Chapter 2
Oh Look! More People!
All right. Let’s start over.
The streets of Dun Hal were grey and somber that morning, as the early fog of the day hung in the air like a shroud. Felicia rested her elbows on the sill of one of the wall’s hatches, staring out onto the dusty road that she had grown up on. The mist hid her view of much beyond a few houses over, obstructing her view of the town’s great (and only) tree. All in all, it was a miserable morning for what was going to be, in Felicia’s opinion, a miserable day.
“Close the hatch and get your bags, it’s almost time to leave,” a lilting voice called from somewhere behind her.
Felicia sighed and obeyed her mother. The wooden shutters closed with a ratchety clatter, which reminded her yet again that her mother had promised a full five moons ago to fix, and had still not gotten around to it.
“Actually, Ma, I think the window hatch needs fixing,” She called as she slid off the bench in front of the hatch and ducked under one the constellation charts hanging from the ceiling, “But don’t worry. I can take care of it, no problem—”
“And miss the Waypoint?” Her mother asked a bit wryly, coming out of the depths of her workshop with a few last odds and ends to add to the pile of bags by the door. “Nice try, kid. Vantos isn’t getting rid of you so easily.” She bent over to shove her armload into a bag, knocking over a pile of books in the process.
“I don’t see why I have to go in the first place, Ma,” Felicia complained, attempting logic where misdirection had failed. “It’s not like I can’t study here or anything.”
Felicia’s mother knelt down to restack the precarious pile of books. “True,” She nodded amiably as if considering the point. “But getting to go to Vantos is an incredibly rare and valuable opportunity. Not to mention that you’ll learn much more from there than from anywhere I could send you here.”
“But it’s a school for the important kids! The ones who are going to become the Wanderers of the future or whatever. I’m about the farthest there is in Illun from that—I don’t belong there.”
“You passed the Libre’s tests, Flower. That’s all you need.” Her mother gave up on stacking the books and stood up, accidentally hitting her head on some of the strings of spare pegs that hung from the ceiling. “Who knows—maybe all the little pieces of my dimensional charts you ate as a toddler—“
“Mom!”
“—actually gave you latent wanderer abilities or whatnot. Dur knows your father didn’t,” Her mother muttered.
Felicia elected to pretend she hadn’t heard that last bit.
“Here,” Her mother said, tossing her a small circular disk. “I made a couple modifications to this. All the math I’ve done in the last few days points to the existence of a massive dimension right under…”
By this point, Felicia’s hearing started to fade out as she stared at her mother’s moving lips absentmindedly, zoned out to whatever new calculation had been discovered this time. It wasn’t that Felicia thought her mother’s work wasn’t interesting or important, it was just that, well, she talked about her new discoveries nonstop. Felicia had already heard all the details about the new theoretical massive dimension that was calculated to exist on an opposite rotational axis of theirs no less than six times, three of them during breakfast that morning. It was getting boring.
Felicia realized that her mother had stopped talking and was now staring at her with an odd expression on her face. This might not have been the best time to zone out.
“Uh. What is it, mom?” She asked, hoping that her mother hadn’t just asked her a question.
Her mother swooped in for an abrupt hug. “My baby’s going off to school in another dimension!” She said in that tone all mothers use when their child goes off to preschool or whatever the equivalent in this dimension is.
“Mooooom,” Felicia complained, worried that if she had already gotten this emotional in the house, it would be far worse at the Waypoint. “It’s not like I’m leaving on an interdimensional expedition. I’ll be back in less than a Span.”
“No, but one day you will be on that expedition, mark my words. Or doing something no doubt just as important and exciting.”
Felicia opted not to bring up at this time that her plans for the future involved operating a prank letter business.
“I’m sure I will, mom,” She replied instead. “It’ll seem like no time—time. Shoot.”
She rushed to pull on her bags. “The Waypoint is opening in a few clazons, Ma!” She exclaimed.
“Shoot!” Her mother exclaimed, having forgotten as well. They both tore out the door and down the street, towards the great tree that also happened to be the town square.
