Efrain looked down at the muddy ground and back up to the girl’s face. Her face shifted from shock to confusion as she clutched the still intact bucket walls. In her lap, however, was the circular bottom and a couple gallons of dissipating water.
“Well. That wasn’t quite what I intended,” he said dryly.
The other men around them, journeymen and their beleaguered volunteers presumably, were staring in open wonder. If his impromptu pupil had not prompted questions before, she certainly would now.
“What just…” said Sorore, looking down at the piece in her grip and letting it fall to join its brother.
“You just managed to flood a half-bucket of water,” he said, “specifically, the wood. Most students I recall break a teacup their first time. I suppose congratulations are in order.”
It took a moment for Sorore to frown and another to flush. Her head hung as she locked eyes with the sodden remains of her robes.
“Hm,” Efrain said, “well. Another!”
One of the men scurried forward with a bucket without so much as a command. Efrain wondered if it was curiosity or fear that propelled him. Either way, he had his bucket, which he filled from the trough, now running a bit low, and placed it before the girl.
“Try again,” he said, “now you know you can do it. It’s just a matter of getting there.”
Apparently either unfazed by the fact that she was a mage or so stunned she didn’t process it, Sorore did so. A moment of agonised frustration later, the result was similar, if significantly more muted. The wood cracked, the water spilled, the ropes began to fray and smoke.
Now that was interesting, Efrain thought, most novices, seeing the havoc caused by flooding, pulled back on their second try. Then again, most novices lacked the capacity to explode a bucket on their first try.
“Again,” he said, refilling the vessel.
They went back and forth like this, several more times, the girl growing paler, water replaced by sweat. Every time, the bucket fizzled and cracked, and the water splattered onto the cobbles below. The ninth time, Efrain put the bucket down without water in it, and it promptly fell apart.
“Two buckets destroyed in half an hour,” he chuckled, “you’re setting records.”
The girl seemed to sink into herself at the remark, her face falling into shadow as she raised her shoulders. It reminded Efrain of how a turtle would recede its head into the confines of its shell. She was noticeably more tired as well, and had sustained a small cut on her cheek from an errant piece of shrapnel.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “I can’t make it work. I don’t know how.”
Efrain leaned back on the coal pit and considered the girl. The problem was obvious, if rather uncommon - it wasn’t that she had no magic, nor not a gift for it. Far from it, she’d grasped the basics of ‘listening’ intuitively enough. The problem was that there was simply too much.
It was a known problem - young sorcerers, unable to learn basic forms because their magic itself disrupted the attempt. But Sorore was unique in the scale of it - no learner he’d ever heard off managed to blow up buckets full of water. As he’d recalled, most started with small cups of brittle waste ceramics. On top of that, she was doing so in the smothering fog.
There were two ways to deal with it, he deemed; one was to get better tools, a stronger bucket, more water, in the hope that it would absorb and contain the mana without exploding. The second was to drain her by forcing her to repeat some wasteful task over and over. The problem was, at the rate they were going, it might take hours to deplete and more to recover, and those were precious indeed.
He needed a faster way, and he needed it now. It would not do to merely have her keep punching holes in buckets unless…
Something cold stroked its fingers up his spine, and he knew that his next actions were either going to be folly or genius.
“Right then,” he said, “that’s enough for now.”
The girl looked up, surprised, managing to mask most of the relief she felt, but not the frustration. She was a hard worker, maybe a perfectionist, if Efrain had to guess. Those qualities would serve her well if she was being educated.
That is, if he could figure out a better way to teach her.
Efrain reached down and extracted a particularly long piece of splintered wood.
“I must say, your predisposition for destruction is…” he trailed off.
The girl was cringing, although she was trying to keep herself as still and open as possible. Efrain noticed that her hands were twitching, quite violently, in her lap as she looked at the stick. Her expression was neutral, her eyes frightened.
Efrain didn’t need to ask. He had an idea at what kind of teaching practices must’ve been applied to produce this kind of reaction. He held the stick up for a moment longer, making a show of examining it, then tossed it casually behind him. Almost instantly, Sorore relaxed, and Efrain extended a hand to help her up from her sitting position.
“I do think I know what your problem is, other than ‘not knowing how’,” he said.
