Not middle, no end

A Ballad of Beginning

               Darkness gave way to dream. The environment was very familiar, an enormous library filled with books containing the mysteries of magic. From the arcane architecture of evocation to the crystalline construction of abjuration, it was all there. It loomed, but it also snickered at the continuous failures of would-be wizards. The dream was even more familiar than its setting, but the longer it went on, the more things seemed different. Like nightmare was waiting under ever desk and inside every closet. It would not be escaped though, the dream. Perhaps that was its nature.

               A figure striding through the dark halls broke the familiarity like thin glass. The stranger seemed on fire, the way power flowed about it, created a wake where the person walked like a flaming cloak. When it turned, as if seeing something, feeling something, darkness rushed in to smother the dream. There was nothing, and no one. Then, a pin prick of fiery light. It grew and grew, and with its size, the stolid halls of the library returned, silent and perfectly clean though there was no staff to scrub them. Close enough again to make out the figure on fire, the person seemed to have stopped their journey through the quiet walks. They had come face to face with a wall of storms. Like thunderclouds had rolled in through one of the large, courtyard doors, the tempest hovered before the figure, blue and green and red lights flickering inside. There were white flashes, too, that helped the elemental seem like it had eyes.

               “Welcome back,” the storm boomed, but the voice was that of a man, recognizably human even. “How do things fare in the reaches?”

               “Yeah. You seem well,” the figure’s voice did not seem troubled by the terror of the storm. It also seemed like a man, looking about, wary of something. “You know I shouldn’t be talking to you about that.”

               “Apologies,” the storm’s pulses slowed, the glow of the lights dulling.

               “How are you?”

               “I manage,” as its voice dropped, its size deflated. Then it brightened with frenetic sparks, swelled to fill the room up to the ceiling. “There is quite the crop this year.”

               “That’s what I keep hearing,” the figure seemed to have relaxed into a kind of resignation. “Guess my latest tour finished just in time.”

               The storm rumbled, like it was pondering something. “If something happened, you should tell someone.”

               “Stop it.” The figure glowed, and then the light peeled from its silhouette in waves that burned the air and illuminated the particular hallway. It brought a memory to mind.

               “You’re right, of course,” the storm’s lights blinked out one after another. It swirled like a tempest and flowed throughout every corner of the room. “It is very rude to pry.” For all the darkness, it was suddenly so bright, like the lightning eyes of the storm were the only thing visible.

               Night flowed in everywhere, as dream succumbed to darkness.

               Atsma burst from his sleep. He knew what was coming but couldn’t stop it: he slammed his head into the bottom of the upper bunk and the pain shot through his entire body. He curled into a ball, clutching his head. He rolled as he sucked air through his teeth and tumbled off the bed onto the floor in a tangle of sheets. The sensation in his head went numb and the moment caught up to him, the order of events and how he must have looked. Atsma could not help but laugh, a chuckle that moved his belly and relaxed his body. He put a hand on his mouth when he heard someone else in the room groan and shift in their blankets.

               For five years, he had been waking diligently in the early morning with his mind set on not hitting his head on the bedframe above him. And now, every morning his worries would be altogether different. He rolled over and pushed himself up, careful that his movements were quiet. He looked down at his bed and wondered what he should do. The thought brought up the memory of when the quarters had been assigned to him. The Librarian had told him his discipline would begin every day with caring for his living space and respecting his neighbors. The Librarian had told him there were no servants in the Library of Thought but the students. That memory pointed to something he had dreamed, but the thought was fleeting. A clean and familiar hallway. Atsma realized it would not only be the last time he slept in his bunk, but probably the last time he toured the library as well.

               He busied himself gathering up his blankets. He thought about the next person to come after him, and the clean and folded blankets that had been left for him. It was like they were all holding hands in a line, the occupant before, him, and the one after. Atsma smiled at that, and carried his bed things to the chamber door, where he was very, very careful about opening it on its noisy hinges, and then closing it back. As he walked, he flexed the fingers of his hands and rehearsed the most complicated magic constructions that he could remember. It was just one turn of the stone spiral stair and then he was up on the ground level. He chose the first terrace he saw and slid out into the space. It was almost dawn, but not quite. No wonder everyone else was asleep. But he had cause to be excited. Today he graduated.

