Chapter 16

I would love to say that the rest of the trip to Nixian was boring and uneventful. Unfortunately, because the universe hates me specifically, that was not the case.

The rest of day one actually was boring and uneventful. We disembarked at the final stop, a lovely little town by the name of Gulsgow, built at the base of the mountain range. As we learned, the town is famous for these plump little pheasant-like birds called Gulsgow Hens that you can only really find in this area of the world. All of the local delicacies are made with either their meat or their eggs, and sometimes both. At the recommendation of the waitress at the only diner in town, I got a huge platter of an assortment of meats from the hens that had been battered and fried in oil. It was absolutely delicious. Honestly, it’s worth visiting Gulsgow for that alone.

We checked into a local inn and settled down for the night in one of their larger rooms. There were two beds and a large sofa, so fortunately nobody had to sleep on the floor. We would need to be up bright and early to catch the first train going east, so we all turned in fairly early. Nobody tripped the trap I set on the room, and it was a nice and quiet night.

Breakfast the next morning was, of course, amazing. The Gulsgow Hens lay eggs that have a very subtle flavor to them that I still haven’t been able to identify. Something savory, especially compared to chicken eggs. They’re also a bit smaller than a standard chicken egg and the shell is bright blue. They had a four person breakfast special that was a platter of an assortment of eggs, meats and pastries, so I ordered that. I could almost hear the gears turning in Koreo’s head when she took a bite of one of the omelets. She was wondering if she could buy or somehow else obtain one of these hens to take back to Healing Spirits. Judging by the shocked expression on Souta’s face, he was probably thinking it too. So, when I got up to pay the bill, I had a little chat with the hostess.

“So, these Gulsgow Hens,” I said, handing over enough money to more than cover the breakfast and all the coffee we’d consumed, along with a very generous tip. “Are they hard to care for? Do they have a specialized diet?” 

“Oh, well, I don’t know as much about them as the owner,” the hostess explained. “But I know they only live around here. I think it’s got something to do with the water around here, or maybe the trees? Sorry, the birds aren’t really my area of expertise.” 

“I see,” I said, nodding. “And are people allowed to buy hens? Do you know anyone that sells them? Alive, I mean?” 

“Everybody around here keeps hens,” she replied, with a laugh. “Even my family. Everybody’s got at least a few living in their back yard. If you’ve got a few minutes, I could see if the boss’ll come talk to you?” 

“That would be great, if he’s not too busy,” I replied with a nod.

“Oh, the boss is a lady,” the hostess corrected me. “Everybody that works here is, actually! It’s all part of the charm.” 

“Fantastic,” I said, with a grin. “We’ve got to catch the morning train, but I think we’ve still got a while on that.” The hostess glanced at a large clock hanging behind her before nodding. 

“I’ll go see if I can fetch Miss Tolley. You’re at table seven, right?” she asked. I nodded. I must have looked pretty pleased with myself when I came back to the table, because Koreo was looking at me expectantly. I sat down and poured myself some more coffee with a big grin.

“So, the owner of this fine establishment might be coming to talk to us about the Gulsgow Hens,” I said, looking pointedly at Koreo. “I could tell that you were interested in seeing if you can get one for the bar.” 

“Am I that predictable?” Koreo asked with a blush and a little laugh. 

Eliza Tolley was a shockingly short woman with bright green hair that she wore in two braids under a white bandana. She was wearing overalls and an apron, and I guessed she was probably in her mid thirties, though I’m terrible at guessing ages. She also had slightly pointed ears, so between that and the green hair I had to assume she was at least part fae. In that case,, she could really have been any age above twenty and I wouldn’t know. 

She arrived with a mug of coffee in one hand and scooted a chair over to our table, plopping down right between Souta and Rasha and giving both myself and Koreo a big grin. 

“So, I hear you want to know ‘bout our Hens?” she asked. 

“I’m very interested in owning one!” Koreo piped up. “I own some chickens and ducks and a couple of quails. I’ve never encountered birds that taste like these hens do. And their eggs! They have such a unique flavor to them!” 

Eliza laughed at the enthusiasm. 

