Chapter 124 – Bulrushes

Kell moved swiftly through the bulrushes, naked from the waist up. His clothes had been set in a neat pile, away from the murky water, all but his briefs, which he had decided he would allow to get wet. There was, after all, a risk that someone could come across him, and it was worth the cost of wet underthings to not be totally exposed. He thought he’d have a hard time explaining himself no matter what, but it would be made more difficult if he was nude. The only other thing on his person was his long staff, almost six feet long, and the magic that surrounded it. The sun was still setting, and had in fact disappeared over the horizon, but light was still smeared across the sky, giving the swamp an unearthly feeling.

He and the other children had loved the boggy areas of the swamp when he was a child, and visited them often. There was a surfeit of dead trees standing like withered statues in the peat and loam, and the children told stories among themselves about the ghosts that lived there, and the bog’s silent victims that had been sucked down into the muck and mire. There was a smell to the bogs, that of perpetual decay, and one time Kell had found a skeleton with damp orange fur still hanging to it, almost certainly a fox, though in his imagination, something more. It was a place of moss and ferns, slime and mushrooms, a wonderful playground. He could imagine it as nature’s solemn tomb.

It was surprising how hard the memories hit him. They had a weight and inertia that couldn’t be denied, and he could feel them threatening to suck him under. Half-buried thoughts bubbled up when he looked at small red mushrooms, as though his mind were a bog of its own, spitting up things that had been buried in fetid muck.

The memories weren’t why Kell was there, pushing his way past the plants, sinking down to half-calf in dank water. He was following will-o-wisps.

The staff was made of a special wood, from a tree that grew with exaggerated slowness in the alpine provinces of Inter. It had, at one point, been a sapling that had taken thirty years to grow: youngerwood. Magic glommed to it easily, and it was virtually indestructible, as few weapons could cut it and fire wouldn’t touch it. They said that by the time a youngerwood had grown for a hundred years, it was still small enough that two hands wrapped around it would meet at the fingertips, and it would be virtually impossible to destroy. That might be the ultimate fate of the world some day: covered by indestructible trees. It had been a parting gift when he’d left Kiromo, and despite the fact that it was nearly impossible to harm, it had taken him a week to feel like this valuable thing could really be carried around.

He had modified his constructs only a little for will-o-wisp hunting, since he had a dungeon the next day and would need to undo what he’d done. There was a chamber to hold the wisp, made from cold mana, and if he was successful, it would sit on top of the staff for as long as it took to bring it to Mizuki.

She had talked about chasing the wisps more than once. Kell could picture it in his head, and it had a sort of mystical quality that he enjoyed thinking about, especially since it was done at this time of day, when the light was fading away like a fire that had been left unattended.

Some wizards wore enchanted spectacles to help them see magic, or a monocle, or a looking glass, but Kell had anchored the construct directly to his skull. The bulk of the magic floated in front of his eyes, changing how he saw the world without the uncomfortability of glass held in front of his face. It helped him to more clearly see the wisps, which left distinctive trails, rendered in green by the magic he’d cooked up. He surged on after them. All he wanted was to capture one, which was the first thing that had gone through his head when he’d caught sight of them.

The wisps moved faster as he drew closer. They were sedate little things, colored orbs moving as though floating on the wind, but they had a sense of him, and spread out away as he approached. Their laziness left them once he was in full pursuit, and eventually they scattered so that he was forced to follow only one. They were a dungeon escape, he thought, or had been once, before they spread across the land.

The lone one he’d been tracking was doing its best to avoid him, but he was dogged in his pursuit. Unfortunately, it seemed to be faster than him, and it was growing dark. What he was worried about most was that it might go dim or dark, or disappear into a hollow. You didn’t see the will-o-wisps during the day, he didn’t think, and they must go somewhere. The wisp grew faster the nearer he got, avoiding him as though his motion were giving it fuel.

Eventually he trapped it by using a fair amount of his magic, putting up fires in front of it, driving it toward him. He was sure that Josen would have chided him, but when Kell set his mind to something, it was hard to dissuade him.

He was quite wet when he got back to his clothes, not just because he’d splashed through the water, but because it was a soggy sort of day, and the bulrushes had wiped their water against him. His clothes were safe and dry beneath a tree, but he was wet enough that putting them on would mean he’d be damp the rest of the way to Mizuki’s.

