by Kyle Belote
“… you shouldn’t have told her that.”
“It matters not. Cannot change what hasn’t happened and what may or may not come.”
For a moment, Julie thought she was going insane, hearing another voice talking to her master, but since Fife answered back … he might be cracked. She vowed to pay closer attention to him.
“How will I know–and how will you know–when I achieve what you instructed?” Julie voiced. When he answered, it seemed like he did not address her but someone else.
“I will know because I am shifting through the changing currents of time and events. You will know because you will detect the change and”–he paused and stopped in front of her–“I will tell you.”
Julie took this into consideration as she pondered the outcome of her next question. “Master, when will you teach me true magic?”
“True magic?”
“Will you teach me to fight? You have taught me so many things that I can use to turn inward. You’ve taught me basics of healing, of protection, even to test the air for poisons but you never once showed me how to attack.”
“Why would you need to attack, Starriace?”
“To defend myself against those who would make me suffer. To protect others against people like Xilor.”
“Who said he was a person?” He waved the question away, shuffling towards his cottage. “You can defend yourself and others when you master defense, not before.”
Through her conflict of emotions, her curiosity outclassed her. “When can I learn more of Judas?”
“Master the task before you and worry not about Judas,” he said, without looking back. Then, he stopped and added, “And when you find yourself.” He left her sitting, facing away from him and his house. “Do not come in until you have done both.”
She turned from her perfect sitting posture to look back at him. “Where am I supposed to eat and sleep?”
“Not my problem,” his answer came, along with the sharp and resounding crack as the door slammed shut behind him.
Put the ring on! Leave! How many times must you be shunned and pushed aside before you act?
She nearly rose to do as the voice bid, but at the last instance, she resisted.
Not yet, she told herself.
But soon.
***
Chapter 60 : Julie And Fife
“We are running low on necessities and the winter months are yet over,” Fife informed Julie. “Today, I will teach you the basic properties of metal. When you finish your lesson, you will take the ingot into town and buy supplies.”
“What ingot, master?” The confusion was normal. Julie possessed over half of what she took from Judas, just over six silver chips. Never once had Julie seen money in Fife’s residence.
“The one you will create.” He padded over to a small wooden box at the foot of his bed and retrieved a small bar made from some form of metal. Which one, Julie had no clue. He placed the bar in her hands. “Looks like an ingot, does it not, Starriace?” Julie ground her teeth as she scrutinized the object.
Unleash your magic on him! the voice pleaded.
The time was not right despite the implied gratification. Not yet, anyways.
“Yes, except for the lack of gold.”
“Ever the bright one,” he retorted. “This will be your guide. You shall shape the gold to match this precisely, do you understand?”
“How do I forge one? With a smelting chamber?” she asked flippantly.
“Have you not paid attention the last season? Three months and you still ask me questions! I taught you all you need to accomplish a simple task, and you balk?” Fife spat on the floor. “I endure your contempt, I endure your attitude and disrespect, I even endure the part of you screaming for my blood,” the gnomling thundered, “and you snivel when I grant you a task!”
Julie sprang to her feet, her eyes flashing with hate and resentment. Before she could reach for a wand or formulate a spell in her mind, an overbearing power slammed her back down into her seat. The chair buckled, under the pressure. She found herself face down on the floor, the wood creaking beneath her weight and the force the Grand Maghai applied.
Fight back! the dark voice pleaded.
I can’t, I shamed myself with disrespect.
You are a coward!
I am prudent.
You are weak!
The one who shows the most restraint is the victor.
You are helpless!
Those three words wounded her more than Mr Pleasure ever did. The anger and fear flared, burning radiant, hot like a nova. Her skin itched with fire while she fought against Fife’s oppression. She reached for his pressure and punched a hole through, like a blast of liquid fire through a slab of ice. In a sudden and jarring instance, Fife’s hold broke, and she surged up to her knees before the hold took her again. With her face clear of the floor, Julie’s eyes beheld Fife’s fury.
In recollection, Julie should have never doubted that Fife would kill her in their first mental battle. Now, she was truly terrified. Perhaps a god or demon possessed him, augmented his already unfathomable abilities. His face blazed, an iron grimace. When he spoke again, his voice thundered with near-divine power.
“You shall never raise a hand to me again!” he bellowed. “You will lock away whatever demons within you, or you will be gone.” Julie couldn’t discern if he intended to make her leave or kill her.
His aura faded, regressing, and his face softened like his voice. “You cannot fight who you are forever. You must accept your birthright. By denying yourself, you are closed to your potential, helpless, pitiful, do you understand, Julie?”
A small expression of shock rolled across her face. That was the first time he used her name, the one she knew.
“We still need supplies, and you need your lesson, do you not?” He traipsed outside, and Julie followed meekly in his wake. The Grand Maghai continued into the woods; juniper fragrance filled the air, dead twigs and bark crunched underfoot. A divination stole over Julie in the silence. Fife, though always quick to judge and harsh with his words, rarely fixated. Even now, certain of her imminent death, the gnomling shrugged it off. The transgression had passed, the lesson learned.
