Chapter 28: 28. At A Deep Wellspring

Excerpt from an unnamed water elemental’s ‘At a Deep Wellspring of Magic and Purified Water, on a Serene and Windless Day, an Encounter with a Man who was a Beast, who Threatened with Terrible Power.’

“I flow into a deep place. Above, light shines and dances across the surface of the water as I become it. The water is cool and clear, with none of the intrusions of the dry world disturbing its stillness. Magic blesses this place, and I drink deeply of it. Below, the depths glow with another light—the magical stream beyond water, possibly its source. I wonder at the glow and feel its tempting pull, a whirlpool of energy drawing my core inwards. I move deeper, deeper, deeper than I have ever been—it is a revelation that there is so much to this world, and I feel lost within its enormity.

“There, where the water stands against the earth, I sense a strong beast and an object of power. I am cautious—I do not extend my being further except to see the flow of energy. The beast bears the mark of a creature of the dry world, and its presence in the water should be its demise—yet, it still lives. It holds an object like a glinting, flat stone, and folds it open to reveal odd leaves cut into sharp shapes. It looks like a creation of those men who build in the dry world—straight lines, parts that move, strange markings beyond ken.

“The beast takes a claw and pushes aside the leaves, regarding its strange markings. I strain to understand these things—are they like the scales of the fish reaching maturity? Are they like the cold-weather coats of the furred creatures who live in dry and wet? What meaning could they hold?

“As I wonder, the beast bares its fangs and shifts its form to that of a man of the dry world. It reaches out in a realm of magic and pulls at some facet of my being I did not know I had. It grabs at a piece of my core, no greater than a tiny reed within the dam of my power, but every movement threatens my being. I must exist beyond this, so I become the water above and flee the water below. The beast does not give chase, perhaps fearing reprisal—it gathers power in obscurity, and will come for me when I am weakest.

“As I course and flow down the river, I consider the nature of the reed within my soul. It binds me in some way, but protects me—I fail to know its purpose, but recognise its importance. If the beast-man coveted this reed, this miniscule glow within, it must be useful—it must be powerful. I must grow powerful, so I must seek out and take this glow from others. I look out with enchanted sight into the stream beyond water, and see the glint of magic upon many of the beasts of the dry world, and also glowing brightly within the men who build.

“Thus, I shall fill the beasts of the dry with my water, so I may become them. I shall use them to take the glow from within those men, and feast upon the power hidden within. I shall grow strong, so strong that I can never stop existing. I recall the markings. I wonder at their meaning. I feel strong.”

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Yenna carefully read over the elemental’s memory. It was a small blessing that she could even read it, but there was so much of its language that was couched in the creature’s limited understanding of the world beyond its own waters. Yenna forced herself to remember that there was some effect at play, translating the elemental’s meaning into words she could understand, but it could only do so much—it couldn’t explain what the elemental meant by certain phrases, so she would have to make an educated guess.

The nature of the wellspring of magic and the stream beyond water was fairly simple to understand, for an accomplished mage. Leylines were one of the first things a mage learned about—invisible streams and rivers that meandered across the world, carrying the vital energy of magic around. The wellspring was likely a leyline convergence—a point where two leylines crossed one another and flooded that place with magic. It wasn’t uncommon for a leyline convergence to become particularly charged with a certain element of magic—or reject all but one colour, as it were.

What really worried Yenna was this ‘beast-man’. There were old tales of people who took the form of a wild beast on a moonless night¹, and anecdotes of far-flung foreigners who could use magic to transform—but even supposing those things were true, what would a person like that be doing at the bottom of a deep magical wellspring?

The object the beast-man held was likely a book, Yenna reckoned. The ‘leaves’ covered in markings matched, but what of the ‘glinting, flat stone’? An idea sprung to mind.

“Demvya,” the mage turned to where the spirit was waiting patiently for her to finish reading, “Is there a way to see what the elemental saw? Like a painting or portrait?”

“Thou hast already learned the means to turn the thoughts of the elemental into materials thy mind can endure.” Demvya gave another inscrutable expression, though Yenna sensed she was a little bothered to be asked again.

“Then, is there a way I can see an image of something I’ve seen?”

