GPCiMW Chapter 17

Professor Alex’s sidhe was just as creepy the second time around as she had been last week. Even knowing she would be there, I still nearly jumped out of my skin when she just appeared in front of me as I entered the room. I managed not to glare at her as she ushered me into the room, but it was a real struggle. 

Despite her placid facade, I was absolutely confident that she delighted in spooking her master’s students. That was not a particularly good trait for a fuckmeat to have, but presumably she was otherwise valuable and obedient enough that the professor tolerated her antics. That, or he too found them amusing. It was hard to say. Everything I’d read said that it was important to keep such creatures on a tight leash, but she certainly seemed to be acting out. 

I deposited Daphne into one of the crates at the back of the room and then went to take my seat. I was not the first person to arrive, but the seat I’d used the previous week was still available. I greeted the wizard in the seat beside mine––that second year who’d tried to stab Shella the previous week––and then took a seat, silently watching the sidhe out of the corner of my eye.

I was curious how exactly she’d managed that appearing trick. Wizards had learned a great deal by studying and replicating the natural magics of the fuckmeat races, and sidhe in particular were known for being some of the most powerful coven members a wizard could acquire. Had she teleported? Was it some kind of illusion? Could she simply move so quickly that it looked like she’d teleported? Or perhaps it was some combination of the three, or something completely different. 

“Creepy piece of fuckmeat, ain’t it,” the wizard beside me asked suddenly, pitching his voice so it would carry across the room. He had a strong British accent, and it was far more noticeable right now than it had been during our earlier exchange.“Don’t think I’d ever be willing to stick my dick in that kind of animal. My family keeps a few around for old times sake, but I much prefer ‘em taxidermied myself. Even bound, the little cunts can’t resist playing tricks whenever they get the chance, and no amount of good breeding can fix it.”

He sighed heavily, slowly shaking his head. “If I wanted a fuckmeat that thinks it's clever, I’d bind a gnome. If I wanted a fuckmeat that thinks it’s useful, I’d bind a nymph. If I wanted a fuckmeat that's gonna last a long time, I’d bind an elf. But never one of those things.”

I shrugged. I agreed that she was creepy, but she was also my Professor’s fuckmeat and a potentially valuable class resource that I didn’t particularly want to alienate, so it would be stupid to say anything about her in particular. “Can’t say I have much experience with sidhe myself. Professor Alex’s is the first one I’ve seen in person.” I replied.

He made a sound of disgust deep in his throat. “Lucky. I’d recommend you keep it that way. If you somehow manage to win one of the monthlies, get yourself anything else. An elf if you’re really lucky and there’s one up for grabs. Or better yet, a proper witch.”

I smiled tightly. “I’ll take that under consideration, thank you.”

“Eh,” he leaned back in his seat, folding his hands behind his head. “Always happy to help a junior out, particularly if we’re gonna be sharing a class. I’m Herbert Drake.”

“Severin Victus. A pleasure.”

“So,” he leaned in and his chair, which had been balancing on its back two legs, rocked forward. “How are you liking Aglakok? I saw that witch of yours and damn, she’s a real looker. Not as hot as my Eliza, but not all that far behind.” He smiled slyly and wiggled his eyebrows “You two getting nice and acquainted? It's important to get to know every. Single. Inch. Of your new witch.”

I rolled my eyes. I vaguely remembered seeing the witch he’d come in with last week. She had been pretty enough––round face, nice curves, long chestnut hair––but he was blind if he thought she was in any way comparable to Daphne. Though, once again, I obviously wasn’t going to say that. I wasn’t an idiot. Instead, “No real complaints yet. Classes have started off a bit slow, but I assume that has more to do with me being a first year than anything else. And definitely no complaints about my coven.”

He laughed. “Yeah, definitely a first year thing. I’m kinda jealous, ‘ey? I’ve got so much homework already and it's only the second week. I thought I’d have time for one more nice relaxing weekend with my coven, but I think I’m gonna have to hit the library already.”

Having already gone to the library a dozen times since I’d come to the academy, I couldn’t relate. “My condolences.”

“True that! Rest in peace to my free time.”

We continued talking for several minutes, until Professor Alex finally swept into the room, once again flanked by a real-looking duplicate of Shella. He strode to the front of the room and regarded us silently, sweeping the room with his eyes. 

