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 Posted: Thu Jun 28, 2007 7:12 am
As it turned out, Malecoda was correct. Lore did manage to finish most of the stack of books, but there was one book of runes which he desperately wanted to finish and kept getting interrupted from the study of.
Once it was so that Malecoda could experiment with siphoning power from herself into him. He had gone around feeling kind of fizzy and effervescent for the rest of the day until he used the power to try an unfamiliar spell. He wondered if Malecoda felt like contained baking soda and vinegar was in her head all the time.
This was an unusual occurance, and repeated only once more. Usually the interruptions were simply Malecoda giving him inane tasks to perform which were rarely contributory to his apprenticeship, and probably just for her own amusement.
It had gotten to be a joke between them, of sorts, that she was deliberately keeping him from finishing the book so that she wouldn't have to do any real teaching for herself. Surprisingly, Malecoda allowed him to continue the joke, and to continue to come up with reasons why she didn't want to actually teach him.
"You don't want to teach me because you're afraid I'll show you up," he suggested, to be met with an enigmatic smile.
"You don't want to teach me because you know that prolonged exposure to my naturally easy-going nature might make you a nicer person."
"You don't want to teach me because I'm better-looking than you, and you don't want any comparisons to be drawn."
"You don't want to teach me because it irritates you to have to look up nine inches to look me in the eye."
"That's the one," Malecoda said. "I make no excessive demands on you except that you not loom over me, and what is the one thing you persist in doing? Looming."
Lore wouldn't have traded these exchanges for all the worlds, but they were still the exception, rather than the rule. For the most part, Malecoda remained as sharp-tongued and short-tempered as she had always been. But it seemed to Lore that there was less bite behind her words. Or maybe he was just delusional. That, too, was a distinct possibility which Lore could not rule out entirely.
Remarkably, Lysander seemed to be changing as well. He was no more gregarious than ever, but he allowed himself to smile more frequently. Lore didn't realize, though others around him did, that Lysander's increase in smiles was directly proportionate to Lore's, and that Lore, himself, was smiling more frequently.
All in all, it was one of the best times Lore could remember in his life.
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Posted: Tue Jul 03, 2007 7:33 am
Lore had not expected ever to encounter strangers in Malecoda's part of the forest, even though he knew for a fact that people did live there, like the Drow and such. Most of the natives gave Malecoda's castle a wide berth. Sensible of them, really. So, when Lysander distracted him from his studies to bring to his attention the presence of another Undera, he was understandably surprised. The presence of an Undera meant that not only was there a visitor-person, but they were probably not from around here.
He went down to investigate, and thus he met Genevieve and her Goblin Undera, Dragul, who was, after a fashion, charming. In a thoroughly disgusting way. Dragul's attempts at friendliness clearly made Lysander feel very uncomfortable.
Genevieve was from Terra Prime, and that was basically all that he was able to discover about her. That, and that she had had Dragul for a little longer than he had had Lysander. He spent the rest of their acquaintance feeling awkward and stupid as she explained the Underground to the girl from Above.
Until Malecoda graced the scene. Malecoda was her charming self, setting up a trap for Genevieve to give herself excuses to be unpleasant to the poor girl at a later date. It was then that Lore decided he had to assert himself, as Genevieve seemed to be a basically good person, though weary in a way similar to the way Lore had been weary upon first coming to the Underground.
Surprising himself, he dragged Malecoda physically from the room, demanding that she explain herself to him.
"What is it, Lore?" Her silken tone was a herald that he was going to be in a great deal of trouble very shortly.
"Why are you doing this?"
"Why am I doing what, Lore?"
"She's done nothing to you."
"I know that. What are you talking about?"
"You've put her in thrall. Did you think I wouldn't recognize the signs? I want to know why you're doing it, and what you want from her."
Malecoda's smile was condescending and cruel and it seemed as though all the progress they had made toward camaraderie had been naught but Lore's imagination.
"Is there a point to this line of inquiry? Do you think to protect her? Have you been struck by one of Eros's arrows, and are you now in her thrall?"
"That's childish logic, Malecoda, and you know it. I just want to know what you're doing and why."
"Then you could have asked instead of accusing me. I'm not doing anything. However, twenty years of relative solitude will cause some social skills, such as making acquaintances, to grow rusty with disuse."
"You expect me to believe that you're simply socially awkward? What about the thrall?"
"The thrall is incidental, and as soon as she leaves my presence or I leave hers it will fade. You, too, spent a great deal of your early months here being enthralled in my presence. I think I preferred you that way. And I don't expect you to believe that I'm socially awkward. Maybe I just don't want to be friends with Genevieve."
"Why not? It never hurts to have friends."
"It doesn't hurt to have friends. So says the boy who hasn't any. Try having a few and then tell me that it never hurts to have friends."
"Are you really this immature?" Lore demanded.
"Are you really this naive?" Her cheeks were flushed once more with the faint rosy glow which was so attractive and yet so dangerous.
"Will you try to be nicer?" Lore asked more softly.
"If you'll try not to be so tall."
