A Concept of Apathy

Chapter 13

“I apologize for the former King’s rudeness; I am sure his mistake won’t happen again.”
– The just crowned King Espen after killing the former King in front of the Gnomish envoys

I wanted to scream. Kaeo was still out, and it had been nearly two months since she fell asleep. My father had taken to looking at her condition with every spare moment and asking my mother to try different things. I looked at her sleeping form, long hair splayed out around her and her tan had gone away, although her skin was still significantly darker than mine.
Her breathing was steady, and she looked so peaceful, but her just laying there for so long felt wrong. Kaeo was always moving, usually more than necessary. If you were walking with her, she would start to skip. That and she was rarely quiet. Not that she wouldn’t stop talking, but if there was a lull in conversation or just some sort of quiet, she would hum or whistle.
My Sight had started showing me new things, but they meant nothing as far as I could tell. Her self seemed more dense for lack of a better word, like her form was a singular point for a sea behind it. My fist clenched, and I tapped my foot against the floor impatiently as I looked for something, anything new.
Once again, I found nothing. I saw the concept of a coma wrapping its way around her, and I wanted to pull at it or remove it but if you tried the only thing that happened was the concept got stronger. I forced my fist to unclench, and stood up from the wooden chair at the side of her bed. My staff had an interesting property now, which was my second working on it. It had been significantly harder, and I had failed at weaving it twice.
It took very specialized gear to undo a working, but my father had the gear. I was starting to wonder if there were any mage type items my father didn’t have.
The working was one that made it so that whenever I reached for my cane it would be in my hand. It had the unintended side effect of whenever I let go of it it would hang wherever I put it, ignoring gravity. Other people could still use it, but I could call it back to my hand at any moment.
It wasn’t quite teleportation, as true teleportation was impossible, but it was more like expectation. The cane was bound to me in a way it hadn’t been in the past, more like it was a part of me than not. I didn’t fully understand the working I did, but the best I could gather it was more like the actual space between me and my cane was very short, so I could grab it whenever, rather than actual teleportation.
I limped my way over to my room, where Mister Reclamation would be. I opened the door to find him reading over his lecture notes. It was always weird to watch him “read” or “look” at stuff. He was made of only vines which constantly rotted and regrew and water that evaporated and flowed. His silhouette was constant, even as his body always changed. He didn’t have any facial features, only a vaguely head shaped part of him.
It also made his talking unnerve a lot of people, as it didn’t sound like it came from his head, but somewhere slightly above it. I couldn’t figure out why that was the case, nor was I sure it mattered. I had asked him if he could actually see, which evidently he could although color was outside of his ability to see.
“Ah, good, you’re here.” He said, aligning the papers his notes were on and setting them down. I limped over to my chair, taking a seat.
“Your father asked me to do a lesson covering other powers today,” he said, starting to pace.
“What does that mean?” I asked, propping up a hand to rest my head against.
“Mages are not the only type of magic in the world.”
“Why am I only hearing about them now?” I asked, brow furrowing.
“In short neither of your parents put much stock in any of the other things humans can become, so discount them. They see them as having too many weaknesses, or other things that a mage can do better. Then there are the things that other spices, like elves or dwarves, have that people can’t become.” He paused for a time, before speaking up. “That being said, they can be powerful. One of my friends on par with me or your mother is a bard.”
“I see.” So I was in an echo chamber for mages. That made a sort of sense.
“For humans, there are monks, clerics, warlocks, mages, bards, and usurperists. Elves have mages and assertionists. Dwarves have clerics and shapers. No one knows enough about gnomes to really say what they can or can’t do. Titans, Dragons, and Concepts have nothing they can become. It should be said, warlockism could in theory be done by anyone but in practice only humans do it.”
“So why do humans have so much?”
“We don’t know.” He paused in case I had another question. “Monks have control over themselves, which lets them perform super human feats. They do this by practicing reaching to borrow the natural power of the world, and if you can break their minds or stop them from meditation in some way they can lose their powers. Clerics are empty, which is not something they choose but something they are born with. If they are empty in such a way, the god they worship can put themselves into their clerics when called on to act through them or let them perform miracles. Warlocks borrow power from extremely strong beings or concepts, but it is always a borrowed strength. They have to pay for the rite to barrow, and if they can’t they lose the power. You know about mages, which must awaken. Bards also awaken at the same time a mage would, seeing the same thing. They however don’t have the Sight at all, instead having the ability to strengthen or weaken concepts by whatever art they choose. They have an intuition of what concepts make up people or things, letting them strengthen or weaken but only ever those two. Usurperists are by far the rarest, but they can usurp power through will, and if they succeed they can call on that power. They all play cards close to the chest, so it is hard to say exactly what they do.”
“So is there anything stopping a monk from being a mage or a bard or a monk or anything really? And vis-versa for any of the others.”
