Chapter 11

Months passed, and winter finally released its grip on the land, patches of snow could still be seen in places where there were significant amounts of shade during the day as well as up on the mountains where the air was colder. Only a handful of conifers were starting to show signs of budding and the forests continued to be bare of leaves except for the occasional evergreen dotted here and there.

The winter had come and gone with little fanfare, only one bad snowstorm had made the two-hour travel to Ikuno’s cave impossible for nearly a month. Ikuno had been mildly annoyed with herself about the feral way she had attacked Kal when he finally made it back, actually shredding his clothes and throwing him on the bed in her haste to get him inside her. Afterwards, she apologized over and over about her loss of control until Kal laughed and told her that if she hadn’t already been naked when he got there he would have likely done something similar to her. Going from getting some action regularly to going almost four weeks without had left them both very pent up.

Prior to the storm, Kal had used the time he was with Ikuno to make improvements on all of his runes as well as layer the protection phrase, as Kal had started to call it going along with his writing analogy from before, from the strength rune into the speed rune. Though it turned out to be significantly more complex than he had anticipated:

“Why the hell won’t this work! It’s like they completely cancel each other out!” Kal put his head down and bumped his forehead against the table a few times, “I’ve been working on this for hours and it feels like I’m getting nowhere.”

Ikuno was luxuriating naked on her bed sipping saké and perusing one of the books from her library as Kal worked, not bothering to get dressed after their earlier activities. Kal sat up as she placed her cup off to the side to and walked over to come take a look. Ikuno stepped behind him and leaned over placing her large blue breasts on either side of his head.

She inspected the rune floating in front of them then looked down, giving Kal a questioning look she said, “Of course they don’t want to work together, they’re of opposite affinities.”

Kal rubbed his head back and forth inside Ikuno’s cleavage and brought a hand up to casually play with a nipple, “Much as I’m enjoying this,” he looked up at her and smiled, “I couldn’t make out a word you just said.”

Ikuno chuckled and stood up straight, uncovering his ears and allowing Kal to hear again, “I said that you have two opposing affinities that’s why they don’t want to work together.” Ikuno went over and picked a book off the bookshelf as Kal collapsed the floating rune into a ball of ink and streamed it back into it’s well.

Laying the book in front of him, Kal recognized it as one of the very first Ikuno had him read when he had asked her to teach him magic. She opened it to a diagram at the beginning of the book.

“These are your main magic affinities, it isn’t very complete but most others fall somewhere within this diagram. As you can see here Speed has an Air affinity while Protection is Earth affinity, with them being directly opposite each other they try to cancel each other out. Really, you should have remembered and realized this without my help.”

Feeling sheepish Kal studied the diagram, having largely overlooked it in his initial excitement about beginning his studies. In the very center was a geometric figure of circles and squares representing pure magical energy, the four surrounding symbols, starting at the top, were labeled Sylph, Undine, Gnome, and Salamando for the four primary elements. Further out were Sol, Luna, and Celeste, representing the schools of Illusion, Astral, and Divination. Across from those three, without symbols of their own and in a very faint script, was Nox, Necros, and Obfuscati. Far off in the bottom right corner and also missing a symbol was the word Entropa in the same light script.

“Other than these two,” he said pointing at Luna and Necros, “the rest of them make sense.”

“Astral Projection has also been called Dreamwalking,” said Ikuno pointing at the moon symbol, “to be honest I’ve never done it so I’m not sure how accurate that is. As to why it’s across from the Necros school; Astral focuses on magic of the spirit without the body, Necros affects the body without a spirit, a corpse.”

Kal nodded in understanding then pointed at Undine and Salamando, “If I mix fire and water it creates steam, is there anything that mixes air and earth in a similar way?”

Ikuno was lost in thought for a few moments, “The only thing that comes to mind is a sandstorm.”

“What’s that?”

“A storm that only happens in dry, sandy areas called deserts, strong winds pick up huge clouds of sand and can carry it from one horizon to the other. Most times it’s just an annoyance to be waited out but if the winds are strong enough it can scour the flesh from your bones if you get caught out in one.”

