BY YANG
From Solid to Air
A witch and her mentor investigate the shrine of a forgotten deity.
HILDA BLAU
Going to need your help for an interesting case I’ve picked up.
I’ll come by today.
Anise Kartal, resident witch of Guild Sycamore, sat alone in her consulting room, wondering where it had all gone wrong. She had been looking forward to a relaxing week off, until this offending slip of paper had materialized on her noticeboard yesterday.
Inconsiderate attitude aside, Dame Hilda had made her into the witch she was today — she couldn’t say no. She’d flipped the note over and wrote back her reply — Sure. What’s this about? — which remained frustratingly unanswered.
It all started with the leyline crisis, she decided. A month ago, a new leyline fixture had gone horribly wrong, and hundreds of thousands of citizens were left scratching their heads as the magical tools they relied on every day stopped working. The leyline itself was restored in a matter of days, but the aftermath and follow-up meant weeks of travel and magical work. She really needed a break, but now…
The door opened, and Anise scowled, ready to chastise her old mentor. Instead, she was greeted by the face of an angel.
The angel spoke. “Oh, Anise! It’s good to see you again. Sam told me he’d seen you come in, but — I thought you were on break?”
“Hi, Mari.” Anise smiled dumbly for a few seconds until she remembered her question. “Um, yes. My old mentor sent me a message yesterday. Looks like she needs my help with something. Said she’d drop by.”
The angel approached and sat across her. “Sounds like you’ll be busy then. That’s a shame. I was going to say, you’d be welcome to come stay at the orchard. As thanks for fixing my amulet, you know.” She smiled. “It’s beautiful during the harvest.”
“I’d love to!” Anise blurted out, “It’s just, I’ll have to see what Dame Hilda needs my help with. She didn’t really say what about, and I’m not sure why it had to be me…” Really, where had it all gone wrong? Her eyes flitted toward that note again, wishing her gaze alone could de-materialize it.
“Because you’re a great witch, Anise. She trusts you.” Mari declared confidently. She stood up. “Well, I won’t be leaving the guild hall until tomorrow morning. You’ll know where to find me.”
Anise was smiling even as the door closed. She was put out of her bad mood for a few moments, until the door opened again, revealing a witch.
“There you are, girl.” Hilda kept the door open with her tall ashwood staff. “Come on out. I’ll explain when we get there.”
Typical. Anise had already packed her satchel, thinking something like this would happen. “You look well, Dame Hilda.”
“I can’t say the same for you.” The old witch said in passing as she led them outside of the guild hall. She gestured at two pegasi harnessed to a carriage. “You remember Astra and Borea?”
“It has been a while.” Anise smiled as Astra — the grey mare — nosed her cheek. Then she frowned. “Isn’t it faster to go by circle? You sound like you’re in a hurry.”
“Oh, we aren’t.” said Hilda airily, “I just think this case is awfully interesting, and I’ll need your help with it. “
Anise sighed and got in the carriage after Hilda. The pegasi cantered down the street, building speed, until they flapped their wings once, twice, and they were up in the air. They must be drawing quite a bit of attention — no one rode pegasi regularly anymore.
About ten minutes in, having exchanged bits of news with her old mentor, she began regretting her decision.
“Did you really have to insist on going by pegasus?” Anise looked out of the window queasily as the carriage jolted suddenly in the air.
“If I had my way we’d be riding them ourselves,” snipped back Dame Hilda. “Why haven’t you learnt to fly a pegasus anyway? Any witch worth her salt would have done so long ago.”
Anise rolled her eyes. “When you were still in the academy, maybe. A modern witch uses a summoning circle.”
Hilda looked at her sharply, “Circles you didn’t draw and verify by yourself, you mean. Leyline crisis not good enough for you?”
The young witch blanched at the reminder. It was good luck that the leylines running through the communal circles were left intact. The old bat had a point, but Anise would never admit it. “That was…unprecedented. The leylines work now, and we’ve added failsafes — I made damn sure of that.”
“If you say so. Which poor sod got dragged over the coals for that mistake?”
“Well- “ Anise’s stomach lurched as a particularly turbulent jolt rattled the carriage. “-let’s not talk anymore until we land, alright? I don’t think I could even muster an anti-nausea spell right now…what are you doing?” She grimaced as Hilda put a tiny jar to her face.
“Hold it to your nose,” the older woman insisted, “It’s ginger ointment. Should help with the sickness.”
