Chapter One

Can You Do Any Magic?

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Ordinary machines engineered by the often brilliant minds of ordinary people were not the most advantageous application of Kazia's unique skills, but they were her current responsibility.

She leaned her forehead against the wooden hull of the threshing machine and noted that she may have a touch of sunburn there. The gentle breeze, welcome on this overly warm spring day, blew into a brief gust and pulled a forelock of her dark hair out from under the braid that wreathed her head.

She ignored the hair now blowing across her face and took a moment to acknowledge the sounds of the barnyard - chickens, goats, the breeze rustling the hay. From a far distance came the sounds of workmen in the village square setting up for tomorrow's holiday.

She switched on the engine then and it roared to life, drowning out all other sound. Circling the cart, she turned her mind to the machine and felt for the psychic traces of human creativity in its levers, its pulleys, and its gears.

Her real expertise lay in those Artifacts that blended ordinary mechanics with the magic of the Alchemists. Those carried a stronger, deliberately placed piece of their makers' hearts - or souls, perhaps - than these workaday inventions.

Kazia had been born with a talent for reading the hearts of others, of feeling what they felt as strongly as if those feelings were her own. But people hurt more often than not, and reading them often hurt Kazia. Better to keep to herself and tinker with the machines. She read them in much the same way that she could read people, but they were by far less complicated.

Despite its lack of a strong psychic imprint, the thresher would be an easy fix. Kazia could almost pinpoint the problem with her ears, no empathic talent required.

As she opened the side panel to expose the mechanism, she felt a human presence nearing. Neiphi, the young daughter of the farmer Ardel Gewalt, approached quietly and stood watching Kazia at the thresher.

Neiphi's education was also Kazia's responsibility, another benefit she brought to Ardel's farm in exchange for her room and board. Something was agitating the girl, just enough to start a creeping pressure up the back of Kazia's neck. Kazia turned and beckoned Neiphi over. At twelve years of age, Neiphi stood shoulder-high to Kazia, so she bent down to be heard over the engine.

"Listen!" she shouted into Neiphi's ear. "Can you hear it?"

Neiphi leaned forward, holding her pale yellow braids and the ribbons of her bonnet away from the moving machinery. She looked up at Kazia and pursed her lips.

The thresher clanked out a rhythm, but once in a while that rhythm sounded a muffled interruption. Kazia held up a finger and traced a circle in the air along with the rhythm, dropping her fingertip at every missed beat.

Neiphi's bright green eyes widened and she nodded. Kazia felt the girl's sudden understanding. She motioned for Neiphi to switch off the engine. When Neiphi returned and the thresher was still again, Kazia drew a long probe from her apron pocket and pointed it into the mechanism.

"Here," she said, and Neiphi stood on tiptoe to see where Kazia pointed. "This gear has worn a tooth, and so it slips sometimes. Would you like to help me replace it?"

"I would," Neiphi answered, "but I came to tell you that Mistress Thanelin has come from the Capital to see you, and there are Alchemists and soldiers with her."

At the word Alchemists, a curious excitement burst from her, followed by apprehension at the soldiers.

Kazia shared in that apprehension.

"I see," she said quietly, replacing the probe in her apron pocket and closing the thresher cart. "Well, we'd best not keep her waiting."

Kazia went to the water pump at one side of the barnyard and tried to clean some of the machine oil off of her hands and face, but she had no soap here.

"Is it bad?" she asked Neiphi.

"Hmm...not too bad," Neiphi lied politely.

"Am I sunburned here?" Kazia indicated her forehead.

"A little. Your nose too. Only a very little. Have you been forgetting your hat again?"

"It gets in the way when I'm working."

Kazia put on her broad-brimmed sun hat now though, and tied its ribbon under her chin as the two of them set off down the lane through the cornfields that led to the main house. They walked in silence for a while but Neiphi, bundle of young energy that she was, couldn't allow that to last.

"I didn't know before," Neiphi said, "but Mistress Thanelin is in charge of all the Queen's Alchemists. Did you know?"

"I did," Kazia said with a smile.

"Isn't she your mom or something, though?"

"She was my teacher, when I was very young, like I am yours now. But after my mother died, I suppose I did come to think of her in that way. And she helped me to come here to the Kingdom of Caedra when I had to leave my home. She found your parents' farm for me, and brought me here."

"Are you an Alchemist then?" Neiphi asked, incredulous. "I've known you for five years and I thought you were just a mechanic!"

Kazia laughed.

"I was going to be," she said. "Mistress Amelys –that is, Mistress Thanelin - trained me, but I decided against it. Now I am just a mechanic, and I am happier for it."

She put her arm around Neiphi's shoulders and gave an affectionate squeeze.

