Challenge #01558-D097: New Start
For a star to be born, there is one thing that must happen: a gaseous nebula must collapse. So collapse. Crumble. This is not your destruction. This is your birth. -- RecklessPrudence
There's a saying in the streets, It's easy to fall, harder to rise. The streets are hard, and hot, and freezing cold at the same time. It makes people that are hard, who have hot tempers and cold hearts. They grasp for anything that will get them ahead. Even if it means killing their own. It's a broiling forge in which the toughest and the hardest make a living, and the cleverest find a way out of as soon as possible.
Assuming they survive that long.
All of this, of course, was mere philosophy now that Cass was slowly bleeding to death in the gutters following a Back-Street Handshake. Or, as the rare police knew it, a quick shiv to the kidneys. At least she'd got him in the goolies before he smashed her face and took what little she had to steal. Rage burned inside her as she watched the retreating back as her thief limped away through her remaining, useful eye. Die in a fire, she thought, and was more than shocked to see the cutpurse burst into flames.
Of all the times to suddenly bloom into magehood...
Cass didn't look for any other sign, just focussed on the immense pain in her abdomen. Picturing an imaginary thread darning her up from the inside-out. Holding it together. Slowing the blood. It hurt like a bitch, but Cass was used to pain. She retrieved her purse from the burning corpse, and a few others as well. Glaring at anyone who dared to watch.
All this for a handful of groats, three coppers, and a dubiously silver ring with a garnet set in it.
Cass left him burning and walked very carefully onwards. Stopping the leaks. Spending some of her mental power on more delicate 'stitching'. There were spots dancing in her eyes by the time she made it to the nearest Whisper Hole. Where those who feared retribution could tell of grievous crimes or report a new mage for a meagre reward.
Nobody had stolen the stool for firewood. Cass was grateful for small mercies as she eased herself into it. The groats would feed her for a month if she hadn't been wounded for a slow death. The coppers would stand rounds at the Bull and Bush and the ring... was probably lead and a carbuncle. Cass tipped it all into her purse and re-strung it around her neck. The others, she stuffed inside the largest of the purses and concealed it in her breast-bags[1]. They could plausibly be sold for a few more coppers.
A distant voice said, "Number Fifty-Seven. Is anyone there?"
Her voice was rough from her enforced silence. "Yes," she hissed through gritted teeth. "New mage. Just came into power. Been stabbed. Need help. Right here." The invisible stitches faded and snapped if she lost her concentration. Blood loss, the effort of keeping the 'stitches' in place, pain, and some other great effort all conspired to make her drowsy. Cass clung to the mental image of the stitches despite all this.
Though she was dying for an ale, she'd prefer to not be dying. Whoever Number Fifty-Seven was, they kept her talking. Kept asking her questions. Kept her awake. How had she emerged? She set fire to the padfoot who shook her. How many in her house? Dozens. Hard to keep count, but at least the numbers made it easier to keep warm. Cass couldn't remember the last time the space she shared with so many had had doors or shutters. It had a brazier, and that was that.
Number Fifty-Seven had her listing things by the time the area Cleric and their honour guard turned up.
Cass woke in a hospice with a completely different Cleric watching over her. The soft bed and the warm covers made escape troublesome, since Cass felt weak as a kitten. She was, however, very aware that she was naked under the bedclothes.
This Cleric was male, so she warned him with a semi-friendly, "Sure I can burn you, too, if you try'n poke me without payin'."
"You're welcome," snarked the Cleric. He had a world-weary look to his eyes. "And welcome to the first day of the rest of your life. Happy birthday." He rose, showed that he was unarmed, and opened a small closet by her bedside. Where her clothing and her purse collection lay. "We cleaned and repaired your clothes while you were out. That was some... interesting magework you did. What made you think it up?"
"Stitched m'self up enough times and lived," Cass confessed. Her injury was a dull throb on the edge of her awareness. Like she'd been punched instead of stabbed. It did not fade like she'd been punched. "And I could... feel... where the leaks were. It was powerful strange. So I sewed it all back together."
"Hm," said the Cleric. "It takes fifteen years of hard study to do what you just did. Either your power has been building for some time without egress, or you are something of a genius."
"Ain't never had no learning," she said. "Never could afford stout, so's I never had an Eeg, let alone an Egress."
"Forgive me," said the Cleric. "We get too used to educated speech and words that hide their meaning. What I mean is, either you had magic bubbling inside with no way out, for a long time, or you have a very clever way of thinking."
"Reckon I was desperate," said Cass. "Anyone poke me while I was out?"
The Cleric cleared his throat. "We much prefer the lady to enjoy herself, here. You are thoroughly safe. And, I might add, cured of quite a few diseases."
The burning sensations in various parts of her body had vanished. This man was telling the unaltered truth. "What happens now?"
"We teach you. We help you find your limits. You choose where to go from there. Though I would suggest... not back to the Devil's Maze."
"Place near killed me once," said Cass. "Reckon that's plenty."
He had been right to tell her 'happy birthday'. This was a new place and a new life, at the cost of her former ruin. Almost at the cost of her life. For the bargain, she was as weak and helpless as a newborn as well. The Clerics had to use a clever crank to sit her up and she could barely lift a spoon to her lips, and let them help her hold it.
They taught her things while she was awake. The beginnings of an education. Because there was nothing more dangerous than a Mage who didn't know what they were doing or what their own limits were. There were places in the countryside where people still didn't tread because of the immense damage wrought.
Considering what happened to that luckless cutpurse, Cass could begin to understand.
[1] Before the corset took over fashion, there was the precursor to the bra. A cloth harness that kept the bosom more or less restrained. The bra had to be re-invented because it had been forgotten whilst the corset reigned. Source.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / PinkBadger]
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