Yenna’s question gave Demvya pause. “Thy memory fails thee? Thy form is already projected from thy mind—thou canst project further, no?”

It was an interesting proposition. The avatar she currently controlled was little more than a series of sensors attached to an illusory form, meant to reduce the strangeness of being disembodied. The library, and even its librarian, were all brought forth from her memories. Yenna gave it a test—thinking carefully of a cup of kaffe, she caused a small mug of the stuff to appear on the desk. With a smirk, the mage drank it—only to recall she hadn’t bothered with a sense of taste. Slightly disappointed, and maybe a little bitter, Yenna willed it away.

Turning her attention back to the book, Yenna attempted to influence this world of memories once more. Believing strongly that the next page would hold a diagram or sketch of this book in question, and trying not to let her already growing belief as to its nature influence the memory, Yenna turned the page. What she saw immediately gave her a headache—rather than some simple woodcut print that she would expect from a textbook, it was an eye-burning festival of brilliant colours. The true sight of the elemental’s world given form. It looked similar to when Yenna used the magic sight spell, but many times more vivid—she could have sworn that the image was somehow slightly moving, though Yenna wondered if there might not be a problem with her projected sight.

Carefully allowing herself to look at a piece of the image at a time, Yenna slowly began to parse it. A majority of it was completely worthless to her own mortal mind, though she imagined it was the fault of the leyline convergence flooding the place with magic. However, two distinct features could be made out in the mess. One was a glowing white outline that seemed to extend beyond its own vague, person-shaped silhouette, and the other was a startling blackness. An absolute void of magic, contained in the shape of a small rectangle. A shiver ran down Yenna’s metaphorical spine, as she thought of the only thing that matched that description.

Holding out a hand, Yenna conjured the black book. It wasn’t the real thing, bearing none of the dreadful attraction of the original, but its smooth, metal cover still managed to instil a worry in the mage. Experimentally, Yenna tried to open it. The lock still refused to budge, and the mage could guess at why—having never seen it open, her memory didn’t have enough information to allow her to do so. Even if she did open it, this wasn’t the real thing—she had no idea what was inside, so the contents would likely be blank.

Once more, Yenna turned to Demvya. 

“When you look at the black book, what do you see?”

“Darkness. Tis a void, bereft of magic and light. It takes, but does not give.”

Yenna nodded, though she couldn’t shake that nervous feeling. Her finding the black book wasn’t some stroke of unusual luck—there was at least one more that had been sitting at the bottom of a pool of water for goodness knows how long. Given the timing of the elemental’s attack, it was found by this beast-man alarmingly recently. While there was no way of knowing how long it had taken for the elemental to gather its army, it was likely no more than a few weeks.

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Another worry crossed Yenna’s mind—the beast-man had opened the book. The elemental believed the person in question was quite powerful, but it didn’t seem like the book’s lock could be merely overpowered. This beast-man wasn’t just strong, but smart—or at least had learned the secret from someone else, which made for a more terrifying idea of there being others out there who not only knew about these ominous volumes but also knew their secrets.

There was one more mystery in the elemental’s memory, and Yenna used it to distract herself from the creeping anxiety of shadowy beast-men. The ‘reed’ the elemental talked about, how the man had attempted to pull some piece of its being out, felt awfully familiar. It reminded Yenna first of the allure of the black book, how it seemed to tug at something deep within, and how the elemental core had attempted to do the same—though with far less effect, it had still brought the mage herself in here. With that in mind, Yenna decided to build a theory.

While Yenna was a mage, she was also a researcher—even in her time as a teacher, she studied and learned about all manner of things, though her findings were largely hampered by her unwillingness to leave her hometown. Right now, Yenna was ready to formulate a theory as to the nature of this ‘pull’, though some part of her cried out that there simply wasn’t enough evidence yet.

This ‘reed’ the elemental described was, Yenna believed, the same ‘thing’ that she had felt tugged at by both the black book and the elemental itself. It was likely some vital piece of the soul, some miniscule but important object that performed a critical function. Where the elemental thought of a reed, Yenna’s first impression had been that of a loose thread—some string or strand being pulled from its place, where it likely held something together. This soul thread, Yenna decided to call it for the time being, probably held some massive amount of power—taking it from another would surely be highly detrimental to them, but extremely useful to the taker.

