The Scholar's Tale (Original Fantasy)

Book IV, Chapter 9

Ryzhan

Aina and I on an outing was a scenario I'd imagined more than a few times, mostly in my boyhood, though none of my ideas resembled this.

I could have never...but no, that was not right to say, was it? Who knew what could happen, in Midworld? I'd never expected Aina to be interested in the esoteric, much less willing and able to lead (not even follow) me in a journey rife with it. She'd always been so...normal.

I wish she could've stayed that way. Or, at least, that she'd found her way to power like this without the madness entwined with it.

Though, perhaps, that was not the best word. When one's thoughts defined reality instead of the reverse, how mad could one truly be?

Rhetorical question. Trying to find reason in madness was about as reasonable as looking for the sea's bottom, or for altruism in most Midworlders (who'd gladly knife someone that stupid so they wouldn't meet a worse fate in the future, and as such for their own good).

With my head full of such cheery thoughts, I could not help but think of greater reasons for joy, like my childhood friend's monstrous split personality (or it might truly have been a being of its own, fused with Aina on a whim of the Moon). But since I knew women liked mysterious men who didn't give away their thoughts (liked to see them leaving, especially), I asked, 'Are we going somewhere in particular?'

Not that I minded following her along (you understand), but the more I spent away from my flesh, the more scenarios of it being repurposed came to mind.

Hm...this might have actually been an occasion to test the theories of mages too paranoid to shed their bodies. How much did magic really depend on the synchronisation of mind, body and soul, really? Because, incorporeal as I was, my Gift felt no more distant or weaker than before.

If anything it blazed brighter. But then, I had no worldly senses to distract me from my arcane one.

My soul was unbound. And with every moment (though time's grasp was so much looser, like this) my subtle body flew free, my perception deepened, sharpened.

Enough that I was fairly sure that if Aina told me something along the line of wherever we must, my mood would be ruined.

Not that I expected Aina to disappoint me. Between the two of us, it was likely to be the other way around.

And I was not wrong: her answer was more puzzling than disappointing. 'We go where we must, Ryzhan. Think you that you can hold this world and all beside it in your mind without experiencing it?'

In any other circumstances, I might've been elated at the chance to quickly see what was worth seeing in Midworld, and at no risk to my flesh, at least. But this had the air of work, not a vacation, and that sort of cosmically significant work Ib had manoeuvred me to do, at that.

In my mind, Midworld spread in a circle, with the Great Powers and their holdings acting as the points of a compass, while an airless void, worlds spinning around their suns, covered it like a clear but painted bowl.

At some point, distracted somewhat by my musing as I was, I still noticed, if vaguely, that Aina had slowed down. Before I could overtake her, however, she raised a taloned hand, covered in what looked like a grey, leathery hide one moment, then scales the colour of slate the next, and stopped me.

Well. I stopped, myself. I knew, in my heart of hearts, that her claws could rend spirit as easily as matter, if not more so, and I had no wish to test my instincts, at the moment.

She half-turned her head to peer at me over a shoulder rippling like a disturbed pond, and her dark eye was like a pit in the face of the moon, for her own visage had turned pale as if drained of blood. With her shifting form, that might well have been true.