Part 2
Two
The next few days were wonderful. Any time Teraania didn’t spend swimming in the lake she spent scoping out the ruin or making plans for where the jetty, stables, boathouse and woodshed would go. By night, she wrote spells and wished she had her reference books. They wouldn’t get here for another two months – she’d managed to convince an elemental to jump her to outside Degna, but the rest would have to travel the old-fashioned way. So she was stuck with a bagful of stuff she’d brought and what she could buy.
In the hopes of finding some texts in the Scholar’s Library in the village the Guards would let her have copies of, she dug out one of her rarest spells, an animation spell. Using it, she transformed a fat support beam into a galumphing horse-garrom. Now she wouldn’t have to walk the twenty or so miles into town. She must, she thought as she nailed a chair to the back of her restive mount, she must find a real horse to make do with until her own gelding arrived here, along with the rest of her stuff, as animation spells were generally not permanent.
Temple Square was fragrant with apple and plum blossom. Teraania slung the string bag full of books over the back of the chair-saddle and picked up the reins nailed to the face of her mount. The Guards had refused to sell her any copies of the texts she’d wanted, but they were willing to trade. She had a few doubles of rare books in her collection she would hand over when they got here – the Scholar’s Guard’s second had been quite excited about some of the titles she’d dredged up.
The garrom-horse yanked on the reins and tried to prance off ahead. Whoever created the animation must have been missing their old stallion at the time. He’d been hell to ride down from the hills. It was a small mercy that whoever it had been hadn’t included a voice for the garrom. She had a feeling that if it could, it would have made it whinnies echo off the hills for miles around.
With some presence of mind, she found a calm-spell in the small collection in the pocket of her overcoat and crushed it against the garrom’s flank. With a bit of a shudder, the four-legged piece of wood made the instant transformation from charger to nag and dropped back to trail obediently behind her. She sighed with relief and hoped the life of the spell wouldn’t be shortened.
The main street was fairly wide; the temple didn’t look older than a few hundred years, and it had probably brought a lot of unforseen prosperity to this little patch of nowhere. Some enterprising public worker had probably overestimated how many people would find their way to this place and had designed the street accordingly. It was, she thought, a pleasant change from winding, overcrowded streets.
The next few days were wonderful. Any time Teraania didn’t spend swimming in the lake she spent scoping out the ruin or making plans for where the jetty, stables, boathouse and woodshed would go. By night, she wrote spells and wished she had her reference books. They wouldn’t get here for another two months – she’d managed to convince an elemental to jump her to outside Degna, but the rest would have to travel the old-fashioned way. So she was stuck with a bagful of stuff she’d brought and what she could buy.
In the hopes of finding some texts in the Scholar’s Library in the village the Guards would let her have copies of, she dug out one of her rarest spells, an animation spell. Using it, she transformed a fat support beam into a galumphing horse-garrom. Now she wouldn’t have to walk the twenty or so miles into town. She must, she thought as she nailed a chair to the back of her restive mount, she must find a real horse to make do with until her own gelding arrived here, along with the rest of her stuff, as animation spells were generally not permanent.
Temple Square was fragrant with apple and plum blossom. Teraania slung the string bag full of books over the back of the chair-saddle and picked up the reins nailed to the face of her mount. The Guards had refused to sell her any copies of the texts she’d wanted, but they were willing to trade. She had a few doubles of rare books in her collection she would hand over when they got here – the Scholar’s Guard’s second had been quite excited about some of the titles she’d dredged up.
The garrom-horse yanked on the reins and tried to prance off ahead. Whoever created the animation must have been missing their old stallion at the time. He’d been hell to ride down from the hills. It was a small mercy that whoever it had been hadn’t included a voice for the garrom. She had a feeling that if it could, it would have made it whinnies echo off the hills for miles around.
With some presence of mind, she found a calm-spell in the small collection in the pocket of her overcoat and crushed it against the garrom’s flank. With a bit of a shudder, the four-legged piece of wood made the instant transformation from charger to nag and dropped back to trail obediently behind her. She sighed with relief and hoped the life of the spell wouldn’t be shortened.
The main street was fairly wide; the temple didn’t look older than a few hundred years, and it had probably brought a lot of unforseen prosperity to this little patch of nowhere. Some enterprising public worker had probably overestimated how many people would find their way to this place and had designed the street accordingly. It was, she thought, a pleasant change from winding, overcrowded streets.
posted by Pants McGregor at 5:51 PM
1 Comments:
Excellent story. Well crafted and intriguing. Good job. My story isn't coming along as well but there's still half a month to go. Good luck. I can't wait to read more.
~Nicole
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