She's All Thaumaturgy

by A. K. Caggiano

  “You are not leaving me behind!” Rosalind interrupted her.

  Bix was jumping up and down beside her in agreement. “Think of all the reports I can corroborate.”

  Elayne felt herself smile in spite of the situation. There was a dread in her gut, deeper than the fire and the nerves, but she pushed it away just as she forced herself to look on Frederick.

  He was, as always of late, hesitant. He frowned. “It’s completely mad,” he said flatly, “Elayne, you are one of the smartest people I know, but some would call this extremely stupid.”

  “Or,”—Bix popped himself around Frederick’s legs—“One might call it brave.”

  Tilting his head, the knight pursed his lips. “Brave,” he said in a near whisper. He looked to Elayne and nodded.

  ***

  Elayne had heard the restlessness in them as she lay awake staring at the ceiling of Gramps’s little hut, but the next morning four sets of eyes and one corked urn were staring at her, carrying satchels full of everything in Neoma’s larder. The mountains were no place for horses, the elves had said, so they left them with a neighboring farm and began the ascent on foot as the sun came fully into the sky. Elayne said very little and skipped breakfast as every time she opened her mouth she feared something solid might come out instead.

  The base of Mount Doria was heavily wooded, but the trees were thinner than those in the Trizian Wood, their roots climbing upward and around rocks that jutted out from the ground at harsh angles. They traveled a gently worn path, cut up through the mountain by the local herders, and would then pass through the range westerly. On the far side of the mountains was the lush, green land of Apos’phia, the elven homeland, but here, in the jagged stone terrain, was dwarven territory.

  No one knew exactly where dwarves came from. They were ever-present in human and elven history, showing up neither consistently nor genially, but their origins were a mystery. The dwarves said they were born of the rocks themselves during the Aegnap when the swathes of land smashed into one another and the mountains were formed. The crash had been so great, and the aether so powerful, that their ancestors just popped out of the broken rocks fully formed, pickaxes in hand. They referred to this sometimes as The Big Bang, but nobody else really believed it despite having no other explanation. Every now and again, a metallic clanging or a particularly loud boom would emanate from inside the mountains to prove they were still toiling under the earth, but for the most part, they were a rare sight in Yavarid.

  Gramps’s voice from the urn slung over Neoma’s shoulder added to Bix and Rosalind’s chatter, with the frequent interjection of the elven caretaker to contradict whatever Gramps claimed to be true. Elayne listened half-heartedly to Bix’s questions and what she assumed were Gramps’s wild embellishments, glad they were all so chipper, but confounded about how. She was too distracted by the dark, grey clouds every time she got a look at the sky between the trees. They were gone when she blinked, but they persisted in her mind.

  They burned through the day on excitement alone and found an alcove in the rock that would make for a good camp. Even the slight incline proved to have exhausted the others, and so Frederick volunteered himself to gather firewood, which Elayne was thankful for until he told her he needed her help. She sighed but knew she couldn’t decline—they were out here because of her, after all.

  The trees here were thinner and sparser, so they were forced to walk off a bit from the others. Elayne was too tired to realize what he was doing, but when Frederick’s voice cut through the air behind her, she immediately regretted not choosing the sticks closer to their camp. “So, are we going to talk about the purple stuff?”

  The hair on the back of her neck stood on end. “The fire? Nope!” She began frantically searching the ground for dry branches in a direction that was decidedly away from him.

  “You said you couldn’t conjure fire.” He followed after her, not bothering to look for kindling at all.

  “I lied.”

  “So you’ve done that before?”

  “Lie? No never.” She picked up a stick then threw it to the side without really looking it over.

  Frederick grumbled in the back of his throat, coming around in front of her. “That’s not what I mean.”

  “Oh.” Elayne feigned confusion, kneeling down and picking through more sticks. “Well, I’ve never burnt up a bunch of shrubbery before, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  Frederick dropped down in front of her, trying to meet her gaze. “That was very impressive magic,” he said matter-of-factly, “but it wasn’t fire, was it?”