“Sure, sure, I could sell you a hen or two, maybe even a rooster if you’re interested in breedin’ more of ‘em…I’ll tell you, in the wild the only place these birds can live is right here in Gulsgow, but I’ve heard o’ more than a few people like yourself bein’ able to keep ‘em domesticated. They just only lay eggs in real specific circumstances.”

“Go on,” Koreo prompted.

“See, there’s trees ‘round here that bloom with these massive bright blue flowers every spring,” Eliza explained. “All of Gulsgow is just covered in these petals for a few weeks. It’s the same color as the hens’ eggshells.”

“That makes sense,” I replied. Eliza nodded.

“Well, those trees are the same kinda Riva tree you see everywhere ‘round the continent, ‘cept the flowers are usually white or pink. The flowers turn blue here in Gulsgow because of the water.”

“Oh?” Rasha asked. He actually looked quite interested in the conversation, surprisingly enough.

“It comes down from the mountain. There’s minerals of some kind somewhere along the way that make the flowers turn blue. The leaves are also a little more blue than the other kinds of this same tree, too.”

“So the hens will only lay eggs if they’re around these particular trees?” Koreo asked, with a frown. Eliza nodded.

“We keep ‘em laying eggs year ‘round by having special cloth in their coop that was dyed that same bright blue. But the cloth isn’t enough, there’s gotta be a tree nearby that’s been drinkin’ the water with the special minerals. The hens can smell it, I guess. If they’re drinking the water too that helps, but it’s really just the tree being nearby.” 

“That makes sense,” Koreo said, with a dejected sigh. “Oh well. I guess it wouldn’t be a local delicacy if you could get the hens and eggs just anywhere…” 

While she was giving up, though, my brain was coming up with something resembling a plan. Obviously we weren’t going to be able to get one of the hens and take it with us on this dangerous voyage to Nixian, but if all went well maybe we could buy a few on the return trip?

I waited until after we’d thanked Eliza and finished up breakfast before I shared my idea with Koreo.

“So, you’ve got a Riva tree in your back yard, right?” I asked. Koreo nodded, looking at me with a raised eyebrow. “And I’ve got a magic jar that can make more of any drinkable liquid we put in it.” 

Koreo’s face lit up. She was so surprised that she stopped walking.

“That’s right! I completely forgot!” she exclaimed. She suddenly looked a lot more energetic. “Oh, but could it make enough of the river water to affect the tree?” 

“Probably not, but if Gilliam can make something like the jar, certainly we can convince him to make something a little bigger, right? And this seems right up his alley. This is the kind of problem that he’d obsess over and take a week to solve. All we’d need to do is bring him some of the food from here and I think he’d be on board,” I said. Koreo nodded.

“But obviously we’re not going to go buy hens right now…right?” Souta asked.

“Of course not, we’ve got a train to catch,” I said, cutting off Koreo before she could undoubtedly demand that we do just that. She pouted but gave a nod, looking sheepish. 

Speaking of the train, we arrived with plenty of time to board and get ourselves situated. I had already gotten tickets for us the previous night, and once again I rented one of the private suites. In fact, it was the same exact one we’d gotten before, as it was actually the exact same train. 

Fortunately it seemed that our Astorian friend did not board the train. I kept an eye out not only for him but anyone wearing the distinctive gray uniform, but it appeared that we were in the clear when the train finally left the station. Of course, just to be safe, I activated the orb of silence for our journey.

Day two of the trip was uneventful, a nice change of pace to be sure. Thinking ahead I had borrowed a large assortment of books from Sarien’s collection and stashed them in the infinity bag, and it was a good thing that I had. All four of us basically tore through the books. We had the occasional conversations, of course, but the day was marked by mostly companionable silence as we all read, or stared out the window watching the scenery go by, or napped. The train made quite a few stops along the way, before finally stopping at a town called Hilvery. We were still in the south-east of Astor, far away from the mountains by now and getting close to what used to be the border with Xian. 

I had never been to Hilvery before, and had only heard of it in the context of it being a major stop on the route to Nixian. Rasha, surprisingly, actually had been here a few times before, so he showed us around. It was a fairly sizable place, actually. It was of course a stop on the railroad but it was also right where two major rivers met, so there was a lot of boat traffic too. 

