It was my turn to enact a part of this bargain. I wanted the Aspirant out of the estate for a short while in case this backfired. It would be fair to them to suffer my mistake if I was wrong. My goals were simple. I was going to take the Vignettes through a ritual to update it. Check for new versions and revisions and compare editions. If another one of the copies caught on there would be some changes that would make our gambit that much harder. I knew that just my copy was linked to me. The other copies that generated other shades don’t have a way to necessarily pry my mind unless they’ve already ensorceled me. Not an impossibility but not quite worth worrying about.

I commanded Churn to fetch me items I’d need to begin a rite. Mostly just my bucket of white salts and to leave the water and blood from the Aspirant nearby. I withdrew another rag and began idly wiping my talons clean while devising ritual diagrams in my thoughts. So many shapes to employ, sigils to put inside the shapes, countless variety. That always is the issue with ritual magic. Snappier and hastier spells don’t require to draw anything elaborate but trade potency for convenience. In many ways I’m the same with how I view the Aspirant. My mind wandered to them while I licked the last few drops of blood off my talons. I couldn’t help but indulge, to taste and see what I had in store if I had it my way!

I knelt down to try and envision where each of my items would be in this rite once more. I’d use the shape of an ellipse. Not quite an oval. I’ve never achieved anything with an oval in my practice with them as the core shape of my spells. Far too much was at stake to act amateurish at the first critical juncture. The salt delicately spilled down from the bucket and took the shape I wished.

While Churn was never what I expected when I casted for my first servant it surely has been one of the most surprisingly useful toward me and my causes. It finished the first layer dutifully. I smiled at the creature and commanded it simply. “Come closer and again.” I crossed an arm over my body and picked up the chalk. The next difficult decision is what do I draw within my circles? I knew I’d be placing my copy itself in the true north quadrant of my spell circle.

Churn finished the second layer and mere moments later I began to scribe into the floor. First I commanded the shape of an eye being canceled out and gouged. I loaded the crude drawing with my intent to be obscured and covered. The deep blue chalk I used would aid me with this. The secret to being a mage is managing intentions and selecting the right tools for the purpose. Much like any other talented crafter or builder you manage the tools and their uses.

Second sigil. I cut this into quadrants internally. I willed it so that I would have five objects placed. Thick lines cut between the spaces to make my will externally known. My second item would be something a little less dependent on my ability to freehand. “Churn” I commanded, “Provide me the bucket of blood and water.” I took it from my retainer's mouth and placed it to the right of where the Vignettes would lay. I had a subsequent demand, “The chalice as well.” I scratched my summon on the head gently as it delivered what I needed.

I cupped and dunked it into the water polluted with the blood. I placed it aside the Vignette's future resting spot. It would flank it on the right side and it held the ritual significance of my new student. Their blood and beauty would be used to stand for them in what we later wish to do. While this won’t suddenly metamorphosize them into a shade it will begin to tie them to me and my copy of the Vignettes. They’d feel another searing pain but for a moment when the spell was at the crux of its potency. I didn’t know of a better way I could do this and should have been more forthcoming at some juncture. I don’t know what I could have told them or when but this felt like a minor betrayal toward them. I could make it up to them later. We had endless time as long as we rested amongst the dead.

I needed two final items and wracked my mind in thought. I knew they took all of my apples and I was angered. I would have been able to use one perfectly to represent cultivation and growing into a situation that’d be fat and ripe. I had only a minor amount of food left and I wouldn’t want a ritual to consume it. We’d need it for later to ensure we stayed at the top of our game. So with one less possibility what was the next best thing I could employ? I determined that it would be something to do with inevitability instead. If we didn’t have a stand in for growth we would need something else that could be a suitable proxy. I chose that since it left no avenue for use to lose. No timeframe in which we weren’t positioned to win. But what items did I have that could best summate that? My mind’s initial association was a sunrise. Yet how could I make such a thing be represented?

My focus was broken by Churn nudging a stick of yellow and another stick of orange chalk. I laughed at myself thinking so hard I blinded myself to obvious solutions. The yellow stick I paid no attention toward. Instead I gingerly took the orange and began my drawing. I left ample space and waited for Churn to fetch me a black chalk stick. Taking it, I drew the moon in the same scene. What better way to express inevitability than forward progress of time? The cruel linear progression of sequence, of things that occur after the other thusly. The seasons provide minor times of difference. Boons and banes to whatever celestial is preferred. But yet it remains obvious the sun rises and sets in an inverse symmetry with the moon. That I shall seize in this rite! I felt a sudden spike in my pride and my confidence surging. I revel in the construction and solving of these little jigsaw puzzles. This was no different! I was left with my final difficulty. What item represents me?

