ShadowKnight

Chapter Two

Over the years, Ella's vegetable garden continued to prosper under Tarin's care, and they were producing far more food than they needed in their cottage near the forest. Every week, on market day, Tarin would cart the extra plants down to the marketplace and set up a little stall to sell them to the other townsfolk.
Tarin loved helping the plants to grow, he had even started experimenting with flowers, mixing some of the more domestic ones with different kinds of wildflowers, and seeing the result. His little stall was always overflowing with bright colors. Jim saw the stall as a business opportunity, and soon he had made small trinkets out of scraps of metal from the smithy, and Rich carved pictures in pieces of fishbone and wood.
It turned out that Mark was really good with numbers, so he handled the money of the stall, and they split it between the four of them evenly.
"Hey, Tarin," Rich asked one night as they closed down the stall. "How do you make the flowers grow so quick anyway? I try, and it takes like, a month for them to sprout."
"Ella says it's because of my magic," Tarin explained. "She calls it 'an outlet'. She says it's good for me to use it like this, so it doesn't get dangerous, or something."
"Dangerous how?" Jim asked curiously.
Tarin thought for a second, then remembered something.
"You guys remember that dam we built in the stream in the clearing?"
"Yeah," They agreed.
"You remember we piled up rocks, and sticks and leaves to keep the water from flowing, but water kept escaping around it and over the top anyway? Ella says it's like that. There's magic inside me... and it's sort of overflowing, leaking out. Ella says that if I let it, then nothing bad can happen. But if I stop it... it's like when we finally managed to stop all the water, and the dam broke, and we practically flooded half the clearing."
"Oh, yeah, that was a fun day." Rich said, lost in the memory. "Right! Speaking of fun days, the midsummers festival is coming up."
"That's in a couple of weeks, isn't it?" Tarin asked. "Do you think they'll want some extra flowers?" Almost at the mention of flowers, what was left of the boys' stock seemed to perk up, grow bigger and brighter. They nearly overflowed the stall again.
"Geez, Tarin. You should probably get that under control." Mark said, noticing the sudden growth.
"What am I supposed to do? I've already overgrown Ella's garden, and there's not much else I know how to do."
"You've got to try something. Maybe you could channel that productivity into my dad's forge?" Jim suggested. "You're stronger than I am, maybe you could give me a hand."
"Do you think that growth stuff works with fish?" Rich suggested "If you caused an overflow of fish in the lake, my dad would probably thank you for it."
Mark was thoughtful as the boys all turned to him, waiting for him to make as suggestion.
"I think, what Tarin needs is to figure out how to control and maintain his magic, not just spitting it out all willy-nilly."
"And that's the official term, willy-nilly?" Jim asked sarcastically. Mark shot him a look over the slate he'd been using to keep track of the day's sales. He tapped the chalk against it thoughtfully.
"I think, Tarin needs to find a wizard or something, who can teach him real spells."
"Mark, if you haven't noticed, wizards and sorcerers are in fairly short supply around here."
"Maybe one might visit for the midsummer's festival." Mark said logically, and his tone was so matter-of-fact that no one had the heart to argue with him. As they all looked at the overflowing flower cart, he added "and, perhaps we can try your other suggestions until the festival. Otherwise, we may find the forest overgrowing Tarin's farm." The cart gave a small shudder as the flowers grew even larger, emphasizing Mark's point.

Over the next two weeks, disaster seemed to follow Tarin around as he tried the suggestions his friends had come up with.
"Do you think it's because your birthday's coming up?" Jim asked, as they put out a fire in the blacksmith's shop, saving several half-made swords from certain destruction in the overheated forge.
"I don't know when my birthday is." Tarin said, "Ella says I was left on her doorstop 13 years ago next Wednesday though.
"So... that would make you almost 14 by my count." Jim said. "I'm going to count that as your birthday. Hey! That means that you'll be old enough to hire on as a squire for a knight."
"You'll be 14 in august," Tarin said, putting out another sudden flame, conjured as if by a gust of wind. "Maybe we'll have to go to the capital in august."
"First, we've got to solve your magic problem." Jim said, wiping the sweat from his forehead, but leaving a streak of soot. "Maybe you should try the lake. It's not flammable."