The Apprentice

Fin returned a day later when news of the disappearance of the town lordling had reached its highest. Lord Byomir Ydden had seemingly vanished, not leaving a trace behind in either letter or presence. There was talk about one of his brothers assuming the title of the land should he not make his presence or whereabouts noted in a fortnight’s time.

Rumours of his illicit dealings were spreading as well. And so was the sentiment that he had reneged on some deal with a shady cyroshi druggae dealer and got his comeuppance.

The smearing of his name on the town’s tongues brought a joy to Eiden he did not know possible.

“Wipe that shit-eating grin off yer face, laddie.” Said Fin, with an equally dopey smile as well. “Gimme that alembic and restock the fuel for the calcinator before the damned thing starts runnin’ on fumes.”

Eiden smiled as he handed his mentor a copper retort connected to a larger glass vessel by a brass tube. It was a strange set of alchemic paraphernalia used in the distillation of liquids. The metal retort was heated with a gas burner or some such, evaporating the liquid into the glass vessel. And thus removing certain types of impurities like physical debris that was heavier than the solvent itself.

Eiden placed his left hand below the calcinator, a large oven-like contraption of brick and mortar and metal. His spirit crackled with heat and electricity as he surged mana through its channels. His Heart of the Bodies thrummed with unnatural vigor, more like a pounding hammer than etheric musculature. His practice in spiritry had reinforced his etheric body and made it into a veritable machine.

The air around his hand shimmered like a desert mirage, the heat so strong and abundant it rebounded as a practically physical wall of blistering force. His metal-coated channels and steelborne heart bore with the high temperatures, having been quenched in arcane acid and aetheric blood.

Damned heat, Eiden thought as he swept the sweat off his brow with the other hand. He had already done the mistake of touching his left hand anywhere on his body. An inflamed-red imprint of his knuckles was stuck to his right temple. His spirit might be amenable to such temperatures, but his skin was most definitely not.

“Why’s I gotta heat this thing with me spirit?” Eiden complained, for the umpteenth time. He already got the answer the first time, but the heat played tricks on his memory.

“Gods, your Common gets so broken whenever we do any sort of alchemy.” Said Fin with a scowl-smile he oft wore. How he managed to pull off a brow constricted in annoyance and a mouth relaxed in amusement was a mystery.

“It’s for control and energy-conservation, Eiden. Cycling mana through your channels costs much less energy than outright transmuting aether into an ether. Instead of having to create new spirit-constructs, you instead use the ones you already possess.

“This ain’t a fight where you can overpower foes and then pass out. You gotta have endurance to pursue a craft like alchemy.

“Now, surge flame into the direct center of the calcinator. I don’t want a uniform burn this time. The recipe calls for a temperature differential of two-hundred degrees Fahrenheits from the core to the periphery.”

“Nine-damned Duchies.” Grumbled Eiden under his breath. “If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have to memorize a shitty temperature system that uses the devil’s hairy crack as a baseline.”

Eiden hated using Fahrenheit for anything alchemic, considering the caustically-smelling chemicals needed to establish a baseline of thermometry. Fin made him fabricate his own contraptions to measure temperatures according to centuries old treatises that had not seen the light of day for as long as Fin had been a lad himself.

It’ll be fun, he said. More accurate if you craft the tools yourself, he said. It’ll be a learning experience, he said.

Learning experience, my ginger arse.

With his extremely sensitive sense of smell, the briney mixture of water and ammonium chloride used to establish the temperature baseline smelled like the Devil Below’s armpits.

[Smells good.]

Though his potent sense of smell was inherited from the sanguine manticore, Eiden did not take to particular odors as well as Hellion. The hybridization of human and already chimaeric genetic script did not produce an entirely harmonized whole, at least in body. Some things stayed dominant such as a human’s distaste for the smell of rotten flesh or their two-legged body plan. While others were entirely gone such as a manticore’s unhinged seasonal heat.

Thank the gods.

Eiden pulled the phlogiston from the core of his ether-planet, expelling the flammable spirit into his aura. The etheric membrane applied pressure to the essence, constricting it into the shape of a sphere. The weight of the world without bore down on the essence and brought it to heel—tyrannic as storm and steel.

With a rapid cycling of mana through his channels, he brought a spark of fulgur to the phlogiston, igniting the ether.

It blew in a concentrated fashion like a bomb, his aura forming a funnel to expel the combustive energy. A sprout of pinkish flame billowed out from his hand like a dagger wrought of fire. Without his previous auric tempering, his spirit would’ve been blown apart into globs of gelatinous ectoplasm.

“Higher!” Fin yelled over the screeching noise of flame. “The metal is chemically treated so it’ll be fine! The heat-resistance is through the bloody roof!”

“What!”

[You can hear me with them chimaeric ears well enough. Now, go on, git.]

Eiden smiled as he was caught red-handed. Quite literally too as his left-hand started to ephermeralize with the aspects of flame and heat. His skin burned like burnished bronze, inner firelight pulsing to the heartbeat of his ethereal body.

The Apprentice condensed the phlogiston he cycled through his spirit, compressing it with the walls of his etheric channels. The force of the expulsion of phlogiston increased proportionally, as did the heat from the combustion since there was more to ignite and burn.

