Shaper of Stone (The Shapers Book 1) (3 page)

She pulled with both hands. Nothing
happened. She pulled harder. I could actually see the muscles in her
shoulders tense as she strained, but the ring remained unchanged.

Vatrale looked to the boy behind me,
“Tavi, help her.”

Tavi grabbed one side of the ring and
Abella grabbed the other and they pulled. She dragged the small boy
toward her without affecting the shape.

They finally gave up and put it back on
the desk. I immediately reached for it and tried to straighten it.
The hot clay bent easily in my hand. Surprised, I dropped it. It
struck the desk with a solid sounding thud and wobbled back and forth
before coming to rest.

What the heck was going on? So, I could
mold clay like a five year old, and apparently that was something
special here. Or was I being scammed? They seemed like nice people,
but what did I really know about them. I decided to follow my gut.

I reached for my end of the translator
so that at least Abella would understand me, then I turned to Tavi
and asked, “Is this for real?”

By this time, Abella was speaking
almost as quickly as I was. I don’t know how she managed to do
it, but there was almost no delay between my question and a response.

Tavi nodded, which for now was good
enough for me.

Although my question was to Tavi,
Vatrale also answered it, “Yes, it is real. Rare, but real.
There used to be many of us with the power to mold the nerafpan, but
now only a few remain.”

Vatrale then wiggled his finger at the
clay, and it melted into a puddle onto the table. From out of the
center of the gooey mess something began to rise. The puddle got
smaller as the nerafpan was molded into a new shape. A turtle. And
the entire time no one was touching the clay.

I leaned forward amazed by how lifelike
it looked and then jumped, slamming my back into the chair when the
little critter scurried across the table into Vatrale’s hand.

“What the! What the heck was
that? Did you see that?” I twisted my head back and forth
between Abella and Vatrale looking for an answer. I could tell from
Abella’s amused smile as she translated, that she suspected
this might be my reaction.

The old man stood, the nerafpan once
more a ball of clay in his hand. When he reached my side he offered
the ball to me and asked, “Would you like to learn how?”

Would I? How could I say no to an offer
like that. He just made a glob of goo come to life. If that wasn’t
the coolest thing I’ve ever seen, I don’t know what was.
Taking the ball in my hand, I gave the only answer I could. “I
would love to.”

-o-

For the next hour, Vatrale tried to
teach me how to visualize an image in my head. There are really only
two steps to shaping the nerafpan. See it in your mind, then project
the image at the nerafpan.

I only had two problems. I couldn’t
visualize, and I couldn’t project. Sure, I could shape the
stuff with my fingers, but that was it. No matter how much I stared
at it, nothing happened. Apparently staring and projecting were not
the same thing. Staring harder didn’t help either. It just made
my headache worse.

Projecting wasn’t my biggest
problem. Visualizing was. All he wanted me to do was to turn the ball
into a cube. It sounded so simple, especially after watching him
create a turtle.

See the cube in my mind he said. I
thought he was being figurative. That all I need to do was think of
all the things that make a cube a cube. Six sides all the same size.
Check. I knew what a cube was.

I was wrong. Not about a cube. It
really does have six sides, but about what Vatrale meant. He was
being literal. He really wanted me to see the image of the cube in my
head. To see each side and to be able to spin it in my mind’s
eye. The mental construct needed to be as real as one I could hold in
my hand.

If I could do that, projecting would
come easily. Or, so I was told. It never happened. It wasn’t
even like I got close. I couldn’t shake describing the cube in
my mind. Then if I did start to visualize an image, my mind would
wander as something distracted me. Footsteps in the hall or a shadow
on the wall were enough to break my concentration. With each failed
attempt, I grew more frustrated.

Vatrale declared our training over for
the day. He didn’t seem surprised or frustrated by my failure
to accomplish anything significant. Abella looked as tired as I felt.
Using the translator for a long time couldn’t be that good for
her either, and we were both ready for a break.

Of course, when we left Carvis was
there to escort me back to my room.

-o-

I was alone in my room once more. Tavi
left after I started complaining about my headache, and Abella stayed
with her uncle. Carvis was probably outside the door. He never came
into the room, but he was always nearby when I tried to leave.

I still had the ball of nerafpan. When
I first touched it, the clay was warm, but after letting it sit on
the desk for a few minutes it grew cold. I didn’t have to mold
the clay for it to get warm again. Even the slightest touch would
cause the temperature to rise.

I was squishing it like one of those
stress balls when Tavi returned with a cup held in both of his hands.
I took the steaming cup from him and started to place it on the desk
next to me when he stopped me with a shake of his head. He squeezed
his head and then pantomimed drinking.

He must have brought me something for
my headache. I took a sip. It was hot, but not scalding. It tasted
like a very sweet tea. I kept sipping at it until the cup was empty.
Tavi watched me the entire time, probably to make sure I drank the
whole thing. Almost immediately my head started to feel better.

“Thanks, that was just what I
needed.”

He smiled and nodded. The kid was
always trying to be helpful. Like today, when he helped with the
testing even though he seemed nervous about it. I wished I could
speak his language when I talked to him. I’d like to let him
know I appreciate his help.

Wait a minute. There was something odd
about that. What was it. Abella was trying to pull my ring apart when
Vatrale asked him to help. I knew what Vatrale asked. I knew and
Abella wasn’t holding the translator. She couldn’t have
been. She had both hands on the ring.

I understood the old man. What does
that mean?

Looking at the boy, I asked him, “Tavi,
can you understand me?”

Again he nodded his head.

“Have you always been able to
understand me?”

This time he shook his head. But what
really surprised me was when he placed his finger to his lips like he
wanted me to be quiet.

I lowered my voice to almost a whisper,
“Do you want me to be quiet? Like this?”