               He stretched his fingers one last time, and then tossed the blankets up and into the air. With one hand, he directed them to hang in place, and stretch, concentrating on the corners with a mind not to tear the items. With the other hand, he began the construction of a tiny breeze that would sweep about the area. In his mind, he placed the boundaries like fence posts and set the strength like the reel of a fishing rod. Once that was started he added to the construction a warming balm, lifting the temperature like the volume of a choir. For the last part he closed his eyes and made a face. He imagined swirling brushes, a hundred of them, working in tandem. It helped when he imagined a rhythm, a direction. The brushes weren’t actually brushes, but visualization helped him achieve complete composition. When he opened his eyes, the blankets hanging in midair rippled in place as if invisible brushes were playing among their fibers. It was mesmerizing. The swirling patterns reminded him of something, and his mind drifted. The tearing noise made him refocus. A few more minutes, and he carefully folded them back and rushed back down the stairs.

               The others had watched him pack the night before, not just his three roommates but their neighbors on both sides, most of the boys and young men from up and down the hall. They asked questions like where he wanted to go and what he wanted to do. They all shared their aspirations loudly, and then quietly remembered all the others that were no longer there. Some of the girls and boys were actually women and men, because the first phase had no set duration. One either obtained a satisfactory working knowledge of magic or one did not. Atsma was 19. If he had gone back home, he’d be beyond marrying age. He would’ve had a place in the family’s woodworking shop, but only in the back struggling to catch up to where his father was when he was that age. But since he had completed the first phase, that would not be his future. Atsma would be a wizard.

               He set down the blankets and picked up his pack. It was full of the things a mother thought her boy would need abroad. It fit him differently now, as he slung it over a shoulder. It felt lighter, too. He stepped toward the door, calming his breathing.

               “Atsma,” Lillian rasped.

               He turned to see the smiling young man who slept in the bunk above his.

Atsma smiled back.

               “Safe journey,” he yawned. Lillian was older by at least two summers. He had a friendly smile, but he was cursed with constant accidents and a tenacious forgetfulness.

               Atsma nodded. Something in his throat made him think that if he spoke, the words would come out strange. When the door was closed again, he leaned against it for a moment, and then he pushed off to begin his journey.

               The Librarian was a very tall man who seemed thin beneath his flowing robes. His eyes were piercing and his fingers were long, like he was secretly made from spiders. In Atsma’s experience, he did not so much teach as observe. It was his purpose to steward the library that people came to for knowledge. He was the final arbiter in the judgment of who was ready to move on. Most years, no one graduated. The only people who left were those who had given up.

               Atsma was not surprised to hear the boots and then see the familiar shape come even with him, and then dart ahead. Phyllis had apparently come to the library a year after Atsma, so her ability matched the thinly veiled, superior attitude she always had. She was also pretty, so that made it worse sometimes, and better at different points.

               “You’ve lost to me again, Atsma L’Ront,” she spun on a heel and crossed her arms. “I’ve been waiting.”

               “Good morning, Phyllis,” he said. “Are you excited? I wonder who our tutors will be. Where will we go first? Did he tell you anything?”

               Phyllis pressed her lips thin. “No, he told me nothing, but maybe if you weren’t keeping everyone waiting we could go find out,” she dropped her arms and walked up to him. Her aggression was humorous because she was so short. “Where have you been anyway?”

               “I thought I’d clean all the sheets for the next person.”

               Phyllis opened her mouth, and then she closed it. She grunted a frustrated noise and then walked off the way they were both headed.

               Atsma grinned. The two of them were to become tyro in their second phase, each assigned a tutor whom they would travel with. It was meant to be a way to apply in the real world everything they had learned from books. They probably wouldn’t be going in the same direction, so this would be the last he saw of her also, at least for a while.

