Kanin Fyre: Chapter 18 - Void Practice

Despite our initial success with dividing the Inventory, future attempts are less fruitful. I was able to divide them one more time, bringing the total Inventory slots up to four, but it consumed all of my mana. I had to wait until the next day for my mana to recover, but when I tried again, it wasn’t nearly enough to split the slots. 

“It’s like they’re resisting me,” I say, emerging from the Between. “How come it’s taking more mana? It’s not consistent.” 

Siqi is swaddled in a blanket on a stump as he watches me practice, a scarf and floppy-earned hat obscuring all but his eyes and nose. Zyneth has gone off into the woods to work on his own magic, since there’s little else for him to do while I’m sitting here prodding at my Inventory. Occasionally, a distant burst of orange or yellow light signals his lightning and fire arcana.

The goblin nods. “More consistent than it appears. You are twisting this space, folding it around itself to make more volumes, yes?” He snakes his hands out of the blanket to hold them side-by-side and palm-up. Then he hinges his hands closed, as if to mime creasing something in half. “Like folding parchment. The first fold is easy. Maybe so is the second and third. The fourth starts to feel harder. The fifth might need a lot more pressure to lay flat. The more you halve it, the more difficult the folds become.”

I guess that makes a sort of sense, though given the abstract nature of the Inventory and Between I’m not sure why it follows the same principle. But it’s true that each has taken more mana than the last, and at this point I’ll need a donation from Zyneth to double the slots again. After that, I’m not sure even my and Zyneth’s mana pools together would be enough. I suppose I’ll have to find another way to store up more mana. 

Siqi nods to himself. “You’ve spent enough time on expanding your Inventory. But it won’t do you any good until you learn how to use it.” 

“I’m pretty sure I know how to use it,” I object. “I’ve been using it for almost a year.” 

“To its best effect?” Siqi challenges. “With multiple spaces at once?”

I did have fifty slots once upon a time, but Siqi is right that I wasn’t using them to their full potential. I mean, I think I can be hardly blamed for that, given I was still figuring out how to walk and talk, and then I realized that using them too much summoned a certain murder void. 

Ink refuses to take responsibility for that. 

But four slots is already a lot better than one. It will be nice to not have to leave my clothes behind every time Ink goes for a joy ride. In fact, maybe I can get a bigger bag to stuff all my clothes and books; I’ve found that my bag counts as one item, no matter how many things are in it, as long as it’s strapped down tight and secure. Which means I could theoretically add all my clothes, my translator, and all other loose artifacts to one Inventory slot, and have all my extra glass in another. Which still leaves two more slots for other things. Already it feels like I’ve got way more flexibility than I had before. 

“What have you got in mind?” I ask Siqi. 

The goblin grins. “Practice, of course.”

I had sort of assumed that, yeah. “I’m not sure how much practice is needed for adding things in and out of my Inventory.” 

Siqi abruptly vanishes, the blanket he’d been under sagging to the ground without anything to keep it propped up. He reappears on a branch behind me. “How about a game of tag? If I touch any of your glass, you lose.” He pats his head. “If you can use your glass to take my hat off, you win.”

Ink perks up at the mention of a challenge. 

“Can I use void?” I ask. 

“Certainly,” Siqi says. “That’s the purpose of this exercise, isn’t it? You just can’t use void to remove my hat—the point is to test your versatility.”

“Alright then,” I agree. Ink is excited for another sparring match. It’s been boring not having anyone to fight. “So how do you—”

Siqi blinks away again, this time reappearing mid-air above my head. I jerk to the side, narrowly avoiding the goblin as his hand skims across my coat. He vanishes again before he can finish falling, sitting on the ground nearby. 

“Gravity can be used to your advantage,” Siqi says conversationally. “But it is a double edged sword. If you let yourself pick up too much speed, the landing will be rough, even if you teleport yourself back to the ground. The momentum has to go somewhere.” 