  Elves worked with what already existed, that’s what her mother had taught her. They manipulated plants and waterways and even bodies, but they rarely created something new—that too often threw off the balance of Maw, she said, even when her aunt, who taught her elven magic, hinted at different possibilities.

  But Elayne had discovered she could also spark a flame into existence, human mage conjuring. It was tiny, and only lasted for a minute or two, but her father’s best knight, Sir Walter, had been thrilled to see she had inherited the ability and made it his prerogative to teach her at least as often as she had proper elven lessons. She was adept, certainly, and she had amazing teachers, but she was never exceptional at either. She had liked that.

  “Duke Orraigh was a mage, right?”

  “Yes.” She felt her chest tighten and got back onto her feet.

  “So could he do that?”

  Elayne shrugged, still staring at the ground as she maneuvered around him.

  “What about your mother?” Frederick was incessant, following. “I’ve never heard of an elf taking life out of something, but I guess it’s possible.”

  She paused for a moment, a few sticks in hand—was that what it was? The cold dread that ran through her, chasing after the heat of her anger and fear, was she drawing away life? Elayne shook her head and sped up.

  “Could just be the two together.” Frederick was musing behind her. “I haven’t met too many cross—half, uh, you know.”

  Elayne had met other crossbloods, though very few. They came to the castle sometimes, the children of important people who she could not recall. There were others, too, children in the marketplace who she could tell by their ears. But she had been too young and unskilled to even consider comparing abilities. They usually just ran around the gardens or visited the stables.

  “But that elf,” Frederick said, “He said he’d seen it before like it was something—something else. What kind of—”

  “I don’t know!” Elayne spun toward him so that he had to stop short. “I don’t have any answers. It just started happening after everything else, and I haven’t had anyone to ask til now. You know as much as I do, so quit asking me!”

  She whipped around again, throwing her small bundle onto the ground, and headed straight back for the alcove. He could gather sticks on his own.

  The night passed, cooler than the last they’d spent in the woods, and the next day took them further up the mountain. The trail was not suited for horses, the elves had been right, but it was barely suited for humans either—at least for someone like Elayne. She had trouble getting her footing, though her constantly narrowed eyes and the annoyance of the previous day’s conversation rolling around her head likely didn’t help. Neoma surprisingly proved the least capable, though, despite her long limbs and what was usually said about the grace and skill of elves. Rosalind was steadier, her staff a great boon, and Frederick was clearly familiar with the terrain, Bix perhaps the nimblest of all.

  Of course, Gramps had it easiest, and yet his voice was still often breathless as he rambled on about adventures of old. Neoma rolled her eyes so much Elayne thought they might fall right out of her head.

  “Neoma, did I understand correctly that Iowen is your mother?” she asked, as she sidled up to her, the only one she could keep pace with.

  “Yes.” She tested out a craggy surface before pulling herself up onto a flatter plac
e, and Elayne followed in kind.

  “So, you’re Trizian?”

  The elf was starkly different from those they’d met in the woods.

  “I suppose, though I’ve spent almost a third of my life outside of the forest.”

  It was hard to tell how old elves were by looks alone, and they aged a bit differently than humans. Elayne thought she should be better at guessing but was still surprised to hear this. “Do you prefer Kaspar then?”

  “Oh, no!” She sliced through the air with a hand. “My mother’s the one who thought it’d be just wonderful training to help out Gramps here.”

  “Training?”

  “Well, I don’t mean to brag or anything.” She had a bit of a smile even as she pulled herself up once again. “But I’m an exceptional healer. Gramps really should have died years ago, but I—”

  “I can hear you, you know!” he piped up.

  She snorted. “Anyway, besides the last ten or so years, I never left the Trizians. I haven’t been much farther than, well,”—she looked about—“here actually.”

