《How to Knit》 Chapter 1: The Scryer of Greenwyn Bright magic flared in the bottom of the bowl. Alex leaned closer, holding the spell steady. He channelled Will through his hands, letting the power run through him steadily but without rushing. It was too easy to let power move too fast at a moment like this. The body got excited, the mind followed, and before you could say, ¡°Crystal Ball,¡± your spell had broken, and you had nothing to show for it but a headache and a sterile bowl of cloud water. Not this time. This time, Alex made sure of his grip on the Foreshadow spell before he increased his focus on the vision. Will moved through him, the feeling of power and life surging in him as he channelled the magic. The yellow light of the spell flickered like a candle flame, then grew steady. The flow of Will steadied and became constant. His own heart slowed. It was time. He let his eyes focus on the water in the bowl. The clouds of white that had filled the water were dispersing, and Alex could see an image revealed on the flat bottom of the silver bowl. The scene was beautifully detailed, a gorgeous little picture, impossibly crisp and bright. He saw a shop front on a busy street in the middle of the day. Sunlight shone on the clean windows and the white stone of the building. A heavy door of dark brown wood stood slightly ajar, and inside, a young man was showing three customers his wares. What was he selling? Carefully, Alex increased the focus of the vision, allowing more Will to flow from his core into the scrying spell. He had to be very careful here, not allowing the Will to flood the spell, because the closer he looked at the vision, the more fine became the balance required to maintain the effect. A part of himself was aware that he was breathing heavily, as if he¡¯d just run a race. He made an effort to close his mouth and calm his breath, inhaling and exhaling steadily through his nose so that the force of his breath didn¡¯t disturb the water of his spell. Now, what are you selling? he thought. He succeeded in magnifying the vision in the bowl to the point where the window of the shop in the vision almost filled his view. As he watched, the young man in the picture turned to the window, apparently to better allow the light from the day outside to fall on his wares. Alex saw the young man¡¯s face. His own face. It was strange to see himself like this. Looking at a mirror is not the same as looking at oneself from outside. He did not look too bad. His thick mop of brown hair was untidy as always. His clean-shaven face was more round than angular, and that gave him a cheerful, youthful look. It made him look more innocent than he was. With a smile and a glow of satisfaction, Alex saw what it was that the version of himself in the vision was selling to the customer. He laughed, quietly. Unexpected, but not a bad idea when you considered it. Knitted goods. The image of himself in the vision was showing the customer a scarf of dark red wool, decorated with a twisting pattern of knotwork knitted into the weave. Knitting. An innocent trade, and a valuable one here in Greenwyn City, where the rain fell more often than the sun shone, and the cold winds rolled down from Hammer Mountain to chill the citizens and make them lock their doors tight and wrap up warm even in what passed for summer. Knitting. Not a skill Alex could claim, but one he could acquire. He gazed at the vision a while longer. The version of himself he watched in his vision seemed to be doing well. The shop sold a wide variety of goods, thick and warm and done in bright, cheerful colours. As he watched the vision, he saw himself closing several sales, and the customers who left the shop did so with pleased smiles on their faces. The sun shone on the front of the shop, and from what he could see of the street and the stone sides of the shop, he was looking into a sunny day in Greenwyn. Those were rare, he mused, at least outside of the middle of summer. So, his scrying spell was showing him a vision of something that took place sometime distant. Outside, today, it was the end of a long winter, and Greenwyn City would not see days like the one in the vision bowl for at least another three months, possibly four. He tried to pull away from the shop in the vision, to get a view of the surrounds, and to try and work out the location of the shop, but in vain. The vision pulled out to the original magnification, then remained stubbornly in place. Ah, well. It was definitely Greenwyn City - there was no mistaking that white stone, so ubiquitous in the sprawling centre of town - but where exactly, he could get no clue. Alex felt his Will flow becoming strained. It was a long way from Depletion, but if he kept pushing himself, he would regret it tomorrow. And after all, he¡¯d learned all he was going to learn from this summoning. He sighed, leaning back from the bowl, and thanked the spell and his Will for their service, repeating the ritual words of gratitude three times in his head. Lifting his hands and turning them palm upward, he closed the channel he¡¯d created for his Will to flow through and felt the primal power cease pouring from himself. The light in the bowl faded swiftly, and the clouds of white in the water closed over the bottom of the wide, shallow scryer¡¯s bowl. As the light faded, Alex sat still in his chair, taking long, slow, even breaths as he let himself come back to awareness of his surroundings. The room had grown dark in the time he¡¯d been working, the last of the winter light fading in the street outside. It was still early by the clock, but a glance through his small window showed him a city street at night. Orange light from the streetlamps threw