The clock ticked on the opposite wall from where I sat; plain, but well-constructed of brass and dark wood. It was half past six in the evening, owing partly to getting a later start than I’d intended. Apparently exhausting myself of mana left me feeling more drained than usual, and I slept for ten hours with no alarm to wake me. Only over ‘breakfast’ had I considered asking one of the inn staff to give me a wake-up call, but Red assured me it wasn’t a problem for what we were up to. We stopped by a clothier to pick out a more fancy-looking outfit, which I was presently enveloped in; silky violet robes with black and gold trim. The colors was one of my favorites, which is what drew my eye in the first place, with a golden geometric design along the trim, several sashes and belts to obscure my middle, and a long, wide-sleeved overcoat. They weren’t as warm as the brown robes, but I did feel less like a homeless ex-Jedi and more importantly for my present circumstances, looked far more like a professional.
“My apologies for the wait,” began a rich, cultured baritone, “I trust I did not waste too much of your time?” The owner of the voice was a tall man with long, pointed ears and canine teeth to match. His skin was as white as fresh copy paper with long, healthy hair with the same lack of hue, and he was dressed in a thicker, dark gold variant of my own garments that looked to be of more expensive make.
“Not at all, Master Anatol,” I adjusted the glasses on my nose to ‘better see him’. In truth, the lenses were normal glass, but Red and I agreed they tied together the look I was going for rather nicely. “I’m honored and delighted you’ve given me this time at all.”
“I won’t pretend that this is an extremely convenient use of my time, but it’s far from a bother. All in the interest of furthering awareness and education. Which periodical did you say you worked for, again?”
“Modern Arcanist,” I responded. Red gave me a crash course on some basic facts that might come up while we went over the ins and outs of our plan, including small details we made sure to invent about the fictional newspaper I worked for. “We’re based out of a little Astonian town called Solville. We just got a proper printing press! This interview should be in our second issue. Third, if we run out of ink again…”
“Supply channels can be difficult when one is so far from the Triangle Road.” He made it sound like he was sympathizing with my plight, but I recognized the suppressed grimace of someone already impatient with an excitable, oversharing yokel. I spent most of my life working retail, after all. “Well, not to put a rush on it, but I do have other things to attend to this evening, if we can get on with your questions?”
“Certainly!” I steadied a piece of parchment against the blotter behind it and held my loaded inkpen just above the page in anticipation. “How long have you been teaching in Lion’s Head?”
“Fifteen years, come Serpent’s Boon.” That was the name of one of the months in Barbavia, the next one in fact. We were currently in the middle of Sun’s Retreat, a rough equivalent to early October back home in Ohio. The calendar was based upon ancient trade route itineraries that were still in practice today, with every month taking forty-five days adding up to three hundred sixty a year in total. “I started right after finishing my apprenticeship in Yona Ceriba. The closer to Teren Balt’s Western borders you get, the more eclectic people are. I wanted to make sure the balt methods of practical sorcery were represented.”
“A noble goal,” I nodded, giving myself a moment to finish recording his statement. I was actually taking notes, mostly to emphasize my cover, but they also might come in handy later. “Do you find it very different to train other species in the balt style of magic?”
“Not if they train in balt magic before any others,” Anatol blinked at me with languid lavender eyes, debating for a moment whether or not to bother elaborating. “Our magic is very simple, worked from basic principles to meet essential needs. It’s neither bombastic nor showy, and draws upon only the energies it requires to accomplish any given task. An Astonian zacharimancer might build a three-tiered cake in a fabulous flourish of sparkles that resemble its icing, while balt spellcraft would simply summon the entire cake… or, more likely, something of more nutritional value. The Church of the Sun would kill their enemies with burning light and balls of flame, while a baltic mage would be inclined to simply stop their heart.” He cycled his hand, nodding more to himself than me. “Of course, these aren’t really spells a true practitioner of the craft would attempt to produce, but you take my meaning.”
“I do,” I nodded, still jotting.
“If a student hasn’t been taught to favor pageantry over function they take to balt magic like a bird to the sky, regardless of their species. Deprogramming the unnecessary embellishments intrinsic to most other styles of magic in order to teach the simple elegance of my craft takes a bit longer, and not everyone is inclined to the task. It is easier to learn than to unlearn what has become second nature.”
