17 - 2

[Fool]

Madman

The Tunnel Rat Mageling - 5th of Mead’s Tap, Year 1125 A.E.

Fin explained the zeroth-order technique easily enough; the spell was not complicated, being a foundational part of many a magicker’s kit.

With a breath, Eiden exhaled spirit into the waking world.

It billowed out like silk spun from the bed of the heavens, a lump of divine clay sticking to his aura-clad hands to be molded in turn.

The whiten halo around his mitts were bright as noon-day sun cloaked by a light cover of clouds, telekinesis cast beforehand lest the breathly essence act as its nature dictated and wiggle out of his clutches. Without the first spell, the second could not have been rightly learned; knowledge built upon itself, even more so in regards to magicking.

The mana he exhaled from his subtle body was the superficial kind, much like scum from a fat-ridden stew. Leftover aura that would otherwise naturally dissipate had been gathered by pulling the skin of the spirit almost inside-out and then into the lungs. The tying of his aura into a knot and then pushing it inwards was deeply uncomfortable, like trying to hold a breath and the ghastly bloating brought on by spoiled food.

Cut from the same cloth as an auric Shroud, the art was called a Forging due to the mana-construct’s burgeoning physicality. It had taken Eiden the better part of an hour to get to this point, folding the essence upon itself again and again lest it just be an insubstantial mist.

Breath-made-solid was the name of this Forging of spirit.

“Best attempt so far, lad.” Praised his mentor, the once gravelly tenor now parseable as ‘encouraging’. Every hour that Eiden had experienced by the side of the Exorcist had led to him better understanding the ol’ coot and his voice o’ mountain stone. What was once monotone and machine-like, all but cranking and ungreased gears and turnwheels, now registered as prideful-at-another and easy-going.

What was once just the voice of a man older than the Four Keddish Corners, the Rat now knew was an echo of the existential essence taken from greater things and made his.

Inner alchemy; cultivation of the subtle soil of the self; the spiritual arts, Fin had called the magicking Path all that and more. He’d explained it as taking the mana of the natural world and eating it, digesting the elements without and transplanting them within one’s spirit; hence, spiritry. By use of the cauldron and subsuming flame that was the Center, a magicker made alchemy of their flesh and mana, changing their existences root and stem.

The spirit touched all corners of one’s very being, afterall; to change a part of the spirit was to do so, in varying degrees, to all else. Eiden had learned that lesson just a few notches ago. He still learned such now with the breath-made-solid spirit art.

“The mana don’t flicker back and forth from Ether to Prime,” continued Phineas, “neither does it have that downright undulating glow like moonlight on brook water, so quanta levels are stable. The etheric mass is uniform too, no spots of dense condensate or empty pockets like a sponge.”

Sweat beaded upon the mageling’s brow but his hands were still for they had shaken so much the past notch that they had run out of shakes to give. With Fin positioning Eiden in front of the window and instructing him to take in deep lung-fulls o’ air, he’d not run out of the raw ore that was his vital breath just yet.

The Rat had a sneaking suspicion that the Exorcist had been funneling him mana to help in his practice. Nothing definite, but the fact that he had been able to Forge so much etheric mass—especially for an hour now—left space for coincidence to ferment into something more.

Feck, the gross inattention and uncoralled thoughts robbed backbone from the mana in his hands; in but a breath, essence wiggled away into streamers of gossamer smoke. Even his Shroud had been taken out, the concurrent casting of the two arts engraved deeply into his spirit such that the dissolution of one meant the same fate for the other.

Eiden pulled his aura back into the Physical and then tried again, the contraction of his spiritual muscles evident in the whiten halo around his mitts.

Spiritry put pressure upon the subtle body, wracking it with strain no different than physical exercise did to the flesh. His aura sputtered trying to support the perpetual, partial Shroud generated by telekinesis. The act of holding two separate arts in cast, though not easy, was much less arduous than maintaining disparate qualia—the ruby fire of wrath, the emerald wind of pride, and the aquamarine mist of melancholy among those that he could conjure so far.

There were bound to be other emotions that the mageling could give physical form, but he had yet to chance upon them. All but the three had lacked steadfastness in his mind, and so they were like the delicate yolks of badgermole eggs; separating them without breaking apart their membranes and rendering them unconstituted was impossible.

He could not grasp and pull the qualic mana from the Third Basin, the mindstuff slipping away from him and returning to its natural place like a slimey hagfish to water.

The mageling was not disheartened. That he possessed three different magicks that he could call upon, three more than most all Keds and much less tunnel rats had, was enough. The fact that he was currently learning another spell left him downright giddy.

You’re a wizard, Eiden.

What had once been palmfuls of essence but a day or two ago, now were handfuls; his advancement in the spirit arts was an apparent one, the mageling observed.