Lore was relieved by her acquiescence, even if it was reluctant. He was not comfortable fighting with her, and that had been their first real disagreement. Most of the time Lore just bent over and took it. However, as he'd discovered, he could not stand idly by and allow Malecoda to mistreat innocent victims.
The remainder of Genevieve's visit was startlingly short as she vanished before much more could be said. When he looked at Malecoda in surprise, she said simply, "She woke up."
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Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2007 8:23 am
Lore hoped that Malecoda might decide to elaborate on her statement, but she opted not to, instead departing and leaving him alone with Lysander.
"Well. That was strange," he remarked to the Undera.
Lysander nodded.
"I'm sure you're relieved that Dragul couldn't stay."
Lysander gave one of his slight, one-handed shrugs of ambivalence. He could be frustrating at times.
"What? You don't feel one way or the other? I find that difficult to believe. You certainly seemed uncomfortable with her."
Again, Lysander shrugged.
"Fine. I'm going back to the runes, then," Lore said, and did as he said he would.
He walked upstairs to his room and returned to the book of runes he had abandoned to investigate the matter of Genevieve and Dragul and tried very hard to put their appearance and subsequent disappearance from his mind. It wasn't easy.
Some time after sunset, when Lore had lit a few pillar candles to illuminate his desk to enable him to continue reading, Lore was once more startled by a strange voice speaking his name.
"Lore."
He ignored it until he reached the bottom of the page, and then he turned the page and marked it with the feathered end of the quill he'd been using to take notes. Then he turned around and beheld a surprise: Lysander had grown.
"What is it?" Lore asked.
Other than the obvious, of course, he thought.
"I think -"
Lore didn't get to find out what Lysander thought. The suddenly-older creature collapsed on Lore's bed in a dead faint. Lore was not quite surprised to hear coming from his own lips a slightly panicked cry:
"Malecoda!"
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Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2007 7:28 am
Malecoda appeared shortly and remarked upon her appearance, "Oh, you have clothes on this time. Pity."
Lore flushed scarlet. Apparently she had not forgotten the last time Lysander had moved to the next stage in his life, when Lore had been as naked as the day he was born, startled out of his bed by Lysander's emergence from his orb.
"What seems to be the problem?" she asked, though Lore knew that she already knew the answer.
"He fainted," Lore explained. "I've never seen him do that. I don't think I've ever seen him unconscious, even. He tends to go to sleep a little after I do and wake up just before I do."
Malecoda raised her eyebrows. "When you consider how little sleep you get, I'm hardly surprised that the poor thing fainted. It takes a lot of energy to change life stages all at one time. Let him sleep it off. He'll be fine in the morning."
She shot Lore a slantwise look. Lore saw that her eyes were still mis-matched. It was unusual for her to leave them so for extended periods of time, and he would have mentioned it if her were less shaken by Lysander's departure from the realm of consciousness.
"You might want to consider sleeping, too, Lore. I hear it's healthy," she said. Her tone wasn't mocking, though he had expected it to be, based on her facial expression. Rather, she seemed to be in earnest.
"That's what I hear. But I've also heard from a very wise sorceress that sleep is overrated," Lore replied. "Maybe when I hear that sorceresses sleep, I might consider trying it."
He was chiding her gently. It was a known fact in Malecoda's castle that she did not, in fact, sleep at all. Ever. She sustained herself magically and seemed never to show any effects except for her headaches, which Lore guessed she was trying to prevent, in her own way, by wasting magic. She still had too much to contain, it seemed.
"Sorceresses don't sleep, but their apprentices do," Malecoda said. "Go to sleep, Lore. You've had a long day."
"No longer than yours," Lore wanted to say, but he found himself yawning. The witch was enchanting him.
"I know what you're doing," he said to her. "And it won't work."
"Yes, it will. Good night, Lore."
His last vision before slipping into unconsciousness was that of Malecoda smiling at him.
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Posted: Mon Jul 09, 2007 7:40 am
Because his entry to slumber had begun with a pleasant image, Lore's dreams were likewise pleasant. For a young man who dreamed but rarely, this was a nice surprise. He had dreamed more upon coming to the Underground than he had ever before dreamed in his life, and it would have unnerved him but for the simple fact that the Underground was a place of dreams and dreaming and it would have been more unusual for him not to have dreamt that for him to dream, despite his usually dreamless state.
When he woke slightly sore from having fallen asleep in his desk chair, Lore looked to his right and winced at the ache in his neck. He was somewhat irked to see that it was daylight, and not quite relieved to see that Lysander was still asleep. How long would it take the new Corsea to sleep off the effects of his growth?
He was reluctant to leave Lysander, and so he requested that his breakfast be brought to him in his room. He ate quietly and resumed his studies. Several hours later his head ached from reading the scrolling script in which the rune book was written and he decided that it was an opportune time to take a break for lunch.
Just as the invisible servants brought up his lunch tray Lysander began to show signs of life. His one wing twitched very slightly and he turned his head toward the tray, which seemed to be floating because of the invisibility of the one who bore it.
"May I?" he asked. His voice was deeper than it had been.
