Arthurian Cultivation

The wind screamed around me, beating the trees into a wall of sound that ate up everything in its rustling chorus. The rain was pouring down. Seeping into my boots and puddling in my britches despite my best efforts. I asked myself again why I was doing this.

I was still unsure what I wanted from my newfound freedom. There were vague notions in my mind of continuing my quest for revenge or hunting down at least one old acquaintance. A rare soul who I’d actually liked and seemed to like me at least enough to collude in a bit of espionage. Those were more of a long-term goal. It came second to choosing what to do with the knowledge that the Lady was involved in my fate. The greater fae looming over my decisions left me feeling adrift.

Lacking the revenge and escape motivations that had dragged me forward. My long-term goals were cast aside, I was committed to doing what I could right now. And that meant protecting my new friend.

That is why I was up here being miserable. I had strapped myself to the chimney and was in my actual armour for once. That plus some oilskins kept the rain off enough that I could wrap the smoke glamour around myself to keep warm and to listen to what the smoke told me.

People think all smoke can be seen, something I am not about to correct them on. It's also never written down anywhere I could find, other cultivators seemingly hadn't noticed or like me kept the fact it existed a secret.

Invisible smoke gathered everywhere where fires were lit, it also hung around more than its whispy grey sibling. Even with the chimney enough of this invisible smoke was floating around in the air. It was mostly useless as a medium for battle, but just as air glamours could be used to spy on distant conversations, as long as I was connected to the smoke I could use it to extend my senses of sound and touch.

It was a uniquely bizarre sensation to feel the rise and fall of nearly thirty people's bodies. To feel their every breath disturbing the smoke. My expanded senses were surprised to find the dome had air inflows. Air and poison glamour users had long ago learnt that humans all breathed out a noxious gas similar to that of flames. The fact that the quickly constructed shelter accounted for even that made me want to go and demand more from Bors to explain his wonky control.

My attention was disturbed, not by Kristoff who was still faking being asleep. No, a vision of madness had escaped the seelie. I watched in fascination, as the pegasus stole its way into the stables. Complete with concerned looks around and very light steps as if the ground was ice it was afraid of breaking. I was most impressed that it managed to unknot the canvas door with its teeth.

Kristoff chose that moment to 'wake', and try and make his own stealthy exit. Gathering his things he made for the door.

I swore if he saw the pegasus. Wait! How had it retied the canvas? Fae beast or not, it was just a horse with extra bits which as far as I knew didn't include thumbs.

“Just going out for a shit.” He said to the guard on the door who merely grunted having been half asleep.

Before the night had set in, and in part to show off to the increasingly amorous Alexis, Bors had extended the entrance, in part so the wind didn't obliterate everyone the second they pulled the canvas open, and to create some squat toilets. The was air, water and lightning glamour in the storm, no one should have to deal with that over a dicky bladder.

Either Kristoff was a very nervous shitter, or he was up to something as he forced himself past the second canvas door. I slid down from my perch, and snuck through the storm, not really having to try to avoid notice. I was pleased with my infused body to fight the winds. Kristoff was less lucky he was crawling on his hands and knees towards the wagons.

The moon was out and there were breaks in the cloud but the clouds were ripping past so fast it was a flip of the coin if any moment offered light. The light painted Kristoff's deeds like a series of black-and-white paintings. I watched him struggle to get beneath one of the caravan’s wagons. Not his own I noticed, this was the one Alexis had been in.

He fumbled around, his own sight near useless. I had landed on the caravan and watched his attempts from behind his head. He finally found the pair of little leather pouches tucked away beneath the wagon. Grabbing the larger he stuffed it down his shirt, and then with his hand he began to scramble from all places towards Bors's tent. I watched him get somewhat close, but by this point, he was shivering and sluggish.

He had a bit of cultivation, just the background level you got from living reasonably well, enough to sustain him through his trial. Totally exhausted, he grabbed a small rock tied it to the other pouch and made to hurl it at the tent. Which is when I decided to intervene.

I appeared out of the storm and caught the bag mid-flight. The moon was on my side and the light lasted just long enough for me to see his face fall. I then stomped over to him. Grabbed him and dragged him into my own tent.

My tent was well made but the storm made it ripple and quake. The howling of the winds was not deadened as it had been in the stone dome. I threw him to the floor and pulled out a small lamp lighting it with a touch of glamour. As the weak light entered the room I could see Kristoff looking totally spent.

“You see, I could sense there was skulduggery afoot, as one I am no stranger to skulls nor doing a bit of digging if I must. Now, here's the deal. Answer me three questions and don't start screaming.” He nodded.