In the distance, a stream bubbled, racing through serpentine twists down the mountain. A bird chirped in the limbs above her head. Julie never realized before now, but all these sounds were never present while in the vicinity of Fife’s cabin. Months had slithered by since she heard a bird. Did he have a deadening spell of some sort around his cottage? A shield?
The singsong of birds lifted her spirits in a way she could not fathom or describe, having gone without such simple pleasures. Five minutes later, Fife stopped just inside a cave opening. With a flick of his fingers, the torches lit in their iron sconces. The walls glittered orange in the light.
“Tell me, apprentice, what is the difference between an ingot and a bright eye?”
“A bright eye is the term for a large, round, and heavy gold coin. Metal is mixed with the gold, diluting the purity, dropping the worth. An ingot is a small bar of pure gold three inches long by a half-inch wide by a half-inch tall, rectangular in design, and magically enhanced to keep its shape and firmness.
“How much is each worth?”
“A bright eye is six hundred scepters and an ingot is six thousand scepters.”
“Very good,” Fife muttered. “And how many people make an ingot’s worth of money in a month?”
“The professions are rare,” Julie recited from memory. Her studies under Fife were all encompassing. “Nongovernmental related jobs include farmers and blacksmiths, but they pay out so much for the upkeep of their lands, tools, and livestock, that they do not make the most money. Government related jobs include positions of the noble houses: consuls, mayors, and governors in addition to the three highest ranks of the military: meyjour, kernoyl, and jynerul.”
“That’s enough,” Fife spoke into the flickering light. “You shall make one ingot from the
gold of this mine following the example I gave you back at the house. When you extract enough from the rock, return home and craft it.” Fife left her and for once Julie didn’t ask how she to accomplish her task.
Julie sat in front of the wall like she would outside Fife’s hut, the flickering torches dancing across the slick walls. Julie’s robes soaked up the moist and cool air. With her essence, she brushed the wall, tracing along the cracks and crevices, feeling the strengths and weaknesses. Then, she pushed, not invasive but passive, her aura like a mist passing through the rock. Julie closed her eyes, searching for a rich vein and manipulated the soft metal on a molecular level, siphoning through the rock until she extracted a small ball the size of a tangerine in the palm of her hand. She returned to Fife’s cottage, sitting at the table, comparing her work against the guide he provided. Hours trickled away before she completed the replica.
Fife gave her a coin purse and deposited the ingot inside. He gave her a list and an additional bag of small stones. “When you finish filling the list, place a stone in each crate. The stone will teleport the crate here. You may keep the change you receive. We can make another if need be, is that not so?”
Julie nodded and set out for the small village at the foot of the mountains.
Korlin’s Cove was a small settlement established by distant relatives of the Korlins. Korlinville remained the seat of the minor noble family. Korlin’s Cove, however, lay outside castle walls, the majority of the buildings snuggled against the mountains. The Cove matched Cape Gythmel in size, near nonexistent.
The castle walls, small in stature, lay in a great state of disrepair. Deep wagon tracks rutted the compact dirt streets. Cobbled buildings of half rotted wood littered the sides of the main road. A town this small had but one establishment for each need: a general store, a mill, a blacksmith, barber, bank, stable, and a flock of geese. The prevalent aroma of pig excrements hit Julie’s nostrils before she entered from the south. No guards patrolled the streets, but everyone recognized her as a stranger.
The sole rock building, hedged in manicured greenery, caught her eye. The arctic blue wood paneling around gleaming, spotless windows seemed fresh, a sharp contrast to the shambles clustered around it. The sign overhead with gilded lettering read: Royal Treasury. Opulence amongst the grime of swine, a sense of regality percolated the air around the bank. She entered. Inside, only one man was present, engrossed in his ledger. A look of shock came over his face when Julie cleared her throat, breaking his attention.
“Madam,” he said, clambering up from his chair. “How may I be of service to you today?”
“I need to exchange some rather large currency, and I do not think the general store will be able to break it.”
“You’ve come to the right place,” the man flourished a smile.
I came to the only fucking place, Julie clarified internally.
“We deal in all currency from Ralloc to Stratu’Geim: goblin, troll, scepters–” The desk thumped when Julie laid the ingot before him. He rocked back on his heels and reevaluated her, his eyes gleaming with greed. “We can break that,” he said at last.
He has never seen this much money in one lump sum.
Julie handed him her coin purse. “Then please do. Give me half in bright eyes, the remaining I would like divided with fourteen hundred in chips and one hundred in bits, or something close.”
The clerk licked his dry lips before smiling. “Right away. It will take some time, however.”
“Fine; I have a shopping list to check off. I’ll be over at the store filling the order. How long will you need?”
“Half an hour tops, madam.”
“Very well,” Julie took a step back but lurched forward, leaning over the desk, the movement fluid. The dark voice emerged, dominating her. “If you run with my money, there is no family that can hide you, no guard that can protect you, no fortress that can conceal you from me.”
The clerk’s eyes filled with fright, his slack mouth hung open, an expression of disbelief on his face. He gaped at her like she discovered some dark, dirty secret, terrified she’d tell the whole town.
