Earthwitch

7. Anele

Anele threw the last scrap of wood into a shallow pit. She'd dug it with her bare hands, and pressed the bottom down until it was compact. The earth hummed softly in the denser parts, like a parched throat finding its voice. 

She kicked sand over the ant-eaten logs she'd managed to salvage.

A bit of warmth would have helped with the night's chill, but the only advantage to her situation was being hard to detect. A fire in the middle of the desert was a beacon -- and the Pettygod was still out there.

Anele patted down the sand until it was firm enough to leave hand prints. It never stopped being odd, that feeling of soil on her hands. Without a way to cycle the Earth aura that churned from one horizon to the other, it was like touching her own skin with numb fingers. 

Plenty of aurics followed Air and Water paths because those auras were easy to come by. Flame was the easiest to learn -- people had mastered it with sticks and flint in a world before divine magic. Since waking up three years ago, Anele hadn't met another Earthwitch, which was strange.

Earth was more abundant than Air and Water combined. Even without a soul, she could feel its rich reserves in places deeper than the ocean, in rivers of liquid iron where turtles slept with continents perched on their stone backs. And it was the easiest path to learn. 

If you walked backwards, every path could trace its start to the planet. Earth was just magic in its simplest form. Then again, Anele had woken up to a world where "simple" was a fighting word.

Simplicity comes from perfect understanding, an old voice whispered. It stirred in her bones, trying to get comfortable.

Anele grabbed one of the pots hanging from her skirt, ignoring her guest.

Prisoner, it said sleepily. And I sense your loneliness. Won't you let me out, friend?

 Anele cracked the pot open.

A worm sat coiled up inside, its shell blacker than the shadows around it.

"Sorry to wake you, friend," Anele said, dropping it gently in her palm.

Souls were relative to their own power, not the size of the bearer. A viper living off mice and hares might have a spirit that shone like a candle in the distance. An elephant-eater, with its long body and oak tree antlers, slithered between mountains with the soul of a dragon. The only limit was the strength of the vessel. 

Forging a body that was attuned to a specific aura was the only way to make use of its magic.

Anele dropped the worm on top of the mound and watched it uncoil. The ground hummed a little louder. Carefully, as if squinting at the sun, she cracked open her stoneiris.

The desert night turned into a sea of burning colours. Earth aura swirled over dunes in waves of gold and amber. The sky, pitch black a moment ago, lit up as pale blue aura filled the air. Two half moons hung over the desert, their red light bouncing off the iridescent vapour of a lone cloud.

The colours were slighty different when the sun was out, with its white-hot aura dominated everything in sight. Nighttime, at least, meant Anele could open her third eye without throwing up.

Earth aura started pooling under the worm, spiralling in from a mile out like water to a drain. It cycled up from deeper layers of soil where the magic was denser, condensing under a wriggling body no larger than a finger.

When Anele closed her third eye, the soil around the worm was as black as the space between stars. 

"You aught to teach me that sometime," she whispered, scooping the worm back into its pot.

There was just enough clay to fill the other two pots. Anele filled one, and painted the patches on her arm with what was left. Starving, she got up and started walking. A fire was a dead giveaway, but a patch of ground with no Earth aura for a mile around was as good as a footprint to a Pettygod.

With no direction in mind, Anele kept walking. That was the trick to staying alive. Things chased, you ran. They hunted, you hid. She kept walking until the sun came up.