The voices penetrated Mika's sleep and mingled with her dreams. Her mind kept attempting to reject the intrusion, but as is the way with dreams, the words found purchase. Before she knew it, her mother was speaking with Reka's voice.

“It is time to wake, child,” she said, passing the basket to her father.

She rolled over and muttered something indistinct. The warm sun felt good on her skin as she lay on the soft blanket. It was such a lovely day, and the picnic had been splendid, so she kept her eyes shut tight and tried to keep wakefulness at bay, if just for a little longer. Again her mother spoke in Reka's voice, but this time it was a little sterner.

Without warning, there was a loud noise, and Mika woke with a start. It took a moment for the dream to fade into reality, and she was surprised to find herself in the sitting room. She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and saw Papa leaving the room. He turned to look at her. There was an expression on his face that she had not seen in a long time. It was soft and caring, and it transformed him. In an instant, her Papa was standing there instead of the husk of a man he had become. As quickly as the look had come, it was gone. For such a simple thing, its departure left her feeling surprisingly sad. For a fleeting moment, she had had her Papa back. Unbidden, tears formed as her long-repressed pain threatened to overwhelm her. She was distracted from her melancholy by Reka's voice. It appeared he had noticed her momentary weakness because his words were forced and sounded a little uncomfortable.

“It is about time. Your father and I were beginning to wonder if you ever intended to get up,”

Mika turned to face him, and let out a squeal of shock. The man speaking with Reka's voice was not Reka. Before she stood a tall man with medium length blonde hair. He was huskily built without being overlarge, and his skin was paler than any she had ever seen. His face was a study in contrast. His skin was smooth, but there were wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. The edges of his mouth were upturned so that he appeared to be on the verge of laughing, but his eyebrows grew at a severe angle lending his face a menacing aspect. His eyes were a pale blue, and set far into his head, giving the impression of great wisdom. This, she decided, was a far more impressive figure than the man she met the day before. For a few minutes, she just stood there looking at him, utterly captivated.

When she could finally speak, all she could manage was, “You look so different.”

Reka laughed. “Did you forget that I can do magic?”

Mika gave him a weak smile. Of course, he could do magic, she thought bitterly. Her father had driven the events of yesterday out of her mind. It almost seemed like part of her dream. She was going over the extraordinary events in her head when a thought came to her.

“Why didn't you look like that yesterday? Papa would never have been so rude to someone like you.”

Again Reka laughed, and she liked it. There had been so little laughter the last few years, it felt good to have it in the house again. He gestured to the chair Papa had been sitting in, and when she sat, he spoke in the same lecturing tone he used the night before.

“I did not appear as I am because I wanted to take the true measure of your father. If a person does not feel threatened, he is more likely to be himself.”

Remembering how Reka had talked to Papa, she was sure he did not like what he saw. Her thoughts must have been evident because Reka answered the question she could not bring herself to voice.

“Your father is a little gruff, but no more than I should expect from a country man. I doubt we will ever become fast friends, but some mysteries should make an attempt worth the making.”

Mika did not think there was anything mysterious about Papa. He was a farmer, he grew corn. There was no secret to that. She watched as Reka patiently waited for her to ask the obvious question, so she obliged.

“What mysteries?”

“Well,” Reka said, “for one thing, he called me Droia. That is a very rare form of address, and I would greatly like to know where he learned it.”

“Is that all,” Mika asked.

“No, child, but they are not the subject of your lessons for today. Shall we begin?”

Mika looked at him blankly. “Lessons?” She asked.

“Ah, yes, you are still in the dark, so to speak. Let us see if there is anything we can do about that.”

He tossed a pebble into the fire, and the candles in the room came to life, bathing the area in a gentle light.

“Your father and I have completed our negotiations for your education. I am afraid we have dawdled overlong and so missed breakfast. I have you only until the second hour after daybreak, and then, I am afraid it is back to the fields with you.”

Mika was clapping enthusiastically at the display of magic and almost missed his last words. She tried to hide her disappointment but then realized she was going to learn magic, and her disappointment vanished.

Again, he seemed to read her thoughts, and his smile was replaced with a stern expression.

“I must warn you, child. This is not a game we will be playing. Magic is a perilous art. Without the proper knowledge and discipline, it will turn on you. For this reason, I expect you to work very hard, and I will be very hard on you should you not.”