               His longer legs helped him catch up easily, but he did not come apace. He stayed just a bit behind, staring at her flow of raven hair, the way it was completely black but gleamed with a beautiful sheen. Atsma’s hair was the color of mud. It dirtied his face in awkward, uneven patches and fell into his face at inconvenient times. Phyllis had also gotten new-looking traveling clothes from somewhere. They fit like they were tailored. Atsma had hand-me-downs, ones supplied by the Librarian that he had grown into after splitting the pants he’d brought with him. Even still, his current pair was too short, even if they fit everywhere else.

               The students lived in the basement of the tower that overlooked the library like the library overlooked the capital around it. The Librarian, it was said, lived in the top of the tower, but that is not where they were headed. No one Atsma knew had ever been to the top of the tower, but rumors abounded at how it was a terrible place filled with torture devices where students who damaged the books were flayed alive. Their skin was used to construct the most hateful and difficult tomes.

               He and Phyllis were walking through the enormous, main courtyard, in the direction of a central thicket of trees that was observable from any of the surrounding wings. The tower was the tallest structure, but the copse was in the center. Atsma almost walked into Phyllis as she slowed down abruptly. It made sense. Neither of them had been inside the courtyard forest. Everyone assumed that it was a lesson: the most direct path taken in haste was often the most dangerous and least fruitful. They also assumed another reason students were flayed alive was trespassing where they were not invited.

               The Librarian had told them to meet him at the grove. It was one of the last things he said, perfunctorily, and had less significance with the fact of their graduation. But now it seemed to have all the significance in the world.

               “Good morning,” the voice came from behind them.

               Atsma jumped. The voice was unforgettable. He had heard it whisper, and he had heard it admonish. He’d heard it in jovial tones, and serious ones. Atsma turned to look up into the face of the approaching Librarian. Almost as if an enchantment had been broken, he wondered why in all the years he’d been in the man’ care, of all the stories he’d heard about him from other students, no one knew his actual name. Only the title, one created by the place where he lived and worked, and as far as Atsma knew, never left.

               “Master Librarian,” Phyllis seemed like she might tip over, she bowed so hard.

               “Graduates,” the man did not slow, and he did not stop. He was dressed in his usual multi-layered attire. Between the close-fitting inner gown, the flowing outer robes, the sash and hood, it seemed like every color was represented. What was different is today he walked with a staff. It looked like a long tree branch, curves and knots and all, about as long as the man was tall, with an additional two-hand length formed into a natural crook at the very top. Ideal for hooking problematic students about the waist. As he passed them, Atsma’s eyes were drawn to it. There were symbols carved into the bark in various places, from the foot to the tip. The wood almost hummed. “Come with me, please.”

               Atsma fell in line behind Phyllis again, not needing to catch up at all, as slowly as she moved. When they had passed by the third tree, they lurched forward as if shoved, or maybe pulled. Atsma’s ears popped and he was dizzy for a moment. Glancing behind him, he could not see the courtyard they’d just left from, only a dense forest, pervaded through by mist.

               “Before you are to meet your tutors, you will find your shillelagh.”

               Atsma’s head whipped back around. Phyllis hadn’t noticed and the Librarian didn’t seem to care that he had.

               The taller man lifted his staff, leaned it forward, tilted it sideways. “More than anything else, it announces your presence in a world unlikely to understand all that you have learned here and all that you understand, a symbol of office, as it were. It is an aid, and it is a tool.”

               “It is not a weapon?” Phyllis asked. It was a bad habit of hers. She was very open and blunt when she was nervous.

               The Librarian went from looking at them to regarding his staff. Most people knew at least a dozen stories about sorcerers. They swept into places, always in pairs, to tend to some kind of trouble. They shielded refugees from war and healed the blights of farming communities, oversaw peace treaties and advised monarchs. It was widely known that a wizard was as capable as a hundred men, and it was widely believed that part of it had to do with the weapons they wielded.

