Moongrace

Part 32

Meino guided Eleeza to a chair and made her sit, then he went around a small table and sat down as well. Eleeza felt around her. The chair was old and as dusty as everything here. The table was of old, splintering wood and somebody had wiped away the dust. Meino's chair creaked as he moved. Eleeza put her hands on her lap and waited for Meino to begin.

"I thought last night how to teach you best. In a way, that you learn just enough to change things to gold but not enough to free yourself. I haven't come to a perfect plan as in now, but I want to start with the basics of magicology. I, uhm, got a book about magic as a phenomenon, but I realised just now that it is useless."

"Not if you read it to me.", Eleeza disagreed.

"That's truly a possibility. But I will simply sum it up, that's faster. Anyway, it's not important for our cause. I just thought it would be a good start, setting the basics, you know."

Eleeza could feel that he was unsure about the whole thing. His heartbeat and his tone revealed it. She smiled encouragingly since she really was interested in magicology. But Meino didn't answer a single question of hers about magic and always scolded her when she asked about Alarana. He only talked about the very basics of magic. Some she already knew or had guessed herself, but most was new to her. In the end Meino read quite a bit of the book to her.

Then he left her to her unanswered questions and locked the door behind him. The rope didn't shorten as much as the past day and she could walk around in the room. She explored the whole room and stood quite a while at the barred window.

Meino had left the book on the table. She would love to read it, if only she could. Her curiosity for literature was something she would have to bury deep down, she realised. Being blind was so disabling sometimes.

Yet without it, she would not know half as much about this place. And there was beauty in it... a melancholic, secretive and glorious beauty. No light, reflection or random sight could disturb her concentration. She was kind of glad to make the experience of being blind. The thought of it dominating her whole life, though still seemed frightening.

Three days of nothingness and a few basic lessonspassed. In the evening, she heard Meino talk to Lenrio about his concerns: "Lenrio, what if Eleeza'renria gets too powerful? We are not able to fight her or even keep her prisoner any longer in that case. She is a very powerful Earrach! We really shouldn't teach her, it's damn dangerous! We shouldn't even keep her prisoner."

"Don't be such a fool! Don't tell her everything. Bring her stones and let her practise so much until she can change them to gold. Just practise, no theory! Try to let her as clueless about magic as possible. Form her! And punish her when she fails. And anyway, I am preparing..."

Then Cathryn brought the dinner and they stepped in the room with the thick door. Eleeza leaned back on the soft pillows. If Meino did what Lenrio said, she would have to be subtle in getting the information from him that would help her escape. And she would have a hard time.

Cathryn also brought her dinner, breathing heavily as she reached the room. She put it on the table and let herself fall on one chair which creaked loudly. Eleeza sniffed the air. It smelled of rice and some scent she couldn't allocate. Quickly she braided her long hair which she hadtried to comb with her fingers. Cathryn stared at her baffled for a fewmoments. She still couldn't believe that such beauty existed. When sherealised, that she just sat and stared, she internally scolded herself forbeing rude and quickly made up a sentence:

"There's hundreds of rooms in that castle, why had they to choose one on the second floor?"

Still out of breath Cathryn again couldn't do morethan watch as Eleeza got up and carefully moved alongside the bed to the table.She felt for the second chair and gracefully sat down.