I summon a Prismatic Limb and launch it at Siqi. Unsurprisingly, he blinks away, landing on top of the limb. He attempts to reach through the outer layer of void to touch the glass bones within, but we push mana through our void to make it more firm. When he realizes this, he disappears again. This time he makes a grab at some of my seeing glass, and I yank the shards quickly away from him. 

There’s one problem with his plan, if I only lose by Siqi touching my glass: I can just put it all in my Inventory to prevent that. 

I pull my glass shards back toward my body, quickly Chaining them into a mass as I add my jacket to my Inventory. Siqi attempts another attack while I’m doing this, and I use void to Displace myself away. Once the glass is finished being Chained together, I touch it to my chest—to my core—and add it to my Inventory as well. Now all I have to worry about is my body. 

When Siqi reappears, making another grab for my head, I remove my Jacket from my Inventory once more, causing the coat to appear between Siqi and I. From a branch to my left, Siqi cackles. 

“Good! That’s the kind of creativity I want to see. More like that!” 

“I’m not totally new to this,” I say, catching my coat before it can fall to the ground. “I did drop a textbook on a nightbane once.” 

This just makes Siqi grin even wider. “Then I suppose I should be pushing you harder.” 

And he’s not kidding. Siqi begins to blink around the clearing almost faster than I can track him. 

I go on the offensive next, sending a flurry of glass at him from behind in the hopes of snagging his hat. He doesn’t even need to know they’re coming for him; he teleports away so fast I can barely catch up. 

It’s doubly hard with him going after my body. Another Displace or two will wipe out my mana, so I give Ink full control of our void, letting it use the magic like a fluid shield, keeping Siqi away from my glass body. Ink and Siq spar, and the goblin laughs in delight as the void manages—just barely—to keep up with him.

The most irritating part about this whole exercise is that Siqi hasn’t bothered to stand up once. He stays in his yoga-like seated position even as he teleports in the air—takes a shortcut back to the ground—blinks into the trees. I push harder, trying to move my glass faster, and lean on Ink for help with splitting my attention all the different ways needed to keep an eye out for the slippery goblin. 

I’m getting close. The next time I lunge for his hat I manage to graze the wool, but he’s gone before I have a chance to snag it. 

Then he reappears at my side, grabs my coat, and blinks away; the cloth vanishes from my hand. The goblin and coat reappear a split second later as Siqi replicates the move I pulled on him earlier. The cloak blocks out a section of my sight, and even as Ink snatches it out of the air with our void, Siqi reappears on my other side—too close for Ink to block. 

I don’t have time to dodge or form another Displace. I add my body to my Inventory, and Ink catches my core, quickly enveloping it in void to keep Siqi from touching it. His hand lands on our void, and his fingers abruptly flicker with magic as he tries to overpower the magic we’d used to strengthen it. I take the opportunity to Displace myself behind a tree, where remove my body from my Inventory once more.

Siqi appears on a nearby log, and we tense for another attack, but this time he stays there, tipping his head. “Why bother with that?” 

I Displace my coat back into my arms as well. “With what?” I ask. 

“The body.” Siqi vaguely gestures in my direction. I guess we’re done sparring for now. “The clothes. They aren’t necessary, are they? Seems like they slow you down. They use more mana to Displace, right?”

I pull my coat back on anyway, buttoning it over my core and hiding much of my glass within. What did he think?

“I don’t think the public would be too keen on seeing a glass man covered in living shadows walking around the city.” 

Siqi shrugs—as if he disagrees but doesn’t consider the argument worth it. “But we are not in a city. You have already revealed your true nature to me. Why continue to hide?”

I bristle at the insinuation that I’m hiding anything, but Ink speaks up to agree with Siqi. This form is not practical. The clothes restrict our movements. We could stretch our mana much further if we spread our glass and void around an area, and only had to worry about Displacing our Core. 

I shake my head, addressing both Siqi and Ink. “My body might be reinforced, but my Core is still fragile. One bad hit is all it would take to end me. Keeping it in my chest is safest.” 

Siqi laughs. “My boy, one bad hit would end any of us. You are not unique in that regard.” 

Sure, easy for him to say. “Not being unique is something I’d love to experience right about now.”

