The Magic, Warped

by Rick Field

  Liane gave her Assistant a small nod. “Good work, Assistant. Let us enjoy the afternoon.” Her face twitched when a Commoner they were passing broke into a loud and inappropriate coughing fit.

  They spent an enjoyable afternoon at the market, relaxing after another stressful week at the Academy.

  The next morning, as they prepared for yet another day of study and school, Liane tried to get her Assistant's hair and appearance in shape. “Sit down, Amy,” Liane told her Assistant. The girl's face twitched slightly, yet she did as she was asked.

  “Proctor knows her humble Assistant does not enjoy this,” the girl muttered as Liane took her automatic hairbrush and let it loose on the girl's golden hair.

  “If you took better care of yourself, I would not have to do this,” Liane replied levelly, she was used to the conversation. “You are very pretty, if you take care of yourself.”

  Amy's face twitched again. “I don't have the need to feel pretty,” she complained as the hairbrush finished its job.

  “In a few more years, when you enjoy the attention of the male of the species, you will think otherwise, Amy,” Liane said with a faint smile. “And before then, it might be a good idea to learn to take better care of how you look.”

  Amy looked at her Proctor in the mirror. “Do you, Liane?”

  “Be more specific, Amy. Do I, what?” Liane asked, looking through the various make-up articles available to her, trying to decide what shades she would apply to her Assistant today.

  “Enjoy the attention of the male of the species?” Amy asked, a smile playing on her lips. Liane bit off a curse when the lipstick she had picked up nearly slipped through her fingers. She needed a quick second motion to secure her grasp. “Perhaps my Proctor enjoys the company of the Lord Milor Lightningcrafter?” Amy continued on her teasing tone.

  “My Lord Milor Lightningcrafter is a good friend. He has been my only friend since I first entered this Academy, he was my first teacher in Decorum, he was my friend when I gained a Proctor, and he was my friend when my Proctor graduated,” she stated regally. “It would not do for you to make such insinuations about my friends, Assistant.”

  Amy shrunk slightly. She had crossed a line somewhere. “My apologies, Proctor,” she whispered, giving a slight cough. A slight cough that turned into three or four. Liane frowned slightly, but otherwise ignored the small coughing fit.

  Instead, she stared at her Assistant's eyes, reflected in the mirror, before finally nodding once. “Very well, Amy.”

  The younger girl let out a relieved breath. Without resistance, she let Liane apply the make-up.

  “First stop, the library,” Liane said, after she had finished with her young Assistant's make-up.

  “Yes, Proctor,” the girl said, standing up. Suddenly, she turned. “When will we go to the market again? It was fun!”

  Liane smiled faintly. “Maybe next month. We only went yesterday, there's no need to visit every day.”

  Amy nodded, a little dejectedly. “Yes, Proctor.”

  Liane frowned slightly, and studied the girl's face more closely. “You're looking a bit pale. Are you feeling alright? That cough just now worries me as well.”

  “Just a small headache, Proctor,” Amy replied, and smiled faintly.

  Liane scrutinized Amy's face for a few moments, then nodded. “Very well, Assistant. But you will tell me if it gets worse.”

  “I will, Proctor.”

  They emerged from the library a few hours later, right in time for lunch. Rather than eating in the common dining hall, they decided to eat in their room, allowing them to start processing the books they had checked out of the library.

  “You hardly touched your lunch, Assistant,” Liane noted. Even though they were in private, she still used the younger girl's title. She wanted an answer.

  “I am not that hungry, Proctor,” the girl replied quietly.

  Liane frowned, and pushed one hand against the girl's forehead. “You have a fever,” she announced, reaching around to feel the girl's ear. “Get in bed, Amy. I'll send for some broth. You need to eat something, and I don't want you to get sick.”

  Amy merely nodded, shed her outer robes, and climbed into her bed dressed in her underthings, rather than dress in sleepwear. Worry climbed into Liane's heart. After six months, she thought she was doing will with Amy, but now the girl was catching some illness. She wished she had studied Healing & Potions.