“So, there is a way that they can come together in nature, now I need to figure out how to do it in the runes,” Kal leaned forward and went back to work while Ikuno returned to her bed and saké.

Kahrin was relentless in her pursuit of giving Kal a proper ‘thank you’ over the winter months, seeming to pop up every time he went into town, much to Perra’s annoyance. Despite what she had said after the incident with her brother, she went with him almost every trip to act as ‘protector’ for Kal against the tenacious barmaid. Kal soon got the impression that Kahrin was showing up as much to tease Perra as she was pursuing him.

To make matters worse, he was making trips into Telsin far more often than he cared to now that the townsfolk knew he was a healer. It seemed like every few days he was being asked to take care of some ache or pain someone was having. In the beginning, he didn’t feel comfortable taking money from the people he healed, but as the people of Telsin grew more and more insistent and he was pulled away from his duties on the farm to ride all the way into town to heal the twentieth aching elbow or knee, he realized he had to do something for the sake of his own sanity. Asking for a bit of copper for his services resulted in a sharp decline in healing requests.

Ikuno had gotten a good laugh out of his predicament one of the times he and Perra had gone to visit, teasing him about being the savior of Telsin’s creaking bones. Perra then went on a short rant about Kahrin showing up every time they went to town, hunting down Kal and reiterating her offer.

Perra’s eyes almost popped out of her head when Ikuno calmly looked at Kal and said, “The girl feels she owes you a debt, let her pay it so she can move on.”

Perra refused to speak to him the entire way home.

His newfound fame did give Kal the opportunity to help a young man who was in the wrong place at the wrong time when a snow-laden tree came crashing to the ground, pinning him. Having already been in town, Kal arrived just as they had just gotten an ox in place and were throwing ropes over the tree to attempt dragging it off the boy. The rescuers looked at Kal like he was a fool when he told them to undo the ropes. Upon their refusal, he walked over to one that was already tied off and used the strength rune to snap it in half, the farmer inside him cursing at the waste of a good rope, then threatened to break to the rest of them if they didn’t listen. Large ropes like the one he snapped were valuable and hard to make, within seconds, the tree was unhooked and the menfolk cleared of the area. With the strength rune shining bright he sunk his hands into the wood then lifted the tree off the boy and tossed it away like it was a large stick. As the villagers watched in shock he bent down and began healing the young man’s broken ribs and arm. Kal hadn’t realized it yet but that was the first time he had used anything besides his healing rune in front of the townsfolk, with the exception of the innkeeper, who had seen most of his fight with Emrick.

A short time after that, things between Kahrin and Perra finally came to a head. Starting when a rider came galloping into his farm yelling for Kal at the top of his lungs.

“I’m here!” he yelled back as he stepped out of the barn, “what’s the problem?”

With a tug on the reins, the messenger pulled up beside Kal, “The midwife has sent for ye, Master Kal, she’s sayin’ it’s urgent, babe an’ mother are both in danger,” the man presented a hand to help him up onto the horse.

Kal ignored the offered hand and darted for the house, running inside he went into his bedroom and grabbed his bracers, having not needed them for something as mundane as cleaning out horse and oxen stalls. Perra and his mother had both frozen in place when he came bursting through the door and now stared at him wide-eyed as he walked out of the room sliding his arms into the vambraces and quickly drawing the rune to tie them.

“What’s wrong Kal?” asked his mother, now standing in front of her chair.

“The midwife sent for me,” he said as the laces finished tying, swearing under his breath he looked back into his room as he pulled his gloves back on. “Perra! I need you to dig my crystal out of my pack, get a ride with the man outside and meet me in town.” Perra set down the ladle from the soup she had been stirring and ran towards Kal’s room just as Kal grabbed his winter cloak and stepped out the door.

The man had pulled his horse around to the front of the house and, like before, was offering his hand.

Once again Kal ignored it, “There’s a girl coming out in a few minutes with something I need, give her a ride instead, which house am I needed?”

The messenger withdrew his hand, “Ye’ve no time ta saddle a horse Master Kal but it’s the second behind the inn, me brother’ll be out front,” he hung his head, “Jus’ listen for the screamin’.”

