Storm's Apprentice

The Fold was infinite and airless, more like the deep sea than the sky, but colored a blue more true than any I’d seen in the normal world. I hung for a second in that perfect, infinite void, before tumbling forward.

I fell through the Fold gate with barely more poise than I had the first time. Like before, I’d felt something floating behind me. Something massive, and endlessly curious. Unlike last time, I hadn’t turned to look. I didn’t want to expose myself to the sight of that eye-covered abomination again if I didn’t need to.

I landed on the floor on the tower entrance hall with the tap of leather sandals on wood, and quickly got my bearings.

The same clerk as before was standing behind the counter, looking at me expectantly. As soon as he realized I was just another student, and his junior at that, he relaxed.

“Hello there,” he said. “Here for Antonyx?”

“That’s right.”

“He’s downstairs in the archives.”

“I remember. Thanks.”

“Did he send you somewhere?” the clerk asked as I passed him.

I hesitated before answering. It struck me as strange that he was fishing for information. No other student had shown me this much interest since I’d arrived, including the people I’d traveled with.

“Out to a ruin in the swamp. He wanted the geneology of someone called Serrato,” I said, sticking to the cover story he’d given me.

“Oh, interesting,” the clerk said. “It must be a gift for Count Serrato. He’s due to arrive tomorrow.”

“That must be it,” I said, looking away.

I suddenly hoped that my name wouldn’t make it to the man’s ears. The wild spirit was a glaring presence in his family tree, and I didn’t want to be associated with any embarassment he felt about that becoming public.

I left the clerk behind, making my way downstairs and along the underground tunnels that elbowed their way to the unassuming door Antonyx spent his days behind.

I reached the door and paused outside. O took a minute to go over my report in my mind.

Once I’d found the information he’d wanted in the fort, the details had been fairly few and easy to remember. The dates, the location, a description of the stars.

When I’d decided what I was going to say, I took the geneology book out from under my arm and knocked on the door.

This time I waited in the corridor for almost a minute before the latch clicked and the door was thrown open.

Antonyx was nowhere in sight, but I there was someone moving behind a bookcase further into the room.

“Who is it,” Antonyx called.

“Dorian Tisk,” I shouted back, then, suddenly sure he’d forgotten me, “You sent me to Fort Msiesetr.”

Antonyx came wandering out from between shelves. The silver dusting on his chin had grown out a little since I’d last seen him, and his gray eyes presided over deep shadows that made them look sunken. His dark skin was hanging off his cheeks in jowels that made him look ten years older than he’d seemed just a couple of days ago.

“Come in. Shut the door.”

“Are you alright?” I asked.

Antonyx gestured at his face and body.

“Just a minor case of Soul Worm venom poisoning. I’ll get over it in a week.”

“How were you poisoned?” I asked before I could stop myself, mainly out of a sense of self preservation.

Instead of answering he went to a desk and picked up a scroll. He came over to me and held it out.

I took it reluctantly and unfolded it. Inside was a drawing of a cantogram. The notes on the page claimed it to be a ‘Heart’s Memory’ cantogram, though that didn’t mean anything for me.

I stared at it for a handful of pounding heartbeats. For a few seconds I thought he was offering me a gift, that this was my reward.

“A rare cantogram. But the paper was doused in contact poison,” Antonyx said.

I let go of the paper. It drifted to the ground, while I stayed completely still.

“Oh, don’t worry. If it was still active you’d be dead already. Soul Worm venom only affects the first person it touches.”

Antonyx turned his back to me and headed back towards the shelves.

My gaze fell on the dropped scroll.

I considered the various merits of risking the venom, and risking Antonyx’s wrath, then bent down and swiped it off the ground.

“I found the information you wanted,” I said, stuffing the scroll into my robe.

“Ah. The geneology. Yes. Leave it on my desk,” Antonyx said, absently.

“And the other information,” I added.

“You got the map of Serrato lands as well?” he called.

“I…”

I hesitated before answering. Either Antonyx had developed memory issues over the last three days, or he was deliberately playing dumb.

“No, but I found the information about Count Serrato’s spirit ancestor,” I said, pivoting away from talking about the stars.

Antonyx’s head appeared above the shelves.

“His what?”

“His spirit ancestor. You wanted me to look for any wild spirits in his family history.”

“Oh. Right,” Antonyx agreed. “Good. Let’s just keep that one quiet for now.”

“Of course,” I said.

Antonyx went back to his work. I stood around for half a minute, waiting to see if he would bother with a reward.

“Wait, I’ve gotta give you something,” he said eventually.

He came bustling out of the shelves and went to his desk. He sorted through piles of papers before pulling out a slim book. He walked over to me and put it in my hands.