Anise sniffed it hesitantly and grudgingly exhaled as the queasiness subsided.
Hilda’s tone softened. “You get airsick often? I should have known. We could use a circle next time.”
“It’s fine.” She was only slightly miffed, “I just don’t see the point of taking an hour by carriage when we could have been there in the blink of an eye.”
“Well, I quite like being in the sky. Keeps me in tune with the air energies, you see.” Hilda’s eyes sharpened. “When’s the last time you’ve tuned yourself, girl?”
An unease stirred that had nothing to do with the lurching carriage. Anise exhaled. “Not since the crisis. I remember heading out to Granite Peak for it…two months ago?”
“Your guild’s running you ragged!” Hilda exclaimed, “It’s a good thing we didn’t go by circle. You don’t need your energy to be even more unbalanced.”
“Perhaps.” Anise leaned back and closed her eyes, trying to focus her senses. She heard the strong steady wingbeats of the twin pegasi and their chuffed breathing. The coach itself was enchanted to be light, so the pegasi barely exerted strength. Yet it meant they were at the mercy of the winds, buffeting and tossing them about this way and that. Cool air rushed in through the open windows, pressing against her face, setting wisps of her dark hair askew.
She breathed — for what is breath if not air? The first thing every living thing learns is to breathe. The first step every witch learns is to breathe again.
There was the actual, physical breath, manifest as a tightening in her chest, relieved with each exhale. Then a little something else, something cool, something harsh. The spirit of air itself. A stirring in her core, firm and unyielding. Anise let her mouth fall open by reflex, letting a ball of energy roll off her tongue.
The pegasi whinnied, disturbed by the flare of energy, and the carriage bucked and tilted upwards. Hilda looked at her disapprovingly. “Hold it in, girl, you’re meant to hold it in.”
“Almost had it.” Anise coughed and held her breath. But her focus was lost, and she sighed. “I don’t think I’m cut out for air magic. Earth’s my element anyway.”
“Nonsense,” Hilda waved her off, “It’s the fundamentals. You just need to work on it, like the old days. Come now, pull yourself together. Try again.” Her old mentor’s voice had taken on a familiar teacherly cadence, and Anise couldn’t help but smile slightly, reminiscing of simpler times.
The lurching carriage stopped her from retrying, however, as they were now descending sharply through the cloud layer. A tall grassy cliff came into view, hemmed in from all sides by a wrinkled blue sea. Fierce white wavetips rushed up to meet its craggy face, breaking uselessly into foam and spray at its base. Yet the looming shadow of its overhang and the fractured rock fragments lying below told yet another story.
The pegasi wisely landed further inland, away from where the rock was slowly crumbling into the sea. Anise found herself scrambling out of the coach in an ungainly manner, eager to have both feet on solid ground again. Hilda set herself down lightly and untied the pegasi from the coach, letting them amble further away to where trees had sprung from the rock.
“See there,” Dame Hilda gestured up the cliff with her staff, “That stone structure? That’s where archaeologists rebuilt a shrine of Argin, a deity of the Pyridic faith. A local neo-Pyrite boy wrote to me recently, seeking to restore it as a place of worship. That’s where we come in.”
“You mean where you come in,” Anise groused, “Reconstructing ancient religious magic systems sounds exactly up your alley. What am I even…” It was a futile effort. “What do I need to do?”
“Attagirl.” Hilda patted her shoulder. “Don’t worry, you’ll get to stay in your element, except when I need your help.” She hobbled ahead, only stopping once to yell out, “And no shortcuts!”
Anise had an inkling sense of what she meant by that, and dragged her feet as she followed Hilda’s hunched figure. That crafty old witch had conned her once again. Anise found herself plotting for her next stop after this task was done. Perhaps she’d take up Mari’s offer to visit her orchard — at the thought, her heart fluttered…
Only to be rudely interrupted by the tapping of Hilda’s staff against the rock. “We’ll work from here,” she declared. “Take a good look around. We’ll start when you’re ready.”
The shrine of Argin was small and barren. The wind rushed in from all four directions, and its domed roof was all that protected it from the elements. In its center stood a carved limestone pedestal. The pedestal’s shape had remained, but whatever details inscribed onto its sides were lost to time, leaving only faint imprints and suggestions behind. Beyond that, past eroding cliffs, the scraggly outline of its neighboring coast stood dark against its washed-out backdrop. On the move was a singular boat, only a small speck at this distance, riding the line where sky melted into sea.
