A Practical Guide to Sorcery

Siobhan

Month 9, Day 12, Sunday 7:00 a.m.

Siobhan woke to a mind—a self—tearing itself in two.

Most of her remembered coming to wait for Thaddeus, hoping to discuss the situation with the emergency shelters that had become obvious to her the day before, and then ending up waiting a very long time indeed. But a piece of her Will, more separate from the rest than any part of her had ever been, remembered differently.

This other version of events was dream-like and incoherent, and it hurt in a way the less horrifying version of events didn’t. That made her believe it might be real. The feel of the shards of her shattered black sapphire Conduit digging into her side under her clothes made her sure. She tried to remember what had happened in that other version, but her knees gave out under her as a terrible spike of pain seemed to lance through the spot between her eyebrows. It was as if someone had hammered a construction nail right through her skull in a single blow.

‘Just like I did to Thaddeus’s ear, maybe,’ she thought semi-coherently as he grabbed her around the waist and supported the weight of her body.

He was shaking her, saying her name in a tone full of worry, but her eyes couldn’t even focus on his face. It felt like something critical within her had frayed and was coming apart at the seams, like her heart would rip and claw its way out of her chest. She had never realized how deeply horrifying it would be to have lost her grip on reality. Because that was what it was. She did not know what was real. She didn’t feel real.

Although her Will could split into two threads, it could not work against itself. It was the same reason she hadn’t been able to scry herself while simultaneously empowering her divination-diverting ward.

To stop this terrible wrongness, she pressed the part that knew something horrible into a ball, all facing inward, tiny and quiet, and shoved it to the back of her mind. The pain and confusion eased immediately, but did not disappear.

Siobhan looked around desperately, though she didn’t know what she was looking for. Something to explain what had happened, maybe. Some hint that the world wasn’t real, perhaps.

But her survival instincts had been honed for so long that they were ingrained in her. ‘When weak, show strength,’ she heard in an echo of Grandfather’s voice. She nodded, and in a hoarse voice, said, “I bear at least half the blame. I cannot believe I thought giving a bit of a scare to Thaddeus Lacer was a good idea. Though whatever you cast, I am surprised you managed to take me down before I could react.” She gave a tight smile and sat up. “This is a bit embarrassing.”

She braced herself, and, with Thaddeus’s help, managed to stand upright, one hand to her temple.

“I promise not to tell anyone,” he said, though his smile seemed mocking.

Siobhan almost punched him in the face, but managed to hold back, since there was a reasonable chance that such impulsiveness would get her killed.

“Are you alright?” Thaddeus asked.

“I am fine, thank you. I suppose I am lucky that you did not cast something more lethal,” she said, trying for a smile as the other part of her quaked in fear of this man who was acting so concerned for her. She pressed it down further.

“I was busy with our response to today’s Aberrant. I assumed neither of you would wait for me,” Thaddeus said.

Siobhan blinked. Surely, this had happened already? After a moment, she said, “Kiernan has left already. I waited because I wanted to talk to you about something different.” For some reason, her heart began to race at the words.

‘This is a test,’ she realized. ‘If I think of it like that, everything makes sense. And if that’s true, then I am in terrible danger.’ Perversely, that knowledge calmed her. She pushed back her shoulder, lifted her chin, and smiled coolly despite the spike of phantom pain that was now stabbing through her left eye. She waved toward the street. “Walk with me?” She wanted desperately to avoid going into the tunnels.

Thaddeus nodded easily, clasping his hands behind his back like a scholar.

Instead of trying to come up with a lie, Siobhan called upon her false memories, even though a large part of her instinctively wanted to ignore them. What if Thaddeus knew what had been planted and wanted to ensure it had taken root properly?

A distant bell tolled the hour, and the sun would soon begin to rise, though its face would be obscured by the towering white cliffs surrounding the city for another hour or two. “I cannot believe I was practicing in a fugue that whole time. It is no wonder that my head is throbbing now,” she said, watching him carefully with her peripheral vision.

