novelraw CHAPTER 129 – Monsters in the Woods
CHAPTER 129 – Monsters in the Woods
No longer a child, Saphienne knew better than to let her passions show as she listened to Alavara talking about the goblins. She distracted herself by fetching cream from the pantry for their dessert, absently remembering the human equivalent and pondering whether one was inspired by the other.
Yet Laelansa knew how her lover felt about goblins, and why, and shared her compassion. “What have they been leaving around the shrine?”
The Warden of the Wilds shrugged, eyeing the chocolate cake. “Crude little fetishes; they gnaw them out of wood. They’re probably imitating the pilgrims — goblins don’t have culture of their own.”
This perturbed the novice. “…They’re going to be driven off, just for that?”
“More for the disruption in the protectorates. We’ve had complaints that they keep interfering with farming, and they’ve been begging for food at human settlements.” She thanked Saphienne as the cream was placed beside her. “They’ve not hurt anyone yet, but they’ll eventually become aggressive, especially after they spawn.”
Faylar diligently served slices to his mother and himself. “Can I ask a foolish question?”
Seated next to him, Laewyn smiled into her wineglass. “I’ve every faith that you can, beloved mine.”
He ignored his girlfriend as he sat back down and lifted his spoon. “Would it really be so bad to give them food? I’ve been thinking — wouldn’t a better solution be what we do with the human cats? Working with the spirits to limit their population? They only cause trouble when they’re desperate.”
Alavara shook her head. “All that reading has softened you. Do you think woodland spirits are willing to possess goblins? Even if they were, taming goblins is doomed to failure.”
Saphienne picked her prompt carefully as she cut a slice for Laelansa. “I heard that humans have tried and failed to enslave them.”
The warden was disinterested. “Danyn made that point. They can’t be trained.”
Setting down her wine, Lynnariel waded in. “That’s not right.”
“Yes, it is a shame.”
“No,” Saphienne’s mother disagreed with Alavara, “goblins can be trained. I saw one working when I was a little girl… before I was brought here.”
Every head turned to her in surprise.
“…Lynnariel,” Alavara gently countered, “you were very young. That was probably an ugly dwarf-child.”
“Dwarven children are bigger than goblins.” Lynnariel folded her arms. “And I’m sure it wasn’t a dwarf, because it was helping one at the market. It was bagging fruit for people; we traded for strawberries.”
Laewyn’s gaze flicked nervously between the pair. “We shouldn’t talk about this…”
Unwilling to desist, Laelansa asked, “Were goblins common there?”
“Not that I remember.” Lynnariel stared at the ceiling. “I don’t think so: we were curious when we saw it. And the person ahead of us wouldn’t trade unless the merchant bagged the fruit himself. I remember the quarrel.”
Opting to be diplomatic, the warden bowed her head. “Well, I’ve heard oddities abound in nature. Perhaps it was the goblin equivalent of Saphienne — unusually intelligent.”
Saphienne laughed off the joke to relieve the mounting tension.
She then waited for the mirth to subside. “You’ll be heading out there soon?”
“I won’t be going at all.” Alavara helped herself to more wine. “I’ve chased enough goblins around to last this century. No, Danyn is organising for the end of the year, and I’ll be keeping watch here while he sees to them.”
Faylar frowned. “Why wait so long?”
His mother grinned. “Listen to you — so long! A few months is no time at all; good plans are never rushed.” His swift blush made her relent from further teasing. “Danyn intends to get them moving come winter. Giving them a while longer isn’t just a kindness — he thinks they’ll be slower to bother us again if we wait. His plan isn’t a permanent solution, but it’s the best we can do.”
* * *
Quiet throughout the remainder of the meal, Saphienne drank no more wine, and she volunteered to clean the dishes, forgoing her magic and buttoning back her sleeves to do so by hand.
Laelansa realised Saphienne was taking her time, joined her; she stayed close at her side as she dried the dishes.
No one else – not even Faylar – noticed Saphienne was upset.
* * *
Their walk home was subdued.
