Chapter 8
This was the Kiiren Proper, the biggest train station in all of Kiiren. Of the three major stations, the Proper was undoubtedly the one that handled the most traffic. People coming in from Astor or even from the mountains in the north had to pass through the Proper before they could enter the city of Kiiren. Most of the lines from the other three major stations also passed through the Proper as well. It was a gigantic monolith of a building, white marble and gold and polished wood everywhere.
I’d timed it almost perfectly. After buying our tickets we only had to wait about five or so minutes for the next Northbound train to pull into the station. Naturally I’d gotten us a private booth in the train. I would have gone for one of the actual rooms with beds, but sleeping just wasn’t going to happen on this train ride for a variety of reasons. We at least had a table and two comfortable benches to ourselves, with a sliding door that we could shut for privacy. We had a good view of the passengers boarding the train from where we were, too. I studied each person that entered the train as best I could, looking for anyone suspicious. I hadn’t seen anybody suspicious outside the train or in the station, which either meant that goons weren’t looking for us at this train station… or the goons looking for us were way less obviously goons than the ones from earlier in the day.
Regardless, the train filled up and before long we were rolling out of the station. I quickly shut the sliding door and pulled the lid off of the top of the sampler box.
“So, these are saucers,” I said, tugging two discs of fried dough out of the sides of the box. They were all over the place in the box, keeping certain foods separate or adding lines of color where needed. The two I’d pulled out were my favorite kind. They were bright green, the dough having been infused with Colli leaves. I handed one to Rasha and pointed to a cluster of five little bowls of various sauces that were set into divots in the center of the box. They were, by design, perfectly sized and shaped to have a saucer dunked into them. “They call them saucers because they’re shaped like a throwing saucer but, also, you dunk ‘em in the sauce.”
“Interesting,” Rasha replied. He took a small bite of the saucer and his eyes lit up. “Oh, delicious!”
“Yeah. They’re good in all the sauces but the green ones go best with this one,” I said, pointing at a viscous brown sauce. I dunked mine in and Rasha followed. I waited until he took another bite. He looked surprised.
“Wow, that is good,” he said. I nodded and proceeded to eat mine all in one bite. The sweet tang of the sauce was so good with the mild bitterness of the colli, and the crunch was so satisfying.
“I could eat a whole box of saucers just by myself,” I said. And I had. “But everything else in this box is fantastic, too. So, the proper way to eat this is to eat it a section at a time and eat a saucer between each section. They even arranged it so that the saucer that best compliments the break between each section is the one dividing them.”
“That’s amazing,” Rasha marveled.
“They’re goddamn geniuses,” I replied. “You can start anywhere and go in any direction or even skip around if you want to, but if you start here and work your way around in a circle…”
The box itself could be a meal on its own, and I acknowledged that. We sampled a few things but elected to save the rest for later. We would be on the train for a while, after all. I produced two cups from the infinity bag and two bottles of water, and we proceeded to test out the jar. To my utter delight it worked exactly as described. To a point, anyway. It worked better for Rasha than it did for me, which I assumed was due to him actually having mana and not having to use a battery. That was annoying, but I couldn’t complain — it still managed to produce the perfect cup of coffee for me.
With the food pushed to the side and warm drinks in hand, I dug around in the Infinity bag. Eventually I produced a palm-sized clear crystal sphere, which I carefully sat on the table between us on the brass ring designed to house it. I grabbed the battery that I’d been using to charge the Flavorful Jar and tapped it on the surface of the sphere, which turned a smoky cobalt blue in response.
“I’m pretty sure we’re safe here, but you can never be too careful. Anybody could be listening, or there could be magic listeners,” I explained. “This bad boy will make sure nobody can hear us.”
“I can still hear the other passengers though,” Rasha pointed out, one eyebrow raised. I nodded.
“It’s not a sphere of silence,” I said. “Well, not exactly. It’s sort of a modified one. It casts a bubble that lets sound in but prevents it from leaving. It’s good for spy work. I’m not a spy, but I know a few, and one of them hooked me up with this.”
“You are… a very interesting person, Spikora,” Rasha said, his eyebrow even further up. I smirked.
“Oh, I’ll bet you have so many questions,” I said. I leaned over the table a little. “And I may even answer some, if you’ll answer mine.”
“If I can,” he replied, and I nodded.