Waypoints were not usually located in plains towns, or any town in general, but there were enough now that any town who qualified to send more than 4 students to Vantos could temporarily host one just for the day the students left. Felicia, as it happened, was the lucky fifth from Dur Hal.
As they scrambled into the town square, the families of the other four students , as well as those of students from surrounding, less qualified towns, looked at them irritably for disturbing the sluggish calm of the mist that morning. Fortunately, the other students were still with their families, so the Waypoint had not opened yet.
“You know,” Felicia’s mother whispered to her, “I’ve always theorized that there are some Wanderers strong enough to travel between dimensions without needing Waypoints to guide them. Wouldn’t that be something?”
“Yeah,” Felicia agreed automatically. “Not that it does much for people like us.”
Her mother nodded somberly. “True. We can at least be glad that Waypoints allow us to travel from here to Vantos without needing to be Wanderers.” She sighed. “You’ll have to tell me all about it when you get back. The first one of our family to travel between worlds!”
Felicia sighed.
There was a murmuring in the other families, and then a gap opened in the crowd. A tired-looking official in traditional Libre robes came through the impromptu path made by the crowd’s seperation, carrying in her hands an odd lump wrapped in fabric.
Felicia’s mother gripped her hand so tightly she thought her knuckles might touch together.
“The Waypoint!” Her mother whispered excitedly, as if she didn’t see one any time she went to one of the major cities. “Hold up, I have to get some notes on this.”
She dug through her own satchel and pulled out one of her many notebooks and a small opaque stone, scratching down some readings or whatever it was she was using the stone for. Felicia never had been sure of it’s purpose.
The official sighed and set down the parcel on the short column in the center of the square, unwrapping it without much ceremony.
Her mother leaned forward in anticipation as the layer of fabric came off, revealing—
A small, dusky crystal the size of Felicia’s fist.
“Oh…” her mother said. “Well, they’ve certainly…” She seemed to be trying to think of something positive to say. “It’s a Waypoint, that’s for sure.”
Felicia had only seen one or two Waypoints in her own life, unlike her mother, but both of them were much bigger than the sad excuse for a paperweight that was set before them now. Those actually looked like they could somehow be gateways to other worlds—they were huge, and flashy! They were so multifaceted that despite being, well, crystal clear, you couldn’t see more than a hair’s breadth inside before it was too distorted to see. Most importantly, Waypoints always seemed to shine like they had a light stuck in them, no matter how dark it was.
This pathetic thing was not any of that. It was a rock.
“My goodness,” her mother mused. “I had heard that the Libre had recently made some budget cuts for smaller towns, but I didn’t know they had gone this far.”
“I’ll bet you two muffins that one of the Walker family makes a huge fuss about it,” Felicia muttered so only her mother could hear. Her mother didn’t even have time to comment before Felicia was proved right.
“What is the meaning of this, Official?” Magister Fengari blustered as he shoved his way to the front of the small crowd from the back, where he had been talking with some tall guy.
The Official put on a monocle and looked at him, a bland expression on her face.
“Budget cuts, Magister,” she said in a nasal drawl. “Until further notice towns under six thousand get old models.”
“Towns besides Dun Hal, you mean,” The Magister corrected her. “After all, we can hardly trust the safety of Eluia’s two next bright stars to…” he looked down his nose at the sorry excuse for a Waypoint—“that, now can we?”
The Official blinked very slowly.
“Yes.” She finally said.
The Magister inhaled sharply, pushing the toes of his shoes together and lifting his heels off the ground in the process. Felicia sighed and quietly rolled her eyes. Here came the long rant.
“I’ll have you know, Official, my children are on track to become the next greatest leaders since the time of the Great War! My son Samuel—” The son in question, a lanky twit with shocking blond hair and a smug expression permanently plastered to his face stepped up next to him—“has already received multiple personal recommendations by your superiors, and even the Queen herself once! He’s scheduled to be a full diplomat in two Span’s time and is far too important to have such an unnecessary risk taken with his person!”
