Mage the Awakening - Magical Traditions.pdf - Mage - The Awakening - RPG

ROOT MAGIC

She awoke in a tunnel, or in what seemed like a tunnel. All she knew at ﬁ rst was that it was very dark.

“No, not just dark,” she muttered. “It’s friggin’ cold, too.”

Her eyes stung as they tried to adjust to the lack of light, but her long, straight hair was plastered to her face, stray wisps irritat-

ing her eyes. She tried to lift a hand to brush her hair back from her face and then remembered they were bound behind her.

“Oh, yeah,” she told the darkness. “Well, at least they didn’t gag me.” She tested her legs by trying to stand, but felt tape

wrapped tightly around her ankles.

“You’re not making this easy, if you’re watching,” she said. The absolute silence that surrounded her made her think that

maybe they weren’t watching. Maybe they had done exactly what they said they would do.

• • •

“Why do you want to study with me, anyway, girl?” Old Man Pardee glared at her, his bushy eyebrows forming a glowering

line above his dark brown eyes. “Aren’t your fancy teachers in the city good enough for you? Have you learned everything

they can teach you? Or do you think you can come back here with your big city airs and show us pore ol’ mountain folk how

to work real magic?”

Whatever Aralathienne was expecting when she left Raleigh — where she’d gone off to college, where she’d Awakened and

where she’d been recruited by the Mysterium — to return home to the Blue Ridge Mountains in search of the magic of the

hills and hollers, she never thought she’d have to plead her case to such a hard man.

“I want to learn the magic of my home,” she had told him honestly, “and I want to learn it from the best.” She waited to see if the

old conjure man would cut her off. When he didn’t, she took a deep breath and added, “And you’re the best, is what I hear.”

• • •

She shivered suddenly and her surroundings rushed to the fore. It was more than dark and cold, it was damp, and she felt

that it was growing damper — but not as if it were raining.

“The water level’s rising,” she thought and felt a wave of panic rush through her body, settling in just above her gut which

had somehow risen up to surround her heart.

“First things ﬁ rst,” she told herself as she started working her wrists back and forth within the ropes that bound them. At

ﬁ rst, she had trouble, for her ﬁ ngertips were numb and stiff. After what seemed like eons, she felt the ropes loosen and give.

She shook them from her wrists and swiftly turned to use her newly freed hands to remove the tape from her legs, which had

also gone to sleep from lack of movement.

She stood up, intending to stretch her legs and restore some ﬂ exibility to them, but a sharp crack to the top of her head

stopped her before she could fully straighten her body.

“Ahhh—shit!”

It was a tunnel after all. Her ﬁ rst instincts were right. And not a very tall tunnel either. After experimenting, she found that her

best course of action was to travel on hands and knees, although the rough stones and dirt of the tunnel ﬂ oor — no, the rough wet

stones and ever moistening mud of the tunnel ﬂ oor — would wreak havoc on her knees as well as on the palms of her hands.

Again, she strained to see through the darkness, but her eyes wouldn’t adjust.

Damn it!

She suddenly remembered the salve Old Man Pardee had put on and around her eyes when she complained of a burning

sensation she passed off as eyestrain. Almost immediately, she had grown very sleepy and had sunk into the worn but com-

fortable sofa in the front room of the old man’s cabin, pulling a quilted coverlet over herself. She must have drifted off to

sleep listening to the crackling of the ﬁ re in the hearth.

She’d woken up in the tunnel, and now the damn salve was keeping her from focusing properly, keeping her in the dark.

“Great, I can’t use my eyes. I’ve got four senses left.” A picture rose in her mind of a bloodhound snifﬁ ng its way out of the

tunnel. She shook her head, trying to clear the image from her mind. “I’m not going to smell my way out of this.”

A sound that she had been hearing all along suddenly clariﬁ ed itself, revealing its nature to her as a steady trickle of water

running into the tunnel from somewhere above.

“I’m under water,” she whispered aloud, more to hear herself voice the words and crystallize her fear. “Underground and

under water, and the water is breaking through.” Again she fought a war with the panic inside her, pushing it aside with her

will. At least her magic had taught her that much, that she could focus her will and create results — among them, banishing

negative emotions like fear.

