4. Memorization and learning

For a week now there has been an unhealthy excitement around me. I think I am far ahead of my peers in development and this is why there has been such a mess. Moreover, what happened the day after my birth is a pitiful semblance of what is happening now. On the sixth day there was a visit, apparently from the local ruler, although I may be mistaken.

That day my room was given an extra makeover and cleaning. My legs got a little stronger, and I was already looking out from behind the edge of the crib with more confidence, holding on to the bars with both hands. The black maid fed me from a bottle, changed my diaper (when will I grow up!!!) and, putting on some kind of baby blouse, ran away, obviously so as not to be an eyesore.

The guards were all additionally hung with various trinkets, amulets and medallions. I also noticed that many of the decorations and even weapons were also entwined with multi-colored energy lines. It's a pity that the guards weren't allowed to take me in their arms, otherwise the first thing I would have reached out my hands to would have been their weapons. Oh well – my mother was also hung with various goods, like a Christmas tree. What was her super-revealing dress worth, frankly speaking, more like a mixture of what I saw on Ehayalin, plus a swimsuit with short, elegant boots on her feet. Her hair was loose, and it seemed that its volume was greater than the volume of her body. I hope that my mother will take me in her arms, and I will be able to steal some magical trinket. I just need to guess the moment. Well, that's a matter of technique. Among the strange medallions, releasing slightly swaying energy tentacles into the surrounding space, a sign in the form of an azure crescent moon, located horizontally with its ends down, stood out especially; from the back of the crescent moon, a narrow black rectangle seemed to grow, by which it was attached through a ring to a black chain. The sign was quite large, probably the size of my two palms. Looking again at my relatives, I discovered many such signs on them: earrings, clasps, crossguards of swords, sabers and daggers, pommels on weapons, embroidery on elements of clothing. This sign was even etched on the polished wavy blades of the combat scythes of my guards, frozen like motionless idols in the twilight light of the lamps. What can I say about my blouse? My father appeared somewhere on the horizon, exchanged a couple of almost ritual phrases and, propping up the wall, began to control the room. He is strange, and his position in the family is strange. And his weapons are better, and his clothes are more practical. It seems that he is a ferret among cats - all together they will tear him apart, but one on one you shouldn't even think about luck. Mom, having checked the room, left with a kahal of relatives, but after about fifteen minutes (as soon as the room was empty, I sat down, and when I heard an approaching noise, I got up again) she returned, accompanying an imperious silver-haired woman, dressed in a beautiful dress, similar to a Chinese dress with a slit. Her hair was gathered into a long (about knee-length) thick braid, decorated with various hairpins and pins. There was little jewelry, but this, on the contrary, made a good impression. She was wearing light, Greek-style sandals.

The guards sucked in their stomachs and stuck out their chests at the sight of her. The woman glanced at them indifferently and came up to me, accompanied by her mother. Suddenly I realized that the room had become absolutely quiet – no one was talking or even moving. The woman leaned over. I looked into her eyes and realized that there was flame splashing in her eyes. It seemed as if she was looking into the red flame and it was reflected in her eyes. It seemed to me that I was being drawn into a fiery abyss, but there was no fear or pain. There was only warmth and something like… interest? I wanted to play with fire, and intuitively I understood how to influence it. I began to bend the giant tongues of flame, gathering them into one bundle. The tongues of flame somehow tried to behave willfully and straighten, but I did not allow them to do so, and their resistance came to naught. I felt approval and strength inside me. But it seemed to me that the flame was somehow weak... And what if... Yielding to impulse, I splashed all my strength, like a bucket of kerosene, into the giant pillar of fire. The next moment I returned to the real world. The first thing I saw was the guest falling backwards and my mother catching her. The black servants immediately brought a chair, and my mother sat the guest down on it. My mother was creating something like the green spell I had already seen, but the guest stopped her, saying something. And she looked at me with interest again. There was no fire in her eyes. A second later, she shook her head, stood up, looked around at her relatives with a smile and said something, pointing at me (I hope it wasn't "sekir bashka, allah akbar"), and, having briefly spoken with my mother, left. It seemed to me that before leaving she glanced at me, and a slight regret flashed in her gaze. I wonder what this could be for?

The relatives, led by my mother, tumbled out after her. I looked around with displeasure - what about the handles, what about the magic trinket? However, I noticed my father standing near the crib in his traditional harness with daggers and swords. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that the guards were watching him tensely. Why? He leaned over, examining something in my eyes. I, without taking my eyes off, carefully took hold of the handle of the throwing knife and pulled it towards me. What? It was my own fault. Whatever fell into my greedy hands was mine. The knife unexpectedly easily came out of the sheath, but I could not hold on to it, and it clanged deafeningly on the floor. I was afraid that the guards would now twist my father, but the girls saw everything and grinned when my father looked at the floor in surprise. With a chuckle, my father took the knife and left the room. Nothing else unusual happened that day, and after the maid fed and changed me, I fell asleep.

