Potential for Growth

Chapter 9: Potential for Growth

“Will they come looking for you, Edon?” I ask him the next morning. Planning is everything now.

“The other Deranged?” I nod in reply. “Probably not so soon after moving. But eventually, yeah, they’ll come looking.”

“Right. Before they come looking, I want us to find all of the wands you know of, Edon.”

He looks somewhat taken aback. “Why do you need all of them so soon?”

“Because it will be easier to train the other ‘Deranged’ if each of them can keep the wand they start with. Which means, I need to have those wands before we let them find us.”

This isn’t the complete truth—the truth is that the more wands I have, the more power I have, and with the uncertainty of my future, that’s what I need most right now: more power. Of course, some of those wands will have to be given to the potential wizards, but I’ll make sure those wands are the weakest of those we find. I trust Marinelle, and Edon to a lesser extent, but giving powerful wands to a group of new wizards who were Military seems foolish.

We spend the next several days searching abandoned camps for wands. In the evenings, I continue to train Nelle and Edon. Edon is still fighting the magic within him, but to a lesser extent than he was at first. Soon, he’ll give in to the magic’s call… and when he does, he’ll have learned to trust me as he now trusts Nelle. And Nelle—I was never a Magic Teacher, but she seems to have unusual potential. Spells come quickly to her. And, frankly, sometimes she’s the first to hear a new wand’s call.

Each abandoned camp we find looks the same: simple lean-tos against rocks or trees and always a wand tree growing in the middle of the camp. Sometimes the wands are quieter than others. One camp, the wand was calling out so softly that we nearly missed it.

With each new wand we find, I sense a growing connection to Liara. The more I connect with her, the more her power grows. I still do not dare to use her—Diago has become my main wand, now, as one of the strongest we’ve found—but there is no denying that her power will soon surpass any of the legally bonded wands I once owned.

After several days, we amass a collection of 20 wands. Few equal the power of Diago, but several come close. Many are as weak as Burago was; these will be ideal for giving away to the ‘Deranged.’ Before training one evening, I pull Nelle aside.

“You’re really doing well, you know,” I tell her encouragingly.

She beams in reply; she’s felt the magic course through her and is starting to feel her potential now.

“Have you noticed a pattern with the wands?” I ask Nelle.

While searching the abandoned camps, I noticed what might be a pattern revolving around Marinelle…

“I think so. The first camps we visited, those wands called the loudest.” She paused, and a crease of concentration crossed her brow. “Diago was loudest, then the next wand, then the next… Then the wands at my old camps began to call louder again.”

At her old camps! This means…

“It’s you, Marinelle! You’re a Wand Shepherd!”

Finding a Wand Shepherd—a Deranged Wand Shepherd—is beyond luck. I remember again the dancing wood we saw under our technoscopes as Military partners, trying to crack the source of Wizardry power. That wood, purchased illegally from a Raider named Yesaire, that wand, it had been reacting to Marinelle.

“A what?”

“You remember our last project as Military partners, when we were studying wands with technoscopes?”

“Of course; how could I forget!”

“What happened after I left?”

“Yesaire kept giving me more wands to study. Under the technoscope, they all seemed to be vibrating… I wrote that up, of course, in the lab reports… But no one else saw the vibrations… That’s why I was sent here.” Nostalgia seeps into her eyes, and then clarity. “That was the beginning, wasn’t it? When I became a wizard?”

“Yes. And you, you have a very special gift, Nelle. It’s rare, even among Wizardry. Wand Shepherds not only connect with wands faster than most wizards, they have the power to encourage wands to grow and awaken.”

She suddenly gasps with understanding. “Then those wands from the camps I lived in, they were louder because I lived there?” I nod. “And Diago was loudest because that camp was so close to my home?” I nod. “And the next two—Sya and Sanni—Sya was louder than Sanni because it was closer to my home?” I nod.

“There’s more, Marinelle. If we gather up all the wand trees we’ve found, plant them, and we set up camp nearby, they will produce more wands.” And more powerful wands, but she doesn’t need to know that.

“Let’s do it!”

“What about Edon, Nelle? Will he accept what we’re doing?”

She purses her lips and shakes her head. “Not yet… He’s still a little bit suspicious of you, you know. I’ve tried telling him he can trust you, but…”

“I’m a wizard.”

“Yes.”

“Okay, we won’t tell him for now, but we will need his help moving the trees.”

She nods, and we head back to the fire, where Edon was waiting for us.

“What’s up, Capella?” He searches my face, probably for any sign of guilt.

“We were just talking, Edon, about starting a wand tree grove. What do you think?”

“Why?”

“Well, wand trees…” Here I pause, trying to come up with an excuse he would accept. “They can amplify the magic of those who live near them.” There, a half-truth.

“So we make a wand tree grove, live near them, and all of us will have our magic amplified?”

“Yes.”

He still looks at me suspiciously, but Nelle pipes in.

“I think it’s a great idea, Edon. We could stop spending our time running around and finally settle down.” Nelle touches Edon’s arm affectionately, and he smiles down at her almost reluctantly.

“And what about the other ‘Deranged,’ Capella? They’ll find us soon enough; I’m sure they’ve started searching for me by now.”

A small smile escapes from my lips.

“Then we’ll let them find us.”