The Official shrugged, completely unaffected. The Magister did not notice this and continued on his pointless lecture. “And my daughter—!” The daughter in question, Gabriel, did not step forward out of the crowd like he had expected. “My daughter, Gabriel, has trained her entire life with the bow and will soon surpass even the great Eruthier Blakstone in her skills!” He continued onward, unaffected. “In fact, with such a strong hereditary connection to the Wanderforce, I wouldn’t be surprised if she had actually inherited the same abilities that—”
“Are you done?” The Official interrupted, whipping the cloth out from under the tiny Waypoint and shaking it out in a cloud of dust. “Because the people at Vantos have a tight schedule, and they ain’t waiting for us to finish listening to your little family history lesson.”
The Magister made to answer, but was unable to as a great sneezing fit came upon him.
“We’re done,” His daughter said, finally pushing out of the crowd and walking to stand in the open area in front of the Waypoint. “Come on, Samuel.”
The Official rolled her eyes in an exaggerated fashion and pulled out a handscroll, the first emotion she had shown that day. “May the Waypoint ceremony now commence!” She intoned in an exaggerated monotone. “As I call your name, please step up and into the space. Palin, Alfie!”
“Oop, you’re up soon, Flower,” Felicia’s mom said, snapping her out of her reverie. “Here, I packed you a lunch,” she said, handing Felicia a bag. “Oh, and here’s your satchel, I packed you some things—and your school bag, of course—and here! I thought you’d need some extra blankets so I packed you those too!” Felicia’s mother piled on four or five additional bags to the three she was already carrying.
“Thanks, mom, but…do I really need all this stuff?” Felicia said, trying to shift the weight on her shoulders enough so her knees wouldn’t buckle.
“Of course you do!” Her mother replied cheerfully. “You never know what will happen, after all. Oh, you have some dirt on your face!”
Encumbered by the heavy load of bags, Felicia was unable to squirm away as her mother licked her finger and then smudged it all over her face.
“Aw, I think I made it worse,” she said, looking disappointedly at Felicia’s forehead. “Ah, well. No time now to fix it. Hugs and kisses!” Somehow, she managed to maneuver around all the bags and give Felicia a hug. Felicia’s stomach settled uneasily as she realized this would be their last hug in an entire Span.
“I love you, Flower,” Her mother said.
“Mom, I—”
“Lightstep, Felicia!” The Official had reached her name on the list.
“What was that?” Her mother asked.
I don’t want to go, she had been about to say. But…seeing her mother’s excited face, how could she let her down like that?
“I love you too,” she said with a dry swallow as she trudged off to stand with the other students.”
“Oh, did you decide to pack your family sheep in there, scruffhead?” Samuel Walker sneered under his breath as she passed him with her load of bags.
“Shut it, Sammy,” She muttered back, concealing a smile as his ears flushed red. She had learned loooong ago that he hated that nickname. Hated.
The Official read a few more names off her handscroll, then unceremoniously shoved it in her bag as the last few students came to stand in the open space.
“Here are the new candidates for the Span, as well as those deemed decent enough to continue their education,” She drawled out. “If any chose to withdraw now and bring the dishonor of failure upon themselves, well—scram. Once you go through there ain’t going to be more opportunities.”
Felicia looked back at her mother, sorely tempted.
“I bet that the scruffhead will do just that,” Sammy said just loud enough for the other students to hear. Most of them laughed nervously, unsure if he was as important as his father had suggested and unwilling to get on his bad side until they knew.
Felicia set her jaw. Well, that cinched it.
The Official waited a few moments, then hmphed. “No takers? That’s surprising.” She gave a few knocks on the clouded rock and it began to glow with a blue light.
Felicia closed her eyes, waiting for the inevitable.
Nothing happened.
“Huh,” the Official said. “This thing must be older than I thought.” She pulled the handscroll and smacked the rock.
Felicia barely had time to flinch before a blue wave erupted out of the rock and she was gone.
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