The inner workings of the soul were still a mystery, at least as far as Yenna knew. The ritual to awaken oneself to the secret of magic was still poorly understood—it opened up some part of the soul, but it wasn’t really clear how or why that worked, or even why it allowed someone to perceive and manipulate magic in the first place. For all Yenna knew, this soul thread was related to that—or, possibly, not at all.

Yenna sighed. “I feel like I’m a novice again. Staring at the words on the page and not understanding their meanings.”

There was a moment of awkward silence—a fellow mortal might have commiserated with her, or at least responded in some way. Demvya was simply silent, having nothing to add. Then, as Yenna began to speak again, the spirit spoke over her.

“Thou hast visited all but one fragment of the relevant recollections. Pray, do not hesitate. I shall protect thee.”

Momentarily confused, Yenna recalled one final line from the elemental’s memory. I recall the markings. If Yenna could see a visual representation of the elemental’s memories, then it stood to reason that she could see what the elemental remembered of these markings. She took up the corner of the page between her fingers, and hesitated—Demvya had sensed Yenna’s anxiety before the mage had realised it herself. Did she really want to know what was inside that book? Yenna considered the people of the valley—the cursed remnants of their existence etched upon the world by the aftermath of their use of the book’s contents. She recalled the tale of the Grand Coven—had that been related to the black book? Lumale’s reaction to the book was certainly strange enough.

As her heart pounded in a chest that felt so far away, Yenna felt a soft hand on her shoulder. Demvya stood beside her, and gave a subtle nod—with a shuddering sigh, Yenna turned the page.

The following page held an incomplete series of symbols. At first, Yenna felt a small amount of relief to see simple writing upon the page. However, as she looked, it felt like the symbols were growing larger and larger, burning into her vision. A wave of nausea passed over the mage, and an intense pressure built up all around her. With the centre of her vision burnt and blocked, she could see out of the corner of her eyes that the walls and shelves of the library were returning to a liquid state. A horrible sound, both inaudible and deafening, assaulted her being, and sh e   c   ou   l d n’ t     l     o  o   k           a w      a  y

—

Pain. Yenna’s flesh burned, and her whole body shuddered. Blinking her eyes free of tears that flowed uncontrollably, she realised she was back in the tent. Jiin was sitting across from her, looking rather surprised at the core in front of her, her hands up in the air as though to say ‘I didn’t do anything.’ Both pieces of the core had shattered into several smaller chunks.

“W-Woah! Yenna, y’alright?!” The woman leapt up and shuffled to Yenna’s side.

“Not…really…” The mage’s throat felt tight, and her eyes wouldn’t stop watering. The pain she had felt, she realised belatedly, was the sensation of her burns catching up with her now that she was back in her own body. A rather nasty headache was forming from her sudden and forceful return to her body, and Yenna quietly hoped that an aching brain wasn’t just going to become a feature of her life on the road.

“Demvya came back t’me real fast, an’ smashed th’ thingy there. What th’ heck happened?” Jiin held up a clean rag, which Yenna used to mop up her falling tears—though they refused to abate.

“We experienced the elemental’s memory. Found out why it attacked—it was afraid of some…beast-man? The man had a black book—another one, just like ours—and tried to take something from the elemental. The elemental saw a bit of what was in the book, and I was able to…able to…?”

Yenna frowned. She remembered turning the page, beholding the symbols, all the things that happened when she did—but not the symbols themselves. It was like someone had torn a chunk of her memory clean out with uncanny precision.

“Why don’tcha take it easy fer a bit?” Jiin began to stand, looking rather worried. “I-I’ll go get Mayi!”

As the yolm woman left, hurrying off to find help, Yenna was left feeling like she had replaced her questions with a bevy of newer, scarier ones.

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¹ - There is a belief in the mythology of cultures in and around the Aulprean region that the moon’s light is a purifying influence that dispels or suppresses curses and evil. It is thought that creatures like werewolves would avoid the purifying light and would either return to normality or burst into flame on contact.

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