When they arrived Saphienne went straight upstairs into their bedroom, trailed by Laelansa as she approached the hyacinths potted on the windowsill and wet her finger with saliva. A simple circle made, she called for the bloomkith with calm belying her turmoil — repeating her name nine times.
Laelansa touched her elbow. “I want to hear, too.”
Saphienne nodded.
Hyacinth didn’t delay, flowing into her flowers as her master opened the window. “An urgent cry! For what do you call me? Tell now forwhy–”
“No rhymes.” Saphienne closed the pane and leant on the sill with both hands, looming over the blossoms to study their inhabitant. “I just heard an interesting story: according to Faylar’s mother, goblins have been visiting the shrine to Our Lady of the Balanced Scales, scattering things around the offering trees. Given you were there, I want to know what’s been going on.”
Nervous, rattling laughter answered her. “I see! I have little to tell — much has been exaggerated.”
“Go on.”
“There was but one goblin.” Hyacinth’s namesakes grew pink. “He gave no cause for concern, though odd was his behaviour. He came creeping at night, placing what he carried at the roots of the trees, then cleansing himself in the stream.”
Laelansa spoke up. “Did he take anything?”
“Never.”
Straightening, Saphienne folded her arms. “Did he say anything? Was there anything else about him worth mentioning?”
Detecting all was not well, Hyacinth’s petals purpled. “He whispered all the while, but I know not their tongue, and could not hear him from my flowers. Otherwise…” Her stems swayed. “…He was strangely dressed.”
Saphienne had an awful premonition. “Was he wearing fabric cut from a shrine canopy? Perhaps muddied?”
“He was not the child we met.” Hyacinth knew her well. “His motley clothes were of human weave, perchance pilfered from the protectorates. Nor was he dirty — though faded, his garb was pristine. Yet he was draped head to foot in yellow.”
Vexed, Saphienne spun away.
Laelansa held herself. “Did he touch the icon?”
“He was afraid to draw near; he muttered from afar.”
“Hyacinth… was he reverent?”
“Not as you would be.” Hyacinth craned toward Saphienne. “Why these questions? Why concern yourselves with goblin superstition? What matters his play?”
She didn’t reply — examining her elven countenance in the large mirror. Saphienne said nothing as she left the room and went downstairs, fetching a bowl from the kitchen, returning to sit cross-legged before the mirror. There she unbuckled her spellbook and flicked through its sigils, seeking a hallucination that would serve her need.
Hyacinth was pleading in the distance. “What is amiss? How have I offended?”
“You haven’t upset her… she’s worried about the goblins.” Laelansa watched the magician ready her coin. “The wardens intend to move them on come wintertime…”
Hyacinth’s blooms blackened.
Substituting the Hallucination spell for her daily ward was soon accomplished, and Saphienne put aside her spellbook to turn her gaze to the bloomkith. “I have a task for you. Are you willing to travel to the shrine tonight?”
Hyacinth’s leaves curled in curiosity. “I will go where you will me. What am I to do?”
“I’m going to scry you.” Saphienne beckoned for Laelansa to bring her the flowers. “We have a strong sympathetic connection; I should be able to divine whatever you perceive. I want you to scout the surroundings: show me what the goblin has been leaving, then track him back to wherever he rests. He won’t be far if he visits regularly.”
Engrossed, Laelansa lifted the hyacinths and settled next to her beloved. “Why not scry the shrine?”
“I don’t know what we’ll find.” She clasped the hand that grasped her talisman. “Divination only reveals what we ask about, omits what we can’t conceive, and presents the closest imaginable answer. Divining Hyacinth and what she perceives should be close to inerrant, assuming she doesn’t encounter anything incomprehensible.”
This explanation satisfied the spirit. “I will obey. ‘Tis far to traverse, but swifter done for me than you.”
“How long to make the journey?”
“How passes time when dreaming?” Hyacinth rustled a sigh. “A day and a half for elves… grant me a quarter of an hour. That will be time enough to find the path.”
