As we were to spend the winter in Varu-Tavur it was necessary for the Dragon Expedition to compensate the Rutar with an appropriately valuable gift. While I had formulated various options during the journey to the grand village, this matter was taken out of my hands entirely when, almost immediately upon reaching the lakeshore, Lady Indili pronounced ‘there needs to be a chapter house here’ and thereafter set about conducting a program directed to make that happen. Consequently, the winter became devoted to the first stage of the process, one that would take many years, to provide the Rutar with properly trained sorcerers of their own. After the elderly shamans explained that all attempts to send promising youths to the great cities of Shdustu ended in sadness and death, Lady Indili declared that the chapter house divisions in the Sanid Empire would make up for this ‘unacceptable cowardice.’ She asked, or perhaps it might be better to say, demanded, four apprentices of the Rutar, stating that the expedition would take them to Crisremon for training and that they could return to Varu-Tavur once they were proper sorcerers and establish a new branch of the chapter house.
This action was rather outside the remit of the Dragon Expedition, but I was hardly in a position to refuse the Lady Indili’s desires and this plan, if successful, would strengthen the influence of the Sanid Empire in Shdustu, making it diplomatically appropriate. I confess, I was greatly surprised by this plan. Lady Indili was generally not fond of children and avoided spending time in their company. It surprised the Rutar as well, but though the shamans were somewhat insulted by the frank assessment of a master regarding their sorcerous capabilities, they were sufficiently far-sighted as to support this scheme, contingent upon sending one of their own along on the journey to make certain these youths were not seduced by foreign ways. Ludun-Mulum, in his capacity as warchief, also supported this plan, saying that sorcerers would be invaluable in mystic beast suppression and flood control.
Once granted approval to pursue this plan, Lady Indili identified four orphan girls between eight and ten years of age to be educated towards a sorcerous apprenticeship with the intent that each would choose one of the four paths. This was extremely ambitious. Even with the aid of a master’s insight and the very best preparation, the success of even two of the four would be accounted an incredible result. As to why she chose only girls, Lady Indili told me that they were far more likely to return home in the end, though I suspect that, truthfully, she simply did not want to bother dealing with young boys under any circumstances. As the plan was her own, I was not about to contest this choice.
Of course, training to be an apprentice sorcerer requires a foundation of fundamental scholarship, which I was placed under strict orders to supply. Lady Indili instructed the girls in natural history, the structure and flow of divine essence, astronomy, and the sorcerer’s interpretation of the Enlightened Revelation. It fell to me to teach them the Sairn language and alphabet, how to read and write, basic arithmetic and mathematics, and a simplified overview of life in the Sanid Empire. I confess, I do not think this division was considered with regard to making the students appreciative of me, nor can I claim to be a proficient teacher. Having no practice in instruction, I relied upon the repetition of the methods by which I had been taught, stressing memorization and endless practice. Though they had neither paper nor slates, the Rutar were able to produce wax tablets. We went through these in series, wearing them down through constant exercise.
The girls were named Mavu, Navanul, Ostanu, and Unura. These were common Rutar names. They were, by comparison to Sairn children arranged to pursue scholarship, wild, untamed, and ill-pleased when told to sit for long periods. They struggled to work diligently on the endless exercises needed to master language, whether that was shaping characters, sounding out words, or matching images and terms. I did my best to provide comfort by keeping the room we used as warm as possible and offering copious amounts of food. The elders, supportive of this project, spared no effort to give us fuel and sustenance. Regardless, instruction was a slow, dogged process little aided by my own limited understanding of Rutar. In all probability, I was too stern. Nor did it help that various rumors that drastically exaggerated my martial accomplishments circulated through Varu-Tavur, since this intimidated the girls and made them wary of me. I find this ironic given that Lady Indili was many times more dangerous than I could ever be. I take some solace in the necessity of such hard training. Anyone who seeks to reach the rank of apprentice sorcerer must study and pass tests beneath the baleful gaze of those who can burn the skin off bones and freeze blood in the veins. It is not a path endured by the timid.