Stamina and speed runes shined nearly white as Kal sprinted off in the direction of town, kicking up swirls of loose snow in his wake. He was suddenly more appreciative of the extra traffic to his home keeping the trail packed down.

The rider’s jaw hung open as he watched Kal’s quickly disappearing figure tear off into the distance faster than a horse, up until he rounded a corner in the trail and was out of sight. Perra ran out of the house and saw the rider’s awestruck expression as he looked in the direction Kal had gone. “Hey!” she said tapping his leg, “Are you gonna help me up?”

Kal let the speed rune go dark as he came into town not wanting to take a chance on accidentally running into anything, he was also thinking about doing something to counteract the extra cold from moving so fast, even with his winter clothes he felt half frozen. Making his way along the firmer ground on the sides of the street he waited until he was directly across from the inn before venturing out into the mud, thankfully the colder weather had frozen the lower layers but the sun still made crossing the street treacherous on days like today. He swiftly and carefully crossed the street before running the rest of the way to the house, his ears telling him that the rider had not been exaggerating.

As Kal approached a man that Kal assumed was the father ran up to him, “Master Kal! Master Kal! Thank goo...” anything else the man said was drowned out by a gut-wrenching scream from inside the small house.

The man opened the door for Kal but made no move to come in, stepping inside the single room house his nose immediately picked up the iron-laden smell of blood. Off to one side, an old crone was tending to the woman who had been the source of the scream.

“Boy, I told you to stay outside and keep others out of my way, you needn’t be in here to watch this,” said the old woman calmly without turning around.

“I believe you sent for me,” said Kal setting his cloak and gloves to the side.

She turned her head just enough to peer at him out the corner of her eye, “The healer boy, so I did,” turning back to the woman on the bed she continued, “a bit young for a wizard, aren’t you? No matter, as long as you can save the girl I’m not for caring if you’re still in a swaddling cloth. Now then, get over here and get to work,” she said in a dispassionate tone as though the whole situation was commonplace.

Walking over to the woman in the bed, her expression was a hint of relief at seeing him mixed with excruciating pain. He held his hand on her belly as the healing rune lit up. A warning from one of Ikuno’s tomes flashed through his head. The book had stated that healing a woman while pregnant was no issue as the magic treated the baby like just another part of the mother. However, healing a woman during labor “confused the healing magic” as the author had put it, accompanying his statement with horrific drawings of deceased mother and baby accidentally fused together by people doing exactly what he was about to. The healing rune went dark.

“I can’t, not yet. The baby and afterbirth have to come out or bad things can happen,” Kal figured it would be best if he didn’t go into detail.

The woman in the bed wailed in despair at his words while the ancient midwife pushed him off to the side, “Not much bloody good then are ya?” she rested her hands on the laboring woman’s belly. “The babe is fadin’.”

“How do you...” Kal looked closely at her hands, tiny green tendrils extended from her fingertips down into the woman. “You can use magic,” he said.

“I ain’t no witch, boy. Don’t know nothin’ about doing magic, but after so many years being a midwife, I do know mothers and babes.”

The laboring woman threw her head back and screamed in agony.

Kal looked at the old woman, “Maybe I can help.” Putting his hand next to hers he pushed a tiny bit of magical energy into the woman and used it to flood her body much like he did when healing.

The old woman’s eyes widened for a moment as she looked down, “ye might be of some use after all. The babe is turned,” she said after a moment. Reaching to her side she grabbed a clean washcloth and rolled it up, “Put that in her mouth, she’s grindin’ her teeth no sense in breakin’ ‘em. Now help me an’ keep up with what yer doin’ that lets me see the babe.”

The midwife began pushing up and to one side of the woman’s belly, while directing Kal to press on the upper side in the opposite direction, after a minute or so of shoving the woman’s belly around, Kal felt something shift.

The old lady made her way to the foot of the bed and inspected the anguished woman, “Boy, on the next one lift her up so she can push proper.”

“The next what?” but his attention was drawn by the woman in the bed grasping at his hand, though still in extreme pain there was a look of determination on her face now.

