A Concept of Apathy

Chapter 5

“You don’t seem to understand. Glory is in our hands now, whether or not we get it is up to us.”
– Ties, the First High Cleric of the Seven Gods

Breakfast was a brief affair, although still good. My mother left pretty much as I came down the stairs, saying she needed to go and talk to people in town. I knew it may take her a while as she was dressed in her magical gear, bones and dried plants hanging from her. Kaeo seemed rather happy this morning, although she had already eaten, leaving me to eat quickly.
Today was supposedly the day I picked up two new studies, although one was going to have to change. I found Mister Sharp in the front yard, Kaeo following close behind me. I had noted she liked to do that, and I suspected it was because she was taller than me, that way she would not block my sight.
Mister Sharp looked to be doing practice routines in the yard with a wicked sharp gladius in one hand and a dagger in the other. The air whistled around him as he spun, fighting multiple imaginary opponents.
“Mister Sharp, I have a request.” I said, and he came to a rest seamlessly.
“What would that be, Young Master?” He said, sheathing the dagger then the sword.
“I no longer believe I can use a spear as effectively due to my leg. I instead wish to use an arming sword.” He calmly watched me the entire time, hand resting on the pommel of the gladius.
“A good choice Young Master! Hand me your spear if you would.” I slowly handed him the shrunken down spear. I did not like parting with it, as I rather liked the look of it, but I had a feeling I knew what was about to happen.
Once it touched his hand, the shortened spear melted into him. Slowly, from his palm, a sword started to emerge, the metal of it looking much like the metal of my spear did. It took a while, perhaps half an hour, but I could not bring myself to look away. Once it was done, he handed it to me handle first. I took it, dipping my head.
“I will get you a sheath for the blade later today, Young Master.” He said with his own dip of the head.
“Where should I put it after I’m done?” I asked, giving the sword a few test swings.
“You can hand it back to me.” Mister Sharp rolled his shoulders, and stood straighter.
“I was told by Mistress Duewoe that I would be teaching you each a weapon of your choice. Young Mistress, what will your weapon be?” He looked over at Kaeo, and I turned my head to look at her.
“I will learn how to use a knife.” She said, looking somewhat sad.
“Very well. I doubt either of you will be worth much of anything at first, but you can learn.”
Inwardly I sighed. I knew how this would go, after all not my previous life but the one before that I was a noble, and learned an arming sword there, and I had learned similar things in another four lives. Given, I had never done it with a leg like this, and I doubted I would ever be able to run again. I would likely go through a learning curve, although I doubted it would be that harsh of one.
“I will do a simple spar with each of you first. Any volunteers?” He smiled at us, and I shrugged off my cloak and was going to put it on the ground but Kaeo took it from me. I smiled at her, and got myself into a more reasonable stance, spreading my feet and dropping my center of mass.
“Ready?” He asked, and I nodded.
He was quick, and none of his movements were wasted. The sword he used looked to be perfectly dull, although it would still hurt if he hit me and likely break bones if not worse. I knew I had a worse reach than he did, and he was not using a dagger in his offhand so I lightly parried the first blow.
I needed to get in, but right now he was just testing me. He threw another swing at my hand, but I moved the sword towards me enough to catch it on the cross guard. I considered going into a bind, but decided against it due to my leg. We started circling each other, although it was mostly on his part as I made a tighter circle.
He threw a wicked fast lunge at me, and I tried to bat it aside but I was in a bad position for it. I ended up throwing myself backwards, which threw off my footing and he pushed the advantage. I quickly recovered my footing and instead of giving more ground I pushed in. I was inside his guard now, but ended up coughing on the ground when a fist buried itself into my sternum. It hurt like hell as his hand was made of metal, and I heard him take a step away letting me recover.
“Not bad, Young Master. You have some gift, I must admit. You’ll have to learn to work around your leg a bit more, and work on protecting your left side.” He rolled his shoulders once more, and I got up. Kaeo handed me back my cloak, and she pulled a knife from out of nowhere.
It was a simple blade, likely a stiletto based on its shape. She held it with her right hand, and something looked to be held in her left although she was purposely obscuring it. Mister Sharp pulled out his dagger, and Kaeo gave a nod.
They started towards each other, and I noted that Kaeo had a lot shorter reach. This was going to be an uphill battle I figured, although she looked perfectly calm. Mister Sharp came in with a test swing which Kaeo seamlessly dodged around. As he was recovering, her arm snapped forwards and I saw what looked like a nail bounce off of Mister Sharp’s chest.
Mister Sharp began to close the distance with purpose, and took another swing, although I knew that trick. He just pulled it on me after all, so Kaeo pushed the fist aimed at her out of the way while parrying the dagger. My eyes narrowed, watching the two of them. Kaeo was likely better than I was, and was definitely giving Mister Sharp some issues.
Kaeo managed to slip behind him, but from my perspective I saw the trap. The blow he used to force her around quickly stabbed backwards, taking her in the back. She grunted, and they stopped. Mister Sharp was smiling, while Kaeo rubbed her stomach.
“You both show promise, I must admit. For now, I have a set of drills for both of you to do.”