"Can you do any magic? The Mayor's daughter said she saw an Alchemist juggling ethereal orbs at a fair in another town."

"I'm sorry to disappoint you, but my skills lie mostly in applied mechanics. I was never good at manipulating ethereal energy."

"Not even just a little?"

Kazia stopped walking.

"Alright," she said. "Watch carefully."

She held one hand up and flicked her fingertips together. A small white spark erupted and she slowly drew her fingers apart until the energy formed a small glowing orb floating between her fingers. She snuffed it out and shrugged.

"I can amplify physical actions with it, but that's about it," she said sheepishly.

"That's amazing!" Neiphi exclaimed. "How do you do it?"

"By drawing on your ethereal energy," Kazia told her. "Everyone has some within them, you just have to learn to access it."

"And you're bad at that?"

Kazia shot a glance of amused vexation at Neiphi's teasing, but then became serious.

"To access ethereal energy, one must look far down within oneself, to one's very core. That can be difficult for some, especially for those who have suffered hardships."

Neiphi's brow furrowed sadly. "Have you suffered hardships, Kazia?"

"Mm..." Kazia replied. Then she shook herself and forced a smile. "Oh, maybe one of the Alchemists who came with Mistress Amelys will juggle at the fair tomorrow!"

Neiphi turned her attention far across the fields, from where they could still hear men erecting tents and booths for tomorrow's festivities.

"I do wish you would come," she said.

Kazia shook her head. "Too many people. You know I don't like it."

She knew she would not be missed at a community gathering.

The people of Essyl Village were mostly the descendants of Derician refugees. While they were always kind to her, and grateful for her skills with their machinery, they mostly regarded her as the strange, reclusive Valeskan, even without knowledge of her talent for reading hearts.

That was a secret she guarded closely, since people didn't often react well to someone who could know such private things about them. Either way, they mostly left her to her quiet life.

She had come here five years ago, at the age of seventeen, and in her own way Kazia loved the people of Essyl, perhaps because they were happy to indulge her antisocial tendency. The Gewalts had been very good to her, giving her a home here on their farm, and she had grown quite attached to Neiphi. Her affliction could usually abide one child who hadn't yet suffered the true miseries of life.

"But it's Unity Day," Neiphi pleaded. "I have such a pretty new dress! There's the memorial in the morning, and that will be boring, but the fair after is so much fun. You must come!"

"Neiphi!" Kazia chided. "Your people... so many Dericians died in that awful war, and so many soldiers of the Five Nations. So many of you had to flee your homeland. You must remember the fallen with honor. If it becomes boring, it will happen again."

She could feel Neiphi's embarrassment as her reproach landed.

"Now, tell me how the war began," Kazia said in the most stern and tutorial voice she could muster.

Neiphi heaved a dramatic sigh.

"King Fradik of Dericia was ambitious and greedy, and he invaded Loranar. A lot of us Dericians didn't like that he did that because we weren't bad people, he was just crazy. But he made people fight anyway, and a lot of people died.

And he took over all of our farms and factories, and if the people tried to stop him, he burned the farms and towns down, and people were going hungry. But then the Five Nations united against him. And King Fradik died in the big battle of... of..."

"Derrow," Kazia said. "That's the capital of Loranar, you should know that one."

"Yes, Derrow."

"And who are the Five Nations?"

"Loranar, Caedra, Brinland, Thalesia, and Valesk."

"Very good, Neiphi," Kazia said. "I'll make a scholar of you yet."

"I should like to be an Alchemist if you can make me that," Neiphi answered.

"Well, you do show much aptitude, and the work we do with the machines is an excellent foundation for Alchemy. I'd say it is not out of the realm of possibility."

The rush of pride and elation that erupted from Neiphi shook Kazia's next few steps. Although positive emotions weren't painful as such, they could still be disorienting when they were so strong.

"You know," Kazia said, regaining her composure, "Dericia has made great progress in its recovery, and there is talk of self-rule soon. Talk of Six Nations, perhaps. Your homeland may be in need of Alchemists. Do you think you'd like to go home?"

Now the girl was apprehensive.

"I'd like to see it," she answered. "But this is home. I've lived my whole life here. I don't know if I'd ever want to move away."

"Alchemists often have to move away from their homes," Kazia said. "They go where they're needed. Wherever they can find a position."

"Is that why you left Valesk?" Neiphi asked. "Could you not find a position?"

Kazia squeezed the girl's shoulders again and peered across the town to the hillside beyond. Smoke rose into the sky there, from fires in the encampment of the soldiers who had come with Mistress Amelys.

"No," she said quietly. "No, I left because Valesk has become bored with memorials."

 

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Kazia