A moment later she pulled herself up using Kal and let out another howl of pain, only slightly muffled by the washcloth. Kal quickly switched hands with the woman and adjusted so he could put an arm behind her back.

Twice more he helped the woman push through contractions before the midwife held up the woman’s new daughter letting the fluid drain from her lungs. Laying the baby on the bed she tied off the umbilical and cut through it with a quick swipe of a knife.

Dumping the newborn into Kal’s arms she opened her mouth to speak but his healing rune was already working to repair the damage from the difficult delivery.

“Don’t be too long, the mother needs your attention as well,” said the old woman a couple of minutes later, walking past with a pan containing the afterbirth.

Kal could feel he was running low on magic, cursing himself for burning his resources to get here so quickly and not just accepting the ride from the man sent to get him, then again they may not have lived if he had. He handed the baby back to the old midwife before turning to the woman, who fell unconscious the moment she had given birth. He could tell she was in trouble by the short breaths she was taking, he had seen it many times as an animal he hunted bled out. Laying a hand on her belly he barely got a chance to see where the magic was needed when his healing rune guttered and died.

“Perra!” she should have been there by now.

“Out here Kal! This guy won’t let me in!” came Perra’s voice from beyond the door.

Kal stomped over to the door and flung it open. Perra tossed him the crystal, catching it he glared at the father, “Idiot,” he spat and slammed the door behind him.

Striding over he went back to healing the woman, after a minute he looked at the old woman who was still checking over the baby, “I don’t know if I can save her, magic can heal wounds but can’t create new blood to replace what she lost.”

“Do what you can, boy. If she lives, she lives. If she dies, she dies.”

“That’s pretty cold.”

She looked up from the baby, “I’ve watched more women die in my life than you will likely meet in yours. For you and for him,” she nodded towards the door, “it may be a terrible thing. For me, it’s just another day.”

“Someone once told me that if I became a mage I would become numb to killing people, I haven’t killed anyone yet and never want to. The thought terrifies me already and your lack of caring for her life is not helping.”

“I’m not here to help you boy, but I will tell you this, choose carefully,” she said, “I’ve watched many women and babes die, but so many more would have passed away had I not chosen this path. I’ve become jaded, yes, but it’s the sacrifice I made for the lives I’ve saved. If down your path you must kill, then choose carefully, each death will make a kind man like you harder, make certain it’s worth it. Enough about that, tell the girl outside and the father to go to the inn and get us some fresh linens and some stew, it looks like our new mother will be needing some as well.”

Kal looked over and saw that her breathing had slowed some, it still wasn’t close to normal and she was very pale, but she at least seemed to be out of immediate danger, looking down at the flows of magic he could see that the healing rune was nearly finished working.

Stepping over to the door he sent Perra and the father on the midwife’s errand, sitting down in a chair next to the bed he suddenly realized how exhausted he was. The old lady walked over and began lightly slapping the unconscious woman in the face.

“What the hell?”

“Hush, boy.”

The mother gradually lifted her head and opened her eyes, the midwife then undid the buttons on the woman’s shirt and placed the swaddled baby at her breast for her first meal. “Every mother should be awake for the first suckling, remember that.”

Kal saw the smile the new mother was giving her daughter and looked over at the old crone, “Okay, maybe not so cold.”

After bringing the new linens and taking the old ones behind the inn to be washed, Perra and the new father made a second trip to get bowls of stew for the new parents and the midwife. Perra was a bit scandalized by the mother’s state of undress until she was forcefully reminded by the woman that Kal had just helped deliver her baby and saved both of their lives as well as being there for her daughter’s first meal, there wasn’t much sense in being bashful now.

Perra’s mood didn’t improve when the midwife looked her up and down and said to Kal, “Good child-bearing hips on that one, won’t have nearly the troubles of this one here,” she waved her spoon in the new mother’s direction.

After everyone was settled and had tucked into their food Kal and Perra excused themselves and made their way over to the inn for their own bite to eat. Kal was ravenous after the day’s events, finishing two bowls of the inn’s hearty stew before Perra was done with her first.

