Please comment on the chapter, thanks for reading, B_S
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Chapter 9: Time with Xiphos
“Shithead.” We muttered to ourself as the pair disappeared.
If the others had heard or could understand the word they might ask who we were referring to, but the truth was that it was not worth the effort to distinguish a target.
Putting back on our metaphorical cloak, I turned to Xiphos. “Do you smoke Xiphos?”
He seemed slightly surprised at my sudden question, but answered regardless. “Occasionally, however I was never overly fond of it myself.”
I nodded before pulling off my breathing mask and smiled. I could speak loud enough to be heard and understood with the thing on, but that was a little annoying and as long as I did not get too close, his smell should not bother me too much. “That does seem to run in the family, regrettably. Have you eaten this morning?”
He shook his head no and Luna spoke up with the barest hints of nervousness. “Kitchen experiment?” She asked me and I shook my own head reluctantly. For some reason, although I could tell a nutritionally balanced meal intently, I was an even worse cook in my new life than I was in my old one. Luna laughed, “Bella got up near dawn, was polite, and is not using us to experiment with cooking, what a wonderful day.”
I rolled my eyes dramatically and played along “I can dance, sew, sing, and tell men which potions will give them lasting vigor or forever take it away. I have to drive the boys off somehow, otherwise the village girls would never get married.”
That comment got everyone laughing, or at least smiling. Everyone except Carlatus, who immediately starting looking around, as if boys were going to try and mob me any second. I felt a brief flash of pity for him as, if a mob ever actually came for me in this village, it would be with shouts of ‘burn the elf’ or ‘kill the witch.’
Ushering everyone inside, Luna told us that the broth had been simmering I took a moment to tell Loco, Carlatus, and Xiphos about the fire experiment. I was curious about it especially because I had to find a way to prove that air was not just one element, but many. I could say that I could feel my lungs only using one part of the air, but proving it in such experiments was not only fun, it would also help me justify going deeper into the woods. Specifically I wanted to go to the river that ran through the forest and catch some fish while I looked for my special test subjects beyond the river.
That river flowed west to east and existed almost exclusively in the untamed forests to the village’s north. It was said to terminate in Lake Ketchdown to the northeast, but that was in another country. Apparently, the lake had a variety of dangerous creatures that could use limited amounts of magic to attack any humans who tried to sail out onto the lake. It was said to one of the remnants of the ancient Elves, who used to own this continent near the beginning of history.
After the reactions at the lord’s party, I had taken it upon myself to investigate why my family had never mentioned my ears to me or explained why they might be a big deal to the townsfolk, but not to the villagers. It turned out that creatures called Elves existed long ago and enslaved humanity. These Elves were known for their great magical power, arrogance, and sharply pointed ears.
The short story was that, while their society had been more advanced than ours, the elven elite became more and more extreme in their various pastimes. Where previously they would make humans fight or fornicate for their entertainment, now the Elven elite made their lower class cousins join in with the human. This, along with many other factors, eventually led to a revolt and then a series of civil wars.
During this time, escaped human slaves and their decedents started butchering the elven villages and burning the forest cities where the elves lived. With the rise of Soul Eaters that could literally eat the souls of the Elves to gain their immense magical power, the humans rose up and ended the Elven species. Normally, some quarter might have been given instead of an outright purge, however the Soul Eaters had been using dead elves as both undead solders and a source of magic power since the beginning. While they did free human slaves in the beginning, they quickly stopped caring about human or Elvish life as they hunted down every living creature capable of magic.
According to legend, there were humans who found out about poison which would take years to fully take effect and they poisoned the Soul Eaters. Leaving the more moderate group of Soul Mages to take their place and finish off the Elves, who had apparently contracted a plague of some sort from the undead Elven army that had fought them.
The stories disagreed about many things, but the endings were all the same. Groups called hunter-killer teams formed and spent the next few decades hunting down rouge Soul Mages, the few Soul Eaters who survived, and the Elves. Over time, the Elves were driven to extinction and then the Soul Mages began to lose out to the lure of Soul magic and absorb other souls. Eventually all those who used Soul based magic were hunted into near extinction and the development of soul magic was forbidden afterwards, leading to the rise and fall of numerous kings and rulers over the years.
From what I could gather, based off the stories, the Soul Mages only went insane because they absorbed the souls of others for their mana. This also absorbed a part of the personality of the sacrificed victim, the person never survived as a by-product of the ritual, which twisting the mage over time while also making them more powerful. H-K groups hunted these Soul Mages down and eventually there was no distinction between ‘rouge’ Soul Mages and normal ones.
