by Matt Russell
A silent laugh escaped her lips. She had power! Livia barely understood what it was or how to control it, but it was there! That meant that getting Iona back might be possible. As she pondered the implications of this, a bit of blood trickled into her mouth and she winced. Her mind began to race. What was it that held her back? Was the force of pain part of her magic, or separate from it? Whom could she ask? There was Septimius, the current village sorcerer, but did Livia dare go near him? She had nearly killed the young man seemingly just by coming into contact with his magic. What if it happened again to Septimius? Would she be able to stop it?
The door burst in behind her, and Hervin’s voice came in huff: "Someone saw him riding North!" Livia turned and saw him clutching the drawing she had made, and when he looked at her, he let out a gasp. "My gods, what happened?!"
Livia gazed down at herself. Blood had seeped down the front of her dress and formed an enormous crimson stain. Hervin dashed toward her, but she held up a hand to stop him. Shaking slightly, she walked to the table and picked up her pencil. It slipped a little in her wet fingers as she scribbled:
I fell. Don't worry. I'm fine.
Livia was not sure why the lie came out, except a very deep instinct told her not to reveal any of what had just happened. Hervin seemed to accept the explanation, for he shook his head and said: "Someone saw the young man hitching up a cart while a pair of men loaded something into the back that—" he drew in a nervous breath, "might have been Iona."
Livia nodded and wrote:
We're leaving tonight. We'll search the road and all the inns going north. Get the sword your father gave you and put on warm clothing.
"Y-yes," Hervin muttered as he read the words, and he dashed back into his bedroom.
Livia went to her room and immediately opened the small compartment she had made in the wall below her bed, gnashing her teeth as she reached inside it. The money Lady Gretis had given her was still there. Livia had avoided taking it out or even thinking about it for years. When she had been a slave—or thought she had been—all those desseks represented the terrifying possibility of leaving Hervin and the only home she had ever known, miserable as it was in some ways. Now, the money had a far more important use. Livia could hire soldiers to help rescue her sister, or perhaps even pay a ransom. She would gladly give every coin to get Iona back.
Livia set the sack of desseks down on her cot and slipped out of her blood-soaked clothing. She did not bother cleaning herself much before throwing on another of her rough spun dresses. Her hands moved feverishly as she put on her warmest coat and slipped on the fine boots Hervin had bought her after his wife had left and he no longer feared to do such things. Finally, Livia slipped the clinking bag into her coat pocket and dashed out of her room to find her surrogate father, almost comically dressed in an inside-out tunic with his undergarments spilling out of his pants.
"S-should we talk to the city guard before we go?" he said.
Livia shook her head. It might take hours to get anyone to believe the two of them, and so much time had already been lost. She did not bother explaining any of this to him, but pointed at the door and gave a sharp, decisive nod.
"A-alright," Hervin said, drawing in a quaking breath. The two of them dashed out the front door and ran to the stable behind the house. Livia's heart was racing. She had no idea if this was a sound plan at all. The road north split in dozens of places. Iona could be anywhere. Still, she had to try! As Livia opened the stable door and drew out the horses, she prayed that she would be able to use the power she had when the time came, and that it would be enough...
Chapter 17:
Animus Awakened
"How do you feel?" Gretis asked.
Kota blinked, trying to clear away the fog in his mind. He was lying on top of several of the cow skins they had used to make the hut the day before. The sun was creeping high above the treetops, which meant he had slept—or been unconscious—through half the day. He sat up slowly and looked at his teacher. She was sitting on top of a tree stump, a steaming clay mug in her hand. The woman seemed uncharacteristically relaxed and happy.
"What happened?" Kota rasped. His neck felt stiff, and so he tilted his head from side to side and cracked the joints.
"You lost consciousness," Gretis said with a shrug, her voice strangely tranquil. "That usually happens shortly after awakening one's power. It happened to me and also to Soulic. You have been asleep for two full days." She gestured to the right and said: "I made you eggs and salt pork. It's a bit cold by now, but I am sure you are too hungry to mind."
Kota eyed the plate of food and his stomach contracted painfully in his ribs. Truly, he had never been so hungry in all his life. He moved over and began to wolf it down, using his claws to scoop up it up instead of the clumsy wooden fork on the blanket.
"Goodness," Gretis said with a chuckle.
He turned and eyed her, as he took his first desperate gulp. "Why are you so happy?" he grunted.
"Because you did not kill those people," she said, tilting her head back and casting a grin of pure happiness into the sky. "Oh Kota, I have been afraid every day and night for nearly five years of what would happen. When I saw you at that campfire, I felt such terror, but you—" she giggled, "you were trying to play with those men." Gretis bellowed out a loud, full-throated laugh. "They were utterly terrified, poor souls, but I managed to get the story out of them of what happened." She cast him a wry grin and said: "You actually tossed the man's arrow back to him!"
Kota swallowed down another great gulp of food and let out a small chuckle himself. He only recalled his encounter with the two men in flashes, but catching an arrow between his thumb and finger had managed to stand out in his mind. He relived the memory as he finished the last of his food and was surprised to find that he was still quite hungry.
