Visions of Foresta: Geomancer
Kaeli watched the purple-splotched bean sprout tilt slowly back and forth in a tiny breeze. She tried to think of it growing, flowering. She thought of the sunshine, of the rain, of the loam below. Then her father's face crept into her mind, and with it, visions of wandering the garden calling his name, of her mother doubled over the kitchen counter sobbing.
The sprout didn't respond to such images. It wasn't harmed by her feelings, but it remained a seedling, and the purple splotches remained.
Master Durante clicked his tongue, pacing the greenhouse with his satyr's hooves. "Kaeli. You have potential, more than anyone I've ever seen. But you'll never realize it if you keep smothering it in all that anger."
"The thing in the forest isn't helping!" Kaeli yelled, standing from the sprout and deliberately turning her back on it. "Nothing's been growing right since it got here. As far as we know, it could be the reason everything's diseased. You said we'd get rid of it."
"This blight has been in the forest since its birth. That creature has nothing to do with it." Beneath his shaggy, salt-and-pepper goatee, Durante smiled. He patted her head, then tapped the bean sprout. The purple splotches vanished beneath his fingers, returning to healthy green. "We will be rid of it. Not while you're distracted, though; that would be folly. You must learn patience as well as calm."
"Patience?" Kaeli said. "You sure don't have any room to talk about patience! For months now, you've been cutting council meetings short, hurrying through lessons, just so you can rush up to Focus Tower! What's so great about those old ruins, anyway?"
The satyr started. "You've... seen where I've gone?"
"I followed you the whole way last time you went! You were so obsessed with getting there, you didn't even see me!"
"Did you go inside?"
Kaeli's fury subsided, replaced with humiliation. "No, I... I got frightened."
Durante sighed, relieved. He knelt and took her by the shoulders. "That's good. You were right to be frightened. Now, listen to me; you mustn't ever go inside, not unless you're with me or your mother."
"But it's the only way to Aquaria."
"I know, and that's why if you're with a grown-up, it's all right. But what I'm going to tell you now, I've never told anyone, and you must not repeat it. I think there's something hidden in the tower. I believe the ruins extend much lower into the earth, and that there may be treasure there. Not riches. Magic. And it may be very, very dangerous."
"Like the monster in the forest?"
"Perhaps worse," Master Durante said. "The thing we find haunting our forests these days, while it shows a definite inclination towards mischief, is unformed. It has yet to decide whether it wants to be bad or good. The magic beneath Focus Tower, if it indeed exists, has had eons to perfect its malice. So you must never, ever go inside without permission. Do I have your word?"
"I promise," Kaeli said.
When her lesson was ended and her sprout healed but still in its infancy, Kaeli ambled slowly down the dirt road. She was tempted to pass by the forest and see if she could catch another glimpse of that new monster, but responsibility won out, and she started for home. She was halfway there when she heard her name.
Captain Mac was strolling along the street, carrying two parcels wrapped neatly in plain white paper, tied with string.
She dashed to him. "What are you doing here?"
"I wanted to pay your mum back for all her help. I saw you studying, and thought I'd stop to give you this."
He handed Kaeli the largest of the packages.
"I got you a present, too. You did get that fiend off my back, after all!"
Mac continued on his way, and Kaeli unwrapped the gift. Inside was a giant conch shell, eggy yellow on the outside, shimmering gold and violet inside. Wrapped around it was a note.
When I'm feeling down, nothing chases the blues away like listening to the waves crashing on the shore. With this shell, you'll be able to hear the sea, too, no matter where you are. Just put it to your ear. - Mac
Kaeli did. She was stunned by the rush of water. Slowly the gloom of the morning lifted. He was right; the waves did make her feel better.
Kaeli was too polite to ask her mother what Captain Mac had brought her, but she noticed a few days later that her mother was wearing a new silver-and-diamond necklace, and that she occasionally stopped work to read a much longer letter.