lurid shadows into his room. He shivered suddenly, and stirred himself, wary of the encroaching lethargy that too often followed a deep scrying session, even when he didn¡¯t push his flow of Will into Depletion levels. The solution was food, water, and movement. Even if he didn¡¯t feel like it, he had to get up and get moving when a scrying session ended. The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. From the window of his room, he could see the hands of the clock tower on the local district assembly hall. The hands glowed eerily, phosphor green above the orange glow of the lamplit city. He smiled. No time like the present, he thought, as he moved toward the door. Time for a visit to Mortys. And anyway, he could do with a walk. Greenwyn City gleamed slick and wet in the persistent rain. Alex pulled the hood of his cloak up to cover his head. He pulled the cloak close around his front, holding the collar in place and hunching his shoulders against the weather. It was bitterly cold, and the rain was being blown in from the river at a near horizontal angle. The tiny drops were like freezing needles when they struck his face. He was glad of the deep hood on his cloak, and of the well-made leather gloves that protected his fingers. Not everyone in Greenwyn City could claim to have such good clothing. Alex was far from being a rich man, but they were certainly people in the city who were a lot worse off than he was, and he didn¡¯t forget it. His room - a low price, rented apartment in one of the least desirable areas of town - was several miles away from where he wanted to go tonight. Despite the weather, the city was busy as he strode swiftly through the streets. First, he marched through his own area, a rambling rabbit warren of streets and alleyways officially known as Dockyard Hill, but better known by the name the townsfolk gave it - the Stench. The name was well earned. East of Greenwyn City, the Longway River flattened out and pooled into a huge body of water that was almost a lake, and a massive area of harbours and drydocks had grown up into this deep, safe anchorage. The city of Greenwyn had grown out from the harbour, feeding on the revenues, taxes, and population growth that came from the harbour¡¯s trade and industry. Greenwyn had begun as a shipping city. It had become a sprawling commercial metropolis, the greatest trading hub in the north of Mirrindom. Unfortunately, dockland trade and industry were not the most pleasantly scented things in the world. If there had been less room for the city to spread, then perhaps the area around the harbour would have being more carefully protected, but as it was, that had been a wide sheltered area of open country and rolling hills stretching for miles and miles out west from the Longway anchorage. So, as the city had grown, it had grown away from the stink and noise of the dockland industries, and the least desirable trades had grown to dominate the dockland area. Hence the name that had become attached to the district. The Stench was home to leather tanners, slaughterhouses, foundries, tar pits, and many, many low dens where rough living ship crews who stopped at the Greenwyn harbour for a night or three on their way downriver could gamble and drink and carouse and fight to their hearts¡¯ content before going on their way. The Stench was home to the smells and sounds that came with these industries. It was also Alex¡¯s home. Apart from the smell, Dockland Hill (as the residents preferred to call it) wasn¡¯t too bad a place to live. It was a rough part of town, but it wasn¡¯t dangerous in the way many of the folk from other parts of the city thought it was. If a person went looking for trouble, then of course they were likely to find it, but there was a sense of camaraderie, a feeling of community and mutual support in the rough and ready population who lived in its narrow streets that Alex loved. It was also a sense of community that he had yet to find elsewhere in Greenwyn City. Not that he¡¯d lived anywhere else in the city, of course. As a man who had come to Greenwyn City off a fishing trawler crewed by some of the hardest men and women he¡¯d ever known, he figured he had a more sympathetic view of such people than others might have. It was important to him to remember his roots. Alex was somebody who tried not to leap to judgement of others, mostly because he disliked it so much when others leaped to judgement of him. Once out of Dockland Hill, Alex walked through the wider, straighter streets of the area known as Scriber¡¯s Den. Here, rows of office buildings housed the labyrinthine administrative machinery that was required to support the massive shipping and trading industry, the beating heart of Greenwyn City¡¯s economy. Most of the offices were closing up as Alex passed them. Harassed-looking junior clerks hurried about outside the offices, heads and shoulders hunched against the rain, fighting the wind to get wooden shutters closed over the windows for the night. In the offices that were staying open for a few more hours, the warm glow of oil lamps shone through thick windows of frosted glass, and here and there a client stepped out of a doorway, hurrying down the street with hood raised and head down, or hurrying to the door of a horse-drawn carriage held open by a liveried footman. The rattle of cartwheels and the clop-clop of horses¡¯ hooves was a constant counterpoint to the swoosh of the rain. As Alex tramped through Scriber¡¯s Den and up into Fairfield, tantalizing scents reached him from the restaurants that called this place home. Already, despite the relatively early hour, the restaurants in Fairfield were doing a solid trade. The buildings had