Valskab Flothmathur wasn’t what I’d been expecting. I’d considered the place to be a small village, something like Borava, with a few dozen people in it, mostly farmers and hunters with a few specialists thrown into the mix. I was wrong. The valskab was much larger underground than it looked, with tunnels and chambers stretching for at least a mile in each direction. At least half a thousand Menskies lived there, although I honestly wasn’t sure since I wasn’t allowed to go wandering. When the sun rose, the tunnels quickly emptied as half the inhabitants went up top to farm, fish, hunt, and whatever else they did. When the sun dropped, though, the tunnels filled once more, and the place crowded with furred bodies that seemed to have little need or desire for personal space.
Honestly, that didn’t bother me too much. The strangest part was the quiet. The Menskies never said a word to one another. No one called out insults; no one got drunk and sang songs; no one spoke in hushed whispers. No amiable chatter flew over tables during mealtimes. Everyone lived, moved, and ate in utter silence, communicating with their odd mental speech that I still had no way to hear. The quiet was oppressive, and I found myself simply sitting silently for the most part, unwilling to disturb the stillness when I was in public areas. Fortunately, that wasn’t very often.
Fifa showed me the baths and lavatory, both of which were situated close to the edge of a geothermal lake that bordered the valskab to take advantage of underground streams of hot water. The bath was a geothermal pool whose temperature ranged from warm to near scalding. It had a current that ran the length of it, and to get clean, I got into the warm end at the downstream part and rubbed a pumice-like stone all over my fur that acted like a comb. Afterward, I moved upstream into the hotter regions and soaked for a while, letting the heat sink into my muscles. I hadn’t had a hot bath—a good one, not just a quick scrub in warm water—since I’d first entered the Doorverse, and I didn’t realize how much I’d missed them.
Afterward, she led me to a large cavern that reminded me of an Army mess hall, where rows of Menskies sat at long stone tables to eat off carved wooden trays. The food selection wasn’t great—a hunk of meat I didn’t recognize; a slab of coarse, heavy bread; and a pile of some dark green vegetable that almost looked like small brussels sprouts—but it was filling, and there was plenty of it. I ate in eerie silence, the only noise the sounds of dozens of Menskies eating at the same time. That impacted my appetite a bit, but I figured I’d get used to it eventually.
“We’ll start your lessons tomorrow, Freyd,” Fifa told me as she guided me down another tunnel after we’d finished eating. “For now, we can aid you in acclimating to the warmth.” She stopped before another of the mossy curtains that seemed to serve as doors in the valskab and gestured toward it. “In here. Remain here until I return for you.”
I hesitantly pushed at the curtain of moss, finding it thicker and heavier than I’d expected. As I swept part of it aside, a wave of heat washed out and slammed into my face, and I stepped through into what I could only term a sauna. The room was large, irregularly shaped, and vaguely oval. A wooden lattice covered the floor, and I could feel the heat rising from beneath it through the soles of my feet. The air was thick, humid, and felt like it was at least ninety degrees or so, not that I had any way to really check. Another moss curtain hung across the room from me, piercing the wall there, while stone benches ringed the rest of the periphery. A single figure sat on that bench, and I stiffened involuntarily when I saw Bregg and realized we’d been deliberately left alone together. Was this some sort of betrayal? Was he supposed to beat information from me? I slipped into combat readiness without even realizing it, relaxing my body and shifting my balance to be ready for an attack, but he seemed to notice how I moved into a ready position and raised a hand placatingly.
“No, Hettlug,” he said, his voice a little tired sounding. “There’s no need for that.”
“Hettlug? That’s a new insult, isn’t it, Sara?” I asked silently.
“It’s actually not an insult, John. It’s sort of a left-handed compliment. It seems to refer to a person who’s skilled but dangerous to everyone, friends and foes.”
“And Hemskal?”
“Was an insult, trust me. This is better.”
“Where’s Aeld?” I asked half curiously, half suspiciously, returning my focus to Bregg.
“He’ll be arriving soon. I asked him to give me some time…” The big hunter took a deep breath. “I wanted to talk to you.”
I gave the man a dubious look and moved to sit across the room from him. Steam filled the air, rising from cracks in the stone floor and filling the place with a thick haze that made it a little hard to see despite the light glowing overhead, but I wanted some distance between us, just in case.
He seemed to realize what I was doing, and he flashed me a grin. “You think that little bit of distance matters?” he asked in his usual deep growl.