The boat passed by a tall dark speck, which stood unyielding upon the horizon. Anise squinted. “What’s that over there? A tower?”
“A lighthouse. You are familiar with that, I hope?” Dame Hilda shuffled past her into the shrine itself, blocking her view.
She blinked. “I didn’t know they were still in use.”
“This one likely isn’t.” Hilda looked back to her with interest. “Why, something about it caught your eye?”
“We’ll see.” Things like this always had a way of turning up later. “I’m ready. What do I need to do, exactly?”
The lines upon the old dame’s brow deepened. “It’s going to be a bit tricky. Recall what you know of faith magic, if you will. What is the purpose of a place of worship?”
“Faith is…personal to each practitioner. But people usually don’t have much power on their own. The ones who do, they get to become faith leaders. In a place of worship, shared belief creates shared energy, something more than the sum of its parts. If a place of worship has been abandoned, there won’t be any left, so then…” Anise’s expression slowly mirrored her mentor’s. “…what happened to the neo-Pyrite?”
“Good answer.” Dame Hilda tapped the floor of the shrine. “You’re right, something happened to him. He came here just to offer a prayer and an offering to Argin, but felt some sort of energy pushback and backed off. A remnant of some sort. Our task is to find its source, find out what it does — but try to keep everything as it were. That’s going to be the tricky part.”
No shortcuts. “You mean that we need to feel out each and every trace of energy around this shrine, and very slowly at that, so we don’t disturb whatever it is. Something that would take a while, even for you — that’s why you called me here.” They could be here for hours. She bit back the protest.
Hilda nodded approvingly. “You’ll work around the earth, as usual. I’ll take the air. We’re going to need a boat if it’s in the sea, so let’s hope it isn’t there. Shall we begin?”
As she nodded, Dame Hilda stepped away, closer to the cliff’s edge. She placed her staff in front of her and went still in focus. Anise stepped inside the shrine and glared at the flat surface of the pedestal before her, as though it would provide answers. The problem was unusual, the solution logical, but this was a task easier said than done.
A modern witch used proxies to work with magical energy. Spells could be chanted, sigils could be activated, potions could be brewed. Working directly with the forces of the world itself was an archaic, though not wholly forgotten notion. Dame Hilda had retired years ago, but her skills found her taking odd requests on occasions such as this.
Anise may have been Hilda’s own student, but she’d turned away from her path for a more comfortable, if busy, practice. Guild work was good. She was good. She liked the home visits, the drop-in clients, each bearing a worried countenance as they entered, each leaving with a little weight taken off their hunched shoulders. Then there was the leyline crisis…
Focus! Anise breathed and tried to clear her mind. She placed both hands upon the altar. The pale stone was smooth and powdery, even ticklish under her palms. The aim was not to shape the rock, like what wind and water and heat and hands before her had done. She had to feel it, understand it. The earth hid its secrets, secrets of the past, of stone being formed, reshaped, abandoned. What remained of it outlived human memory.
She felt natural earthen energy, as expected. At this point its signature resembled that of natural rock, holding memories of wind and rain and decay. There were errant traces of human energy — the neo-Pyrite boy? — and then -
- a chilling pressure on her nape. Anise gasped and pulled her hands away from the altar, but it didn’t ease. She’d found it, whatever it was. Fighting every self-defensive instinct, she went limp-
- the pressure eased. The world came back into sharp relief. Dame Hilda was standing over her with a raised eyebrow. “I felt that.”
“Do you also know what that was?” Anise scrabbled around in a daze.
Hilda nodded decisively. “That was Argin. No doubt about it.”
“Come again?” Anise picked herself off the ground, wondering if she didn’t also hit her head.
“It is very strange. The neo-Pyrite boy said it felt like an ‘unknown presence’ specifically. We thought it might be the spirit of Argin, but it seemed unlikely since they should have been forgotten and powerless. Yet here they remain.”
Hilda laid out her brush-and-ink set on the altar and began writing something on a piece of parchment. “Someone still believes. Still practices. Whatever ritual associated with Argin must have persisted, even though its purpose was lost.” There was a gleam in her eye. “This discovery will cause quite a stir.”
She began folding the parchment. “Argin must have been a wind deity. I felt a strange concentration of energy in the air before your disturbance. Let’s try something.” Anise blinked then, realizing that the parchment had taken on the shape of a dart, like the ones children played with.
Dame Hilda closed her eyes and uttered, “May you fly on Argin’s wings,” throwing it into the air with a single, sharp, stroke.
