The Sorcerers of Infinity/2

Chapter Two
"Tales from the Elvinfell"

When the new light of the next day had come about, Themarrien was still very stunned, and still in obvious pain. However, Tarja never seemed to actually notice his pain—if she did, she was just ignoring him.

That day, Tarja was teaching Themarrien how to catch fish, and the boy was doing at least a decent job of it.

Each time he saw a shadow beneath the rippling waves of the river, he cast the line into it. About half the time, the hook bounced off the fish, another quarter of the time, the fish became angry and swam away, and only another quarter of the time could he actually get the fish to bite the lure.

“That’s it Themarrien!” called Tarja encouragingly from the side of the river bank.

Smiling, the boy carelessly cast another flying line into the river. The hook flew flying backwards—far backwards, in Tarja’s direction—before it hit the water, and caught on something heavy.

“Themarrien, don’t touch the line!” she screeched from afar.

He dropped the rod and glanced back.

Tarja was on her knees crawling and feeling around the grass. Her right hand was shaking and she it held to her face. Themarrien started to panic, and wondered just what was happening.

“Tarja what happened?” the boy cried in panic.

She was still searching through the grass, breathing shallowly. Themarrien took a step in her direction—and hit something hard. It was a white piece of porcelain. In a mad burst of speed, Tarja crawled over to the porcelain thing. She put both her shaking hands on the thing, and started to lift it to her face.

“Tarja…”

Her hand slipped. The thing fell, and Themarrien was ashamed of what he had done.

The right side of Tarja’s face was scarred and burned. Her eye was a drooping, permanently half-closed thing, and it appeared to be perpetually crying. Disfigured red lines ran down along the burned side.

And in a flood of memories, the words of queen Alzersy returned to him.

“Years ago, when we were sure you would be a girl, your father wanted to name you Tarja,” she had said.

“What’s Tarja?” Themarrien had asked.

“Tarja was my sister who…who passed into heaven before you were born.”

“I see. So if I was a girl, you would have named me Tarja?”

“No.”

“But you said…”

“Well, when my sister moved on, it was only a little while before you were born. You see, my child, Tulla Elvins believe that if you name a baby with the same name of somebody that moved on only a twelve months before, then it will be bad for the baby. So, we decided on calling you Lorina, after your father’s sister.”

“But I ended up not a girl so you named me Themarrien.”

“Your brother Letorry did that actually, while we were sleeping. He can make such fantastic names sometimes.”

“I get it…”

TO BE CONTINUED