18 - 3

[Magus]

Prudent

The Lone Sparrow - 2nd of Evening Star, 1125 A.E.

Quickly, with a few more greetings and ‘blessings of the Heavenly Sage upon you’s, Barry navigated the Priestess to the coffer-space of this treasure chest construction of a temple.

The thin treeling of wowan still stood leafless as it had been before Barry ravaged the divine authority—the ethos—of the Mahneanic temple. Bark white as bleached bone and with sheddings grey as bone ash, the wowan was rather a ways closer to pallid than pale. Its fruits still hung upon the vine and branch; little, colorful corns in husks like eyelids along the seams of the woden wood.

Now that Barry had thrice fully roused his soul from slumber, he saw what he had not seen before in the ashen-white wowan.

It, like the warded and scrollworked door, too, possessed a living spirit. Yet, this was no artificial, man-made thing. Not entirely, at least, and not to the same degree. More cultivated and influenced rather than outright constructed, he felt.

The wowan’s spirit produced a grand aura. The subtle skein spread over the temple and spilled over the furthest walls a bit; a larger hoop laid atop a smaller square. Beneath the wings of the ashen wowan’s spirit, greenery thrived in a time and a place it had no right to.

This was how the little bit of verdant took root and made leaf so deep into winter as Evening Star. Mortus’ season was not one of life, so seeing the color of Rain Hand’s spring was downright strange.

Sure, the dark hue of evergreens was a sure sight after one crossed the Ydden northward, but ‘ere? No hemlock or spruce or pine made home in the forests abounding Berrowden. Only bushery the likes of honeysuckles and certain trees like churchyard cypress or live oaks with some o’ Gaeya’s breath on them. Not this much and not this vibrant as the greenery before the wowan tree.

The sellsword guided Emilia to one of the rocking chairs, before looking for the tinderbox and sparkflint. He could ask about the tree endowed with robust spirituality after he got a fire started.

Unlike the last time, the nip in the air bit him deep and unpleasant.

A misbehaving dog, Barry complained in mind. That’s what me soul and spirit are. Pups that bite the hand that feeds.

“No need, laddie.” Emilia crowed, voice hoarser than a pipe-devil. “Just put some wood in there and I’ll light it up with some magick.”

“Is that really wise, Emi?” He daggered, from a place of worry.

“Bare, I am not drawing from a scarce well. This is not how the pact with the Crone works. My own spells, so long as I do not touch upon the Crone’s kennen sacren, will not make my slow White Gull into fast Black Crow.

“Besides, Sevenfold miracle is a catalyst, not a crutch. It can make weaker magicks stronger but not conjure wholecloth holy works from nothing. At least mine can’t; don’t know much about other pact-bearing clergy.

“My spells, though lesser without the Sage’s influence, are my own. You can’t draw upon a god if you do not possess an appropriate anchor. For me to have even been able to make pact with the Crone, I had to study and learn spellcraft beforehand.

“The same goes for Oriath’s khristi. They must train in the martial Forms, practice games of war and sharpen their minds upon the whetstone of ken to draw upon His ethos. No ship may make for land without anchor.”

Barry, grudgingly acquiescing, did as he was told. He still thought it better to not risk inflaming whatever spiritual wound waylaid the Priestess, but the choice was not his to make. He would respect her deep source of ken as a wise person.

After putting the cut quarters of dried firewood into the kiln, he closed its wrought-iron mouth and sat by his mentor’s side.

Again, now, he heard the Priestess twice-over. In Vitaen by mundane ear and then in Kedweni by the voice of the soul. The sorcery sleeping inside his veins did all the work of parsing the foreign haggle into his own.

“Meridia, Sorror Mercuria, sicut Tuum Lumen in Speculo-relucet, cogita mortalem egentem scintillam exiguam.

“Noctis Pyram.”

[Solaria, Sister to Mahna, as Thy Light shines upon the Mirrorsphere, give unto this mortal in need but a tiny spark.]

[Beaconflame in the Night.]

By the snap of her fingers and a working of her will, a wisp of dandelion-gold was brought to bear inside the kiln. The holy mana from On High quickly went to work on consuming the offering set before it. As short lived as the spark from flint, the miracled fire gave way to mundane flame, ruddy and tawnish.

Barry lifted a brow, pinning the Priestess with a stare just like his ma had done to him so many times afore.