changed as he passed through the districts, becoming grander and grander the further he got from the Dockyard Hill. There, the buildings were thin and narrow, built of timber, four or even five stories tall, and roofed with shingle. The buildings of Scriber¡¯s Den were the first ones where white stone dominated, but despite their two-story construction and slate roofs, Scriber¡¯s Den retained the narrow, space-saving feel of the Dockyard Hill architecture. In Fairfield, the architecture matured and began to spread, as if when they¡¯d got to this point, the people who had designed the structures had belatedly realised that they no longer needed to conserve space and building materials. As Alex passed Fairfield and took a shortcut through the residential area around Plum Street, the buildings got larger and larger, until they became positively palatial. He stepped out from a quiet lane into a crowded thoroughfare. Bright lights flooded the streets, no longer the eyewatering orange of the cheap streetlamps that lighted his home district. Here, the streetlamps threw out clean, creamy white, warm green, or soft reds. The streetlamps were supplemented by oil lamps on stands outside the cafes, restaurants, theatres, and other more discreet entertainment venues. The wide streets were packed with people. Horses and carriages were barred from the city centre districts, so those who didn¡¯t wish to walk were instead borne on litters carried by sturdy servants. This was Greenwyn Centre. He had almost reached his destination. The rain had eased. Alex pushed his hood back, enjoying the feel of the light breeze. Here, away from the river, it was warmer, and he relaxed, holding his head up and smiling at the people he passed. Some smiled back at him, but others looked away. An old man in ragged clothes approached him, holding out his cupped hands with a pleading expression, and Alex dug a coin out of his breast pocket, where he always kept a few coppers, and dropped the money in the man¡¯s hands. As the beggar bowed and turned away, a flash of movement caught the corner of Alex¡¯s eye. He whirled, in time to see a small, skinny youth with very pale skin goggling at him from wide, staring eyes. The youth had been lifting Alex¡¯s cloak and reaching for his belt purse, a small blade in his hand, seeking to cut the purse free while Alex was distracted by the beggar. As soon as he saw he¡¯d been discovered, the cutpurse melted into the crowd and vanished away. Alex shook his head and resolved to keep his eyes peeled. After a moment¡¯s thought, he reached down and plucked his purse from his belt, holding it in his right hand under his cloak so no one could try to pinch it again. On a night like this, the criminal element of Greenwyn would be out in force. Alex had no desire to finish his trip without his purse. He crossed Soulin Square, looking up over the high buildings that surrounded the square to where the opulent towers of the university glowed against the blackness of the sky. A little below the university, at the base of the hill, lay his destination. Chapter 2: The Knitters Path The Grand Library of Greenwyn City was one of the marvels of the northern world. Deep in the library¡¯s mysterious vaults, strange tomes full of ancient lore were gathered and stored, available for study by those who could show good reason for wanting to access such valuable items. But Alex had a more humble goal, and for that, all he needed to access was the public area at the front of the building. The assistant librarian, Mortys, was a ghost. Mortys was dead, but he didn¡¯t let that get in his way anymore than it had to. He was a tall, spare being, with very pale skin and a distinctly translucent aspect to his face and hands. Mortys didn¡¯t smile when he saw Alex - he was incapable of any facial expression - but his eyes gleamed with pleasure, and perhaps the anticipation of a challenge. Mortys and Alex liked each other, in their own ways, though their relationship was more of rivalry than of true friendship. Mortys had a voice like the distant hiss of breath through stone. ¡°Alex. Long time. You still have those books about the construction of microscopes on loan. They¡¯ll be overdue next week. Don¡¯t make me hand you another fine.¡± Alex put his purse down on the table with a thud and a clink of coins. He pulled off his gloves, then drummed his hands on the table in front of Mortys, eyeing the ghost librarian as he did so. ¡°You¡¯ll make me jealous of your memory, Mortys,¡± he said. ¡°But next week is next week, so I¡¯ll keep the books until then.¡± Mortys looked hard at the purse Alex had placed on the table. ¡°And the other fine you have outstanding, the one for the book about playing the keyharp? Are you going to pay that fine?¡± ¡°Nope,¡± Alex said. ¡°Not today.¡± Mortys made a noise like cold bones rattling in an unquiet grave. Alex shook his head. ¡°Don¡¯t give me that. You and I both know that fine is under the minimum required to block my borrowing privileges. So no, I¡¯ll not be paying that today.¡± ¡°And how are you getting on with the book on microscopes?¡± ¡°Great. If I keep at it, I might even be able to see my library fine. Now are you going to tease me some more or are you going to help me find the book that I¡¯m looking for?¡± ¡°I¡¯m at your service, of course. What would you like to borrow?¡± ¡°A book on knitting.