Excerpt from Sivilyi’s ‘The Winged Sage’s Proverbs.’
“Trust not a teacher amused by your failure—but do not ignore them.”
“Devote yourself to a teacher who wishes you to surpass them, for they have already devoted all to you.”
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Yenna made her way to somewhere secluded—the last thing she needed was to be getting upset with Lumale with an audience. She also tried her best to keep herself calm. The lightning had appeared when she felt a strong emotion, and had barrelled out of control as her emotions grew stronger—Yenna couldn’t begin to predict what might happen if she were to become too upset to be calmed.
With the illusion imager in hand, Yenna took a seat behind a shed. She had failed to learn the name of this town, the excitement of going to new places fading slightly when each of these tiny farming communities had been nigh identical—as far as she could tell, this shed could have been anywhere or belonged to anyone. It only mattered to her for the fact that no one cared enough to come back here.
Carefully setting the imager in its place, Yenna waited. It took several minutes, and as Yenna was starting to get annoyed enough with waiting to pull out a book to read, the illusion magic connected and Lumale’s representative illusion appeared.
“You figure out Joy yet, mage?” The witch’s words seemed doubtful, but there was a pause. “Your arm—aha. You’ve done a bit more than figure out Joy. Let yourself go a bit, didn’t you?”
Lumale laughed, and Yenna could feel frustration building at the back of her mind. Taking a deep breath, she cooled it off—getting mad was not going to help anything.
“Yes, I understood Joy enough to manifest its power. I had intended to work on Pride next, only to have it sneak up on me.” Yenna showed off the arm—the ointment Mayi had applied was quite soothing, but the black marks still showed through.
“Hahaha! You panicked, didn’t you? Saw a few sparks and gave into its dark-tinge! Fool mage. I thought your kind were supposed to be good at managing your emotions.”
“You knew this would happen, then? Why didn’t you tell me? What do you mean by ‘dark-tinge’?” Yenna was now largely confused, which seemed to be standard practice while listening to the witch.
“If I’m being honest, I guessed either you would give up or take a week or so longer to figure things out. That, or…” Lumale laughed again—it was clear she was greatly enjoying this outcome. “I didn’t warn you because you didn’t ask. That’s the problem with you mages—you never think to ask!”
Pinching the bridge of her nose, Yenna sighed loudly. “Okay, well, why did it happen? I’m asking now, so please tell me.”
“Fine, fine. I suppose you did better than expected.” Yenna could have sworn Lumale sounded vaguely proud. “There are two factors in play here– oh, it’s so annoying to tell you like this. Come inside, would you?”
The imager shut off by itself, and Yenna looked around in confusion. On the back of the shed was a door—a well-made, blue door that looked out of place on the shed’s bare and decrepit wooden walls. Standing up, Yenna went inside. There was a strange feeling as she passed through the threshold, her skin tingling as she passed through the doorway. Inside was not the interior of the shed like she had predicted, but a room very similar to the cafe Yenna had met Lumale in.
The room had been cleared of its tables and chairs, leaving an empty space in the middle. Lumale stood at the other end of the small room, a couple of books hovering around her. Yenna couldn’t help but feel a small kinship over that—the witch was never too busy to sneak a bit of reading in.
“I hope you realise what a pain it is to bring this thing to you. Now give me your arm.”
“I never asked you to– hey!” Without waiting for a response, the silupker grabbed at Yenna’s blackened arm. The mage winced in pain as she traced stony fingers along the marks.
“Oh, this is wonderful! Hah, what a creature you are to have this much power lurking within you!” Lumale was once again caught, laughing away—her voice illusion was slipping slightly with laughter, her silupker chimes ringing through loud and clear.
“I’m going to assume that was a compliment, master. If you’ll forgive me for being a bit upset, my own students were endangered by your lack of warning.” Yenna could still see Tirk’s face staring up at her, and she had to force herself not to think of what might have happened had she not controlled her magic there.
“Keep your hat on, mage. First, you lack control. The reason it is so dreadfully funny to me is that you had control, and tore it off to get at the power of Joy.” Lumale’s books shut with an echoing snap as she sent them away. “In fact, little mage, you’ve hurt yourself more than you know.”
Yenna bit her tongue to prevent herself from snapping back a witty retort. She wished the witch would just say things directly—but could this be why she was having so much trouble controlling her emotions? It was like her mental training just wasn’t strong enough any more.
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“Must you wear that tiresome expression of confusion with such frequency? I’ve always considered making myself a face, but they do give away so much.” Lumale tapped the side of her featureless head, giving a hollow tink. “Jokes aside, you really have done a number on yourself. Nothing you can’t fix, as long as you listen to your master closely.”
Once again swallowing the urge to retort, Yenna nodded. “What do I have to do?”
“Simple. Gain understanding of the five remaining colours before they run rampant through you. I’ll even give you a little lesson—you did ask about dark-tinge, after all.”
With a sweep of her hand, Lumale conjured six points of light—one of each colour of magic.
“Our world has more than just six colours—what a dreadfully dull and lifeless place it would be without them. The colours mix and intertwine, smudge together, create new and wondrous expressions…” Lumale gave another sweep, and a rainbow of light blurred out from the singular points. In short order, a disc of every colour in existence burst into life between the two of them. “Now, mage. What’s missing here?”