The pinkish-flames shone with the luster of a dying winter day, the light intense and blinding as a magnesium fire.

[The heat’s pretty good now. Keep that up for… two minutes.]

Eiden’s phlogiston was fading rapidly, burning into nothingness. The loss frustrated him to no end as cultivating that particular essence was tedious.

A full minute passed before the flames started to flicker, the phlogiston no longer enough to be condensed. A certain amount of volume was needed for it to effectively compress and ignite.

Purifying Heat, Eiden intoned inside his mind’s eye. The utterance brought forth a mental construct bound to a mutagenic ability. His bones burned with inner heat, suns trapped in ivory.

His body shone from the inside out with blistering flame, his veins, heart, and skeleton glowing like embers floating in the night. The heat was no longer uncomfortable, but instead a part of him. The essence of fire thrummed inside his marrow.

The arcs of lightning inside his spirit now burned scarlata incarnata, the fulgur of volcanic eruption.

The Apprentice cycled his pneuma in place of phlogiston, using the essence of ebb and flow as a carrier for heat. Steam poured from his form as a pressurized jet blasted forth from his hand. Arcs of scarlet wove around it like butterflies to blood.

The recoil from the sheer force shot his hand into the stone floor of the cavern. Hairline fractures barely visible to the eye spread out in twain with rock dust.

The calcinator exploded, its metallic top piece blowing outwards in a gust of vapor.

“Yeah… we should’ve stocked you up on phlogiston or stored it in an essence trap.” Said Fin as the crumbled and warped piece of metal rattled on the cave floor.

“Aye.”

“Go on then. Cultivate at least a hundred thaums of the stuff then come back and we’ll trap it in a scripted bottle.”

Eiden nodded with slumped posture.

Fuckity, fuck, fuck.

Fuck.

Outside was dusk, a cool summer evening. Comfortable enough with just a cloth tunic and light leathers. The cold gusts of wind were like dull draughts of anesthesia, lulling Eiden to sleep he had not partaken in for a long time.

Four hours, to be exact. The various calculations and mental constructs he had to keep stable were like leeches, draining his energy in droves though not enough to actually burn a single thaum.

Eiden sat down, his legs crossed and hands atop his knees.

Empty Breath.

With his Center as a lodestone, he drew in the mana from his surroundings. His spirit turned into a Dyeus canal, the energy going in and out, but not agglomerating within.

With his inner spirit-sight, Eiden plucked through the discordant essences that flowed through himself. His spirit was a sieve sifting through the sands of the Ether for precious metals. Thaum by thaum, he isolated the correct aeromantic ethers and then mixed them together in the right proportions.

Spiritry was known as Inner Alchemy for such a reason. The lungs were the bellows and the Center was the cauldron in which unique mana was brewed. Potions of the spirit.

Eiden cycled the base phlogiston into his ether-core and stored it inside its argent container. The base phlogiston watered-down the already present corpus-aspected amalgam, weakening its arcana of blood and hunger.

Droplet by droplet, Eiden imbued the phlogiston with his blood until it turned from transparent to hazy orange-brown. Blood was a unique essence to cultivate as it was primarily netheric rather than etheric. Eiden had to self-flagellate his spirit and then heal it at the same time to harvest blood mana. His ethereal muscles tensed and cramped until their fibers ripped apart, spilling his life’s essence into his meridians the channels of his spirit.

There was a reason why blood mana was cultivated through slaughter rather than self-harm. It hurt more than corporeal pain as it was directly connected to the mind and amplified tenfold. As Eiden ripped apart his own spirit, he healed the fibers, sealing them with argent mana. The end result were stronger ethereal muscles which were actually worse, in a way.

It meant he needed more strength to rend them apart. The cramping was more fitting for punishment in the Nine than spiritry on Terra.

Now I just need the hunger aspect.

Eiden scooped a handful of mana from his Center, a transparent-white gelatinous mixture. He did so by using a thread of pneuma, hardening it through sheer will.

It hurt like the Nine Hells as it passed through his channels, sizzling and corroding through his spirit. Hunger mana was the spiritual equivalent of stomach acid, so it made sense that it stung like an abyssal wasp.

Eiden threw the gelatinous paste into the argent container with the rest of the phlogiston. He lashed kinetic energy inside the steelen vessel with that of the outside waters and shook it vigorously by spinning his ether-core.

The phlogiston darkened from hazy orange to a reddish brown as the discordant ethers mixed evenly. It flowed in serpentine and sineous motions. Leeches wrought of sanguine wind and air strained against their argent shackles. The hunger mana already contained remnant will as did the pre-existing phlogiston and blood mana, so he had no need for an arcane commandment of any sort.

A solution of one-hundred and fifteen thaums of phlogiston. Pressurized from gas into liquid by fifty etheric atmospheres. The center of the ether-core is about negative twenty Sols—cold enough to freeze the First Layer of Avernus two times over. Solutes of vorai, sanguinai, and animai with a solvent of liquid ventai.

That technique Fin gave me really does wonders for mana density and etheric boring. Damned thing’s given a partition of my ether-core just as much as the rest of the core or an entire basin on average.

Eiden opened his eyes, walking back inside the cavern. Alba and Erebus hung high in the black sky, dusk having turned to midnight.

