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(Two) ◀◀◀◀◀ Chapter Three ▶▶▶▶▶ (Four)
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The enchanted wave, crystalline and inviting, lapped ceaselessly at its shore—or rather, a clever approximation of one, a force of nature re-imagined as a mosaic of vitreous white and cobalt porcelain, spanning the modest breadth of the curtained-off chamber.
Sethys could not fathom its purpose, or why its owner would have something like this in their bathroom when a real ocean lapped ceaselessly at its own shore—a real shore, with real sand and real sandpipers poking the real sand as they hunted for real jackknife clams—but a short walk to the east, judging by the view from the full-plate windows lining the manor's entire eastern side.
Furthermore he could not fathom how long he'd been standing there, trying to fathom the wave's purpose. Naturally it was Stefano who showed it off, while whisking Sethys around in a whirlwind tour of "the family shack" before joining Mortegro on some urgent task involving another mage elsewhere. His abrupt departure left no time for elaboration, so there he left Sethys, alone in the wave chamber to work out its mysteries for himself.
One could only speculate, and Sethys duly speculated that Stefano used it as an extravagant sort of bathtub. Barring that, perhaps he washed his plates in it; a jumble of soiled dishes and glasses and flatware malingered atop a nearby vanity.
In any case, such a thing did have at least one advantage over an actual shoreline in that one could bathe freely in this wave without worrying about the unpleasant interference of crustaceans or jellyfish, or having one's foot entangled in a Gordian knot of algae and kelp. Although the undergarments strewn about the floor possibly negated that advantage, the mess did lend credence to another theory—that this was a home laundry pool.
This was not a subject upon which he would normally excogitate. After spending the last 8700 years (give or take a few decades) in spectral limbo, he simply could not curtail his curiosity over anything and everything this brave new-same old world of his had to offer. Today's Ophidia (now simply The Serpent Isles, or so he'd been told) had yet to show him anything so outlandish or inexplicable that he could not at least guess at its function, but it was all so very different…
"Ahh—!"
A light touch to his shoulder sent him bouncing out of his head like an overwound mainspring. Sethys half-turned towards the interloper, registering her presence with but a flicker of a glance; recognition settled his nerves but did nothing for the goose pimples.
"Oh! Hah! It's only Gwenno," he laughed breathlessly. "You scared me!"
"I'm sorry, dear. You've been waiting so quietly, I nearly forgot you were still here!"
"So did I, I'm afraid." Sethys gestured towards the enchanted wave. "I think I was a little taken in by this."
"Marvellous, isn't it? A bit like the rest of this city, though; a bit frivolous for my taste. No no, my idea of luxury is a good old metal washtub, filled to the brim with good old hot water, maybe a drop of lavender or rose. Well. I assume Stefano uses this for bathing…"
Gwenno seized this moment to study the magicked wave for herself, watching as it tumbled against the tiles, in and out and in and out, as inexorable as the turn of the real tides. Truly mesmerizing—though the longer she allowed her thoughts to wander, the closer they hedged towards the frankly bewildering mental image of Stefano attempting to bathe himself in the thing.
"Hmm, or perhaps he does his laundry in it," she moved on quickly, "though it seems he'd rather sow his unmentionables around the place like he's planting dandelions."
No matter how far she strayed from either, Gwenno could always count on finding such adorable little reminders of husband and home.
"Do you know the actual purpose of this, then?" asked Sethys.
"Sorry, I don't! Why, do you?"
"Oh no, I haven't the foggiest! I assumed it was something common to the, uh, contemporary household."
Gwenno shook her head. "Common, no. I've never seen anything like it! We'll have to ask Stefano about it whenever he returns, though I suspect his answer will be about as satisfying as mine."
"But isn't this his manor?"
