'Circles'

I woke the next morning to Yuemith exploring my cottage again. I remained in bed for a while, watching him. He seemed particularly interested in my food storage box, books, and collection of magic tools. He was just picking up a knife I'd enchanted when I decided it was time to get out of bed. I sat up and stretched, then I ignored him while I changed into a new set of clothes. As expected, Yuemith paid no attention to my actions. He wasn't human, after all, even if he'd temporarily taken the form of one.

I finished dressing and checked my reflection in the mirror. I didn’t care what I looked like so much as I didn’t enjoy the way the mirror would complain if I didn’t seek and meet its approval each morning. It nodded and offered me a thumbs up, so I turned back to Yuemith. "How did you do that?" I asked. "Turn into a human?"

It wasn't a perfect transformation, I noticed as the sun came up. His skin had an oddly sickly undertone, his golden eyes were too bright, and the shadows he cast didn't stay still. Even so, I doubted anyone would notice unless they carefully watched him. It was a better transformation than I could manage, at the very least.

Yuemith looked down at himself. "I thought about the woman who managed to hurt me, and then I told my body to look like her."

I frowned at him. "Okay, yes, that's the typical mental process for a transformation, but what sort of circles did you use? How many couplets does it require? Do you perform the entire transformation at once, or does it proceed piecemeal?" I ignored the startled look on his face. If he was going to make me work for him, the least he could do was provide me with information to improve my magecraft.

"Circles? Couplets? I don't understand the words you're saying. Explain yourself."

I deflated. "Oh. So dark beasts don't use those things then?" I wondered if they didn't appear at all, or if those processes were simply so inherent to them that they didn't recognize them happening. "Surely when Lisa - um, the mage you look like - attacked, you noticed a brief build-up of energy."

"There was such a phenomenon," Yuemith confirmed.

I held up one finger. "A mage manifests a circle within their mind when they want to perform a spell. That circle defines the spell's parameters. The more familiar a mage is with a specific effect, the more rapidly they can manifest those aspects of the circle. Naturally, there's an element of talent to it as well." I put up a second finger. "Then, once the circle is complete, the mage uses couplets - incantations invoking a set amount of power - to add their magic to it. Once the correct amount of magic fills the circle, it activates, and its effect is applied. The time that Lisa spent incanting was the build-up of power you felt."

To my excitement, Yuemith showed recognition at my description of events. "Perhaps it's a species difference," he murmured. He closed his eyes and concentrated. A moment later, an odd array of golden lines spread out from him. In the blink of an eye, they brightened. With a crackling sound, power exploded from them and turned into a burst of flame. He let out a harsh breath and bent over, gasping. "That's as much as I can slow it," he said, confirming to me what I'd just seen.

I held up my hand and traced the memory of the lines he'd produced in the air before me. It'd happened quickly, but I had a good visual memory. Could I perform a fire spell like this? Would a dark beast's 'circle' work for me? It could be interesting, if so. Anti-circle barriers existed that prevented the manifestation of a circle, but this was clearly not a circle. It was a set of angular lines that performed the same purpose. Would it be affected?

"What are you doing?" Yuemith asked. He didn't appear bothered - just curious.

"I'm trying to use your spell," I said. I'd almost recreated the lines I'd seen, but they felt slightly wrong. I couldn't quite figure out where the sense of wrongness was coming from, though. I was positive the form was correct. Though it wasn't easy to maintain a manifested circle in a visible form, I tried chanting just the first couplet of power insertion. It didn't work. The power didn't even slightly connect. A moment later, the lines shattered and disappeared, leaving me with a splitting headache and nothing to show for my troubles.

"Does doing that injure you?" Yuemith asked.

"A little," I admitted. "Creating a circle puts pressure on the mind. When you successfully use a circle, most of that pressure is relieved in the outward expression of the spell, but the more inefficient your circle is, the more backlash you'll experience. If the circle fails altogether, you'll experience the full pressure as backlash, and it can blow blood vessels, cause inflammation, and, in the worst cases, permanently destroy sections of your brain."

"It seems as though it would be better not to attempt a spell you don't understand," Yuemith pointed out. "Or perform spells at all, perhaps."

"It's worth it to me," I said simply. "That goes for most things. Even if there's a bit of risk associated, if it's something we love, we're willing to accept that risk."