Rasha had been around me long enough to understand my priorities. He led us right to the small shopping district of the town. Specifically, he led me straight to the local clothing shop, which I did appreciate. I picked up a few new articles of clothing, but nothing too exciting. The real excitement was from the shop next door, which was a surprisingly large book store. All four of us actually picked up some books there. Koreo picked out a whole stack of books for Sarien. We would have plenty to keep us occupied for the rest of the trip to Nixian, and maybe even for the trip back.

Day three was, unfortunately, not nearly as uneventful as day two had been. It started off nice and boring, of course. About halfway through the trip, though, all hell broke loose. The first sign of trouble was the sudden shift in the weather. I hadn’t exactly been paying attention to the weather, but it was kind of hard not to notice when storm clouds seemed to just pop into existence just ahead of the train. Especially because prior to their arrival, it had been a completely clear, bright, sunny day. 

Sudden storm clouds were weird, to be sure, but not necessarily a sign of trouble. No, it was the abrupt wave of nausea that came over me at around the same time that the clouds appeared. The kind of nausea that I hadn’t felt, especially this strongly, in well over a decade. 

“Shit,” I gasped, moving closer to the window to try to get a better look at the clouds. 

“What is it?” Koreo asked, also looking at the clouds. As I watched, I could see lightning tearing through the clouds with increasing frequency, and the sick feeling only persisted as the train got closer. 

“It could be nothing,” I said. I hoped it was nothing. “But I think something from the Abyss is here.” 

“Really?” Souta asked, alarmed. 

“You’re right,” Rasha said. He was looking out the window too, twisted around to face in the direction of the storm. He looked about as sick as I felt. “I can feel it too.”

“You’ve never been to the Abyss, though,” I said. 

“I haven’t, but I’ve been around things from the Abyss,” Rasha replied, not taking his eyes off of the clouds, which were spreading out and getting bigger and darker as we watched. 

“That’s not how that works,” I replied, glaring at him. He looked over at me with an apologetic expression, and I sighed. “This has something to do with your tattoo?” He shrugged, of course. 

“What does that mean?” Souta asked, looking back and forth between us. 

“The long and short of it is that people that have been in the Abyss for a while can kind of feel when things from the Abyss are nearby,” I explained. At least, that was the theory based on anecdotal evidence. “Something from the Abyss is up ahead, and it’s probably what’s making those storm clouds. And if I can feel it from this distance… well, it’s something powerful, that’s for sure.” I was actually fairly sure it was a Witch, but I was really, really hoping I was mistaken. I frowned at Rasha again. “The only people I’ve met that can feel it when things from the Abyss are around are other people that have been to the Abyss before, though.” 

“Was Lucien able to?” Koreo asked. 

“Yeah, he could, but he’d done a dive into the Abyss before,” I said. I turned my attention back to the storm clouds. I was doing my best to ignore the sick feeling. We’d just finished lunch, after all. The closer we got, the more and more lightning we could see crackling through the clouds. Then, the train started to lose speed. That was definitely strange, because there wasn’t the usual accompanying squeal of brakes to go along with it — meaning that it wasn’t the conductor’s decision to start slowing down. Unfortunately we were near the back of the train, so we couldn’t see the front from where we were. The window only opened a little bit, so unless I smashed it I wouldn’t be able to even lean out of it, let alone escape through it. I quickly thought back to the layout of the train. The nearest exit wasn’t too far away, should we need it, but it did mean we’d have to leave our room to get to it. 

As the train started gliding to an eerily quiet stop, I opened the window anyway. The silence outside the train was just as deafening as the silence inside it was, and the smell of ozone was immediate and it was thick. The sick, wrong feeling from being near something from the Abyss was getting stronger and stronger, of course.

“You’re both so pale,” Koreo said, addressed to both me and Rasha. Concern was evident in her voice. “Is it that bad?” 

“It’s been a while since I’ve had to deal with it, but I’ll be fine,” I said. I usually solved the nausea problem by getting the hell away from whatever was causing it as fast as possible or, barring that, fighting off whatever was causing it. Usually at great personal cost. 

“Do you think it’s after you?” I asked Rasha. He shook his head.