Mika sat up a little straighter and promised she would work as hard as she ever had. Without preamble, Reka began.

“What we call magic is nothing more than manipulating the energy of life. It comes from the earth and exists in every living thing. A magician makes use of that energy to perform different tasks or create different effects. All that is required to perform magic is the right combination of focus, imagination, energy, and desire. Much like your silent trek through the field yesterday, not even words are needed.”

Mika listened intently as he paced back and forth, not even looking at her.

“Focus and imagination can be enhanced through knowledge and practice. Desire is either there or not. Energy, on the other hand, presents the single greatest problem for us. Many factors determine how much energy a mage has, but there is always a limit. We can enchant items to store energy, either in its raw form or as spells, but even the use of those items requires the wizard to expend his or her own energy. So while the limits can be stretched, they cannot be overcome. Because stones are the essence of the earth, they can hold a far greater amount of energy.”

Mika raised her hand when he was finished speaking. She didn't really understand the motion, but she remembered an old friend talking about her time with the scholars, and that is what she said they demanded from a student when they had something to say. When Reka nodded, she plunged on.

“Can you use any stone?”

“An excellent question,” he said happily. “It is not one that is easy to answer, however. Remember that imagination is vitally important to magic. Most people cannot imagine a simple rock as having value, and so can do nothing with it. I believe this lies in the contempt people hold for the ordinary. Powerful Stone Singers can see value in ordinary stone. Still, they nearly always envision precious stones as more valuable, and so believe that they alone can hold anything of true power. For the Stone Singer that sees all stone as equal, there is no limit to the type of stone they can use. Such a person is scarce and would be exceedingly powerful. So the answer to your question is both yes, and no.”

He reached into a pouch and produced a large white diamond.

“This stone holds the most powerful spell I have ever been able to enchant. It took me three weeks to sing, and a further two months to recover. In point of fact, it nearly killed me.”

Mika looked at the stone in wonder and asked in a whisper.

“What does it do?”

“Let us say simply that it will allow me to rectify a single mistake,” he said, putting the stone back.

He pulled another stone from his pouch, and Mika could not hide her disdain as he showed her an everyday piece of jagged rock. With a little grin, he dropped it onto the floor and gave a short grunt. Mika jumped up in surprise as the rock transformed into a writhing serpent. She recognized the colored bands of a swamp asp and knocked her chair over in her desire to escape. Almost as soon as the asp appeared, it vanished in a serpentine line of fine powder. She looked up at Reka only to find that he was not there. She jumped again when she felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned around and saw naked amusement on Reka's face.

“Just because a stone is of little value, does not mean the magic is. Distraction can be a potent tool, and a spell such as this takes very little energy to produce.”

He helped her with her chair, and she sat down, excited. She was going to learn how to do this! She watched eagerly as he reached into another pouch, then slumped dumbfounded when he produced a flat square of slate. He handed it to her along with a rough stick of chalk.

“What are these for,” she asked.

She saw his smirk return, and he answered chidingly.

“Why for you to write on, of course.”

“But,” she said, her voice a little weak, “I thought I was going to learn magic.”

“Ah, child,” he said consolingly, “There are so many more important things you must learn before we tread upon that path. I understand the scholars passed you over? Well, we shall make fools of them then.”

“But, what can be more important than magic?” she replied defiantly.

“Why knowledge, of course. How do you expect to control the forces of the world if you do not understand them? Imagination, after all, is merely the exaggeration of knowledge. Can you imagine how to make a sword? Of course not, because you do not understand the process behind it. Your magic will only ever be as powerful as your mind. It is that which we must train before ever we can train the spirit. You do not have an education, and so we must begin with the basics…reading and writing.”

Mika raised her hand again, and again he nodded.

“Can I ask another question?”

He clapped his hands together and exclaimed. “Questions! They are the well from which all knowledge is drawn, child. Ask away!”

His enthusiasm surprised her, and she spoke in more of a rush than she intended.

“Well, last night you said something about the old tongue. You made it sound like we all used to talk like that.”

“Yes?” He prompted.

“Well,” she continued, “why don't we talk like that now?”

He shook his head sadly and spoke in a sullen voice.

