037 - Sky Beyond Sky

Magnus felt a sudden pang, his heart lurching. Rolf . . Seamaidens . . Ma and Pa and Pa Lund . . all the familiar, all the things of home. Gone, dead, destroyed, stolen away.

"Done!" Kujata heaved a sigh of relief, closing her note book. "Where were we? Magnus?”

“Big sis . . yeah,” Magnus lifted his head up and sighed.

“Don’t look so down boy! Meeting me is the luck of your lifetime!” Kujata thumped her chest. “Now, to the crux of the matter. How did you end up like this?"

Magnus: "It was . . It was my own choice. I let Festus, an Alchemist, do this to me. I wanted it, I wanted to be a giant, to be strong."

Kujata: "And Festus would do it for free? Out of the kindness of his heart? Pah!"

Magnus: "I . . . I never thought about it. He just made people giant and they fought the black skins. I thought . . I .”

Magnus told her of the conflict, of the arrival of Festus five years before, and of the giants that he made. "Naive!" Kujata yelled, "How could you be so damned naive?" Magnus was unable to stop tears from welling up in his eyes when he talked of Kloster, of Rolf and of Pa Lund. When he told her of the final experiment, the black specked potion, and of the appearance of the first red thread, Kujatas eyes shone.

“Just a black vial? Did the Alchemist give you anything else? A pill, another potion?” Kujata asked.

“I don’t know . . . I can’t remember, it is all a little fuzzy. Maybe he did, a pill, yeah, Festus gave us all some pills to numb the body!”

“Right, ok. I see.”

“What does it mean? What do you see?”

“It means,” Kujata shook her head, “that you really shouldn’t be so damn trusting. Lambs to the slaughter. Hells, on these worlds the Alchemists can get away with whatever they like.”

“What was the pill? Was it dangerous?”

“Not to you, not now. You’ve got the living threads, relax.” Kujata reached under her chair and pulled up a half full gourd, uncorking and drinking from it deeply. She threw it to Magnus. “Drink, drink. I won’t have a disciple who doesn’t drink with me.”

He described his first death, his spirit or awareness or whatever it was floating out of his body and being buried, pulling at the thread to go back in. Kujata nodded saying “good, good. You did the right thing there, real lucky.”

Magnus described his symptoms, his fight across the waters against the pill-dogs, the unbreakable black veins, just like the black skin monstrosities, and the putrid yellow pus.

When he mentioned the revolving tower Kujata yelped excitedly, flipping to a page on her notebook. “Where exactly did you say Doohama was? To the west, the west coast . . . here!”

Magnus and Kujata talked late into the night, halting only when the bell rang twice. She would wave Magnus off, tell him to wait until she was done.

“That's a telescope, right? A telescope. My uncle Willis saw one like it, much smaller, said he could see miles and miles.”

“Yeah, a telescope, something like that. This one is to look out at . . look up into the sky.” Kujata frowned. “Curious? Here, take a look. Careful! Don’t move it, you’ll throw off the calibrations!”

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Magnus put his eye up to the looking glass. There was nothing but darkness, black empty space, a few dim stars blinking in the narrow focus.

“See anything? Probably not. Well, forget about it. Tell me the rest, how you got all the way from nowhere-ville to here, the arse end of nowhere.” Kujata threw the now empty gourd and searched around on the floor for another.

Magnus quickly told her of his journey east trying to find the Witching Road. Kujata interrupted several times, slapping the ground shouting "Fool!" and "This is my fifth disciple?" while clutching her head in her hands.

“Skip, skip, skip. You just walked and walked looking for the witching whatever, alright.” Kujata yawned massively. “Unless it has anything to do with the Alchemists skip the details.”

“The Witching Road are people fighting against the Alchemists, everyone says so, ain’t they of interest?”

“Kid, Magnus, you really believe that? Hells, just skip.”

“Well, I did meet an Alchemist in the swamp just before I came here . .”

Magnus described his fight in the swamp, proudly describing how he'd defeated the Alchemist, how he punched apart the stone golem and stuffed an apple into the Alchemists mouth. Kujata frowned. "No one saw you? Were there any witnesses?" Her tone worried Magnus, the poor pale face of Lars and his dead father appeared before his eyes. Magnus thought for a moment replying "No. I was the only one at the swamp."

When Magnus described the inside the swamp, the giant lizard beneath and all the green strands Kujata’s eyes shone. "An earth Salamander! A proper elemental! What luck . . ah hell, if I wasn't in the middle of this . ." She bit her lip, looking at Magnus. "And you say it spat you out of the swamp? All that way? Must be nearly mature . . and the earthquake the other day . . Sif!" The giant white wolf leapt excitedly to its feet, running to Kujata’s side.

Kujata shot out a thin red thread from her forefinger into the wolf's forehead. It dug into the wolf's skin, forming a ball of red energy. “Go to the Empire Swamp Sif.”

“Woof!” Sif barked excitedly and ran out of the shrine.

“If it's like you’ve described Magnus, then we should be alright . . when an Alchemist dies their name plate cracks, it's how they keep tabs on all their active researchers. It wouldn’t mean much normally, but for an Alchemist to die on one of the five formation planets, they’d see that as a serious matter.”

“What will happen? Will more Alchemists come?” A hint of bloodlust crept into Magnus voice.

“Oh aye, and if they find a hint of me here . . that will be that.” Kujata paced up and down muttering to herself. Her eyes finally fell on Magnus, she clicked her tongue. “I’ll have to take a few measures . . but first. First we need to get you cured up. Right. Right is right. The first bit of training, your first lesson as my disciple.”

“Right!”

“Magnus, I need you to go and get a wild boar. Oh, and alcohol - lots of it! But the wild boar! Alive! It has to be alive!”