The squat stone totem smiled vacantly in the late morning sun. Its carved face was minimal, a few simple lines indicating the contented figure’s nose, eyes, and mouth. On its body, partly obscured by tall clovers, were a few notes about the road it watched.

The totem silently informed me Eiden was about two days away, Amaranza only one, and that the rest stop we found ourselves in was the Northern Plains – Green River Way Station.

This was the furthest west I’d ever been. The monolithic volcano, Dur Tolo, seemed to scrape the clouds, and we were close enough I could make out its jagged cliffs and sheer walls. From Eiden, Dur Tolo’s features were so obscured by distance that it was little more than a pale silhouette against the horizon.

“Well, we’re close,” I called.

Behind me, Boro coaxed Pesha over the bridge spanning the Green River. “Yep! We’ll reach the city by sundown.”

“Maybe you’ll catch the festival from the road, Boro,” Elani said. She hunkered down on the nearby riverbank, studying the goings-on of its shallows. Even relaxed, she looked like a predator waiting in ambush.

Pesha nudged me in my ribs as Boro came to inspect the statuette.

“I think I’ll walk for a bit,” I told Boro. “It’ll give Pesha a break from carrying me across half the island.”

“She gets a break either way! Yep, we’re stopping here. Good spot for a wash and some lunch.

I left Elani and Boro to their work and followed the river north to find a spot to bathe. When I was far enough away, I stripped down to my underclothes, found a clean, round river stone, and waded into the cool water. To my surprise, the water spirits swimming or hovering nearby didn’t startle.

A few narrow, streamer-like spirits darted about my legs and between the long stalks of floating, clover-like lily pads. The deep blue glow of them made the clear water look like it rippled with shadows. I watched them for a while, grinning, before I remembered the stone in my hand.

I swam further into the river until I no longer kicked up silt from my passing or tangled my hands in plants. Blue kavi swam by, now following the water’s slow current like gold kavi follow the wind. Sparkling fish accompanied them in small schools, illuminated by the spirits’ blue glow.

I scoured myself with the stone with little thought behind my actions. My eyes were drawn to the water as if caught in a whirlpool. Cerulean spirits swam or floated everywhere I looked, dozens of them, in the deeper currents of the Green River.

“See a river-dragon down there?” Elani called, startling me. She had set her clothes beside mine and bound her hair back, but had waded no further than the shallows.

“No, come look at this!”

Sun glinted from the surface like a layer of crystal, forcing me to squint. I couldn’t see even a single flash of scales, let alone the sapphire glow of the water spirits.

Elani’s voice was hesitant with curiosity as she asked what I was looking at. For a moment I wondered if her presence had somehow scared the kavi away. Could kavi sense when someone might want to capture them?

I sunk beneath the surface, cutting off Elani’s next question. I blinked, trying to see through murky water that had seemed so clear moments ago. I saw a single green kavi in one of the forests of underwater plants, and the schools of fish were more noticeable as shadows in the distance lit by sun from above, but the countless water spirits had all but vanished.

My sickened lungs protested the exertion of holding my breath, so I re-emerged and paddled back to shore. Elani watched from the shallows, an eyebrow arched as she cupped water over her legs. Beads of water glistened on the thin fur of her arms like dew in the grass.

I shook my head. “It’s gone now.”

“What was? A fish?”

“Water spirits, swimming along with the current. There must have been a hundred of them. It was beautiful, the water was practically glowing and I could see schools of fish.”

Elani looked out past the floating plants. “There’s two,” she said, pointing out the blue kavi.

I snorted. “Well, whatever was going on, it’s over now. Hey, do you have any soap?”

~*~

“I think I’ve known, maybe…” Elani put a finger to the tip of a fang, looking suddenly half her age. “Four. Four other people named Ren.”

“Four? The only other one I’ve met was a girl that stopped at our inn for the night.”

“It’s a good name. Short and simple, nice meaning. And it has that –en thing your Tribe likes so much.”

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

“I think that’s dying out, anyway,” I said. “People that believe in the Church of En still do it, but I think they’re the last.” Auntie Jeni was, of course, the first example that came to my mind, and her daughter Adena.

“Maybe if you ever take over your Tribe’s crown, you can call yourselves ‘Renlings.’”

Boro laughed from his perch atop the driver’s bench, but I just rolled my eyes.

“Does it get confusing? Hearing so many names and words that sound like your name? Like, ‘look at the sky!’ and then you go, ‘who, me?’” Elani pantomimed the skit, just in case the meaning was lost.

“Sometimes,” I answered honestly. “Anyway, I was named after my mom’s hometown.”

