Chapter 10 — Initiate

…at the end of the sturdy line was a wooden freight lift and graffitied on its exterior was a picture of an asteroid belt hanging from the ornate office globe. The office globe was devoid of an office to house it, devoid of any manner of surrounding context save for the asteroid belt. One end of the belt was anchored to the globe’s southern hemisphere while the other extended into the void and curiously, it was almost as if the asteroid belt was fraying at this other end. Though fraying implies weakness. This was not the case. Those celestial strands, splitting fractally into ever smaller strands, had a strength to them, and it was not into the void that they drifted either. There was something out there, something those celestial strands held onto, anchored themselves and the office globe to.

The office globe; except it wasn’t one. It wasn’t a freight lift, or a buoy, or the sun, or an eye, or anything else. Nor was the asteroid belt a rope, or a chain, or a sunbeam, or an optic nerve.

The globe and asteroid belt dissolved, revealing themselves to only be a thin veneer, a cheap coat of paint on the truth beneath. A truth that was…

It was like looking at a clear piece of glass in a dark room, but only through the corner of your eye. And truly, Rína only perceived it, for she certainly neither saw, felt, tasted, heard, nor smelled it. It was elusive, not wanting to conform to how she usually perceived reality nor realizing the regency of the sovereign signing away the marketing degrees of freedom from frosty ostentation condemning the condominium to an endless queue arm and essence teasing—

“I LOST IT!” Rína yelled, “I had it and then I fucking lost it!”

Rína softly headbutted Yvette’s shoulder as if the taller woman was a wall upon which Rína could pound her head. It had been two days since Rína had mentioned that she could feel some kind of model forming, and the feeling had now become blatantly obvious, at least when she wasn’t getting the usual noise.

The two women were in their usual spot on the porch, with Rína bundled against the morning cold and Yvette seemingly oblivious to it. The sun had just peeked over the horizon and was not yet able to dispel the chill nor the layer of snow that was left in the night.

“No, that's wonderful,” Yvette smiled, “It means you’re right on the cusp.”

“Right, right,” Rína sighed. She sat up and shook her head to focus, “Let’s go again.”

“Alright. One… two… thr—”

They spent another half hour there. Rína’s endurance had grown exponentially, each repetition causing noticeably less strain than the one that came before. She lost track of how many pokes they had gone through, and had only a slight headache and a clean bucket to show for them. With each one, the background noise lessened and the elusive vision of what lay beneath became more and more common. Until finally…

Rína didn’t feel it to be made of any kind of material—it simply was. But it’s shape she could somewhat make sense of. It was a single whole, though there was a kind of anatomy to it. Foremost was a curved… something. It felt like a sphere or ellipsoid, but not—more somehow—as if it had too many horizons. The thought didn’t make any sense, and yet it still felt right.

Her attention slid off it and onto the only other piece of anatomy. From the not-a-sphere extended a… it had the general shape of a tree trunk with a root system. It was an organically shaped column, or limb perhaps, that endlessly split into smaller root-like structures until the roots were so thin that Rína couldn’t tell where one ended and another began. And instead of splaying radially outwards, all of the root tips converged around a particular volume of space.

The perception wobbled then slowly stabilized, and with a mental sensation reminiscent of popping one’s ears, Rína’s awareness of her soul snapped into place.

Rína took a deep breath, expecting the metaphysical feeling to fade, but it stayed. Sitting on the porch, Rína could feel her left hand resting on her left knee: there it was. And also there was her right foot, there was her backside, there was her nose, there was her soul, and there was her chin. She couldn’t see her soul, exactly, it was more like it was in her mind’s eye—like as a result of proprioception—and as easy as simply knowing the position of her hand without having to move or see it.

In a single moment the bizarre and alien had become natural.

A giggle, then a chuckle, and then at once uproarious laughter escaped Rína, her arms around Yvette in a moment.

“Hahah, I’ve got it!” Rína rejoiced, “And it’s never gonna—Wait. There’s no way I’ll suddenly just lose it, is there?” Rína asked, suddenly serious.

“Oh, no,” Yvette assured, “If it hasn’t slipped away already then you will keep the perception of your soul for the rest of your life. And I believe congratulations are in order,” Yvette said with a smile, “And perhaps a celebration.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes indeed. Come on,” Yvette said, rising to her feet, “There’s a specific dessert I’ve held off making that I think you will enjoy.”

