[Anthony] Cleansing
When I manage to open my eyes again, Anthony crouches over me, his eyes skimming the edges of the bowl. Holding my left arm close to my body, hoping that they will do the double duty of keeping my chest closed and offering some measure of support to my arm, I try to pick myself up. In an instant, Anthony is there, slipping an arm under my shoulders, supporting me where I can't. His concern is written plainly across his face, which has lacerations across his forehead, sending blood down his cheek and bringing his scar into ghastly relief. "How badly are you hurt?"
I swallow and look down. I can't see the wound across my chest, but I have an idea of how bad it is. Blood has been pouring from it and down my shirt, soaking my clothes under the snowsuit. We have work to do here, still, that needs to be done. I find what my da called my brave face and prepare to lie, but can't quite bring myself to it. "Bad enough. I won't be doing much with this arm for a bit, and right now I'm glad I've still got the adrenaline; I can't feel my chest yet."
He gives me a ghost of a smile, edged in relief that touches his eyes, hard despite having gone the color of spring grass. "Can't be too bad if you're still a hardass."
I wrinkle my nose at that, put an experimental hand to my chest. My dark glove comes away with a lot of blood on it and I shake my head, desperate to change the subject. "This place reeks of ugly resonance."
Anthony nods. "Yeah. Just trying to figure what to do about it. We've got to purge it. First things, though..." With deference, he pulls at my torn coat, sending another flare of pain through my chest, down my body. My spine tingles with the pain, and every breath I take sends another resolve shattering lance through my ribs. I know that looking at it will break what little store I have left, so I don't. Instead, I study the tops of the trees, try to breathe shallowly, interspersing with deeper breaths, each one ragged and painful.
For his part, Anthony lets out a slow breath. "I won't lie to you. It's not pretty." He prods gently at the wound with a finger and tentative magic, under which I stoically manage to neither flinch nor faint. "Not really clean either. Let me see your arm."
I recall the words he said weeks ago, the ones that made me snort and privately smile. "I wasn't going to win any swimsuit competitions," I tell him as I carefully extend my arm and wince with the effort. That wolf-creature bit until its teeth met, and while I can move my fingers, the effort is supremely painful. Try something else. Get back to business. "The cleansing can be done easily enough, but it isn't a quick process."
He turns his unfocused gaze to my arm and shakes his head, refusing to take the bait. "Those things were filthy. Cold at least seemed to retard mine, thank god." He looks down at his own wounds and I belatedly realize that he's been hurt too, but I don't think as badly. "I hope you have a lot of antibiotic." He looks up, then, at the cave mouth. "We're going to have to look around. Can you stand?"
I consider this. My hip is bruised, but my legs are undamaged. If I don't do something about the bleeding, though, I won't be able to stand for very long. "Give me a second. Let me see if I can't do something about these."
I pull the glove off my right hand with my teeth and drop it into my lap before fishing for my focus. I palm it, press my hand against my chest in a note of pure agony, and murmur the words. Electricity crackles down the edges of the wound, buzzes through my skull. I can feel the bleeding slowing, but it does not stop and the wound doesn't close. The cold air nearly freezes the blood, and for the moment, it will have to be good enough. I take an experimental breath and find that the little healing I was able to effect hasn't lessened the pain any. "I don't think I'll be able to do much more than that. Help me up. Let's take a look at that cave."
Anthony presses his lips together, I think disapprovingly, but nods. "All right." After a moment's hesitation, he slips his left hand under my right arm, gives me an apologetic look as he hauls me upright by my waistband. My body objects to the sudden change of situation and I sag against him until I find my footing. I don't argue when he puts my arm over his shoulder and takes my weight. With my left arm pressed against my chest, we walk towards the cave while I concentrate solely on not falling down.
The cave is old, but not as old as the rocks around it. The stone around the mouth is marked with runes, eye-twisting and ugly. Their shapes are based in the Atlantean tradition, but where Atlantean runes are beautiful, elegant, and otherworldly, these cause the stomach to churn. They've been mostly destroyed, however, by fire and a tool of some kind. Just inside the mouth is a pale figure that resolves itself into a body as we draw nearer, twisted and grotesque. It's extremities are black with frostbite, and a piece of metal protrudes at an angle from its left leg - the blade of a sword, perhaps, snapped off. Its head is alarmingly shaped and a hole the size of a fist has been burned through its back.
