by Eric Ugland
Since sleep wasn’t an easy option, I decided to get some food. I got halfway down the stairs before remembering I’d made it home before the Heavy Purse opened. Hmm. I thought there might be some rations somewhere in the apartment.
Somehow my entrance and faffing about didn’t wake Shae, and I managed to find some of the rations I’d received when I entered the world. I pulled them out of their wax paper wrapping, and gave them a quick sniff.
Sawdust.
Primarily. There were also hints of cardboard and boredom. It was a round, like a British Hobnob cookie, and looked like it had been made from some form of grain. Or, you know, actual sawdust.
They tasted about as good as they smelled. It was almost the absence of taste, like eating mouthfuls of nothing. Except that I had to chew the nothing. Had to chew the absolute crap out of the nothing, and it sucked every last drop of moisture from my poor mouth before I managed to swallow it. I had to drink down what felt like a gallon of water before I was ready for bite number two.
However, once I managed to get the whole thing down into my gullet, I felt better. Remarkably so. I was refreshed, and full, and ready to start the day. Sure, I was still feeling some of the pain from the previous evening’s activities, and, after a quick glance in the mirror, I still had the brown smear across my face from my interaction with the Spitter, but I felt good.
I hopped into the shower, lathered, rinsed and repeated. So fresh and so clean. I got out of the shower, wrapped a towel around myself, and looked in the mirror again. Smudge gone. But I’d gotten some muscle. Not huge amounts — I wasn’t some Arnold type buff boy — but it now looked like I had my own personal fortress of Swole-itude. I pulled on some of the now-ill-fitting clothes I’d gotten from Gideon, and strapped on the various weapons and pouches that made up my every day carry. My EDC.
All that, and Shae was still asleep. And snoring. Not the robust gross snore of old fat men, but a soft little grumbling. It was almost cute.
I shook my head. It was odd the way that everything she did was, at the least, cute. Most of the time it was, well, sexy would probably be the best word. And that struck me as odd. How did she do that? Was there something about the girl that I hadn’t noticed? Or, rather, maybe I hadn’t been around someone who was truly gorgeous all the time before. Maybe that was something that happened with supermodels and the like back in the old world. Something to investigate at a later date. I still had to go all the way across the city, again, to meet up with a witch.
As I left the house, I noticed something I should have seen before I went in, except that going in I was tired and not paying attention to Jack Shit: a note from Matthew. It gave me the address of the pit I’d be working at after my Careena meeting. It had the lovely name of Pit #58.
I caught a carriage and rode across town, taking the time to watch the world zip by, and enjoying the small pleasures of watching a city wake up. Seeing people move around at the start of their day. On the other hand, maybe I was just exhausted. I’ve heard it both ways.
Chapter 99
Careena’s shop was dark when I knocked on the door. I mean, dark like a normal shop with no lights on. Not like, occult dark, like don’t-come-in-here-because-we’re-doing-witch-things dark.
Still, there was a light on in the building above, which is why I knocked. The other half was because I was really intrigued about what was going on with me, and wondering what the hell I could do about it. Could I get rid of a spell? Or two? I had bad feelings about the spell I’d gotten from Gideon, and I was kicking myself a little. I should have taken the sword and then sold it and bought something useful. Maybe, like, a building or something. Another one. Maybe another building on my block would go for sale, and then I’d wind up owning the entire block and making it some sort of thieves’ compound in the middle of Old Town. Maybe I needed more sleep and fewer bizarre ration biscuits.
A short while later, someone walked downstairs rather loudly, and pulled aside a black curtain in front of the door. A curtain I hadn’t even realized was there. Careena glared at me, frowning.
She opened the door.
“Better be good,” she said.
“It is,” I replied.
She just stared at me for a moment, then stepped out of the way, gesturing for me to come inside. I smiled as I walked by, but her frown didn’t budge.
“Smart people are afraid of witches, you know,” she said.
For whatever reason, perhaps because I’d come so damn early, she didn’t take me into the store. Instead she opened a door that led to a stairway, and we went upstairs into her personal apartment. It was a nice little space, almost completely at odds with the store. Quaint and homey, with overstuffed chairs dominating the small living room. The walls were covered in Glaton’s equivalent of Thomas Kincaid. The kitchen took up a small corner of the place, with a tiny cooktop and something I assumed was a magical fridge. There was a cafe table, just a little two-top, where a steaming mug of dark liquid rested.
“Do you drink coffee?” she asked. “I’m afraid I’m all out of tea.”
“I do,” I said, trying not to sound too eager.
“Then I’ll grab a cup for you,” she said.
“Thank you.”
“Sit.”
I sat. She pulled a mug out of a cabinet and had a steaming cup o’ Joe for me quicker than I could follow. As I sniffed the roast — good and dark — she was already sitting across from me staring intently at my eyes.
