Months passed, and winter finally released its grip on the land, patches of snow could still be seen in places where there were significant amounts of shade during the day as well as up on the mountains where the air was colder. Only a handful of conifers were starting to show signs of budding and the forests continued to be bare of leaves except for the occasional evergreen dotted here and there.
The winter had come and gone with little fanfare, only one bad snowstorm had made the two-hour travel to Ikuno’s cave impossible for nearly a month. Ikuno had been mildly annoyed with herself about the feral way she had attacked Kal when he finally made it back, actually shredding his clothes and throwing him on the bed in her haste to get him inside her. Afterwards, she apologized over and over about her loss of control until Kal laughed and told her that if she hadn’t already been naked when he got there, he would have likely done something similar to her. Going from getting some action regularly to going almost four weeks without had left them both very pent up.
Prior to the storm, Kal had used the time he was with Ikuno to make improvements on all of his runes as well as layer the protection phrase, as Kal had started to call it going along with his writing analogy from before, from the strength rune into the speed rune. Though it turned out to be significantly more complex than he had anticipated:
“Why the hell won't this work! It’s like they completely cancel each other out!” Kal put his head down and bumped his forehead against the table a few times, “I’ve been working on this for hours and it feels like I’m getting nowhere.”
Ikuno was luxuriating naked on her bed sipping saké and perusing one of the books from her library as Kal worked, not bothering to get dressed after their earlier activities. Kal sat up as she placed her cup off to the side to and walked over to come take a look. Ikuno stepped behind him and leaned over placing her large blue breasts on either side of his head.
She inspected the rune floating in front of them then looked down, giving Kal a questioning look she said, “Of course they don’t want to work together, they’re of opposite affinities.”
Kal rubbed his head back and forth inside Ikuno’s cleavage and brought a hand up to casually play with a nipple, “Much as I’m enjoying this,” he looked up at her and smiled, “I couldn’t make out a word you just said.”
Ikuno chuckled and stood up straight, uncovering his ears and allowing Kal to hear again, “I said that you have two opposing affinities that’s why they don’t want to work together.” Ikuno went over and picked a book off the bookshelf as Kal collapsed the floating rune into a ball of ink and streamed it back into it’s well.
Laying the book in front of him, Kal recognized it as one of the very first Ikuno had him read when he had asked her to teach him magic. She opened it to a diagram at the beginning of the book.
“These are your main magic affinities, it isn’t very complete, but most others fall somewhere within this diagram. As you can see here, Speed has an Air affinity while Protection is Earth affinity, with them being directly opposite each other they try to cancel each other out. Really, you should have remembered and realized this without my help.”
Feeling sheepish Kal studied the diagram, having largely overlooked it in his initial excitement about beginning his studies. In the very center was a geometric figure of circles and squares representing pure magical energy, the four surrounding symbols, starting at the top, were labeled Sylph, Undine, Gnome, and Salamando for the four primary elements. Further out were Sol, Luna, and Celeste, representing the schools of Illusion, Astral, and Divination. Across from those three, without symbols of their own and in a very faint script, was Nox, Necros, and Obfuscati. Far off in the bottom right corner and also missing a symbol was the word Entropa in the same light script.
“Other than these two,” he said pointing at Luna and Necros, “the rest of them make sense.”
“Astral Projection has also been called Dreamwalking,” said Ikuno pointing at the moon symbol, “to be honest I’ve never done it, so I’m not sure how accurate that is. As to why it’s across from the Necros school; Astral focuses on magic of the spirit without the body; Necros affects the body without a spirit, a corpse.”
Kal nodded in understanding then pointed at Undine and Salamando, “If I mix fire and water it creates steam, is there anything that mixes air and earth in a similar way?”
Ikuno was lost in thought for a few moments, “The only thing that comes to mind is a sandstorm.”
“What’s that?”