* * *
A shrine shadowed by the swelling moon, scales veiled, sickle gleaming.
Circles made from woven twigs, set beneath carved trees.
Tracks clear in the silvery glow, trod by small, webbed feet.
An oak tree with outstretched boughs, rooted atop sheltering stone.
* * *
Thrown by what Hyacinth found, Saphienne didn’t immediately reproduce within the mirror what she observed in the bowl, her eyes wide as she peered down into the white light through which she scried.
Laelansa leant over her shoulder — squinting at the hazy geometries she divined. “…How can you make sense of that? What can you see?”
Closing her eyes – having seen too much – Saphienne used the Hallucination spell cast over the glass to translate the patterns for Laelansa.
A sharp breath greeted the scene.
Low was the fire in the den, barely enough to illuminate the snoring goblin curled nearby for warmth. He wore a loincloth, his ritual vestment hung upon the thick and woody roots protruding from the burrow wall, all pale yellow, all begged or stolen piecemeal. His self-stitched, hooded cloak appeared to have been roughly shorn from a worn bedsheet; his inner dress was once tailored for a human child.
Beyond the fire, pressed upon washed and polished stone, many goblin handprints in yellowed clay surrounded a triptych, fingerpainted from natural pigments. Resembling the work of a young child, the leftmost image depicted squat stick figures tearing down a yellow canopy, the rightmost another goblin offering up a grey loop that ran with red…
“…Saphienne…”
“I know.”
Between, they beheld a loving reproduction of an elf with spring hair — her sight golden, her arm bleeding, her sickle turned away from the goblins crowding around her feet, bread held out to dozens of smaller, reaching hands in greens and greys and browns.
Before this unambiguous altar, withered ears of barley and fragments of honeycomb had been laid in offering.
Saphienne let the spells lapse as she sagged forward. “Fuck.”
* * *
Whether or not she was to blame, she was responsible. That was the inescapable conclusion Saphienne reached as she waited, slumping, on Hyacinth’s return.
Laelansa was still hugging herself where she strode back and forth beside the window.
Neither woman had spoken. What was there to say? Where could Saphienne even begin to untangle the disaster she had wrought?
Goblins had mistaken her for a goddess, misinterpreted her kindness as divine pardon, woven a myth that had inspired one among them to devote his life to the telling.
Laelansa stopped. “Why barley?”
“They don’t know how to bake bread.”
Her pacing resumed — with greater agitation.
Finally, before Hyacinth reappeared, her footsteps carried her from the window to the bedroom door. “I need to clear my head; I’m heading out.”
Saphienne surged after her. “Where are you going?”
“I don’t know.” Laelansa didn’t look back.
“But it’s nearly midnight–”
“Tell Hyacinth that if she follows me, I’ll never forgive her.”
Weak and fearful, Saphienne watched forlornly from the landing as Laelansa went into the kitchen, awash with dread as she listened to the back door shut.
* * *
Hyacinth slipped into her unresisting mind as she lay clothed atop the bed, embracing her where they reunited on steps shaded by an ominous, thundering sky.
She shared her memories with the spirit. “…I may be done.”
Hyacinth stared at the deepening snow covering her field. “We should gather supplies: food for a week, clothes for the journey, any keepsakes–”
“I can’t.” Saphienne’s tail lay limp on the stained stone. “I won’t do that. If Laelansa breaks her promise then so be it; I won’t forsake my trust in her, not even to save myself.”
“You think you deserve punishment?”
“Who doesn’t?” Her tone was bleak. “The goblins don’t. They’ll be punished anyway. This isn’t about what I deserve, Hyacinth: this is about who I am. What does Laelansa see when she looks at me?”
Holding fast to her, Hyacinth spread her flowers across skin and scales. “We may suffer to have that question answered…”
“I might; you don’t have to.”
“I cannot forsake you. In this romantic foolishness, we are alike.”
“Then you understand: there isn’t a choice. Trust entails vulnerability. The possibility of one outcome demands the chance of the other. What else but suffering can we offer up, to balance against our love?”
