The Swaying Sun

A Short Story by Brenna Lockwood

The sun swayed in the sky above, rippling beyond the waves as its light diffused through each push and pull. I felt the waves of light pass over my up turned face. It swayed once and then twice until a gentle bubble of noise broke the swish of water.

"Wizard Abnus, I am sorry to interrupt your work on the coral, but there is someone on the pier that insists on meeting with you." The small Eclusian flicked it’s fins a little to keep steady in the constant sway of the reef’s waves. It had large luminous eyes and a sleek eel-like tail. I smiled at them gently.

"It is no trouble. I shall soon send them away like the others." It sighed a little bubble of relief, and I followed them to the surface through the town constructed on top of the water. The isolated town of Eclusia was built from the wood of hundreds of years of shipwrecks upon the reef. For many years, the kings of greedy kingdoms had sent knights, princes, and their wisest to try and learn the secret to the magical healing fruits. I had tested all of them to see if they were worthy and all of them had failed during my two centuries of guardianship. One by one they came and one by one they left without their memories. Some of the kings tried to wage war, but none succeeded, and soon I had the reputation of an evil witch. I continued to hope that one day a visitor would show enough magical promise to become my apprentice and the new guardian of this place so that I could finally join my brother.

We parted ways and I headed for the pier that stretched out from the grey pebble shore to meet the town. At the end of the pier stood a young man that reminded me of my brother. In his amber colored eyes, I saw trepidation. I knew it well from the looks my own brother gave me when we were young, and my hyacinth purple hair was much longer. With one smooth step I was on the end of the pier.

Silence ensued as he studied me warily and I waited for him to finish his calculations of risk in coming to see me. Finally, he made his decision and opened his mouth. "I need the healing fruits to heal the princess’s illness," it came out of his mouth slowly as a cloud moved in front of the swaying sun. “Please, I’ve come so far,” he added, “The king of Soquetta sent me because he thinks it is a fool's errand and no one else is willing to come anymore. There are rumors about why the others who tried never returned. People say you are a witch that curses... or eats people.” At this he looked back up at me, staring intently into my purple eyes as the sun came back from behind the cloud. His amber eyes glinted and I saw the magic in him. “I don’t care. She took me in and showed me kindness when no one else would. I have to save her,” he implored.

I do not know if it was the way he spoke those words that reminded me of my own brother sent by my father on a fool’s errand for the same fruit or possibly if it was the magical potential in him, but I turned my shoulder slightly and gestured to the skiff I had come to the pier in. I wondered if maybe I had found a candidate for my apprentice.

“Your name, child?” I asked and he almost hiccupped in surprise at my response.

He stepped forward. “Leven, Great Wizard.” He used my formal title as a wizard trained in the Sky Tower.

“Well Leven, you may have the healing fruit if you pass my three tests. No one has of yet and I have seen many come to this pier. Be warned. If you do this, you risk your mind.” By speaking these words, a magical promise was set between us that pulsed in the air. I pulled the wind currents from over the grassy green dunes beyond the grey pebble beach in a torrent from behind him. It nearly bowled him over and it whipped the legs of my pants rapidly. He brushed the hair from his eyes frantically and looked around as the sun shone from above, glinting off the amber of his eyes and, as I suspected, off the amber flecks in his hair. He must have been a seventh son gifted with strong magic if his magical affinity had already colored his eyes and hair.

“Come and I shall show you the beginning of your tasks.” I turned as I said it and stepped onto the skiff. Leven followed me after a moment's hesitation. I could sense the fear radiating off him and as we traveled in the skiff, but I saw a second glint in his amber eyes. This one of determination born from wanting to save someone you love.

Weaving through the waterways that made the paths between each building I took him to my workshop. It was a small ship entirely whole that I had surfaced from deep in the reef and brought to join the buildings of the village. On the hull was a large hole that let water in while the deck and cabin above floated at water level without being submerged. Above us the sun was high in the sky and that meant that soon the Diablerie fish would be weaving their way around the coral.

I brought the skiff to the edge of the workshop deck and went inside the cabin atop, not pausing for him to follow me, but aware that he was scrambling behind. Leven asked no questions, and I was relieved. He was probably scared he would irritate a Wizard of the Sky Tower. One should never irritate a wizard, but every few moments he would take a breath as if to ask a question. Or many of them.

Inside I pulled down a couple of glass vials from a shelf, I drank one myself and I handed one to him. “First you must herd the Diablerie fish. Too much contact with the coral causes the oils the fish secrete to become toxic to the coral. Too little and the balance is not maintained.” No more explanation did I give, and I moved through to the back of the cabin and down the stairs into the submerged hull without hesitation because I knew I could breathe in that water now.

