When I woke up in the morning, I had the most head splitting headache of my entire life. After getting home last night, I had fallen onto my bed and was out in a matter of moments.
Groaning, I rolled over and sat up on the edge of my bed, holding my head. “Ugh...”
‘Morning,’ Miles said suddenly, displeasure in his voice.
“Ow... Could you please not talk right now? My head hurts.”
‘Hmph.’
I stood up, walked out of my room, across the hall, and into the kitchen. It was already seven, almost noon. A note from my mother lay on the kitchen table.
Good morning!
I couldn’t wait any longer, but I didn’t want to wake you either. We’ll talk when I’m back from work tonight.
Love, Mom
Leftovers from last night’s dinner were standing on the table, as well as a bowl with fresh water. I took a few sips, washed my face, and sat down to eat the broth my mother had made. I hope she wasn’t disappointed that I had fallen asleep.
Last night I had had a weird dream. I wandered around the house, looking into every room and out every window as if searching for something. I didn’t usually dream a lot, and if I did, it wasn’t this vivid. Eventually I had been back in my room and laid down on my bed, where I woke up. I wished I could go back to sleep, I didn’t have a headache in my dream.
I shoved the last spoonful of food into my mouth and cleaned the dishes before putting them away. Then I walked out the back door, grabbing a tub filled with clothes on the way. The headache was letting up slightly by this point and I started talking to Miles.
“I’ll go to the water source now. You want to see it, right?”
‘May I talk now, o master?’ he said sarcastically.
“Sorry. It was just really painful after waking up.”
‘Yea, yea.’
I walked down the path behind our house, deeper into the south-eastern part of town. After a few minutes, I arrived in the small square where the water source was. Apparently the first settlement had been in this place and later spread out, to become the town of Alarna.
A line had formed in front of the water source. If you didn’t get here early in the morning, you would oftentimes have to wait a while. Scattered around the square were dozens of people, mostly older kids, who were doing their family’s laundry. I got in line as well and put down the tub.
‘Just for the record, last night sucked,’ Miles said while I was waiting. ‘Apparently I don’t need to sleep in here, I was bored out of my mind.’
“Were you talking to yourself all night? That might explain the headache,” I said jokingly in a hushed voice.
‘Smartass,’ Miles said dryly.
After a while, I had made my way to the front of the line. Before me was the water source, a dark black, obsidian cube, about one and a half meters on all sides. In the middle of the front face was a hole, and above it you could see the scripture sigils, painted onto it in a light blue.
I walked up to the water source and placed the tub with the clothes on the floor below the hole. Then I grabbed a blue stone that was lying between the clothes and placed it on top of the cube. After a moment, the stone dissolved and water started streaming out of the hole and into the tub.
As I made for picking up the tub, to move away and make space for the others behind me, Miles piped up.
‘Hey, wait! What is this?’
“The water source. This is where you get water,” I explained.
He made a sound as if that much was obvious. ‘I mean the Omega script! Those are the sigils you were talking about? Look at it again!’
I looked back up at the sigils, waiting for Miles to be done, but was interrupted by someone clearing their throat behind me. I realized I was crouching in front of the water source, staring at it like an idiot, while others were waiting for their turn.
As I quickly picked up the tub and moved out of the way, Miles spoke up again. ‘Stay close! Somewhere you can still see the script!’
I carried the tub a few meters before plonking it down and getting ready to wash the clothes inside. Occasionally I looked up to the water source, so Miles could see it as others drew water from it.
‘What’s with the stones? Are they payment?’ he asked.
“Uhm, I guess? You need it for water to come out.”
‘So it’s a well with a paywall?’
“It’s not a well. The water isn’t coming out of the ground.”
He wasn’t easily convinced that the water did not come from below the cube, but when I told him about a different part of town, a bit further north, where the water source was the size of a bucket and could be picked up and looked at from all sides, he came around.
Our water source was so popular because the other one would only give a certain amount of water per day, and certainly not enough for all citizens living there.
On the other hand, it was convenient to be able to pick it up. Though the authorities put it on a chain, to prevent people from stealing it.
I scrubbed a few of my shirts in silence for a moment. Sweet, sweet, painless silence. “What are the scripture sigils? You know them, right?” I asked eventually.
‘Where did you get that name from? “Scripture sigils.”’
A few people gave me confused looks in passing, as I whispered to myself, explaining to Miles that the priests always preached a little during class. They would go on and on about the grace of the gods, and how the water sources were gifts, allowing us to go about our day in peace, without having to travel out of town, in search of wild water.
Everyone who had ever attended any class had heard the term “scripture sigils” from the priests. They described them as the visual representation of the voice of the gods.
‘Can anyone read the sigils?’
“I don’t think so,” I said. “The priests say it’s ‘not for mortals to understand.’ I always thought it was just decorative...”
