Mother’s Day
Ihad been sitting on an idea for a very long time. Aunt Alyndra told me it was an excellent theory, but she didn’t have the skill to make it work. “It’s leagues beyond my ability, Ruli,” she’d told me. “But it is such a fantastic idea. You should run it by my father and see what he thinks.”
At the time, I’d still been scared of Tamnaeth as a mentor. Sure, when we had been just Oshruli and grandpa, I could tell him anything. But when our roles had shifted to apprentice and mentor, everything changed. Not that he was overly hard on me, he just had very high standards and I was terrified to let him down. Especially since I didn’t have the same kind of raw power he did. In fact, I’m pretty sure I just barely had enough to even learn spells. He expected me to know myself and limitations—to adapt and overcome in spite of them. I couldn’t very well go running to him every time I had an idea and expect him to hold my hand through it. So, I’d taken my “fantastic” idea and sat on it for years. I did my own research and read all of the books over and over.
Then one day I looked up from my studies to find that Tamnaeth was ready to release me from my apprenticeship. He’d become elderly and I was nearly an adult. It was time for him to start working with the twins and I still didn’t have an answer to my problem.
So, I gathered up my notes and screwed up my courage.
“Tamnaeth,”I called into his apartment one afternoon. He’d insisted I call him by his name since he considered me a contemporary. It still didn’t feel right, even after a few months of using it.
“I’m in here, boy,” he called from his bedchamber. “Have a seat, I’ll be there momentarily.”
I did as I was told and considered how his living space hadn’t been as well cared for since Grandma Imryll passed away last year. He wasn’t as steady on his feet anymore and there were so many stacks of books scattered about on the floor.
“Would you like me to tidy up these books?” I asked while he shuffled around in the other room. “I don’t mind.”
“Good, lad,” he called. Which appeared to be all the reply I was going to get.
I shook my head and got to re-shelving.
Tamnaeth eventually came into the parlor and inspected my work. His once bright, golden hair hung in waves of white and his shoulders stooped to where he was almost as short as I was. He still wore robes the colors his clan preferred; green, yellow, and white. But they were no longer of elven make. The local tailors did their best to imitate, but there was nothing that came close to the robes he’d arrived with. He still wore the human made garb with pride and by all appearances, took great satisfaction in his position here in the chateau.
“Thank you, Oshruli,” he said with a smile.
“You’re welcome,” I nodded.
“What brings you to visit today?” he asked as he turned to shuffle to his favorite chair, leaning heavily on his cane. He must not have been doing the exercises that Aunt Alyndra prescribed him.
“I have a theory to run by you,” I said, sticking to the topic I’d intended before I soured his mood by bringing up his exercises. “I’ve been working on it for a while, but I can’t figure out what I’m missing to make it work.”
He sat down and picked up his reading glasses. “Well, then let”s see what you have, son.” I had almost an entire book of notes for him to look over, but he only needed to get halfway before things started getting repetitive.
Eventually he closed the book and looked up at me with a tiny smile. “What do you want to do with this theory of yours?” he asked.
I swallowed, suddenly worried that I’d missed something obvious. “Well, I want to help mother.” I told him in detail what it was I wanted to help her with.
“That’s all, son?” he asked. “Just help your mother?”
“It wouldn’t work on anything large, and I’d probably have to ask Illian and Rhisikho to donate some material, but I’m sure they’d want to help. I suppose others could use the technique, if I could figure out what I’m missing, that is.” I shrugged and watched Tamnaeth’s face while he thought his way through whatever was preventing him from telling me what I needed to know.
He sighed heavily and took his glasses off. “Well, I suppose I have one final lesson for you after all, Oshruli. It will be more of an experiment, to be honest. It might not even be possible considering your limitations. You’ll have to really extend yourself, son.”
I sat on the edge of his sofa and waited. He met my eyes and I could see he was still weighing the risks.
“The theory here is sound,” Tamnaeth said. “But nobody has that much power … aside from perhaps the Duchess. You’ll need to do what the human mages do and gather extra energy from nature to perform this working.”
“Oh,” I said. “I didn’t know we could do that. Would I need tools like they do?”
“No,” he shook his head, “you just need your current.”
Tamnaeth refusedto use a wheelchair or cart in public, so I had to carry him on my back when the walk to the nearest ley line became too much for him. It was a struggle. He might have been a frail old man, but I wasn’t even as tall as mother. Tamnaeth, before he’d become stooped, was almost as tall as father. It wasn’t so much that I was weak. Thankfully I wasn’t so malnourished as a kid that I couldn’t develop my musculature. I could lift him just fine, his larger frame was just cumbersome.
“You can put me down here, Oshruli,” he sighed. I did as he asked but didn’t take my hand away until I was sure he was steady on his feet.
