19 - 3

[Fool]

Leviathan Cross: Secrets Not Bled, A Stone Cannot Breathe

The Tunnel Rat Mageling - Mead’s Tap, Year 1125 A.E.

“So, ye were sayin’?”

“Ah, yes, there are eight telothic Paths and four fundament Paths in the realm of Kedwen, Kingsland or Free. The Four Fundaments are the classical elements of Vitae and Akae: fire, air, earth, and water. The Eight Telothic, sometimes called the Seven Telothic, are a smattering of disparate magicking traditions that hail from all over Terra Mundus: spiritry, psionistry, alchemy, sympathy, conjury, arcanistry, wizardry, and sorcery.

“King’s Kedwen has mostly just alchemists and wizards, with conjury favored by the Sevenfold. All the others, be they telothic or fundament, are at most just knacks picked up by a magicker. You’ll find these in greater numbers out of the Corners and in the Free Cities proper where magicking is not so iron-fistedly regulated.”

Phineas tapped a finger against his chin—tap, tap, tap—the pose and mannerism apt for someone rummaging around their noggin for an idea—tap, tap, tap. It did not fit with the mageling’s gut, incongruous to his intuition. It felt more like a man puppeting a construct of wood and string rather than a natural bodily expression.

It was not because there was unnaturalness to the act. No, much the opposite: it was impeccable. The problem lay in the eyes. They were not dead, neither blank. They were not a single lash out of order, superficially.

For, though those eyes might have been up at the sides of the Exorcist’s skull, Eiden knew that they were looking around the room, in spirit. Touching everything, categorizing it into neat demarcations, all but crossing off names on a ledger.

Tap, tap—pause.

Too impeccable. Too perfect. Too practiced.

Not human.

“Let me give you a rundown of the telothic Paths as the answers you seek will be found there.” The Exorcist said, outwardly none the wiser.

Eiden, though, knew that was not truly the case. As with the first day they had met, Phineas knew of the Rat’s suspicions, the fear suffusing his aura no subtle thing to a magicker of his ilk.

He knew he knew. And the Exorcist did not push, did not drag any discussion of it into the light of acknowledgement.

Whether it be his tunnel rat’s instincts, arkane ken, or spirit senses that gave Eiden security in not running then and there from the Exorcist, he did not know. The promise of a magicking Path and a full belly certainly helped to put weight upon the scale of ‘staying put’.

And so, he refocused on his mentor, knowing this at least: it was futile to ruminate so much on what-if’s. They’d consume him from the inside-out, if he let them. No man could live stewing in paranoia all day and night without losing his mind twice-over.

With a flick of his wrist, a coin alighted upon Fin’s right hand, presumably magicked from the long sleeve of his coat. He held it in between two fingers, its size no larger than a Kedweni talent; able to fit contentedly in the valley of a grown man’s palm. It had a curious stamp, a circle with a semi-circle above and a cross below, wrought in shining silver without a blemish.

‘Mercury,’ Eiden knew without knowing. The symbol for mind and spirit, the Exorcist had explained to him that day he awoke, blessed from a curse. Fin had not shown him the symbol proper beyond just some passing words that did nothing to truly describe it, yet Eiden knew it all the same.

Fin trafficked the silver coin along the back of his fingers, flipping it over and over until its other face shone towards Eiden: a circle with a line cleaving it in twain, face stamped in some pockmarked, white metal.

For whatever reason, the coin smelled heavily of salt, now. The Rat’s sorcerous ken did not come to, remaining silent in the face of the circle cut in two.

“Spiritry uses the subtle-self in between flesh and mind; the spirit as medium and fuel, both. Rare in King’s Kedwen beyond the monasteries due to its slow acquisition of power, the spiritual arts are much more common in the East—Xing, Qyra and the Sere.”

Another flick of the wrist and the coin was exchanged for one not too dissimilar from the last; only a single face had changed, left empty and without any stamp beyond its base of silver. The circle with a semi-circle above and cross below spun again and again, winding above and below Fin’s dexterous fingers.

This one, at least, did not reek like some fishmonger at the end of day.