“And the nature of your curse is that you can’t even tell me what you can’t tell me,” I said. He nodded. “Well, will you tell me what you can, at least?”
“I suppose I owe you that much,” he replied, looking dour. “And, um, at least seven million bullion, right?”
“And you owe me for all the clothes and food and stuff,” I pointed out. He looked morose, and I laughed. “I’m kidding. Well, mostly. I’m not a charity or anything, but I’m not going to make you pay me back for the clothes and food. What were you supposed to do, freeze to death and starve?”
“Can I ask the first question?” Rasha asked. I laughed again.
“That’s bold, but yes, go ahead,” I agreed.
“Where did you get all of this money? What kind of a job do you have?” he asked. I debated about whether or not I wanted to be truthful with him. I decided on a lie that had a lot of truth to it.
“I’m a treasure hunter,” I answered. Technically true. “I do dives into the Abyss.” Also technically true.
“But the Abyss is super dangerous, isn’t it?” he asked.
“I’m more than capable of handling some monsters. You saw me fight those goons earlier,” I pointed out. “I mean, yeah, it is very dangerous, but only if you stay for a long time and only if you don’t know what you’re doing.”
“I see,” Rasha said. He took a sip of his drink, a dark red tea that he’d infused with a little milk and some bellberry juice. I, naturally, had a milky coffee the color of mussei tree bark. It was starting to go cold, actually, so I copied Rasha and took a long drink of my coffee.
“Okay, my turn,” I said. I had a lot of questions for him, but the ones that I knew he couldn’t answer were the ones coming to mind. “Actually, how about this. Let’s start over. I’m Spikora Mori. I’m 29, I live in a little apartment in East Kiiren. No pets, no relatives, no significant others, no job. I’m totally a normal person and I love every minute of it.”
“You are a very interesting person,” Rasha mused. “I’m Rashaga Krauze, and up until a few weeks ago when I was kidnapped by the Astorian government I was calling myself Kir Yuen and I was just a regular student of the university in Kyrens.” He thought for a moment. “Let’s see… well, you know about my sister. I had a dog when I was in Kyrens and, um, no significant other here either. And I’m 28, I think.”
“You think?” I asked. He shrugged.
“My childhood was...well, suffice to say I don’t actually know how old I am,” he replied. I debated about whether I wanted to ask him more about his childhood, but ultimately I decided it didn’t matter.
“There’s a lot I want to know about you,” I said. “But I think you can’t tell me about almost all of what I really want to know about. That tattoo, for starters. Can you tell me anything about it?”
“What little I do know I am unable to say anything about,” he confirmed. “Why do you want to know about it so badly?” I sat back in my seat and took another long drink of my coffee.
“The man who taught me everything I know about magic had that tattoo in the same place on his own arm,” I replied. “Does the name Lucien Verdenne mean anything to you?”
“No. And I can tell you that,” Rasha replied. I nodded. A dead end, probably.
“He never told me anything about that tattoo, or any of his other tattoos for that matter, no matter how much I asked. He always brushed me off, or told me it wasn’t important, so I eventually gave up asking. But then I saw it on you,” I said. “Something tells me it isn’t a coincidence.”
“So let me get this straight. You spent ten million bullion and got yourself on the wanted list of at least two rich and powerful men and the Astorian government because I have the same tattoo that your mentor had?” he asked.
“Seven and a half million,” I corrected. “And since I know there are things you can’t tell me about the tattoo I know it's not a coincidence now. I just have to figure out what you and Lucien have in common.”
“Tell me more about your mentor, then,” Rasha said. I nodded. Most of my memories from my time with Lucien were good ones. It was so long ago that it was starting to feel nostalgic, even the not so good memories.
“Lucien was a really powerful mage. He might have even been a Zan, but I didn’t know what that title even meant back then so I have no way of knowing if he was one or not. He knew so many spells and he could do so much with his magic. It was awe-inspiring,” I said. Rasha nodded. “He was like a father to me. He took me in when I was really young. I was basically born on his mountain, but when my mom left I guess I was about three or four?” I paused and had to laugh a little. “I guess that’s something we have in common, Rasha. I say I’m 29 but I don’t know for sure.”
“Oh?” Rasha asked. He looked intrigued. Usually when I told people about this they looked like they pitied me.
“My dad left before I was born, and my mom just kind of left me at Lucien’s one day and never came back. I didn’t understand, and I still don’t, but I’ve long since gotten over it,” I said.