Tamnaeth told me to sit on the ley line. I felt the buzz of energy against my backside. It was strange, but not uncomfortable. “Now make a circuit.” I took a deep breath and placed my hands together, then let my magic current flow from left to right. It wasn”t something one could see, but I felt it as warmth between my hands. It made the tips of my sensitive ears tingle since it disrupted the tides and eddies of life flowing around us.
“Draw it out,” Tamnaeth said, eyes closed, using his other senses to know what I was doing. I pulled my hands apart, allowing the current to pass through the empty space between my hands. ”Now bend it and press it into the ley line. Make sure it”s flowing in the same direction as your current.”
I nodded, having intuitively recognized that, and already situated accordingly. Bowing the current had taken a little time to get the hang of, but it was second nature having been the first thing Tamnaeth taught me, and we didn”t move on to anything else until I’d mastered it. Then I pressed that bow into the ground and gasped when I felt it flow alongside the ley line. I knew it was a trickle, as far as ley lines go, but next to my current, it felt like an undertow that would pull me to the bottom of the sea!
“Steady son,” Tamnaeth said. “Make your current flow faster, to meet the speed of the ley line. You”ll lose your power in its current and that”s just sloppy.”
I eventually realized that it wasn’t so much speed, but vibration, or frequency. And now that I was here, I understood what Tamnaeth meant by its possibly being outside my capability. Like trying to sing a song just out of one’s range. I knew I could sing this song though. I could feel it just on the edge of my ability. He was right, though. I would have to push myself.
I don’t know how long I sat there, wrestling with my current. Sweat dripped down my face and back as I crept closer and closer to the frequency. My body hummed when I finally reached resonance with the wild ley line flowing beneath me. My teeth felt as though they were going to vibrate out of my head. “Now what?” I asked between gasping breaths.
“Now, you let your current pull in the ley line,” Tamnaeth said as if that were no big deal.
“The whole thing?!” I balked.
“I wouldn”t recommend that on the first try,” Tamnaeth chuckled. “Just a little today.”
“How?”
“Put a little spin on it,” he shrugged.
“Put a little …” I sputtered and trailed off in exasperation.
“It’s just like anything else, Oshruli,” Tamnaeth drawled. “Decide what feels like the right way to make your current twist.”
I scowled and closed my eyes, trying to envision the flow of my magic, but I didn’t feel any change. Next, I tried rotating my palms, as if twisting something between them. The flow of my current shifted and started spinning.
“Very good,” Tamnaeth encouraged me.
A thread of the ley line caught my current and started to wrap around it. I gasped and felt as though I were drowning in energy, choking on it. The circuit shut down and I flopped over onto my back. I was overfull. Uncomfortably bursting at the seams. It hurt.
“Now you should probably find something to do with that extra energy or you”ll make yourself sick,” Tamnaeth said. “Make a pretty fireball or something, son.”
“Right,” I said, straining to focus on channeling the excess power, “one pretty fireball coming up, Grandpa.” Still on my back I clapped my hands, fingers pointed at the sky and a sizable white fireball shot from their tips. It was so hot that my fingernails actually singed. I shook them in the air as they smoked and said “gah!”
Tamnaeth laughed at me. “Maybe you took a little more in than I thought.” The old elf smiled down at me. “Do you feel better now?”
I did a backwards roll, landed on my feet in a crouch, and stood up. “Yeah,” I said. “A little energized, but not dizzy.”
“Excellent,” Tamnaeth said. “Maybe you can take me to visit my other grandson while we are out of the apartments. Maybe that granddaughter too if she”s about.”
I smiled at the implication that Tamnaeth actually still considered me a grandson and gave him a piggyback ride back to the chateau where the twins were likely studying with their tutor.
After monthsof practice and experimentation, I had the theory turned into practice. I asked Aunt Alyndra to oversee the final few trials, and she was amazed. “Oshruli, you”ve discovered something groundbreaking; you know that?”
“I just wanted to do something nice for mother,” I shrugged. “And you can”t tell Uncle Lhoris yet. Please?”
Then I recruited my siblings to plan a picnic.
It wasn’thard to get my parents and Uncle Lhoris to join us for a picnic in the orchard. They hadn’t had all three of us together for a while, so they could hardly say no to the family time. We ate together and mostly discussed Tamnaeth’s health.
“He’s not taking care of himself very well,” I admitted to Uncle Lhoris. “I wonder if we should hire a nurse or aide.”
“I doubt that will go over well,” mother said. “He won’t let the housekeeping staff in to tidy for him. I doubt he will take to letting anyone else in.” She shook her head and frowned in concern. “I’ve had to talk to the house matron a few times about allowing him to grieve. But perhaps it’s time we intervene.”
We drank our lemonade while the twins ran about the orchard and climbed trees in the early summer breeze. I wished I could join them, but I was too old for that now. This grim topic was an important one that required my participation.
“Maybe we need to take turns looking in on him and helping,” father suggested.
He’d never been overly fond of Grandpa. I suspected it had something to do with Tamnaeth turning him away when he’d first escaped the warband. He’d never said a word to me about it, but it wasn’t hard to figure. So, the fact that he was including himself in the care of the elderly elf was significant.