‘Decorative, huh? Hahaha.’ Miles laughed, and once again, the pain subsided. Note: Happy Miles = Less pain. Do I have to tell him jokes all day...?
***
‘I know it as “Omega,”’ Miles said as I was carrying the tub with the now wet, but clean clothes back home. ‘It’s... a kind of language.’
He was excited. I didn’t realize it at first, but as I was listening to him, his voice in my head became less and less painful. He still didn’t answer many of my questions directly, but by now I guessed that it was less to hide things from us and more because he assumed we wouldn’t know what he was talking about. Or maybe he didn’t have all the answers either.
‘Programming languages affect things,’ Miles went on. ‘You make things happen by writing “sigils.” You said the water source is not a well. And then there are those stones and the script, ...’
Having arrived back home, I started hanging the clothes up to dry in the backyard, while listening to Miles ramble on. Though I admittedly started tuning out here and there.
‘Have you ever tested it?’ he suddenly asked.
“Tested what?”
‘Using Omega! The sigils, whatever.’
“Like creating a new water source?”
‘Yes!’
“That doesn’t work. Nothing happens if you paint the sigils on something. The priests also don’t like when kids talk about trying it.”
‘Maybe there’s more to it... Still, can you test it?’
First he had me writing math novels for what felt like hours yesterday, now he wanted me to paint sigils. I let out a sigh. “You think you can create water sources?”
‘If I’m right, that will be just the beginning,’ he said with confidence.
***
An hour later, I had painted sigils on paper and wood, onto stones and bricks, on a metal pot and even on my arm. I had tried ink, chalk, and even borrowed paint from a neighbor.
Initially it had taken minutes to get every sigil right, as Miles kept correcting me on my mistakes, but now I was able to draw everything in seconds. Right now, I was drawing the sigils into the dirt behind the house with a stick. When I put one of our blue stones on the finished “artwork”, nothing happened, and I hurriedly removed the drawing, so no passersby would see it.
“I told you,” I said, a little disappointed.
‘Hm... I have to think about this.’
Miles had explained his theory to me. He believed the sigils to be responsible for turning blue stones into water. If the water source was not a well, drawing the water from the earth, it had to come from somewhere else. And to his understanding, the sigils converted the stones into water somehow. Though I found it hard to believe, that a stone the size of half a thumb was supposedly creating several liters of water. The gods sending the water sounded more plausible.
I was going along with his tests because he sounded so certain, and because he essentially saved my life yesterday, but I was glad he wanted to think for a bit, because I was getting tired of this.
After cleaning up all the failed experiments, and spending some time tidying the house, I started preparing dinner. Mother would come home from work soon. I used the remaining ingredients she had bought yesterday and made a vegetable soup. It wasn’t long after I was done, when I heard the front door.
“Tomar! How are you feeling?” she said immediately after seeing me.
“I’m okay, mom. I had a headache this morning, but it’s all good now.”
“And how is Miles?”
He didn’t say anything. Lost in thought?
“He’s okay as well,” I said.
We sat down at the table and ate. I told her about Miles’ experiments and my mother listened with curiosity. I had never tried writing sigils before, unlike most of the kids I knew. My mother had told me it wouldn’t work. She had tried it herself when she was younger, because she had thought the sigils would have to mean something as well, but she had concluded that they didn’t. And I trusted her wholeheartedly. After today, I was even more certain than before.
“But if it were possible, we could have our own water source in the backyard,” she said half jokingly.
‘Or the kitchen. And the toilet,’ Miles said absentmindedly in my head.
“The toilet?” I said reflexively, not sure what Miles meant. But he went silent again right after.
My mother looked at me questionly.
“Oh, nothing. Miles is saying random things,” I said.
As we continued eating, we talked about what we would do about a job for me. Gean had declared me to be fit to be a statistician, but I actually wasn’t entirely sure what that would entail yet. And while Miles said it would be fine, and my mother was mostly just glad that I was alive and well, I didn’t want to get my hopes up too much yet.
With Miles’ help I had passed a test to see if I had received a Calling after all, but all I had been given were a few math problems and a trick question that I wasn’t supposed to solve. It appeared that I was the only one worrying that this couldn’t be enough to qualify for a job. And if that trick question was a special test, would it be safe to work with Gean?
Mother suggested that we should look into what other options I had with the Researcher Calling, which neither my mother nor me knew too much about. It was way too far removed from the Handiworker Calling that we had assumed I would get. However, as it was getting late in the afternoon, that would have to wait until tomorrow.
I enjoyed the silence in my head while talking to my mother about this and that. We played cards for a while, and eventually I went to my room to read, until I would inevitably fall asleep. I would have to get up earlier tomorrow. Sleeping until noon seemed like a waste of time.
***
“Let’s see...” an inaudible voice said in the middle of the night, as Tomar was fast asleep.
