The True Confessions of a Nine-Tailed Fox

Chapter 59: Magitoms and Void

After Master Gravitas and Master Rattus' exit, the taskforce meeting dissolved into a babble. Floridiana and Den listed all the insurmountable challenges we would face, Mistress Jek and Bobo countered them, and Stripey and Master Jek tossed in the occasional comment. As for me, I walked across the table to take a closer look at Floridiana's book. Even if A Mage's Guide to Serica were full of lies, maybe it would give me some ideas for what not to try on Lord Silurus.

The lighting in the cottage was horrendous and the scribe's handwriting worse, but the gist was that Lord Silurus was too smart to come out of the water – and in water he was invincible. His skin was so hard that neither blade nor spell could punch through. His teeth and whiskers were steel, and he could wield the latter like lances. (The book included a grisly illustration of a man impaled through his belly.) I already had personal experience with the teeth, of course, and I could attest that even his throat lining was tough.

Anyway, after multiple direct assaults had failed, various "heroes" had tried poisoning the demon. First they spiked plump pigs and cast them into his lair, but he gulped them down and never seemed to develop so much as a tummy ache. Then they dumped toxins into the river itself. However, the currents swept them by too fast to affect him – although they did kill off many of the mortal animals and even some of the spirits who lived in the river. Oops.

The author didn't mention starvation among humans who relied on fishing, but I could guess. Honestly, it was probably for the best that would-be heroes had given up on slaying the "Catfysh Demon of Black Sand Creek."

All in all, Floridiana's book confirmed that "normal" methods of murder were out. I assumed that Yulus, too, had tangled with Lord Silurus at some point in the last six hundred years and come away scarred, given the tentativeness with which the dragon handled the demon.

Hmm. Maybe what I needed was a more powerful dragon.

And since the Dragon King of the Eastern Sea was going to be more inclined to vivisect me than help me, I had to manufacture my own.

There was an old folktale, I mused out loud, not particularly caring if the others could hear. One by one, they fell silent. The plot is unimportant, but it's about a boy with no magic who lives in the mountains for a while and turns into a mighty mage.

"Oh, you're talking about 'The Mage of Cloud Mountain'." To no one's surprise, the traveling mage recognized the story at once.

"Huh, I haven't heard that one," remarked Den.

"Probably because it's from North Serica." With the cadences and hand gestures of a professional storyteller, Floridiana summarized the tale, frustrating my attempt to save time. "Once upon a time, there is a farm boy with an abusive stepmother. He runs away to live in the Wilds of the Jade Mountains. He's puny and no physical match for the demons there, but he's clever. Every time they catch him, he tricks them into letting him go, or taking him on as a retainer, or feeding him to fatten him up for a feast – after which he escapes with a full belly, of course. Later, he carves a name seal for himself from bamboo, teaches himself magic, and starts fighting the demons. As the years pass, he realizes that he is far older than any human should be. He has awakened and turned into a spirit himself! Then he establishes a court of his own in a cave on Cloud Mountain and lives happily ever after. The end."

The others hung on her words. It was an entertaining story, I supposed, even if she'd skipped the details of the main character's escapades.

Floridiana arched an eyebrow at me. "Why'd you bring up an old folktale?"

Because I'd just remembered that Cassius' mages had run an experiment where they sent mortal animals into the Wilds to see if they would awaken. They (the mages, not the animals, which were blessedly quiet) had blathered on about how magic itself could be broken down into particles called "magitoms" – no, "corpuscles" – no, definitely "minima naturalia"! – and how the concentration of those pick-a-name-based-on-which-mages-you-want-to-offend particles were higher in the Wilds than in the settled areas.