Like a whirlwind, Kahrin seemed to come out of nowhere and grabbed Kal by the hand, little more than dragging him into the back area where the barmaids and Bren’s rooms were.

“Hey!” Perra yelled jumping up and running after them, as she passed the bar Master Ellis reached out and grabbed her by the arm.

“Leave them be, Lady Perra, she needs this,” he said.

Perra jerked her arm out of his grasp with a glare and ran into the back, changing to a determined stomp as she caught up with them in front of Kahrin’s room, “Now see here you hussy!”

Kahrin rounded on her, “Nay, ye be seein’ here lass,” Perra stopped in her tracks from the barmaid’s serious expression and tone, “This game ‘s been fun but it’s over now. I’ll say me thanks ta yer man ‘ere, an’ we’ll be done with this silliness. I’ll stop chasin’ him about, but if’n he wants ta share me bed again he’s welcome any time he wants.”

Perra sputtered, “What makes you think you can...”

“Five generations,” said the barmaid in a softer tone, “Five generations o’ women with bellies not made fer giving birth but they all tried anyway. Five generations o’ women who died in childbirth, me own dam nearly died with me, she wasn’t so lucky with me sis. After five generations of lasses growin’ up ne’er knowing the love of their mum, my niece will be the first.”

Perra rocked back on her heels, stunned by the revelation. She looked at Kal.

“I had an idea they were related once her sister had gotten cleaned up a bit, but didn’t know for sure until just now,” he said shrugging.

Kahrin stepped forward and put a hand on the younger woman’s shoulder, “I’m nay ‘ere ta steal yer man, but words aren’nay nearly enough, and this is the best an’ only way I know ta thank ‘im proper fer savin’ ‘em.”

Perra studied the woman’s face, then looked at Kal, deep in thought she switched between the two multiple times before speaking, “Master Ellis was right, you need this.”

“I do.”

Perra’s face showed her internal struggle, seeing the look of sincerity on Kahrin’s face she came to a decision. Slowly she stepped forward and kissed Kal on the cheek, “I wish I understood why this is so much harder with her than with Ikuno or ‘Dell. I’ll see you back at home tomorrow.”

“So, you’re lettin’ me borrow ‘im for the night?”

Perra nodded slowly.

“Thank you!” Kahrin surprised the young girl as she stepped forward and wrapped Perra in a tight hug, then whispered in her ear, “Thank ye so much, ye mean a lot to him an’ I didn’nay think he’d have gone a step further if ye hadn’t said okay. Jus’ remember, he loves ye lass, yer first time with ‘im ‘ll be far better’n me givin’ ‘im a tumble as ways o’ showin’ me appreciation.”

Perra was blushing bright red as Kahrin released her, Kal gave her a questioning look, “Are you okay Perra?”

“F ... F ... Fine, Kal!” she turned and bolted for the front of the inn, calling behind her, “See you at home!”

Kal looked at the barmaid, “What did you say to her?”

Kahrin grinned, “Nothin’ much, jus’ gave ‘er something ta look forward to,” she said pulling him into her room.

The solution to the speed rune continued to elude Kal for the next few weeks, then the snowstorm came, and he was unable to work on it with the help of Ikuno’s library, he often felt that if he were able to actually see a sandstorm in person it might help, though he wasn’t sure exactly how.

Inspiration came to him as he tromped his way to Ikuno’s cave, with handmade snowshoes strapped to his feet to keep him from sinking into the deep snow, for the first time since the storm. As he was walking a gust of wind picked up some of the loose snowflakes and sent them swirling into the air, just as quickly as it came the flurry moved on, leaving the snow gently falling back to earth. Kal stopped and watched, imagining the snowflakes as tiny grains of sand. The earth, in this case, sand, had to be small and the air had to be moving in order to support it.

It occurred to him that the protection phrase around the outside wasn’t canceling the speed glyph, it was like air trapped in a sealed cave and blocking it. Heartened by this revelation, and eager to test it, he ran to Ikuno’s as quickly as the snowshoes would let him. Unfortunately for him, as he got closer to the cave his thoughts became focused on more pleasurable activities. Ikuno pouncing on him and ripping his clothes off made him forget about his epiphany until his next visit, as they spent most of their time ‘catching up’ after a month apart.