  They found themselves on a plateau of sorts, a place where the range flattened out before climbing up into the sky again. Before them, the rocks continued upward, and behind, thick forest ran along the side of the mountain and down, but when they turned to the west, there was a path cut over smooth boulders. It indeed looked like a place one might stop and turn back.

  “This is the way!” Gramps announced from his pipe, though how he could see they had no idea.

  Elayne blinked out along the way ahead that would take them through the range. Sweeping her gaze out over Yavarid, she could see how far they’d come, but then her eyes finally landed on what her mind had been fearing this whole time.

  Dark banks of clouds like a far-off storm loomed in a grey and hazy distance. But those clouds would never break, she knew. They would persist, heavy and frightening, until—

  “Be careful through here.” Frederick’s voice broke her of her trance. He was starting forward along the narrow path, the drop off into dense trees steep at his side.

  Bix hopped along behind him, then glanced back. “Don’t look down.”

  It’s curious that when told not to do something, the human reaction is to do just that. Neoma took a deep breath and, closing her eyes, stepped out onto the rocks. Elayne, without that kind of trust in herself or the same heritage, immediately looked down.

  The crevasses between the rocks went on forever into darkness below. How they were standing at all, she didn’t know, but they were old, she told herself, and they’d lasted this long, what was a few more minutes? She stepped out onto them, and her foot slid, crumbling away some of the stone so that it clattered down the edge of the rock and disappeared into one of the cracks below. It wasn’t large enough for her to fit, not here anyway, but when she looked out where Frederick was going, she saw that the gaps got bigger.

  Looking back at Rosalind, she saw only a determined look on the woman’s face. She was peering straight down, her tongue sticking out and clenched between her teeth, her arms out side to side for balance, and she walked with a more careful footing than Elayne had ever seen, even in delicate, heeled shoes in the great hall.

  With a huff, she turned back and followed Neoma over the smooth surface. Her eyes were trained all over the ground, making sure she had steady footing and avoided the crevasses. When they finally came to a place where they could all stop for a moment, she lifted her head to look out at how far they’d come. They could see over much of the forest from here down to the hills and even some farmland below. They would be mere specks, if anything, to anyone down on the land looking up. And if they fell—she shut that thought down immediately just as they went to continue on.

  Bix leapt from where they stood to the next rock, a larger gap for him than the others, and he gestured to them with a grin when he tested the landing space. Frederick followed suit, just a hop, and then it was Neoma’s turn. Gracefully she spanned the gap, but much less graceful was her landing. She teetered, she gasped, Frederick turned and grabbed her arm. And the pipe fell.

  With a clang and a swear, it hit the rock and began to roll over its smooth edge. Neoma dropped down onto her knees and lurched forward to grab it, just missing the strap as it headed for a crevasse. “By Ea’h’s boulders!” she swore, scrambling toward it, her knees slipping on the rock so that she fell onto her stomach.

  “What in the godless gorge?” Gramps’s voice banged against the edges of the container as it rolled.

  Bix clambered, leaping over Neoma and using her head to propel himself forward. He reached out for the urn, and just as it slipped over the edge, so did the kobold.

  CHAPTER 16

  “Bix!” Elayne’s voice was behind Frederick as he rushed to the edge of the rock. Falling to his knees, he saw the little, green creature gripping an opportune stone with one set of spindly fingers, the other tightly wrapped around the strap of the stoppered urn.

  He grinned up at them, his feet dangling over nothingness. “Got it!”

  Frederick leaned out over the edge, but Bix had fallen just out of reach. “Can you pull yourself up?”

  “Kobolds are not known for their upper body strength,” he told them, adjusting his fingers and making Frederick wince. “Or their lower, actually.”

  There was only one choice, Frederick knew, and he motioned to Rosalind. “Think you can hang onto my feet?”

  She flexed a bicep. “Can I?”

