“Death is the only inevitable truth of this world. That is what you will learn today!” The robed figure pointed the chalk at me as one might level a blade at my throat.
“A question. What about Mithrils? Aren’t they immortal?” I replied. The question was earnest, but I could see a flash of annoyance on the witch’s brow, and he faltered.
“This world! A Mithril cultivator is half a step into the Fae, a bridge between our world and theirs. The thin binds of our mundane realm do not apply to such titans. And you will address me as Witch Marek!” The witch growled back at me, his hand dropping to his side as he leant forward, looming over me.
We were in a small study room of an unusually comfortable design. Large padded chairs were spread around with small side tables to work as desks. There was even a long padded seat by a window, where one might lounge. I'd wondered what spurred such luxury. My old teachers seemed to believe that one learned best in a stone cell, where comfort was but another distraction.
It took a little time, as I let my mind wander while Marek bored me with his teaching, to find a worthy answer. The first clue was that I'd learned yesterday that the manor was called Felix Lodge. Then I'd spotted that the bookcases between the tall windows all had books with titles like The Complete Monsterium of Mountainous Foes and Ridderin’s Thoughts on Tracking I Was Forced, Convinced to Write Down. That, and the maps surrounding the chalkboard, all dotted with notations of what appeared to be migrations, told me what kind of place we were in.
This was a study room for rangers. A soft and cosy trap for those souls who loathed being inside at the best of times.
Solving that puzzle had kept me sane, something I needed help with as we'd been at this for hours now. Despite saying he’d teach me of death glamour, this was the first time we’d so much as brushed the subject.
It was that frustration that drove me. Normally, I would concede the point. I understood his logic, and if I wanted this over, it was equally logical to let this point go. However, no matter how comfy I was, I was in a foul mood. “In that case, Witch Marek, death is not inevitable then? I take a ‘half-step’ into the Fae, and it can be avoided.”
“You speak of defying odds that would make the Seelie weep and the Unseelie laugh!” The witch scowled at me, seeing I was about to open my mouth again. “Fine, fine. Death is all but inevitable. How about that? Is that acceptable, my Lord?”
“I’m no one’s Lord, just a bard. And with that correction, it is. I just like to be accurate in my learning, especially when it is foisted upon me.” I smiled back. I heard a satisfying crunch that I knew from long experience marked a teacher pulverising a stick of chalk. It took me back to some of the few favourable memories from my time at the Harkley’s manor. I took great pleasure in knowing one of my tutors had retired permanently from their role, deciding they were better off hunting monsters than teaching.
I tormented them because they fed the minds of the insufferable cultists. I needled this witch because he’d aggravated me to no end.
This morning, I had been nabbed while training in Felix Lodge's arena. I rose early, the others still sleeping. Despite all the vim and vigour of yesterday, nearly all were still recovering from exhaustion, wounds, or, in the case of Kay, adjusting to their freedom. A draining task I knew all too well. Given the lack of people around to accidentally blast with death magic, I’d taken to the arena to try and get a handle on my new level of power.
So it was that I sat in the middle of the arena, relying on its runes to ensure the safety of others. I warily started to cultivate with my lute. My plan was to collect some death glamour and feed it to my threadbare cloak first. It was then that Marek had appeared. He was one of the witches who had been part of the team healing Arthur and seeing to others. I'd been checked over by him yesterday, but my recent ascension had left me healthy as a pegasus.
His outfit was made of fine green wool, delicately patterned with silver thread in geometric designs. He bore the triangular mark of a coven, the heraldry depicting a three-headed beast with the heads of a fox, a cat, and a snake. It was not one I recognised.
The witch had been spitting mad, screaming at me to stop and even flaring his own death glamour to halt me. That had got my attention.
I had allowed myself to be dragged to a study by the witch as he muttered about my recklessness. I was always keen to learn. However, the last couple of hours had soured me. Marek had clearly decided I was some manner of idiot and had spent the last few hours refusing to discuss death glamour. Instead, he pointlessly probed at my level of academic knowledge, insisting I needed the proper grounding before he could grant me even a grain of his dangerous knowledge.
That alone wouldn’t have been enough for me to consider him unworthy of my studious attentions. No, he earned that through his constant condescension. From the way his eye was twitching, I knew I was due another bout of it.
“You have the gift of death. You should consider yourself lucky you haven’t slain yourself and should appreciate every word I have to offer you on the subject!”
“Have I missed something? I have a page for notes here on the subject of death, and I have yet to add anything but a single sentence to it. Did I miss something in the last two hours that I should’ve added?” My voice was pitched just right, that combination of keenness and innocence, hiding the insult within. Marek’s eye twitched again, his eyelid fluttering like he’d forgotten how to blink.
“You knights are all the same. Impatient to apply with no thought to understanding. We witches seek to understand the very forces of the world. It is essential you master this knowledge before wielding.”