Soon the two women were enjoying a fluffy confection of sugar and fruit held within a soft nutmeg crust. Decadent was the only word for it, but Rína found it difficult to savor the taste. Her attention was locked onto her soul.

She was pervaded with an almost giddy energy. There had to be so much she could do now. She could feel her soul—it was right there. She now had her hands on a whole new part of—well, not her body, but—her self.

Her internal focus was eventually interrupted by Yvette.

“You know, since it’s a celebration, we might as well take a drink or two, just to get into the festive spirit,” Yvette suggested, motioning to the still untouched cyan bottles she had left out.

“Ah, no thanks, I’m good, honestly.”

“Are you sure? If it’s a matter of drinking alone, then I’ll have some with you. It wouldn’t be an issue.”

“Again. No thank you.” Rína said more firmly.

“Very well,” Yvette conceded, “Though, may I ask why? You never even asked what the specific effects were?”

“Well you said it altered your mental state, right? Something like alcohol or smoking herbs?” Rína asked, Yvette nodding in reply, “I… well it’s not that I have anything against that kind of stuff, it’s just… Well, in a small town in the middle of nowhere, there isn’t much entertainment besides that kind of thing. And at least among the people who overused, to a problematic degree, it seemed like they were just trying to put as much distance between themselves and reality as was possible.”

“Did you ever partake?”

“Sure, a couple of times, but… I just realized I preferred to keep reality close, you know, even if it could be pretty shit from time to time.” Rína shrugged, “But if you’re in the mood, go for it.”

“I don’t think I will either…” Yvette said, giving Rína a contemplative gaze.

“Wait… That was a test, this whole time, wasn’t it?” Rína’s eyes narrowed onto the other woman.

“It was…”

“And?” Rína asked, annoyance slipping into her tone.

“And I apologize for the subterfuge but unfortunately some questions cannot be answered with words.”

Rína brows furrowed before her eyes snapped open in recognition, “The appren—”

Yvette raised her hand, forestalling Rína’s question, “Allow me to explain: practitioners of my craft are uniquely subjected to certain temptations; temptations that we are surrounded by every second of every day. Should we succumb to them, sometimes even just once, what awaits us at the bottom of that impossibly slippery slope is—well it’s not death, not exactly, but—as you might put it, an infinite and permanent distance between ourselves and reality.”

“Ah…”

“Indeed. You passed the test, by the way. But I would also like to apologize for making the last few weeks as boring as possible,” Yvette frowned, “If you had something engaging to sink your teeth into, it would have invalidated the test.”

Rína chuckled, shaking her head, “Apology accepted, I guess… But… if I had drunk one of those bottles, I couldn’t be your apprentice? Do they even do anything, or are they just colored water?”

“Oh no. They’re real.” Yvette confirmed, “Speaking from exclusively secondhand accounts, it produces a euphoric and slightly hallucinatory effect. And no, a single try wouldn’t have disqualified you. Simply, the more enthusiastically a person partook, the more likely they would later use the craft towards their own detriment, and the less conscionable it would have been for me to teach them at all.”

“Ok, so then… now that I’ve passed…” Rína led, hope leaking into her voice.

“I mentioned that all mage disciplines had downsides, and I would have you informed of them before making any life changing decisions,” Yvette elaborated.

Rína’s heart quickened, but she tried to control her own excitement.

“The first should go without saying, and applies to all mages, but it is that you can easily kill yourself with careless use of your own magic. A fire mage is not immune to their own flames, after all. Second, my discipline is incompatible with other disciplines as well as the use of more powerful enchantments that require a supply of aether directly from a mage.”

“So no flying around or throwing lightning bolts?”

“You would be surprised. I’ve said before that there are usually several ways to achieve the same end result, but you are correct: traditional aeromancy and fulgurmancy would be outside your reach.”

“That’s alright, I guess—wait, are you saying that you can fly?”

“We’re getting off topic. Third, another that all mages must be wary of, is corrupting your soul’s intent of self with the intent of your magics. This is uncommon but is caused by backflowing aspected aether into an otherwise aether starved soul. The end result is called an Elemental: a mage who has lost their sense of self and has become little more than a conduit through which their magics are applied onto the world.”

“Shit… that’s actually possible? People can just go insane like that?”

