Stone of Tears

Maybe if she had touched his cheek, he would have remembered the spark of something, maybe remembered the tears he shed the day she left, and the promises he had made. Promises she knew the moment they left his lips would be broken before their echo faded, so long ago.

She came to the hall that led to the novices” apartments. She stood looking down at the doors. She was tired. Sunup to sundown in the stables was going to be exhausting. She turned the other way, instead. She had one other thing to do before she slept.

Pasha came to a stop before a doorway with a casing of stone, carved to look like vines. Nestled in the center of the stone vines was a large, round-topped, fumed oak door.

Pasha lifted an eyebrow to him. “Your dungeon.”

“There’s no bolt on the outside of the door. How will you lock me in?”

She seemed surprised by the question. “We don’t lock our boys in. You’re free to come and go as you please.”

Richard frowned. “You mean I’m free to roam this building?”

“No. You’re free to go wherever you wish. You may go most anywhere in the palace, or into the city, if you wish. Most of the boys spend a great deal of their time in the city.”

Her face reddened a little at the last of what she said, and she looked away from his face.

“What about the country around the city?”

She shrugged, and then pulled the shoulder of her blue dress back up a little. “Of course. I don’t know why you would want to go into the countryside, none of the other boys do, but there’s nothing stopping you from going outside either the palace or the city.”

A worried wrinkle came to her brow. “But you must stay clear of the Hagen Woods. It is extremely dangerous. Were you warned about the Hagen Woods? Were you shown where it is while you journeyed to the palace?”

Richard nodded. “How far may I go into the countryside?”

“The Rada’Han will prevent you from going too far afield; we must be able to find you, but the limit is a good number of miles in a radius around the Palace of the Prophets.”

“How many miles?”

“Farther than you would want to go. I expect almost all the way to the land of the savages.”

“You mean the Baka Ban Mana.”

She nodded. “Nearly that far, I would expect.”

“Unguarded?”

She put her hands on her hips. “You are assigned to me. I will accompany you most everywhere you go, for now. After our boys are more experienced, they go off on their own when they wish.”

“Whenever I want, I can simply wander around?”

“Well, you live here, at the palace, of course. And you must be around for your lessons. I will give you lessons, and so will a number of the Sisters. We will teach you to touch your Han, and then once you are able to do that, we will begin to teach you how to control it.”

“Why different Sisters? Why not just one, or you?”

“Because sometimes the Han of certain people works better together. Also, the Sisters have more experience than me, have more knowledge. There may be one or several of us who are better able to help you, and so different Sisters give you lessons, until we discover with whom you work best.”

“Will Sister Verna be one of those?”

Pasha gave him a look from under her eyebrows. “Verna is no longer a Sister. She is no longer entitled to the appellation. She is a novice, now, and should be addressed simply as Verna. Novices, other than the one assigned to you—that is me—are not allowed to give lessons. Novices of the first rank, like Verna, are not allowed to have anything to do with our boys. The duty of a novice is to learn, not to teach.”

Richard didn’t think he could ever think of Sister Verna as simply Verna. It sounded too strange to him. “When will she be a Sister again?”

“She must serve as a novice, and advance as any other novice. I started scrubbing pots in the kitchens when I was little. It has taken me this long to be given this chance. One day, if Verna works as hard as I have, then she, too, will have the chance to be a Sister of the Light. Until then, Verna is a novice.”

Richard fumed at the thought of Sister Verna being demoted on his account. By the time she was again a Sister, she would be an old woman. He changed the subject. “And why are we allowed to roam around?”

“Because you are not a danger to the people. Someday, when you learn to control your Han, then you begin to have limits placed on where you may go. The people in the city are afraid of boys who can wield the power—unfortunate incidents have happened in the past—and so once a boy becomes skilled at handling his Han, he is then restricted from the city. As the boys advance as wizards, they are placed under more restrictions, until near the end, and their release, when they are confined to certain areas of the palace.

“But for now, you’re free to go almost anywhere you wish. I will know where you are all the time, by your Rada’Han.”

“You mean any Sister can find me by this cursed thing?”