Author: Jolinn
Notes: A tale of humble beginnings.
As a boy, he had grown up on the streets of Var Bandor, eeking out a meager existent in the wretched quarter of the city, he'd led a mainly solitary existence, avoided by most of the other boys. Bullies who tried to beat him up tended to ended up slipping on ice, or having an inexplicable bucket of water thrown in the face. He seemed to always have a scrap of food for the stray animals about the neighborhood, and because of this was somewhat shunned by the other children of the neighborhood.
With no real family, the "tricks" he seemed to have a knack for were an escape for an otherwise wretched existence. The end of childhood found him working in a small tavern, mainly stable boy for whatever pack animals passed his way. It wasn't bad work he had a certain focus for even the smallest tasks the innkeep demanded, and best of all, he never had to lug buckets of water from the inn's well to fill the horse troughs. A little "trick" he picked up, and no one seemed to mind, even though travellers seemed were a little set aback when the horse water was cleaner than what the inn offered.
There, he might have been content to spend his life, until one fateful day. The inn was unusually busy, and the patrons lately come to the city were forced to find lodging in the stables. Grudgingly sharing his own place in the loft, the boy noticed an old man and his daughter tying up a mule below. The man began to climb the ladder into the loft, when a thin man came out of the shadows! Jenthil cried a warning, but was too late for the old man the thief hit him over the head, and he tumbled down off the ladder! The girl screamed in terror, while the boy scuttled down the ladder. The thief, realizing he'd been spotted, jabbed his knife into the man's back in the same motion that he grabbed away the man's pouch of gold. As he ran off into the shadows, Jenthil scuttled down the ladder, calling for help for the old man.
The girl cried over her father, and tried futiley to prop him up. As the innkeep arrived, he looked darkly at the wound.
Muttering to Jenthil, he said "No hope boy that's his lifeblood gushing there .. better get something to clean this up."
Jenthil turned his head, and reached to the man's side, and and.. *felt* something wrong. The same gift that let him create water from nothing was turned now to the old man. Stretching out, *feeling* the flows of life through the man's body, Jenthil as much as saw the wrongness in the flows. And, with words and gestures that came unbidden to mind, he did something he'd never thought possible. Rather than bringing a flow into existence, he mended one and the mending came so much more naturally than the creation. It was as it ought to be.
The old man's eyes flickered open, and he coughed. "Thank you, scholar! And rare indeed to see one of our order so young, and soo poorly clad for one with such talents."
The innkeep sneered "Scholar? Jenthil? The horse boy? You must have lost more blood than it looks like old man!" And yet, where the old man had been stabbed there was now no blood flowing at all only a thin pink line.
"The void take you boy, what deal have you made to heal this man!", the inkeep stammered. He began to back away from the two, eying them warily. "Get out of here old man, and you too, boy.
The old man shook his head sadly, staring the innkeep down, "The boy's got the gift! Magic to match even the great Lenimbar! I think I'll be takin' him to the tower to study, where his gift will do the world some good!"
Tugging on the old man's robe, the young girl looked up at him "Grandpa Baldrae, can he talk to the spirits, too?"
Baldrae laughed "No, but he can heal that soft spot in your head, my dear", and ruffled his young daughter's hair.
Helping the man out of the inn, Jenthil was whisked away by the man's presence, and down the streets of Var Bandor.
The innkeep, still shaking his head, muttered too himself about witches and Ashur-loving-sons-of-srryn and ducked back inside, less one horse boy.