The Hand We're Dealt - Chapter 16 (Patreon)

In the twenty-first century, getting from New Orleans, Louisiana to Hanover, New Hampshire would take – discounting scheduling issues or other unforeseen delays – about four to six hours by airplane, if I recalled correctly. It was a rough estimate anyway. As for an automobile? I couldn't recall for certain, but it would likely take three to four days, depending on how long you wanted your stretches at the wheel to be. If you didn't want to budget eight to ten hours per day, then you'd probably up the count to a full five, just for safety.

Then there were buses, trains, boats, and... I mean, I guess someone could take one of those weird two-wheel scooter things if they wanted to. The ones that you leaned on and they moved forward?

What were they... ah, never mind.

Anyway, the point was that, even if someone wanted to walk that distance on foot, it might actually take a shorter length of time than the fastest possible journey one could undertake in this day and age.

Boats were, by far, the fastest mode of travel. But even then, it would take almost two weeks to go from the boot of Louisiana, around the dick of Florida, and up the east coast to a major port. After that, one would need to transfer to a smaller vessel that would sail up the Connecticut River until they reached Hanover. All in all, it was probably a journey of some three weeks to a month, depending on weather, the availability of transport, and one's personal funds.

As always, more money meant higher priority.

Though a black man throwing around too much money in the antebellum south would probably cause more problems than it solved.

Unless he used some form of magic to smooth over those problems.

Regardless of those details, though, the earliest I felt I could expect Emerald's father to show up would be three weeks.

The Hunters – Yang and Ruby included – would be arriving in a week, which was honestly making good time from New York to Hanover.

That left me a week to myself to prepare as I saw fit.

And come to terms with the unexpected brokenness of my sacred gear.

Because I'd spent the time to go over each and every page of Jacob Faculier's documents, up to and including his journal, and assessed all of his capabilities. Moreover, I'd taken copious notes on his overall capabilities, past actions, and overall methods of engagement when attacking civilians or other magic-users. Then, I did what was probably the smartest move I could make.

I asked for advice.

“Hmph!” Professor van Beek grunted as he looked over my – admittedly borderline – penmanship. “Well, at least I haven't trained an idiot. Possibly a monster, but not an idiot.”

I frowned, then decided to chance it.

“A monster, sir?”

The older man coughed heavily, reaching for a glass of fruit juice. Once he'd cleared his throat, he grunted again and looked me over with an accessing gaze. Unlike his usual gruff look of dismissal, this one lingered. Over the years, van Beek had made no secret that he fundamentally disliked sharing his space with another human being and, to a certain extent, I understood that.

Growing up in an orphanage with zero personal space, sharing a bed for warmth with three or four other children, and generally being in contact with loud, noisy brats all day every day had broken me of my previous lifetime's habits, but...

Moving into my own room, my own bedroom, with my own space... it'd been a breath of fresh air in more ways than one.

That, and many other reasons, were why I tolerated the old man's surly attitude, occasional strikes with a switch or his cane, and general maltemper.

Now, though, that same gaze which studiously avoided me whenever it wasn't an absolute necessity, lingered on me.

“The lifeblood of magic is secrecy,” he stated clearly, absent his usual tone and demeanor. Instead, he seemed merely tired. Very tired. “I have told you that you are to keep your sacred gear a secret from any and all you come into contact with. You have done so. Do you know why?”

“Because if they could not control me, they would kill me,” I replied instantly, the conclusion I'd long-since reached tumbling out. “And those who did control me – their enemies would then seek the same. Death would be preferable to being treated like a pawn on the board, to be seized repeatedly and forced to change my colors each time.”

Van Beek nodded, pushing his wooden tankard-mug forward.

I rose and refilled it without further prompting.

“You are a disrespectful lout,” van Beek stated after another drink, looking at me again and finding me wanting. “You treat the stuff of the cosmos, the ability to manifest your will upon reality, like the common building blocks of a house. As if they are no more a mystery than the recipe of mortar or the method of creating a good nail.”