"Please," Lore said, gesturing that the servant was to bring the tray to Lysander instead. "How are you feeling?"
"Better," Lysander said, picking through the tray's contents and separating the plants from the rest. He left breads and wouldn't touch meat, which struck Lore as unusual. "I am sorry if I gave you cause for concern. I was merely tired."
"That's nothing for you to be sorry about," Lore said. Then, because he couldn't help it, he asked, "Have you always disliked meat and bread, or did that come with the aging?"
Lysander froze in the process of separating the food on the plates and looked at his hands as though he had been unaware of what they were doing. Having given his hands a strange look he returned his bi-colored gaze to Lore and answered him:
"I believe that it is partly a racial inclination which causes me to scorn meat and leavened foods, but also I have never particularly cared for the taste or texture of such foods."
Lore spent a few moments trying to recall if he had ever seen Lysander eating leavened foods or meat and found that he could not. It was odd, though, that his complaint should be with leavened foods, or that he should even know what those were, as Lore had never spoken of it, and Malecoda was not one to discuss comestibles.
"One other thing," Lore said as the question occurred to him, "Why are you suddenly so talkative?"
Lysander shrugged the same shrug he had always given as an Undera. On his older form the gesture was still elegant, but far less disconcerting than it had been on his Undera form. It seemed more natural that a creature of Lysander's current age should give such a shrug than that a child should do the same.
"I suppose I had less to say before, and I was unsure of my ability to express myself adequately."
Lore nodded. He could empathize.
"Please, continue what you were doing. I didn't mean to interrupt," Lysander said, turning back to Lore's lost lunch.
He speared a cilantro leaf gracefully with his fork and folded it upon itself until it was a small green square, and then he put it into his mouth and ate it. Lysander returned to his studying, trying not to think too hard on how Lysander had suddenly acquired the skills and vocabularly he now exhibited which he had not before.
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Posted: Mon Jul 09, 2007 12:00 pm
Days passed and some things changed. Malecoda, without consulting Lore, gave Lysander a room of his own, and Lore didn't know how he felt about that. On one hand, it was completely practical, as there wasn't space for the two of them in his room, on the other hand, he was unnerved by Malecoda's consideration. He had come to believe that everything the sorceress did was done with an ulterior motive which was often too deep or subtle for him to grasp.
Lysander, however, seemed pleased with the arrangement and, with Malecoda's permission and Lore's, began to furnish the room in a manner which appealed to him. Like Lore's room, it was Spartan, but more so, because he had no need of a desk, nor of a wardrobe, as the only article of clothing he wore was a belt. The lack of furnishings was compensated for, however, by the profusion of light and the brisk chill which seemed to be a perpetual thing.
Lysander preferred to keep his window open, no matter what the weather was like and he slept without blankets to cover himself. When Lore asked about it, Lysander said, "I don't feel the cold as you do. It's in my nature to endure the elements."
He knew much more about himself, too, because he had taken to reading about the Underground, and particularly the seelie fae, while Lore was studying. Lore wished that he could take the time to pursue a similar course of studies and envied the Corsea a little because he found the little drops of information Lysander casually let slip when Lore asked about his reading to be intriguing.
Another reason that Lore wished he could learn more about the Underground was that Lore knew he would live the rest of his live there and that he would die there if a solution to Malecoda's problem was not found. He had accepted his fate, as he had chosen it for himself, and would never have complained about it. He was far more likely to complain that Malecoda wasn't actually teaching him, as he did whenever Malecoda and he were in the same room.
"She's delaying on purpose," Lore fumed to Lysander, who regarded him without expression.
"What of it?" Lysander replied. "She is your mistress, and she will do as she sees fit. It's not your place to question her."
Lore stared at the Corsea for a moment and then he noticed that the seelie fae's eyebrows were twitching. He was being teased. He hadn't realized that Lysander had a sense of humor.
"Are you making fun of me?" he asked, just to be certain.
"Yes. I'm not very good at it, am i?"
"I think you need more practice. I recommend that you practice on Malecoda. She has a great sense of humor."
Lysander tilted his head in query, as though he were actually considering Lore's suggestion seriously, and then his head returned to its previous position.
"And now you're making fun of me," he said. "Why is it more amusing when you do it?"
"I have more practice?" Lore suggested. "Is having a sense of humor something you find important?"
Lysander considered. "I wouldn't say that it's important, so much as a nice thing to have, a sense of humor, that is. Besides which, seelie fae are supposed to be light-hearted and carefree. I'm not."
"They're also supposed to be a little dumb. You're not that, either."
"Thank you, Lore."
Now, as ever, Lore had no idea what to make of the companion the Goblin King had given him.
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Posted: Wed Jul 11, 2007 8:02 am
More time passed and Lore found that Lysander was far more talkative than he had previously thought. He was nothing like loquacious, and he never initiated conversation, but he would speak with whomever spoke first to him. Lore enjoyed his conversation a great deal because Lysander viewed things very differently than he did.
