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publish date:
2025-12-08 00:43:12
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Foundling 11 Predator and Prey
“. . . how long have you been at this?”“Off and on for several months . . . , furrows broke his brow and his dimples deepened, “. . . maybe on near six months. Not every day, but near so twice a week around my duties.”“There is little time, except for duty, now-a-days.”“Now-a-days.” Kim abruptly stood, impatiently brushing the pine needles from her skirts. She stretched out her hand to pull him up after her. “Do you think it’s not time to see if the bow can meet its task?”He studied that hand, unblemished, unworked, long, slender fingers, deeply grooved palm. He hesitated to stain it with his. What could he object to? Had he not done all this, cured the ailment in him as well as in the bow. Was he not ready for this? All to their time comes a testing. It was a thing his mother spoke to him, but did not share.Immediately! ki began to sing along Hunter’s hand, up his wrist, like goosebumps but stronger, dissipating halfway up his forearm.“Still have not mastered the first.”Hunte
Foundling 10 Mother's Bow
Upon his initial arrival at the valley, Hunter was surprised at how few people were there, but as time went by, voices began to fill the area. Those that came their way waived or smiled, and Hunter gave a nod of recognition while Kim smiled in return. Hunter recognized most but there were quite a few he did not.The little time he had been here many new students had been admitted, with only one among them being a novice to the ranks of Magi. Many of the disparities in classrooms Hunter had come to learn was the result of the separation between general knowledge being taught and those classes teaching the skills a novice Magi would need.The idea of teaching students, other than those aspiring to Magi was a novel one, but one that Master Giles was adamant about implementing. Hunter had heard the grumbling, the discontent from some of the Masters and, also, the approbation from others—the majority. It was explained to Hunter (by Poe) that it was a way to become entrenched with the commo
Foundling Mother's Bow
Alone in the room the others had fled to relieve their restlessness, though he was no less restless than they, Hunter fingered the bow, one of the last remnants, along with the blood pearl necklace, of his mother, a life formerly lived. The necklace could manage itself, not so the bow.Ranging its surface with the slightest of strokes, memories, and a cascade of emotions, flowed into him from the yew. The deaths his mother had wrought to feed and clothe them, to protect and honor them, resided there. The woodsmoke from the hearth, the pain of her departure and the rage he could not control resulting from that, resided there. Sorrow resided there. A myriad of emotions and memories resided there. He drew comfort from them to deaden the pain of loss that had dimmed over time, but which could not be deadened. He found comfort in that too because he realized that as long as he had the bow he could always recapture those feelings.While recalled to mind, the memories and emotions roused gav
Foundling 8 Secrets (2)
“Secrets best kept are not those widely known.”“Neither are conspiracies.”“Conspiracies for whose sake?”“For us all.”“What is the old axiom? ‘Power is only power when it is used.”The Magister gave a slash of his robed arm, scoffing at the notion of such naivete, contemptuous of it.“What should be undone? It was you that discovered them both. You are bound to this far more deeply than I. Are you not at the center of this power you speak of. That must not be used.”Another discussion between them unresolved, never to be resolved. Poe did not believe in happenstance, found it too untidy to be at play, and what he had experienced was not happenstance that was eating at him, draining him almost from the start.Another secret that could not be told, nor known by any.“That is not what I said.”The Magister, with a preemptive motion rose from where they were sitting and went to one of the cabinets on the wall. Poe felt a twinge of anticipation lighten the gloominess of his mood.A beau
Foundling 8 Secrets
Poe and the Magister were relaxing in the Magister’s room. A fire roared, and sparks flew from sizzling sap popping in the heat, the scent of pine and honeycomb pervading the room. A road table was between them on which rested two earthenware chalices, cup stained and aged by years of use, filled with mulled wine warmed by iron spikes resting in the flame. The Magister liked it so, the scent of pine and honeycomb. “He seems to be acclimating himself fairly well,” the Magister said into the gap of silence that did not want to be filled and for which the Magister found some bit of regret even as he spoke. But the conversation needed to be had, and things needed to be said. To distract himself, he reached forward to pull one of the spikes from the flame and quench it in his cup which hissed and steamed in protest. Poe pulled a draw on his pipe to swell the lungs and fire the chest and brain from the rush to the head and exhaled a vaporous plume tha
Foundling 7 Vital Essence
That took some getting used, but before long he was able to impel himself through the water and Kim had to step back a little more briskly.They both laughed and beamed at his accomplishment until Kim abruptly relinquished his hands. Hunter floundered, smacking and clawing at the water. As his head dipped below the surface, he went to plant his feet where normally would been lake bottom . . . and nothing. Panicking, gulping air and then water, he felt Kim’s hands close on his wrists like a vice. Pulling him headfirst, she yanked him from the water. “Relax,” she soothingly said. “You can still stand up.” She demonstrated by tapping her instep to the bottom of his foot which followed hers to the lake bottom.He had not noticed where the water had been waist high, it was now chest high.“It’s when you fight it that it takes you under,” she said when he calmed. “Don’t fight it. Use your own motion to ride the water’s surface.”She took to sliding him, curving him into spins, creating sha
Foundling 24 Leave Taking (2)
A blush of anticipation imbued his flesh, and eagerness quickened his blood. No, he would not retreat. They split up, so as not to be one target, and, because, Hunter could move faster on foot than he could riding Tete. Hunter moved up over the ridge, leeward of any current that could carry his s
Foundling 24 Leave Taking (1)
Hunter and Tete sat on a sparse patch of grass speckled with pebbles and red dirt. The freshness of unspoiled air and the heat from the sun soothed his bruised body, and the wide-open spaces, the measure of earth, and the honking geese flying in formation livened his spirit. Strewn beside a tawny-h
Foundling 22 Town (1)
Bottom End began as a simple way station for the constant flow of settlers having scrimped and saved whatever they could to make the journey to the New Land. Over the succeeding years and decades, with the extension and expansion of the road to the emerging settlements and farms and ranches, had com
Foundling 24 Leave Taking (3)
Lamps were lit by the time Hunter returned. He walked the footpaths to the Inn on the other side of the city from the gate he entered. Invisible to the few passersby who he came upon. As he moved by the row houses, he could hear laughter or music coming from some. The revelry sparked his curiosity,
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