There was no question, so I said nothing.

He hummed, his eyes uncharacteristically lingering on the liquid in his mug.

“Yet I have kept you as my apprentice nevertheless,” van Beek stated with a frown. “Not simply because, by the time I understood your failings, it would have cost me valuable time – time I did not and do not have – to locate another suitable pupil. I had, initially, thought I could strip you of your lack of reverence. Or, at the very least, instill in you some understanding of the powers you aim to wield one day.”

He took a longer drink.

“Now I see you never will. So I will content myself with failure in that regard,” van Beek stated, and... I didn't know how to feel.

Certainly, I didn't like the idea that I was any sort of failure.

But, also, this was an old argument, and one that couldn't be resolved.

The old man was right, honestly, to call it quits on that particular quest. Unlike any normal child he could have picked up... well, I was still a child in some respects. But, in others, such as my memories and my attitudes towards certain things... I'd already formed opinions on them.

And, bluntly, it was hard to experience the wonder of the powers of reality when your hands were burning because of abrasive laundry powders you'd had to make yourself.

It was difficult to see the majestic building blocks of creation and hold them in the regard you should when you were forced to wipe your ass with corncobs and scrap paper.

Wonder could come later.

Preferably, after indoor plumbing.

Nevertheless, I apologized. Because the man had given me a home and it cost me nothing, save the breath in my lungs. “I'm sorry, Master.”

The old man just grunted.

“The other reason I kept you was because, to turn you out on the streets, would invite disaster,” van Beek explained, as if he were reciting a grocery list or talking about the weather.

“Master?” I asked, blinking. “I do not understand.”

“No, you do not,” he huffed irritably, picking up the sheaf of notes I'd made and slapping them onto the desk in disgust. “You would have given this information over to the Hunters? To Tyler and that blackguard Crow.”

I nodded slowly. “They mean to undertake a task for me. Should I not arm them with what knowledge I can? Would that not make it more likely that they would succeed?”

Van Beek sighed, shook his head, and leaned up from his chair-

I flinched at the impact of the hand against my head, but did not dodge the blow.

“Do not speak,” he ordered, dropping back heavily into his seat as he stared at the fire under the potion he was brewing. “You will not apologize until you understand what wrong you were planning to commit.”

“Yes, Master,” I dipped my head obediently, blinking rapidly to keep my eyes from watering at the sting of pain.

“Some of this is all well and good to part with,” he stated, flipping through the pages idly. “You have the girl, she will have told you some of it. You are intelligent enough to lie and say you have reasoned out other parts of it. Yet substantial portions are things which you could not have known through any means and lies regarding it would be obvious.”

I took a breath, seeing where he was going with this and allowing my shoulders to droop.

“Tyler is a decent enough sort, for a half-breed and a half-rogue who raises his daughter to wear trousers,” van Beek grunted. “He is the type to take you at your word, especially when it serves the task you set him to. The Crow, though, he will not. He may not make an issue of it today, or tomorrow, but the day will come when you find him at your door asking for a favor. To gather information on some other target as you have done on this witch-doctor.”

I dipped my head in a nod.

“Then you will have the choice of agreeing to his favor and revealing that you are capable of doing so or you will refuse him and he will nurse a grudge. He may even let slip how precise your divinations were to another.” The Professor took a long swallow. “Now you may apologize.”

“I'm sorry, Sir. I didn't consider the potential repercussions of such an act,” I stated obediently.

“No, you didn't,” he stated firmly, then huffed. “And it is also clear that you don't truly understand what would result from your abilities getting out.”

“You said it would start a war, but-” I began, my tongue betraying me for a moment.

“What you have done here is more than proof of that,” he waved my copied documents again with a dismissive sigh. “Admittedly, I did not think to apply your 'Encyclopedia' in this way, but doing so magnifies the danger your existence poses to the world, not reduces it.”