¡± Mortys the ghost was as surprised at this request as Alex had expected he would be. Alex could tell that Mortys burned with curiosity to find out what was going on. His face remained expressionless, but his body rocked backward and he held up his pale, translucent hands and flapped them in the air for a moment. But he wouldn¡¯t stoop to actually ask, and so Alex was able to take great pleasure in not telling Mortys anything about why he wanted this book. When they got back to the counter with the book, Alex patted his shirt pocket, then his pants pockets, and put an expression of dismay on his face. Mortys leaned forward, positively glowing with the anticipation of being able to lord it over Alex and tell him he couldn¡¯t borrow a book without his card. Alex palmed the card as he made a show of hunting through his purse and his pockets, then pulled it out and presented it to the ghost with a grin. Mortys would have glared if he could. Instead, he hissed at Alex and wished him good luck with his knitting. ¡°Good luck with being a pedant,¡± Alex retorted. ¡°Hey, are you going to the globe racing tomorrow?¡± ¡°Of course,¡± Mortys hissed. ¡°I¡¯ll see you at the usual place?¡± ¡°I¡¯ll be there,¡± Alex replied with a wink, and Mortys nodded to him and turned away. The air was chill after the warm, wood-scented gloom of the library lobby. Alex pulled up his hood and tucked his book snugly under his arm inside his cloak, then stepped back out into the rainy night and headed for home. * * * The Knitter¡¯s Path: Novice to Legendary by Nine-Needle Gorian was exactly what Alex had been looking for. Mortys might be a rule-sniffing, order-licking, minutiae-grubbing pedant, but he knew about books. No matter what your tastes, Mortys was the go to undead entity for book recommendations in Greenwyn city. The weather turned foul as Alex carried his book back to Dockland Hill. He resisted the urge to look for a cab, even when the wind whipped round from the river and flung handfuls of thick, freezing rain into his face. Funds were always scarce, and he needed the walk after his heavy scrying session earlier in the day. He hunched his head down, pulled his hood lower, and kept walking. An hour after he left Mortys, Alex climbed the narrow, badly-lit stairs to his small room, where he pulled the drapes and used Will to conjure light into a small static lamp that he kept under the corner floorboard with the rest of his scrying kit. Static lamps weren¡¯t as illegal as scrying, but a static lamp was a Will spell, and a person who used one was very likely someone who at least dabbled in scrying. It was best to keep suspicions like that to a minimum, and the distinctive soft light of a static lamp in his window was the kind of thing that might draw entirely the wrong kind of attention from a passing lore keeper. The drapes that covered his front window were probably the most expensive thing in his room, and they were worth every penny if they kept prying eyes away from his work. Once he¡¯d hung his cloak up on a nail by the door and dried his face and hair on his one towel, Alex filled his water cup from the barrel he kept by the door and drank, then he filled it a second time and took it with him to the middle of the room. He sat on the floor in the centre of the bare room and put the static lamp on the boards next to him, and his cup of water beside it. Then he put his new book on the floor in front of him and read the title on the cover out loud. ¡°The Knitter¡¯s Path: Novice to Legendary,¡± he said, and sighed with contentment. There was nothing quite like the feeling he got just as he was about to embark on the pursuit of a new interest. ¡°Hmm,¡± he said, and despite his hunger and his long day, the sound he made was like the sound a man makes when he sits back from a long awaited meal. He opened his new book and began to read. Nine-Needle Gorian was verbose and longwinded in his introduction, but Alex was a both a fast and detail-orientated reader, and he didn¡¯t want to skip anything. He ploughed resolutely through Gorian¡¯s introduction to the craft, and was glad he had done so. Gorian emphasised the need for practice, for patience, and for a forgiving attitude. Knitting, Gorian wrote, was one of the most underrated skills a person could learn. It might not look like much at first, but given time, one who practiced the skill would reap an endless crop of rewards, not only material, practical rewards, but also personal and spiritual rewards. Knitting, Gorian wrote, allowed one to practice the focused state required for various other skills, as well as to create garments for oneself and others at a fraction of the price of buying them. Alex read on, taking in information that he¡¯d never known before, about wool and dyes, about the complex process of producing yarn from fleece, about the different materials that might be used to make knitting needles, and on into the basic and more complex stitches. The title, From Novice to Legendary, wasn¡¯t an exaggeration. The book assumed zero knowledge on the part of the reader, and that was exactly what Alex was looking for. By the end of the evening, he had memorised his shopping list for tomorrow, and knew where he was going to begin. A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. It was late, and Alex wasn¡¯t absorbing any more information. Time to stop. He closed his book, drank his water, then rose and stretched, hearing his spine, shoulders, and elbows pop as he did so. He put his new book carefully away, leaning on the wall by the window next to Beginning the Keyharp by Trena Sila and Microscopy: Theory and Practice, Second Edition from Greenwyn University Publishing. He kindled a small fire in the hearth. He took some bread from the cupboard and heated the soup he¡¯d made last night in his small kettle. The soup base was a beef stock from a batch that he¡¯d made the week before. The soup was thick with potatoes, leeks, and barley, and the bread was dark rye from a few days ago, going a little hard now, but soft when it was