She blushed. “Oh, who needs love? A mage only needs fun—love gets us in trouble.”
“Well, but you might want it someday, and then there’s the love of friends.” Feeling bold, he put an arm around her neck and kissed her hair. “But it’s hard, somehow, thinking about those things as I work on a piece. So don’t tell her it was me.”
Varice sighed. “All right.” She brightened. “I’ll tell her I’ve had it in my things for years and just found it again.” She kissed his hand and unwound his arm. “Ozorne will be wondering where we got to.”
“So he will,” Arram agreed. “And we have papers to write for Master Cosmas.”
—
To Arram’s pleasure, there were no examinations for infirmary work. Gerb, who oversaw him when Ramasu was away, pointed out sourly that every day in the infirmary was an examination. Arram didn’t mind. That month he had been assigned to work in the infirmary on Friday nights, where he cleaned wounds and healed black eyes in addition to judging more serious injuries and referring these wounded to the healer best at their particular hurts. Friday night, he learned immediately, was the night many of the poor families celebrated being free of work, even if they were too exhausted to attend their temples on Saturday.
What Arram liked was not so much the hectic hours, but the quieter ones, near dawn. He had made a new friend at the infirmary. Okolo was a curvy, lively girl who knew what to do with a shy, lanky boy in a storage closet when the waiting area was empty and the other healers were napping or playing card games. She always knew how to make Arram feel better when a sick or wounded child came in, just as she knew to fetch Arram when a child would not calm down for one of the other healers. She was fascinated by his juggling, and even learned to keep two balls of linen bandages in the air at once.
At the end of the term, she told Arram she was to be reassigned to an infirmary just for children in Yamut, far to the east. “They have so much poverty there, with all the fighting that goes on,” she explained. “But they also have healers from Jindazhen and the Kepula and Natu island countries who come to study and work there. Their ways are different than ours.” She kissed him. “I’d ask you to come with me—we’d have so much fun!—but I know you would never leave your friends.”
He would have protested, but he knew she was right.
—
The term ended. Arram was released from infirmary duty to travel with Sebo. They took a rented fisherman’s boat through the harbor at Thak’s Gate and westward on the coast. Here they camped in a secluded cove. Over their campfire Sebo talked about the sea and its temperament, the swift way weather could turn, and the glories of the water below the surface.
“You’ll see tomorrow,” she told Arram just before she retired to the tent their crew had raised for her. “Later next year I’ll take you for more extended journeys. It’s good to know seas and rivers. Then we’ll visit lakes and the more vigorous rivers inland. Unless you object?”
“Never!” Arram said eagerly. “It sounds wonderful!”
Sebo eyed Preet. “Stop pouting, bird,” she commanded. “You can’t go underwater with him, and that’s where we go tomorrow.”
Preet croaked at the old woman. To Arram’s ear the sound was very rude. “Preet! Manners!” he scolded.
She glared at him and croaked again, but apparently she was not too vexed. When he settled in his blankets, she cuddled into her usual place under his hair, against his neck.
“I love you, little bird,” he whispered very quietly. He had put his bedroll down a short distance from the others. If he talked in his sleep, he didn’t want anyone to know if he called out, especially if he called out a particular name, like Varice’s.
Walking into the sea with Sebo in the morning required all the nerve he could muster. It was not so bad in the cove, but when he was up to his chest, an incoming wave knocked him over. He fought his way up and a yard forward. It was harder to touch the bottom in salt water, as he found when the next wave knocked him down. He was not going to drown—he wore the mages’ bubble that kept him dry and able to breathe—but he floundered like an infant on a table.
Sebo made a sign in the water, one that glowed with her Gift. Arram copied it and immediately went to the bottom, standing as if he were on land. Walking was more difficult. The sea pushed back at him until he copied Sebo’s walk, turned slightly slantwise into the tide. Now they made progress, avoiding the creatures that lived among the rocks of the bottom and confronting the fish that came to eye them. Arram might have stayed there forever if Sebo had not pointed out that it was getting dark above.
He said little as they rinsed and ate supper. He did tell Preet about it when he couldn’t sleep. “I didn’t appreciate it when I came here,” he told the bird. “But I was ashore then. The gods are truly wondrous, to have created this world.”
“Good,” he heard a voice whisper. He looked around, but Sebo was nowhere near, and that was her voice. “A little piety is a good thing for a boy, and sleep is a good thing for an old woman. Sleep.”
—
Sebo woke him well before dawn to show him to a great moon tide. It bared the seashell creatures, crabs, shrimp, and slugs that normally hid in water-covered crevices. Arram sketched as many as he could before they were summoned to their boat.
On their way home through Thak’s Gate’s harbor, they saw people screaming and pointing at the water. Curious, Arram went forward. One glimpse at the problem, and he yelled for Sebo.
The immense brownish-green shape in the river rose, revealing its vast upper body. Preet zipped across the river and landed on the monster. Arram called on a spell that would make his voice louder. “He is a god!” he shouted to the watchers on land. “He is Enzi, the crocodile god of the Zekoi.”
Very flattering, the god replied. Preet, if you will devour those insects behind my ears…Enzi sighed as Preet pecked at the flesh where the insects were vexing him. I thank you.
“How sweet,” Sebo said tartly as she joined Arram. “Have you a good reason for terrifying half the city?”
I could not find you on the river, Enzi retorted. You were nowhere near the university, the capital, the palace, or this sewage hole. How was I to know you were jaunting about on all that salt poison?
“Do you have something to say?” demanded Sebo. “If not, I am weary to the bone. I’ve gone out to sea before and you never objected.”
This is different, Enzi told her. Troublesome times are coming. Troublesome for us all, land and water. Danger and death come. You are needed here. Preet rose from his head and returned to Arram. Thank you, child, Enzi said. He glared at Arram. And no, I have yet to find a proper gift. You may continue to look after her. Don’t feed her so much.
“Enzi,” Sebo said, “what kind of trouble is coming?”