Fin calibrated some sort of machinery, pulling levels and pressing rune-inscribed buttons. Without taking his eyes away from the fuming machine, he threw Eiden a bottle from the table at his side.

The Apprentice caught the bottle without much thought. It was made of glass and painted over with ink. Runes and runeform wrapped around it in an arcane fashion. No simple spiritry was enough to make such a device as it worked with principles of wizardry and arcany.

Eiden uncorked the bottle with his teeth and pressed his palm against its opening. It filled with phlogiston, a clay-colored transparent liquid while in netheric form in the Prime.

“How much more of all this.” Eiden said, waving his arm around the cavern. “Until we can do the last part of the ritual proper.”

“I think a few days worth.” Said Fin, now twisting what looked to be a notched button. “This kind of thing is hard already with the right supplies. And now we’re doing the last Trial with piecemeal equipment. I had to take on a few extra contracts and hunt down certain beasts for their organs and spirits.”

Fin shivered in disgust.

“Fought a fucking zeugl waist deep in a sewer. Fates Above, even after ten showers I have yet to feel clean.”

Eiden shivered in sympathy.

“But, their corporeal marrow and ethereal stomachs are needed for the last Trial given their dual affinities for both life and death.” Fin continued.

“Hand me that lesser philosopher’s stone. I need some more pure aether to stabilize the decoction.”

The days passed by slowly with Eiden toiling away at Fin’s discretion. His mentor did not yet comment on his wizardous awakening nor on the lordling’s disappearance. Though Eiden doubted Fin did not have his own ideas.

He’s probably gonna want to talk after the last Trial. No reason for scolding me if I end up just dying.

Though, Eiden doubted the Exorcist would actually scold him properly. Even after being possessed by the Aspect of Hunger Fin had not yelled nor rubbed in his failure.

It was unexpected from a man with such a grim and austere exterior. He was like freshly baked bread, warm on the inside with a crusty outside.

Eiden’s stomach rumbled.

“You can go and get some food in the town.” Said Fin, reading a fading tome. “Have lunch with Bela. She’d like that.”

“Aye.” Eiden yelled as he raced out of the cave.

The Apprentice stopped, breaking even with his heels.

“Come with me!” Eiden yelled back.

A strange feeling ebbed in the mental realm. A mixture between sadness and joy.

“Sure, lad!” The Exorcist exclaimed, his voice surprisingly energetic and spry. “You go on ahead and I’ll reach you in a blink.”

The sun was at its zenith, the cobblestone road blinding as it reflected the midday light. Clouds sparsely caressed the sky, islands of white amidst the pure blue ocean of the heavens above.

Eiden made his way through the streets, not a soul in sight. Most barricaded themselves inside where the shade staved off the heat. With summer reaching its hottest in a long time, it would drastically start to cool until the leaves fell with the coming of Mortus. The month of Sun’s Height did not last long with only three Wheelen weeks.

Eiden opened the door to the Golden Scythe. It was uncharacteristically packed as Sun’s Height was not a well-traveled month of the Cycle given the intense heat. Most merchants, especially those that dealt in sothron fruit and other perishables, did not dare to thread the King’s Road for risk of spoiling their bounty.

He found Bela serving tables with mugs of ale and mead. The sheer skill that she used to carry ten tankards at the same time with just two hands and arms was impressive.

Eiden approached her patron, Aeliah the Innkeep.

“Gooden noon, Aeliah.” Said the Exorcist’s Apprentice with a rakish and tilted grin. “Let me help her out. I want to have some lunch before… well, it’s gonna be dangerous, what I’ll be doin’ in a few days. I may not survive.”

Aeliah raised a brow, surprised at Eiden’s non-disgust at “lesser” jobs. To have a Vitaen exorcist pouring ale… it was just as unlikely as the king himself washing the feet of a serf.

She nodded, not daring to deny him. Eiden found the apprehension, temerity, and authoritative respect given to him by his station to be quite frustrating. Annoying, even. He did this to protect people from all that bumped in the night. The sort of beasts that only cohorts of men armed with spear and clad in plate could hope to defeat. Eiden was serving them by being an exorcist.

He was no different than Bela in that regard. The only dissimilarity would be his willingness to risk life and limb. Well, not limb since they would grow back given enough time and food. Gratitude was fine, but there was no need for grovelling and subservience.

Eiden smiled in thanks and quickly raced up to his and Bela’s shared room. He put on a cap he had bought, a greenish hunting hat with a feather. He changed into a tunic and wore simple cloth leggings with even simpler pair of cloth footwraps with leather soles.

No one would recognize him as the exorcist’s apprentice and instead think of him as some seasonal worker stuck in town for the rest of Sun’s Height. To travel the King’s Road with such heat would dry up a waterskin in a blink, and without a horse proper, the nearest town was three days away.

Eiden went back down and helped Bela serve the tables filled with thirsty men and women. She smiled in amusement and a pinch of sincere thanks. Her arms had started to hurt given the heavy and constant weights.

Eiden had his fun, balancing more than twenty tankards with some on his shoulders and even removing his hunting cap to put one on his scalp. This entertained the patrons, with them clapping in tandem with the light bard’s song and his shenanigans.

“Ooooo, balance the tankards,

“And do be a rancor!

“Fill me mug til the brim,

“Sloshing mead ain’t no fib!

