Journeying of Witches

VI.
Journeying of Witches

Laionne is a good and eager learner. Due to the urgency of the Roich commission, we had almost no time to prepare, but feeling that my disciple lacked basic knowledge of simple defensive and attack spells, which would protect her if things became ugly, I insisted on a crash course. Her aptitude acted as mighty wind in our sails, and her curiosity a smooth, calm sea. I had laid out a tome I’d purchased for my salary on a wooden stool in the blue courtyard, and instructed her in how to control mana flow, the fundamental rules which can never be broken, and the way to construct a spell from scratch. It was a lecture long overdue. She sat on her knees amongst the flowers and provided me with her full attention, not daring to interrupt or question my words no matter how long I spoke for. The sight of my obedient pupil had a strange effect on me, because while I had always pined for respect the world had thoroughly denied, I wondered at the time if I’d been deserving of it, for even I was just a child. I made mistakes out of lived-in complacency, and had to consult the tome before continuing at times. Still, her expectant eyes were affixed on mine. She tilted her head, sometimes smiled like how I did when she said something cute, and narrowed her eyes when pondering deeply. Had she grown more expressive, or had I merely gotten better at reading otherwise imperceptible changes?

The thought had caused me to zone out, staring at the sky.

“Did something happen? Another visitor? No, you’re not clutching your head and swearing loudly this time.”

Her concern had brought me out of my daze, although I didn’t quite remember doing that last part! I exhaled through my lips and tapped the butt of my staff against the ground, angling it carefully. My fingers were crackling with crimson energy.

“You know Lai-o, you shouldn’t reprimand your teacher over a moment of misfortune.”

“Apologies, I had no such intent. I simply wanted to arrive at the truth.” She looked away, afraid she had offended me.

“Hehe, I know.” I smiled. The energy I’d been releasing in wild, dancing arcs coalesced within the larger orb of my staff, about to overflow. “This spell is kind of a last-ditch effort, because it’s guaranteed to fry you as well, but… It can save your life. Don’t write it off.”

I braced myself, gritting my teeth and shutting my eyes. Before I could unleash anything though, I was interrupted by that same, flat-toned voice, somehow brimming with concern. “Wait. I hope it’s not impertinent, but I know what you’re about to do. If gathering mana in a tight string results in precision, then weaving chaotic patterns like this can only do the opposite. It will cover a large surface area to push foes away. Please. You don’t have to show me.”

The smile on my lips drew lighter, and with another exhale I dispersed the built-up mana with a sudden loosening of tension. It exploded like an airy mist and showered us with tiny lights. Having forced Laionne to sit farther back for the demonstration, I walked closer and knelt opposite to her, letting my staff rest in the grass.

“You catch on quick. I really could’ve handled it, though! Don’t you think a real demonstration is the best way to learn?”

She sighed, piercing my gaze with hers. “You’re always so reckless. I think… hurting yourself for my sake is unfair. It hurts me to watch it. As it is with you, so it is with me.”

“Laionne…” I bit into the corner of my lip, unsure of how to respond.

“I must also thank you—that you’re willing to go so far for me. You’ve taught me so much in just a morn, and with these reagents, I can experiment with recipes. Would you allow me to cast a new spell? I can handle the dosage better than before.”

Haah! How could I have said no to a plea like that? I nodded, adding, “Just don’t overdo it. I don’t want you casting more than you gotta in a day.”

So, with her collected but uncertain poise, Laionne rose and summoned her staff. As soon as she began funnelling her white-blue mana—burning bright with crude, roaring aether—the air became full of prickly needles, and the blossoms at her feet bowed to her fervently, as if worshipping a terrible idol. The threads she knitted were both chaotic and elaborate, woven of so many writhing strings I lost count of them. They tangled up within the core of her staff. When she waved it above her head afterwards, a burst of blue lightning tore through the space around us. It enveloped a good half of the yard, charging the atmosphere so thick it nearly turned suffocating, and in an instant generated such force that we both should’ve been obliterated. However, we remained. Not only that, even the flowers kept bowing without a scratch, as if the spell had been a dream.