“Why are you early?” she asked.
“Early?”
“We were supposed to meet this morning, yes?”
“I didn’t know if Matthew’d told you.”
“Of course he did.”
“Oh. I, uh, should I leave?”
“You’ve already interrupted my morning, so let’s get on with it. But I expect something interesting.”
“There have been some interesting developments.”
“Have you been practicing magic?”
“Yes.”
“Have you been learning spells from books?”
“Nope,” I said. “But I have three books, and I wanted to see if you’d permit me to learn them.”
She gave me a sassy and disappointed frown, then held her hand out.
I passed the spellbooks over.
She sighed as she looked over them, and then set them in a little stack on her table. She took a sip of coffee and gave me a look.
“You already know what I think about this,” she said.
“I shouldn’t do it.”
“Exactly.”
“Okay, but—”
“But nothing. At this stage, despite how interesting these spells may seem, learning them this way is a crutch. And the more you lean on this crutch, the more you lower your potential.”
“Not that I don’t believe you, but why?”
She clenched her teeth together and sucked a breath in, then let it out slowly. “I feel I should have made you wait outside until I’d finished breakfast.”
“I’m just looking for an explanation.’
“Why do you think?”
“I’m learning spells but I’m not learning how to cast them.”
“That’s a rather awkward way of phrasing it. You are stunting your knowledge of magic as a whole in an attempt to learn spells. But you will never get the efficiency you need in order to cast the big magics.”
“Big magics?”
“Yes.”
“Like what?”
“Like spells requiring thousands of mana to pull off.”
“Is there a limit to how much mana a person can hold?”
“Not that we’ve found. Or that I’ve heard of. And before you ask — I can see the curiosity in your eyes — I won’t tell you how much mana I’ve got.”
“Is that like asking to see someone’s character sheet?”
“You realize you can see someone’s mana on their character sheet?”
“So that’s a yes, I suppose. Impolite.”
“Any spell?”
“Within reason, sure.”
“Deal.”
“Surely these,” she gestured at the spellbooks, “were not the reason Matthew needed me to meet with you this morning.”
“Yeah, I may have, uh, discovered a spell. A kind of bad one?”
“A bad spell? Explain.”
“It’s, uh, something that drains, uh, things from people.”
“Try and use your words. Or more of them.”
“I was trying to heal someone, but I only knew the spell heal self, so I tried to do the spell to him like I’d been doing to me. But somehow I wound up draining everything out of him and killing him. And in the process I got some of his, um, stats.”
She blinked at me, then frowned.
“Stats?”
“Skills and abilities and attributes. But I didn’t get any extra experience.”
“Small price to pay.”
“I know.”
“Give me access to your character sheet.”
“Isn’t that—”
“This is not a matter of propriety. You have come to me for instruction and advice, and I cannot do that if you withhold vital information I need.”
“Okay. Access granted.”
She closed her eyes, and I felt a light tingle on my body. Really faint, and if I hadn’t been sitting and waiting for something to happen, I probably wouldn’t have noticed it in the slightest.
“What’s this other new spell of yours?” she asked.
“Oh, uh, something that was supposed to be a secret.”
“Well-kept, Clyde. Now tell me.”
“The Outsider one?”
“We both know which one I am talking about.”
“Yeah, I got it in return for giving an artifact to someone.”
“Another book?”
“No—”
“This was taught to you?”
“The other other way.”
“They gave you all their spells?”
“I guess so. It was just this one though.”
“And you survived unscathed it would seem,” she said. “Interesting.”
“People die from that?”
“Yes. Oh yes. Be aware, I don’t know that much about the process. It’s frowned upon in any actual magic community. But from what I understand, the more powerful the spell, the more damage it does getting inside. Also important is where the magic comes from, culturally speaking. Some spells are very different from our own, and our spirit or brain or soul, whatever you’d like to term the insides, can have difficulty dealing with spells that are fundamentally different than us. I take it this was a painful experience?”
“Yeah. It sucked.”
“How bad?”
“I mean, I can’t exactly say I’ve experienced anything worse, so, bad.”
“Seems like it.”
“Yeah, well. Better than the thing that gave it to me.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, eyes narrowed.
Immediately I realized I’d said more than I should have.
“I, uh, I think he exploded? There was just a scorch mark on the counter.”
“The counter?”
I needed to stop talking.
“Yeah, let’s just pretend I didn’t say that.”
“But you did,” she replied with a smile. “I will leave it alone for the moment. Have you cast the spell yet?“
“No.”
“Afraid?”
“I—”
“You should be.”
“I was going to say I was cautious, but afraid will work. I don’t know what an outsider is.”
“I doubt many do.”
“Do you?”
“No.”
“Is it like a demon?”
“A demon is like a demon. If it mentioned something about calling an abyssal guardian, perhaps it would be a demon. Demons come from the Abyss. Devils from the Hells. Angels from the Heavens, and here we are on this plane of existence.”