Lysander, for his part, had always been fond of Lore and that hadn't changed when he became a Corsea. He enjoyed that he was able to speak with Lore on a wider variety of topics, and the reason he read nearly all the time was so that he could have as broad a base of knowledge as Lore. Sometimes his mind supplied him with knowledge of the Underground which he shouldn't have known, but other than that he knew very little, and he wished to remedy that.
Lysander was still very neat and fastidious, and now that he was older he was in a better position to keep his surroundings tidy. His own room was spotless and not a thing was out of place, though it had filled up some as Malecoda and Lore gave him things they thought he might like. Mostly he did like their gifts. Malecoda usually gave him books, since they were hers to give, as was everything else in the castle. Lore would give him scrolls which he had spelled to perform the spell whenever the words written on them were read aloud, even if the caster had no innate magical talent.
Lysander particularly appreciated Lore's gifts, though he never used them because Lore had warned him that they only worked once unless it specified otherwise on the scroll. Lore said that a more powerful and experienced person might have been able to spell the scrolls with more staying power, but Lysander was still impressed. He had an affinity for the things which all seelie fae have affinities for, but he possessed no magic. Not in the same sense Lore and Malecoda had magic, anyway, and it made him feel a little odd during Lore's lessons.
Because Lore was finally getting lessons. Malecoda had shoved off on him all the beginning level books of magic she could find and she was now trapped into actually teaching Lore herself. Lore tried to make the lessons as painless for her as possible, but it was obvious that she was uncomfortable with the arrangement. Lysander often sat in on the lessons, listening while he read some book or another.
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Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2007 6:28 am
Lysander continued to be obsessed with his race and how he varied from its norms to the point where Lore was concerned and where Lysander had taken to even asking Malecoda things.
"Lore, why am I different from others of my race?"
Lore had no idea why Lysander would ask him this. He had eventually expected that Lysander would wonder how and why he existed - who didn't? - but he would have guessed that Lysander would go to Malecoda with his questions. That had proven to be his habit. Unusually, Malecoda was remarkably tolerant of the Corsea's queries and would endeavor to answer them thoroughly.
"Do you mean, how are you different?"
"I know how I'm different. Most noticeably, I have no legs and I am not light-hearted. I want to know why I'm this way."
Lore closed his eyes. He could feel a headache coming on. Now he knew why Malecoda complained about his questions. Some things were not simple to answer.
"Why not ask Malecoda? She knows more than I."
"She directed me to ask you."
It figured. Shove the hardest questions off on Lore. It was so typical of her. He adored his mistress, but that did not mean he couldn't see her for what she was.
"You're different because you grew up differently, among those unlike yourself. You may have noticed that neither Malecoda nor myself are much like seelie fae."
"Is that true? Am I not bound to be as my race is by being born a seelie fae?"
"In some worlds there is an argument about whether that's a valid statement, it's generally referred to as nature versus nurture. Some people believe that a person's birth is the only thing which causes them to grow up as they are, so children of murderers are equally likely to be dangerous. Others believe that if raised with love and caring those same children would grow up to be perfectly nice, normal people."
Lysander looked a little confused.
"I must think on this," he said slowly. "Please excuse me."
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Posted: Mon Jul 16, 2007 7:49 am
It was many days before Lysander spoke again, and the whole time he seemed lost in thought. Lore supposed that having a crisis of faith was a reasonable excuse for total silence, but he wished that Lysander would return to the world of the articulating, because he missed intelligent conversation and Malecoda was not the sort to sit around and chat. He tried once. Unsuccessfully.
Meanwhile, Lysander thought, as Lore guessed, on whether he had to be like others of his race, simply because he was of his race. It was true that he was little like them, and if there was anything to the belief that one's personality is determined by one's heritage he ought to be more like the seelie fae. And yet, the idea of being so strange to his own kind was unnerving, and he didn't know how he felt about it.
Lysander also felt guilty that he even cared. He loved Lore both as one loves a brother and as one loves a father, for Lore had been both to him, it seemed, and he would not have traded his time with Lore for anything, even acceptance among his own people, whom he had never met. It occurred to him that perhaps he ought to meet a seelie fae before he became unduly worried, that maybe he was not so different after all, but such an undertaking would be impossible.
And so he brooded, and wished he were brave enough to take this matter to Malecoda, whom he knew to be another like himself, which is to say, unlike any other of her kind. But he didn't quite dare. Though he did not regard the sorceress with the combination of love, fear, and awe that Lore held her in, he had as much practical caution around her as one ought to expect. Her moods were volatile.
There remained also the matter of the markings which covered his torso. He wished he knew their significance, but, again, there was no one to ask.
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Posted: Tue Jul 17, 2007 6:50 am
Snow fell. And kept falling. Shortly the snow was up to the windowledges of the first floor's windows. And there was nothing Lore could do about it, and Malecoda refused to do anything about it, saying that he had done it, now he had to undo it.
Lysander, who had never seen snow before, as it never got cold enough in the Southern Forest to snow, was enchanted and went outside. To his shock, the white stuff which looked so soft and lovely was cold and wet. He yelped in an undignified manner and darted back into the castle as quickly as he could.