This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

Being primarily defined by my function and duty hasn’t left time to explore. I know not what I like beyond the things that give rise to contentment inside of me. Everything I own even exists to fulfill that point. Be it the brass nibs of my pens to the most elaborate of fabric cut to fit my form. I didn’t know what I was going to use and hit a hard wall until I could figure out my options. The only thing I could think of would be something disastrous.

The scroll I had first used to create Churn and bind it to me stuck out in my mind as a choice. It was a wrong choice- something that’d be hasty and foolhardy. I’d be trading it for this spell. I don’t think it wise to take this bargain. I panned my eyes around the room once more and my mind went back to Churn. It struck me like providence and revelation.

“Churn!” I had commanded the weasel to approach. It was already standing by me. It knew in it’s limited intelligence I was in an hour of need. I bent my tentacles down and rubbed my pet. “I require you to fetch my favorite object.” Churn tilted their head at that and was confused a bit. I knew my words held meaning to the creature and it scampered off. Moments passed until my little creature returned to me with something I wasn’t expecting.

A chipped mahogany tray, well worn from its many years of use. Many meals lovingly placed on top of it added to the wear. I refused to paint, nor sand, nor relacquer it. Even if the affordability of those objects was out of the question I never wished it altered. It was the first thing I ever bargained for. I traded this tray and a tale of the biggest horrors that befell a couple squatting on the edge of my territory. They’d long since left and I thought nothing of it. Yet in a way it all starts from them. I asked for that tray and each of their biggest fears. In turn I protected them for a night.

I had minimal way of knowing but something stalked them. Some creature that was some type of malformed shade with traits of a revenant. It never truly stayed down no matter how many times I struck it. It kept standing again and gurgling something half formed out of its mouth. Possibly aspirating on the sludge itself. I saw what I did as a mercy that day. Perhaps even an act of charity on the nights I feel the most demanding. I should have charged far more but chose not too.

It finally stayed dead after I’d wrapped my tentacles around it and crushed its head like an overripe cherry tomato. Never can forget the squish and wet thwap it made as it landed into the fetid water. The way it slowly floated and bobbed. I then walked into their squat hut to collect my bounty. I did so wordlessly with having wrapped my business up.

I hugged the tray tight to my body and then placed it into the circle.

It was time.

▣

Oh, if only I trusted myself. My rite wasn’t too difficult. The three of us were the bulk of the targets which made it easy. I began chanting in a steady rhythm to commence my spell. Power welled at my fingertips and began slowly forming a thin mist.

“I call to we three!”

“My copy of the Vignettes, the Aspirant and Me!”

“Be it so to the rest of the archive we choose what of ours they may see!”

At this point the mist thickened and rolled firmly from my talons. My eyes watered from the strong smell that came from the fog. I closed my eyes and splayed my fingers as far apart as I could.

“The eye I gouged and made blind,”

“Conceal us and prevent our plot from being undermined!”

“This spell weaves our fate to be intertwined!”

At this point my sight failed me. I wasn’t surprised that my hawk’s eyes failed me. The putrid fog served as a thick screen from seeing the rest of my ritual objects. I remembered what object was where and spun to face each as I intoned. I set down my tentacles firmly into the ground and did the best I may to solidly anchor myself.

“Inevitability! I represent by the sun and moon’s eternal paired rise!”

“The way of things matter not to us! We stand against it and begin acts that defies!”

“The old order we seek to revise!”

I felt the mana hoist me as though it were a puppet’s strings. I felt my copy of the Vignettes just by how dense the mana coming off of it was. The energy of pure spells and the occult radiantly flowed through those damnable pages. It slammed down into the ritual circle. I couldn’t see but yet I assumed it was doing a similar dance. I know my signature to spells being the blue and green hue of the sea. Yet the color that infiltrated my mind was a glossy and reddish brown. Dried blood perhaps? The Vignettes was now participating which made this next part easier, yet not much easier. It spoke now, and finalized my rite.

“By the actions said and done,

I pact bind three into one.

As it is said we strive to make sure it gets done.”

After that cheesy finale I felt my “strings” get cut. I was sent careening to the floor, and didn’t roll. I immediately tried to claw and grab with my tentacles and neither talons nor suckers found purchase. I kicked the bucket of bloody water over and coated myself and my environment with it. The candles got snuffed and my chalk was ruined! My scant clothing would need to be laundered and I’d need to draw a bath. But that was ultimately the least of my concerns. I drained myself so thoroughly that consciousness left me shortly after. I felt the Vignettes withdraw the source of energy it used to power me and I remained down and defeated after such a taxing endeavor.