“Good morning, students,” he began the same way as he had the week before. “One among your number has already chosen to withdraw, but I am glad,” he certainly didn’t sound glad, “that the rest of you have chosen to continue with my class.” 

He paused for a moment, then began to pace behind his lectern as he spoke, his eyes continuously darting between the seven of us. “The Mind Arts are one of the most powerful and versatile aspects of magic, and yet far too few students choose to pursue them beyond the bare basics taught in required courses. Just because a High Lord has not yet risen from their study does not mean that they are weak or useless!”

He let out an explosive sigh and suddenly Shella was beside him, offering him a small glass cup of steaming amber liquid––tea, probably––held inside an intricately worked silver frame. He took it without looking, drank a single sip, then passed it back into her waiting hands and continued to pace. 

“Last week we discussed the connection between the mind, the body, and the soul.” He swept one hand through the air as though dramatically flipping the page of an enormous book, and behind him the board began to fill with intricate but familiar diagrams. “Would someone care to refresh my memory?” I raised my hand, but he instead called on a dark-skinned second year who was sitting at the very end of the row of seats. “Wizard Belbee.”

“The mind is the key link between the two,” he said softly. He had an accent I couldn’t quite place, giving his words an odd, musical lilt. “The body is of the physical, while the soul is of the spiritual, but the mind is both.”

“And how does this apply to casting spells?” He scanned the room, his eyes once again passing by my raised hand. “Wizard Drake.”

“Oh, uh,” the brown-haired boy fumbled momentarily, “you said it’s what lets ya’ take an imprint on your spirit and turn it into a spell.”

“And what else? Wizard Victus.”

Drake had already said what I would have answered, though not in as many words, but I was pretty sure I knew what else our professor was looking for. “It's how you give a spell Purpose. Form comes from the body and Mass comes from the soul, but without the mind to bridge the gap between the two you won’t get anything but wasted mana.”

“Good. Does anyone else have something they’d like to add?” No one moved and he finally stopped behind his lectern and leaned forward on both his elbows. “Then we will begin today with an in class exercise. Last week, we focused primarily on the theoretical, but theory is only ever a fraction of the whole. In the future, we will begin each class with a short exercise before moving on to the day’s lecture. I expect you to practice what I am showing you on your own time, or meet with me or Shella during our office hours for additional guidance.”

He strode out from behind his desk, gesturing for us to follow after him. He stopped on the opposite side of the room and waved at the small mountain of soft furniture behind him. I flinched as Shella briefly appeared behind him, the sunlight streaming in through the floor-to-ceiling windows briefly casting her features in stark relief against the shadows of the room. Shadows that did not include her own. 

“Now, before we begin, I’d like everyone to get comfortable. Mind magic is difficult at the best of times, particularly for beginners. I’ve found that bodily comfort tends to reflect on a calmer, easier to parse mental state. Feel free to spread out, there’s plenty of room for everyone.”

He waited patiently, his hands folded behind his back and a blank look on his face, as we selected new seating for ourselves. Some of the older students––there were three second-years in the class in addition to my fellow first-years––used spells to levitate some of the heavier furniture like the armchairs and mattresses out of the mountain, while the rest of us were left moving things manually. I eventually settled on a long, blue bean bag chair which I dragged against the far wall of the room before lying down.

Once we were all comfortable, Professor Alex continued the lesson. “Now, today we’re going to start out with a simple exercise. Some of you may be familiar with it from your other classes, but it is an important fundamental step and you will not be able to move on to more complex practices until you have thoroughly mastered it. Do not be alarmed, my sidhe Shella will be leading today’s exercise.”

A soft, tinkling whisper like the rustle of frozen leaves brushed against my ears, sending a literally cold shiver down my spine, and then the whisper resolved into a voice. “Close your eyes, Wizard Victus, and listen to my voice.”

I jerked to the side, looking around for any sign of the sidhe, only to find her nowhere to be seen. I took a deep breath and tried to relax. This was, apparently, part of the lesson. I had a feeling that Harbert was even less happy about this eventuality than I was. 

“Relax, Wizard. This Shella means you no harm. This Shella cannot hurt you.” There was absolute truth and certainty in her voice that I could feel like an almost physical sensation, fingers tracing their way down my chest. 