Master Anatol himself was baltic, and his people reminded me of stereotypical fantasy elves in a lot of ways. I’d spotted a few yesterday when Wysteria’s battle gathered a small crowd later in the evening but hadn’t thought to ask about them between keeping my focus on the fight and wanting to wait until we were in private. They were, as I suspected, a very common sight in this part of the Commonwealth, and it wouldn’t have done to draw attention to myself by publicly asking about them with such ignorance. Red informed me that they were more carnivorous than humans as best showcased by their sturdy canines. All their teeth were sharper and more pointed than mine, in fact, though that was harder to spot from a nonintimate distance. They were also nocturnal in the same way most species were diurnal. This meeting was actually being held early, in that sense, before any of Master Anatol’s apprentices arrived to be instructed in the finer points of spellcasting.
“I understand you used to be a competitive chainer as well, is that right?” He looked a little shocked at my question.
“You really do your research,” he chuckled. It was Red’s research, of course, sifted through whatever contacts he’d managed to stir up in town over the last few days, but I had no incentive to correct him, even if it was my inclination. It would only complicate executing the plan. “Briefly, for about a year while my apprenticeship was on hold during my master’s vacation. I made it to the finals, but we were knocked out during the tournament.”
“Is that something you teach your students?”
“What, chainer magic?” He stopped to consider for a moment, stroking his chin with unpainted but very clean long-nailed fingers. “If they want, I suppose I would. I haven’t had anyone ask in all the time I’ve been teaching, for what it’s worth. You mostly get young children excited to have exotic pets who don’t fully understand the dedication required or the potential consequences of battle who want to become chainers in these parts. It’s more popular in larger cities, where there are more young people to compete and practice with.”
“Are most of your students younger?” He offered me an option to change the subject, and I took it. Unlikely though it was he’d figure out I was up to something because I talked about chainers too much, I preferred to play it safe and keep my chances of getting what I wanted high.
“Most of them are teenage, or in their early twenties: people trying to begin their careers on the right foot. I’ve educated some older students who found their passion later in life or wanted to finally expand upon raw magical talent having gone ignored their entire lives.” He paused briefly, narrowing his eyes in careful thought. “I do not work with children under fifteen. Neither they nor I have the patience required to educate them in the arcane.” I could relate to having no patience for young people. I didn’t like children when I was a child.
“All right, one last question: if you had to recommend a style of magic that wasn’t the balt approach, which would you suggest?”
“Hm,” he made his lips a thin line and directed his gaze to the window, where he had a uniquely clear view of the sky in a region that was otherwise thick with tall, leafy trees. Teren Balt had to look amazing in the proper autumn, a veritable explosion of reds, oranges, and yellows. For now, the vegetation was still green and healthy. It wasn’t quite sunset yet, but the sky was growing dimmer and you could just see the edges of pink and orange trying to swallow all the blue. “I suppose it depends on who you are. The magic of one’s own culture is probably easier to grasp than all but balt; it leans on concepts and principles one is already familiar with due to one’s upbringing. If one was to refuse simplicity for whatever daft or fanciful reason, then start with something that feels comfortable.”
“Well,” I finished jotting down his wordy response, hoping I could read my own penmanship the next time I tried to look over this document. I was well more used to typing, and my handwriting had never approached ‘good’. “Thank you so much, Master Anatol. If I could ask for one last thing… I was hoping you could give us a demonstration of a spell, the way you would teach it. I think that would be a really sensational thing to have in our pages, something to really get readers excited.” Anatol’s reaction was reserved, steepling his index fingers in front of his nose and watching me carefully.
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“What did you have in mind?”
“Well, I would typically defer to your experience in choosing, but…” I hesitated and tried to build up excitement within myself, pushing my glasses up my nose again. It was always easier to act by drawing from real feelings if I couldn’t step into a completely new character’s mind. Of course, I wanted to know how to sever the link, but something about asking for it outright felt risky. Master Anatol hadn’t given me a lot to work with in terms of reading his personality, but I had a feeling no matter what I’d ask for he’d suggest something else. This was not the plan Red and I had discussed, but perhaps an audible was in order. “There’s a lot of folks around the office who are fans of your career as a chainer. Perhaps you could illustrate the best way to part the veil and summon an esper?”