Without clues, Yenna might have taken her time to figure this out, but the answer felt fairly obvious. “Shades. There should be darker and lighter variants of every colour.”
“Without doubt. The witches call this tinge. Colours may be tinged towards darkness, or light.” Lumale gave another small gesture and the rainbow retreated back to the six colours. Each of the six lights split into three pieces each—one copy of each rising up and taking on a faded tinge of light, the second remaining where it was, and the last dipping low and taking on a darker tint.
“I’m going to make a little guess and say you felt yourself a nice healthy heaping of pride—the emotion, not the colour. Maybe you were staring fondly at your little students! Then, your lack of control gave you a bit of a zap.” Raising an arm, the witch’s limb began to spark with purple lightning. “How did it make you feel?”
“It hurt. I was in pain. I… was afraid.” Yenna thought back to it, doing as much as she could to prevent those emotions from bubbling back up and causing any more damage.
“Fear. You grew close to the true dark-tinge of Pride.” The lightning crackling ineffectually against Lumale’s arm took on a darker hue, much like the nearly-black lightning that Yenna had discharged. “Pride’s darkest form is Despair—when your pride is absolutely shattered, the object of pride threatened, you have nothing more to live for, and give into despair. Fear is before such a fall, and it can so easily lead one to grow deeper into darker tinges.”
With a flick of her arm, Lumale let the dark lightning go, the magic arcing loudly in the tiny chamber. Yenna’s ears rang for a few moments, and she cried out wordlessly at the painfully loud noise. When her ears finally recovered, the mage could hear Lumale cackling away.
“So unguarded! My precious little student, you are like a child stepping into a warzone. I would warn you to turn back, to flee before you are found, but you’ve already taken that first irrevocable step. You opened your soul to the energy of emotions, and it’s up to you to keep them under wraps. I would say you’ve learned your lesson on Pride—just be careful not to blast your own students, would you?” Lumale began to turn away.
“Wait!” Yenna stopped her—the witch would be a bother to get a hold of, and she had chastised Yenna for not asking questions. Now was as good a time as any. “What happens when I understand all six colours? Will my control return? How can I stop myself from getting out of control in the meantime?”
“I don’t know, I don’t care, and you’ll figure it out. Hah! You can ask questions, but if they’re boring, I won’t answer them.”
“Wait, you don’t know? What does that mean?” Yenna was aghast.
“If you weren’t already a mage, it would be quite simple. You would devote the rest of your days to understanding ever-finer facets of the colours and how to apply them. But you’ve already become skilled at your disgusting aberration of a magical discipline—who knows what you’ll do with them? I might even learn a thing or two—maybe that’s why I’m so eager to see you not blow yourself up with magic?” Lumale’s face may have been featureless, but she was adept at making it sound like she was smirking.
Still, it was a lot to think about. Before she left, Yenna made use of this space to test her understanding of Pride. It was simple enough to split the ambient magic into its constituent parts, but harder to keep hold of those she didn’t understand. The green ball of Joy danced around her fingertips like wind as most of the other colours faded—except for the purple, sparking sphere of Pride. It arced between her fingers in a way that somehow managed to barely tingle. Lumale had been turning to leave, but had stopped to watch.
Yenna dissipated the two colours and instead thought back to her lesson earlier. Before it had been interrupted, she wanted to show her students how the light spell could be altered with simple symbols and intents—now, she wanted to see what would happen if she pushed her Pride into the simplest form of illumination. Calling that ball of lightning back into her hand, she traced it on a fingertip into the air, letting a circle of purple lightning hover in place. It arced and bent strangely, as though it wished to be free—Yenna couldn’t hold it for long and the lightning surged out and burst free of its confines. Yenna gasped as it nearly struck her—Pride could be dangerous, and it could be powerful, it seemed.
“Master Lumale, thank you. This has been… helpful.” Yenna nodded, mostly to herself. Frankly it had only brought more questions and worries, but at least it came with goals in mind. Yenna looked down at the metal ring clasped around her wrist, its six empty sockets awaiting the mage’s mastery.
“Don’t get too excited. Your journey into witchcraft is only just beginning, unless you wish to keep that pretty little bracelet forever. Now, off you go, I’ve better things to do than babysit mages.” Lumale finally made good on her intent to leave, and the room seemed to grow smaller as Yenna herself walked out of it. Once she was out of the doorway, the door slammed shut behind her and vanished. With a grumble about rude goodbyes, Yenna made her way back to the group.
“Master Yenna!” Tirk barrelled towards her, evidently having wandered far to find her. “Are we gonna finish learning that spell? Why are you frowning? Did your master say something rude? I’ll tell her off!”
Yenna felt her face—she hadn’t realised that her face had crumpled into a rather grumpy expression. Tirk’s insistence and enthusiasm melted her worries away.
“Don’t you fret about your tail, Tirk¹. Would you like a ride back? You really ran all the way out here!” With a smile, Yenna lifted the boy up to sit on her lower half’s back and began to trot away. She felt in her heart that everything would work out.
“But Master! I don’t have a tail… do I?”
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¹ - A slightly awkward-to-translate kesh expression that means to forget about worries that are in the past. The more literal translation would be something like ‘Don’t let time tear your tail off’, with the idea being that undue worrying might leave one’s tail trapped in a predator’s jaws if they stop moving forward just to worry.