Guild Mage: Apprentice

Inkeris had been fasting for three days by the time they reached the shoals of the rift.

His father, of course, had no need to fast. Watching the old man eat strips of dried caribou every evening around their campfire, and then in the mornings when they rose, was enough to make even the most patient son irritable. Added to the constant misery of camping in the snow, it all put Keri in the most foul mood he could remember. Even he knew it, though it didn’t make his words any less sharp.

"There," Ilmari ka Väinis, Elder of the Unconquered House of Bælris pronounced, pointing with satisfaction. "Can you feel it, boy?" The northern wind whistled through the pine forest, carrying a cold spray of snow with every gust and tossing Father’s white hair and beard about.

"What I feel is cold," Keri grumbled, leaning on his Næv’bel, which he’d been using as a walking stick. He’d never liked using a sword, but on this journey he could see the point of a weapon that could be sheathed and hung on a belt. "But yes, Father, I can feel the edge of the shoal. It’s like stepping into a wall of steam." Unlike the elder, he was encased in a thick, hooded parka of caribou skin and an inner layer of fox fur. It was not enough, and to see the old man bare-faced and unmoved by the cold only exacerbated his frustration.

"Good," Ilmari said. "We will go to the edge of the shoal, in sight of the deadland. Be mindful of the mana while we walk; do not lose control. If you come back with mana-sickness, your promised will take it out on me. And that girl frightens me."

Keri grunted, and trudged after his father, following the path the old man broke through the snow. About this, he had no pride: the less attention he had to pay to his footing, the more he could focus on circulating the mana throughout his body. Father was right about one thing: if Keri returned to Menis Breim with weeping sores on his skin, Rika’s temper would hurt more than the chirurgeon’s knife.

Eyes half lidded, Keri breathed in until he felt like his lungs would burst, then held for a count of ten before exhaling. The mana-rich air of the shoal was saturated with so much magic that it spilled out of his lungs and into the rest of his body. Keri’s task was to keep it from running on uncontrolled. The mana needed to be circulated evenly, so that it didn’t overwhelm any one part of his body. Inattention could be fatal, and this was his first time entering the shoals of a rift.

Fortunately, the controlled breathing helped Keri to sink into a state of relaxation, nearly dozing. It was only when his father finally drew him up to a halt that he realized they’d crossed the entire shoal, and he silently thanked the elders who had drilled mana-control techniques into him over and over again.

"You see?" Father asked, pointing out where the snow drifts dwindled, revealing the white bones of caribou, bear, wolves, and a dozen other types of beasts. Unlike the game he was used to hunting with his cousins, the skulls exposed by the heat of Keremor were enormous: true mana-beasts, grown to two or even three times the normal size of a non-magical animal. Even with the reach of the Næv’bel, he would not have wanted to face that kind of threat alone.

Past the field of bones and dead ground, a column of steam rose into the winter sky. It was so thick that Keri couldn’t even see the rift itself, only the effect of it on the surrounding land. "Have you ever gone inside?" he asked his father.

"Once," Ilmari said. "You are not ready. Not until you master Savel." Even without incantation or intent, the word thrummed in Keri’s blood and bones. He would not have dared to say it aloud, but then he did not have the long years of practice that had made his father an expert. "Make yourself comfortable," the old man commanded. "I will stand guard." A guard was no mere formality or ritual - they were deep within the influence of the rift, where monstrous creatures were likely to threaten them.

Keri found a patch of ground where no snow remained, just at the border between the shoals and the depths, and a spear’s length away from any bleached bones. No plants grew here, and even the rocks were bare of lichen. He was surprised to find that the ground was warm when he sat, and that after three days of hiking through the frozen taiga, he was beginning to sweat. He removed his gloves, then unfastened his parka and shrugged out of it. The temperature was closer to late flood, or early harvest, than winter.

Setting aside his spear, Keri sat cross legged, his back straight. The posture had been drilled into him from his earliest years. "You come here to prove yourself an adult, and not a child," his father intoned. "A free man of the Unconquered House of Bælris. It is time to set aside the ways of a child. A child can be reckless; a man cannot. A man must consider always not only the good of himself, but the good of his family. He must heed the words of the elders, and learn from their wisdom. He must protect his kwenim, for however long they walk by his side. He must teach and protect the children the gods see fit to grant him. He must use the words of the dead gods for the good of all, and not the good of one. Will you do these things, my son?"