***

It was about an hour of drills, and I was quite tired by the end of it. I walked in and started sipping at my water which although not cold felt quite cold. I sighed in pleasure, Kaeo having a similar reaction next to me. I looked over to her, and still did not see the knife she carried on her. Once she was done with it, it just… vanished, same with the nails.
“What were the nails?”
“Throwing needles. Better than throwing knives if you get good enough with them.” That last part felt a bit recited to me, like it was a quote from somewhere.
“Huh, why?”
“I, uh, don’t actually know. It’s just what my parents said.” She looked sad after the statement.
I was going to answer, but my mother came in through the door. Madam Lie was in the kitchen with the two of us, preparing lunch. As my mother came in, Madam Lie grabbed a third plate, and my mother looked over at Kaeo.
“You were right. I’m sorry, they’re dead.” She sounded rather mournful, and I suspected that was more for Kaeo than anyone else.
Kaeo took a shivering breath, and then drank more water. My mother came over and gave her a hug while I squeezed her hand in assurance. We were quiet for a time, my mother releasing her as food was placed in front of us. We ate the sandwiches prepared for us, my mother thanking Madam Lie as Kaeo and I said our thanks in between bites.
“Are you two ready to begin your studies? Your father was supposed to handle this part, and he will take over when he gets back, but for now you get me.” My mother said, after which she took a drink of what smelled like wine.
“That’s fine.” I said, shrugging.
“Okay.” Kaeo seemed markedly more hesitant.
We were brought up to my fathers study, which had been cleaned up from the look of things. My mother had us sit on the only couch in the room, herself dragging my fathers chair from out behind his desk.
“Have either of you used your Sight yet?”
“Yes.” I said, somewhat glad it didn’t have a fancy term outside of Sight.
“I think so.” Kaeo shyly said.
“Everyone sees the world differently through the Sight. For example, I see concepts more like colors, being able to identify them. Sylin’s father on the other hand sees a list of the concepts.” She took a pause, then continued, “Try using your sight and describe what you see. How about you first Kaeo?”
“I see… liquids? They are beneath a pane of glass, and the different liquids don’t like to mix. The only thing not behind glass is me.” She sounded hesitant throughout the entire thing, even as my mother nodded along.
“Very few people can interact with all the concepts they see. Usually something that feels like an obstacle is put in the way of things you can’t interact with. Using me as an example, I see everything that is not natural as if there is a wall of thorns between me and it.”
“So I can only change myself?” She asked. I finally looked over at her, and her eyes changed. She no longer had a pupil, only the iris taking up most of the eye with small bits of white on the end.
“That is likely. There I can help you, as I have a lot of work dealing with people.” She smiled at Kaeo, who did not notice as she was looking at her hands. “How about you, Sylin?”
“I see threads, like everything is woven of different concepts. I see no blockers, and can seem to interact with it all, but it is not very fast.” I did not activate my sight, as I already knew what it looked like. I had been using it quite a bit since getting it after all.
My mother frowned, brow creasing in thought. She took a long time to answer, long enough that Kaeo had stopped looking at her hands and was looking back and forth between the two of us. Eventually, with what sounded like extreme care, my mother began to speak.
“That is very rare. You will have a lot you can do with preparation, but about nothing in the moment.”
“You make it sound like that’s a bad thing.” I said, eyes narrowing.
“It means you’ll have to go to school for this somewhere else.” She said, and I felt Kaeo stiffen next to me.
“What school would that be?”
“The same both your father and I attended. I don’t really like the teacher, but I can’t argue that he is capable.”
“Don’t you mean teachers?” Kaeo asked, head cocked to the side.
“No, no I don’t.” Kaeo looked confused at that, and I admitted I was a bit confused as well. I figured there was some sort of magic involved and waved it off. “That being said,” she said, rummaging in her pocket for two wishbones, “I want you two to find a concept in these, that being the concept of dance.”
I took mine and started looking, entering a new world.