Lore, meanwhile, flipped through his spellbook looking for some way to at least stop the snow, if he couldn't unmake it. He had conjured it, so there would, at least, be no ill-effects elsewhere Underground as a result of the snow, but he still couldn't let it remain. The Southern Forest was really not equipped for cold.
"Malecoda," he entreated the sorceress, who looked as beautiful in the snow as she did the rest of the time, "Please! Do something."
Malecoda gave him one of her smiles which warned that she would, indeed, do something, and that it would not be helpful in the least. She closed the windows on the first floor magically, before the snow could come in, and then she magicked her outfit to one more suited to the climate. The gown was still black, but the sleeves were long and there was fur at the cuffs, hem, and collar. Over it she wore a cloak made out of what looked to be sable trimmed with ermine. She wore black gloves which he guessed were lined with some sort of fur. She pulled the cloak's white-trimmed hood up and looked expectantly at Lore.
"We all wait with bated breath, apprentice, for you to decide the time is right to stop the snowfall," she said.
As she spoke, she conjured a bundle of what looked like fur and sent it flying to Lysander, who was shivering in the cold, wearing nothing but the belt he always wore. He folded his one wing as close to his body as he could and pulled the fur vest and cloak on. He nodded his thanks with chattering teeth. Lore felt guilty that it should have been Malecoda who addressed the matter, rather than himself, as he considered himself Lysander's caretaker, though he hardly needed it.
"I recommend, personally, that you do something quickly. The fae are not known for being particularly resiliant when it comes to cold weather. They are related to insects, after all, and insects either die or go dormant when the weather gets cold."
Lore stared at her in shock. Surely she couldn't mean that Lysander's life was in danger? He had never meant to do that. He had only meant to show Lysander snow, because Lysander had asked him about it. He just couldn't seem to make the snow stop. He looked over at Lysander, shivering, even beneath the fur cloak, and thought that the Corsea's movements were becoming sluggish.
"Go inside, Lysander," he said.
"How?" Lysander asked. He didn't sound bitter or like he was trying to be difficult. He sounded like he expected Lore to have an answer. When Lore did not immediately reply, he continued, "The windows are sealed shut and the doors are snowed over."
That lent an air of urgency to the task, then. He would not kill Lysander if he could do anything in his power to prevent it. And Malecoda was being less than helpful. She had knelt on top of a hardened patch of snow which he knew she had caused to ice over for just that purpose, and she was in the process of making snowballs.
"Stop it," Lore shouted at Malecoda. He shouted to make himself heard over the howl of the wind which was picking up and creating eddies of snow as it blew.
And it stopped. The snow stopped, the wind stopped. Malecoda, on the other hand, continued to make snowballs.
Lore's first attention went immediately to Lysander, who looked downright unhealthy. His tanned skin had acquired a bluish tinge and Lore wasn't sure he was capable of moving if he tried.
"Lysander," he called, attempting to walk to him across the snow drifts and failing miserably. He was not dressed for the weather.
The Corsea turned his eyes slowly to Lore and with maddening slowness the rest of his head turned that way, too. He didn't look good at all. Acting on instinct, Lore tried a banishing spell on Lysander. He rarely tried magic on the Corsea because he had found that its effects were iffy at best, but he couldn't risk Lysander's life like this any longer, and he couldn't think of anything else.
A banishing is the exact reverse of a summoning, sending an object away, rather than calling it present. As with a summoning, there are inexactitudes if one's mind is not well-focused, but Lore had been doing banishings and summonings for most of his life and considered it a small magic. Even under stress he could perform that task. He half-believed that he could perform it dead.
To his intense relief, Lysander vanished and Lore could only hope that he had ended up in his own room, which is where Lore had directed he go. He looked over at Malecoda, who was no longer making snowballs, but smoothing them over to make them perfectly spherical.
"What are you doing?" he demanded.
She smiled enigmatically. "I'm making snowballs."
"Why didn't you help? Lysander could still be in danger."
"Gifts from the Goblin King are precious. Perhaps you should take greater care with that which the Goblin King gave you. He would not be pleased if you were to lose it."
"Him," Lore corrected, his temper flaring.
"Him," Malecoda agreed.
"And you didn't answer the question."
"You need to learn to work under pressure. You're actually a very good mage, Lore, but sorcery is not magecraft as you know it, and if you are ever to become a sorcerer, and not just a mage, you must learn to be in control at all times, even in situations which seem beyond your control. I've said it before, magic is about will and control."
"And what about Lysander?"
"What about him? Now you'll have a chance to practice healing arts. I think it works out to be rather ideal."
"Why are you making snowballs?" Lore asked, rather than punch her in the face for being infuriating.
"I lied. I'm not making snowballs. I'm making crystals. Which is what you'll be learning to do after you've attended to Lysander."
It was clear from her tone and expression that she would say nothing more on the subject, and so Lore transported himself inside. He was too tired to unmake the snow that had already fallen and banishing it had too many repercussions which he was ill-equipped to consider at the moment. Suffice it to say, he couldn't do it safely.
