From Under the Mountain
Page 38
The witches of the other clans began to retreat between 480 and 520 YM. The last roaming witch band came home in 521 YM. Since then, the witches have kept to the borderlands, where witches and humans interact regularly and tend to be on very good terms. In the middle plains and the center cities, though, humans rarely if ever see non-Thiymen witches. Thanks to their lack of experience with witches, most Aridan citizens are, at best, indifferent to their distant protectors.
In the past, girls were tested at age nine for magical ability. A male-identified Aridan has never exhibited magical power. Girls exhibiting magical ability decreased sharply in the 8th century, and so Sitosen stopped sending envoys out to test children in 876 YM.
Witches live several hundred years on average (Aradia, the oldest living witch, is nearly nine hundred years old). Because of this, they often have dozens of lovers over the course of their life, and their relationships are varied and fluid. When they take human lovers, they often choose those with strong magical energy, particularly if the witch is looking to reproduce. Witch-born children reside with their mothers until their gender is claimed. Because male-identified children tend not to develop magical ability, once a witch-born child claims the male gender, the mother typically recuses herself from the boy’s life, and he’s sent back to the father or to a suitable family. Witch-daughters who don’t develop magic sometimes stay with their mothers, but more often ask to rejoin any human relations.
MAGIC
The common areas of witchcraft include charms and transformations, martial magic, organic magic, elemental magic, healing, divination, and necromancy; these can take the form of spells, potions, or enchantments attached to objects. Witches of all clans are schooled in all forms of magic, with the exception of necromancy which is practiced exclusively by Thiymen; but each clan specializes in certain types, and each witch tends to specialize further over the course of her life.
Magic exists as part of the landscape in Arido, and witches are able to draw it from the world into themselves, then reshape and expel it in several forms. Like all conduits, there is variety in capacity, and witches range widely in power and skill. The biggest limit on a witch’s magic is her own level of energy; her personal energy protects her body while channeling magic. A being’s personal energy grows with age, accumulated over the course of a life, and so old witches are very powerful. A witch’s capacity for channeling magic can be increased over its natural limit with some exercise, but this is a dangerous practice. If a witch exceeds her capacity, her personal energy is pulled into the spell and she runs the risk of exhausting or even killing herself in the process.
Witches typically come into their full power between one and two hundred years of age. Witches who become extremely powerful extremely young—that is, whose conduits open fully sooner than others—rarely live as long as their more paced peers. The prevailing theory is that youthful missteps in accessing such amounts of power take an early and serious toll on the witch’s body, leading her to weaken and age sooner. Young witches who display great power are assigned a mentor who is with them constantly during their training to teach them how to manage their access to magic; with discipline, abnormally powerful witches often live between five and six hundred years.
THE CLANS
The witch clans are sisterhoods dedicated to the study of magic and the service of the empire and land of Arido. Each clan is stationed at the point of a compass, and specializes in particular areas of magic. The clans are individually ruled by a triumvirate of the Heart, the Hand, and the Memory, with the oldest Heart ruling over all clans as the Head of Witches.
Adenen
Adenen is a coven that values loyalty, strength and discipline above all else. Their witches are trained as an army, skilled in various kinds of combat. They are also master craftswomen, specializing in leather and metal. Adenen is renowned for its horsemanship, and horses bred by Adenen are the most coveted in the realm.
Sitosen
Sitosen clan is revered as the source of the realm’s knowledge. Through their research and efforts, the country is kept on the forefront of innovation. They keep the histories, not just of Arido, but of neighboring countries and of a time before the empire. They are not just bookish, though. Sitosen is home to some of the most highly trained engineers in Arido.
Gwanen
Gwanen is widely regarded as the gentlest of the clans, largely due to its kind-hearted leader, Aradia. They believe in hard work, dedication, and simple rewards. Their expertise and innovation in agriculture keeps the realm well-fed, and their healers are famously skilled.
Thiymen
Thiymen clan is charged with guarding the boundary between life and death, and with escorting human souls to the appropriate realm of the underworld. Their use of black magic in this task, and the threat of the Judges who decide where in the underworld a human soul deserves to go, make them perhaps the most feared and misunderstood of the four clans.
MAGICAL CREATURES
Shapeshifters
True shapeshifters, even the weakest, are far more powerful magically than any witch. There is no limit to the amount of magic they can channel. Shapeshifters can transform into anyone or anything, but most of them tend to favor one or two forms. The shapeshifters were once the dominant creatures in Arido, until Lirona Kavanagh came into power. Slighted as a lover, jealous of their power and the respect they held (witches were still viewed as something of a nuisance), she led the witches in a march against all shapeshifters. Only a few survived, and retreated far into the North, outside Arido. Since then, the shapeshifters in Arido have been reframed as deities, the shifter gods.
Dragons
True dragons were once a powerful force on the continent, but they left in the early days of human migration into the Aridan valley.
The Purvaja dragons were a human tribe that resisted Thiymen rule in the early days of the Kingdom. As punishment, the first Heart of Thiymen, Petra, cursed them. Though they gained the long life of the witches, they became the slaves of Thiymen, living in caves in the mountains and forced to transform into scaly monsters at the witches’ bidding. In the war days at the formation of the country, the dragons had been Thiymen war-mounts; later, they had served to police the Thiymen territories. In modern times, the dragons are hunters and scouts. Under Fiona, the tribe has been given more privileges, such as the ability to transform at will and travel freely in the East. Sights of them soaring over the countryside tend to frighten non-easterners, making the east a shunned region to most of Arido.