“Shame, dear child. Unfathomable shame. When Talamn Rí that is the last kingdom, fell, the five advisers to the king divided what was left of the land into the five provinces. You see, they had betrayed him and could not bear to hold onto any reminders of their treachery. Time and shame whittled away at the old ways until little was left. Take the name of your province, Dilis. Its proper name is Na Daoine Dílis or The Loyal People, but it has been reduced to a mere mockery. The language we speak today is what passed for the trade tongue of old, created for dealings with the Northmen. The loss of knowledge at that time is incalculable.”

He shook his head again.

“But you have drawn me from my purpose once more, you clever child. Let there be no more questions. It is time we began.”

He was as good as his word, and for the next several minutes, he was occupied with writing the alphabet for her and explaining the sound each letter made.

“I expect you to know these by tonight, and I suggest you give it every effort, lest you be forced to work through your lunch.”

Mika began the arduous task of copying the letters and sounding each one out while Reka sat quietly by the fire humming to himself, a small stone in hand.

By the time dinner arrived, Mika felt like her stomach was eating itself. She was forced to work right through lunch and, not only had she not memorized all of the letters, she hadn't even done half. Reka assured her that her progress had been admirable, but she could not help feeling like a failure. She understood now why the scholars had not chosen her; she was too stupid to learn.

Despite the gnawing hunger, she moodily picked at her food, hardly eating any. She was angry about losing her room, she was mad about missing breakfast, then lunch, but mostly she was mad because she had failed. The excited and joyful child of the morning was gone, and all that remained was a weary shell, full of doubt and bitterness. In her despair, she felt her whole world collapsing in on her.

As they often did when she was feeling particularly down, her thoughts turned to her mother. She had been walking home one evening with Papa when a flash storm washed her into the swamp. The currents were so strong that Papa had been unable to save her, and there was no way to recover the body. To make matters worse, when they awoke the following morning, they discovered the swamp had flooded half their land. It was whispered around town that something unnatural was afoot because the water never receded. Mika was young when her mother died, and the memories of her were starting to fade slowly. She used to ask Papa about her, but he often did not respond. In fact, he would go days without speaking at all. Eventually, he became another man altogether. The damnable swamp had claimed both her parents that night, and she was left living with a stranger on a crippled farm.

Tears welled in her eyes, and she didn't even try to stop her sobs. She saw Papa look away, again, the stranger that just happened to live with her. It was a surprise, then, when she heard a soft voice, and it wasn't Papa's.

“Mika,” Reka said gently, “I want you to do something for me.”

It was the first time he had used her name, and she looked up. There was a sharp noise as a stone hit the table and rolled toward her. She picked it up, and Reka spoke again.

“I want you to remember a happy time, can you do that?”

She couldn't bring herself to look at him any longer, so she stared at the stone instead.

“Yes, it was my birthday. I was finally old enough to go see the scholars, and my mother made the best cake ever to celebrate.”

“Good,” he said. “I want you to imagine that cake as hard as you can. Look into your mind and really see it. Can you remember how it looked, how it smelled, how it tasted?”

Mika did not have to think very hard. This was the clearest memory she had left of her mother, and she thought of it often. All she could say between the sobs was a whimpering yes.

“Very good. Now I want you to remember how it felt to see it for the first time, how your mother reacted to you seeing it. When you have all that fixed in your mind, I want you to sing a song. It doesn't matter what song, as long as it reminds you of birthdays.”

Mika closed her eyes tight and thought as hard as she could. She heard a rustling sound, and soon the soft beat of a drum started. The rhythm was slow and mournful, but the only song she could think of was a funny song about a man who was stuck in his son's birthday present and had to wait to be opened. If felt odd singing such a silly song to the serious-sounding beat of the drum, but she was soon singing with enthusiasm.

There was a proud dad,

Who had a young lad,

With a birthday upon the morn.

Just for a laugh,

With a thought and a half,

A package he did adorn.

Wrapped up in bows,

From his head to his toes,

He called to his son forlorn.

Son help me I'm fettered,

In a package unlettered,

Sitting upon the floor.

If Mika's eyes had been open, she would have noticed the slight glow coming from the stone she held. When she finished the last verse, Reka spoke.

“Now imagine that cake is in front of you and drop the stone.”

Mika did as instructed. When she didn't hear the stone hit the table, she opened her eyes. Instead of the dreary food she had been picking over, there sat her cake. It was just how she remembered it, and the look of joy on her face was exactly the same as the day she received it.

“Now, eat your dinner and go to bed, child,” Reka said, getting up from the table.