“I am a bard, neither a witch nor a knight.” I heard myself growl. I was beginning to lose my cool. “I would’ve loved nothing more than to learn how to use my gift, and yet I was not afforded the luxury. I have resisted the temptation to absorb corruptive glamour and made good use of it. I even battled an Iron Rank blood cultivator with it. These are not the acts of some bumbling fool.”
“You are nought but an idiot blessed with the luck of the Sidhe. An arrogant whelp who doesn’t understand the power he toys with.” Marek groaned, then flopped back into the heavily padded leather chair behind him. “If you are to learn, you must accept this.”
“And with that, I have reached the end of my patience. Even when surrounded by the worst of humanity, I was never expected to tolerate such drivel.” I began to pack up the small collection of paper and ink on my desk.
“You will be still.” Marek turned, his gaze locking onto me with the full weight of his Evil Eye. His patience was clearly as spent as mine. The power of it slammed into me, seeking to force me to submit. As a mid-to-high-ranking Iron cultivator, Marek’s technique would have been more than enough to immobilise me just a week ago—despite my exceptional resistance to such abilities. But now, standing as an Iron Rank myself, I had a new weapon at my disposal. My intent!
From the ashes shall rise beautiful chaos.
I had barely begun my path in understanding what my intent could do for me, but I knew a couple of things. Through a bit of experimentation yesterday, and some talks with the other Irons, I’d found that while thinking on the phrase would aid me, if I could in any way embody an aspect of it, I would feel it empower me on a whole other level. I liked to call on the beauty part of it, and my naturally chaotic nature meant I could pull on the chaos part more often than not.
To call on beauty, I began to hum a tune. Marek’s eye didn’t twitch now. Both were now pinched by his fury. I stood and made a show of continuing to pack my things.
In response, he intensified the Evil Eye. I fumbled with my quill, reluctantly impressed by the power of it. I’d experienced a great many variations of the technique, and his ranked among the best. The Evil Eye was a raw manifestation of a cultivator’s willpower, backed by the power of their hearth. It burned glamour but didn’t strike with it. Instead, it empowered them to smother another with their aura. That same aura, which normally limited itself to a cultivator's body, protecting it from outside forces, instead swamped the opponent.
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A victim found the very air around them hostile, as their aura fought for its right to exist.
Everyone’s manifestation of the Evil Eye was different. The Harkley senior alchemist’s felt like I was being dipped in acid, while Marek’s made my muscles begin to ache and tighten, as if I were in the grips of a foul fever. Such was the power that I had to resist the urge to check and see if my limbs were withering away.
As I made to leave, the power increased again, and I almost stumbled. I’d underestimated Marek, His power was possibly the strongest I’d ever felt from someone at Iron Rank. Still, there was a vast gulf between his power and the force from Miss Peaches, with its sensation of being pinned in place by the gaze of some otherworldly god.
I took another step, and the force abruptly vanished.
“All right, I concede you are no fool.” The Witch razed his hands in surrender as I turned to glare at him.
“No apology? Is it common to try and bully your students with torturous techniques?” I snapped back. With the technique broken, I could breathe normally. Freed from the focus of resisting him, I found my arms shaky and my skin coated in sweat.
“You must understand—”
“I ‘must’ nothing! Greater forces than you have tried and failed to force my hand. What is the point of all this posturing? Tell me!”
“Do not be arrogant, boy! To be a death cultivator requires a special degree of willpower. I would argue it requires the most of any, bar possibly dream.”
“Because they’re both soul-touched glamours? And if I lack the skill to scrub them of their lingering will, they’ll infect my hearth, correct?”
“You said you didn’t have any formal education?” Marek raised an eyebrow and sat back, looking at me a little differently than he had before.
“I don’t, but you must’ve noticed I’m travelling with Elaine Fos, the renowned oracle? I have gleaned a thing or two in my travels.” My anger was still there, but it dawned on me that I should apply the ancient axiom: do not attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence.
It was dawning on me that it was possible Marek was an atrocious teacher.
“Look, Witch Marek, I can understand wanting to ascertain I have the mentality for this, but why not ask me about such things?” I asked, prodding at my hypothesis.
“It is rare that any have the willpower to cultivate death without the training. And to undergo the training requires patience. This is how I was taught, my mind trained slowly and carefully,” he answered, his voice full of pride. I stifled a groan.
“So it was a test? You didn’t think to ask my companions or myself to gauge my patience?”
“I would not trust them. Would you risk your life believing some children’s thoughts on their friends’ patience?”
“If you needed proof, why not ask?”
“So what? You could feign patience for a day?” I wanted to say that anyone who lacked patience but could fake it in his company was clearly a genius actor of their generation. Instead, I forced myself to be sensible.
“No. If you asked, I could offer proof. If you’d not been so arrogant, I could’ve shown you this.” He puffed up as I called out his behaviour but flattened out as I pulled out The Book of Lesser Death Curses and placed it on the table before me.
“Where did you get that book?” His voice was quiet, his fingers quivering. I couldn’t tell if he coveted it or was preparing to flee.