A head nod.

“Why?” I asked then I
realized that wasn’t going to work. He might understand me, but
his answers were limited. “You don’t want anyone to
know?”

Another head nod.

“Somehow you learned English and
you want to keep it a secret. Is that right?”

He shook his head, then pointed to me
and then opened and closed his hand rapidly while moving his mouth up
and down like he was speaking. I laughed. I used that same gesture
when my mom would nag me about going back to school.

“Are you saying it’s me?
That I’m speaking your language?”

He nodded his head and again motioned
for me to keep my voice down.

“And I should keep it a secret?”

More head nodding. Poor kid, I was
going to give him whiplash if we kept this up.

“Okay, let me think this
through,” I said mostly to myself, but I kept an eye on Tavi to
see if he responded to anything I said. “I still feel like I’m
speaking English, but you are hearing something else. That wasn’t
how it worked when we first met, but at some point it changed.”

Tavi nodded his head and then leaned
his head onto his hands like he was sleeping. He then straightened up
and stretched his arms over his head.

“It changed this morning? After I
woke up?”

Nod.

This was weird. If Tavi wanted me to
keep a secret, it probably wasn’t a normal side effect of using
the translator.

Focusing on speaking in English, I felt
what is probably best described as a bubble shifting in my head. I
asked Tavi, “Do you understand this?”

He just looked at me and shrugged his
shoulders. I took that as a no. Could I switch back to... I guessed
it would be Harithean. I concentrated for a second and I felt that
little bubble shift again, “What about now, can you understand
me now?”

He smiled and nodded his head. Cool, I
could switch back and forth between the two, and to me it didn’t
seem any different. Now that I noticed it, I could sort of feel the
bubble in my head which let me know which language I was speaking.

“But, Abella translated for me
today. You didn’t understand me then did you?”

He nodded his head. So, when I was
alone with Tavi, I was switching to his language, but when I was with
the group I still used English. Was it a subconscious switch? I knew
they expected me to speak English, so I did, but with Tavi it didn’t
matter and I wanted him to understand me? Would I be able to control
it?

“Tavi, why do you want me to keep
this a secret? Is there something I should be afraid of?”

He nodded.

-o-

Tavi and I talked for a little longer,
but I didn’t really get much more from him. I just didn’t
know enough to ask the right questions.

He didn’t remember his family. He
liked Abella, but Carvis and Vatrale scared him. I understood how he
felt. It was the same way they I felt about them.

I didn’t learn what I should
worry about. Which I supposed was a worry all by itself. I’d
have to find out soon. I didn’t think I could fake not knowing
the language for long without making a mistake. Eventually I was
going to have to let Vatrale and the others know. I thought they
would handle it better if I told them before they discovered I was
hiding it. I’d hate to have them not trust me.

-o-

The next week was spent in training. I
would spend a few hours each morning and evening with Vatrale. Much
more than that and I would start to get a headache from the
translator. Abella was always there too. She was the only one to ever
hold the other end of the translator.

Now that I knew what to look for it was
easy to keep myself speaking English when I was around anyone but
Tavi. I felt a little like I was cheating, and considering the
headaches Abella and I would have at the end of the day, I wasn’t
sure it was worth it.

It took two days of what felt like
complete and total failure before I actually changed the clay into a
cube. Vatrale was right. Once I had the image in my head I just had
to focus on the nerafpan. It would immediately shift to the shape I
wanted.

I practiced going between the cube and
the ball until I could do it without any effort. Then I started
working on other shapes. It took time to learn a new shape, but each
one was easier than the last one.

Mastering the nerafpan was just the
first step. The next step was to learn how to manipulate an element.
Shapers could work with a solid object like stone, liquids or even
flames, but each Shaper could normally only master one element.

Vatrale could control stone, but like
most Shapers his power was limited. He could only control his own
body weight in stone without aid. In the past, Shapers would work
together to perform great tasks beyond what any one of them could do
alone.

There were fewer Shapers now then ever
before, and those that remained lived in secrecy and fear. For
decades they had been hunted and killed. Vatrale was one of the few
who lived in the open. He refused to cower. He hoped that his
presence would draw others out of the shadows to join with him.

Staying in the open placed himself and
his family at risk. There had been several attempts on his life.
Although the last was over a year ago, he remained on alert. He had
Carvis and his people to protect him, and he continued to seek out
young Shapers to train. He expected that together they could discover
the identity of the assassins and put a stop to them.

Talking to Tavi I was able to figure
out that he knew about the others Vatrale had trained. I think they
had gone away. Tavi acted like that was a bad thing. He was worried
that the same thing would happen to me.

I hadn’t learned anything by the
end of the week by keeping my knowledge of the language a secret,
except that I really hated having those headaches. I figured it was
time to let Vatrale know I didn’t need the translator any
longer.

-o-

I just finished telling Tavi that I
would be telling Vatrale the truth in the morning when there was a
soft tap on my door. I knew immediately it was Abella. She was the
only one who knocked like that. Hell, Carvis didn’t even knock.
He would just push the door open and grunt something at me.

Tavi jumped to his feet and grinned at
me before opening the door. She was standing there with that cursed
translator in her hands. As much as I wanted to avoid the translator,
I was glad to see Abella. I stepped forward to invite her in,
offering her one of the seats next to the desk.

That was the one drawback to letting
Vatrale know I didn’t need the translator. I didn’t know
if I would see Abella again. Outside of the study sessions and meals,
I seldom saw her.

Before she could hand me one end of the
translator I switched to Harithean and said, “We don’t
need to use that thing anymore.”

I was waiting for the look of surprise,
the shock at realizing I could understand her. Instead she simply
said, “I know.”

We looked at each other for a few
seconds until I finally sat down and asked, “How long have you
known?”