The dart crested upward, suspended for a moment in the air, dipped, and then — nothing.
Anise blinked. It didn’t fall, didn’t plummet ponderously into the sea, simply vanished.
“Not my doing.” Dame Hilda held fast to where she stood, as though bracing for something. The seconds ticked by in silence, surrounded by the crashing of waves and the whistling of the wind — whoosh -
- an identical paper dart swooped in, landing perfectly upon the altar. The two women looked on in stunned silence, until it was broken by a cackling, “Oh-ho-ho! What have we here!”
Anise grimaced and reached for the paper dart, unfolding it. Her fingers trembled as the full meaning of what she was holding dawned upon her. Anise passed it to the old dame silently. The words turned over in her mind.
To my love upon the other shore,
I should have said I loved you more.
I couldn’t leave my post, but I should have. I should have put up my hat and climbed down those stairs and rowed out to sea and met you at the shore, where you would be waiting for me. Always waiting.
Too late now. These words won’t reach.
For the last time,
Farewell.
Dame Hilda set the paper down and peered at Anise over the top of her glasses, concern in her eyes. She must be waiting for her to speak first. “Where did this come from?”
“The lighthouse.” Hilda spoke with startling conviction. “When I sent off the first dart, I was envisioning it. You pointed it out to me, so it must have stuck in my mind.”
The pieces were coming together in her mind. “You sent a message to the lighthouse, and got back one from the lighthouse. But the keeper who wrote this didn’t mean to send it here, did they, unless…To my love upon the other shore. Maybe it’s not just poetic. Maybe when the keeper’s lover was alive, they would have been standing here like us, waiting.” Always waiting.
“What I’m hearing is that we’ve uncovered an ancient faith’s communications system. Even after Argin was forgotten, people kept sending messages into the ether, keeping the practice alive.” Dame Hilda stepped out of the shrine and started hobbling back. “Let’s take the pegasi over to the lighthouse. I bet we’ll find something like this over there — a personal shrine, perhaps…”
Her mind was made up. Anise smiled as she followed her, but she had to turn her down. “I’m not going, you know.”
“Really? You don’t want to be there for the discovery of a century?” Dame Hilda retorted, but there was no bite in the old witch’s words.
“I know only the academics will care about this. You can say that when we start going back to faith-based communications.” Anise shrugged. “Unfortunately, I think we’re all going to be stuck with boards and paper notes.”
“And leyline crises.” Dame Hilda smiled serenely. “Maybe using a bit more personal magic would help us all.”
“Maybe.” Anise hesitated. It really had been a while. “I- I’ll drop by for tea before my break ends. You can tell me all about it then.”
“I’d appreciate that.” There was a twinkle in her eye. “You sound like you’re in a hurry to go somewhere. Going to meet someone else first, perhaps?”
Anise flushed. “Yes, actually. I’m going now.” She trudged ahead to find a good spot to draw a summoning circle — better to leave the cliffs undisturbed.
“Ah, young love.” Hilda whistled for the pegasi. She harnessed Astra to the carriage and sent her off, then mounted Borea sidesaddle. “Go on, go be with her. You know you’re welcome to visit my hut anytime.”
Her? How did she- well, Anise wasn’t going to interrogate that. “Thank you for everything, Dame Hilda. As always.”
“Till we meet again, dear.” Dame Hilda patted her head, then tapped her pegasus’ back. Borea trotted forward, broke into a gallop, and took to the skies with a mighty flap of his wings.
Anise looked away only when pegasus and rider had become a speck on the horizon. She scratched a circle into the ground with a piece of white chalk and drew her guild’s symbol in the center. A light touch charged it with energy, and the symbol turned green, signifying a connection had been made. She stepped inside and closed her eyes.
Anise felt herself suspended in air, then her feet made contact with wood again, and she opened her eyes to see the familiar cozy interior of the guild hall. There and back again.
“Hey, Sam.” Anise called out to the barkeep, “Have you seen Mari?”
“Ah. Well, if you’re asking,” he gave her a knowing look, “She went out to do some shopping at the town square. Said she’d be back soon.”
“Thanks. Could I get a cider?”
“Coming right up.”
Anise took a seat. There were discoveries to be made and crumbling systems of magic looming in the background, but for now — she was going to have a drink and fret over what she’d say to Mari. Something was finally going right for once.
This story was brought to you by Yang of Sundry Scribes, a Malaysian writing collective. Interested? Our Discord is open to writers and readers alike.