“Let’s move, legs!” she said, striking out in the direction she was already facing. “Standing still is a bad thing!”

A few minutes later, Aralathienne realized that she was literally going nowhere. Whatever the old man had done to her

had confounded her sense of direction as well as temporarily (she hoped) blinded her.

“Now what?”

She sat back on her heels and forced herself to think, noticing, as she did so that the trickle of water now sounded more

like a steady rush.

“Take stock,” she told herself. Most of the magic she knew as a mage of the Path of Thyrsus and a member of the Mysterium

depended either on seeing a target or having a direction. Here, she had neither.

“I came here to study the hoodoo tradition, old man!” she said, her voice deﬁ ant despite her misery in the growing damp.

“You’re not going to get rid of me this easily.”

• • •

She tried to remember what she had learned from the old man so far. Despite his reluctance to take on a “city girl,” as he

called her, as a student, he’d showed her some of his books, including what he called his “book of remedies,” a small, hand-

bound book ﬁ lled with crimped handwriting. The book contained recipes for poultices, instructions for curing diseases in

animals and people by transferring the sickness into an object or an animal. Odd rhymes and fragments of ballads made up

a good portion of the book, charms to use in all kinds of situations. Somehow, she’d expected more, and she said so. “These

are too easy,” she complained to Old Man Pardee after reading through one of the books in an afternoon.

He barely glanced at her as he continued carving down a length of cherry wood into what looked like a walking staff. “You’d

be wise to larn what’s in there, girlie,” he snapped. “Someday your life could depend on that easy stuff.”

• • •

“Great,” she muttered, getting used to talking aloud to no one but herself. “What did I read that could possibly help me

here?” She put her mind to work swiftly sorting through everything she could remember of the old man’s books.

“I’m in a tunnel, under ground — no, make that under water — and I might as well be under the ocean for all the good

knowing that will do me.” She made herself relax and clear her mind. Fragments of verses from ballads that had been copied

into the old man’s book ﬂ owed through her mind like water. She cast them all aside — most of the ballads ended badly.

One song remained, distinctive because of its cheerfulness. Now, she felt it might hold the key to her release, for it spoke

of being underground.

Gone the iron touch of cold, winter time and frost time

Seedlings working through the mould, now wake up for lost time

The words were from a song called “The Flower Carol” and she remembered her ﬁ rst night with the old man. His son,

visiting from the next holler, had brought his guitar and sang after supper. The old man accompanied him on banjo. It was

the ﬁ rst inkling she had that she had chosen right by coming back to the mountains to study the magic of the hills. She

remembered that song because of its tune, the same tune as the Christmas carol about King Wenceslas.

“It’s now or never,” she murmured, and recited the words. The rhyming sounds hung in the air, devoid of power. But thinking

back on the evening when Lyle Pardee had sung the song, she remembered feeling something stir in the back of her head,

something from the world that used to be — the Supernal World, her Atlantean masters had called it.

“It’s a song,” she said to the darkness. “It needs the music.”

• • •

The old man had grunted his appreciation when she perked up at the song, recognizing the tune. “So, you’ve heard this

afore,” he said. She’d nodded. “The tune, we used to sing it at Christmas.” He’d shrugged. “It ﬁ gures,” he muttered while Lyle

checked the tuning of his guitar before starting another song. “It’s the tune that carries the meaning,” he said.

• • •

She’s heard that pagan rituals had survived the ages of persecution by disguising themselves as Christmas carols or bal-

lads, but she’d always assumed that the words were hiding. Maybe the tunes hid as well, and maybe they conveyed the power

as much or more than the words.

Her throat felt scratchy but she turned her focus inward, steadying her voice, then sang the lyrics about the seedlings. She

felt power build up around her, but not enough.

The power of three, she remembered, and repeated the couplet twice more. As her voice died into the silence that sur-

rounded her, she realized she could hear slight movements around her.

Seedlings working through the mould.