“Nothing from the Abyss should have any reason to come after me,” he said. “You?”

“Nothing that uses lightning like this,” I said, staring out at the storm clouds with a frown. “And I don’t think anybody that lost the auction has something this powerful on their staff. The Astorians could have sent it, but I really don’t think it’s here for us.” I huffed in frustration. If only I could get a better view. “But we can’t be sure. Get ready to run. The nearest exit is down the hall to the right.” The train suddenly lurched to a complete stop, and I took a deep breath to keep from losing my lunch. Rasha didn’t look like he was faring much better. His bangs were sticking to his forehead with sweat, and he looked grim.

“Should we go ahead and run for it?” Souta asked. I shook my head.

“It’s definitely more dangerous outside than it is in here,” I said, gesturing to the lightning. None of it had struck the ground as far as I could tell, but it was definitely getting worse. Everything was rapidly getting dark as the clouds were very quickly overtaking us now. I pressed against the glass of the window in an effort to see something, anything, but to no avail. “If only I could get a better view of the front of the train!” I grumbled.

“Here, back up for a second,” Rasha said. I looked over to see him putting a hand on the window, palm and fingers splayed out against the surface. There was the thrum of magic, and I pulled away from the window as he asked. He muttered something under his breath that I couldn’t quite hear, and the glass shimmered for a second, then vanished. The metal trim around the glass stayed in place, Rasha’s hand stayed where it was, but the glass appeared to be gone. 

“Whoa,” Souta said. I blinked over at Rasha. He still looked pale and nauseous, but now he looked proud of himself. 

“I didn’t think I could pull that off,” he admitted. I cautiously reached for the window, and my hand passed through something. The glass certainly wasn’t there, or at least it wasn’t solid, but there was definitely something in its place. 

“What did you do?” I asked. He grinned.

“I transmuted the glass into invisible light,” he explained. “I thought about turning it into a gas or a liquid, but one of us could accidentally inhale the gas, and the liquid would be really hard to put back the right way once the spell wears off.” 

“How long will it last?” I asked, waving my hand through the area where the glass apparently still was.

“Not long. Ten, fifteen minutes?” he hazarded. “If you want to try to get a better look, you’d better hurry up.” 

“Right,” I said, with a knee already resting on the metal window sill and my hands gripping the sides. I hosted myself out of the window and leaned out as far as I could.

In front of the train, standing on the tracks, were rows and rows of what looked like metal golems, all unmoving. Electricity crackled off of them, illuminating the fact that the golems were lined up in neat little rows of four for what looked like miles in the other direction. However, they were not my main concern. My main concern was the deceptively small-looking being standing right at the front of the pack, hovering several inches off of the ground. Everything about her, from her skin to her hair to her massive wings were all shades of bright, glowing yellow. It made her hard to look directly at, but impossible to ignore. And it was impossible to ignore her magical presence, too, the sheer potency of mana rolling off of her in waves that were undoubtedly the source of the nausea and unease that Rasha and I were both feeling. 

“Yeah, that’s a Witch,” I said back to everyone else that was still inside the train. I leaned back in before she could catch sight of me. “She’s got a whole army of golems, too. I’m not sure why she’s here, but I doubt it’s for one of us.” 

“So what are we going to do?” Koreo asked. She sounded afraid, and she was right to be. She hadn’t ever had to deal with a Witch in person, but I’d told her stories. She knew how they could be. If the Witch wanted you dead, there weren’t a lot of options for stopping them. Every single person I’d ever heard of that had encountered a Witch had only survived by either being spared by or making a deal with said Witch. There was one exception, and that was the infamous Obsidia the Whirlwind, the only person in recent history I’d ever heard about, aside from myself, that had ever vanquished a Witch. 

“Well, we can lie low and hope she doesn’t notice us, we can try to sneak away and hope she doesn’t notice us, or we can try to negotiate with her and hope she doesn’t take too much from us,” I said, listing our options out on my fingers. 

“We can’t fight?” Souta asked. All three of the rest of us turned to look at him with the same disapproving look, and he chuckled nervously. “Ahah, I guess not?” 

“The only way to even hurt a witch is with magic,” I said. “Big, biiig magic. Huge magic. The kind that levels city blocks. The kind of magic that none of you can cast, and that will definitely kill me if I try.” 