“Just the two of us, with no spears?” I replied evenly. “I don’t think I need it. Better to have it than not, though.”
He snorted. “You forget; I’ve seen you training in unarmed fighting.”
“You’ve seen what I’ve shown you, Bregg. You might want to keep that in mind.”
He gave me a curious look, and for a moment, I thought he might actually take me up on my challenge, but he leaned back and sighed.
“Too hot for that in here,” he muttered. “Some other time, maybe. Besides, that’s not what I wanted to talk about.” He gazed at me. “You saved my life, Hettlug. Again.” I didn’t say a word, and after a moment, he grunted and continued speaking, closing his eyes as he did.
“I wasn’t always a hunter,” he said slowly. “When I was younger, I was a warrior, defending not just the valskab but the whole Haelendi. I fought against the four-legs in Halio Pass and at the Aneklan Ridge for years. Every Flikkur’s Crossing they came, driving into the passes or swarming up the slopes, trying to reach our sanctuary, and every year, we pushed them back, down into the lowlands. Then, they’d spend a Passage recovering before they struck again, and we’d drive them back again, over and over, endlessly.”
He looked at me, his expression grave. “I tell you this because you need to understand: I’ve spent my life protecting my people, Hettlug. I’ve fought for them and bled for them more times than I can count, against everything the four-legs could throw at us. I’ve done it for so long that I look for enemies everywhere.”
He closed his eyes again. “I still don’t trust your story, mostly because I can’t explain you. You aren’t a letharvis, that’s obvious, but you take to it like a fire spirit to dry grass. I know soldiers and hunters both, and you’re both but neither at the same time. You’ve got the skills and knowledge for each, and combined with what you’re learning from the letharvis, that makes you dangerous.
“But—I don’t think you’re a danger to the people, or to the valskab. Not deliberately, at least. If you wanted to hurt or kill us, all you would have had to do was let that undottyar finish us. No one would have expected a single hunter to kill it—I’m still not sure how you did it, to be honest—and neither the letharvis nor I were in any shape to stop it. All you had to do was nothing, but instead, you nearly died killing the thing. You saved lives—you protected our people, and I have to respect that.”
He reopened his eyes to give me a serious look. “I still think you’re dangerous. Things seem to happen around you, things like that undottyar and the spirit lights going crazy. But I also think that you aren’t making them happen, at least not on purpose, and I don’t think you mean any harm. I’m still not happy about the letharvis traveling with you, but he’s right: the rashi needs to meet with you, and I’ll help make sure they do.”
I couldn’t help but frown. “Why?” I asked bluntly. “Just because I saved your life?”
“Hardly,” he snorted, then looked down at the stone floor. “Hettlug, in all my years, I’ve never seen anything like what happened to the spirit lights. That—that sounded too close to that vision you told us about. Maybe, just maybe, your vision was real, and if it was, then the rashi needs to know about it.” He looked back up at me. “I suspect that you know more than you’re letting on, as well, and if that’s true, they need to know whatever it is, too. I’d rather risk myself and the letharvis if the other option is something like that undottyar being unleashed on all the valskabs—or worse.”
It wasn’t exactly an apology, but it felt like he was offering a truce of sorts, and honestly, that was more than I’d expected from him. He still didn’t trust me—and he probably didn’t like me—but he was willing to put that aside for his people. I didn’t much like him, either, but it was hard not to respect that.
“Good enough for me,” I finally sighed, leaning back and closing my eyes to let the heat soak into me.
“Good,” he grunted. “Because your spear work against that undottyar was terrible. We’ll work on that.” I opened my eyes and gave him a dubious look that he met with a grin. “I haven’t forgotten our bargain, Hettlug. I’m supposed to be training you. We’ll start that tomorrow.”
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“Fine,” I sighed, not really eager to work with the man but appreciative of the training he could offer. I looked around at the room. “How is all this supposed to work, by the way?”
“The heat here will speed up our acclimation,” he explained. He pointed to the curtain opposite the one I’d entered the room through. “There’s a pool of cooler water in there, so if you start feeling sick, dizzy, or light-headed, go sit in there until it passes, then come back here. This way, we should be ready to travel in a few days at most.”
“How long are we supposed to sit in here, then?” I asked curiously.
“We’ll be here for some hours, Freyd.” I glanced sideways to see Aeld enter the room. He looked back and forth between the two of us and smiled. “Good. It seems you’ve put your animosity behind you.” Bregg simply grunted in acknowledgment, while I decided not to say anything. He sighed. “At least, you’ve put it aside. That’ll have to do.”
