“I heard you came into your magic. I just saw what you can do,” Ricco said.
Quint looked at his father, who gave Quint a tiny head shake.
“When I learn a little more,” Quint said. “I’m taking instruction from Pogi at present. I’d rather learn a few strings and then show you something impressive.”
“As if you could impress me,” Ricco said in his typical self-important way.
“I’m not learning to impress you, and you asked.”
Ricco smiled. “I did, didn’t I? Well, I suppose you are on your way. I’ll check back with you in a few days,” he said, disappearing up the road past Zeppo’s wheelwright shop.
“That’s not good,” Zeppo said. “I never did trust that boy, and now the entire village will know you can cast fire. That was an awesome flame, my boy.”
Quint smiled. “It was, wasn’t it? But this is only the start, and maybe just the start of the beginning, for all I know.”
Pogi was impressed by Quint’s demonstration, although Quint could tell the wizard was trying to look calm. “Your father knows how to teach,” Pogi said.
Quint nodded. “He taught me the only string he is capable of weaving. You know more than him. Now that I’ve proven I can create a string, it’s time to learn a few more tricks.”
Pogi pursed his lips and then worked them as he thought. Quint could tell Pogi was stalling. The hedge wizard’s hesitant demeanor had destroyed his credibility, and Quint felt lost. Who could he trust? Not his brothers and sister. Not Ricco, and not Pogi.
A tiny stab of fear punctured him inside. Would this training end up being a disappointment? Quint feared it would, but he had no choice but to continue.
Pogi inhaled. “I suppose we can try two more simple threads. One is a levitation spell. It isn’t too powerful, but you can lift and transport a few pounds of material. The other is a heat string. Heat differs from a flame, the thread your father knows.”
“The levitation spell teaches you how to create the string and change the focus of the string on the object. That is lifting and carrying the floating object and setting it down.”
“That is an easy string?” Quint asked.
Pogi smiled in a self-satisfying way. “All strings are difficult except for the fire string that your father uses because it is caused by the disorganization.”
Quint leaned forward. “I’m ready to learn.”
The wizard drew two crude hands with fingers outstretched before sketching lines from two fingers on one hand, three from two fingers, and a thumb on the other.
“There are the tendrils for the string. You must get them to twist into a left-hand weave,” Pogi said drawing the direction the tendrils were to twist. “Do you really think you can do this?”
Quint shrugged. “I can give it a try.” Inside, he was more determined than he let on. He vowed to succeed.
Pogi smiled again and sat back, folding his arms. “Try.”
Quint first extended tendrils from each finger separately before making the pattern that Pogi had drawn. It was more complicated than he thought. The wizard was right; the fire spell was simple compared to this.
He finally got the right combination of tendrils and then put his hands closer together with the hands almost in a ball as he willed the tendrils to move toward a single point. With many tries, that was all he could do. He had difficulty keeping the threads twisted while he tried to get them to weave.
Pogi gave him no encouragement as he struggled for success. Patients came and went while Quint made his failed attempts.
Discouraged, Quint left the wizard’s hut and walked home. Pogi had drawn the diagram for heat. At dusk, he attempted to make the levitation string work but set that aside and examined the heat string. It seemed easier. There were three strings loosely woven. Not as loosely as the barely woven fire string.
Quint found it easier to manipulate the tendrils in a loose weave, and after six tries, he generated a tiny cloud of heat from his balled-up hands. The heat was warm but not hot. He put more power into the string, making the cloud wax and wane.
After trying unsuccessfully to move the cloud away from his hands, he let the string unravel and looked at the three strings. They were dimmer than when he started, but Quint applied more power, and the tendrils glowed brighter and twisted tighter, making a warmer cloud.
Quint thought that Pogi’s levitation spell wasn’t correct. Making this string after a few tries was easy, but the levitation string seemed impossible. He made the simple change of winding the teleportation weave in the opposite direction and the string felt right and produced a stable string. He concentrated on a small fallen branch at his feet and focused on making the string extend to touch the branch, and then he moved the branch off the ground with his will. Will seemed to be another significant component in making a string work.
He could move the branch about ten paces from him before the object fell to the ground. Quint stood over the fallen branch and reproduced the string. He concentrated on it being two feet in front of his chest as he walked around the yard.
“What are you doing?” his mother called from the front door to their cottage.
Quint turned around, and the distraction killed the string.
“Practicing what Pogi taught me,” Quint said.
He had to get a book on strings since he couldn’t trust Pogi to give him the correct information.
Chapter Thre
e
The next day, Ricci, Quint’s friend, showed up on his doorstep, offering to walk to the village with him.
Quint thought it strange, but Ricci was always a harmless distraction once you got through the hubite jokes that he occasionally told.