Siqi just watches me with a curious look, waiting for me to go on. I hadn’t planned on saying anything else, but the silence is hanging uncomfortably between us. 

“Look, the body and clothes, they help me feel a bit more normal,” I admit. “I’m not ready to just cast off what little humanity I have left. It’s taken me a while to even get this far. You don’t know what it’s been like. I had to relearn how to walk and communicate from scratch. All the small everyday things everyone else takes for granted were ripped away from me.”

Siqi chuckles quietly. Not the loud cackling I’m starting to grow used to, but a soft, knowing laugh. “I don’t, do I? Well, maybe not the same as you. But as I said; your experience is not as unique as you like to claim.” 

“What do you mean?” I ask. “There are other homunculi with souls?”

“No.” The goblin uses his arms to scoot himself back further on his log, then grabs his legs to adjust their position. Something about the gesture draws my attention. 

“Not other homunculi,” Siqi continues. “But other people who have gone through difficult trials, who have been knocked down and had to claw their way back up. If you think you’re the only one wrestling with frustration when your body fails you, you’d be extremely incorrect.” 

Siqi pats his legs. “I was in an accident in my youth. I managed to survive, but use of my legs did not. I was already studying as a null mage at the time, but the event is what pushed me down the path of pursuing void magic. I thought I might find some answers there. And I did—though not the ones I was looking for.” 

It’s times like these not having a face works to my advantage. God, I’m an idiot. How did I not notice? He hasn’t walked anywhere or stood up a single time since I met him. 

“That’s why you developed your shortcuts?” I ask. 

“It was not the intention, but it was the eventual outcome.” Siqi scratches absently at his chin as he faintly frowns into the distance. “I was angry for a long time. And I don’t believe there’s anything wrong with feeling that way—it is only natural to grieve the injustice of an indifferent universe. But one day I decided that I wouldn’t let that anger drive me anymore. The frustration didn’t go away, but I was able to start moving forward and focus on goals external to myself.”

His gaze finally refocuses on me. “So stop defining yourself by what your body was or should be. We make the most of what we’ve got, eh?” 

 I wonder if I’ve always been an asshole, or if this world is bringing out the worst in me. He’s right that even if my situation is unique, there’s plenty more who are all too familiar with body and identity issues like what I’ve been working through. Probably some who would switch places with me in a heartbeat.

But I take a minute to really chew on what Siqi said. 

“I don’t think I’m angry anymore,” I say, slowly working through my thoughts aloud. “I’ve had some really good people at my side helping me through it. But I do think I’m reluctant to veer too far away from my comfort zone. It frightens me.” 

“What about it frightens you?” Siqi asks. 

I mentally glance at Ink; it’s listening in, of course. 

“I guess, over time, I’m afraid of becoming someone else,” I admit. 

Siqi laughs. “My boy. That process is what we call ‘life.’”

#

Over the next week, Siqi evaluates my void abilities and even shows me a few new spells of his own. While he had originally said there weren’t many void spell circles, that doesn’t mean there were none. In fact, some sort of anti-gravity spell is frequently used in airships to help keep the ships aloft. It’s not gravity manipulation, mind; just canceling it out in a local region. While I haven’t managed to do any sort of gravity magic that I’m aware of, Siqi speculates that it may partially be the reason why adding void to my body makes it easier to levitate. 

Ink is excited to learn more about gravity magic. I replicate the spell circle Siqi shows me, and Echo adds it to my known list of spells, but any attempts to activate it without the circle are for naught. This makes Ink very grumbly, but Siqi did say that you need to be very familiar with something in order to do it without a circle, and gravity magic isn’t exactly something we’ve been dabbling in. 

Still, having a new spell in my back pocket is always useful, even if I won’t be able to whip it out without some setup, first.

We also spend time on the Planar Linkage spell. Like the work I did with Caesius, this spell circle requires some alterations for the intention I need it for. Siqi works with me on what might need to be changed or tailored, and helps to explain as much of the runes and spell design as he can understand. A lot of it is still over my head, but I take notes and try to internalize everything I can. Not just because I want the Planar Linkage spell to work, but because I want to learn as much as I can about void magic in general; this element will be with me for life.