dipped in the soup. He had a handful of greens he¡¯d picked up at the market earlier that day to complete his meal. It was humble fare, but it was tasty, and Alex ate slowly, thinking about his plans. Once he¡¯d wiped the last of the soup broth up with the last bit of bread, he washed the pot out with cold water from the cask he kept by the door. He drank several more cups of water from his small clay cup. Outside, it was getting quiet. Down at the dockland inns, it would be getting noisy, but Alex¡¯s apartment was far enough away from the river that the shouting and brawling of the sailors didn¡¯t reach him. His bed alcove was small, but it was dry and warm. Still mulling over his plans, he slipped under the covers and fell quickly to sleep, the image of dancing knitting needles filling his head as he dropped into dreams. * * * Globe racing was a favourite entertainment in Greenwyn City. Alex enjoyed it for its own sake, and it was a good chance to see people and catch up. It was also a good way to practice his favourite activities - scrying and memory work - while making enough money to keep his belly full from day to day. Mortys would invariably be there, as would Derk, who worked as a kitchen porter in the Sticky Arms in Fairfield, and Yasha of Lyriath, an ex-mercenary from the Salt Sea Coast who now turned her hand to smithing and mending of weapons instead of swinging them. Alex found his friends in time for the second race. They had all lost on the first race already, except Yasha, who had a nose for betting and had managed to win by putting her money on the second place finisher. The stands weren¡¯t that busy. Today¡¯s race was only for real enthusiasts, as the competitors were from the less well-known globe trainer houses. That meant the minimum bet was lower and the rewards for winning were equivalently less impressive. That suited Alex well. The less was there was to win, the less there was to lose, and crucially, the less risk of drawing attention when you did win. A long time ago, he¡¯d worked out a ratio of wins to losses that he could sustain, making enough over time to stay on the right side of profit, while never winning enough that the lore keepers might get suspicious. At bigger races, betting and winning larger sums, the risk of getting caught would be much higher. The financial rewards would be equally high, but Alex wasn¡¯t in it to get rich. He just wanted to keep turning over enough money to be able to eat, read, and spend time practicing scrying and memory work without getting caught. Until now. Now, he had an ambition. It was a heady experience, and a new one. He would have to be careful not to get over excited. That morning, he¡¯d risen early and spent four hours channelling a tight flow of Will as he dealt spread after spread of fortune cards, narrowing down the possibilities until that he knew exactly which globe would make first, second, and third place for each of the day¡¯s races. As he reached his conclusion for each position in each race, he committed it to memory. By the end of his session, he had built an elaborate mnemonic mind map of every result in every race for the three hours he intended to stay. After that effort, he¡¯d had to lie down again, but he did so with satisfaction. The effort had been worth it. It always was. Now, as he strolled up the nearly empty stands, waving to a glowering Derk, a smiling Yasha, and an unresponsive Mortys, Alex had a complete map of the afternoon ahead. It was this kind of thing that made scrying not only illegal in the eyes of the lore keepers, but also despised by most people in Greenwyn. Alex knew the moral arguments against scrying, of course. He also knew that the satisfaction of doing the magic was something he would never be willing to give up. The interesting thing about looking into the future and knowing with complete certainty what would happen was that it was almost always immoral in some way or other. It may not appear so in the moment, but there is no possibility, no occurrence that happens that does not have some negative impact on someone, somewhere. In normal day-to-day life, moral beings make judgement calls about their actions, usually based - more or less consciously - on the trade-off between the benefit to one individual or set of individuals versus the negative impact on another. This is a normal, unavoidable part of living. But a person who can predict beyond doubt the outcome of events over which they have no control suddenly has a great deal of power to change what impact those events have on others. Globe racing was a case in point. To have the power of foreknowledge and to use it to the benefit of a friend might seem innocuous at first glance, but looking closer at the question, Alex couldn¡¯t escape the fact that pushing a friend toward better bets removed agency from the person involved, interfered in their fate (with potential consequences that he couldn¡¯t predict) and gave them an unfair advantage over others, all of which were immoral things to do. To have foreknowledge that a friend would lose badly and not to intervene was also, of course, immoral. Alex had reached a compromise with himself a long time ago. He stuck to it as best he could, even though a part of him always knew that what he did was wrong in many subtle ways. He used his scrying to cheat at the races, so that he could earn a steady living from betting. In the process, he couldn¡¯t avoid knowing what was going to happen for his friends, and so he tried to strike a balance between how much change he would bring about himself, and how much he would minimise the impact of his foreknowledge on the lives of the others. He didn¡¯t always succeed in striking that