“We haven’t seen one since we embarked,” she stated. “And that’s very strange. I want to know what’s going on, where we are headed.”
Now that I thought of it, it was strange that we hadn’t seen any fish. Dolphins are quite fond of company and are great gossips. They will generally flock around a ship, begging for news and passing along their own to anyone fool enough to listen.
“How do we … er … summon them?” I asked.
Alake seemed astonished that I didn’t know. I don’t understand why. No dwarf in his right mind would ever voluntarily summon fish! It was all we could do to get rid of the pesky things.
“I’ll use my magic, of course,” she said. “And I want you and Devon to be there with me.”
I had to admit I was excited. I had lived among humans and elves, but had never seen any human magic, and I was surprised when Alake invited us. She said our “energies” would help her. I think, personally, she was lonely and afraid, but I kept my mouth shut.
Perhaps I should explain (as best I can) the Phondran and Elmas concept of magic. And the Gargan point of view.
Dwarves, elves, and humans all believe in the One, a powerful force that places us in this world, watches over us while we are here, and receives us when we leave. Each race takes a somewhat differing view of the One, however.
The basic dwarven credo is that all dwarves are in the One and the One is in all dwarves. Thus harm that befalls one dwarf befalls all dwarves and befalls the One as well—this is why a dwarf will never intentionally kill, cheat, or deceive another dwarf. (Not counting barroom brawls, of course. A sock on the jaw, delivered in a regular knock-’em-down, turn-’em-over, is generally considered beneficial to the health.)
In the old days, we dwarves believed the One to be interested mainly in ourselves. As for elves and humans, if they had been created by the One at all (and some held that they sprang up from the darkness, rather like fungi), it must have been an accident or else they were designed by a force opposing the One.
Long times of coexistence taught us to accept each other, however. We know now that the One has in care all living beings (although some old grandfathers maintain that the One loves dwarves, merely tolerates humans and elves).
Humans believe that the One rules all, but that—like any Phondran chieftain—the One is open to suggestion. Thus the humans are constantly badgering the One with supplications and demands. Phondrans also believe that the One has underlings, who perform certain menial tasks beneath the One’s dignity. (That concept is so human!) These underlings are subject to human manipulation through magic, and the Phondrans are never happier than when altering the growing seasons, summoning winds, conjuring rain, and starring fires.
The Elmas take a far more relaxed view of the One. In their perspective, the One started everything off with a bang and now sits back lazily to watch it all go forward—like the bright, glittering, spinning toys Sabia used to play with as a child. The Elmas view magic not as something reverent and spiritual, but as entertainment or a labor-saving device.
Though only sixteen (no more than a babe to us, but humans mature rapidly), Alake was deemed quite skilled in magic already and I knew her mother’s fondest wish was to hand her daughter the leadership of the Coven.
Devon and I watched Alake take her place before her altar, which she had set up in the empty cargo hold on deck two. It was, I must admit, a pleasure to watch her.
Alake is tall and well-made. (I have never, by the way, envied humans their height. An old dwarven proverb says, “The longer the stick, the easier to break.” But I did admire Alake’s graceful movements, like a frond bending in the water.) Her skin is a dark ebony. Her black hair is braided in countless tiny braids that hang down her back, each braid ending in beads of blue and orange (her tribal colors) and brass. If she lets her braids hang loose, the beads clash musically together when she walks, sounding like hundreds of tiny bells.