The Glass Wizard - The tale of a somewhat depressed wizard

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He stood awkwardly by the wall, wings pressed so tightly against himself they ached, while the shaman sat on a stool beside the selder's bed. The orange glow of the orblight covered her tall frame into warm shadows that promised compassion, but carried none. They were deceiving, like a glimpse of sunshine might suggest comfort on the peak of a deadly glacier. Her outline bled into the wall and spilled over the selder's body. She leaned close, her long fingers drifting over the symbols etched into his back. At first Yu thought her claws pressed into the skin, but on closer look, he saw that the slim tips shifted but a barb's breadth above the fur. She never made contact.

Yu shifted on his talons. His throat was dry, and the click of his swallow too loud in his own skull. He wanted to be anywhere else.

"I really don't know how to help people," he rasped. "So … I mean, I better go and do the dinner thing."

As he forced the words out, the mask lifted and tilted toward him. The shift was minute, silent, with no change in posture, no rustle of robes. And as Yu looked onto the mask now, and it looked back at him, he realised that it was the only part of her that did not take in the orange light. Within the greys that were her hair and scales, it remained of the purest white, unaffected by the warmth that filled the room, as if someone had cut out a piece of the world and left it blank.

Yu stared into the blank nothing, and the room narrowed to nothing but the mask and him. And then it spoke.

"Now, what did you hear?"

The whisper did not reach his ears so much as pierce them. Yu felt the words burrow and breach through; cold scratches in his skull. His chest seized. For a heartbeat, every thought but one froze. She knows. She knows I know.

The shaman rose. The motion was seamless, with no shift of weight and no pause between stillness and height. It was unnatural, like water flowing upward. Her shadow grew with her, tall and broken across the wall, with distorted edges that blurred in the orange glare. And then it moved. It followed, drifting just behind her body as the shaman came around the cot. A faint hiss came with her, as she moved towards Yu. It came from the floor. The sound broke Yu's frozen stare. He looked down but found that her cloak hung quiet. The fabric did not swing or trail. It hardly stirred. The sound did not come from her. Yu realised he heard the stone speak. His feathers rose. They scraped the wall behind him. The touch startled him. He had stepped back, without knowing. Now there was nowhere left. He was pinned in the corner, furthest from the exit, the last cot hemming him in against the back wall. The shaman followed. The bone-white mask never broke from him.

"What did you hear, Yu?"

His beak opened. No words came.

The mask tilted, listening to the silence of his fear.

On the middle cot, the selder stirred. It was just a weak sort of squeak, more breath than voice. Yet, it was more than silence. The faint sound rippled across the room, thin as a pebble skimming over a frozen lake. But it did not break through. The shaman did not turn. She closed the distance and halted in front of Yu. Yu's feathers never settled. They stood up straight, every last one. He could not stop it. His head was now directly beneath the hidden maw.

"There was something you wanted to share with us," she said. "Just before the poor girl woke."

Yu stared. His beak broke open. Dry air scraped through.

"What?" His voice cracked.

"You spoke of something the Shaira did."

"I … Well, I … I mean … The Shaira … There was this one time … They made someone sick, I think, I mean, and then they sent him into a settlement. And when, and when the people took him in …", Yu's gaze shifted to the selder and back. "So when they took him in, the sickness got to the people. To all the other people."

"A truly unsettling ploy indeed," the mask inclined. "And one not unfamiliar. I have also known those who infest the bodies of others, albeit not with sickness, but with their young. Their captives carry them until the hatching."

And then, for the second time, Yu saw the shaman's body smile. A ripple passed through her scales, and her shoulders and chest curled upward. It was a terrible parody of compassion.

Yu pressed his talons flat against the floor to keep his claws from raking the stone. He fought to flatten his feathers, to still the tremor under his skin, but each quill revolted. He forced his eyes away from the shaman, past her, first to the door Bubs had gone through, then to the hallway exit. Both were closed.

"It is a justified consideration," the shaman said. With those words, she shifted. Toward him — no, aside, to his left, toward the cupboards along the back wall. She halted there. The mask turned back to him first. Only after a beat did her upper body follow; a delayed imitation of what should be natural alignment.

Yu understood the motion still. She wanted him closer.

"Yes, well …," his words scraped out thin and brittle. "I remember what you said. He's not marked by a witch. So, well, it can't be the Shaira." He stayed where he was.

"So I said," the shaman agreed. She raised one arm and beckoned.

Yu's eyes shifted to the hallway door again. The brass handle gleamed in the orb-light.

"Come now," she said.

And he did. He had to. He forced his steps forward, each one pretending: One. Nothing was wrong. Two. There was no voice twisting frost around his thoughts. Three. No unseen maw waited inside her to split wide and take him whole. Halt. He was normal and she was normal and all of this was normal. Pretend, pretend, pretend.

