It was the morning after Garrett and Nannade had arrived at Elissa's hut. She had agreed to taking in the girl to teach her in the arcane, the occult, the spiritual and the mundane and as part of that agreement, Garrett had sworn an oath to not remove the girl from that girl himself, sealed with his own blood. The oath had left a sigil above his heart and would not vanish until Elissa herself lifted it. He wasn't happy to put his life in danger, but out of all the people he knew, Elissa was probably the only one he'd ever swear a blood oath to.
After breakfast, he sent the girl out to do her usual exercises he taught her. Then he turned to Elissa.
"We should test her today. Do you have all the ingredients?"
She nodded. "Let's do it at sundown."
He looked out the window. The girl was jumping from one leg to the other while standing on the chopping block. This afternoon, he'd go into the woods to find good spots to train her, as well as the spring water pond Elissa had told him about. She knew these woods better than anyone living in the area and she was communing with the spirits often enough to know when anyone entered the vicinity. He had been here a few times before but never really explored the surroundings.
After dinner, Elissa kept Nannade inside to teach her reading and writing the mundane script. Garrett set out as he had planned.
The hut stood close to the edge of the forest. A path led all the way into the valley and the town below. It wasn't a big city with walls, but it had a rest stop, a tavern, a shrine and a trading office. It was built along a road frequently travelled by traders and so anything could be acquired if one waited long enough, ideal for Elissa to acquire any ingredients she desired. And ideal for Garrett to keep correspondences with certain people. If one were to leave for the town by dawn, one would arrive back at the hut well before noon, even during the winter months.
Further inside the forest, up the slopes, Garrett would find the spring water pond, filled by fresh water from inside the mountains. It was rather small, mostly just a basin, but large enough to take baths. He decided to take off his boots and let his feet soak in the cold water for a while. On the far side of the mountain was the glade. A place of worship and sacrifice to the spirits, that the people from all over the surrounding villages frequented to, but these days, only for the big festival in spring and fall. The increased prevalence of arcane and divine academies had allowed people to satisfy their magical needs and demands with coins and contracts rather than sacrifices and pacts. Maybe in lands further away, people still relied wholly on nature and the elements. The glade was no spot where he dared to go. Spirits were active there and he was a frequent practitioner of blood magic. People like Elissa, who could commune with the spirits, could make amends, but he was sure to be hit by their wrath. If the test at sundown should turn up that Nannade had no arcane potential, her potential as a medium could still make up, but Garrett would not be able to teach her that.
He returned to the hut just in time for sundown. When he entered the hut, Elissa was already preparing the rite. A small brazen bowl stood on a large piece of paper on the table, the paper was weighed down by a stone on each corner, inscribed with runes. Nannade sat on a chair, her eyes blindfolded.
Elissa looked up. She was in the process of pouring a blueish powder into the bowl. "I thought you wouldn't make it. There's not much else to do. Just stand by." After she had put the powder in the bowl, she put up a candle on each of the stones and lit them. She instructed the girl to hold her hands at both sides of the bowl, palms facing upwards. She gave the bowl a spin and it started tipping and rotating around. The bowl had no foot and was a perfect hemisphere so it would continue to wobble like this for quite some time. Elissa took a long splinter of wood and lit the powder with a flame from a candle. A hissing puff was heard, a thin and steady stream of smoke rose and a familiar scent filled the air. It took Garrett way back to different times.
"Just concentrate on the sound and smell and breathe calmly." She instructed the girl.
This test was not the most accurate, but the most sensitive. If she had any potential at all, it would show by the soot from the smoke raining down in a pattern on the paper.
The bowl turned and turned and little by little lost its momentum. No pattern had yet arisen and Nannade's hands began to tremble from exhaustion. Garrett looked at Elissa. He stepped over to the table and ran his finger over the paper. Soot stuck to his finger. The paper had been darkened almost perfectly even. Elissa stopped the bowl and put on the lid to quench the fire. "It's no use, there seems to be nothing to work with, I'm sorry."
Nannade took off her blindfold and look at the paper, then at Garrett. "So I can't do magic?"
Garrett shook his head. "You can't cast the arcane."
"Does that mean I will never be free?" There was something fundamentally scared in the girl's eyes, a deep worry for her own future.