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Posted: Wed Jul 18, 2007 7:56 am
Inside, despite his weariness, Lore raced upstairs to where he hoped Lysander would be. He could have used magic, but he could feel that his grip on his power was not good at the moment, between the task of conjuring and stopping the snow and his concern for Lysander. He was better off running up the steps, taking them two and three at a time, as he was currently doing.
He reached Lysander's room and saw, to his relief, that Lysander was there. He lay on his bed looking like an invalid, like one who was suffering a great deal and was unwilling to admit to it. Lore wondered where he had acquired all that pride. Lore didn't think he was like that, and he didn't think Lysander was the sort to model himself after Malecoda, even though she was a remarkable person.
"Lysander?"
Lysander, slightly warmer, found that it was easier to move, but only marginally more so. He hadn't anticipated that the cold would do this to him. The books hadn't mentioned how detrimental the cold was. Perhaps he was the only one of his kind who was so susceptible to it, a result of being different in other ways?
He turned his head toward Lore. Speech seemed beyond him, but he knew he had to let Lore know what was wrong or Lore would be unable to help him, so he made an attempt through chattering teeth.
"Cold."
Lore lit the fire in the fireplace with a casual flick of his hand, sending it roaring up the chimney. He also summoned the blankets Lysander lay on top of and summoned them so they would lie atop Lysander. He summoned further blankets from one of the store rooms and one of the invisible servants.
"Fetch something hot to drink. Mulled cider," he instructed the servant when he felt a tap on the back of his hand which signaled its presence. He didn't watch to see if the shadows moved, signaling that the servant was departing. In the firelight, all shadows moved.
"Better?" he asked.
Lysander nodded slowly. He felt like he would never be warm again, like his blood had frozen in his veins. He had never been so cold, or so afraid. He was afraid, he admitted to himself, that he would die of this horrid, hateful cold. But he mustn't let Lore know that, he decided. Lore didn't need more to add to the guilt he always carried.
Lysander wished he could tell Lore how impressive he had looked, doing magic so casually and taking charge of the situation. He was not the same young man he usually was. He didn't look unsure of himself or like he expected to make a fool of himself at any minute, as if his skill had all been luck so far. Luck which he expected to run out at any moment. He had looked like a true sorcerer.
Neither one knew that Malecoda privately agreed with Lysander, and was pleased.
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Posted: Fri Jul 20, 2007 9:28 am
After he had been warmed, Lysander's condition began to improve, but the process was slow and he was extraordinarily susceptible to the cold. His room was kept at a temperature which made both Lore and Malecoda uncomfortable, but which both braved to ensure his continued improvement.
However, Malecoda forbade Lore to remain by Lysander's bedside. She cited three reasons: one, the climate in Lysander's room would shortly make him sick; two, he had other things to do; and, three, Lysander would not recover any faster with Lore hovering.
So Lore went outside with Malecoda and began to learn about the art of making crystal orbs. Malecoda did it so quickly and so easily that she seemed not to even think about what her hands were doing as she rolled the snowballs and smoothed them into perfect spheres. The only time she paid any mind was when she murmured the spell which kept the snowballs in an unchanging state.
"But, Malecoda, they're just snowballs that don't melt," Lore protested. "They're not exactly crystals."
"Be patient. First they must be kept from melting, because investing the power into them to make them into the crystals you seem to expect them to become will involve prolonged contact which will cause them to melt and become deformed, which will cause the things they show to be distorted when viewed."
Chagrined, Lore continued making snowballys, trying to make them as perfectly spherical as Malecoda. He tended to get frustrated too easily and apply too much force, crushing his efforts. Which, naturally, frustrated him further and made his hands more unsteady as he made his next attempts. He had completed, so far, two snowballs that Malecoda had deemed acceptable.
"But," she warned, "they are not perfect spheres, and so the view will be distorted, though very slightly."
Lore didn't argue. He had guessed as much.
When he had managed to make ten acceptable snowballs Malecoda showed him how to spell them into being immutable. That was not difficult for him. It was not a spell he had known before, but neither was it a difficult spell and it required only a minor investiture of power, as he didn't need the thing to remain immutable forever.
"Now comes the hard part. Now you have to invest the thing with the power to Show. Not just that, but to Show the truth, and not the truth as it is perceived by you or whomever may gaze into it. Your mind must be open to all possibilities when you make the investiture, or else what it shows may be tainted and incorrect."
She demonstrated, though there was not much to see as an invesiture is mostly a transferrence of power. Lore could see magic. It was one of his gifts, but Malecoda had learned that early on and had become much more careful about concealing her magic from him. Until she had done it, he hadn't known it could be done.
"If you would let me see what you're doing with your power, it might go easier," he muttered after failing three times and producing crystals Malecoda pronounced to be flawed.
"I forgot you can do that. Of course."
She demonstrated once more and this time Lore was able to follow her magic with his eyes. It helped a little, but mostly it was his own mental discipline which was causing his errors, and he knew that. He suspected Malecoda knew that, too.
Finally, he got one right.
Malecoda looked a little startled, but then she looked pleased. "Congratulations, Lore. You've created a snowball of Seeing. But does it show the past, present, or future?"