Julie smiled as she straightened. “Good day to you, Arysto.” The title Arysto, learned from the Essence of Transference and compounded by Fife’s teaching, was the proper title for a male of noble birth but of undeclared House or lineage. Arista sufficed for a woman.
Julie exited the bank, noting the clerk’s mad scramble to fulfill his promise in the allotted time. She worked her way down the street to the general store. The building, though big for Korlin’s Cove, seemed no bigger than the tailor shop in Far Point, but easily four times the size of Fife’s cottage. Surrendering the list to the owner, her order, nestled in twenty large, wooden crates, was filled and placed on the front porch. By the time the last crate arrived, the banker had stumbled out of his door and sprinted towards her as if beasts chased him. He skittered to a stop in front of Julie. His breath ragged, he handed her the purse she left with him, ponderously heavy compared to before.
“As requested,” he sucked in his breath as he dabbed his perspiring forehead with a handkerchief. “Five bright eyes equalling three thousand, ninety-five silver equalling two thousand eight hundred and fifty in chips, and one hundred and fifty scepters remaining in bits. Here is your receipt, Madam.” Julie halted the retreating man.
“Wait!” she commanded. She handed him ten bits. “Thank you for your haste.” She turned, retreating inside, the banker all but forgotten. The manager finished tallying her total, double and triple checking.
“Is there some noble’s feast no one told us about?” a man on the front porch laughed as he eyed Julie’s items.
“That’s gotta cost mo’ than a feast,” another chortled.
“Four hundred and fifty scepters, madam,” the manager finished his third tally.
Damn, it does cost more than a noble’s feast.
These supplies would last her and Fife a year, perhaps longer. Julie withdrew fifteen silver from her coin purse and settled the bill. She pulled another silver out of her bag and flipped it to the manager. Tucking her money away, she reached for the other bag holding the small stones. Dusk approached as she placed a stone in each of the crates while the town folk gathered and laughed at her. When the boxes began to disappear, abrupt silence fell. It scared one old man so bad, he shat himself–or at least sounded like it–as the first box vanished. Julie palmed a stone for her, and she, too, vanished.
With her late return, Fife took care of the stock while she scarfed down her measly dinner of beans and bread. The journey, a happy necessity, given what she had to eat, and it gave her a reprieve from the normal rigors of tutelage. Again, grudgingly, she had to admit, Fife knew how to train her despite his eccentric approach.
After her meager meal and a quick bath, she fell asleep, her stomach tumbling, anticipating the next lesson in the morning.
Julie awoke to voices. A quick glance at the window told her it was still dark. Though groggy, she lay still, quiet, until she could discern the voices. At first, she thought the gnomling talked to himself again, but two distinct voices twined, one belonging to Fife, the other to a female.
“…the end draws nigh,” the female spoke.
“Impossible, she hasn’t learned enough yet! Have I not kept her from learning magic she could use in aggression?”
So the little bastard is keeping things from me.
“She stands upon the precipice.”
“I do not believe it. A darkness sways her, true, but I don’t believe she is inherently evil. This, I know!”
“She will submit to other masters, just as she had a master before you. The seed of evil is within her and it will rise. There is nothing you can do to expunge the darkness.”
“The girl is defiant, true! Confused, uneducated, disrespectful, and every other negative trait she could possess, but are there not other good traits she retains?” It took her a moment to escape the fog of sleep. Did she hear this right? Did Fi
fe defend her? He continued. “I have seen her defiance, stubbornness, felt her hostility with mistrusting eyes, but are those not good qualities, too?”
“To a degree, Grand Maghai, to a degree. You are not the only one who watches her,” the female spoke. “She is ambitious beyond measure. Too ambitious. She will break sacred vows and laws in her aggressive determination, and is intolerant of anyone that defies her or tells her she is wrong. Do those sound like good qualities?” Julie could hear Fife’s resigned sigh. The female continued, “She is but what you make her. When the seasons change, you will know.”
Then the voices died, and silence ensued. Julie tried to go back to sleep but couldn’t, the solemn warning kept her awake.
When the seasons change, you will know. What did that mean?
Fife queried the other speaker one last time but received no reply. “Do I not already know? You are not so different than that which you chastise?”
Julie’s eyes darted to the pack where the ring lay unattended. She swore it pleaded with her to slip it on, or was it a figment of her overzealous imagination?
Eventually, sleep stole over her, but the morning did not bring solace, nor the days after. Julie burned with resentment for Fife’s utterly defeating her. While she could acknowledge that she had been wrong in wanting to lash out, he could have stopped her attack by other means, but he hadn’t.
He shamed you.
Her pride wounded, she felt like a small child, humiliated in front of the masses. Bitterness festered. With each passing day, she found more reasons to be angry with him, and since the morning he shamed her, holding her down on the floor, he neither called her Julie or Starriace, always referring to her as apprentice or child. He humiliated her further with chores around the cottage, a duty yet given.
He explained his reasoning, passing it off as a custom, saying: “You have been part of my house for over a season and no longer considered a guest, you’re a member of the household until you leave.” It wasn’t the chores that galled her, but his condescending voice. It was always so now.
Or is that just in my head?