As Rielle did she told herself she was only feeling abandoned because she had grown used to having access to Baluka’s mind. But it’s suddenly obvious that it’s only being able to understand what the Travellers are saying that makes me feel like I’m one of them.
But she wasn’t one of them. She was an outsider. Maybe it was good to be reminded of that, especially when they would be leaving her behind soon.
In the meantime she had better do what Lord Felomar had advised–learn the basics of using magic so she could be useful to a teacher, unless some way could be found for her to exchange her skills as an artist and tapestry weaver instead.
Sighing, she rubbed her temples. The future was an empty void containing dangers she could not predict or understand. But it also held opportunities. Both demanded she learn a great deal, and as quickly as possible. To learn magic. She felt only a mild resistance to the idea. Baluka’s reasoning had all but convinced her of the necessity.
The servant stopped at a door and opened it. Looking around, Rielle realised she had barely seen her surroundings while lost in thought. They were standing in a long corridor. Carved doors were spaced along equally decorative walls, and the ceiling was tiled in what looked like perforated sheets of silver, polished to a mirror gloss. Landscapes hung on the walls. Lord Felomar’s dining room had been even more lavishly decorated and hung with bright, intriguingly realistic paintings of exotic foods. She shook her head. Though her future might now seem harshly real, her surroundings were still impossible and dreamlike.
“Travellers,” the servant said, gesturing at the other doors. No doubt she thought Rielle’s hesitation was unease at her separation from the family.
Nodding, Rielle walked past the young woman into the room. It was even more spectacular than the hallway. A frame had been built around the bed, decked with shimmering fabrics. More paintings, this time of women with tiny heads in huge, billowing dresses, were framed in gold. The servant followed Rielle in, then gestured to another doorway. Peering through, Rielle saw a deep tub built into a recess of the far wall, covered in an intricate pattern of tiles.
The servant worked a lever and steaming water began to pour into the tub. She indicated bottles on a shelf nearby, then a generous length of thick, absorbent cloth. Rielle nodded to show she understood, and the servant bowed again and left.
She didn’t need a bath, but she had no idea what local ideas of cleanliness were. If someone invited her to bathe she had to assume it was because they expected her to. Stripping off, she examined the bottles, finding them full of scented oils. She chose one, poured a little in the water, then climbed in.
What am I meant to do next? she wondered. Sleep?
She had no idea what time it was in her home world. Turning the lever until the water stopped, she lay back and tried to calculate. She’d left Schpeta in the evening and arrived at dusk in the desert world. From there she struggled to recall details. Had she walked for a day or two?
When the Travellers had left that world it had been night, but they’d arrived in late afternoon in Kezel. It had made for a long evening. The next morning she and Baluka had left for Diama, arriving in what had turned out to be the late morning, shortening the day.
So though it was night here–or the darker gloom that passed for it in this world–it had actually been a short day for her. That explained why she didn’t feel sleepy.
The Travellers probably intended to adjust to the local routine, since they were staying for a few days. She ought to as well. But though she left the bath warmed and relaxed, her mind would not settle once she had donned the simple shift left for her on the bed and slipped under the covers. Instead of worrying about her future, her mind returned to the conversation at dinner that had caused Baluka to close his mind to her.
The “Raen”, she thought. A title, not a name. The most powerful sorcerer of the worlds and, from the sounds of it, more than magically powerful. Ankari had looked worried at the news. Lejikh not so much. Or rather, afraid but curiously accepting as well. And Baluka? Excitement had been radiating from him almost as if he had narrowly missed meeting an Angel.
That thought sent a shiver through her entire body.
“He was gone for more than twenty cycles,” Felomar had said. She didn’t know exactly how twenty cycles compared to her world’s years, but she had picked up from Baluka that the Raen had disappeared when he was a small child. He wasn’t much older than her.
“If it was populated, the occupants would eventually generate enough magic for him to leave again,” Lord Felomar had said.
“Perhaps it only took twenty cycles. And when he left he’d have had to…” Baluka had begun saying. She had read from his mind the point he’d been about to make: that if the Raen had left as soon as he had enough magic to do so, he’d have emptied the world of all magic.