Lore shrugged. He hadn't the faintest. He didn't even know how she knew he'd gotten it right. It looked like all his other failed attempts to him, even down to the magic.
"Test it. It will only show the truth, because that's what it's designed to do, so seek to be shown something of the past, present, and future, and see which is will show."
"Shouldn't I have specified which one when I was making it?"
"No. It's need-based, unfortunately. If you only want to see the future, but you know, subconsciously, that you would be better off seeing the present, it'll form as one which shows the present."
"Oh, good."
"Or, maybe, it'll show all three, if you did it right. Give it a try."
Lore did as he was told.
First he asked the past of it. He asked for the first time he had ridden a horse, because he would recognize any flaws in that memory easily. It was one of his favorite memories from his childhood. The perspective was different, being third-person, but it was the same event.
Next he asked the present of it, and since it was not easy to verify the present in places where one is not, he asked to see Malecoda. Glancing between orb and reality, he could see that the orb would show him that accurately as well.
Finally he asked to see the future, again making his request very local so that he could verify if it was the truth or not. What he saw gave him cause for alarm, because he saw himself spread-eagled in the snow, lying very still, as though dead.
So engrossed with this image was he, that he did not see the snowball flying straight at his head until it struck him just above his ear and felled him. Lying in the snow with his eyes sqeezed shut and his face burning from the cold, he wondered what he looked like to Malecoda. And he held very still as an idea came to him.
Using his power, he began to summon snow from behind one of the trees he knew to be nearby and waited for Malecoda to approach. Sure enough, once he had lain still long enough that his cheek had gone numb, she did come over.
"Lore?" she said, a little uncertainly.
He completed the summoning and the snow appeared mid-air, just above Malecoda's head and dropped onto her, covering her with white powder which made her look almost statuesque.
He sat up and was struck.
"I saw this in the orb."
"You saw yourself dropping a ton of snow on me? Did you see me killing you after?"
"No. I saw myself lying very still and you looking concerned."
"So it shows the future?"
"And the past, and the present."
"Good. Did it show you this?" She pelted him with another snowball which exploded against his cheek and powdery snow fel down his collar, chilling him instantly.
Instinctively he threw a handful of snow back, without bothering to form it into a ball, and shortly they were engaged in full-out snow warfare, like he had played at as a boy.
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Posted: Mon Jul 23, 2007 6:39 am
Lysander watched Lore and Malecoda through his window. A part of him wished that he could join them, as they seemed to be enjoying themselves, but he knew better. If he went back out in the cold, he would only suffer the same consequences he was in the process of recovering from. Not to mention he could see that his presence would not be a boon. The pair had an odd relationship, and it became even odder when he, Lysander, was around.
He didn't begrudge them their camaraderie. For one thing, he knew it would not last. Malecoda or Lore would recall their place and then it would end. Not that he wished that. He didn't, truly. He just wished he could enjoy the same outlets. There was no one for him to feel giddy with as he knew Lore felt giddy when he was with Malecoda. There was no one for him to be at ease with, as he knew Malecoda was at ease when she was with Lore. Of course, both had to be convinced to forget temporarily their circumstances.
Lysander was, in truth, still conflicted. He envied them, but he would not have done anything to damage their relationship even upon threat of death. He loved both of them, Lore like a brother and Malecoda...he didn't know. It was not as one would love a sister - she was too prickly for that - and it was not as he imagined one would love a mother. And he did not feel as one did for a lover toward Malecoda. But he did love her in some fashion.
He knew that Lore would have felt guilty if he could have known how he felt. As usual, Lore would take the blame upon himself and find some way in which he was at fault for the way Lysander felt. Which is why Lysander never spoke of his feelings. Lore took things too much to heart, and he couldn't talk to Malecoda about feelings. He knew she had them, but hers were always so strong, he doubted she could relate, or that she would want to. He knew she tried to avoid feeling anything.
So he watched Lore and Malecoda play in the snow with a quilt wrapped around himself and told himself to be happy for those two, who had so many more cares and worries than he.
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Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2007 6:39 am
When Lore and Malecoda came inside again their faces were flushed with the cold and with their physical efforts in their snow battle. It wasn't easy to determine which of the two could be declared the victor. Both were covered with powdery white stuff and had snow in places it wasn't polite to mention in any sort of company. But, perhaps most importantly, both were smiling.
"I think," Malecoda said between quick breaths, "that you might have been better suited to some other line of work. You are entirely too immature to be a sorcerer."
"Using yourself as a standard of comparison, are you?" Lore retorted. "By that standard, you don't qualify to be a sorceress, either. And if you smite me, you'll just prove it."
Malecoda looked like she might have smote him, though not particularly harshly. However, when he added the last bit about smiting she quirked a smile and inclined her head, conceding the victory to him.
Lore was almost too shocked by her concession to notice that she held in her hand a smuggled snowball. Almost, but not quite. As she threw it he side-stepped and caught it magically, causing it to hover, spinning, mid-air. He turned to look at the snowball as it spun and recognized it as one of the orbs Malecoda had made him make.
"Nice catch. You are good at that, I'll grant you."