“Psionistry is the art of the mind made pure, a magick that resides only in the mental realm. It can make a man believe his wife is the gravest of monsters—most better-halfs, independent of gender, are; believe me—and in his bedeviled state, make him kill her of his own, albeit-tampered, volition.”

Fin stopped the coin in the crook of his fingers, with his thumb holding it up so as to hide it away. When Fin turned his hand palm-side up, exposing the coin, he had exchanged it for another: two faces with the same symbol but different metals on either side.

A circle, fettered by a square, then further bound within a triangle; a shape within a shape, within a shape. It was beautiful in how they fit, perfectly balanced with a symmetry most striking. One face was stamped in old and burnished gold, the other in some black silver that shone when the light caught it just right but was otherwise dark as moonless night. The band in between the two faces was dull iron.

The symbol made Eiden’s chest ache and fingers twitch. He did not know if he wanted to steal it or run far away from its like. Perhaps both. It was a striking thing and so it left the beholder well and truly stricken.

“The Royal Art of alchemy is balanced upon the fulcrum of the fourfold process—nigredo, albedo, xanthedo, and rubedo—the weights of transmutation and the chase of materia prima on opposing sides. These magick chemickers manipulate heavy lead into light gold, brew potions that give a man the strength of twenty, and combust water into roaring gouts of fire.

“Oh and they make the best hooch; I got me a Guildam friend—real spitting image of a hermit in the hinter’ that one—a few moons back to wring me some Remean cherry cordial and it was phenomenal. But, I digress, let’s forge on ahead.”

The Exorcist hid the coin in one hand and then put the other atop, blowing into his mitts like some pietous gambler blessing their bone-carved dice by breath. Fin pulled his hands apart, one coin held in each. The left shone a dark and dry wrought-iron while the right was some soft sterling that would part before even a crone’s weak teeth.

A circle with a tail was stamped on both faces of both coins, one face low and the other high, held in opposite concordance. The coin of soft sterling seemed to move ever just so that Eiden thought it a trick of the light.

The Exorcist let go of the lighter twin and it flew arse-over-head in the air to reach its darker sibling. They met and were bound to each by a force that Eiden felt like a tug on his bones, two made into one.

‘Iron to lodestone,’ he realized.

“Sympathy’s instrument is causality-made-fibrous; the spiritual sinew that binds All Things. A magicker may intertwine with subtle thread a mommet of straw stained with the blood of another and whatever is done to the effigy is transferred to the one who the blood bears. This is a common magick picked up by Guildam meisters, alchemists and wizards alike, for its versatility.”

Fin handed Eiden the coin of two-made-into-one, guiding the mageling’s left hand over the right, hiding the coin from sight. The Exorcist removed his guiding mitts quickly, looking at his apprentice with expectation.

That mug of his all but shouted ‘go on, open it and see.’

Eiden did as he was bid, revealing an empty palm—he had not even felt a change in weight, the coin gone as if it never was. Phineas made a gesture that the Rat interpreted as a ‘may I?’ and with a nod from him, Fin reached a hand behind his left ear.

Before Eiden saw it, he smelled it. The sickly sweet aroma of wine just about to sour.

He did not spook as his mentor’s hand returned with another magicked coin. It had a face of skyen tin, blue as a starling’s nest in summer. Dyeus, god of oaths-made-under-sky, took tin as His holy metal; a merchant’s metal, that one, used oft in money-weights and the like. Eiden remembered that there was a metal for each of the Seven, though he could not place all of them without use of parchment.

The Rat knew a great deal of the gods. Most Keds did, even those forgotten by Seven were not spared of knowing Their signs—priests were blessed with ample vital breath, it was said.

They hollered louder than lordly heralds.

Besides that, there was a chapel for every god in the Undercity, be They a dweller of Mons Callum or forgettable, roadside-saint godling. No matter that nigh all swore ‘Hells-take-me’ more frequently than common greetings and spat upon priest-trodden ground, temerity still took root minor though it were

Mendicants were paid in faith, afterall—you wouldn’t get no coin easily down there. And so, little pockets like Sevenfold barnacles sprouted throughout the Undercity, growing in the manner of weeds: sporadic and with great spite in between the flagstones of a paved road.