"And you love magic?"

I nodded and staggered toward the door. I would give my body a chance to heal before trying again. Instead, I busied myself with the daily chores required to live by myself like this. I grabbed a bucket from beside the door and trudged down to a nearby river. Yuemith followed quietly without offering assistance and watched as I filled the bucket and made my way back to my cottage. I filled a purification container, then returned to the river. I repeated the trek several times, filling containers for drinking, bathing, my small garden, and cleaning. Each container had been enchanted for its task, which made my job easier.

"Normally, I'd have to boil this water," I told Yuemith as I worked. "And I'd need to heat this water enough to bathe in it without freezing. This would have to be covered so it wouldn't evaporate, and I'd need to add some special tablets to this water to fix its acidity. If I know the circles for those spells, though, I can use them to enchant the objects."

"I see. Is that how those weapons were made?"

I assumed he was speaking of the weapons used by the Hero's party. "Yes," I said. I didn't have any personal knowledge of the specific enchantments applied to those weapons, but of the effects that were common knowledge, I could manage the same, given some thought. "Do dark beasts not possess anything similar?"

"No."

I hummed thoughtfully and nodded, then continued my chores. I supposed that dark beasts didn't use tools the same way humans did, so it made sense that they wouldn't need to create enchantments for those tools.

Living in the middle of nowhere had its benefits. It also had its irritations. I didn't have to care about or interact with other people, which was nice. Nor did I have to accept jobs just to pay for my living space. On the other hand, it meant that I didn't have money to buy food or the like. I had to hunt and prepare my own meals. That took up time, so the end result was that I probably didn't have any more free time than I would otherwise have had.

If I could have found a compromise that allowed me to avoid all consequences... something that would allow me to research magic all day, every day... But that was an impossibility. Every choice had its price.

Yuemith didn't accompany me hunting. "Animals have keener senses than humans," he said upon learning what I meant to do. "You would be unable to complete your hunt if I were to be nearby."

As he said, I had to travel farther than usual to find any animals. Even the nests I normally saw birds building had been abandoned. I wondered how much of an effect he'd had on his environment simply by travelling through it to reach my cottage. Hopefully, things would return to normal before too long. Would the animals return while he stayed with me? Or would this area remain dead until he'd left?

Maybe my best option would be to take him to the city. I couldn't imagine that I made a very compelling case for humanity. Certainly, if I were in charge of evaluating humans for their worthiness to continue existing, I'd give us a failing grade if I were the only example provided.

Then again, I'd give humanity a failing grade in general. That was why I lived in the middle of nowhere. I didn't want to deal with them. That made this a tricky situation to navigate. Were there humans who were worth saving in the first place? I decided to ask.

"What would make you decide humans deserve to live?" I asked Yuemith once I'd returned. He agreed to help me prepare the boar I'd carried back with me, but he didn't appear to have any experience doing it, so it was taking longer than usual. Maybe if he learned, though, he'd become useful and save me some time.

Yuemith thought hard - or at least it seemed to me as though he was thinking. He might just have been sitting there, making me wait, for no reason. At last, he said, "I'm not certain." Before I could get too irritated, he added, "My reason for exterminating you in the first place is to prevent you from becoming a problem in the future. If I could be assured that no such thing would occur, I suppose I would decide that you may be allowed to survive."

I considered that. In that case, normal humans might be best. "I'll take you into the city in a few days." It wouldn't be a bad idea to go trade in my services, enchanting items in return for some necessities. I could make most things, given time, but some things took enough time that it wasn't worth the effort. If I needed to go into town anyway, I may as well make it worthwhile.

"Do you expect other humans to be more worthy than yourself?"

"Well, most humans aren't like me. If they were, I'd say that, from your point of view, we should all be exterminated, but..." I shrugged slightly. "You'll understand when you see them, I guess."

"Is the Hero also an exception?"

I thought about that. "Sort of, though he's an exception of a different sort." I pulled out a piece of paper and a pen. I drew a quick bell-shaped curve. "The people who might grow to hurt you would be here, on the very tail end of this curve, see? Most humans are over here, though. Over time, the curve changes, lengthening and shortening depending on our environment, but ultimately, provided nothing changes too much, our average remains..."