               “Is it not?” the Librarian asked, which was his way. In the very beginning, he told them the answers they sought did not lie with him but existed somewhere for them to find. He encouraged them all to look in the stacks first. “Close your eyes, please.”

               Atsma looked down at Phyllis, who was already looking up at him. Then he took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

               “Now, empty your minds,”

               Atsma frowned. He rooted through his memory for a visual aid to simulate the idea of emptiness. He thought of the library’s well, how deep it must go for all the students housed there, like a well of the world. He imagined tipping forward face first and falling down. The cloying darkness reminded him of something that he instantly forgot. He was uncomfortable for a long moment, and then he imagined hitting the bottom, like a water droplet stretching waves across a limitless pond.

               The next noise he heard was not the Librarian’s voice. It was stirring branches, brushing leaves, and groaning wood.

               “Walk,” the Librarian said.

               Again, it was like he was being pushed and pulled. Without meaning to, Atsma opened his eyes. He was glad he did, because he seemed to be balanced on a very high tree branch, and he was about to fall off. He wobbled in place to gain his balance. He looked around and did not see Phyllis or the Librarian. Behind him was the trunk of an enormous tree, so wide that he couldn’t see around it, and ahead of him was the twisting path of the enormous branch. Find the shillelagh. Walk. Atsma took a step forward, testing. It was not exactly like strolling, but he could make his way easily enough.

               He had been walking for about a minute when his mind began to wander, too. Below him were other branches leading off to nowhere, above him the same. He thought that maybe it was an illusion, or something else he couldn’t articulate. There was wood all around him, but he couldn’t see a single piece that resembled the Librarian’s staff, or any he’d heard of in the stories. In the ones he’d heard they were all different sizes and shape. When he had come to the library, he’d considered what he wanted his to look like. All of his roommates had discussed the same, people he’d met during meal time. Phyllis’ question echoed in his mind. Atsma had also imagined it was a weapon in the beginning, but then he had learned magic.

               Atsma stopped and looked behind him again. He wondered how the Librarian would dispatch a group of brigands while an airship pitched beneath him. He imagined that the Librarian was capable of the highest magic, the sort that would make such a feat child’s play. Magic, the constructions he’d learned over five years, were like the notes of various instruments. High magic, the kind the sorcerers used in the stories, were compositions of such. They were like songs. Atsma considered a gust of wind to knock all the hypothetical ruffians all down, but then frowned at the force of a breeze that would keep them from getting back up. He thought of a flash of light so bright that they were blinded and stumbling about swinging their weapons angrily. That didn’t neutralize the danger, not really. Fire would risk killing them. Maybe magic wasn’t so effective.

Atsma blinked. Wizards didn’t carry blades. They didn’t carry spears. Not axes or bows. They carried staves.

               “It’s not a weapon,” Atsma whispered.

               When he looked back down the path, it had become shorter. He could see the end, in fact. It turned again, dripped down, then terminated in an upturned offshoot. Atsma walked over and inspected the young branch. Then he looked around. He reached out and grabbed the branch. In his hand, it moved. The single leaf at its end turned dark and withered, and the bottom connecting it to the tree shriveled and detached. Almost in response, Atsma could feel himself giving power over to the little branch, as if to save it from rotting away completely. It was as if it ceased being a part of the larger tree and became a part of him. The connection made him second guess his assumption that the thing was dying or weak. It felt strong in his hands, powerful and sturdy and good.

               The exhilaration made him open his eyes, and opening his eyes made him realize they were closed.

               Phyllis was standing next to him like she had been before. She was holding what looked to be a dousing rod, a limb that bifurcated in two directions at the end. She stared at the object, a broad smile coming to her lips. Then she looked at Atsma and what he had found. She made a concerned face, like some of his was missing.

               He might’ve made the same face. More a stick than a branch, the two-hand length baton was dwarfed by the great magnificence of the Librarian’s staff. Yet the other man was smiling.