Execution of his idea took longer than he expected and the snow was beginning to melt when he finally managed to get it to work;

“What the hell are you doing?” Ikuno asked staring at the rune in front of Kal. His haste rune, as he was now calling it, no longer feeling that ‘speed’ was a proper description, looked like nothing she had seen before. With the recognizable speed enhancing glyph in the middle, around that was a ring that made it act like their shields that projected the magic above the rune itself, intermixed with those glyphs was the symbol for ‘rotate’. Outside of all that was the protection phrase but it had been separated into smaller parts with only a symbol or two in each division.

Kal set the final rune into a piece of leather for reference then made another one out of Aradelle’s ink for testing. Placing his finger on the piece of hide, the haste rune lit up for a moment before a dimly glowing copy appeared just above it but the outer protection phrase remained hazy and transparent. A moment later the inner part began to spin around the central speed glyph, the center spun up in about a second making outer circle glow as the protection phrase powered up, at the same time the entire floating rune lit up as bright as the original on the leather as the rune fully activated.

The rune winked out as Kal cut the flow of magic. He was grinning from ear to ear as he picked up the strip of leather and began wrapping it around his wrist until Ikuno’s large blue hand closing on his forearm stopped him.

Glaring at Kal she said, “Oh hell no. You are not putting that on until it’s been tested.”

Kal bit back a sharp retort, quickly realizing she was right, “Fine,” he grumbled, “Any ideas how to do that?”

Minutes later Ikuno and Kal were out in the woods strapping his new speed rune to a hapless white rabbit they had caught. In front of them was a channel of snow with smooth sides piled up to be taller than Kal.

“I’ve caught and eaten plenty of these, how come this seems cruel?” Kal said affixing a barely charged crystal under the leather, a channel of ink on the bottom side would bring the magical power from the crystal to the middle of the rune.

“Probably because this is serving no higher purpose other than making sure you don’t kill yourself. If it makes you feel better, we can still eat it later,” she said holding the rabbit steady while Kal worked.

“Nope, if it survives this, it goes free. It would feel even more cruel to have it live, only for us to turn it into dinner.”

Kal stepped back, “Just to be sure, you set the rabbit down, the ward down there activates your enchantment that will dump all of the magic from the crystal into the rune and we hope that it runs towards your illusion of a hole in that tree,” he said waving a hand down the channel of snow.

“Pretty much, and if the rabbit pops or burns out it’s better than your arm,” she said.

“Ugh, I know, but it still seems wrong. Let’s do this.”

Ikuno put the rabbit down after a quick pulse of her healing spell, the rabbit jumped up and bolted away from them. Human and oni watched intently as the rabbit crossed the ward. The rune flared to life spinning up quickly with the excess energy from the crystal, as the floating rune activated the hare streaked into the illusion with a loud crack that sent a shower of splinters out the backside of the tree.

Both of them cringed at the noise, Kal looked up at Ikuno, “That didn’t sound good.”

Dispelling the illusion, they saw there was now a very real hole in the tree trunk where the illusion had been. Walking around the tree they heard scrabbling in the snow a few feet beyond.

Kal ran over to the sound, “It’s alive!” he yelled

Ikuno was slower to come over she gave the rabbit an appraising look, “It’s in one piece.”

Kal picked up the dazed rabbit and got bit on the thumb for his trouble. Handing it to Ikuno, who was more careful about keeping her fingers away from its teeth, his healing rune came to life and he carefully watched the flows of magic as they sought out injuries.

“Skull is cracked but not split, surprising since it didn’t break the skin, nothing deeper in the skull though,” he said as the magic went to work, “Upper spine was damaged, but it’s healed already so pretty minor there and its foreleg got beaten up but that will be fixed in a few seconds.” Drawing a rune in the air the leather strip untied itself from the rabbit and floated into his hand, the crystal appeared to have fallen out during the test. “I think that could be considered a success,” he said grinning at Ikuno.

Ikuno held the flailing and squeaking hare up by its back feet, “Sure you aren’t up for dinner?”

“Ikuno! No!”