“Well, a bard can’t be a mage by definition, and it goes the other way as well. Clerics can have no other calling, as their souls don’t have the room for it. They are the only people who don’t go through awakening. No one really knows about usurperists, and monks could in theory be mages or bards, but in practice they are all life long studies, so you only pick one. Warlocks are the odd ones out, as anyone could be one but it is best to remember that it is borrowed power, and nothing more.”
“Okay, and what about the other ones you mentioned, assertionists and shapers I think?”
“Yes. Assertionists is a calling unique to the elves, where they can ignore concepts that should apply to them. Shapers are unique to dwarves, which lets them shape inorganic matter with their hands like it was clay. They also largely ignore temperature, allowing them to shape lava or other extremes. There is a reason they are renowned craftsmen.”
“So a mage can do anything that the others do?”
“No, but most of it. They can’t do some miracles a cleric can, and they can’t just ignore concepts directly like assertionists can. Other than that, yes given time and the right materials.”
“Huh. Well, I can see why they largely write off the others.”
He walked over to where he kept the papers, and pulled out a thin packet of them. “With that out of the way, I believe you have a test.”
The test wasn’t hard, but it was tedious. It was on the local regions, and powers. There were of course the three big ones being Omorea, Ekelek, and Sidica, but then there was the school of competence which was inside of Omorea that was not controlled by Omorea, and the smaller powers that were along the edge of Ekelek and Sidica. Omorea was only bordered by Sidica and Ekelek with an ocean on the other side, but the other two had about a dozen smaller powers bordering them. They also did border each other, but they had a mountain range in between them which was a pain to cross.
There was also the city-state of Nil’cron. It was in the mountain range, and a city that functioned as neutral territory. It was also the only piece of land in the mountains that was not claimed by the dwarves. Not that the dwarves did anything by building on the mountains, but digging to them revealed an angry swarm.
There was also the land owned by the elves, which was along the coast of Sidica. There was a port there that they charged heavily for as it was the most convenient place for shipments to get to Sidica or out of it.
Last was the gnomes which lived under the sea in grand cities that kept water out. They were very xenophobic, only interacting with the world when they needed or wanted something. They were also from what I heard very technologically advanced, but I was unsure if it was actual technology or just better application of magic.
I handed the test back over to Mister Reclamation when I finished, who dismissed me. This was one of the rare days where I went to learn from Mister Sharp after going to Mister Reclamation for my lessons there. I tried to take tests early, giving myself extra time in case I needed it, but so far that had not been a problem.
I walked down the stairs after throwing a glance at Kaeo’s room. I went to the back garden where the process of planting into the hill had started. My mother was trying to help, but Madam Lie kept shooting her a quelling look. She ultimately was stuck sitting on the back porch, only being able to use her magic which she was somewhat annoyed about.
“How’d the test go?” My mother asked as I passed by her.
“Well enough I think.”
“You only think?” Madam Lie said.
“I’m confident enough, I likely got an eighty percent or higher,” I said with a shrug.
“Good!” my mother replied, taking a sip at the water she had next to her. She usually only drank alcohol as she could ignore being drunk or hung over, but she was a lot more careful with her carrying the twins. I wondered if my parents had picked out a name for them yet.
I walked to the hollowed out hill, pulling open the solid door to find the very dimly lit room where Mister Sharp was working. He threw a quick look over my direction before returning to attaching the legs to a table. He could create tools as long as they were sharp, and evidently a screwdriver was one of them.
“Let me finish up the table and we’ll start Young Master.” He told me, grabbing the leg and giving it a gentle but firm shake to make sure it was secure. He was done with two legs, only having two more to go.
“Okay. Is there anything I can do to help?”
“Not really, I’ll come find you in five minutes or so.”
“Okay, I’ll be on the porch with mom and Madam Lie.” He gave a grunt of acknowledgement, threading a screw into another leg.
“Done with practice so soon?” Madam Lie asked, looking amused.
“You aren’t as funny as you think you are.” My mother teased.
“You are of course right, Mistress, I am much funnier than I think I am.” My mother rolled her eyes in response to that, shifting in her seat.
“He was finishing putting the legs on the table, he’ll be here shortly.”
“The project is coming along quite nicely, I must admit. I’m glad he is here to do the work as I would have a much harder time of it right now.”
I wondered how true that was, as I had seen my mother make tendrils of organic material and miniplate tools. I had noted that neither of my parents relied on magic as much as they could in everyday life, which my father told me was a good practice to get into. Magic was a tool, but it could also be dangerous and demanded some level of respect.
Not that I had seen any magic backfire yet, and I hoped I never would. I had read a few accounts, and although it normally just exploded there had been a few other more terrifying things that could happen. There was one instance where too much power was put into a working, and when it failed it made everyone within one hundred feet terrified of anything they could see. It was never cured, and they had all died mostly from self injury. Mister Sharp opened the door, closing it behind him and walking over. He gave a nod to Madam Lie, and a more formal greeting to my mother who looked amused.
“Are you ready, Young Master?”
“Yep.”
I followed him to the front of the house, and groaned when I saw the shield appear. The warpick was also not fun, but there was only so much you could do. I started advancing, ready to take my lickings.