“Here, you should get some use out of this,” he said. “If you can learn it quickly…”

I turned the book and looked down at the cover.

The title was, Adventures in Thought.

“Thanks,” I said uncertainly.

I held out the book of geneology at the same time. Antonyx took it and tossed it absently onto his desk.

He turned away and marched back into the shelves.

If he’d noticed the cantogram scroll was missing, and he really ought to have, then he didn’t say anything. I decided that if anyone asked, I’d say I assumed it was part of my reward. It was not to receive, but to take, after all.

Antonyx didn’t come back out of the shelves, and he didn’t speak to me again.

I took it as a silent dismissal and turned back to the door.

My mind was spinning as I opened it and stepped back out into the corridor.

Antonyx was being observed. Or he thought he was. It was the only explanation for his behavior. He was being observed, and he didn’t want the observer to have the information from Fort Msiesetr. Which was only more confusing, because the astronomical observations were both old and completely benign.

I briefly considered trying to slip the information to him quietly. I could write it into the margins of the geneology, or try and speak to him in code. In the end I decided against it. If he’d wanted me to do that, he should have made any indication. Instead he’d washed his hands of me.

As I walked away, I couldn’t shake the feeling I’d been sent on a fool’s errand.

~

The rest of my afternoon was dedicated to washing up and trying to clean my clothes.

I got rid of the stink that had been slowly accumulating on my body and I cleaned the leech bites that I started finding all over my feet and legs.

I found that the bite mark from the vulture spirit was still on my leg. The dark blotch had shrunk slightly, but no amount of scrubbing would get it off. It might as well have been a tattoo.

When it came to my clothes I had even less luck. Nothing I did seemed to be able to get the deep mud stains out. When I left the wash house the lower half of my robe was a full shade darker and as stiff as paper. I mentally added soap and a bucket to the list of luxuries I could only dream of.

Nobody had told me to return my scout’s pack to the garrison and so I’d decided to keep it. Just the ability to start a fire would be a dramatic improvement in my situation.

It violated every instinct to bring a naked flame down into the library, but I’d do it, until told not to or otherwise punished for it. The danger of bringing a flame close to old, expensive books was very real, but if the Antorxians had a problem with it they shouldn’t have decided to keep their library in darkness.

I kept my scavenged sword hidden in my new pack. I was convinced that if any of the other students saw it, they’d try to steal it, even if it was chipped and rusted.I knew how to sharpen a blade from maintaining my pen knife back in Kirkswill, and I had plans to clean it up if I could find the right kind of stone. But that was for another day.

I was ravenous when the soldiers came by in the evening to drop off the evening meal.

I took one of the plentiful loaves of round bread from the sack they left, and managed to grab one of the significantly less plentiful wedges of cheese before they all disappeared into the other students’ private stashes.

With my feast in hand I retreated to the corner of the room where I took out the book Master Antonyx had given me.

The daylight was dying by that point, and the light in the barracks was even lower, but I opened the cover and, straining my eyes, started trying to read it.

Adventures in Thought

I, Master Lectuous, Reeve of Windshriek, Master of Twelve Disciplines, Lord of the Near Fold, Slayer of Four Great Spirits, Slayer of Princes, Swordsman and Archer, have delved were few have delved.

In my meditations, long, deep, intense, revelatory and perfect, I have come to an understanding and mastery of the Thought aspect, the aspect which implies dominion over the thoughts, the perceptions, the beliefs, and the memories of the living mind.

As I grow closer to my ascension, I have dispensed with those impurities that tie me to the mortal form. I have rid myself of pride, of covetousness, and the greed for power which, while admiral traits that serve mortal sorcerers well, would surely doom my apotheosis.

In my new elevated form, I find myself willing to pass on my secrets to those few obesiant sorcerers I choose to reward. From my lips take this lesson: my glorious insights on how a sorcerer may gain access to the Thought aspect of maja.

I made myself work through the text with difficulty. The handwriting was neat but dense, and the dusk light wasn’t helping at all. The style made it even worse.

The book that had told me about the ritual to get access to Fire aspect had been written in a similar way, a small amount of useful information packed along with crates worth of self-congratulatory padding.

It took twenty pages before the author even explained what Thought maja was.

When I read that it was primarily a way to communicate your thoughts to another person, I couldn’t help but feel cheated by all the grand claims it had been making.

The Thought aspect will not allow you to toss your enemies through the air as with the Force aspect, or reduce them to mud as with Decay, but do not underestimate the true power and subtlety of a projected thought.

Those mundane sots without access to maja may oft interpret a transmitted thought as their own, and even a mage may fall prey to a projected dream if they are inexperienced and weak, as is the case with sorcerers who die in the illusions of otherwise powerless wild spirits.