Oddly, Elven magic experiments, cursed objects, ruins, and even the occasional text are still discovered fairly regularly, despite there had not been an elf sighting in over 3000 cycles. Sometimes rumors about Elven descendants and half-human hybrids came out, but they were always just rumors. Despite this, there were a good thousand years of history where humans with even the slightest hint of pointed ears were either killed at birth or persecuted for the rest of their lives. Around 300 cycles ago, however, the churches gathered and declared that certain curses could make humans look like elves and that this was a remnant from the ancient Elven-Soul wars. At this statement, plus a couple hundred years of religious pressure, the majority of cities and towns in the world did not discriminate too heavily based on someone’s ears.
As a legacy however, pointed ears came to symbolize bad luck and a sign that someone had been meddling with elven artifacts or had otherwise been cursed. For someone as young as me it was a shock and suggested that Nathan had been doing something secret. The villagers were a tight-knit group so they knew about my ears the second I was born from my mother’s midwife and quickly got used to it. The townsfolk however, with the exception of the smiths and millers, simply did not interact with the various villagers that often.
Nathan also acted as something of an intermediary for the villagers from time to time. Since he was closer to the town, they would ask him to look out for merchants if they needed something specific and he would buy it for them. Since he did this without asking for much in return, the villagers were less likely to talk badly about anything he or his children did. Likewise, the merchants and townsfolk would tend to let Nathan buy from them at slightly lower prices because they knew he could direct extra harvest to or away from their business with reputation alone.
This all combined to mean that anyone else except me would have a hard time with my elf-ears. Although it would be different when I left the village and be obligated to deal with people who considered me and all that I touched, bad luck.
The more obvious legacy on the villages though was the forest to the north. As Xiphos was now recounting, in overly dramatic fashion, there were ruins of human slave settlements from before the Elven-Soul wars that he had, bravely, investigated with his master. According to him, only humans left ruins and with both the age of the ruins and the evil Elven dagger he found, his master had determined that the Elves must have used the forest as a city of some type in the past.
It turned out that Elves had used their magic to grow their cities from trees. The size of the forest itself, combined with the numerous dangerous creatures and general feeling of discomfort the prevailed beyond the river seemed to suggest a large forest city of the elves was once been present. It had also ensured that, even with the population booming at it was, no one was eager to settle too close to the forest.
As Xiphos talked about the possibility that the forest might actually be the Elven capital, Luna brought out 5 bowls of thick chicken broth and a baked avotato for Xiphos. Since her hands were full I assumed that mine was still outside by the fire pit and sure enough, Luna came back with a warm, but otherwise raw, avotato.
Cooking avotatos took out some of their nutrients, so I had taken to eating them uncooked on occasion. Unfortunately, they were also a pain to eat raw, to the point where most people, if they actually managed to chew through the tough food, would get upset stomachs. Naturally, once Luna figured out that I actually preferred them raw, she became incredibly confused and ended up declaring that I had a stomach of iron and teeth of steel. Ever since, she had taken to baking avotatos on one day and letting me eat them raw the next. It became a private game of ours to seem how long it would take guests to notice the crunch my food was making, if they ever did.
In any case, I tried my best to ignore Xiphos’ boastings and filter out useful information from him. Regrettably, the only time he stopped talking was when he was eating or when Carlatus asked a question about some danger Xiphos claimed to have faced.
No matter what world it seems that young men liked to boast to pretty girls and kids, I thought ruefully. Although I had been no different back when I was young, except for the fact that I was training other young ones to be my loyal bandit family of course.
Seeing an opening, I broke free of my memories and interjected a question. “Brother Xiphos, did you happen to see any Satchquatee?” It was a bit of a gamble given how much he seemed to like bragging, but I had some hope regardless.
Xiphos jerked in surprise before chuckling quietly. “I am sorry Bella, but seeing you act so mature and then go and ask something like that with such bright eyes makes for quiet the contrast.” He gave me a friendly smile and continued gently. “The Satchquatee are just legend, nothing more.”
I ignored his patronizing voice and took a bite of my avotato while mentally confirming that, if they did exist, they would probably be beyond the river like I thought.
“Oh! I forgot to tell you Bella!” Carlatus’ voice suddenly popped up next to us. “This past cycle, while you were mending here, we went to the lord’s party again and everyone was wearing enchanted salt pouches! Do you know why?” He stared at me expectantly, brimming with the energy of youth while I tried very hard not to give any, unexpected, reaction.
“No, Carlatus, have the salt pouches been tearing a lot lately?” I asked curiously.
“Nope!” Carlatus declared. “It was the Salt Girl!”
“Salt Girl?” I did not have to foreign confusion at the name, although I had a good idea of where this was going. Loco, Luna, and Xiphos were all watching us with interest as Carlatus continued, clearly excited to be the one telling us about the Salt Girl.
