A Concept of Apathy

Chapter 7

“You don’t lose anything, you only feel its lack of presence.”
-An Ekelekian saying

“What are the names of the seven gods of Epaism?” Mister Reclamation asked, sitting across the dining room table from Kaeo and I.
“Atheron, Noviara, Seryth, Kalonis, Vareth, Elyndra, and…” I never could remember the last one, it had no relations to the other six at least.
“Xhaen.” Kaeo proudly finished.
“Good. What are their domains?”
“Past, present, future, mind, body, soul, and other.” I dutifully recited.
“Okay, can you add the names to each domain?”
“Past is Atheron, present is Noviara, future is Seryth, mind is Kalaonis, body is Vareth, soul is Elyndra, and Xhaen is other.” Kaeo started off sounding unsure, but finished off fairly confident.
“Good!” He said, clapping his hands together. “Fairly soon, we should be getting a cleric to come through. One of Epaism, I suppose I should specify.”
“When and why?” Kaeo said, tipping her chair back and keeping it balanced on the back two legs.
“Please put all four feet of the chair on the floor.” He sighed that out, as it was something he often said. “And to answer, we don’t have a church of any religion here, and instead are visited by clerics. It just so happens that Epaist clerics come through every seven years.”
“What about the other two?” There were two other main religions if I remembered correctly, being Makroism – which was closer to a way of thinking than religion – and Telelesoism which was monotheistic. Telelesoism was also less than fond of mages, as in the awakening we met their “god.”
“Telelesoism has no real schedule, although their clerics tend not to leave bigger cities. Makroism doesn’t have clerics in the same way, but their ‘clerics’ come through every five years or so. I think you would have been three last time one came through, so you will likely meet them next year.”
“Huh. Can the clerics… do anything?” Kaeo said, looking sad about not being allowed to lean back in the chair.
“Yes, although I don’t know much about that.” He admitted. He was perhaps one of my favorite teachers for that, he would admit if he had a gap in knowledge instead of defending his pride by making something up. “Master Duewoe might, and he comes back on the marrow so you can ask him.”
“Yeah.” Kaeo said, voice dying. She was rather nervous about my father coming home, which I could not really blame her for.
“Is that all for today?” I asked, and got a nod in response from Mister Reclamation.
“Indeed, I believe Mister Sharp will be waiting for you.”
“Thank you as always.” I said to Mister Sharp who began taking our notebooks to put away. He would come back for the ink wells and quills later. He used to take them all at the same time, but since he spilled ink on the floor my mother had forbidden that from happening.
I sighed, getting up and pushing in my chair. What this really meant was I was going to get beaten for the next hour or two. It was at least getting warmer as spring approached, and was at the point it was comfortable to go out without a cloak. I grabbed my sword from by the door, and limped out with Kaeo happily walking by my side.
Kaeo had recently started modifying her body, fully coming into the realm of Esomancy. That was what someone who only could affect their own body with magic was called at least. So far all she had done was simple stuff, but the simple stuff was still annoying to deal with. She was already very slightly faster, stronger, stuff like that.
I had a much harder time affecting my own body with magic, much less making the concepts stick. I had a much easier time working with inanimate objects, and even then it was slow going. I would likely be classified as a tinker, which the only real complaint I had with was that I didn’t get some fun name.
“Ah, good. You two know what to do.” Mister Sharp said, sitting on a cloth with my mothers kitchen knives in front of him. They had been getting dull, and evidently one of the things Mister Sharp could do was sharpen things. My mother had been using him instead of whet stones since finding out.
I let out a sigh, getting back to back with Kaeo and taking five steps forwards. We had been sparring for a few months now, and even though we had only been using wooden instruments wood could still hurt. It also didn’t help that Kaeo was taller than me, giving her more reach. On the plus side, that didn’t matter as much because she used knives and I had a sword. That didn’t help when she decided to throw a knife at me, which at this point she could mostly do faster than I could react, especially if she forced my sword off center.
After my fifth step, I turned setting my stance. My feet were closer together than I was typically used to, but it helped with my foot work due to one of my legs being much less responsive than the other. It forced me to rely more on finesse than I had before, but I supposed that’s what happened when you had a handy cap. Kaeo met my eyes, and I gave a nod. Like that she was off, running at me trying to get inside my reach.
I waited, sword held in one hand and cane in the other. I let my knees bend slightly further, and when she came within range of a lunge I fainted doing one. They had a deceptive amount of range, and I had “killed” her with one a few times. She backed up on a dime, throwing a wooden knife which I was prepared for. I slapped it to the side, the knife still having a bit of forward momentum and falling to my side.
She tried another which I was forced to slap aside again and she used that to get closer in. I flicked my sword at her wrist, trying to get her to drop the knife but she blocked the hit with the knife. I was working to take advantage of the lack of protection the knife offered to her hand, and swung at her side with my cane.
The cane did not count as a kill sadly, but pain could still help me. She did not bother to do anything about the cane, which I had taken to learn meant she was trying to go for the kill. I grunted, sliding my sword above her knife having the sword go for her neck. Let her ignore that. I thought I was in a winning position, when she did something I was not ready for. She moved further toward me, tackling me to the ground. I dropped both of my weapons, reaching for her wrists to stop a knife from “impaling” me. I got one of her wrists, the one with the knife, but the other remained out of my grasp.
That did not bode well for me. I had not found an upper limit of knives she managed to pull out of nowhere. I struggled for position in the fall, but lost that fight and she ended up on top of me. I struggled to keep the knife from stabbing me, her other hand out of my line of sight. Then she dropped the knife, which hit me in the face and as I was temporarily blind moved. I saw her free hand flash over to the ground, and I recognized one of the knives I had knocked away. I managed to grab her bicep, but that did not let me stop her from “slitting” my throat.”
“This round goes to Kaeo.” Mister Sharp called out, and I could see he was not even looking at us. I took minor offence at that, but not much. Kaeo was very skilled, so there was only so much my pride could be hurt there.
She smiled down at me, standing up and offering me a hand after she had grabbed all her knives. I took her hand after grabbing my sword, and had to walk over a bit as my cane had gone further. After I did that, I walked back over to Kaeo for us to take our paces again.
“How many knives do you have?” I complained, which made her laugh.
“Always one more!”
“That’s too many.”
Of the total of twenty rounds, I won only one.