“Well, what if—” Souta started, but I cut him off before he could get any further into whatever idiotic suggestion he was about to make.

“And even if one of us could cast something that powerful, all that would even do is force her back into the Abyss for a while, and then she’d actually be after us for revenge,” I said. Souta closed his mouth with a frown. I sighed. “You can’t kill Witches. Believe me, I’ve tried.” 

“So, what should we do?” Rasha asked. I leaned back out the window to see if anything interesting was happening. Thanks to how bright the Witch was, I could see someone stepping out of the front of the train and walking up to meet her. I pitied the poor person, whoever they were. The conductor, maybe? Or maybe a member of the on-board security? Surely not a poor attendant or the ticket-taker. I couldn’t see much, really just the outline of the person and the brightness of the Witch behind them. I saw them abruptly turn around and head back into the train, though. A few moments passed, and, presumably, the same person came back out of the train and said something to the Witch. At the same time, I could hear some kind of commotion happening inside the train. It sounded like someone was running for their life. I could hear crashes and thumps, and a man’s voice pleading.

“No, no, please! Don’t make me go out there! Get out of my way, please! I’ll give you all my money, please just let me go, I’m begging you—” I looked back inside the train just in time to see our door get shoved open and a man stumble in and whip around, attempting to shut the door on two different men that were trying to both grab him and also prevent him from closing the door. Souta, Koreo and Rasha had all stood up in alarm. 

"Oh, Aiiiiiiimeriiiiiiiik!" came a singsong voice, along with a wave of such oppressive force that everyone in the room instantly either sat back down or fell to their hands and knees, the man and the two people pursuing him included. I didn’t even realize that I had lost my grip on the window pane or had fallen out of the train at all until I hit the ground a second later. Dazed and winded, I could only lay there in the grass beside the train tracks. "Aimerik, darling, I know you're there! Come out, come out, wherever you are!" the voice continued, feeling like hot needles being jabbed into my brain. I felt myself clawing at my head, trying to stop the voice. My ears were ringing, but I could still hear — barely — the man inside pleading for his life. It was an easy assumption to make that the Witch was after that guy. The fact that he’d chosen to run into our room was probably just an unfortunate coincidence, but it did mean that we were all very much in danger. Gritting my teeth and ignoring how much pain I was in, both from the fall and the sudden shrill voice invading my thoughts, I managed to get to my feet and stagger up to the train.

“Rasha! Koreo! Souta!” I called up to the window. I heard a groan from inside, and saw Rasha haul himself up and lean out the window. “We’ve gotta leave, now,” I said. He nodded, and disappeared back inside. A moment later Koreo was carefully leaning out of the window. She jumped down and landed much more gracefully than I had. Souta was next, landing a little more awkwardly. I glanced back to the front of the train and to my relief the Witch was still there, evidently still talking to the person that had come out of the train. Either she hadn’t noticed us or simply didn’t care, because we weren’t this Aimerik that she was after. Rasha appeared in the window and jumped down.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

“Away,” I said, throwing one last glance at the front of the train. My blood ran cold. The Witch wasn’t there. “Go, go!” I exclaimed, looking around in a blind panic. The guy that had rushed into our room was now climbing out of the window, or at least trying to. A bolt of lightning hit the train nearby and he shrieked, half falling and half throwing himself out of the window to land on his arms and knees on the ground right beside Rasha. He reached out and grabbed one of Rasha’s boots.

“Help me!” he begged. Before any of us could even so much as blink it was so, so much brighter where we were, and the Witch was just suddenly there, hovering over the man, right in front of Rasha. Rasha tried to take a step back but was stopped by the apparently iron grip the man had on him. Koreo gasped, Souta stepped in front of her, and I froze as the Witch turned her attention from the man she was hovering over to look at all of us. 

