Lyrical High Fantasy - Thrain, Part 14: Runes and Memories
Tylen begins to learn of the world of Weave and Runes
Need a recap? Chapter summaries
Tylen woke to the smell of hot butter, and to a low, steady hum that seemed to throb in the floorboards. Pale dawn bled through the shutters of the small room, mapping crooked lattices on the blankets. Across the narrow space Torp stood near the ‘sink’, palm spread on a large stone next to it. No flame burned there. Instead the stone itself glowed from some secret heat, pulsing veins of ember-red that brightened as a green Rune glowing softly in front of Torp faded.
A skillet rested on that living slab; the butter melted in a sizzling swirl. Torp cracked two eggs, one-handed, and let them slide into the pan. Six more followed. The whites hissed where they met the invisible heat, edges frilling to gold. Tylen’s stomach tightened at the smell: salt, fat, something half-remembered from mornings that seemed so far back as if to have been another life. He sat up on the floor, blanket falling from his shoulders. With surprise, he realized he had not eaten the night before.
Torp’s head tilted though he did not turn. “Sleep well, kid?”
He got up from the floor, and barely noticed the small aches and stiffness that such a bed had given him. Torp was Runecasting eggs.
“How did you do that?”
Torp grinned. “They not have these out in your woods either?”
“No…” He stared, mesmerized somewhat with the stone, but increasingly with the eggs. He was going to have to tell Torp he needed more than four, assuming he was splitting them.
“Many of the Old Runes do strange things. With great effort they can be copied.” With a whisk, he began to scramble the eggs. “Many in Ildris have practiced the basic skill of summoning the Weave.”
“That’s what your green Runes are?”
Torp grinned. “That’s a Trace. I will explain as you eat. Here.”
Tylen noted with surprise that he placed all eight eggs before him. Being handed a fork, he attacked them with relish.
The old man snorted, then reached behind him and grabbed a knife and some wood. It seemed some kind of whittling project, though in his eyes it really hadn’t taken shape yet. He wondered what it was.
“Runes, that you see, are called Traces. Making them is a Trace. But that we can discuss much later, you need to know the three rules, and know of Weave. Have you heard of it?”
He shook his head, which was already spinning in delight. And full of eggs.
“Weave is the power of Aath itself, some say. I am no thinker and will not bother to tell you what it may or may not be, what it is for us is the power to Runecast. I want you to try and summon it.”
Tylen’s pulse ticked up. “Now? And here?”
He shrugged. “A good a place as any, it takes time to learn skills that would pose a threat to this room.”
He couldn’t help but be a little disappointed at hearing that, but the excitement of doing it now largely overcame that sting.
“Ok.” He swallowed the last of his eggs, and wiped a bit of butter off his lips. “How do I do it?”
Torp took an extremely minute part of wood off of his project, which seemed strange given how much it still looked like a block of wood. “To feel the Weave, you want to connect with Aath, feel yourself being drawn down. It will become second nature soon, but for now you may not get it at all today. Though, do try, it will be important.”
“Drawn down?”
“Those were some of my words, yes.”
If he wouldn’t elaborate, then he would just have to try. He closed his eyes.
“No. Keep your eyes open. And, listen to me as I tell you the three rules. Runecasting in the Warcrest is no relaxing business. You might have to face men in dark alleys.”
“Oh. Right.”
“Yes. Now get to summoning the Weave, and let me tell you the rules with a story told to me.”
Tylen kept his eyes locked on Torp, or to the knife as it whittled away at the wood, and tried to think down. At first, he imagined sinking into the floor, as if Aath was pulling him through the earth.
“There was once a woman who found herself in the woods, pursuing men who had taken her wool. She sold much wool, and made her living from it. While courageous, it came night, and she had no fire, nor teaching in the ways of making it. So, she prayed to Aath and asked a blessing.”
Sinking down had not seemed to do the trick, at least in the ten seconds he had tried it. Imagining falling down did little more than give him vertigo. Maybe, he had to draw Aath up? He stretched and breathed, then tried that.
“Yet Aath heard her cry, and gave her knowledge to call the Weave from the very earth of itself. With this new blessing, she called forth the Weave, and unleashed it upon her pile of sticks and branches. But, it did not light them, for the power was wild, and uncontrolled.”
Tylen agreed with that; if she also had not even been able to call the Weave. He huffed in frustration, and started over, trying to imagine drawing or sinking down.
Torp’s lips turned up slightly, but he continued. “Then for a long hour the woman sat, and she took her thoughts. They were wild and rowdy, so she cast them aside. Her hands itched, and so she sat on them. Her eyes sought the moon and trees, so she closed them. When thus she had done, she called the Weave once more. From her mouth, she breathed a pure and thin power, and at once a single branch caught fire.”
He found himself caught up in the story, and had ceased to think of down. For a moment, he was content to listen. Torp paused, inspecting the wood, and Tylen realized what it was: a Rune. The wood piece had a delicately carved Rune on one side.
“Therefore she understood the first of the three rules; Focus improves Weave, and a lack of it can render even great magic useless. She slept, and having slept, arose in haste the next morning, overtaking the men.” He paused, and eyed Tylen. “Focus must at least be the start of it, kid.”