"These are the potions in storage," the shaman said, opening one cupboard. "Those most commonly used."

Her voice was steady and instructive. Patience lingered in her tone. Yet underneath, Yu felt the same splinters that he had heard when she had first spoken to him. They were almost perfectly cut, and almost perfectly aligned; those distorted fractures of sounds that should have long fallen apart, and yet they formed all of her almost perfect words.

The shaman's fingers moved with deliberate care as she revealed the potions within the cupboard. There were rows of different vessels, some of clay darkened with age, others of glass faintly tinted by the light. Many were corked and stained, a few still sealed in wax. All of them were labelled. Some had writing in Teh, others in a script Yu could not read. Though, even the Teh failed him. The strokes slipped as he looked, their edges refusing to take shape. He blinked, but they would not return to place. The letters swam like insects across water, scattering when he tried to pin them. There was no magic behind it, no trick. Yu simply could not hold his gaze. He could not focus. Or rather, all of his focus was on his hearing. Not on the bottles in front, but on the shaman's body right next to him. On the maw. Yu strained to hear the maw. Her voice did not come from there. It came only from beneath her mask. The maw did not move. It was still. For now. Yu strained for the silence from within. For the first betrayal; the ripple of it unsealing, the tear of wet flesh parting.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

"This one, Bermillion," the shaman lifted a squat bottle of clouded liquid, "to clean and close shallow wounds. Not for broken or frozen flesh. Not for bone."

Yu stared in the general direction of the bottle. The glass shifted at the edges.

She set it down and lifted another.

"This, tona bark syrup. To lower fever and to still the restlessness of the body. It is highly concentrated. A fina child, a mianid, even a selder would take only a single drop on the tongue. More, and the heart slows."

Yu's talons scraped the stone.

She brought out a narrow flask, greenish within. "Cinian. It clears the head of weakness. If the patient is already weak in mind and body, it strengthens. If the strong drink it, they will hallucinate and faint. In most cases, that is. One must always distinguish between peoples, when giving care."

Yu's beak clicked as he swallowed. "Understood."

He did not understand. He had no idea what weakness meant, but the word slipped away the moment he heard it, like water through claws. His mind had no room for questions. He could not even hold the sensible explanations she gave him, the useful knowledge in all of this. Even the potions' names dissolved from his memory, as soon as the shaman gave them to him. They simply dissipated between them. What filled the space instead was the silence beneath her mask. Yu's mind was consumed by the maw and the hidden beast behind it.

The false figure on the outside sat down a clay pot. She opened it. There was a faintly yellow paste within. The underside of the lid bore a multitude of scratches. Not signs of intentional craftsmanship, but rather, like something small had been trapped inside and tried to get out.

"Numa salve to dull the skin and all that lies beneath," the shaman closed the lid. "A needle may enter, even a knife, and the body does not scream."

Yu nodded, too fast. "Right."

She reached for another.

"This now is something truly special." It was a long flask, crimson as drying blood. "Samra, the Heart-Raiser. A cordial for those drained of blood and warmth. It returns them, if not too far gone. It gives to the heart. But from hearts that take too much, it will demand payment. Though not in equal measure. The mind has to give in return. A patient may survive, yet live emptied, with no self left to notice the beating."

Yu —

A thin rasp, from behind. Yu stiffened, then turned over his right shoulder, careful not to show his back to the shaman. The sound came first like it was in the walls, then he realised it crawled from the selder's throat. A small, broken squeal followed, but other than that, the rest of him remained slack, with his back lifting weakly, then falling again. No more —

If they gave him that cordial, would he lose his mind? The question struck sharp. Would he forget all he knew about the true guild guards?

"You are wondering about something," the shaman said.

Slowly, Yu turned back. And then, very still, very aware of the mask staring down at him, he lied with a nod. "The glass. I mean, it's … odd."

It was true enough. While the flask was shaped like an ordinary tube, the glass seemed extremely thick, like you could not smash it if you tried. Even with its length, there could not be more than a few drops of liquid inside. It was the faintest thread of red.

"Indeed so," the shaman placed it back. "The potion must be handled with care. It is difficult to create and rare to acquire." Her voice lowered, unfolding into secrecy and intimacy. "It takes the fragment of a witch's giving heart to make, wherefore it also known as The Giving Heart."

Her hand slid next to a squat vial that was sealed in wax. The glass bulged unevenly, swollen in its middle, as though the liquid had once pressed to burst through. "The Purging Draught. A creation by Bubs himself. To drive poison from the gut. Violent, when necessary, and therefore only necessary for the most violent afflictions."

The cupboard door closed with a soft metal click.

"I see that you wish to speak about something else," said the shaman.

Yu did not wish to speak to her at all.