  They created a human ladder as Rosalind held him over the edge, face first. He considered a small prayer to whichever god would listen but decided not to tempt any of the others and instead focused on Bix’s big, shining eyeballs and not the abyss that went on however far below him. Gramps’s complaints about Neoma’s clumsiness echoed without end.

  Frederick had just grabbed Bix’s wrist when they heard it. The crumbling was a small sound, tiny really, and wouldn’t have garnered attention otherwise, but in this precarious position they all went silent and listened. Somewhere far off a raven crowed, and Frederick heard his own blood rushing past his ears, but otherwise there was nothing. Perhaps they had only dislodged a single rock, or maybe a lizard had scurried over some edge, or it was even possible they had collectively imagined the horror that was the sound of crumbling mountainside, and so when they came to a silent but agreeable satisfaction, Rosalind began to pull Frederick back up again.

  And then their feet went out from under them.

  The rocks picked them up like a wild river, crumbling away from the platform they’d all been peering over. What before was a narrow, dark hole, suddenly opened wide, gobbling up the lot as they sailed down into obscurity. Frederick pulled Bix back up toward him even as he tumbled headfirst downward, balling himself up around the kobold as best he could. Something softer than the rocks crashed into him, perhaps a body, but the feeling was overridden by the rough edges of stone quickly after. He kept expecting something much worse, to be crushed completely, but somehow the heaviness of the stone kept him afloat, and then all at once he came to a stop.

  Frederick lay still for a long minute despite the awful, craggy surface beneath. Everything ached, and his heart pounded, but he held his breath, afraid they would be sent off again at the tiniest movement. He blinked into the darkness, able to make out vague shapes from some small prick of light at his back. There was movement, someone shifting over the stones, but he remained in place, and he took a breath.

  Dust and dirt filled his throat and nose as he pulled himself up to his feet, but he was glad to hear the others coughing as well. He unsheathed his sword, forcing light up and through the blade, more arduous than he expected. A flame cast itself over the mound of rocks scattered all around his feet and up behind him, closing them off from the outside. Shaking dust out of his hair, he tried to find the others and called out, “Count off!”

  Elayne’s form was pulling itself up. “We don’t have numbers, soldier.” She was clearly annoyed, but he was happy enough just
to hear her voice.

  “I’m here.” Neoma spoke amongst a coughing fit.

  “Where’s Bix?” Rosalind hopped up just beside Frederick, shockingly spry even with a long cut over her left eye.

  He’d had him a moment ago, he realized, and twisted around in the rocks. There was a small sound from behind him, and he turned and plucked the kobold out from the pile. The creature held up the urn. “Got it. Still.”

  And Gramps’s tinny voice rattled from inside the urn, “I’m here too, not that anyone asked!”

  Frederick set Bix down and passed his sword over his troops. A quick assessment revealed torn clothing and scraped skin, but they could all still walk, and the blood was minimal.

  “Well, there’s no going back up.” He squinted at the way they’d been dropped, but there was only the tiniest speck of light behind them, high up in the wall of rubble. Opposite their sealed-up entrance was a hollow cavern running into the mountain itself. It was tall and wide but went on into pitch blackness.

  Neoma retrieved the pipe from Bix, the strap now slung more securely across her body. It had a more generous dent in its side but remained intact. “Gramps, can you tell where we are?”

  “Of course not!” he shouted. “It’s darker than a dragon’s gullet at midnight in here! But while you have a light…”

  The elf rolled her eyes then dug out a sprig of herb from her bag, lit it on the tip of Frederick’s sword and plopped it into the pipe, quickly corking it up again. Gramps sighed pleasantly. “Least I can do, I guess,” she mumbled, rubbing her arm and staring at the ground.

  The cave went on with twists and turns. It was difficult to orient in the dark, with sounds echoing off the walls impossible to place. While they made the others jump, Frederick reasoned they were likely rodents, and if something found a way to survive down here, they ought to be able to as well, at least for a short time. He told them as much, leaving out the niggling notion that rats could squeeze through much smaller crevices than any of them could.