I did try to show them such bits of interest as I could offer. The lake at the center of the village was poorly mapped due to its ever-changing water levels. By taking them to the top of the central island stone I did my best to teach them to draw the land and to expand their vocabulary by having them name all that they could see. This was, perhaps, mildly efficacious. Over the course of the winter the girls all managed to achieve speech in halting, simple Sairn, though they struggled with certain sounds. They did better with the script, having no other foundation to impede their progress as they mastered the alphabet without much trouble and seemed to find the act of drawing the letters on the wax amusing. Toward the end, having crafted a surplus of ink, I allowed them to play with its use in a sort of letters game that they seemed to enjoy. They were not able to write more than a few simple words and stock phrases, but this revealed that they had at least the potential to achieve proper literacy in time. Math went more variably. Though I was able to teach the numbers to all four, Mavu and Ostanu struggled with simple arithmetic when unable to count using their fingers. Navanul, who was the most broadly talented of the four and took swiftly to all manner of learning, did better, but it was Unura who possessed a truly astonishing innate understanding of the properties of numbers. Regrettably, her talent in this area was not matched by her linguistic ability. I believed she would make an excellent astronomer or apothecary, but at best a poor sorceress.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
My teaching sessions were twice per day, in the morning and evening, with Lady Indili taking the students outdoors in the best light of midday. It made for a tiring training schedule, especially as I often took the midday meal with Ludun-Mulun or various shamans and village elders who wished to hear stories of the Dragon Expedition and the Sanid Empire once my language skill progressed sufficiently to tell them. I had not expected such interest, and certainly these people had no desire to live under imperial law. Perhaps it was simply a fascination with a way of life different from anything they knew. The simple life of the Rutar, tied to their marshes, lacks any of the complex elements of court life or urban existence. Though life in a Sairn city is only marginally different from a Nikkad one, the Rutar had little knowledge even of those. Few had ever visited even the least fixed settlement.
Given such boundaries, Lady Indili’s choice to educate children was obvious. Older Rutar would never be able to adjust to the highly regimented and deeply esoteric life of the chapter house. I confess, I worried that, even if we succeeded, these girls would not retain any inclination to return home. Perhaps that would even be for the best. The existence of the Rutar is a strange, limited thing. Marshes resist human action. Crops will never be grown here, and flooding dooms any attempt to build permanent towns. I could not help but feel that this was a place where people should not live permanently, but only hunt and harvest from without, as is common of large wetlands in the Core Provinces. It is not as if Shdustu lacks the space to settle the thousands of Rutar elsewhere.
They would disagree, of course, but I see few options for advancement for those trapped in this waterlogged region. Sorcery would help them, at least, and knowing this I gave my best effort to teach the girls despite my lack of skill as an instructor. Lady Indili quietly confessed to me that the benefit of any direct action by a small group of sorcerers was likely to be minimal, but the influence of the chapter house would have great political benefits to these people. At the present neither the Kharal nor the Nikkad recognized the right of these people to their land, and regularly challenge their borders and sovereignty, something I was to witness in due course. The presence of such an honored institution would certainly elevate the prestige of the Rutar in the eyes of others, though I worried that this might trigger a violent response. Marshes are easily defended, but the hands available to that task were not numerous. If a khagan truly made it a point to press them, their ability to endure was questionable.
Teaching the basics of scholarship to the girls revealed the immense limitations imposed on those without a proper education to draw upon for reference in a manner no other experience could. It is not that others are lacking in knowledge. Rutar hunters understand the nature of the marsh to a depth that I will never acquire and read sign and birdsong to comprehend the motion of the land’s animals with profound mastery, but such understanding is intuitive, acquired through experience, and impossible to transmit to others without repeating a lifelong learning. Though the hunters might seek to pass their experience from father to son and mother to daughter, little instruction is possible, and the children must begin anew each generation acquiring experience through trial and error. In the early days of working with the girls I struggled mightily to provide a purpose to them as to why the subjects they must learn mattered. Living in a society without the written word, they did not comprehend its full potential. After much thought, I conceived of a demonstration that served to reveal its power. I had the girls compose a simple Rutar song, which I then recorded using simple notation and had them bring to Lady Indili. When she, having never heard it before, was able to sing the piece, they were stunned.
To truly wield divine essence requires considerable learning, a background to comprehending the specialized techniques that unlock the senses and reveal the unseen power that flows through the world on path of Divine cycles. Lady Indili spent much of her time with the girls teaching them the basics of this, the ability to feel beyond the physical and grasp the fundamental. It is a most difficult art, one not possible for most no matter how hard they try. Instruction involves truly intense focused examination in order to achieve the first total understanding of a simple object, and then to trigger the sight beyond. I recall these exercises, endless hours staring at a flame, or a water fountain, or a core of cracked bone, or the perfect shape of snail shell. All scholars practice such things, hoping to unlock the mystic’s path. Most, such as myself, do not succeed.
No one knows why this is so, from the most grizzled shaman to the most skilled sorcerer to the most devious wizard, there is only the long effort and the sudden epiphany. This can be attempted for years, and success may come early or late, though most mystics will succeed by fifteen and all by twenty. To my great surprise, Mavu accomplished this feat before winter’s end. She was only nine years old, and this achievement marked her out as a prodigy. While she struggled in my classes, she had a natural tenacity that could not go unnoticed, and Lady indili said her intuitive understanding of the flows and cycles of the world was incredibly advanced. While such a young breakthrough did not guarantee mastery of sorcery or any other art, it was certainly promising, and this won considerable support from the Rutar.