“Com’on and dance a jig,

“Oooor drink til they put ye in the crib!

The songs turned to jeers and then celebration as Eiden dropped a mug and caught it with his foot without spilling a drop.

His worries vanished under the freeing presence of joy. There was no later and no before, and no thereafter. Eiden simply was.

The burning and sweltering day gave way to the dusk. A voidmoon hung high in the night, Alba gone from the face of Mundus. Solaria did not reflect Her Grace upon the mirror that was the Great Whitemoon.

Eiden changed from his commonfolk’s clothes and donned a darker apparel. Black was, afterall, the color of the exorcist. With the copious amount of magickal beast’s blood that would drench and stain his clothing, a lighter hue would not make do.

A linen hood had been stitched into the back of his collar, and he lifted it up to ward off the chill. A reflexive habit borne of times when cold meant death. Eiden’s body could survive snowfall for days without a hint of furs, his inner heat a veritable pyre.

When the winter came in fully, he would have to learn how to modulate the fire that burned inside his bones, lest steam waft off his body in waves. Beggars could huddle around me like I’m some campfire.

The heat of the day had dissipated amicably, leaving the pleasant coolness of the wind to ruffle through his hood and bring it back down. Even though his leather coat reached unto his knees and wrists, thus making it a veritable oven, Eiden enjoyed the feeling of sweltering warmth in his chest. As did he bask in the cutting nip that rode the whistling winds borne from the east.

The heat was a comfort inherited by the vulcan salamander whose habitats were hot springs. Eiden wondered how many beasts he would ferry inside his spirit. How many more could he hold in the ark that was himself.

The Ark of Noachtiel, thought Eiden, retrieving the memories of the associated story.

The Countings of Erikson Falksblood, Wandering Priest of Noachtiel Upon the Lands of Free Kedwen

It was a funny little myth, the one of Noachtiel Son of Dyeus. The Sky-Father had sent a world-ending flood down upon Terra, aiming to drown any and all. For Man had killed his firstborn son born of a mortal woman. A warrior in some long-forgotten war, Noacht as was his mortal eponym, had been betrayed by his own men. They sold him for thirty slivers of silver, enough to drink a single night amongst themselves.

The demigod had already awakened his divine blood, having the magickal power to never bleed out. His trait was one rooted in the Sky-Father, Lord of the Twin Oceans, such so that his heart was said to beat salt-water through his veins.

How could one with brine in place of blood bleed out? Whose heart was bound to the depths of the Black Ocean, blood as endless and never-ending as the waters themselves.

It turned out that one could slay the son of a god. A blessing was remarkably similar to a curse, the breaking of either dependent on the irony at hand. If this son of a god bled brine, then why not return him to his source? All things had their end in their origin. Man was wrought of the mud of the earth and to its dust he would return.

Noach was drowned in a horse's trough mixed with salt.

As demigods went, his strength was not that great. The divinity inside himself was middling, bound only to his trait of never-ending blood. Well, middling to other demigods. To other mortal men, Noacht was a beast of a warrior. He might as well have been Oleranth Himself.

Noacht died leagues away from the ocean, such so that Dyeus could not even lay claim to His son’s body. And in His rage, He sought to destroy the world. Oriath could not bring Himself to care, Elar-rea having taken Him to some refuge or another. The Lord had His patience to wait until Terra was dry once more to repopulate it in His Image. Maybe then He’d give Man the forbearance to not kill a godsdamned demigod and anger His Divine Brother.

After a full Turn of the Twins, storm clouds had yet to dissipate, blotching out the sun. And then, in the thundering blackness did Noacht rise from the Maws of Death. The Power of Dyeus was the lodestone and Noacht was iron. He arose from the Pale River, his soul not having passed through the Pale Visage proper.

And he rose not as Man, but God. Yet Dyeus did not recognize His son in His own divine rage.

But, Noacht was no longer simply Noacht. He was Noachtiel, godling of the drowned. Aspect of the Storm and Watcher Over Where Dead Ships Dwelt. He took upon the chill of Mortus and the waters of Dyeus, and was remade to the image of his own divine blood.

From the very horse’s trough He was drowned in as mortal man, Noachtiel took the wood to build a vessel to stave off His Heavenly Father’s fury. Somehow, little more than a log’s worth of wood was turned into the largest ship ever to grace the face of Terra.

Noachtiel first saved the animals of the Earth, some say He took two pairs of each, others tell tale of Him bringing all beasts with Him inside the Heavenly Vessel.

It was called the Ark, the word coming from the Vitaens. It meant “chest” and it was apt, for Noachtiel stored the living creatures of the world inside His holy artifact with the ease that a merchant might store coin inside a lockbox.

When His Father’s rage subsided, Noachtiel called out. Dyeus welcomed Him in open arms, sharing with the godling of Storm and Drowned a part of His reign over the skies and seas.

Noachtiel now sails the Ark through the Heavenly Bridge, whisking away Alba now and then for courting. Erebus was no possessive god to His sister and lover.

Any who seek to sail from the shores of Kedwen are to offer tribute to Noachtiel. If thirty silvers are not given to one of the Temples by the Sea, the sailor shall surely find himself tribulation. For just as Oriath wields the Spear of Caestus, Noachtiel wields the central prong from the Heavenly Trident.