Anatol leaned back in his chair, pressing those steepled fingers to his lips and taking his eyes off of me in thought. Panic began to wind up inside me. What if he just agreed and showed me Parting the Veil? I could ask him to follow up with severing the link, but perhaps it would be pushing too much. Foolish chagrin welled up and I tried not to let it reach my face. There were other teachers in other towns, but if I wasted Red’s efforts so carelessly I doubted he’d be as gung-ho about doing the hard research the next time. Nevermind that I could likely only ask so many scholars of magic for spell demonstrations before my description would start to get around faster than I could arrive in the next town. I inhaled slowly through my nose and told my anxiety to relax before breathing it out.
“It would perhaps be unwise for me, as a teacher, to give away the specifics of a lesson so many young people would like to learn for free. It’s difficult for most amateurs to pick up a spell through text, of course, but if some child prodigy ascertained the ability to draw espers into this world through your article, I’d feel personally responsible.” He leaned forward, shrugging one shoulder a bit. “Beside that, it’s sort of what I’m paid for. I’d be taking food out of my own mouth.”
“What about severing the link, then?” My lips suddenly felt dry. “It’s not something one can use without knowing how to summon an esper in the first place, and it could be useful to control the number of espers at the mercy of unexpectedly talented children who don’t know otherwise know how to set them free.”
“Hm,” he rubbed softly at his chin. “All right, I think we can do that. I’m not currently linked to any espers to show you outright, but it’s a simple enough exertion of spellpower to explain, especially using the balt method. One just needs to reach out with their magic and—” he snapped his fingers. “It can help to imagine an actual chain running from the summoner to the summoned, but this is of course artifice intended to help beginners. Once you feel the magic and become familiar with how it flows back and forth between esper and person, you don’t require mnemonics to remove the binding between them.”
My pen carefully drew over the page, recording down the details of the spell in case his instruction alone didn’t cause it to appear as an option in the grimoire. It all felt so simple, and in fact worked exactly as I assumed it would, but for some reason that wasn’t enough for me to figure it out on my own. Could I figure out magic on my own? Would I eventually be able to craft new spells? Were there anymore new spells to craft in this world? I had so many questions. Part of me wanted to enroll for an education with Master Anatol, if he had an opening, just to see what I could learn about arcana. I’d already picked up so many fascinating tidbits… but it would be tedious at best. I learned magic too fast to hide the benefits the grimoire bestowed upon me for long, and I really didn’t know how much time I had to explore Barbavia. Nothing in life is guaranteed, but I’d hate to wake up from my personal Oz before I got to defeat the wicked witch and hang out with the horse of a different color just because I got hung up discussing the finer points of the Lollipop Guild back in Munchkinland. I thanked Master Anatol for his time and fed him more false but plausible details about Modern Arcanist as I made my exit before returning to our room at the inn.
“How’d it go, chief?” Red was sitting on the simple wooden bureau in our room, hands in his lap. His brow was furrowed, not in worry but like he had a lot on his mind.
“He bought it,” I let go of a breath I hadn’t been aware I’d been holding. “I took some notes, just in case. Now I need to see if it worked on our end.”
Easing into a seated position on the fluffy bed, I tried to regulate my breath, sliding the Grimoire di Magi e Mythe out of my pack and opening it. Before I thumbed to the Spell Index, I turned to stare at Red, focusing on creating a visual chain stretching between the two of us; thin and ethereal, but solid. Just as Master Anatol had, I snapped my fingers, putting as much intent behind the action as I did when I drew Red and Wysteria across the veil in the first place, imagining the chain breaking into pieces. Nothing felt any different, and Red didn’t seem to notice if anything had happened, lost in thought and staring off into the middle distance.
“I don’t suppose that worked, did it?”
“Huh?” He looked up at me as though he’d somehow forgotten I was there, then shook his head. “’Fraid not.”