“Woah… What did you do exactly?” I couldn’t help but ask.

“Witchcraft is the exchange of energy to facilitate phenomena, so you’ve taught me. With enough mana, the course of a phenomenon can be diverted as finely as required. Thus, I avoided burning the things I care about. The increased handling and concentration also mean my spells are less likely to escape my control. That’s the result of what I’ve learned today.” She peered at her staff, then back at me.

“This student–teacher dynamic is getting flipped pretty fast, isn’t it?”

“My understanding is still inadequate. Please continue teaching me longer.”

“Mm, well if you wanna! Great teacher Niccolina won’t fail you!”

“I only hope I can live up to the name of such a teacher.”

We both giggled, like it was the most natural thing. With this result I considered it a successful lesson, and so I parted briefly to grab the bag I had prepared for our first proper journey, more of an oversized satchel filled with a few hard biscuits, a change of clothes and a waterskin. My real weapon was the pouch full of coins at my hip. It would open every doorway, and clear the path through any obstacle. That’s how human society operates—this will never change. Thus with the source of happiness equipped, we held a tea party to boost our energy, setting out right after. Poor Laionne’s pupils were dashing like mad as we trekked, I had never seen them so large. She wasn’t scared of bugs, bandits or stray cats, of course, but still so on-edge about running into a traveller, and what exposure to her presence would do to them. Such constant paranoia would ruin the experience, but I wasn’t daft enough to reprimand her, or shower her with condescending homilies about raining on the fun. Instead, I sought to distract her with silly observations, and slowly acclimated her to interacting with living things aside from me.

“Look, Lai-o! That butterfly is super rare, you know?” I pointed at a beautiful swallowtail resting on a blade of grass. “Closer, come closer! When you’re always on the road, you learn to appreciate them.”

“Niccolina… your cheek is in the mud.” She complained, but nevertheless acquiesced and lowered herself to take a good look at it. Her face hovered over it, and that was my chance. Grinning to myself, I shot a tiny bubble of red energy from my finger, to shake the grass and disturb the butterfly from the opposite side. Perhaps drawn by the rich floral scent of the tea behind her lips, the insect fluttered and landed gently atop her forehead. Its wings closed and opened there at lazy intervals. She must’ve been utterly bewildered, bating her breath frozen on the spot. Only when the butterfly finally detached itself and followed the winds unbothered did she exhale again. Well, I don’t think it had been long enough for her to start turning purple.

“Bwaha… Wahahaha! You were stunned! Stuh-totally stunned!” I burst into laughter, sniffling. It wasn’t that funny—I was overplaying it—but that was my way of easing the mood.

Laionne certainly hadn’t been amused. No, she wasn’t laughing. She was curiously touching the spot the swallowtail had landed, before staring at her hand.

“It’s still floating happily…”

“Course it is. Not like it’ll die from just grazing you. Shall we go? We can touch more bugs on the way.”

“Niccolina is the real threat to insects, not me…” She muttered under her breath, as if that was the takeaway here. We walked for a few hours, making brief stops along the way, though only I ventured into the tiny countryside villages to buy some bread and fruits. By the onset of late afternoon, we had finally arrived on the outskirts of Roich. It was a quaint farming town, the main supplier of grain in the area, so the first of its properties to greet us were the farmlands. They were growing wheat and barley at the time. Fields of greenish sprouts stretched out towards a large granary, and three windmills were lying still to later process them into flour. All this stood on one side of a river. The other was occupied by about fifty rustic houses, with chicken coops and pens for pigs or sheep. I would’ve loved to take in the atmosphere and the prevalent country smells, but by now I had forced myself to be serious. We weren’t here for pleasure, but business.