They would grow in the direction of the surface, pushing their way to the light. She let her hearing guide her, following the

soft shufﬂ ing of earth, sounds she knew were ampliﬁ ed by the power in the air around her. She felt the earthy ceiling inches

above her head and touched tiny tendrils — roots — that moved under her hand.

Now she had a purpose. She began crawling again, but this time casting about with her hands, feeling the tunnel above

her head for the telltale root tips. All she had to do was use her hands and her ears to follow the pattern of their growth, for

they were leading her to safety.

She crawled quickly, ever mindful of the sound of water growing steadily louder, but deﬁ nitely behind her — and below her.

She was rising as she followed the root path overhead. The tunnel was set on an upward incline and she was keeping ahead

of the water, and would do so as long as she could remember the right things to say or sing or do at the right time.

Without warning, she found that her hand could no longer touch the ceiling. The tunnel had grown bigger from ground

to ceiling and she could no longer ﬁ nd the path the magicked roots had taken.

“Damn,” she cursed softly. “Now what?”

She thought back to the songs she’d heard that night. After the ﬂ ower song, Lyle had given them another carol, this one

called “The May Day Carol.” She didn’t remember this song as well as the other, but part of a verse stuck in her head.

A branch of May I will bring you, my love,

Here at your door I stand

It’s nothing but a sprout, but it’s well budded out…

“I’m looking for a branch,” she said, and sang the verse as she remembered it. This time, she felt that she need sing the

words only once. When she ﬁ nished, she tried listening beyond the sound of the water for any sign that “something” had

happened. For a minute or two, she couldn’t make out any other sounds, just the water following her and coming closer as

the rush became a roar of sound. “I’ve got to step up the pace,” she said.

Then she heard it, a soft sighing breeze blowing toward her from one side of the tunnel, but not the other, a breeze that

carried with it the faintest memory of the tune she’d just sang. “The tunnel branches,” she observed. “And I’m taking the

branch that leads to the air.”

Although she could stand up in this part of the tunnel, she felt little relief even though her knees no longer had to take

the brunt of her journey. Shakily, she traversed the tunnel from side to side until she found where it split in the middle, one

branch a little cooler and dryer than the other one, which appeared to arc downward from the sound of the water that now

seemed to come from that direction as well.

She noticed that her hands could touch both walls without stretching her arms out. The tunnel was narrowing. Soon she

felt the ceiling press on the top of her head and had to stoop lower and lower until she was crawling again, with the tunnel

closing in on all sides. If this continued, the passage would soon be too narrow for her to navigate. She kept going, even when

crawling gave way to dragging herself along on her belly, pushing her body with toes that she could barely feel while she dug

her ﬁ ngers into the tunnel ﬂ oor, trying to ﬁ nd enough purchase to pull herself forward. She felt the tears ﬁ ll her eyes and

trickle down her face as she came to a halt, unable to move further forward or, as she discovered, backward.

“No,” she whispered, horriﬁ ed as she heard the sound turn into a sob. “Not like this!”

Panicked, she tried to ﬁ nd a song that would ﬁ t her situation. Nothing Lyle had sung that night seemed to apply. Or if any

of his song choices did, she couldn’t bring them to mind.

• • •

“There’s more than cures for sick horses and babes in this book,” Old Man Pardee told her. “You keep readin’. There’s charms to protect

you from the thoughts of evil men, there’s words to conjure something from practically nothin’, if you know how to read it right.

• • •

“I need a way through,” she said. “I need something I can use as an anchor to pull me forward.”

A charm from the book scratched the surface of her consciousness and she threw as much magical energy as she could

into its three-fold recitation.

Earth above me, earth below me, wood before me, bring me home.

The charm was intended to help someone who was lost ﬁ nd his way to a familiar place. She hoped it would work for her

now. She repeated the phrase twice more and wept with relief as she felt her power take form.

