Solitaire POV: Day 61

Current Wealth: 2 gold 23 silver 41 copper

We’d ditched the old man the first chance we got, and it’d been for his own good. All rolling out of the carriage, we’d made our exit at some no-name town we passed near to, hurried into it and rented ourselves some new transport. A nicer carriage, this time, or rather a faster one, pulled by proper horses. It took us on nice and quick. Even including the food we’d bought it hadn’t set us back that much, either.

Man, it really did feel nice to actually have money.

Even still, money didn’t do everything, not in the volumes we had at least. It took us more than a few days to actually reach our newest destination, and the shivering, miserable travel experience was just perfect for worsening our already jagged moods.

So much so, in fact, that I didn’t even notice we’d been here for over 2 months right before arrival. 2 months. Was that really it? It felt so…Short, so inconsequential, so fleeting. If 2 months had changed us all as much as this, what might another 2 years do?

I buried the thought. Unless it turned me into a magus-proof dragon, I really couldn’t afford to consider the possibilities.

Elswick reared up on the horizon, and within a half day we were at it. The place was odd, its walls taller than Wolney’s, its gates more thickly built. Despite that we didn’t actually have much issue in getting through them.

“We’re safe.” Xangô breathed, as we passed beneath an absurdly big portcullis. I hesitated, shrugging.

“We’re safer.” I decided. Truth be told I wasn’t certain the magus wouldn’t just guess which city we’d headed to next, but at the very least he’d be working on random chance now. And if he tried to move in on the nearest other to Wolney- Ghinddra- then he’d be costing himself an extra few days. We’d be safe for a week, at worst, and probably a lot more.

Probably. Always something, always that niggling little uncertainty. I could already feel the well-oiled gears of logical leaps and deductive aggression preparing to start grinding away again inside my head, a master-crafted clockwork of paranoia and violence.

No, not paranoia, fuck them. I’d been right, which made it clever. Perhaps I ought to remind everybody again.

Perhaps not, I’d spent enough of our journey smugly going on about the fact already.

Past the walls, Elswick wasn’t actually that much different to Wolney. Its streets were more uniform, maybe, but they were still overwhelmingly shit-sodden and packed with human traffic. The scent of life was pungent on the air, watering our eyes while it caught a similar tale of inequality in the architecture and infrastructure. This time we didn’t bother with the higher class areas, just made our way straight for the poorer ones. We had a very particular goal in mind, after all.

Beam and Xangô split off to find me a suitable workspace, and I made my way into the city in search of a suitable magic instructor. Being honest I was annoyed by the job, even knowing I was by far the best for it given my previous attempt, but that irritation didn’t last long at all. Because the second magus I approached was the very same woman I’d finally agreed to learn from in Wolney.

“It’s you.” She blinked, just as I resisted the urge to knife her in the eye. It was a coincidence, I guessed, and that guess turned into certainty as I read the genuine surprise on her face. If Corvan had brought her over, or told her to watch out for us, she’d not have been shocked to see me.

“Hello again.” I managed, hiding how close she’d come to being turned into a new coat of red paint for the floor. In my experience that tended to bother people.

“What are you doing here?” The magus frowned. “You’re…You followed me for lessons?”

“I came here to set up a few things.” I replied. “Lessons being among them, but I didn’t follow you, it’s just a strange coincidence that we’re both here.”

She nodded, not seeming particularly concerned with the matter in any case, and moved back to the work she’d been doing. Some weird alignment of glowing crystals, the sort of thing I might’ve once described just to give a magus something to idly do to remind the reader of a scene they were magic.

“So you are here for lessons then.” She guessed. I nodded.

“How much are they going to set me back?” The woman raised her eyes, chewing a lip thoughtfully.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

“I’ll be frank with you, I don’t think you can afford them. 5 silver a day at a minimum, more likely closer to 10.”

It was a gut punch, but not unanticipated. We’d always made magic prohibitively exclusive in Redacle, it’d been one of the ways we’d explained warfare not devolving into a “having the most magi” contest.

“And what is that depending on?” I tried. She didn’t even glance at me.