“For our opening act, were you the only person who knew about your little arrangement with the hunters?” The man slumped, I'd got a true bull's eye. He must've thought he could lie his way out, but not only had I quashed that hope, but confirmed my suspicion.

“I am sorry cultivator.”

“Just answer the question, I promise you there is a way out of this for all of you unharmed, but it begins with honesty. Absolute honesty.” I almost couldn't say unharmed, the word tasted like ash on my tongue, if he was forced and coerced maybe. I just didn't believe it.

“I'm the only one who knows.” I could sense the lie in his tone, I'd not survived a day about the Harkleys with this man's level of skill. He must've caught the look as he began to gibber. “I'm the only one who knows for certain, Baste Guard Captain caught me hanging the witch charm they gave me under the cart. I told him it was just for luck but he was damn suspicious about it. I had to bribe him to look the other way.”

That felt like the truth. “What did the hunters ask you to do?”

“I was to tie both the charms under the cart, and then when we got to the Cultivators bridge was to cut the smaller one free and leave it nearby. When that was done they gave me something to burn after I'd headed down the road and said I was to do it in the evening light. That was it, nothing else I swear.”

“How much are they paying you to do this?”

“It's not like that cultivator, yes they're offered me five crowns, but they also have my family you must understand. I only did it for my family” I wanted to believe the second part, I really did, but I knew it was a lie.

How did I know? Unseelie knows! I was used to going with my gut, going with what felt best when I only had half a song and a rough melody. This sensation was not that, it was an entire sonata sprung and burned into my brain. It was a sure a lie, as my name was Taliesin. Wait!

“Shit,” I swore out loud as the next thought clicked into place. A horrible sensation came over me. This felt like actual seelie nonsense to me.

“Please understand cultivator I'm just a poor mortal.” His whining was getting loud, his salvation within sight he got up to his knees to beg. The sight turned my stomach even as I reeled at my new condition.

“I understand don't worry I won't hurt you.” I got as far as ‘don't’ before my throat closed up. I was going to hurt him. Even a painless death wounds the soul.

Cold certainty flooded through me, I had to scan back over the last few days. Nothing, not one. Not a fib? Not even a sarcastic remark barb? I loved sarcastic remarks! I had not let a lie slip from my lips since the Lake.

I felt bereaved. That surge of grief where you didn't know how to feel yet only knew you'd lost something dear. I was bereft of my greatest defence and yet perfectly aware of it being wielded against me.

“Please I have two children and a wife.” Again the lie grated on me. It scratched at my soul. My attention turned to the wretch before me.

“Then why did you hang it under Alexis's carriage huh? What they tell you to frame some innocent girl as part of the threat to your family. No, that was it she had a bit of cultivation you knew, you knew it might be tempted. That's why you wanted her to stay inside the caravan.” The man went taught, his eyes turned hateful, full of spite and malice. He spat.

“You cultivators are all the same just…” I struck, my lute becoming a blade and taking his head. His body

The knave had one last nasty surprise, a veritable fount of death glamour. I went to take a bellows breath but wrestled it closed just in time. My chest burned, it was like I was a starving man drowning in rich honey. I fought with everything I had to not take even a whiff of his death glamour. I knew my stories, I'd seen them warp people who called themselves ‘Divine’ into monsters for even their ilk.

It demanded my action, beat on my consciousness. It might have got me if my soul wasn't on fire from discovering the fae trickery. I held the bellows closed, eventually circling smoke glamour around myself to scrape it away, to fill my surroundings with the sweet scent of wood smoke.

I breathed gently, not my bellows breaths. I was safe when the moment had passed. It was exhausting, but I'd seen out what I meant to do this night. I checked the body again. He was not the first man I'd slain, and would not be the last. He was a clear rogue, putting others in danger without a second thought, so it wasn't going to keep me up. How close I'd come to slurping on his soul was going to give me nightmares.

Sleep and the waiting unseelie visions would have to wait, my night was far from over. The flap of my tent slid open and Bors stepped in.

“This day won't end.” I slumped back into a chair.

“Can you pass me the bags?” Bors's voice was flat, I couldn't read him, his face was but a doing a great impression of a block of marble. I threw him the bag and he looked it over and smelt it. His stone face only briefly cracked as he gagged.

“I recognize the smell. Percy uses something similar to train her hawks. Alexis is a junior alchemist, I'll ask her to look at it. This is what the Lynx was after. You were right on all counts.”

“How much did you hear?”

“Odd thing, I felt my bond go weird, which is generally a sign that Gring is up to mischief. I come out and find you stalking this man through the dark.” He waved and the body folded into the floor.