***

The next day, over breakfast, my mother gathered everyone in the house around her. She looked very happy, and once the last person, Mister Sharp, entered the room she cleared her throat. She hesitated for the briefest of moments before starting.
“I am pregnant.” She said. I sighed, of course this news came when my father was out of the house.
There was a squeal of joy from Kaeo, and a look of extreme joy from Madam Lie. Mister Sharp and Mister Reclamation offered congratulations, and offered to teach what they could to the upcoming child.
“Do we know if it’s a boy or a girl?” Kaeo asked, staring at my mothers stomach as if that would reveal answers.
“I do, the real question is do you want to know, or do you want it to be a surprise?” She looked rather amused by Kaeo.
Kaeo took a long moment to think about the question before answering, “I do!”
“Very well. It’s actually two, a boy and a girl.”
“How do you know?”
“I can look at the concepts. One day you could likely do the same with enough practice.”
“I’ll get there.” She solemnly said.
From there we were sent to go do more studies with Mister Reclamation, who was working with the both of us now. Kaeo was behind me, so he was really teaching two different lessons, and having me teach her as well as a kind of repetition to solidify it in my brain.
We were going over the major world powers, and the three contents. We were in one of the major world powers, likely the strongest of the three in competition for it, that being Omorea. It was run by a monarchy, and from what I understood my father was, well, not the court mage, but the person they called in when they needed someone very skilled. Evidently my father knew the current reigning queen, although how I did not know.
It also was where my father went for his work trip, whatever that meant. From what I understood, Omorea was the strongest military power, but the runner ups had different benefits. Ekelek was the religious capital of the world, having the religions of Epaism, Makroism, and Telelesoism. It made it very hard to go to war with, as those three religions pretty much made up the entire population of the world. The last was Sidica, which shared a continent with Omorea. The reason it was in the world powers was due to it being where Omorea bought most of its food as it had almost no farming land.
I had also been taught that one of the reasons Omorea was so militaristically advanced was due to it having the best school for mages, which bound all the talent that came out of it to the country. It also helped that we had a defense pact with Sidica, who was the closest ally of Omorea. I doubted I would ever make use of most of that information, but it was the kind of thing you learned from history.
I stifled a yawn to be polite, and leaned back in my chair. He was giving that lecture to Kaeo right now, who was taking notes in barely legible cursive. Or what passed for cursive in this world. You didn’t even lift up the quill for spaces, just dragged it across about a space’s length between words.
I was supposed to be working on a worksheet for math he gave me, but I had already finished it. It was hard for math this primitive to be hard when I had been in college in my previous lives. I stretched, and began to twirl Madam Lies golden needle in between my fingers, zoning out.
It was almost over however, or at least I guessed it was based on the location of the sun through my window. From here we would be sent to Mister Sharp to practice more drills, and from there we would go study under my mother. I was looking forward to that one the most, even if I was learning stuff from Mister Sharp, it was not stuff completely unique.
“You two are dismissed.” Mister Reclamation said. I stood up and stretched, then grabbed my arming sword that I had leaned against my chair. I restrapped it to my belt as I walked out the room with Kaeo after giving my thanks and goodbyes to Mister Reclamation.
“I didn’t know there were religions outside of Telelesoism.” Kaeo said, sounding aghast. Sometimes I forgot that I had a much wider view of the world than anyone else of the time.
“There is quite likely more than the three he mentioned, although none will be nearly as big if I had to guess.”
“I mean, I guess that makes sense.” She conceitedly said. As we walked, she kept flicking her wrist making her knife appear and disappear. Evidently that was not magic, just good old sleight of hand. She had shown me a slowed down version, and I was able to catch the knife disappearing, but it was still hard to catch at full speed even knowing the trick.
“There are likely people who are on isolated islands who have completely unique religions that we will never hear about.” I said as we exited through the front door. I held it open for her and she gave a nod of thanks.
“Well, that’s kinda sad.”
“They likely would not think the same.”
“Well, sure, but still.”
Mister Sharp beckoned us over, and the drills started. It was longer this time, although that was partly because he made us run laps around the yard after getting Kaeo to change out of a dress. For me it was not a very good run, and I could have likely walked faster. My leg still made it plenty draining however, and I was glad for it to be over by the end of it.
Into the house we went, both panting. We were each served a glass of water by Madam Lie who was preparing lunch with my mother. After we ate, and were not gasping for air we went back up to my fathers study. This time, my mother had a lock and a scalpel.
“Today, we learn how to pull on concepts. I wish there was an easier way to do it for you Kaeo dear, but I fear there is not.”
“Okay?” She said, eyeing the scalpel.
“Sylin, you will be opening this lock by concept. Kaeo, we are going to give you a very small and shallow cut which you will heal. Are you both ready?”
“I guess.” Kaeo softly said. I was handed the lock, and my mother came over to Kaeo’s side.
“Don’t worry too much, I am a very proficient healer, you are in no danger.”
“Okay.” Kaeo whispered.
“How about we roll up your sleeve?” My mother asked, reaching for one. Kaeo did not resist, but sat very very still. When the sleeve was rolled up, I froze. I had never seen her without long sleeves before, and I now knew why. Up and down her arms were criss-crossed scars.
My mother froze upon seeing them, face going hard a second after. “We don’t have to do it this way dear.”
“No, it’s fine.” Kaeo said, but neither my mother or I were convinced.
“There is something else we can do. How about we change the color of your eyes, okay?”
“Okay.” She quietly said. My mother retreated out of the room to grab a mirror, and Kaeo looked down.
“Are you okay?” I said, giving her hand a squeeze.
“Yeah.”
“You don’t look like someone who is okay.”
“It’ll pass.”
“Okay. If you need anything, tell me, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
The rest of practice felt off that day, but sometimes that happened.

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