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Sesskia’s Diary, part 16

21 Senessay (continued)

Sovrin and Audryn both had plain green dressing gowns to wear, but I had to put on my own clothes for the walk back to Sovrin’s room, and I couldn’t believe how filthy they felt now I was clean. I don’t think I’ve ever been this clean in my whole life. Sovrin’s room was a surprise. The furniture was all the same as the other bedrooms, just that one narrow bed and the wardrobe and dresser that looked like they’d seen a lot of wear, but Sovrin’s bed was unmade and her white robe lay crumpled on the floor, and her black trousers were draped over a corner of the dresser. “Yes, Sovrin is a slob,” Audryn said, seeing my expression.

“No point in making a bed you’re just going to get back into later,” Sovrin said. She opened dresser drawers and began pulling out clothes that were definitely not white robes and black trousers.

“I’ve never seen you all wear anything but the uniform,” I said, and Audryn said, “We rarely have the chance to, but sometimes there are rest days, once every two weeks now. It used to be more often, but…our work has more urgency than it used to, and I think we might never stop if Sai Aleynten didn’t insist we take breaks.”

I have to stop underestimating Sai Aleynten. True, I think he’d push himself past the breaking point if he had to, but I’d assumed he treated his subordinates (is that what they are?) the same way.

Sovrin came up with a long-sleeved shirt with a wide neck and tossed it at me. “If it fits, you can have it,” she said. “I don’t like how tight it is across the chest, on me, and you’re nice and slender.” Which is a polite way of saying “flat-chested,” but I’m sure she meant it as a compliment.

She found a few more shirts, then some trousers and even a skirt, which I don’t normally wear because they’re hard to run in and even harder to climb the outside of a building in, even when you don’t care if people can see your underwear. And speaking of underwear, there was a moment of embarrassment for all of us when Sovrin handed me some short pants made of soft unbleached cotton, and said, “I don’t know if…you didn’t seem to….”

I took them graciously and said, “Yes, I do wear undershorts, and I wore through my last pair about two weeks before I came here, and I wasn’t in a position to buy more. So thank you.”

Sovrin chuckled, and said, “That’s a relief, and I hope you don’t wear breast bands, because I’m damn sure mine won’t fit you.” So we all laughed at that. She’s got a very generous figure, but the undershorts are only a little too large. And, not that I’m not grateful, but I can admit in the privacy of this book that I hope someday I’ll have clothes that really fit again.

There were a lot of other things we talked about that I forgot to put in before. Like, Sovrin told me more about the construction of the bathing chamber, how the earliest mages built it when they carved out the rest of the Darssan, and how the wall between the sections was erected only eighty years ago, when the trend for separate bathing spread to all levels of society. And I learned nobody starts work early in the Darssan. Leisurely breakfasts and chores and bathing all get done before work begins, on the theory that minds will be properly limbered up if they are well awake and aren’t burdened by worry about other responsibilities. Though I would bet hard money, if I had any, that Sai Aleynten is an early riser. I don’t think that’s just me being spiteful.

And somewhere in all of this, I asked them to call me by my praenoma, Sesskia, instead of my placename. I tried to make it sound casual, so it wouldn’t embarrass them to know how much it meant to me, but…I felt comfortable with them in a way I’ve never felt with anyone but my family before. Maybe not friends, yet, but I think they will be, and I wanted to give them something in exchange for how kind they’ve been to me. They of course didn’t think anything of it, and wanted to know about placenames, and exchanged glances when I explained that Thalessi Scales refers to my work in the fishery and I’d kept it as camouflage even though I no longer worked in the fishery. I couldn’t exactly call myself Thalessi Mage.

Then Sovrin went to join her group—she’s group leader, which is why she said her group couldn’t really do anything about her being late, but I think she was exaggerating, because she didn’t waste any time getting dressed—and Audryn and I went to her room, where she loaned me a comb and I managed to get it through my tangle of hair, and I admired her collection of hairpins and clips. I think it surprised her that I was so knowledgeable about the quality of most of her pieces (none of them are inexpensive, and one or two look old), but I chose not to tell her I’m more a thief than I am a mage, even if I only became a thief to steal books that would teach me magery. No, that’s a lie, I became a thief so Mam and Bridie and I wouldn’t starve to death. Damn it. I swore I wouldn’t think about Bridie again, because I get so furious with Mam

More fire-summoning pouvra. That painting is all but obliterated now. I’m calm. I’m rational. Time for another list.

