(104) Get Comfortable

Tara glanced around, the darkness deep even to her adapted nuarch eyes. They appeared to be in a large chamber carved from the cliff itself. She could not see the wall in any direction save behind her, where they had entered. There was a strange smell in the air, too. A sort of sweet-but-wrong smell, sort of like raw meat.

She subconsciously waved her hand, and a small light appeared, hovering beside her head and emitting a soft blue glow.

“There!” Redra exclaimed.

Tara spun around, the sudden noise in the silent darkness startling her, to find Redra less than a foot away, staring at the blue light.

“You did it again!” she said excitedly. “How are you doing that?’

“Ain’t no mystery. It’s wild castin’,” Esmerelda said.

She had somehow already found a way to relax, leaning her back against the wall with her arms crossed. Was she not even remotely worried about being ostensibly trapped underground?

Redra’s eyes widened, and she stepped back from the light.

“Isn’t that—” she started.

“Illegal? No. It ain’t looked upon kindly, though, on account of it being dangerous. That’s for sure. So, don’t you go getting any ideas,” Esmerelda said, fixing Redra with a pointed gaze, a single eye open.

“Dangerous?” Tara asked.

“Obviously,” Redra answered quickly. “You’re taking the reins off the magic, allowing it to do whatever it wants!”

“That’s not what I’m doing,” Tara deadpanned.

“She means in spirit, not literally,” Esmeralda said. “Magic is a dog that you gotta train, and you gotta train yourself to handle it. What you’re doing with your wild casting is taking its leash off and trusting it not to bite anyone, or yourself.”

Tara’s brow wrinkled. Her instinctive reaction was to bite back, but if she stopped and thought about it, she had believed similarly only months ago. How much had not only her life but also her mind changed in just a few months? It was almost alarming.

“Haa, listen, kid,” Esmerelda started with a sigh, “I ain’t tryin’ to disparage your master, nor discourage you from following their teachings. I’m just sayin’, Sardvend only hires mages who follow the Words for a reason. 

“You use the Words, you get a reliable, repeatable spell. It’s the exact same every single time. You start going Words-free, you introduce human error, and human error is especially dangerous when wielding primal forces.”

“Really? That’s why you don’t try it? You’re scared?” Tara asked, shocked.

“I ain’t scared, kid. I’m cautious,” Esmerelda barked.

Redra glanced back at her, bemused.

“What? I am. What you think of as blasé is blasé because I know what I can handle,” Esmerelda said defensively.

“And you can’t handle Candlelight without the Words holding your hand?” Tara snarked.

“I’m not saying I can’t, you little shit. I’m saying there’s trade-offs for everything in this world, and the trade-off for freehanding magic is primordial danger for slightly reduced casting times,” she responded.

Tara scoffed, summoning two whips to her hands.

“These take three seconds to cast with the Words. Three seconds is an eternity in every battle I’ve ever fought. An idiot’s hands, for example, move way faster than that,” Tara explained, staring pointedly at Dany, who frowned and turned away.

“But…isn’t it really difficult? You have to not only circulate your mana manually, but you have to…somehow control the magic’s manifestation,” Redra mused.

“It’s tough, yeah, but it’s not any tougher than learning to fight with your hands. I honestly don’t see what the big deal is. You should see the spells my master can cast. She could take the caps off mountains if—” Tara started, closing her mouth quickly and forcefully.

“Ha! See?” Dany laughed, pointing at her.

Tara looked away, off into the darkness, attempting to hide her reddened cheeks. She had to be careful, lest she start blurting out every secret she had like a certain impulsive idiot.

“Your master? She must be quite strong,” Redra led suggestively, leaning closer.

“She is incredibly strong,” came a deep voice from the darkness.

The group, as one, spun around, most with weapons drawn. Cold blue eyes shone from the shadows, manifesting within a pale face of harsh angles beneath silver hair as their owner neared. 

She threw her silvered braid over her shoulder, approaching the group with a casual ease, completely unperturbed by their weapons and combat stances.

“Ah—the sellsword!” Tara said.

“Indeed. It is good to see you well, Tara,” the woman greeted, emerging fully into the light from Tara’s spell.

She looked much as Tara remembered, her plain but functional garb the exact image of a mercenary.

“A pleasure to meet all of you. I am Elizabeth,” she said, bowing her head slightly.

The group introduced themselves, sheathing their weapons, though still wary.

“How exactly did you get in here, Miss Elizabeth?” Redra asked when she finished her introduction.

“Please, call me Beth. I live here,” she answered simply.

“You what?” Dany blurted.

“You live in the Gloam? Willingly?” Esmerelda asked, both brows raised.

“Indeed. There are many who see nature as something to be tamed, controlled,” she explained, staring straight at Esmerelda. “Others, like myself, simply choose coexistence.”

“Well, in that case, please, just call me Esme,” she responded, a small but wicked smile creasing the corners of her mouth.

“Thank you for your consideration. Now, as I said, this is my home. That being the case, Tara, would you please call off your guardian? While I empathize with its position, I do not enjoy being threatened in my own home,” Beth said, seemingly glancing at her own shadow cast by Tara’s light.

