Eyes crusty, throat dry, and his horn aching from extreme overexertion, Dim wished that he had not woke. Though he was loathe to admit it, The War Maiden’s Absolute Invisibility took a lot out of him. Life was cruel, unfair, and horrid. He was powerful enough to cast the spell, but not powerful enough to sustain it without severe consequences. ‘Twas a cruel twist of fate, one that bit deep and caused no end of agonising.

It had taken a toll, leaving him weak and quite helpless.

He struggled to be free of the blankets, his legs making feeble, ineffective kicks. Lifting his head took effort, and electric jolts traveled up and down his neck and spine with his every movement. This was the cost of magic; the terrible, tragic cost, and right now he felt inches away from death. Still, as awful as it was, it was worth it. Power came at a price he was willing to pay.

A dreadful tickle lurked in his lungs, a terrible beast in waiting. He would need to smoke sooner, rather than later, otherwise he doubted his breathing would continue for any meaningful time. As he struggled, the blankets were pulled from him, and the cool air of the room graced his sides as Blackbird helped him get out of bed. With a turn of his head, he caught her expression, he saw her worry, and when their eyes met, there was a curious, almost magical moment.

They were diametric opposites, he and she, but also two sides of the same coin.

“Help me,” he rasped, words he could not ever recall saying to another living being.

“You’ve been asleep for almost two days now,” Blackbird said in return. “We need to get you sorted out, Dim. You sound terrible. Oh, by the way, Munro taught your goblin how to curtsey.”

For Dim, snark was too much effort, and he waited for Blackbird to lift him out of bed.

A deep toke drew soothing smoke into Dim’s lungs and eased the dreadful tickle lurking in his lungs. The clove-infused smoke deadened all sensation, numbed his throat, and offered cooling relief to the stoked furnace hidden betwixt his ribs. His eyeball pipe had a terrifying glow that intensified with every inhale and drew the attention of his companions.

Beside him, on a pillar-shaped table, there was an overly large snifter of Cognac and a small wedge of cheese with some grapes to tide him over. As had been promised, he was getting his meal, the feast that was his payment. A few feet away, Blackbird was compulsively cleaning and oiling her guns. Bombay was reading a spellbook with a dull-blue cover while also twirling her wand in her paw-fingers, an impressive display of dexterity.

“The Solar Stinger is a real mess,” Bombay said, still twirling her wand. “We’ll be lucky to limp home. No high-altitude travels. If we encounter Black Talon ships, we’ll be in heaps of trouble.”

Sneering, Dim lifted his snifter but did not drink.

“They’ve rigged up a new prototype Stirling engine.” Blackbird did not look up from the cylinder she was swabbing with oil. “A closed loop alcohol system. Alcohol has a lower boiling point than water, so less fuel is needed to heat everything up. I’m looking forward to studying the system while it is in action.”

“We don’t need fuel.” Dim swirled the Cognac in his snifter. “We have two dragons and myself. If we can’t keep the system hot, then we’re all irredeemable fuckwits. Just imagine how much faster we can go not having to haul whatever fuel is needed.”

Bombay’s wand ceased to twirl, vanished up her sleeve, and she pointed a clawed finger at Dim. “He’s right, you know. I can use magic to keep a bath hot for hours, so I can probably keep alcohol above boiling.”

Meanwhile, Dim took careful, cultured sips of his Cognac.

Blackbird, her eyes glittering, changed the subject rather abruptly, as she was wont to do. “So why is it that both of you keep reading your spellbooks? Don’t you already know the spells? Seems like a waste of time. Magic seems like too much work and this is why I like guns.”

Dim exchanged a glance with Bombay and wordlessly conveyed his amused annoyance. After the exchange, Bombay closed her book, folded her arms over her girth, and when she smiled, her whiskers quivered, but Dim could not read whatever it was she was feeling.

