XI: Rat

It was only a week before Rat began to hate the smell of burning hair. The scent had somehow become associated with frustration and the taste of grass. In the small classroom, Rat’s eyes were closed and he heard the others around him moving, doing whatever the fuck they were doing while he concentrated on burning a single feather.

He sat in the corner with his legs uncomfortably folded on the floor so that he sat on his ankles and his hands clenched and held atop of each other. A few spans away was the feather, laid on the soft mat and taunting him through his eyelids. *Come on, you little shit. Burn.*

At the start of the week, all the other apprentices had been sitting with him, focussing on burning their own feathers and filling the room with the smell of singed hair. One of them had even burned someone else’s hair by accident. After seven days, all but Rat had moved on to further studies.

“Concentrate,” Jitsu’s voice said from behind him. Rat didn’t know if the man could tell that his focus had been failing, and he didn’t want to find out. “Try again.”

He cleared his throat and opened his hands, overlapped them, turned the palms to face the feather, and pushed them forward. As he had been instructed, he concentrated on sending his energy through the air. The hand signals weren’t actually doing anything, but they were supposed to help channel the sorcery towards its destination, or something along those lines.

When he opened his eyes, the feather still lay on the floor, stark white and unburnt. Rat sagged and his legs unfurled from under him. As he stretched out, the joints in his ankles ached dully.

“For fuck’s sake,” he muttered. A moment later, Jitsu walked into his peripheral vision.

“You’re distracted, Rat,” the sorcerer said. He was dressed now in dark blue elder’s robes that revealed how thin the man really was, but were perfect for demonstrating techniques.

“Of course I’m distracted,” he said, gesturing to the others in the room. “Everyone else is making all that fucking noise. Plus, you’ve got me sat on my damn feet all the time.”

Jitsu simply shook his head. “Don’t make excuses for an internal problem,” he held out his hand and Rat took it, pulling him to his feet. “Your distraction lies only within yourself. Figure it out, and the feather will burn.” Almost in reply, the smell of burning hair caught him. The feather was on fire on the floor, its whole length drenched in the orange glow of Amatera. When Rat looked back up, Jitsu was still watching him. “How’s that for distracted?”

“You ever think about sending him to study with the juniors?” one of the students suggested, sauntering up and placing an elbow on Rat’s shoulder. “I’m sure the five-year-olds will have plenty of tips to give you.”

“Now now Noran,” Jitsu said. “We all need help at one point or—”

“Sorry,” when the man held up his hand, his nails were perfectly trimmed and shone in the candlelight. “It’s Blanche, actually. It’s just…my family didn’t grovel at the King’s feet for years to be given a last name for nothing. Just Blanche will do. Or Noran Blanche. Even Lord Blanche. I don’t care, as long as the Blanche is in there somewhere.” *Fuck me.*

Jitsu smiled. “Of course.” Others had gathered round by now, their curiosity getting the better of them. “As I was saying, we all need help at one point or another. Our friend Rat may fall behind now, yet excel later on. By then, you’ll be begging for his help.”

“Oh, I doubt that, Lord Van Yorling,” Blanche said, laughing. He brushed back his short, black hair with his free hand, then looked at Rat with his chocolate brown eyes. “Seems to me, he might need a *lot* of help if he can’t burn his feather.”

*This little shit.* Rat resisted the urge to punch Noran Blanche in the groin. “Think I’ll get the hang of it,” he shrugged Blanche’s arm off him and picked up his things from the floor, a pouch of various plant leaves and petals, some small books, and a collection of parchment and quills. “I’m gonna go get another feather.”

“I have one here,” Jitsu pulled one from under his sleeve, holding it upright before him. “You won’t have to spend an hour looking for the room next door, then.” *Damn it. What the hell* doesn’t *he have up those sleeves?*

“Sure,” Rat said, taking the feather and sitting down on the floor again.

\*

An hour later, Rat carried his things—including the feather—out of the room. His mouth tasted like dirt and his legs and ankles throbbed. *Why the fuck isn’t this working? I’m distracted? By what? There’s nothing else on this fucking mountain to distract me.*

Outside, the Temple of Gaius sat in the middle of two large mountains, nestled in the crook of where Mount Lanna to the north and Mount Syth to the south met. The stone and rock had been flattened and intricately cut into a series of ever-larger platforms, ascending along the base of the two mountains and connected to each other by a steep set of stairs.

Light spilt out from between the two mountains, the setting sun bathing the square in golden light. On the fourth and centremost platform in the temple, Rat walked out into a large square. At its centre was a twisted and gnarled tree surrounded by grass and dirt. *They love their nature here, even if it’s just bloody grass.*

Rat’s usual clothes had been replaced by thick white robes that were too big and too scratchy for him to feel comfortable in. He wasn’t even allowed to wear his hat, which only annoyed him more. His hair—now a little too long—was tied back with a thin strip of leather and dangled behind his head.

“I saw you, you know,” a voice said behind him. When Rat turned, Annabara was standing in the doorway, her arms crossed and eyebrows raised. “Earlier, when Noran was spouting his shit. You wanted to hit him.”

