ARCANELIGHTING, AN INTIMATE LOOK AT DOUBTING ONE’S PERCEPTION
Celeste had made tea cakes once before in an attempt to befriend. It hadn’t really worked then either, but it was still worth a try. At least Plum seemed to enjoy ripping his apart and scarfing it down.
But the shopping and the baking and even the upset at the knight’s stubbornness hadn’t distracted her from the prodding thought that something wasn’t quite right. Not just the temple, not just the man she had locked up, and not just the boost to her manipulation of noxscura, but an unseen something happening in Briarwyke.
After pacing around the graveyard, asking the stones what to do and getting little in the way of an answer, Celeste went back to the sepulcher and found the small urn she opened the night she arrived. It was still empty, only a vague sense of arcana left about its lid, nothing to really be worried about, but what was the harm in checking?
Well, the harm was that the thing she was afraid of would be said aloud, and then it would be true, but she supposed, if it were true, it would be true regardless of whether it was said or not which was as frustrating as it was, well…true.
She traveled southbound into the village for the second time that day, likely about to set some personal record for most social interactions in one sun, and told herself that she was probably making a mountain out of a minikin goblin den. The small, ceramic jar bumped along in her satchel innocently enough, but it would quell her nerves to be a little more sure, and wouldn’t it be nice to not worry about one of the mounting concerns meddling with her mind?
Of course it would, but few are ever that lucky, especially less than a quarter of the way through their tale.
The whole of East Road had been filled with shops at one time, but the windows were mostly dark and empty now, signs gone illegible without upkeep, and only the Horn of Plenty remained in good order. The hovel across the way was a single-storied cabin at the road’s end. A dingy little door with a worn knob sat back under a shadowed archway directly beneath the clothesline. The laundry had been taken in, but the puddle remained, so either Baylen or the man he called Geezer was probably still around.
Celeste knocked. No one answered.
She fiddled with her bag’s strap and then with her locket, eyes darting to Baylen’s shop. She didn’t want to involve anyone else, but the warm glow of the arcane lamp in the window told her the minotaur was inside.
There was a click, and Celeste swung around to see the door had popped open, but no eye gazed out at her from the dark crack beyond. She called a nearly inaudible, “Hello?” into the nothingness, and when she got no reply, used her foot to ease open the door.
There was an entry beyond, she could feel it more than see it due to the lack of light, as narrow as the door and as deep as perhaps two people pushed up against one another, one of them barrel-chested and the other smaller but willing to climb and—oh, crickets, she really shouldn’t be thinking aboutthat, but it had been difficult after sitting across from that knight and looking at his unfairly handsome face all over again.
A sound came from deeper in the darkness, and there was light too, but it was odd and filmy. Anxiety and manners forgotten, Celeste squinted and stepped inside.
The whole realm shifted beneath her. It was only for a fragment of a moment, and perhaps it hadn’t happened at all, but after, Celeste found herself standing in a room absolutely cluttered to its brim—a brim that was, as far as she could suddenly see, much wider than it had appeared from the outside.
Where Baylen’s shop had been an organized mess, this was just amessmess. There was only a bit of floor to walk on that wound between stacks of books, crates of jars, and a table overflowing with parchment being written on by a quill moving of its own volition.
Somewhere something boiled, she could hear the popping of bubbles and catch its smell, slightly burnt but earthy too with a hint of the arcane. There were chimes tinkling, the sound that had drawn Celeste in, clearer now and moving in the windless room unseen. She called out another greeting to no answer, inching along the pathway, boards creaking underfoot.
Celeste jumped when a face came into view. Well, it wasn’t a face really, just a mask, but it was meant to look like a face in a way. It sat atop a full suit of armor, pressed between a shelf filled with scrolls and another with incense that would have been offensive if more of the lids were set askew.
Carefully, she walked up to the suit. One of the gauntlets was missing as well as a shin guard, so she could see it was empty. Its owner would be taller than her, perhaps the height of that knight she wasn’t supposed to be thinking about. Another step brought her only an inch away, and she peered up at its not-face, her fingers tight around her satchel’s strap.
It gave off no warmth, not like how an actual man might. But Sir Reeve Dawn didn’t wear armor, not like this, made of metal and covering every inch of him. She was glad for that, the not-being-covered part, then bit her lip. Holy knights who were gifted arcanely often forwent quite a bit of protection in order to be able to channel their magic through their weapons: they needed their skin to make contact.
His skin had made contact with hers to do just that. She gently touched her upper arm where the divine spell had bitten in. Her flesh was still tender, and though it was only a little bruised, that was too much because a little bruising almost always led to a lot, and sometimes, when one was unduly forgiving, broken bones.
“I thought I heard someone come in.”
Celeste spun, knocking into the suit and making it clatter against itself. She scurried away and into the desk, upsetting the well just as the quill dipped into it, sloshing black ink everywhere.
Stuttering out apologies, her hands instinctively went to her locket, and she flicked out noxscura to contain the mess before it could get much worse. Then, when she realized she had just cast dark magic in front of a stranger, she fell still.
Heartbeat in her throat, she blinked into the mess of a room and nearly missed him as he was as embellished as his surroundings. Wearing a scarlet robe with violet trim, he swept up to the desk, pale eyes wide. His belt jangled with an assortment of hanging objects, a bottle of some green liquid, a single sheathed dagger, a pouch filled to bursting. Thick but well-manicured eyebrows writhed with inquisition over a wrinkled forehead, silvery hair swept back and receding generously from either temple.
“Oh, now, I haven’t seenthatin a very long time.”
Celeste scrambled to will the ink back into the well. The liquid blackness blended with her own smoky version, and the mess only grew, ink squelching out from her clumsy handling of the noxscura. “Oh,crickets,” she hissed as she went for the inkwell and tried to manually scoop it back in.
But then the old man was across the desk from her, bent over and staring sharply at the magic, watching in utter awe. That, of course, only made things worse, her noxscura fumbling with more eyes on it, and Celeste had to grab a blank piece of parchment to sop up the ink before it reached the desk’s edge. “Please help,” she whispered.
“Hmm? Oh!” The old man blinked like he’d forgotten how to speak then straightened. With a spin of his hand, all of the desk’s parchment began to swirl in a frenzy that Celeste swiftly backed away from, and then the tornado of pages was sucked down into an open drawer, ink and all disappearing into the much too small space, and it promptly snapped shut. She had never seen arcana like that, as if it had no source. Magic needed fire or water or shadows—something—but this? It wasn’t even the air coming to aid him, the arcana was justthere.
Left holding the well, Celeste could only stare at the place the mess had been, her own noxscura hovering there and looking a little confused. The end of its tendrils swiveled to point at the stranger, bobbing up and down like it was taking his form in, and the old man reached out a tentative finger.
Before a much bigger disaster could occur, Celeste swiped her free hand over her locket, and the noxscura was drawn swiftly back, hidden away as it should be. Then she carefully set the well on the stained desk and gazed up at the mage. “Please don’t tell anyone.”