  A few hours later, the fever had risen higher, and Amy was sweating profusely one moment, before shivering the next. The cough had returned and would not stop. Not knowing what else to do, Liane rolled the girl into her covers, cast some charms, and picked the girl up.

  “We're going to the hospital to see a Healer,” she announced as the door opened and they stepped out. “I do not like the feel of your rising fever, Assistant.”

  Amy just nodded, and allowed herself to be carried, ignoring the ignoble sight it made.

  “May I know what is wrong with her?” Liane asked not fifteen minutes later, trying her best to stop her fidgeting as she addressed the nurse at the hospital.

  “A fever has set in, My Lady,” the nurse spoke from where she was leaning over Amy. “The Healer will come by shortly. For now, it looks like just another case of the Fever. As you know, there is an outbreak among the Commoners.”

  Liane nodded. “I should be held accountable, then. It was I who took her to the market,” she said, half to herself and half to the nurse as her voice lowered.

  “You need not worry, My Lady, as there are more than a few Nobles affected as well, and as My Lady knows, most Nobles would not go to the market,” the nurse said, trying to be delicate in her wording. Offense from a Commoner to a Noble could and would be punished quite severely.

  “I understand,” Liane replied. “That does not mean that I do not still feel responsible.”

  “The Healer will come by shortly, My Lady,” the nurse tried to reassure Liane. “I am sure he will confirm that it is merely the Fever. The Assistant will be fine in three days and after plenty of potions.”

  Liane nodded gratefully, and lowered herself into the chair next to her young Assistant's bed. The girl was asleep now, under the influence of one of the nurse's potions. She still looked pale, and sweat formed pearls on her forehead. Her face twitched with pain every now and then, showing the restless sleep she was experiencing, even while sedated. At least the coughing seemed to have stopped.

  Half an hour later, the Healer had indeed confirmed the Fever, and has prescribed a whole list of potions. Not for the first time, Liane regretted not taking Healing & Potions in school, dedicating her time to combat-related arts instead. Such a course would have come in handy now.

  She had strong-armed the nurse into showing her when and how each potion had to be administered, what each potion did, and whether there was something else she needed to know. After receiving the information, Liane had then insisted on giving the potions to her Assistant herself. The girl was sick; it was her duty as a Proctor to care for her.

  The nurse had left with a doubtful look on her face. It was not her place to disagree with a Noble, but it was also her task to care for the sick. She didn't know how to respond, and had finally bowed to Liane's insistence.

  As the girl slept, Liane took a damp cloth and washed some of the sweat away from the little girl's pale face. Was this how she had looked after her fateful fight against Fylian Earthworker? Was this how Cassandra had felt when she, Liane, was in Amy's place?

  She honestly hadn't apologized enough to her Proctor for putting her through this worry. She put the washcloth back in the basin after rinsing it out. Amy was fretfully asleep; there was little she could do at the moment until the sleeping potion wore off. Then Liane would administer the red-colored potion that would help break the Fever, the yellow-colored potion to help strengthen Amy's constitution, and an off-white semi-clear one that would help take care of the coughing.

  She opened up her bag and started to write a
few letters, one to Cassandra to apologize once more, and one to the Lady Mariam. More and more often, she found herself writing to both women, for advice, for help, or just to discuss certain events with someone.

  Cassandra had been rising fast among the Nobles, her weather and air-based magic making her incredibly important and her advice and presence highly sought after.

  Mariam, on the other hand, was currently engaged in a diplomatic task requiring her presence on the Kirian Embassy in Moscow. Liane had needed to look up where the city was located, and was appalled to find it far up north, and very cold during the winter months. Mariam didn't seem to care; she enjoyed life and tasks beyond the Great Barriers that protected the island of Kiria.

  She did not know how long she was writing; losing herself in her work, but her attention was drawn by a whispering of her title.

  Looking up, she smiled faintly at Amy, who seemed awake, if rather weak. She shuffled closer, looking up from the lengthy letters she was writing.

