Excerpt from Alexan’s Seventh Journal, Tour of the Small and the Strange.

It’s always strange running into a greater elemental who is also unsown. As a member of those six races, it seems like having no aspect at all shouldn’t be possible. As far as I can tell, those individuals are just as likely to have no element as they are to eventually develop into a different aspect, but I’ve hardly met enough to be a proper judge of that.

Probably more interesting, is that I have yet to meet a greater elemental whose element and personality don’t strangely align. Galm, Pelagiagell, Erlkin, Lume, Siren or Drakoren, every single race is full of powerfully similar alignments of personality. But give one of those races the element of another, and they resembled the new element more than the one with which they were supposed to be born.

I’ve always enjoyed how channeling enough mana can elicit a rush of related emotions. Perhaps the effect is far deeper than casual thought would suggest.

Unnamed Tal

“Well the lump in your stomach has shrunk a little more, so that is good.” Meyla’s tone was almost distracted as she spoke, her attention on her work. “I don’t think it will be gone before the sealing ceremony, but it shouldn’t bother you by then.”

Tal twitched as she started poking the tender nodes once again.

The first time Tal had fallen asleep yesterday had actually been around lunch time. Exhausted as he had been, the day being only half done hadn’t mattered. Meyla had woken him up for supper, but had only given him a quick check. She’d had just as much lively cheer as the earlier visit.

Today she was doing the full circulation again with the same bright attitude. While she had the age lines and slightly-careful movement of the elderly, her mood didn’t reflect it at all. While Erlkin were supposed to be creatures of shadow, It was like Meyla had been born with a light in her that pushed all darkness out.

“Do you think I could learn healing?” Tal asked suddenly.

“Oh, it should be very possible,” Meyla replied conversationally, but she hesitated for a while before continuing. “It does take quite some time to learn. You have to learn how to use unaspected aether to feel the channels and the condition of the person you are treating. Although, novice healing is already within your grasp.”

“It is?”

“Oh yes!” Meyla replied eagerly, “Novice healers can’t do much, really, but it is more than nothing.” She paused for a moment as she switched hands to work on the nodes on his right side. “The only requirement to learn basic aetheric healing is having mastered sharing, which I understand you’ve managed well for your age.”

Tal nodded.

“From there it’s just doing a bit of what I’m doing. Put a hand on a person’s chest, over their heart and lungs, and then put your other hand on the other side of wherever they are wounded.”

“And then just circulate aether?”

“Indeed! Pushing aether into their chest and pulling it through the wound, you will stimulate the capabilities of their body and help bolster the healing,” Meyla paused and spoke again. “It doesn’t do much to help if a person is bleeding out or has life-blood poisoning, but otherwise it rarely fails to help.”

“It’s not that fast is it?”

She smiled wistfully. “Not for me. I don’t believe the records we had to start with were all that out of date, but with only raw and circulated aether, healing is really closer to cleaning wounds of mana burn and helping the wounded heal themselves.”

Tall allowed himself a smile as he replied. “It’s more than nothing though.”

Meyla giggled again. It still jarred Tal a bit to hear a cute laugh out of an older lady, but it was growing on him. She seemed determined to live cheerfully and it helped take the stress off his shoulders to have her around, even if only for a bit.

He did have one last question. “It doesn’t hurt you does it?”

“Not seriously,” Meyla replied lightly. “Extended healing can be dangerous if you pull in too much aspected mana, and your accumulation has been quite thick. I will have to take some time to cleanse myself in turn. If I was doing prolonged healing of multiple wounded, I would be in just as much trouble as you!” She patted his chest and turned away slightly. “I’m done now, you can put your shirt back on.”

Tal did just that, pulling on the scratchy new shirt Meyla had brought. The old one was torn up, especially on his back. He must have been thrown through something or into something, but the whole fight with the wyrm was still a bit hazy. The shirt was a bit tight, but at least it was clean. Tal still wasn’t sure where the rucksack and his pauldron had gone.

Meyla and Tal both looked as someone knocked on the door to his room.

“Hello?” Tal called.

The latch turned and the door opened to reveal Ouran. The young Erlkin guard smiled as soon as he saw Tal. He made sure to nod respectfully to Meyla as well. Riding on a small backpack and peeking over Ouran’s shoulder was another very welcome sight.

Beyond them Tal could see the same arden as before waiting at the door with another unfamiliar Erlkin warden behind him. After a glance, he paid them no mind.

“Tal! It is good to see you well,” Easil exclaimed happily from his perch.

“You are healer Meyla?” Ouran asked as he came face to face with the older Erlkin, “Thank you for your help”

“It’s been my pleasure!” Meyla replied happily. “I am done here for now, so I will let you enjoy your visit.”

Ouran stepped aside to allow Meyla to pass. With the backpack now facing the bed on which Tal sat, Easil climbed down as far as he could, then hopped the remainder of the distance. From there he toddled over to Tal where he could lay a tiny hand on Tal’s leg.