After the visit of the high-ranking guest, everyone calmed down, and the gray everyday life dragged on. When I took my first steps, everyone accepted this fact as something natural. My mother rarely dropped in - at least every day for two minutes. To be honest, I missed her and looked forward to her visit every day. Relatives came even less often, but thanks to the fact that there were a lot of them, there was not a day without a visit. Sometimes tall, white-skinned, stately men and women came, accompanied by my mother. I think these were distant relatives or my mother's older children who did not live in the house.

Out of boredom, I started trying to work with my power. There were certain problems with this. The most important ones were: I didn't know where to start, where to look, and how to work with it. All I knew about the principles of meditation was that they existed. I started going through the memories of those moments when those around me cast spells. So far, there had only been two such moments. And in the case of my mother, the spell was unfinished. Maybe the key was hidden in a strange incident with an unusual guest?

A month later, when I started to get out of the nursery, the servants started to sit with me constantly so that I wouldn't fall out. And a couple of days later, my mother took me by the hand and led me out of the nursery for a walk around the house.

The architecture was simply amazing. There are no words to describe what I saw from the balcony in the courtyard.

First of all. There was no sky above! There was a stone vault. It was, in my opinion, about three or four hundred meters away. Giant stalactites descended from the ceiling, smoothly turning into stalagmites. As far as I remember, such formations were called stalagnates. All such formations, as far as the eye could see, were inhabited - this was indicated by the illuminated windows and hewn spiral staircases. I did not stand on the balcony with my mother for long - she let me enjoy the view and led me down the stairs. I was not ready for such long walks, in addition, the steps were too steep for me. Seeing this, a maid took me in her arms and, accompanied by two soldiers who emerged from a hidden niche, descended eight flights. Turning the corner, we found ourselves on an internal training ground. The ground was in the shape of an elongated rhombus, approximately two hundred and fifty meters long and - I turned my head - about half that distance wide. Two meters away from me the stone floor ended and, making a step that was not high even for me, the sand began. At the far end of the platform two pairs of half-naked men were fiercely swinging their swords. They were being watched by a group of warriors in leather armor and several men in cloaks with deep hoods. One of them turned his back to us, and I managed to make out the sign of our house on the grayish background of the cloak. Suddenly one pair broke, and the warrior who was on the right fell to his knee, pressing his right hand to his side. One of the "cloaks" approached him, bent down and began to move his hands over the wound. Even from here you could see the red-black blood flowing. Probably, they did not know about such a concept as training swords here. However, if magic is highly developed in this world (and with a sufficient number of these magicians), then there really is no need for them. And indeed, when a minute later the warrior who got up wiped the blood from his body with a rag, the wound was no longer visible. I, having unhooked myself from the servant, my bare feet slapping on the warm floor, carefully (don't let Ehayalin fall!) approached the landing and knelt down. I began to rake the sand with my right hand, but it didn't last long - my hand again rested on the stone. My guess was confirmed - the sand was imported. I took a little in my hand and sprinkled it on the step. A couple of seconds later the sand, I managed to see how the spell worked, was pulled back into the yard. Now it is clear why the sand was not spread throughout the entire house. The sand and the sidewalk were saturated with energy of different colors. The gray energy of the sand, interacting with the brown energy of the "sidewalk", was repelled, dragging the material sand along with it. Looking back at my mother, I saw an expression of pride and approval on her face. With this my first walk came to an end. The maid picked me up in her arms and without incident carried me to the nursery, where, after eating, I fell asleep.

From that day on, I was taken out for walks every day. I sometimes saw soldiers training at the training ground, and once I even caught women training. I finally figured out the purpose of the strange weapon on my belt. It turned out to be a composite whip. It consisted of very sharp plates, similar in shape to arrowheads. The whip was not only a medium-range weapon, but also a long-range one. In this version of use, during a sharp blow, the last link was magically disconnected and rushed towards the target by the force of inertia. The line of tall, proportionally muscular, white-haired female warriors, dressed in black leather armor that covered their entire bodies (even their faces had black masks with narrow and long eye slits), was impressive. I began to call them "priestesses." They were commanded by an elusively familiar black-haired woman in a white mask with black signs. Obviously, this was one of my sisters. The commander walked back and forth along the line, loudly barked some command (the priestesses formed two columns in a single movement) and, continuing to bark something, left the courtyard-parade ground at the head of the detachment. Well, yeah. I wish I could grow up sooner – I want to go on a mission too, and have blood up to my knees.

