Zaric and Talia left the bunkhouse together, the former removing the stone shutters from the windows with a wave of his hand. The collared mage had seemed perplexed by Talia’s affinity for cycling when compared to her relatively poor performance with Will training but had promised to consider the issue further and revise his lesson plan for the following days.
Talia’s body felt sluggish, unused to the battering she had given it. The young woman was used to days spent tinkering in a workshop, or sitting in a library, poring over old tomes. The physically demanding regimen she’d sprung on herself would take some getting used to.
Luckily, her accelerated healing talent seemed to increase her stamina beyond what she would normally expect. The bruises and contusions were already beginning to fade after hours spent sitting still.
Talia’s stomach growled loudly, pulling Zaric from his thoughts.
“Sounds like we need to get you some food,” he said.
The pit in Talia’s stomach gouged at her insides with the mention of sustenance.
“Yea, Darkclaw only let me eat half a portion of gruel this morning,” she complained.
Zaric nodded sagely as they walked down the stairs to the common area, where the cook-pit was already blazing brightly. Already, the delvers had tapped a new set of casks.
Just how much booze did we bring with us? I’d have thought that storage space was a valuable commodity, but apparently not that valuable!
“He did you a favour, from what I saw, you were lucky not to throw up the little you got into your system,” Zaric replied.
Thinking back to the number of hits she’d taken to the stomach, Talia realized he was right. Not that it made the empty void in her abdomen any more tolerable.
“Still feels like cruel and unusual punishment to me,” she groused, “my stomach feels like it’s going to eat itself.”
“I can sympathize. Come to think of it, your talents may be playing a role in your hunger, especially that healing factor. Mana can do a lot, but conjuring nutrients from nothing isn’t one of them. You might even be developing a new talent, Osra went through much the same when—well, that’s not my place to say. Suffice it to say that you should get a good hearty meal tonight and plenty of rest. And keep an eye out for any physical changes in the near future,” the mage-commandrum advised.
Talia pushed thoughts of potential changes to her body well out of her mind, instead choosing to focus on Osra’s odd behaviour earlier.
“Speaking of Osra…” she said.
Zaric winced and ran a hand over his bald head.
“Yea, sorry about that, I should’ve anticipated that problem coming up… I take it you weren’t raised religious?” he asked as they collected bowls to fill with the night’s stew.
“Nope, adopted by a dwarf when I was five. Only thing close to a temple I ever went to was the Angrim Stonecrypt.”
“Hmm, right most dwarves worship their ancestors or some such. Well, I never got into going to temple so I don’t know much, but I know for a fact that mages have a serious place in the worship of the Ancients.”
The pair paused their discussion to allow one of the cooks—an old dwarf woman whom the delvers called Mama Linda—to fill their bowls. The grey-haired dwarf squinted milky grey eyes through bushy brows at Talia for a moment before tutting disapprovingly and adding a second hefty scoop into an already brimming bowl.
The young woman beamed a Mama Linda, but the cook had already moved on to bark at her assistants about seasoning.
Zaric led them to a stone table tucked between wagons three and four where they could continue their discussion.
“Ok Osra is religious then, is that it? Am I doomed to be hated by anyone who truly believes that the Ancients were gods?” Talia pushed.
Zaric shook his head and made a so-so gesture. He scooped up a mouthful of fragrant stew into his mouth and swallowed before answering.
“I don’t think you understand. Osra’s parents aren’t just religious. Her mother is an Exarch of the Temple of Wyrr, and her father is the Primarch. The girl is the youngest of twelve siblings, and in a family whose entire lives revolve around the Temple of the Ancients, she’s the only mage” he explained.
“Oh.”
“Moreover, when Bill 32 was passed, it created theological upheaval. The Temple nearly went up in arms. It was only by attaching religious significance to mage service that the religious status quo was preserved. I can’t believe you don’t know any of this,” he said.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Talia felt a blush colour her cheeks, ashamed at her lack of knowledge.
“Err— Orvall, my adoptive father, wasn’t really into the whole organized worship thing. Thought it was a bunch of rockslurry. I guess I sort of…never really thought about it,” Talia said sheepishly.
“Besides, Temple always felt like a social thing to me, and I wasn’t exactly the most popular girl around, you know?” Talia tugged at the carmine stripes that had crept back into her hair and bared her sharp smile ruefully, “So, I just focused on my apprenticeship and arcanic theory. I don’t think I’d have ever considered coming out on this expedition until my Gift gave me no other choice.”
Zaric nodded, then furrowed his brow.
“I can get that the wytch-marks might not have helped with making friends but surely you had someone? It’s the most dominant religion in Karzgorad if you don’t count the beastkin’s…spirituality.”
Talia hunched self-consciously over her bowl, eyes downcast. The fragrant stew suddenly seemed less appetizing.