***

“Concepts can be personal. It has been documented that different people can look at the same object and see different main concepts.” Today was likely my last lesson with my mother, as she had told me my father would be better at teaching me. Kaeo would still take lessons from my mother however, as my father could not use magic on himself. Well, I supposed he kind of could, but that was only after a contract was signed and he used it if I understood correctly.
“So why does that matter?” I asked, dropping my raised hand after my mother nodded at me. She did not like to be interrupted.
“It matters in two scenarios. The first is precise workings, as the more people who see the same object and think of the same concepts, that object will be more bound to that concept, making it stronger. The second is in fights with other mages, where one could use a concept they see but you don’t to change the working on you.”
I nodded my head, as my question had been answered. That seemed like it might be a pain, but it put some things into perspective. I had noted that concepts like Madam Lie or Mister Sharp made me think of specific things. Mister Sharp seemed to look the same to everyone, although Madam Lie did not. That was more because of what – who? – she was, however. Also from what I understood, you could make a concept stronger in objects or people, which would then make people who saw it think of that concept.
That likely meant the best defensive things for mages were objects with firm concepts, or concepts made large enough competing concepts did not matter. After all, if you had a pool of water and put in a single drop of syrup, no one would even know. It made me wonder about who the most dangerous mages were, which made me think of a question I had been meaning to ask.
“Can other mages affect me as easily as you heal me?” I asked after she pointed to me once again.
“There are very few. Most need to be touching you to do anything, and even then you can fight most effects people will try to place on you. There are very few people who could mess with your body in such a way.”
“How few is few?”
“I am only aware of five in the entire world. Most of them are employed under different militaries, as they are highly useful combat assets. Although that is mostly because those who declined the awakening cannot fight against the influence.”
Well that was terrifying. I could picture soldiers rushing at a single mage who just stood there, and then trees bursted out of them all in showers of blood. I was very hopeful to never run into them, but that made me think-
“How do you know who can?” I asked her before she could start lecturing again. She looked sheepish about the question before answering.
“I, um, am one of those five people.” She said, looking embarrassed.
“Oh.” I said, and Kaeo just looked awed.
“Really?” She said, looking at my mother like she had sprouted wings. Which she might be able to do now that I thought about it.
“Er, yes.” She sheepishly said.
“So, what is your job?”
“I am a witch doctor, and help people in town with injuries and the like, but I also get paid a large sum each month to be at the service of the Omorean military.”
Well, that was interesting. And terrifying. My mother was the equivalent of this world’s nuclear bombs. Except they were people, and there were only five of them in the world. That was a bit much for me to take in.
“So what does Mister Duewoe do?” Kaeo asked, looking excited.
“He works closer with the royal family, binding concepts they wish to be binded. They only call him for very powerful ones, and he is also paid a large amount to stay in their service.”
So I was basically the child of two super arch-mages, got it. That, well… My father was a stereotype, a powerful wizard living in a nowhere village practicing magic in peace. My mother was also one, to some degree with her little hut in the woods. That really left only one question, which is why we would be living in a nowhere place. Likely a question for another time, I figured.
The rest of the lesson went off without much issue, Kaeo and I cleaning up our stuff before being sent off. Dinner would be ready in a bit, and I still needed to heal my arm of a bruise that Kaeo had inflicted on me. My mother had encouraged me to do it to get more practice, so unless it was somewhere very awkward to see or reach I did it. It still took a lot of time, but it did not take as much concentration.
I walked to the backyard with Kaeo, sitting on one of the porch seats and began to heal my arm, book resting on my lap. Kaeo picked up some shears to go and prune the plants. Mister Sharp was surprisingly not out here, although that was not too uncommon. The book I was reading was one of my fathers tomes – grimoires? – on magic.
It also partially explained what my father did when he summoned Mister Sharp. Evidently you could roughly calculate the “power” needed to summon specific concepts. Different resources had different amounts of power they could give, or would change the kind of power it was. You needed different types for different concepts that would roughly align. There were seven types of power lining up with the seven gods of the Epaism faith, which they used as a kind of justification to say they were the true religion everyone should follow.
You also should be careful with how much power you give to workings, as if you gave them too little it would just fail, but too much had more interesting effects. Most of it was just explosions if you gave too much power, but there were a few examples of summonings, like the summoning of the concept of void, where too much power was gone and now nothing was where that happened. Not even air, to the point where nothing could even enter the space or it would just be turned to void.
Most of the book was a listing of different types of materials and their magical coefficients and power transmuting properties, which was fine by me. I was having a hard enough time getting through the start of the book, as it was very dry and dense reading. I eventually had to stop, as Kaeo dragged me to dinner that had been made with the herbs she gathered. My mother was doing less and less as she was becoming more and more pregnant, Madam Lie picking up more and more duties.
The dinner was good, but all I could think about was that on the morrow my father would come back. That really meant that on the morrow my true magical education would start.

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