by Peri Akman
“Alternatively, we go a bit more west, and head to Vellstride. It’s got some fishing districts, which is fun for everyone involved. Pretty poor. They like warlocks over there. Which also means that it’s populated by opportunistic warlocks looking for easy power, and a bunch of warlocks with martyr complexes. I honestly hate them both. If you want a wealth of societal problems to clock your noggin against, it would be Vellstride. But demons are also pretty common there, and monsters aren’t exactly rare either.”
Kole cracked her neck. “Personally my vote is for Shorne, but that doesn’t seem your vibe. If I was you, I would go with Isvale, but that would shoot me in the foot. Which I don’t mind, I’m the teacher. It just means you might suffer as well in the long term. Compromise-wise, Vellstride is a middle ground, although at the end of the day, all of these choices are arbitrary. I can find work anywhere. I’m a freelancer.”
Visions of the future danced in Quinn’s head. They were vague, not fully formed, and full of faceless people. He tried to picture the big military city, and the poor fisherman houses, the walled-in city, and the monster-infested mountains.
His imagination was unfortunately rather underwhelming. His mountains were pitiful, the military looked like a giant box, and the houses looked like little mini boats.
Quinn shook his head. “Well, I said you pick, so I guess we’re going to Shorne.”
Kole started to speak, as if to start the ‘are you sure?’ question, but stopped herself. Instead, she turned to get in the carriage.
“Wellp, we have a long trip ahead,” she said as she opened the door. “Hope you enjoy being in a small room for another long string of hours.”
Quinn looked around him, surrounded by dead monsters. The most unnerving part was that they had all died with their eyes wide open. Milky, white, and utterly dead both figuratively and literally.
In the distance, similar monsters were on the edge of the field, poking at the dead blue monsters. These ones were green, and were even smaller. They began consuming the bodies of the blue monsters.
One of them stared at Quinn. Quinn avoided eye contact and pretended to be intensely interested in the map. The monster went back to ignoring him and continued eating. A smile flashed across Quinn’s face. It worked. Ignoring it worked.
He felt... oddly confident, if a bit lightheaded.
Sure he had frozen up, and he had been scared silly, but he had survived, hadn’t he? He was all right.
He turned to go back in the carriage.
“What’s going to happen to that baby monster over there?” he asked.
“Not a baby, just painfully small. It will eat until it either explodes or has enough mass to reproduce. Monsters feed off other monsters. It’s why killing them is kind of dangerous,” Kole said nonchalantly.
“You don’t seem too worried,” Quinn observed.
“Well, if you want to get rid of them, you should kill all warlocks and invoke a cremation policy on the monsters. If you’re not interested in dying for the sake of humanity, then not much we can do. Plus I caved in most of their brains. That got rid of most of the good stuff.” Kole snapped her fingers and the carriage lurched.
“Well since we’re going to Shorne, I guess it'll be important to know, huh?” Quinn said quietly. As he spoke, he realized something else—
“Going to have to learn to fight,” he muttered to himself in resignation.
“Not necessarily. I’m going to be useless by the time we get there anyway. We’ll stick to the well-travelled roads and we’ll be fine.” Kole extended her hand and awkwardly placed it on his shoulder.
Quinn smiled. “You’re kind of weird, you know that?”
“You’re kind of boring, you know that?” Kole replied. “But you know what? You’re a really fast learner. I honestly can’t WAIT to see what your affinity is.” Kole’s eyes glinted.
“Yeah... same here.” Quinn muttered distantly. He settled into the carriage, and placed his cloak over his eyes, deciding to take a nap.
Chapter Seven
The carriage hit a pothole and Quinn lurched awake. Kole was in the exact same position.
“You slept for four hours,” she reported. “It’s dark out now.”
“I noticed,” Quinn mumbled, yawning. It felt like he had been asleep for much longer. It was probably the best nap he’d had in a long time. “I normally don’t nap like this.”
“You had a frightening day,” Kole said with a shrug. “Hungry?”