I waited at the bottom to see if he would understand the potion I gave him. He did. Leven followed me with slight panic, and I cracked a smile. He shuddered at it. My smile must have looked menacing in the dim light below deck to him. I chuckled at that. Once I had been afraid of such things too, when I suffered from illness and fear of my father like this boy’s princess did now.

Through the hole in the ship’s side the world underwater opened to an unimaginable range of colors. Creatures darted this way and that in their swimming. Some were Eclusians going about their various tasks or hunting. Others were members of the ever shifting, swirling assemblage of life that thrived beneath the swaying sun above as it created waves of light to follow. I was satisfied in the awe upon his face for I had felt it myself when I first began helping the Eclusians.

I watched the school of Diablerie fish swim towards me in anticipation and then noticed Leven near me. Always curious, they hovered around him instead and I gestured at them with my hand. Intended both for Leven and the fish. He looked back and forth between the fish and I, then he attempted to say something, but only bubbles came out of his mouth. I turned away so he could not see me smiling. He considered the fish and waited a few minutes thinking I would give more instructions. I gave none. I sat on the edge of a shelf of rocks that my workshop perched on overlooking the reef and waited.

Soon the fish became bored of him and moved back to the coral. They wove around it, brushing up against all the diverse types and leaving a magical oil in their wake. The coral absorbed the water around it including the oil.

Leven swam forward to investigate. One coral plant with a large amount of swirling magic oil around it turned a paler color as if bleached. He noted this and then watched as the fish moved for a few more minutes. Finally, he began to act, following their patterns and trying to herd them. I watched him work in a rhythmic flow, enhanced by the sun swaying above me, which brought me into the past.

I remembered the day of my arrival in this town. Eclusia had been close to ruin and the townspeople were scared, almost starving. I had just finished my training at the Sky Tower and wanted to use my newly perfected magical prowess as a wind wizard to repay the ones who had saved me from illness with their magic fruit. They taught me to sway and play with the Diablerie fish, so they brushed against the coral just enough to give the magic pollen oil that collected on their scales to the coral, but not so much that it was poisonous to them.

Lost in my memories, I did not notice at first that young Leven had learned this as well. This quiet young man had sensed the pattern of magic flow around the fish and where it tended to concentrate too much. He was able to encourage the fish to move on by creating his own currents of magic flow with his arms. He swam up to me, triumphant and grinning.

I saw the face of my brother there again and turned away from the searing memories. I inclined my head slightly and with my open palm gestured to him to move ahead of me back into the hole of the workshop. He turned his face away, probably surprised by his excitement and my lack thereof.

Walking back up the stairs into the cabin I breathed air once more. I heard his sharp intake of breath behind me and a splutter of relief. I spoke to him, wanting to impart knowledge I had never shared before and hoping he might be the apprentice for it, “You must be a caretaker before you can be a savior.” His head tilted inquisitively.

“Your second task awaits you,” I intoned and got back in my skiff to lead him through town once more towards a workshop, forcing him to keep up with me.

“Do you love this princess?” I asked him suddenly.

“As if she were my own twin,” he answered earnestly. Now I knew why Leven looked so much like my brother sometimes. His face held the same love for the princess that my brother’s had when he took care me. My poor lost twin, both of us born to a cruel father.

We walked through a curtain of hanging shells and a small group of Eclusians with various fish features looked up as they clinked gently. “Would it trouble you all too much if I borrowed a piece of coral for the boy?” He grimaced at my use of the word boy, stood a little bit straighter, pushed his shoulders back, and raised his chin indignantly. One of the Eclusians leaned forward with a large chunk of coral in it’s hand toward Leven. The Eclusian, named Meffi, kept it’s eyes turned down, head bowed, hand raised. He reached forward to grab it too fast and Meffi flinched. Leven pulled his hand back slightly in hesitation and then lifted the bright blue coral piece gently out of it’s hand.

He looked up at me, once again waiting for direction of his task and that brought me some gratification. I moved us to the cabin chamber, and we sat together.

“Do I scare you as much as you scare the Eclusians?” I asked him. Mostly I was musing, but a part of me wondered just how intimidating my reputation was.

“I thought all witches were hideous monsters and wizards ancient looking. I have learned that instead you look barely older than me.” he paused and then added swiftly to finish his thought, “but you are far scarier than those stories because of your youth.”

