Roads of Bone, Chapter 7: Show Off

I am doing a little experiment.  I am going to write a series of chapters in a fantasy world of my creation and see if it goes anywhere.  Since I have not prewritten this story and have no outline, it will probably end up a convoluted mess.  I do not know how often I will be able to update this or if it will ever finish.  This is the link to CHAPTER 1.  (I have also found that I have to go back and clean up very broken sentences in previous chapters.  This is why I need an editor.  I understand what I am writing, but I need to make sure other people do too.)

Chapter 7: Show Off

            Malakite watched as Pasgard lumbered over to the parasols the tea house had laid out over part of the dock.  The cafe had opened a section of the dock so that the patrons could dip their feet into the flowing water of the Color Line.  Tiny river fish would nibble off the callous of feet, making them smooth and tender.

            All around the tottering black man people became aware of him, we was from a very distant place and that made some of them prickly.  Pasgard had seen worse starting attitudes, "Come young ones to see the wonders of an old fool who wishes to show you the little bits of fun I learned when I was not much older then you."

            Pasgard's finger moved like he was signally hidden instrumentalists and distant haunting music began to play, like a distant fair ground.  "This is spooky," said someone getting up to leave.

            "Fear not young man," said Pasgard, pointing to the little fish.  "I seek only to pass on a little something that was passed on to me."  The instruments that previously seemed distant grew closer.  While adults all around felt nervous, the children looked amazed.

            "See the little fish," said Pasgard, with a wave of his hand the nibbling fish started to emanate blues and yellows.  Swimming in big sweeping patterns, a ring, a figure 8, 3 wavy lines, then a spiral.  Each change prompted by the wave of Pasgard's hand.

            From under the parasols the light of the midday sun seemed very distant.  The little fish glowed and sparkled, moving faster thru the water like shooting stars.

            "When I was just a young man," said Pasgard.  "A wizard did this show, though he used a flock of humming birds.  I like the little fish.  They move in patterns good."

            By then even the previously nervous parents were taken in, as this little area of the tea house was turning into a surreal bubble of night sky in the middle of the day, but with an eerie hum of invisible strings, a beat of distant drums, and some deep feeling of having been made free.

            Bit by bit the lights and sounds faded, the fish stopped glowing and swimming in patterns, and all of the children were smiling ear to ear.  The parents and other adults were dazzled.  There was one left over, a little girl with ragged hair, freckled face, a smile missing many baby teeth, simple clots, and no parent.  "How?" she asked.

            "Little one," said Pasgard, his eyes tearing up.  "Oh that I could be young enough to teach you such things.  I have done this show before, and seen so many smiles, and always there is one left who asks how."

            "Why are you crying?" the little girl asked, suddenly so nervous for the wizard.

            "I'm sorry little one," said Pasgard.  "My time as a teacher is passed," there was a coin in his hand that he was making spin.  "I have taught so many before you, and this would be all I needed for me to try again, but I just don't have the time left.  I'm sorry because I can already tell, you be a great wizard." He then fumbled the coin.  She tried to catch it, missed, and chased it to the edge of the water, she smiled, turned, and frowned.  The old wizard was gone.