“It’s gradual and with plenty of warning signs, but yes.” Yvette nodded, “Though Elementals, somewhat by definition, are no longer people, not exactly.”

“But if there are warning signs, how is it that anyone actually becomes one?”

“Mostly? Because they choose it. The path of the Elemental is a powerful one, with full Elementals being extremely dangerous for reasons we can get into later. But most only take one or two steps down the path, seeking a modest gain in power. The problem is that each step is permanent, and the power is in exchange for bits of their rationality, making it easier for the partial Elemental to convince themselves to take more steps down the path for even more power.”

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“Sounds like a nightmare…”

“It is. Speaking of which… Fourth is that my discipline creates a… distance, for lack of a better word, between oneself and others. At least others who are not on the same path.”

“That’s really vague, bordering on meaningless. Are you sure you don’t want to tell me what this is all about?” Rína said, motioning to the cottage behind them.

“No co—Hells, I suppose there’s no point hiding it anymore… What do you know about Autec Gitchell?”

“Who?”

“I believe he is also referred to with the moniker of Scourge King.”

“Oh, uh,” Rína raised an eyebrow, “That it was some kind of shapeshifting monster called a scourge. It pretended to be human and took over some kingdom. When it was eventually found out, it unleashed the Millenium Plague before being slain.”

“Non-human? That’s new… But no, the Scourge King was a human mage, not a demon or monster or any other fanciful thing. He may have been a partial Elemental, but no one can know for certain. He was,” Yvette paused, “and I am, a Flesh Weaver, or biomancer, if you prefer.”

“You’re not joking are you?”

“No.”

Rína remembered the harvest festivals Leighton would hold and the plays that would be put on during it. The Scourge King would make an appearance, more years than not, though usually just so he could be comedically kicked between the legs or have overripe fruit thrown at. The Scourge King filled the dual role of buffoonish villain and genuine mass murdering monster.

“Prove it.” Was all Rína could think to say.

Yvette shrugged, and as she idly took another bite of dessert, her body changed. Rína could only stare in silence as the taller woman’s hair disappeared into her scalp, soon to be replaced with hair identical to Rína’s own. The color of the woman’s skin and eyes matched Rína’s in a single moment, as the subtle contours of Yvette’s face shifted until Rína was staring at the same face she saw everyday in the mirror.

“Satisfied?” the taller not-Rína asked with another bite of dessert, “You’ll have to forgive the difference in stature. To shorten myself while maintaining proportions I would have to lose mass which would just be a hassle.”

“...Holy shit.” Rína’s mouth gaped for a minute, “But what is that voice?”

Not-Rína snorted, “It’s yours.”

“The hells it is. You sound ridiculous.”

“Ha!” came Yvette’s laugh from not-Rína’s—

“I’m sorry, but could you change back, please. This is just creepy.”

Still chuckling, Yvette returned to her usual appearance.

“I could have sworn you said that you didn’t practice evil magic,” real-Rína said.

Yvette’s expression hardened, “And I don’t. The Scourge King was a mass murderer and quite frankly death was too kind a punishment, but for every Scourge King there are a dozen other Weavers designing more bountiful crops, discreetly stemming the spread of diseases, or simply minding their own business. There are very few Weavers left in the world, but I would wager my life that we have on the whole been a positive force for humanity.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply…”

Yvette sighed, waving her off, “It’s alright, you just reminded me of the old sore point. Now where were we? Right. The fifth downside of becoming a Flesh Weaver is that every lich wants us dead.”

“What? But aren’t liches bodiless or immaterial or something? Wait, can scourge—erh, Flesh Weavers—make plagues that can affect liches?”

“Directly affect them? No. Biomancy is simply a very specialized application of kinesis that directly affects biological systems at the smallest of scales. While liches have discarded their biological bodies, they still keep their souls anchored to the physical with magical items called phylacteries. This is getting off topic, but suffice it to say that maintaining the number of phylacteries a lich needs is extremely expensive—it’s one of the reasons a city never has more than one lich ruling it. And the reason liches want us dead is because if a city’s trade is cut off or its workforce incapacitated, say during a plague, then the city’s lich can run out of material for new phylacteries. Many liches died following the Scourge King either from their last phylactery wearing out or through resource wars with their neighboring liches.”