“Learning magic can stop your outward age and slow your inward one. In return we eventually crumble into the magical dust that is carried upon the wind.” I passed him a glass knife. “Carve it. It will give you what you need.” With that I turned to the open window frame on my left side and felt the sun's rays, now dipping in the sky above, upon my face. I drifted into memories as I thought of Leven’s resemblance to my twin brother.

My twin had recovered the magical fruit and administered it to me secretly. My once light purple hyacinth hair and eyes began to deepen in shade with every day I grew healthier. I started to sense the magic in the air around me as the magical fruit opened my senses to it. It was known only to the Sky Tower what the magical fruits really cured. Magical sensitivity.

Forever I would regret that I did not stop my brother before he told our father that I was cured and that he knew what our father had done to the Eclusians. Long years had passed since I had destroyed my father’s reign in Pendar for murdering my brother after he cured me.

The glass knife was the blade I had used to sheer off my hair when I left, abandoning my status as royalty to become an apprentice wizard. Thoughts of apprenticeship brought me back from the haze of grief to the seventh son beside me. In his hands was a nearly completed carved bowl. I saw more strongly than ever that his eyes and hair were shimmering amber as mine did purple when I channeled the flow of magic. I was in awe. I wanted to see how much he might be taught with the obvious strength of his magic. Maybe keeping him with me as an apprentice would lessen the guilt and grief of losing my twin.

Looking up and squinting at the setting sun Leven noticed me and started. His eyes were fearful for a moment and then the sun set behind me. I was no longer outlined and shaded. He saw my face and fear left his brows, replaced by reverence. His hand came forward to offer me his coral bowl in much the same way the coral had been offered to him. I smiled gently though his eyes were on the floor.

“Sometimes a blade teaches what to create, not what to destroy,” I murmured to him thinking of my brother’s life lost on the blade of our father and my new one forged by its slice. I wanted him to teach him this lesson.

I stood fluidly. “One task remains to you. You must harvest the fruit as it blooms under the full moon.”

I led him once more back through the town towards my workshop. Eclusia was coming to life under the shimmering moon as it crept higher. The patches of scales that adorned many of the Eclusians gleamed as they chattered and gathered to eat, rest, and tell myths known only to their people. He stopped me before we went underwater, “Great Wizard,” he fidgeted, “why do you not share the fruits with those that need it?”

My reply was without malice, “I do not need to. The fruit decides who needs it and those that do will always get it. The magic that flows in the winds of our world knows when it is needed and thus it will go there. That is how you came to be here. The magic guided you here to help her.” I looked back at him, “Will you save the princess even if it means you will lose your life?”

Without hesitation he replied, “Yes!”

I smiled fully, “You are so much like him.”

The reef under moon light brought forth a new world of color. The moon, like the sun, swayed above and filtered through the waves casting gentle illuminations across the scene. Large flowers blossomed on every piece of coral and bore layers like a lotus. Only three of those carried a fruit, resplendent and shaped like the swirl on snails shell.

Leven moved forward in a daze. He knew what to do with the magic that channeled through him, or rather the magic knew what to do with him. In time, and with my guidance, he could be taught to guide instead of being guided.

Leven reached forward with his finger as if to touch the center. When it hovered above a single amber tear formed at the tip and dropped into the fruits center. An explosion of colors in all various warm shades of amber burst forth. The fruit detached and floated gently down into the coral bowl.

Leven, a seventh son and Wizard of Amber, had completed the three tasks I set forth. The only one to have done so. He realized what he held and turned to me in utter delight. I smiled back at him and gestured for him to come inside with me.

He was worn out from his day of trials and slept in the corner of my workshop while I crafted the magical fruit into a potion for him to take back to the princess. In the morning it was complete, and I took him back to the pier’s end. I handed him the potion and a small piece of purple coral that had been carved into a simple violet.

“Tuck this away safely in your shirt and when you are in danger, break it and I will come,” he began to thank me, but I interrupted by putting my hand up. “In return,” I continued, “you will become my apprentice. It will be a binding contract until I release you or I die. Do you understand?” He nodded solemnly.

I smiled one last time at him and Leven bowed. I saw hesitation on his face, a faint smile of gratitude on his lips, and then he turned. Down the pier, to the grey pebble beach, and over the green grassy dunes.

Above me the sun swayed and the memories that it brought were different, tinged with hope, not despair. Hope that soon I would have an apprentice to mentor.

Bio

 When I decided to write my first short story, I knew I wanted to write about a wizard serving the mentor character roll. My idea was to try and create a stereotypical wizard that the outside world might see while subverting that by making them the main character. I gave Wizard Abnus vague characteristics because I wanted Abnus to be defined only by what had made them a wizard and not their gender, age, or race.