He walked over and sat beside me, leaning against the stone wall. “As I said, Freyd, we’ll be in here for some hours, so we might as well use the time to continue your education. First, though, I have a question for you. Did you call on one of your spirits to aid you in the battle with the undottyar?”
I hesitated, considering whether or not to tell the truth. “Yes,” I finally answered, deciding that he was going to find out eventually anyway, if he didn’t already know. “The storm spirit. I had it guide my spear when I threw it, then carry it back to me.” I looked over at him. “Why? Was that a bad idea?”
He sighed again and laid his head back. “Normally? Yes, Freyd, it would have been. To understand, though, you need to know how taking power from a spirit works and what it costs.”
He lifted his hand, and a sudden breeze began to stir the heavy air in the room. “This, Freyd, is a simple summoning,” he said. “It’s the most basic form of channeling that a letharvis can perform, basic enough that any Menskallin can do it in some form or another, although not as quickly or effectively as we can. In essence, I called a wind spirit, asked it to perform a task for me, and offered it energy in return. It’s a simple transaction, and most spirits are happy to be part of something like this.”
I activated See Magic and See Spirits and watched as energy poured from him into a cloudy, white mist that swirled around the room, providing the breeze I felt.
“Okay, that makes sense,” I agreed slowly.
He lowered his hand, and the breeze faded. “Essentially, all the arts of Anduruk are the same as that summoning,” he explained. “We contract with spirits to be able to tap their energy, then we offer that to other spirits to perform tasks for us. With a summoning or calling, we take energy from our bound spirits and use it to entice or command unbound spirits to do what we want. Much of a letharvis’ training is preparing your mind for that sort of transaction; it’s not as simple as asking the spirit for a favor and offering power. There are specific patterns of energy that are better at inducing and controlling them, ones that minimize the amount of power you’ll need, and those patterns change depending on the type of spirit whose energy you’re using.”
“He’s talking about spell-forms, John,” Sara supplied. “They call them patterns, but they’re the same thing.”
“How does that make what I did a bad idea?” I asked curiously.
“Because using bound spirits is a little different,” he said in a serious voice. “To command an unbound spirit, you use some energy taken from your bound spirits. However, to command or entice your bound spirits, you have to offer them some of your own energy, as well. You give them back part of the energy you’ve taken from them, plus some of your own energy, and in return, they have no choice but to do as you ask.”
“Can’t you just use energy from another bound spirit? Couldn’t I take power from my hunt spirit, for example, to give to my storm spirit?”
“Unfortunately, no—at least, not usually. The only energies that the binding will carry are yours and the bound spirit’s. The spirit itself rejects all others. You either have to return all of a spirit’s energy to it—which will break the binding—or give it some of your own so it has the power to do as you ask.”
He reached up and rubbed his face tiredly. “And that’s why the patterns are so important. With them, you tightly control the flow of energy, offering the smallest amount of yours possible to maximize how much help they can give you. When I start a fire, for example, it barely even touches my energy, and what’s lost is restored in minutes. Healing takes more from me, but not much more. The channeling I performed to destroy the Henguki orbs on that beach, though, took a great deal from me, which is why I was so tired afterward.”
“I thought you drew on the valskab’s power for that,” I frowned.
“I did. That was a complex channeling, using both summoned and bound spirits to work. I offered the summoned spirits the valskab’s power and used it to replace some of what I had to surrender to my bound spirits. Without it, I wouldn’t have been able to walk afterward. Still, as you saw when we left the High Reaches, I can only restore myself so quickly that way.”
He looked at me gravely as he spoke. “However, incapacitation isn’t the real danger. If you give too much of yourself to a spirit, you also give it power over you. It can affect your thoughts the way the hunt spirit was, influence your actions, even take over your body if you aren’t careful. That’s why the last thing a loralvis learns is how to actually use their spirits this way.”
He leaned his head back again and gave a sad sort of smile. “However, in your case, that probably isn’t a concern,” he admitted. “There’s not enough left of your spirits’ personalities to affect you, and you might not even need to bargain with them. Your spirit doesn’t seem to be weakened in the slightest by calling on that storm spirit, which it should have been. The storm spirit seems weaker, but not you, which suggests that you used its energy to command it without giving anything appreciable of yourself.”
“That’s a good thing, right?”
