Doreen sent Tapper ahead to find Jessica. He rushed through the forest back to the
school like a streak of light. She jogged as fast as she could, but knew she couldn’t keep
up with living water flowing from tree to tree.
She hoped that no one had done something bad while she was gone. Woody had done
a lot of damage to the psyche of the students and facility. What if they decided they
didn’t want to live any more?
She reached the wall, but couldn’t climb over it. She ran down its length until she got
to the open gate. She stepped on the cobbled walkway and headed for the stage.
She hoped the others could do what she did. She didn’t want to deal with the
disappointment if they couldn’t.
Tapper ran back to her. Then he ran back toward the fighting arena. She followed him,
looking for people she knew. Could she show them how to recall their totems?
Jessica waited for her at the entrance. She waved as Tapper streaked up her body to her
shoulder. She tried to smile.
She didn’t know how hard this would be for the others to do after the display Woody
had put on.
She had to try.
“Everybody,” shouted Doreen. “You can get your totems back. I just need you to calm
down and think. Just sit and close your eyes and think.”
“What do you mean, young lady,” said the Headmaster. He had been deep in
conversation with the other headmasters and the faculty about what they could do
without totems.
“I’ll show you,” said Doreen. “Jessica. I need you to trust me. Will you?”
“Yes,” said the other girl. “I would like to get Jaw back. He’s been my companion for
years.”
“You value him?,” asked Doreen. “This only works if you value him.”
“Yes, I do,” said Jessica.
“All right, sit down,” said Doreen. “We might need some kind of elemental persuasion
for some of these. I don’t know. But the stage is made out of stone so maybe it will give
some of it up if Jaw needs it for a body. Go ahead and sit down and close your eyes.
You’re going to have to think and ignore the crowd. You’re going to have to
concentrate.”
Jessica sat down. She closed her eyes.
“What do I need to concentrate on?,” asked Jessica. She folded her legs under her body.
“You have to concentrate on Jaw,” said Doreen. “You have to picture him in your mind.
You have to think about how he makes you feel. You have to reach down and call for
him. Just ignore everything else and just think about wanting him back.”
Jessica smiled as she thought about all the good times she had with Jaw. They had
explored every place around their home whether her parents liked it, or not. She thought
about how he used to help her steal cookies from the top shelf of the pantry despite
being heavy from being made of stone.
The stage warped in front of her. A paw emerged from the stone. Then a cat’s head. A
sleek body lifted the head higher on muscular legs. It pulled a long tail from the ground
and twitched it around. It rubbed against Jessica.
“Jaw!” Jessica hugged her cat around the neck as he rubbed against her. He lifted her
to her feet with a pull. “I thought I had lost you forever.”
“Did everybody see that?,” asked Doreen. “All you have to do is think about your
totems and want them back. They will come back. Just close your eyes and ignore any
other distractions.”
“Is Woody doing this?,” asked Jessica in a low voice. She rubbed her totem’s head
between his pointed ears.
“No,” said Doreen. “He left me a letter, but I didn’t understand it. Now I do.”
“I saw that he had something he wanted to give you before the tournament,” said
Jessica. “He was warning you about this?”
“It’s the nature of our totems,” said Doreen. “It’s the nature of what we are taught, but
don’t really know.”
A firebird blasted into existence in the sky. Soon other birds joined it. They ripped
around through the air to the joy of their partners on the ground.
“I don’t understand,” said Jessica.
“Let’s walk,” said Doreen. “Let’s go down to the lake. I still have some things to say to
Woody. Then I have to get ready to leave for a bit. I’ll explain what I realized on the
way.”
“All right,” said Jessica. “I love you, Jaw.”
The big cat rubbed against her leg gently.
“If you are having trouble with your totems, you might need to go to a quieter place to
think!,” said Doreen. “The ones who have summoned their totems, please move away
to give room to those who haven’t. I will be back to help anyone who hasn’t summoned
their totem.”
Doreen and Jessica started from the arena, totems in tow.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
“What did you discover?,” said Jessica.
“That Errant was telling the truth and our kingdom is built on a lie,” said Doreen. “And
so are our totems.”
“The stories about the Emperor and the Dai,” said Jessica.
“Those are true stories,” said Doreen. “And we are all really elementalists. We just use
our ability in a different way than they do.”
“I don’t understand,” said Jessica.
“The Emperor, I don’t want to say stole, but he saw how someone was using familiars
and decided he could do the same thing with his natural ability,” said Doreen. “He was
an elementalist like the Dai’s people at first. He created his first totem from that
training, and what he had seen across the ocean. It was something that no one here had
seen before.”
“So we could do other things than create our personal totem if we had training?,” said
Jessica. “That sounds farfetched.”
“I think they could create totems if they wanted to on the other side of the mountains,”
said Doreen. “I don’t think we can move the elements like they do because we don’t
have the right training. Everything is given over to creating the totem as part of our
training. We aren’t shown how to move things with our personal power.”
“So our totems are what?,” asked Jessica.
“They are skills,” said Doreen. She tightened her face. “They are things that we make
into our companions with our own abilities, and we pull them from the elements around
us. They aren’t given to us except as an expression of what we can do.”
“That’s not what is taught,” said Jessica.
“I know, and I don’t think you should tell anyone else,” said Doreen. “It will just cause
trouble. It’s better that only we know, and really I don’t think I should have told you,
but I wanted to explain why it was easy to summon our totems back.”
“The note,” said Jessica.