Quinn nodded. There was a pattering noise of rain.
Kole generated another meal from her walking stick and the two ate in silence.
Quinn’s attention turned to the window and he let himself enjoy the rain. He had never been this close to the mountains before. They were huge. Even when craning his neck, he couldn’t see the top of them. He could have sworn he saw a goat herder in the distance, but the rain made it hard to parse.
“So what happens when we reach the city?” Quinn asked.
“I check the bulletins for odd jobs and I talk to the fancy government officials to see what they’ll pay me for. We do it. We get paid. We repeat until we get bored and go somewhere else,” Kole explained. “If we stay there for longer than a week, I rent a place. Usually I just sleep in this carriage though. Although now that there’s two of us, that’s not really feasible anymore. Especially with your whole puberty nonsense. It means smells and privacies.” Her bandages shifted in such a way to suggest she was making a face, likely wrinkling her nose.
“What do we do until then?” Quinn continued, not taking his eyes off the window.
“Well, I could lecture you, that’s always fun. I could explain to you why the government is a corrupt facade for a fascist regime meant to screw warlocks over. I could explain how to deal with monsters and demons ahead of time, so you don’t have to get attacked every time a new one shows up. Or… I could set on unlocking your magical skills?” Kole seemed unsure with the question.
Quinn whipped his head towards her. “Really? This early?”
“I would have offered the second we got off of Academy premises if you had asked,” Kole replied simply.
Quinn rubbed his fingers through his curly hair. Learn? Now? Was it too soon? She had promised a year but—
“Quinn… out of curiosity, if I hadn’t offered, exactly how long could it have gone before you asked? A week? A month? A year?” She seemed to get immense amusement out of this statement.
“Probably a week,” Quinn confessed. “I’d be afraid to be seen as greedy.”
“It’s not because of Kasen, is it?” Kole asked abruptly.
“What?” Quinn blinked in confusion, the question catching him off guard.
“I saw it in your box when I dumped it into my stick. You had three of his books. Those cheesy stories for… well, people your age, I guess. ‘Kasen Owltrek,’ right? And his many silly adventures?” Kole tapped her stick and a book fell out of it, beaten and old. Sure enough, the name was emblazoned on it.
“I don’t see the connection,” Quinn confessed.
“Kasen gets discovered on a boat somewhere at age fourteen. Never had any magical training, and then he causes a storm to happen. So he gets a trainer who is harsh and mysterious, full of mystical training ways. Kasen asks to learn magic over and over again for like, half a book. The teacher keeps denying him, and he gets so annoyed that he practices in private and ends up opening a portal where… I dunno, what was it called? Facelbleelmergar?”
“Fallaconder.” Quinn corrected.
“Yeah. That stupid name. Guy unleashes what is apparently the antithesis to the Star Gods. I mean he doesn’t say it is, but it was pretty obvious religious propaganda. It goes to wreak havoc, and now it’s up to Kasen to destroy the monster he helped create. And that’s why you don’t bug your master, because if you do, the Supreme Evil will show up, and fifty books later will have killed, like, five of your girlfriends. It’s a terrible life.” Kole seemed almost nostalgic in her explanation.<
br />
Quinn laughed despite himself. “It wasn’t five! Fallaconder only killed three of them, and one was a traitor, that doesn’t count!”
“Actually the author only decided to make her evil after she had been in two books, so it DOES count, thank you very much!” Kole snapped, with a slight hint of venom on her tongue.
“So? What does that have to do with the story? It matters ߴcause she was killed by her own hubris. That’s important,” Quinn replied. He might not know politics, but he knew his books.
“Hubris? Big words from a timid man. Let me get this straight, I rail against everything you know, and you just kind of nod and take it, or quietly dismiss me as a loon. But if I inaccurately summarize some trash books written by a guy who has never casted an ounce of magic in his life, then, THEN, you come in with an argument and a backbone?” Kole was obviously happy about this. Her tone was so outright cheerful that Quinn’s cheeks glowed from pride.