He’d made a sizable Forging of breath-made-solid, his tenth attempt at making a magicking blade from nothing but aura. It was like the first time he had attempted an auric Forging, only much easier as the new technique helped immensely. Surprisingly stable despite its appearance, the Forging was as strong as any livewood switch recently-cut from an oak of the Drey.

In between two hands clad in halo, a long shape somewhere between gelatinous and vaporous in hame was wrought.

A weapon he’d never be without but was not as lowbrow as his filed-sharp nails. Or as terrible as the talons of the man-turned-beast-thing that had drank Lisa’s blood dry and eviscerated Bert into but smatterings of blood and flesh plastered upon the marmon walls like some—

With a tightening twinge of accidentally constricted muscles, those that wove at the sides of his ribs, Eiden’s concentration faltered. With loss of focus, came loss of the will invested into the working and so it came unraveled. White spiritstuff dissolved into the air, misting up into the Ether; either a close realm to or another name for the Spiritual World.

Fin hadn’t yet specified, dancing around the topic with all the spring of a bairn on the rocky whitecliffs. At times, the itinerant monster-slayer provided enough ken to drown a man, and at others, he turned stingy as the merchant-god of sea and storm and sky Himself.

Heaving and feeling like the beast of burden that he was, Eiden took a moment to recover. Image visualization and breathing technique were to be incorporated next into breath-made-solid, to, after having mastered telekinesis, produce a self-contained skill set that the Rat could draw from in combat and the like.

It was all very complex, very mastery-heavy, Eiden felt—so many steps and complicated parts. Yet he did not question overmuch if such scholarly and sublime pursuits as magick arkana, of all things, suited him; a wastrel and vagrant to boot.

Having been shunned like the rest of the tunnel rats by the Kedweni proper up here in the Pyre—relegated to nothing more than the likes of serfs, slaves, and burden beasts—he stood topside of the marble today, and it felt no less natural than the dark of the Tunnels. Perhaps, if anything, even more so; he’d not had to sell away bits of his blackened soul for the sake of survival since that accursed night.

He’d not have to kill. Though no small part of himself wished he had the power and opportunity to do so. Some people need killing, he knew with the certainty that a rock, if let go of in the air, would fall.

Sensing a natural ebb to his practice, Eiden girded the loins of his courage and brought up a question he had been apprehensive and deeply curious about.

Like askin’ a person how their loved one had died, it would either end without much beyond the sating of one’s ken or with a tongue-beating fit to chide a Sevenfold god.

“Fin, why’s it that you wanted to check my spirit?”

As he had breached the walls of his reticence, the questings were let loose, waters of monsoon upon mountain valley.

“And what was that power I touched? Why was it greener than a Gaeyan parish? Why’d it feel like the conjurin’ of qualia, but much stronger than my normal skill? Does it got to do with all that ‘power fit for a king’ stuff?” For the last question, Eiden had imitated Fin’s gargoyle-adjacent voice. It was spot on, in his humble opinion; one not seemingly not shared as the Exorcist looked downright unimpressed.

His spirit, though, could not lie as entirely well as he thought; a little crack in his aura let the mirth bleed through.

Huh, it’s in the same place as that scar over the right of his neck. Could it be ‘cause of Sympathy’s First Law?

Phineas interrupted Eiden’s scattered thoughts, speaking calm-like in the manner one uses to mollify an agitated horse. Hope he don’t blow air into my nose… wait, has he been doin’ that for the past hour—

“Laddie, listen carefully: there are things that one should not know when they cannot make use of them and that they may hurt him further. Knowledge untempered by caution and proper notions is as dangerous as a blade of duo acumen; double-edged.

“You’ll cut not just forward unto an enemy, but also back upon yourself should you not wield it rightly.”

With a frustrated shake of his head, the Rat blew out a raspberry into the air.

“Eiden. I’m am still going to give you some information on the topic. Just not too much or all of it in its entirety. Not so soon, at least.

“Temper yourself; you are going to have access to all the ken my—our—guildam possesses. It seems slow now ‘cause you’re barely three past your fortyear. By my age, waiting a month or two feels more akin to a day than the eternity you dread it will be.”

Eiden chuckled, speaking before he thought better of it. “Says the man older than Oriath’s beard.”

With eyebrows bent inward in mock rage and a smirk attempting to pry itself out of his lips, the Exorcist got up and Forged a white, auric blade into existence, breath-made-solid cast in but a blink and less than a breath. The spirit-sword had nothing extravagant to its features, just a facsimile of Bastille made simpler still with details smoothed-over like fine-wheat dough.

“I’ll defend my honor for that jape, ye wizarding guttersnipe.”

The Rat got up as well, his breath misting into the semi-solid form of a lumpy stick—name of the tavern I’ll set up when I retire fat and rich, he thought.

His ‘sword’ came down with the wrath of a constipated godling.

“Damnati Gurigite, ye have no talent for the blade. Don’t ever hold one in reverse with the tip pointing down like that when not in close quarters or half-swording; only in very specific circumstances is it even viable and that wasn’t one of ‘em. Sacrilegious is what that was.”