“I haven’t felt a thing, Torp. Might work better for me to try it the first way.”
He snorted. “Then, listen on. The second rule is like the first, but a counterpart.” He scooted his chair close to the table, and put the knife down. The wood he stood on its end.
“Having overtaken them, she gathered the Weave, and with a clear mind cast it upon them. Though weaponless, she felled not one, not two, but three large and terrible men, before they came in numbers she could not face. Now, it was not her wool for which she feared, but her life.”
“She had to have thought that might happen, right?” He moved his own chair closer. “Only her, pursuing an armed bandit--”
“Shh. It is a good story, so it makes better sense when you do not ask it to.” The wooden cube with a Rune carved on it suddenly rent in two, and smoke poured from a crack down the center. Torp sighed, but continued before he could be interrupted.
“In this fear, she called the Weave once more, and both in focus and great power it went from her. All the men she then slew, and her wool she gained again. From this, she understood the second rule: Emotion may strengthen the Weave when it aligns with one’s purpose.”
“So then…if I become upset, or sad, I could summon the Weave?”
He nodded, looking at the smoking wood but not touching it. “Picture a memory, or recall a feeling as you try to feel Aath beneath you. You may find it helps.”
Tylen dipped his head, then searched for a memory that would do. Most immediately, he recalled the night before, fearing for his life in the alley. Repossessing his fear, he felt his heart began to beat faster, and from there he imagined Aath beneath him.
Torp held the ruined wood in both hands then, and stared at it. His face grew sad, and he seemed older. “Yet in her victory, she found the final, and most important rule: Weave takes a little bit of oneself to use, and in her fear she used much of her life. Stumbling to her wool, she laid beside it. She smiled beside it. She died beside it. Thus, are the three rules of Weave, and thus did Aath bless the wise.”
“The wise?”
He shrugged. “That is how the story was told. More than likely my father added that line for me, to try and say that using magic poorly will get you killed.” Tossing the wooden piece away, Tylen noted with amazement that it joined at least twenty other broken and charred bits in a bucket.
“Why is it important?” He recalled what Torp had said earlier suddenly, he had forgotten to press him on it then.
“That you summon the Weave today?”
He nodded.
Torp raised an eyebrow. “That…ah, well that is a long story.” After a moment, he laughed at the expression on his face. “Sorry kid. They are my stories to do with as I wish, though I do promise to tell you them some day.”
He sighed, but felt he would not manage to press him into saying anything further. Turning back to trying to summon the Weave, he went to picture the men in the alley again. Their looming shadow. Something pricked his mind then, a vast pit of some darkness.
It lay there, ready for him. The fire, blood, burnt yarn and a body where his mother should have been. Like getting into a familiar cocoon of blades, where every painful fold was intimately known. The great shadow had but offered its hand and Tylen felt himself shuddering to retain control.
Then he was down.
As if he stood suddenly many hundreds of feet tall, his hands dragged the earth while his feet explored its depths, and power flooded him. The shadow receded at the shock and he gasped and his eyes opened. A brief flash of green lit the space, before it shifted to a dull grey, and Tylen felt as though a great torrent coursed through him. He listened, and reaching out his hand grey Weave seared forward, bowing Torp’s table in two and bloodying Tylen’s knees. Torp, for his part, had reflexively cast a defensive barrier, but stared at him agape.
“I stand corrected. What across the whole of Aath did you imagine?”
“I…” Death and revenge. “It’s a long story.”
Torp’s laugh echoed in the tiny room. “Ok kid, I deserved that. A fine job, whatever it was.”
He grinned and laughed too, feeling proud of having finally got one on Torp. It reminded him a bit of being witty with his mom. But he had hidden behind that answer. Something told him Torp would ask him not to think of such things, and he needed this. This was how he would fight.
He sat still for a time after, marveling at the feel of Weave within him. With a few pointers from Torp, he learned that the raging feel could be held, though it would slowly ebb away at one’s fortitude, and should be watched so as not to fall victim to the third rule. He heated the stone too, though he noted it took longer than it had for Torp.
Torp taught him also how to release the Weave back into Aath, so as to avoid breaking more of the furniture within the room. He noted one could only release their own Weave, not that of others, and something dark had entered his voice when he said it. Tylen decided to press him on something else.
“What are the Runes you can put in the air?”
Torp obliged, and one sprang into life. It glowed green and vibrant, and its lines and curves ebbed and flowed. Closing his eyes, another Rune (best Tylen could tell, of the same form) came into existence. His face now held an intense look.
He stepped over to the cooking stone again, and when he touched it, the whole of the rock flared to brilliant red. Both Runes faded.
“They make you more powerful?”
He shook his head. “There are four known Runes which can be Traced. That is what it is called to ‘put one in the air’. Those two were both Wgoa, which directly increases Weave.”
He tried saying it as Torp had, without much success.
“Heh, It has a very southern Jardan feel to it. Roll the g in the back of your throat. Wuh-gow.” His pronunciation was effortless.
He tried again, and was a little closer. “How can I Trace?”
At this, Torp got up grinning. “Follow me.”
ahh all the descriptions of the eggs cooking is making me hungry lol. love the bits of magic that we're being taught together!