“Well, yeah. You can tell me that my teachers lie to me, and you can tell me I was raised wrong, but those books stay the same no matter who’s reading them. So we’re on an equal playing field.” Quinn grabbed the book from Kole’s hands.
“Equal?” Kole scoffed, before uttering a few words that did not bear repeating, to show exactly how little she believed Quinn. “When I was your age? There were FIVE of these babies out. And I read them cover to cover. Now you’ve got fifty of these things on any market stop.”
“Actually, the current number is sixty-seven,” Quinn corrected.
“Even worse!” Kole snapped.
“How is it worse?” Quinn asked, almost smirking.
“Because it means I’m really old!” Kole shrieked, shaking her hands dramatically.
Quinn burst out laughing. It wasn’t even that funny, but he found himself reeling in hysterics all the same.
After a few moments, Quinn calmed down, and the conversation trailed off to less inane topics.
“Why… did you bring that up again?” Quinn asked, furrowing his brow. “I thought this was about my training.”
“Why did I… oh right! I was making a point. People like portraying apprentices and wards as these bratty little takers. Take take take. GIVE ME MAGIC and all that annoying screaming. And I’m telling you that if you want to learn the dark magic rituals to unleash all that’s unholy in the world, you ask me, not practice off on your own. 'Cause believe me, I have plenty of pointers.” Kole nodded. “And if anyone tries to pull that ‘you are not ready young one’ crap or whatever, tell them to shut up, and that you’ll make that mistake when you get there. So once you want to learn something, I’m game.”
Quinn nodded. That was actually pretty comforting. “All right, for now I guess we should get on with this whole unlocking business then, huh?”
“Yep. Good thing this is a long ride, because this is going to be boring as void.” She extended her hand, and Quinn took it.
They remained in silence for a while.
“Uh… aren’t I supposed to be meditating or something?” Quinn asked, confused.
“Yeah yeah, in a bit. I told you this was going to be boring,” she muttered. “Usually people do this the easy way. Activate the tattoo, have you go through the motions, and you’re already halfway there. I am not interested in doing that in the slightest.”
Kole leaned back and concentrated, folding her arms. She scratched her head. “You’re weird. You have all this… cloudy stuff going on.”
Quinn shuffled his feet awkwardly. “Is that bad?”
“It’s not great. Although it probably means you don’t have an affinity for anything in this carriage,” Kole admitted. “It’s like… when you try to access it, it’s just not there.”
Quinn blinked. It was oddly straightforward, and it made a lot of sense too. Was she an empath? Mind Reader-Empath-Item Imbuer? Sounded a bit complicated.
“Try and access your magic,” Kole requested. “I know they taught you the techniques.”
Quinn nodded, and shut his eyes. He tried to expand himself and reach out. This was an experience he had practiced before, but never extensively. About once a year at the Academy they would be instructed to try, and be monitored, the results being marked down Then they would move on to that energy ball. It wasn’t a fun experience, honestly. Accessing magic didn’t really feel particularly, well, magical. It felt more like gym class, where he became flushed and tired, but without any actual running involved.
As usual, he expanded as much as he could. His very reality shifted as weight pushed down onto him, like he was being suffocated. Once he was able to feel his breathing stagger, he immediately released his concentration, and his entire being snapped back to his body. He opened his eyes.
“So let me guess. Hit a wall. Couldn’t breathe,” Kole observed dully.
Quinn nodded.
“You… need to go past that wall,” she said with a shrug.
Quinn frowned. “Everyone said that’s what I’ll have to do once I become an apprentice but I don’t think I can.”
“See, this is why most undiscovered warlocks end up doing the whole song and dance by the time they're thirty,” Kole muttered. “Look, part of that wall is you, part of that wall was imposed by the academy… and also your mental block is actually way thicker than anyone else I’ve encountered. So you’re gonna have a tough job thrice over.”
“Am I that…” Quinn searched for the right word. “Resistant?”
“Resistant? No. It’s just that whatever skill you have takes a lot of mental stress. Probably something that isn't how a normal human should be thinking,” Kole explained.
