by Kyle Belote
Julie, still sitting with her eyes closed only nodded in affirmation to his words. Fife sighed, the back of his hand wiping a bead of sweat from his forehead before returning to his cottage, dimming the light as he retired. His snores fractured her concentration not long after as he turned beneath his sheets.
The last sliver of light had disappeared beyond the horizons, the sky turning dark and stars glittered like a diamond-littered veil of black velvet. Julie swallowed. Her tongue swelled from lack of water and sitting outside all day in the sun. For a moment, she gave up the search, reaching for the ladle and spooned herself a cool drink. It was refreshing, and nothing tasted better at that moment. She greedily ladled a second spoon, followed swiftly by a third and fourth. By the fifth ladle, Julie felt the sensation.
She experienced something similar to this before, once with the Vampire Dust she ordered at the inn, and the second in passionate ecstasy with Lily and Kam. By the time the truth registered, Julie was too far gone.
That little gnomling bastard drugged me!
She breathed deep and the world tilted. Her hand braced her from falling. The movement made her aware of effects she didn’t notice before. When her hand stirred, she saw an echo of her movement or a phantom hand, greatly exaggerated and blurry, minutely slower than her physical hand. The world tilted again, and she carefully laid down on her back, holding her hands up against the backdrop of stars. She shifted them, watching the phantom hands move in a slower blur and then reunite with her skin. For what could have been seconds or hours, Julie focused on the phantom limbs, detecting something…
It finally flashed through her where she experienced it before: while detained by Mr. Pleasure. The moment she had opened herself up, lifting all his weapons and tools into the air, her element of manipulation absolute. In her rage, she had reached inside of her, latching on to her aura, the core of her power.
Fife was right, anger could serve its purpose, she unwillingly acknowledged. But she could recognize her aura again: the phantom limbs of her essence.
“Shades,” she whispered, a small smile caressing her lips.
Giddy with excitement, she lurched to her feet and headed for the cottage, her steps staggering, halting.
“Hey, you stubby bastard,” she cried languidly to Fife. “I can see–” she tripped and fell. The world spun. She hurled, vomiting up the water and the drug in her system before passing out in her bile.
***
Chapter 58 : Julie And Fife
Julie could not find her magical essence the next day, or the day after. Every day she languished. Without rage or strong emotions to help call it forth, her affinity diminished.
The cycles of day and night blurred by as her stomach and body screamed for sustenance. The day whittled away until the sole sunset, today only a single sun rose. The three celestial bodies loomed bright and full in the darkened sky; when all three full moons aligned every three months, citizens of Ermaeyth mark the passing of another season. Tonight, all three loomed bright and full: Auqyn, Nykron, and Faellon, but they formed a lopsided triangle.
Fife presented the bucket, which she drank greedily; the phantom limbs appeared shortly after. Like the previous excursion, the laced water brought her to a stupor. She managed to hold her stomach when she passed out. The following day she woke with the sun creeping into the sky, Fife hovering over her, leaning on his staff. She wiped her mouth and sat up, not bothering to ask for breakfast or change her clothes.
And so she sat.
That night recycled the repetitive pattern: ladle, water, phantom limbs. This night, Julie didn’t drink as much even though her body protested her restraint. She traced the magical essence over her body. The difficulty lay in detecting herself, distinguishing her aura from the magic flooding the Melodic Mountains. The mountains themselves, Fife, his hut, the books with runes in his cottage, she felt each distinct essence, but not her own, and not without Fife’s special water.
Julie reached an epiphany on the third night, correlating the distinct quality of other magical objects or people to flavors, then adding a ‘flavor’ to her essence. From that moment on, it bound her like a second skin, real, present though most of the time she couldn’t discern it. It was natural, like breathing.
After many days of starving and becoming delirious from dehydration, Fife allowed her two days of rest. On the third day, she woke early enough for breakfast, shocking her almost as much as the Grand Maghai. After they had eaten a hearty breakfast of fruits, eggs, bacon, a grain based porridge, and chilled goat’s milk to wash it down, Julie found herself scrubbing pots and plates in the kitchen while Fife tinkered with his latest invention. Julie shot the gnomling scathing looks, though couldn’t help but smile as he worked.
