Story Seed - Understanding

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"Is it much farther?"

"No, we're fairly close now. Maybe a mile or three."

The boy frowned, "If it's that close shouldn't we be able to see it?"

"Can you not?" his companion asked. She gestured, "It is there, as surely as your village behind us, or the rune that you carved to prove to me that you were worthy to be my apprentice.

The boy looked down across the rocky slope, scanning for the sorceress' home. He squinted looking for a tower, a home, a cave, something that could be his new mistress' home. All he could see was a rock strewn pasture, no different than any of those that surrounded the village and provided places for their sheep to graze.

"Well, do you see it?" she asked gently. With her face shrouded in the shadow of her red-hooded cloak the boy could not read her expression.

With some reluctance he shook his head. "All I see is are rocks in a field."

"Ah, then fear not, because you see but do not understand, and while I can teach one to understand I know of no being on their earth patient enough to teach the blind to see."

"You need not tease me mistress," the boy replied petulantly.

The sorceress sighed, "I am not teasing you boy, I am trying to teach you a lesson: everything in this world is not always as it appears." She put her hand on his shoulder to stop him, "Behold, and understand that my home has been visible to you since we crested the ridge, you just lack the understanding to know that you are seeing it."

The boy watched she the sorceress took a few steps away from him. She began to speak in a language that he had not heard before, but they he felt was just at the edge of his understanding. Around them both the wind began to pick up, sending their cloaks billowing and rustling. Eldritch energies gathered around the mage's hands as she spoke and with a final word she cast her arms wide sending forth waves of pure magic that washed down into the field. Astonished, the boy watched as the stones rose from their resting places and began to assemble themselves, forming walls and arching doorways, windows and tall columns. Within moments the pasture was empty of rubble and instead occupied by a grand and towering structure.

"Do you understand now what you see?" the sorceress asked.