Indeed, what else could they do? They kept faith through the night.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
* * *
Come dawn, came then Laelansa.
She was composed at the bottom of the stairs. “I need Hyacinth to stay here.”
Resolved to give no matter what she received, Saphienne tenderly bade the bloomkith farewell as she descended. “Where are we going?”
“Not too far.” Laelansa pleaded with her eyes, which had cried.
Warmth was in the breeze that traced Saphienne in the twilight; she addressed novice and bloomkith both. “I love you.”
The hand that held her own was cool. “Then let’s go. There’s something that I need you to show me.”
* * *
Years had passed since Saphienne last searched for their destination, and she nearly missed the brambles. “Are you sure?”
Laelansa held firm. “I want to see.”
Gripping the briars, uncaring whether the thorns would bite, Saphienne pulled until a branch snapped then grabbed another, once more doing by hand what would have been quicker by spell – and for the same reason – as she cleared a path.
Uncovered by her efforts, the forested hill stretched dizzyingly upward through the gap in the veil.
Laelansa swallowed. “…I’ll never get used to this…” She led the way.
Saphienne ducked under the reknitting brush as she followed.
Dawn’s chorus diminished as they went up the hillside, replaced by the eerie silence that had presaged Saphienne’s first madness. She supposed coming back now was poetic, for here was where she’d severed herself from the faith that meant so much to the novice. Why Laelansa needed to see her apostasy firsthand was a mystery… but there were worse places to have her heart broken.
At least her surroundings would reflect her feelings.
Not far beyond the crest of the hill lay the scattered windchimes, undisturbed since Almon, Taerelle, and Rydel had investigated them. Laelansa lengthened her stride, crossing the ragged treeline into the desiccated, dusty clearing that had lain concealed–
And unoccupied. Littering the broken earth, fragments of the petrified tree that had bound Tyrnansunna remained where they had fallen, the sunflower’s agonised visage grimacing up at the circle of cloudless sky.
Unmoved by the wreckage, Laelansa instead fixated on the broad patch of discoloured ground where Saphienne had once bled out, congealed sparkles long dulled. “…I thought this wouldn’t be visible by now…”
Saphienne hung back. “No rainfall to wash it away.”
Shaking herself, Laelansa faced her. “Then the wards are still in place. We can talk here: we’re protected against scrying.”
Saphienne stared. “…How do you know that?”
“I’ve been to a place like this before.” Laelansa cradled herself. “Three years ago. I told everyone I was in the Vale of Rushes, studying for the summer solstice, but that’s not what I was being taught. They showed us imprisoned spirits… that’s where I learned.”
“You lied to me?”
“I promised myself I’d tell you one day… when I knew.”
Faint had been its embers, yet hope rekindled in Saphienne’s breast.
“Not even the High Masters of the Luminary Vale upon these clearings can scry.” Laelansa’s singsong voice imitated Ruddles. “Woven they are with magic secret to the eldest matriarchs, as like imbues floraliths in the sacred glades, vouchsafed from tampering by the ancient ways. This place is sacrosanct.”
She considered this plausible: Elduin had mentioned how his fellow High Master had personally visited the clearing to confirm what Saphienne had done. “…You didn’t need to see this place…”
“I’ve always believed you.” Laelansa managed a small smile.
Terrified yet emboldened, Saphienne squeezed her fingers behind her back. “Where were you all night?”
“I walked westward.” Fatigue overcame Laelansa as she recounted. “I forded the river and kept going until I reached the edge of the valley. Then I climbed, and sat up there, thinking about us.”
“You wanted your goddess to speak to you.”
“I did.” Her cheeks burned with shame. “For the first time since She appeared to me, I wanted Her to reveal Herself; I wanted Her to tell me what I should do.”
Saphienne felt the world around them fading. “Did she?”
“She would never.” Laelansa’s eyes glimmered. “I didn’t realise it until I was up there, but I misremembered what happened. She never told me to climb… She asked me whether I could.”
