Book 2, Chapter 59

Fixing broken bones earned me a bit of goodwill, but street kids didn’t dismiss suspicion easily, so other than some muttered thanks from the kids I’d actually healed, I didn’t get much in the way of gratitude. Mostly, what changed was that no one tried to throw me out, and the kids didn’t slowly empty out of the room to go hide elsewhere. It was a start.

It took an hour for Juby to come back, during which time I mostly just sat and observed. Orphans weren’t ever a happy-go-lucky bunch, especially not the ones surviving on their own, but this group was particularly morose. I couldn’t blame them, not after what happened. I didn’t have a head count, but they’d taken heavy losses, and the survivors weren’t in great shape.

Juby froze when he came in and saw me sitting there. Apparently, no one had warned him about my presence. He shook himself out of it after a moment and made his way across the room. “Didn’t think you’d actually show up.”

“Sorry, I overslept. It was a rough day.”

“Yeah… It was.”

“How many did you find?”

“Nine,” he said, a touch of bitterness in the word.

I didn’t ask how many there’d been originally. More than nine. Maybe three or four times as many. “Are they all here?”

“Close enough,” Juby said. “The older ones, the ones who’ll make decisions, are all here. Everyone else will follow their lead.”

It looked like I’d already met everyone who was left except for the one kid who’d come in with Juby. Most of them were somewhere between Senica and me in age, with Juby being the oldest, followed by the two who were guarding outside. One child was even younger than me, perhaps two. How he’d managed to survive at all was a mystery. One of the other orphans must have gotten him to safety, possibly dying in the process since no one was near him now.

I stood up on a pile of rocks and pulled my staff out of my phantom space to get their attention. “Alright, let me just say my piece and you can decide what you want to do then. Some of you might remember me. I’m the kid who can do magic. I know what happened to your group, and I’m sorry. I killed the man responsible for attacking you, but believe me, I know how little vengeance means on an empty belly.

“I’m here today to make you an offer. I am going to use my magic to leave the city for a little while so I can recover my strength. The place I’ll be going to is a small farm that’s so far away from here, I guarantee nobody from Derro is ever going to walk there. You’d need magic like mine, and you’d need to know where it is already to get there. It is probably the safest place in the world for you right now.

“I’m not going to lie and say it’s a land of plenty. Yes, there’s food and safety there, but if you choose to go, you’ll need to help out. It’s not a place to get a handout; it’s a home, and homes need work put into them to keep growing.

“When I go, I’ll take as many of you as want to go with me. I’ll be there for a week or two before returning here. Anyone who comes with me and decides they don’t like it can come right back here. This is a one-time opportunity for you. I’m not asking you for any money. I’m not trading you any favors. If I wasn’t already going to cast the spell to take me there, I wouldn’t offer to let any of you come along. If you go there, you’ll be treated fairly, but you will work to earn your keep.

“I’m going to cast the spell tonight, so take that time to decide what you want to do and gather up anything you think you need to take. If you don’t want to go, that’s fine too.”

I climbed back down and resumed my seat, this time with my staff floating in the air next to me. It was a bit of a waste, but I felt it did a good job of helping convince the kids that I really could do what I’d just promised them. They clumped together into little groups and whispered to each other, occasionally shooting glances at me.

One of the door guard kids, the one who’d tried to run me off, walked up to loom over me. “How do we know you’re not lying?” he asked.

“You don’t. You can either trust me or not. Your choice.”

“I don’t trust you.”

“Okay.”

I could feel his eyes boring into me now, trying to figure out what the game was, what angle I was working. “That’s it? ‘Okay.’ You’re a shitty conman.”

“I’m not trying to con you,” I said.

“Sure you’re not.”

The kid ran off, stopped briefly to talk to his friend, and then disappeared into the streets. I watched him go, but like I’d said, I wasn’t trying to force anybody. This was just my way of making up just a little bit for bringing misfortune down on them, plus I hadn’t quite given up on the idea of bringing up a new generation of mages. I had the feeling that my work in Derro was almost done, that it was time to start looking to the future.

From what I’d learned, there was no escaping the state of the world. If I wanted magic to come back in a real way, I had a century’s worth of work to do on top of probably another two decades or more to bring myself back up to the height of my power. A few assistants and researchers would help speed things up.

“What’s it like?” one of the younger kids asked.

“Lots of trees. Big garden. We’ll have to make that bigger. The building has windows with glass in them. It’s not much yet, but it’s going to grow into something special.”

