Ben peeked through the roots of the ancient beech tree, then reached through them to claw at the earth over and over, until he felt the corner of his sack. Letting out a breath of relief, he continued to dig with one hand while the other clutched onto the net of roots, helping him balance until he could rip the rest of the bag out.
He immediately opened the burlap sack to see the chunk of misshapen gold gleaming hopefully at him, confirming without a shadow of a doubt that it was still there.
Closing his eyes Ben hugged it to his chest.
At the very least, despite everything else becoming exceedingly complicated, his hiding spot had worked.
Upon opening his eyes again, Ben looked to Spidena who stood a short ways away, completely disinterested in his retrieval of the gold as she proceeded to slather a white cream over her face.
“What’s that?” Ben asked while still basking in his lone win of the day.
“Something that stops my skin turning red from the sun. You’re lucky you have naturally darker skin; I have to use this three times a day—even more if I swim,” Spidena explained before placing the cap back on the jar the cream had come from, and stowing it back in her satchel. “How were you going to pay me a portion of that gold if it’s all in one chunk?”
Ben’s eyes rounded. He hadn’t pulled the gold out, and he had looked in the bag discreetly… How did she know it was in one piece?
Spidena stared at his astonished expression with mild exasperation. “You yanked that thing out and it didn’t make a single sound. So despite it looking heavy, it didn’t jingle with coin. I don’t read minds.”
Shaking his head and his shoulders sagging in relief that the witch wasn’t clairvoyant, Ben retied the top of the bag, stood, then attached it to the thick leather strap he had pulled free from the roots earlier that also had his bag of clothes and necessities attached to it.
They had only walked perhaps an hour from the witch’s shop into the woods, and during that time, Ben had slowly been wrapping his head around his present fate. Naturally, as he did so, questions about his new travel companion began to sprout.
“Why do you need me to take you Kintel? You seem perfectly capable of getting there on your own,” he asked, only half caring about the answer as he patted the gold once more.
“I don’t get out much, and I’m terrible with directions. If a bandit or someone comes by and catches me off guard, I can’t do a whole lot. It’s best to go with someone,” Spindena explained shortly.
“You’re powerful enough to make a group of twenty men forget who I am, how are you afraid of anyone?” Ben wondered while sidling back over to the witch and pulling the strap over his head.
“You already knew who those men were, and you saw that it took me time to create the potion and cast the incantation. Charm magic is the instant magic I would need for a surprise attack, and it is different from spells, incantations, divination, potions so on, so on, and so on. Don’t get me wrong. It’s rare for a witch to be able to use three types of magic as skillfully as I do, but I never studied charm magic, and I’m not great with divination either. There are all kinds of specialties witches can have. It depends what type your family practices, and if you’re part of a coven. Covens are great for getting access to different magic and widening your repertoire, but they are bloody annoying with their rules and politics.”
Ben nodded along, he’d heard of some of these things before…
“What exactly is the difference between charms, spell, and incantations? I thought they all meant the same thing.”
“Mm. Seebs usually think that.”
Ben swung round at the derisive tone in the witch’s voice, an acid retort burning his tongue, but Spidena didn’t give him time to spew it in her direction as she proceeded to answer his question.
“To start, think of witches and warlocks like… Brokers. Magic runs underneath nature, making it beautiful, feeding it power. And if you want to alter the nature of things, you need someone who can barter directly with the source. Now, just like the brokers who work for banks or merchants, we magic users specialize in different tiers of deals,” Spidena explained methodically.
A large fly swerved into the witch’s path making her duck to get out of its way with a displeased curling of her lip and swat of her hand before she continued her explanation.
“Charms are instant magic and cheap to pay for in effort and materials. That said, it’s rare for a witch to be competent in brokering anything other than charms if that’s their chosen study, and they usually aren’t very powerful. Damn useful, but technically charms are the weakest. With a charm, you could do something like snap your fingers and make a group of bandits be stuck spinning in circles for fifteen minutes while you escape. It’s great for traveling around, but charms aren’t lasting or permanent. Plus the witches or warlocks that broker that power have to memorize countless little phrases to make them work right. Some magic folk do fantastic in jobs you that seebs work in.”
