Return of the Runebound Professor

Garina was halfway through taking a bite out of Ferdinand’s sandwich when the wave of magic slammed into her like a roaring storm.

Someone powerful had arrived within the empire. Someone that shouldn’t have been there.

Goosebumps erupted across her skin and her hair stood on end. She nearly choked on her bite as she shot up from the wooden lounge chair she sat in — though not too quicky. Garina didn’t want to break the chair. Ferdinand had spent several hours making it.

Her feet landed on the hot sand, her head already turning toward the source of the magic by the time she had risen.

And then the presence vanished.

Garina froze on the spot. She focused her senses, but it was fruitless. She found nothing. Confusion prickled at her mind and an uneasy blanket wrapped itself around her shoulders and weighed down on her back.

“Garina?” Ferdinand asked, glancing over from his chair. One of the cucumber slices he had on his eyes fell off and splattered to the sand beneath him. “Is something wrong? Or did you already get back after dealing with it?”

What was that? I know I just felt someone… right?

There was no possibility that she’d hallucinated it. But if she hadn’t, that meant an immense presence had just broken through the barrier between planes and then vanished mere moments later as if it had never been there.

The amount of power needed to do something like that was deeply concerning. There were a number of monstrous existences that could have pulled it off. None of them should have had the slightest interest in the empire.

“Someone just broke into the protected zone,” Garina said.

“Oh. Do you have to go deal with them? Also, you’re crushing your sandwich.”

Garina glanced down at her hand. It had been transformed into a ball of crushed bread and squashed ingredients. Sauce rolled down her fingers and dripped from her hand. Her eye twitched in annoyance.

And now I’ve gone and ruined a perfectly good meal. Gods damn it.

“Fuck,” Garina said. “And I would be happy to deal with them if I knew where they were.”

Ferdinand sat straight upright, worry creasing his near-hairless face as realization passed over his features. “You mean—”

“Not that one. I still don’t know where the first bastard that escaped me is.” Garina’s expression darkened even further. “I was unhappy enough when there was just one of them. Now there are two. Give me a second. And another sandwich.”

She extended her hands and drew deeply on her magic, sending her magic twisting through the nature around them. It rolled across the waves lapping against the beach and stretched over the swaying forest behind them. Fingers of power extended across the entirety of the kingdom, trawling through the runic energy permeating the world for any traces of an intruder.

It had been years since the last time someone had managed to trick Garina. And before that, it had been never.

She’d taken a few measures to ensure a similar issue didn’t happen a second time around. Where there were great powers that did not want to be known, there were signs. A gap in power could be just as telling as an excess of it.

For several long seconds, she stood as still as ice. Whoever this was, they were talented. There were nearly no traces of their arrival at all. But Garina had spent more than a few nights pissed off in bed and trying to figure out a way to ensure she was never made a fool of again.

And, as it had turned out, there was only one real way to determine where someone immensely powerful and determined to conceal themselves was hiding. It was to memorize the patterns of every single location.

Everything in the universe was a pattern. Runes bound even the most basic and simple of concepts together, permeating the very essence of every being. The world was no different. Its patterns were subtle, beautiful, and immensely infuriating. They constantly changed, an endless ebb and flow as the cycle of existence ran its eternal course.

Attempting to memorize them was like trying to remove sand from a beach one grain at a time.

Garina had done it.

It had taken her years, but she had done it. Every single night, she’d studied the patterns of the world and committed them to memory. Even changes had a pattern to them, and they were a pattern that could be learned with sufficient agony. She’d hated every second of it, but she hated losing even more. Every scrap of her effort had been put in to ensure that nobody made a fool of her again.

And now, her efforts finally paid off.

There was a change to the world’s pattern. One that didn’t belong, and one that was localized in a location that she’d actually rather enjoyed.

Though I hate admitting I’m wrong, I may have to find that little demoness and tell her she had a point. It looks like I’ll be paying her town a visit.

“I’m leaving,” Garina said.

“You don’t need help, do you?”

Garina arched an eyebrow. Ferdinand shrugged in response.

“I figured I’d offer. I’ll have a sandwich for you when you come back.”

Some of the anger and displeasure welling in Garina’s chest faltered and a faint smile pulled across her lips. “Thank you.”

Ferdinand nodded amiably, and then Garina was gone.

***

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Leagues away, beyond the kingdom and well outside of Garina’s domain, a man sitting in a stone chair in an empty cave was trying to remember which face belonged to him.

There were just so many of them. He was pretty sure that he was a she yesterday, but that had been yesterday and yesterdays were best left in the past. Then again, he had never been a huge fan of todays either. It was the tomorrows that he tended to prefer, but the tomorrows were always a day away.

It was all quite a bother.

The man heaved a sigh — and it came out through two mouths. He blinked, then hopped to his feet and turned around.

“Aha!” the man exclaimed, looking down at a thin line on the armrest of the stone chair. Molten crimson energy twisted between his fingers like a snake as he reached down and plucked the line, pulling it right out of the stone.

He slapped it onto his palm. His skin split apart, revealing two rows of uncomfortably wide teeth.

“There you are,” the man said from his mouth and his hand alike. “I was wondering where I left you. Now, where’s the rest of your face?”

The mouth, as good as it was at talking, did not give him an answer. The man resisted the urge to heave another sigh. Mouths enjoyed talking. That was what they were meant to do, after all. But they did not enjoy telling.

There was a difference, after all. He couldn’t go around talking pointlessly until his mouth told him where the rest of its face was.

He was pretty sure he liked that face.

A distant thud echoed through the empty room, and the man blinked again. One of his eyelids moved in the wrong direction. They tended to do that when he forgot to remind them which way to move.