What I did today:

  1. Read a lot of books. At least, read the first pages of a lot of books.
  2. Argued with Sai Aleynten about which books were important. I realize he’s been studying this for a long time, but I’ve been reading ancient tomes for at least as long as he has and I’ve learned to recognize when a writer knows what she is talking about.
  3. Had lunch and bitched to Terrael and Audryn about how unreasonable Sai Aleynten is, which got no sympathy because they think the sun shines out of his ass.
  4. Felt guilty about once again being overly critical of Sai Aleynten, who after all doesn’t know what I’m capable of. As far as he can tell, I’m just a strange mage who knows some tricks he doesn’t and happens to be able to read a language he can’t.
  5. Made peace with Sai Aleynten, who unbent so far as to admit he wasn’t taking my input seriously. We altered our method of study accordingly. He tells me what matters to him, and I read not only the first pages but skim some of the others as well, looking for those things. I also tell him when I find something that would be meaningful to my magic, which isn’t often, but I’ve found at least one book that might give me a new pouvra, and I got to keep that one. Sai Aleynten was excited about that book, though he only shows excitement by becoming very still and expressionless.

5a. I really wonder, now, what made Sai Aleynten the way he is. I would have sworn he was indifferent to practically everything, but the more I interact with him, the more I realize he’s just so self-contained it’s a wonder he doesn’t erupt. He gets sarcastic instead. Good thing he doesn’t turn that on me, because I would shout at him, since I don’t share the respect the other mages have for him.

And that’s not entirely true, either. True, yes, in the sense that I don’t venerate him—and I don’t mean that slightingly, it’s just that I know the mages respect his person and not just his role—but I’m beginning to see just how good he is at what he does. He’s quick to grasp the implications of what I’m reading, and I know he’s already memorized the new configuration of the library, and of course he can write th’an on air. Which reminds me I still haven’t seen a real kathana. I keep forgetting to ask someone when that will happen, there’s always so much else going on. Besides, Terrael is almost totally occupied with translating the Eddon book. Audryn had to drag him to the refectory (this is what they call the eating room) so he’d leave the book behind, because of course you wouldn’t eat while you were touching it. Audryn is in Terrael’s working group, by which I mean that Terrael is the leader, and I think one of her jobs is keeping him either focused on a problem instead of flitting about, or not focused on a problem to the point of forgetting to eat or, and I sympathize with this, bathe.

Sesskia’s Diary, part 15

21 Senessay

I had a bath this morning, and I’m trying hard not to feel totally humiliated about it. I do have a sense of personal hygiene, it’s just that sometimes I go days or even, once, weeks with no more chance to bathe than a couple of quick swipes in strategic places. And I’m usually by myself, so there’s no one to be offended if I smell bad. So I admit that sometimes I forget how long it’s been. Really, though, your own smell grows so gradually, and is around you all the time, it’s no wonder I can’t always tell when I’m becoming ripe. Continue reading

Sesskia’s Diary, part 14

20 Senessay (evening)

I just finished reading over what I wrote above and it makes me cringe to see how petulant I sound. Once again it turns out I was wrong in a lot of my assumptions. In my defense, Sai Aleynten was definitely at fault, too, but I probably shouldn’t have given in to my anger like that. And I can admit, now, that my first impressions of Sai Aleynten were all bad ones, and that’s predisposed me to dislike everything about him, even if he doesn’t deserve most of it. I don’t think we can ever be friends, but I’m doing my best not to hate him and his smug face—there, I did it again. He only looks smug because of the way his eyebrows are crooked and his eyes are almost always half-lidded, like he’s trying to hide the fact that he’s laughing at your stupidity. But I’ve seen him talk to the rest of the mages, and he never sounds dismissive or impatient, though he does get sarcastic at times, and that makes me a little angry, because they all want his respect, or at least his approval, and I can imagine how his scorn makes them cringe. He has some definite character flaws, but after today I’ve decided not to assign him any more of them than are actually true. Continue reading

Sesskia’s Diary, part 13

20 Senessay (afternoon)

Well, I was totally wrong. Damn Sai Aleynten and his stupid, smug, arrogant, keep everything to himself attitude. I spent the entire morning doing pouvrin at his command. Set this on fire. Move this. Walk through this. I refused to do the last, which made him angry, but what could he do about it? And he wouldn’t tell me a thing about why he wanted all of that from me, just kept making notes on his stupid wooden board, or rather on papers he held on his stupid wooden board. Continue reading

Sesskia’s Diary, part 12

20 Senessay

There was just no time yesterday to bring this record up to date. So much has happened—and yet I don’t feel much has changed. One change is that Sai Aleynten knows about this book now. I left it on the dresser when I lay down, and then I fell asleep—I’ve been sleeping restlessly, and I suppose I was more tired than I realized. I woke to a knock at the door, and then Sai Aleynten came in without waiting for me to invite him, which might be a Castaviran custom but is more likely just Sai Aleynten being himself. “I could have been naked,” was the first thing that emerged from my mouth, and then I wanted the floor to swallow me up. Sai Aleynten just raised an eyebrow and said, “Is it a custom of your people to sleep naked?” Continue reading