"Oh, sweet Aimerik, what interesting companions you have," the Witch purred. It came out of her actual mouth this time and wasn’t shoved into our heads, so instead of painful the sound was just…unsettling. Up close, the Witch was every bit as horrifying as I had been expecting. She had what looked like miles of glowing yellow hair drifting behind her, flowing unnaturally in the completely still air. Her eyes were huge in comparison to her face, and the pupils were thin like a snake’s or a dragon’s, and glowing an unnatural hue of bright yellow just like the rest of her. Wickedly sharp teeth filled a mouth that was stretched into a grin so wide that it should have been impossible. Her ears were long and thin and pointed. A pair of enormous reptilian wings stretched out behind her, and although she was floating it was clear that the wings were not the reason she was staying aloft. Just about the only “normal” thing about her were her clothes, some kind of ornate yellow dress that was also floating unnaturally, as if there were a breeze even though the air was very, very still. Nobody was even breathing.

I had only ever met one other Witch before, though I’d seen drawings and pictures of some of the others in my research. All of the Witches I’d seen, this one included, had some similar features. The huge reptilian eyes, the pointed ears, the sharp teeth, the enormous scaly wings, the diminutive stature… and they all seemed to inhabit a different color in the same way. Skin, eyes, hair, clothing, everything was all a different shade of the same color, with no overlap. The Witch that had stolen my mana had been all green. I’d seen sketches of some of the others — a monstrous looking red one, a horrifying teal-colored one, a deceptively cute blue one. I’d read descriptions of various encounters with an orange one and a purple one, though I’d never been able to find any drawings or sketches. Black and white Witches were rumored to exist, but nobody in recorded history had ever actually seen them. And I had, of course, seen renditions of the yellow one, though they had all failed to accurately capture just how searingly bright and horrifyingly manic the yellow Witch was in person. 

Her glowing eyes traveled over each of us in turn, a yellow forked tongue slipping out of her mouth and licking her lips as she surveyed us. 

"Interesting indeed," she said. Her natural voice had a wobbly, electric quality to it that is very hard to describe. She giggled. "Just what are you doing traveling with a Man of Wict and someone with the stench of two of my sisters on her?" She asked that last part, in particular, when she looked at me. I barely had time to be confused about either of those statements. In all of my research I’d never heard the term ‘Man of Wict’ before, and although I certainly had the history with the green Witch… two? 

"We aren't with him," Rasha said. I had to commend him for how steady his voice sounded, when it was so obvious he was scared. In this situation, any sane person would be. The Witch swiveled her attention back to him abruptly. 

"How unlucky for you, then," she purred. "You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time." Although all of my attention was on the Witch — how could it not be? — I still noticed the man she was chasing, Aimerik or whatever, managed to clamber to his feet and start to make a break for it. He didn’t even make it two steps away before the Witch acted. Without breaking eye contact with Rasha, without even so much as turning her head or acknowledging that she was even doing it, she shot a hand out toward the fleeing man. And I do mean shot — the tiny appendage somehow stretched, her hand suddenly growing tremendously, her fingernails lengthening into wickedly sharp looking talons. She grabbed the man by the neck, her now enormous fingers literally wrapping fully around it. He made a choking noise and flailed as he was suddenly lifted off of the ground, dangling. He reached up and futilely tried to pry her fingers open, tried to claw his way out of the grip, to no avail. And all the while, the Witch was staring straight at Rasha. 

“W-we have no quarrel with you,” I managed to say. All of the hairs on my arms and neck stood straight up as she turned those terrifying, huge eyes toward me, her focus solely on me now. The man in her hand continued to struggle and flail and choke.

"Oh, but you were trying to help my sweet, beautiful Aimerik escape, weren’t you?" she asked.

“No!” I protested. “We’ve never even met him!”

Her eyes flashed, and I was struck with a sudden wave of vertigo. For one solid, terrifying moment I could feel her in my thoughts, like a cold claw reaching into me. But just as soon as I felt it, everything returned to normal. I gasped, suddenly out of breath. The Witch’s grin was somehow bigger now, which was incredibly worrying.

"Well, it seems you’re telling the truth about that," she giggled. "But oh, won’t you two be such excellent bargaining chips?"

“What do you mean?” I asked. She screeched out a laugh and a bolt of lightning struck the train behind her. I could hear screams from both inside the train and from behind me, Koreo and Souta having fallen to the ground in surprise.

