Robin McKinley - Fire - Tales of Elemental Spirits

I could see Carn shift in his chair, and heard him sigh, a scratchy sigh from his damaged throat.

ʺI’m willing to believe,ʺ the old guy went on, ʺthat perhaps it’s something about her specialness, her uniqueness, that made it possible, what happened; that it also has to do with her being partnered with a cadet whose empathy with dragons is so extraordinary that he was jumped a year. We only have about one jumper a decade at the Academy. But I also know, as sure as dragons Fly, that it wouldn’t have happened without you and Sippy. I can’t believe it’s all just a peculiar accident that the only two-eyed dragon who’s entered the Firespace in any history we know went there while carrying a young man and his foogit. Ern. Think. Try.ʺ

And I did try. I closed my eyes and—Sippy having emerged from under the chair and put his head in my lap—buried both hands in his topknot and thought as hard as I could about those few moments after Hereyta leaped up from the ordinary earth and her wings beat us up and up and up in a spiral into the sky. And Sippy struggling out of his harness and out of my arms—and I still didn’t understand how that happened; I know I’m clumsy so I’m really careful—and over the edge of Hereyta’s wing. And how I went after him . . . and the heavy floosh of the air as I dove and the sort of counter- floosh as Hereyta plunged after us, veering up under us again in a way wholly incredible . . .

. . . wholly incredible . . .

. . . like the sudden wash of heat and the pink haloes around the trees on a clear cool autumn afternoon. . . .

I was suddenly staggering against Hereyta’s side, her wing, I had my arms around Sippy, we were supposed to be dead (or about to be dead) and we weren’t, but then how had any of this happened, starting with Ralas telling Dag to take Sippy and me with him. . . .

I could remember the pink trees, hearing Setyep and Dag comment on the bizarre breath of summer wind, knowing I wasn’t imagining it, knowing that it was something the two dragons and Sippy had done among them—but it was remembering like you might remember watching your wizard stop someone from bleeding to death. They could do it, you couldn’t. When it happened to you you were just standing there saying, Huh? What?

But thinking about wizards made me remember Ralas. Ralas who was here. What was Ralas doing here? It seemed as unlikely as Sippy and me flying on a dragon. Or a two-eyed dragon getting into the Firespace.

As if this was my answer I said to Ralas, ʺWhat are you doing here?ʺ

Ralas smiled her funny, wry smile and I realised how glad I was to see her, whatever she was doing here, and however much it was her fault that I was here. ʺMay I speak?ʺ she said to the old guy.

ʺI invite you to do so,ʺ he said courteously.

ʺErn has been my apprentice these three years,ʺ she began and I burst out, suddenly completely unaware of anything else, where I was or what was going on, anything but the words she’d just said: ʺYour apprentice ? I’d die to be your apprentice! I’m not your apprentice!ʺ

There was a tiny pause. Dag shifted in his chair. Ralas turned to look at me. I had never seen her disconcerted, but she was disconcerted now. ʺErn? Of course you are. I settled with your parents right after your twelfth birthday. . . .ʺ Her voice tailed off. She must have seen it in my face that this was completely news to me. She blinked once or twice and I could see her mind going back to what had happened. ʺYour mother was worried about tying you so young, that’s true, even though as the third son you might be expected to be apprenticed to a wizard. But I pointed out that you were already interested in the work and that I wasn’t merely willing to have you but wanted you as well. And that since you were already trying to learn as much as you could, why not let you? Why not accept that you’d chosen your path and begin to help you along it?ʺ

I shook my head again, but the shaking just seemed to make my head hurt. Sippy moved his head on my knee as if to say, What’s wrong? Can I help?

ʺYour mother,ʺ Ralas went on slowly, ʺas a stipulation to their agreement, said that the apprenticeship was to remain secret, and part-time only, till you turned sixteen. I agreed to this. It meant I could begin teaching you, which was all that mattered to me; and I did not see that anyone needed to know beyond those of us involved. It never occurred to me that when your mother said the apprenticeship should remain secret that she meant it should remain secret from you too.ʺ

I thought bitterly, she just wanted someone to deliver candles a few more years. And then I thought, no. I thought about all the food she kept trying to stuff in me and how she worried that I stayed a runt. And I thought about . . . about Dag saying that I needed to believe that I’d done Sippy’s leg wrong. Mum was like that too. Nothing she did was ever really right; everything she did she thought she should have done better. She’d’ve seen me doing the same thing.

She was trying to let me grow up a little more. Apprenticeship was serious. You didn’t apprentice twelve-year-olds because it was too difficult for twelve-year-olds. Even a twelve-year-old who already knew what he wanted to do. Especially a twelve-year-old who passionately knew what he wanted to do and equally passionately believed he’d be hopeless at it.

If I’d been being fair I’d’ve admitted three years ago that someone like me probably wouldn’t be apprenticed till they were sixteen—it wasn’t really true that everyone went at fourteen. It depended on the kid. But even if I’d been taller than Dag and brighter than Kel and didn’t worry about everything all the time (just like her) my mother probably still wouldn’t have let me be apprenticed early. My dad might’ve. He didn’t think about things like maturity. He would’ve just thought, the boy wants to be a wizard, here’s a wizard wants to apprentice him, great. I remembered now that Mum’d had a funny spell of going around the house muttering, ʺTwelve is much too young to be apprenticed,ʺ when I was twelve, which I’d thought pretty strange. I wasn’t worrying about being apprenticed then—and at twelve I looked about eight—but I was already worrying about it for when I was fourteen.

But my parents knew that I spent every spare minute with Ralas and by letting Ralas apprentice me they were also doing their best for my future. And—this was even harder to admit—my mum was right about making me wait. If she’d let me go even at fourteen I’d’ve believed that I had to learn everything in the first six months—I had too much to prove because I was the youngest and the least of the three of us brothers. And I realised with something like amazement that it was the last three years of giving people stuff that would help them feel better—of learning more stuff and learning to read people better—that was teaching me patience.

Even my parents didn’t know that I didn’t just want to be a wizard, I wanted to be . . .

Ralas had turned back to the others. I missed what she’d begun saying but I heard: . . . ʺthe strongest gift for healing of anyone I’ve ever met. It’s one of the things that’s kept me there, in Birchhome, because as we all know healing is not a popular form of wizardry and while I’m not the best teacher he could have I’ll do to start with—and there are not many who will teach it at all.ʺ

ʺBirchhome,ʺ said one of the old guys who hadn’t spoken before. ʺWe did wonder.ʺ

ʺWhy shouldn’t I want a bit of peace and quiet for a change?ʺ Ralas said briskly and I stopped thinking about myself long enough to want to know what she was talking about. Nearly everybody who had ever met her wondered what she was doing in Birchhome. Now that I was her apprentice maybe I could ask her what she’d done before. ʺI suspect one of the reasons his parents wanted a secret apprenticeship is because they know healing is the area of wizardry Ern is drawn to, and a three-year head start would help ground him in the difficult field he’s chosen—or that has chosen him. Fortunately Ern’s healing gift is nearly matched by his stubbornness.ʺ She turned her head and smiled at me, and there was no wryness in it at all.