“Careful, Anna…whatever,” Rat said mockingly. “He hears you call him without his last name, there’ll be trouble.” He turned and walked away, but he heard her shoes hit the ground behind him.

“You shouldn’t let him get to you, it only makes it harder to work,” she said.

“How did you even know that it wanted to punch that guy?”

Annabara laughed. “You don’t need sorcery to know what a man’s thinking.”

*Of course. I’m just that predictable?* He stopped walking when he reached the tree in the middle of the square. Only a few others were outside at this point, and none were near them. “And what do you think?”

“What do you mean?” she frowned.

“Noran fuckin’ Blanche, Jitsu Van Yorling, blah blah blah,” he said. “You ain’t got a last name same as me, so you know what I mean when I say that no matter how hard they try, they’re all gonna treat us the same way. So tell me: Noran Blanche, they all as bad as him?”

Annabara’s jaw tightened as he spoke. When he was finished, she didn’t reply for a moment. “When people come here, when we take the Oaths of Unending, they give up their titles. For good. Jitsu Van Yorling has no home but the Temple of Gaius, as does everyone else who says the words. If Queen Orsella herself came to the temple tomorrow and joined us, then we would need someone else to sit on that throne. You and Noran Blanche will soon learn that despite everything you have learned that says otherwise, we are *all* equal according to the Gods. *Everything* is done by Their hands. Only those who understand that can stay here. Do you?” She had moved closer to the edge of the platform by now, her hair flapping a little with the breeze. *Do I understand? Understand what? That the Gods have some holy plan for us all?*

“All I know, Annawhatta,” Rat said. “is that even if you take away all their power, their land, whatever, at the end of the day, you ain’t gonna take away their idea that they’re better. They all think it, I guarantee you.” Annabara opened her mouth to argue, but he was too fast. “First time we met, you called him ‘Lord Van Yorling’. Tell me, can you say for certain that he don’t like still being called that?” She was silent, but her eyes were full of fire. It only proved that he was right. A moment later, she turned and left wordlessly. Rat watched for a few moments, then leaned back on the tree and dropped his things on the dirt.

“You shouldn’t provoke her,” the voice was quiet, strained, but calm. “She’s been through a lot.” *Amatera, what now?* Rat turned to look behind the tree, but nobody stood there.

“Eh?” he frowned, looking around for a moment.

“Over here,” the tree said.

“Fuck!” Rat jumped back. His hand, which he thought had been holding the trunk, was actually grasping a wrist. A thin, humanoid figure was melded with the bark, certain areas poked out of the wood like gnarls while others were completely submerged. A single hand could be seen towards the bottom, opening and closing at the person beckoned him back.

“It’s okay, child,” it said. Its face was about halfway up, stuck facing out towards the rest of the temple below. It looked almost like a normal woman, but her eyes were too small and her face too pointed to resemble a regular human. Rat could almost make out hair stretching into the tree, wooden as the rest of her skin, though with more texture behind it.

Rat edged a little closer, turning to better see the face within the tree. “What in the fuck…”

The face smiled a little, but the wood was a little too rigid to form the full thing. “I must be quite the sight, nowadays,” she said, her eyes just a little too far away to look at him properly. “Come, let me look at you.” Rat obeyed, moving further into her line of sight. “Oh yes. You *are.* Yes, yes.”

“I’m what?” he asked, feeling as if he were being analysed.

“Nothing,” her hand waved dismissively.

“I’m sorry,” Rat said. “But what are you? You some fucked up kind of tree-demon?”

When she laughed, the leaves above her shook a little. “No,” she said. “I’m a faerie—Mynaura, of the Shai’an tribe east of The Node. What…what year is it, by the way?” Rat frowned. *They say faeries live longer than us. Just how long has she been here?*

“Should be fifteen-hundred n’ forty-nine years since the Cataclysm?” he told her.

Her face dropped a little and she looked out to the setting sun. “Hmm. I would suppose that most of my kind are gone, then?” she asked.

“Faeries are…not here anymore,” he said. “They…they went back to Ranvier. So the legends say, anyway.”

“Legends…” Mynaura repeated, nodding her head just a little. “Yes. I see now. We are forgotten.” She grew pensive, her gaze fixed on the view. A minute passed and neither spoke. Beyond the square, people were emerging from the building he had just come from. He noticed Noran Blanche talking to a couple of other students.

“Time moves ever forward,” Mynaura said, though he wasn’t sure whether she was speaking to him or herself. “We grow. We die. We return to the soil from which we came.” She closed her eyes. “I hope they’re all right.”

“What, uh…what happened to *you*?” he couldn’t help but gesture towards the whole tree.

“What? Oh, the tree?” she asked, her eyes opening again. She looked down at the wood surrounding her as if she had only just realised it was there. “I’m old. Well, technically, I’m dead. When a faerie dies, we return to where we came. We’re the origin, you see. Life on Galia came from *us*. When our time is up, we become what birthed us in the first place. The cycle continues, and more of my kind are born.”