"The body should be burned and cleansed," I say quietly.
"I know," he murmurs in a voice empty of emotion, which only tells me that whatever he feels is sharp and deeply buried. He walks me carefully to one side of the arch the cave mouth makes. "If you can manage it, lean here. Look at the runes and see if you find any still intact. I'll start on the other side."
I am getting cold, which only makes my injuries hurt more. I don't know what will be required of me yet, how much of my carefully stored resources I'll have to use to make this right, or whether my magic here will cause some trap to be sprung. "Alright." Anthony leaves me on the one side while he goes to the other. I turn to my task, glad to have something productive to do.
The runes don't look better up close. If anything, I swallow bile more than once, and stop trying to make sense of them. I concentrate, instead, on naming the Atlantean runes I think they correspond to, careful not to speak them aloud, although I mouth the words.
Before long, Anthony grunts and swears. I look over to see him crouched low, looking at mark half-buried in the snow. "Dammit," he says, with self-loathing so deep and thick that I not only recognize it for what it is, but I wonder how long he's buried it. "I missed one. Dammit all to hell." He sweeps at the snow with an angry swipe to reveal a layer that looks oil-stained, reminiscent of the stuff on the fur of the wolf-creatures.
It's his tone, more than anything, that makes me push away from the stone and take the steps on my own to his side. I drop to my knees in the snow, which only serves to jar my torn flesh and broken arm and know that I'm not getting up under my own power any time soon. "Here. We can cleanse this," I tell him gently. Of this, I am certain, and try to imbue my words with that same certitude.
He looks up to the stone, angry and severe, but it softens when his eyes finally alight on me. "You'll have to help me cleanse. I'm not sure I've enough training in Prime. But first, the body and the runes."
He looks around, and before I even have the chance to say something choice about his Order and their penchant for incomplete educations, he lifts me off the ground, cradling me in his arms. Despite his gentle hands, the pain is acute, and I see motes of light in front of my eyes. Then, he's setting me down on the clean side of the bowl, far away from the cave. He divests himself of his coat and puts it around my shoulders, still warm from his body and my magic. The sweater follows and he drops it into my lap, leaving him only in a thermal shirt with the left sleeve shredded over his mechanical arm.
"This will hurt a bit... just keep well away," he says apologetically.
I recognize the look of a man who is about to do some serious magic. He takes the necklace he retrieved from the truck from his pocket, a teardrop on a leather cord, and wraps the cord around his hand, letting the red-gold medallion hang inside his fist. Then, he centers himself and balances, with steps carrying him to a spot five meters from the arch. His nimbus is strong and still, and even as far away as I am, I can feel the strange, eeriness of it resonating.
Anthony moves well, hypnotizing and fast. His arms sketch patterns in the air that are beautiful and deadly, and speed up with every iteration. A pause, and then he spins his arms rapidly, crying out forcefully. The sound hangs on the air and he seems to gather it up, and from it create white hot fire, flickering yellow and blue, that melts the snow under his feet, but he is already moving towards the cave, gathering up the fire and finally throwing it, a lance of light that explodes on impact, sending stone chips flying. Anthony's brow is furrowed in concentration as he guides the path of the fire, melting the snow, setting fire to the cave and searing the corpse inside.
I brace myself against the snow with my good arm and pull Anthony's coat tight around me. The edges of his magic hurt, a prickling tingle that coats my skin and takes special delight in the ragged edges of my wounds. I recite an old mantra, steeling myself against the pain and backlash. When the paradox comes, it is swift and merciless. Anthony's muscles spasm, the cuts on his face and arm bleed profusely, but he snarls and controls the flame, leaping and sizzling. Steam erupts into the air from the vaporized snow, a path suddenly clear from Anthony's place to the cave mouth and ten feet on either side.
And then it is done, and Anthony sags, dropping to his knees in the slush and catching himself on his right hand - the metal left hanging limp and useless.
By the time I realize what I'm doing, I've already fallen backwards into the snow and am clambering forward, on my own hand and knees. I can feel the burn of his resonance, hot and painful. I call his name, uncertain if my words carry that far.
"Stop!" he calls in a ragged voice. My muscles spasm hard, and I don't think I could move even if I wanted to. "Stop," he says again, with less force, "or you'll hurt yourself worse. I'll be fine." As if to prove it, he picks himself up slowly, carefully. His left arm moves in fits and starts.
