Chapter 4 – Certified Sorceress

“Groff’fuffbar nark buffra.” Vyriz’s pronunciation was so bad that it could probably even pass for deliberate poetry among goblins.

“Groff’fu-ffar,” Jacob corrected automatically, leaning his head against Vyriz’s shoulder. The embroidered cushions they lounged on were pleasantly cool against his bare calf, one of the few parts of his body his simple wrap-around dress didn’t cover. “More saliva on the second F. Imagine spitting out a particularly tough mushroom.”

“Charming.” Vyriz grimaced. “And that means?”

“Your mother is mating with cave mold.”

“Of course she does.”

Other young Shaeravyn of the family scurried past around them, most of them on their way to the pool, most of them naked. After five more years of intensive language study, sorcery lessons and cultural immersion, Jacob found it just… normal. Almost normal. He still wore some clothes, after all.

Shaelith was twelve now. Jacob thirty. Fucking thirty. But he didn’t feel that way. Shaelith was treated like a child, and the Shaeravyn were getting so old that you weren’t taken seriously until you were fifty at the earliest anyway.

Will I ever be able to just do my thing?

Vyriz now recited practice sentences in Tulvian, one of the most important human languages.    

“Your Tulvian is just as horrible,” Jacob added and poked Vyriz teasingly in the ribs. “You just told the imaginary duchess that you think her breasts are beautiful.”

“I didn’t!”

“Ols are eyes. You said oles. Melons, Vyriz. Oles are melons.”

Vyriz’s pointy jug ears turned a shade of violet darker. With his average features, prominent ears, and rather stocky build by Shaeravyn standards, he would never be a desirable breeding partner on the concubine contract market, which made their friendship pleasantly uncomplicated. No ulterior political motives making things harder, no matriarchs meddling in their relationship, allowing them to be just buddies.

“Then I’ll probably have to work on my Tulvian vocabulary again, I guess. At least I have time for that. After all, I don’t have to take a Sorcery exam tomorrow.” The envy in his voice was hard to miss, even though he was trying not to show it. “Nervous?”

Nervous? I’ll just have to fight some murderous monster with sorcery only. Alone.

“Not at all,” Jacob lied.

A rather young servant approached and bowed deeply. She had only a few message braids. In search of partnership, In search of fun, Bound to House Vyrnara in loyalty. “The Matriarch awaits you in her private chambers, luminous Shaelith.”

~

Laenre’s rooms smelled of all the wonderful ingredients she used to create her own perfumes, especially the Denra moss that only grew in the deepest grottos. The matriarch sat at an obsidian table in front of a polished mirror, with her hair unbraided in state of temporary simplicity, which was a rare sight.

“Come on, sit down, Shaelith.” She tapped the stool in front of her. “Tomorrow is your Sorcery exam and that means it’s time for you to choose your own messages.”

Jacob’s heart leapt. At last. After years of others deciding what his hairstyle told the world, he was allowed to choose for himself. He sat down in front of his mother.

“House Vyrnara above all others,” Jacob began. “Of course.”

“Of course.” Laenre’s fingers were already parting the first strands.

“Vyrnara’s Blade Still Sheathed.”

An approving nod. An unmistakable warning to potential enemies, that was always good.

“And…” Jacob thought for a bit. “Beauty Is My Least Interesting Trait.”

Laenre’s hands paused. One perfectly shaped eyebrow wandered upwards, but her lips curled into a smile. “Brave. The other houses will interpret it as arrogance.”

“Let them.”

“Hmm.” The Matriarch resumed her work, braiding the messages into Shaelith’s hair with the ease of centuries of experience. “Speaking of other houses. Some offers are already arriving.”

Offers. For concubine contracts.

Jacob forced himself to stay still and not show any emotions to that.

“I reject them all, of course,” Laenre continued, satisfaction in her voice. “Let them starve. The longer they wait, the more desperate they become and the higher the price will be once we find a suitable contract holder for you.”

My price. Like I’m a particularly rare type of mushroom on the spice market. Jacob understood the logic of course, concubine contracts were alliances, information networks, genetic exchange, power, wealth, all of that and more. Completely normal for the Shaeravyn. Prestigious, even.