The girl looked up at him as he pulled her up, Lillian glaring daggers as he did so.
“You’re simply too strong,” he said, “you haven’t had time to learn control, and your own magic is interfering.”
He relayed to her the two options, both of which were taken with less enthusiasm.
“I doubt we’ll find a steel bucket in this village, at least not one that’s close at hand,” he said.
The labourers looked at each other, some nodding in grim affirmation.
“I didn’t think so, and I for one am not going to wander around out there,” he said, with a wave to the wall, a dark shadow in the swirling mists, “certainly not to search for a bucket. So, draining you is our only option, which might take hours, and leave you little time for recovery.”
Sorore nodded, glumness apparent, although Efrain thought he could see the spark of a frustrated impatience hidden in the girl’s face. He liked her, he decided - diligent, intelligent, and engaged, the hallmarks of a good student. Whether he was a good teacher would be affirmed by the results he got today, and that started with his ‘solution’ to his conundrum.
“However, there may be a way to… sidestep the problem,” he said, “take a break. I’ll be back soon.”
He set off without waiting for a further word from either the girl or the paladin. He headed back into the church, finding Damafelce and her circle of commanders all plotting as he’d left them this morning. She turned as he approached, the others falling silent, whether out of fear, respect, or simple discipline, he wasn’t sure.
“Yes?” she said, only the eye bags betraying her exhaustion.
“My apologies for interrupting, commander,” he said, “but I’m afraid I’ve got another request.”
“What is it?” she said.
“During the course of ‘clean up’ I suppose would be the best phrase for it, you may have found something in the corpses of the creatures. Crystals, of unnatural coldness, and jet black.”
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
She frowned as recognition appeared in her eyes.
“I believe… I ordered them to leave the bodies untouched, save for what needed to be moved. I believe they would’ve been left where they fell, if they did.”
“A wise choice,” Efrain said, “with your permission, I would like to gather them. If for nothing else than safe storage.”
Damafelce perked up and leaned forward, the exhaustion somewhat abated by her urgency.
“Are they dangerous?” she said, the captains around her table leaning forward to hear.
“Yes,” Efrain said, “but not immediately, and not enough to be our top concern. You were wise. I don’t think it would be safe to handle them more than we had to.”
She nodded, dismissing him with a ‘do as you wish’ before turning back to her plans. Soldiers, good, competent soldiers, were also people he liked, Efrain thought, as he first travelled to the roof. They often had a lifetime of following orders, and could recognize experience when they met it. Of course, these were still church soldiers, and would cut him down the moment they figured his true identity.
Right now, not much of that mattered if they were overwhelmed by the horrors. The roof was largely empty, save for the occasional guard nervously glancing upwards. Innie was also at the far end, as distant from the smothering cold from the basement and the icy chill of the fog as possible.
The bodies of the things had been largely left where they lay, and, little to Efrain’s surprise, the pallid flesh was beginning to gently bubbled and dissolve. From the piles of twisted bone and leathery skin, the glimmer of the black crystals were beginning to show. Absent-mindedly, as he picked them up carefully and thrust them into his bag, he wondered if there was some connection to the black stone.
He certainly hoped not, considering that there was a wall full of it, and the very deepest foundations of the church may’ve been built on it. A ridiculous image of a massive, warped creature of black stone rising from the hill, sending them tumbling to their deaths emerged. Efrain whisked it away as he picked up the last of the black crystals, and took a final look at the flesh.
With some minor satisfaction he noted that the flesh had stopped dissolving as soon as he’d removed the stone. So, his theory that it was the crystal itself that ate away the body was correct, or at least supported further. Still it didn’t explain the-
Something pale, large, and round, was beginning to poke through the loosely attached flesh. Efrain touched it, finding it firm, and tugging out a knife, he cut away at the strips that still held it to the pile. Innie had come to join him at this point, curious to see what the mage was up to. After some time of cutting and pairing, helped by a singing fire or two by Innie, Efrain brought the object to the light.
“Oh,” he said.
Staring at him, deformed, fractured in several places, with odd growths and outcroppings, was the empty sockets of a human skull. The cat and the mage stood silently as they processed the discovery. It took a few moments as the disturbing implications fully situated itself within them.
“These things are human?” Innie said, breathlessly.