"You, Spikora Mori, are important enough to at least two of my sisters that they might cede some Territory to me and, you," she said, turning to face Rasha. "Rashaga Krauze. You. Ohoho, you don’t even know how important you are, do you?"

“I—” Rasha started, his voice trembling. The Witch sneered. 

"Can’t even say it, can you? But you have some idea, right? Forget gaining Territory. You’ve got so much potential in you, Rasha. Can I call you Rasha?" she asked. 

“What do you want?” I asked. I knew I was shaking, but I forced myself to stand tall and look her in the eyes when she turned to look at me. For the first time, there was something other than that maniacal grin on her face. She looked surprised. 

"Excuse me?" she asked.

“I’ll trade you whatever you want,” I said, swallowing down my fear. “In exchange for the four of us being able to walk away from this.” 

"Heh heh," she laughed. "You really aren’t with him, are you?" she asked, shaking the man in her grasp as she did so. He whimpered. He’d stopped struggling and didn’t sound like he was choking any more, but he was almost certainly not having a great time being held up by his neck like that. 

“Spikora—” I heard Koreo say from behind me, but I shook my head. 

“Go ahead, name your price,” I said. The Witch laughed.

"Well my dear little sister already took away your mana," she goaded. "What else could you possibly offer that would be valuable enough to me to let him go?" This time, she gestured with her other, normal-sized hand, to Rasha. 

“I… I don’t know,” I admitted. This time her laugh was harsh. 

"You humans think you’re so good, so important, that you can bargain with us," she spat. "But you’re nothing."

“Would you take something from me, then?” Koreo piped up from behind us. I felt my stomach drop as I whirled around toward her.

“Koreo, no—” I started. 

“Or me?” Souta added.

“Souta—” 

"Hmm, now, you two are certainly not quite as interesting as them," the Witch started. Abruptly she was mere inches away from Koreo’s face, inspecting her. "Oh, but there’s so much potential for heartbreak with you two." She turned to appraise Souta. To their credit the two of them were standing firm and resolute and not dissolving into whimpering messes like they probably wanted to. I could only stand there, trembling, watching the two of them trying to make a deal with a Witch on my behalf, and thinking: no. 

No, I can’t let them do this. 

“Spikora,” said a quiet voice at my side. With a start, I realized that Rasha was standing right next to me. He was talking basically right in my ear, quietly enough that the Witch wouldn’t hear. I tried not to shiver. “You said you can cast a spell powerful enough to send her back to the Abyss?” 

“I said it would kill me if I tried,” I muttered in response. I didn’t take my eyes off of the Witch as she floated around Koreo and Souta. I knew she was still talking, but I couldn’t quite hear what she was saying over the ringing in my ears, over Rasha’s quiet question. 

“Trust me,” he said. He suddenly took my left hand in one of his, threaded our fingers together. “You can cast it. You won’t die.” 

Were this not a life-or-death situation, were two people very important to me not on the verge of making a deal with a Witch, I would have definitely asked him at least a few questions first. How, for example. If we survived this, that was going to be one of many questions I had for him. But time was running out, and the spell I was going to try to cast had a bit of a lead-up to it, so I had to work fast.

Spells typically have three components: the intention of the caster, the power provided by a higher being, and the mana that holds those two things together long enough for the spell to work. A chant is a way to focus the spell into being something other than just pure energy. Most spells need to do something, even if that something is ultimately just destruction anyway. Sometimes the intention of the caster is refined enough that a spell can work without a chant. Sometimes a spell is specific enough that it can work without beseeching a higher power to provide the lion’s share of the energy needed and just use mana instead. 

This was a spell that definitely needed a lot of intention, a lot of energy, a whole lot of mana, and a very specific chant, or else it wouldn’t just send the Witch back to Abyss, it could destroy the train and everyone with it as well and leave behind a crater. This was a spell that not a lot of people could pull off. At best it would just fizzle out and the person casting would have exhausted all of their mana, possibly even be unable to regain it for a while. At worst, well, more than one cocky mage had met their end trying to cast this one. I’d cast it a few times. It was actually a miracle I was still alive, because I’d actually cast it twice after losing my ability to regain my mana normally. Those had been rough. I’d been in the hospital for weeks each time. 

Under my breath, I started the chant. 