“I am relieved to see you awake.” Easil looked up to Tal as he spoke, his expression tight. “When you fell unconscious, my heart almost stopped.”

Tal’s left hand ended up on the back of his neck, rubbing nervously. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know what else to do,” Tal replied. “But what about Nisk? He was worse off than me.”

“He was on the edge, but is pulling through. He’s being waited on by Leez. She’s a good healer much like Meyla… and Nisk has always liked Leez.”

“Oh, hehe, that’s good.” Tal wasn’t familiar with Meyla before now, but he did vaguely know Leez, a gnomish healer that lived within Lisnail. Leez probably wouldn’t have been much help for Tal simply because she didn’t have the aether, or the reach.

But Nisk was probably about as happy as he could be considering the situation.

Ouran busied himself pulling off the backpack and starting to pull out sheaves of leaf parchment and other bundles of stuff from the backpack. A change of clothes came out and Tal realized his pauldron was hanging off the backpack. It had been on top to allow Easil an easier ride. Out next came one of Tal’s wands, just the hollow wood wand he had grown up with. Neither the rare char wand nore the damp wand he’d been practicing with in class were anywhere to be seen.

Not that the hollow wand would do him any good. He was no match for the wardens who watched Linumbra’s Heart.

“So what happened to the wyrm?” Tal asked as Ouran emptied the backpack of items.

“The wardens made short work of it.” Ouran pulled out the chair as he spoke, sitting and getting comfortable. “But there was a whole squad of six who arrived to hunt the monster.”

“Nisk popping the thing’s eyeball slowed it down,” Easil added. “They also said the snake had a thing called a ‘pit’ on its nose that you injured, and that made it even more confused.”

“A pit?”

“Yes, that is how it was able to detect heat.” Easil swung his legs over Tal’s thigh, then sat down with his hands on his knees. “The tight space was a problem, but with the pale wyrm confused the wardens were able to pelt it down with bullets and restrain it with heavy binds. They had kind words for our ability to hold the monster off.”

“I feel like we were just lucky,” Tal replied. “If we-”

“Being lucky is fine, just don’t let it go to waste,” Ouran interrupted, “But I am curious Tal, what was that shadow beast?”

Tal took a breath as he thought about how to reply. Still confused from the different stories between the sentinel and Elder Darisen, it was hard to know what to say.

“The Grand Elder told me a bit about the shadow,” Tal admitted, “It’s a part of the barrier around the Hollow Home.”

“Oh, so it was after you because,” Easil sighed, “because you’re the chosen.”

“I wanted to ask, you didn’t give me the name Yekchetal, did you, Easil?” Tal asked, only for his adopted father to look away.

“No, it was given to me from here in the Heart…” Easil wrung his hands together for a moment before looking up to Tal. “Yes, I know what it means.”

“When were you going to tell me?”

Ouran quietly stood and made his way to the door. Easil glanced at the guard as he went, but said nothing until Ouran had departed. He remained silent even for a while after that. Tal was fine with waiting, it wasn’t like there was anything in the room to distract Easil.

He realized he was wrong about that as Easil started to change the subject after all “So we brought some script lessons from No-”

“Father.”

Easil flinched. His tiny shoulders dropped.

“I never liked the name,” Easil finally spoke. “Latch Key, but mucked about so it wasn’t obvious. It was always…” he frowned, his eyes shifting towards the door. “I always found it pretentious, truly. And then they gave you the name ‘Yek’.”

“Weren’t you and Nisk the ones who found me though?”

“Well, yes, but you were born from a god’s toy. And I’m just a Gnomish bulbcutter.”

“Did you have another name for me?”

That snapped Easil’s head around. A small grin lit up on his small face, tentative but still there. “Well, I was thinking of giving you my father’s name.”

“Then we’ll go with that. What was his name?”

Easil’s mouth dropped, like he couldn’t believe it would be so easy.

Tal could see why, when he thought about it. “I met the Grand Elder. I can see why you wouldn’t be able to give me the name you wanted. We can keep it a secret for now.”

Easil went from surprised, to suspicious, his blue eyes narrowing. “I suppose we can do that. If you are willing, my father’s name was Karn.”

“Pfft! Ha ha ha,” Tal burst out laughing.

“What?” Easil frowned. “What’s so funny about that, he was a good man!”

“I dunno!” Tal admitted. “But it sounds like a name for someone scarier than the average gnome!"

“He was pretty scary!” Easil protested.

“Heh, hehe… ahhh,” Tal breathed a sigh, all the tension he’d unknowingly carried leaving his back. “How about Talkarn? I can still go by Tal most of the time, but I’m sure I’ll grow into it. And that way we won’t make the Elder angry.”

Easil nodded. “We can do that.” he cracked one of the widest smiles Tal had ever seen on him in a while.

Unnamed Talkarn

Tal stared at the words, willing them to make more sense. Even just a bit.

A letter from Nolsa was no laughing matter to him. It was clear now that she’d known way more than she’d let on. Well, that might not be true. Tal knew she’d been hinting at something, but he’d been distracted by…

He shook his head as his eyes lost focus. She’d been letting on that she knew something was going on; Tal was just too dumb to realize it was more serious than he thought.