The realisation set in. “So, you’re…”

“I’m the last vestiges of a person long dead,” she answered. “I sat down on this very spot some…hundred years ago. Then, I died.” He could see it now, the parts of her that poked out…a hand nestled in the crook of another part of the tree—probably her other hand—her knees, bent as she sat on her own feet. “Soon enough, what’s left of me will be taken by the tree. You won’t even be able to see me.”

“Sounds…lonely,” Rat said. Something about the words Mynaura spoke resonated with him. He had no idea what it would be like to experience what she had, yet something in the very intonation of her voice planted those images in his head. It was almost as if there was a power behind her words. Rat now realised just how powerful a being of pure sorcery could be.

Mynaura stared past him. “It’s not so bad. It’s peaceful, even. Our time here is limited and short in the grand scheme of things, but while I wait for mine to drift away, at least I get a good view.” The sun was almost completely below the horizon now and light was fading. Rat wasn’t quite sure how to respond.

“You been here a while then, I take it?” he asked eventually. She gave the slightest of nods. “You heard what Annabara said. Know what she’s been through, apparently. Is she right? Everyone’s *really* gonna think I’m the same as Noran Blanche?”

“Oh yes, Rat,” she said, craning her head to look at him. “And as soon as you stop hiding yourself, you might even become better than him.”

\*

“Hiding yourself?” Jett asked. “The faerie in the tree told you that you were hiding yourself?” Rat made the signs again, pushing his hands forward towards the feather. Still, nothing happened.

“Yes, Jett,” he said, sighing.

“The faerie. In the tree.” Jett had sat himself on one of the low tables in the corner, slumping back so he leaned against the wall. The red cloth that covered most of his armour hung low and brushed the floor. The black tree of the Sorcerers of Gaius was emblazoned on the dull iron and writ on the tattered fabric.

“Yes, now shut the fuck up,” another try, and the feather remained intact. The classroom was empty save for them, much of the equipment now piled against the walls. With only a few candles near Rat, much of the room was now shaded in darkness.

“I’m just saying,” Jett said, sitting forward on the table. “Is it not a bit weird that you’re getting life advice from a tree?” Rat tried again. Nothing. He dropped his hands.

“Course it is,” he said. “But trust me, she’s got some freaky shit going on. It was like she was reading my mind or something.” *Shit, it was like she knew more about me than I know about myself.* He still felt her eyes on him. The way they looked at—no, *through*—him was unnerving.

“Stop hiding yourself…” Jett thought for a long moment, his ginger hair had grown longer and it almost covered his eyes, so he had been forced to pull it back into a knot. “Any idea what she meant?”

“How should I know?” he said, but the bite in his voice was a little too sharp and Jett fell silent. *Dammit.* He sighed. “Sorry. I just…I don’t got a clue.”

“Are you happy here, Rat?” he asked after a moment, sitting up a little straighter. Rat turned to face him, the feather on the floor almost forgotten. *What is this?*

“I…” he considered it for a few seconds. He had already been at the temple for a week, and he had made no progress. No shockwaves. No flaming feathers. Was it all worth it? And Jett...

“I don’t know,” he concluded. “but…I didn’t walk all the way here just to turn back around. I have to see this through—whatever *this* is.” He gestured at the feather. Jett nodded, a strand of his hair coming loose and brushing his cheek. Rat swallowed. “You don’t have to stay here. I said it before. You don’t have—”

“I’m staying, Rat,” he told him. “The work’s good and I get a fresh meal every day. It’s like I’m a regular person now. Nobody spits at me for being a Derra-Han, nobody overcharges me for a room—it’s nice.” The ghost of a smile appeared on Jett’s face. “You don’t have to worry about me, anymore.”

Rat didn’t know what to say. Part of him was glad to hear what Jett had said. In his experience, the moment you worried about someone else was the moment you became all the weaker for it. Other people dragged you down and slowed you so that you became vulnerable to attack.

Another part…

“Jett, I—”

“Don’t. Worry,” he reiterated. “You’re gonna be the big, fancy sorcerer. Don’t let me get in the way of that.” He then nodded back to the feather. It sat there still, waiting, biding its time. After meeting Mynaura not two hours earlier he wouldn’t be surprised if it had a life of its own.

*“Your distraction lies only within yourself”*

He breathed out slowly. *Stop hiding yourself.* Straightening his posture, he let his legs sink into place and his mind calm. *No more distractions. No more Noran Blanche, no more Mynaura, no more Jett.*

Only he and the feather remained. Even with his eyes closed, he could almost feel the feather in front of him. On his belt was a pouch of leaves given to him that morning. *Shortantha pyros*, a fern that grew throughout Tochi and in some parts of Ylliad. Its leaves were small and smelled almost sweet, but were bitter as he shoved a few in his mouth. He chewed, swallowed, and took a swig of water to go with it. While most plants would let him do what he wanted with sorcery, others were found to produce more specific effects. A good sorcerer knew which ones to use for which situation.

He raised his hands, overlapping them and pushing them towards the feather. *The leaves are only the energy source,* he had been taught. *We, however, are the conduit.*

The smell of burning hair filled his lungs.