I try to sleep during the day before my walk, and at night, when no one is watching or distracting me, I work on a spell I once saw. Although it can't be called "work." I called the spell Healing. When the guard cast it, bright green bundles resembling ionized gas literally burst from her fingers. After hanging for a few moments, this ball of tangled glowing wire almost immediately gathered into something like the same bright green glowing web, fell on my mother and was immediately absorbed into her skin. There is only one question. How did the guard summon her power? Once, I managed to reach the glowing branches above the crib with my fingers, but I didn't feel anything. Probably, I shouldn't have. Another two months passed like this.

After much thought, I decided that if I see magical constructs best only when I am maximally relaxed, then I should also feel the power within myself at the same time.

Meanwhile, my life went on as usual. The black maid, after consulting (precisely consulting, not receiving an order) with my mother, taught me how to use the local equivalent of a toilet. Which made me both happy and sad. Sad because they took away my only clothes - my own diaper, leaving me naked. In addition, I was transferred from the nursery that had become my home to separate rooms. They seemed huge to me then and consisted of a small dormitory, a bedroom and a bathroom with a large bathtub. The room then seemed like a mansion to me, and the bed - a football field. The maid also taught me how to use the bathtub. The principle of the taps was similar to my native one, but there was no mixer. One tap turned on ice water, and the other - boiling water. Naturally, there was no shower with such a system. Strange, a mixer is supposedly a simple thing. However, everything ingenious is simple ...

The maid stayed overnight to sleep on a narrow sofa in the guest house. And when I was lonely at night, I crawled under her side, snuggling up to her warm naked body. By the way, the dark ones had the same body structure as me. They differed only in skin color, well, and face with ears. Waking up in the morning, she carried me to my bed and covered me up.

After thinking about it and observing the people around me, I realized that the blacks were devoted to my family like dogs. If the grays could even argue with their mother, the blacks meekly carried out any order or her decision.

Once I got confused, I stopped counting the days. What's the point? Someday, will they tell me my age?

After about four months of monotonous life in my chambers, I finally managed to feel my power. It happened when I was falling asleep next to a maid. Plunging into the darkness that replaced sleep for me, I simply felt it. As if I began to feel the outline of the sword through a foggy veil. But I did not have time to realize it and fell asleep.

The mood in the morning was even more bitter. But from this I drew two conclusions: I have strength and perhaps with training and age it will become accessible.

Weeks passed. The feeling of power repeated itself more and more often, until I began to feel it constantly before going to sleep. The vision of the lines of force was now with me constantly and did not stop, even when I was actively moving. I saw my mother less and less often.

During my walks, the maid did not let me go anywhere from the sandy courtyard. Sitting on the sidewalk, I watched the black soldiers, who seemed to be always hurrying somewhere and also always training. And I never saw my father or any of my relatives here. They probably trained somewhere else, just like the priestesses and magicians. From time to time, flocks of gray and black children ran past, but I did not see anyone like me among them. Obviously, such games will also pass me by. How I sometimes want to be wrong in my conclusions... Probably, because of my age, they do not teach me language and literacy, but I think this will begin soon. I raised my eyes higher, looking over the roofs into the distance. Sometimes something flew between the stalactite-palaces. Behind me towered a monstrous column of the house, overwhelming with its grandeur. Sometimes I saw strange winged creatures living on the ceiling and at the base of the stalactite itself. And once I even saw coal eyes looking down at me. What size was the creature hiding in the darkness? Because of this, I often sat with my back to the house.

It was calm, a sense of peace descended upon me. I wasn't even bothered by the scurrying servants, the screaming kids, and the soldiers training in full contact. I closed my eyes and felt my power… It felt like a frozen cloud of translucent crimson flame. I stretch my hand towards it – it reaches out to me and, having reached me, flows into me through the fingers of my right hand, but not all the way – about a third remains hanging… A frightened cry from the maid is heard from behind me. If only she wouldn't break my concentration… I open my eyes. I am calm. I am calm… The same orange flame from before hangs above my palm. I move my fingers slightly – the flame seems to be trying to repeat my movements. "You are a part of me." The flame slightly agitates in response. "You belong to me…" The flame instantly soars five meters, swells and hangs as a weightless glowing fog. I am filled with pride and joy. This is how a puppy is happy, walking next to its owner. These are not my emotions. I look up - the flame suddenly thickens and turns into a flaming bird. The bird hangs in the air, spreading its rather large wings. It lowers its head to my face. I do not feel the heat - only warmth. I run my hand over the hard beak and soft feathers of the head and neck. The bird likes it, but the next second it looks discontentedly behind my back, makes a squawking cry, similar to the loud cry of a turkey, and very quickly pulls itself into my palm, leaving a feeling of heat and power. I turn around and see a frightened older sister. We have arrived.