               “Good,” he looked from Atsma’s discovery to Phyllis’. “Snakewood and Ash. Congratulations.” He had not said that before. He had told Atsma he was ready to move on. He had told him that he had done well. But he had not congratulated him until right then. “You will meet your tutors and become tyro.” He turned to his right, which did not seem to be from where they came. “This way, please.”

               Atsma walked while looking down at his shillelagh. Its impressiveness had diminished, but he didn’t dislike the item. He couldn’t place himself in any of the stories he’d heard, but maybe that wasn’t important.

               “Maybe it grows with you,” Phyllis whispered. She was walking right beside him. She was cradling hers against her side like a mother would a child, or a knight might carry their helmet. It looked completely natural. She looked proud, and taller, and like she felt a little sorry for him.

               The push and pull feeling from earlier drew him from his thoughts as they walked back out into the courtyard. He paused briefly to look behind him at the magical forest. He didn’t wonder what would’ve happened if anyone ever went in uninvited.

               “Were you ever tyro?” Phyllis asked after they entered one of the main building doorways. They were nearing the library entrance.

               “Yes,” the Librarian said without turning around.

               “I’ve always wondered why you’re alone here,”

               Atsma looked down at her. That was a good point.

               The Librarian did not answer immediately. For a moment, he just kept walking along in front of them, turning every now and again down another hallway, ever toward the entrance.

               “You have learned form,” he said. “What magic was, more importantly what magic is. As living, thinking beings, we are stewards of what may yet be. As sorcerers, you have say in what magic may yet be. What you will see on your journeys may fly in the face of what you believe you know. One of the most important lessons is that there are most usually exceptions. That rules are simply meant to guide, constructs designed by finite beings to help their conception of an infinite unknown.”

               Atsma didn’t think that would make sense no matter how much he thought about it, but he tried anyway, for the remainder of their walk.

               The library had no front doors for symbolic reasons, no barriers against anyone learning, and the lengthy front hallway faced east. The voluminous courtyard beyond did have a front gate, however, a front gate, guards, and a small office for vetting visitors to the premises. The last dozen spans of the library entrance were unadorned stone floor, ceiling and walls, and just like everywhere else, there wasn’t a speck of dust.

               Two silhouettes were waiting, one directly in the middle of their path, one leaned against a wall. Atsma had energy building in his legs, but he didn’t dare walk faster than the Librarian. When he stopped, Atsma stood on his tip toes. He felt foolish when the other man opened like a door to make way.

               “Lupina Kris,” The Librarian directed. “This is Phyllis Artinez.” They were looking at a broad woman in fur-lined leather breeches and a jacket to match. She had tall boots and blonde hair that was pulled back to reveal a tattoo that curved around her left eye. She was beautiful in a terrifying kind of way.

               She stepped forward with an open gesture. When Phyllis stepped forward, Lupina Kris grabbed her around the back of the neck. On the woman’s back was a long, straight branch, as big around as a fist.

               “Well met, pup. Let’s go,” is all she said. She did not acknowledge the Librarian, but the man did not seem offended.

               “Atsma L’Ront,” he said.

               Atsma almost jumped into position, straight backed, staring at the ceiling. He was vaguely aware of movement from the reclining shadow.

               “This is Seamus Caine,”

               Atsma dropped his head in the direction of the approaching man. The individual did not have the open posture and welcoming smile of Lupina Kris. His head was nodded forward slightly, like an animal about to attack, the coif on his head pulled down almost to his eyebrows. He wore a thick traveling coat, but his arms weren’t in the sleeves. Actually, his arms weren’t visible at all, just his midsection clothed in a button up shirt and suspenders. Like Lupina, he was also wearing pants and sturdy bots. He wasn’t taller than Atsma, who had been thin and lanky his entire life, but looking at Seamus Caine still felt like he was looking up. The man stared for a long moment, and then turned to the Librarian.

               “Thank you for your service,” and then to Atsma, “let’s go.” He turned without waiting for either reply.

               Atsma paused for a moment to watch the man’s back. The way his coat flowed in his wake. There was that familiar feeling again, like he’d seen it all before. He began moving with a glance over his shoulder at the Librarian, who did not smile and did not wave. Atsma took another few lunging steps and then looked back again. The Librarian was gone.