As we work, Siqi strongly cautions me against attempting to draft void spell circles of my own unless I’m certain I know what the effect will be. Which, fair enough. The worst my glass spells could do is break. If you screw around with space stuff, you might get sucked into a black hole. 

Okay, I don’t know if that’s true, and I haven’t seen anyone actually wield that kind of power, but I’m going to trust the void mage when he tells me how dangerous experimenting with the element can be.

Two weeks pass far too quickly. I’m only just starting to figure the goblin out when it’s time for Zyneth and I to leave for the meeting place Blair’s champion gave us. It’s a far cry from the months I’ve spent working with Caesius. I’ve had time to get to know her, while Siqi still almost feels like a stranger. A very quirky and friendly stranger, but there’s only so much you can learn or share over a dozen days. It’s kind of funny how opposite the two are. 

“Be careful with that spell circle of yours," Siqi tells me the last morning of our stay. “I am not confident all the lines are complete. Don’t activate it without refining it some more, first.”

Zyneth and I are once again helping him to make breakfast, while he once again sets out one too many plates. Seriously, it’s been two weeks. He knows I can’t eat. What is up with that? 

“I couldn’t even if I wanted to,” I say. “Don’t have enough mana. And I still need something physical I could use with my Locate spell to link to the heavens.” That’s a whole other issue by itself.

He nods happily. “Good, good. Then come back and visit when you can. There’s much more void magic the both of us can learn from each other, I think.” 

The comment reminds me of the Academy professor, and how badly she’d wanted to study my magic. Somehow, though, Siqi’s words feel more genuine. “Thank you. I really appreciate everything you’ve helped me with already.”

“The pleasure’s mine.” Siqi is sitting by the stove, stirring a wooden spoon through a truly massive pan of scrambled eggs. I hope Zyneth’s hungry. “It’s been an honor to work with another void mage. Such different techniques. Really illustrates the flexibility of the element.” 

“I don’t think I really qualify as a void mage,” I say. I mean, sure, I do have an affinity for it, but void is more of Ink’s element. Glass feels more… concrete. 

Siqi scoffs. “Don’t qualify? My boy, there are vanishingly few of us who specialize in this field. Simply knowing any void spells at all qualifies you.” 

“It just feels a bit formal,” I object. “Like you should be an expert or something.” 

Zyneth sets a pot of tea on the table. “Kanin, your primary skillset is magic. That makes you a mage. I am one as well—though we have very different specialties.” He glances toward me with a mischievous look. “And you don’t have to be a good mage to qualify as one.”

“Hey!”

Zyneth flashes a grin as he finishes setting the table. Cheeky bastard. But that’s why I love the guy. 

A fluttering sensation passes through my soul. 

Oh. 

Uh. That’s new. I mean, I love spending time with him. But do I…

Siqi taps his spoon on a plate to get my attention. He’s back at the table now. “Come on, what are you doing just standing there? The food will get cold.” 

“I’m not sure there’s much I can do about that,” I say, sitting down with him and Zyneth anyway. 

“I don’t know,” Zyneth teases. “You’ve got that heating spell you could use.” 

“The furnace spell I use for glass?” I clarify. “I guess if you want to turn your eggs into charcoal.” 

He chuckles. “I don’t think that’s how charcoal is made.” 

God, he has the best laugh. Quiet and low. Comforting. Everything about him comforts me. His confidence, his strength, his gentle compassion. He didn’t have to come here on this training expedition with me, but I’m glad he did. I want to spend my time with him. I want him to want to spend his time with me. 

I’ve never been with someone this long before. Is it normal to feel this way? My soul feels warm and anxious.

Am I in love?

Ink observes my thoughts with confusion and faint disapproval. It can understand wanting to protect something that is ours, but these deeper feelings I am experiencing are foreign to it. It reminds me that becoming too reliant on others is dangerous. It could hold us back. 

Ink, I think, helping to portion out some of the eggs onto Zyneth and Siqi’s plates. Just shut up.