Clayton Emery - Dangerous Games

"It's a bathtub," rasped Hamuda. "If master would be so kind as to get in?"

"In?" Sunbright clamped his hands on the rim and leaned over carefully. "How deep is it? There's a hot spring near our summer camping grounds that's bottomless, and it gets hotter the lower you go. If you weight a trout with a stone on a line, you can cook it by sinking it nine arm-lengths."

A gasp sounded behind, one maid finally losing control and setting all four sniggering with hands over their mouths. Sunbright smiled too, until he realized they were laughing at him. He bit down on a frown.

Hamuda clapped her hands, stifled the girls somewhat, and shooed out the two in black. Sunbright was left with the two bathmaidens, who held fluffy towels as they gestured to the water invitingly. When he still hesitated, one slipped over the edge of the tub in her shift, demonstrating that the "spring" was only knee deep. Still frowning, Sunbright shucked the robe, kicked off his boots, and climbed in. Unused to the slick bottom, he almost slipped and brained himself on the opposite edge of the tub. The bathmaidens pretended not to notice.

The water was so hot Sunbright's toes tingled, and his many insect wounds itched and stung. Gingerly, he made to sit.

One of the bathmaidens asked, "Is it too hot, milord? We can add cold water." Stroking a finger along a silver pipe to one side, she breathed, "Wet!" Cold water spilled from the spout, then she shut it off. "Dry!"

Wondering, Sunbright touched the pipe. It was cold. Sunbright stoked the pipe. "Wet!" Nothing happened. He asked the girls, "What is the secret?"

"No secret, milord. Just a simple cantra to turn the spigot off and on. The water is behind. It just needs to be released."

Sunbright squinted in the steamy room. "You can work magic?"

Giggles. "Everyone in Netheril can work magic, milord. At least, everyone born and raised in the empire. It's… part of our being."

"Magic. Can-truhs. Spit-guts." Suddenly Sunbright felt as thick as an addled mule. And as out of place. "I have a lot to learn."

The girls nodded absently. One unbraided his horsetail to gently comb out sticks and specks. The other plied a washcloth soft as bird down to scrub wood smoke and blood from his face. Surrendering, Sunbright laid his head back on the tub rim and let the girls scrub him. Their quiet competence and dark hair again reminded him of Greenwillow and brought a fresh pang of loneliness. She would never have mocked his ignorance.

He sighed aloud. "So much to learn."

Candlemas's workshop had been swept, scrubbed, and aired, but the maids hadn't dared to throw anything away, so the fresh-wiped tables were heaped with the remains of his work and hobbies.

A dark, dumpy, bearded, balding, paunchy man, Candlemas knew he was no beauty, and took little regard of his looks. Despite his status and personal wealth, he wore only a gray wool smock, rope belt, and sandals when working and administering from his high tower. Vanity, love of clothing and jewelry, and lust for fine robes only distracted an arcanist from his studies, he believed. Candlemas was determined to study hard and soar up the ladder, to someday be as fabulous an archwizard as Lady Polaris herself. Perhaps then, when he owned his own floating castle and lands, and had his own under-mages slaving to resolve his problems, then he might succumb to vanity. For now, he could look like a shepherd and keep busy.

But a lot of work had been lost. Some of the broken jars and pots he recognized on the table had been vital experiments that he'd pursued for months. Growling at the callous idiocy of his underlings, he gathered a handful of trash, marched to the high windows, and pushed it through the mild shield spell that kept out the icy wind. He let it drop onto the fields or forest or whatever lay below. Though he was steward of all the lands visible from the castle, right now he didn't care what happened to them. They belonged to Lady Polaris after all, not him. Very little really belonged to him except his knowledge and studies; his hard work that had been destroyed, again.

He'd hurled out the last of it when Sunbright marched into the workshop. The young man's face was still pink from the hot bath, but clean, his hair neatly combed and retied, his temples neatly shaven. He wore his thick knee-high boots and an off-white shirt that reached to his knees with a wide belt of brown leather. The boy (as Candlemas thought of him) dressed as simply as he, like a son he might someday have. It gave the arcanist a glad feeling: if they agreed on simple clothing, they'd agree on much else, and accomplish more.

Candlemas glanced around his half-emptied workshop, then waved his hands. "Never mind the losses. Things can be replaced. Let's get on with your lessons. Now… the first step in conjuring magic is summoning it. So-"

"Where does it come from?" Sunbright interrupted.

"What?" Candlemas flexed his pudgy fingers. "Where does what come from?"

"Magic. Where does it come from?"

"The weave, of course. Now-"

"Where does the weave come from?"

"What do you mean, where? It just is. Like… the rain."

"Rain comes from the sky, from clouds. Clouds are full of water, as anyone who's climbed a mountain into a cloud can tell you." Sunbright stood spraddled-legged, arms folded across his chest. "If magic rains, where from?"

"It doesn't rain from anywhere," snapped Candlemas. "You summon it and it's there, to use as you wish."

"It must have a source. Everything has a source." Sunbright frowned in concentration. "Even the mightiest river is formed from the tiniest streams of the hills."

"Well, there." Candlemas absently picked up one of his fine silver statues. It had been a medusa, but most of the snakes were broken off her head. He set it down again, unsure what to do with it. "Magic is collected from the thousands of tiny sources that make up the weave. If you can answer your own questions, why ask me?"

"I need the answers wizards have gathered over the ages. I have only the knowledge of my people, the barbarians of the tundra. They know many things, but not all, and I've much to learn. The girls showed me that."

"Girls? Oh, you mean the bathmaidens." Candlemas chuckled knowingly. "I imagine they can teach you a thing or two. Did you enjoy them?"

"Enjoy? No. I felt like an ox awaiting slaughter, too stupid to see the hammer in the butcher's hand."

"Butchery? Slaughter? The girls mentioned that?"

"No, of course not!"

"Then who brought it up? Hamuda?"

"No one said it. When I talk of dressing livestock, I speak of myself!"

"But-never mind." Candlemas rubbed the top of his bald head and moved to an empty table. From a pocket in his smock he drew a steel stylus, but he had nothing to write on and didn't know why he'd taken it out. Angrily, he put it away. "We're getting off the track. Now be silent and listen. How do you expect to learn anything if you keep asking questions?"

Sunbright blinked. "What?"

Disgusted with both of them, Candlemas growled, "See? That didn't make sense. You've got me babbling nonsense to your pesky questions. What I meant to say was, If you keep hurling questions at me, I won't have time to answer them. No, wait, that's wrong too, damn it!"

"Wait." Sunbright waved his hands. "Ignore the source of magic for now. What's the price of magic?"

"Price? Magic doesn't cost anything. It's free!"

"Free like what? Deer in the forest?"

"Forget the animals, would you? Is food all you think of? Jewels of Jannath, I wish I were twenty-odd again and had your appetite!"

"I wasn't talking of food, though now that you mention it, I am hungry. How old are you, anyway?" Sunbright was nothing if not curious.

"Old enough not to discuss butchery with a bath-maiden!" the mage retorted hotly. Plying magic, Candlemas had in fact lived three times the span of a normal life, but he didn't like to be reminded of it. "Can we get back to the lesson? When I say magic is free, I mean it's there for the taking by someone who can master it. Like the damned deer, if you will."