“I thought ye said ye weren’t gonna use any ethos? I sure as Death and the taxman felt something not your own in that spell.”

Emilia brought a cup of already-steaming teh to her lips, sipping audibly upon it with closed eyes. She breathed out a content sigh afterwards and then spit the liquid out to the side like a soldier on the march spits out tubbaq thrice-chewed.

“Thank Solaria, Mahna, and Gaeya for giving man the ability to make flame. The heat makes this stock from Kiervo tolerable; can’t taste shitty, sun-planted teh leaves if yer tongue is half-burnt off.”

She took another sip, all innocent-like facade before she caved under his insistent mother’s stare.

“But, I digress.” Emi said, voice a tad bit grumbly. “Onto your questing. Not all use of ethos will make haste of my Rightful End. Remember what I told you before you set those logs inside the kiln, that a compact between khristi and god requires an anchor for it to take hold.

“Anchorage, any connection really, is a two-way street. Like the King’s Road that cuts the Four Kedweni Corners—even the River Ydden itself—in two, not just the faithful and prudent walk it. Bandits prowl it as well, you know as much given the amount of times ye’ve sold that axe o’ yours.

“This means that, given enough exposure to divine ethos, a pledged priest begins to produce their own. They become holy. This is also the basis for my expanded lifespan, but those two diverge rapidly beyond source.

“That spell cast just a moment before is etched unto my very being, soul-deep, such that I may draw upon it even without a direct tether to the Crone. It cannot be taken away, unless Mahna Herself wills it be so.

“The compact itself, the binding between me and my god, is where my problems come from. The spell I cast is something not writ in ink nor contract, more of a spoken agreement; you’d not steal the clothes off the back of a tyke for his father’s debts and all that. His inheritance on the other hand is, shall we say, fair game.”

She took another loud sip of the steaming drink and spat out another glob as well. The midpoint where her nose met brow scrunched up in disgust.

“Laddie, here—“ she produced a vessel of glass from the many folds of her vestal robes “—take this strong spirit and spray some of it inside the kiln. This teh needs to be hotter. I can still taste it.”

Confused, Barry took the offered hooch with no maker’s label but linen wrapped tight with a single cross laid upon it—like Oriath’s but on its side and atop two legs like a man. He walked over to the kiln by their back and uncorked the bottle.

The smell hit him like a Strosunian brawler, the punch to the nose strong enough to make him check if he were bleeding. The finger brushed above his lip came back clean, surprisingly.

That was not a thing meant for men to drink. Undiluted spirit, Barry reckoned it was. More poison than anything else, what with the many stories of alchemicking apprentices drinking themselves to the other side of the Pale by swiping their master’s stock.

He opened the top of the kiln and poured some drops inside, ready to jump away. The fires went ablaze, crawling up to the top. But instead of spilling over the threshold as Barry thought they would, the fiery tongues fell before an invisible barrier like monsoon upon Dyeus canal; neutered and harmless.

Now that the Sorcerer looked closer, there were little designs wrought in copper wire and blue paint wound around the kiln’s exterior. They made queer sound in spirit, those wires, like there was the beat of a heart ringing throughout the Invisible Tide. Faint enough that he never would’ve heard it without the apparent magick.

“Almost thought I’d lost me beard and balls.” He muttered as he swiped a bead of sweat from his brow. That was close. Barry could all but smell the sulfur of burnt hair.

He had not thought to ask the Priestess if pouring alcohol of this strength upon the flame was safe. He had just done what he was told and felt safe because of Emi’s ken and blithe attitude.

“You good there, laddie?” Emilia called back.

“Next time I’ll bloody ask before I get me whiskers singed off.” The Sparrow said under his breath before he responded loud, in earnest. “Aye, good, Emi.”

He swore he heard a gruff chuckle, like gravel ground down to be poured atop the Kingsroad after monsoon. All snicker and snort.

I’d get back at ye if any jest I made didnae scare ya all the way to the other side o’ the Pale.

Barry sat back down again on the rocking chair to the right of Mother Forentes.

“Settle down nice and comfortable, lad, ‘cause we got a lot of subject material to go on. By the day after the next, you’ll know your letters and have at least a cursory grasp of sorcerous theory. We may even have time to learn some Cyroshi numerology.”

It was gonna be a long few days, the bumpkin sellsword felt.

He just hoped that nothing more would wake the beast in the belly.