Chapter 295 - A Realm of Day and Night

Sebastien

Month 10, Day 3, Sunday 9:30 p.m.

Sebastien hadn’t expected to spend so much time with Professor Lacer. As she walked across the dark University grounds, she briefly considered changing into her female body and visiting the restricted archives to look for information on the Night mentioned in Myrddin’s journals. But the thought of running into Professor Lacer while wearing that body still made her shiver. Even if the chances were low, she couldn’t bring herself to take the risk. 

Instead, she called on Legion, and they opened up a portal to the spirit realm. With the bracelet bound around and through her wrist to stabilize her, they moved smoothly and quickly across the city. This time, it took only five minutes to reach her little apartment. Sebastien couldn’t help but marvel at this, but Legion didn’t even pause to accept her praise or gloat about their prowess. 

“Tired,” they said simply, before dropping back into the depths of her mind. They sent a fleeting daydream of an infant kitten struggling to keep its oversized head from falling over as it fought against fatigue, and then they were gone, back in the broken seal. 

Sebastien had wanted to speak to them. She let the belated hand she’d raised to try and call them back fall to her side. Somewhat at a loss, she contemplated for a while, then sat down to put more thought into the development of her as-yet-unnamed secret organization. ‘I need a meeting place,’ she mused, tapping the end of her pen against her lower lip. ‘But how to make it secure? Liza can do the wards. Perhaps I could even pick up the members via the spirit realm, so they never have to travel through Gilbratha’s streets and thus have no chance to be tracked.’ This still seemed risky. She’d never practiced with anyone beside herself. 

‘Before that, I need to find an actual location. Maybe Oliver can help me buy a place under a shell identity.’ She made a cryptic note, then moved on to considering how she would entice those she hoped would join her. Everyone had levers that could move them, and she hoped she had the wit, charisma, and, perhaps most importantly, resources to do so. 

Over the next three days, Sebastien continued to prepare, practice her magic, and contemplate some existential questions. 

‘The world is facing two potentially apocalyptic crises right now. We are running out of celerium, and the number of Aberrants is increasing too fast. Are these the kinds of evil that have been allowed to thrive due to the flaws of human nature that Professor Lacer and I talked about?’ She didn’t understand enough about the cause of the Aberrant problem to be able to speculate, though she had some suspicions. 

But the celerium problem seemed to fit in a few ways. The people in control of Gilbratha certainly would suffer if celerium ran out, but the rich had all had opportunities to stockpile resources for years, if not entire generations. They themselves would not be without Conduits. While the secrecy kept mass panic from causing destruction, it was probably also true that a large number of people who might have been able to make decisions to mitigate the shortage were in the dark about the problem. Coordinating a nation-wide—or world-wide—movement away from celerium toward other types of Conduits, or witchcraft, would be a massive undertaking that would require not only a fundamental shift in mindset, but still wouldn’t leave society with optimal access to magic. Celerium being the only, best, answer was part of people’s conception of magic, and it might hurt people to change their minds. 

This was all true, but none of it took into account Myrddin’s likely method to create celerium, and the fact that one man had access to that method and did not plan to share it with the masses. 

’If everyone knew how to create celerium, it seems like that might solve one of the crises entirely. But Oliver plans to keep it a secret. He might have altruistic intentions, but…’ She sighed and shook her head ruefully. ‘The Verdant Stags are simply not powerful enough to successfully take over the country. Not yet. And maybe not before it’s too late.’ She pondered what that meant for her. She had made vows, but Professor Lacer had just explained how vows could be broken. ‘I still have time,’ she tried to reassure herself. ‘We haven’t even finished Myrddin’s last journal yet. I can still watch how Oliver handles things.’ It was even possible that the Thirteen Crowns’ celerium-finding expedition would bear fruit. The Known Lands were relatively small compared to the size of the planet, after all, a point which Myrddin had only confirmed. 

‘Is it possible that any of those points on his map might be a celerium deposit?’ she wondered suddenly. That certainly wouldn’t be an easy fix, since most of the ones outside the current borders would likely be difficult to get to, let alone to set up a mining outpost at and protect long-term. However, when immense profits were at stake, almost anything could be made possible. 

Legion finally came out of their slumber on the third day. 

Siobhan gave the signal for them to occupy her shadow, and they poured into it like ink into a glass of water. 