But the idea of being bound for ten, twenty, fifty years to some of those noble male Shaeravyn pansies who did nothing all day but cultivate their beauty, write poetry and fuck concubines, didn’t seem very appealing to Jacob. Shaelith wasn’t old enough for a contract yet, but it was only a matter of time.

The thought of sharing his bed with one of these peacocks, bearing children for one of them…

Jacob shuddered.

“After your exam tomorrow,” Laenre tied up the last strand, “the bids will explode. And with your beauty and your magical talent, it’s not impossible that you will start a bidding war, my child.”

His mother was right, of course, but Jacob smiled a little pained at the thought of the carnage he would inevitably cause at the concubine contract market, when he was older.

I am a mushroom flavored Helen of Troy.

~

The Examination Chamber lay deep beneath Myzelemaerlazin, so deep that the usual purple glows of the mushrooms had given way to the sickly green and brown glows of the wilder variants down there.

Jacob followed the silent escort through endless winding staircases, his freshly braided hair glistening with protective spores that Matriarch Laenre had applied to it. Beauty Is My Least Interesting Trait. Hopefully that was true.

His skin prickled under all the carefully prepared glyphs. He’d spent hours applying them this morning. Kinesis, Illusion, Emotional Glamor, even jealously guarded defensive glyphs he’d learned from House Vyrnara’s ancient arsenal of sorcery. Preparation is everything, Mistress Velathynre had always said.

Especially when you don’t know what to expect.

The circular room at the bottom of the stairs was damp and musty, making his already queasy stomach revolt a little more. Three Sorceresses sat behind a crescent-shaped obsidian table. Their faces and hair were hidden in the shadows of their ceremonial hoods, giving him no clue at all as to their position in the social and political web of Shaeravyn.

Nevertheless, Jacob recognized the middle one immediately. It was Sorceress Azadesre Rynalazel and her cold eyes were fixed on him like a spider on its prey.

“Shaelith Vyrnara,” her voice was sweet spore syrup over obsidian shards. “You will defeat a Mawshroom and you are only allowed to use sorcery.”

A Mawshroom? Jacob clenched his hands into fists. He had expected many things. A goblin maybe, or perhaps a small ogre even, but not one of the most dangerous predators of the undergrottoes.

“The test begins as soon as you enter the inner circle,” added the examiner on the left, much less condescending than the Rynalazel sorceress. “There is no time limit. You either pass or…” She shrugged elegantly.

Or I die. That much was clear. The fresh bloodstain on the edge of the circle spoke volumes. Arterial splatters by the looks of it.

Shit. Whoever was on before me didn’t make it.

He stepped into the circle and immediately the glyphs carved into the mushroom flared up on the walls, sealing the room with a shimmering barrier. Mycelium threads erupted from the floor in the center, condensing, opening the way for something that definitely didn’t belong in a petting zoo.

The Mawshroom, well, grotesquewould have been an understatement. It was absolutely disgusting.

Seven feet high, a heaving mountain of gray-green flesh littered with twitching, slobbering mouths. Each maw dripped with digestive acid that hissed whenever a droplet hit the stone floor. Tentacled mycelial outgrowths that almost looked like normal mushrooms swayed hypnotically back and forth. Mimicry, Jacob realized.

Anyone who thinks they’re harmless mushrooms somewhere deep in the grotto is dead before they realize what’s going on.

The Mawshroom oriented itself, a hundred disgusting little pit eyes focused on the mana emanating from Jacob’s glyphs and an obscene groan reverberated through the room.

Okay. Plan A. Jacob activated his strongest Kinesis Glyph, hurling pure power at the creature. The Kinesis push hit the center of the Mawshroom and did nothing, it simply got absorbed. Worse, the creature grew, swelling like a sponge soaking up water.

Shit. He just absorbs mana. Jacob dodged one of the acid-dripping tentacles.

Plan B. Illusion. He created a duplicate of himself and made it sprint to the side. The Mawshroom ignored it completely and just kept all its eyes fixed on Jacob like nothing happened.

