Bowen Desert, like any other on any planet, needed water to live. However, Bowen Desert was different because its water was drawn by magic from the Black Spires. The waters supporting life in the Bowen Oasis came from deep in the desert, through the myriad connections of the stones to the spires. The Black Spires held great beauty but also great danger. They seemed to say, “Look, but don’t touch.” The entire Bowen Desert had the kind of beauty which promised adventure, but if underestimated would quickly snuff out life.
The Spires were tall, long, jagged, razor-sharp rock formations that rose up from under the sand, some as large as small mountains. Water flowed from the edge of the Spires, but only when a Water-Magi called the water. Understandably, the Water-Magi was the most valuable member of the Enclave of Elders within each oasis. The Water-Magi had the respect of all Oasis dwellers as the harbingers and preservers of life.
The Bowen Desert had a natural beauty, especially in the early mornings, when dawn’s faint rays intermingled with the last shadows of night. Farther out in the desert, a wave of heat danced in the distance, making a swiveling motion, while nearer to the rocks, the rays of light made spectacular jumps from mounds of sand to the tips of stone spires, both illuminating and warming the sand and air alike. Rays of light tiptoed like prima ballerinas—tiptoe, tiptoe—followed at the end by a plié that was so perfect each full sunray would bow for a standing ovation as it moved back into the shadows between the spire rocks.
From atop the massive spires, down to the small pebbles in the sand, a tiny sound would start bobbing, cracking, popping and snapping, all the while growing in volume. Every morning a ray of light would touch the spires, triggering a most magical music. With every dawn came a different tune, every morning a different tone. Along with the sound, the intrinsic and familiar smell of warm sand mixed with the dust of the spires would manifest. As the sun heated the sand and rock during the day, the spires would give off a scent of melted sugar and freshly made caramel, but never burning, always sweet. These were just some of the things making the Bowen Desert beautiful, magical.
The morning ritual of soft and gentle sounds had this desert singing daily. The heat of the day was assured, just as the nights were cold. During the day, by itself, this desert promised nothing, gave little and harbored only silence. From water came the promise of life—the living water that came from deep inside the spires and fed the living beings surrounding them, but the spires also needed the heat to live and expel the gush from inside. The gush created a symbiotic love-and-hate relationship, if broken, would cause all life to cease. The gush was used to make the brown tar that helped some plants to grow, but not Blue Trees—they wouldn’t grow in the desert.
Every day would be the same: starting magically, then becoming hot and arid, and ending with the sounds of the retreating rays of light, turning into shadows, all the while making the spires sing again. The desert people were used to the sound. It was only a novelty to travelers. If you were born in this desert, the sounds only meant the start of another day. It was not perceived as beautiful, rather an everyday occurrence that marked time. Each village settlement was located near the feet of the spires, which made it easy to draw the life-giving water.
An Oasis was the largest type of desert town, with buildings made from or carved into the rocks that surrounded the spires with wood roofs and windows. Small, medium, large and supersized spires were all used for mining. If an Oasis had a Stone-Magi, he would help with both the shifting of rocks and the actual carving into the caves, whereas the Water-Magi provided the water that sustained all life. Each Oasis was as big as the supply of water allowed, while commerce was determined by the quality and quantity of precious gems, minerals and ores that could be mined out of the lower caves.
The Nin’vae Oasis was unique and differed from all of the other oases. We had our own wells and our mages also drew its water from the largest of the Black Spires in all the Bowen Desert, the Father Hunter Spire. This large rock formation provided the water sustaining the Nin’vae Oasis and created a thin river which flowed through the town.
Life was celebrated every year in the Nin’vae Oasis, but once every ten years there was an especially grand festival when a new spring or minor Oasis was formed. This year, Nin’vae residents were about to celebrate their Decennial Fest. It was time to create a new community.
Nin’Vae population had grown and their water supply could no longer sustain the growth. They needed to establish a new spring or Oasis as soon as a new Water-Magi was elected. There were several potential powerful Gift Water-Magi and each had been paired with a Vessel. It was simply a matter of finding one strong enough to draw up water. But there had not been a Magi in over two hundred years with sufficient power to pull enough water to form a new Oasis.
This year was different. This year, on this month, at the end of the week, in two days, they celebrated the end of ten years of growth. A full two days of singing and dancing: entertainment for all. And this year was an even greater event. This year, not only were they confident a new Water-Magi would be recognized, but also a Grand Fight game would crown a new Toya Pit Fighter champion. This warrior champion would be given a boon and his or her freedom if the winner was a slave.
On that day, the Elders would resolve problems and issues for all who came to them. They would match in marriage the young men and women of the Oasis who had not yet chosen a mate. And on that night, there would be the celebration of the water rain, when the Water-Magi would make water come forth if they could. If they had enough power, they would make it rain for a few minutes. This celebration was the one-time water could be spilled without people being reprimanded, as usually it was a crime to wastewater.
On this early morning, a beautiful tan bird appeared with the ballerina-like morning rays of light. The bird perched on the edge of the tallest home, hidden away from the eyes of any educated, self-respecting citizen of the Oasis, and those not so respectable too. The morning workers went about their daily routines and their busy schedules, compounded with the preparations for the celebration. No one noticed the bird; no one looked up. There was no reason to look up—there were no clouds to entice the vision; the sky was never changing.