“I’m so sorry,” Rasha said. I shrugged.
“It happens, no big deal.” Rasha looked like he wanted to interject, but I just kept talking. “But anyway, Lucien took me in as a pupil and taught me magic. I was a prodigy, apparently, but I think it’s just that he was really powerful and really good at teaching. He only ever had one other pupil, and he was really good too.”
“Wait, so you were really good at magic when you were younger, but you can’t cast now?” Rasha asked. I flinched a little, taking a deep breath and glowering over at him.
“One question at a time,” I said, glaring. Rasha nodded, holding his hands up in a show of surrender. I reached over to the sampler box and pulled out a bright pink saucer, dunking it into some equally pink sauce and eating the whole thing in one bite before continuing.
“I’d prefer not to go into why, but I left Lucien eventually. That was over ten years ago now and I haven’t seen him since. He lives pretty far away in Avalize,” I explained.
“So you’re from Avalize originally?” he asked. I nodded. “Why did you move to a dangerous place like Kiiren?”
“I didn’t intend to move there at all,” I said, with a little laugh. “I traveled around the world for a while and I wanted to see Astor, but of course I had to go through Kiiren first. I’d never been in such a big city before. It was exciting. I traveled around Astor and the rest of the northern continent, but I realized that the only place I was interested enough in actually staying and living in was Kiiren.”
“I don’t see the appeal,” Rasha said with a shake of his head. “There are so many people, and there’s the Curadon. It’s so dangerous to live there.”
“It’s not that dangerous,” I tried to argue. Then I remembered the fact that we had been ambushed by armed and dangerous thugs several times earlier in the evening. And there was also the fact that I’d literally had to build a secret compartment in my closet to keep thieves that broke into my apartment from being able to steal anything valuable. “Well, okay, it’s dangerous. But you can find everything in Kiiren. And there’s so much going on all the time!”
“I’ll take a place like Kyrens any day,” Rasha replied with a little sigh and a shake of his head. “Have you ever been?”
“I passed through when I was traveling all over the place,” I said. I grabbed another saucer while I tried to remember anything about the place. It hadn’t been very memorable, that was for sure. I remember being vaguely interested in the university, but once I learned they didn’t teach anything about magic I lost interest. I’d never cared much for mathematics or physics or any kind of stuff like that. “I can’t say I remember very much about Kyrens. Didn’t really leave an impression on me.”
“Exactly,” Rasha replied. “That’s the point. Nobody would ever go there looking for anyone of real importance. It’s a town full of unimportant people.”
“But the Astorian government still found you,” I pointed out. “They would’ve had a hell of a harder time finding you in Kiiren.”
“I mean, I guess you’re right…” Rasha said with a sigh. “Anyway, I think I’ve gotten us a bit off track. I apologize. I’ve been trying to think of what similarities I could share with your mentor, but other than us both being mages I haven’t a clue.” He looked a little despondent, which was weird. “And even then… I’m not terribly good at magic, other than those defensive spells I used earlier. I’m afraid I wouldn’t measure up favorably to your old mentor.”
“Wait,” I said, stunned. “Hold on. You’re a Krauze, you’re the younger brother of a Spectrum, and you aren’t good at magic?” I asked. “How? Were you just not taught properly?”
“Oh no, I was taught properly,” Rasha said. “Dia and I had the best magic tutors money could buy. I understand all the theories of casting high level magic, I just can’t do it.”
“...really?” I asked, bewildered. He nodded, looking embarrassed.
“I don’t know why. I’ve tried, I really have,” he admitted.
“And it can’t be because you don’t have enough mana,” I said, remembering that the auctioneer had said he was an Accumulus. “That’s… strange.”
“Strange is a good word for it,” Rasha said with a sigh. “And it’s not even that I can’t tell you about it. I’ve just never been able to cast high level magic.” He fell back against his seat with a sigh.
“Well, Lucien was an Accumulus too,” I said, also leaning back in my seat. I folded my arms and thought. “But I’ve met other Accumulates, and they didn’t have that tattoo.”
“There must be something else that we have in common,” Rasha said. He started to say something else, but frowned and shut his mouth with an annoyed huff.
“And it’s something you can’t say anything about,” I concluded. He nodded, looking miserable. “Hey, don’t worry about it. It’s frustrating as all hell but if you can’t say anything, you can’t say anything.”
