Flecks of Gold (6 page)

Ismaha and I sat across from each other in the middle of the main room. She lifted and lowered her hand palm down in a gesture that seemed to say, “Don’t worry. Stay calm.” She then stared at the space between us, and I noticed green threads forming in the air. I recognized it at once as the same kind of pattern magic that Kelson had done. I tensed, but Ismaha continued to sit calmly, placing each strand in the air with exactness, glancing to me to make sure that I noted where they fell into place. When she was done, she looked at me and indicated that I should study the pattern. I did so, but I already had the pattern memorized. It was complicated, but not nearly as complex as the pattern that had dropped me in her village.

She waved at me to imitate her. It took me only a second to figure out how she’d made the pattern appear in the air rather than just in her mind. My golden pattern jumped to life next to her green one the next instant. She looked a little surprised. Next, she pointed to the part of the pattern that I could sense was the nexus of the whole. It shifted, and the pattern flashed for an instant, slightly different than before.

She indicated that I should copy her. I twisted in the spot she had shown, and this time I felt more in control than when I’d copied Kelson’s blue pattern, for I could see and feel where I was pulling, rather than just using my intuition. I waited for something to happen. Nothing did, and I was afraid that this time I’d done something wrong.

“That is our language’s lacing. It is often used during negotiations with other countries,” she said. It was the oddest thing. I understood what she said to me, but the words weren’t English. They sounded strange, yet familiar at the same time, and the different sentence structure felt awkward. I noticed my mouth was hanging open, and I shut it with a small snap. Ismaha grinned.

“How is that possible?” I asked. The words coming from my mouth felt off, but Ismaha seemed to understand them.

“Many things are possible if you know how to see them,” she said. “My language makes a pattern just as everything does. When those patterns are discovered, we can change them, which then changes the properties of objects.”

“I think I understand,” I said, not really sure if I did. I was slightly distracted from the flow of my thoughts by my voice producing previously unknown words.

“Now, why don’t you explain to me what you were so emphatic about before. You seemed to be looking for someone, but I’m sorry to say no one has come to our village today other than you.”

“I’m trying to find my mother. She was taken by this boy—I mean, man. I mean, I think he’s really an older man, not the teenager he seemed to be. He has the same kind of magic you showed me, and he wanted to take me too, but Mom stopped him. He did this huge, complicated pattern when he disappeared with my mother so I tried to copy it and follow him, but I must have gotten it wrong because I ended up in your chicken coop instead, and now I don’t know what to do. You said that this is Iberloah—or is this just near Iberloah?—which is where he said he wanted to take me, but he said it was in Michigan, and this is definitely not Michigan. Where are we, anyway?” I sucked in a huge breath, having hardly breathed during my ramble.

“I do not know this Michigan you speak of. This is the country of Iberloah.”

“Country? I’ve never heard of a country called Iberloah. Is it a really small one in Africa or something?”

“I am sorry, I do not know Africa either, but Iberloah is not small. It is the largest country on the continent,” she said.

I didn’t want to be rude by refuting her, even though she was obviously wrong. Since we weren’t really getting anywhere, I tried a different tactic. “Okay, so about how many miles wide is Iberloah, and where are we located on a map?” Oddly enough, when I said “miles” it sounded like the English word. I had expected “Michigan” and “Africa” to sound the same as English, but not “miles.”

“I do not know what you mean when you say ‘miles.’ We measure our distances by kenars. One kenar is about 1,000 paces of a normal-sized man. Iberloah is 950 kenars wide at its shortest point.”

That explained why the word “miles” hadn’t translated, and I wondered how many other English words wouldn’t translate. I calculated the differences of measurement quickly. Her description of Iberloah’s size didn’t make sense. There were several countries as small as that in Africa, but the name Iberloah didn’t even sound familiar. “Do you have a map?” I asked. I knew once I saw a map, everything would make sense.

“You’re lucky. Not many people in this village have maps. They are too valuable. But I’ve saved one from my days of travel. I will get it for you.” She went into the other room and came back holding a thick rolled-up parchment. I helped hold the edges while she carefully unrolled it. What emerged confused me more than her earlier statements about Iberloah.

