Chapter 3 – Why the Water Chases the Moon

  Jezza

  It was their last and coldest night at sea. Jezza, no fan of shivering, had eventually convinced Djanara to let her evoke a goodfyre on deck – the magical aid for a chilly tent. It involved catalyzing one’s casting focus to emit highly shaped and controlled flame, then, once it was lit, maintaining a small chant every so often and a negligible energy transfer through the weave. Her wooden staff stood upright between the pair of them, aflame with a pinkish hue.

  Lovely warmth.

  “Okay,” Djanara mumbled, tipsy, “I get you’re pointing the heat places. Why’s the staff not burning up though?”

  Jezza let herself glow from her own happy rum-laden place.

  “Because the thing that’s burning isn’t my staff,” Jezza responded, “it’s my dinner! I’m literally burning calories right now!”

  She laughed at her own joke quite hard, realizing it worked better than she even intended. Djanara made a confused face but continued listening. That alone made Jezza smile wide: this fighter was a star pupil. Over the previous days, Jezza had learned a few things about her; with the most surprising aspect being how willing she was to listen to her explain new things, even when they conflicted with her understanding. More than that, Djanara would engage and ask questions when she got confused – something she had to harp on even her top performers for. In short, she’d concluded this wolf-folk was far smarter than anyone, including Djanara herself, ever gave credit.

  A lecture brewed. It was fun giving lectures to someone not already mired in the academic world. Everything was novel.

  “Our brains are releasing chemicals all the time, called enzymes,” Jezza paused to let the new term sink in. “One of these is called the mannases enzyme – or you’ve probably heard it just called mana.”

  Djanara nodded, noting: “usually whining about not having enough.”

  “Well, that’s what gets used up when you cast something through the weave,” Jezza explained. “Mana and energy. Mistral’s weave can transform, translate, and amplify those things immensely, but it cannot create something from nothing. The material cost of components that go into spellcraft are so that the toll to our bodies is not too great.”

  The magister decided to keep with the physical metaphor.

  “You probably know what happens when you practice a sword swing a thousand times, right?” Jezza asked.

  “Yeah,” Djanara said, “it gets real easy to do that swing.”

  “Your body gets more efficient,” Jezza confirmed. “The same thing happens with spellcasting. You produce more mana and burn less for the same effect.”

  The wolf-folk frowned, saying: “met a shitty-eyed mage once that said elves like him are the only ones who should be wizards, since-”

  “Everyone knows elves have the most mana?” Jezza groaned dramatically. “When it’s more like a five percent variance at the extremes?”

  Djanara gained a familiar cloudy look. Oops.

  “Meaning,” Jezza restated: “human, dwarf, goblin, beastfolk or otherwise, everyone starts off more or less on even ground. You could theoretically train up to my level!”

  “Think I’ll leave it to you smaller folks, you need it more,” Djanara smirked. “It is interesting how I’ve heard all these other spellheads talk up the Lady of Mysteries this and the alignment of stars that; and you just say read a book and practice.”

  “Just new discipline,” Jezza, rosy-cheeked, couldn’t resist some relish. “Magisters, rather than getting our ideas about reality from myth and guesswork, get them from observing reality. Same as you, just more formal. For instance – the tides.”

  Djanara’s smirk left, replaced with impassive calm. Ooh, this could be thin ice, Jezza thought. She considered how deep the warrior’s skepticism had been thus far. Would it extend far enough? The rum had a say. It encouraged her to go for it.

  “You’ve sailed the seas more than I,” asked Jezza, “have you ever seen Tydra?”

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  “I haven’t – but,” Djanara warned, “you’re getting into blasphemy. Sailors live their lives by Tydra. They can man the rigging in a storm because they know they’ll be taken in by him should they die.”

  “And I respect that,” Jezza admitted, “but I’m only asking about the tides. Do you think there’s a big shimmery blue dragon swimming from sea to sea, raising and lowering the water each day for divine funsies?”

  “Ehm,” Djanara made an uncomfortable sound, looking at Jezza critically. The key Jezza had noticed: Djanara said sailors live their lives by Tydra, not I. She’d put a little distance there. Didn’t seem the zealous type to begin with, just didn’t know it was okay to question all things. Even dragons. Especially dragons.

  “It’s okay to believe something else,” Jezza smiled. “I do.”

  Djanara spoke now, with a timidness yet unheard: “I’ve noticed a thing, yeah.”

  “Yeah?” Jezza encouraged her. “What’s that?”

  “The water seems more like it’s chasin’ the moon, to me,” Djanara said, coupled with a nervous glance overboard.

  Well, that was fucking poetry. I love normal people.

  “That is, in fact,” Jezza beamed, “what observatories are saying it seems like, yes.”