Phineas shivered in disgust, brow knotted up and lips pulled tight.

“Sword-masters rolled in their graves today.”

A piece of broken furniture, already on its last legs, fell and crashed into itty-bitty bits.

“See? A ghast has pulled himself from beyond the Veil by pure frustration of seein’ ye swing around that thing like a drunkard tryin’nae take a piss.”

With a wince and an apologetic smile, Eiden—sprawled about in the mess that he had wrought from the inn’s room—let go of his Forging, Shroud winking out like a flame in poor air.

If the flame wanes and sleep comes knockin’ on yer noggin’, get to runnin’, was as the Undercity sooth went. Sleep taken where a flame wanes—for no discernable reason, such as wind and lack of fuel—was one a rat never awakes from.

“I need… a… moment… can’t… breathe.”

“Was outta breathe myself after seein’ that sword-work. Ye’d get more coin in selling your piss to the tanner than as either kirkos trouper or professional duelist. Gods forbid ye take up the martial Forms as a sellsword.

“Ha, ye’d have to actually sell the damn sword.”

Eiden would’ve laughed at the last jape had he any breath or mirth after the merciless jeers the Exorcist had tossed around in their spar. He’d thought himself above being goaded simple by insults, but they’d quickly accumulated and made him want nothing more than another rematch.

That was probably the point. Spite and anger were strong drink to the mind, giving a man the ability to do things he’d never think of when sober; killing and murder chief among them.

T’was how they got any particularly well-built man from the Tunnels conscripted into the war efforts, goading him with ‘true northmen’ this and ‘come an’ break some prissy Principality skull’ that; the consistent meals helped, too. Two birds and one stone, it’d take away the sails of the mere idea of a rebellion, what with the total lack of anyone with more than an inch of muscle.

Just enough food thrown down into the Undercity—not free mind, merchants still demanded soapstone—to keep the miners and the rest o’ the lot alive, but never enough for proper strength. Hounds with guts stuck to the spine, slobbering and begging at the feet of their master.

Some people need killing, Eiden knew with the certainty that a rock, if let go of high enough in the air, would crack a skull as easy as an egg.

“Com’on now, laddie. We gotta clean this pigsty elsewise they might kick us out, guildam seal and magicking Path be damned.”

A breath or two—or more likely twoscore—later, Eiden got up from the sprawl and went to help Fin clean up the room. Some pieces of furniture were too far gone, things made of very thin sawed-wood and brittle, carved stone; usually brownrock and greystun, lesser cuts of ‘pyreni marmon.

The table plinth at the broken, wooden-framed cot’s side—Fin’s thankfully, not Eiden’s—had crumbled into big, heavy pieces.

At the scene, the bedding that felt like the clouds of the Near Heavens Themselves being rendered into but shattered and splintered wood and unclothed goose feathers, Eiden felt immense sadness.

The inn’s beds were miracles sent down from Mont Callum; their destruction like the desecration of a hallowent thing.

I’ll mourn, ye, Eiden intoned to the rendings of wood.

Fin looked at the crumbled table-plinth, then at Eiden and back again at the torn rock before a smile crept up on those whiskers of his.

Shit… in Oriath’s beard and piss in that of Father Sky, he’s got that Wolf Below’s grin again.

He had thought that the Exorcist woulda picked those up himself, but the toil was left to the Rat. Fair though the judgment actually be—he’d conjured the wind that tore about the room—it still felt unfair.

Can’t seem to escape hard labor, Eiden thought, almost dropping the syphean stones on his toes while remembering Phineas’ shitty attempt at a jest; the hard labor one, yes that one. So stilted and sheer fuckin’ unhumorous, it had transcended into the humorous just the same.

So bad, it was good. But Phineas would never hear that from Eiden lest the Rat just encourage ‘em.

The Exorcist squinted his eyes, pinning a suspicious-yet-without-proof glare in between Eiden’s shoulder blades. The aura transmitted base emotion and intent, one’s mind read by the echoes found in the way the skin of one’s spirit moved.

It was a dual-edged blade, this ken. Eiden knew that Fin could read his own spirit much more easily than the contrary, the verso; another funny word that popped into his head without him ever having heard of it. Either Floreni or Vitaen, what with the flowery sothron haggle and rhyme.

It felt natural, as if he had used the word all his life, but he knew it were not so; he had not heard it from the Exorcist either.

Sorcery was downright strange, and his mentor being a kennen pinch-purse did nothing to help make sense of the ‘power meant for kings’. Worse still were what those soul-dreams meant, Eiden’s attempt at divining them achieving only muddy water; not a single clear thing in ‘em.

Dropping down the last stone at the left side of the doorway—entering-the-room-wise—the tunnel rat mageling cleaned his hands on his new trousers. The tiny pebbles stuck into his palms frayed the finespun surface of the cloth, but did nothing to the callous, his skin made of sturdier stuff.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained.