The travelers had set up camp within the rocky terrain to minimize the exposure of their campfire. As usual, Grewen collected the brush and limbs, Brimmelle stoked the fire, and Thorik set up the camp and beds. Avanda tended to spend the evenings with Bryus to learn as much magic as he could teach her.
“Hold still,” Avanda said to Bryus. Her attempt to attach the arm-sized tree trunk onto the stub of his arm was not going well.
“You’re still not pronouncing the words right,” Bryus complained, as he tried to keep the stub of his arm lined up with the moving trunk. “If you cast that spell while my arm isn’t lined up, you’re going to cause it to be lodged into my chest.”
Balancing the new wooden arm on her shoulder, the trunk swayed from side to side and up and down as she tried to keep up with Bryus’ own corrections. “I’m going to lodge it into your chest without the use of any spell if you don’t stop fussing!” Her words were firm but without angry.
With one arm steadying the thin trunk, Avanda grabbed the stump of his arm and forced the two up against each other. “There! Now, what’s next?”
“I’ve told you three times already.” Bryus reached up to cut a handful of hair from the side of his head, but in spite of the blade’s sharpness, he simply couldn’t cut it with one hand. “I don’t know why you’re making this so difficult. Both my wife and daughter have performed this spell on me many times with ease.”
Avanda’s arms and back were getting tired as she watched the old man attempt to cut off some of his hair to activate the spell. It was pointless. “Why didn’t you tell me you needed some of your hair before we got your arm fit up?”
“Because you asked me to only give you one step at a time.”
Grinning at the sight of Bryus wrestling with a blade in his hair, Avanda wondered how he ever became a master in Alchemy. “What else do we need besides the verbal commands and your hair?”
He looked at her with great confusion. His face twitched and his good arm lowered. “Are you daft? We’ll need my new arm.”
“I know that.” She pinched the skin of his stub to emphasize her reaction to his ridiculous response. “I meant what else besides that?”
“Those are the only components.”
To the relief of her back, she dropped the yard-long trunk on the ground, let go of his stub, grabbed the blade from his hand, and cut off a handful of hair from the side of his head. Tossing the blade to the side, she slapped the wad of hair in his hand before she picked up the trunk again and pressed it up against his stub.
“There.” She thought for a moment before moving on. “Now, what do we do with the hair while I’m casting the spell?”
Bryus was impressed at her brashness and gave it away in his facial expressions. “Well, after we boil the hair for a while, we will-”
“Boil the hair?” Avanda interrupted.
“Well, of course. You always boil the hair to ensure it’s pure for the joining of the arm, otherwise it may not take. Every third level student of magic knows that.”
“How could I possibly know such a thing?”
Bryus’ face twitched. “How do I know what you do and don’t know?”
“Didn’t you find it odd that we hadn’t boiled up some of your hair prior to us lining up your new arm?”
“No. I assumed you would have already had some.”
Avanda was perplexed as she dropped the tree trunk back to the ground. “And why would I have some of your boiled hair?”
“I have no idea. I wondered the same thing.”
Not knowing how to respond, Avanda slapped her hands on the sides of her head and began shaking it as she talked to herself. “This is the person who’s going to teach me magic? I’d be better off on my own.”
He nodded. “You’re probably right. But then again, how far are you going to get without even knowing about the basics of preparing your spell components?”
“Preparing? I’ve never had to prepare anything before casting spells.”
With a smug look, he nodded again. “True. And how has that been working for you?”
Embarrassed by the obvious answer, she skirted the question. “We’ve done just fine with what I’ve taught myself.”
“I’m glad to hear it. Then you won’t be needing any of my help then.”
Sighing, she knew this might be her only chance to learn the skills needed to cast spells that wouldn’t cause Thorik and Brimmelle to run in fear. She grabbed the wad of hair out of his hand and headed over to the campfire to start boiling some water.
Bryus was quite pleased with himself as he watched her walk away. There was a satisfaction he received when he manipulated people into doing what he wanted without using any magic.
Sitting near the campfire, Grewen had taken a flaming limb out of the fire and began scrubbing the bottom of his feet, while Brimmelle took his usual nap before the evening meal.
Thorik had finished his camp chores and had begun working on something to eat. Pouring some of their water into one of his pans, he hoped to make a stew with the roots and fruit Grewen had collected from the desert plants.
Placing the pan over the fire, he looked down and noticed a grouping of small rocks in a smooth artistic pattern near his feet. It reminded him of his grandmother. She had a tendency to make various designs in the sand with her collection of gems and stones.
While smiling at the thought of Gluic, Avanda walked up next to him and tossed a wad of hair into his pan. Thorik glanced up in disbelief. “What are you doing?”
Avanda crossed her arms and stared at the fire with a pout on her face. “I’m fixing Bryus’ arm.”
“You just wasted good water for our stew.” Thorik looked into the pan to see if it could salvaged by picking the hair out.
“Leave it in there. It needs to boil for a while.”
“What’s a while?”
Avanda hadn’t asked. “I don’t know. Could be a few minutes to an hour. Bryus will have to let me know.”
“An hour? That will boil off most of the water. We can’t afford to waste it.”
She shrugged, accepting his statement as fact. “We’ll get more tomorrow.”
