They met with Rattar a few days past the next week, though they had let him know halfway between that Miresh was ready for the next steps of her training. This time, the Aura brought them to speak with him in a grove of trees behind his meditation hall. The Iron Palace still seemed like it was looming directly overhead, but as the morning rain cleared, they walked past it and a handful of other buildings to the small orchard.
Rattar was bare-chested, wearing a dark fur dress from the waist down. He was writing in a large book when they arrived, but he quickly closed the heavy tome and looked down from the tall wooden stool he sat on at the woman who had led his apprentice and her friend to him. The Aura walked tranquilly away, and Miresh stepped forward with her lantern staff held at her side. Today she was wearing a teal tunic and black pants.
“Miresh,” Rattar said. “And Aralim.”
Aralim bobbed his head awkwardly and leaned on his own staff.
“Have you chosen a Crux, young student?” the magician said.
“I have,” Miresh said.
Rattar held up a hand. “You need not share it with I, if you do not desire to. Such items are private and dangerous, and should only be trusted—”
“It’s my staff,” Miresh said. “I’ll always carry it with me, so it was an easy choice.”
“Enemies might assume this also, and attempt to disarm or destroy it.” Rattar was frowning, his wrinkled forehead furrowed with concern.
“I follow the Path, not people who intend me harm,” Miresh said. She had asked Aralim about this very thing a few days earlier, but she had already thought of a similar answer to her worries. “I will not let them get my staff from me.”
Rattar paused to consider this, and then shrugged. “Very well. But do not say I counselled you poorly, apprentice of mine. If your staff is to be your Crux, you must learn all there is to know of it. It should become a part of you. When you sleep, keep it near you. When you eat, look at it. When you walk, move it as comfortably as you move your own legs. Examine every inch of it, touch every inch of it. Burn your finger with its fire, if you must, and taste the oil used in its lamp.”
“Really?” Miresh asked.
“You must know it as well as you know your own body, Miresh,” Rattar said. “Imagine how the staff feels, when you hold it as you are right now.”
It was on a very slight angle, and Miresh righted it immediately. “Dizzy, maybe?”
“Does it? Do you?” Rattar asked.
“Oh,” Miresh said, and relaxed again. She was looking up at her staff. Aralim looked at his. He had never burned his fingers in it, or tasted the oil, and he had never tried to study every line in the wooden texture of its handle.
“Your take away work is to study your lantern and staff. Do this for two hours a day. Do not distract yourself with your surroundings. Study your Crux for an hour in the morning, and an hour in the evening, and when you can’t think of what else to try with it, imagine more.” Rattar turned, and with a raised hand, led them deeper into the grove. “Do this until I tell you otherwise.”
Miresh walked with her staff easily enough, but Aralim could tell it was still an unnatural companion to her. She looked at her master and said, “I will.”
“Let me know if you decide to burn yourself,” Aralim said. “I will make sure there is healing cream easily available.”
Rattar looked back at Aralim with a raised eyebrow, but then back to the narrow dirt trail ahead of him. Soon, they reached a small clearing in the midst of the orchard. It was strange to imagine the busy Palace grounds beyond the trees and foliage, and stranger still to imagine the sprawling city beyond that.
“I will make more time for your training now that you are aptly prepared,” Rattar said. “On second and fourth day, you will come to the Iron Palace and learn from me when I am not attending the First Court.”
“I will accompany her,” Aralim said. He remembered the Emperor mentioning security, but he wanted to see the Palace as much as Miresh did.
“You need not always,” Rattar said, pausing in his walk. “Today’s lesson will involve sitting and contemplating an immature flower for several hours. This is hardly beneficial to you…”
“I will decide what is beneficial and what isn’t,” Aralim said. “But I meant only to say I wish to accompany her on days in the Palace.”
Rattar blinked. “I see. Very well. As I was saying, the first day of the week will be a free day for us both, while day three and five will involve more object lessons, as with today. Now, please be gentle with the young plants here. Choose an un-blossomed plant, and sit before it.”
Miresh started to step forward, but then paused. The clearing was carpeted by thin, wispy grass, where stalks of foliage and flowers emerged to grow. The young girl looked at her lantern staff, then back at her master. “Do I bring my staff?”
Rattar didn’t speak, just gave her a raised eyebrow.
“Of course,” she said, and kept walking. She chose a small stalk of green nearby and sat down with her sandaled feet crossed underneath her thighs.
Rattar sat down on a tree stump nearby, while Aralim took a step into the clearing and chose a small plant of his own. He might as well follow the exercise. Rattar smiled, then composed himself and looked at his apprentice. “Your goal, from now until whenever you succeed, is to make that plant grow larger and bloom. It will accomplish this same thing on its own in two Moons, so you may choose a new one if that happens.”
“I’ll watch it bloom?” Miresh asked.
“You’ll make it bloom. Sooner,” Rattar said. He opened his book. “Before you leave today, I will give you a book that suggests possible causes and processes for the growth of plants. Remember what I said about the tree in my meditation hall—the more you understand of the world, the more changes of the world you can cause.”
Miresh nodded. She and Aralim remembered the root that the magician had moved with a great clarity. Miresh set her lantern staff across her knees, and looked sternly at the plant. Aralim shrugged and followed suit.
Neither plan changed that day, not even a little bit. Overall, the day was boring and a little damp on Aralim’s posterior, but he remembered the followers of the Path in his homeland. Most of them never chose to wander, to walk the Path; meditation and study were common, but not with the intent of changing the world. More with the intent of changing themselves to have more power over the world. Rattar spoke as though Miresh already had the power she needed and Aralim did not. On the Path, things were not so clearly defined. So Aralim focused on the small flower sprout until Rattar bid them farewell.