These thirty silvers shall be paid by a whole crew, once a year at the end of Storm’s Breath. Should a sailor not possess enough coin, their debt is waved off until it may be paid, for Noachtiel is a godling of mercy. He saved a world that condemned Him and drank with the money of His death.

But, should a sailor hoard their silver and not pay tribute. Well, Noachtiel is also the godling of the Uncaring Storm. He shall drown them in brine and salt. Their last memories and feelings shall be of the sting of the Dark Ocean in their lungs.

Fear not clear skies above, but the shadows of ships below. For Where Dead Ships Dwell is the domain of the Vengeful and Merciful Noachtiel. Should silver be held without paid price, then the Aspect of Storm and Drowned shall lay claim either way.

He shall claim it with your ship at the bottom of the Black Depths. The brine shall burrow into your lungs for all eternity. A price paid in full.

Fin arrived late into dusk when light was but fading firelight on the horizon.

“Sorry, lad.” Said the Exorcist, his voice and spirit sincere. “I had to finish a few things up. I encountered an unexpected reaction with the zeugl mutagens. Their dual aspects of life and death fight each other tooth and nail, so—“

Fin breathed out a sigh and shook his head ruefully.

“Anyhow. Sorry, lad. I’m just sorry.”

Eiden smiled and removed his hood with a gust of wind, his hands still in his pockets. He walked towards his mentor, the man that had saved him from the brink of despair and the Maws of Death.

He hugged him, not needing to say much more. Fin gingerly reciprocated the gesture, uneasy with the affection.

How long has it been since he’s been hugged? A century?

“Com’on now.” Said Eiden, moving away and back towards the inn. “Don’t be a stranger. Let’s go drink some mead. The bees last year were bountiful, so the stuff’s extra sweet.”

“Aye, lad. Lets.”

The two exorcists entered the Inn, the atmosphere inside was sleepy as the mead and ale and spirits laid claim to the patrons, bidding them to make night.

Eiden poured and poured alcohol into their cups. Their talk going anywhere from the fine details of the magicking arts to just common stuff. Stories and myths. Gossip and rumor.

“Say, don’t you men ever get drunk?” Asked Aeliah, her tone like a dagger. “You’re gonna bleed me taps dry like this.”

Seems when her inn’s on the line, she finds a fair bit of courage. Good, with a backwater town like this, a lack of spine is a sure way of dying in the cold.

“Well, I am feeling a light… whatcha call it, Fin?”

“Buzz, lad. It’s called a buzz.”

“Aye, that.” Said Eiden, nodding sagely. “Anyhows, don’t worry Aeliah, we just got too deep into our conversation. We’ll drink from our own supply now. An exorcist’s body is… resistant to such poison, so it takes much more to put us in a stupor.”

Eiden removed a large bottle from his pockets, at least half a span long.

Othenfurt spirit infused with, well, more spirit. This thing is a proper poison, strong enough to knock even Fin out.

Probably not. Fin’s not even got a heartbeat that I can hear, so maybe he don’t got a liver either. Or brain for that matter.

Eiden shook his thoughts away and poured the Othenfurt into Fin’s tankard. The old man’s face lit up in surprise, a smile playing at his lips.

“Ooh, what I’d give to have my first taste of Othenfurt.” Exclaimed the Exorcist with a merry voice.

Eiden smiled in sympathy. He was thankful he didn’t remember the taste much since he had half a foot in the grave at the time. So, it was like it was his first time imbibing in the spirit.

“It’s just… fantastic.” Said Eiden with a dreamy look in his eyes as he stared into his mug. “It goes down like a warm tonic of sorts, and actually tastes good. I’ve yet to find any beer or ale I actually enjoy the taste of.”

Fin smiled in agreement, his face in a congenial fashion. A rare sight like a sighting of the gods themselves. Eiden would go so far as to reckon that Phineas had been remarkably happy since they both started to walk together on the Path.

How long has he been without a friend proper? Without companionship, keeping people at arm’s length.

“Tell me, Fin.” Drawled Eiden, his quickened metabolism having already absorbed the alcohol. The effect would wear off in a few breaths, he knew. “What’s the best hunt you ‘ver fought? What’s the most challengin’ and yet exhilaratin’ battle you’ve encountered as an exorcist?”

Fin had a pensive look in his eyes as he rummaged through his steel-trap mind.

“It’d have to be when I hunted down a royal Leonidas griffon. It had the body of a lion, yet larger still, around a warhorse and a half in size. Its front limbs were wings instead of paws proper, and it had a beak in place of cat’s maw.

“Its wings could blot out the sun, and the claws attached to them were strong enough to cut through plate armor like cloth.”

Eiden and Bela listened in rapt attention. With most of the Golden Scythe’s patrons asleep, they could converse without need for serving them refreshment. Aeliah joined in with open ears as she wrung cloth inside a tankard, drying it in the process.

“The beast was faster than me, back then. I had only my silver blade and my magicks. With a Sign of Fatus, I bound it to the earth when it swooped down. I called upon the threads of time and memory to freeze the griffin in its tracks.

“And even then, it was barely enough. The stronger a creature, the less I can subvert its fate, its destiny. I brought up my Oathbinder in the highguard and then rent it down in a fell swoop.