Present or not, real or imaginary, Saphienne trembled in fear of Our Lady of the Proven Merit.
“That’s all the gods do: They ask. The rest is ours to answer. And when the sun rose I saw Her everywhere I looked in the vale, and the question She asked me was the one I’ve been afraid to answer.”
Laelansa crossed to her beloved, gazing up in wonder.
“What are you, Saphienne? I know who you are; I know you better than I know myself; I love you the same way. But what are you? Because I believe you when you tell me you’re a dragon… and I don’t believe you when you say you aren’t holy. I’m sure now: the gods have remade you in Their image.
“But if that’s true,” Laelansa rushed on, tears spilling, “then everything else I’ve been taught about Them and the ancient ways… it’s all wrong. Because if a dragon can be the image of the gods, then Their grace doesn’t belong to the woodlands alone; because if your passions show Their will, then They must be very angry with us; because if your wyrd was set in motion by the great apostate, then They acted through her, which means–”
Laelansa covered her face.
“…Which means she was holy, too; which means she was right.”
Saphienne had stopped breathing; she exhaled when stars appeared in her vision. “Whatever you think I am–”
“I know what you are.” Laelansa met her lover’s gaze with red in her eyes. “And that means I know what I am. You’re a dragon in the seeming of an elf; you’re here to enact the will of the gods; and you’re afraid to show who you really are. I’m an elf who loves a dragon; I’m called to accept what the gods will be done; and I’m not going to let you deny yourself.”
She backed away. “Laelansa, I–”
“You’re going to do the right thing.” Laelansa was ablaze as she advanced on her. “You’re going to save those goblins from the wardens. They’re praying to the gods for deliverance — praying to you! If you won’t fight for them, no one will.”
“I’m just one person–”
“You’re a dragon.”
“What you’re asking–”
“I’m not asking…” Laelansa grabbed Saphienne’s hand as she fell to her knees. “…I’m begging you. I’ve heard your secret hope; the justice you yearn for; what you wish you could have done for Kylantha.”
Saphienne froze.
“You want my love?” She kissed the hand she worshipped. “Then let me love the Saphienne you really are. Whether or not you believe in the gods, whether or not you believe in yourself… please justify my faith in you; please stand for what’s right; please deliver mercy to the woodlands.”
She was mad.
“… Necessary passion that refuses restraint …”
Yet who but the mad could love a dragon?
“I’d fail.” Saphienne was certain. “Or worse. Lonareath tried for change, and all she accomplished was slaughter. No matter how clever I am, no matter how hard I try, goblins will never be accepted in the woodlands.”
Laelansa wouldn’t let go. “Then what can you do? Your insight is gods-given: how do we protect the goblins? What is to be done?”
“I am what I make of the world …”
“…The protectorates.” Saphienne reeled at the thought. “The ancient ways prohibit mortal elves from living there, but not goblins. If we can show the consensus that they’re people, and can be taught to live peacefully with other mortals, then they might be allowed to live under our protection. But I don’t know how to–”
“Have faith.”
“… For this we pray in common. Who among your multitude may look upon our woes and tell us we are not the same?”
Would that work? Could worshipping the same gods prove to elves that goblins weren’t what the woodlands believed?
The woman who believed in the dragon rose. “Just do whatever you can, Saphienne. Merit isn’t proven by victory.”
“Laelansa…” Saphienne held her. “…This is dangerous. I’ve been warned not to involve myself in politics. The Luminary Vale wants to be sure I can belong in the woodlands.”
“Can you?” The initiate challenged her with the same grin as when they’d first met. “Can you live with yourself, if you don’t try?”
“Do not live as an elf lives, for elves scarcely live at all.”
Did she dare?
“I can love a dragon.” Laelansa caressed her cheek. “I already do. If you want me to spend my life with you, then I want us to live — no holding back.”
She found herself smiling through hot tears. “…They’ll call us mad for this…”
That was when Laelansa fell in love with Saphienne for the second time, completely and with a passion more necessary than could ever be restrained, and she kissed her with a fervour that told how little she cared for what was madness or sanity, unrepentant with want for the wyrm who was belovèd by the gods and beloved by their servant.