The man plucked the line from his palm and slapped it back onto the armrest of his chair. With a flick of a finger, he sent a streamer of red light flying free. It flashed into the line and stitched the mouth shut, sealing it.

“You stay there,” the man said, and the mouth on the chair remained silent.

He turned, brushing off his immaculately cared for robes. It seemed that he had a visitor. He was fortunate that he’d wore his favorite clothes today. They were spun of white silk and softer than the kiss of a goddess — not that he’d ever had a chance to try the latter out. That was probably one of the events that would arrive with tomorrow, whenever tomorrow decided to stick around for more than a day.

Then the wall to his side split open, and sound spilled forth from the hall beyond.

“Let me go!” a girl screamed, her legs kicking desperately as two men carried her in, holding her in the air by either arm. She wore rags covered with a mixture of blood and fluids. Both of the men bearing her in were clad in black hood and matching robes, leaving no parts of their skin visible.

The men threw the girl to the ground. She hit it with a pained grunt, rolling once and letting out a whimper of pain. Blood leaked across the floor behind her. She’d been run through somewhere. It didn’t look like she was going to die immediately, but it wouldn’t be long.

A rumble filled the room as the passageway closed behind the men.

“No!” the girl begged, dragging herself upright and lurching for the stone, only for her hands to collide with cold stone. She spun, staring at the man before the throne with wild terror dancing in her eyes. The girl stood heavily on one leg; the other was stained with blood. “Stay away from me! I — I didn’t do anything! I got mugged! I was just delivering milk!”

“You don’t have my face, do you?” the man asked, approaching the grimy girl. He studied her clothes intently for several moments. The way the colors mixed on her ratty dress was quite beautiful.

“Please,” she begged. “I didn’t do anything. Stay away from me. Let me go.”

“You are going to die.”

“I — that’s fine. I can die. I don’t fear death. But… please. I know who you are. They warned me that you — fuck. I… just let me die. Please.” She clutched at her chest, and red spread farther across her red dress. The girl’s voice was trembling.

A frown crossed the man’s face — or at least, his current one. His actual face was still missing.

“You’re lying to me.” The man’s voice took on a singsong pitch and he flowed, arriving before the terrified girl and leaning down so they were at the same height. “It’s okay. It’s in your nature to lie, isn’t it? That is the burden of kindness. You don’t want to hurt my feelings. You don’t want to inconvenience me.”

The girl stared at him, horror cinching her throat shut.

“It’s okay,” the man whispered, extending his hands toward her face. The finger and thumb on his right hand warped, then swapped positions in a heartbeat. “You don’t have to ask. It is my duty to fix you.”

The girl flinched away, but the man was faster. His hands clamped down on her skull. Her eyes went wide; her skin bubbled like boiling oil. Features melted down her face, blood twisted and jerked like it was a writhing animal in the throes of death.

She screamed.

***

The girl was a good screamer. She screamed for nearly an hour before her voice gave out entirely.

Then she fell silent, and the man finished his work in peace.

He stepped back, his eyes delighting in the results of his creation.

“There,” he said. “Look at you. Beautiful.”

The girl stood before him, as still as ice. Her mouth hung askew, her eyes were so wide that their whites threatened to swallow her irises entirely.

“I… what did you do to me?” the girl asked, her words coming out in a melodic whisper.

Her body had been fixed. Her voice box had too. And, dare the man say it, they had been improved.

“You came to me for healing. I healed you, my beautiful child,” the man replied, giving her a gentle pat on the face. The girl flinched, but the man didn’t seem to notice. “I undid the damage to your body. You like screaming, so I fixed your voice so it can scream better. I also removed your weakness. Yes, yes I did.”

“My… weakness?”

“Your vision was poor, and your heart was strained. Too much poor diet, I should say,” the man said, tapping a finger on his chin. “Your growth was also stunted. A foot too short, you were. I added on a little.”

The girl looked down at her body. Disbelief warped her features as she ran her hands across her body. Her gaze lifted back to the man and her voice trembled as she spoke. “I don’t understand. How?”

“Because I decided you needed fixing,” the man replied, as if it was the most obvious answer in the world. “There are many things in the world that need fixing.”

“Why?” The word slipped from the girl’s mouth unbidden, and she looked mortified the moment after it escaped.

The man didn’t mind. A smile split his features.

“Have you ever built a tower of wood pieces? Built it as tall as you could, up until your chin and then a log further?”

She shook her head.

“Ah. You would not understand.” The man patted her on the shoulder and she flinched, but nothing happens. He simply turned away and walked back over to the stone chair. He paused before he sat and glanced back. “Say, have you seen my face?”

“No,” the girl said, swallowing heavily. “I think you’re wearing it.”

“Oh, no. This isn’t mine,” the man replied with a shake of his head. He pointed at the smooth stone walls and a passageway opened up. “You were heading in that direction. Don’t forget your milk, even if it’s spoiled by now. One must finish the jobs they start.”

The girl stared at him for several long seconds. Then she mustered up a scrap of courage. “You saved me? Just for free?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t want anything in return?”

“What I want can only be taken. Unless you know where my face is?”

The girl shook her head.

“Then on with you.”

“Can — can I ask your name? I want to know. It hurt so much… but you saved me. I didn’t want to die.”

“I know you didn’t,” the man replied idly. “Today, my name is Lorne.”

The girl looked from him to the passageway. Then she nodded, turned, and ran into the darkness.

Lorne nodded to himself. He walked back over to his stone seat and sat down, watching a crackle of red energy play between his fingers.

Then a frown crossed his features.

“Where did I put my mouth?”