My guardian? What—oh!

“Aka, it’s okay,” Tara called into the dark.

Beth’s shadow roiled and bubbled before Aka emerged, as though surfacing from water. Her pupils were dilated, and she snarled, her gaze fixed on Beth. A low growl rumbled in her throat.

Esme whistled.

“Didn’t realize it was a nightmist in there. Been a long time since I’ve seen one,” she said.

“You knew there was a…a beast like this in our presence?” Wynn asked, perturbed, her shield raised.

Aka walked over and rubbed her head on Tara’s chest.

“I knew there was something there. Why do you think I wasn’t more concerned about a fourteen-year-old kid wandering the Gloam?” Esme asked, tilting her head.

“I thought you were merely irresponsible,” Wynn answered without hesitation.

Esme opened her mouth to respond, but just threw up her hands and rolled her eyes instead. Aka stood next to Tara, sinking slowly into her shadow, her eyes never leaving Beth.

“It really doesn’t like you,” Dany observed, ever tactful.

“It’s keeping its eyes on the biggest threat,” Esme said, that same blood-chilling grin returning to her face.

Beth just shrugged, waving behind her. Several fwooshes sounded around the cavern, and standing braziers ignited, their flames filling the place with warm light. Tara extinguished her own and observed the domed room.

It was probably about 100 feet in diameter, and it seemed fully contained. There were no entries or exits, though, judging by how the wall had retracted to allow them ingress, there could be any number of similar mechanisms around.

“You live…here?” Dany asked, obviously not impressed.

“Yes. This is the entryway, and I would appreciate it if you remained here for the duration of your stay. The rest of my home is not prepared for guests,” she answered.

“You wild cast, too?!” Redra gasped, noting the magic which illuminated the braziers.

“Of course,” Beth replied.

“But-but why? How? Isn’t it—” Redra started, stumbling over herself in a rare moment of speechlessness.

“Yes, I could not help but overhear your discussion earlier, so it must seem strange to you. There are many challenging tasks whose completion bears not-so-obvious rewards. 

“For example, imagine a village with a well in the center. This well supplies the whole village. It is the center of gossip, ceremony, and festival. People line up all day to fill their buckets with its bounty.

“One day, the town council decides to begin construction of an aqueduct. The villagers are appalled. The nearest source of reliably flowing water is a river many miles into the nearby mountains. It will be a colossal undertaking, and they do not even need it when they already have a well in the direct center of the village.

“However, the council proceeds, and after years of grueling labor and construction, the aqueduct is completed. Fresh water flows into the village, yet even still, the villagers mock the effort, many choosing to walk to the well out of spite. 

“The first year, the aqueduct’s usage grows slowly. A few discover that, with water flowing downhill, they can have pressurized water delivered straight into their homes and take advantage of it, but most simply walk to the well for their water.

“The second year, drought hits the village hard. Crops begin to die, and the well begins to dry. Yet the aqueduct’s source of water lies in the mountains. It is unaffected by the local drought. The aqueduct saved many lives that year.

“The third year, the village discovers that they can simply divert small portions of the aqueduct’s flow to supply their crops, creating irrigation ditches that make their crops not only more prosperous, but also more resilient. The village is booming.

“The fourth year, the villagers discover they can use the running water to whisk away their waste, increasing the safety and sanitation of the village and dramatically reducing the monumental labor of waste management.

“By the fifth year, life in the village revolves around the aqueduct. Gone are the days of mockery, and most can scarcely imagine their lives without it,” Beth finished, a silence filling the vacuum her words had left.

“Well, that’s…great and all, but magic ain’t civil infrastructure. An aqueduct ain’t gonna backfire a spell and blow up the world,” Esme said.

“Neither are you,” Beth replied without hesitation.

“Ho, that so? You might be surprised by my output,” Esme said, her grin growing wider.

“I understand the point of your story, Miss Beth, but are you suggesting that magic can be wild-cast reliably, like the reliable flow of an aqueduct?” Redra asked.

“Of course it can. Water is no easier to wield than magic, yet that has not stopped civilization from trying and, in many cases, mastering it,” she replied.

The cavern yawned with silence, all digesting her words.

Shlink. Shlink. Shlink.

All were silent save for Dany, who had sat on the floor and was now running a stone over his ax’s edge. He was clearly uninterested in any talk of magic, and he was adept at making his own lack of tact the problem of others.

“How long are you planning to stay?” Beth asked, breaking the silence.

“We just need to wait until the Gloam cools down a little. We killed one of the walkers, but only one,” Tara answered.

“I see. You should stay the night, then, just to be safe. That said, please leave in the morning. You are welcome, but I do not live all the way out here because I enjoy entertaining,” Beth said, turning around and walking toward one of the walls.

“Why do you live all the way out here?” Esme asked, watching Beth leave with a small smile.

Beth walked toward the wall at a pace that had Tara concerned, as if she might run straight into it, yet just as her nose was about to make contact, it slid apart, allowing her passage before sliding back into place. The wall was sheer, unbroken by the crack one would expect in a door frame.

“Guess we better get comfortable,” Redra said.