“Instead of decapitatin’ the beast, I nicked its tail, severing the Nines-damned thing. A tuft of fur wriggled and writhed on the floor like some newborn pup lookin’ for its mum to suckle.

“The sight distracted me as the beast wove back, screeching its fowl bird tongue at me. Blood ran down me ears, as the sheer volume of the noise deafened me momentarily.

“Its muscles coiled, its posture tensed, and I knew I recognized the gesture. It was just like a cat goin’ for a pounce.

“I rolled out of the way, its claws grazing my back and ripping my coat. Those talons felt like hellsflame, burning their way through me. Yet I gathered my wits and struck back while the griffon was falling back to the ground.

“With a broad cut from whichever forgotten form and then a cross cut, I disemboweled the beast. In its weakened state, I just had to weave my way around it as the griffon could not retaliate so easily, with its wound and all.

“Wanna see the scars?”

Eiden and Bela nodded enthusiastically.

Fin took off his coat first, laying it atop the bar’s countertop. Then he took off his shirt, leaving his chest bare. He was covered in wiry yet dense muscle. And as he moved, they writhed and tensed like steel wires rather than proper flesh. A warrior’s physique, and a disciplined one at that.

Scars ran across his skin in silvery lines, glowing in the firelight of the inn. A gash of three claws ran down Fin’s back from his right shoulder to left upper hip.

“Gods, how’d ye survive this?” Asked Aeliah. “I’ve seen men die from lesser wounds.”

Eiden and Fin shared a look. If only the woman knew that the Exorcist had probably used the griffon’s own spirit to heal up and its flesh to concoct a mutagen to further enhance himself. If only she knew that for every foe one of their Order vanquished, they would grow stronger.

“A mage’s body is durable. Our spirits provide for ourselves, covering the weaknesses of the body.” Answered Fin. And though not a flatout lie, it was an ommitence of fact, a half-truth borne out of truth itself.

A bastard of the tongue, close enough to lie, but not a lie itself.

Aeliah nodded sagely like all that Fin said were explanation enough. The whole event made Eiden’s jaw tense and his core burn with remnant fury.

Soon enough, in a less than a blink that his wrath had been partially exposed, his emotions were hidden away. Or more aptly, they were devoured by the creed of emptiness and struck unto the ether.

“What’s that one.” Bela said, pointing at a corruscating patch of scarred flesh on Fin’s shoulder.

The Exorcist smiled and went onto another story.

Eiden could not tell whether his mentor had caught onto his emotions or not. But, with his instincts, the Apprentice knew that Fin knew.

Fin knew everything.

Eiden awoke the next day with a middling hangover. He had drunken a whole three-quarters of the Othenfurt, a deadly amount to any mundane man.

He dressed himself and packed his things inside a cloth pack. The Third Trial would last another few months, so it made sense to bring his stuff with him. He gave Bela a kiss on the forehead before leaving the inn.

The walk to the secluded and warded-off cavern was not much long, being only an hour away on foot with a mortal’s pace. If Eiden did not need to conserve energy, he could’ve reached there in ten minutes, give or take. Pneuma did wonders for mobility, imbuing auric shrouds with preternatural speed.

The Apprentice entered the cave system with slight apprenhension. And yet underneath the unsease laid another emotion, stronger and more dense like an ember amdist ash.

Excitement, exhiliration even, Eiden would’ve called it. After this last Trial, he would no longer be simple Apprentice, but an exorcist proper himself. He would be able to take on contracts no different than any other.

He would slay monsters and beasts that preyed on humanity.

He would let loose the wrath that laid slumbering for years. And it would feed upon monsters and wet its maw on their blood.

The step is mine to take. Forward, with the precipice always at my feet.

Per aspera, ad astra.

The Exorcist

Eiden laid atop a cold slab of stone, his body equally as dead. His heart did not thrum inside his ribs. His chest did not rise and fall to the breath of his lungs.

He was dead.

And Fin had killed him.

Grief and guilt weighed on the Exorcist’s mind like the weight of the world itself. He had done what he promised himself he would not do.

He had taken affection for another apprentice. He had cared for him like a son. He had sworn oaths to never again marry or take care of children, for the Fates had seen to killing his daughters and sons before. They had been cruel and callous, or more aptly had he.

The Exorcist took no apprentices, for the Trials were not so easy to endure and survive. Most Exorcists only endured until the second Trial, yet Eiden had his sight on the Third and last.

The lad had every right to partake in the process. Fin could not stop him, lest he treat Eiden as a tyke.

And yet he now lay there. On cold stone, unbreathing breath and unbeating heart.

Dead as cold stone.

Fin had killed him.

The Souling

They floated in a sea of grey, the surrounding water neither hot nor cold. There was no feeling other than the inertia provided by the weight of the liquid. Or was it mist? It was hard to tell.

Who were they? They tried to remember. Yet no memories were there, only thoughts without words. Only concepts of an untongued consciousness free of the confines of language.

Was this before or after the light? They had remembered at least that, the call into the beyond whatever laid this place of ambiguous and ambivalent nothingness. And with the remembrance of light came the strange images.

The light was a chain, binding with it the qualia of a lifetime.

Creatures that bled red.

Fires with colors and hues other than grey.

Strange painted things called “faces” that evoked even stranger feelings.

Love, hate, sadness, longing, joy, betrayal, peace, anger.