Under Legion’s control—and her tacit consent—her shadow rose up and stretched dramatically, then turned to stare at her expectantly, eyes glowing ever-so-faintly amber. “Are we going to do more void-shield practice? Or perhaps you have need of my more interesting services?” 

“I want to ask you some questions,” Sebastien said. 

Legion deflated somewhat. 

“They are interesting questions,” Sebastien assured it. 

Legion grimaced at her as if this was somehow offensive. “At least let us practice some magic while we speak. You could work on the void-shield, or perhaps we could wander around and leave a few of those light-coasters in strategic locations." 

The latter sounded like a good idea, but she didn’t trust Legion to actually be able to find any of those strategic locations. It would be better do do that via more mundane travel. “We can work on the void-shield,” she conceded. 

She felt their deep sense of relief and appreciation, almost like an alcoholic who was about to taste their first drop of hard liquor in days.

After a few moments to ensure her concept of the spell twisted from mere shadow-familiar to devouring void, she began to send attack spells at Legion, practicing several of the spells in her spell rod, as well as some of the more difficult exercises from her second term in Practical Casting. She allowed them to retain form with her shadow rather than take control herself, mostly because it was easier to talk to them this way.

“Did Myrddin have so many different names because it affected his identity in the spirit realm, and thus had some affect on his magic?” she asked.

Legion absorbed a few thunderclaps made from air bursts distanced to appear directly in front of its face, gave her a slightly irked look, and said, “I know almost nothing about Myrddin. You do remember that the most knowledgeable part of me is just a few weeks of memories from a thirteen-year-old girl, right?”

Embarrassed, Sebastien cleared her throat, then explained what she knew about Myrddin, both from the myths and histories, as well as the ancient man’s own words. “If Titans were trying to create ‘claddings of identity,’ and there is such a direct connection between a person’s identity and use of the Will, I wonder what it might mean for Myrddin to want to curse someone using the name Merzhin.”

Legion nodded. “Yes, I can see how that would be useful. Mostly, because ideas have physical weight within the spirit realm. Shamans often attempt to use these ideas to their benefit, most often in attempts to stabilize their own identities and avoid insanity, dissolution, or losing their way back from whence they came. And yet, all ideas have their areas of weakness. If you were to forge the identity of a shining bulwark of strength and righteousness into a suit of armor, that could be useful in some situations, but would leave you quite at a disadvantage in an area where stealth and subterfuge are necessary. Perhaps, if Myrddin spent a lot of time in the spirit realm, he found a way to make these different identities more useful, giving him a bit of extra skill with a wider array of concepts. An identity suited to curses would also have an easier time negotiating with a certain kind of spirit.”

Legion absorbed a small arc of lightning that she had tried to imbue with the idea of “cracks” and “rending,” then raised one eyebrow in a way that reminded her of her Grandfather. “It is also possible that this spilled over into the physical world, though that I can be less certain of. He was not an Aberrant, after all, and I do not know enough about the edge cases of your human magic.”

After snapping forward to literally eat a small illusion of a throwing knife headed at their eye, Legion licked their lips. “I can help you stabilize your identity, you know. Better than any hack shaman could.”

Sebastien paused halfway through trying to imbue a set of illusory light shackles with the idea of “confinement.” “What do you mean?” she asked.

“Isn’t that something all you humans want? Aren’t you all afraid of having your feeble Wills break and becoming Aberrants?”

“Stabilizing my identity can make my Will stronger?”

Legion waved at her impatiently and only answered after she tried to choke them with the light shackles, which of course they absorbed. “I hate that flavor.” After smacking their mouth a few times with distaste, they said, “Don’t misunderstand. Stabilizing your identity will not increase your power. It will just increase your…density, your theoretical mass.” They rested one elbow on the other wrist and pinched their chin. “Are those the right words? I have this vocabulary, but I don’t know enough about natural science to be sure I’m using it correctly. Let us use a metaphor instead. It will turn you from a minnow into a sturgeon and transmute your flesh from sand into steel. Things might still go wrong if you fumble, but those errors will be less likely to cause you harm.”

Sebastien’s heart gave a dizzying lurch. She pressed a hand to her chest to calm it. “What is the cost?”

“I am bound to your service and to act in your best interest.” Legion pouted. “I cannot actually charge you what I’m worth. But you will have to provide energy for me to work with, and it will take some time. Months. Perhaps even years, depending on what you want. Things will be faster if you could let me invade some dreams and gather some thought-corpses to build with.”