     I fended off a few more questions, and the group quickly divided in three. Two kids insisted I was a liar running a scam of some kind. They couldn’t quite figure out what my supposed scam was, but they didn’t need to know every step of the plan to sniff out a setup when they found one. The other group was four kids, surprisingly led by Juby, who thought my offer was genuine. The rest of the kids were undecided. This was mostly the middle age bracket, the ones who’d been on their own long enough to learn not to rely on anyone, but who didn’t know what to do and followed the leads of other, smarter kids, most of whom were no longer alive.

Hours crept by, and I fed a steady stream of mana into my staff. The arguments died down as hunger drove the orphans out to look for food, a fact that the two dissenters used to try to discredit me. “If he’s going to take care of us like he says, why isn’t he providing us with food now?” one of them demanded as he jabbed an accusatory finger my way.

“Do you think he’s got a farm in his back pocket or something?” another child yelled back.  “The food’s out there, not here.”

I ignored both of them and pulled Juby aside. “I should have enough mana by this evening. I’ll need enough space to draw a circle ten feet wide. Can I do that here, or should I find a nearby building to work in?”

“I don’t know if here’s a good place,” Juby said. He nodded his head toward the dissenting faction, now three strong. “They might try to mess it up.”

“That would be unpleasant for them,” I said. “I’m not forcing anyone to go, but I also won’t tolerate interference when I leave.”

“Spirits protect me,” Juby muttered. “You scare the hell out of me when you say stuff like that.”

“Come with me,” I said. “I’ll find a place to work, and you can lead everyone who decides to go there.”

Together, we left to find a new place for me to work.

*

The circle was complete and fully powered. I’d carved it into the stone and would need to remember to come back and destroy it later—not that it would tell anyone who found it where I’d gone. It was just a generic rune structure to split the teleportation effect across everyone inside the circle.

There were six children with me. Juby was the oldest, and he held the two-year-old boy in his arms. The three who’d been against coming with me were not present, nor was a girl about Senica’s age who was related to one of those boys.

“This will take a few minutes,” I said. “Just remain inside the circle and do not distract me.”

There was going to be a brief moment when the spell hit its crescendo where those who were sensitive to mana would feel it. It was unlikely anyone who wasn’t standing in the streets outside would react fast enough to interfere, but if they did, they’d quickly find all the mana that was about to go to this teleport spell being redirected into tearing their head off.

With any luck, it wouldn’t come to that.

The teleportation spell came together as slowly as ever, its progress inexorable. I felt the nearby beacon in my mind, and the one farther away hidden with my crucible. Beyond that was the one in Alkerist. Finally, the last beacon attached to my scrying mirror flared up, all the way out near the eastern coast and buried deep in the mountains. I selected my destination and let the magic course through the circle of runes.

Someone with a lot of mana appeared at the far reach of my mana sense, a few hundred feet away. Whoever it was, they raced forward, homing directly in on my spell. I felt them approach the building just as the teleport effect kicked in, and got a split-second glimpse of the dark-haired woman, Ash, before the spell took hold.

There was a burst of fire, then the world washed away, and we were standing near the garden of my new home amidst a chorus of fearful screams. My mother, working in the garden a bare twenty feet away, also yelled out in fright and leaped to her feet.

The kids either scattered or clung to each other while I sagged in exhaustion in the middle of the group. Mana generation be damned, I needed a good night’s rest. I was allowed only a few seconds of leaning against my staff before Mother waded through the orphan kids and grabbed hold of me. “Gravin, what’s happening? Are you alright?”

“Fine,” I said wearily. “I’m fine. Really. I should have reached out first to let you know I was coming, but my mana budget was tight. I’m sorry.”

“What’s going on?” she asked as she ran a critical eye over me. “Are we in trouble?”

“No, no. Nothing like that. One of the mages behind Noctra caught up to us at the last moment, but I teleported us all out before she could get off an attack. It was just a bit of a scare for the kids having all that fire come at us.”

Father and Ayaka came out from around the house, followed by Senica, whose eyes lit up at the group of kids. Talik was nowhere to be found, but we quickly gathered everyone together. It turned out he’d gotten brave and was taking trips into the valley to study the trees down there to see if he could get extra mana from them like they’d done back at the arbor.

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s do a round of introductions first, then I’ll tell you how we’re going to keep everyone fed and where you’re going to sleep.”

That talk took a while, and by the time everyone was satisfied, I was beyond exhausted. I fell face first onto the pallet in my room well before the sun went down and left everyone else to get to know each other.