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we are in a desert and there aren’t a lot of fresh streams handy.”
Turning to look directly at him, her face was serious and her hands were firm against her hips. “Bryus is missing an arm, Thorik. Don’t you think that is a little more important than us eating tonight?”
Grewen’s eyebrows raised as he looked up from tending to his feet. “Can we vote on this?”
Thorik glanced over at Bryus, who was reaching for things with a hand that no longer existed. “Avanda, do you think it’s a good idea for you to be spending so much time with him?”
“Why not?” A frown grew upon her face. “He can teach me how to be a great Alchemist.”
“And why would you want to do that?”
“Why wouldn’t I? The ability to cast spells to help all of us has to be a good thing.”
“Is it?”
“Yes,” she answered quickly. “Just think, Thorik, what if I could wield the power to stop people from hurting us, such as that assassin?”
“Or like Lucian?” Thorik frowned with concern. “Is this your way of preventing someone like him from ever taking advantage of you again?”
“It sure wouldn’t hurt. I would have cleaned the world of his scum and no one would have missed him.”
“Avanda, I know how hard that was on you, but learning magic won’t erase the past.”
“But it can prevent it from happening again in the future. The next time a stranger lays a hand on me, I’ll be ready.”
Thorik sighed. “Don’t go down this path with the intent to harm those who threaten you.”
Realizing that she was painting herself into a corner, she tried a different angle. “Learning magic is more than protecting myself. Think of it. What if I could cast spells that could ensure we had plenty of food to feed everyone in Farbank? We w
ouldn’t have to spend all year fishing, hunting, and farming.”
Looking sad about the idea, Thorik paused before he responded. “Then what are all the farmers, hunters, and fishermen going to do? What would be the point of the Harvest Festival if we didn’t have to work hard in the first place?”
“They could just enjoy the festival instead of having to slave all year long to prepare for it.”
“But, that’s part of the festival. It provides us with a time to feel good about all the hard work we’ve done.”
“But what harm is there in making life easier?”
“None. But if people don’t struggle to achieve, then they also don’t appreciate what they have once they receive it. There’s a personal satisfaction that comes along with overcoming hardships. Never giving up and forging ahead to accomplish your desires, regardless of the obstacles, is one of the most powerful feelings in the world. I would never want to give that up.”
Again, she felt he was cornering her, so she turned the conversation in a new direction. “At yet you have done just that.”
“What?”
“Are we heading back to Farbank?”
Thorik shoulders drooped a bit. “You know we are.”
“Well, we’re heading back there because you gave up on Gluic.”
Thorik’s face turned red at the accusation. “I didn’t give up on her. Brimmelle asked me to leave his mother at peace.”
“She’s at peace? Gluic is trapped in a dagger which is lost in the desert.”
Thorik’s throat tightened. He couldn’t respond.
“Would you have left me in the desert?” she asked.
“No. Of course not.”
“Then why did you leave her?”
His eyebrows pulled in tight. “I already told you.”
“Because Brimmelle told you to.” She wanted to confirm his reason.
Thorik nodded.
Avanda asked her questions very casually and without malice. “What happened to ‘regardless of the obstacles’ in your lecture to me? It looks to me like your biggest obstacle is Fir Brimmelle, and you gave up instead of forging ahead.”
Using his own words against him hurt. His heart tightened at the thought of abandoning his grandmother. She had helped him in so many ways, and he gave up on helping her without much of a fight. But every time he needed the courage to stand up and fight for his beliefs, visions of Bakalor flashed through his mind and caused him to lose his edge.
He turned and stared at the fire as he crucified himself for his actions. He had abandoned Gluic and he no longer possessed the courage to fight for her survival. How would he ever live with himself?
Avanda realized that she had gone too far in her efforts to turn the issue away from herself. However, she stood by her comments, even though they could have been conveyed with less sharpness.
Standing behind him, she reached up and placed a soft hand on his back. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“No, you’re right. I shouldn’t have given up on her. Now it’s too late.”
Her hand slowly traced his spine up and down as they softly chatted. “I didn’t think I would ever hear you say that anything was too late to be fixed.”
Thorik drew in a deep breath in response to her comment. “We can’t turn back now. We have to be at the Squalid Waters in a few days. Hopefully Ambrosius will be waiting for us. He can help us find Granna.”
“Avanda!” Bryus yelled from his side campfire.
Turning her head slightly, she responded. “Yes?”
“That should be long enough. Let’s get this over with.”
Turning back to Thorik, she ran her palm across his back one last time. “I’ve got to go.”
“I know.” His voice was soft and appreciative of her comfort.
Avanda collected a fork to scoop the hair out of the boiling water, but when she peered over the pot’s rim, she was surprised to find a dozen roots floating in the water along with the hair.
Grewen noticed her displeasure. “What?” Giving her his wide grin, he hoped to soften her obvious issue with his actions. “I figured we could do both things at once. It’s getting late and I’m hungry.”
Avanda glanced back at Bryus to make sure he hadn’t seen anything before she quickly scooped out the majority of the hair. She didn’t believe the roots would affect the spell. At least she hoped they wouldn’t.
Chapter 24
Squalid Waters