The map showed a continent unlike any on Earth. I had seen some of those old-looking maps that weren’t exactly accurate. This one looked like an impressionist painting of those really old maps. The land mass was an unfamiliar blob of strange proportions and was much smaller than Africa. Different countries were outlined, Iberloah being the biggest country shown on the land mass. A huge river flowed through the middle of Iberloah southwest to the sea, and Ismaha pointed out that the capital, Ismar, was located where the river met the sea. She pointed to the squiggly marks that made the word “Iban” and told me that we were north of Ismar by about 500 kenars. I had a horrible sinking feeling that I would have to get to the capital before I’d find anything like an airport, and though I wasn’t a whiz at calculating distances in my head, I figured that even though 500 kenars was less than 500 miles, it was still a long way to hike. I hadn’t seen any cars, and I doubted that I would.

I must have looked really troubled because Ismaha asked, “What is wrong, Mary? You seem displeased by my map.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I’m just really confused.” I suddenly remembered my backpack. I had my American government book in there as well as medical anatomy, chemistry, my notebook, and a ton of random worksheet papers. I shrugged off the bag and felt as though my shoulders would float away. I hadn’t realized how much my bag was weighing me down. I unzipped the top and rummaged. I pulled the gov. textbook out and opened the hard front cover. On the inside was a map of the United States. I turned it around and shoved the book toward Ismaha.

“See this? This is my country. Have you ever seen it before? Do you know where the nearest airport is or where I could find a phone?” I stopped short at the sound of “airplane” and “phone,” which came out in English.

Ismaha didn’t seem to hear me; she turned the pages of my book reverently, and studied the many pictures. “This is amazing. I’ve never seen its like. Where did you get it?”

“I had to buy it for class.” I shrugged and flipped the pages to the back to the map, pointing. “Have you ever seen this country before?”

“I have never seen any of those countries nor that continent. I am sorry, but you must have a very poor mapmaker. There are no continents on Esa like that.”

“It’s only one country, and not even the whole continent is shown on that map, but that’s not the point—” I stopped, struck by something. “Esa?” I asked.

“The world, all the continents reside on Esa.”

“You mean Earth, right?” “Earth” came out sounding just as foreign as “phone.”

“I don’t know the word ‘Earth,’ ” she said.

I couldn’t understand why that word hadn’t translated. I was pretty sure she meant the same thing, but a terrible suspicion was encroaching on my thoughts. It was too much. Traveling from one place to another in a vortex was far-fetched enough. There were limits to what a girl could blindly accept.

“Ismaha, would you say you have a good knowledge of the world? I mean, you said you’d traveled before. Did you only travel in Iberloah or did you go all over?”

“I’ve traveled to many places outside my own country.”

“Did you ever run across places with cars, or airplanes, or even telephones?” The words all came out sounding English.

“I am sorry. I do not know these words. What do they mean?”

“Um, cars are these machines that take you places. Well, you have to drive them, but they can get you to places a whole lot faster than walking or even riding a horse.” I didn’t go any further in my explanations. I felt the strangeness of my words, and Ismaha’s look confirmed what I suspected.

She shook her head. “What you speak sounds like a dream. There are no such things in any of the countries where I have traveled.”

“I don’t believe it,” I whispered. I couldn’t accept that no technology had touched this part of the world, and I refused to believe I had ended up not only in some other country, but on a whole different planet. My reasoning wasn’t making much sense, considering that I had just zipped from Arizona to who-knew-where in the space of a few minutes, but I couldn’t abandon all faith in the laws of physics. Ismaha was just ignorant, that was all. She was probably bluffing about all her “travels.” I was confident in the thought that the modern world extended almost everywhere. There weren’t many places on Earth that hadn’t been infiltrated by the Peace Corps or anthropologists or something. I would just have to find them.

“You’ve been really kind, and I’m very grateful, but I have got to go.” I stuffed my book back in my backpack and slung it on my shoulders.

“Where will you go without supplies? The nearest village is 30 kenars away,” she said.