Sure, he could teach me and anyone else to use magic, but his passion for inventing seems more important than my training.
Fife’s lessons were grueling and hard for Julie to master, but she learned quickly. Much to her chagrin, she begrudgingly admitted the little creature knew what he was doing. His lessons were like his first, many bundled into one. Each lesson manifested in steps, each tethered to another through a series, until she learned them all. Judas never delved this deep into teaching, relying more on a let-me-show-you-this and try-to-remember-that mentality. That would have worked, but she lacked any ground work or understanding. Fife understood she knew almost nothing and approached her that way. Julie took into consideration that Judas had not taught anyone in a long time, currently inefficient. She fostered leniency for Judas in that regard, the warlock unaware she belonged to the annals of Rumigul, whereas Fife knew what she was.
Not exactly… she amended.
By punctual routine, Julie found herself outside, sitting in a crossed leg fashion for Fife’s theoretical period of instruction. Later would come the practical application and it would be grueling, regardless how it manifested.
“What keeps you alive, young Starriace?” he inquired. The Grand Maghai planted the end of his rod in the ground.
“Magic, Master,” she blurted. Fife smacked her on the head with his staff.
“That was for guessing. Try again, and this time, think before you speak, Starriace.”
My name is not Starriace!
Julie quietly contemplated. She had forgotten the initial reason for contemplation. Her face pinched up, concentrating. “Your heart,” she guessed again.
“True,” Fife grinned, then frowned, “and false. For your heart to beat, what must you have?”
“Blood?”
“What is in the blood, Starriace?”
“Water?”
“Homugons, Starriace!” Fife cursed as he threw up his arms. “Do you just go through life stumbling and guessing? Do you ever sit for a moment and come up with an educated answer?” he rebuked her. “The answer I am looking for, young one, is air.” Julie slumped at his rebuke. Each admonition, she noticed, was short, scything, and pointed; he never expounded and dwelt on her failures despite being quick to point them out. She idly wondered if Rusem would treat her the same way. Her thoughts danced back to the ring in her pack.
“The air you breathe is as invisible as your soul, is that not so? How do we know there is air? The same as our soul, yes? We just know. Our lungs expand and contract with breath, don’t they? And the air and wind are as one, is that not so? Air may serve your purpose, just like water and fire. Fire warms you, cooks your food; water washes you, nourishes, does it not? Air keeps you alive, but it can also hide, obscure, even deflect. If I throw a rock into a strong gale, would the stone not return to me? I am sure it would, don’t you?”
Fife paced as he usually did when lecturing.
“The point I am trying to make is that air is made up of the same thing as water and fire. What if I told you water contained individual elements that can be brought together or separated? Do you think me as crazy?”
“Master, I am not sure what to think at this point,” Julie declared. A quick rapt of his rod reminded her of h
er stupidity.
“If my lessons mean nothing to you, then why waste my time, indeed?” He stormed off to his cottage while Julie remained motionless, unsure of what to do. She felt terrible for blurting the truth of her experiences.
What the hell is wrong with me? she wondered.
Nothing. You told the truth. Besides, he deserved it for all those times he hit you.
Each time he hit her with his staff or cut her down, she learned patience and long-suffering. The voice was right; perhaps he did deserve it. Before she could muster an apology, Fife exited his hut carrying a small, white ceramic plate. He placed it on the ground and cupped a handful of soil and dropped the granules on the plate.
“Count,” he instructed.
“How, master?” she gawked.
“That is your exercise. Use your essence: feel, search, know. With magic it matters not large or small, it only matters.”
Shades of the Underworld.
Fife took a step and halted, “No happy-water for you either!”
Go fuck yourself, little man. With every waking second of the day, the gnomling agitated her. No, we surpassed agitated in the first few hours of my second day.