Despite speaking for a full hour on the subject, Yuemith's expression never changed from faintly confused and irritated to understanding.

Maybe dark beasts weren't that different from humans.

That night, during dinner, I asked him, "Why aren't humans allowed to cross the Dead Lines?"

Yuemith's nose wrinkled. "Because humans are parasites. Give them an inch, and they'll take a mile." He took a bite of the boar stew I'd managed to cook up and perked up. "It's hot!"

I stared at him. He'd watched me cook it after all. "Yes?"

"I've only ever had raw meat! It's not as though that's cold, but it's never hot like this! Unless it's a fire elemental. Those are hot, of course, but the flavor is..." His expression said it all. Not that I'd ever tried eating an elemental. They didn't even have flesh and blood bodies in the first place, so how did that work? Was it a bit like absorbing mana from a storage crystal? Fire-aspected mana did warm the body quite a lot. Still... watching Yuemith's eyes sparkle in excitement as he ate was entertaining. I'd been thinking of him as something like a grandfatherly sage who happened to be occupying a young woman's body, but this forcibly rewrote my perception to something more like a child.

Both were probably somewhat rude interpretations.

"Well, I'm not a very good cook," I told him. "To be honest, I'm probably at the lower end in terms of cooking ability. I'll make sure to take you to some restaurants in the city. Those taste much better." I wondered whether he would like some of the sweets I intended to buy.

"Better? Than this?" His eyes shone even brighter, and he was standing, leaning closer to me with his hands on the table supporting him. Was this really the appearance of one of the Demon Lord's generals?

I nodded, leaning back away from him until my chair was balanced on two legs. He leaned even closer, and I shoved myself away from the table. The chair, which I'd enchanted and named the Ever-Balance Chair, wobbled back to support me rather than topple over. I stood and gathered my dishes. My appetite was ruined. "Don't get so close to me," I muttered, bringing my dishes to the sink.

Yuemith sat back down and finished eating, expression serious once more. "Why do you hate your own kind so much?" he asked. "Or is it because you know what I am?"

"I just don't like others getting so close to me unexpectedly. I need time to mentally prepare myself for that."

"Why?"

I rubbed idly at the bowl, not answering. "Water," I murmured, and a ball of water rose from its tub and, upon reaching the sink, collapsed, drenching the bowl. I waved it around to get the worst of the water off, then set it to dry and headed outside. It was evening, but in the bright months, the sun set late, so I had another hour and some of light left. I settled down in a chair and started trying to replicate the 'circle' Yuemith had shown me earlier.

As I worked, he came out and watched. I'd heard the sounds of splashing water, so I assumed he'd cleaned his dishes before coming outside.

"Why?" he asked me again.

"What does it matter?" I asked. I'd manifested the lines again, and now I was examining them, trying to figure out why the incantation failed.

Yuemith studied me with a frown. "How can I determine humanity's worth without asking questions? It seems telling to me that the first human I encountered would hate her own kind so much."

"That's your fault for first approaching a human who chose to live away from others. If you'd gone to a city, you'd have found plenty of people who like humanity." Were human incantations just incompatible with the 'circles' dark beasts used? He hadn't known what they were when I spoke of them, and the activation of his 'circle' hadn't involved anything special that I'd noticed. I tentatively reached out mentally and 'touched' the 'circle.'

Immediately, power drained from me. I flinched back, my soul rejecting the feeling automatically. I heard a loud pop and felt a trickle of blood start down from my nose. The world spun, and I groaned and rose, staggering toward my home. Medical seals. I needed... something...

"You aren't permitted to die before I've made my decision." Something icy engulfed me, and I shuddered, but the world stopped spinning.

I wiped the blood off my upper lip and waited a moment. No further blood came. I glanced at Yuemith, surprised. "You have healing magic, too?"

"It's not my specialty, but I'm capable of something that approximates it well enough," he said, looking irritated. "Are you finished attempting to kill yourself? I won't allow you to escape your role as my guide."

"I wasn't trying to die," I muttered. I probably would have been fine, even. I kept medical seals in several places to ensure I could reach them easily if I hurt myself while researching magic. I gingerly touched my head and prodded at my brain with my magic in a way that would get me looked at askance if I'd been around another mage. Since I wasn't, it was fine, and I quickly determined that my brain was fine.