***

My good leg had a good bruise to the side of the knee, which took a bit to heal and still hurt even after the fact. My mother said I had no broken bones, which was just another mark to Mister Sharp’s skill. It had been a rough set of weapons this morning, almost half of which came with shields.
It was good practice as much as I complained, and I was thankful. It was with the bruises I went up to my fathers study to start reading once more. It was a history on how past mages discovered the basic power conduits for each type of magic, and how one could in theory test anything for magical conduction.
It was fairly simple, if you dumped enough of the correct power into it, the object would stay as it was physically but other cues, such as glowing or smoking, before breaking and disappearing. If the object was not magically attuned with that power, it would explode fairly violently.
It was interesting, if not exactly helpful to what I was currently applying. I could see how it might be useful in the future once I had honed my craft. I grunted, getting up from the chair and book marking and stowing the book. I was rather thirsty, so I started on my way to the kitchen.
“-never seen anything like it.” My father was saying as I limped down the stairs.
“What does it do?” I heard my mother reply. I stopped moving, at the top of the stairs to listen.
“It looks like the reason we couldn’t use magic to just fix Sylin’s leg. It is anti concept, or maybe anti mana or something along those lines. If you try to do anything to what it hits with magic, it looks like it just makes it more permanent.”
“That is worrying on multiple levels.”
“Indeed.” My father said, sounding lost in thought. It seemed like the conversation was petering out there, so I started to head down the stairs one limping step at a time.
“You know I heard you listening in.” My mother said sitting on the love seat in the living room. It faced towards the kitchen, where my father was observing the sledge hammer that had broken my leg.
“I did not know that.”
“You shouldn’t be listening into other people’s conversations at all, it’s rude.”
“Yes ma’am, sorry.”
“Good.”
“I found one other thing of interest there, although calling it a thing is perhaps a bit of a stretch. I found an answer to Kaeo’s comma.” My father said, not turning to look at me but still looking at the hammer. He was poking it with what looked to be a silver needle.
“How?” I asked immediately, limping over to where he was.
“We need a cleric. It is lucky for us then that some are heading over. They’ll be here in a month, give or take a week, and stay here for another month or two.”
“Could we not fetch one through other means?”
“Let’s just say the less we interact with clerics the better.” My mother said from the living room.
“Why?”
“We are something of a… political incident to put it lightly, even if it was a while ago at this point.” My mother said, sounding somewhat annoyed.
“Because of the war?” I asked, leaning against the table to take more weight off my bad leg.
“Because of the war.” My father agreed, eyes a bright burning blue as he took out another piece of metal shaped like a hook and kept poking at the hammer.
I could barely wait for Kaeo to be out and about again, instead of some limp sudo-corpse wearing her body.

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