“You’re too kind,” Rasha said, still frowning. “My government and the Curadon were not nearly as understanding about that as you are.” I frowned too.
“I won’t make you go into detail,” I said. “But, huh. The Astorian government and the Curadon couldn’t find a way to lift or break the curse on you? Or did they even put two and two together and figure out it is because of a curse?”
“They knew,” Rasha confirmed. “And they tried to break it, but they couldn’t.”
“Wow, that’s a hell of a curse then,” I said. “I’ve got my work cut out for me.”
“I…” Rasha started, trailing off and looking down at the table, pensive.
“Yes?” I prompted. He looked back up at me with an even deeper frown.
“To be honest, I don’t want you to try to break it,” he said. I blinked.
“Eh?” I asked.
“I know you want to know what I can’t tell you,” he said. “And I wish I could just tell you, believe me. I haven’t even known you for a full day but I know I can trust you. I just don’t want other people to know. It’s dangerous.”
I sat there for more than a few moments, drinking my coffee and contemplating.
“...I’m sorry,” Rasha said at last.
“No,” I replied, and he looked up, confused. “You don’t have to apologize. And I’m glad you trust me, Rasha.” I felt my cheeks get a little pink and had to look away from him. “I...it’s weird, but I understand? I know I can trust you, too.” And that was true, actually. I didn’t trust easily, but I also made friends fairly easily. There was just something about Rasha that made me feel at ease, though. There were only a handful of people in my life I’d known I could trust right away.
“Thanks,” Rasha said, and if my eyes didn’t deceive me he was blushing a little bit too. Good, I was glad to know I wasn’t the only one who thought the situation was a little embarrassing.
“Can you tell me if there’s anyone else that knows?” I asked. He shook his head. That figured.
“Can I ask something now?” he asked. I nodded. “You know my sister is a Spectrum, and you knew about that Kyanite guy and the Spectrum stationed in Kiiren.”
“That wasn’t a question,” I pointed out. He laughed.
“True. Okay, I guess… how do you know so much about Spectrum? Why do you know so much about Spectrum?” he asked.
“I know a lot about a lot of things,” I said, with a shrug. “I did research.”
“They don’t write books about Spectrum, Spikora,” Rasha countered.
“I hang out in taverns and learn things, that’s all,” I replied. “And besides, who wouldn’t want to learn everything they can about ridiculously powerful mages like them?”
“Does this have anything to do with how you have an incredible amount of first hand knowledge about magic but can’t cast?” Rasha asked. I flinched and had to grit my teeth and close my eyes to not immediately snap at him. He didn’t know how painful it was to hear him say that. He couldn’t know. Maybe he could have pieced together something close enough to the truth if he’d been paying attention, but I couldn’t blame him for not doing that.
Flashes of searing heat, of incredible pain, of twisted laughter, of a dive gone wrong. I hated thinking about it. I wasn’t even directly thinking about it, and it was making me want to scream and throw up at the same time. He’d brought it up too many times, forced me to think about it too many times.
I breathed in and let out a long, long breath before I opened my eyes.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I finally said.
“Sorry,” Rasha said. I drank the last of the coffee and then grabbed another bottle of water out of the Infinity bag, dumping the contents into the jar and pushing down hard on the picture of grapes. I thought of a very potent white wine I’d once had, late at night at Gilliam’s. I’d left the next morning with a terrible hangover. Rasha made a startled noise and I looked at him. His eyes were wide.
“What?” I asked.
“You don’t have to…” he trailed off, clearly unsure of what he was trying to say. He looked very uncomfortable. “I’m sorry. I won’t bring it up any more. You don’t have to drink that.”
“Yeah, but I like wine,” I replied, pouring the contents of the jar into my cup. The first sip burned in a really satisfying way. It was crisp and tart, just like I remembered it. I wondered if Gilliam had been thinking about that wine when he was crafting the jar. I tilted the cup in Rasha’s direction. “Want some?”
“I’m good, thanks,” Rasha replied. He looked nervous. I sipped the wine more. He eventually looked away. “I… listen, I really won’t bring it up again if you don’t want me to, but I… I’m curious. And maybe I can help you. What happened to you, Spikora?”
There were a lot of ways I could have responded. I could have told him to shut up, I could have reminded him that I technically owned him, or that he owed me seven million bullion. I could have laughed it off. I could have just sipped my wine in awkward silence and watched the scenery go by outside the window.