“Where’s she from, then?” Boro called.

“Renda’vel. My parents met there, then moved to Eiden to have me. You would not believe how happy my mom was to discover the godstone atop our little mountain was called ren.”

“City of Wind!” Boro exclaimed. “Yep, went there once. Breathtaking! On account of the wind, mostly, but the view from the top of the karst towers is just… wow!”

“I don’t think my mother has lived anywhere else but the place she was born,” Elani mused. “My father showed up, swept her off her feet – apparently – and then he left again for work.”

“What’s he do?” I asked.

“Spirit trade. He’s an enchanter, based in the capitol.”

“Think he can enchant this wagon to ride a little lighter for poor Pesha?” Boro asked.

Elani assessed the buckwagon with a critical eye. “Probably. A couple sky kavi bound to the bed here – easy. Assuming the spirit tax doesn’t hike up again.”

“Is that why you’re traveling back west?” I asked, changing the topic. “Back home?”

Elani grimaced. “More or less. I try not to linger at either house. I meant to stay at my father’s shop longer, but…” she searched about with her hands for the right word, then signed complicated and looked away.

“Well,” I tried, “there’s the Festival of Lights, at least.”

Boro twisted around and tossed me a wink.

“I might’ve stayed in the capitol for it, but,” Elani brightened, then leaned back and slapped Boro against his shell-like back, “how could I give up a ride with ol’ Boro?”

“Nothing like conversation to make the miles fall away! Yep, she rides free so long as she has something to talk about. Not even an enchanted wagon could make the ride as pleasant!”

Elani held up the journal resting in her lap and slapped it meaningfully. “The island is full of secrets.”

“So, you’re kind of following after the Cartographer, then?” My mother had gifted me one of the famous explorer’s books, a manual on the flora and fauna of the island, and before the week was over I’d mapped out our entire garden and catalogued every tree, shrub, bird, and insect I had found.

Elani’s ears flattened slightly in embarrassment. “Insofar as northern Eletha and Lorelai count, maybe.”

“She knows every plant between the Omi River and the Elen,” Boro said, “and most of the birds and other… um…” I couldn’t see his hands, but I knew he was searching about for the word he wanted.

“Vertebrates?” I guessed.

“Yep! Dromo’s dust, I miss knowing such things. I used to know the name of every crab on Kol Viri. Now I’d need an hour to name ten. Comes with getting older, I guess. You forget all the random things you used to love.”

“I started with plants and animals,” Elani explained, gesturing with the journal, “but once I was old enough to start visiting my father and see all the spirits he worked with … it was like I’d found my calling.”

“Well, to be honest… I think this spirit would be better left in your care, anyway,” I said slowly. I hadn’t planned to say it, but now that the idea was out, some of the dark clouds in the back of my mind faded into bright sky.

Elani’s ears twitched. “What are you saying?”

“I just… well, I don’t know anything about magic or spirits. I liked not needing to think about whatever the Stranger and his Followers were up to. I don’t want to worry about any of this. I need medicine, and I need to go home.

“So, if you’d help me out just a little longer, I’d be relieved to transfer the spirit to you.” I waited as Elani’s eyes jittered between mine, my posture tense with anticipation of the possibility that she might turn it down.

“You’re serious?” she said at last.

I nodded. Serious, I signed.

“We’re almost to Amaranza, my friends,” Boro said.

I sniffed at the air and caught the faint scent of water from Amaranza’s Lake Natoro. I inhaled deeper, savoring the change, then stopped short as a blunt nail of pain jabbed into my chest.

“At least I won’t have to worry about you dying of spellplague anymore,” Elani muttered.

“Trust me. That’s nothing.”

~*~

“You’re sure you don’t want to stay?” Elani asked Boro.

He shook his head. Better not. Apologies, he signed, and said simultaneously, “home awaits. Yep. It was an honor to meet you, young Ren. An honor! And to see a purple spirit first-hand – wow.”

“Do me a favor,” I said, smiling, “don’t brag to anyone about that just yet. I’m not ready for anyone to know, I think.”

He gestured to the sword strapped to the small of my back. “When are we ever ready for life’s biggest changest?” When it is time, you will be ready.

“Thanks, Boro. And thank you for the ride. I would pay you, but I –”

Boro flapped all four hands in a placating gesture. “No chance. Like I said, it was an honor. A purple spirit – and maybe the famous young boy who found it, when word gets out!”

“Let’s hope it doesn’t,” Elani said grimly. “It was good to see you again.”

The setting sun stretched Boro’s long shadow toward us as his wagon rolled ponderously away.