When I woke up in the morning, I had the most head splitting headache of my entire life. After getting home last night, I had fallen onto my bed and was out in a matter of moments.
Groaning, I rolled over and sat up on the edge of my bed, holding my head. “Ugh...”
‘Morning,’ Miles said suddenly, displeasure in his voice.
“Ow... Could you please not talk right now? My head hurts.”
‘Hmph.’
I stood up, walked out of my room, across the hall, and into the kitchen. It was already seven, almost noon. A note from my mother lay on the kitchen table.
Good morning!
I couldn’t wait any longer, but I didn’t want to wake you either. We’ll talk when I’m back from work tonight.
Love, Mom
Leftovers from last night’s dinner were standing on the table, as well as a bowl with fresh water. I took a few sips, washed my face, and sat down to eat the broth my mother had made. I hope she wasn’t disappointed that I had fallen asleep.
Last night I had had a weird dream. I wandered around the house, looking into every room and out every window as if searching for something. I didn’t usually dream a lot, and if I did, it wasn’t this vivid. Eventually I had been back in my room and laid down on my bed, where I woke up. I wished I could go back to sleep, I didn’t have a headache in my dream.
I shoved the last spoonful of food into my mouth and cleaned the dishes before putting them away. Then I walked out the back door, grabbing a tub filled with clothes on the way. The headache was letting up slightly by this point and I started talking to Miles.
“I’ll go to the water source now. You want to see it, right?”
‘May I talk now, o master?’ he said sarcastically.
“Sorry. It was just really painful after waking up.”
‘Yea, yea.’
I walked down the path behind our house, deeper into the south-eastern part of town. After a few minutes, I arrived in the small square where the water source was. Apparently the first settlement had been in this place and later spread out, to become the town of Alarna.
A line had formed in front of the water source. If you didn’t get here early in the morning, you would oftentimes have to wait a while. Scattered around the square were dozens of people, mostly older kids, who were doing their family’s laundry. I got in line as well and put down the tub.
‘Just for the record, last night sucked,’ Miles said while I was waiting. ‘Apparently I don’t need to sleep in here, I was bored out of my mind.’
“Were you talking to yourself all night? That might explain the headache,” I said jokingly in a hushed voice.
‘Smartass,’ Miles said dryly.
After a while, I had made my way to the front of the line. Before me was the water source, a dark black, obsidian cube, about one and a half meters on all sides. In the middle of the front face was a hole, and above it you could see the scripture sigils, painted onto it in a light blue.
I walked up to the water source and placed the tub with the clothes on the floor below the hole. Then I grabbed a blue stone that was lying between the clothes and placed it on top of the cube. After a moment, the stone dissolved and water started streaming out of the hole and into the tub.
As I made for picking up the tub, to move away and make space for the others behind me, Miles piped up.
‘Hey, wait! What is this?’
“The water source. This is where you get water,” I explained.
He made a sound as if that much was obvious. ‘I mean the Omega script! Those are the sigils you were talking about? Look at it again!’
I looked back up at the sigils, waiting for Miles to be done, but was interrupted by someone clearing their throat behind me. I realized I was crouching in front of the water source, staring at it like an idiot, while others were waiting for their turn.
As I quickly picked up the tub and moved out of the way, Miles spoke up again. ‘Stay close! Somewhere you can still see the script!’
I carried the tub a few meters before plonking it down and getting ready to wash the clothes inside. Occasionally I looked up to the water source, so Miles could see it as others drew water from it.
‘What’s with the stones? Are they payment?’ he asked.
“Uhm, I guess? You need it for water to come out.”
‘So it’s a well with a paywall?’
“It’s not a well. The water isn’t coming out of the ground.”
He wasn’t easily convinced that the water did not come from below the cube, but when I told him about a different part of town, a bit further north, where the water source was the size of a bucket and could be picked up and looked at from all sides, he came around.
Our water source was so popular because the other one would only give a certain amount of water per day, and certainly not enough for all citizens living there.
On the other hand, it was convenient to be able to pick it up. Though the authorities put it on a chain, to prevent people from stealing it.
I scrubbed a few of my shirts in silence for a moment. Sweet, sweet, painless silence. “What are the scripture sigils? You know them, right?” I asked eventually.
‘Where did you get that name from? “Scripture sigils.”’
A few people gave me confused looks in passing, as I whispered to myself, explaining to Miles that the priests always preached a little during class. They would go on and on about the grace of the gods, and how the water sources were gifts, allowing us to go about our day in peace, without having to travel out of town, in search of wild water.
Everyone who had ever attended any class had heard the term “scripture sigils” from the priests. They described them as the visual representation of the voice of the gods.
‘Can anyone read the sigils?’
“I don’t think so,” I said. “The priests say it’s ‘not for mortals to understand.’ I always thought it was just decorative...”