Quinn nodded. “Can you help me?”
“No. You gotta do this by yourself, but I can give some advice. Way better advice than any teacher.” She narrowed her eyes, thinking. “Go again."
Quinn let his consciousness expand, and as usual, he hit a limit and he stopped. His breathing constricted.
“Hold it. Don’t try to expand. Just hold it,” Kole instructed.
Quinn was confused, but did so. He shrunk slightly, and held it.
“F-for how long?” Quinn asked. The stress made his head hurt, but he could at least breathe.
“For as long as you can,” she said simply. “Don’t hold it at your best, just focus on staying expanded for as long as possible.”
What seemed like hours passed, although Quinn suspected the actual time was more like ten seconds. His head pounded, but it felt like a dull thrum in someone else’s body that he was just inhabiting. The only things that seemed real were the tattoo lines.
Quinn had heard of kids trying to meditate on their own who ended up clawing out their own skin, because they weren’t aware of how tense they had become. The most common story given around was about the time someone bit out their own tongue. Terrifying.
His head became louder, and his own heart began to beat in tune. Every vein pulse, every breath, every shift became louder and it just kept hammering until—
Enough.
Quinn collapsed on the carriage couch, gasping for air.
“Five minutes. Not bad,” Kole said.
Quinn coughed. His throat felt dry. Kole handed him a water skin. He took it and drank quickly.
“That was stressful,” Quinn rasped.
“Yeah. Usually they just test you for expansion. Never the endurance. Still want to continue?” Kole asked.
“How many more of these exercises would it take for me to get access to my affinity?” Quinn asked, almost suspicious.
Kole shrugged. “It could be the next one, it could be fifty tests from now. My estimate is that it’s going to be six or seven more exercises before you’re ready to start attempting.”
Six or seven. That wasn’t that many. He could do it.
“Okay. Then yeah, let’s go.” Quinn said.
“All right, you’re gonna meditate again. So get ready,” Kole ordered.
Quinn unintentionally whimpered. He had already done it once, now it was just going t
o make him sore.
Sure enough, the minute he started to expand, all of his muscles flared up, and roared with pain. He reached the same expansion he did before, and looked at Kole for what to do next.
“I want you to hold it there again, but this time I want you to focus on one thing. Pick something distinct in this carriage, and just focus on that.” Kole instructed.
Focus? He was barely aware of seeing! He tried to blink and focus his eyes, but it didn’t work. His vision jittered like he was being shaken, and he lost control.
Reality snapped back, and his body ached.
“Sorry. I don’t think I can focus.” Quinn muttered, gripping the waterskin with his shaking hands.
“But you did focus! You just freaked out and let go!” Kole prompted. “If you do the same thing as before, and just hold on, you’ll be fine.”
“It didn’t feel like I was succeeding,” Quinn admitted.
“Heh. That’s because you’ve never done it before. Of course it feels wrong. You wanna try again?” she asked, idly playing with her walking stick.
Quinn shuddered, but nodded. He was so close. He had already succeeded, so all he had to do was not freak out, right?
He went to meditate again. He expanded, he held, and he tried to focus. His entire world flipped around and the item he stared at—a tear on the wall—practically blurred. His body took a deep breath, and Quinn held firm. His vision kept spiraling, and why was everything moving?
“Stop spasming, Quinn. Relax your muscles,” Kole said, her voice a hazy order in the fog of his mind.
Someone spoke words, and it took a while for Quinn to realize it was himself, saying “I can’t.”
“Do you want me to help?” Kole asked, her voice distant.
Yeah, help would be good. He tried to say yes, and he was pretty sure it accidentally came out as a yell.
Kole was now sitting next to him, and he felt cold, dry bandages touching his face.
Suddenly, everything stopped blurring. His face had been shaking this entire time.
The tear in the carriage was the only thing in his consciousness now. It was weird. It was uncomfortable. Usually he was around himself, but now… it felt like he was in front of himself.