“So they’re just afraid that another Weaver will follow his lead?”

“Correct, though I would warn you against thinking of all liches as a monolith. Each is just as different as the cities they rule, but in this case they generally agree along the lines of self interest. Regardless, whenever a Weaver is too overt the first lich to hear about it will usually send a kill squad to investigate.”

“You’re not making this sound very appealing… Is that what you meant before? Do you stay away from people so they don’t get caught in the crossfire or something?”

“No, that’s rarely if ever an issue, though incidentally the isolation is caused by the deaths of those around us…”

“What do you—” Rína’s eyes went wide, “You didn’t know that Westreach was a city, or that the Homestead Decree was in place… You don’t age do you?”

“All things age, but senescence is just damage Weavers can repair.”

“But you let everyone else die of old age? What about Felix?” Rína accused.

Yvette winced, “It’s not a matter of choice. Your soul, what do you think it is attached to?”

“I don’t know, ‘Me’, I guess? The root tips just kind of make a rat’s nest around an empty space.”

“The roots are entwined with your brain, it is just that your soul sight is limited to your soul and only your soul. This is part of a larger lesson, but your soul roots prevent the magics of other mages—but not your own magics—from affecting your brain. So while I can make the bodies of others youthful or even improve them, the few kilos of gray matter in their skulls chains them to a mortal lifespan. I mentioned that it is easy to accidentally kill one’s self with their own magic. Many Weaver students have died by accidentally unraveling their own brain. In the best case scenario, their teacher can guide the student to save themselves, but usually the teacher can only watch as their student dies in front of them.”

“I… I can’t imagine what that would be like. So… friends and family?”

“I try to keep people at a distance, though my family are all Weavers and visit from time to time, so it’s not complete isolation. But that’s just me. My brother Liam spends most of his time around people in big cities—how he does it I have no idea.”

“And Felix? I’m guessing he’s not a Weaver, and I doubt he’s undead.”

Yvette eyed the door before lowering her voice, “No. He has never shown the attitude required for either. I—” a sad smile spread across Yvette’s face, “I met him as a pup and thought he would grow tired of me and wander off one day. The lifespan of Emerald Wolves is longer than humans, but… but that’s that.”

“Oh… and the slippery slope you mentioned?” Rína asked, motioning to the cyan bottles.

Yvette paused, collecting her thoughts, “There are a multitude of recreational substances throughout the world. The worst of which are highly toxic and create an addictive euphoric effect more potent than anything a human would naturally encounter. As a Flesh Weaver, I could induce effects in my body that make such substances look like a weak cup of tea. And whereas others could only choose from a handful of substances and must be wary of overdosing; Flesh Weavers may choose from a continuous spectrum of effects and never need worry about overdosing.”

“And at the end of the slippery slope?” Rína asked.

“An eternal, self induced euphoria coma.”

“I mean, it wouldn’t be for me, but I can think of few people who’d see that as a positive.”

Yvette sighed, “And therein lies the problem. The choice to enter into one would be the last true decision a person would ever make. Afterward, bereft of all lucidity, they would have just as much agency as a literal corpse.”

“What?” Rína frowned, “but couldn’t a Weaver just, I don’t know, set up some kind of timer to snap themselves out of it after a while?”

“They could,” Yvette nodded, “but for Weavers, there are no limits whatsoever on the duration or intensity. Whereas a regular human would need to eat, sleep, resupply on their substance of choice, and avoid overdosing, Weavers have no such concerns. It would be trivial for a Weaver to parasitically integrate themselves into a tree and then enter into a coma of bliss for decades. And whether due to addiction—and not just bodily addiction, but soul deep addiction—or other factors, there has never been a Weaver who completed such a timed coma who did not immediately put themselves into a permanent one.”

“Shit… You know, come to think of it, death followed by eternal bliss is the sales pitch of a lot of religions.”

“And ‘death’ is exactly as such a choice is regarded among Flesh Weavers. And it is a slow, sweet death that we must always be wary of.”

Rína frowned, “Do you ever regret becoming a Flesh Weaver?”

“What?”

“I mean, it seems a little like you’re trying to scare me away.”

“No I’m—” Yvette paused, “I apologize, I’m not trying to scare you off. I just feel I would be lying to you if I had you sign the dotted line, so to speak, without knowing what you were getting into. And for the record: no, I’ve never regretted it.”