I recreated the 'circle' and 'touched' it again, this time firmly controlling myself. Without the surprise of having my energy sucked out of me, I was able to sustain the connection, and a moment later, a small flame burst into life. I grinned. "I see..."

"You did it." Yuemith's tone was neutral without any sign of congratulations, even though it was something of a first that would have sent other researchers into fits. "Was there a point to it? You're capable of producing the same phenomenon with your magic."

"It's a proof of concept. It was better to learn to use your magic with something small that I could be relatively certain wouldn't cause any problems than to try to use something more extreme. For instance..." I crafted a circle and expressed it in one smooth application of magic. The tiny flame flared brightly, turning a bluish white before it wrapped around me, settling into a circular shield that could barely be seen through.

Yuemith approached curiously and poked at it, only to jerk back and, with another application of magic, heal himself. He bared his teeth at me, eyes narrowing. "Do you mean to attack me?"

The fire disappeared. I struggled for a moment to catch my breath. As I did, I shook my head. My vision swam a bit, but I knew it'd be fine in just a few more seconds. I had low reserves, but I recovered my mana quickly. Once I was no longer running on empty, I straightened and offered him what I hoped was a reassuring smile. "That's one of the single strongest effects I can create using my magic. It uses everything I have, though. If I'd attempted to use your lines to create something powerful like that, they may have drained me past the point where I could tolerate it, and I might have died."

"Mana exhaustion," Yuemith said in apparent recognition. "Dark beasts encounter it on occasion in battle. It's rarely fatal, but in extreme situations, I've known some who've pushed beyond their means to complete a spell their body was incapable of supporting."

I nodded. "Human circles limit that possibility by using couplets. Each couplet of incantation invokes a certain amount of power, and by knowing how many couplets a circle requires, you can know whether you have the magic to perform that spell or not." I generated a flame again using Yuemith's lines. "This, however, draws the magic from me automatically. I know now how much it will draw, but there doesn't seem to be any indication in the formation to tell how much it will draw ahead of time... unless..." I studied the lines again, considering their form. Circles had a sort of language to them. By understanding that language, you could make predictions about the effects and power requirements of a circle. Surely something similar would hold true for these lines as well.

Another possibility occurred to me. "Can you push extra magic into your spells?"

"Of course," Yuemith replied, sounding offended.

I shook my head. "Human spells require a set amount of magic for every cast. No matter who casts the spell, it will always use the same amount of magic. Trying to put extra magic into a circle causes backlash, typically worse than not putting enough magic into it."

Yuemith looked mollified. "So every time a human uses a stronger version of the same spell, they're actually using a different spell?" He created two flames, one the size of his fist, and the other the size of his body. "Would these be different spells?"

"Mhm." I picked up a stick and sketched out the circles for each. They were similar, but there were a couple of sections that differed: the sections defining size, area, power needed, temperature, pressure, and lumosity. "This is why you won't find many mages among humans. Most people will learn a handful of spells to perform specific tasks, but few of us are willing to learn the information necessary to create these types of changes."

"I see." Yuemith's expression turned pensive. "That mage must have been quite impressive, for a human, then," he said. "I recall that she'd asked her compatriots to buy her time to come up with something that could damage me. Had she lived, perhaps she would have managed to do even more damage."

I nodded. That was about how I'd expected it to go. To injure a dark beast of Yuemith's level, you would need to study him carefully, determining what things had more or less of an effect, and then design your spell around that. The Hero could, perhaps, have managed through sheer strength and tactics, but if his first few attacks were ineffective, subsequent attacks were unlikely to have any greater effect. He should have brought back information to an enchanter and had his weapon improved.

Well, the kingdom probably had the data on the resonance between the Hero and his weapon, so they'd know what they had to beat anyway. Personally, I wouldn't have sent anyone with less than one hundred percent resonance, but I knew most people considered that an impossibility. The last time I'd been in town, I'd heard whispers of a prodigy with a twenty-one percent resonance.

I glanced at my own weapon and snorted.

"Are you bothered by the death of another mage?" Yuemith asked.

"Not particularly, no. I attended school with her, but I don't think I ever even spoke with her." She'd spoken at me many times, but there'd never been a conversation between us. I could count the number of people I'd had conversations with during school on both hands.