I slowly, cautiously, closed my eyes and let some of the tension in my shoulders ease. 

“Very good, Wizard Victus. Now, let your physical shell fall away and breath with my voice. Inhale…” She stretched the word out and I breathed in, then held the breath. “Exhale… Good. Again. Inhale…”

I quickly recognized what she was doing. This was just the normal breath pattern for wizarding meditation, something I was already quite familiar with. She was just stretching the words instead of counting out the seconds.

It took longer than usual––I normally did this seated, not lying down, and in the comfort and privacy of my own home or room––but it was something I’d done countless times since my mother had taught me the technique. 

Slowly but surely, the sensations of my body fell away, vanishing into the darkness of my mind until I was left in near total darkness. Beneath me stretched a vast expanse of cool, dark waters, illuminated from below by a shining spark orbited by two bright souls. Around me, thoughts and emotions drifted like jellyfish through the ‘air’, their pale luminescence giving the space a sense of timeless significance. 

“Very good, very good. You’ve done this before. We shall continue then with the next portion of the exercise.” Shella’s voice sounded as though it was echoing down to me from some vast distance, distorted by echoes but still understandable. The air shifted slightly as she spoke, the drifting balls of thought moving as though agitated. 

I nodded. “I have.” I’d never tried to speak like this before, and my voice came out oddly resonant, the light far below me pulsing softly in time with my voice. 

There was a short pause, and then I heard her voice again.“If you are speaking, this Shella can not hear you. This Shella may not peer into the minds of Wizards. This Shella will guide you as this Shella can.”

Oh right, that made sense. I waited again until she finally began to speak once more. 

“Reach into yourself, Wizard Victus. Find your center and hold it in your mind. Tease free a single strand of mana but do not allow it to move fully from the spiritual to the physical. Hold it in between.”

Huh. That wasn’t something I’d ever tried to do, but I was pretty sure I understood what she wanted from me. I drifted downward, my consciousness stopping just above the surface of the ‘water’. A single ember of scintillating energy rose to meet me, the maximum amount I could have once safely used in my crude approximations of real spells before I bound Daphne and exponentially increased my available pool of mana. 

I took a firm grip of the mana and pulled it up out of the water. I barely managed to hold it for a single second before it slipped free and, without any Purpose or Form, vanished into the surrounding air like a cloud of dust blown away by a strong breeze. 

“A good first attempt, Wizard Victus. Perhaps attempt to use a slightly larger mass of mana. Your control is finer than this Shella presumed.”

I tried again, this time calling up about three times as much mana, though I’d been aiming for two. This time when I pulled it out of the water, I could feel it trying to slip away from me. I was trying to hold it still, but mana once removed from a wizard’s mana pool rapidly began to disperse into ambient mana. 

I managed to slow its dispersal for a handful of seconds before the last of it slipped through my metaphorical fingers. This was oddly challenging. I’d never tried just drawing mana without intending to do something with it before. That sort of thing was dangerous to do with a wizard’s tiny natural reserves, and I hadn’t had a reason to do so in the past two-ish weeks since I’d acquired Daphne and Grace.

“Better. This Shella will continue to monitor your results, Wizard Victus. This Shella encourages you to keep working at it.”

Seven attempts later, I’d made virtually no progress. Shella had initially just kept telling me to keep trying, but had stopped entirely after the fourth attempt. This was…rather difficult, and I honestly had no idea what the point of it was, nor how I was supposed to improve. 

The flat plane of water beneath me bubbled slightly, a sign of my frustration and I knew if I didn’t focus I was going to lose the meditative state that allowed me to visualize the inside of my being like this.

I focused on my breathing, which had become completely automatic as I’d focused completely on what I was trying to do. In. Hold. Out. Hold. In. Hold. Out. Hold. In…

My consciousness drifted slowly downward deeper and deeper, and then smoothly slipped beneath the water. The darkness around me shifted and became light, the space beneath the water illuminated fully by the collective glow of three souls. Without really meaning too, I kept drifting further and further downward, the way I usually would when I meditated like this. 

And then the world lurched and I barely had a moment to realize that I’d gone a lot deeper than I’d been intending to before I was dragged into somewhere else.