It sees through illusions and follows the real mana signature instead. That’s bad. That’s very fucking bad.

A tentacle whipped forward, too fast for Jacob, who tried to evade but the acid ate through his robe, burning the skin beneath. The pain was sharp and biting. Think, damn it!

I need to stay cool. Next plan. The Mawshroom was a predator, but a primitive one. It had emotions, like hunger, greed, maybe even something like pleasure in eating. And emotional glamor was Shaelith’s specialty.

Jacob activated every single emotion glyph on his body simultaneously. All at once as something like an explosion of conflicting emotional manipulation magic. Love and hate, ecstasy and despair, greed and disgust, all just pumped unfiltered into the creature’s primitive psyche.

The Mawshroom froze. Its hundred little pit eyes widened, its mouths opened and closed, twitching and wobbling and a tremor ran through the disfigured mass that was its body.

Jacob intensified the onslaught, tearing at the simple-minded creature’s psyche with all his might, focusing primarily on its greed until the disgusting thing’s psyche simply shattered into several pieces. Its tentacles attacked itself, tearing at its own flesh in an attempt to pursue all those conflicting impulses.

Then, with a final gurgling screech, the creature burst open like a nightmarish piñata, brutally torn apart by its own tentacles and jaws.

Odious slime sprayed in all directions and Jacob managed to activate a protective glyph and raise a barrier in front of him barely in time, but he was still hit by a considerable gush of the disgusting sauce from inside the monster. All that remained of the Mawshroom was a steaming pile of biomass.

As if someone dropped a bowl of eight-week-old bolognese. Dis. Gus. Ting.

The examiners withdrew for consultation.

Then there was a familiar flicker in his field of vision. The UI stirred for the first time in years and a shimmering message floated before his eyes.

[NEW TRAIT ACQUIRED]

Jacob instinctively rolled his eyes upwards, fully activating the interface. The list was no longer quite so pitifully short.

[Exceptional Beauty]
[Daughter of the Matriarch]
[Shaeravyn Sorceress]

Ha! A small spark of pride flickered in his chest, but it was dampened by exhaustion and the penetrating stench. He tried to get rid of the worst remnants of mucus with a hastily activated cleansing glyph, but Mawshroom secretion proved to be as stubborn as chewing gum. Nasty, acidic, decay-smelling chewing gum.

His skin was still burning where the acid had perforated his robe and penetrated his skin in several places. But he could deal with that later.

The examiners turned their attention back to him.

“Passed,” said the examiner on the left. The Rynalazel Sorceress looked like she’d bitten into a particularly nasty sour mushroom. “Quite unorthodox handling of a Mawshroom, but undoubtedly effective.”

Jacob gave them a restrained bow, that would have been quite elegant if not for the Mawshroom guts clinging to him.

Yuck. Vyriz is going to laugh his ass off.

~

The banquet hall of the Court of the Matriarch Council glowed in all shades of purple. The certification of new sorceresses was one of the most important social events in Myzelemaerlazin.

Jacob watched his mother out of the corner of his eye. Matriarch Laenre Vyrnara was able to completely dominate a social occasion like that. With just a few movements, she parted strands of her hair, rearranged them, sending customized hair messages depending on who she was talking to.

There was no display of pride in Shaelith’s successin her hair messages, because that would have meant she would see this success as something other than an obvious inevitability.

Instead, she used the occasion of Shaelith’s success as an opportunity to subtly throw shade at their rivals in House Rynalazel, who lost two young sorceress candidates today.

If Jacob was honest, he found himself thinking that he was proud of her. She was simply the best in the political game and seemingly effortlessly so.

Jacob tried to take a crystal goblet of moss wine from a passing tray, but the servant dodged his hand with a deft pirouette, winked mischievously at him and handed him a sweet spore juice instead. Even the Shaeravyn didn’t let twelve-year-olds drink alcohol. He sighed.

“Ah, the new sorceress!” The Matriarch of House Delzyndra smiled at him.

He quickly took a glance at her hair. Delzyndra Rules the West, Minor Alliance with Vyrnara, Cautious Interest, Three Sons searching for Concubines.

