I reached the Wielder's back door, but it was still locked and bolted. Epiphany's lesson was running long again, which meant that mine would probably be cut short again. And the Wielder would yell at me if I took the water in before she asked me to. I sat down with my back against the door to wait. I sighed, with a bit of resentment, and my breath rose in a white cloud. The season was growing cold, the first frost was days away. I pulled my shawl more tightly around me and tried to think about magic.
The Wielder's lessons had so far been easy. I had, it seemed to me, already learned all of the basic magic skills. The Wielder had taught me the positions of greatest concentration, the proper way to breathe, the way to shut out the world without falling asleep. She had explained what made a word of power, but she had only taught me the weakest ones. She had told me how to cast spells, but she had only taught me the weakest, simplest, and most useless ones, and I could hardly even manage those. I was mad at her, mad at myself, mad at the world that I was so slow at learning the magic. I loved it so much. I idly dipped the tip of a finger into one of the buckets of water, wondering when the Wielder would see it fit to let me inside. But the door remained shut as the ripples my finger had made spread across the water.
I could not hear Epiphany or the Wielder. I knew nothing of how Epiphany was doing in her lessons. Yet, something told me that she had far surpassed me, even in the brief time since we had started our magic lessons. She was beginning to adopt the sure bearing of the Wielder. Her face looked always as if she was concentrating on a spell. She slipped into the concentration stances whenever she tried to think. She was the perfect Wielder's apprentice.
I decided to practice my magic. The Wielder had set a flat dish of water before me. When I had touched it, the ripples had lightly spread to the edge. When the Wielder had touched it, the ripples had grown as they spread, and they would not stop even after she had lifted her finger from the water. She had turned the smooth water into a stormy froth with a touch and a thought. And I had learned to concentrate, and make the ripples rise and continue, first for one breath after I lifted my finger, than two. I tried to do that now. I pulled a bucket of water close, shut my eyes, concentrated, and put a finger to the water.
The door behind my back was flung open, and I fell backwards through the doorway. There was a thump and a splash and a meow, and I was wet. I stood, righted the bucket I had knocked over, and tried to smile in the face of the disapproving stares of the Wielder and her cats, and at the laughing face of Epiphany. A stern word from the Wielder, and I took the bucket in hand and fled to fill it again.
One afternoon, Epiphany and I met at the Wielder's, only to find a note on her door saying that she was not at home. We sat near her front door and used the time to catch up on talking, and were having a rare fun and relaxing time.
Epiphany suddenly turned away from me. I looked where she looked, down the path toward the main road. A man or boy lifted his hat off his head and waved at us. We blinked at this strange person who came toward us- what was he doing here? As he came closer, we saw he was perhaps a little older than I was, and not quite as old as Epiphany. He wore bright clothes like those of any man in town, and I was suddenly aware of how strange Epiphany and I must look, she in an insubstantial white dress and I in the patched clothes of all simple girls. He seemed completely at ease as he walked up to us.
"Is the old crone in?" he asked, cocking his head.
"The Wielder?" Epiphany corrected.
"Old crone, Wielder, same thing," he replied, smiling. He seemed friendly, and I was beginning to relax. I could even smile.
"No, she's not here today," I replied.
"Now, that's odd!" he exclaimed, cocking his head in the other direction. "I thought she never went past her front step." I wondered how his hat stayed if he cocked his head to the side. And the hat fell off. As he bent to pick it up, smiling apologetically, I could see that his black hair, long enough to frame his face, was run through with one white streak. I looked curiously but tried not to stare, and I felt Epiphany tense next to me. He raised his head and the streak was hidden among the rest of his hair, almost forgotten behind his smiling face and smiling eyes. I liked this person with the strange streak.
"Pardon me, I forgot to introduce myself! I'm Roun! And your names?"
"I'm Zia..." Epiphany did not want to speak. "And this is Epiphany."
In a pause, we considered each other.
"What is it?" Roun asked. "Never seen a guy with a hat before?" "Not many come to visit the Wielder."
"Ah, is that so? Then I have permission to ask why you two are here."
"We're learning magic!" I said, a little too excitedly. Epiphany gave me a sharp glance. I had forgotten not to speak of my training.
"Learning magic? From the old crone? Who would have thought? It happens she's been teaching me some magic too." Epiphany did not know who to stare at- admissions of the sort that should not have been surrounded her.
"Really?" I asked, surprised. "I thought we were her only pupils."
"So did I," Epiphany said, slightly suspiciously. "You study under her? Truly?"
I thought that I caught a flashing hand signal from Roun. The word "truly" sprang forth from Epiphany's lips in a bubble of sound that floated upwards, splitting into three bubbles, then six. Both Epiphany and I opened our eyes wide as the bubbles surrounded us and swayed up and down in a delicate dance. The bubbles popped- a sextuple echo of "truly" rang softly in the air, and from each a tiny skyflower fell. One floated down in front of me, and as I caught it, it turned into nothing.
Epiphany did not smile, but I grinned at Roun and laughed. Here was one of many funny and beautiful tricks. He giggled quietly and grinned back.
Epiphany stood. "I have to go. I've been out longer than I should have."
"Me too!" I exclaimed. It was far too late to be out.
"I'll walk you two home," Roun offered. I laughed.
"But we're going in opposite directions!"
