Bonemaker

Chapter One, Part One

Hey, you guys. This is a companion piece to my novel, Aurian and Jin, but I think it's readable on its own. Or, well, I hope so. 

If you want to read the novel it's based on, the link's up there. For most of you, who're probably reading this because you were fans already--enjoy.

Love,

EFR

1

The heat was oppressive, muggy and thick, but the children inside of the bubble were quite comfortable. They went about their work at the outside tables happily, enjoying the summer sun. It was a good day, when Master Otrang let them study outside.

Master Otrang, who was something of an accomplished weatherworker, had made the bubble, knotting and unknotting his hank of weatherworking ropes until the hot air was pushed out and the cool air was pulled in. It created a miragelike effect around the children--a small shimmer, like heat rising up off pavement. The children, blind to the delicacy of their master's creation, worked on in the comfort of harnessed cool. Most of them wouldn't be able to appreciate such magical subtleties for many years yet.

"A fine looking group," muttered Grandmaster Lawlee, from beside him. "Fine looking, every one. And they do well?"

"They do well."

Together, content in the midafternoon sun and the sight of their apprentices working diligently, the two mages sat under one of the forest's big-bellied trees, munching their way through several pieces of humbleberry pie. They had water in a big tin pitcher, cooled in the heart of the forest stream, and even a little bottle of Beinbark brandy. The children barely noticed them, except to call out occasionally for help or for validation.

It was a good day, in short, to be a lazy old mage.

"I remember my days doing the whetwork charms," Lawlee said. "Goodness. At the time, I thought I'd never have to perform anything harder. Getting the first globe to spin, gods, that took me forever--and I, prize idiot that I was, thought things got so much simpler after basic mastery over matter. Little did I know, it only went uphill from there...."

"It does," Master Otrang agreed. He picked pie filling out of his beard. "Hoo. The Krainer Incantation was what always got me. I had to perform it six times before they'd pass me up to Master. Six."

"Don't let them hear you," Lawlee said amicably. "You'll terrify them."

"It's part of being a student. You try, and you try, and you try, until you succeed. They know this already. See that fellow on the end, next to the pretty blonde? He's tried about fifteen times already." Otrang narrowed his eyes, watching the proceedings. "Make that sixteen. Poor boy. He really isn't very good."

Lawlee narrowed his eyes as well, taking in the boy's frustrated expression. "That's one of the twins, isn't it? Morda. Goodness, both of them did so well on the aptitude tests. What happened?"

"We're not sure. The girl, Mors, performs as well as one could wish--a star student. The boy, however, has been consistently sub-par. Sixteen years of age, and he's barely halfway through our manipulation of matter program. He's the oldest child in this magepod by several years, and would be old even for a first-year journeyman, should he be advanced. It's a shame, he has a bright mind and plenty of ambition--but if he doesn't start performing, we'll have to take him off track soon. Perhaps we could put him in the library with Master Simms. Plenty for him to do with his mind there, and little practical application." Otrang coughed. The subject of the boy Morda had been a weighing one for a few seasons now, and was not what he wanted to think about, on such a bright summer day.

Lawlee, however, seemed determined to bring the heat's oppression into the bubble with them. "How far has he gotten?" he asked.

"With the whetwork?"