Men and women worked, children played, all the while unknowing that the bird watched. He blended in with the color of the homes and sand. He waited, as he had done for several months.
Of the many homes, there was one in particular at the edge of the Oasis that had the distinctive letter P by the entrance door. All knew the symbol meant the household were pariah, outcast, and the Oasis women avoided passing by the home. The occupants of the house were the last to draw water in the morning and the last to drain the dregs of water in the evening.
The people of the Oasis town lived and let live, but they looked down on anyone who purposely would break the rules. In the home designated with the letter P lived a woman who deliberately broke the community statutes. Her children, though innocent of her perceived crimes, lived with her.
Jray
“Vesi, Vesi my girl! Please be a dear and fetch our morning water. I had a rough night last night.” said Jray
“Another black eye? Mom, you need to stop participating in the fights! How long are you going to take this life? Mom, they tell you to train these losers of students and then you’re required to let them fight you all at once. We are not little children anymore. Eric and T’wanny’s father have finally claimed them as his own. You said it yourself. The man is coming to pick them up at the end of this celebration. Mom, you and I ... we can leave this place. We can forget this desert. Go to another village where we can start anew and we can do something else.” Said Vesi.
“Vesi, stop! You know we can’t go. Not just yet. You know our laws. I’m both a slave and master Toya Pit Fighter, but I’m a slave first. You understand that. We have no family, no sponsors, nor money to buy my sin-bond. Moving even to the next water-spring village would be near impossible. I’m bound here.” Said Jray.
“Mom, I’m a Gift-Vessel. Let me go serve the Emperor. Then you, Eric and T’wanny can leave this horrible place.” Vesi looked at her mother while she was talking and she could tell Jray didn’t look happy.
“ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND? WE DISCUSSED THIS BEFORE!”
Jray rubbed her forehead and sat, her body overly tired. Her scarred hands were trembling and she only had the energy to let loose her braids. Her sun-bleached brown hair had streaks of gray, and all her muscles hurt. She had worked out her entire life, ensuring her body was more than ready and trained for the pit fights, but after all the years of keeping her family together by sheer stubbornness, Jray just needed to rest. She had too many demons in her head to argue—her daughter didn’t need to see her lose her temper.
“Vesi, stop and think. I already told you. The last Water-Magi who served the Emperor disappeared. No one knows where she went. A Gift-Vessel in the palace of the Emperor is not a safe place, and for you it will be worse. You are only half Human and that alone will make you a target for hate. Even here, the Elders wanted me to leave you in the middle of the desert.
“We must try to do things the right way. The best I can do for us is win the Grand Championship Fight on the last day of the celebration and you will have an opportunity for an apprenticeship. I already talked to old Master Joe. Master Josephine, Joe, will choose you as soon as I’m no longer a slave. Don’t worry. We still have time. You’ll see. I’ll win you an apprenticeship two days from tonight. We have time. When I win, I’ll be free and then we can talk and plan to leave, or you can accept the apprenticeship with Master Joe. But for now, let’s just concentrate on getting our water. When you return, I want you to practice what I taught you yesterday.”
Jray gave Vesi a big hug. Her daughter had the same color eyes as her father—cerulean blue eyes. No one else on the Oasis had this shade of blue eyes, which made Vesi different and not very well liked. The girl had grown to be gaunt, athletic and agile. The hair on her head was sun-bleached blond, but she had no body hair—just like her father. She had the mark of a Gift-Vessel. The only way for Jray to protect her daughter was not to give up the name of her father. That way no one would touch her; she would be an illegitimate child. Vesi was a Magi, a Water-Magi, but she didn’t know how strong she was. Jray never had the heart to let her practice, to let her know just how strong her gift could be due no one could now she was a water magi.
In the end, somehow, Jray needed to take all three of her young children out of the Oasis. All three were special. Eric was a Gift, and T’wanny was a mighty Vessel. Eric and T’wanny’s father was due to take them away now they were of age to be matched in marriage. The scumbag only wanted her children to advance his business. Jray needed to win the Grand Championship fight. Someway, somehow, she needed to win all five fights.
Vesi
Vesi loved her mother beyond anything, but unless her mother could slow time or had some sort of new fighting style she didn’t know about, her fate was sealed. Her mother had loved her and cared for her as she had all her children. Vesi’s mother had a horrible black eye and bruises all over her arms. She was in her late forties and served as the Oasis’s female pit fighter in the main pit entertainment. Some men and women had horrid ways to cheat at fights. They used all sorts of weapons on each other. Her mother’s job markings bound her to service all fighting styles. Vesi couldn’t watch her mother’s face.
She took the water bucket and left home with all the rage her eighteen years had managed to bottle up. Her mother was going to die one of these days from all these fights and her intense practices. Her mother refused to lose. She hated to lose any match. But Vesi knew her mother had been forced to lose her fights lately. Her mom needed to win all five matches on the last day of the celebration to earn the position of champion and thereby lose her status as a slave. That would pave the way for someone to accept Vesi as an apprentice, but it would surely kill her mother in the process.