  “And does that mean,” Djanara really was being brave, “Tydra might not be-”

  “Well, that’s too far,” Jezza said. “What we can say is that if we can observe the moon’s movement affecting the tide in the same fashion every single cycle, we can begin to think of these things as related. And then wonder why.”

  “Why does the water chase the moon, then?” Djanara flared with emotion. Jezza started, just now noticing the tears in the wolf-folk’s eyes. This wasn’t offense or anger, but a desperate, melancholy longing. She wasn’t sure what memory she’d stirred up in the warrior.

  It sounded like she was asking on another’s behalf. It must have been someone close.

  “For that,” Jezza lowered her voice, humble, “we only have informed guesses. When two things are very small, they tend to pull on each other. Perhaps this holds true when things are sufficiently large, as well.”

  “Pulling on each other?” Djanara was at capacity, and Jezza knew it. “I thought magisters didn’t do guesswork!”

  “There is still some,” Jezza admitted, “it’s part of the process, formally even. I guess that Terria is pulling on the moon, and the moon is pulling on Terria, and the sun is pulling on them both and everything else in a synchronized dance through the void – but only because that’s what I’ve seen. What I know beyond doubt, though: enough time, observation, and study? It won’t be a guess anymore. Even if it means I’m wrong, I want to know the real answer.”

  The wolf-folk shook her head, looking tired of having Jezza turn her world upside down.

  But the seed could not be unsewn, nor the invitation unsent.

  Jezza watched her mull things, not dismiss them.

  “Easier to believe the whole water dragon thing,” Djanara finally muttered.

  “Yes,” Jezza nodded, “but would you rather believe in what’s easy or what’s true?”

  They exchanged a look, and she thought she saw the wolf-folk looking at her in yet another light.

  “I’ve gotten good at people’s bullshit,” Djanara said, “but you lot call bullshit on the world, huh?”

  “Yeah!” Jezza perked, cheery. “I’m a legendary hater, actually. Most people are full of shit and don’t realize where the smell’s coming from.”

  “Damnit,” Djanara laughed a deep laugh. “I can’t believe I’m starting to fucking like you. But tone it down, this stuff gives me a headache.”

  “Right, right,” Jezza snickered, all too used to this part. Djanara definitely deserved a break from the brutality of academia.

  Instead, Jezza switched disciplines entirely: “how about teaching me I’m a Captain?”

  * * *

  Jezza’s headache in the morning wasn’t as bad as she’d anticipated, given they’d emptied the last of their rum.

  Still bad, mind. It took a modicum of effort to will herself from the confines of her bedroll.

  Djanara was already on deck as Jezza emerged, stooped over an iron pot. She blinked a few times, thinking for a moment the warrior had suddenly gotten into alchemy. The pot had a sheaf of tan-hued straining cloth stretched upon it; and, piled up in the cloth was a deep brown grounds she couldn’t recognize. Djanara noticed her with a small nod.

  “Ever had khofi?” Djanara asked, making a vague motion toward her head. “Helps with the morning.”

  “Is this a tea?” Jezza approached to investigate the grounds. As one does, she allowed herself a long waft.

  The most alluringly bitter, smoky heaven awaited her, not so much inviting as demanding to be brewed, imbibed, and savored. Immediately.

  “No,” Djanara flashed a rare smile, “it’s from the bean, not the leaf. So, it’s khofi. Comes from Makosh, very rare north of the Dja’narae. Can you boil some of our water?”

  Jezza was grateful for the task, a trivial bit of spellwork that gave her enough time to appreciate what this meant.

  One wouldn’t share their rare luxury with a professionally distant working partner.

  The resulting brew ended tea’s stay in Jezza’s life. No leaf presented such a perfect, bitter, yet comforting flavor. There was no need for sugaring it, as Djanara mentioned. Khofi was a generous drink, sure, it would allow one to sugar it. There would be no trouble. But Jezza was establishing a clean rapport with khofi, one that was pure, free of the interloping crystals’ diversion. Hot. Nubile. Steaming.

  “I’m never gonna drink tea again,” Jezza crooned.

  “This stuff started wars,” Djanara laughed.

  As they drank, the tree laden knobs of the western Lacians came upon the horizon. They were here.

  Djanara gave her a patient look, saying: “want to say the thing?”

  “What?” Jezza asked, her mind suddenly distant. “Oh – right, land ho!”

  When she’d informed Djanara how excited she was to say that when the time came, she hadn’t been thinking about –

  Actually. Being here. Back. In Berr.

  Jezza had become so good at forgetting the part of her life before arriving in Woodpine with her arcanist initiate’s seal. That had been the real first day of her life, sixteen and fully grown.

  Mom was here. Everything else from those first sixteen would be, as well.

  Sickening dread stole the joy from her heart.