“Gring snuck into the stables.”

“The knave! Told me he was going to behave. Some of those mares are going to be very tired tomorrow.” He went to sit on my chair but thought better of turning it into firewood and raising a stone chair out of the ground.

”So you heard it all then. I was going to tell you I promise.”

“I don't doubt it.” A truth again, maybe my new power wasn't the worst. It protected my fledgling friendship with Bors from this cold conversation.

“Then why am feeling this dischord from you? It feels awfully like an executioner sharpening his blade.”

“So first thing, I think, I want to believe you're the good man you present yourself as.” Another truth, actually come to think of it had I ever felt Bors lie?

“This leaves an avenue where I'm not? And you have to do something we'll both regret. Or at least you will because I'll most likely not be doing much of anything?”

“Look I don't like doing this but I have a duty alright? Please, just bear with me. The key issue is you have death glamour. I've known for a while, your Cultivation technique is odd, you suck up so much in one go. I could feel the death glamour disappearing too fast. So I need to ask you have you ever absorbed the energy of a human life.”

“No.” I snapped. To my surprise, the marble visage collapsed and he grinned. All was right with the world, for a moment there I'd truly believed that Bors had been leading me about by the nose all this time7Bors was a terrible interrogator.

“Great, that's the first hurdle passed. Seriously don't absorb any death glamour from people, it's the fastest way to go crazy. It's what the inquisitors do.”

“Shockingly I didn't need to be told to not drink people's souls.”

“Look I wouldn't be like this if you didn't eat a monster core raw?”

“You followed me?”

“No Gring was watching you, and that's totally on him. And now you confirmed it. It was a very confusing pantomime, so mind telling me what that's about. Because eating cores raw is what crazy people do.” I pinched my nose. I'd never volunteered an answer like that before this whole fae lying thing came to light, it was throwing me off my game. Well, maybe it could be a boon.

“Before I explain I need you to make me an oath you won't share what I'm about to tell you with anyone.”

“Sorry, I have to hear it first, I will make the oath that before we leave this tent I will either have sworn myself to secrecy, or I will at least tell you if I feel it is essential to tell someone, and who I will be telling.” Not a word of a lie according to this new sense. I settled. For the second time since I met the Lady, I shared something I'd assumed I'd never tell another soul.

“My fae gifts come from a phoenix, the impurities from cores are the key element of my ability to come back from the dead. I burn them off to aid my revival.” Bors listened, nodded and then steepled his fingers.

“Say it again.” Slightly off but I did. His brow creased, I was reminded of his attempts to learn from the Illuminated text. Like he was puzzling something out. After a full minute, he looked at me again.

“And the impurities don't make you go crazy?”

“No. I spent years chock full of them waiting for my moment to-” I couldn't say ‘fake my death’ I'd actually died! Why was this so much easier when I wasn't aware of it? “die in the right way to escape.”

Bors nodded, his lips moved and then he slapped the table beside him making me jump.

“I agree to your oath of secrecy. I will not share a word.” He grinned and then he sprawled back into his chair. “Damn, I'm so pleased that's over I did not enjoy that at all.”

“Seriously? We're done, you come in here with a face like death itself and now we're just good?”

“Oh man, this has been like a bur on the inside of my armour. You seemed like such a relaxed guy, said all the right things, were against demonic cultivators, had a tragic backstory, the works! Then I had Gring going on about you eating hearts, and I could tell you had a death glamour gift. And I'm sorry I didn't bring it up earlier. It's just I'm not great at sussing people out. Percy says I'm terrible at it. Also no offence but you have a super rare fae gift that lets you come back from the dead and eat monster cores, not an answer anyone could've expected.” I felt my whole body unclench. I was not dead, and Bors was still Bors. He seemed genuinely relieved at no longer having to deceive me.

“I ask this out of morbid curiosity, but couldn't I have been lying this whole time? How do you know this isn't all some elaborate ruse, a dastardly plot I've set up to bamboozle and confound.”

“So I'll let you in on a secret cause I want to make amends for tricking you. Earth Cultivators who spend enough time in someone's company can tell if they're lying, well sort of. It's more like I get to know when your body is wary, waiting to see if the lie lands. My mentor raised me to be honest or silent because of it. It's not perfect and it doesn't work on Iron level cultivators but yeah it's still pretty useful. It's why I really wanted you to be a good guy. You like never lie!”

I began to laugh, great painful gales of laughter. I may as well have never left the shores of the Mirror Lake. No matter where I went before the Lady of Lake I was but a puppet dancing on strings.