How to Help, Part II
Oshal tapped his way to the great hall for dinner. He’d gotten used to the castle in the past two months. He ran his hand along the wall, feeling for the signs that pointed his way. Using the signs, he could find his way anywhere without help.
When he arrived, people were still taking their seats. He followed the threads of all his friends, finding out who was already there.
He picked up his sister, sitting alone. She’d been getting better in the past week. He had only needed to nudge a little happiness into her.
“Oshal!” It was the voice of Demndun, an apprentice mage, like Aonva. She was in her third year, if he remembered correctly. She walked over to him and took his hand. “Come on.”
Oshal allowed her to lead him over to where a few other apprentices were sitting together. He sensed Cremwa, another apprentice mage a year ahead of Demndun, Muwen, an apprentice artisan the same year as Demndun, and Zifor, another weaver.
“Hello everyone,” he said quietly.
Everyone stood at attention as the officers walked in and took their seats. They were followed by His Majesty. He took his seat, signaling everyone that it was time to eat.
One regret Oshal had about not being able to see was not seeing the food appear on the tables. Roshil and Aonva had explained (each with great enthusiasm) that the tables were linked to tables in the kitchens. The spells were activated by servants down below to send the food up. It sounded exciting, especially the way they had explained it.
“How is everyone?” Oshal asked. “Zifor, how was your test?”
“Not bad,” he replied. “History’s not my thing, though.”
“What is?” Muwen said after he swallowed some of his food. “You barely scrape by.”
Zifor and Muwen had been friends for a long time. Oshal liked being near them, because they always seemed happy together. Unless the topic of Cremwa came up. As far as Oshal could tell, Muwen and Zifor were fighting over her.
“I heard,” Cremwa said, “Tabonda dumped Rakush after she caught him with Kemdra.”
“Don’t they break up every other week?” Demndun asked.
Oshal went through the names of the other apprentices. He recognized the name. Kurgm had mentioned something about Tabonda the other day.
“She was talking to Kurgm and Master Ekla,” Oshal said.
“Is Kurgm here?” Demndun asked.
Oshal felt a burst of excitement from her. He’d noticed it whenever Kurgm came up.
“Calm down,” Zifor said. “He’s not here. Again.”
“Aren’t all apprentices supposed to eat in the great hall?” Cremwa asked. Her irritation sparkled a little, mixed with a hint of smugness. While Zifor and Muwen were after her, Cremwa was after Demndun.
Oshal prided himself on being able to keep track of the tangled and confusing web of relationships formed by his new friends.
“He works hard,” Oshal said. “And he grew up here, so he has special permission to eat in the kitchens.”
“Why would you want to?” Muwen asked. “I always get out of the forge before I get stuck working through dinner.”
“Lucky you,” Cremwa said. “Master Semdm works me too hard. A girl as pretty as I am can’t always be staring at books. It’s a waste, isn’t it, Demndun?”
“Um… I guess.”
“It’s not like I’m that Master’s pet Aonva. That girl is so weird. She actually likes going to those lectures they make mages attend. And I saw her in the library yesterday. It looked like she’d made a nest out of books. And she talks to herself!”
Oshal smiled at the thought of it. Aonva was weird, but it was a nice sort of weird, like Roshil. He wondered where she was, but stopped before he started following her thread. He was trying to get out of the habit of checking up on people.
If they wanted you to know where they were, they’d tell you.
That’s what his mother had told him, and Master Durwey had said something similar. It was hard to stop himself from checking on people. Few people he knew were ever open with him. Actually, Nourd was open with him, and that was it.
Oshal followed Aonva’s thread and found her in the kitchens with Kurgm.
He checked his sister again, but sure enough, she was in the great hall with him. He only sensed one other person near her, and that was Sirshi.
Oshal sensed Sirshi sitting with Roshil. He couldn’t think of a time she’d ever arrived on time.
At least Sirshi’s sitting with her.
Roshil liked Sirshi a lot, or at least she had until recently. Roshil was still struggling. He could sense her trying to hide it. When they were younger, the same feeling would be accompanied by a fake smile, as though she thought if she smiled everything would be fine.
“Don’t mages need to read?” Zifor asked.
“Not all the time,” Cremwa said. “It’s not like weavers who get to stare into space all day.”
“We do not!” Zifor said.
“She’s got you figured out,” Muwen said, laughing.
“What about you, Oshal?” Demndun asked. “Does Our Lady Grand Weaver have you working all hours of the night?”
“Not really. I haven’t been here long, though. My sister says it gets a lot harder.”
“Her,” Muwen muttered.
Oshal sensed that none of them liked his sister, but they were all getting better. They weren’t openly mean to her anymore, at least not while Oshal was there.
“Who’s that sitting with her?” Cremwa asked.
“That’s Apprentice Sirshi,” Oshal replied. “She’s an apprentice priest in the Temple of the Rising Sun.”
“That’s a good one,” Zifor said. “My parents go there.”
“‘Oh great one’,” Muwen said. “‘Deliver unto us happy fun times’.”
“Stop it,” Zifor said, punching Muwen in the arm (while Oshal couldn’t see this, he recognized the sounds and emotions it caused). “Olmgra’s not bad.”
“It’s pointless if you ask me,” Cremwa said. “Why worship them at all? It’s not like the deities have ever done anything for us.”
“Don’t they help the court sometimes?” Demndun asked. “Like in times of peril?”
“And Olmgra’s followers help spread hope in the community,” Oshal said.
Oshal didn’t like to play favorites with people, but of his new friends, he liked Demndun a lot. She was the one who had first introduced him to the others, and she helped him get around sometimes.
As they talked, Oshal wondered about his sister. She didn’t spend time with Aonva anymore. She always seemed upset about something. She didn’t go to temple. In fact, neither of them did. Were they fighting about something? He supposed it happened to everyone at some point. At least, that’s what their father had said.
Oshal resolved to find out what was wrong. He didn’t have a plan yet, but he would come up with something. He didn’t think his other friends would help, but maybe Sirshi or Kurgm would.
He hadn’t talked with them much in the week since Sirshi was nearly forced to stop being a priest. Aonva hadn’t been at meals much since then, if at all. He’d been trying to give Roshil space. It only made her worse when something was wrong and Oshal pushed her too hard to open up about it.
After dinner, he sought out Roshil through the crowd of people. She was walking alone, Sirshi having gone off somewhere else (Oshal figured it was probably the Temple of the Rising Sun).
“Roshil?”
He sensed her misery again. He’d been weaving happiness into her all week, trying to keep up her spirits, but she was worse now than she’d been.
Roshil didn’t say anything to him. She made a halfhearted attempt at closing off her emotions from him, but it didn’t last long. A void of darkness surrounded her, sucking away happiness from the air.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, knowing the answer wouldn’t help.
“Nothing,” she said, her voice almost lost in the shuffling of people.
Oshal had to do something. Roshil had never been this bad. He wove happiness into her, but it didn’t do anything. She needed more.
He concentrated on his friends. He thought of Nourd, his father, his mother. His sister. He let the happiness build up in him until he almost started laughing, then pushed it through Roshil’s thread.
Roshil perked up. The emptiness around her withered away to nothing. She was bright and happy.
“I’m…” she started to say.
Waves of emotion surged out of her. A black pit engulfed the happiness she’d felt and crashed down on her. Whispered voices sounded from all around them.
“Roshil?”
Oshal swung his head around, wishing he could see. He felt for Roshil, but she wasn’t there anymore. The sound of whimpering from the floor told him she’d collapsed.
“Roshil!”