“These things were human,” Efrain corrected numbly.
It made a certain amount of sense - the majority of them they’d seen were some variation of quadrupedal. They bled, they walked, they swung their arms like an enraged human might. But that was merely a logical whisper in the face of the disquieting discovery.
“What.. what is this?” she said, for the first time since the Green Road shrinking back into herself.
The spirit was afraid, and he didn’t blame her.
“Some flesh lord's experiment,” Efrain said, a little too quickly for his liking, “something gone horribly wrong and loosed into the world.”
She offered no alternative explanation, but they both knew there were already holes in it. Why had a flesh lord's errant band tracked a party of soldiers across hundreds of leagues. What were the crystals? No craft nor magic Efrain knew of could produce those things, let alone allow them to feed on both magic and matter. And what’s more, how could there possibly be so very many of them, hundreds, perhaps thousands out in the fog beyond? When they had only encountered many already and destroyed them in the battle past Visaya?
Something deeper and more hideous crawled across his heart then, an emotion that he’d not experienced for a very long time indeed. Deeper than dread, and more potent than terror. Efrain 's hands began to tremble as the black hand of horror closed around his heart.
“Innie,” he said, almost whispering, “how many villages would you say lie between here and Visaya?”
Innie said nothing for a moment, confused by the query no doubt.
“Perhaps a half dozen. The biggest would be Muphestfelm, at maybe a couple hundred, or a thousand at most. There is no earthly way, even if they sprinted day and night, that first group we routed would’ve made it all the way here from beyond the Frozen Vale faster than us,” he said.
The calculus began to push the puzzle pieces into place, and the picture that stared back at him had the skull he held at its heart.
“We don’t tell anyone,” Efrain said, “not until we understand how and why.”
Innie said nothing, she didn’t have too. She understood, and that's enough. He let out a long, long sigh, and looked around. The soldiers hadn’t heard his musings, or had chosen to ignore it. Perhaps it would be for the best that they didn’t learn where exactly these things had come from.
“I need to go back,” Efrain said, “and teach that girl so we can get out of this place, and away from these things.”
With that, he parted with Innie, and descended back the way he had come. The crystals seemed especially cold and heavy in his bag as he took the tower step by step. As he departed back to the smithy, Efrain stopped to reinforce Damafelce’s decision not to touch the bodies. She agreed with him, and he found himself in the smithy yard once more.
He stared for a while at the back of the young girl, wondering if this was really the right thing to do. The crystals felt almost unnaturally heavy now - for all he knew, he could be giving her trouble. The memory of Aya settling as it ate away at her magic, feeling the terrible visions cease, drove him forward to stand before her.
“This would not be an option I would normally take,” he said, his voice lent solemnity by his discovery, “but we are where we are. I will have to ask you to trust me.”
Lillian was standing beside the girl, her face a mixture of confusion, perhaps a little fear, and restrained anger.
“Anything you do to her, you must do to me first,” she said, setting her jaw.
“As you wish,” he said, taking a crystal from his bag, the flow of magic vanishing into its depths.
He handed it to her, Lillian hesitantly gripping the medium stone as she stared at him down.
“So, what do you do with…” she trailed off as he glanced down, and frowned.
She raised the thing up to inspect it, her brows only furrowing deeper as she stared into the depths. Efrain could see the magic draining into it, slowly but surely. Probably not enough to harm or even annoy the paladin, but certainly enough to notice.
“What is this?” she said, grimacing at it.
“Something even I find deeply unpleasant, but I don’t think it will cause harm. Certainly not for the short time we need to handle it.”
Before Lillian could offer any objections, he produced another one, and gave it to Sorore. Almost immediately, her face grew noticeably paler as she screwed its features, but she did not let go. Efrain watched closely as she looked into the depths of the crystal, and as she did, it began to lose its gleam, the black depths becoming shallow and greyer.
Then, it simply fell apart into a dark ash in her hands.
“So, how do you feel?” Efrain said, eying the girl’s expression.
“Tired,” she said, “is that normal for.. this?”
“As far as I can tell,” he said, noting that her magic was indeed less voluminous.
“Now, let’s try again,” he said, finding with some dry comedy that another bucket was already prepared for them.