balance. The place where he generally made the most impact was when his friends seemed about to bet hard and lose badly. Here, he made the call that it was worse to know and let his friends damage themselves anyway than it was to interfere with his friends¡¯ destiny. And so, Alex¡¯s foreknowledge of the outcome of the races allowed him to know if his friends would win or lose, and to know for himself when to bet and how much. Over months of regular weekly visits, he¡¯d win enough to turn a profit and lose enough to keep the attention of the lore keepers elsewhere. When his friends were going to win, he¡¯d bet with them, seeming to be swayed by their choices. When they were going to lose, he¡¯d sometimes do the same, and sometimes he¡¯d override them, making convincing arguments for placing bets on a different globe instead. In this way, he made money more often than he lost it, and most of the time, his friends did too. And in this way, he managed to keep his uneasy conscience at bay enough to continue using his forbidden magic. It set him apart from his friends, putting a barrier between himself and them that he would never be able to overcome. He enjoyed their company, and they enjoyed his, but scrying was the most important thing in his life, and none of his friends knew anything about it. Oh, they benefited from it in many small ways when they went to the globe racing track with Alex, but none of them ever knew that they were not truly gambling. None of them ever knew that they were, in fact, benefitting from Alex¡¯s deep practice at the hidden, forbidden magic of scrying with the power of Will. If they had, Alex didn¡¯t doubt that they¡¯d have disowned him immediately. Except, perhaps, for Yasha. ¡°Taking up knitting, I hear?¡± Derk said cheerfully to Alex as they he took his seat with his friends in the stands, in time for the second race. Yasha grinned at them both. Mortys looked straight at the empty race track, pretending not to hear. ¡°That¡¯s right,¡± Alex said pleasantly. ¡°I¡¯m really interested in it. Did you know that it can bring great spiritual benefits, as well as giving you the chance to produce your own garments at a fraction of the price?¡± ¡°You and your hobbies,¡± Yasha chuckled. ¡°Last week it was microscopes, the week before that it was geology, and the week before that¡­ I can¡¯t remember.¡± ¡°Keyharp playing,¡± said Mortys. ¡°He still owes the library fine for keeping the book overdue for a day before renewing the loan. I tried to tell him.¡± ¡°I thought you weren¡¯t listening,¡± Alex retorted. He rolled his eyes and nodded his head toward Mortys. ¡°He just doesn¡¯t get the appeal of having wide ranging interests.¡± Mortys turned quickly and was about to say something, but Derk hushed him. ¡°The next race is going to start! I¡¯m on House Granafyr¡¯s red twister globe!¡± Alex leaned forward with the others, hoping that Derk hadn¡¯t put too much on the red twister. It wasn¡¯t due to come first until the fifth race. ¡°What globe did you bet on, Alex?¡± Yasha asked. ¡°I only just arrived, I¡¯ve not put a bet on yet,¡± Alex said. ¡°You?¡± ¡°Red twister too,¡± Yasha grinned. ¡°It¡¯s a sure thing!¡± Alex tried to smile. Below them on the track, someone blew a whistle and the five trainers yanked open their black metal boxes and released their racing globes to streak like balls of lightning across the quarter mile strip toward the finish line. Chapter 3: Good Yarns Red Twister was the top globe from the House of Granafyr, one of the oldest and most respected sphere training houses in Greenwyn. It was a fair guess to think that their sphere was a shoo-in for the win, but Alex knew that Steerwild, the sphere from House Marker that held the yellow position, was going to come first. Why this might be was beyond him. Alex was a scryer; he could see into the future if he really tried, but it was a lot of work, and he had to pick what he looked for. He had no doubt he could have peered into the inner workings of House Granafyr¡¯s training regime and understand why their prime sphere wasn¡¯t doing so well as it had, but that would avail him nothing. Scrying was hard, hard work, and you had to pick your battles. So, he acted surprised and nodded in commiseration as his friends lost their bets, and then speculated that maybe they should wait a few races out and see how things developed before betting any more. After he¡¯d made a show of getting the ¡®feel¡¯ for the day himself, he placed his own first bet, and the others decided to go with his call on who to bet on and who to leave. When he won, they continued to go with his choices. They were more inclined to follow his advice than usual today. It made him reevaluate his pattern for the betting that day. If they all won every time they went with his suggestion, he might start a pattern that he didn¡¯t want to start, and so he took a couple of small losses to make them doubt him, then a larger one, by which time the others decided Alex¡¯s lucky streak was over and began to make their own decisions. The day progressed more smoothly then, but the revaluation and reorganisation of his plan early in the day had been exhausting. It would be so much easier, he thought, if he could have just come to the sphere races alone, but there was no chance of that now. At the end of the day, when the others were talking of going out drinking, or at least for one drink and a bite to eat, Alex shook his head. He wandered off into the city streets, not thinking, allowing his mind to rest and letting the carefully constructed map of the day fade from his mind. Cleansing himself of the memory maps he created for these days was almost as important as the creation of them. If he didn¡¯t carefully