Chapter 7 — Misbelieve

Invoking and shaping magic, like Mira had done the evening before, took something out of the spell worker that was hard to articulate. Skill as a sorceress meant not only the knowledge of spells and the nature of magic, but more importantly the mental fortitude to focus and direct magical power. As an apprentice, first learning the applications of magic, the simplest spells would leave her so exhausted she could barely speak. These days, after years of work, she could shape those same simple spells without even speaking their words aloud.

The amount of power she had channeled that night had left her feeling paper thin, fragile, and exhausted in a way that had nothing to do with physical stamina or effort. From her experience as an apprentice she knew it would be days before she felt like herself again, and channeling so much power before then could be dangerous and even more wildly unpredictable.

Even though the exhaustion was more metaphysical than either mental or physical, once Mira had closed her eyes to sleep the night before, she had immediately fallen into a deep, dreamless sleep.

When Mira awoke, the chamber of thorns they had slept in was flooded with daylight, and a few shards of sun and sky were directly visible between the branches. Based on the amount of light shining through the tangled thorns, she must have slept well past morning. She was instantly annoyed that Mictlan and Ness had let her slumber so long; they still had days of travel ahead of them, and the lost hours could mean the difference between finding a safe, comfortable camp that evening and a cold, restless night huddled in fear.

Mira was disturbed from her seething by the sound of clashing steel; she leapt up in a panic, suddenly fearful that the soldiers they left behind had somehow followed and tracked them down, after all.

Ness drifted off to sleep slowly, watching Mira’s slow, even breathing and trying — mostly falling — to sort through her tumultuous emotions. Aside from the strangeness and confusion of getting pulled into this strange world, she was dumped in the lap of a woman unlike any she had ever met. Mira seemed more modern and accepting than many of the people she knew in the real world. She thought a world with sorceresses and mad kings would have been more medieval— and she would not have imagined that those sorceresses would be so pretty. High charisma scores, indeed, she thought, wryly.

She nodded off eventually, and dreamt of tails and temples full of trans women— consulting with kings, and doing other things behind closed doors. She slept well, on a bed of dead leaves that Mictlan helped her gather; and she woke to his gentle nudging hours later, as dim pre-dawn light barely filtered through the thorns above.

Ness felt refreshed, and left Mictlan to the leaf bed, rising to take the second watch, though it seemed pointless, confined and sheltered as they were. The next few hours were simply boring, which felt like a nice change. The thorn cavern was silent, almost eerily so, but the silence felt safe; no soldiers or strange otherworldly insect noises— only Mira’s soft snoring, and the occasional rustle of leaves when Mictlan rolled over.

She watched the softly glowing flowers dim— the magic finally fading, she supposed— and eventually fall to the ground. The petals were hand-size and velvety soft, and she tucked a few of them away into a pocket. As more light filtered in, she started working her way languidly through a series of yoga poses. She did yoga infrequently, but walking for hours every day and sleeping on the ground had left her stiff and aching, and she thought the stretching might help.

Mictlan awoke, appropriately, while she was adjusting her warrior two pose, one hand outstretched behind her and another reaching in front. Ness didn’t notice he was awake until he stepped into her eyeline, a bemused expression on his face.

She straightened, exiting the pose, but Mictlan emphatically shook his head, and made a gesture that Ness couldn’t decipher. He took a pose that was not dissimilar, and then gestured toward her more generically.

Ness took the hint, and resumed the pose. Mictlan walked in a circle around her; nudging her gently to adjust the positioning of her limbs— folding her back hand slightly up, and lifting the arm a few degrees; a deeper lunge on her front leg, and ensuring the back foot was firmly planted. Nodding to himself, he unsheathed the lighter of his two swords and, holding it by the blade, slapped the grip into Ness’s outstretched hand.

She rebalanced her stance- holding the sword out straight was difficult; lighter was a relative term, and although her warrior two was fine, she wasn’t used to holding it extended with three pounds of steel.

Mictlan chuckled soundlessly, but Ness could see the mirth in his eyes. He gave her a dismissive wave, and she straightened to a standing pose, still holding the sword.