Vesi was the only one of her mother’s children born with a deformity. She had long, curly hair, hands with very long fingers and feet with a working toe-like appendage on her heel which gave her an advantage when balancing on high surfaces. Vesi’s feet were so rugged she preferred to walk with shoes that were cut out at the heels and toes.
Jray wouldn’t identify Vesi’s father. According to their laws, any man who fathered a deformed child was not allowed to father any more children. The same was said of the woman, but Jray had two other children with her fight manager Edvin. The man had found out about Vesi being a Halfling and a Gift-Vessel, so he blackmailed Jray into being his mistress. However, Vesi was the reason for her mother’s enslavement. Her mother’s job title went from Champion Master Fighter to Slave Master Fighter, which meant her mother no longer made money from her fights.
The community provided Jray with food, shelter and clothing for her and her children. Justice in the Bowen Desert meant that because Jray had broken the rule of keeping a deformed child and not revealing the name of the child’s father, she was now a slave. She was further considered an undesirable person, an outcast, for having children with a married man. Jray’s profession had stayed the same, but her status of being a celebrity changed to being a slave. All Jray’s money won on her fights before Vesi’s birth went to purchase apprenticeships for her two oldest children. They needed to be protected from her fate.
It was a sad thing to know at week’s end the Elders would decide Vesi’s occupation or the matchmakers would choose her a husband. No one had offered to give her an apprenticeship in the last four years. She was Vesi, the deformed one, without a father. She would be given to the newly formed water-spring village, to make her into whatever they needed most. Jray had been teaching her to be a fighter since Vesi was five years old. Jray trained her in secret, but she had so much to learn and Vesi knew she was not as robust and large as her mother. She had no friends. It was lonely.
As Vesi walked the path from her house to the well, life looked bleaker every passing minute. It was still early in the morning, but it was already hot. Vesi walked past the street vendors and the decorated stores. There was a festive feeling in the Oasis. They were celebrating the Decennial Fest. When she was a child, this celebration used to be a happy time, something to look forward to. However, this was nothing more than a prelude to the end. Vesi took her bucket, tied the rope and dropped the bucket into the water reservoir unceremoniously. The bucket hit the water with the customary slosh sound.
Vesi wished to be the bucket and stay in the water for hours. To be a Water-Magi and not be able to tell anyone—it was what her mother wanted, it was what Vesi had to do. She pulled up the bucket and drained the water into the hole of the pipe, which sent water from the reservoir of the well up the wall into the pipe. She opened their water channel, ‘touched’ the water and got the water moving to her house. Vesi walked back to her home, very aware of what she had just done. She had just called water to her house. She knew she had little energy, but she could do more if her mother only let her practice. She passed the vendors on her way back home. Again, they all were getting ready for the week’s celebrations. The colors, the banners and the celebratory food were all being prepared.
Nolan
One of the traveling merchants didn’t come to celebrate, but instead he came looking for a friend. He came searching for the woman he loved and who had saved his life—to see her one more time, repay her kindness and maybe convince her to go with him. He was getting ready to start his search when he noticed a young woman drawing her water. He looked at her intently. He sized her up from top to bottom, wondering why the water flowed so freely this late in the day. The official Water-Magi had returned to his own home almost an hour earlier; water was not supposed to flow so easily or abundantly in late morning.
This young lady was special. She seemed to be a Gift, an untrained Water-Magi by the look of her. Inexperienced Magi were dangerous to have around, both to themselves and to others, although this young woman looked to have some control over water. Where was her Vessel? She was calling water without a Vessel to aid her! She must be a Gift-Vessel; that posed even greater danger. Now the question was why her parents had never noticed she was a Water-Magi. She must have the mark! He needed to find Jray soon. There was something familiar about this girl; the way she walked reminded him of the love of his life, his Jray, and there was a pull. That familiar pull which made it easy for him to walk in the desert. Nolan followed the girl.
June
In the desert, June ran. The Blue Judge ran and ran some more, not paying any attention to the strain on her legs. The castle had been left behind many days back. After finding the Teacher-Magi, the next one needed to be found fast. This Water-Magi was too young and, just like Opal, her life was fragile. June needed to find her charge soon and return to the castle.
June was not going to take any chances. She was not going to be late or risk for this young Gifted waiting much longer. This Magi’s Gift needed to be united with Opal. She needed to be found before the horrible man Callo could find her. Unlike what had happened to Opal, he wasn’t going to get a chance to hurt her. June ran and slept for only a few hours during the late hour at night. She would stop briefly during the day only to eat and drink whatever Light would bring.
“Once we find the little Magi and I know she is safe, then we will rest. The Gift-Vessel needs to be found. Let’s go, Light. Be a good companion and run.”
At the Nin’vae Oasis, the gift-Vessel walked inside her home and Gallo’s bird spotted her again. He had been keeping an eye on her since the moment he had found her. The Gift-Vessel was still in the same oasis. His master would acquire his target. This one will not be easy to destroy. All in her family are special. This one is powerful. And the bird flew to tell Gallo, his master.