Pulling back, Saphienne stared into Laelansa’s gaze, marvelling to witness herself reflected there without her figment. At last she beheld herself in how she was beheld, and at last she could balm the ache within, understanding that she was loved for what she did, yet also for who she was, for they were – and always had been – one and the same.
Laelansa flushed, lunged for her lips again, then kissed her way lower.
“…Laelansa…” A summertime downpour began in the arid clearing.
“…Saphienne…”
They embraced, held apart no longer, two become one, each affirming the other, neither in control, trusting in their shared being, in the strength of their bond, locked in a reciprocal–
“… The world is what it makes of me.”
Her mouth dropped open.
“…Saphienne?”
Astonishment gave way to the mortification of self-awareness, and Saphienne delicately extracted herself from her lover, taking Laelansa’s hand as she led her confused yet patient partner from the desolate clearing and into the inviting cool of the trees. “I am so, so sorry about this…”
Suspended between bemusement and alarm, Laelansa went along with her past the fallen chimes. “What’s the matter?”
“Promise me you’ll forgive me; promise me you’ll let me live this down; promise me you’ll never tell anyone this is how it happened.”
Laelansa was incredulous as Saphienne sat down on the grass with her spellbook, then giggled as she guessed at the reason. “You want to look like yourself before we…?”
“That’s not it.” She opened to the final two pages. “That’s not it at all.”
* * *
Fifteen minutes later, Saphienne searched the hillside, locating and uprooting bluebells that were nearing the end of their flourishing.
The hale flowers she brought to Laelansa remained red even after the Transmutation spell concluded — sufficiently changed that Hyacinth responded to an invocation using them, finding nothing unusual in their structure when questioned by her jubilant master, who thenceforth would call herself a magician of the Third Degree.
* * *
Four days later, Almon summoned Saphienne to meet him at his home.
She’d been obliged to report her attainment to the local representative of the Luminary Vale, and had duly told him the next morning. The wizard had taken the news with greater poise than when she’d previously announced her mastery, tinged with resentment at being surpassed in accomplishment. Upon her demonstration with a contingent Hallucination spell, he’d merely sighed, formally congratulating her for being the youngest magician to attain the Third Degree in the history of the woodlands.
She wasn’t the first of his students to overtake him. There had been two others, she’d discovered, both among the earliest to have apprenticed with him. This disclosure had led to a matter that was deliberately omitted from the formal syllabus, but that by right she was entitled to know.
“These statistics are not to be shared,” Almon had cautioned her as he brought her into his sitting room. “Doing so risks discouraging apprentices.”
Intrigued, she’d sat and listened.
One in one thousand elves had the potential to attain the Second Degree through studying wizardry; only one in three thousand were allowed to undertake apprenticeships, however, owing to unsuitable dispositions. Far more numerous were the number who might unravel only the First Degree, with estimates ranging between one in five hundred to one in one hundred.
“Trial and error have refined our selection criteria to choose only those candidates who are unlikely to be stymied after the first barrier. Apprenticeships are not granted to anyone without the appropriate traits.”
Saphienne hadn’t needed to ask why attaining the Second Degree was necessary for elven wizards. She’d intuited that he would have told her that schooling magicians below the First Degree required too much investment for too little result, their capacity for spellcraft – particularly enchanting – inadequate for the needs of the woodlands. What Almon could never say was the truth… which she’d gleaned for herself the moment she’d understood how the syllabus was written to slow the progress of apprentices.
“What about the Third Degree?”
“One in ten thousand is probable,” Almon had replied. “One in one hundred thousand for the Fourth Degree, after which estimations become difficult due to rarity. I trust you will appreciate why this is intimated but not confirmed.”
Afterward, Saphienne had surmised that this was why she’d been treated with patience throughout her adolescence — and beyond. Even to those who hadn’t known about her wyrd and what it portended, the signs evidencing her potential had been clear, along with the likelihood that she could reach higher than most. Hers had been predicted a rare talent.