"I had older brothers, and younger brothers, for that matter. One learns to deflect objects that come flying towards one if one wishes to survive past childhood." He shrugged.
"I forget, at times, that you came from a family and a world where magic was common. It must have been very pleasant to grow up able to use magic." Neither Malecoda nor Lore mentioned that she hadn't had magic to grow up with. Both knew the truth, but preferred to pretend otherwise, mostly for the sake of Malecoda's fragile pride.
Lysander heard their voices downstairs (though he would have had to go up the stairs to get to them) and wondered if he ought to go upstairs and greet them, or if it would be better to leave them to themselves. He hovered, indecisive, wrapped in a quilt, by the door to his room. He could wait. There was nothing important he had to say to either of them, and he didn't need constant company.
He selected a book from his over-full bookshelf and floated back over to his bed. When he was tired enough he actually didn't hover, he had learned, but as long as he was conscious he hovered, which was actually a bit irritating. Only with effort could he suppress the hovering, and usually the effort exhausted him sufficiently that he lost consciousness and didn't hover anyway.
So he read, hovering above his bed and between consciousness and unconsciousness, and listening to the soft buzz of voices below him. It was restful, if nothing else.
Downstairs, which is to say, upstairs, Lore and Malecoda had seated themselves and Malecoda had begun to discuss the properties of orbs made of snow. They were hybrid orbs, snow not being a pure element, but they functioned just as well as any other, except for their rarity in the warm months of the year.
There were a myriad other kinds of orbs, all of which could be used to see. He, Lore, would be learning to make all of them. It was, Malecoda told him, a practical skill for a sorcerer of the Underground to possess, and it would give him some advantages when he traveled. As far as most of the Underground's denizens knew, Jareth was the only one with an affinity for orbs and orb-making, and the fact that Lore had long, blond-ish hair could work in his favor.
"Do you mean I could impersonate the Goblin King? Isn't that just a trifle suicidal? I mean, wouldn't he be kind of...I don't know...furious?" Lore asked, mildly horrified by the suggestion.
"I wouldn't recommend it, but you could do it, yes. In a tight situation it might save your life."
"Do you expect me to be in any 'tight situations' any time soon?"
"I hope not, but as you know, I'm no Seer."
Lore was not reassured. He doubted that Malecoda had meant for him to be reassured though.
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Posted: Fri Jul 27, 2007 6:50 am
After he became accomplished enough at making snow orbs to please Malecoda, she started him on water orbs, which were actually one of the hardest types to make, she claimed.
"It's because you have to have the orbs keep all the properties of a liquid in a liquidous state while holding a particular shape without a container to confine it to that shape."
"A spell of holding won't work like it did for the snowballs?"
The snowballs were still cold and tended to leave a person damp if one were to hold them for too long. Malecoda claimed that unless he cast a spell of permanent holding, they would eventually melt away. Lore cast the spell over a few of them. It seemed to him that it couldn't be completely useless to have a few orbs around which allowed a person to see things in other places and occasionally other times.
"It will work," Malecoda agreed. "But it's more difficult because water is a true liquid, whereas snow is actually a lot of small solid particles sticking together. It's actually something of a miracle that snow orbs work at all, since usually each crystal, each snowflake, should show something different. It's because snowflakes, if they were conscious, loses all sense of self once they come into contact with other snowflakes. They become the collective noun snow."
Lore had no idea how she knew about a snowflake's sense of self and becoming a collective. He wasn't sure he wanted to know. He was willing to accept what she told him on the basis that she was his mistress and had no reason to misinform him, though he had serious doubts that snow possessed anything like consciousness, and would have felt incredibly guilty if he could bring himself to believe it, considering what inevitably happens to snow.
"So...water?" Lore said, returning to the topic at hand. Or the one which ought to have been at hand.
"Right. Water. It's difficult because you have to convince something in a liquid state to remain liquidous while taking on particularly solid characteristics."
"'Convince?'" Lore repeated. "Is water conscious, too?"
"No more so than snow is. But you try it a few times, and then tell me it isn't like trying to convince a leopard to change its spots."
Lore had seen a leopard once. The king had ordered one brought in to be displayed for the court when one of his exploreres wrote that he'd managed to capture one alive. He had felt sorry for the great cat, which was so beautiful and never meant to be captive.
So Lore began to practice. Malecoda was correct, as usual. He felt like he was trying to coax the water, though it was not a conscious entity. What he was actually coaxing was magic, he knew logically, which was an almost-conscious entity, but somehow it did feel as though it was the water he needed to convince.
Lysander had ventured downstairs to watch Lore's efforts and was of no use whatsoever, sitting, in his fashion, wrapped in a blanket and trying to conceal his amusement. Lore supposed he ought to have been grateful that Lysander at least made an effort. Malecoda made no effort at all to disguise her mirth.
"That should keep you busy for a few days," she said as she laughed.
Lore would have splashed her, but he was determined to master the skill quickly, and antagonizing his teacher wouldn't help him in that respect. He splashed Lysander instead, who looked entirely too amused anyway. Lysander looked at him reproachfully and moved out of splashing range to chuckle.
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