Instead, he held his staff in front of him with both hands and called upon a spell of elemental repulsion, parametrized carefully so he could use it on himself. The water blasted off of him, leaving a brief ghost of vapor in the air behind him, and Kell pushed the staff into the soft ground so he could get dressed, quite pleased with himself.

Being cool was, in Kell’s opinion, supremely underrated. For whatever reason, people just didn’t take the time to look amazing when they were doing things. It was a part of what he appreciated most about Mizuki — she would drop from the sky after one of her flights and strike a pose as she drove into the ground. It took some time and effort to pull that kind of thing off, and Mizuki put in the time and effort, in the same way that Kell did. It didn’t matter to Kell that no one had actually seen him blow the water off of himself in such a dramatic way, it was the principle of the thing, the flourish and flair that people seemed content not to have in their lives.

As Kell walked back to the path and then toward Mizuki’s house, he looked at the captured will-o-wisp. It was stuck to the end of the staff, more or less pinned there, and he altered the construct a bit so it could bobble around within the field he’d made for it. The confinement was a drain on his magic, and would be for as long as he maintained it, but he would have plenty of reserves left by the time he released it back into the world.

When he got to the house, he heard a clanking from the backyard, where lights had been set up. He maneuvered his way around the house, rather than knocking on the door, and found Mizuki back there throwing rocks at Alfric.

Alfric was in his plate armor, a piece of kit he’d gotten a week and a half before, from Dondrian, and this was Kell’s first time actually seeing it. It looked goofy, which Kell hadn’t expected, and that was in part because it didn’t conform to the body very well. Instead, Alfric looked a bit like a pinecone, with the individual plates overlapping each other. It seemed like it would be impossible to move in, but magic seemed to be handling most of the difficulties, shifting the plates around in order to allow him to pivot and lurch.

Mizuki wound up and then pitched a rock directly at Alfric. One of the plates detached from his chest and came up to stop the rock. That was the clanking sound that Kell had heard. Once the rock was diverted, the plate settled back in place, floating down like a petal.

“Testing?” asked Kell.

“No,” said Alfric. The plates around his head parted to show his face. “Practicing.”

“Kell!” said Mizuki, turning to look at him. “Wanna help chuck rocks at Alfric?”

“I’m getting tired,” said Alfric.

“You told me that’s when the best training happens,” said Mizuki.

“We can do a round,” said Alfric. “Let me pick up the rocks, let’s say five each? It’ll be good to try against two targets at once. Usually a dungeon doesn’t give you a single projectile you know is coming.”

Kell set his staff to one side and helped to gather rocks, then stood beside Mizuki. He was having those moments less often, but it still struck him every now and then how short she was. He remembered when they’d been little, and she’d seemed like a giant.

Kell turned his attention to Alfric. He didn’t know Alfric all that well, and knew him better through the accounts that other people had given of him, namely Mizuki and Vertex. To hear Vertex tell it, he was a nerd, obsessed with dungeons and with them as core to his identity, an object of endless study and stoic enthusiasm, from which no conversation could be diverted. They had very little idea how it was possible he was getting along with the four girls. To hear Mizuki tell it, he was genuinely funny, caring, considerate, and smelled nice. She seemed to find him endlessly interesting in the way that he found dungeons interesting, and there was always something new to talk about.

Alfric had never been anything but polite to Kell, and it was hard not to feel like that was a personal slight. Their only interactions were ones of politeness, perfunctory questions about how life was going, a goodbye, a request to pass some food at dinner, things like that. They’d never shared a joke, or an interesting conversation, let alone something personal. Even in group settings, they seemed like they didn’t interact. Kell had been invited over for dinner a few times now, and he never ended up talking with Alfric.

Their one extended conversation had been when Alfric had advised Kell not to join Vertex, and Kell had gone to join Vertex anyhow, which had more or less worked out. There wasn’t anything like tension between the two of them. There was just … nothing.

Mizuki threw her stone and Kell threw his right after. He’d been trying to time it right so that his throw was faster and they’d reach at the same moment, making them harder to block, but Alfric threw out seven plates at once, arranged like a flower with a single plate in the center, and the rocks plunked off.

“Cheater!” Mizuki called.

“I just wanted to make sure it worked,” said Alfric. “That’s the first and better defense against multiple attacks.”

“Still smells like cheating,” said Mizuki. She sniffed. “It smells desperate.”

“I’m pretty sure two isn’t a problem,” said Alfric. “Are you ready to throw for real?”

