Love of Magic, part two

As I picked at the soup and bread Anillyn had set in front of me, she gossipped nonstop about happenings in the village. 

“Young Danimmar found her tapestry shredded this morning! It took her three years to weave it and she was to put the finishing touches on it this week.  She’s heartbroken.  No one admits to doing it.  I’d say it’s one of Simirray’s brood that done it.  They are always causing trouble.”

She told about several other incidents she believed Simirray’s children had caused, but I tuned her out.  I knew those kids.  They were not the bad kids Anillyn believed, they just had a lot of energy. I snorted.  Besides, I had my own problems to sort out, I didn’t need to waste time thinking about mishaps in other people’s lives.  What was I going to do about my magic, or lack of it?

I slurped broth and a carrot off of my spoon and frowned.  I had felt the magic coursing through my body, from my feet to my head. I had even felt it following my breath to the candle.  It had felt like there was something around the wick, protecting it.  There had been some energy sucking at the magic I directed to the wick.  Yet when Gillown had tried, the energy was not there.  What would could have consumed the magic I had sent towards the wick?

An elemental could have.  They could be vindictive creatures when angered.  I couldn’t remember doing anything to upset or offend any elementals though.  I did my best to give them thanks for their help around the tower, keeping our fires warm and our foundations strong.  I knew the fire elementals especially seemed to hover around me, which made the difficulty lighting the candle even harder for me to understand.  Gillown had told me about how my use of magic in my mother’s kitchen had attracted many fire elementals, like moths to a flame.  I hadn’t known how to control the magic, nor how to keep the elementals in check.  So, the fire elementals had danced merrily along the streams of magic I’d produced and as they cavorted, they had sent the kitchen up in flames. 

I looked towards the big hearth-fire, attempting to see the elementals dancing in its flames.  When I did catch glimpses, they seemed to be merrily leaping along the logs and spinning among the flames.  One stopped in its dance long enough to look at me and very deliberately wink its flame red eye before rejoining the dance of the fire.  I could remember the way Gillown had worded his request for the fire elementals’ help in the hearth; he’d very carefully asked them to remain in the hearth and to leave the rest of the kitchen alone.  Only by agreeing to be bound to his request could the elementals play in the hearth fire.

I finished my soup, thanked Anillyn, and went outside to do my afternoon chores.  Girl I might be, but I was still an apprentice; apprentices do all of the dirty work.  I spent the afternoon uneventfully chopping and stacking wood, lugging water from the river to the kitchen, and tidying what I could throughout the tower.  All of the drudgery gave me plenty of time to think about the problem and filter through many implausible explanations. 

My dreams that night were filled with snippets of conversations with Gillown and with the sensations of handling the magic.  Just before I woke in the morning, a feminine voice rich with power interrupted my dreams.   After waking, I could vaguely recall having a conversation with the unseen woman of the powerful voice but I could not remember what we talked about.  I sat there on my pallet, struggling to recall even one full sentence.  All I could remember though were two words:  “Love” and “Magic”.  Shaking off the dream, I rose to face the day.