Ficlets

“Tell me,” said the sorcerer, “what do you see beyond the snow?”

His apprentice, ten summers old, squinched his eyes and huffed. “Nothing. Just more snow.”

“Look further. Longer.” The old man added a pinch of powder to the fire and dragged a gnarled hand through the smoke, wafting it toward the boy.

He tried again, the acrid smoke making his eyes water and his nose run. “Still nothing. Maybe I can’t – ow!” He sucked on his finger and glared at his master.

The old man ignored him, flicking the drop of blood off the tip of the needle and into the fire. “Again.”

Outside, the flakes swirled, white upon white. The boy stared until his eyes ached, his finger throbbing.

The storm shifted.

He spiraled down the mountain, past battened-down farms, across frozen lakes and along the Old Road, all the way to the lord’s manor, into a room behind the kitchens. There knelt a girl of ten summers, staring into the fire. An old woman sat behind her, coaxing.

He followed her gaze.

Snow. Cabin. Boy.

The vision snapped.