Mizuki threw a rock at him overhand, not well-prepared at all, and if she’d been hoping to catch him off-guard, she was disappointed. A plate came forward and slapped the rock down into the dirt.

“You’re controlling that?” asked Kell. “Deliberately?”

“Yes,” said Alfric. “I don’t need line of sight to the plate, but I need to be able to see what’s coming. If I can’t react, the only defense is as normal armor.”

That was the kind of conversation they had together, direct and to the point.

Kell palmed a second rock, so he had two in his fist. He looked over at Mizuki. “Ready?”

Mizuki threw first, and Kell threw second, both rocks at once. He wasn’t sure whether he’d been hoping that he’d hit Alfric, but there was no such luck, since three plates came up to block the rocks, plunk plunk plunk. It was hard to know how much of that was the armor and how much was Alfric, but by reputation, he expected that it was Alfric. Even to people who didn’t particularly like him, like Josen, Alfric was known as someone who would put his nose to the grindstone and make himself competent at things. It was hard to say how much training he’d done on this so far, but Kell could easily imagine him putting in two weeks on it.

“Alright,” said Mizuki as she gathered up the remaining stones. “Here comes the barrage!”

She threw them as fast as she could, one after the other, and Alfric seemed almost bored as he knocked them down. The last of the stones, though, was knocked up into the air, then caught by Alfric as it came down. The plates dropped away from him and he was left there, hand out-stretched, holding the stone, as the plates organized themselves in a pile. It did, in fact, look cool. It was hard for Kell to appreciate it though. There was something in the futility of throwing rocks at someone who would always deflect them that rankled.

“Alright, looks like you’ve acquired stone immunity,” said Mizuki. “You’ll protect me, right?”

“So long as you pull your weight,” said Alfric with a smile. He seemed to often have a smile for her.

“If I had another stone, you’d be in trouble,” said Mizuki. She gave him a faux pout, then looked at Kell. “You would not believe how mean this guy is to me, especially when I’m helping him train.”

“You asked me if you could throw rocks at me,” said Alfric.

“He said bad things about my cooking,” Mizuki explained.

“I said I didn’t like raisins with chicken,” said Alfric. “After being directly asked.”

“It’s part of the dish!” said Mizuki, turning back to him. “A Tarbin classic! A little sweetness to go with the savory, what’s not to love?”

“We didn’t really eat that food when we were growing up,” said Alfric. “Where’d you get the recipe from?”

“A book,” said Mizuki. She folded her arms and looked at Kell. “Anyway, what’s up? Our rock throwing is done, do you want to hang out? Or some leftover chicken? I can pick the raisins out.”

“I already ate,” said Kell. “I didn’t want to intrude on your dinner.” This was only partly true. He’d held off on coming for other reasons.

“Nonsense,” said Mizuki. “I always make more than we need, you know that.”

“I’ll be going in,” said Alfric. He gathered up the plates and was carrying them under a single arm. “Shutter the lights before you come in.”

“Fine, fine,” said Mizuki. She spent some time watching him go though, and only when he was out of sight did she turn back to Kell. “So, what’s new?”

“I captured a will-o-wisp,” said Kell, holding up his staff. He was surprised that she hadn’t noticed. She moved in close, peering at it, then looking at the magic around his staff.

“They don’t do well in captivity,” said Mizuki. “You should probably let it go?”

“I will,” said Kell. “I just wanted to show you.”

“Yeah,” said Mizuki. Her face was quite close to the creature. “I’ve never seen one up close. Usually I’m on their trail, soaking up their magic as best I can.”

“I’ll let it go now,” said Kell. He undid the magic, and they watched the will-o-wisp speed away. It got only ten feet before it slowed and began its characteristic drifting instead, seemingly unperturbed by its temporary capture.

Mizuki shivered.

“Cold?” Kell asked. He didn’t have a pack with him, or anything to offer. Her shoulders were bare, and with the sun down, it was starting to get chilly.

“That wasn’t a cold shiver, it was an — I don’t know, a shiver you get when you see something wonderful and fleeting. You know, I went to the zoo in Dondrian, and they let you feed this huge, long-necked creature, and as it was happening I knew that I would never forget it. It had this black tongue and pulled the lettuce from my hand with so much force I was actually afraid. I was just feeling some of that, that sense of having a Moment.” She shivered again. “That one was because I was cold. Inside now, let’s get these lights closed and warm up.”

