Child Of Storms (Volume 1) (36 page)

Glaenavon was a small, mountainous bit of rock sixteen miles long north to south and anywhere from two to eight miles wide east to west depending upon where one stood. There was only one town of any size, Glorbinden, which was five miles to the south of Cape Ardor and home to six-hundred souls, most of whom were simple fishermen and their families. The seas around Glaenavon overflowed with cod, Fearach explained. Most anyone who wasn’t a fisherman did sheepherding.

“Cod and sheep,” he commented. “Are the life blood of Glaenavon.” 

There were also three small villages spread around the island, the nearest being tiny Skagrog less than two miles east of Cape Ardor. Fearach described it as a sleepy little place with a decent tavern.

              “We’ll visit there when you’re feeling better,” Fearach said.

The wizard went on to describe the interior of the island as mostly grassland surrounding a pair of mountains. Fearach
assured Jorn he’d learn his way around the island soon enough, since the old man was very fond of walking and was accustomed to teaching while doing so. He went on, explaining the island’s history and how it had become the domain of Thane Heafric’s family in the time of the old thane’s great-grandfather Osvald.

             
“You like that stew, don’t you?” he said. “Good. Eat up. It’ll help you regain your strength. Don’t stay up too late, either.”

             
Fearach rose, shuffling off to his bedchamber on the ground floor. Jorn finished his bowl of stew alone, wondering how long he’d be in this odd little place with this strange little man. He got up from the table, climbing the stairs up to his room.

It was comfortable, at least, and he could not imagine how Einar’s agents would ever find him so far from anywhere.

_____

              Fearach roused him before dawn, throwing open the door to his little room and shouting loudly. Jorn stumbled downstairs to find a pile of books waiting on the table for him. Fearach picked one up and handed it to him.

             
“You will study upon rising every morning, before dawn, for two hours without break until you have finished this book,” he announced. “Then you shall begin another book which I will choose for you. We’ll discuss and examine what you read each day at length while you help me around here or we go for walks. During the morning your readings will be in geometry, geography, and history. At night you will study philosophy, engineering, astronomy, and the great epics which we’ll discuss after dinner. We’ll fit in language lessons in Luthanian, Elvin, and Dwarfic when we can. This easy course of study should suffice until you’ve fully recovered from your wounds.”

             
Jorn stood there stunned, holding the book. It was titled
Commentaries on the Reigns and Enactments of the Luthanian Kings, Volume One
and was very thick
.
He felt sick to his stomach.

             
“Don’t just stand there,” Fearach said. “Get to it, lad. I want fifty pages by the time I return and you’d better have read them carefully, or I’ll know. Pay careful attention to the discussion of Doradus the Great’s problems subduing the nobles of his realm. You should find it highly useful. There’s oatmeal on the stove and tea in the pot. Help yourself.”

             
It went like that for a week, Jorn struggling to improve his little knowledge of academic matters. In the evenings, Fearach taught Jorn to play a curious board game popular on the island called
Hnefatafl
.

“It means ‘king’s table’,” Fearach said.

Hnefatafl
was played with white and black stones on a board divided into eighty-one squares. It was a metaphor of a beleaguered king desperate to escape from would-be usurpers, Fearach explained. Victory for the king was achieved when he reached the end of the board. Victory for the king’s attackers was reached when the king was trapped. The king’s pieces were arranged in the middle of the board with the king at the center, the attacker arranged around the edges of the board.

“Pieces move up and down,” Fearach explained. Never diagonal. You’ll play the besieged king, I’ll play the usurpers. Remember, if I surround you on all sides I win. Make it the edge of the board, and you win.”

Jorn did his best to learn the game, glad for the break from his books.

             
“You’ll master it before long,” Fearach said. “This game trains the mind, Jorn, much like the geometric proofs we’ve been going over. Keep at it.”

All day, in between reading upon rising and
Hnefatafl
after dinner, Fearach would question Jorn about what he’d read that morning. The old man pestered him, probing Jorn’s grasp of the texts. If Jorn didn’t know the answers, Fearach would make him re-read the text again. It wasn’t long before Jorn found himself carefully examining his morning readings, determined not to let himself be embarrassed by the old man’s daily inquisition.

Throughout it all, Fearach seemed determined to avoid answering any of Jorn’s questions. Always, he’d throw the question back at the young man and ask him what he thought the answer was. Jorn would usually shrug, explaining that if he knew the answer he wouldn’t have asked the question in the first place.

              “Nonsense,” Fearach would say. “You know the answer. You’re just too lazy to work it out for yourself.”

             
The old man would then ask Jorn sometimes dozens of questions about whatever they were studying. Guiding him along with his leading questions, Fearach would always smile and nod emphatically when Jorn finally grasped the answer.

             
“How does it feel to finally start using your mind after so many years of slumber?” Fearach laughed.

             
“Grang’s teeth! Why bother with these games?” Jorn asked. “Why not just tell me the answer in the first place?”

             
“Because this is all about learning
how
to think, my young friend!” Fearach answered. “I always answer your questions about simple facts, don’t I? If you ask me, say, what year a certain Luthanian emperor died, I tell you. But a question analyzing his mistakes as a ruler, that I want you to figure out for yourself.”

“Facts, by themselves, are nothing,” he continued. “It is the ability to apply facts properly which turns them into
knowledge
. Consider the humble brick. By itself, it is of little value as anything more than a doorstop. In the proper hands, however, collections of bricks can build palaces.”