As she knocked and entered the parlour, she wondered whether her advancement was the reason she’d been called back so soon. What had the Luminary Vale made of the news? Saphienne didn’t expect her progress had been well received by the High Masters.
Peacock chirped from the windowsill. “Hello Saphienne! What a rare pleasure; Almon will be jealous to hear you’ve come to see me.”
The familiar’s habitual sarcasm never failed to amuse her. “I assume he’s upstairs. Am I to wait?”
“Why yes, I am doing well,” he continued, ruffled. “How nice of you to ask after me! You’re always so considerate.”
“Good morning, Peacock. Better?”
The figment smoothed down his feathers, mollified. “You’re lucky I’m fond of you. Go on up: he’s waiting.”
Saphienne suppressed her eyeroll until the bird wouldn’t see.
Almon wasn’t in the sitting room, nor was he where he meditated, and when she hesitantly ascended to the guest room and bathroom she suspected Peacock had been playing a trick: the floor above held only the wizard’s bedroom.
Then she heard a door opening overhead. “Master Saphienne! I’ll thank you not to search every room on your way up.”
“…Would you have preferred I divine your location, Master Almon?”
Saphienne climbed the stairs to find her former teacher outside a closed door, dressed in cerulean robes with his arms crossed impatiently. She lingered at the summit, unsure why she was there.
Almon observed formalities with a slight bow. “Depending on when you attempted it, your result would have been interesting. Don’t hover there; you’ll want to cast the Second Sense before we proceed.”
Indulging him, Saphienne did so as she joined him in the small corridor, expanding her proprioception for magic to supplement her senses. Her growth as a magician afforded her improved sensitivity, now engaging with the spell more dynamically as she took in her surroundings, yet she found nothing out of the ordinary…
…Except, definitively, she identified that the twinkling motes of blue which always hung around Almon were not from the enchantment on his robes. Her old friend was using his favoured discipline to hide a spell. “Apart from whatever ward you’ve been veiling all these years, I’m not noticing anything worthy of scrutiny.”
His eyes narrowed. “Kindly desist from probing my person, and direct your attention to the wall between the windows.”
The curved surface seemed utterly mundane. “…This is interesting.”
“…Surely you jest…” Almon sounded mildly panicked.
“Your home has a minor ward.” Saphienne stepped over to touch the wall. “The enchantment runs through the bark, along with the supportive transmutation that helps maintain the structure… except I don’t see either here.”
Almon recovered as he joined her. “You’re the first to notice that.”
“Not a discontinuity of affected area,” she affirmed, hands on her hips. “I can only posit that my Second Sense is deceived. You have my attention, Master Almon.”
The wizard in blue opened one of the windows. “Feel free to look at the other side.”
She braced against the frame with hand and knee as she did. Outside, the missing strands of green and swirls of white were readily spotted.
“…New enchantments for your hand, Saphienne?”
Her smile was smothered before she stepped back and shut the window. “I made these some time ago. I’m now able to use my left just as well as my right.”
“Why the claws?”
“The fingers had to end in points.”
He declined to pursue the matter any further, taking hold of his lapels. “Few wizards and sorcerers know what you are about to learn. By decree of the Luminary Vale, this is secret knowledge, and revealing it to anyone without written permission will be judged most harshly.”
She bowed. “I understand.”
Raising his palm in the gesture of pronouncement, her former master spoke the syllable signifying identity as he manifested his hallucinatory seal upon the wall–
Which shimmered, then vanished, become an arch, beyond which a stairway conjured from black marble impossibly rose outside the confines of the tree.
“This,” Almon quietly admitted, “is not the work of my art.”
“No,” Saphienne agreed.
Overwhelmingly powerful Translocation resculpted the space before her, which was warded with layered abjurations of matching magnitude, Hallucination and Fascination employed to obscure the magical resonance such that it was invisible from without.
“…Fifth Degree.” She was certain. “A vault — belonging to the Luminary Vale?”