“A storm that only happens in dry, sandy areas called deserts, strong winds pick up huge clouds of sand and can carry it from one horizon to the other. Most times it’s just an annoyance to be waited out but if the winds are strong enough it can scour the flesh from your bones if you get caught out in one.”
“So, there is a way that they can come together in nature, now I need to figure out how to do it in the runes,” Kal leaned forward and went back to work while Ikuno returned to her bed and saké.
------
Kahrin was relentless in her pursuit of giving Kal a proper ‘thank you’ over the winter months, seeming to pop up every time he went into town, much to Perra’s annoyance. Despite what she had said after the incident with her brother, she went with him almost every trip to act as ‘protector’ for Kal against the tenacious barmaid. Kal soon got the impression that Kahrin was showing up as much to tease Perra as she was pursuing him.
To make matters worse, he was making trips into Telsin far more often than he cared to now that the townsfolk knew he was a healer. It seemed like every few days he was being asked to take care of some ache or pain someone was having. In the beginning, he didn’t feel comfortable taking money from the people he healed, but as the people of Telsin grew more and more insistent and he was pulled away from his duties on the farm to ride all the way into town to heal the twentieth aching elbow or knee, he realized he had to do something for the sake of his own sanity. Asking for a bit of copper for his services resulted in a sharp decline in healing requests.
Ikuno had gotten a good laugh out of his predicament one of the times he and Perra had gone to visit, teasing him about being the savior of Telsin’s creaking bones. Perra then went on a short rant about Kahrin showing up every time they went to town, hunting down Kal and reiterating her offer.
Perra’s eyes almost popped out of her head when Ikuno calmly looked at Kal and said, “The girl feels she owes you a debt, let her pay it so she can move on.”
Perra refused to speak to him the entire way home.
His newfound fame did give Kal the opportunity to help a young man who was in the wrong place at the wrong time when a snow-laden tree came crashing to the ground, pinning him. Having already been in town, Kal arrived just as they had just gotten an ox in place and were throwing ropes over the tree to attempt dragging it off the boy. The rescuers looked at Kal like he was a fool when he told them to undo the ropes. Upon their refusal, he walked over to one that was already tied off and used the strength rune to snap it in half, the farmer inside him cursing at the waste of a good rope, then threatened to break to the rest of them if they didn’t listen. Large ropes like the one he snapped were valuable and hard to make, within seconds, the tree was unhooked and the menfolk cleared of the area. With the strength rune shining bright he sunk his hands into the wood then lifted the tree off the boy and tossed it away like it was a large stick. As the villagers watched in shock, he bent down and began healing the young man’s broken ribs and arm. Kal hadn’t realized it yet, but that was the first time he had used anything besides his healing rune in front of the townsfolk, with the exception of the innkeeper, who had seen most of his fight with Emrick.
A short time after that, things between Kahrin and Perra finally came to a head. Starting when a rider came galloping into his farm yelling for Kal at the top of his lungs.
“I’m here!” he yelled back as he stepped out of the barn, “what’s the problem?”
With a tug on the reins, the messenger pulled up beside Kal, “The midwife has sent for ye, Master Kal, she’s sayin’ it’s urgent, babe an’ mother are both in danger,” the man presented a hand to help him up onto the horse.
Kal ignored the offered hand and darted for the house, running inside he went into his bedroom and grabbed his bracers, having not needed them for something as mundane as cleaning out horse and oxen stalls. Perra and his mother had both frozen in place when he came bursting through the door and now stared at him wide-eyed as he walked out of the room sliding his arms into the vambraces and quickly drawing the rune to tie them.
“What’s wrong Kal?” asked his mother, now standing in front of her chair.
“The midwife sent for me,” he said as the laces finished tying, swearing under his breath he looked back into his room as he pulled his gloves back on. “Perra! I need you to dig my crystal out of my pack, get a ride with the man outside and meet me in town.” Perra set down the ladle from the soup she had been stirring and ran towards Kal’s room just as Kal grabbed his winter cloak and stepped out the door.