"You are?" he sighed. "Here, I'll walk you, Zia. And, Epiphany, I'll take you another time if you like." Epiphany hurried in one direction, and as I turned to the other, Roun followed. I picked up my pace, fearful of the darkening sky and the growing mass of clouds. But Roun laughed and joked and made me feel at ease as only one other person could. I began wondering if it was possible to have two best friends.
Two nights later the cloudy weather was broken by a clear sky. Acting on an idea put into my head by a question the Wielder had once asked, I feigned sleep until my house was quiet. When everyone else slept, I slipped out of bed, into my shoes and shawl, and out of the door. The farmyard was as quiet as I had ever seen it- the moon was waning toward darkness, and the stars shone more brightly than ever, in a huge tapestry of light.
I hurried, as quietly as I could in my boots, through the starlit farmyard. Past a field and an orchard was a pasture that was empty of all but grass and birds and crickets. I paused and stared about, taking in the night that I so rarely stopped to enjoy. I loved the starlit dark. I spread my shawl on the ground and lay down on it.
"Zia! What are you thinking about?? Your mind is wandering. You must focus your mind and soul on the task in front of you!" the Wielder had sternly reprimanded me. It had been a few days ago, when I had not stopped my mind from wandering during an exercise. "You cannot even make a candle flicker! You have everything you need except the focus of your own mind! I tell you, you want count the stars, you want to save the world, but you act like a child."
I got mad, but I did not even speak out against the Wielder. I let the hot tears burn my cheeks in the darkened room, the hot thoughts hurt my heart. I had grown up. I had forgotten about saving the world when I had forgotten about tending geese and picking skyflowers. Why could the Wielder not see me as more than a child? Through the tears, I concentrated all of my energy on the flame.
"Now, stop," the Wielder said, tired. "You are trying to use the magic through your anger. You have far, far to go before you can distance yourself enough to use magic through anger."
"I..."
"No, listen to me. This will not work. You are not ready today. Come back tomorrow, and we will try again."
"But..."
"No, just go home and clear your mind. I will see you tomorrow. I have things to do."
The Wielder dismissed me to cope with the tears on my cheeks. I wiped them away as I left. She was right, I could not touch the magic now, today. I was too tired, too angry. I needed to talk to someone- Epiphany. But she had gone home already. Maybe I could see her...
"Epiphany! What are you doing here??" I asked happily. I had not expected to see her sitting at the front step.
"I needed to ask the Wielder something, but I didn't want to
disturb you. Zia, are you all right? Have you been crying?"
"No, I mean, yes... in a way..."
"What's wrong?"
"I don't know. I'm just tired today. I- wait, we aren't to talk of it. I have to hurry, Epiphany."
"Yes. Well... I'll see you, Zia." As Epiphany turned to go inside, she paused briefly and hugged me. I felt infinitely better. "Bye, Epiphany!"
I started down the walk, my eyes on my feet, my thoughts away from the wet streaks on my cheeks. I was startled when I almost crashed into a figure in a hat.
"Zia!"
"What? Oh! Roun!"
Roun smiled at me. "The old crone let you go for the day, I see. I was just walking this way."
"We can walk together, then," I had said. As we had walked off, Roun had made me laugh. For that I was grateful.
With Epiphany, the world had meaning. And with Roun, the world was bright and good. They were so different. I had always known Epiphany, it seemed, but that did not mean that I could not get to know Roun even better. Who was the best friend?
I came out of my reverie to realize that I had lost count. But I had barely begun, and could simply start over. This time, I would concentrate. I began counting the silver points again.
A shooting star flew overhead. I sighed in pleasure.
Just behind me, above the rustling grasses, I heard a sigh of pleasure echo my own. I sat up and turned, startled, and saw a white dress and red-gold hair illuminated in the moonlight and starlight.
"Epiphany! What...?"
"I thought you might be around here tonight."
"But... how? I didn't even decide to do this until sunset today. I couldn't have told you."
"It's something that you would do," she said, sitting next to me. "Counting the stars on a beautiful night..."
"It is beautiful, isn't it."
"Oh, yes. Very."
"But... why did you come?"
"I haven't seen enough of you lately. We see each other with our eyes every day, and we talk to each other almost as often, but the Wielder is always ordering you to do a chore and calling me in to study magic, pulling us apart. Then it is too late to talk afterwards. We have not been doing those things that best friends should do."
"So true."
"Zia..."
I could feel Epiphany worrying about me, which was unsettling. She saw the Wielder assign chore after chore to me, all in return for one brief magic lesson. And she had caught me with tears on my face a few days ago. I might have been a little angry at the Weilder, a little resentful at the way life was treating me, but I was fine. And I had magic to urge me forward. I loved it. Epiphany did not have to worry.
"What?" I asked Epiphany, as if I had no idea what she had been about to say.
It was not as if I was not worried about her, either. I had seen how tired she looked when she left the Wielder. Magic took a lot out of her. But again, I knew she loved magic with all her heart. She was the perfect Wielder's apprentice.
"Nothing," Epiphany sighed. Magic was the best thing that had happened to us each, as a person, but it had done nothing good to our friendship.
Another shooting star flew over us. We watched in wonder and smiled at each other.
"Are you getting cold, Zia?"
"A little. We should go inside soon."
"Let's go."
I picked up my shawl and began walking back to my family. Epiphany and I both smiled in the beautiful starlight. Neither of us said anything on the way back, but I, personally, was sincerely glad that I had my friend by my side.