“An impressive display of your talent, I hear. Emotional glamor against a Mawshroom is highly unconventional choice.”

“Thank you, Matriarch.” Jacob bowed exactly as low as the difference in status required and not an iota lower.

The other successful candidates celebrated around him. Five had made it. The eight who hadn’t made it… well, their families would pick up the remains tomorrow.

Business as usual in Myzelemaerlazin. Oh, look at that, that’s interesting!

A dwarf, apparently an archivist, with a chronosteel binocle, stood a little apart and gazed in amazement at the splendor of the Shaeravyn high nobility. Jacob took the opportunity and strolled over.

“Hand to the chest, Master Archivist,” he greeted in fluent Dwarvish. “I hope you find our humble ceremonies, uh, is ‘interesting’ the right word?”

The dwarf’s bushy eyebrows shot up, with his right hand he slapped his chest, with his left he pulled hard on one of his huge beard braids. “By the Forge Father’s hammer! A Shaeravyn who speaks Dwarvish with the accent of the Crucible?” The dwarf laughed in delighted.

“Languages are a hobby of mine,” Jacob lied modestly, having been drilled in all the important languages by the matriarch for years and out of solid calculation.

“SHAELITH!”

Vyriz stormed through the crowd, cheerfully ignoring the indignant looks of several matriarchs. He was still dragging the slightly-too-big-for-him rapier from his fencing practice behind him and his hair was wild with the braids already coming loose. But his grin stretched from one pointy jug ear to the other.

“Please excuse me, Master Archivist!” Jacob just managed to get out before Vyriz wrapped his arms around him and squeezed hard. “You’ve done it! I knew it! Eww…” He sniffed. “You smell like… uh, I mean…”

He switched to Umilari, obviously to be discreet. What he probably meant to say was something like, “Your perfume smells wonderful.” What he actually said, thanks to his atrocious pronunciation, was, “Ssnaszh ti’vess farra’lum.”

Your private parts taste delicious.

Jacob let out a snort and the sweet spore juice almost shot out of his nose. “Vyriz, you just…”

“What?” Vyriz’s face turned purple. “Oh. OH. I meant… not… ugh, bloody Umilari consonants!”

They both laughed. But of course this moment of lightheartedness didn’t last. Jacob’s trained eye caught a movement at the edge of his vision. Two matriarchs, the leaders of House Baerelin and House Arazesre, stood in a corner with their heads together. Their lips were moving rapidly, clearly engaged in an intense conversation.

Thanks, Mother, for the lip-reading training. Let’s see what the snakes have to talk about.

“- apparently three houses are already preparing their first bids, I’ve heard,” the Baerelin matriarch’s lips formed. “The beauty alone would have been enough, frankly, but with this magical talent in the equation…”

“I heard House Yndrala liquidated considerable assets for an offer.” The Arazesre matriarch sipped her moss wine. “They want a fifty-year exclusive contract.”

“Fifty years? For Vyrnara’s heiress?” An incredulous snort. “Laenre would demand at least a century of concessions and breeding rights for at least six offspring for that.”

Jacob winced.

Six kids. They talk about me like I’m a fucking broodmare.

“The girl is barely twelve and already triggers movements on the concubine market that will bankrupt one of the smaller houses sooner or later.”

“Mark my words, there will be accidents among the eligible breeding males before she turns twenty. There are some houses desperately enough to try to get rid of the competition, if they can’t outbid their opponents.”

Cold spread through Jacob’s chest.

Vyriz nudged him. “Are you okay, Shaelith? Is that smell kind of poisonous or something? Are you not feeling well?”

“Everything’s fine,” Jacob lied routinely, forcing himself to smile. Probably not very convincingly.

You know, it’s only the realization that my sexual market value will probably arouse murderous desires when I’m a bit older. So yeah, nothing to worry about, just another Tuesday in the life of the most beautiful Shaeravyn in the world.

He had become a sorceress today, and he was happy about that, but he was also slowly becoming a commodity. A very, very valuable commodity.

Precious enough to kill for.