“Dear Tal,“ He read, out loud and slowly.

“I am glad… to hear that you... are well. I under...stand you have been... hurt by a... monster from the roots, but... working... together you, Nisk, Easil and... Ouran have... survived.”

Tal blinked, then blinked a few more times and rubbed his eyes. He realized he’d never seen his father’s name spelled out. That and he just wasn’t good with reading. Many of the words were ones he’d already learned, so he could still reason out what Nolsa was writing.

But it was a slow process.

“I have... bundled in some... reading lessons for you, a wax board for you to... practice your writing and some... blank pieces of letting… lettering?, I hope for you to... attempt to write me back. I am... unlikely to see you for a time.”

Tal stopped to rest his head for a moment and had a cup of water.

It was true the Elder wasn’t letting him go anywhere, not while he was healing up. The excuse was that the so-called shadow beast would come for him, of course. But then, Tal believed him in a way. Darisen just didn’t want the ‘Latch Key’ to make any unfortunate decisions based on what the shadow might say.

Too bad for him!

That actually didn’t bother Tal as much as he thought, not at this point. It was after that where the conflict came in.

Did he need to unseal the barrier? How did Tal know whatever it was… whatever ‘she’ was, wasn’t dangerous anymore? The dream had felt like he was watching it from far away, but certain parts of it stuck with him now that he was awake.

The sheer anger pouring off that thing made his stomach clench. Still made his stomach clench.

How did he know it wasn’t just waiting and hiding?

Tal dropped his heads into his palms and flinched as his forehead hit his tender hands. “Mmmmrraaaagh,” Tal grumbled, scrubbing his hands through his hair.

He spent his time going through the lessons. Most of them were just simple reading and writing exercises. The writing was simple enough, just requiring him to scratch a bunch of stupid squiggly lines on the wax board, scrub the board clean again with the wood bar, then start over with more stupid squiggles.

Meyla’s visit was a welcome distraction, but a short one. She came in with his meal, checked his circulation, poked the normal sore spots, then left. And took her good cheer with her.

Not that he wanted her to lose it along her way.

Finally, he pulled out the large letter Nolsa had sent. Just holding the leaf parchment confused Tal. It was heavy, far heavier than should be normal. Earlier he’d just glanced at the thing, seen lots of words and flinched away. But now that he looked at it closer, Nolsa had infused it with dark mana. This had turned the normally-pale-brown parchment a much darker shade of brown that made the words difficult to see, except that when he touched the parchment the whole thing lit up strangely, as if the words were more than just words.

Why? Forgetting that this was probably the first time he had ever actually been interested in reading, Tal placed the letter in front of him and gave it his best.

It took him a bit to struggle through still, but even after the first bit, he was unconsciously smiling. When he realized what it meant though, the smile faded away.

Dearest Tal,

While I had hoped that you could enjoy your youth for a little longer, it is clearly not to be.

They call you Yek, your given name is Yekchetal, and I suppose you now know what it truly means, but to me, you are simply Tal. While my duty has been to observe, it has been a pleasure to teach you. I believe in time that you shall be a splendid man.

As for the rest, if you wish to hear no more, then simply do not reply. But if you send me a response, know that I will have no regrets.

Do you remember me telling you about my daughter? It might be a little hazy as she has been a little rebellious and hard to talk about. I could never convince her there was no leaving after all. But maybe with you, that might happen. I would be so very jealous, I have to admit, but if she could go in my place, well, nothing could make me happier.

Her name starts with Ala, do you remember the rest?

Your teacher and friend,

Teacher Nolsa.

Tal’s hands shivered as he clutched the strangely hard parchment. He knew why it was like that now. There was even a dark splotch at the bottom of the page next to her name. He hadn’t looked closely at first, but now it was clear to him that he was looking at a thumbprint that was almost certainly of her blood.

As for what Nolsa was asking… she knew so much more than Tal did. He hadn’t even realized this was a possibility! He might have questioned her on the whole idea, if it wasn’t such a serious one.

He put the letter down, heavy as it was with the weight of responsibility. Would it work for him? Could he do this? His gaze shifted to the hollow wand sitting at the back of the desk against the wall. He ran his thumb over the dark thumbprint.

It was so easy to think of aether and aspected mana like parts of the body. It was like breathing air or flexing a muscle in a way. But aether acted according to the will and imagination. Casting spells and enchantments on demand saw patterns of mana constructs slowly and painfully form themselves naturally to suit. To master its use was to become familiar with the patterns: you could then form them faster, tweak them for new effects, or duplicate them with real materials.

But some things had their own special rules.

He knew the normal way; he'd seen it in action before. To participate in this, he would have to slowly bleed the mana from her letter and infuse it into a letter of his own. And he had to add his own mana to the mix. And unlike normal spellcrafting, the magic would do the rest of its own volition.

Tal sat, staring at the letter. He had a decision to make.

End Chapter