I awoke with a tentative eagerness this morning. It is Twosday—that is, the second day of the week—and this day would mark the beginning of my private tutoring. I’ve continued refining my language spell in the meantime, though I have perhaps reached my limit on that front without formal training. Even going into it, I had my doubts about what education might look like without Truthbinding magic to help things along, but I tried to keep an open mind.
Perhaps I should speak to how my days have passed since arriving here. I’ve largely been left to my own devices, which has given me an abundance of time in which to refine and practice my language spell until I can cast it, one-handed, without giving it much thought. Sometimes Olrick will sit with me and chat, or else he will read from a stack of papers. Nadine is often busy either in her office or out and about. The one constant is that we’ve shared every meal together in the dining room, eating in an often uncomfortable, sometimes stifling silence.
I mention this now because, this morning, Olrick was on his way out when I entered the dining room. He was dressed in his uniform from the ship, one hand holding a baked confection and the other holding Nadine’s waist; I averted my eyes as he planted a kiss on her lips.
“Miss Why!” he said enthusiastically as he untangled himself from his wife. “I am sorry. I am going into town today. I have to do my work.”
“Are you going to sail?” I asked quickly. While Nadine wasn’t an enemy, per se, Olrick had shown himself to be my only true ally here, and he was my connection to this Valia who could somehow retrieve your body.
“Oh, no, no,” he said, smiling broadly. “Not yet. I will make many [???]. Talk to my [???]. Being a captain has many [???].”
I nodded, pretending to understand. “Okay. Please be careful and walk.”
He gave me an odd look, and I made a mental note that this typical Guntao farewell did not translate cleanly into Panzean.
I tried again. “Please pass a good day.”
That seemed to make more sense to him, and he gave my free hand a good shake with his before heading out into the hall. With a laugh, he called back “Pass a good day, you two!” as he left.
Nadine had already taken her seat at the table when I turned to her. Almost by instinct, I offered her a quick bow, and then sat at my spot on the other end. My place had already been set with the same pastry Olrick had been eating (a sweet, round-topped confection called a “muffin”) and two fried eggs. I waited for her to begin; instead, we watched each other for an uncomfortable length of time.
“Does your hand [bother/pain?] you?” she asked, finally breaking the silence. She nodded to my left hand, where my fingers were rapidly working through the contortions of my language spell.
“No. It is very well.”
“I wonder if it’s [???],” she said, her voice lowered as if speaking to herself. “Maybe another examination is [???].”
I slid my hand under the table. She raised her eyebrows at that.
“Did I make you [self-conscious?].”
“[Self-conscious],” I repeated slowly. “It means, I am not liking…the look…that other person gives to me. Or like that?”
“I think [you have] got it,” she replied. She slowed her speech—something Nadine is typically not inclined to do on my account—in what must have been an attempt to help me understand. “That’s good. Maybe Olrick told you already. The—” And that is how far she got before she went on a string of words I couldn’t hope to follow.
She realized quickly enough that I couldn’t understand. Stopping mid-sentence, she put her hands up and said, “Please be self-conscious. About the looks that other people give you, and the looks that other people give me because of you.”
***
Jacque wore his black hair slicked back, which emphasized the hawkish impression he gave at our first meeting. His overcoat was a dark ruby color that glistened like blood and, tucked under his arm, he carried a large slate tablet. He spared me only the most cursory of glances as he settled in at the table of the Seaborne Estate’s library.
“Good morning,” I offered as I sat down across from him. He said nothing, his eyes darting briefly to my hands (which were busily casting my language spell) before turning his attention to the tablet he’d placed between us. He tapped its surface with his finger and, through some unseen mechanism, the tablet began to glow with faint white light.
This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.
I leaned in to get a closer look.
He broke his silence with a stream of incomprehensible words, of which I only picked out “speak,” “child,” and something that I think translates roughly to “stupid” or “foolish.” My hopes for this session were quickly being extinguished.
An image of a person appeared on the tablet, rendered in an abstract style so that no distinguishing characteristics could be discerned. “Person,” he said. “Now you.”
“Pahson,” I repeated.
“No, person,” he said again. He emphasized this mad consonant shift that occurs in the Panzean version of the word. While I haven’t remarked much on this topic, the Panzean language is littered with unpronounceable consonant combinations, as well as a few consonants that have no business being in civilized speech.
“Poorrrrsssun,” I said. He shook his head and had me repeat it again.