I chewed on that thought. Remarkably, the old man gave me the time to properly digest what he'd said. When I spoke, it was with the soft tone of realizing something horrible. “That's why you called me a 'monster,' isn't it sir?”

“Not a traditional monster, certainly,” van Beek explained, settling back in his hard wooden chair as much as he could. “You have no fangs, no claws, no ire against humanity. But you are nevertheless a danger of incredible proportions to our world.”

I swallowed. “The devils.”

He nodded once. “You would be most advantageous to them, yes. The angels and the fallen, they both maintain armies of human servants. The Church is the most significant, of course, but there are others. The fallen, too, employ sects of heretics, magicians, and mundane spies. The vast majority of which are human – or human enough – to see within your sacred gear.”

“I would become the ultimate tool for espionage against Heaven and the Fallen,” I stated.

“And the devils have no shortage of humans working for them, either,” van Beek explained with a scowl. “Even if you discount those humans who have sold their souls, the devils have long experience with using tempting humans to do their bidding. You could upend their entire network.”

I felt vaguely sick to my stomach.

“It's not just that I would be valuable. It's that I would be so important that no one would be allowed to keep me,” I whispered in realization. “Even those who wanted peace... they would kill me to maintain the status quo.”

“Another complication to it, one I hadn't considered,” the Professor hummed. “But you are right. I do not know much of the tensions between the Three Factions, but I know they are currently in a tenuous peace at the moment. If only an unofficial one.”

“...do you think I should join the side of Heaven, Master?” I asked suddenly, the thought rushing out on its own accord.

It was a queer thought. I'd never been the greatest fan of the angels in general. I mean, they were nice enough – for the most part – but they were also uninvolved. Distant, almost painfully so. And, no pun intended, but very holier-than-thou.

On one level, I understood why. They were quite literally the creatures closest to God. Beings made perfect and immortal who had personally served a figure of immense power and authority. I wasn't kidding when I'd described angels to Hector. In all probability, I'd look down on humans were I part of their lofty choir in a similar way.

But that didn't make it in any way less annoying to deal with.

“Hardly,” the Professor snorted.

I blinked in surprise.

“Make no mistake, I am devout as the next Christian, boy,” he waved me off, then paused. “Or, at least, as devout as a sorcerer or magician is allowed to be. But I am not blind to the Church's faults. I'm old enough to have seen some of them myself.”

My mind flipped back to what Cleria had once told me.

If he'd been an adult – a trained master of the mystic arts – for the War of Austrian Succession in the seventeen-forties... that was almost seventy-five years ago. And if one took into account the fact that it usually took several decades to earn a mastery if you weren't a freak of nature – myself included – then Marteen van Beek could have been as old as... say, forty? Fifty? During that conflict and subsequent immigration to North America.

That would put him being born sometime in the late seventeenth century.

The sixteen hundreds.

The last great age of European religious wars.

Even if he'd been born after the Thirty Years' War itself, he'd likely grown up in the ruins of it. That would also make him two hundred years old, or close to it, at this point. But, it was a well-known fact that magic-users and mystics of all categories lived substantially longer than normal humans. Or, at least, the powerful ones. It was probably something related to human will literally slowing down the aging process on a subconscious level through magic-use.

I shook myself slightly as my master began speaking again.

“The Catholics are – in some ways – no better than the devils themselves,” van Beek spat off to the side, and I resisted the urge to snap a spell off to clean the spittle up. We were in the laboratory, the old man would insist saltwater would need to be used to purify the stone, anyway. “The congregations I have no great quarrel with, but... many of the priests are foul creatures who wear golden cloth and have long forgotten the piety of their office.”

He took a moment to take another drink and pushed his mug forward, which I refilled, then poured myself a much smaller cup, to which he barely grunted any objection.

