3rd Day of Ash, 122nd Year of the Age of Steel
Masagh chewed pensively, staring at the grey meat in front of him. They were all crammed into the Grand Hall. A feast had been thrown in honor of the newly arrived family. They sat at the next table over, looking uncomfortable but much less fearful than the day before. Emerande had shown them around the Compound herself, with Cleon. It was, all in all, a happy occasion.
The father, Edgar, had been given work in the warehouse and dock area where many of the unsworn started. Ellen, the mother, had spoke of a writing aptitude and Emerande had hinted that she had scribe work in the library for her, transcribing old works. Masagh privately thought it was a veiled attempt to get the woman interested in the world magics Emerande herself coveted.
He wasn’t thinking of the family now though. The Knight chewed and swallowed, red eyes turning up to look at his sister across from him.
“How does it work?” He asked.
Sabrione was hunched over her plate with elbows placed protectively to either side. Her wide shoulders moved as she ate. She tilted her head and looked up at him. “What?”
“The portals.” He couldn’t get the eerie astral sea of chaos out of his mind. Lines of aether crossing an expanse of void. They had traveled miles in seconds when they had rescued the family. Sabrione, in her fashion, had treated the feat as though it was nothing.
She played with a piece of gristle in her teeth with her tongue, watching him. “The Slipspace? It’s the space between reality.” She said finally. “You never been through it huh?”
He shook his head.
“You let your astral self take over,” She began to explain, setting down her utensil and gesturing with her hands. “Use aether to find the lines, leylines, and follow them.” She looked at him expectantly.
“That’s it?”
“Well, no. But I can’t really explain it, you just have to do it yourself.” She said, her face taking on a slightly pained look. “It’s too complicated.”
She turned back to her food. Masagh watched her eat. “How far can you go?” His mind was on the Log book he had taken only days earlier. Perhaps he would not need to figure out how to fly so soon.
“Me? About as far as we went, to be honest. That was a challenge. Lucky none of us lost a finger…or worse.” Sabrione muttered pragmatically. “Others? I’ve heard stories of Slips who could reach as far as other planes. People so strong they walk amongst the gods even.” She shrugged and smiled. “I’m just happy to avoid the damn Well way and that algae covered water, to be honest.” She grinned, making it a joke.
Masagh stared back.
“What’s up with you? Close your mouth.”
“Let’s do it then.” He heard himself saying.
“Do what?” Sabrione asked.
“Teach me.” Masagh confirmed. With only a moment’s reflection he knew he wanted this skill. Constrained to the Compound his entire existence, the idea of stepping through space to any destination he wanted was too appealing. His eyes flickered over her shoulder to the boy they had rescued. How much of that one’s life would be spent in these same halls, away from the world. Sabrione was watching him now, a vague surprise played across her features. “Initiate me. Let’s do it.”
She swallowed and glanced down at her plate, then over her shoulder where Emerande was presiding over the festivities. “Yea alright.” She pushed herself up.
Surprised, Masagh watched her rise. “Wow, just like that? No dire warnings?”
“Come on, before I change my mind.”
They left the hall quickly, before any but those at their own table had noticed. Sabrione went to retrieve a vial of the golden ink House Creth used for initiations before meeting him in the warehouse. The room was half full of crates and dimly lit by a few sconced lanterns. Beyond the wide entrance the sewer river’s aroma drifted in.
“This isn’t like the Reaving Rune.” Sabrione began. Masagh shook his head.
“Look I’ve been initiated into two of them now, I know its going to be tough.” Masagh said.
“You don’t know what this is, brother.” Sabrione chided. “Let me finish, eh? It pulls you out of your body. You have to find your way back or be stuck out there, forever. This isn’t like being a rodent for the rest of your time. You’re going to be lost in the place where gods leave their mistakes.” She paused and stared at him, reinforcing the significance of the danger. “You sure?”
He breathed out in a long, measured breath. He nodded solemnly.
“Well alright then.” Sabrione said brightly, pulling the tattooing needle and hammer out of a small container. They sat on a pair of crates under one of the lanterns and she began her work.
The Traversing Rune was to be placed on his forehead since it was the Astral body that guided such things. He felt a dull pain as he watched Sabrione work. She took no breaks and never asked if he was alright. As she inked his forehead to match hers she explained to him.
“I’m going with you of course. You will need a guide out there since you aren’t used to the leylines. That being said, it’s going to be on you to make yourself jump back into reality.” Masagh pondered the ominous nature of that comment.
“What does that mean?” He asked, hearing the apprehension in his own voice and clearing his throat to cover it. She raised an eyebrow at the question, not dropping her gaze from her work.
“Means you better steel yourself for this. Going to take a lot out of you to get back.” Sabrione warned. The words were still echoing around in his head as she finished the rune and stepped back.
Masagh could feel the aether crackling around it, agitated and pulling. He looked up at her as his vision began to sear with light. His body was going numb and he heard himself mutter her name.
“Yea yea, here we go, brother.” Sabrione said, and her voice reverberated in his mind. She was pulling him then. Through the whiteness of his vision, through the skin of his body. They were in that astral sea of void and light.
And they were lost. Masagh stared about and found his body was a glowing grey mimicry of himself, like the ichor exposed in his veins. He could not see the Compound, his body, or any noticeable feature.