"I will," Keri said. Before the endless trudge through the forest, it had been easy to make light of the ritual. It was something that had to be done before he could join with Rika, just as she had her own rituals to undergo with the women of Menis Breim. A delay to be suffered through, so that he could get on with his life. Now, suddenly, it all seemed much more real. Children? How could he have a child - it seemed only yesterday he’d been clambering over the wet rocks above the bathing pools with Rika and Sohvis.

"In the first age of the world," his father continued, "the Vædic Lords cast their eyes and their ears anywhere they wished. Across mountains and oceans, nothing was concealed from their sight and their notice, save by their own carelessness or complacence. The winds of mana whispered in their ears of things yet to come, things that might be. We are but children in their shadows, but some small measure of their power remains. You will remain here until Bælris sees fit to grant you a glimpse of what is to come."

Those words were dangerous. Keri closed his eyes, and fell back into the slow, steady breathing that let him filter mana throughout his body. Bælris, Vædic Lord of Light, had stood neither with Tamiris, Arvatis and Sitia, nor with the dead gods that had been thrown down. Instead, in disgust, Bælris had simply withdrawn from the world and left. That placed his descendants in an awkward position. Like their ancestor, Keri’s family had stood aside, preferring to make a home for themselves at Menis Breim. One would have thought that over a thousand years later, the disagreement would have been forgotten, but the Vakansa had memories even longer than their lives.

Every breath tasted of mana-rich steam; it was even more dense with magic here, at the edge of the depths, than it had been on the way in. Keri realized that he was struggling not to lose control; his entire body felt bloated with power. The easiest thing to do would be to cast a spell - probably more than one - and use up some of the magic coursing through him. But that was not the point of the ritual. Instead, he used as much as he could, soothing away the bruises of travel, the blisters on his feet, the soreness in his muscles.

There was nothing but the breathing, and the mana. Everything else faded away. There was no earth and no sky, no wind through the pines of the taiga. The spear on the ground next to Keri was as far away as the stars and the ring overhead. He could not hear his own father, standing guard.

Finally, the wild surge of mana that flooded his body with every breath slowed, then ceased. His body was so utterly saturated with magic that Keri was now balanced with the power of the rift, around him. He breathed in and out, in and out again, and the world breathed with him. There was no separation between Keri’s body and the magic that flowed out of him with his breath; it mingled with the wind, and was tossed throughout the forest, and it too was him.

With the magic on the wind, Keri whirled through the taiga, gazing down at the dark pines. Menis Breim rose in the distance, rearing up between the forest and the coast, and whale-oil lamps gleamed in the windows of the Mountain Home built by his ancestors. But Keri’s gaze did not stop there; it continued south with the wind, twisting through mountain passes. He caught a glimpse of Al’Fenthia, and then it too was behind him. South, ever south he blew, into the lands of the Kenthäoria.

The towns and buildings of younger brother were strange, and their tongue had changed over many generations until it was unrecognizable. Keri had never been to their lands, but he recognized things that were not of his own people, and understood.

Eyes opened, meeting his gaze. They were the blue of the winter sky, cracked over with frost. The delicate lashes put him in mind of a woman, though he could see no other part of her. Whoever she was, it was not Rika. The children of Bælris always had the light of their ancestor in their eyes, and his promised was no exception. Her eyes flinched away from him, like an animal who has endured too much pain.

"Who are you?" Keri asked.

The only response was the sudden gust of snow, and his world became entirely white. The warmth of Keremor fled before the driving winds of a blizzard, and Keri came out of the vision, shivering.

Slumped on the ground not four paces away was the corpse of a white northern bear, still smoking from where his father had burned it. The monster was larger than a whale calf, and Keri could hardly imagine how it had moved on land. The stink of burnt flesh and boiled blood was sickening.

Keri shook himself, and a fine dust of snow and ice, already melting, fell from him. He rolled to the side and took up the Næv’bel in one hand, in case the great bear had a mate. "Good, you’ve returned," his father said, turning away from the beast. "The corpse will only bring more, and we can’t possibly eat it all. What did you see?"

"A woman," Keri said, "with blue eyes. She was like a winter storm."

"Beautiful?" his father asked, squatting down next to the bear’s carcass and pulling a skinning knife.

"I don’t know," Keri admitted. "I could only see her eyes."

"Beautiful," Ilmari repeated, peeling back white fur as he worked. "I can tell from your tone. The eyes are enough to know it. Not your promised. Best not to tell Rika you had a vision of another woman before you’ve even bound yourself to her. Wait a few years."

"I’m not certain you should be giving me advice about women," Keri grumbled. Since there were no more threats in the immediate area, he set his spear down and pulled his parka back on. Despite the heat from the steam in the depths, the vision had left him half-frozen.