“Shadow creatures—”
“From the Shadow Realm. Exactly. So, if you follow—”
“I don’t.”
“Outsiders come from outside all of this.”
“All of what?”
“This. Everything here around us.”
She stuck her finger in my coffee.
“Imagine this coffee is everything we know. It is contained within the cup. This plane, the hells, the heavens, the abyss, the shadow realms. It’s all in this cup. Now, the outside is where?”
“Uh,” I stammered, and then pointed at the table.
“Maybe,” she replied. “We don’t know. That’s the problem. It could be anywhere, anything. I have never had contact with anything from the Outside. I have only heard of stories of things from the Outside. We know there is something beyond the limits of our knowledge, but that, unfortunately is the extent. So this spell that you have so cavalierly acquired is something beyond special.”
“Are we talking about the drain spell as well?”
“Oddly, I feel that is the lesser of the spells you’ve brought today. Rumors exist about drainage spells, but this is the first time I have seen one. Before we go further, I need to know to what degree you would be comfortable experimenting with magic. And to what limits you might be willing to experiment.”
“I don’t know what my limits are yet.”
“A smart answer. Calling the Outsider in is—”
“Out of the question?”
“I, myself, would hesitate to use that spell. There is no telling what might come when you call, nor what it might do once here. It seems as if it would be compelled to protect you, or something you designate, but what that might mean to a creature from outside…”
All of a sudden, I had a whole new set of questions for Gideon. Questions I’d probably never have the courage to ask the dude.
“Your drain spell requires killing. Are you willing to kill in pursuit of knowledge?”
“Depends what I’m killing.”
“Is it restricted to humanoids? Sentients?”
“You’ve read the spell. Seems wide open to me.”
“Then I would suggest trying it on anything you can find. Flies. Rats. Whatever you might stumble across that you’d kill anyway, try this spell. See what comes about.”
“What if I get some horrible ability I don’t want?”
“There are means of removing abilities and the like. You might want to save up some gold, though. Removals are always pricey.”
“Are you going to research the Outsider spell?”
“No. And you should mention it to only those you trust with your life. Even those such as myself who live outside the established magic system could kill you to keep that spell from being used. You have shown restraint in your magic use thus far, and I have agreed to shepherd you to being a real user. But this spell stretches the limits of my favor to Matthew.”
Maybe I needed to have a talk with Gideon.
Or maybe I needed to avoid him altogether.
“I need to think,” she said. “Put the spell I owe you on the back burner. Your only task this week is finding out more about your drain spell. And clean up your mana. It’s moving around you like sludge.”
She stood up and stomped up the stairs, leaving me there at her table, my coffee untouched.
Chapter 100
Despite my morning tutelage, I managed to arrive at the new pit before anyone else. Slackers. This one looked like it had an old design. Or that it was built to hold something especially dangerous. The walls were made of huge slabs of stone held together with a dark mortar. The tops were covered with shards of broken glass that glittered in the morning sun. Though that could also have been the enchantment on the walls. Whatever was cast on top to keep the bad stuff inside the pit. And, I suppose, lookie-loos out.
The entrance gate was crafted from staunch bars of black iron, and, unlike the other pits I’d worked and seen, this one had a stone arch above it. It was almost like a miniature castle. Minus, of course, the keeps. And the crenellations. So I guess it was only like a castle in that it had big thick walls made out of stone. So, you know. Castle!
I peeked through the iron bars and saw the place inside was in shambles. But it definitely seemed like old shambles. The mess had been there for some time. Dried mud everywhere, as well as broken crates, wagons, and other bits of wood I couldn’t identify. Patches of vegetation grew, grass here and there, even a few bushes that had been there long enough to have some berry-looking things on them. I didn’t get the feeling there was anything horribly dangerous inside. But, then again, I hadn’t had that feeling at the previous pit either, and that was where Peregrine died.
“Got a good feeling about this place?” came a familiar voice from behind me.
I looked over my shoulder at Nadya. She looked well-rested, and her hair was particularly nicely done. I turned all the way around to get a better look at the girl. It almost looked like she’d gotten dolled up for the day.
“Are you—” I started to ask.
“What’s in there?” she interrupted to ask, pushing up next to me at the gate.
“Mud.”
“Anything moving?”
“Not yet.”
“Hrm.”
“Does that mean anything to you?”
“Not exactly. But I’m happy those bugs aren’t here.”
“The ones from the first pit or the second pit?”
“Either.”
“I’d like something to do beyond scrape up mud and scrap wood.”
“Careful what you wish for,” Nadya said. She turned away from the gate, and walked into the main part of the road, looking up one direction then the other. “Are we early, or is Matthew just late?”
“I’ve often considered him to have a relaxed sense of time.”