Feeling charitable, Dim decided to share the secrets of magic with Blackbird, something that typically just wasn’t done. Still holding his snifter of Cognac aloft, he said, “The words of a spell physically transform the mind, altering the matter of the brain and rearranging the neurons. It is… it is a sort of coding system, a cipher of sorts. Not every brain, not every mind can handle this influx of information. Sometimes, repeated readings are necessary to slowly build the connections required to channel the magic. A written spell is just a completed process of automation that triggers a complex sequence of actions.

“Now, repeated readings strengthen these neural connections, making the effect of the spell stronger, or granting new insight, and sometimes, if one is lucky, you might find a better way to cast the spell. There is a mysterious connection between the glyphs and siguls used for writing spells and the eyes that is not fully understood. This is why dangerous wizards have their eyes gouged out when imprisoned.”

“Ew.” Blackbird’s lips peeled back from her teeth as she grimaced.

“Spell casting is also inherently dangerous work,” Dim continued in fine form while swirling his Fancy Cognac. “When a caster over-exerts themselves to the point of injury, to the point of getting things like nosebleeds, ruptured blood vessels in the eyes, or having a thaumaturgical stroke, they lose constructed neural connections. All those complex constructed neural connections come undone. Typically. Not always. But there is a high chance of losing the most complex, most difficult spells burned into memory. When this happens, those spells must be re-learned—burned back into memory. I have, in fact, lost spells. A wizard can only push themselves so hard before the risks manifest into very real consequences. This is yet another reason why I champion the use of the simplest of spells, because these spells tend to stick around after your brain gets scrambled.”

“Engaging in magical combat, your brain will get scrambled,” Bombay added. “Dim’s onto something though with his approach. He’s less likely to lose those spells he has burned into memory. That’s pretty clever. One time, Eerie damn-near lobotomised herself and lost almost every spell she knew after a mental battle with a mind-devourer.”

“Disgusting.” Dim hissed out the word. “All those tentacles on their face. I’ve seen a pickled one on display. I understand that they are creatures of immense power and great danger.”

“Eerie made its head explode.” Bombay said this with a emphatic nod.

“Impressive,” was Dim’s earnest response. “She is powerful… of that, there can be no doubt.”

“You’re not so bad yourself, Dim.”

Saying nothing, Dim instead drank more of his fine Fancy Cognac.

Crestfallen, Blackbird shook her head. “So you can lose everything that you know. That… I don’t have words for that. Now every time Dim pushes himself too hard, I’m going to worry. And books that change your brain. That’s weird. And wrong. Confusing. I think I’ll stick with guns.”

“Using complex shields is the riskiest of moves. Sure, you’re protected”—here, Bombay paused for a bit so that she could thoughtfully chew upon her lip—“but if something strikes your shield hard enough to break it, there’s a good chance of brain damage. Losing a few spells. I’ve had it happen to me. I suppose it is better than catching a bullet with my spleen, or whatever. Guns were the great game-changer. With arrows, sling stones, and the like, there is very little chance of those penetrating your defenses. But guns? Not only will bullets pop your shields like a soap bubble, they’ll wipe spells from your memory, too.”

Sneering, his thin lips wrinkled with disgust, Dim muttered, “Guns were the great equaliser. A vizard has to be careful now, or face the consequences of hubris.”

“So what I am hearing is, I can rob a wizard of his spells.” Blackbird’s glittering eyes narrowed. “My big cannons will scramble the spells right out of a wizard’s brain, if not kill them outright.”

Again, Dim shared a glance with Bombay, and he saw her nod. This had been a beneficial exchange, with Blackbird now understanding one of the big top-tier fundamentals of magic. Dim’s mouth contorted into a skin-shivering malevolent smirk and his mismatched eyes glittered with malicious glee. He felt no sense of betrayal to the vast brotherhood of magery, no sense of shame in revealing this. In fact, a part of him wished that he had shared this information with Blackbird sooner. They would, in fact, be deadlier working together than individually.