Turning the book to my Personal Record, I could see that my mana was still full, and my experience had at some point increased to eighteen. Part of me wanted to spend a day with that page open, just seeing at which point the number would tick up four higher, to help me figure out what might cause it. For now I turned to the Spell Index, and there was a new entry available for purchase; Break the Chain. My interview with Anatol granted me access to the spell, but I still had to spend my resources to skip the undoubted hours of practice and tutelage most folks would have to put into mastering it. Which… fine. That was fair. It was still a fast track to magic, even if I didn’t fully understand how it worked, or perhaps why it worked. I ran my fingers over the spell description, informing me it would take a Passive Action to dismiss an esper from my service. Interestingly, there was no associated cost. Willing the spell to be added to my available options with another golden twinkling of light, I turned to Red again, focused on the visual of the chain, and snapped my fingers to shatter it. He jumped a little bit, like I’d startled him by using the spell, and turned his head to face me once more with a somewhat shocked expression.
“You actually did it…” he seemed astonished, though I wasn’t sure why.
“Yeah, of course, man,” I shrugged. “I promised you I would.”
“You know as well as I do people don’t always keep their promises.” He looked down at his feet and began kicking them slowly back and forth. “I guess I shouldn’t be that surprised, but… here we are.”
“Here we are,” I echoed with a bittersweet smile. “Hey, before you go… I mean, first of all, thank you. This wouldn’t have been as easy a transition without you, not just as a friendly face, but just… knowing about stuff.”
“You helped me first,” he shrugged. “It’s only fair.”
“Well, still. I appreciate it. Secondly… I have no idea what I’m doing, and I don’t know how to find out. Could you, like… give me a primer on this chainer stuff? Point me in the right direction, give me an idea of where I should go next? What makes a good team? Stuff like that?” Maybe it was asking a lot, but I didn’t exactly have anywhere else to turn. I’d never had to surreptitiously gather information before, and playing one person wasn’t so hard, but trying to glean from random townsfolk what should be obvious to people who were born in the area sounded like trouble waiting to happen.
“Heh,” Red chuckled and shook his head. “You really are up a creek without me, ain’tcha?”
“A little,” I nodded. “But don’t let that stop you from livin’ your life, man. I’ll figure it out. I’ll manage. Or… I won’t. That doesn’t have to be your responsibility.”
“It don’t have to,” he hopped down from the dresser and padded toward me, “but I dunno if I could look myself in the mirror knowin’ I left you with your ass in the wind like that. There’s been folks who took advantage of my generous nature before, of the link… but you ain’t them, an’ you ain’t gotta suffer for what they did.” He extended a paw out to me, smirking. “Partners? If you’ll have me, of course.”
“Absolutely,” I accepted the shake and gave it two firm pumps.
“Great!” His warm and genuine smile forced into a silly grin. “So, I’ve had about enough saccharine to keep my tea sweet for the rest of the year. You wanna go do somethin’ that ain’t so serious? I heard there’s a carnival in town.”
“I would like that.”
Wysteria, Red, and I made our way to the edge of Lion’s Head where Sid’s Spectacular Traveling Circus was stationed. Late evening meant things were in full swing, with lights, sounds, treats, acrobats, clowns, and other performers eager to show us a good time. Even with the ticket for free entry, the three of us managed to spend about thirty gold on snacks and souvenirs, but five times that price would’ve been worth it. People were in wooden wagons instead of metal trailers, their prizes more unique compared to the mass-produced plushies and plastic toys one would find on Earth, but a carnival was a carnival and that allowed me to loosen the knot between my shoulders and unwind for the evening. It felt good to have friends again, even here, even in these strange circumstances. It was reassuring that Red didn’t treat me any different, despite the magical link between us being removed. He no longer appeared in the grimoire’s Esper Records, but he was still at my side to laugh at the wandering jugglers and mimes, gasp in awe at feats of strength and non-magical fire-breathing and sword-swallowing, and stuff his face with fish flakes.
I was kind of hoping to run into the clown girl again. There was something intriguing about her, despite the negative reaction I had to her trying to use her appearance to lubricate me. The way she shed her persona after hearing me use carny slang felt enough like opening up that I was curious to learn more about her or at least share another conversation, but I couldn’t find her among the various circus staff and didn’t feel it appropriate to ask after her when we’d barely met. Perhaps I’d encounter her again someday, in some other town where Sid’s Circus and my itinerary once again intersected. Perhaps not. One-time chance meetings were part of the adventure, I supposed, and for now I was perfectly content to spend more time with the friends I’d already managed to make.