               Seamus Caine, his tutor, said nothing so Atsma said nothing, all the way across the massive, stone courtyard that walled in the library. All the way past various guardsmen who stood at attention, all the way through both double gates that led off the library grounds and out into the city proper. Skiamache was at the center of every map Atsma had ever seen, and one of its crown jewels was the Library of Thought, where wizards trained. Once Atsma had stepped inside the walls, he’d been provided for, food, shelter, and guidance. It had never occurred to him to leave, even though it was apparent that he could have. He looked down at his clothes and thought of Phyllis. Where had she gotten money?

               “Alright, here’s good,” Seamus Caine stopped walking and turned around to face him. The coif was still pulled down but he seemed like the cloud that was hanging over him had moved along. “L’Ront, right?”

               “Yes. Yes, sir,” he modeled his posture after the guardsmen.

               “Okay, One, don’t do that,” one of his arms was revealed then. The shirt was long-sleeved, and his hand was gloved. It pointed at all of him. “And don’t do that either. You look ridiculous.”

               “Sir?”

               Seamus Caine squinted his eyes. All of his expressions seemed severe and aggressive. He sighed and put a hand to his head. “Don’t call me sir. Or master, actually.” He looked up again and glanced around himself. He turned slowly back to observe Atsma, his eyes trailing from his boots to his collar. “Come with me,” and he turned and started walking again.

               They ended up in a nearby clothing shop. It was a short sprint from the front gate and made Atsma reevaluate again just how forward thinking Phyllis was. He could imagine her peering out into the city from the library gates and her eyes falling on the hanging sign. He was going to miss her, he realized, following along behind, marveling at her hair.

               “You’re a distracted one, aren’t you?”

               His tutor’s voice brought him back to the present. He was standing in front of three mirrors, his outstretched arms being measured by a quiet man with an impressive moustache.

               “What?”

               “You drift out. Daydream,”

               “Uh,” he didn’t know what to say. Was that bad?

               “It’s just an observation.” The mirror image of Seamus Caine observed his surroundings again. He was inspecting things nearby but his gloved hands had disappeared from view. “So, what were you told about your sophomore period?”

               Atsma frowned. That isn’t how the Librarian referred to it. “We will travel, many places, and I will gain real world application to what I learned in the library.”

               “Huh,” it was a thoughtful noise. “Where’s your shillelagh?” In the mirror, Seamus Caine was scrutinizing Atsma up and down. He frowned when he was directed to look inside the traveling pack across the room. The man walked over and stared down. “Okay. Three. Keep it with you, always,” and he stooped down and stood back up. When he turned, he had the wooden rod in a gloved hand.

               Atsma fidgeted as he was measured from his hip to his heel. He thought of the Librarian’s long crook, and the length across Lady Lupina’s back. He couldn’t see Seamus Caine’s staff anywhere. He was blocked when the tailor stepped into view, handing Seamus Caine a small piece of parchment and a short stack of cloth and leather.

               “Master Caine,” the tailor said, bowing.

               “Yeah, thanks,” and Seamus Caine beckoned to his tyro in the mirror.

               When Atsma turned, he was being handed his staff along with the stack of materials. He could see there were numbers written on the paper. They left the shop with him juggling the materials and his bag and his staff, and Seamus Caine said nothing until they were outside the city and across the bridge. The capital had passed him by in a blur yet again. There were still airships in the sky and diverse people walking everywhere, but just like last time his focus was elsewhere.  

               “Here’s good,” again Seamus Caine stopped with no prompting. He pointed at the ground, “bag,” and took the materials and dropped those on the ground, too.

               Atsma took a step backwards for no reason he could discern. It just felt like Seamus Caine suddenly took up more space.

               “Okay, let’s see you make these into clothes,” and he nodded from the paper to the pile of materials.

               “Sir, I mean what?”

