Chapter 31: The Local Flavor (2/2)

Tea time continued into the afternoon, and moved to the topic of magic.

“No magic at all? Not even a little bit?” Varska asked, fully absorbed. They had moved to the large couches to continue the conversation.

“Nope. Or if there is, it is hidden or too unreliable to matter.”

“Fascinating! But then… you are a caster now. What a change it must be for you.”

Viv babbled about how exciting this was, and how alive the mana felt in her conduits and in her mind.

“Interesting,” Varska observed, “I was taught that wielding magic was a contest of dominance with the apathy of the world. Perhaps your unusually high affinity affects you? Archmages and such rarely share their own thoughts on the matter, yet I would wager that their experience compares to your own. You said that Solfis helps you?”

“Yep. He has training methods from the Old Empire.”

“Then I cannot compete, but you mentioned the lack of resources on glyphs and spells. Would you perhaps be interested in a bit of learning?”

Viv stared at the woman as if she had grown another head.

“Hell yeah? I mean, is this a trick question?”

Varska chuckled, the sound light as chimes and still sad. Just like her smile, it had a brittle quality to it.

“I would be delighted to help you with that specific part of your learning. As a witch, your understanding of mana shaping and perception is more instinctual than that of a more traditional mage, and I believe that your current training regimen suits you more than any others short of private tutelage under a renowned archwitch. Glyphs, on the other hand, are universal. What I do not know, we can both read in the tomes I brought with me on my exile.”

“Sounds good. I should head back. Same time tomorrow?”

“If it pleases you, yes. I should be able to make some room in my schedule.”

Varska’s voice was slightly self-deprecating. Whatever stuff she had done, the punishment had broken her pride.

Viv went down the stairs. There were no signs of Grema the housekeeper, though Viv smelled cooked meat through her door. Apparently, the grumpy woman had come with the tower and she and Varska kept exchanges to a minimum.

Marruk stood up from the small wall surrounding the tree base as soon as Viv walked out, intense relief clearly visible.

“Oh shit, I completely forgot to tell you. Everything is fine. Did you wait there for the whole time?”

“Yes! Today was very confusing!” the Kark woman bellowed with some justified annoyance.

Viv felt sorry, then she felt stupid. Not only had she spent much more time than planned with Varska, but she had told the woman almost everything. Everything! If she ended up latched to a vivisection chair in the morning, she only had her own naive stupidity to blame. Why, oh why?

But she knew why.

Because she felt lonely.

There, she said it. She had felt lonely and could not relate to most people. Varska had checked all the marks of that one close friend and Viv had swallowed the bait, hook, line, and sinker. She only had to hope that her trust was not misplaced.

To soothe Marruk, Viv brought her to eat dinner at the temple’s de facto restaurant. A few vegetable buns were enough as a peace offering and they soon left, exchanging murderous glares with the mercenaries milling around. Viv finally got to see the temple guards in uniform as well.

As expected, they looked deadly. Chainmail and shields and swords and maces of excellent make differentiated them from the rabble. They were mostly male but Viv saw the tall amazon woman she had come across in the Spotted Feather among their ranks. The other defining thing were the scars. Some of the guards were missing ears, or fingers, or even in one case a whole arm that had been replaced with a prosthesis. Viv found herself disappointed beyond measure.

“Gods and magic and still cannot figure out how to fucking regrow a limb? What the hell?”

She would have to ask Farren about that.

But now, it was time to go home for the night.

Two shapes approached the deserted compound where the witch had made her den. They wore earth-colored cloaks with complex patterns to help with camouflage. There was no one around but those two had not survived so long by taking risks.

“Front door trapped, I think,” the taller one whispered. His brawny companion pointed right and the pair skirted around the walls, looking for a point of ingress. They knew that the Kark and witch had gone to town, so the house was empty. They now expected the front and back door to be rigged with traps, the magical nature of which the tall one had detected. It was part of his path.

“Here.”

There was a shuttered window, but it was made of wood and nothing that could stop them. The tall one used a long and thin tool to unfasten the latch. He slowly, silently pulled the shutter open.

“Hold on, there is something blocking the—”

He checked for obstructions. All further considerations were discarded when something clamped on his arm with titanic strength.

“AAAAAAAAAAH!” he screamed as his bones gave.

“KREEEEEEE!” something replied. It sounded a bit muffled.

The tall one pulled and the brawny one helped. It soon became apparent that the thing fighting them in this improvised tug of war was quite light, when it slammed against the wooden partition with a dull thud. The prize was released, and the tall man cradled his savaged limb. The would-be thieves legged it with magically enhanced speed.

Inside of the house, a reptilian creature licked her chops. She tilted her head in consideration and judged the taste as ‘passable to middling’. Her sampling done, she returned to the roof for some more well-deserved sunbathing.