Cataclysm, p.26
Cataclysm, page 26
part #1 of Rebirth Series
Tic couldn’t believe it and his newly empowered talent tingled with the residual magic that surrounded the entire structure in a way that the stone he had cast into the sea could ever compare.
Riverhouse is not only made from magic, it is magic. I feel it singing to me, guiding me. Tic had fallen into staying in his home at night to finally be able to relish in the solitude he had always craved. He had begun with simple light tricks and object manipulation but here, as opposed to his home in Lemure, the rocks seemed to pulse with energy. In Lemure he had to pull from a pond of energy down a winding path from a shallow pool. Easy enough to get to but here in Riverhouse it literally dripped from the walls. He could see the symbols when he closed his eyes and they revealed all there was to know in how this magnificent structure was built.
He brought the boot into the shop and detached the soles. He looked at their thickness for a moment before throwing the sap sawdust composite on the coals to soften all the while feeling the energy around him which he unconsciously channeled into his focus.
He needed the sole to be thinner, more flexible yet at the same time stronger. He let his eyes wander across the shop knowing that what he needed was here, somewhere it was here…but what? He looked at the sorted hides wondering if that was it. Buckskin? Too soft. Buffalo? Too thick. Lokai?
He shifted his vision knowing that leather in the sole did make it more pliable, but it also shortened the life of the product. He came to the dried tendons they would strip for the bindings on the sole, scrutinizing each one carefully. And then he came to the lokai tendons that traveled the length of the entire body of the vile creatures. The already stripped lines of fine wire like tendon and it was suddenly obvious what he needed to do.
He grabbed a small handful and quickly weaved them into a small porous mat. His thoughts kept getting pulled to the grinding stone where they sharpened their blades, but why? It was an old stone that had been turned many times from the foot pedal below, then he saw it. A small pile of steel dust had collected underneath it so he carefully scooped it up and set it to the side. He pulled one sole out and gouged a channel down the center before shaving down the overall thickness, constantly switching from left to right feet to keep the sap at a constant temperature.
I can’t use metal, it will cause the sap to flake and break down, won’t it? Tic wondered as he remembered the demonstrations of working the sap with steel as opposed to wood or copper. Maybe the dust from the floor was the stone and not steel at all.
He held a small magnet over the pile of dust and smiled when a very little bit of dust clung to the magnet. He rolled the magnet through the dust a couple of times before sprinkling the dust over the newly heated soles. He laid the woven tendon over that and slowly started to pound the mesh and stone dust into the malleable sap which had been cured in the traditional fashion with saw dust.
It was when he stood back and looked at the item was when he impressed himself. This simple thing was made with the help of magic simply due to the abundance that was around him and he knew it. He had connected with the energy on the first day and it had been with him ever since. He couldn’t focus his energy on any certain thing without the magic flowing into him. They were growing together, he and Riverhouse, Tic knew it was only going to get better, stronger, and eventually become more than he could have ever imagined.
Will I be able to handle it though? He remembered the stories of wizards of old becoming sick with power, he didn’t want that, in fact he couldn’t think of a more horrible existence. At this point he was still merely dabbling in magic that surrounded him, he vowed to go slow and be careful not to lose sight of who he was.
He began permanently attaching the soles onto the uppers, letting his mind wander as he thought about his sudden urge to meditate. The Riverhouse arm of Lemure boots was rather small, so his bookkeeping was minimal, leaving him with a lot of time in the evenings. He started sitting cross legged on his kitchen table staring out a window and his mind had begun to wander.
The first time he had snapped out of the trance he knew that somehow what he had envisioned was real. Somewhere, what he had seen had really happened or was happening right now, somewhere. He would search more and follow the trails that were opening to him every time he ventured into them.
He presented his finished product to the battered elf.
“How does that feel?”
“Really good actually. The sole seems to flow against my foot and I have more maneuverability than with a thick soled moccasin. Strap the other one on and let me walk around a bit,” Leldeif said, which was farther than they had ever gotten in the process of making the first pair of serviceable elf boots. Typically, moccasins of one type or the other was what they used, but you would need three or four pair a year depending on what you put them through.
“What do you think?” Tic asked as the elf went through some forms of dancing that looked utterly ridiculous to Tic. Tic had a feeling that his gardener was bloating his swordsmen skills, probably to keep people from harassing him about his scarred face and hands. On his left hand, the pinky and fore finger combined with the thumb, and the right hand looked like scar tissue all the way up the arm and into his neck and face. Whatever had happened to him involved fire, that was for sure, but Tic doubted it involved swords. His forms displayed more of a dance or moves you would see at a theater. There was no way he could get enough force behind his maneuvers to actually be a threat. He chuckled to himself and smiled as Leldeif performed an acrobatic routine only to land mere feet in front of the young human.
“They’re perfect; seriously, I have never had better contact with the ground in any kind of foot wear. I would even be willing to pay money for them if the price was right.”
“Nope, this pair is on the house, tell all of your friends that there is a human who makes elven footwear better than they do and we’re square.”
