Author's Note: I accidentally uploaded an earlier draft of Codex VI, one that left out an important plot point. If you've last read that chapter before February 6, 2015, please do so again before continuing on with this one.579Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuXPfCQk1V8
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Codex VII
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September 13, 535
Lunisolar Convergence 535 S-P-3
Supplemental
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"Fox!" I shouted. "Fox, get down here, I need your help!”
I soon realized that even with the earth stilled, there was no possible way he could hear me all the way down here. I swore to myself, and then looked down at the girl.
It was her. It was unmistakably her. She was Witney. She was Witney, and she was real, and she was alive, and she was here and she was… lying on a cold stone floor, totally unresponsive.
Panic rose in my chest. Distaportation is dangerous enough, even for experienced mages. I had seen many a young wizard with more power than experience attempt such a spell and arrive in five separate pieces or with their internal organs now their external organs, or, on at least one occasion, with an entirely different set of sexual characteristics. Simply going into an unending coma would be among the best accidents that… well, not among the best. Least horrible. One of the least horrible accidents that could happen. On rare occasions you wind up with the strength of fifty men and the body of a golden Adonis, but that would still only be the least horrible thing that could happen, at least until your own titanic strength begins tearing apart your own ligaments, ripping your very limbs apart with their own force. Then it moves down a few notches.
I enchanted my Shroud, and then I was seeing into her, through her, past her, all of her at once. Her bones, her blood, her body, her soul… runes flew past my vision, coalescing into words and numbers as I scryed through her vital functions.
"Alright… she’s alive," I said to myself. I was trying to say anything just to fill the silence of myself and this girl. "Alive is good. No… no broken bones, no spinal damage, no major head trauma… no tumors, no sign of poison, no disease… breath nominal, heart rate steady, pulse… pulsing… BP one-thirteen over seventy, HP 95%, GP, sufficient to cover all expenditures, MP – holy skyte!”
To my enchanted eyes, Witney was glowing, as though she had a white-hot star implanted in her chest. It was so bright that it almost had physical force, pushing me backwards along the floor through the simple power of its radiance. I wasn’t even actually seeing it and it still had power over me. Tears were welling up in my eyes and I could look no more, wrenching my eyes shut, but still I could see. Even the infinitesimal fragment that broke through the slits of my fingers was every bit as intense as the whole of it.
Fumbling with my abacus, I somehow managed to dispel my Shroud, but the world was still full of black fog and green after-images. It left me groping about blindly, my hands trying to reach out to Witney. At that point, the phrase groping about became a bit too literal for my sensibilities and I recoiled like I had grabbed a hot furnace. I started to reach out again, but I was fortunately interrupted.
"Mister Wizard?" said Fox from the top of the staircase. "Are you down these stairs?"
"Fox, thank the gods!" I called back up to him. "It's… it's Witney! My Witney!"
"…Witney?" came Fox's reply. "But she… she's-"
"She's alive!" I cut him off. "But she's not well! She needs our help!"
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It wasn't without difficulty that a man and a Halfling carried a person up half a dozen flights of stairs. By the time we got to the dining room I was very much regretting deciding to make my quarters in the top of the tower, but then wizards have our traditions. Witney had slipped from unconsciousness into peaceful sleep by the time we got her into bed, eyes shut, blankets pulled up to her chin, her chest… rising and… and falling…
"F-Fox, let's get her another blanket" I said, tugging on my collar. "She looks… cold."
"Are you certain this is your Witney?" Fox asked, obediently pulling a thick wool blanket over her. "You said that… death is quite a certain thing, even for those of a magical nature. How could she be returned to life now?"
"Our conception of magic has always been incomplete," I said. "There are mysteries upon mysteries… we may have simply found a pinhole into the last dark place in the universe."
I wanted to touch her, to run my finger over her cheek or through her hair, but my arms were frozen by my side. It had been 16 long years since… since last I saw her. Half of my life had gone by. And now I… I was not the man she remembered. I feared that she would open her eyes and have what life had been returned to her frightened away by my visage.
"But are you certain that this is her?" asked Fox. "It has been a great many years since you last saw her, Master Wizard."
"…I scarcely need reminding of that, Fox."
"I mean only that memory is not perfect," Fox said, bowing slightly. "In my youth I was away from home for several years at a time, and when I returned I could scarcely tell my own mother from a stranger. Your memory of her may well have-"
"She was… a part of me, Fox," I said. "For as long as I can remember there was scarcely a day in my life that she was not in. I would recognize her face as well as my own."