Thaddeus frowned slightly. “A hazard of the occupation. A strong Will requires great focus, which sometimes has downsides. Sebastien often forgets to eat, and when I was young, I at times became so engrossed in study or some small project that I would put off going to sleep for an hour, and then suddenly find it was dawn.”

Siobhan couldn’t play along with this casual conversation. She had to move things along and end them quickly. “I wanted to speak to you about the emergency shelters.”

“What about them?”

“Obviously, there are too few to house Gilbratha’s growing population. I think the Red Guard must be concerned, but who will build more? Is that the responsibility of the Thirteen Crowns?”

Thaddeus showed no outward signs of relief that the topic was only indirectly related to Aberrants, this time. “The Red Guard is aware of this issue, but funding for these projects is supposed to come from the rulers of whatever area the emergency fortifications are built in. In this case, yes, the Thirteen Crowns. The High Crown has been dragging his feet, either because he does not want to pay, or because he still hopes to leverage new shelters against the Red Guard politically, in exchange for favors and concessions. Do not worry. We might not technically have any authority to force action, but in practice, few manage to hold out against pressure from the Red Guard for long. Three new shelters should go into production by this time next year, with the capacity to hold fifty thousand each.”

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

That would be enough to keep up with Gilbratha’s growth for a while, Siobhan guessed. “And at least two of them will be built in the Mires?” she asked, arching one eyebrow.

Thaddeus chuckled. “That, I cannot say. But if my input is allowed, I will press for that. Are you satisfied?”

“I am never satisfied, but I suppose that will have to do.”

“Let us discuss our joint project, then. Soon, it will be time to start transcribing. I wonder… Perhaps some of the information should be left out of that transcription. More dangerous applications of magic that you would not trust just anyone with, for instance.” He gave her a subtle, sidelong look.

Siobhan blinked. Thaddeus was suggesting that they collaborate to hide some of the contents of Myrddin’s journals. Or rather, to keep that information exclusive to themselves—and the Red Guard. Obviously, giving such powerful information to people who had treated her as an enemy, and who would still want to control her in the future, was suboptimal. With the way the books worked—obscuring view from those who weren’t right next to her while she held the Will-based key in mind—it might be possible. “You did not take any vows that would interfere with that?” she asked.

It was a small test of her own, but again, Thaddeus didn’t outwardly react. He shook his head. “The wording was much too loose to bind me to anything, and they did not even think to do an intent-aligning ritual before the binding magic.”

Siobhan smirked. “Intent-aligning rituals? Such things are considered blood magic, are they not? At least, when not performed by a member of the Thirteen Crowns.”

Thaddeus shot her a look but didn’t respond.

“I agree to your proposal,” she said, even though the thought of being trapped in a small room with Thaddeus made her fingers clench. It was what she would have done if things were normal. A hopeless, sardonic thought bloomed from the part of her mind that was hiding and trying not to be noticed. ‘I might not see the time where I have to follow through on that promise.’

The city had woken up around them, and when Thaddeus yawned, Siobhan bought him a black coffee from a cafe just opening up for the morning, then left while he was staring absent-mindedly into its steaming darkness. She looked over her shoulder with a smile.

He was watching her leave over the rim of the cheap cup. He smiled back, as if nothing were wrong.

Siobhan didn’t get far—barely out of his sight—before she stumbled with dizziness. She reached up to touch wetness on her upper lip and pulled away fingers smeared with blood. The edges of her vision were beginning to spark and waver. ‘Will-strain.’ She pressed her lips together, but a muffled sob burst out anyway, splattering more blood from her nose. ‘It’s getting worse, and I don’t know what to do.’

She moved into a narrow alley, out of sight of the morning commuters. Obviously, she needed to resolve the dissonance, but even if she wanted to simply accept the modifications—the heinous violation of her being—she didn't know how to stop knowing the truth. The other part of her could not let it go, could not un-know it. “Is this it, then? All I have done, to end like this?” she whispered, tasting iron and salt.

“No,” she whispered, and then again, louder, “No.”