She was well beyond that now. Demanding, insensitive, boorish, impatient, and he lacked a sense of humor, setting her nerves alight.
His improper usage of Myshku is driving me madder than Mr. Pleasure could have ever hoped. She sighed and rolled her eyes. Eventually, she would learn what she needed and then she would leave, discard him.
Not soon enough, she thought glumly.
Apor, the largest of the two suns, bathed the mountain with its pale cerulean hue and all but drowned out the pale, brilliant amaranth of Praema, the smaller sun. With the seasons rotating from autumn to winter, the world tilted in its relative positions, creating magnificent cascades of colors with each dawn and dusk. The typical blues, purples, and reds prevailed throughout the year, but in the colder months, vivid oranges, greens, and yellows came into focus. Other breathtaking colors emerged during these months: lime, cyan, emerald, aquamarine, with golds, ambers, magenta, and the ever-rare silver streak, hence their say, the silver lining. Apor rumbled through the sky as Praema dithered, a distant thought as Julie focused on her task.
Counting the particles of sand turned out harder than Julie first imagined. Just in his pinch held thousands of fine motes. Some so small that counting seemed impossible. She stretched out with her essence, easier with Fife’s tutelage and constant use, and enveloped the plate with her essence. With slow, methodical care, she sifted through each granule. Three times she lost tally when an unexpected gust of wind scattered the piles.
The setback helped her understand Fife’s original assignment and his allocution on air. She fortified the air around the ceramic; in her mind’s eye, she created a thicker bubble of air around the platter so the thin wind couldn’t move her mounds of fine dirt.
Apor and Praema retreated and the three moons, Auqyn, Nykron, and Faellon, ascended again but not in alignment. Faellon, the first celestial body, retired for the night. Auqyn came next, followed closely by Nykron.
Praema climbed the next morning, its’ brilliant amaranth casting a soft, eerie fire over the land, lighting a blinding torch in the sky. A Praema-only sunrise was infrequent, and Apor lumbered not far behind. The rarest off all celestial movements occurred with Praema rising as sole occupant, where Apor slumbered beyond the horizon, a happening that occurred perhaps twice in an Age. Apor’s solo rising happened quite often, by comparison, a couple of dozen times each year.
But Julie took no notice of Praema’s and Apor’s sunrise. She did not take time to observe its brightening. Still she counted, flicking tiny, infinitely-fine grains across from one side to the other. Her thirst, a distant tickling of her throat, her faint hunger an obscure pang. The multiple days she spent without nourishment made the overnight undertaking effortless. She submerged herself, delving into acute and profound depths, the discomforts of her body diminished. Granted, she did not move mountains or destroy cities, but she worked at a finite level, nearly molecular. When drawn that deep to the origins of creation, one cannot help but withdraw. Comparatively speaking, the dirt she counted was so fine that multiple particles could fit within a single grain of coarse, desert grit.
Praema set first, by a minute margin, ahead of the larger sun, Apor, but the latter moved faster and was further away. Many times Praema soared first, but the other would catch it. A beautiful sunset of cobalt, indigo, mulberry, and orchid, graced the twilight as Faellon ascended with its’ pale heliotrope pigment. The air cooled as Auqyn took its turn in the sky with its’ luminescent, pearl sheen. Faellon retreated as Nykron lurched to the sky, casting it’s own pale harlequin tint into the foray. Sweat beaded Julie’s brow as she continued with her computation.
The following morning, Praema and Apor rose simultaneously, and Apor reached its apex before Julie complete her task. Fife stood beside her as she sat back and breathed deeply. Her lower back ached, spasms shooting up her cramping back. Hastily, she recalled Fife’s first lesson and soothed the pain away. Able to move without grimacing, she handed him the plate.
“There are six hundred and seventy-three thou–,” she stopped as Fife dumped the soil on the ground. “What the fuck!?” she shriek, leaping to her feet. “What in the Underworld is your problem?”
