Shadri's Second Tale

Shadri’s Second Tale1

© 1997 by eric lee2

When Shadri had been with his new teacher for a year, he paused one day to reflect on what he had learned.  There had been many surprises, and the first one was that a traveling spell-maker actually did very little with the power.  When camp was to be made, it was set and struck by hand.  The dishes were washed by hand, the broken wheel on the wagon was mended by hand.  All the chores, in fact, were done by hand.  Shadri's hands, mostly, but that was a problem he dealt with as best he could.3

Even when performing his spell-shows, the spell-maker made very few spells, and that was the second surprise.  Much of his 'magic' was just tricks of the hand and eye, with a bit of light and smoke for effect.  And more surprising still, many of those who paid to see the show seemed to know this!  The talk when they left was often whether the show were all illusion or not, yet they did not seem to mind that they had been fooled.4

"Ahh, but tell me, Youngling, when you go to the festival at Midtides, do you believe the man on stage is really Mutrahg, or that Lloortess is really slain for your entertainment?"  The spell-maker, whose name was Larhin, seemed dryly amused.  "They come to live in a pretend world for a while.  They may know, coming in, that I will fool them, but they do not know, going out, how I have done it.  It is the mystery, you see!"5

Shadri was not at all sure that he did see.  It seemed awfully close to lying, to him.  Still, if the spell-maker were to cure a sickness, or bring water back to a dry spring, he worked his spells for real, and never pretended.  He would always say, if he could not do a thing.  Shadri came to see that there was truly a different set of rules on the stage than off it.  He felt a little better, after that.  It seemed that they were only fooling people who wanted to be fooled.  6

When the young baker came, asking a spell to make the miller's daughter love him, Larhin became stern of face.  7

"And what of the one she is destined to love?  Shall I spell him to love another?  And spell her to love him in return? And what of the one she is meant for?  How many spells do you wish to pay for?"8

When the baker had gone, Shadri came to Larhin and asked,9

"Can you make such a spell?"  He had, by now, learned the nine names and the nine shapes of the first level of the p'taa, and six of the second nine, as well as how to balance two or more shapes against each other to make shapes even more complex.  He understood that the shapes he made in his mind were like the small glass that would make things look bigger; they focused the energy that was all about, and caused it to make things occur.  A shape of the second level, for example, balanced on one shape of the first, and supported by another, caused the heat in things nearby to concentrate in one place, to make a fire.  He did not think that any of the shapes he knew of would change a person's feelings, but there were nine levels of shapes, each more complex than the last.10

"It can be done," Larhin told him, "but I know only the first four levels of the p'taa.  To work with the energy of the mind requires shapes of the sixth and seventh.  These are to be used only for healing, you understand?  To change another's thoughts is to take their freedom away.  But that is far ahead of you, and you will need another to teach you before then."11

Shadri always became excited, and a little nervous, when he thought about the temple.  Larhin had told him that he was very strong in the p'taa, or that it was very strong in him.  He was never sure if they were supposed to mean the same thing.  The spell-maker was very sure that Shadri would go far beyond what he could learn travelling with Larhin's show.  Shadri was beginning to have some idea what that might mean, but only a little, he was sure.12

In Tanaans, a small village that was further from the sea than people usually lived, the well had gone dry.  This was a common sort of problem for the spell-maker, and he had taught Shadri how to make a shape in the air before his eyes that would let him watch how it was fixed.  It was usually not too hard a thing.  This time, though, when they looked together down to where the water was supposed to be, in the layer of rock far below the ground, they did not find that something had filled in the ways in which the water ran, or that the level of the water had dropped a bit below the bottom of the well.  They found no water at all!13

Deeper and farther, Larhin looked and Shadri followed, farther and deeper in the layer of rock so full of holes, where the water made rivers below the ground.  It was far away, probably three days walking into the hills, that they found where the water had broken into a cavern.  For years, ages even, the water had run past this bubble in the ground, wearing away at the walls of it, until it had broken the walls and rushed away into a brand new course.  Shadri thought of the day he had met Larhin, when a huge new world had opened up to him, and he had found a way before him he had never known could be.14

"There is no way of knowing how far the caverns run," Larhin told the leaders of the village, "but they will not fill up in our lifetime, if ever.  The well will stay dry, my friends.  I am sorry.  You will have to move."15

When they heard this, the people of the village gave sideways looks to Larhin, and offered to pay him double to fix the well.  They began to mutter when he assured them again that he could not.  Finally, the leaders of the village told him,16

"The people of Ganean have paid you to take away our water, because we grow better cuppero fruits than they do.  Tell us what they have paid you, and we will pay you more to bring it back."17

Shadri was very upset when he heard that.  Larhin would never do such a thing, and he didn't think the people of Ganean would, either.  He didn't think anyone would!18

Larhin was very sad as they left Tanaans with the people still angry and muttering behind them.19

"They have forgotten that this is not a stage, my young friend," he told Shadri.  "They do not want to move their homes, and think that the world will be what they want, if they only pretend hard enough."  He shook his head.  "Now, they can blame the problem on spell-makers, or on the people of Ganean.  Perhaps that will make it easier for them.  Come, perhaps if we hurry, we can be in Cumrosa by nightfall."20

They hurried, but it was two damp and chilly hours past dark when they reached Cumrosa.  Shadri was stiff and cold, and more than a little hungry, but those were problems he dealt with as best he could.  He had a lot to think about.  He thought about what he had seen, following Larhin's vision through the underground riverbed, how it was like what had happened to him on the day that they had met.  He thought about the people of Tanaans, and wondered how long they would stay where there was not enough water.  He wondered why they could not accept that the river had changed its course on its own; rivers on top of the ground did that all the time, and no one wondered at it.  And he wondered what it would be like when he finally went to the temple.21

That is the story of how Shadri visited the village that would not believe, and this is what he learned from it.  You can believe in what you like, but the world is what it is, and does what it does no matter who you blame.22

He wondered if they would pretend that they weren't thirsty, and if it would help. 23