eradicate them, step by step, from his mind, they hung about, cluttering his other thoughts and forcing him to think of sphere racing when he was trying to think of other things. Worst of all, they went deeper into his long-term memory, and then they did that, he couldn¡¯t evict them. He could still remember a sequence of bets he¡¯d placed the first day he¡¯d ever done a memory map for sphere racing. It was annoying, because every time he went out to the track, he had to carefully not think of this other memory, carefully not confuse it with the memories from today. So, he walked, moving through the light misty rain that softened the lines of the city and soaked his cloak while never seeming to truly rain at all. The temperature was unexpectedly warm after yesterday¡¯s bitter weather, and Alex took his time, wandering from the track - on the outskirts of a quiet residential district on the other side of the river - to the area known as Crosshome, where the bridges over the river carried traffic between the busy heart of the old city and the more modern residential areas. He felt the weight of his leather purse in his hand. He was carrying it in his pocket, his fingers wrapped around the leather. After yesterday¡¯s incident with the cutpurse, he meant to be careful. He had complete sympathy with the wretched people who were obliged to do such things for a living, but for all that he didn¡¯t want to lose his takings to one of them. He had worked too hard for this money, and it wasn¡¯t as much as he¡¯d have liked. The river flowed wide and slow under the bridges as he passed over the smaller of the three, smelling that peculiar mixture of freshwater and saltwater that was unique to this place, just a few miles inland from where the river joined the sea. Carts rumbled steady past in the centre of the bridge, and folk on foot moved around Alex in both directions as he crossed and then headed into the city, putting a bit more purpose into his stride now. He set a course for the Crafter¡¯s district, the area in the old city around Workshop Street and the linen maker¡¯s quarter. Here, those who wanted to buy ingredients and materials for their crafting exploits could be found, as could be the workshops and outlets of most of the professional crafters in town. You could get just about anything in the area around Workshop Street, and it was a well-known attraction for visitors to the city. But Alex wasn¡¯t a visitor. He was a resident, and he had something he wanted to do. He found Good Yarns, the knitwear and woollens shop he¡¯d been looking for, and headed in. He arrived later in the afternoon than he¡¯d meant to. Evening was closing in over the city, and the shop was quiet. There were a few customers in the big, well-lit space, but two of them left together as Alex entered, and the third finished his purchases and hurried off as Alex walked in and began to look around. The shelves were built right up to the ceiling, and most were packed with brightly coloured balls of wound yarn. As he looked around, he was amazed by the sheer number of colours available. He looked up, seeing stacked balls of yarn packing the shelves right up to the ceiling. Nearer the counter, there were smaller shelves with needles of all different kinds; long, short, thick, thin, curved, straight, wooden, and metallic. On the floor around the counter and stacked along the bottoms of the shelves, were many huge baskets filled with unspun wood, dyed and undyed, and also some full of hats, scarves, and gloves in many colours. ¡°Help you?¡± a woman¡¯s voice said. Alex jumped slightly. He¡¯d been gazing in fascination at the acres of colour on the shelves, taking it all in. ¡°How do you get up to the top shelves?¡± he asked. It hadn¡¯t been the question he¡¯d meant to ask at all, but she¡¯d startled him, and he¡¯d just said aloud what had been in his mind at the moment. Very out of character, really, he reflected, and wondered at that. She quirked a small smile at him. She was about the same age as Alex, maybe a little younger, but that was where their similarities ended. She was blonde where he was dark, tall and slim where he was short and lean, and she looked like she was well-fed and often outdoors, where Alex was suddenly painfully aware that he looked like a young man who didn¡¯t eat enough and spent most of his time sleeping, scrying in a darkened room, or betting at the racetrack. Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. She didn¡¯t seem overly put off by his appearance. She met his eyes briefly, then looked shy and glanced away. Her eyes were very blue. ¡°We use a ladder,¡± she said, then added abruptly, ¡°the wool at the top is kind of just for show. No one actually buys those ones, and we have to go up and change the stock as very frequently, because if we leave them up there they just sag and gather dust, and with dust come moths and with moths, well, you can imagine the kind of havoc moths would wreak in a yarn shop so we move the wool that¡¯s up there regularly¡­ with a ladder.¡± She broke off, suddenly realising she was both babbling, and beginning to repeat herself. She smiled shyly at him again. He smiled back. Though she had been babbling, it had been done in a low, rapid, pleasant voice. He liked the way she talked, and he liked the fact that she had immediately shared something real about her life, and about the shop. This wasn¡¯t just small talk. From her words, he felt he already knew a little about her. Like a vision in his scrying bowl, he saw a glimpse into her life, this regular task of moving the wool and checking for moths. ¡°I can imagine the havoc moths could wreak in a wool shop!¡± he agreed. ¡°How do you prevent it?