Elissa knelt down to her eye level and out a hand on her head. "No, I told you, you can speak to spirits, like you spoke to Faan yesterday. Most witches take familiars like I did so the familiars can cast the spells for them, don't worry."
The girl's face brightened up, he ears lifted a bit.
"But for today, that will be it. We'll make supper now, then it's evening lessons."
Garrett couldn't help but lay awake in their bed. Nannade had already fallen asleep with her head on his arm. She wore a simple night gown given to her by Elissa, not that he would be inconvenienced by her body, but Elissa still insisted on it. He had to rethink how he thought about Nannade. He had already given much control over her education away to Elissa, now it would seem that he couldn't take part in an important portion of it even if she wanted him to. But all these things had their time. The next hurdle would be the Arch-Druid. She could still impede his plan. For now he'd take it one day at a time.
"I think I'll leave for a few months soon." Was the first thing he said during their breakfast the next morning.
"Work?" Elissa said with a raised eyebrow.
"Yeah, I told you I won't live off savings forever. I also want to get a new vial."
Nannade looked at him with flicking ears. "You won't be teaching me?"
"Elissa is a much better teacher as it is and you have no potential for the arcane, one of the few areas where I might be better than her."
"And what about jumping and running?"
"You can do that by yourself. As long as Elissa promises to keep you to your schedule. But it's not like you can do very much right now." Garrett put on a stern visage. "When your bones are finally done straightening themselves out, you'll have a lot more to do that just jump on a log all morning." He turned back to Elissa. "Any way, I will send a message ahead to a place where I still have a safe-house to go. When I hear back from there, I'll book the next carriage there. So, it might be a month or two until then."
Nannade seemed pleased. "Then I can still learn lots of things from you!" She took a coin and started to let it roll over her fingers. It was still somewhat clumsily and lacking in grace, but much better compared to the bowlegged girl that tripped over her own feet two dozen of days ago.
Garrett sat on the bench on the porch as he watched Nannade jump from one leg to the other on the chopping block. Occasionally, he would take a pebble and throw it at the back of her head. He had forbidden her from facing his way. He didn't intent to test her reflexes, merely to distract her and make her fall. Soon he'd have to set up some other training methods. The chopping block was rather large, especially compared to the feet of a nine-year-old girl. He himself learned many of these things in the narrow paths and on the slippery roofs of the city. But the forest might just be a better training ground for the girl. Especially because he could set up special courses just for her.
Some time and quite a few pebbles later, the girl was sitting on the chopping block, trying to catch her breath. Eventually, she turned to Garrett. "How long will I have to do this, teacher Garetas? When will I be strong enough? How long did you take?"
"It lasts until today. You will never be free if you let others catch up to you."
"You still train?"
"Yes. We Hidden Hands fulfil an important role. There are many powerful magic users out there and they swear oaths to not harm the innocent and to help the weak. Elissa consults the spirits to tell the people when it will be best to sow the fields and when to harvest and when brutal storms come. But there are people who abuse their power to rule people or get rich or to turn people into slaves."
"And you make them stop?"
"Yes. We make them stop. Or go away. But for that we need to be strong. We need to be smart and prepared."
"And when you go take work soon, you will make someone go away?"
"Maybe. Or maybe I'll get something back they stole. Or similar. I don't know yet what job someone will give me and we Hidden Hands can do many such things."
Garrett walked up to the girl and put his hand on her shoulder. "It is something good we do. There are many powerful people out there. And when they turn and abuse their power, we make sure that they get their punishment."
"You're the good guys?"
"I don't think there are any good guys out just people who do more good than evil things. We just clean up the bad and make sure the bad don't clean us up first."
After dinner, Elissa taught the girl to work with a stylus and a wax tablet. The two sat in the study, Nannade hunched over the tablet, endlessly drawing wavy lines, straight lines, curves, corners, dashed lines, dotted lines, circles, squares and much more. Elissa was reading to prepare her own work and occasionally checking on the girl.
"It's so ugly. I can't do it like on the picture!" the girl said full of resignation.
Elissa looked over. The wax tablet was a mess of crooked and jagged lines. Nannade dropped the stylus and massaged her fingers. She tended to cramp up really fast. Her dexterity was decent, thanks to Garrett already training her with basic dexterity exercises, but she lacked control and steadiness.