This time, the bucket trembled, but held together as she inflicted it with the magic she was gifted with. When it came time to try and form a drop, the water shot several feet into the air, fortunately angled away from them. A nearby bench, however, was not lucky enough to be spared the downpour.
“You’re improving,” Efrain said, “again.”
And so they went, twice more, with more or less similar results. Efrain sighed - he was doing that a lot nowadays. He didn’t want to do this, but he had little choice, he told himself as he handed the girl another crystal.
“One or two more, and I think we’ll be where we need to be,” he said.
It crumbled as well, and they began again - this time the water didn’t shoot out, but rather sloshed around as Sorore tried to condense it into a ball that floated above. Efrain intermittently reminded her about her method, and that she didn’t need to try to lift the entire bucket, just a drop. It didn’t help matters much, but the girl was improving. The edges of the liquid settled slightly, and the centre raised more sharply.
“One last time,” he said, reaching for another crystal.
Lillian instead offered hers, with a grim expression on her face. Had she been holding it the entire time, despite the magic drain? Efrain had to wonder about her capacity as well, especially with the magical dramatics upon the rooftop the previous night. Either way, the crystal was accepted, and crumbled in roughly the same amount of time.
Interesting, Efrain thought as he observed. Perhaps then, it was not a function of how much magic it absorbed, but rather something specific to Sorore and Aya. The word ‘Bequeathed’ spun in his mind as he returned to the task at hand.
“Well, then,” he said, “the last round.”
This time, the water barely moved, save for its centre, which rose. She would need to have just enough to break the tension of the water, not so much that it flew upwards. It was a difficult balance, but a good introduction to the mechanics of moving through magic. A little globe began to form, before it exploded in a light spray.
Sorore looked like she was about to fall over from the effort. Her face was significantly paler than he’d ever seen, and beads of sweat were beginning to fall to the ground.
“So close,” Efrain said, “take a moment to catch your breath before we begin again.”
As he refilled the pail, he took a moment to glance at the ash on the cobbles. No change - it had been rendered completely inert, as far as he could tell.
“You tried to force it into a sphere, didn’t you?” he said as he set the bucket down on the stones.
She nodded, too tired to say anything.
“A common mistake,” Efrain said, “as you explore magic, you’ll find that sometimes, no, often, it’s simply easier to let things happen as they are.”
He raised a finger, and a small spit of water, drifted up and formed into a globe.
“A little thing about water,” he said, pouring in more magic and trying to force the globe to shrink in itself, “it’s noncompressible. In fact, only gases truly are. It’s like trying to crush a solid piece of stone, sooner or later…”
The little globe exploded to one side, sparing them another helping of spray.
“The shape will fail,” he said, “when you pour cast metal, do you try to force it into a sphere with your bare hands?”
“No,” said the girl, incredulous, “you would burn yourself.”
Efrain waited for a moment, letting her read into the question further. After a moment, understanding dawned and she nodded slowly.
“You let it flow into a mould,” she said, “let it do what it wants to do.”
“Gravity does most of the work for you,” Efrain said, nodding his head, “in this case, it’s actually even easier. The fluid will collapse into a sphere naturally, if it is spared gravity. That’s what you need to worry about, and that alone. Let nature do the rest. Are you ready?”
She took a deep breath, nodded, and waited for the bucket.
This time, although a little violent and jerky, the spire of water rose into the air. It began to fall away from the drop, and finally, the last threads of water detached. What was left was a sphere, undulations preventing it from being glass smooth, but it was still a sphere of water, floating magically above the surface.
“Well done,” Efrain said, “most students would take days to get that. You’ve managed it in a morning.”
Face, although exhausted, glowing with pride, Sorore fell on her back, the water falling into the bucket.
“You deserve a longer break,” he said, “and I’m sure you’re quite hungry as well as your protector. Paladin, why not retire for some breakfast?”
Lillian looked like she was about to voice an objection to what sounded like a command. Either deciding that it wasn’t worth it, or simply too glad to be rid of him for the time being, she and Sorore departed without any further words. As Lillian took off towards the church doors, Sorore stole a moment to do a half curtsy with a little bob of the head. Efrain bowed his face as she caught up with the paladin and vanished around the corner of the building.
Now, he thought, comes the hard part.