“How do I know I can trust you?” I eventually asked. I didn’t look at Rasha as I asked. “Beyond this gut feeling that I’m getting about you, I mean. How do I know you won’t turn on me, or sell this information to one of the many people that I made enemies of today when I bought you?” I finally looked at him. “Why should I trust you with this? Why should I tell you about something so personal?”
“You’re right,” Rasha replied, looking serious. “I can’t expect you to trust me when we’ve basically just met. And honestly I don’t know what I could actually do for you, but I want to try to help you. You saved me from what was probably going to be a terrible fate one way or the other, and I can’t even give you answers about the one thing you wanted to know when you made that bid on me. I want to do something.”
I bit my lip and looked out the window for a few long minutes, honestly debating. It had been a long time since it had happened, but it still hurt. In the past ten years I’d been searching and searching for anything I could do to get my magic back, and I’d turned up empty handed every time. All my leads had dried up, all the things I tried ended up as dead ends. All the research I did was for nothing. Very few people knew even as much as Rasha knew, which was very little. Maybe it was time to talk to someone about it. Maybe he could actually help me, though I seriously doubted that.
“I messed up,” I started. It was simple, just three truthful words. I took a big swig of the wine and then decided ‘to hell with it’ and drained the entire remaining contents of the cup. I dragged another bottle of water out of the Infinity bag and turned it into wine, too. “It was over a decade ago now. I was young and cocky and stupid and I messed up on a dive into the Abyss.” I wasn’t looking at Rasha, I was watching the trees and fields going by without really seeing them. Try as I might not to think directly about the memories from that day, it wasn’t working. I drank the second cup of wine all at once and reached for the bag, but a hand gently wrapped around my wrist and stopped me. It was Rasha’s hand. I looked at him finally and his expression was haunted.
“You don’t have to drink that,” he said, and I frowned.
“I’ll be sober by the time we get to where we’re goin’,” I said. My words were already starting to slur together. The wine was potent. “I sober up quick. Too quick.” A pleasant foggy feeling was starting to take hold in my brain. “I like wine. Makes it easier to talk about this. Takes the edge off the memories.”
“Okay,” Rasha said, slowly releasing my wrist. “Okay. Sorry.”
“You gotta problem with wine?” I asked, dragging another bottle of water out of the bag.
“Yeah… Sorry. My sister… She likes wine too. She likes it too much. I’ve seen her get...bad,” Rasha hesitantly explained.
“Does she get violent?” I asked. Rasha nodded. I bit my lip. “Did she get violent with you?”
“Not with me,” Rasha said. “But I’ve… I learned healing magic by cleaning up her messes from when she has had too much wine.”
“I’m not like that,” I replied, punctuated by an ill-timed hiccup. “I just get… brain fog. It’s nice. Makes it easier to talk about things.” I poured the water into the jar, but stopped before I made it more wine. “I’ll lay off for now though. I’ll do beer instead.” And I pushed the wheat button, turning the water into more of the delicious beer from the noodle shop. I heard Rasha breathe a sigh of relief.
“Sorry,” Rasha said, and I scoffed.
“Dude, you gotta stop apologizing,” I slurred out. I drank about half of the cup of beer. He nodded.
“If you say so,” he said.
“Okay. Okay. So I fucked up, okay? I was a dumbass kid, basically, even if I was like nineteen. I thought I was sooo grown up and sooo powerful. I did an unsanctioned dive into the Abyss. I went in too deep. I pissed off…” I sighed and drank the rest of the beer. I didn’t make more, but I wanted to. “I pissed off… shit, I can’t say her name. I think even alluding to her is bad. I pissed off someone bad from the Abyss, and just like that she cursed me and took away my magic.”
“Oh,” Rasha replied. I rolled my eyes.
“You’re thinking ‘well that’s not so bad’, right? Wrong. It hurt like hell. She took away my ability to make mana,” I explained. Rasha’s eyes went wide.
“Wait, like…” he trailed off, looking concerned. He went quiet for a second, and I could see the gears turning in his head. I sighed.
“Yes, functionally I have syphonedes,” I responded. “But it’s not from an over use of magic, or from tapping out my mana too much. I maybe cast too much once or twice as a kid, but everyone does that. Well, I guess maybe you didn’t, being an Accumulus…”
“So, you just can’t cast?” Rasha asked. I shook my head.