             
After a week of this routine, Fearach roused Jorn one morning and tossed him a walking stick. Jorn caught it, looking at Fearach curiously.

             
“You can’t expect to get back your strength sitting around here reading,” Fearach said. “My niece is away, and my morning walks have grown lonely of late, so your companionship will just have to do in her absence.”

             
“Who is this niece you always speak of?” Jorn said as they started out along the path leading south from the lighthouse. It was cold, patches of fog lingering in the morning light.

             
“Her name is Inglefrid,” Fearach said. “She is off caring for her ill grandmother in Glorbinden. I don’t know when she’ll return, though, which is too bad as I miss her cooking. She’s a far better
Hnefatafl
player than you, too, and actually gives me the occasional challenge. Presumably she’ll be back when that miserable old crone either gets better or dies.”

             
Fearach talked for several minutes about the girl as they strode along. Jorn learned that she was born in Glorbinden and had come to stay with Fearach after she was orphaned by an outbreak of the fever on the island. At first Fearach took the girl in merely out of a sense of obligation, giving up his old life as an intrepid wizard. He returned to the island of his birth to care for her, accepting the easy post of lighthouse keeper though he didn’t need the money.

They soon settled into life at Cape Ardor. As Inglefrid grew older, he filled the girl’s head with scholarly knowledge, supervising her on a rigorous course of study. He took her along on his wanderings over the island as they discussed questions of philosophy, history, literature, astronomy, and a dozen other
subjects. She became a surrogate daughter to him, the great joy of his waning years. She was both companion and intellectual sparring partner.

Jorn couldn’t help but wonder what a strange girl Inglefrid must be, raised by such an eccentric old turtle. Jorn pictured a squat girl with stooped shoulders and a bulbous nose, clad in a ratty old brown robe as she waddled about quoting ancient philosophers and describing geometric theorems or the arrangements of the constellations.

              “Her grandmother – my brother’s widow, in point of fact – lives in Glorbinden and refuses to leave that rathole for some unholy reason,” Fearach said. “The fresh air at the lighthouse would be just what the sour old hag needs to feel better and then Inglefrid would not have to leave to tend to her.”

             
“It sounds like you dislike her,” Jorn said. “Inglefrid’s grandmother, I mean.”

             
“What? No. Whatever gave you that idea? She’s a miserable old bat, long since gone insane, but I don’t bear her any ill will over it. I tolerated her presence without undue agony, half a century ago. She’s why I retired here to Glaenavon, though. The old loon would’ve been completely unfit to raise a child in her state, and so the obligation fell to me. Fortunately, Thane Heafric agreed with my point of view and gave Inglefrid to me after judging the matter.”

             
A week later, they hiked ten miles to the summit of Mount Eabea, the tallest mountain on the island. It was not much of a mountain at only twelve hundred feet, Fearach admitted, but it was the best Glaenavon had to offer. Like the rest of Glaenavon, it was barren expanse of heath, a few patches of scraggly trees breaking up the scene.

Fearach kept up a quick pace as they made their way to the summit. It was freezing, but he seemed indifferent to the cold, pointing out various plants along the way. He knew them all, going on about their various properties and uses.

              “Inglefrid is an expert on everything which grows on Glaenavon,” he said. “She has identified over two hundred herbs, several varieties of which are found nowhere else. She’s working on a scholarly account of the various herbs and useful plants of Glaenavon, you know.”

Whenever Jorn thought the wizard would cease talking about plants and his weird niece, the old man suddenly switched to the topic of rocks. Sometimes Fearach would pause to pick one up, pointing out all sorts of curious characteristics, most of
which Jorn couldn’t make sense of. Jorn couldn’t believe anyone could spend so much time thinking about rocks.

“Every single rock the world over tells a story,” the old wizard said, holding up a small gray stone and looking it over carefully. “Yes, this one was born in a volcano but has since seen many a flood.”

They eventually reached the summit. The weather was clear, for once, and they could see the entire island. Not a bit of snow could be seen anywhere, the warm winds of the south keeping the island perpetually wet and warmer than the rest of Linlund. Fearach had lectured him all about it the day before.

Jorn could make out Cape Ardor ten miles north, though the lighthouse was too small to see. Turning around, he studied the southern shores of the island, realizing what a truly small place Glaenavon was.

Fearach pointed out every geographic feature visible from their vantage point as they sat and ate a lunch of black bread, pickled herring, and cheese.

Jorn had to admit that he liked what he’d seen of the island thus far, a foggy little corner of Linlund far removed from the worries of the world beyond. He even liked its barren slopes and fields of grassland, which he thought had a certain indefinable beauty.

              Jorn spent much of the afternoon helping Fearach search for a particular herb, a tiny lavender flower that bloomed on the island in winter called
Thelifinis
. Fearach explained its many uses in a variety of magical potions and salves, imploring Jorn to look carefully for the tiny petals amid the thick grasses of the mountain slopes. When they filled a small pouch with the little petals, Fearach stuffed it into his backpack and threw the bundle towards Jorn. Shrugging, Jorn slung it over his back.

             
“Come,” Fearach said. “There’s something else I want to show you.”

             
They hiked down the far side of the mountain, the trail running into a narrow cleft. Jorn could see the western shore of the island a few miles away, the roofs of Glorbinden tiny in the distance. A building with a shining metal roof sat apart from the town.

             
“That is
Klaegá
,” Fearach said. “The hall of Thane Heafric and seat of his rule over the island.”

             
Jorn squinted, gazing at the building and trying to make out any details.

             
“It doesn’t look like much of a hall,” he said.