“That is too easy, I have no friends…especially elven friends,” Leldeif said, once again voicing his disdain for his own race.
“Leldeif?”
“No, I told you before it is not a concern for humans or dwarves.”
“Yeah, yeah…I know, I know, whatever and who cares right? That is not what I wanted to ask you.”
“Oh, what do you want to know?”
“Well…in Lemure and on that side of the Swirl there are no other races but human.”
“Really? Wow, must be nice,” he replied sincerely.
“It’s kind of boring actually, I hope that I never have to go back, to be honest. Back to my question…I don’t even know what all of the races are. So, is there a race or species of manlike creatures with huge wings?”
“Aerials, of course. Why do you ask?”
“No reason really. I have been having a lot of dreams and I keep having one about an elven maiden and one of these aerials in an old castle.”
“Are they fighting?”
“Not each other, they’re friends.”
“Bah! No one is friends with an aerial. The dwarfs have regulated their population since the last war, so there are very few of them left. They are pure malicious evil; they know not of friendship…only domination. That is what they know, the last war of the races was to crawl out from under the yoke of their subjugation. Most would prefer to see the entire race exterminated.”
“Really? That’s too bad.”
“Too bad? Why would you say that is too bad?”
“In my dreams I have seen him fly up into a large atrium within this castle and it is the most beautiful thing that I have ever seen,” Tic said as his eyes glazed over at just the thought of such a being existing.
“Yeah, the legends call them the lunaisel un proto, which means beautiful death in your language. We have portraits of hordes of them tearing through cities and farms. They are a horror to look upon but at the same time…they are very beautiful.” He paused as he thought about it then added. “I think there is a life lesson there somewhere. These dreams, are they actually dreams or are they visions?”
“What do you mean?” Tic stammered. “I mean, aren’t they the same?”
“No, a dream is a wayward thought created within yourself and usually have no bearing upon the natural world. A vision, is quite the opposite.”
“Oh, I guess…I don’t know which. I am taking time to meditate in the evenings and sometimes in the mornings and that is when I have been seeing these things.”
“Are you sleeping while you meditate?”
“Sometimes…yes and sometimes I think no, maybe,” Tic replied with a shrug causing Leldeif to shake his head.
“Be careful with that, Tic. Especially here in Riverhouse. If you have the least bit of magic within you that you don’t know about you can get into a lot of trouble,” Leldeif instructed and Tic forced a laugh.
“Magic, me? That’s just silly,” Tic said and Leldeif gave him a side eye, which you wouldn’t think would be possible with only one eye, but he managed it rather well.
“Shit, what have you done, Tic?”
“Done? Nothing…I have only seen things.”
“How long have you known that you had magic abilities?” Leldeif asked, straight to the point.
“It’s been a few years now.”
“And nobody else knows?”
“Until now, only Tia…my sister. Oh, and some strange witch woman I met back in Lemure.” It was his turn to side eye. “Magic isn’t as common where I am from and there isn’t as much of it,” Tic said.
“That’s Riverhouse, it won’t be like that once you leave here. There is so much errant magic incorporated into the very stones that built this place that even some of the weakest wizards have overwhelming strength here.”
“Oh, I thought… or I was hoping it would be just me. So, you have magical powers too?”
“No, but I am an elf, so I do know how to fight it in most cases. If you disrupt the rune you take their strength,” Leldeif said intending to intimidate the young human.
“Rune? What do you mean rune?” Tic asked causing the scarred elven face to go slack.
“You don’t use runes? Everybody uses runes. It is how you tap into the source.”
“The source?”
“What kind of magic are you doing, Tic? Magic requires runes, everybody knows that.”
“I think I know what you mean by runes, but I am not certain. I see symbols and stuff, but I could never draw them very well, not from memory anyways.”
“Well, you must not be very good yet, hopefully you don’t become better or you could damage your standing here in the house.”
“Yeah, let’s hope not. I have too much to do to get any practice in with it anyhow.”
* * *
Leldeif appreciated how his life had changed over the last couple of weeks and for the first time in many years he actually found enjoyment in the company of another. Tic was genuinely a nice person, and it probably didn’t hurt that he was about the same age his son would ha— No, he couldn’t think about that anymore. He would remember them and live with the shame of his failure every day, but he could no longer let it rule his life. He had lost it all and he could never forget but it was time for him to start to rebuild his life.
He still didn’t sleep. An hour here or an hour there and that was all he could manage before the horrors trapped in his mind arrived. Most people can imagine the most horrible things to comprise a nightmare, for Leldeif it was a memory, a memory he had to live with every day…a horror to fill his dreams every night, until lately. He couldn’t explain it, but he knew it had something to do with his new employer. Tic had a calming effect on him and it was something he was comfortable with, but couldn’t explain.
He walked the grounds at night allowing the occasional drunk or passerby to sit in the waiting area he had just built in front of the retail store. He wandered over toward the apartments where he himself didn’t have a room, but wasn’t warned away from. Only one window glowed and he looked through the window from a distance where he saw Tic sitting cross legged on the table with unseeing eyes wide open.