"Here," Gretis said, tossing him an apple from in her bag. Kota caught the piece of fruit in the air and brought it to his teeth without hesitation, tearing viciously into it. "The hunger too is quite normal,” she sighed. “It will pass when your body becomes accustomed to its new power."
As Kota swallowed, he tried to search inside himself for the ‘power’ of which she was speaking. Almost immediately, he felt its warm pulse within him, raw and immense. "Is it a part of me now?" he whispered.
"It was always a part of you, but more so now than ever before." Gretis moved to him and lowered onto her haunches. "For the moment, you should conceive of it as an entirely new set of muscles in your body. It will take time and training for your mind to develop control over the power and, much like a muscle, it can be cultivated and made stronger. Your potential, Kota, is..." she shook her head, then placed a hand on his shoulder and said: "Gods but I am delighted to find that the beast is guided by your kind heart. I should never have doubted it." She leaned in, a motherly smile playing across her smooth face as she asked: "Are you still hungry?"
Kota felt the tightness throughout his body. It seemed as though his insides had been emptied out completely. Still, he had an instinctive resistance to overeating. For centuries upon centuries, his people had survived by their quickness and agility. That legacy was as much a part of him as anything, and it revolted at the thought of overfilling his gut.
"I am fine," he whispered.
"As you wish, young warrior," she said. "Let me know when you feel ready. Now the next level of your training can begin."
Kota watched the Blade Witch rise to a standing position, and the new part of him that he had brought back from the spirit world followed her movements. It sent an image into his mind wholly separate from his vision. He felt her rise—felt the tension in her legs and the disbursement of weight between her two feet. He perceived every tiny movement that occurred within her from the muscles contracting under her skin to the beat of her heart. All of it was laid bare by a strange and somewhat frightening new awareness.
"Are you alright?" Gretis said, and he saw a pristine image within hi
s mind of the shifting bones and sinew of her mouth as she spoke.
"I... It's showing me things... strange details about the way you move," he said.
"Already!" she exclaimed, and her eyes went wide. "By the gods! You are a true prodigy!" She eyed him and took in a deep breath, and he felt her lungs expand within her chest and the flutter of her heart.
Kota dropped his forehead into his hands. "It is making me dizzy," he whispered.
"You will grow used to it, I promise you," Gretis said, her voice warm and reassuring. "You are developing an entirely new array of senses, though the speed at which they are coming..." she shook her head and he felt what he could only describe as shockwaves from the movement. "Kota, you have no idea how talented you are. It took me nearly a year to develop what has come to you in the first few days."
"Can I make it stop?" he said, glancing up.
"I am afraid not, young warrior," she said, a conciliatory smile on her face. "Your animus is seeking a connection with your conscious mind. You must embrace it."
"My animus?" Kota said.
"Your spirit if you wish," Gretis said with a low sigh. "It has many names. In Dhavic, it is called the dok-hrul. However you wish to term it, your animus has its own awareness of the world, and you should by no means seek to discard that. It will become extremely valuable to you. Observe." Gretis reached down and picked up a piece of gray stone the size of a cantaloupe from the ground. She gave Kota a little wink and then, moving with a sudden burst of preternatural speed, she threw the rock directly at his chest.
The projectile came in faster than an arrow from a bow, and Kota might not have even had time to flinch, but his animus reacted. It lifted his hand instantly. He felt the stone collide so hard with his palm that it cracked and there was a spray of dust, yet there was no explosion of pain. The new power surged within his flesh, rendering it tougher than steel so that the impact felt something like a wad of paper crumpling against his skin.
"Wha—" Kota grunted, gawking at his outstretched limb.
"You see?" Gretis said in a smooth voice.
"I... I didn't choose to move my arm!" Kota said. He turned the cracking mass in his hand. His claws had sunk into it, piercing in as though the rock were a piece of fruit.
"Your animus decided to move your limb for you. It can react far more quickly than you can."
"It can control me?" Kota whispered. He drew his claws back into his fingertips and gaped at the deep triangular indentations they left in the stone.
"The force inside you can make tiny decisions on its own, separate from your conscious will, and it will automatically act to protect you from harm. That is one of the reasons Sansrit Masters are immensely difficult to kill in battle."
Kota dropped the rock to the ground and attempted to process what he had just seen and felt. He tried to relive the catch in his mind, but it had simply happened too fast. After a moment, he gazed up at Gretis and spoke the only thought that came to him: "You said in Dhavic, this is called the dok-hrul. In every text I have ever read, the soul is referred to as the honnis."
The right side of Gretis's mouth curled up into a smirk, and she said: "Yes-s-s. I used a different word—one that does not appear in the Holy Enumis anywhere. What does that suggest to you, Kota?"
Kota considered the matter, and then answered: "Perhaps that the honnis and dok-hrul are different things?"
"Precisely," Gretis whispered. She brought her hands together and said: "Kota, you have ascended to a new level of being—one that most are unable to reach. I can tell you a story to help you make sense of it, but you must agree to keep this knowledge secret."