"I'd always understood humans to take such things rather personally."

I shrugged uncomfortably. I was aware of the sort of sentiment of solidarity that most humans thought we should possess. I just didn't see any reason why that should apply to me. I was one single mage. If the human race was going to die out because I didn't care about others, we probably weren't well-suited to life to begin with. "What about dark beasts?" I asked instead of confronting that irritating tangle of emotions.

"All things being equal, I suppose I'd rather we not be killed, but I feel no great sense of outrage when one invades your territory and is killed for their troubles," Yuemith replied after some thought. "Rules exist for a reason, and one should not break them unless one is willing to pay the price for their transgression."

"But you're here," I pointed out.

Yuemith rolled his eyes. "With the Demon Lord's permission. Had I not been given that permission, I would never have crossed your borders."

"So for dark beasts, loyalty to the Demon Lord comes above all else?"

He nodded shortly. "There are some who are born without a firm sense of it, but that's considered a birth defect."

That was news to me. I absorbed that information with interest. So dark beasts were born with inherent loyalty, unlike humans, who had to be taught it. I suppose I'd be considered a failure in either species.

I went to bed not long after. The sun was setting, and I didn't care to use my limited magic to light the cottage unless it was necessary. As he had done the night before, Yuemith followed me into bed and lay down beside me. Tonight, one of the local cats joined us only a few moments later.

"Do you not mind their presence?" Yuemith asked me.

I peered at first the cat, then him, then shook my head. "I like cats. They're warm and furry and purry. It's all very good."

He hummed and, as we lay there, the sound deepened until it was the rumbling purr of a large cat. I stared at him. "You can't roar then?" I asked.

He opened his eyes and squinted at me. "What?"

"Cats that can purr can't roar and vice versa," I explained.

He sighed heavily. "I am not a cat. I simply have a cat-like form."

"Can you roar then?" I asked.

His lips twisted down. "Not particularly, no, but it would be unwise to assume things about my biology based on other creatures."

I made an effort not to smirk at that, and while he'd already closed his eyes, I liked to think that he would have appreciated my attempt to hide my smugness. But really, I thought, closing my eyes as well, he should have just made himself into a smaller version of himself instead of a person. This purr really was very comforting. Maybe he'd also be soft...

More cats surrounded us when I woke up. Yuemith was still asleep, though the purring had died down to a deep tone that I felt more than heard. I glanced around in bemusement. Were cats attracted to him like this? I carefully extracted myself from the bed and busied myself getting ready for the trip to the city. We'd need to do a lot of walking, so we would need water, food, and shelter.

Well, I could produce water using magic if needed, so that solved one of the three necessary variables. I glanced at Yuemith. Could he use water magic? What about storage magic? I nudged him awake and, when he opened his eyes and glared sleepily at me, asked him my questions.

In response, he threw a spray of water at me, which I supposed answered the first question well enough. "And storage magic?" I asked, grabbing a towel and drying myself without complaint. I had woken him up, after all. I didn't know many cats who would appreciate that.

He sat up, rubbing his eyes. "What's that?"

I wrinkled my nose. It wasn't my forte. Like any researcher, I'd learned the basic spells, but I hadn't gone far with them yet. Carefully, checking that I hadn't forgotten any components, I crafted the necessary circle and incanted three couplets. In response, a tear in reality formed that only I could see. I placed some meat within it. After a moment, the tear disappeared. I created a second circle, reached into the tear that formed as a result, and retrieved the meat. "It's magic that allows you to store things. Depending on the spell used, the storage space can be larger or smaller, colder or hotter, and other variables." Current magical theory said that a person could only produce one storage space at a time, and I wondered whether I ought not spend a few days attempting to rework that. Having at least one hot storage and one cold storage would be nice. Or even better, if I could freeze time entirely within one, I could prevent food stored within from ever spoiling. And of course, the size was an issue. It'd be ideal if I could simply take all my belongings with me. Then, at night, I could plop my cottage down in a clearing and stay in it...

"What are you thinking?" Yuemith asked. He'd dragged himself out of my bed and was now watching me cook a simple breakfast.