His lips moved then his eyes fluttered. The lanterns light turned blue and a gentle mist started to coil serpentine around him and Leldeif started to worry. He reached up and touched the center of the window, it was unlocked.
A vertical bar of light flashed into being right in the center of the room and instantly started to expand.
“Okay, this has gone far enough,” Leldeif said as he opened the window the rest of the way and hopped up onto the sill. Stupid kid can’t know enough about magic not to get this deep into it. Now, where is his catalyst? Leldeif thought, knowing that to stop a wizard you had to break his connection to the catalyst like a rune or talisman. Tic pled ignorance to such a device, but the elf knew it couldn’t be true, he was just being cautious and not allowing too much information to escape.
Elves had long ago developed past the need for a catalyst by invoking runes as their access to the energy locked within the world, everybody else used catalysts. But there wasn’t one, there was only Tic, sitting cross legged on the table looking right at him.
“Are you a thief now? Or simply trying your new boots out in acts of deceit?” Tic said in a tone that was truly hurt at finding Leldeif in his apartment with him and more than a little fearful. The lantern flashed back to its regular color, the bluish bar of energy snapped out of existence as the mist dissipated.
“I am no thief, boy, what I am is experienced. That experience tells me that you are messing with way more power than you should be at your age, especially in Riverhouse, so I am going to take your catalyst until we can get a handle on this.”
“It’s not your business, Leldeif, besides…I don’t own a catalyst and better yet, I don’t even know what one is.” Tic knew his tone was snotty, but he didn’t care, the ugly elf had no business in his apartment.
“Are you nuts? It’s everybody's business especially in here where you could collapse the whole of Riverhouse down on our heads. That could kill upwards of a hundred thousand people of all races depending upon what time of year it is,” Leldeif hissed back trying to keep his voice from carrying across the river. Tic got the hint and closed the window for more privacy.
“Okay, I admit there is a risk of that, but I checked the entire structure around us and repaired any weaves that were weakening,” Tic replied casually causing the elf’s one eye to bug out awkwardly.
“You can’t do that, stupid boy!” Leldeif was on the verge of rage, but Tic couldn’t tell if it was because he thought Tic was lying or if in fact, he told the truth. “It takes twenty or thirty wizards to do any upkeep on this structure. Most are there to make sure it doesn’t collapse as they move and replace weaves.”
“I didn’t remove or replace anything, I simply repaired what was already there. I have been here for just over a month now and my first three weeks I spent getting to know how this place was made and what I could do to make it…oh forget it.”
“You can do that? Do you go to a library or maybe the registrar’s office and look at blue prints?” Leldeif asked fearing the humans answer.
“No, here. Sit here and relax and I will show you,” Tic said having wanted to try this for a while now. He was uncomfortable touching people as a rule, but figured in this case it was acceptable, he was grateful for the elf’s bald head and for the direct contact his hand would have. He placed his open palm on the top of his head and his left on his shoulder to steady him.
“Should I close my eyes or something?” Leldeif asked expecting some sort of ethereal experience.
“Only if you want this to be even more awkward than it already is,” Tic replied and then instantly connected himself to the elf’s aura without even knowing if that could be done. He just assumed that if he could see it and touch it…he could do it. He suddenly could communicate with Leldeif on a whole different level, a level where there could be no lies or deceit.
25
Connection
Tic felt the melding with Leldeif indifferently, which seemed odd. He couldn’t read his thoughts or feel his emotions or anything omnipotent like that. Instead, it was more like carrying a child in piggyback fashion and could feel what the other was wanting. One thing he hadn’t figured out was how to transport himself through air in either a physical form other than walking, nor an ethereal sense, but something solid was a different story entirely.
He allowed their forms to meld into the stone floor of his home where he could see the very aggregate that made up the bedrock on a level that very few, if any have ever seen. The first time he tried this all he did was stare at the very nature of the solid portions of earth that made up mountains and streams, but he learned that as incredible as that may be there was much more to the world. There was also much more to what made up Riverhouse itself.
He took the elf through the stone and under the river until he came to one of the northern gates where a magic junction was established. He had heard Leldeif gasp at so many things that they had seen in their short trip that he knew the elf was paying attention.
“Can you spy on people from here,” Leldeif wondered.
“No,” Tic projected. “When you are in the stone you are a part of it and stone has no eyes or ears.” In saying this Tic realized how right he was for there was a complete absence of sound and his sight was limited to what he was in…which in this case was stone. There was slight vibration from the exterior world but nothing more and it flowed through your body, not your ears.
They stopped in place so that the elf could focus his senses. Tic remembered his first time and how everything was such a rush, it caused panic until he was able to acclimate to the situation. Therefore, he decided to take Leldeif on a short journey to show how they had become a part of the stone. That was what they felt, that was what they saw as well as passed within traveling much like lightening will with water or steel but not nearly as fast. After a bit when Tic felt that the elf had become as accustomed to their environment, he brought him closer to the doorway. Communication, it seemed, was nothing more than projected thought so he moved them forward slowly so that they could feel the magical weaves that traversed the entirety of the structure within the stone.