I beseech the Agrias, oh Lord of the Pit

From your well of gravity and darkness

From which no light can escape

Lend me a fraction of a fraction of your strength—

I had to stop chanting to slap my free hand over my mouth and muffle a noise of pain that I couldn’t quite choke down. Casting with no mana was painful. It was a pain I could never forget, but that I was never ready for. It’s indescribable. Don’t do it. Mana isn’t something physical, it’s not a chemical in your body produced by an organ. The pain doesn’t come from anywhere specific inside you, so it comes from everywhere instead. 

Just as quickly as the pain started, though, it faded, and I felt, for the first time in a very long time…mana. Fresh mana, not from a battery, but actual mana flowing into me from… my hand. From Rasha. I felt my eyes widen and my jaw drop, and Rasha squeezed my hand.

“Keep going,” he said. I nodded. I didn’t have time to understand how he was doing this or question how this was even possible. I just cast. I finished the chant, I raised my hand toward the sky, I felt the sudden surge of energy from the literal depths of the Abyss that I was calling to for aid, I felt Rasha’s mana binding the energy with my intent. 

“Yellow Witch,” I called out. I saw her pause and turn to look at me, confusion slowly morphing to shock when she realized what I was doing. “Deal’s off. You have about five seconds to get away from my friends and get out of here before I make you leave.” 

"You wouldn’t dare," the Witch snarled.

“Try me,” I taunted. “I know I can’t kill you, but I also know it really fucking hurts to get a face full of this spell. Your sister told me as much after every time I blasted her with it.” 

"How are you doing this?!" the Witch screeched.

“Hell if I know,” I snarled in response. It wasn’t a lie, I really had no idea how this was working. People couldn’t just give other people their mana, even Accumulates. Just what the hell was Rasha? “Leave. Right now. Take your man with you, take your golems with you. Leave with what you came here for.” 

"Shut the hell up!" the Witch snarled. There was genuine anger on her face. "You’re just some damned half-breed, you don’t get to tell me what to do!"

Half-breed?

…what?

“What do you mean half-breed?” I asked.

“She’s trying to make you lose focus on the spell, Spikora,” Rasha warned me. I sucked in a breath to steady myself. Right.

“Never mind. You can tell me later when you drag yourself back out of the Abyss and find a way back here for revenge,” I said.

"You wouldn’t dare! Your friends are—" the Witch started, only to glance around her and realize that Koreo and Souta, the absolute fucking geniuses, had snuck away while she was distracted by me. She hissed and wrenched her enormous hand toward her, throwing the poor, hapless man she still had a grip on between me and her. I raised an eyebrow.

“I’ll still fire, you know. If you don’t want him to be a pile of ashes you’d better at least get him out of the way,” I said. She made a frustrated noise. “Promise me that you’ll never bother any of the four of us again and I won’t fire this spell.”

"I’m not making a deal like that with someone like you!" the Witch spat. 

“Have it your way,” I said. I extended my hand toward her, energy swirling around it. "Agrian—"

"Fuck you!" the Witch snarled. She tossed the man away with a shriek. Lightning bolts struck the ground all around us as she flew toward me, obviously intending to attack. Fortunately, I was fast enough. 

"—Glaive!" I released the spell. Point blank, it had to hurt. It had to hurt a lot. But on the plus side, since the Witch’s body took all of the spell at point blank range, very little of the energy went anywhere else, and instead of a crater in this lovely landscape, the Witch just was simply torn asunder by the sudden wave of incredible energy. Rasha and I both staggered back, Koreo and Souta ducked against the train, Aimerick went rolling a few feet away. And then there was abrupt stillness and silence.

And I felt incredible. 

It had been so, so long since I’d had this much mana inside me. Heck, it had been so long since I’d had any mana of this quality inside me. It’s indescribable, how I felt then, after casting that spell. It felt like I had been dying of thirst and suddenly found an abundance of cold spring water. It felt like I had been starving for eons and finally found some decent food. I could feel it down to my pores. Rasha’s mana was top-notch, and not only had I been able to cast the Glaive with ease, mana was still flowing into me from where he was still holding my hand as we stood there in the sudden still, quiet darkness. 

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