“Yes, back in the party before this last one, the one where I ate those horrible nuts.” He stopped briefly at this point to make gaging sounds before continuing. “Some people said that there was a village girl who stole the salt pouches of a lot of people before selling them off, but now we knew the truth!”
“The truth?” I had to ask, although my child-self was feeling nervous, I helped her smooth over our features and relax our muscles. Carlatus would not be this excited if he knew the real truth.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“Yup, she was a ghost! A daughter of the old tanner, Calicoes, who died after she got salt in her eye and then fell backwards and hit her head. Now, people are more heavily warding their salt pouches with anti-ghost and anti-theft runes to keep the Salt Girl away!”
“Oh no, she is only haunting the town right? Do we need Xiphos to draw runes on our pouches?” My child-self asked him in a mock panic, while I withdrew my consciousness a little to keep from laughing.
Carlatus gasped and turned to his older brother, “Big brother Xiphos what do you think? Can you do that?”
Even though I knew it was a biological impossibility without magic, which I knew he did not have, I could have sworn that Carlatus’ eyes were actually shining for a moment.
Xiphos looked uncomfortable for a moment. “Anyone can make runes, but my master has forbidden me from doing so unless under his supervision. They are too much like alchemy.” Xiphos nodded respectfully to Loco who smiled and nodded himself.
Carlatus however, was still confused so, as he finished off his chicken broth, Xiphos explained that runes were simply symbols that absorbed mana from the air and channeled it through the rune to perform a specific function. Each rune had a separate and distinct function that could not be changed unless the rune was physically changed or combined with other runes.
Like alchemy, it could be practiced by anyone who knew the basics, but was also dangerous to those who had no idea what they were doing. There were so many allegorical tales of rune magic or alchemy going wrong that anyone could honestly say, that there were too many stories to count.
While eating his own avotato, Xiphos alternated with Loco, telling different stories about average people who had brought about their own ruin.
This went on until Carlatus started panicking and asked if the townsfolk were safe and if the runes would drive them crazy like the people in the stories.
After that, Loco and Luna had their hands full entertaining Carlatus and trying to get him to calm down. It was still early in the morning though so I asked Xiphos to teach me about the world.
At first he misunderstood me as wanting to learn more about magic from him and tried to teach me the basics. Before I could stop him, he started lecturing me about never casting spells until you had completely built them in your head. I ended up politely interrupting him and asking about the actual world beyond the town and forest.
A normal little girl with magic would not care about international politics, however, if I started acting like a normal little girl to that extent, Luna or Carlatus might comment and then Xiphos would start paying more attention to me. Being the odd village girl with elf-ears and magical talent, who only acted normal from time to time, fit me perfectly. It was just odd enough to make others notice me, before they ‘figured me out’ and then ignored me.
People did it all the time, if someone acted strange they might be labeled as a ‘character,’ or something else that seemed to fit for that person’s image. Human nature liked to put names and labels on everything, even if the induvial in question did not know it. Bella was an odd little girl with her own eccentricities, but that was just Bella being ‘Bella.’
Xiphos’ attention however could change everything a bit too much. Back when the Healer Kal’rek had tested me, it had been a simple reaction test that made you jump higher based on the amount of mana you had. Even if I had spent a few years in a child’s body, old reactions were still imbedded in me and had I not been distracted (and my child-self distressed) by Carlatus’ condition, I might have sniped the Healer’s spinal cord when I noticed him casting a spell at me.
Although Xiphos could just be playing around, a prank spell at the wrong time could leave him paralyzed and me with a great deal of running to do. Explanations would be tricky and threats would be inconclusive unless I bound my brother to silence on the matter.
There was an old saying: It was a fool of a mage that did unannounced magic of any type when a king was near.
In fact, since any noble passing by was likely to be a mage or guarded by mages, casting magic of any type at them was frequently a crime, irrespective of what world you were in, or what the law actually said on such matters.
Once Xiphos realized that I seriously wanted to learn more about the world and not just magic. He started quizzing me about what exactly I did know, which did not take long to figure out. Although Luna and my mother had been kind enough to actually teach me the basics about the 4 continents, the 8 gods, and, after enough digging, the legend of the Elven-Soul War, they simply did not know much more. The name of our kingdom and our neighboring kingdoms as well as who the current King was were all up for debate, depending on who you talked to in the villages.
Xiphos eventually explained that most of the world was at peace. The open plains of the southern continent, Magnus, had experienced less fires than usual, letting the tribes live a few years without needed to raid each other (not that it stopped them altogether). The jungles of the western continent, Japtem (…what?), were seeing years trade flourish like never before. Our own continent was the eastern lands of silver, Assize, and had managed to solve our last official war just a few months ago. Finally, the holy continent, Temenos, had called a religious conclave under the Caliphate that ruled most of the continent and had effectively stopped most of their own wars by doing so.