“I was granted it by an Elder Witch, who shall remain nameless.”
“They can’t—You should— I don’t—Argh!” Marek’s eye twitched madly, his eyebrow bouncing like a cheap coach on a broken road. He cast one more covetous glance at the book. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You gave me no opportunity to! You asked me if I had any formal education, and when I said no, you didn’t give me room to speak. I then wrongly assumed that you had non-foolish reasons for messing me around for two hours.” I couldn’t stop my frustrations showing. To think I should’ve just gone with my earlier plan to annoy him and pulled it out to start reading whenever he wasn’t looking.
“You should remember your place in such things. I am a century your senior!” the witch growled out of habit. We both knew he was all bark and no bite.
“And yet, with all that knowledge, we just wasted two hours!”
“You’re stubborn.”
“So you demand willpower and then expect me to be a pushover?” I answered. That stilled him. He looked at the book again, his eyes lingering on it with reverence. Internally, I sighed. What exactly had Miss Peaches gifted me?
The witch paced the room for a minute. I didn’t interfere. No matter how angry I felt, I wanted the knowledge he could offer me. If he was willing to change I should at least try to engage.
“I realise my error. I treated you as a blank slate. I shall endeavour to treat you as a fellow witch who has already undergone the tests of willpower. Let us begin this meeting anew.” Marek was still imperious, but the underlying sneer was gone.
The witch stood and then inclined his head, a show of respect that had been absent at the beginning of the first lessons. “Blessings upon thee. I am Marek Artoss, Witch of the Coven of Puck’s Harrow. Death was my first glamour. While born to the Artoss family, I left for my education, returning here to act as part of the healers, as well as warden against less direct threats.”
“I thank my tutor. I am Taliesin, son of Gwendolyn Artoss. I gained death glamour as my second gift. I am a bard, following a different path to either knight or witch.” I replied, doing my best to embrace a new beginning even if part of me squirmed, seeking to needle him further.
“Interesting you mention being a bard. I know of the other less common cultivation paths. The druids, guided by spiritual forces. The wizards’ obsession with binding glamour to their will. The pugilists, seeking to embrace the martial teachings of the Mystic East. What is it that makes a bard?”
“I’m still not sure.” I was still struggling with this question. What did I do that was different? I sounded out what I knew of the two other major cultivation pathways. “To me, it seems a knight focuses on power, then hones their combat expertise, and overwhelms the challenges before them. A witch instead focuses on understanding the world itself, shaping their power so they can most efficiently solve the challenges before them. For a bard…”
“Take your time.” Marek waved his hand at me. His flaws didn’t include impatience, which made sense if he’d been forced through such training.
What did I do that was different though? I used knowledge, I fought, but there was a distinctly different feel to my approach than the others. I thought about everyone who aided me, how they approached their problems. What did I do that was different?
My mind snagged on the memory of my rant to Maeve, explaining how arming her family with stolen secrets was a victory. I’d brought my knowledge to bear and trusted it to others. Then there was a more practical memory, of dancing around Ulfast, bringing my skills and those of Lance and Gaz together to create an opportunity to bring someone far beyond any of us down. Other examples bubbled up, like how we’d handled the army of cultivators with the monster lure. There was a pattern there.
“To me, a bard uses knowledge of people. With that, he can apply his power, reshaping the challenge. To put it in Witch terms, I am a catalyst, speeding the corrosion of my foes and invigorating my allies.”
“Interesting. I can understand why it lends itself to a strong sense of willpower. Surrounded by allies, you must have already encountered the issue with cultivating death glamour?”
“That it affects their emotions? Indeed, I have. The book led me to believe that totems could be made to help shield them against the influence, but the book’s information on how they work is sparse.”
“Ah, you know of totems. They are indeed useful tools. Are you familiar with lightning rods? Good. Well, you may think of totems along the same lines. They can direct your power away from that which you wish to protect. It's far from a foolproof solution, though. Just as enough lightning can render steel into useless slag, a totem can equally be overwhelmed.” Marek’s voice was calmer now, revealing a glimmer of promise. Perhaps he had enough teaching skill that we might be spared becoming mortal enemies.
“That will be a good second lesson for us. The first lesson should be how to properly shield yourself against your death glamour. Something I expect your undivided attention upon.”
“Witch Marek, I agree that is important, and I say this only to avoid a repeat of earlier confusion, but it may be less essential in my case. I have this cloak, you see.” I could see him fight the urge to snap at me. Instead, he walked over to look at the fabric.
“This cloak does what exactly?” He ran the threadbare fabric through his fingers as I explained. The eye twitch returned, and while his eyebrow did valiant work trying to contain it, the movements only got worse as I explained what I’d learned of it.
Once I finished, he said nothing. Silently, he wandered back to his chair and slumped into it, seeking comfort in the soft padding. “While I did rescind my earlier statement that you are a fool, it seems I must do the same for the statement of luck, as 'Lucky' doesn’t begin to cover the Sidhe born joke you are clearly in on.”