“Woody was cryptic,” said Doreen. She gestured with her hand. “But essentially he was
telling me not to worry but he didn’t want to reveal his plan ahead of time.”
“And the plan was to cheat by killing all the totems,” said Jessica.
“Except you can’t really kill the totems,” said Doreen. “That’s what the note was trying
to tell me, but I didn’t understand. The only way to permanently kill a totem is to kill
us. All those people whose totems were erased might have been able to get them back
if they had known what we know now. That the totems are us, and we are our totems.”
“But they didn’t know because we are taught once the totem is gone, it’s gone for
good,” said Jessica.
“Exactly,” said Doreen. “If they can be resummoned at any time, what punishment is it
to erase them?”
“Someone is talking,” said Jessica. “Woody?”
Doreen paused to listen. One of the voices did sound like Woody’s new voice. The other
sounded familiar. Maybe Errant had returned early. She hurried to catch him to report
his misbehaving beast.
She saw a flash of blue among the trees and started jogging. The blue became a suit of
clothes with a mop of hair on top. She frowned as she grabbed Tapper and threw him
across the space.
The squirrel whistled as he flew across that space and hit a tree next to Errant’s
head. He frowned at the distraction. Then he smiled when he saw Doreen running
toward him.
“Hello, Doreen,” said Errant. “Good arm.”
“I want to talk to you,” said Doreen. “Your dog made a mess of the tournament. He
cheated and destroyed all of our totems, even the faculty’s.”
“Really?,” said Errant. He glanced at the wooden dog who lay in the shade of
the tree. “All of them?”
“I simply dispelled them,” said Woody.
“I think you were supposed to fight them with your minimum power,” said Errant.
“Wait. Didn’t I tell you not to enter the tournament?”
“He went behind my back and signed up, and then when I tried to have him excluded,
he convinced the Headmaster to let him try,” said Doreen.
“That is a willful use of power that you know we shouldn’t be doing,” said Errant.
“We’re only supposed to be defending people. What was the plan?”
“No more erasing of the lesser familiars because of the fighting,” said Woody. “I expect
the next one will be better for the new students.”
“Laudable, but the method needed a little more work, don’t you think?,” said Errant.
“No,” said Woody. “It worked fine.”
“Unless they didn’t learn their lesson from having their familiars erased,” said
Errant. “Which they might not since Doreen and this other nice young lady have
their familiars with them, and they aren’t in charge of the proceedings.”
“It was a shock, sir,” said Jessica. “I expected better of you, Woody.”
“Let’s go talk to the Headmaster,” said Errant. “I think you should do some reparation
work here, Woody.”
“No,” howled Woody. “I don’t want to work.”
“You’re kidding me,” said Errant. “Let’s go. It’s pleasure to meet you, young lady. I’m
Errant.”
“Doreen said you knew the original Dai,” said Jessica. She noticed a wince, and knew
it was true.
“I knew him at the end of his life,” said Errant. “What do you think of Woody’s new
voice?”
“He sounds like a toddler,” said Doreen.
“He sounds younger,” said Jessica. “What are you trying to sound like, Woody?”
“A human man of my years,” said Woody. “Maybe I should adjust the treble.”
“Come along,” said Errant. “Let’s see how much damage you’ve done.”
He led the way back toward the Academy, hands in his pockets. He kept a running line
of chatter about everything they saw on the way. Woody made warm up singing noises
to adjust his voice as he walked along.
“Your friend is strange,” said Jessica. She petted Jaw as he walked by her side.
“He’s acting,” said Doreen. “He’s pretending to be friendly so we’re not scared of him.”
“Should we be?,” asked Jessica.
“Maybe,” said Doreen. Tapper expressed his own opinion with chatter and waving of
his arms.
Errant walked among the crowd still left in the arena. He said a few words here, and
there. Totems sprang to life easily as the people he talked to understood exactly what
he meant.
The Headmaster was still trying to activate his own totem when they arrived at the
stand. He glared at Woody.
“Look at what you have done!,” said the Headmaster. “I can’t believe you returned.
Have you no shame?”
“That’s my fault, sir,” said Errant. “Having trouble? It’s a little harder to imagine things
when you are older. Woody has decided to become a teacher on staff, and teach some
basic things to your students. Maybe some history. Something easy.”
“That’s correct,” said Woody. “Little too much bass.”
“Why would I want this monster to teach here?,” asked the Headmaster. “Look what he
has done.”
“I know he is a little rough around the edges, but look, he has taught himself how to talk
in a few days,” said Errant. “Think of what he could teach your kids. Look at it as
community service. And he will keep the school safe while he is here.”
The Headmaster waved at the chaos that still existed in the arena.
“And he will work for free,” said Errant. “You can’t get much better than free.”
“I won’t abide the erasing of familiars while I am here,” said Woody. “That is done.”
“I have to agree,” said Errant. “You shouldn’t be doing that to people, but Woody is an
excellent coach for lesser familiars.”
The Headmaster looked at the wooden dog. The wooden dog stared back.
“No cheating,” said the Headmaster.
“No cheating,” said Woody in agreement.
“Help me with my totem, and we will try a provisional period,” said the Headmaster.
“Thirty days. What can you do in that amount of time?”
“See Woody,” said Errant. He snapped his fingers and the Headmaster’s totem snapped
back into existence. “Being a little more pleasant is better in the long run.”
Doreen shook her head at what she just saw. She had an urge to run. Jessica hugged her
to keep her in place.