“Excellent.” He went up the narrow steps. “We’re still in the Eastern Vale; every appointed wizard guards a place like this.”
“For things that are dangerous?” Try though she might, Saphienne could fathom nothing of the artistry. “Temporary safekeeping — until they can be passed along?”
“Infrequently.” He unlocked the adamantine hatch blocking the way. “Mostly, for miscellanea warranting safeguarding, whether they are useful, or whether they are too sophisticated to destroy. See for yourself.”
Illuminated by a sun-like globe hanging from the ceiling, the round room was ringed by shelves and bookcases, perhaps fifty feet across from grey wall to wall. Most of the vault was vacant, but there were artefacts on display that shone before her with the hues of multiple disciplines…
…Such as an enchantment her master chose to exhibit. Almon lifted an overlarge, sheathed knife – no, an actual sword – from one of the shelves, abstracted orange and red coursing through the blade like blood through veins as he strained to half-draw it from its scabbard, whereupon the mythril surface blazed with conjured, blue fire.
“Not an everyday tool,” he called over the growing roar, cutting it off as he sheathed fast the weapon. “Nor is there any sane reason to leave it in the possession of the Wardens of the Wild, for whom it was forged.”
Rods of Repulsion were neatly racked behind him. “I remember these: you brought them with you to fight Parthenos.”
“There are things in this world the brave must be empowered to defend against, should they ever come to the Eastern Vale.” He returned the sword to its stand. “Dragons are not the only danger to be contested.”
Saphienne had read of some. “You speak of demons?”
“…Perhaps.” Disquieted, he adjusted his outer robes. “True demons are extraordinarily uncommon, and for all they hunger, they are aware that the spirits of the woodlands are not easy prey. They, like dragons, are wise enough to avoid us. No, what usually passes for the demonic is often just a malign spirit, or some horrendous, slithering thing brought forth from the minds of the unwise.”
“Aberrations of Invocation or Transmutation.” Those, she knew more about: she happened to keep one as a pet. “Are most really that dangerous?”
“Nearly all the ancient blasphemies were destroyed.” He clasped his hands behind his back as he strolled to what resembled a large binding circle hewn into the floor. “Some escaped the woodlands; a minority exceeded the insight of the High Masters and had to be sealed away. Those were true monsters. More often, but never during my tenure, the aberrant horrors that intrude upon us are the work of mortal magicians.”
She surveyed enchantments closer to herself, lingering on what looked like the metal-ringed gemstone of a fascinator, yet sparkling in green and white. “How often,” she inquired as she met his gaze, “are these things used?”
Almon relaxed. “I’d never found cause before the day of your heroics. Should that be the last time during my tenure, I will be very fortunate.”
Moving opposite him across the circle, Saphienne matched his posture. “Why are you showing me all of this?”
He inclined his head to the collection. “Any wizard or sorcerer admitted by the Luminary Vale is permitted in here in an emergency. Access is recorded — whatever is brought in or taken out is noted, along with the resonances present within the vault at the time. I hold the key, and Master Vestaele presently carries the spare.”
“You’re letting me know in case of an emergency?”
“Or in case something needs locked away.” He glared. “But while we’re handily surrounded by implements of violence, I happen to have questions about your recent tutoring…”
* * *
An hour sufficed to convince him that she hadn’t given inappropriate help to Iolas, who apparently had achieved a breakthrough with his spellcraft. She was dismissed with notice that he would reexamine Faylar come summer, along with instructions to see Vestaele, who could advise her on acquiring sigils of the Fourth Degree.
Saphienne and Laelansa had other plans for the day, and so she headed home, worrying over their rehearsed overture toward Nelathiel. If she would entertain their cause, then maybe…
Her schedule was promptly upended when she found Laelansa sitting with Celaena, who was beaming in triumph. “Saphienne! Celaena has some wonderful news!”
She groaned as she recognised her friend’s smug expression. “…I just finished persuading him that I’m not giving you the answers…”
The newly senior apprentice simply laughed.
End of Chapter 129