¡± ¡°Camphor bundles on the higher shelves, very frequent cleaning, oh, and a charm or two around the doors and windows.¡± She gestured toward the door, and Alex noticed for the first time a small arrangement of crystals hanging from a string by the door. It twinkled as if in the candlelight, but the angle was wrong. It wasn¡¯t the candlelight - the crystal twinkled with its own inner light. The light of a spell. ¡°Did you want something?¡± she asked when he had been silent for a moment. ¡°Yarn,¡± he said. ¡°Yarn and some needles. I want to learn to knit.¡± She looked at him quizzically for a moment. ¡°You don¡¯t look the type.¡± It was so forthright and direct that he had to laugh. ¡°I don¡¯t?¡± He looked down at himself. Tattered cloak, worn leather gloves, muddy boots and dark trousers and tunic, all probably with some quite visible stains. He remembered his own face in the small mirror in the bathroom at the racetrack - pale skin, wide dark eyes, a distracted, almost haunted look in his eyes. ¡°Perhaps I don¡¯t,¡± he admitted. ¡°But all the same, I¡¯d like to learn.¡± ¡°You have a book to learn from?¡± she asked. He nodded. ¡°Nine-Needle Gorian¡¯s book. I got it from the library.¡± She looked impressed. ¡°Why do you want to learn to knit?¡± ¡°Leana!¡± a man¡¯s voice said sharply, and they both looked up to see a man approaching them, his arms full of a pile of washed but undyed sheep¡¯s wool. ¡°What does it matter why the customer wishes to learn how to knit? It¡¯s not our business, there¡¯s no guild prohibition against learning this skill. I apologise, sir, my sister doesn¡¯t know when to speak and when to keep silent.¡± It was such a rude, patronising statement, and the young man¡¯s attitude was in such stark contrast to the woman¡¯s frank, friendly curiosity that for a moment Alex found the transition too jarring to deal with and just looked at the newcomer without comprehension. Then he got a hold of himself and felt the slow ember of his anger glowing inside him. He drew himself up and looked down at the young man with as haughty an expression as he could muster as he said, ¡°I beg your pardon, but I was enjoying my conversation with this young woman. I do not find her questions inappropriate, only your interruptions. I am new to this craft, and I appreciate the opportunity to discuss my reasons for wishing to learn.¡± ¡°Oh,¡± the young man said, obviously surprised. ¡°Oh, right, then. Very well.¡± He glanced down at the pile of wool in his arms, then at Leana, then at Alex. He suppressed a small smile, winked at his sister, and turned away. ¡°Sorry to bother you!¡± he called cheerfully over his shoulder as he made his way off and vanished through a door at the back of the shop. Alex raised his eyebrows at Leana, but she rolled her eyes and gestured in the direction where her brother had gone. ¡°No manners,¡± she confided quietly, and Alex nodded. ¡°Where were we?¡± she asked. ¡°You asked me why I want to learn to knit,¡± he said. ¡°Well, and why do you?¡± He almost told her. He almost said that he¡¯d scried a vision of his own path, asking the magic to show him what he should do with his life if he wanted to be able to make a living with his illegal scrying magic in a way that didn¡¯t involve cheating at the betting track. Almost. ¡°I don¡¯t really know,¡± he said instead. ¡°I just have a powerful sense that it¡¯s the right thing for me to do.¡± ¡°The hand of fate,¡± she said, fluttering her hands dramatically. ¡°The hand of fate moves the young scholar to his destiny¡­ he must learn to knit!¡± He chuckled. ¡°I suppose it does sound rather ridiculous,¡± he said. ¡°But that¡¯s as good an answer as I can give just at present, I¡¯m afraid. Will it do?¡± She looked at him consideringly. ¡°For now,¡± she said, and the implication was as clear in her words as it was in the way she met his eyes steadily as she said them. She wanted to see him again. She knew he was holding something back, and she was interested. She heard his words and accepted them, but she wanted to know more about him. She wanted to see him again. Alex opened his mouth and shut it again, then he said, ¡°Good,¡± rather lamely, and smiled at her. ¡°I have a few things I¡¯d like to buy,¡± he said. ¡°I¡¯ve read the start of Gorian¡¯s book, and he recommends chunky wool, and thin needles of light wood. I was thinking about that wool over there?¡± Over the next twenty minutes, he learned more about needles and grades of yarn than he had from several hours of Gorian¡¯s book. He spent all the money he¡¯d budgeted for his starting supplies and was pleased to find that it bought him more than he had expected. He loved the bright colours and the smell of the wool, and the needles themselves seemed to hum with potential as he held them. When he was done, he had four balls of yarn, two sets of needles, and a cloth bag with a drawstring to keep everything in. ¡°Don¡¯t let your bag get wet in the rain,¡± she cautioned him, looking outside as she showed him to the door. ¡°Will you take a carriage home?¡± He looked at her, considered saying yes, then pushed the impulse to lie firmly aside. ¡°I don¡¯t have very much money for that kind of thing,¡± he admitted. ¡°I¡¯ll walk. I¡¯ll put my hood up and keep my wool and needles safe under my cloak. Like this,¡± he added, tucking the bag under his cloak and holding it tight. There was no trace of judgement in her eyes as she nodded. ¡°Very well, then. Good luck. I hope I see you again. If you need anything else, you know where to come.¡± He heard the door lock behind him as he left, and glancing back, he saw her pulling the blinds down over the windows. He was three streets away and walking fast when he realised he hadn¡¯t told her his name.