3 – Boat Talk and Minor Thaumaturgy
Dawn’s light greeted me as I roused to wakefulness. Last night, Kornos and I had pored over the map and accompanying notes, deciding on which Anomaly we would venture to. In the end, we picked a relatively small one that hadn’t yet been explored. An untouched Anomaly is a chest of natural treasures. Thankfully, it was only a day away, so we should arrive by midday today – just a handful of hours more at most.
Kornos was already awake, as he had taken the last shift for the night. He looked none the worse for wear, and was watching the horizon with an easy, relaxed air about him. I mumbled a few words of greeting to him while I rummaged around our supplies for breakfast – hardtack and purified water, during which I noticed that I felt better than expected for having slept in a cramped boat with nothing but a bunched up bit of cloth for a pillow. I figured it must’ve been the blessing bolstering my health.
After scarfing down the rations, I asked him, “Hey, Kornos, what can you tell me about your father’s blessing?”
Kornos gave me an amused look and said, “Really, Vin? That’s the first thing ya wanna know? Not, say, where I came from? Or how I know ya?” He chuckled and shook his head. “You’re a strange one, alright. But fine, I’ll bite.”
Like he was one to talk, given his set of shark chompers and, well, being the son of a fish god and all. But I let him speak – partly because I wanted to know what new tricks I could work with, and partly because I found the prospect of wielding awesome powers exciting as all get out.
Kornos seemed to drop a bit of his eclectic accent – which I was coming to realize was his ‘theatric persona’ – as he laid it out for me. “The ocean is a scary place, and not just deep down in the depths. You’re just as much in danger swimming on a beach as you are a thousand fathoms below the surface. If you aren’t careful, the tide will snatch you right quick, drag you down before you realize what’s going on.”
The one time I left Niu was when our family had taken a trip to Deadman’s Cove, a small island that was only a few days away. Though I was young when she said them to me, I could clearly remember my mother’s warnings about the dangers of the tides and what to do if you get stuck in them. Part of the reason they so clearly stuck with me was because of what we saw happen not even a few hours later. A child had gotten swept up in the retreating tide and was lost before anyone could reach them. Neither of us said a word until we reached the inn.
“Yeah,” I said, a slight tremble in my voice as I shook myself from the memory. “I know what you mean.”
“Right. So, that’s my father’s deal; the current that grabs you when you aren’t looking and yanks you away from safety before you can fight back. Pulls you under and keeps you there.”
I shuddered as my mind immediately conjured the scene of a drowning child, panic and fear-stricken, desperate for air. Suddenly, I wasn’t so keen to revel in my new abilities. Useful or not, it would take time for me to accept them.
Neither of us said anything for the next few minutes, the somber atmosphere slowly bled away.
I pulled out my bag and started sorting through what thaums and materials I had brought with me. Kornos watched on as I pulled out various bits and bobs, setting them on the deck. I asked him, “Any of those shiny bits thaumatic?”
He started a bit, as if he had been doing some reminiscing himself, then answered, “Yeah, this,” he fingered his left earring, a sapphire carved into the shape of a crescent moon cradled by strands of silver, “is a little trinket that lets me see in the dark. Not in complete darkness, mind you, but enough that I can make my way under the stars.”
Then he touched his right earring, a ruby sphere held in a cage of gold wire. “This one lets me recover a bit faster when I get smacked around. It isn’t much, but every bit helps.”
I suspected he’d downplayed their effectiveness, especially the recovery earring, but I said nothing.
Kornos stared off into the horizon and said wistfully, “I got them from my father. Sendoff gifts, I suppose.” He shrugged and sighed. “Can’t say he’s a lousy father, he could have sent me off to be raised by mortals, but he didn’t…” He trailed off, and I sensed that he was done with this topic for now.
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I let him be.
Though, I wondered what it was like to be raised by a Leviathan. He seemed well adjusted enough, so it couldn’t have been too much different from a normal upbringing. Or maybe that was the result of some godly magic or something. My knowledge of deities was limited to what my parents taught me.
***
“I’ll be working on some gear for the next few hours,” I said to Kornos. “First is some minor pieces, which won’t take me long. Things like fire starters, noisemakers, water purifiers, salves, that sort of stuff. Then I have a relatively big project I hope works out.”
