Sword & Sorcery Part Two

Aleric rolled out of his blankets, the next morning, to see that the sun was barely above the horizon, though even now the night chills were being driven off. Delrayna was seated cross legged in front of the fire, which she had returned to life, from the bed of embers that had survived the night. He was doubly pleased, that while Delrayna had brought out the breakfast supplies, she had not attemped to cook it.

A chore that he reserved for himself. Which didn't make Delrayna happy, since, as she put it, she was a slave and as a slave cooking should be fall to her. In fact the argument had gotten so vehement that he had had to promise her a beating if she so much as approached the fire with a piece of uncooked meat.

Delrayna was staring at a mirror with a smaoky black surface.

"What are you doing," Aleric asked on his way over to the fire.

"Scrying," Delrayna answered simply. She looked up at Aleric and arched an eyebrow. "Since I am not allowed to be a proper slave, I thought to give this a try." Her eyes returned to the mirror.

Aleric squatted down beside the fire and spitted two strips of rabbit. Magic unsettled him but the world was rife with the stuff, so he supposed that it was a good thing that he had a slave versed in it.

"See anything?"

"No." There was more than just a hint of frustration in Delrayna's voice. "This is what they were supposed to teach me after I was apprenticed to the High Priest of the Temple of Amun. Not like that'll ever happen now." The last was said in a low resentful mumble.

"There are other means of learning," Aleric said, carefully watching the meat as it dripped grease into the fire.

"Yeah, like who'd teach a slave."

Aleric rolled his eyes. "Can you read slave?"

"Of course I can read." Delrayna Ap Nud looked at Aleric as if he were an insignicant child asking a stupid question. "One does not become apprenticed to the High Priest in the Temple of Amun if one cannot read or write."

"You can read and write," Aleric commented. "That is good for I cannot do either." He got up and walked over to his packs. Rummaging through them he pulled out a couple scrolls of parchment, tied with plain black thread. He dropped them into Delrayna's lap.

"Read," he commanded.