely getting you a trainee. Or two.”

“So I’ll have someone to train in all my copious spare time?”

The Skald rolled her eyes and started walking again. “And we need to find your name so I can say it in a scolding tone when you start getting too sarcastic for a teenager.”

“Okay, I don’t know much, but I don’t think there is a limit for sarcasm in teenagers.”

The Skald blinked. “Maybe the real reason they never let you out of the tower is because you’re a terror.”

“Nobody knows me well enough to judge. Even I don’t know me well enough to judge.” The young wizard paused by the gate of the stable yard and looked into the Skald’s eyes. “This is the first time I’ve talked about anything that doesn’t relate to the power.” She smiled sadly and entered the yard.

“This is going to be an exciting year,” the Skald muttered as she gestured to the Handler.

The wizard heard her. “More blessings upon my head?”

“You’d better believe it.”

The guards were, of course, ready to go as soon as the young wizard trotted out of the stable yard. They surrounded her and the Skald, keeping a casual, but by no means careless, eye on the family as the horses walked through the streets of Tara. Like the Inn, the streets were clean and the cousins well-groomed; there was the occasional raised voice, but no brawls. The young wizard’s memories of the WorldView had led her to expect much more, well, life outside her tower. This bucolic scene seemed more surreal than the pictures she’d viewed in the water.

Yet, the guards were watchful. They actually guarded, each man and woman perusing a specific area, outside hand held loosely around the sword or crossbow. They knew there could be someone out there who meant ill toward the tower, or toward the wizard who ran it. For all that the power seemed to run a wizard’s life, it didn’t seem intent on protecting it, or NeachDare Destin would be the one riding quickly through Tara’s streets. The young wizard looked around at the cousins, the buildings, the trees and flowers and singers on street corners and vendors, and she wondered what they saw. What did she look like to them? Did they even see her, or was she, and her entourage, simply the Acting NeachDare d’Shadowed Rooster?

She was more. She had to be more -- more than her uncontrollable magic, more than the tower she felt ill equipped to run. She was more than the youngest wizard in Ainland. She had had a life before All Fool’s 2013. She had!

Once through the portal and safely back on the island, the young wizard led Sunny and the guards on a race back to the tower. She was afire to know her name, to have a hold of something that was hers alone. It felt so important, so immediate, so necessary, she rode her horse right up to the main doors, jumped off and ran inside yelling “Deibra!”

The Acting Savant was in the main hall like an arrow, face white. “Honored! Are you all right?”

“Yes. Well, I don’t know. Perhaps not. Or I’m just the same as I’ve always been, except I’m realizing that I’m not normal. That didn’t make sense.” Outside, Sunny laughed. The foundling wizard took a deep breath. “Deibra. What is my name?”

“Acting NeachDare d’Shadowed Rooster,” Acting Savant Deibra answered in a long-suffering tone.

“No, not my title. My name.” The young wizard slapped her hand to her chest. “What is the name I was given when I arrived? What was I called two years ago? Who am I?”

“Why you’re…” Acting Savant Deibra worked her mouth for a breath. She blinked as if to access the information. Then, with a bewildered look on her face, she became speechless.

The young wizard sighed out all her hope and sank into a chair by the door.

Outside, Sunny gave the guards permission to retire for the night and asked a Server to take her bags up to her room. She walked into the great hall and cleared her throat.

“Deibra doesn’t know either,” the young wizard said sadly.

Deibra found her voice and grimaced. “Mathan Marla, may she be comfortable in her new life, kept excellent notes. I’m sure she recorded your name. With your permission, Honored.”

“Yes, go, please.” The wizard bounced out of the chair again and paced the great hall; Skald Sunny pulled a musical instrument out of nowhere and fiddled with the strings, settling into a rhythm that matched the foundling’s footsteps.

Deibra returned, carrying her notepad and a frown on her face. “There is no record of a name for you, Honored.”

The wizard stopped in her tracks and made a noise between a screech and a groan.

Acting Savant Deibra cleared her throat and continued. “NeachCook called you dumpling, which made you frown. The guards called you sweetheart, and everyone else called you Little Mathan. Destin of Memory, may that memory glow, called you Foundling or Charity, depending on what mood he was in.” She shut the pad and looked up, her face soft, the memory of the last long hard year erased for a breath. “I never had to call you, you were always right there.”

Eyes closed, the young wizard clenched and unclenched a hand. She inhaled and turned to the Skald. “What does R’Majesty call me?”

“The ward wizard. It’s her private joke. She’s never had a wizard as a ward of the court, before.” Sunny sighed and smiled. “I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised.”

“Oh, I’m not surprised,” said the young wizard. Fourteen years old and nameless. No wonder her life was a mess. Nothing to call her own, nothing to define her, nothing to make her unique, to give her a connection to the time before the power, to show she was ever anything but the vessel of the tower. “Thank you, Deibra, for looking.”

“You’re welcome, Hon…” Deibra stopped. Her smile was sad. “You’re welcome.”

The nameless wizard stepped toward the stairs, to return to her room and the life she’d known for the last year.

Sunny played a laughing chord on her instrument. “Well, I guess we know what we’re going to be doing tomorrow, then, don’t we?”

The young wizard halted and turned again, to stare suspiciously at the Skald. “What?”

“We’re going to have to find you a name.”

And suddenly Hope held her lantern high once more. “We can do that?”

“Of course. Everyone gets a name.”

“Well.” The wizard blinked. “Okay then. I’ll, um, see you tomorrow.”

Sunny grinned. “You can count on it.”