Giants
Tall, stocky, and more clever than one might think, the giants live in the remote forests of Lisyne's Range, the northernmost tip of Neria Forest. How many remain is unknown, since even the witches venture that far north only rarely.
Goblins
Like many nasty things, goblins live in the caves of the Zaide Mountains. They are short, stunted creatures with moon-pale skin and large eyes. They can go for weeks, sometimes months, without eating, but they are always hungry for flesh. In the time before magic, they often raided human villages in the night, but Thiymen has since put wards on the mountain passes that prevent them from coming down. These days, they stay deep in the mountain, lest they become sport for the Purvaja dragons.
Griffins
Griffins are majestic creatures with the head, wings and talons of an eagle, the body of a horse, and the tail of a lion. They roost in the ledges and crannies of the Latanya Cliff face in the West, but spend much of their lives in the Wastes of Aadi. It is said that in the War on the Shapeshifters, Lirona rode a griffin into battle, and since then many witches have tried and failed to do the same.
About the Author
Cait Spivey is a speculative fiction writer, author of high fantasy FROM UNDER THE MOUNTAIN and the horror novella series, “The Web“. Her enduring love of fantasy started young, thanks to authors like Tolkien, J.K. Rowling, Diane Duane, Tamora Pierce, and many more. Now, she explores the rules and ramifications of magic in her o
wn works—and as a panromantic asexual, she’s committed to queering her favorite genres. In her spare time, she plans her next tattoo (there will always be a next tattoo) and watches too much Netflix. Anything left over is devoted to her tireless quest to make America read more. She lives in Portland, Oregon, with her darling husband Matt and adorable dog Jay.
Acknowledgements
I started writing From Under the Mountain when I was fifteen. Back then, it was called A Witch’s Way and was little more than a mash-up of Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings developed for a forum RPG. Since it’s been eleven years and innumerable revisions since then, I hope my friends and family will forgive me if I miss anyone by name—rest assured, you have my thanks.
Thank you to my parents, my father for being a dreamer, and my mother for encouraging me to dream big (and helping me figure out the 2007 Writer’s Market). Thank you also to my in-laws, Paul and Kathleen, who have been all-in supporting me in this since Matt and I started dating. It’s so, so appreciated.
Thank you to my husband Matt, for everything you’ve done to ensure I have the freedom and ability to pursue a career in publishing, for encouraging me not to stop when things seemed bleak, for doing whatever you can to help me succeed. I love you.
Thank you to my roleplaying friends, who suffered through two versions of this world before I started to figure it out—especially to Lanette, Ashlynn, and Caroline. Further thanks must go to Ashlynn for being my first real editor, who convinced me there was something to move forward with in this story…by utterly destroying my ideas, in a showing of true friendship. Thank you for continuing to encourage me through drafting, revising, querying, and publishing, for all these years.
I made the decision to seriously publish From Under the Mountain in 2012; thank you so much to the early beta readers whose feedback helped clarify the direction of the novel and its graduation from YA to NA. Thanks especially to Zac Anger, who not only read and provided feedback on the early manuscript, but wrote a whole album for the novel when I asked him for one song.
Thank you to Kisa Whipkey, who listened to me prattle on about this novel for more than a year before it finally signed to REUTS. I always knew Mountain would be in good hands with you as its editor. To Ashley Ruggirello, thank you for taking on this book, for the beautiful cover, for your input and assistance on other related materials.
I undertook a pretty ambitious plan to host a fashion show for the book launch, and in order to pull it off I launched an IndieGoGo campaign to raise money, get the book’s name out, and give away swag. A huge, huge thank you to all the donors, but especially: Terence W. Cudney, Christopher M. Bruneau, Yvonne Lopez, Leslie K. Inman, Laura Spivey, James G. Kratovil IV, Liz Kuzmer Sandin, my mother Pamela Snurr, my father Mark Spivey, my in-laws Paul and Kathleen Inman, Robert Frankland, and Kathryn Scott.
I’m grateful for the wealth of fantasy authors out there, old and new, who demonstrate the versatility of the genre with every new work and continually inspire me. I’m also grateful for the online community of writers, particularly my friends on Twitter, who are supportive and enthusiastic and reassuring. And I’m very grateful for the Portland literary community, and for the interest they’ve shown in my work and the opportunities for outreach that have been provided for me. #keepportlandreading
Thank you to everyone who has ever said “That sounds cool” when I tell them about the book, and thank you, reader, for reading it. You’re the ones who make this worthwhile.
Happy reading.
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Copyright
From Under the Mountain Copyright 2016 by Cait Spivey. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Cover illustration by Cait Spivey
Cover design by Ashley Ruggirello
Cover art Copyright 2015 KeilaNeokow on DeviantArt.com
Electronic ISBN: 978-1-942111-40-5
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-942111-39-9
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locals is entirely coincidental.
REUTS Publications
www.REUTS.com