Xiphos also confirmed that Temenos really did connect to the other three had even conquered most of the world at one point. Their come up with several new spells and some new explosive magic powder that they were now using in their gold mines. Unfortunately, though he did not know anything else about the explosive powder, to the disappointment of Loco and myself.
Other than that, we continued talking about the history of whatever Xiphos could remember well into the day. In the afternoon I showed also showed him the lab and talked about some of the experiments Loco and I had run.
Eventually I even told him about my problem with trying to figure out a method to gather information from a distance. Xiphos had laughed at first, joking that if I managed to figure that out I would either be killed or employed by the monarchy. However, after I changed the question and asked him how I could create a recording device of some sort in the future, he started to act differently.
After thinking about it for a while, Xiphos declared that he would show me how to create a spell and went to collect some parchment. After he returned, he took out a quill that must have been enchanted, as he did not need an inkwell, and began to speak as he wrote.
It was the basics again, but I told my child-self to pay attention, least I start refraining from casing spells when others would find it more ‘normal’ for me to do so. According to Healer Kal’rek, it would be normal for me to start throwing things with my mana around age 12 or 13, but there were exceptions and he thought that I would likely be one.
In any case, Xiphos explained how to set up a spell, preferably written down, and make sure that the mana would execute every single step. Mana, as he joked, was stupid, the first step in constructing a new spell, was not gathering mana, but planning to gather mana. Then you had to instruct it through a series of steps that would determine what the mana would do.
This created the 3 different ways to construct spells. The first of which was systematic. This method dominated almost all spells, in which all the spells were planned out and created one step at a time. These spells were the oldest, most developed, and most reliable when properly created. However, they also failed if even one of their steps was inaccurate or improperly constructed, making practicing them of paramount importance for battle mages.
The second type was the pun of many jokes, but was generally called the splash method. It relied on very general instructions that told mana what the end result was supposed to be and how it should generally occur. The technique was considered advanced and relied on strong mental ideas of what was supposed to occur. It was also faster to cast if you knew what you wanted to happen. This let people who did not know how something worked to still cast spells that, for example, healed a cut or injury. They gave the body the mana and instructions to heal, which resulted in inefficient, but mostly effective healing spells. Attack spells usually followed this method as well, since they were less defined and therefore harder to block with defensive wards.
The final method, which Xiphos never even mentioned, was free-form. If the systematic was like a rock, hard and well defined, and the splash method like water, liquid and flowing, then this last form was like the air itself. Free-form spells were dangerous as they disobeyed the first rule of spell casting, planning before action. Free-formed spells are the only type of spell that directly instructed mana. Even desperate men about to die would hesitate before using such a spell because of what happened if they failed.
A normal spell that failed was simply a waste of mana, but a free-form spell could backfire and burn a person’s mind, if they were lucky.
In any case, it took hours to construct the full sound recording spell that Xiphos had in mind, with options to go back and listen as many times as we wanted too.
After I was done, subtly correcting his mistakes, he insisted on waiting for his master to get back before they actually tested it out.
* * *
Just outside the village:
Jalon was hungry.
He had eaten a reasonable amount before this little trip with Nathan, but now he was really hungry.
Jalon grumbled to himself, along with his stomach at Nathan's use of the law to ensure that his little mine would remain untouched. The material was valuable enough that any mage who discovered it was required to place wards around the area to deter theft, which meant him.
All he wanted now was to get back to the town and eat before his body started to devour his muscles, again.
He would also have to report to the histone tomorrow that it was Nathan who discovered the mine and it was he who would claim the reward from the king.
The man himself was riding in front of Jalon, 'leading' him back to the village as dark descended. As if a traveling mage, even if he was starving, would let himself get lost.
When they arrived back at the village, just as the sun set, they immediately dropped off the horses and Jalon abandoned Nathan to go collect his apprentice. The boy would know to have food ready.
As he arrived, there was indeed food ready and Jalon almost ignored his apprentice's request to review his spell in favor of food. However, the spell was just complicated enough for him to slow himself down and actually look it over.
Granted, he did look fairly quickly, however there were no obvious errors and if it failed it would only drain a bit of mana.
Giving his permission, his apprentice immediately cast the spell and nervously began talking while Jalon himself sat down to eat.
First the boy introduced himself and then proceeded to explain the recording spell to the other people, including Nathan.
After a little bit, the spell automatically activated its instructions to play back the sounds it had recorded. It was grainy and hard to understand, but it indeed worked.
Jalon mentally reminded himself to brag to the Histones about his apprentice tomorrow, when the boy could not hear him of course. it would not be a good idea to let him get a big head.
As his belly growled for more attention, Jalon ignored what the little Bella girl was talking about and concentrated on eating.
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Officially 100 pages in my word doc and 50,000 words! W00T