"Should we not … take care of him?" His words came thin, and his step toward the selder's cot too hasty, too willing.

"Can you?" The mask followed his movement. Her tone threw him off balance. It had substance beyond mere sound; the weight a burden foreced from her shoulders onto his.

"Can't you?" Yu threw it off. The question fell heavy, but not far. It was a shackle to his fears and suspicions. Was she still toying with him? Toying with the selder's life?

"I assume you carry the misconception that shamans are akin to healers," the shaman said.

That is not an answer. And you are not a real shaman.

"It is a common misbelief. Allow me to instruct you. While shamans may acquire such knowledge and abilities, every transformation differs. Some gain sharper senses. Some awaken powers never meant for their blood. No two become alike, not even siblings taught by the same guides. Ambition, character, hunger; these aspects shape a shaman. Some change little, even after decades. Others, profoundly, within months of their first pathfinder walkabout."

She spread her arms. Her cloak whispered outward, pulling the light with it. Most of it vanished inside the fabric. What remained scattered across the walls in thin patches, a few matte flares on the stone. They flickered and died as she moved. "One may be granted an exceptionally long life. Another sight for blind eyes. Another, wings to take flight."

Poison and fire; her words were both. Yu's feathers jolted upright. His voice erupted. "Oh yeah? I also have the wrong conception that all shamans have to be neutral, apparently! Don't you swear not to fight?"

His anger thundered. Common sense struck after. Yu had been tired, yes, he had been afraid, yes, and still he had kept it in, he has still kept it together until now. But with her taunt about the wings, she had cracked him. Belittling disguised as patronising disguised as a distraction disguised as nice. Well, he had wanted to appear his normal self. There you have it, spelled and spilled.

But she did not take it.

"I see. You wish to unravel the events on the platform," she said, as if he had never raised his voice. "You address the fight, because you wish to know how I halted the Worldbender's magic."

Yu's breath jammed in his beak. She could have ripped it right off; his broken mask of pretence. But instead, she had made him lift it just enough to look beneath. And now, she pressed it back in place.

She took a step toward him. He felt it before he heard it, and heard it before he saw — the pressure in the air, the faint tremor underfoot, not from her, but from the stone, while she herself moved without sound.

"Or rather," she said, "why I did so?"

"Yes." The word cracked out like a fracture, one more shard that cut his tongue as it broke off. He could not swallow it back, not any of the words. While she had left him the mask, he could not take back the self that had sliced through.

"Shamans swear to remain neutral," she said, now a single pace away. The mask hung above him; white and immaculate, unbroken.

"Now," her voice deepened, the edges smudging the syllables, "neutrality does not demand weakness, does it?"

Yu's mind screamed at her. You have not sworn this! You are not a shaman!

"Tell me, Yu. Have I taken sides, between guards and travellers?"

The question threw him back. He swallowed. The answer was already in his mouth.

"No," he admitted. "No, you haven't."

It was true. Her pulse had stopped everyone. She had refused no one. She had even offered a reading to the witch.

"Just so." Her voice was silken. It barely rose, but it pressed against him and held him down. "Neutrality signifies not to fight for one particular side or party. It does not, however, forbid me from fighting. It does not mark me powerless. I am neither neutral, nor kind, out of weakness. To be kind, one must be powerful. Not necessarily strong, but powerful. You must be powerful enough to choose kindness, and always more powerful than those upon whom you wish to bestow it. The powerful may choose, where the powerless must be petty and cruel, simply to endure."

The words lodged inside his chest, the truth burning and the hypocrisy curling. She had been far from kind to the krynn. Yu's talons scraped the stone. The stone answered with affront, a stinge of scorn only Yu could hear. Startled, he stepped back. Once, on impulse. Twice more, deliberate. He put the selder's cot between them.

The mask stared.

Yu forced his throat open. His voice scraped as it left. "So then, can we help him? With the power. With the knowledge. Can we help him survive?"

Slowly, the mask turned toward the selder. Only the mask. Not the body.

"I will stay with him," the shamans said, "as Bubs advised. You may send the krynn, if he desires to remain by his companion's side. With that, you may return to your own duties."

The words sank too slowly. They seeped into the cracks of his broken mask and sealed them.

She was letting him go.

By the time he understood, she had already turned away and lowered herself back onto the chair beside the selder. Then —

What? Wait — No!

Still seated, the shaman lifted her forearms before her chest. Her hands met and her fingertips pressed together. The space between them was empty. Empty, and not.

The petals along her arms darkened. The discoloration from before was still there. Now, it spread, swelling up her shoulders, bleeding across her collarbone, crawling into the hollow at the base of her throat, and then spilling downward. The black ran across her chest like Teharun devoured the world.

From the depths of her cloak, the shaman drew another needle case.

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