Maybe less than a tenth of the tunnel rat caste took proper preachings, the rest just knew enough not to anger Those Above too much. A good deal just didn’t give a grain of a gram and rather prefered a rung of the Nine than to spend an eternity with such cruel gods.

Many had lost their kin and kith, thrown down the Soap-Maker’s Pit.

The Seifar’s Stew was the ghastly reminder that not all things White were also good.

Fin tapped Eiden’s shoulder, startling the boy and then placing something in his hands once again. The mageling brought the thing closer to his eyes, inspecting it as a Cyroshi vapor-merchant might look for metal shavings in the stardust, turning it to shine against the light.

A strange symbol was stamped upon the starling-blue coin, far too many lines and no recognizable shape with which Eiden could compare to. To him, it looked like a swan with a stick up its bum.

He did not voice the comparison.

“Conjury,” the Exorcist said, “is most often seen as an advanced and particular form of sympathy; uses oath made between at least two as a pivot to bring about magick. Cultists, of Nine and Seven both, follow this Path, their souls among other collateral—limbs, the unborn babe in the womb of the wife three-days-past quickening, good conscience and the ability to feel guilt; precious things to a person—anchoring the oath-made-between-two.”

The sickly sweet waft of wine went fully sour then, vinegar biting deep into Eiden’s nasal cavity such that his sinuses stung and his eyes watered.

“Devil or god,” the Aged Man’s voice turned sharp and serious, an echo of his dangerous spirit coming to the fore; if anything, it paired rather nicely with the vinegar, “traffickers in souls and the like, Theirs is an interest steeper than Carkoshi usury. Misgivings with extraplanar beings notwithstanding, know that conjury is a dangerous Path for it stakes directly to one’s heart.”

He spoke another handful of words with all the warning of men with heads covered in burlap, hanging from their necks for all to see.

“Make no pact without heavy consideration, none are but demon in the game of oaths.” With that, Fin held out his wrinkly mitts. Eiden gave him back the starling-blue coin, a talent-shaped lump in his throat that took him effort to swallow.

The Exorcist slowly turned the coin in his fingers, Eiden expecting to see the face of starling-blue stare back at him; instead, another face was revealed.

It was a decidedly sinister thing, minted from a rotten copper the green of stagnant water. A circle, bisected horizontally, with a curve above it like a brow to its eye. From the line that cut it in two, descended a vertical lot that turned to a cross like the symbol of mercury.

It was mind and spirit; it smelled like salt; it tasted like acid on the tongue of his subtle body, crackling sour and caustic.

It moved ever just so, drawn to the Rat like iron to lodestone.

The Exorcist did not offer his apprentice the coin and the lad was glad for it. Phineas spoke with the air of a meister once again, but did not use any tricks to hold Eiden’s attention; they were not needed.

The Rat’s eyes did not leave the rotten-copper coin.

“Arkanistry is the Path of mysteries. Of unearthing the hidden just beneath the waking world. The arkane takes an intractable truth and makes it just as controllable as a limb… so long as one can truly accept its burden.”

The coin was oily but did not drip a drop of its vinegar. Eiden was glad for it, that substance looked like it would eat through the stone at his feet for twenty span before it got its fill.

“Arkana is the crux of this magicking Path,” the Exorcist continued, “the weaving thereof bringing about changes to the base fabrick of reality.

“If mana is the essence of a given existence, arkana is mana twice-distilled, purer still. It is the fundamental substance from which any spiritual tissue is wrought; intractable truth, stripped from any semblance of physicality.”

For but a blink, Eiden saw a different symbol stamped upon the coin.

A spiral that unraveled up into a long, vertical line, bound by an eight-sided star and then further fettered by a circle to denote the final boundary.

The Rat tasted bitter, grey teh powder in the back of his throat.

It reminded him of ash.

With a shake of his head and a narrowing of his eyes, Eiden refocused on the coin: it was just as it had been, just a strange rotten copper that smelled once again like a fishmonger’s sun-tanned, speckled hide being treated by a tanner’s low-brow chemicking.