I want to argue, to go to him, but my body makes my decision for me as my arm gives out. I manage to turn just enough that I don't go face-first into the snow, but the twist ravages my body again. Snow seeps into my clothes and I shiver, take stock. I think the healing I did is sticking, but that's all that can be said.
"Joule! Dammit..." I feel his resonance recede and I force myself on to my back, wave to him. "Fine. I'm... fine."
"You lie as badly as I do."
It amuses me and I snort, not quite having the energy or the wherewithal to laugh. "I'll..." I hesitate, find words that I know are probably true, "be fine. Let's.. start cleansing this place... and- and go the fuck home." Right now, nothing sounds more appealing.
"Just... give me a minute more..."
I close my eyes while the burn fades to a prickle, and finally back to stillness. I pick up my mantra where I left off, whispering the words. "Niobium, molybdenum, technetium, ruthenium..."
I feel his arms around me, prepare myself for the lift. "Okay, come on. Let's get this done, and we can both go be hardasses somewhere where it's warm and dry."
This is the best plan I've ever heard. I hold my arm tight against my chest, give myself utterly to him. "Rhodium, palladium, silver, cadmium." I watch his face as he carries me; looking anywhere else makes me dizzy. He is resolute more than calm, and I take heart in that.
He kneels at the entrance of the cave, cradles me against him. "Come on, Joule, I need you here. We can't leave it like this."
"Indium, tin, antimony, iodine..." That's not right; I've missed one. How did I miss one? "No, tellurium, iodine..." Anthony's words trickle through to me and I nod. "Alright. Here." I take a deep breath, which proves to be a mistake; the tear across my chest throbs and my ribs inform me of just how upset they are. "Put me down - I n-need to draw this out. To... to cleanse something, you n-need to p-picture it in its most perfect state. C-c-can you do that?" I shiver and it scares me. I check the effects I have active, and realize that I've lost some and didn't even know I had.
"Yeah. Yeah, I can..." There is a note in his voice that I can't identify, and I follow his gaze to a corpse laying in the snowmelt, lightly burned.
"Don't," I say sharply. If I have to be here to do this, so does he. "Be here. I n-n-need you here. K-keep the picture in your m-mind, of this cave in its perfection, c-carved by water and wind." I take another breath, shallow but steadying. "Think of this and keep it there. D-do you know the rune for healing?"
Anthony takes a deep breath of his own, then nods with a sound of affirmation.
"D-draw it for me. Here," I point to the spot, but it takes some effort to raise my arm. "Use y-your b-b-blood and m-mine." I swallow and shiver violently, glad that Anthony is close. "The b-backlash dropped an effect or t-two."
Anthony sets his jaw and drags his fingers across my sleeve until they're covered in my blood. He daubs the rune onto the stone, using the flow from his own cuts to clear the lines. After a moment, I realize that his nose is bleeding, but by the time he has finished, he has regained his focus.
The mouth smells of boiling water and glacial ice, clean and nearly free of the taint that had overhung the dell. I concentrate on this, don't allow anything else to interfere. "Keep the image of perfection," I tell him and myself. "Concentrate on it to the exclusion of all else."
Anthony gives me a long look, and then his breath slows. I take my own advice and push material cares away, ignore my pain, the cold. Around us there remains a faint miasma from the Outside, something that infects everything it touches. But beneath that, buried deep under the earth, there is purity. That is what we will reach, will bring to the surface. Anthony cleansed this place in fire, washed it clean with water. Now, we need only to remind it of what it had been and will be again.
In this, I intend to mostly be a conduit. I pull on my own mana, laden with the scents of copper and ozone, reach my senses into the earth and find the aquifer with clean, pure water, then reach further still. "Earth and water," I chant in high speech. "Earth and water, tend the earth. Create and cleanse. Earth and water." I chant the words over and over until I feel the mana beneath us move and roil, and Anthony's pulse is palpable beside me, beating in time to my chant.
Moving magic through the earth is a slow process. Were I a better mage or a more powerful mage, I could perhaps do it in an instant, but I am not and it takes time. At the edges of my vision, I can see my nimbus flaring with electricity arcs and the scent of copper and ozone burst around me and underneath me, the magic rises from the deep.
Anthony is a steadying presence beside me, his stillness, for the first time, rather than being eerie buoys my strength. When my voice falters, his is there to replace it, to lend it stability. When I succumb to the pain and loss of blood, swaying on my knees and nearly falling, he does not offer his physical support, but instead his determination. With him beside me, I cannot conceive of failure.