For the first time, Dim saw strength rather than a liability. Had Eerie learned this lesson? She might have. It was a tough lesson for a Dark to learn. To trust and depend upon another—‘twas the very height of foolishness. Yet, he had seen the proof, the evidence. Together, they had been a force to be reckoned with. Their efforts as a team were astonishing. Perhaps a little rough to start, and the fight with the pseudo-alicorn had gone poorly, of that there could be no doubt.

Dim reached an understanding that could not be put into words.

“With a single bullet, I can erase years of study.”

Now, Dim squirmed. Blackbird had cottoned on a bit too well. He could see it in her eyes. She was thinking her thoughts, her naughty, terrible thoughts—and this excited him, while also leaving him terrified. Blackbird was a big excitable creature, and he had seen first hoof just what she was capable of. Never again could she be seen as a gentle giant, or a lovable oaf—she was a hippogriff among hippogriffs, predatory perfection. Even by hippogriff standards, Blackbird was exceptional, the very standard by which all hippogriffs were judged.

The Cognac burned some bravery back into his throat and Dim went still.

Infatuation was a dangerous, intoxicating drug. He offered no resistance as he was pulled into the throes of it and allowed himself a rare display of emotion. What others saw, he had no idea, but the warm sense of affection that he felt softened the hard edges of his features. When he coughed, he re-lit his pipe and filled his lungs with soothing, numbing smoke that deadened the electric agony transmitted by his nerves.

“So how do spells get into spellbooks?” Blackbird’s head tilted off to the left, then to the right, and after thinking for a bit, her expression settled into one of piqued perplexity. “I mean, this seems unbelievably complex. If you write a spell, you’re changing another creature’s brain. So how does that work?”

Dim’s mismatched eyes had a rare moment where they both blinked in synchronised perfection. It was a rare thing to have happen, like hen’s teeth. His ears leaned back, giving him a beautiful, almost feminine profile from the side. After a short, abrupt exhale, his lips drew tight against his teeth as he began to speak:

“How it works is unknown. Theoretically speaking, any creature capable of magic is also capable of scribing magic. However, the ability to do so is complex and takes a great deal of mental fortitude. Concentration. You have to allow yourself to slip into a meditative trance and then the spell just sort of writes itself. It is a sequence of every condition needed for the spell to happen, the means to shape raw magic into something controlled and orderly.

“A spell starts off as chaos. Thought put into action. With but a thought, I can set something on fire. That is simple and requires no real effort. But what if I wanted to burn something that didn’t wish to be burned? Something that had some rudimentary means of fire-protection. Well, I would need to dispel those protections and then commit to ignition. That can be done with raw magic, a series of thoughts, repeated until successful results are achieved. These correct actions can be coalesced into a sequence and that… that is a spell that can be scribed. Your experience can be turned into glyphs… siguls… committed to paper, and shared with another. That is a simple spell. There are complex ones.”

“Dim works with a lot of raw magic,” Bombay said, which drew a hiss out of Dim. “He does. And I mean that as a compliment, Dim. There’s no shame in working with raw, unshaped magic. I envy your ability, if I can be honest.”

This caught Dim off-guard. “Really?”

“I wouldn’t say it unless I meant it.”

For a moment, Dim started to think of his mother, his family, the Darks in general, but then he pushed those thoughts from his mind. He did not need to remember their ridicule, their derision, their mocking ways. Because he lacked the raw power that they flaunted, he had turned to experimental magic, raw magic, and finding new ways to work with the simplest of spells. Bombay was sincere—there was no way he could doubt this—and her kind words left a curious prickling in his heart.

“Thank you.” Dim couldn’t believe the words that had just left his mouth, nor could he believe the sincerity with which he had spoken them. Now, he was every bit as perplexed as Blackbird, lost in a social exchange that he had no real understanding of.

Just as he was about to say something else, Motte stuck his head through the door and said, “Get ready to eat!”

Author's Notes:

Next: Goblin some din-din.