Sesskia’s Diary, part 11

19 Senessay

I had breakfast this morning in that room with all the tables, eggs with funny orange yolks and some reassuringly familiar bacon and a glass of pink juice that tasted a little bitter, but grew on me over time. No one came to sit with me, and I didn’t see Terrael or Audryn, and while I didn’t exactly feel lonely—I’ve traveled alone for too long to let solitude bother me—it meant I had no one to talk to but the inside of my own head, and that made me increasingly nervous about the upcoming conversation with Sai Aleynten. It felt like I was coming at it from a position of weakness, since I’d made a mistake, and I hated—still hate—the thought of giving Sai Aleynten any power over me. I don’t know why that is; he only used magic on me to defend himself, and he seemed more concerned for my welfare than Terrael was with the whole Cap of Death incident, even if that was only because he sees me as a puzzle he doesn’t want damaged until he can solve it. I just don’t like him, that’s all. Continue Reading

Sesskia’s Diary, part 10

18 Senessay (later, same evening)

I had to stop before because Terrael came in to ask me more questions. Then Audryn—I haven’t written about her yet, I guess—she came to make Terrael leave me alone so I could sleep, but I really need to finish writing about this, because it has to be important.

So, we compared histories. After about three hours, we were both tired, and Terrael suggested we get some food. This time, he took me to a big room with ten or twelve long tables and little backless stools lining them on both sides. A lot of white-robes were sitting there, eating, and all of them looked at us—at me—when Terrael and I came in. Terrael ignored the attention and went to an opening in the far wall, like a five-foot-square window with no glass, and I followed him. Beyond the window was the largest kitchen I’d ever seen in my life, and that includes the one in the royal house in Venetry where the cook hid me while the guards searched the house. A man came to the window, looked at both of us, and walked away again. When he came back, he had a couple of plates piled with food: a slice of meat in thick brown gravy, mashed potatoes (finally, a food I recognized!), green peas that had been dried and then reconstituted, so they were mushy, and a thick slab of the brown bread perched on top of everything. Terrael handed one to me, thanked the man, and went to the end of one of the tables where no one was sitting. He went at his food like it was the last meal he’d get all week. I was conscious of people still staring at me, so I used my best manners. Though now that I write that, it occurs to me that I have no idea what these people consider good manners. Maybe Terrael inhaling his food is the pinnacle of proper eating etiquette in Castavir. Continue reading

Sesskia’s Diary, part 9

18 Senessay (evening)

Maybe I was wrong about that last sentence. Again I’m so overwhelmed by what I’ve learned I don’t know what to think anymore. So I’ll start with what I’m sure of, which is that Terrael wouldn’t meet my eyes when he finally showed up, about two hours after the end of my interrogation. The first thing he said was “I’m not sorry.”

“I was furious with you earlier,” I told him, “but since I’m not dead, I decided to be glad it worked and forgive you. But if you ever try anything like that on me again I’ll strangle you with your own robe.” (That’s actually what I said, not me being clever in retrospect. Though I don’t know how I’d make it happen. Terrael’s tall and I think he’s stronger than he looks.) Continue reading

Sesskia’s Diary, part 7

17 Senessay

I’m feeling overwhelmed, so I’m just going to start at the beginning and hope writing it all down calms me. I’m fairly certain about the date, but that’s the only thing I’m sure of anymore.

The new bedroom was still a cell, if a nicer one. People brought me meals, and the lights dimmed by themselves after a time—I think the lights in my first cell didn’t work properly—so I slept when it was dark and paced the room and practiced pouvrin when it was light. I gained enough control over the mind-moving pouvra that I could lift the bed, the dresser, and the wardrobe all at once. Only an inch or two, and only for a few seconds, but it was exciting. But that’s not what has me overwhelmed. I just went back and re-read the first page of this book, just to be certain I haven’t forgotten my own language. Though if I’m writing in it now—see how flustered it’s made me? But I’m getting ahead of myself again. Continue reading

Sesskia’s Diary, part 6

Later, same day

I’m in a different room now, one of the bedrooms lining the inner curve of the corridor. I learned in following Terrael—but I’m getting ahead of myself. Terrael did come back, after maybe half an hour, and gestured for me to follow him. The women didn’t stop me leaving, though I saw one of them look at the other with this expression that said she thought it was a bad idea to let the strange woman wander around with no one but Terrael to supervise. Terrael didn’t seem worried that I might run off. I don’t know what to make of him. He’s young enough, I’d guess eighteen or nineteen, that he might not be sufficiently cynical yet, but…I don’t know. He has this air of eager confidence about him I just don’t understand. But he’s polite, and he’s trying to communicate with me, and in general I’d feel bad about knocking him down and running away. So I just followed him. Continue reading