Kornos grunted in affirmation and left me to it, returning to his post at the helm.
As I pulled my bag up next to me and began unpacking it in the limited space available to me, my thoughts drifted to the process of creating thaumaturgical items, the steps and methods used to turn mundane objects into fantastical pieces of myriad capabilities.
At its core, thaumaturgy was taking the Anomalous aspects held within thaums, extracting them, and then combining or fusing them until the essence functioned as the thaumaturgist intended it to. I preferred to think of it as forging alloys of essences through precise strikes of a hammer of intent. By interpreting certain essences in certain ways, and by imposing that interpretation on the amalgamation, the result was an objective function born of a subjective interpretation.
A thaum of fire could be interpreted as heating an object, or conjuring flame.
The fire starter was a basic device that did as the name said. I began by retrieving a thaum related to fire. The first candidate I found was a piece of smoldering tree bark, a flat piece of bark scorched on one side with patches that glowed red-hot as though it still burned. It was cool to the touch, as the smoldering essence, in its current state, didn’t have an aspect of heat to it, which was unusual, but ultimately unimportant. I set it aside.
Next, I retrieved a cylinder of mundane metal, small enough to fit in my palm. This would be the housing for the finalized thaumatic aspect.
Then I held both objects, one in each hand. I steadied my breathing and calmed my mind. A clear mental image, and conviction, was of the utmost importance when practicing thaumaturgy. In my mind, I pictured the cylinder: one end of it was an ignition – sufficiently large force against a surface with that end of the cylinder would ignite it. Ignition was stretching the interpretation of smoldering, but I was confident that it would stick.
With one smooth motion, I brought the two towards each other, and in the moment they collided, I struck them together with my intent – my interpretation. The piece of bark was absorbed by the metal, which took on knot-like whorls in the patterns of the iron surface. No fracturing, no screeches, no explosions. It worked.
My body moved before my brain could say no, and I struck the wood deck with the newly forged device. As expected, the spot instantly caught fire. It works!
And then my brain caught up half a moment later. The fire was smothered in a panic, though I noticed Kornos smirking at me, causing heat to rise to my face in embarrassment.
The rest of the minor thaumatic creations went just as smoothly and without further embarrassment, much to my relief.
I decided to take a break and refresh myself before I started on the big one.
***
As I stowed away my completed works, I struck up a conversation with Kornos. We didn’t talk about anything serious, just things like favorite foods and sharing stories. I told him of some of the stranger scenes I’ve witnessed while doing odd jobs for the colony. He spoke of the sea and the wonders it held.
I asked him about his upbringing. “Who taught you… in general, I suppose. There aren’t any other types of schools other than the fishy kind down there, right?”
Kornos chuckled and said, “No, you’re right. My father taught me, though, ‘taught’ isn’t exactly what I would call it. He would… impart–” he emphasized the word strangely “–wisdom directly to my mind. When he gave me knowledge of language… that was a tough time. All at once, I was hit by a massive deluge of words and meanings and sounds and how to move my mouth to put it all together. It took me weeks just to sort it all out, I was half-dead that entire time.”
His expression became a bit dark, and he said, “It was one of the rare times I was truly upset with my father. He never apologized, you know. Not even an excuse, or an ‘It had to be done.’ No matter how much I kicked, screamed, and yelled, he said not a word.”
Ashaollo sounded like a harsh dad – a statement I would never have imagined thinking less than a day ago. Having to learn by being force-fed chunks of knowledge by your aloof fish-god dad, I was shocked at how well-adjusted Kornos was. I had normal parents, and even I turned out to be a bit of a weirdo.
Oh, I’d been staring at Kornos with a blank look for a while. Luckily, he’d been staring out at the horizon and hadn’t noticed. After thinking for a bit, I figured out what I should say so that I didn’t sound insincere. “Well,” I awkwardly shuffled a bit in my seat, “I can’t say I understand; I’m not sure anyone can. But even so, I can say that you turned out pretty well, all things considered. And it seems like he cares more than you think, seeing as how he gave you those gifts and found someone to look after you.”
Kornos nodded slowly and said, “I guess so.” But I can tell his heart just isn’t in it.
Rather than dig myself further into a hole, I decided to drop the conversation, electing to rest my hands and mind in preparation for my project.