Sebastien only briefly considered whether she had any enemies that she really wanted dead. Since she didn’t trust that Legion could kill Hite, and even less so that they could do so without alerting other members of the Red Guard, she declined. “You will have to go about things the hard way. Explain the process to me.”

Legion tilted their head to the side like a strange bird. After a long while, they said, “I will take thought-stuff, stabilize it, and build with it. Words do not suffice. You have few experiences that can be used for understanding. Perhaps it would be better to show you.” They reached one hand forward, palm upright, an invitation.

Sebastien hesitated, searching her deep-seated sense of their emotions for some trick, but found nothing. In the end, greed and curiosity won her over, and she took their hand.

They flattened into a cloak-bordered portal, and she walked through to find herself in that pseudo-Gilbratha space of fog and hurrying figures.

Legion released her, the red thread hanging gently between them as they turned to lead the way. They had been walking for almost fifteen minutes before Sebastien stopped being distracted by fascination and thought to ask, “Where are we going?”

Legion scratched at the back of their head in a way that was distinctly Claudio. “We’re going to a place that’s high up, a place with a lot of sky, a lot of daylight, a lot of night.”

“What?”

“This is why it’s better to explain through examples. The spirit realm is not like the mundane plane.”

Sebastien paused for a while to consider this. “Okay. But where is this place.”

Legion’s steps slowed, they looked down and away from her, and she realized suddenly that they had no idea. They were, in fact, only just now realizing that they didn’t know where this place was, and had just been planning to keep moving until they stumbled upon some place that met their criteria.

She raised her hand, palm out. “Okay, stop. Take me back to the mundane plane.”

Legions head bowed like a scolded puppy, and though their emotions surged with affront, shame, and bitterness, they opened up a portal without arguing and stepped through it with her. On the other side, their form lost coherence and visibility for a moment, until they wrapped her shadow around themself again.

They had come out on a random patch of farmland about two hours’ walk away from Gilbratha, which was still close enough to see the towering walls. A small farmer’s shack sat on the edge of the plot, but luckily, no one seemed to be around to have seen them.

Sebastien retrieved a crystal cup from her satchel, cut her thumb on the small edge provided, then dabbed it on her forehead and temples began to drag it around.

“What are you doing?” Legion asked.

“I’m going to call for help and ask for directions,” she replied, deadpan. Unlike when she had performed this spell previously, she spoke the chant in a loud voice that carried, so that she might be heard by something close enough to listen.

“Crystal sings to pierce the veil,

Blood burns bright to mark the way. 

By blood and song I seek the path,

Through veils of flesh and bone and breath,

Below the world of mortal things,

Where truth eternal softly sings.

I am the blood that feeds the deep,

I am the song that breaks the sleep.

Grant me sight beyond the seeing,

Grant me truth beyond mere being.

Song to bridge the space between,

Blood to bind what lies unseen.”

As before, the world twisted in some unfathomable way. Her skin felt raw and close and small, but her mind felt…separate, almost. As if merely confirming that this body—any body—was just a suit of flesh that she wore. Her self was something else, and with this magic, it could see a hint of the truth, but only as if looking through a heavy shroud backed by mist.

She swayed on her feet but remained upright. If she were being watched by something beyond the metaphorical veil, it would not do to show weakness. “I, Sebastien Siverling, call upon a swift, harmless, and friendly creature. A creature that knows the way to a place of sky, daylight, and night, and is willing to be a guide. In exchange for their aid, I offer sustenance, to be consumed and used for no other purpose. Three drops of willingly given blood.”

It was the first time she had used the crown of madness spell for its originally intended purpose. Her words seemed to ride the bone-deep song of the crystal cup, through the air and beyond.

She could tell she was being watched, and she felt the ephemeral weight of invisible things passing nearby. Nothing responded at first, but she waited patiently, continuing to drag her thumb around the crystal to create its clear, ringing tone.

Finally, a spirit responded. She sensed its inquiry and explained her intent once more. It agreed, they were in accord, and three drops of blood disappears from the cup in her hand.

She dropped the Crown of Madness, cleaned the cup and her hand with the shedding-disintegration spell, and then looked at Legion expectantly.

Seeming somewhat nonplussed, they opened a portal to the spirit realm once more.