“The assignment was not if you would complete it, but if you could count at all,” Fife answered. “It matters not if there are ninety thousand grains or nine million, you have proven my point by your tally, yes?” He planted the end of his stick in the ground and leaned forward. “Now, using the analogy of sand, the grains of the air will be much more finite. Think of air as dirt you are unable to see, it is still dirt, and it is still there, is it not? Now we must realize the grains of air,” he confirmed. “But that can wait till the morrow, you have earned a time of rest, have you not?” He smiled at her and held his hand out towards the cottage.
“You are the biggest asshole I have ever met,” she tersely groaned before she stormed off.
For more than a dozen sunsets Julie struggled to summate the motes of air or as Fife liked to put it, the invisible dirt. By the second day, when she could get no closer to finding them, Fife had her begin to search her skin and find the pores in her arm where sweat gleamed. At one point, he scraped her skin roughly with the blade of a knife and had her search the dead skin cells on the end of the knife. Once she had a better understanding of her skin and pores, Fife lectured from inside the house for a change, using a slab of slate and a small white calcite stone for writing. He began with pictures and diagrams on the board, drawing circles and dots, orbits, and clarifying which were charged and which were not. By the time Fife finished his introduction, Julie swore she’d be cross-eyed for life; her head threatened to rend in half.
“I just don’t get it,” she said, for what felt like the tenth time.
“What is not to get? I showed you, yes?” Fife turned to his drawing again. “This barrier, this outer limit is the end of the home. This center part, this core, think of it as a fireplace, yes? Now, these circling motes, think of them as old people or babies. They need to keep warm, do they not? So they move around the fireplace very close. The other motes are unlike old people or babies, they don’t need to keep warm as much, so they stay further away from the fire, do you understand?”
“Look!” Julie rubbed her eyes. “I get what you’re saying, your analogies at least, but what does this have to do with anything?”
“Us, Starriace, us,” His eyes twinkled. “We are made up of these small granules.”
“So, we’re made up of sand?”
“True,” he considered, “and false. The sand and our bodies are the same and yet different, are they not? You can lick your skin, do you taste of mud? I think not! You can stomp the ground, but if you get stomped, you will bleed, would you not? But internally, farther than you can see with your eyes, things begin to look the same.”
&n
bsp; “How do you know, master?” Julie scoffed.
“I have seen it, Starriace.” he tittered. Fife picked up the knife again, scraping her skin like he did before, then shuffled towards his table of tinkering trinkets. He rubbed the knife on a sheet of stainless glass and gathered materials from the tables and adjoining shelves. His invention comprised of four parts.
He placed the metal base on the table and connected a swiveling mirror to the contraption. From the shelf, he removed a cylindrical tube with glass at both ends, and pulled on it, elongating like a spyglass. Now that she thought of it, the tube did look like a very small spyglass. Clamping the spyglass to the top of the base, he tilted it at an angle. Once clamped in position, he made fine adjustments. Between the tube and the base was a platform, in which he slid the glass with her skin cells between two thin metal clasps. Lastly, he attached a small ball of wire which jutted out at a forty-five-degree angle. With a rub of his fingers, a ball of yellow-white light erupted inside the wire mesh, the metal caging the flame. Fife cleared his throat with everything in place.
“This is one of my inventions,” he stated. Julie noted the pride in his voice. “This will help you understand what I am trying to teach you. The light will help us see your skin better. But it can’t be seen directly. Thus the mirror, do you see? The light is reflected, and you can see your skin through here,” he said, pointing to the top of the small metal tube.
Soon, Julie could detect her individual skin cells and understood what Fife inferred, what he referred to as skin crumbs. She spent the next two days looking through the contraption, focusing on skin cells, hair follicles, eyelashes, mire, grass and other plant life, ash, and more. While each enjoyable experience prevailed as unique, the theory became lost with each peer through the spyglass. Fife would draw diagrams of what she saw, and by the end, she had a few dozen drawings. With his instruction, the invention, and the pictures, Fife’s teachings completed a circle she would have otherwise missed.