“Not—not really,” Talia muttered before realizing how she must seem and looking up, “I mean, of course, I had my dad and my master Reggie. Oh! And his little daughter Isabel, but she’s three so that only counts as half a person when you think about it.”
Zaric did not appear reassured. If anything, he seemed sad, almost as if he pitied her.
Great, let’s all have a pity party for Tals, who never had any friends growing up.
“I see,” was all the man said in the end.
Feeling like she’d just thrown a real wrench into two relationships that day, Talia’s eyes burned. She bent her head and stared down into her stew, hoping to all that was good that the mage would just drop the topic.
“That explains a lot actually,” Zaric said.
Talia whipped her head up, surprised.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked with a dangerous tone.
The mage-commandrum smiled impishly.
“Oh, nothing, nothing. It just puts a lot of our interactions into context is all.”
His smirk widened.
Glad that he hadn’t decided to pry, Talia scoffed and shovelled a heap of the unexpectedly delicious meal into her mouth in mock anger, scowling at the man.
Their meal continued that way, pensive silence interspersed with the occasional playful jab.
When they had finished, Talia felt full and tired. But happy.
Maybe I misread his disapproval back when I told them about my magic.
That night, she decided to forgo the celebration that it appeared would consume the crew’s evening for the entire stay in first haven. She had things to do, and she somehow doubted Lazarus would be amenable to handing out more blood cleanser to cure her hangover.
Instead, Talia tucked herself into her own bed for the first time in over a month, though at times it had only felt like days. She slept the sleep of stone, of the dead. Her mind and body pressed dry of all the energy they could muster.
----------------------------------------
The rest of the caravan’s stay in first haven passed in a flash. Her mornings were dominated by Darkclaw. He had her run laps around first haven, much to the delver’s amusement and eventual despair when they were also roped into the arcanist’s torment. After laps came stretches and weight training.
Talia was becoming convinced that most of the expedition’s weight allowance was wasted on the sadistic battlemaster’s training equipment. A suspicion that was only reinforced by the fact that he had somehow managed to fit an entire balance beam in for her to tumble off of—more often than not ungracefully.
After what the beastkin called ‘conditioning’ came sparring.
Or as Talia had come to know it, ‘fight until your body gives up on you’.
At least, by the third day, she managed to stand evenly with most of the greener recruits, having embraced Darkclaw’s mantra of ‘slow is fast’ more fully— logical impossibilities be damned.
The veterans still made her eat dust regularly, but the tone had shifted from hazing to true instruction. They offered tips and coached her on positioning, and pulled their punches so that she could learn instead of simply surviving.
Much to Darkclaw’s dissatisfaction and grumbled, one-worded, admonishment.
After being firmly brutalized by the warriors, Talia stumbled over to the bunkhouse that the mages had claimed as their own to work with Zaric and Osra. The apprentice had mellowed out somewhat but still acted aloof and awkward around her.
Talia had caught her staring more than once with what had suspiciously looked like pity in her eyes. Zaric assured the young woman that he hadn’t mentioned anything to his apprentice, but his mischievous expression left Talia with doubts.
The mage-commandrum pressed her hard in Will training with increasingly complex tasks that pushed her mind to the brink in search of ever more creative solutions to ever more difficult problems.
Eventually, with Zaric’s help, Talia was able to devise a lattice of invisible kinetic force that allowed her to move small to medium size objects about at will, though anything heavier than a person was still impossible. Her next personal goal was to mimic the effect of her mother’s shield, but such a large working was still a ways off for the fledgling mage. Weeks of practice, at the very least.
Where Will training continued to stimy her, in cycling she excelled, consuming wholesale technique after technique that Zaric threw at her. Much to his continued befuddlement.
On the sixth day, one day before the expedition was to set off into the Ways once more, Talia finally managed to mix Will with cycling and limit her sense to a tight radius around her, locked in place through restrictive loops in her channels.
Up until then, the effects of her telepathy had been…unpredictable, seeping out from her when her grasp on her Core slipped from lack of concentration and pulling at the thoughts and emotions of those around her.
Thankfully, she’d realized what was happening before any true harm was caused.
In the evenings, Talia mustered what was left of her energy to repair the damage to the expedition’s enchanted items. Thankfully, it was easily fixed, simple maintenance work mostly, as well as the occasional gouge on the wheels from a sharp rock.
Talia’s impromptu routine came to an end on the seventh day. She woke to a bustling camp in the midst of packing things away, supplies stowed and crew cleaning after themselves.
The time had come to leave.
After a rushed breakfast, Torval’s voice summoned the officers to the command wagon for a pre-departure briefing. The man’s face was sombre as the assembled command staff of the expedition gathered around the map table. The bags under his eyes were the colour of deep bruises, and his face held days-old stubble.
“We have a problem,” he said.