Sorcerer Name Generator

The story

Toren checked the hook on her coat for the third time before her sister arrived. Nothing hung from it. She had sewn it there that morning, using red thread which looked unnecessarily hopeful against the brown wool. At the pool Dara was measuring her white sail with the same narrow stick she had used when they were girls. She looked up, saw the hook and smiled. Toren immediately wished she had waited until after the race to sew it on. Then she looked at the pennant hanging beside the packing hall clock and decided she was glad she had not.

The pennant was red, edged in black, with a badly embroidered silver fish. The fish appeared to have three eyes. Toren had stared at it through fourteen summer races, usually over Dara’s shoulder. She did not think the embroidery beautiful. She wanted it with a force that had become a private inconvenience. At forty-six she could be trusted to run a household, keep appointments and lend money without mentioning it every time she passed the borrower. She could not be trusted to speak naturally when somebody suggested that winning this particular toy-boat race did not matter.

Her boat lay in a shallow carrying tray. The hull was dark, the mast short, and its blue ribbon sail looked smaller than it had in her kitchen. Dara lifted one eyebrow. She had a spare mast, she said. Toren thanked her and kept her own. Beyond them the racing pool ran down the old orchard house, where the fruit cooperative had kept a long ornamental basin. At its far end it divided into two curved channels. Low smooth strips guided the little hulls around the turn; their ordinary rudders had to be set before launch. The inner channel cut a shorter curve under the sorting frame. The outer channel went round it. On the last straight the strips ended and the boats returned to open water.

They walked to the far end together. A hanging crossbar left only a low clearance over the inner channel. Toren crouched and slid her measuring card beneath it. Dara watched. Her taller white sail could not take that line, and neither sister pretended otherwise. Dara had chosen the clear outside curve and a sail that caught more of the room’s air. “You’ll spend the afternoon under there,” she said, pointing to the shadow beneath the frame. Toren told her the afternoon would be shorter if she stopped giving advice. Dara laughed and inspected her own rudder.

Neri, the steward, called the first two entrants. Each racer got one launch push and one declared small gift action, if they had a gift to use. After launching they could walk beside the pool but could not touch a boat. Toren’s Stormborn gift could flutter her one loose ribbon for one breath. It could not lift a hull or command the weather. Under the Precision she had practiced, even a second ribbon lay beyond the small action she had brought. Her working name, Toren Flaghand, sounded grander than the little blue sail in her tray. Dara called her Tor, as she always had when she wanted to make an argument seem affectionate.

The gift also needed a visible local draught. Toren had tied an ordinary test thread beside the inner turn, where Neri could see it too. Nothing happened to that thread merely because she wanted it to move. Earlier races went past while fruit packers carried baskets behind the spectators. The old board still gave the same working bell it had given for years. Recently the workers had begun opening the tall loading doors for the next fruit delivery at that bell, before the race finished. They used to wait. Nobody had issued a notice about the change; Toren had spent several recent mornings there mending several torn household storage sacks and had watched them.

When their turn came, Dara set her boat in the outside entrance. Toren chose the inner one. They pushed at Neri’s word and took their hands away. The tall white sail filled. By the first guide strip Dara led by more than a boat’s length. Toren clasped her hands behind her back, where she could stop them doing anything foolish. A small boy following them asked if that was her fast boat. She told him it was the boat she had brought. He considered this and then asked why it was so slow. Dara’s shoulders shook, though she was careful not to look round.

At the inner bend Toren’s bow slowed. The hull was still floating, but its underside brushed the shallow patch beside the guide. It had done so once during her ordinary trials. She had hoped the water would be a little higher today. Now the blue sail hung loose, the test thread hung straight down, and Dara’s boat was already taking the outside curve. The boy told Toren to do her magic. She watched the thread. It remained still. A woman behind her shifted a basket from one hip to the other; Toren wanted to ask everybody to stop breathing at once, which would not have helped in any useful way.

The working bell sounded. A fruit packer called to the man at the loading doors, who finished lifting a fruit crate before he answered. That ordinary delay felt viciously personal. Dara’s white sail disappeared behind the sorting frame. Toren could still see the top of it moving round the longer curve. Then the loading-door handle knocked its stop. Air entered the long room and found the loose hanging thread. Its end lifted toward the pool. Toren saw it move. She gave the single small action to the blue ribbon. For one breath it fluttered hard enough to draw the floating hull clear of the light scrape.

Her boat went under the crossbar. She could not follow it with her hands, enlarge the flutter or use the gift again. She walked quickly beside the dark inner water and listened to the boy reporting each part he could see. A blue edge appeared beyond the frame. At almost the same moment Dara’s white bow came round the outside guide. Both boats entered the last straight. The new ordinary draught touched both sails. Dara’s caught more of it, and the white hull began taking back the little distance the shorter line had given Toren. The finish mark was much too far away. Then it was suddenly very close.

Neri leaned over the mark. Toren’s bow passed it first, by less than the width of her thumb. Dara’s followed before anyone had time to cheer. For one dreadful second Toren could not tell whether Neri had seen what she had seen. Then he said her name. She made a noise she would later decline to describe. The boy made a better one. Dara asked whether Neri was certain. He pointed to the marked line and repeated the result. Toren could feel herself smiling with every part of her face. She knew it looked excessive. She could not find any reason to stop.

Dara collected both boats while Toren received the pennant. The embroidered fish was worse at close range. One eye had been repaired in a different color. She hung it on the empty hook and touched its black edge. Dara said that next year she would bring a lower mast. Toren told her to do so. They went out together, arguing about how much water there had been in the inside channel. At the corner Dara turned toward her own house. Toren took the longer way home, past the shops that were still open. Whenever she thought nobody was looking, she put a finger under the little red flag and let it lift away from her coat.