Chapter 18: 18. Fearful Lightning

Excerpt from Captain Zilian Yuka’s ‘Handbook for Self-Defense.’

“When it comes to a fight, the gods did not make all the creatures of the world equal. Even amongst people of the same race, the gap in your physical capabilities may be considerable. If you are facing off with an opponent stronger, faster or larger than you, do not despair! There are weaknesses that go beyond that of the physical body—take, for example, a person’s pride.

An overconfident assailant is weakened by their underestimation of you. Allow them to think they have you at their mercy—it is a surprisingly common event for such a suitably ego-ridden attacker to hold back out of a desire to toy with their prey. Let them raise their pride high, so you may sneak in underneath and attack their insecurities. Or smack them in the gut with something hard, whatever works.”

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The expedition spent the next few days without incident. They raced through small towns and farming communities with little to offer but supplies and idle gossip, and Yenna continued to teach her new students the basics.

“Now, take your time drawing the circle—we just want to make it nice and smooth before we work on speed.”

“Master Yenna, we’ve been drawin’ circles fer two hours now!”

Jiin, Mayi, Tirk and Chime were all gathered on the side of the road where the party had stopped for lunch. Yenna stood over them as they traced shapes in the dirt, the mage using tiny blasts of wind to clear them away after each presentation. The four of them were beginning to look frustrated with their lack of success—even Chime, using their antenna to draw, was starting to get sloppy with haste. Not one of them had drawn a circle to their teacher’s standards.

“You’re all getting so close to it, I can tell! You see, having bumps and ridges in your circle causes the magic to flow out weirdly—frankly, I wish I’d had this golden opportunity to just practice the basics for this long when I was a student!” Yenna smiled brightly and, seeing only scowls and glum looks of boredom being shot back her way, decided to change tactics. “How about we try a simple spell? It’s a spell that mages use to practice the basics, and it will show you how good your drawing is.”

All eyes lit up at the prospect of learning real magic—not one of them had signed up for art lessons or symbol theory. It was a little trick Yenna had picked up from her own master, back when she started, and had used in classes several times. No one could resist the allure of the apprentice’s first spell: Illumination.

“Do we have to draw another circle, master?” Tirk’s black eyes shone with the undefeated power of adorable pleading. If it had been a student of the ages she normally taught, Yenna would have had no qualms about shutting him down and making him do it properly. Unfortunately for her, Tirk was just too cute—she took his little hand and helped him trace out a perfect circle.

“Mayi! Your circles’re real good, do miiiine!” Jiin beamed bright, shoving her own hand into her friend’s. Mayi’s eyes widened for a moment, and Yenna could’ve sworn she saw a tiny blush begin to creep across the girl’s cheeks before she caught herself. The pair giggled happily as they worked together to make two very awful circles, and then—under Yenna’s stern gaze—two very nice ones.

Chime was convinced to slow down a bit and seemed to find a way to lock their antenna joints down so that only one would move, making it far easier to draw a circle at the expense of having to tilt their head awkwardly to do so.

“Now, I could spend another hour telling you the theory behind it, but I suspect you would rather like to know that you have already completed your drawing. Well, to some degree.” Yenna couldn’t help but hold on to a bit of a smirk. In a moment, someone would ask–

“How can it be complete?” Mayi raised a hand—the one that wasn’t currently being held by Jiin—and wore a small frown. “Don’t spells usually have a lot more, uh, bits in them?”

“The illumination spell requires only one thing, and you’ve got it already. We’re going to pour some magic into it, and I want one of you to tell me why it works.” Yenna revelled in the confused looks as she quickly drew her own circle. She didn’t need to physically draw one—a mage as accomplished as her could use hand gestures to substitute such a thing without materials—but it was good for demonstration. The fact that she drew a perfect circle with a single flick of her wrist drew a few surprised noises from the students.

Yenna watched as each of them gently conjured up a ball of magic and channeled it into the edge of their circles. Each one of them watched with delight as their drawn circles began to glow with white light, and Yenna couldn’t help but giggle at Jiin’s reaction to her own one flickering and fading.

“What the heck? Why’s my one not working?” Jiin leaned right down to the ground, nearly pressing her face into the dirt as though looking at it this closely would reveal the trick. All of the other circles were slowly fading, but Jiin’s had lost its light in a matter of moments.

“Any guesses, class?” Yenna looked around, and was delighted to see Tirk’s hand fly right up.

“It’s like a cup, isn’t it?” The boy looked down at his own circle. “If you’ve got holes in your cup, all your water’s gonna fall out, and if the top isn’t made right, it’ll spill. Ms Jiin’s one is a li’l wobbly, so the water spilled over. Um, the magic, that is.”

“Wobbly?! You li’l… ! It ain’t wobbly, is it Mayi?”

“It’s a little wobbly, right here. Seriously, how can you not see that? It’s all over the place!”

All of them stopped to look, and Jiin’s brow furrowed. “Huh. Now that y’mention it… I can see the magic on it not goin’ straight. Weird!”

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As they discussed and fixed Jiin’s magic circle, Yenna felt a small swell of pride—her students were clever and resourceful, despite their different backgrounds, circumstances, ages and experiences—or perhaps even because of those differences. She had certainly felt pride in her life before, but this time it felt different, like the feeling wasn’t going to subside—like it came from somewhere else within.