“So then sell me on it.”

“Pardon?”

“Sell me on being a Flesh Weaver, on being your student specifically.”

“I thought you already wanted to be a mage?”

“I do, but you wanted me to know what I was getting into. So tell me the good stuff.”

Yvette quirked an eyebrow, “Very well… Well I already mentioned agelessness, but I suppose as a young person that wouldn’t hold much appeal as you all think you will live forever regardless.” Yvette smirked, “For starters all of the failings of the human body are yours to remedy. Sleep is a need of the body, not the soul, and becomes optional with a few modifications. Similarly, most luxuries are relatively simple to create for yourself,” Yvette motioned to the cottage around them, “and the ones you can’t create you can typically trade for with the ones you can—silks, dyes and spices sell quite well, and yet are simple to make. You have as much time as you like to pursue each and every interest that strikes your fancy. And, well, Rína, am I correct that you enjoy chemistry?” Yvette said with a smile.

“You’ve used that word before. You mean, like, apothecary work right? Well then yes,” Rína gave a wry smile in return, “you could say that.”

“All of life, all of the flesh that we weave, is a nearly incomprehensibly complex dance of chemical reactions—you can think of each creature’s body like a bubbling cauldron. It is the domain of the biomancer to understand, modify, and design our own reactions—and all of that is before you get to biomechanics, material design, or network logistics or any of dozens of other related fields of study.”

Rína’s breath hitched as she stared at Yvette with starry eyes, “I’m in.”

“You’re in?” Yvette raised an eyebrow, “There’s no rush to decide.”

“I know, but, well I don’t mean to discount the downsides, but you and your family have found ways to manage, so why couldn’t I? Plus I really don’t see any way I could say no,” Rína chuckled, “and if I delayed all that would get me is a few nights of lost sleep.”

“Fair enough,” Yvette smiled then took a deep breath, “Then, I hereby accept you as my student and declare you an Initiate Flesh Weaver. Congratulations.”

A chill went down Rína’s spine as her breath quickened, “So what now? Oh, and should I call you ‘Mistress-’ or maybe ‘Master Yvette’ now?”

“Gods no, still just ‘Yvette’, please. Now I still have another day and a half of work before we can leave, so we’ll have to hold off on the actual lessons until then. In the meantime we can start exercises for increasing your soul sight’s clarity.”

“What have you been doing, by the way? The month’s worth of preparations, I mean?”

“Oh, beneath the laboratory I have a number of chambers I use to test out designs. I’ve been breaking them down and now I’m collating and compressing the last of the tests’ data into a more travel friendly form. I would show you, but they’re mostly just empty underground rooms at this point.”

“That’s a shame,” Rína frowned, “What kind of designs?”

“Any and everything. Macro designs for the epidermis, muscular, skeletal, or sensory organs, as well as a few million different protein reaction chains and organelle designs. Most of the chambers were just simple rooms, but a number of them had conditions of extreme heat, cold, simulated solar radiation, and so forth.”

“That would have been awesome to see. And I look forward to learning what some of those words mean,” Rína smirked, “but how are you even doing all that? I thought all of the Serric Highlands were an aether desert?”

“Oh it is, as well as every highland across the world. No, the chambers are—were—powered through mundane calories. Most of the trees in the forest essentially fed the chambers through a shared root network. Besides the threat of retired mages discovering this place with their mage sight, one of the main reasons I—well, we—need to leave is that if this forest is turned to farmland, I won’t have the energy needed to actually pursue my research, at least not at scale. And of course fighting to try and prevent the deforestation would only draw attention we couldn’t afford.”

“Hmm… oh real quick: those soul sight exercises you mentioned, they won’t need a bucket will they?” Rína grimaced.

Yvette snorted, “No, they won’t. Your bucket days are behind you.”

“Thank the gods. Ok, one second.”

Rína nearly ran from the table to the cottage’s porch, careful not to wake a sleeping Felix, and picked up the clean albeit thrice damned bucket. A thrice damned bucket that a moment later was cast into the fireplace where it belonged. Rína stood before the fireplace with a savage grin, basking in the heat from the fires of righteous judgment, fueled by the burning flesh of the forsaken heathens. She finally nodded in satisfaction before returning to the table with Yvette.

“Sorry about that. Where were we?”