“How gifted you are.” She replied. “Whether you’re gifted enough to learn at an appreciable rate. Most aren’t.”

I knew that already, of course, being the magic system’s writer. I considered the facts, then sighed.

“I’ll take a lesson today, then, if you’re offering. So long as you don’t retroactively decide it costs more than 10 silver.”

She eyed me, thought about it, then sighed with a nod.

“Alright, fine. Wait there for a few minutes while I finish this.”

I did, and she was fortunately quick about it. We began our lesson.

Oddly enough, a lot of it was new to me. We’d always preferred powerful, established characters in our stories, my friends and me, which meant that we’d not directed much time to writing about the early learning process. I got to see it all essentially for the first time.

She had me focus on recreating the feeling from after my initial test, at first. Apparently the early practices were best done immediately following it for this reason, to ensure that as little was lost from the expensive testing before the actual training began, but fortunately my memory meant that she might as well have waited mere seconds for all I forgot. I stretched my mind back to those old feelings, the buzzing, the energy, the sensation of being swarmed by hornets. It all came easily enough, probably in no small part thanks to the striking discomfort of it all, and I used it well.

Within a few hours I was consistently making little beads of light between my hands, and the magus was gaping at me as if I’d just benched a mountain range. Too late, I realised, the gifts we’d been given on transit to this world might just have leaned into other areas as impressively as they did our own personal powers.

“How well did I do?” I asked, feigning uncertainty. She didn’t answer for a second, just kept staring.

“I’ve…Never even heard of someone who picked magic up this fast, not even half. Even Zekitan the Great wasn’t conjuring light until his tenth hour of study.”

I was hasty in replying.

“Well, you know, some people are better at different stages than others-”

“No.” She cut in. “Not the basics, not the actual act of learning, that’s designed by hand to test your general aptitude. You…Fuck.”

I eyed the woman in silence, waiting to see what she’d do with the information. If she decided it needed sharing then that would be a problem, we needed to avoid the kinds of attention this would bring until we were strong enough to at least take care of ourselves, but…

No, she wasn’t. I could see a lot of things on her face, a lot of ideas in her eyes, but never that. This one seemed more concerned than anything.

“Who else has seen you try magic?” She asked. I resisted the urge to grin.

“Nobody, yet.”

It was that “yet” that had her practically flinching, and I pressed on to seize my momentum.

“I’m guessing you’re smart enough to realise what sort of advantage this might bring to you.” I noted. “Training me, I mean. The most gifted magus…Ever, perhaps? An absurdly talented one at least. So how about we arrange a new deal. Train me now, for free, and in a decade or two, when I’m one of the strongest magi alive, I guarantee I’ll keep you comfortable. You can leech off me whether I become some king’s court magus, a general’s secret weapon or just decide to make my own home somewhere remote…I have always wanted a floating tower.”

She was considering it, and that was good. I decided to press her before her thoughts could harden.

“I mean we both know I’ll be going somewhere, it’s essentially a guarantee, and even if you don’t agree to this, there’s plenty of other magi who might, right?”

That was what decided her, the knowledge that she’d accidentally given up her own exclusivity. The moment I found out how gifted I actually was, every magus in the city became a potential source of free training, and she knew it.

By the speed with which she spoke next, I could tell she wasn’t confident in out-bidding them in that regard.

“I want 1,000 gold a year in 20 years.” She replied, hastily. I pretended to think about it, then sighed.

“900.”

Her eyes narrowed.

“You’re pretending to bargain so I’ll think I managed to talk you down and feel like I won, aren’t you?”

God, I did like this one. Xangô was still quicker, for sure, but I’d only met a few geniuses of her speed in my life. And they’d all been back home, with brain matter that hadn’t adapted to deal with a scarcity of protein and energy.

.”You got me.” I shrugged. “People are usually less likely to chafe at something if they think it’s their idea or doing.”

She glared at me, but only for a second. Look melting into an irritated sigh.

“Very well then.” She acquiesced. “I agree.”

“Brilliant.” I grinned back. “Then let’s get started.”