“No, that’s the worst part. I can. I just… every time I do, it drains away my life force. It does damage to my organs. I’m pretty sure that every time I cast it shortens my life span,” I said.
“Holy shit,” Rasha breathed. “What did you do to deserve that?” Rasha asked.
“I stole something from her,” I said.
“Well, can’t you just give it back?” Rasha asked, incredulous. I rolled my eyes again.
“You think I didn’t try that? You think I didn’t grovel at her feet and beg her to put my mana back? Nah, she didn’t want to hear it. She told me I was lucky to be alive, and then she just left me to fend for myself in the middle of the Abyss. Except, I didn’t understand anything back then. I had to use so much magic to get out, and once I made it out the mana just… never came back,” I said.
“How deep were you?” Rasha asked. I shrugged.
“Deep enough that I was in the part of the Abyss where the monsters like to play with their food before they eat it,” I said. “They don’t kill on sight like the monsters near the surface do. They’ll make you play stupid games with them or give you impossible tasks to do, but if you win they are monsters of their word and they will let you go. I… don’t want to talk about it.” This was the part of that fateful day I didn’t like thinking about. Some of the memories I was brushing up against were very painful. I wanted more wine. I made more wine.
“I’ve heard scary things about the Abyss,” Rasha said. “But never anything like that.”
“There are things in there that can do terrible things to you,” I said. I drained the cup of wine. The fog in my brain got thicker, the memories receded back to the dark parts of my brain I had worked hard to banish them to. “I’ve spent the last ten years trying to forget about all of it. And trying everything I could think of to break the curse or get my mana back through other means. I know a hell of a lot about Pacts and Spectrums and all sorts of alternate ways to getting magic other than being born with it. Nothing has worked. Nothing. Do you know how many Pacts I tried to make? Nothing worked.”
“Did you try to become a Spectrum?” Rasha asked. I nodded. “Dia never told me anything about it. How do you become a Spectrum?”
“Be real good at magic and in the right place at the right time,” I replied, with a bitter laugh. “And you know what, I was in the right place at the right time and I am real good at magic. Did you know that one of the primal forces of the world is sentient and can be confused? Because let me tell you, whatever force it is that makes people into Spectrum was real confused by me. I could be named Amethyst right now, y’know? I should’ve been able to become a Spectrum. But the ability to cast magic without dying was just ripped right out of me.” Rasha was quiet, and I didn’t want to look at him and see the pity on his face, so I stared out at the trees and fields again.
“That’s not fair,” he finally said, and I laughed.
“No shit,” I replied. I turned back to him. “So do you have any ideas?” He frowned, and I didn’t let him answer. “No, of course not. You don’t know how to break your own curse, how would you know how to break mine?”
“Well, I know a lot more than the average person about breaking curses,” Rasha answered. “I tried to break mine for a long time before I realized it was keeping me safe. Well, relatively.” He took a deep breath and looked at me intently. “Do you remember the exact phrasing the entity used when she cursed you?”
“Do you?” I asked. Rasha shook his head.
“I was too young to know what was happening to me,” he said. “And no-one will tell me, for my own safety. But you… what do you remember from the moment you were cursed?”
“She said that I should know the pain of having something taken from me,” I answered. “And then she reached into my chest and just… tore it out.”
“What did you steal? That might have something to do with the curse,” Rasha asked.
“It was a knife. It can cut openings into the Abyss,” I explained. He blinked in shock. “It’s a famous rumor among divers even now — if you go far down into the Abyss you’ll find a witch’s cottage, and in that cottage you’ll find a knife that can cut into our world and back. I think there are probably more knives like this one out there, but this is the one I stole.”
“And… even when you tried to give it back…?” Rasha asked, and I nodded.
“She… the owner of the knife, the thing that lived in the cottage, she wouldn’t take it back. She called it an exchange. She said she wanted me to keep it as a reminder of what I lost,” I said, with a sigh. “And I have.”
“Have you tried going back and talking to her again?” Rasha asked. I frowned.
“No. I could never go that far down into the Abyss again. I’ll die. In fact, I think if I’m in the Abyss for more than ten minutes I’ll die. You need mana there. It was a miracle that I got there in the first place, and I paid the price to return,” I said. Rasha looked confused.
“Wait, you said the knife could cut back into our world. Why didn’t you just do that?” he asked. I shook my head.