It was not. When Gwenno first visited this city, this manor still housed one of Moonshade's adepts, a testy young upstart named Tafani—Ensorcio, his first name. Alas, she learned little else about him beyond this and his apparent indiscretions, for within three days of her arrival the Council of Mages banished this Ensorcio from Moonshade for life. As the trial was a closed one, and as the council members involved had been sworn to secrecy, the impetus for Ensorcio's exile would ever remain closely guarded. Fortunately, the so-called "mundanes" in town dealt in scandal and rumor as keenly as the adepts dealt in magic, so Gwenno heard no shortage of scuttlebutt concerning Ensorcio's shenanigans. Unfortunately, not a single person knew the complete story; everyone had their own little patch of it, oddly shaped and full of holes, forming a nebulous quilt of forbidden love spells, enchanted underpants, one lonely and frustrated adept, and one zealously guarded Magelord's daughter.
But every patch had a constant presence, a man who would proudly—and frequently—claim full responsibility for blowing the whistle on an adept's misconduct, who was just as content to move himself into that same adept's manor mere hours after the Magelord issued his verdict.
Gwenno met Stefano for the first time that day, when he invited the bard to what he promised would be "one hell of a housewarming party"…
She laughed warmly at the memory, but shook her head at it just the same. "Yes, no—it's a long story, dear. Anyway, I've actually come to ask if you wouldn't mind helping me with something. Well, not me, really," she said. "See, there are two young student mages sitting in the parlor right now, survivors of the horrors that befell this city when the Banes arrived."
"Survivors of the Chaos Banes?" Sethys moved a hand to his heart. "Are they alright?"
"Thankfully they're doing very well, considering the circumstances; no injuries or anything like that. It's their mental welfare that worries me, all but completely forgotten in the aftermath!"
"Alas, it's always the little ones who fall through the cracks first."
"I know there's not much any one person can do for them now, but what those children told me simply makes my blood boil! The adept who so heroically charged himself with their care won't even let them eat inside his home! Their studies have fallen by the wayside, and with no schooling and no vocation they simply drift around the ruins of their hometown day in, day out, scrounging for scraps of food, kicking cans, picking fights, left totally alone to deal with their troubles."
Sethys followed along slowly, grimly; the matron was not describing anything he had not already personally witnessed during the Imbalance Wars. He could never count how many refugees he had met during his travels in the Northlands—from individuals to families to entire communities, uprooted by violence, then forfeited and scorned by their more fortunate friends, especially those living in the subterranes. The excuses they gave were always the same: We cannot spare the time to help. We have not the wherewithal to care. We have not the manpower to look after your orphans. Go suffer somewhere else. And they would say these things to their own allies until they too ended up uprooted by violence, then forfeited and scorned and forever lost within that same desperate mass of displaced souls.
Where Gwenno's blood boiled, Sethys's ran cold. "I see…" was all he said.
"Now, I may be alone out on my limb, but while I'm out there I intend to try to take their minds off those troubles, even if it's only for a few hours. I'm not a Magister or anything like that, but I am a scholar, and what good is a scholar who never shares what she's learned with those in need?" Gwenno groaned and tossed up her hands. "Oh, I don't know! I reckon this old lady's talking out of her backside again. Perhaps it's a silly thing to fret about."
"No! Not at all!" urged Sethys. "If your intention is to help a suffering child, how could anybody ever see that as silly? Surely most people would consider that a blessing."
"Perhaps." Gwenno's sigh betrayed her uncertainty. "Blessing or not, I suppose the primal question remains: How could anybody, much less a child, even hope to begin to recover from something like this?"
"Surely… Well, surely anything is possible, given a little time, and a little care."
"Yes! I think so too! I think. Well, in any case, I knew you would understand!" Gwenno matched the enthusiasm of her grin in the firm, resonant clap of her hands. "Here's my plan—and I also think you'll be a great deal of help, if you're willing! Are you willing? Would you like to help? I bet you would, right?"
Sethys jolted internally at the sudden noise, but this time he managed an uneasy smile and a juttering nod for the woman, even as he continued to dodge the line of her eyes. Time and care, time and care, he repeated to himself.
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