I explained my thoughts to him and earned an unfortunately familiar incredulous expression in return. My professors had often looked just like that when they received my essays. In the first few years, they'd taken it with good humor, explaining to me why my ideas wouldn't work. As I learned more, though, and they started having trouble denying my theories, they grew irritated. They knew my proposals were wrong because common sense said as much, but they couldn't figure out the logic to refute me. Rather than consider that common sense might be wrong, they punished me. Putting up with their treatment had been a test of my patience. I had no desire to repeat it now that I'd graduated.

I changed the subject. Waiting until I'd figured out how to alter storage spells wouldn't be an efficient use of time anyway. "Regardless, I can take food, but we'll need to carry some supplies for camping on the way.”

"Understood. I will carry anything you're bringing for my sake then," Yuemith replied.

That was a little irritating, since I wouldn't be making this trip in the first place were it not for him, but what could you expect from a dark beast? I stored the meats, glanced around at my books and bed sadly, and sealed the door behind me. "Come on." I led the way downhill from my cottage.

We walked in silence, for the most part. Occasionally, I asked him to produce a spell for me to analyze, then I'd spend the next couple of hours considering the ‘circle’ I'd glimpsed and trying to decipher which parts corresponded to which effect.

By the time evening arrived, I was fairly certain I'd found the elemental and size variables, but the power variable - if one existed - still eluded me. I unpacked some of our food and set about cooking it. Yuemith watched me without helping, as usual. "What do you normally do with your time?" I asked.

He blinked slowly and seemed to be considering the question. I thought he wasn't going to answer, because he still hadn't said anything by the time I'd finished cooking. However, as he set down his empty bowl, he said, "Time passes differently for immortal creatures. It isn't unusual for years to pass by without my notice. When something arises that requires my attention, I focus on it, but I otherwise don't mind allowing the centuries to slip by uncelebrated.

"As for what types of things I must focus on... Disputes among the lesser dark beasts. Human heroes encroaching upon my lands. Missives from the Demon Lord. Typically, things of that nature." Yuemith sat back and looked up at the stars. "The last time I was present for any extended period, the sky looked different."

I looked up at the sky too, studying it curiously. I hadn't realized that the sky changed other than the seasonal changes... but I somehow felt that wasn't what he meant. "I see." I switched my gaze to the moons coasting just over the horizon. From this high in the mountains, they could be just barely seen. In the valley, where the city lay, only the brightening of the sky would let them know the moons were out. At this time of year, the moons barely made it over the horizon. They wouldn't be properly visible until the tail end of the bright months.

I cleaned our bowls and the pot I'd cooked in, then spread out a blanket on the ground. I put out the fire and erected a series of seals on the trees around us.

"I was under the impression humans slept in fabric enclosures when travelling," Yuemith commented.

I shrugged. "I never learned how to set up a tent, and there's nothing in these woods I need to worry about." I set up a simple alarm spell of my own design, used earthen magic to soften the ground beneath the blanket, and lay down. My last action was to pull a thin illusion over myself. The only thing I needed to fear was being trampled, which was the point of the alarm.

Yuemith examined the spot I remained in with understanding and apparent approval. "I see. Even insects will have a difficult time bothering you like this. What about the elements? Do the temperature and weather not bother you?"

"That's what those seals are for," I said, taking his hand and pointing them out. The concealment was fairly narrow in range, but it should cover him so long as we were touching.

His lips pursed, and his eyes narrowed. "You are very different from the humans I've observed. Were those with the Hero's party unusual, or are you the outlier?"

"Both?" I guessed. "I would think, anyway. I'm strange, certainly, but the Hero's party was chosen because they all exceeded normal humans in some way. The Hero had an exceptional resonance with his weapon," I explained, setting aside my thoughts on that resonance, "and the others weren't far behind him on that. The Hero was also said to have extraordinary strength. Lisa, the mage, had more mana than any mage in recorded history. Alan was an archer who could, supposedly, see farther than anyone else and hit a target accurately from that distance, as well..."

I shrugged. "Well, they were all that kind of beings. Most people looked up to them."

"But not you," Yuemith said.

"Not me," I agreed. "That's not to say I don't believe that they were exceptional among humans. I just held no interest."

"Why is that? They were tasked with expanding humanity's lands. Should that not be a goal you support?"

I hesitated. Then, with a sigh, I shook my head. "We should get some sleep."