《Eldest: Awakening After the End》15: Principles of Water

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She held up a picture of Grae, with his lowslung belly and long hairy arms, his porcine head and jutting tusks. She had given him sad, big eyes, staring out of his face as if it was a terrible carnival mask. It was the first time Grae had ever been drawn.

He knelt down to look as she held the drawing up proudly.

Art had been lacking from his dungeonhome. He’d never been drawn before, never explored what could be done with charcoal and chalk.

“Here.” She thrust the stub of black towards him. Taking a new canvas from her treasure chest, she laid it on the ground. “You draw me next.”

He lifted the charcoal awkwardly between his claws. “Greh?”

“Well, it won’t be a very good book if its just what monsters look like. And none of you can write, so…”

She pulled out more sheafs of heavy linen paper, showing him.

They were all of her. “A kobold did this one.” It had been drawn from an eye-to-eye perspective, but it was crude and childish, with huge eyes that took up too much of the face and a clumsy mouth, her hair sort of extending from her head in brittle strands.

The next was by a mushroom-folk. She called them a sporeling. It had no face at all, and no head, as if these things were unimportant. It was the triangle of her dress and the fall of her hair, with big club feet and arms.

A crow…

A crow had drawn nothing but the face, but it was the only one that didn’t feel childish. Unpracticed, yes, but he could see how they’d gotten the curve of her nose and the shape of her eyes…

Grae lifted the charcoal. It was already starting to splinter in his claws.

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He used a more delicate grip…

“Greh…”

The charcoal scratched across the page. He wanted to start with her chin. It was an odd little half-moon stub extending from an acorn-shaped face, sticking out like a button. He added in the shape of her jaw next, and the little marks of her cheekbones, with freckles underneath…

She was leaning over the paper from the opposite side, her dress getting marked up with mud.

“Greh.”

With a final mark he was done.

“Piggy! That’s amazing!” She held it up proudly. “See, I knew you were clever, piggy…”

At that moment, out of the woods came Larktongue and Greenleaf. They carried heaping armfuls of dark, round berries, the pungent red juices spilling over their arms. The fragrance was attracting bees, golden bodies with sharp little stings crawling through the juicy mess.

“Well it’s about time!” The girl declared in her sharp little voice. She picked herself up, head held high like a queen and a tyrant. “Come along.”

It was clear she enjoyed keeping them marching to her drum.

As she led the way, the two kobolds gave Grae uncertain looks.

Grae only shrugged.

The real dangerous business was happening away from them now; Sarcer would be watching Oriole like a hunting hawk, waiting for any sign, any hint, of a betrayal coming.

Oriole would be weighing his chances. Every step away from Sarcer, was another step Sarcer would have to cross before killing him. A split second in which Heidrich, a deadly man by any measure, could step in to save him.

An invisible leash stretched between them. An understanding that each wanted nothing more than to kill the other…

Grae wished he could be there.

But he refused to let the itch of anxiety in his mind rule over his better senses.

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She was leading them towards the barn, a tall structure with a thatched roof and two-story structure. Before she crossed into the darkness under the open double doors, she turned and pointed to a piece of metal extending out of the ground.

It was shaped like a vase with a spigot at the tall, tapered top. Attached to the top and side was a bent lever. A bucket sat under the spigot, full of stagnant water and a single ornery bullfrog.

“Clean your hands before you come inside.”

The kobolds immediately began to pull at the lever, pumping it up and down.

And Grae watched in wonder as water spilled into the bucket. It was cold as he dipped his hand inside, cold like the depths of the earth. He watched as more and more spilled free, a shimmering cascade of clear, cool water.

The kobolds glanced at him curiously, not sure why he was so fascinated. They ran their hands beneath the fountain and moved on.

But Grae remained there.

Reaching out, he pushed down on the pump. Nothing happened. It had to be cranked repeatedly, before the whole mechanism began to rattle and the water spilled forth.

He tried to imagine…

What was inside? It had to be lifting the water somehow, but he couldn’t for the life of him imagine a mechanism that could do that; it was shaped wrong to be a turning wheel with blades, each ‘blade’ lifting a scoop of water. Some kind of chain carrying buckets…

But no, that would give out a measly handful of water each time.

“It works on a vacuum.” The girl - her name was Lena, Grae remembered - leaning over his shoulder as Grae sat on the ground beside the pump. “It’s very clever.”

“See, if you make a space, and it has to a be a really empty space, the water fills it in. I bet you’ve never seen nothing, right? Because something always fills nothing in.” Lena said. “My dad explained it. He says the pump sends a weight down, pushing the water down. And then it goes up, and there’s nothing there, not even any air, so the water follows the nothing upwards. All the way to the spout.”

Grae pondered for a moment.

He reached out and pumped the lever.

Water emerged.

A space with no air; a vacuum. A way to manipulate water.

He couldn’t wait to be alone, and try to apply this principle to his own magic.

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