And still it goes on. My mind begins to wander and I ruthlessly force myself to focus here. When my body aches and shivers, I exert my will to stop the shivering and ignore my numb fingers and toes. When I feel that I cannot go on and that I simply have nothing left to give, we are finally rewarded with the stone beneath our knees shaking, a small earthquake in the dell. Knowing that we are close, I pick up the tempo of the chant. With fingers gone blue with cold, I run through the mudras.
As I finish the third series of mudras, the energy that we so slowly enticed from the earth bursts forth, through me and around me, smelling of warm, rich soil and clean water. I gather the energy as it burns through me, singeing the channel my body makes. Once I have as much of the energy as I can possibly handle, I form it into a ball, rolling it like clay between two invisible hands. I only have one chance to do this right, to control the energy as it contracts and explodes...
Mum smiles as she hands me a spoonful of sugar...
I stand in my da's shop, surrounded by ancient toasters, never to work again...
Grommet praises a particularly clever piece of magic...
Yoav puts a hand on my hip and kisses my hair...
I blink to find Anthony kneeling over me, cradling my head, his eyes bright green and full of worry and fear, which scares me more than my numb fingers and burning injuries. He puts an arm under my back, leaves the left, warm, metallic and comforting, on my head. "I'm n-never g-going to b-be a subtle mage," I whisper and attempt a smile. The world smells like clean water, warm soil and no trace of the Outsider's malignancy.
Anthony chuckles, surprised and as ever, his smile softens his face, even though blood has fanned across it. "No, you won't," he agrees. Then, he looks from me to the bowl, where his eyes linger on the remains of his master. He speaks something in Japanese, makes a gesture with his right hand, then bends to lift me.
"See to your master," I tell him. I mean to point, to send him to take care of this last duty, but I only manage a weak wave.
Anthony straightens. "We're done here, livewire. What I need is to get you home and safe."
I'm about to object, but I'm suddenly overwhelmed with exhaustion and pain. I hurt profoundly, every place where a claw hit or a fang found purchase in my flesh burns. My arm aches, and the whole of my body feels as if I'd turned it inside out, burned it in a fire, rolled in salt and lemon juice, and righted myself again. The thought of doing any magic ever again is untenable. I close my eyes and lay my head against Anthony's chest, and feel his muscles move, can hear his heart beat as he adjusts and begins walking.
I swallow and look down. I can't see the wound across my chest, but I have an idea of how bad it is. Blood has been pouring from it and down my shirt, soaking my clothes under the snowsuit. We have work to do here, still, that needs to be done. I find what my da called my brave face and prepare to lie, but can't quite bring myself to it. "Bad enough. I won't be doing much with this arm for a bit, and right now I'm glad I've still got the adrenaline; I can't feel my chest yet."
He gives me a ghost of a smile, edged in relief that touches his eyes, hard despite having gone the color of spring grass. "Can't be too bad if you're still a hardass."
I wrinkle my nose at that, put an experimental hand to my chest. My dark glove comes away with a lot of blood on it and I shake my head, desperate to change the subject. "This place reeks of ugly resonance."
Anthony nods. "Yeah. Just trying to figure what to do about it. We've got to purge it. First things, though..." With deference, he pulls at my torn coat, sending another flare of pain through my chest, down my body. My spine tingles with the pain, and every breath I take sends another resolve shattering lance through my ribs. I know that looking at it will break what little store I have left, so I don't. Instead, I study the tops of the trees, try to breathe shallowly, interspersing with deeper breaths, each one ragged and painful.
For his part, Anthony lets out a slow breath. "I won't lie to you. It's not pretty." He prods gently at the wound with a finger and tentative magic, under which I stoically manage to neither flinch nor faint. "Not really clean either. Let me see your arm."
I recall the words he said weeks ago, the ones that made me snort and privately smile. "I wasn't going to win any swimsuit competitions," I tell him as I carefully extend my arm and wince with the effort. That wolf-creature bit until its teeth met, and while I can move my fingers, the effort is supremely painful. Try something else. Get back to business. "The cleansing can be done easily enough, but it isn't a quick process."