  “It is good to see you awake, Assistant,” Liane whispered with a gentle voice.

  “Proctor?” Amy asked, her usual vibrant blue eyes now dull with weakness. “Why are you here, Proctor?” she asked.

  Liane frowned. “My Assistant is ill. It would not do for a Proctor to ignore her Assistant when she is ill,” she replied. “Unless, of course, said Assistant does not wish her Proctor to be present?”

  Amy weakly shook he head. “Oh, no, Proctor. I was merely surprised, that's all.” She weakly lifted a hand. “Please don't leave me, Proctor.”

  Liane clasped the hand. “I will not, Assistant,” she assured the sick girl. She blotted her papers to ensure no spills of wipes, before folding her letters and placing them protectively inside a book for safe-keeping. “I have a few potions for you. Can you sit up?” she asked after those tasks were complete.

  She helped Amy sit upright in the bed, then gently assisted her with drinking down the potions. After that, she lowered the girl back into the bed. “Lunch will be served in a few hours yet, Assistant. Perhaps you can try and catch some sleep.”

  Amy nodded, closed her eyes, and tried to go to sleep, as Liane had asked. She still felt very weak and even breathing felt like a chore at times. The coughing wasn't present, but it seemed that the anti-coughing potion was making her breathing even more difficult. Sleep did not come. Turning her head, she looked at Liane, who had by now engaged in a different sort of work.

  “What are you working on, Proctor?” she asked, after watching Liane work for quite a while.

  “Having trouble sleeping, Assistant?” Liane asked. When Amy nodded, Liane sighed, and shuffled her chair closer. “You remember this book?” she asked, holding up the spell book for Amy, so that the girl could read it while lying down in the bed.

  The young Assistant nodded. “I do, Proctor,” she replied, remembering the book from when Liane used it to drill spells into her.

  “This book was started by me in my first year, when my own Proctor showed me how to do spell declination circles. I am now creating a second book, allowing me to integrate many of the notes I have been taking on top of earlier notes. I'm not only creating more elaborate declination circles with the added information I have learned since starting the book, I'm also transcoding my notes into a complex rune set. That way, I can add my own thoughts and ideas to it, without running the risk of anyone reading my innermost thoughts,” Liane explained, holding up the book she had been writing in.

  Amy frowned and tried to decode some of the words. After six months, the girl was coming along nicely with her knowledge of Runes, but the writing in the book made no sense to her. “I am sorry, Proctor. I cannot read those rune sequences.”

  Liane smiled faintly. “That is the idea, Assistant,” she said, standing up, and perching herself on the edge of Amy's sickbed. Holding the book up so they could both look at it, she started to explain. “I am transcoding, not translating. In other words, I am writing Kirian, but in the runic alphabet. As there are no direct correlations between the Kirian and Runic alphabet, I am using multiple Runic alphabets mixed together. And sometimes, a certain principle or word or spell matches so perfectly to a single rune's original meaning that I use the rune in its original form, rather than the transcoded form I invented.”

  She smiled faintly, and leaned in closer. “To make it even more interesting, all my notes on the declination circles are written as a boustrophedon.”

  “A what, Proctor?” Amy asked, looking up at the older girl.

  “A boustrophedon, Assistant,” Liane said. “A boustrophedon is written alternatively from left to right and from right to left.” She motioned to the first line. “This is written in its usual form, starting at the left, and going to the right,” she explained, her finger moving from left to right. “The line beneath is written in reverse, from right to left.” Her finger went down from the end of the first line, directly to what appears to be the end of the second, before tracing back to the margin on the left hand side of the page. “In fact, this type of writing is called a reverse boustrophedon, as it is written as the ox turns, basically. A real boustrophedon would have mirrored every other line, rather than reversing 180 degrees, as I have done.”