She made sense. I needed supplies, but I didn’t know how to get them. Maybe Ismaha would be willing to help somehow, though I didn’t want to bank too much on that. The only food I had was a smashed granola bar in my backpack’s front pocket. Just thinking about it made my stomach rumble. I hadn’t eaten lunch in school, and that’d been ages ago. Despite the bright sun outside, my stomach told me that dinner time was hours past. This day had been the longest one in my life. My insides clenched and growled again, this time loud enough for even Ismaha to hear. I blushed.

“There is no need for you to leave yet. Come, I will give you something to eat.” She stood, went to the funny, round-shaped hearth, and stirred the coals into life. She swung the pot hanging over the fire away from the coals, a thick, cloth mitten over her hand. Lifting the lid, she smelled the substance within and replaced the lid.

“You are fortunate. It is almost done.”

I caught a whiff of the soup, and my mouth watered.

She glanced at me and added, “Do not be concerned. I only wish to help.”

I slowly sank back down onto the rugs, feeling awkward. Waiting for the food to finish cooking took only a few minutes, but my appetite was suddenly uncontrollable. I clutched my stomach in an effort to make my rumblings less, but it only grew louder. Finally, she got out two clay bowls and dished out the soup.

“Thank you.” I closed my eyes for a second in heartfelt thanks, and then dug into the strange stew. I had no idea what was in it, but I would have eaten anything at this point. After I had inhaled nearly the whole bowl, I looked up to see Ismaha watching me curiously.

“You are far from home.” It was a statement, not a question. I nodded anyway. Her words were a trigger, and I instantly felt on the verge of tears. Adrenalin had kept me going so far, but now my stomach was full, and fatigue seeped into my aching body. I sagged and concentrated on counting in threes—my usual method of keeping my eyes dry since I would rather die than be caught crying in public.

Ismaha tactfully tried to turn my thoughts to more constructive matters. “Do not worry. I think you must go to the king with your problem. He is a good king and will help you if he can, especially if I write a letter to him saying he must.”

“You know the king?” I asked incredulously. This village didn’t seem like the kind of place where someone who knew a monarch would live.

Ismaha smiled. “I live humbly now, but once I was quite famous.” Her green eyes twinkled mischievously.

“What were you famous for?”

“Why, for my skills as a magician. Not everyone has the talent that you and I have. I am very glad that you have the gift also, or our language lesson would have taken a lot longer. You would have had to give me your permission to switch your own language lacing, and we would have had to work that out the hard way.”

“Why would you have had to ask?” I was completely fascinated. My body forgot how tired and sore it was in my eagerness to find out more about this new power that had disrupted my entire existence.

“There are rules to everything. For example, I could not do any lacing that would change your inner self without your consent. No magic can impede free choice.”

“But at school I couldn’t think of anything but Kelson, even though I didn’t really want to,” I burst out before thinking.

“Tell me of this ‘Kelson.’ ”

I explained the events of the past three days, and Ismaha sadly nodded. “Unfortunately, there are some magicians who try to twist the natural laws as far as they can be twisted. Kelson wasn’t directly changing you; he was trying to influence you to choose the change. Did you ever really try to think of something else besides Kelson?”

I blushed. “I guess I didn’t really try to stop thinking about him most of the time, but there were a few times I got him out of my head.”

“Good. From what you have said, Kelson was putting the first stages of an enchantment on you. Though you are still free to choose, the first stage of an enchantment seeks to befuddle your mind to sway you into giving your will to the magician. Once that is done, your free choice is lost forever. Well, I shouldn’t say forever because there is always a way to choose, even in so dire a situation. It takes great inner strength to break such a terrible enchantment.” She paused. “That, or a really strong reason, such as a deep love, or something of that magnitude. Bound-will enchantments have rarely been overcome.”

“Oh.” It was a relief to know that there would be no more mind control or anything else without my permission. “Kelson tried to get me to say that I would be his before he took my mother, but I said no.” I had come very close to acquiescing though. Now that I knew what would have happened, I shivered. Then my thoughts shifted. “What kind of things are possible with these magic lacings?”