               Again, it seemed like his tutor was trying to decide if he was deaf or stupid or something else. “Make clothes,” he drew both words out.

               Atsma was ashamed, but that actually helped. Make clothes. He looked at the paper in one hand. He had been measured. The numbers were the measurements. He looked down at the pile of materials. So, with the numbers, he could… he frowned. He didn’t know how to do that. Atsma looked up to his tutor.

               The man was staring right at him.

               Atsma closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He focused less on the numbers and concentrated instead on the materials. He knew that items could be conjured from nothing by experienced wizards, but he didn’t need to do that. He had the materials. That was hardly transmutation. He didn’t need to change their state or even composition. He just needed to… he looked at his tutor again.

               The man did not look impressed or happy.

               Atsma moved his hands to gesture and remembered he was still holding the numbers in one hand and his staff in the other. He looked around. It was too long for a pocket, that’s why he’d put it in his pack. It didn’t have any portions that could be hung on a catch. It would need a sheathe of some kind. Made from leather, because of the item’s heft. He looked down at the pile again and inspected the materials more closely with a boot.

               Seamus Caine sighed. “Okay, stop.”

               Atsma jumped back. Had he failed already?

               His tutor stared at him. “What is wrong with you?”

               He didn’t have an answer for that.

               His tutor stepped forward. “Okay, so you’re a feeler not a thinker,” he said.

               Atsma looked up, confused.

               “You pick your way along, more intuitively. The precision of numbers don’t translate for you. You feel. It means you’ll be great at what you’re good at, and trash at what doesn’t come naturally.”

               “I’m sorry?”

               “You probably visualize, right? Or there’s like a smell or a sound, a tactile memory?”

               Atsma nodded so hard he hurt his neck. “Yes. Yes!”

               “Okay, calm down,” Seamus Caine moved one arm. He spread his fingers like a spider and then each finger moved like a leg, crawling on the air. The materials danced on the ground, folding, tearing, rolling, spreading, curving, and scrunching. All the activity made a thin cloud of dust.

Atsma closed his eyes and coughed, waved his hands in front of his face. He felt cool, exposed, then warm and covered. When the cloud dissipated, he was wearing a new set of clothes. There was a jacket and shirt and of course pants. He looked down at himself and turned around in a circle. His socks were hidden and so were his sleeves. It had happened so fast, he hadn’t had time to observe the architecture of the magic.

“That was amazing!” he danced in place and shouted and jumped. “Please teach me how to do that.”

Seamus Caine stood perfectly still. “Sure, but we’re going in order. Important stuff first.”

Atsma’s energy dropped.

“Now. L’Ront,” the tutor looked around, in thought. “So, you’re from the west.”

“Yes, beyond Rithia, in the Drael lands.” Atsma nodded.

“Nice place,” the tutor said. “We’ll go east then.”

Atsma felt his eyes widen. Geography was a topic among books in the library. He had seen only part of the world on his walk from his home. Drael was a place of lakes and meadows and forests, cool in the winter and hot in the summer. Rithia was similar, but there were mountains visible at every point during the journey through that place. They had a group of rulers, too, not just the one king. Their roads were stone and well-maintained. But that was all he saw. He knew nothing of what was east of Skiamache.

“What?” Seamus Caine asked.

“What?”

“You look like you want to say something.”

“I think I’m just excited. This is just all so amazing. Can I… can I hug you?”

“Absolutely not,” and to punctuate, Seamus Caine walked away from his tyro.

Atsma danced in place for a moment before sprinting off. Then he sprinted back to his bag. He used his staff to catch the strap and lifted it up and onto his shoulder in one smooth gesture. It was a strangely natural motion. He looked down at the shillelagh and remembered Phyllis’ words, and Phyllis and Lillian and the Librarian and everything else. He looked once on the city in the center of the world, the silver spires and columned walks, the ivory tower near the middle. His grin was so wide, he thought he might hurt his face. Then he turned and ran off in the direction of his tutor, focused on the top of the dark coif tipping slightly from side to side as the man walked along.