Perhaps the most subtle use of the aspect is when using its power for communication. A projected thought is a message that no spy may eavesdrop, and no spirit may corrupt. For any sorcerer seeking to live with subtlety, the Thought aspect will be a peerless boon.

And so my students will see that the teaching of this aspect represents an unsurpassable gift, a gift so great that even the gifts of the gods to their followers pale in comparison, and I, soon to ascend to godhood myself, through my perfect purity and oneness, am shown to be more benevolent than any of the great spirits, to those I choose to reward.

The book went on like that for a while, but I thought I had the gist of it. Thought aspect was about pushing the mage’s thoughts out to another person’s mind.

I thought back to my experience with Wild Century. The illusion that spirit had put me under had probably been a working of Thought aspect maja, or something related. The fact that I’d been able to shake it off without even knowing about the Thought aspect suggested that Lectuous was over-selling it a little, but the other applications seemed useful enough.

I also thought I understand why Antonyx had given me this particular book as a reward.

He thought he was being observed, and he’d given me a manual on an aspect that allowed silent communication. It was easy to connect those two facts.

I was still in the middle of a lengthy passage of self-congratulation when the light in the barracks finally got too low to read. I stood up, picked up my things, and left the barracks.

A little way off there was a jagged boulder where I sat down on the grass.

The waxing moon was out, flooding the mountainside with silvery light, and if I angled the book right it was just enough to read by.

Just as Force maja is most easily cast from the hands, and the threads of a canto struggle to cohere unless a pen or brush is used, Thought aspect maja is only truly effective when cast in the manner of communication. For some this is a word, for others a gesture, but for all, Thought is most coherently cast from the eyes.

I immediately forgot everything I’d been reading about Thought aspect.

Cantos struggle to cohere unless a pen is used?

Nothing I’d read in the library had told me that.

I knew that cantos were most often sketched using maja-rich inks, but nowhere had said or implied that misting them by hand was a difficult or advanced technique.

Now it seemed that even the way maja was projected into the world was significant. I’d probably only been able to use Force aspect so easily because casting maja from the hands was such a natural thing to try.

It was hard to concentrate on the book after that revelation.

I wanted to rush off and work on my cantograms. But for now, I would have to wait. I didn’t have any maja-infused ink, or a pen, or really any paper. I promised myself that I would, very soon.

I forced myself to turn back to the book.

And now I come to the most coveted secret. After many years of powerful meditation, I have gained my insight, fit only for the most loyal of my students, fit only for those true sorcerers who follow the Sovereign’s Path with merciless exclusion. The secret to unlocking the Thought aspect is truly an immense gift to those who receive it. I, Master Lectuous of the Soveriegn Halls, gift this secret to my students, so that they may hold power over their enemies, and so that they may confer in freedom and secrecy always. And to gain access to this coveted aspect, the secret is this: to learn what I have learned, to tread where I have trod, and to uncover this truth which I have striven to unearth and in the end succeeded, the loyal obescient servant must only do this: to unlock the peerless Thought aspect, a sorcerer must only do one simple thing — gaining access to the Thought aspect is as straightforward as answering a single question, a single riddle, and the riddle is this: In a forest by a pool, Two figures crouch face to face. One knows the other’s mind, The other knows nothing.

I let out a long, slow breath and closed the book. I wanted to throw it off the edge of the mountain. With a big enough blast of force maja I was pretty sure I could get it to land in the swamp.

A riddle.

I knew riddles. I knew a hundred riddles. Kirkswill had an annual festival of riddles. I knew the form of a riddle, and this was not a riddle.

Maybe it was some unique kind of Antorxian riddle designed to annoy people.

There didn’t even seem to be a question. I supposed the answer to the riddle was just working out what it even meant.

Two figures in a forest? Was that some kind of metaphor?

I suddenly felt exhausted. After the journey, and the effort of trying to grind the mud out of my clothes, and the weight of my pack and the sword being my constant companion for days, it was all finally catching up with me.

Lectuous’s riddle was the straw that tipped the hay bale. I was done.

I put the book into my pack and stood up. I stretched, then turned back towards the barracks.

I froze when I saw a familiar silhouette perched on the barracks roof.

The vulture spirit.

I couldn’t make out any details in the moonlight, but I recognized the cast of its haunches, its spindly legs.

I would have thought it was suicide for a wild spirit to come into a nest of sorcerers, but there it was.

I kept a close watch on it as I rushed back to the barracks, where I shut the door behind me. I wished it had a lock.

I was still exhausted, but I was quite as confident I’d be able to sleep.