The creature that had responded to her summons was a small bird with a hummingbird-like beak and a shape that seemed to have been made out of several wedges glued together in the shape of wings, tail, and head. Even as she watched, its form refined itself, the hint of feathers, eyes, and feet becoming clear.

This was the effect of her blood solidifying its identity.

It seemed shocked to see her standing before it in the spirit realm, despite the fact that it had seemingly understood what they were going to do ahead of time. Perhaps, before, it had been too stupid to fully comprehend.

It darted closer, moving almost too quickly for her eye to track, and stopped an inch in front of her hand, hovering in the air. Slowly, it stretched out one wing and touched her hand.

As if shocked by a bolt of lightning, it stiffened, puffed up, and darted away again.

“I will not harm you,” she promised. In this place, her intent was even more obvious than she could make it in the mundane plane, and the little spirit bird knew she spoke truth. She explained again the place she was looking for, allowing Legion to interject a few clarifications, and then they followed behind the bird, which had to slow down several times for them to keep up.

Time was hard to track in the spirit realm, but they walked for so long that Sebastien began to feel tired, and she could tell Legion was as well. The more fatigued they got, the more the spirit realm seemed to tug at her edges. Luckily, with three branches of Will, she was more than capable of keeping herself coherent against this level of interference.

Legion had been truthful, when he told her that the spirit realm was hard to understand without experience. Places and beings here weren’t just experienced with the five senses, but also carried an almost invasive force with them. Memories, ideas, sensations. They weren’t the thing, they were the idea of the thing, and to experience them was to know them—at least a little bit.

As they followed the bird, they passed a small moon just hanging in the air, one of its craters filled with a pink bubbling liquid that smelled like rancid pus but still somehow drew her in. It hinted at her that it would make her happy, keep her bound, keep her devoted.

Legion tugged her away. “Something to do with a ‘love’ potion,” it muttered.

Sebastien couldn’t help but look again. “If we were to go to that crater and then exit into the real world, what would we find?”

Legion shrugged. “Perhaps a component for a potion. Perhaps someone brewing that very potion. Perhaps someone putting on a play where that is the main theme. Perhaps someone having a dream. Perhaps someone under the mind-altering effects for so long that their brain has been damaged. Perhaps just a place where someone brews those kinds of potions in secret, over and over. You get the idea.”

When they passed a giant herd of creatures that looked somewhat like bison, and somewhat like elephants, but which managed to get so close that Sebastien could feel the heat of their breath before she realized they were there, she almost jumped. “Irrelephants,” she said, and again, more excited. “Irrelephants! Those are the concept of a magical beast, right?”

Legion’s head lolled to the side thoughtfully. “I’ve never met one. But you might be right.”

They had to take a detour around a screaming pit in the earth that made their ears bleed to listen to, and that seemed to be either following along behind them or somehow warping space so that it was harder to get away than it should have been.

And at one point, something large flew by overhead.

All three of them froze, and Legion bared their teeth at the sky, their snarl turning thorned and shark-like. “Try it,” they whispered to the thing casting the shadow. “I am a creature of pure magic, and I walk beside a thaumaturge unlike any you have ever known. Your size will not protect you from our power. I am very hungry, and I will eat you.”

The thing warped past them with a woob-woob sound, and was gone without Sebastien ever managing to see it clearly.

Legion seemed deeply disappointed, pouting and looking longingly in the direction that the huge spirit creature had flown.

Later, as they followed their guide through a field of tall, golden grass which rustled with the song of the wind and undulated like the ocean, Legion grabbed a leaping bug that resembled an indistinct grasshopper out of the air. They stuffed it in their mouth and bit down, chewing with loud crunching sounds.

Sebastien grimaced. Eating bugs when one had to was one thing, but even she had never liked to do so without preparing and cooking them. ‘Are there concepts of parasites in the spirit realm?’ she wondered. ‘What happens if you ingest one?’

As if inspired, the little bird spirit also caught a grasshopper spirit—which was as big as them—had a rather dramatic fight to the death that ended with them driving straight into the ground at ridiculous speeds that shattered the grasshopper’s exoskeleton, and then ate it with the exact same crunching sounds, despite the fact that birds didn’t need to chew.

Legion and the bird then had a challenging stare-down, before Sebastien got them all back on track by pointedly clearing her throat.