These were entirely alien to the being that floated in the center of the grey sea.

Two apertures pulled them like… what was it called?

A tug of war.

Both were precipices of darkness. There was no up, no down. Only the two blacken gates of void.

Amidst the sea of grey, they remembered. They ceased to be simple consciousness, and instead became complex rumination. When the thoughts no longer came in abstract concept but instead layered and defined language, did they remember.

They were not they, but instead he. At least in the latest life, in the latest iteration of the soul. He was the mortal light to the shadow of the eternal.

The purest of being and existence swirled around him and in that moment, he knew. In the realm of grey potential, he was a lost soul. The mortal half, at least. He was a wisp of light, without definite shape and form.

“I am Aedan.” He Sayeth, and so it was done.

The blacken maws that awaited Him cowered in fear of His voice. They were predators of chance and ambush, waiting patiently for apathetic souls.

Yet He was no spriteling cowled in apathy and bereft of Name.

He was Aedan.

And in this realm of grey, He was God.

No other possessed authority over the space between planes. At least none possessed the authority over His immediate loci. The spatial and temporal fabric from which the greyen realm was built upon was twisted and distorted.

Space was not definite and time did not pass in linear fashion. The tempo and firmament of the Realm of Limbus was like its namesake.

A dancer bent back unto themselves. A circle without beginning or end. Eons pass as doth breath. A blink is effectuated in the time that stars die and their corpses turn to planets. And in the flicker of waking consciousness, of when the universe perceives itself, of a thousand-thousand milennia, has a single second been traced.

Limbus, the Greyen Realm of Inferni.

In the distance, or whatever passed for distance in this strange realm, ebbed lights like Himself. Wisps of mortal souls. The lighten counterparts to the shadow that was the Eternal Mind.

The space between Himself and the lights was infinite. No matter how much He willed the surrounding realm to transport him closer to the other souls, he did not reach them. For though he was God over Himself and the twin gates, He did not possess authority over other souls.

He was a hollow godling, no universal ruler of reality.

In that moment, He wanted nothing more than to create a world in His Image. But remembrance stopped Him, wrapping around His Hand in chains of self-imposed adamant.

To create a world, He would have to give away part of Himself and become a catatonic godling and sleeping divine. And though it pained Him not being able to engender a reality where evil did not exist and all was good and no suffering apparent, He still had another world that needed Him.

People that would feel… sad if He did not return. It was a strange existence to have the almost unfettered power of the Infinite with the flawed heart of Man. As he remembered his loved ones, a presence came upon him. A tendril that wormed its way through the various dimensions and planes, binding itself to the Center of His Light.

Aedan pulled at the connection, bringing forth the consciousness bound to it.

“Hellion.” He said, His voice carrying authority overshadowed by the warmth of kinship.

His Khaeros looked through His own sight, yet was not present in flesh. For the manticore was bound to the Nether, to the lower realms.

[I am scared, packmate. The black surrounds me. I fight its creeping presence, but I cannot hold for long.

[Help.]

“Be not afraid. I will return you to the Earth.” His words were divine scripture made manifest, imposing and casting shadow like a monolith.

“Caer O’ Khaeros.

“Caer O’ Limne.

“Caer O’ Aima me Aima.

“Caer.”

[Fall, O’ Bound One.

[Fall, O’ Puddle.

[Fall, O Blood of my Blood.

[Fall.]

His bonded familiar fell back into the mortal realms, away from His pocket of Limbus. The Thread that Bound tugged at His awareness, fear reverberating through the connection like a voice in a tunnel.

He could not yet return, no matter how much his Khaeros pleaded. For he had yet to fully bathe in the Waters of Limbus. There was much more to be done.

And in the mists of potential from which sprung all of creation, He drank. They were no simple ambrosia or nectar. They were the purest and most whole of substance and in imbibing in them, His light grew brighter.

He was no longer a tiny candle. He was a roaring beacon.

His light was no longer White but instead Grey, quenched in the Waters of Death. He took the Black saliva from the Maws of Mortus and made them His own.

He took Power from Death Themselves, and They could do nothing. For He did not enter the boundary of Their authority, instead suckling on the residual essence that They bled into the Limbus.

He drank until full, and yet had only siphoned a fraction of the residual inky darkness that bled from the Maws of Death. If he was a god, what did that make Death? Were They simply greater in size? Or something more than a god? Even in his state of being, he was still an ant to their colossal and elden existence.

Aedan did not ponder for He knew it would take eons to get a decent answer. And His kith and kin did not have such time.

“Return to the Blood.” He Sayeth, and so it was done

A thread pulled at Him from the epicenter of His argent light. And like an anchor to a ship, the lashing of pure spirit brought Him back to the Nether.

The Exorcist

Fin felt it and yet he could barely believe. His apprentice’s spirit gained movement once more, no longer fading away into the Aether. Like an anchor being dropped into harbor, Eiden came back into the world of the living.

The waves of the Ethereal erupted in sympathy. And any mage worth their salt in the whole of King’s Kedwen would know that another had come back from the very precipice before the Pale. They would know that there was one who defied Death Himself and His Twin Maws.

The Exorcist felt the hairs on the back of his neck spring upright in unease. The Sight of many congregated over his local, influences of the Inquisiton and other Orders peering down on him like wolves upon sheep.