“I tried, but all I found was stone and ocean. I had to go back far enough up to the surface in the Abyss to be able to find a way home,” I said. I looked at him. “You’ve never been, have you?”
“No, and I hope I never do,” Rasha said. I nodded.
“I thought so. Someone that’s been in the Abyss wouldn’t have asked that question,” I said. “It’s like Gilliam’s shop. You just have to experience it for yourself. But don’t ever go. It’s not a place you would like very much.”
“Yeah, no kidding,” he replied. He sat back and looked contemplative. “I don’t think this is a curse that can be broken, Spikora. You said she ripped your ability to make mana out of your chest? Literally?”
“I can still feel the claws,” I said with a grimace. “It wasn’t her physical hands. She’s not a physical creature, really. It’s hard to explain.”
“I think she still has it,” he said. I nodded. “I don’t think you can get it back without going back into the Abyss and asking for it back.”
“She comes here, sometimes. She’ll come here if you speak her name. I’ve done it. I was even able to fight her, to defeat her, but she won’t die,” I said. It was true — I’d called her out many times in the first few months after I returned from the Abyss. She’d always arrived, and I’d always left the exchange bruised and battered and barely alive. It had been a long time since I’d dared speak her name, even to tell someone else about her to try to get the curse broken. “When you fight her, she takes things,” I tried to explain. “Memories, emotions, the will to keep fighting back, hope for the future… she takes them, and sometimes you don’t get them back, and sometimes it takes a long time to get them back. And she doesn’t just take them from you. She takes them from people trying to help you.”
“Is she a Witch?” Rasha breathed, looking horrified. I nodded.
“If I say much more, she might show up, and she is the last thing we need right now when we’ve got at least one government and two rich ass old men trying to find us,” I said. The brain fog was starting to fade away. I had to either stop talking about this or drink another cup of wine. I sighed. “I’ve said all I can stand to say about this for now. Do you understand that you can’t help me?”
“Yeah,” Rasha said, after a minute. He looked dejected. “Yeah, I understand.” I pulled another bottle of water out and had the jar make me another cup of coffee instead.
“How funny is that, though? Here we are, two cursed people that don’t even know how old we are. What a pair of dumbasses, huh?” I asked. Rasha smiled, but it was a sad little lopsided smile that didn’t reach his eyes. My smile didn’t either, so it was fine. “Did you pick a random birthday too?”
“My sister picked one out for me,” he said. He sounded fond. The smile got a little closer to reaching his eyes. “Serpenta 15, the summer solstice. When is yours?”
“Viridian 2,” I told him. “Nothing special on that day,” I lied. I set a bottle of water beside the jar and scooted them both over to his side of the table. He made himself another cup of tea.
We watched the scenery go by for a while. The sun would be rising soon, but for now the fields of snow brightly reflecting the moon were fine.
“Well, you know way more about me than I know about you,” I said, after a while. “So you’ve gotta answer a bunch of questions now.”
“Like what?” he asked, and I shrugged.
“I dunno. What’s your favorite color?” I asked.
“Green,” he replied, and I nodded. Should’ve figured.
“What kind of dog did you have at Kyrens? What’s its name?” I continued.
“Her name was Cassie, and she was a little pomkuchie,” he said. I laughed at that.
“Why a pomcuchie?” I asked, and Rasha looked a little embarrassed.
“She belongs to my roommates, but I was usually the one taking care of her. She is very sweet,” he explained.
“Pets are so much work. That’s why I just have plants,” I said.
“Yeah, it’s a lot of work but there’s nothing in the world like being loved by a dog,” Rasha said. “It’s a very rewarding feeling.”
“If you say so,” I said. I thought for a moment.
“Favorite food?” I asked.
“Would you believe me if I said my answer is those seafood noodles you got me earlier?” he asked, and I laughed.
“I believe you, because those noodles are damn delicious. Let’s see… favorite drink?” I asked.
“It’s obvious, I think, but I like a hot cup of tea,” he said, gesturing to his half finished cup.
It went like that, me asking dumb, inconsequential questions that I knew he could give the answers to, and him playing along. Soon the atmosphere between us had returned to that playful calmness from when we’d first gotten on the train. We were both clearly exhausted, but between the conversation and the drinks we were easily managing to stay awake. The sun rose, and the scenery outside the window of the train changed to steadily become more mountainous..