Kota swallowed. He would keep any secrets Gretis passed to him even unto death. "I give you my word," he said.
"I trust you, Kota," she said. The Blade Witch moved closer to him and sat down on the leaves, folding her legs. She reached out and took his hands in hers and said: "Tell me, young warrior, what legends does your tribe tell of how the shamalak came to walk this world?"
Kota gave an embarrassed laugh. "I suppose most humans would think our legends silly. My tribe has several stories about the origin of the shamalak, and they tend to contradict one another here and there. The common thread between them though is that we were once a race of great beasts, but long ago the great spirits from the cosmos, or Gods perhaps, stripped us of most of our strength and cursed us to walk on two legs and suffer the weaknesses of man."
"Hmm," Gretis grunted. "That is similar enough to the stories I heard when I visited a shamalak tribe in the north. You may be quite surprised to learn that it is actually not far from what the Sansrit teach."
Kota gazed into Gretis's eyes in wonder. "What do the Sansrit teach?"
Her fingers grew slightly tighter around Kota's hands. "What I am about to tell you would be called blasphemy by any church official in the world." Her voice lowered as she added: "The first thing you must understand about Sansrit doctrine is that it purports the gods to which we humans pray did not create the world. It was here long before they arrived, and it had life."
Kota took in a slow breath through his nose, considering the implications of these words. The gods had come to the world, implying that they had originated somewhere else. This was indeed blasphemy.
Gretis went on: "Before the deities came and imposed their order, this world was completely wild and free of society, morality, and even what we now think of as intelligent thought. Still, there was a kind of order to all of it—even unity. Nothing in it had quite evolved to possess a soul, but all living things had an animus, from the plants in the forests to the fish that swam in the great oceans." Gretis tilted her head, looking thoughtful, then added: "Think of it as the oldest magic in the universe—the energy of life itself. All things that possessed its spark were then and are now connected." She cast him a glowing smile. "In time you will learn to feel this connection. I will teach you."
"I would be honored," Kota whispered. He was slowly wrapping his mind around what she was telling him.
Gretis straightened a bit. "For today’s lesson though, I should remain focused on my original point. You see, the great storm of life in this world did not go unnoticed. The dark forces of the cosmos were attracted to it, and they came here to pervert and twist it into their own image. They were powerful but intangible, and so they resorted to infecting some of the creatures that roamed the land. That is when our world saw its first incarnation of what we now call ‘demons.’ They were fierce, primal predators – monsters of tremendous size and power. These creatures had no higher intelligence, but only an instinct to kill or infect everything in their path."
"What stopped them?" Kota said. "Was it the gods?"
"Not the gods," Gretis said with a soft chuckle. "Not at first anyhow. Life defended itself! As I said, all living things are unified, and that unity gave rise to a collective spirit. In Sansrit Philosophy, this is called the Ankus, but you may conceive of it for the moment as the heart of our world. Somehow, it was able to pour great swells of its power into a race of beasts that had not been touched by the darkness. These creatures took on strength to match the primal demons, and they became driven by a deep instinct to defend the rest of nature. For countless millennia, they did their great duty."
Gretis eyed him and said: "Is this making sense to you?"
"I suppose it is," Kota said hesitantly. He was imagining great beasts roaming the world and doing battle with primal demons. "I am not sure what to make of this story yet."
"Well, I shall not attempt to explain what happened next. I have no better explanation than what is written in the Holy Enumis. Whether the gods willed consciousness as we know it into this world, or whether it came into being naturally, I cannot say. Whatever the case, intelligent life arrived, and brought with it something that no creature had ever possessed before: the soul. It was distinctive and separate from the animus. It did not come from the heart of the world, nor did it go there after death. With the adven
t of the soul came the arrival of the gods. These deities more or less obliterated the primal demons with their great power to make way for intelligent life to flourish. They also decreed that the ancient beasts that had fought the demons had no place in the new order."
Gretis ran her thumbs gently over Kota's fingers and said: "And now we circle back to the legends your people tell of how the shamalak race came to be. You see, the gods robbed the creatures of their physical form. However, they could not destroy the great power in the beasts’ spirits any more than they could destroy the intangible demonic essence in this world. The lingering animuses roamed the lands without form until, after time unknown, they found a tribe of humans who lived in peaceful harmony with the natural world. Somehow, the ancient spirits were able to form a pact with this tribe, and they poured themselves into its men and women. The infusion changed the people, giving them claws and fangs and other features much like the beasts had had, as well as incredibly acute senses."
Kota pulled his hands away from Gretis's and extended his claws, gazing at them. "You are telling me that my people came from an ancient race of creatures the world created to defend itself?"
"I am telling you a story," she said. "I do not know how much of it is true, if any. It fits with many things I know. You will come to see as I see—perhaps far better than I have ever seen—and then you make up your own mind what to believe. I will only be able to guide you so far before you exceed me."
"How could I ever exceed you?" Kota said.