For the next hour, he showed her some basic stances with the sword, and then moved on to a simple downward diagonal cut, and how to block the same. Then they sparred; Mictlan very obviously holding back as he attacked, clearly telegraphing his swing so that Ness could attempt to block it.

Despite the slow pace, Ness was sweat-drenched and breathing heavily when Mira startled them both as she jumped to her feet, shouting.

“Goddess,” Mira gasped, as she calmed herself, heart hammering in her chest; “I thought you- I thought someone found us.”

Ness handed Mictlan back his sword; he sheathed it. The fighter had not even broken a sweat, in contrast to Ness.

((Training,)) Mictlan gestured, indicating Ness. ((Not bad. Knows positions.))

“We were sparring,” Ness explained, wiping the sweat from her brow with the back of one arm. “Ugh, I could kill for a shower.”

As Mira’s heart slowed and her panic subsided, she found she had to tear her gaze away from Ness and her sweat-dampened t-shirt; and the way that it clung to the girl’s chest while she caught her breath.

“You shouldn’t have let me sleep so late,” Mira remarked, critically. She raked her fingers through her hair, finding and extracting a leaf that had tangled itself in her wavy, black tresses.

Ness glanced over at Mictlan for support, who just shrugged.

“I, uhm, I’m sorry.. I didn’t..”

The exercise had left her feeling good, once she caught her breath; but now she felt guilty for what felt like an indulgence.

“It’s fine, forget it. But we can’t waste any more time,” she gestured at the two of them, “sparring. Let’s get moving.”

The magic from the evening before had fully faded from the thornshrub; it no longer created a corridor for them as they walked forward, and they instead reverted to the previous day’s approach, Mictlan hacking through the shrub in front of them to carve a narrow passage.

It took an hour of this to cover the last quarter-mile of shrub, before they finally saw true daylight, and found themselves finally clear of the thorns. Especially with the previous night’s magic aiding them, the route through the shrub had been an effective shortcut; in that day and change of travel, they had covered a quarter of the distance they needed to, but that still meant another two to three weeks of travel, without the aid of magic.

The forest that swept before them was somewhat thinner than where Ness had first appeared; which meant easier traveling, but, according to Mira, more risk of being discovered by something or someone they didn’t want to meet.

Mira spent the next few hours, while they walked, thinking in circles about some kind of solution to their problem. Ness simply represented too much power for her to use her spells reliably; and there were ways to manage that, to ground some of the power out or attenuate the flow from Ness to Mira— but even the simplest of those would require materials and resources that wouldn’t be found outside of a town or smithy.

They hiked through lunch, chewing on trail rations as they continued moving, in an attempt to make up for the extra hours of sleep that morning. They finally paused for a rest mid-afternoon; they had crossed the valley just past the thornshrub, and as they reached the top of the hill on the other side, the forest had grown denser, and more forbidding.

“We need to find out what’s ahead,” Mira told the two.

“How?” Ness asked, at the same time as Mictlan sighed, and signed ((Climb?))

Mira nodded toward Mictlan.

“One of us climbs a tree, takes a look around.”

Mictlan immediately started shaking his head; the most emotion Ness had seen him express. ((Not deal.))

The one peculiar requirement that Mictlan had emphatically expressed when they were negotiating was that he did not climb. Nor fly, nor levitate, should it come to that.

“I know, I know. It’s fine.”

Ness glanced between the two; she had only learned a couple of Mictlan’s gestures, and didn’t get the full context of the conversation, but from his almost fearful expression and Mira’s placating words, she could guess.

“I’ll do it,” she volunteered, standing up from the fallen log she’d been resting on. “I used to love climbing trees, as a kid.”

The climb was, ultimately, easy; the tree was some sort of pine, and the branches radiating off of it offered ample hand- and foot-holds. From the top of the tree, itself on top of the hill, she could see for miles around; and without the forest muffling every sound, she could her a rhythmic clanging of metal on metal.

“There’s smoke!” she shouted, pointing off to the west, their direction of travel; and a little north. “Two miles, maybe? And I hear hammering!”

She adjusted her footing to get a different angle, stepping off onto a different branch. “And, uh, 3 or 4 buildings? Roofs? Like a little vi—”

With a loud crack, the new branch snapped off as she shifted her weight, and Ness started falling.