Part the One-Hundred Fifty-Second
In which: the party becomes both wiser and wetter than they were before.
As the party stands there, dumbfounded, Kiara makes her way to the front of the group and bows.
The camel looks at her for a moment, and then, in a low voice with just a hint of amusement says, “Bowing is… not necessary.”
Kiara straightens. No one else knows quite what to say. Bahati breaks the silence, “Wadiah, thank you. You need not remain.”
Wadiah nods, and takes her leave.
The party stares at Bahati. Bahati stares back.
Finally, Lira’s instincts for good manners will not allow the silence to linger any longer. “I’m sorry,” she says, “this comes as a bit of a surprise.”
“What… do you wish to know?”
“Are you… that is, can you…” Lira fumbles, not sure how to ask what she wants to ask.
Bahati watches her patiently, content to let her fumble through her question.
“…well, everyone else here is a sorcerer. So… does that mean… ?”
“You’re a sorcerer, too?” Kiara finally finishes for her.
Bahati almost looks amused as he says to them, “Did you think the talent only occurred in humans?”
There is a long pause.
(Completely mirrored by the long pause around the table when Fajitas posed the question to us.)
“Yes,” says Anvil as other, usually articulate members of the party stand there gaping like stranded fish. “Indeed we did. Thank you for pointing out the error of our assumption.”
“But how did they find you? The Khartshma?”
“The Khartshma did not find me. I found them. When the men and women of Ebis turned against them. Their fathers’ fathers and mothers’ mothers fled into the desert. I found them. I gathered them together, and showed them the ways of the deep desert. I followed the stars to find them, and have followed the stars ever since, keeping them away from those who would do them harm.”
While everyone quickly tries to work out how old that must make Bahati, no one has the courage to actually ask.
“If you know the desert, perhaps you can be of aid to us,” Reyu asks. “We are looking for a wizard, Manaal. We have been told she lives somewhere near the city of Pesshataup.”
The camel chews for a moment, thoughtful. “I remember Pesshataup… The city of stone.”
“The city of stone?” Lira asks.
The camel nods. “The men and women of Ebis came for the stone. They settled there for it, deep in the desert. They drew the stone out of the ground and sent it away for their buildings and the buildings of others.”
“Drew?” Annika asks. “Past tense?”
“Yes. No one is there now. Abandoned.”
“For how long?”
Bahati considers again. “Fifty turns of the stars.”
“That explains why no one’s heard of the place,” Thatch mutters.
“But why did they leave?” Lira wants to know.
“They settled there for the stone, but they could not drink the stone. Nor eat it. In the end, they had much stone, but little else. So the men and women of Ebis left, and the desert reclaimed what they had wrought.”
“Can we get there from here?” Annika asks.
“It is not far, if you can find the way.” Bahati considers. “It is a journey of… a week.”
“Can you guide us there?”
Bahati shakes his head, slowly. “I am… needed here. I will send a guide with you. If anyone is willing.”
“Thank you very much,” Reyu replies. “Can we give you anything in return for your help?”
“What would you offer?”
Reyu gives Thatch a knowing look. “If you have a way to store it,” she tells Bahati, “we can give you as much water as you would like.”
The camel seems to consider this carefully. Then, he looks over at a large desert boulder, in whose shade the camels have clustered to take refuge from the heat of the day. He takes on a look of intense concentration, then walks up to the rock and bumps it with his nose. As the party members watch, agog, the rock shimmers, and when the effect passes the party sees it has been stone shaped into a cistern, complete with lid.
When he recovers his wits, Thatch takes out the decanter of endless water and uses it to fill the newly-formed basin. Bahati watches with interest.
Before the party takes their leave, Lira thanks Bahati. “It is a wonderful thing you have done,” she says, “for all sorcerers.”
The camel looks at her indulgently. “Not for all of them.”
Lira blushes. “Still.”
The party walks back to the main part of the sorcerers’ settlement, each privately ruminating over what they have learned. Annika especially, continues to boggle. “But…” she mutters, half to herself, “for a camel to cast… Every spell would have to be stilled and silent… It must have been years before he could cast tongues to even talk to anyone…”
###
When the party returns to the main area of the settlement, they find that every child in the camp has come to try to get a look at them. Lira makes a few tentative friendly gestures, but Thatch has a plan.
He beckons to a cluster of small children, maybe eight years old, all standing together.
“Do you know Alirria?” he asks them.
They nod, not saying anything.
“Let me show you one of her blessings.” Very slowly, so as not to alarm anyone in the camp, Thatch takes out the pitcher again, and points it straight up at the sky. The children watch, as Thatch stabilizes the base of the vessel in the sand and then says, “Fresh geyser.”
The children stand frozen in awe and wonder for about two seconds, and then… all the children are running forward to play in the sudden shower. As their shrieks and laughs fill the air, the adults gather as well. And although most of them are more concerned with gathering the water than playing in it, Eva notices most are not particularly careful about staying dry either.
Wadiah comes up behind Thatch’s shoulder. “You’ll spoil them,” she tells him.
Thatch grins. “Just this once?”
“Just this once.”
Lira watches the children in frank amazement. “I don’t believe it,” she whispers to Eva.
Every single child that is old enough to walk is casting spells. Some shoot rays of frost into the stream at the mouth of the pitcher, catching the icicles they made when they come falling back down. Others are involved in an endless loop of running under the water, prestidigitating themselves dry, and then running right back in to get soaked again. A few of the older children—who still only look to be about eleven or twelve—use levitate to lift the smaller ones in the air, letting them splash and shriek at the apex of the fountain.
Finally, Lira can’t stand it any more. She gets up off of the sand where she had been sitting and goes running into the spray to join them. She throws her face up to the water, and laughs.
Off to one side, Kiara watches. Ever since they have found the Khartshma she’s noticed how… excited, even happy Lira has seemed. Sure, she’s been occasionally worried or stunned, but underneath it all, no matter how different the customs of these people, she realizes that a certain part of Lira feels at home among them.
Kiara has never felt that way in her life.
Quietly, when no one is looking, she sneaks back to the camel pens. It would be easy for her to recognize Bahati, even if he didn’t wear his distinctive headdress.
“Bahati?” she says cautiously, “can I ask you a question?”
The camel says nothing, but watches her attentively.
“I know… I know that it means a lot to Lira, finding a place full of other people who are… like her, in some way.” Kiara pauses. She doesn’t even know of Bahati can understand her anymore. But the camel is still watching her patiently, and having come this far, she forges ahead.
“I want to show you something. Don’t be alarmed, it’s nothing dangerous, but… I have a talent too.”
She takes a step back, and with a deep breath leaps into the air. As Bahati watches, she shifts form, first into a hybrid human/bird, then into a swallow, and finally back into a human girl.
The camel watches throughout, but says nothing, and makes no sign.
Back on her feet again, Kiara finally asks her question. “What I wanted to know was… Do you know of any others like me?”
Slowly and deliberately, the camel shakes his head.
a spell casting camal great update