Once the lights were closed, they moved inside, as though chased by the chill breeze of nightfall. Kell had his staff, and wasn’t sure how he was getting home, since the slingshot was a pain to use in the dark. With Verity living in the woods, there was a chance that he would be able to ask for her bed for the night, but he knew that might be awkward, not just because he’d taken Verity’s place, but because he’d be sleeping in the same room as Isra.

“Alright,” said Mizuki as she went into the dining room. She pointed at a contraption sitting on the table there. “Check this out.”

Kell looked at it. “Okay?” he asked.

“I don’t actually think it’s got a name yet,” said Mizuki. “But we’ve been calling it a screamy machine.”

“I … see,” said Kell.

“It screams,” Mizuki explained. “Here, listen.” She pressed a lever on the side of it, and trumpets immediately started up, quick enough and loud enough to make Kell jump.

He listened to the song the whole way through, not making a noise, and Mizuki looked at him expectantly the entire time. It was a good song, and he tried his best to enjoy it, but standing there while someone watched him listen was unnerving and made it hard to concentrate.

“So … what is this?” asked Kell, looking at the machine. There were a number of parts within it, and it seemed as if some kind of fine-grained modulation was going on within the machine to produce the sound. The disc inside it was elemetal though, and from the faint magic on it, Kell thought it was forcestone.

“Oh, I’ve got no idea,” said Mizuki. “There’s the disc, which screams, and I guess it contains the song somehow? Which wasn’t how I thought they were supposed to work, but whatever. And apparently the machine can be used with other discs, though we don’t have any, can’t make any, and would need to talk to Verity’s dad about them.”

“And it’s not an entad?” asked Kell. “Wow.”

“I’m not sure it’s such a big deal,” said Mizuki.

“It’s like a book,” said Kell. “But for music.” He was feeling that same shiver she’d talked about, as though he was seeing something unique and magical, something profound.

“I mean, I guess,” said Mizuki. She looked at the machine. “It’s bigger than a bread box and plays exactly one song. This doesn’t seem revolutionary to me.”

“You can’t imagine not paying a band to play for a party?” asked Kell.

“When have I ever hired a band?” asked Mizuki. “When have you ever hired a band?”

“Tavern music then,” said Kell.

“Nah,” said Mizuki. “I don’t think people would sit and listen to songs without bardic effect. Besides, you’d still need someone changing out discs.”

“So you wanted to show me something that you didn’t think was very impressive?” asked Kell.

“Yup!” said Mizuki. “Also, I probably shouldn’t have played it just now. Everyone is getting sick of the song, since we’ve all heard it about a dozen times already, and that’s a bit much.” She looked him over. “It’s not like you to come over so late. What’s up?”

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“Nothing,” said Kell with a shrug. “Just restless.” Being with Mizuki wasn’t making him less restless though. It was why he had decided not to come. But the house he shared with Vertex had been particularly boring, and carousing with Grig hadn’t felt like it would suit him.

“Well there’s not a lot going on here,” said Mizuki. “The herb dragons have been let out for the night, Emperor hasn’t made his grand return, and Verity is still off in the woods, not that she’s what you come over for. Glass of wine and a bit of chatter, now that I can offer you.”

“Sure,” said Kell. “That’s more than I’d be doing if I was on my own.”

They made their way down into the basement, where the wine cellar was. Only a quarter of the slots were filled, and it was Kell’s understanding that the house was going through wine at such a fast rate that they were very quickly going to run into supply issues. Mizuki kept hoping for an entad, but so far, there’d been nothing. They’d gotten a perfumer’s bottle from one of the dungeons, which could fill itself with a new liquid depending on what scent you thought of, but it was limited in activations, didn’t clean itself properly, and was rather difficult to use, since sometimes you got a liquid that only smelled like wine.

Mizuki selected a bottle without any real care, came up to the kitchen and prepared a plate of cheese, meats, and crackers, then settled down in the living room before groaning.

“I wanted a fire,” she said, looking forlorn, as though the fireplace was a million miles away and she was homesick for it.

“And now you’re all comfy,” nodded Kell. “On it.”

“You’re so nice,” said Mizuki. She poured a glass of wine for herself, then a glass for him. “It’s that time in Kiromo that made you nice, I imagine?”

“No,” said Kell as he got logs from the stack next to the fireplace and began building up the fire. “Kiromo’s not a nice place.”

“I thought you liked it?” asked Mizuki.