“What kind of jobs would warlocks or witches be interested in working that us seebs can do just fine?” Ben asked, his hand finding the trunk of an ash tree, its grainy bark crumbling under his palm as he used it to carefully step over a sudden dip in the ground.
Spidena did the same as she continued explaining. “Some warlocks and witches that use charms can become doctors that erase a woman’s labor pains for a few hours. Or they can be maids that help heavy things float so that they can clean under them.” Spidena picked up her skirts as she clambered over the roots of a tree on their descent down a muddy slope away from the beech tree.
Ben nodded along thoughtfully. “Charms are useful day to day, but not as powerful. Got it.”
“Yes. They are also far less likely to be noticed by the magic law enforcers working for the king, and are deemed the most harmless.”
“So how are spells different?”
“Spells take longer to negotiate from magic, and are usually pricier, but they last longer. A year. At most five. You can also weave spells into something stronger, but it takes a long time. If you spend a year weaving? You could end up with a magnificent spell that not only shields your home from seebs, dodders, and other witches or warlocks, but also never needs to be cleaned, has hot water whenever you want, and the roof doesn’t leak for five years. I tried something like it, but I didn’t quite get the cleaning spell right. The shop I have, for example, isn’t hidden, but it doesn’t have a leaky roof, and I can get hot water three hours a day.”
“That does sound pretty useful. I’m guessing incantations last the longest but are harder to broker…?” Ben slid part of the way down the same small hill Spidena had just descended, though it was more of a glide as he maintained his balance with ease.
“Yes. Incantations can easily be fumbled and turn into curses because, just like contracts that brokers draw up, it’s easy for some little detail to muck up the whole thing. Magic doesn’t like big exceptions to the rules, so it takes a lot of work on the warlock or witch’s part to figure out a reasonable price, unless they’ve done that type of incantation before. And given that incantations are typically permanent, a lot of people try to keep the big magic they need from an incantation straight forward. Like ‘regrow this person’s hand’.”
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
Ben’s eyes went wide with shock at the idea that regrowing a lost limb was possible.
“The cost of making an incantation deal, however, can end up being more than you realize. Magic can tack on fees even after you think you’ve settled the deal. It’s one of the many reasons I avoid incantations on my own behalf. It’s only seeb customers I’ll do them for, seeing as there is zero risk of hidden fees for them.”
Ben halted as he sifted through the wealth of information he was being given. “Wait… So magic speaks to you? O-Or it’s a person you have a meeting with? Or do you just hear a voice? Or is it like a price list? I’m confused.”
“You say that like it’s a new development,” Spidena retorted flatly while staring at him in her unnervingly calm, bored manner.
Ben didn’t bother responding. He just stared at her with open annoyance.
Taking pity on him, she sighed, then explained. “Magic is like… an entity. It is conscious… In a way. But not like the Gods. When brokering a deal with the magic that holds the world together to make an exception to its natural order, witches and warlocks are able to understand costs usually by some measure of instinct. Sometimes it’s by experimenting with a vague sense you have, and sometimes another witch can tell you the exact price (they don’t like sharing that kind of information for free though). In that circumstance it’s usually a family incantation, or a coven’s that has been shared and kept secret.”
“So unless someone has done it before, you’re basically making it up as you go?” Ben sounded a mixture of impressed and appalled.
Spidena rolled her eyes but didn’t argue his clumsy summarizing.
“More or less. Though sometimes the price list become useless if the value of the ingredients or components of the incantation changes the fee. For example; if I had a spell or incantation that required two loaves of bread, but suddenly there was a wheat shortage? I’d only need one loaf because the value of the bread would have changed in the balance of nature and life.”
Ben was mildly surprised at just how much the workings of magic deals sounded like they followed standard economical practices. Though Spidena had compared herself and those like her as brokers, he was beginning to see how apt a description it was.
Then he became distracted by another question. “What do you mean the customer pays for the extra fee for the incantation?”