And again. And again. Then he had me try saying just “rs” over and over again. And then I had to say “er,” and then “pers,” and finally back to “person.” When he at last seemed satisfied, I took a moment to embed the mouth and tongue positions into my language spell. His teaching style was insufferable, yes, but I had to admit that I was learning…a little bit.
He tapped on the tablet, and the image melted away, replaced with a picture of multiple individuals standing together. “People,” he said.
Now this was interesting! Something like this has happened a few times before. I’d think I’d learned a word, and then Olrick or Nadine would casually trot out a similar but different sounding word that seemed to mean the same thing. With the help of Jacque’s illustrations, the answer jumped out at me all at once: nouns in the Panzean language take on a different form when you’re considering a single object versus multiple objects.
I’ve no idea how the people here can keep so many words inside their heads without the aid of Truthbinding magic. Fortunately, I am a Truthbinder, so implementing rules for plural forms should be the work of a single evening.
He drilled vocabulary into me for another hour, and we managed to get through a handful of additional words. They were all words that I had already learned, sadly, but his drills on pronunciation showed me a path forward on language mastery.
Next we moved on to mathematics. While I doubt such knowledge will be helpful in allowing me to pass through Panzean society, I did have some curiosity about how advanced their grasp of mathematical law might be. I had already learned the numeral symbols from studying Olrick’s calendar, and so it was a trivial exercise to work out the initial battery of addition and subtraction problems he set before me. The multiplication and division questions that followed were also simple enough.
After the first dozen problems, Jacque’s hand paused, causing the figures on his tablet to freeze. His jaw set, he tapped the edge of the tablet a few times, and a new problem appeared on the lustrous surface: 589,108 ÷ 672.
He was testing me, and I had no intention of failing. Fixing the problem in my mind, I switched to an abstract mathematics cantrip I learned as a child. The spell worked out the solution in short order, and so I switched back to language and gave him my answer: “Eight and seventy-six. Plus… close to two of three.”
He raised a finger, mouth open as though to say something, but no words came. His eyes screwed shut; he tapped his forehead; he let out a frustrated grunt. Finding that the answer wouldn’t come to him quite so easily, he caused a series of numbers to play across his tablet, executing some sort of mathematical algorithm. The entire operation took roughly half a minute.
“Eight [hundred] seventy-six [???] six-four-eight-eight…” His eyes met mine, but none of the disgust or disinterest from before was there. Shock, perhaps? Let’s say curiosity. “How?”
It is poor manners to boast. And yet…
“My head is good.”
His lips curled up into an almost-snarl. “[Perhaps] there is something to that,” he spat, my language spell struggling to keep up with him. “You can [hardly] speak, [yet] you [lift up???] new words almost [instantly]. It’s clear you are [???], but your abilities as a [mathematician] are [very good]. So how is any of this [possible]?”
“I am amnesia,” I replied, repeating the word Nadine had given for my pretend illness.
“Yes, I’d heard,” he said, sounding rather unamused. “You lost your memories, and now it is all coming back to you. You hear of such things all the time—from [???] and [???], if you have a [?????]!” Something in the tone of his voice hinted that he did not believe the amnesia cover story. “If you [??] me to [????], you must be… Must be…” His eyes fell upon my hands as they rapidly worked at their spellcasting, and his nostrils flared.
“Will you stop that?” He lunged across the table and clasped my hands, stilling them. He continued his tirade, but without my spell, it sounded like the vicious yapping of a poorly-trained hound.
“
His eyes darted to my hands, then to my face. Slowly, almost cautiously, he released me, keeping his hands raised as he sank back into his seat. I clutched my hands to my chest; his grip wasn’t so rough as to hurt, but, still, I felt as if I had been stung.
He said something else, slower this time, and then another thing. With some reluctance, I resumed my casting. Once my hands were in motion, he spoke once more, saying something I understood to be an apology.
“Do not again,” I said softly. He crossed his arms over his chest and gave me a slow nod.
“Do not do that again,” he corrected. The way he watched me—I don’t think he felt any remorse for interrupting my spellcasting. Why would he? I doubt he could comprehend the idea of magic. No, he looked startled more than anything, as if he’d stumbled into some strange game and didn’t know the rules.
And then, as though nothing had happened, he swept a hand over the tablet to clear it. “We’ll meet again in five days,” he said as he tucked it back under his arm. “Keep [practicing?] until then.”
I gave him a shallow bow as he left.
In five days’ time, I shall give him a taste of what an experienced Truthbinder can accomplish.