After a moment's thought, he appeared to reach under his robe and withdraw a flask before pouring a portion of the liquid into it. Lingering for a moment, he beckoned my cup forward with two fingers and it slipped from my grasp, sliding across the table between us. Even if I got a much smaller portion of the alcohol, I was dumbstruck by the fact that I got any.

“Do not get used to such treatment,” my master warned, his dark eyes intent as the cup slid itself back across the table. “I find myself in a charitable mood this night, is all.”

“Of course, sir,” I nodded.

“But... to continue,” he hummed, “were you able to simply join the angels directly, that would be right and proper, but the Holy See is a corrupt institution stained with the intentions of sinful mortals. Moreover, they are often cruel and ruthless in their application of their faith's laws. Or their byzantine politics. Many a good clan of vampire hunters, stray devil killers, slayers of magical beasts... I remember several of them falling to disfavor out of a fear they were simply too effective. Too powerful, too favored by the people for their good deeds and altruism. Once upon a time the Zoldycks were not just the assassins for hire you hear of these days, they were the dark guardians of Christendom. The Fanalis fought off the Muslims in Africa for generations... and what gratitude was shown to them? The same the Belmonts received... excommunication. As if you can fight the dark creatures of the world while remaining ignorant of their ways...”

There was disgust in the old man's voice.

“So I should not give this information over to the Hunters?” I decided to chance, reaching out to gesture at the pages I'd transcribed.

“Not in their entirety,” the old man replied with a shake of his head and a frown. Then, after a long moment of consideration, he sighed and reached for a flask of ink and a quill. “This is not an art I have much learning in, nor formal training, but I have a suspicious eye and will teach you what I know. There is a way of looking at these things to understand what someone should know about their enemy and what they cannot know without a spy's inside view.”

“A significant portion of it will be what I gleaned from Emerald, then,” I nodded.

“And, as none of the Hunters coming here know magic,” van Beek explained with a sniff, “you may inform them of the very basics of this particular brand of pagan witchcraft he practices. But, again, there is an art to providing information like this. A part of that is knowing the type of person to whom you are handing it. The bastard crow, in particular, has a keen eye for perceiving deception, so we will tread cautiously.”

“Thank you, Master,” I bowed my head. “If you ever have need of my sacred gear-”

The old man snorted and gave me a surly look. “Keep your gear to yourself, boy. It is a powerful tool, but I have lived my life without such a crutch and will not develop a dependency on one now.”

“As you wish, Master,” I stated, watching as he scratched out a few lines of text.

I would need to copy over the remainder of the information onto a clean version, one which I could hand to Tyler/Taiyang.

Part of me, though, was tempted to press the issue.

The old man's health was on a clear and visible downward slide, if a slow one. He'd stood ramrod straight when he'd taken me from the orphanage, those few years ago. Now, there was a slight curve to his spine. He coughed more often, moved slower during cold and wet days. As difficult a task master as he'd been... all of the good he'd done me still held, and it was hard watching his decline.

It was hard watching him die.

But I held my tongue. I knew bringing the subject up now would sour the rare good mood he was in. Anger him. Make him withdraw from the conversation.

Eventually, we'd culled what needed to be and he handed the marked-up documents back to me. “When you are done, burn the originals. No need to leave them for someone to find, especially when you can summon them back with your gear.”

“Yes, Master,” I nodded, then paused. “I...”

“Spit it out,” he huffed, almost moving to rise from the table, but pausing as I spoke up.

“This... I had not thought to ask before I called upon Tyler and his family, the Hunters Guild. Is this-”

He cut me off with a wave of his hand. “A sorcerer is not a magician. We are researchers. Magicians take to the field, we control the field of battle itself. There is no shame in spending gold to pay a mercenary to remove a threat to your life, boy.”

I relaxed slightly, then van Beek pierced me with another sharp gaze.