‘Decorative, huh? Hahaha.’ Miles laughed, and once again, the pain subsided. Note: Happy Miles = Less pain. Do I have to tell him jokes all day...?
***
‘I know it as “Omega,”’ Miles said as I was carrying the tub with the now wet, but clean clothes back home. ‘It’s... a kind of language.’
He was excited. I didn’t realize it at first, but as I was listening to him, his voice in my head became less and less painful. He still didn’t answer many of my questions directly, but by now I guessed that it was less to hide things from us and more because he assumed we wouldn’t know what he was talking about. Or maybe he didn’t have all the answers either.
‘Programming languages affect things,’ Miles went on. ‘You make things happen by writing “sigils.” You said the water source is not a well. And then there are those stones and the script, ...’
Having arrived back home, I started hanging the clothes up to dry in the backyard, while listening to Miles ramble on. Though I admittedly started tuning out here and there.
‘Have you ever tested it?’ he suddenly asked.
“Tested what?”
‘Using Omega! The sigils, whatever.’
“Like creating a new water source?”
‘Yes!’
“That doesn’t work. Nothing happens if you paint the sigils on something. The priests also don’t like when kids talk about trying it.”
‘Maybe there’s more to it... Still, can you test it?’
First he had me writing math novels for what felt like hours yesterday, now he wanted me to paint sigils. I let out a sigh. “You think you can create water sources?”
‘If I’m right, that will be just the beginning,’ he said with confidence.
***
An hour later, I had painted sigils on paper and wood, onto stones and bricks, on a metal pot and even on my arm. I had tried ink, chalk, and even borrowed paint from a neighbor.
Initially it had taken minutes to get every sigil right, as Miles kept correcting me on my mistakes, but now I was able to draw everything in seconds. Right now, I was drawing the sigils into the dirt behind the house with a stick. When I put one of our blue stones on the finished “artwork”, nothing happened, and I hurriedly removed the drawing, so no passersby would see it.
“I told you,” I said, a little disappointed.
‘Hm... I have to think about this.’
Miles had explained his theory to me. He believed the sigils to be responsible for turning blue stones into water. If the water source was not a well, drawing the water from the earth, it had to come from somewhere else. And to his understanding, the sigils converted the stones into water somehow. Though I found it hard to believe, that a stone the size of half a thumb was supposedly creating several liters of water. The gods sending the water sounded more plausible.
I was going along with his tests because he sounded so certain, and because he essentially saved my life yesterday, but I was glad he wanted to think for a bit, because I was getting tired of this.
After cleaning up all the failed experiments, and spending some time tidying the house, I started preparing dinner. Mother would come home from work soon. I used the remaining ingredients she had bought yesterday and made a vegetable soup. It wasn’t long after I was done, when I heard the front door.
“Tomar! How are you feeling?” she said immediately after seeing me.
“I’m okay, mom. I had a headache this morning, but it’s all good now.”
“And how is Miles?”
He didn’t say anything. Lost in thought?
“He’s okay as well,” I said.
We sat down at the table and ate. I told her about Miles’ experiments and my mother listened with curiosity. I had never tried writing sigils before, unlike most of the kids I knew. My mother had told me it wouldn’t work. She had tried it herself when she was younger, because she had thought the sigils would have to mean something as well, but she had concluded that they didn’t. And I trusted her wholeheartedly. After today, I was even more certain than before.
“But if it were possible, we could have our own water source in the backyard,” she said half jokingly.
‘Or the kitchen. And the toilet,’ Miles said absentmindedly in my head.
“The toilet?” I said reflexively, not sure what Miles meant. But he went silent again right after.
My mother looked at me questionly.
“Oh, nothing. Miles is saying random things,” I said.
As we continued eating, we talked about what we would do about a job for me. Gean had declared me to be fit to be a statistician, but I actually wasn’t entirely sure what that would entail yet. And while Miles said it would be fine, and my mother was mostly just glad that I was alive and well, I didn’t want to get my hopes up too much yet.
With Miles’ help I had passed a test to see if I had received a Calling after all, but all I had been given were a few math problems and a trick question that I wasn’t supposed to solve. It appeared that I was the only one worrying that this couldn’t be enough to qualify for a job. And if that trick question was a special test, would it be safe to work with Gean?
Mother suggested that we should look into what other options I had with the Researcher Calling, which neither my mother nor me knew too much about. It was way too far removed from the Handiworker Calling that we had assumed I would get. However, as it was getting late in the afternoon, that would have to wait until tomorrow.
I enjoyed the silence in my head while talking to my mother about this and that. We played cards for a while, and eventually I went to my room to read, until I would inevitably fall asleep. I would have to get up earlier tomorrow. Sleeping until noon seemed like a waste of time.
***
“Let’s see...” an inaudible voice said in the middle of the night, as Tomar was fast asleep.