“It’s an astounding thing, and if you can teach it to others, it would utterly change how we deal with spirits,” he laughed. “You have to understand, Freyd: the personal costs we have to pay are the biggest limiters on the power of our channeling. We’ve found ways to minimize that, using circles to hold that energy so we can add it slowly, over hours, days, or longer to allow us to heal the damage as it’s inflicted. However, if we could simply draw on a spirit’s power without worrying about the damage—without having to bargain for that power or force the spirit’s cooperation through the binding—we could create far more powerful effects. And without the spirit rejecting any energy but mine, I could funnel the valskab’s power into it to heal it quickly or give it the strength to perform much greater tasks. The possibilities…” He sighed wistfully.
“He—the savage is right,” Kadonsel said almost wonderingly. “I’d never considered that, but it’s true. To get a spirit to agree to inhabit an orb, I have to give a bit of myself, and anyone using that orb has to do the same. The amounts are typically small, but they do add up, and that limits how much any ojain can do in any given amount of time without hurting themselves. If we didn’t have to do that, we could create much more powerful orbs and use them a lot more frequently.”
I almost frowned as a thought occurred to me. “Kadonsel, why do you use spirit orbs for Henguki?” I asked. “Why not just regular gems or crystals—or just a rock, for that matter?”
“The orbs are designed to draw in energy to feed a spirit. Typically, a spirit in an orb gains strength faster than one outside an orb, even one surrounded by their element. That’s why they agree to it in the first place.”
“But if you didn’t need their agreement, could you store that energy in something else?” I pressed.
“Probably, but…” She fell silent, and when she spoke again, her voice sounded amazed. “That—I’d never considered that! If we could separate the spirit from its energy the way you seem to, we could put that energy into any suitable container!”
“Which means that you could show me how Henguki works, even without a spirit orb,” I said with some satisfaction. “All we need is a ‘suitable container’—so, what is that?”
“Something crystalline, of course,” she replied almost absently. “Nothing living or once-living; if you put a spirit into something like that, it can animate it, and that’s not pleasant for anyone. And nothing that’s an amalgamation. The purer it is, the better.”
“Something like the head of my spear?”
She fell silent once more. “That—it might work. You might be able to channel a spirit’s energy into your spear if you wanted.” She hesitated. “With this knowledge—if you figure out how to teach it to others, you would be welcomed in Almella with open arms, you know. You’d be given a place in the Kungas’ personal quarters and any luxuries that you desire. You’d be the most esteemed of the Redeemed Elders.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I hedged. I wasn’t about to trade my freedom for a silk prison cell, obviously, but it was good to know that this knowledge could be a bargaining chip.
“I’d be careful learning and practicing Henguki, John,” Sara advised in a warning tone. “I’m fairly sure that any letharvis can feel a spirit trapped inside an object, and if they sense it, they’ll probably react very badly.”
“Good call. Okay, so not my spear. I’ll have to find another crystal, then. I can keep it in storage.”
“True, but what’s the point? You can already cast spells with the spirits you’ve melded.”
“Yes, but Aeld and the others can sense those. Creating a bunch of spirit crystals and hiding them in storage could give me a sort of trump card, something no one expects, especially if I can tap them to cast Menskallin spells rather than having to power devices.”
“If it works, that does seem like a good idea.”
“I thought so.” I turned my focus back to Aeld. “So, that’s why you want to learn it so badly,” I chuckled aloud.
“Yes. And the letharvisa here want it just as badly, and so will the rashi, believe me.” He looked at me again, his face serious once more. “However, you still need to learn the proper patterns. You might be able to draw power without danger to yourself, but the correct patterns will minimize how much energy you need. That’s more important for you because without a valskab, you can’t restore lost energy as quickly as a letharvis could. So, that’s what we’ll be doing while we acclimate.”
He straightened, and his voice took on a slightly lecturing tone. “First, Freyd, let’s talk about circles, and how they form the base of every pattern that you’ll channel…”
I focused on the shaman. Finally, he was teaching me what I really wanted: how to cast spells. If I could figure out how to combine Kadonsel’s ability to store power with Aeld’s ability to use it, I could literally have the best of both worlds. It might even be something that united the two races, something palatable to both of them. Or, I supposed, it might be considered an even greater profanity by both of them. Knowing my luck, it would definitely be the latter.
That just meant, though, that I’d have to keep it to myself as long as possible. Of course, first, I had to learn enough to put all of it together, but between Aeld and Kadonsel—and with Sara’s help, of course—that should be possible.
I suppressed a grin that Aeld wouldn’t understand. Maybe being stuck in this valskab—and this room—for a few days wouldn’t be a bad thing, after all.