Chapter 7

Chapter 7    pdf version

“I don’t want to be a wizard!”

See everyone frozen in place, staring up at the ceiling. Even the rooster, in his yard, looks confused.

See the NeachCook shake his head and assemble the tray. See him pushing the Server toward the hall. For once, the Server’s steps are not cocky or sure as he climbs the large curving staircase and tentatively opens the door to the young wizard’s room.

Hear the Server break the cardinal rule. “Honored, are you feeling all right?”

See the young wizard blink in astonishment and flick the statue spell automatically. Asking questions before breakfast is not allowed.

She let the Server stay a statue long enough to realize it, then flicked her fingers again. Strangely, the Server seemed reassured; his cheerful manner returned, and he practically skipped out the door.

The wizard glanced toward her fountain. She knew, with the certainty of teenage paranoia, that cousins (most likely the Danu) used the fountain to spy on her. Maybe she could use is likewise, to see what was happening in her tower.

Daringly, she rose from her bed, stood before the fountain and waved her hand as if entering the WorldView. Obligingly, the water turned opaque. Since Server Massi had been the last cousin in the bedroom, she focused on him; the fountain reflected his actions as he raced down the hall and entered the kitchen with a jump and a slide. “She’s fine,” he said at the top of his lungs. “She turned me into a statue and everything.” The kitchen staff reacted with amused relief.

The young wizard banished the scene with a wave, sat on the edge of her bed and dug into her food. Of course, she was fine. Wizards don’t get sick. The very nature of the power refused to allow strange germs into the body. It destroyed them, zap zap zap.

She giggled at the thought of power waging war on germs.

Then she stared at herself in the fountain. She never giggled. She didn’t even smile until noon. Noon meant the day was half over, only a few more bells until sweet oblivion. Regardless of what Server Massi thought, she was not herself this morning.

See the young wizard drop her plate and run out the door.

Even as she ran, she flicked her fingers here and there -- tilting pictures, changing plants, lighting the ceiling sconces. Every single item responded as she desired. What she targeted was affected; what she willed was enacted. Her power, usually flowing ahead of her and affecting things randomly, was manageable, in control. In her control.

The young wizard had learned, over the past year, that miracles only happened on Midwinter’s Eve, and even then, rarely to wizards. So this control was not a miracle, nor a granted wish. This had a realistic, plebeian, magical or scientific cause. But what was it?

She slammed through the workroom door and turned to Skald Sunny. The sight of the brunette perched in her usual place on the table made the young wizard remember everything else that had happened yesterday, including the fact there was going to be a naming. And possibly trainees. So many changes. Was that why the power was under her control? Because she was happy? But that made no sense, because to be truly happy, she had to be without power.

The Skald looked up, and the young wizard held up her hands and made butterflies to dance on the air. “How am I finally controlling it?”

“It’s the drink, Honored.”

“No. What? But I didn’t drink that much. I never even had the urge to dance on the tables or wear strange apparatus upon my head.”

“Just because you don’t feel impaired, doesn’t mean you’re not. That’s the danger of alcohol.”

“Impaired? Impaired means out of control. But I’m not. It’s not! Look!” The butterflies bunched and looped until they looked like the petals of a child’s flower. “I could not do this last year.”

“And I hope you’ll be able to do it again,” said the Skald calmly. “However, it is still outside control, not inside control. It is still dangerous because you don’t know how your power is going to react when the control fades.”

The young wizard threw up her hands; the butterflies stayed in formation. “I never know how the power is going to react. Do you understand that? Never. It’s a whirlwind and I’m just along for the ride. It chose me, it rules me, and it allows me to be the face that’s presented to the world. This is the first time it has followed my will without struggle and to the letter.” The young wizard pointed dramatically. “I could remove a single fuzzy hair from your head!”

Sunny clapped two hands to the top of her scalp. “I sincerely hope you will not try. You think you’re in control now; you think everything is smooth and fine and wonderful. But when the drink no longer buffers you, you will be out of control again. And you cannot predict when that will be.”

“I am used to experimenting with the power,” the young wizard said stubbornly. “I am used to making notes about what works: which words; which herbs; which hand wiggles; which direction to face. I can experiment with how long the alcohol affects my power. Maybe different types will affect my control in different ways. Maybe…”

The Skald hopped off the table and risked her life by stepping close and putting her hands on the wizard’s shoulders. “Maybe you will listen to me, please. False control is not the answer. Practice is the answer. It just seems more difficult because you are so young. Because you didn’t have any training. Speaking of…”

“No!” the youngest wizard interrupted. “No. Control or not, no trainees until I get my name. I don’t care. Today is my day off. I remember that if I remember nothing else from yesterday’s meeting. The leash is off and today I get to relax, and you said I could find a name. I want a name!”

“Of course!” Shaking her head at teenage mood swings, Sunny pulled a piece of paper from her vest pocket. “I have taken the liberty of making a list of different places to gather inspiration from. And I asked Deibra to join us.”

“I hope she’s bringing more food,” the wizard grumbled. “I didn’t finish mine.”

Food did indeed arrive with Deibra, and for the rest of the morning, Skald, wizard and Acting Savant peered through records and logs; they looked up historical cousins and great wizards and warriors; they even contacted the Scholars for the most and least popular names of the last twenty years. They consulted astrologists and Templars; and they took suggestions from the family at Shadowed Rooster. They went down among the statues, looking at their features and their names; they returned with the eerie feeling that the statues had been scrutinizing the live cousins as much as the living had been scrutinizing the stone beings.

The young, still nameless, wizard did find the cat Familiar and stick her tongue out at it.

But at the end of the day, nothing seemed to ring true to the young wizard’s heart. “Maybe I am the Nameless One, reborn. And I am doomed to wander nameless, and therefore friendless, until I pass into Memory.”

Sunny fixed a stern eye upon the morose wizard. “The Nameless One had a name. We merely do not speak it so he need not be tied to his past deeds, but be reborn afresh.”

“Maybe I’m his daughter, then. After all, I have no known parents.”

“Your parents are known,” Sunny said patiently. She pointed to the WorldView fountain. “Everything is known. We could find out who your parents were if we had to.”

Sunny stood up, stretched, and went to the table still holding the afternoon tea. “But that is not the issue. If you are the daughter of the one we do not name, you are still not responsible for his deeds. If you are he reborn, then that is to improve and redeem yourself, and still has nothing to do with your name. We do not search for who we were, merely for who we are.” Sunny dropped a sugar cube into her cup and returned to her chair and the list. “How do you feel about Marguerite?”

“Like I’m swimming in syrup.”

Finally, for lack of anything better, and because it was so true, the youngest and most powerful wizard in the Nation chose to be called Charity. It sounded better than Foundling, as a name, and she owed her life, her tower and her power to her predecessor. May he be busy trying to figure out how to get his tower and power back and still leave her alive. Unmentioned grant it so.

And so, after dinner, with all the household around and a Herald to witness, Skald Sunny a’ Tara shook water upon the youngest wizard, and bound a red ribbon on her forehead, and named her Charity, Acting NeachDare d’Shadowed Rooster, Ainland. And the cousins cheered.