"You don't need to cut all the way through the wax. Just gently scratch the surface, let the stylus glide over the wax."
The girl made a pouty face and picked the stylus back up. She tried again with Elissa's advice in mind and it did already look better. Elissa thought about the girl. She was nine years old. Most nobles and other mages had their children tested by the age of six or seven. And those often already started learning how to write around the same time. Garrett had mentioned that the girl was quick on the uptake and intuitively witty, but Elissa didn't know whether that would be enough.
Suddenly, Nannade held up her tablet. She had drawn the patterns many times, with much more elegant lines, although she seemed to have cramped up again later.
"Not bad. But still a way to go. If you mess a single glyph up, it can have disastrous consequences for the spell."
The girl's expression turned disgruntled again. "Why do I even have to learn that if I can't cast spells myself?!" and slammed the wax tablet on the table.
Elissa sighed, put down her book and put her elbows on the table.
"I can draw spirits from far away or ask my familiar Faan. They can cast spells for me. Faan often does and while he does, I can do something else. But I need to write them down first. I CAN cast spells myself, I also have an Arcane Hand. But you do not have an Arcane Hand. You will never be able to weave your own spells. You must write them down on paper as a formula."
She took her little palm book from her dress' pocket and showed it to Nannade. It was square, about as big as her Palm and held together by a metal ring through a hole in one corner. "This is our little palm book, or cast book. Whatever you want to call it. In it are many, many spells we prepare in advance with special ink." She flipped through the book, tore out one of the pages and showed it to Nannade. In very fine script many glyphs were written, connected by geometric shapes and lines, all in an ink with a peculiar iridescence. She put the paper face up on the table, put her thumb and middle finger together and imagined in her head, the same two fingers of her arcane hand. With a SNAP of the fingers, the ink flared up, engulfing the paper in flames and smoke and sending a ball of white, soft light upwards, slowly rising to the ceiling, which it hit with a soft thud.
The girl's mouth stood open in awe as she watched the spell work. Elissa called her name to get her attention. "I had to write this spell down. And so does your teacher Garetas. Sometimes even people who can't cast magic at all carry such a booklet because they can have someone else cast them. Garetas prepares his spells in advance, I can guarantee you that. And you will probably have to prepare them for him when your training has reached that point."
Nannade seemed impressed. "Even if I can't cast spells myself, I can do that?"
"Sure. Here, I'll show you." Elissa called Faan's name and the cat came around the corner. "Faan, the young lady needs a demonstration, please do me a favour..." she flipped through the book, tore out a paper and held it with the writing facing Faan. His ears twitched and the paper went up in flames and smoke. But a tiny flame remained, hovering in the air. "Look!" Faan said with his disembodied voice as the flame slowly hovered towards him. "I can take care of it while Ellis does her own thing."
Nannade's eyes were full of wonder. "Okay!" she said. "I'll do it again!" And she got back to her tablet with new vigour. Faan used this opportunity to jump into Elissa's lap and get some attention while she was reading her book.
Eventually, Garrett came in. He had worked up a sweat outside during his own training. "It's time for evening training." That was all he said before heading back outside. Nannade had looked up, then faced the scroll again, trying her best to finish that last line of the pattern. It didn't take long for Garrett to come back in and drag the girl out by her mane. "I wasn't asking, fleabag. If you leave that slowly during a job, you'll end up with more holes than you need." He said with a stern voice over her protesting screaming and hissing.
Elissa decided to spend her time preparing for the next days. The girl's education took up quite a bit of her own time, if she let it consume too much of it, she'd fall behind on her own livelihood, even if she didn't have that much to do at the moment.
The training Garrett subjected the girl to was harsh and unforgiving. This day, he ran her through the forest at an unforgiving pace.
After supper Elissa sat down with the girl to teach her the basics of sewing. It wasn't just a useful skill, it required an even more delicate grip than the stylus. Elissa had noticed the girl held small, light objects, like needle and cloth with the outer sides of her claws, utilizing them like tweezers or pincers. It allowed for some very precise control. The thread she put between claw and skin of the fingertip. Judging by the care and attention the girl poured into even simple stitches, Elissa thought a seamstress would have been a good lot in life for the girl, had she not been born to a whore slave in a dirty dungeon.