Legion caught a few more insects to eat, but didn’t seem to be particularly satisfied. They offered one to Sebastien, and when she refused, sighed. “There’s almost nothing to them, barely any energy.” They seemed to sink in onto themself like a distraught child, scuffing their shoes against the dirt and grass with shuffling footsteps. “Will I die of hunger?”

Sebastien rolled her eyes. “If necessary, we will take a break and continue on once you have recovered.” She had not understood how long the trip would be, or she might have decided not to start, but now they were well on their way, and going back would waste all the time, effort, and energy they had expended to get this far.

‘Is that the sunk cost fallacy?’ she mused idly. ‘But it doesn’t matter. I have nowhere I must be in the next few days. It might even be safer to get out of Gilbratha for a bit.’

However, only a couple of minutes after she’d had the thought and gone through her inventory of emergency camping supplies, the bird spirit led them out of a forest and into a place above the clouds.

It was so high she could feel the altitude, an almost vertigo-like dizziness as the concept of their elevation sunk in. The sky looked different in all four directions. One side was filled with dawn, another with midnight stars, another with sunset, and the fourth with midday, clear blue.

She couldn’t see her feet, as the clouds came up to her knees, but it felt like she was standing on something made of stone. It had a sharpness to its concept, and she knew that a wrong move might mean something razoring right through her shoes and into the flesh of her foot.

The bird circled them once, brushed Sebastien’s arm with a wing, and almost lit up with color and excitement when she offered it a cracker from her emergency rations.

“A gift, willingly given,” she said.

The cracker was almost bigger than the bird itself, but it ate the entire thing in three bites and grew distinct feathers, dark little eyes, and claws on the tips of its digits. With another swipe of its wing, this time lovingly across her cheek, the spirit creature was gone, darted into the distance and past the horizon.

Legion, still hunching and listing to one side as if they were too weak to stand properly, grabbed a piece of the cloud and folded it to the side like a fluffy fabric to create a makeshift doorway to reality. “Oh.”

Sebastien moved closer to look out of the hole. There were no clouds below, only jagged stone and a dizzying drop that extended so far it seemed surreal.

That feeling of vertigo came back, but even stronger.

Tentatively, Legion stepped out into the physical world, and when they had confirmed it was safe, Sebastien followed.

She hugged her arms around herself, took out her spell rod, and immediately cast a spell to protect against the biting cold wind and another to provide warmth. They stood side by side, looking out at the jagged mountains that rose up around the one they were standing on. “We are at the Starpeak Mountains,” Sebastien said, her voice weak and raspy. “Literally, at the peak of one of the Starpeak Mountains.”

Legion collapsed onto the stone beneath, crossing their legs. They pinched their chin and nodded thoughtfully. “It makes sense.”

Sebastien turned in a circle, looking out at the ocean to the west and the never-ending stretch of fang-like mountains to the east. She checked her pocket watch, almost fumbling as she tried to pull it from her pocket without dropping the spell rod or her Conduit. “It has been two hours,” she said, deadpan. “Two hours, to travel from Gilbratha to the Starpeak Mountains.”

Legion threw her an irritated look. “Yes, yes, your guide was useful, much faster and more knowledgeable than me. I suppose you were right to ask for directions. You don’t need to rub it in when I’m already this tired and hungry! And my feet hurt!”

Author Note: Thanks for you patience with the day's delay!

My problem here was that my chronic illness results in some memory problems, and the one-month break only exacerbated the problem.

I had to spend a lot of time re-reading what I'd written and my planning documents because things I write while having a flare-up, or write when I feel okay but then try to remember while having a flare-up, don't seem to stick fully in my memory. Large chunks just go missing. I wasn't sure what I'd written and what I'd planned to write but hadn't yet, and I needed to make sure I wasn't introducing plot holes or doing things out of order. 

Memory problems when writing a series like this are brutal.

I remember Terry Pratchett described how he couldn't keep the complex, multi-threaded narratives of a whole book in his head anymore. I often think of him when I find myself struggling to juggle plot threads over the last couple of years. Luckily, my memory tracks up and down with my health, so I can do better if I don't push too hard and stay healthy. 

Unfortunately, stress is not always a choice. 

(Also, I didn't do an editing pass on this chapter, so it's probably muddled with errors. If you point them out, I will update them in the Master Manuscript so that they don't live on into posterity.)

Weekly discussion thread on the Alcove: https://alcove.azaleaellis.com/t/chapter-295-weekly-discussion-a-realm-of-day-and-night/954