He turns his unfocused gaze to my arm and shakes his head, refusing to take the bait. "Those things were filthy. Cold at least seemed to retard mine, thank god." He looks down at his own wounds and I belatedly realize that he's been hurt too, but I don't think as badly. "I hope you have a lot of antibiotic." He looks up, then, at the cave mouth. "We're going to have to look around. Can you stand?"
I consider this. My hip is bruised, but my legs are undamaged. If I don't do something about the bleeding, though, I won't be able to stand for very long. "Give me a second. Let me see if I can't do something about these."
I pull the glove off my right hand with my teeth and drop it into my lap before fishing for my focus. I palm it, press my hand against my chest in a note of pure agony, and murmur the words. Electricity crackles down the edges of the wound, buzzes through my skull. I can feel the bleeding slowing, but it does not stop and the wound doesn't close. The cold air nearly freezes the blood, and for the moment, it will have to be good enough. I take an experimental breath and find that the little healing I was able to effect hasn't lessened the pain any. "I don't think I'll be able to do much more than that. Help me up. Let's take a look at that cave."
Anthony presses his lips together, I think disapprovingly, but nods. "All right." After a moment's hesitation, he slips his left hand under my right arm, gives me an apologetic look as he hauls me upright by my waistband. My body objects to the sudden change of situation and I sag against him until I find my footing. I don't argue when he puts my arm over his shoulder and takes my weight. With my left arm pressed against my chest, we walk towards the cave while I concentrate solely on not falling down.
The cave is old, but not as old as the rocks around it. The stone around the mouth is marked with runes, eye-twisting and ugly. Their shapes are based in the Atlantean tradition, but where Atlantean runes are beautiful, elegant, and otherworldly, these cause the stomach to churn. They've been mostly destroyed, however, by fire and a tool of some kind. Just inside the mouth is a pale figure that resolves itself into a body as we draw nearer, twisted and grotesque. It's extremities are black with frostbite, and a piece of metal protrudes at an angle from its left leg - the blade of a sword, perhaps, snapped off. Its head is alarmingly shaped and a hole the size of a fist has been burned through its back.
"The body should be burned and cleansed," I say quietly.
"I know," he murmurs in a voice empty of emotion, which only tells me that whatever he feels is sharp and deeply buried. He walks me carefully to one side of the arch the cave mouth makes. "If you can manage it, lean here. Look at the runes and see if you find any still intact. I'll start on the other side."
I am getting cold, which only makes my injuries hurt more. I don't know what will be required of me yet, how much of my carefully stored resources I'll have to use to make this right, or whether my magic here will cause some trap to be sprung. "Alright." Anthony leaves me on the one side while he goes to the other. I turn to my task, glad to have something productive to do.
The runes don't look better up close. If anything, I swallow bile more than once, and stop trying to make sense of them. I concentrate, instead, on naming the Atlantean runes I think they correspond to, careful not to speak them aloud, although I mouth the words.
Before long, Anthony grunts and swears. I look over to see him crouched low, looking at mark half-buried in the snow. "Dammit," he says, with self-loathing so deep and thick that I not only recognize it for what it is, but I wonder how long he's buried it. "I missed one. Dammit all to hell." He sweeps at the snow with an angry swipe to reveal a layer that looks oil-stained, reminiscent of the stuff on the fur of the wolf-creatures.
It's his tone, more than anything, that makes me push away from the stone and take the steps on my own to his side. I drop to my knees in the snow, which only serves to jar my torn flesh and broken arm and know that I'm not getting up under my own power any time soon. "Here. We can cleanse this," I tell him gently. Of this, I am certain, and try to imbue my words with that same certitude.
He looks up to the stone, angry and severe, but it softens when his eyes finally alight on me. "You'll have to help me cleanse. I'm not sure I've enough training in Prime. But first, the body and the runes."
He looks around, and before I even have the chance to say something choice about his Order and their penchant for incomplete educations, he lifts me off the ground, cradling me in his arms. Despite his gentle hands, the pain is acute, and I see motes of light in front of my eyes. Then, he's setting me down on the clean side of the bowl, far away from the cave. He divests himself of his coat and puts it around my shoulders, still warm from his body and my magic. The sweater follows and he drops it into my lap, leaving him only in a thermal shirt with the left sleeve shredded over his mechanical arm.
"This will hurt a bit... just keep well away," he says apologetically.