Spidena’s eyes fluttered, as though she were tiring from his cluelessness. “If a customer wants an incantation? I accept a suitable payment as the broker, and I do that by roughly determining the value of the ingredient and my time into a fee for a seeb or dodder. Seebs normally don’t have to pay hidden fees that an incantation might incur, because you’re the ones asking magic to make a big exception, and if magic tries to add on interest to what you’ve already paid? Well… Something about you magicless mutts stops it. It’s like magic can’t directly touch the seebs because of your lack of connection, and it isn’t fair to the witch or warlock brokering the deal to pay up. Magic respects that balance of our—witches and warlocks—roles.”
Ben was quite certain he was utterly lost on what she was saying, but did his best not to be distracted as she continued talking. He had the distinct impression that Spidena saw absolutely no point in helping him better understand the nuances of figuring out what magic wanted for its price.
“Dodders are at the biggest risk for asking us to broker incantation deals. This is because the magic can reach them through whatever miniscule amount of power they still are connected to. And they don’t have the knowledge or connections to pay the fees. So it rarely ever ends well for them. Witches… we can get those hidden fees, and it will be annoying and problematic, but… Usually we can pay it off in a few years.”
“Incantations sound like too much trouble to bother with.” Ben winced at the thought
“They are. Unless it’s a seeb like you hiring me to do it. Because then I get good money, or in this case, a big favor out of it without worrying. If I could? I’d only broker in incantations to seebs. It’s easy, low risk, and great pay, but… Big magic scares people.”
A thin trickle of understanding wove its way through Ben’s mind. “Earlier… With my big incantation of making a lot of people forget me… You seemed upset even though you got a favor… Why?”
Called back to more recent events, Spidena let out a grumbling breath. “I don’t even know how you lucked out in finding me to cast such specific big magic. Memory tampering is tricky, detailed work. But maybe that’s why the magic felt you still needed a surprise fee, and because I got a favor rather than payment, I got caught up with it. Your surprise fee is that we now are fate tied until you finish granting my favor.”
“Fate tied?” Ben felt growing dread creep up from his belly.
“Yes. You were already headed to Kintel. I needed to go to Kintel. You, like an idiot, promised a favor to a witch, and a favor to a witch as payment for an incantation calls on big power. So, if we happen to already have a tasty coincidence that smells like fate, it binds us. But who knows? It could have been plain old, run of the mill regular fate to start with. I’m no divination witch, so I never saw it coming. With normal fate, we most likely would’ve had to travel together. Now with fate ties? We are stuck together for good. You can try to leave, or say no, or I could, but it won’t work out.”
Ben felt like he was going to be sick. “What if someone abducts you or me…?”
“Great to know what you consider a possibility on this trip,” Spidena remarked unimpressed before addressing his concern. “It won’t go well for the abductors. Fate ties trump everything else. We’d need big magic that I don’t even know exists right now to break it. Something even bigger than an incantation. Luckily, we just have to get to Kintel, and it should be over. We just have to put up with being stuck together for a single season. Though we’ll probably have more problems and surprises than we originally bargained for. Fate ties pull magical people and beasts to it. Big, juicy, old power like fate ties are very attractive to anyone who can sense it.”
“W-Why are you so cavalier about it?”
“You may have noticed I wasn’t back at the shop,” Spidena reminded wryly. “Hopefully this is meant to be a lovely, short fate tie experience, and we don’t turn into archnemeses or something to that effect. Gods forbid we end up tied together past Kintel. Though if we have regular fate trailing us from even longer ago that could be an issue… Where were you born?” Spidena furrowed her brow, this new thought proving to be a troubling possibility.
“Er… Ocor?”
Spidena considered this answer carefully. “Do you happen to know a witch named Windelle? Or a gambling den owner named Pesch Goldbry?”
“No?”
“Thank toads…” She put her hand on her chest and let out a breath. “Alright. We should be fine to part ways in Kintel. Now, shall we get on with it? Or do you need to write this all down?”
Ben actually would’ve loved to write everything she had just explained down, but also had a new determination to be rid of the witch as quickly as possible. Shaking his head and Ben picked up his pace. He decided to ask more about what were the pros and cons of potions at another time, as he was already starting to feel his head throb around his temples.
With any luck, he wouldn’t have to think about the nuances of magic very much, or apply his new knowledge. But with that being thought weaving its way through his mind… Ben had to admit to himself that he had never really been what anyone would call ‘lucky’.