Yenna felt a sharp sting across her fingers that snapped her out of this strange feeling, and looked down in surprise to see small bolts of lightning arcing painfully across her hand. The energy burst forth from her own magical wellspring, sending small shocks that were paralysing her hand. The students took notice as Yenna grunted in pain, attempting to quell the magical outburst, and she could see the worry clear on their faces.

“A-Are you okay? What’s wrong?” 

Mayi was the first to stand, and as she reached out to take Yenna’s hand a small arc of electricity shocked her. Her cry of pain brought Jiin to her aid, and Yenna suddenly felt a wave of fear. The lightning was growing stronger, arcing more painfully up her arm, and she knew if she didn’t contain it that it was going to hurt someone else.

Tirk stood there, wide-eyed, not understanding what was happening. He too had begun to reach out, maybe in the hopes of helping– Yenna flinched back, allowing her shaking back legs to force her to stumble backwards. Her mind raced, and she looked around desperately to find somewhere to release all this energy—there had to be somewhere suitable nearby!

Black marks covered the skin of her right arm, and the purple bolts of electricity were taking on a concerningly darker shade. It only fuelled the fear within her—Yenna turned and fled. Moving with the kind of speed a terrified kesh can bring to bear¹, she ran partway down the road, to a place where feet, hooves and wagon wheels had rendered the dirt clear of plant life. Once there, she began to weave a spell.

It was a simple spell—she could only do so much with one hand, while panicking and in pain—but if it worked, it would simply vent excess energy from her body in a singular direction. At the same time, Yenna focused on her mental exercises to focus the mind and push aside fears and doubts, only to find that she simply couldn’t turn away from this feeling. Part of her mind posited that this had to do with the colour of Pride—that her emotion had become energy unbidden—but that part was rather drowned out by the smell of burning skin, the pain, the fear.

With an unearthly yell, Yenna completed her spell and pointed her open palm at the ground.

KRA-KOOOM!

A bolt of nearly-black lightning arced out of her, scorching a molten line across the road. Yenna’s heart raced, but she began to calm herself—at least, until the pain in her arm registered.

“Y-Yeaarghh! Damn it!” Falling unsteadily to a knee before letting herself sit down entirely, she looked over the limb. Yenna’s right arm was covered in blackened veins, tracing a complex pattern that seemed almost arcane. Her muscles felt dead and numb, but spikes of intense pain radiated across her skin. To make matters worse, her waist joint—where a kesh’s body connected upper and lower halves—was starting to hurt from the jarring suddenness of her run.

The pain and the fear began to creep back into Yenna’s mind, and her eyes grew wide as she realised the whole process was starting again. Dark bolts of energy began to spark out of those points of pain, and her mind was a whirling cloud of worries—all her arcane knowledge, and she couldn’t figure this one out? What was she thinking, attempting the dangerous arts of a witch? What a fool she was, for leaving home–

A loud, heavy chiming noise interrupted her thoughts, bringing her back to reality. A pair of stone limbs– no, antennae pushed at her, held her up. Yenna realised she had started to slump over her arm, that she had started to cry. Chime had raced over, possibly tailing her with their prodigious speed the entire time, and had fearlessly dove in to calm her. That first chime hadn’t meant anything—it was the silupker equivalent of a shout for attention, loud and bold, like a massive gong. Then, while they helped Yenna to her feet, Chime began to talk.

Yenna still hadn’t learned the silupker language enough to follow along, but Chime’s intent was felt. They spoke like a series of windchimes, tinkling in a cool mid-summer breeze, and it was all words of encouragement, calming phrases—the kinds of things you might say to someone who had moments ago been gripped by a primal kind of panic. The lightning stopped sparking across Yenna’s arm, and she stood with Chime’s support, now merely confused.

The rest of the group was catching up, shouting after her, but the mage was lost in thought again. The black veins on her arm were already starting to fade, though her skin was still burnt in many places. With the muscle numbness gone, Yenna cursed her lacking knowledge of healing spells, using a simple first-aid spell to protect her burnt flesh.

“What happened, master? Let me take a look at that.” Mayi had raced over with her pouch of medicines and began applying an ointment. Yenna felt a twinge of shame, that she had been their teacher for merely a few days and had already managed to make such a blunder– Chime prodded her with an antenna, and Yenna let go of a breath she didn’t realise she was holding.

“Thank you… all of you.” Yenna’s voice was small at first, but she brought it up to normal and managed to look everyone in the eye. “I have been attempting to learn the basics of witchcraft, in anticipation of sharing my findings with you, but it seems that I must be the student for a while yet. I’m so glad to have students like you—especially you, Chime.”

Everyone turned to look at the silupker, and they gave a simple gesture that meant ‘don’t worry about it.’ Yenna wondered if they had charged in, knowing that her emotions were out of control and it was the only way to stop her—or maybe their clay body was immune to electricity? Whatever the case, Yenna was genuinely thankful. She was also a little bit annoyed. She furrowed her brow and reached into her pack.

“Now, if you'll excuse me for a moment, I need to go speak to my master.”

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¹ - Kesh are capable of some extraordinary speeds when frightened. Though it normally gives them pain to do so, they can take on a springing gait to accelerate rapidly and maintain that speed for several minutes if need be. The pain comes from the soreness of muscles afterwards—the muscles between the lower and upper halves of the body need to tense in a specific way to avoid shattering the spinal connection and though it is unusually effective at protecting the bone, it does lead to some rather heinous back pain.

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