'Come on. I'll show you. You bring the food. I'll bring our clothes. I'm not getting dressed until I'm clean again.'
As both of them were mud- and silt-covered over most of their bodies, and hot and sweaty as well, Kellen could only agree with that plan. He followed Idalia, and received another surprise.
She led him through the woods, and soon he heard the sound of rushing water. They came to a place where a small waterfall spilled down into a deep rocky catch-basin, which in turn overflowed to make the stream where he had seen the undine the day before. The whole basin was in full sunlight. Idalia sighed happily.
'It's a good place to swim—and it's warm!' She dropped their clothes in a careless bundle and ran forward, arcing into a graceful dive that made almost no splash as she entered the water.
Kellen eased the pack off his back and set it beside the clothes. Though Armethalieh was a coastal city, no one swam in the ocean, but Kellen had learned to swim in the huge public swimming baths that were kept full of spell-purified seawater, and he'd enjoyed it. This was an entirely different matter, however. He'd gotten used to drinking wild water—but swimming in it?
You were just wading in much worse —and you couldn't even see the bottom there! he told himself sternly. Here the water was crystal pure all the way to the bottom, where sunlight played over a bed of tumbled white river stones. Kellen suspected he'd discovered the source of Idalia's keystones. He shrugged, and jumped in, far less gracefully than his sister had.
She'd said it was warm. It wasn't. It was cold—Kellen sank all the way to the bottom, where the water was cold as winter rain—and the force of his inelegant plunge forced cold river water up his nose, adding insult to indignity. He flailed to the surface, coughing and sputtering.
'I forgot to ask if you could swim!' Idalia called from the other side of the basin, laughing at the expression on his face.
Kellen shook his head, snorted, and struck out experimentally for the far side of the basin. The fresh water wasn't as buoyant as the salt water he was used to, but his swimming skills served him just as well, and he had to admit, the water wasn't that cold.
'It's nice,' he said when he reached her. 'And I can swim.'
'Good,' Idalia said. 'Then you won't mind if I do—this!'
She ducked under the water, swift as an otter, and an instant later, Kellen felt a tug on his ankle as she yanked him sharply beneath the surface.
A spirited game of tag ensued, one that didn't end until both of them were breathless and clean. Finally, panting happily, Idalia flung herself out on the bank to dry.
Kellen joined her, prudently unrolling one of the blankets they'd brought and spreading it to sit on, but there was no need of a towel in the warm summer sunlight. He sat cross-legged on the coarse wool, savoring the peaceful moment.
'Nice, isn't it?' Idalia said without moving. Her eyes were closed, and her skin, tanned a deep bronze, undoubtedly by many days like these, made her as much a part of her surroundings as the trees of the forest.
'You weren't happy in the City,' Kellen said without thinking.
'Not for a moment,' Idalia answered, without hesitation. 'I hated it. Everybody always telling me what to do, and say—and think. I suppose it's different if you happen to be born male. But not much different, I imagine, if you're a thinking person at all.'
Kellen wondered. Maybe he just wasn't a thinking sort of person. He'd been happy enough for most of his life—he'd still be happy there, if he'd been lucky enough not to have been born into a Mage family, he imagined.
He frowned. Or would he? The restrictions might be subtler and less obvious for the non-Mage families, but they were still there. There were rules and restrictions for everyone, when it came right down to it. And the basic idea of the City was wrong—lying to people for some fraudulent notion of 'their own good.' Taking away their ability to choose for themselves, so deviously that they didn't even know it was being done.
'The Mage Council is evil,' Kellen said.
Idalia sat up and opened her eyes.
'Well, there's a merry thought! Where did you come up with that one on a day like this?'
But Kellen was not going to be distracted now that he had things figured out in his own mind. 'The Council is evil. The way they run the City is evil. They don't let the people choose for themselves. They just herd them, like— like sheep!'