“The part of your actions which I take issue with is meddling with the girl at all. It was none of your business when you came upon her and it remains none of your business now. But you will be responsible to yourself in a few years and have to learn that truth the hard way. At the very least, you have seen to your own affairs like a man should and not begged for anything other than advice.” He paused, looking me over again. “So I will offer you neither condemnation nor praise. Being capable enough to clean up a mess of your own making is the bare minimum I expect from you.”

I nodded, sighing in relief as the old man turned away.

As long as he didn't disapprove of my hiring someone to solve my problem for me, then that was fine. I could take ambivalence, but... somewhere in the past few years, disappointment had started to really matter to me.

I tabled that thought to unpack later and picked my work up to begin making a clean copy.

…

“Pass me the pot with the blue paint on the lid,” I ordered Emerald, who jumped to obey.

“Here, Henry,” she whispered, setting the requested container on the board.

“Thank you,” I nodded at her, smiling as she blushed and took a step back to await my next instructions.

We were outside today, a wooden table sitting on the 'back lawn' of the house, though the idea of a yard or lawn wasn't really something in the modern dialect. At least, not if you weren't wealthy. Still, it as a level area with a small garden that was kept mostly-trimmed. It was a backyard.

“May I ask...” Emerald fidgeted. “That... that contains nightshade, doesn't it?”

I nodded, pulling out a few dried stalks and beginning to disassemble the plant. “Yes, I'll also need the container for the angel's trumpet as well. And the one for the coca leaves.”

“You... are making the zombie drug,” Emerald observed, frowning at the mortar and pestle on the table next to the recipe I'd written out in Greek.

“Not the one you're familiar with,” I told her. “But a variation, yes.”

“For my father,” her red eyes watched me intently.

“Yes,” I replied, not bothering to hide the obvious.

“That...” She paused, then shook her head, green locks of hair flying. “Good. He... he deserves it.”

I hummed again, as she blinked and realized she hadn't delivered the other pots I'd asked for. In short order, I'd pulled samples from those as well, giving a cursory check to the runes on the vessels while I was at it. The drying effect needed to be carefully calculated. Too much power and the entire contents would crumble to useless dessicated dust. Too little and the plants inside would begin to rot.

But none of the glyphs had decayed to the point where either would be a problem.

Instead, I focused on my own preparations for the Voodoo Man's arrival.

The mixture I was creating was, indeed, a variant of the 'zombie drug' Emerald was familiar with, but quite a bit stronger. Faster, too. Her father's version was a slow-acting poison meant to keep someone in a fugue state for hours or days at a time, depending on the dose. The one I was making would be strong enough to shut down portions of the central nervous system, partially disable respiratory function, and cause hallucinations.

Oh, and dry mouth too.

Extreme dry mouth that could be quite painful.

Not that that particular side effect could be fatal all on its own, but it could impede chanting or vocalizing spells somewhat.

Would it kill him, though?

On its own, no.

But it wasn't designed to work on its own. Carefully pouring the powder I'd created into a vessel and capping it off, I rinsed the various mixing implements to free them of residue before moving onto the next stage.

“Paper, please,” I asked Emerald, who obligingly pulled out a large sheet of paper I'd stenciled a complex magical circle on. Pinning it down with rocks to keep it from blowing away or rolling up, I pointed to the small potted plant and subsequently accepted it.

The pot bore runes as well, though these weren't the Norse variant of the ingredient pots.

Each symbolic language and magical school held its own strengths and weaknesses. The strength of the Norse runes was their direct command of the elements. It was raw magical force applied to create raw magical effects. Basically telling the world directly what you wanted done and giving it the power to ensure it was.

Precisely the wrong language to use for summoning rituals.

If you got lucky, the spirit wouldn't take offense and simply defuse the ritual entirely, wasting all of your preparation and components. If you were unlucky, they'd get irritated that you were speaking in such a commanding and entitled fashion to them and lash out wrathfully.

No, for this kind of thing, you wanted... well...

“What language is that?” Emerald asked, then winced as she realized she'd spoken.