I recognize the look of a man who is about to do some serious magic. He takes the necklace he retrieved from the truck from his pocket, a teardrop on a leather cord, and wraps the cord around his hand, letting the red-gold medallion hang inside his fist. Then, he centers himself and balances, with steps carrying him to a spot five meters from the arch. His nimbus is strong and still, and even as far away as I am, I can feel the strange, eeriness of it resonating.
Anthony moves well, hypnotizing and fast. His arms sketch patterns in the air that are beautiful and deadly, and speed up with every iteration. A pause, and then he spins his arms rapidly, crying out forcefully. The sound hangs on the air and he seems to gather it up, and from it create white hot fire, flickering yellow and blue, that melts the snow under his feet, but he is already moving towards the cave, gathering up the fire and finally throwing it, a lance of light that explodes on impact, sending stone chips flying. Anthony's brow is furrowed in concentration as he guides the path of the fire, melting the snow, setting fire to the cave and searing the corpse inside.
I brace myself against the snow with my good arm and pull Anthony's coat tight around me. The edges of his magic hurt, a prickling tingle that coats my skin and takes special delight in the ragged edges of my wounds. I recite an old mantra, steeling myself against the pain and backlash. When the paradox comes, it is swift and merciless. Anthony's muscles spasm, the cuts on his face and arm bleed profusely, but he snarls and controls the flame, leaping and sizzling. Steam erupts into the air from the vaporized snow, a path suddenly clear from Anthony's place to the cave mouth and ten feet on either side.
And then it is done, and Anthony sags, dropping to his knees in the slush and catching himself on his right hand - the metal left hanging limp and useless.
By the time I realize what I'm doing, I've already fallen backwards into the snow and am clambering forward, on my own hand and knees. I can feel the burn of his resonance, hot and painful. I call his name, uncertain if my words carry that far.
"Stop!" he calls in a ragged voice. My muscles spasm hard, and I don't think I could move even if I wanted to. "Stop," he says again, with less force, "or you'll hurt yourself worse. I'll be fine." As if to prove it, he picks himself up slowly, carefully. His left arm moves in fits and starts.
I want to argue, to go to him, but my body makes my decision for me as my arm gives out. I manage to turn just enough that I don't go face-first into the snow, but the twist ravages my body again. Snow seeps into my clothes and I shiver, take stock. I think the healing I did is sticking, but that's all that can be said.
"Joule! Dammit..." I feel his resonance recede and I force myself on to my back, wave to him. "Fine. I'm... fine."
"You lie as badly as I do."
It amuses me and I snort, not quite having the energy or the wherewithal to laugh. "I'll..." I hesitate, find words that I know are probably true, "be fine. Let's.. start cleansing this place... and- and go the fuck home." Right now, nothing sounds more appealing.
"Just... give me a minute more..."
I close my eyes while the burn fades to a prickle, and finally back to stillness. I pick up my mantra where I left off, whispering the words. "Niobium, molybdenum, technetium, ruthenium..."
I feel his arms around me, prepare myself for the lift. "Okay, come on. Let's get this done, and we can both go be hardasses somewhere where it's warm and dry."
This is the best plan I've ever heard. I hold my arm tight against my chest, give myself utterly to him. "Rhodium, palladium, silver, cadmium." I watch his face as he carries me; looking anywhere else makes me dizzy. He is resolute more than calm, and I take heart in that.
He kneels at the entrance of the cave, cradles me against him. "Come on, Joule, I need you here. We can't leave it like this."
"Indium, tin, antimony, iodine..." That's not right; I've missed one. How did I miss one? "No, tellurium, iodine..." Anthony's words trickle through to me and I nod. "Alright. Here." I take a deep breath, which proves to be a mistake; the tear across my chest throbs and my ribs inform me of just how upset they are. "Put me down - I n-need to draw this out. To... to cleanse something, you n-need to p-picture it in its most perfect state. C-c-can you do that?" I shiver and it scares me. I check the effects I have active, and realize that I've lost some and didn't even know I had.
"Yeah. Yeah, I can..." There is a note in his voice that I can't identify, and I follow his gaze to a corpse laying in the snowmelt, lightly burned.
"Don't," I say sharply. If I have to be here to do this, so does he. "Be here. I n-n-need you here. K-keep the picture in your m-mind, of this cave in its perfection, c-carved by water and wind." I take another breath, shallow but steadying. "Think of this and keep it there. D-do you know the rune for healing?"
Anthony takes a deep breath of his own, then nods with a sound of affirmation.
