Woken up from a dream this morning by a package arriving. Opened computer and free-wrote. This is the uncorrected except for spelling story. --- When hed first been told of the conditional pardon, Rumni snarled and spat at the jailer. After his long imprisonment, to be now pardoned seemed a cruel joke. What life left to him on the outside, now that he had been so changed by life within? The sunlight burned his eyes as they led him from the dungeon. After so long in the dank darkness, illuminated only by torch and candle, the light overwhelmed. His eyes stung with tears, and when he raised an arm to shield his face, he felt the guards grip on him stiffen. “Dont try nothing stupid,” the man hissed. As if Rumni had any try left in him. What little hadnt been beaten out of him had been starved out by his long confinement. --------------------------------------- To teach this girl – this child, he thought, for her naivety if not her age - hed been drawn out of the bowels of hell itself? She turned her face up to him, catching sight of him for the first time. The brightness of her smile made him drop his eyes. He swore under his breath, shamed by his own reaction. Wasnt he now a free man, or what passed for one within the confines of these grounds? He could no more walk out their gates than he could fly, but he certainly need not defer to anyone. No guards. No jailor. “Hello,” she called from inside the room. “Hello, are you my teacher?” “Yeah,” he said, his voice rougher than he remembered it, years of disuse and disinterest in talking. “Yeah, thats me. Im Rumni.” “Im Alice,” she replied. A perfectly ordinary name, and shed been, after all, perfectly ordinary. A peasant girl, living an ordinary life working in service until shed been discovered. Standing there in the doorway, he wondered if theyd made some sort of mistake. How someone could reach twenty-ish years, with no sign of magic, then suddenly be found by the Academy. Were there no signs? No augers in whatever backwater village shed been part of, to test the children? Perhaps theyd made a mistake, but as it got him his conditional pardon, hell if he cared. Trying to teach the arcane rituals to some talentless scrub still beat rotting in the kings dungeon, absolutely. “Arent you coming in?” she asked, still smiling that effervescent smile. What did peasants have to be cheerful about, anyhow? Hed only taken one step over the threshold when the answers to several of his questions became overwhelming clear. The room stank of magic- thick, arcane, deep magic the likes of which he hasnt felt in years – not since he himself practiced , not since the height of his power. No active spells had been cast—rather it hung in the air, swirling and eddying, a vast pool of potential – and in the midst of it, the girl, like an island. The source of all that power. Oh-- oh they had no idea did they? What they were doing, what they could be unleashing by giving her over into his guardianship. Conditional pardon indeed, but the conditions would be all his to make with her at his side. “Why hello, my dear girl,” he demurred, gentling his voice by degrees he hadnt known himself to be capable of. “Such a pleasure to meet you.” He extended his hand and, without a moments hesitation, she reached for it.
Posted on: Tue, 01 Apr 2014 15:36:42 +0000
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