"It's been quite a while since you saw that, too," said Fox. If anyone else had said that I… well, if I still had any validity to my claims of wizardliness, I would have shot a fireball so far up his arse he'd be exhaling his own vaporized intestines, but if that were the case then we wouldn't even be in this hypothetical moment of arse-kickery. If these had been normal circumstances, Fox and I would have shared a private laugh. As it was, I just frowned, and hoped that he could tell.
"This is her," I said, staring down at Witney's sleeping face. "I dreamt about her. I never thought those dreams would come to life…"
"I told you there was a meaning to it," said Fox. "Bugger me up the ear if it wasn't a bit more literal than I expected."
"I hadn't told you this yet, but last night, I had another dream," I said, leaning down over her face. "This was just before the battle, just before the first blow was struck. We were enchanting the Aegis, and the fires were going to take her. I saved her… the king nearly died, but I saved her. I didn't think much of it at the time, but it was different from… the usual."
I mustered up all my strength to brush a strand of blonde hair off her forehead. Her eyes opened. My finger was on her forehead. My mind went blank. Her eyes went wide.
"Um… W-Witney?" I said, frozen in place save my voice. "It's me… it's Johnny."
Witney gave a high-pitched squeal and rolled off the opposite side of the bed, taking the bedcovers with her in some kind of protective blanket cocoon.
"…are you feeling well?" I asked, craning my neck over the other side.
"I was merely started…" the girl said, leaving out the implicit 'by your appearance'. "I’m doing absolutely fine… who are you?"
"I’m… a wizard," I said, my heart sinking through my chest. This wasn't Witney. Never was. Foolish to even think such a thing could happen. "My name’s Johnathan, Johnathan Metamorphos. I’m not going to hurt you."
"What happened to me?" said the pile of blankets. Fox went around to the other side of the bed to check on her. "My head feels like it’s stuffed with ice bricks and sheep."
"You were transported here, from…" I trailed off. "…I’m not sure where you came here from. With the power from the eclipse behind the spell you could have come from anywhere on earth."
"What's that about an eclipse?" she said. Fox was cautiously prodding her with the handle of a spoon.
"Never mind," I said. "It's the matter of wizards. Can you tell me where you came from?"
"I… am afraid that I cannot," said the strange girl, coming to a sitting position. She looked like Witney, she moved like Witney, she even sounded like Witney… but her words were different. The same voice, but speaking as if in an unfamiliar tongue. "I would rather not speak until I know what company I am speaking to."
"When you asked to be taken to the wizards," I said.
"You are standing in the presence of one as we speak," Fox added. The girl turned to him and stared.
"By the gods, I took you for a child!" said the girl, as though suddenly realizing Fox was in the room. She leaned in and stared for you. "You are a man, but… grown small…?"
"I am a Halfling," my lady."
"Oh, I… I’m sorry…" she said, nodding her head to my manservant. "My land is not home to men such as thee. Pray tell, what is a Halfling?"
"Well…" Fox scratched his mop of curly hair, clearly not sure how to answer that question. "…in the most simple terms possible, a Halfling is… a man, but grown small."
The girl laughed at that. I could see her visibly relaxing. I envied Fox his charm, his ability to so easily connect with an absolute stranger. The strange girl was melting under her gaze, but every time her eyes strayed to me her face went as pale as driven snow.
"My name is Foxleitner Baldfoot," said Fox, giving a small bow. "Most people call me ‘Fox.’ I am Mr. Metamorphos’ personal valet and tiny little manservant. As long as you are in our house, you have my personal assurance that no harm shall befall you."
The girl nodded at this, her blue eyes shining.
"You have an honest face, Foxleitner," she said. I couldn’t help feeling a bit slighted. She stood up and extended her hand to me, the same smile on her face. "Let me apologize for how I reacted."
I paused for a few moments, considering how best to respond, and then I reached out and clasped her forearm.
"I think it’s understandable, given the circumstances," I said, trying to sound as pleasant as possible, in lieu of any visible facial expressions. "Welcome to our home… um… miss."
"Thanks…" she said, staring nervously at me. "I do not mean to be rude to my host, but…"
"The way I look?" I sighed internally. I wish I could say I had gotten used to the fearful, questioning stares, the hesitant, awkward questions, the whispered rumors behind my back… five years is a long time to get used to a bad situation, but every time it happened stung just like the first. I normally just ignore them. "There was an accident, some years ago. My body lost the ability to produce magic. This Shroud I wear draws in background magic from nature, leylines, the rotation of the earth and other background arcane fields in order to keep my body alive. If I didn't have this, my body would start to eat itself from within"
"I am familiar with such circumstances," the girl said, coldly. "And so although you call yourself by the title of wizard, I must ask that you help me to find one who is competent in the practice of magic. One who is worthy of the title 'wizard.'"579Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3s0Q9dwJmX