Fin’s spirit blazed, a roaring pyre of tempestuous and fatalistic energy. It broke through the wards he had placed. His influence spread over the Ether and Aether, and any that had their sights upon his apprentice would know they could not claim him.

They could do nothing.

For Eiden was an exorcist and the accords between Aardwen and Vitae could not be broken so easily.

And if any got so explicitly greedy, the wrath of the Thirteenth Branch would fall upon them like a smiting of Jupiter Himself

Behold, the birth of a thrice-tempered exorcist. A defier of Death and wielder of Oaths.

The Thrice-Tempered Exorcist

Eiden’s soul floated down from its heights, or depths, of the Deep Ethereal, settling into his bones like a tired serf into bedding after a long day of toiling field. Limbus did not possess literal position like a cube, instead having lines and points like a graph. It was a sort of structural shapelessness or shapeless structure. So, it was hard to tell if it was descension from the Heavens or ascension from the Hells.

Possessing a body, a physical existence, was now alien. Eiden had experienced consciousness in the realm of pure being, of light.

And dark.

His mortal soul had been tempered in death and returned stronger and bigger for it. Where before his aether had been pure life-force, now it was muddled grey-inertia. It was no chilling death-gust nor blazing fire of the living.

It was steel proper.

His spiritual sea did not ebb nor flow, instead placid like stillwater. It was entirely balanced to the aspects of creation and destruction and the arcana of chaos and order. Yet there was a price to be paid for the balancing and nullment of his high-spirit.

His aether had been cut in half as it was folded in on itself. From the mist it had been, his aether was now more akin to a liquid, being dense yet moveable.

Eiden felt a weight on his body. He had forgotten to open his eyes or contract the muscles of his heart. His control over his body was like a novice puppeter’s.

His mentor hugged him closely, tears streaming down his eyes. Eiden’s arms creaked and twisted in stoney fashion, wrapping around Phineas. The Apprentice was more marble statue than fleshly person.

He tried to speak yet he forgot to breathe, his lungs devoid of air.

That first breath upon waking from the Shadow of Death was like no other.

Eiden was alive.

His blood gained heat as his spirit and body returned to a semblance of the living. Mana coursed through him his middle-spirit in a sluggish manner, circulating his aether in sympathy.

His heart thrummed like the beat of a horse’s hooves.

The movement was a catalyst, hardening the core of his soul. His aether was like purified water below the freezing point being shaken up. A single snowflake forming was enough to plunge the rest of the liquid to arrange in an orderly fashion, crystalizing it into aetheric ice.

A luke-warm core of steel, neither too hot nor cold, floated at the center of his high-spirit, unmoving. Around it swirled mist aspected in life. Yet there was no denying the paradoxical existence that dwelled in the center of his spiritual sea.

It was dead and alive, grey and ambiguous as the Limbic Realm, a demiplane of the Deep Ethereal.

It was steel forged in the Fires of Life. Then bathed in the Acid of the Soul. And finally quenched in Waters of Death.

He was Aedan.

Slowly but surely, Eiden recovered control over his body. It was hard at first, him having to learn how to move again. A brush with death always left sequela. There would be loss in some form or another—it was inevitable that he would have to relearn something.

Thankfully, Eiden did not lose his memories. Neither did his emotions dull over, but instead were encased in refractive soul-glass. He could control this layer of aether, darkening it to opaque to shut off his human feelings or he could transform it fully mirror-like and amplify them.

Eiden got up from the slab of stone and tentatively walked, getting used to the movement of his limbs.

How many more times do I gotta relearn how’da walk?

A chuckle escaped his throat more like a gurgle of gravel rather than voice proper. Eiden had yet to recover fine control over his vocal chords, communicating with empathetic links rather than speech.

[Don’t worry ‘bout me Fin. I’ll recover. I just lost my voice, that’s all. Doesn’t matter if its mental or physical, I can get it back.]

Fin hugged Eiden again, tightly as fear bled into the mental realm.

Eiden hugged back as best he could, trying to mollify his mentor. It saddened him to see Fin like this, but also made Eiden feel… warmth. He had not felt unconditional love like this in a long time. Though he’d reckon Fin hadn’t either in at least a few decades.

[It’s okay… pa. I’m alive. I’m well.] Eiden said. He was glad his voice was stone for if it was not, his tone would’ve hitched while wording “pa.”

[I don’t blame you. This was my choice. Don’t… Don’t take that away from.]

Fin slowly let go and pulled back from the hug. The Exorcist nodded, his eyes stoney and steeled.

[How long was I out?]

[Six months, give or take. You died two hours ago and were pulled outta the Pale River an hour later. It’s the month of Moon’s Sight now. Two weeks til the Lumen Festival.]

[Well, I better recover quickly. Don’t want to miss the moonshine, now do I?]

Fin let out a chuckle as the tension left his shoulders. The intense switching of emotions left him laughing until his belly ached. Which was queer since his anatomy was no longer human, at least internally.

The one gesture that Eiden could replicate without difficulty came unbidden. A smile graced his face in both eye and mouth, a thing of joy and relief.

His step had been taken and all that remained between him and the beasts that prowled Kedwen was another bout of physical therapy.

Fuck. At least, I’ll have Fin and Bela with me. And Hellion.