  Amy nodded. She was too sick to remember most of what Liane had said, but the tracing of the finger made a lot of sense to the girl. First line, left to right; second line, right to left; third line, left to right again. Easy, once one figured it out. And as Liane used Runes in non-conventional applications, figuring it out could be the hardest part.

  The young girl closed her eyes and sunk into sleep.

  *****

  Liane climbed the stairs leading up to the Temple, her Assistant next to her. Neither spoke, both deep in their own thoughts, knowing what was about to happen. Today was the day of the graduation test for Rituals & Ceremonies, the day that Liane needed to conduct a ceremony or ritual to show her mastery of the subject.

  A mere half hour ago, she had been told by the Doctora that she was to conduct a wedding.

  Half an hour was barely enough to learn the names of the people involved, let alone open a book a read what she needed to do. She would need to rely on her memory alone, just as the Doctora had intended.

  A memory that Liane had spent the last six years honing to a fine razor's edge, thanks to working twelve, thirteen, and sometimes fourteen hour days. As they entered the temple's entry hall, Liane stopped, Amy stopping half a step behind her right shoulder. Drawing a deep breath to settle her nerves, Liane looked around the foyer of the large stone building.

  Her gaze travelled over the statues of the different gods and goddesses worshipped. From the statues, her eyes swept over the marble stone floors and the ornate columns holding up the roof of the entry room, to the bright frescos decorating the roof.

  She turned resolutely then, and strode to the small preparation room, designed and built specifically for those people conducting ceremonies within the temple. As she walked, her lips moved to the silent words of her favorite chant, her mind supplying silent rhythms to accompany her lips' silent words.

  Once inside the small room, both Amy and Liane changed into the pure white robes of a ceremonial master, after which Liane spent a few minutes correcting her Assistant's usual disheveled appearance.

  Liane was continuously surprised at how easily the girl could manage to look like a semi-disheveled Commoner.

  Handing Amy the implements that would be needed for the ritual, Liane left the preparation room.

  She guided her Assistant back through the large foyer and out into the imperial gardens that lay beyond. Today was a beautifully bright day, and the ceremony was to be conducted in the open air, in full view of all the gods.

  Had it been raining, they would have used the indoor ceremonial hall, Liane knew.

  She walked through the gardens to the altar set in its exact center, built on a large stone slab upon which nothing grew, a slab that had been engraved with the circles and sigils of ceremony
.

  Just like the altar could be used for different ceremonies, so the slab could be changed to accommodate those rituals, and thus Liane spent five minutes closing the appropriate circles using specially designed ink, and finished the inscriptions with that same ink. The circles and symbols flashed to her magic sight upon their completion, and Liane nodded at the feedback.

  Normal people did not see the reaction, and thus didn't know when or if they had completed successfully.

  She stepped up to and behind the altar, and nodded to her Assistant who stood off to one side. The ink and brush had been discarded out of the sight of the invited people, and now the girl was only holding up a velvet cushion upon which rested the implements for the ritual proper.

  Slowly, Liane drew in a deep breath and let it out, trying to get her raging nerves under control. Most rested upon her shoulders, but much depended upon the actions of her Assistant as well. She had confidence in the girl, to the point where she had declined the use of one of the Temple's own professional assistants.

  But still...

  Liane ignored the thought. Amy would conduct herself marvelously and would not make any mistakes. She had to believe that.

  Making the appropriate sign, she sounded the chime that told the guests waiting in another antechamber that everything was ready, and that they would be allowed entry. Two-to-three dozen people filed out, talking in low voices, taking their positions, leaving a large center space free. Voices talking in dim volumes blended together, and Liane looked over them, waiting for them to be ready.

  When they were ready, five or so minutes later, she made a second sign to allow the guests of honor entry into the gardens, and come up to the altar proper.

  Four people strode calmly and ritualistically through the center isle toward the altar behind which she was standing. Four people, two Mages, two Warlocks. In the center walked an elder Mage and elder Warlock, while on the outside walked a younger Mage and younger Warlock – almost as if the two elder people were preventing the younger people from coming into inappropriate contact.