“Ancient Sumerian,” I replied. “It's actually one of the best languages for summoning and entreating spirits. No one knows exactly why, but it's probably because it comes from a time when humans were much closer to nature. That and it has a certain... musical quality to it. Spirits prefer to be sung to rather than spoken to.”

Emerald blinked. “I-it is tradition in many ceremonies to use drums and other instruments.”

I nodded. “Dancing, singing, rhythms... they mimic the changing of the seasons, the cycle of day and night. They give a spirit something to latch onto, which strains them less in answering your call. That and sugar or salt to sustain them... every little bit helps.”

It also helped when giving complex instructions if you had something to explain with.

Such as if you wanted a spirit of the air to pull certain parts of the air out of it.

A spirit had no idea what 'oxygen' was, after all. Air was air. It came in different varieties, true, but spirit-tongues used words like 'heavy' or 'light' to describe things.

“Do you know how to play a flute?” I asked out of curiosity.

Emerald blinked, before nodding. “I... yes, I can play the flute.”

I reached down and pulled one out of the bag of ingredients I'd taken outside. “Here, familiarize yourself with it while I make sure we won't have any unexpected visitors.”

With that, I left her to experiment with the flute while I walked the property line. The field I'd set up was pretty simple. The ritual wasn't particularly powerful – nothing like the leyline invocations the professor and I did as training exercises. This would be a comparative candle to the spotlight of that ritual.

And, honestly, I'd have liked to have done this indoors and sealed behind the house's wards.

But nature spirit.

Moreover, wind spirit.

Just as a practitioner could make a ritual easier for themselves, they could also make it substantially harder. Summoning a spirit of the natural world inside an artificial structure was one way to do so. Calling forth a wind spirit in an enclosed space where the air couldn't move freely was another.

I mean, you could do it. In theory.

But you'd better be prepared to offer the spirit a hell of a bribe just for showing up.

Hence the subtle SEP and magical diffusion field I'd put up. Non-magical humans would just get the urge to be somewhere else when they were approaching and magical ones would have a harder time sensing that something was going on.

After a bit more practice on the flute, and a bit more preparation on my part, we were good to go.

As magic began filling the air, carried aloft by the sound of flute music, I felt the natural world stir around me. Taking a deep breath, I began to match my voice to the cadence of the flute. It was slow and steady, but light and sharp. A simple tune meant to do nothing more than catch the attention of something that wasn't human and make a bridge for it to show itself.

It was slow, but a faint discoloration started to build.

Eventually, wispy mist started to coalesce around the sugar and salt dishes I'd laid out. Spirits might disdain human civilization, for the most part, but they absolutely adored the products of it. Refined sugars and pure salts were rare in the wild, and something to be savored. Giving an offering like this would earn you more favor than any amount of gold.

Though pure gold or silver might entice an earth spirit in a different way.

Ignoring the way the dishes were being emptied, I sang it a quick explanation of what I wanted – spirits disliked lengthy discourse – and let it sit and finish consuming the food before...

I sighed in relief as the barely-visible wind spiraled down into a small clay urn I'd prepared.

“Okay, now do that... two more times,” I grinned as I capped the urn. There was enough magic in it to satisfy the spirit for a month as it slept and waited to keep its part of the deal. That offering and the magic I'd imbued the urn with would allow it to grow stronger, become more powerful, and all it needed to do was help me out with a teeny-tiny little favor.

Mix air with powder. Powder go in close person. Light air come out of close person.

As long as it was released before the next full moon, it would consider our bargain fulfilled.

~~~

Henry Bell's preparations for his first magical confrontation continue!

A heartfelt discussion - or what passes for one- is had with his master!

And we get some more subtle magic rituals!

Had some stuff distract me on this one, but it's done. IRL got busy again and I had to see to some things. I really want to get one last chapter in for March, but we'll see if that's possible. Regardless, I'll have the April Poll up on Wednesday.

Hope everyone enjoys this chapter!