"D-draw it for me. Here," I point to the spot, but it takes some effort to raise my arm. "Use y-your b-b-blood and m-mine." I swallow and shiver violently, glad that Anthony is close. "The b-backlash dropped an effect or t-two."
Anthony sets his jaw and drags his fingers across my sleeve until they're covered in my blood. He daubs the rune onto the stone, using the flow from his own cuts to clear the lines. After a moment, I realize that his nose is bleeding, but by the time he has finished, he has regained his focus.
The mouth smells of boiling water and glacial ice, clean and nearly free of the taint that had overhung the dell. I concentrate on this, don't allow anything else to interfere. "Keep the image of perfection," I tell him and myself. "Concentrate on it to the exclusion of all else."
Anthony gives me a long look, and then his breath slows. I take my own advice and push material cares away, ignore my pain, the cold. Around us there remains a faint miasma from the Outside, something that infects everything it touches. But beneath that, buried deep under the earth, there is purity. That is what we will reach, will bring to the surface. Anthony cleansed this place in fire, washed it clean with water. Now, we need only to remind it of what it had been and will be again.
In this, I intend to mostly be a conduit. I pull on my own mana, laden with the scents of copper and ozone, reach my senses into the earth and find the aquifer with clean, pure water, then reach further still. "Earth and water," I chant in high speech. "Earth and water, tend the earth. Create and cleanse. Earth and water." I chant the words over and over until I feel the mana beneath us move and roil, and Anthony's pulse is palpable beside me, beating in time to my chant.
Moving magic through the earth is a slow process. Were I a better mage or a more powerful mage, I could perhaps do it in an instant, but I am not and it takes time. At the edges of my vision, I can see my nimbus flaring with electricity arcs and the scent of copper and ozone burst around me and underneath me, the magic rises from the deep.
Anthony is a steadying presence beside me, his stillness, for the first time, rather than being eerie buoys my strength. When my voice falters, his is there to replace it, to lend it stability. When I succumb to the pain and loss of blood, swaying on my knees and nearly falling, he does not offer his physical support, but instead his determination. With him beside me, I cannot conceive of failure.
And still it goes on. My mind begins to wander and I ruthlessly force myself to focus here. When my body aches and shivers, I exert my will to stop the shivering and ignore my numb fingers and toes. When I feel that I cannot go on and that I simply have nothing left to give, we are finally rewarded with the stone beneath our knees shaking, a small earthquake in the dell. Knowing that we are close, I pick up the tempo of the chant. With fingers gone blue with cold, I run through the mudras.
As I finish the third series of mudras, the energy that we so slowly enticed from the earth bursts forth, through me and around me, smelling of warm, rich soil and clean water. I gather the energy as it burns through me, singeing the channel my body makes. Once I have as much of the energy as I can possibly handle, I form it into a ball, rolling it like clay between two invisible hands. I only have one chance to do this right, to control the energy as it contracts and explodes...
Mum smiles as she hands me a spoonful of sugar...
I stand in my da's shop, surrounded by ancient toasters, never to work again...
Grommet praises a particularly clever piece of magic...
Yoav puts a hand on my hip and kisses my hair...
I blink to find Anthony kneeling over me, cradling my head, his eyes bright green and full of worry and fear, which scares me more than my numb fingers and burning injuries. He puts an arm under my back, leaves the left, warm, metallic and comforting, on my head. "I'm n-never g-going to b-be a subtle mage," I whisper and attempt a smile. The world smells like clean water, warm soil and no trace of the Outsider's malignancy.
Anthony chuckles, surprised and as ever, his smile softens his face, even though blood has fanned across it. "No, you won't," he agrees. Then, he looks from me to the bowl, where his eyes linger on the remains of his master. He speaks something in Japanese, makes a gesture with his right hand, then bends to lift me.
"See to your master," I tell him. I mean to point, to send him to take care of this last duty, but I only manage a weak wave.
Anthony straightens. "We're done here, livewire. What I need is to get you home and safe."
I'm about to object, but I'm suddenly overwhelmed with exhaustion and pain. I hurt profoundly, every place where a claw hit or a fang found purchase in my flesh burns. My arm aches, and the whole of my body feels as if I'd turned it inside out, burned it in a fire, rolled in salt and lemon juice, and righted myself again. The thought of doing any magic ever again is untenable. I close my eyes and lay my head against Anthony's chest, and feel his muscles move, can hear his heart beat as he adjusts and begins walking.