"Likely not," his father admitted. "Start a fire. We’ll cook a few steaks. You need the fat for the walk back."

Keri had to hike back into the shoals to find wood, and even there it was difficult. He was fortunate enough to spot a fallen pine tree by its shape under the snow. Once he’d dug down with his gloves, he found dead branches wedged between the ground and the snow above, and broke off as many as he could carry. By the time he’d returned, his father had done good work carving up the bear’s loin, so Keri arranged the pine branches carefully.

"Savelent æm Deru," he sang softly. The magic came easily, mana erupting up from Keri’s belly like a geyser. A flash of sunlight, bright enough to blind anyone who did not have the blood of Bælris in their veins, erupted from his hands, and the kindling began to smoke, then quickly caught. With more effort than he was used to, Keri cut off the flow of mana, and the light dwindled.

"You could have used the spark charm," his father chastised him.

"I could have," Keri said. "But it’s a relief to use some of this mana."

They cooked the meat as quickly as they could, and Keri took a slice off the fire as soon as he was certain it would be safe to eat. It was savory, tender and juicy, and always reminded him a bit of caribou when it was cooked well. Because the beast was living in the shoal, raw mana burst onto his tongue and warmed his belly with every bite, pushing the exhaustion and weariness from his muscles with a wash of energy. He felt stuffed and hungry all at the same time, but ate until he couldn’t stand it any longer. By the time Keri was done, his father had already packed up as much cooked meat as they could carry, and the two men set off back toward the edge of the shoal, away from the rift itself.

"Do you have any advice for me?" Keri finally asked, once they were back amongst the trees, with the steaming rift out of sight.

"I thought I was the last one who should give you advice about women," his father teased him. The man still hadn’t bothered to pull up his hood, which Keri found ridiculous.

"I didn’t say I would follow it," Keri shot back.

"You want to know what I think?" Imari said. "Fine. You’re both stupid children. I can hardly believe either one of you is old enough to be matched and bound. You’re going to make mistakes. You’re going to get under her skin, and she’s going to make you angry. You’ve never lived with a woman. The best thing you can do is to be kind to her, even when you’re ready to tear each other’s eyes out. You have time - more than most. The agreement is only for one child. If things don’t work, you end it there, and move on. We live too long to be miserable with each other."

"Father," Keri said, drawing up to a halt. "What is that?"

"You’re the one who asked," his the old man complained. "The least you can do is listen to your elders."

"No, there," Keri said, taking his spear in both hands and breaking off from their path, heading crosswise through the taiga. "There. It looks like..." Up ahead, a ring of stones broke the white crust of the snow. The scent of rot blood lingered where it should not.

"Let me go first," his father ordered, sunlight flaring in his eyes. Keri only held back two paces, following his father off to the left. He wanted enough room between them that an ambush couldn’t take both men at once.

They stopped at the edge of the ring. The stones surrounded a dead pine, and the branches had been chopped off to a height of fifteen or twenty feet. Like the teaching-trees of Mountain Home, someone had shaped the trunk of the pine. Rather than the head of a wolf or an owl, however, the tree had been shaped into the form of a woman, with her arms extended up over her head, smooth and delicate until the carver had stopped his work, fading into the trunk above.

Her legs, as well, extended down toward the ground, until the voluptuous swell of hips and thighs was replaced by the unworked wood at the base of the tree. In between, the carved woman was clearly nude, with swelling breasts and a rounded belly. The details were rough, but her face was sensuous, with parted lips and heavy eyes, and a mane of hair tumbling about her shoulders.

It would have been beautiful if it wasn’t encrusted with blood.

Bones were scattered around the clear circle marked out by the stones, and the snow seemed not to dare to fall there. A great bowl of turned wood had been set in front of the carved tree, and it was thick with coagulated blood. Worse, it was piled with organs, preserved by the cold. Keri stepped past the stones and leaned down to examine one of the bones.

"This is not an animal," he said, recognizing the shape of the hipbone. With the butt of his spear, he shifted the pile, and found a skull. "Some of these were our people. Do you recognize the carving?"

"I know it," his father murmured. "Though I’d hoped never to see anything like it again. It is an idol, made to receive sacrifice. It is one of the dead gods."

Keri rose to his feet. "Whoever they were, they don’t deserve to be left here."

"We will return with more men," his father said, turning to scan the forest. "We must find who did this. It cannot be allowed to continue."

"Which one is it?" Keri looked over the carving one more time. Was she bleeding from the eyes?

"Raktia," his father said. "The Lady of Blood."