She stretched her hands out in front of her as far as possible, groping on the ground and on the sides of the tunnel until

ﬁ nally, just at the edge of her ﬁ ngertips, she brushed against what felt like a heavy root that had looped upon itself, forming

nothing so much as a hand hold. With the ferocity of a drowning person — which, she reminded herself, she might be in

the next few minutes — she grabbed hold of the root and pulled herself a few more feet through the tunnel. She could feel

the walls scrape the exposed parts of her arms and legs and pull at her hair, but somehow, with the help of the twig bundles,

she made it through what had been a bottleneck.

“Something from practically nothing,” she repeated, echoing the old man’s words. A rush of conﬁ dence ﬂ owed through

her. She just might survive this after all.

She felt the cave open out around her at least somewhat, but she had little strength to do anything other than just lie on

the tunnel ﬂ oor, relishing the feeling of space around her.

Despite her sense of urgency, she must have fallen asleep, or gone unconscious from exhaustion, for the next thing she

knew, she was gasping for breath as water ﬁ lled her nostrils and mouth. Hurriedly she stood up to get away from the water

that reached her ankles even as she stretched to her full height. Resolutely, she moved forward in the direction she last re-

membered going. She took only a few steps before she found a wall.

Quickly, she felt for her surroundings and encountered walls in all directions. Her tunnel had led her to what was appar-

ently a circular chamber with no exits — not even the way she had come, for that low, narrow opening was now the conduit

for a ﬂ ood of water.

A sudden calmness came over her as she felt the water rise up past her ankles. The words came unbidden to her mind:

I wish I was some little sparrow,

That I had wings and I could ﬂ y…

And then she knew that the next part of the verse must be her own for the magic of the hills to take effect.

I’d rise above all pain and sorrow,

And count the stars up in the sky.

She sang the verse three times, each time feeling the Mana coalesce in the air around her, gathering at her back like feathery

soft wings of crackling energy.

There’s no place to go but up, she knew, and lifted both hands in the air in a gesture reminiscent of both reaching and

surrender. She felt a rush of air gather under her energy wings and lift her upward, even as the lapping water tried one last

time to claim hold of her for itself.

Taking a deep breath, she willed herself higher, rising through the hold in the earth until she felt herself break through

a barrier of some sort, or perhaps she just pushed through the opening of the tunnel into the world outside, rising through

some sort of hole in the earth. She stood up, still in darkness, surrounded by sounds of the night, and moved away from the

hole. Then her legs gave out and she slumped to the ground, lying on what felt like thick clumps of soft grass and staring up

at a sky ﬁ lled with stars of a magnitude impossible to see against the glaring lights of the city she used to call her home.

She blinked her eyes a few times, to make sure that she was really seeing the stars, a thin crescent moon and, here and

there, the looming blackness of the surrounding trees.

She decided she would allow herself to sleep for a few minutes on the surface of the earth, in her grassy bed. As she shut

her eyes, other sounds crept into her awareness: the rustle of small creatures darting about through the grass, the nearly

deafening chorus of cicadas answered by the tiny croakers in a nearby pond. Then she heard footsteps approaching hastily.

Two of them.

She was sitting up in the clearing when Old Man Pardee and Lyle came into sight, a lantern leading them straight to her. “So,

you made it,“ the old man said. “I reckoned you might, if you could get over yourself long enough to work some real magic.”

“Daddy and I were thinkin’,” Lyle said in his slow, thoughtful voice. “You might want to learn the guitar or maybe the banjo.

You got a right pretty voice and we can always use a third harmony in some of our songs.”

She nodded, “I’m thinking I’d like to be called Sparrow from now on,” she said knowing at last that she had come home

to stay.

(Thanks and acknowledgements to Folk Songs of the Southern Appalachians , second edition, as sung by Jean Ritchie (University Press

of Kentucky, 1997), for the ballads quoted in this story.)

By Justin Achilli, Jackie Cassada, Stephen Michael DiPesa,

Howard Ingham, Matthew McFarland, Dean Shomshak,

Travis Stout, Chuck Wendig

By Justin Achilli, Jackie Cassada, Stephen Michael DiPesa,

Howard Ingham, Matthew McFarland, Dean Shomshak,

Travis Stout, Chuck Wendig

Mage the Awakening - Magical Traditions.pdf

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