She took less than a minute to plan out her next actions, even though such hasty consideration was sure to miss something. She had maybe two hours left before the quintessence of quicksilver wore off, and who knew what would happen then? Could she survive the crash in this state? Her mind had an expiration date, and every second spent like this brought it closer. When she knew what to do, she took the main part of her Will, the part that had been mutilated, and rolled it into an inward-facing ball, too, so that less of it could interact with the other.

It was only a visualization method, but it helped somewhat.

Thinking as little as possible, and contemplating the last several hours not at all, she walked like a puppeteered corpse through the streets, moving to complete the simple steps of the plan she had set for herself. She would prepare a few potions to help her recover and force her to sleep, and would get out of the city while she healed. Both to be as far away from danger as possible, and also because, in the case of a break event, she hoped to put as few innocents in danger as possible.

Siobhan mentally pulled the parts of her Will apart from each other. They didn’t want to go. Some kind of magnetism seemed to keep them together, but every bit of distance she managed seemed to ease the severity of the still-accruing damage, so she kept pulling. It also gave her something to focus on other than her mismatched memories.

The world changed.

Siobhan jerked in surprise, looking around with confusion and sudden fear. It was as if she had blinked and time moved forward without her. The light, the noise, even her body was different. She looked at her hands—pale, thin-fingered, and larger than the hands of the body she had just been wearing. She was in a different part of the city, and not anywhere she had originally planned to go.

Sebastien—yes, Sebastien, she confirmed—had a sudden moment of panic that Thaddeus had found her again and this time did a better job. Her breath rasped in and out roughly but couldn’t keep up with the rapid beating of her heart. Absently, she wiped away more blood from her nose. When someone walking through the crowd suddenly appeared right in front of her, she realized that she was missing some vision in her right eye, a blank area that was not dark but simply empty, as if her brain no longer recognized it.

“Sebastien!” a familiar voice called.

It took her a moment to realize, and then another moment to find the source.

Damien, Ana, and Nat were standing on the sidewalk across the street from her, staring at Sebastien as traffic passed between them.

After a moment to think, she recognized her location, a street a kilometer or so north of Waterside Market. ‘Why am I here?’ she wondered. She had planned to move south after getting what she needed. ‘Was I heading back toward the University for some reason?’ There were faint stirrings of memory, but as she tried to dig into them, someone bumped into her shoulder, and she fell.

“Sebastien!” Damien cried out. He rushed across the street and helped her back to her feet.

“I have Will-strain,” she said in a low, hoarse voice. “It’s getting worse, and I need to get out of the city. I’m worried…” She swallowed, noting absently how dry her mouth and throat were. “I’m worried about a break event.”

Damien sucked in a sharp breath, and his grip on her arm grew almost painful for a moment.

‘Wait, is it possible for my Will to break when I’m not even actively casting anything?’ It was a sign of how muddled she was that she hadn’t realized this earlier. “Maybe not a break event,” she reassured Damien. ‘But that probably doesn’t preclude the chance of death by massive brain hemorrhage.’ She was already seeing strange movement and hints of silhouettes that didn’t exist out of her peripheral vision and in the blank part of her right eye’s visual field.

“Carriage, I need a carriage here!” Damien screamed, waving his arm toward the street.

One stopped, but the driver eyed Sebastien uncomfortably.

“Is that Will-strain?” someone in the crowd asked.

Someone else said, “I heard when a thaumaturge is about to break, they bleed out of all their orifices. Look at him, he can’t even keep his eyes straight in his head.”

Soon after, there was a noticeable bubble of cleared space around Sebastien and Damien, and the carriage moved on.

Ana elbowed her way through the crowd, dragging Nat by the hand behind her.

“I need a carriage here!” Damien screamed again, even more frantically. “Fifty gold for the first one that stops!”

Sebastien swayed, and the ground rose up to meet her.

With a grunt of effort, Damien dragged her upright again, and suddenly there was a carriage stopped in front of them.

An older woman with round cheeks and sharp eyebrows threw open the door. “Sebastien Siverling?” she asked, looking him up and down. “Get in, get in!”