Concentrated on her seams, Nannade sat on the bench on the porch long until sundown, by candlelight. Garrett had retired to bed already while Elissa was still watching the girl through a tiny slit between shutter and window frame. More and more she paused for a moment, looked up and sighed. After her pauses got longer and longer, she finally put down the cloth and stood up. She took a few steps off the porch. She jumped, trying to reach for the edge of the roof, but failed. She looked around but couldn't find any trees close enough to get to the roof. Elissa glanced over to Garrett. He had moved a little. He was awake or at least aware, that much Elissa was sure of. She still decided to go outside. She sat down on the bench and picked up the cloth to inspect the seams. Nannade came over to her and set down next to her.
"Is it good?"
"The seams are a bit irregular but otherwise good. Maybe I'll have you stitch glyphs rather than write them."
Nannade smiled a bit. "Can I do that?"
"No, not exactly. Technically, but everything that carries flux for a spell, like the ink on paper, eventually wears down from it. That's why lots of preparations for it will eventually be worn away. But charms and wards for spirits, they can last centuries if done right and they are often made to last."
The girl had tilted her head again. "What are charms and wards?"
"They are like contracts." She got out a handkerchief from her dress' pocket and showed the girl various runes and patterns stitched onto it in her own hair. "This is a contract with a water spirit. While I was stitching it, I spoke to a water spirit. It agreed to the contract." She pointed at the particular runes. "These runes are symbols for water, cleaning and cloth. Additionally, with the patterns here, they form the contract that the water spirits cleans the cloth every time I put it in a flowing body of water and give a tiny drop of my life force. That's what it gets out of the contract."
Nannade's golden eyes studied the intricate stitches. "Wow. Is the water here right now?"
"No, but it will know when I need it and come if it is close by, which it should be, it's from around here. I stitched its agreement into the charm as well. A ward is the opposite, keeping a spirit away, or guaranteeing safe passage and soothing them. Many cities employ wards to protect the people from spirits, because they can wreak havoc when angry, and the people in the city don't know how to handle that."
The girl had taken the handkerchief and slowly felt the singular strands of hair in the stitching.
Elissa looked at Nannade's seams again. "Did you do something like this before?"
The girl shook her head. "But I did like to play with the fresh straw. Braid it and shape it into things, like little dolls."
The fate of the girl was truly abhorrent. How Elissa wished the girl had been rescued earlier. Maybe by someone more loving than Garrett, although he wasn't as bad as she accused him to be, Elissa had to admit. "Do you want to run away?" Elissa asked in a more serious tone.
"Maybe. If I could get away, where should I go?"
"You really don't have anyone?"
"Maybe I could go to the Farm and help there? Or the inn. But I wouldn't want that. There is no other place I know. Mammy always told of faraway places, of the sea and the rivers. She said there was an island to the west where others like us lived all together without humans."
Elissa nodded. "Hmm, there is said to be one of the last remaining tribes of crolachans on a chain of islands far away and another one in the desert. Do you know if your parents used to live there?"
Nannade shook her head. "No, but she said her Mammy came from the islands."
"Is that all you know?"
Nannade nodded.
"So did she ever tell you anything, do you remember anything she told you about?"
"She'd sing me songs. About sleeping tight and being at peace."
In her mind, Elissa shook her head. A fool of a mother. Where did that girl get such a sharp mind?
"Do you really plan on taking your freedom from Garetas?"
"Yes. But It won't be very soon. I have to become much better. And I can't use magic."
Elissa put a hand on the girl's shoulder. "As I said, there might be ways. To someone determined and intelligent, no doors are truly locked."
Nannade seemed to think on these words for a while. Then she asked a question. "Why is blood magic forbidden?"
"Using someone's blood to supply a spell gives you power over that person. That's also how those slave sigils of yours worked. It can also change how a spell works, it carries what people call a "taint". People consider it impure because of that. But smart practitioners use this to their advantage and works it into the spell itself. Like your teacher Garetas did with your mother's blood. Because her blood was let to free and protect you, it makes such spells stronger. If the practitioner knows how to use it." A soft smile appeared on the girl's face, just enough to be recognizable.
They sat on the porch for a little while longer, when Nannade finally fell asleep, Elissa carried her inside. She decided she could stay in her bed for this night.