“Where are we, Sabrione?” Naked fear in his words. He was too disoriented to be embarrassed by the fear.
“Calm down.” She said, holding his astral hand. She was herself, body and astral body combined. Her unworried gaze more than her words calmed him.
“Okay, okay, what now?” He asked.
“Now, we explore.” She said simply. “You need to figure out how to navigate here. Get your spatial awareness so you can find your way home.”
Masagh turned and could see no noticeable different in that direction except that Sabrione was not there. He began to grope around in an attempt to feel something.
“Well that’s definitely not how to go about it.” Sabrione muttered.
“Well how do I do it?” Masagh snapped. He thought it was typical Sabrione nonsense to agree to initiate him and then simply watch him flounder around.
She spun him back around and flicked his forehead with her very real finger. “Astral body, astral sense. Use your aether, mage.” She said the last word with deep sarcasm.
Masagh blinked and looked around again. Now that she had drawn his attention to it, his aether leaked from him in the Slipspace. It didn’t move in a cloud away though. It gathered and ran in rivulets down his body. He could feel points drawing it away from himself in different directions. It trailed off in lines.
Leylines.
Once this shift in sense happened in his mind, suddenly MAsagh reoriented himself with a jolt and a wave of queasiness. “Oh gods below.” He muttered as his mind reeled with the new sense.
“Yea, there it is.” Sabrione said, smirking.
She began to walk along a leyline casually, not rushing. Masagh followed her. For a indeterminable time they just strolled together, letting him grow accustomed to following the aether draw of the leylines. Occasionally they would pause as Masagh found a new line tugging gently at him and he turned to inspect it.
“What did you mean about the gods mistakes?” Masagh asked.
Sabrione stared out into the slipspace void. Then she turned and started to walk back along the line they had come. “Come on, let’s head back before you don’t have enough energy to get back in your skin.”
Masagh let the question go unanswered as he followed behind her. She had her head down as she walked, arms crossed over her chest.
“Is it different? After you have the rune I mean. With your body also.” He fumbled over the new question.
“Not really. Right now your mind is tricking you into thinking you were using your senses to orient yourself, but you weren’t. Here the only way to navigate is the leylines, and the only way to find them is to give up a bit of aether. That’s why it takes a lot to travel long distances.” Sabrione turned back to look at him. “With the body, it’s pretty much the same. But you don’t have that special tug when your body is with you. Do you feel it?” She asked.
Masagh took a moment, closing his eyes and feeling through that new sense. The aether being tugged gently from him. After a moment he did feel it, a stronger tug, a more familiar one. His body yearning for the return of his soul, his astral self.
“Yes, I’ve got it.” He said.
“Good.” She smiled somewhat sadly. “That’s what you’ve got to follow to get back. I hope I see you again, brother.”
She turned and made a rip in the slipspace and vanished.
Fear gripped him again. He had depended more on the familiarity of Sabrione’s antics than he had appreciated before. Now he was floundering between the realms of reality on his own. Years of experience with the finite nature of aether and energy made him instinctually turn his attention to the tugging line. Wasting time staring into the void would deplete him more, and foster his fear. He hadn’t made it two hundred years and three cardinal rune initiations to fail right here on the other side of reality from his body.
Masagh closed his eyes and lent all his focus to the aether sense he now depended on. He felt the tugging and focused on it. The sensation of it pulling his aether increased. Instinct told him to rein in that sapping. Guarding your aether was the base instinct of any mage. The tugging increased and no change seemed to happen to his astral body.
He began to panic in the dark recesses of his mind. His thoughts drifted to Sabrione and he felt a mild anger. She had failed to explain something to him. She hadn’t remembered. Fit perhaps to teach the sword, but she hadn’t been the right person to ask for this!
No, no the tugging was weakening as his mind split between that anger and his focus. He needed to let go of that. His body was pulling him back, that’s what he needed to focus on. Of course! It was his body tugging on the aether. He didn’t need to guard it, he wanted it to go there, all of it, every particle. Masagh let go of the anger and irritation, the fear. He refocused on the weakened tugging. Then with a great focus of will, he let the aether pour from him.
It swirled down the line, gaining momentum. It wasn’t leaving him though. He felt himself being swept up with the outpour. His vision was going white again. His attachment to the other leylines dimming.
Before he could register the feeling fully a pain blossomed in both his knees. His body had fallen forward off the crate. He was kneeling on the stone floor of the warehouse and Sabrione was looking worriedly into his face.
“Masagh? Masagh, you there?” She was whispering. “Come on, brother.”
“I’m here, I’m back.” He blinked up at her. His fingers grazed the new cardinal rune on his foreheads briefly. The skin was already healing over the golden ink. “You could have told me.”
“Told you what?” Sabrione asked, brow furrowing.
“About the aether at the end. I needed to let it all back in.” Masagh rasped, struggling to his feet.
She was frowning at him. “Well yes, of course. It’s your damn body!” She shrugged. “I thought that was obvious.”
“You’re a bad teacher.” Masagh said.
“I am not-“ Sabrione’s voice was rising.
“You’re a bad teacher, Sabrione.” Masagh said, beginning to walk away, but he was laughing with the relief of being returned to solid reality.