“Ya know,” I said. “I spend a lot of time with him to begin with. He doesn’t mind when I help. Maybe I should just ask Aunt Emma if I could move myself and Grandpa into a larger apartment together.”
Uncle Lhoris nodded, “If that’s what you really want, Ruli, I have no objection. I do believe you’re the closest to him among the four of us.” He smiled at me. “I’ll discuss it with Alyndra.”
With that heavy subject out of the way, I called my younger siblings over.
“Is it time, Ruli?” asked Illian. The twins were mussed from their play and had a light sheen of sweat on their lavender skin.
“Yes,” I grinned and double checked to make sure I was still sitting directly over the ley line. I sat cross legged and thumped my palms on my knees. “Come sit in my lap, mother.”
My parents and Uncle gave each other bemused looks. “What’s going on, Ruli?” mother asked.
I rolled my eyes, “Come on. The three of us have a surprise for you. It requires I use magic and you have to be that close. Please?”
“Is this what you and Alyndra have been sneaking around and working on,” Uncle Lhoris asked as mother crawled across the reed picnic mat and sat in my lap. Rhisikho and Illian wrapped their arms around her knees.
“Yes,” I answered. “Put your hands palm down on the ground,” I told mother, and she did. I called up my current and pressed my hands over hers. I pulled threads from the ley line and turned my focus and intent on my mother’s mutilated ears. For a moment, I could see them as they should have been, a ghost of their shape. I used it as a template to build upon, pulling the material from other places in her body, a tiny bit from Rhisikho and Illian since they were made from her too. Between the three of them, there was more than enough cartilage, blood, and skin. Nobody would miss a bit of it.
Mother hissed but didn’t flinch. I knew it wasn’t comfortable, but she trusted me enough to not disrupt the working. I shuddered after a handful of heartbeats and released her hands, the task complete. My own hands tingled and almost felt numb from the buzzing energy that had been burning through them. Mother clumsily brushed her fingers at her ears and realized they felt very different. Her eyes went wide with realization.
Rhisikho giggled and pulled a mirror out of her bag. “Look Mama,” she said and handed the mirror to mother.
She took it with trembling fingers and saw her ears whole for the first time. They were short with a slightly rounded tip, and lavender freckles dusted the new skin. Mother sobbed but tried to stifle it. “Are they real?” She turned back to look at me. I nodded and my own vision went blurry. She looked back in the mirror and sobbed again. “Are … are they mine?” her voice choked off.
“Yes, Mama,” I said and wrapped my arms around her. Illlian and Rhisikho wrapped their arms around us as she sobbed and sobbed and sobbed. Something I hadn’t seen her do since I was a small child.
My father and Uncle Lhoris got to their feet and looked absolutely gob smacked while they examined Mother’s ears. They hovered anxiously; no doubt compelled by their bonds.
“Thank you,” she eventually gasped, and I almost held my breath waiting to see if they … well, worked.
She turned her head to look at Uncle Lhoris and said, “They look just like you said they might,” but her voice tapered off and a look of confusion came over her. She turned her head again and touched the tips of her ears. “What’s that?”
“What is that?” she asked again, her tear reddened eyes wide with wonder, as Uncle Lhoris reached for her.
“It”s the magic all around us,” he said, wiping the tears from her face with his palms and pulling her to her feet. “You have an entirely new sense to get used to. I recommend just taking it in until you start to recognize the patterns.” I could see the wonder in his eyes when she turned her face away from him again, picking up on some new wave or eddy and following it.
“This is incredible, Oshruli,” Uncle Lhoris said to me as mother wandered with the twins. “Do you have any idea what you’ve just accomplished?”
“I made her whole,” I shrugged. “Aunt Alyndra has an entire book of notes you can look at later. It’s not very practical.”
Uncle Lhoris looked down at me with his hands on his hips and shook his head. “It’s amazing,” he said as he went to follow after his mate. She was still weeping in fits and starts. “Simply amazing.”
Rhisikho and Illian were holding mother’s hands, as if they were keeping her oriented and told her about what she was sensing.
“That”s probably the tree you”re feeling now, mama.” Illian pointed to the nearby tree.
“The soft buzz is all the animals and moving things,” Rhisikho said. Explaining everything we knew from living with that sense our whole lives.
Father pulled me to my feet and nearly crushed me in a bear hug.
As much as he tried to keep mother at arm’s length, they had a lot in common. Scars, suffering, and surviving being a few of those things.
“You’re a good elf, Oshruli,” he said, his voice a little unsteady, which caught me off guard. “Adukli wanted to throw you away but look at what fantastic things you can do. I’m so proud of you.”
I hugged him back. “I could try to heal some of your old wounds too, ahba,” I offered. “Regrow that missing toe.”
”One miracle a day,” he said. “Let”s let your mother have hers today.”
The End