Nothing more and something less, its distillate spirit was still heavy with so much vinegar. What kind of essence was it that dwelled behind that coin?

“As with spiritry and all other Paths,” the Exorcist said, tone lecture-like, “so too does arkanistry possess an alchemical symbol: vitriol. It will melt all but the noblest of metals—gold—rendering whatever it touches, even damascene steel, to soot and oily pitch.

“Some truths break men from the inside out.”

The warning bit into Eiden with extra teeth, though the mageling was surprised to not know why.

Eiden was so focused on figuring out why the chide effected him so that he had to review his recent memories to confirm if what he just saw was reality or the fantasy of a wayward mind like his.

Did… did Fin just eat the damn thing?!

The Exorcist had put the coin on his tongue, closed his mouth and then swallowed it.

With a face scrunched up in disgust and worry, Eiden drew in a breath to ask a tentative ‘are you alright?’ but was cut off before he could do so.

With a flourish, Phineas magicked a coin from behind his right ear.

Given the man’s lack of worry, the Rat let it go, albeit reluctantly.

The coin was minted from a sleek-black metal, two different stamps upon its faces. The Exorcist kept a face towards Eiden as he spoke, the symbol—a double cross with the Cyroshi number of ‘eight’ put to grave beneath it—sparking an unasked for answer from the sorcerous ken inside him.

‘Brimstone,’ he knew without knowing. The glyph was a thing of reflection, the mageling felt. A body of perfectly still water that made all who gazed upon it gaze back upon themselves.

The Rat could not help but think that something looked back from beyond the mirrored surface of the imaginary lake. A leviathan, afterall, lay in waters that ran deep and unknown.

“Wizardry is the Wise and Hardy Art,” intoned the Exorcist, voice cracking less like a whip and more like dried parchment gone without proper oils, “the oldest of the old magicks from the time when alchemy had yet to become a separate Pathing branch in its own right ‘ere in the North. The Path of Wizardom makes medium of the sleeping soul of the world, an inverted mirror-twin of sorcery; Hell’s reverse pyramid—“ Phineas made an upside-down triangle with his hands, thumbs as the base and the coin floating in the middle as if suspended in the air by invisible gossamer “—to Heaven’s mountain—“ Fin then righted the shape to point upwards, the coin flipping until the back face was now exposed “—,so to speak.”

The Exorcist turned his hands until he closed the right over the left. He opened them and the coin was gone. He nodded towards Eiden as he continued his lecture once again.

“Wizards draw upon the Wellfont, a source of night-limitless magick potential accessible by right of conquest and feat; you’ve lit a candle enough times in your life and you get to conjure a candle’s worth of fire, that sort of magick. A pale imitation of high sorcery, but a strong Path nonetheless.”

It was only nearing the end of the lecture that Eiden realized the coin had been in his hands all along. He took it tentatively as if it would burn him, shimmying it to see how the light played against its indentations.

There was color, subtle though it be, within the crevices of the coin’s stamped symbol. Gemstone powder mixed with gypsum, perhaps? It was yellow like the eyes of a raptor.

The tunnel rat mageling turned the coin around to look at its other glyph as Fin spoke on. A triangle staked by a cross looked back at him, reeking of burnt hair and smoldering with an inner, citrine fire.

It was not a dandelion-gold like some metalwork to be put upon a nobleman’s fat fingers. It was the baleful yellow of a snake about to strike.

‘Seven Paths made one; the trunk from which the branches sprout.’ Was whispered in the black of his mind, fork-tongued as the Betrayer Herself. The ken was so alien, without words and instead pure knowing, that for a moment Eiden thought himself possessed by a haunt.

“And finally,” the Exorcist said with gravitas, “what you’ve been hankerin’ for, laddie: sorcery is the use of one’s own soul to cast magick. You’ve been unconsciously doing so since the day you awoke; no spirit artist learns to perform breath-made-solid in a single afternoon.

“It takes a year to fully manifest, much less maintain for an hour, a Shroud.”