“Lai-o. This is your first time; just watch and lemme deal with it. It’s still too dangerous to for you to fight.” I commanded, and she submitted. Walking a few paces behind me, she kept her eyes on my back as I crept upstream on the riverbank, searching for anything out the ordinary. My hint came in the form of torn fabrics and claw marks on the shore, the former as if dragged by the latter towards a particularly steep recline. The water must’ve been the deepest there. Not the most brain-wracking game of detective, I thought.

“Come out then, you pest.”

I bit into my thumb, painted a line and gripped the staff which took its shape from it. Pointing it at the bottom of the river, my entire body radiated with powerful, scarlet lightning. To make sure I performed at my best, I thought back to the emissary. It flooded my mind with enough spiteful anger to cast any spell in the world, and so it began.

“Construne. It means to shackle, but without a clear target it’s simply a cage.” The brim of my hat billowed like crazy; I had to hold it to keep it from flying. In that deepest pit of the river, bolts of red electricity were clamping together like bars of iron, preventing anything larger than a fish from escaping. The water sizzled and evaporated.

“My specialty is combat, I can’t use spells not tailored for it. Specifically, it’s long range precision I excel in.” I could feel something large thrashing against the cage, its muscles tensing with each burning shock. I raised my staff into the air… and smashed its bottom against the dirt. In that instant, beams like which I had used to shoot a hole through the cloud rained from sky, pummelling down from orbit. About ten of them sought their mark under the water’s surface. They left it a mess of ripples and waves, distorting the reflections engulfed in the orange of the setting sun. An attack of such a calibre would leave me drained of mana for a while, which is why I wanted to make sure it would be a finishing move, and nothing more would be necessary. But as I watched the cage I’d created explode into useless embers, the shadow creeping up the water dispelled my delusions. It was the largest animal I’d ever seen. With shocking speed it leapt from the river and landed right in front of me, towering over me like a tiger over an ant. It stood on two legs, had a wide and muscular frame; its arms ended in jagged claws; and its head resembled a toothy scallop, complete with way too many eyes. Its armour had been a mix of dark scales and large patches of chitin; it was a nonsensical chimaera of mismatched features. Unable to move, I could only accept my fate as it advanced and made to swallow me whole… but it stopped as if frozen itself.

“Ah..?” My eyes instinctively shot to the side, where I could feel that familiar sensation of prickly, tense air. It was Laionne. Suffocating sparks flying from her staff; she advanced step by step, the buns in her hair unwrapped into thrashing tendrils burning blue at the ends. She didn’t say anything or make an expression. She simply walked forward, and with every step the monster responded with a panicked tremble. It must’ve instinctually understood that it faced the far larger threat, and devoid of the irrational malice that Man carries in His breast, it attempted to escape and eat another day. However, Laionne didn’t offer any mercy. She waved her staff, and in that moment the creature was engulfed in a sky-reaching pillar of cerulean hellfire. Within seconds it had been burnt to a crisp. The both of us collapsed to our knees as soon as the adrenaline wore off, one from shock and the other from exhaustion. Crawling over, I cradled her head for a moment, but quickly shook mine and jumped straight into action. Carrying her in my arms, I shamelessly broke into the Roich granary before panicked villagers could gather the courage to investigate the daunting light-show, and that night we slept on beds of grain.

In the morning, I made sure to treat her to a small cake from the local baker, explained the situation to the villagers, and made my first fruitless inquiry into the Mage of Miracles with the townsfolk. The details are a bit scattered here, but you’d be a rude reader to blame me. It was a hectic afternoon! At first, I was scared for my life, and then I had to worry over Laionne for a whole night. She overdid it again, and she kept thrashing in her sleep.

Well, she was alright in the end. I made sure to celebrate it as a victory to learn from, and on the way back we decided to continue pursuing the commission system. However, I learned something which troubled me also.

Just how much of a mental strain was it, to constantly agonize over my well-being?