Libriohexer ~ 28!

Velkan guided Sam and Bill away from the warmth of the firelight and the festivities of the night. Sam wasn’t at all surprised when the taciturn Wolfman brought them past The O’Baba’s long house and to the carved tox totems that connected to the Wolfman marketplace.

“Ha! I knew it,” Bill crowed smugly. “Told you this place was some kind of Interspatial Library. I mean, I couldn’t put my finger on it exactly—mostly because I don’t have fingers—but how could it not be? Amiright or what? I continue to impress myself.”

“Both of you should feel greatly honored,” Velkan’s tone was more a warning than anything else, as he glanced over one shoulder. “To be entrusted with a secret such as this is no small thing. Shamans are revered among The People, and only the greatest among the Shamans are entrusted with the secret workings of the Totems.”

“But why this totem?” Sam quizzed as they stepped through the arched poles and were instantly whisked away to the Wolfman Marketplace. “I mean… why not take us to see Auntie Owl, Father Bison, or Cousin Crow? Is there something special about this one?”

Velkan hesitated before reluctantly answering. “I am not a Shaman, so many of these things are above me, but I will answer as best as I am able. Let us walk while we talk—it is quite a distance to the Bakkuo’s yurt.”

Velkan moved at a quick pace into a warren of tents and stalls, all of which were dark and closed for the night. The Marketplace was eerie without the cry of hawkers or the hustle and bustle of bodies moving and shopping and selling. Sam had been stuck at a Mall after hours once, and it felt the same. A place that was meant for life but was dead and vacant.

Their guide led them on a merry adventure through the bizarre, ushering them past stands with weapons and armor, past empty blacksmiths and banked bakeries, the massive brick ovens cold for the night.  There were a few stalls displaying books of shamanic power—Sam was tempted to stop and examine those—but Velkan didn’t even offer them a second look. He was single-minded in his focus.

“The training totem grounds are old, old magic,” Velkan suddenly started talking as they walked. “They have been a part of our history for hundreds of years. Perhaps even thousands of years. Whatever the case, they are older than our eldest elder. Father Bison. Brother Peacock. Sister Rat. Cousin Crow. Great Auntie Owl. Uncle Monkey. They are divine beasts of legend and myth, as old and mysterious as the magic of their totems. They are bound and loyal to The People by an ancient compact, but they cannot be reasoned with. Cannot be bartered with. The fact that you met Auntie Owl face to face is truly astounding, but doing so again would be next to impossible.”

They headed down the meatpacking district, past stalls lined with hanging slabs of beef and cured meats arrayed on display tables. “Among the Shaman, there are whispers that the Totem beasts used to be… both more and less than they are now. Wolfmen, as I am.”

“What?” Bill sounded confused to the point of hostility. “You’re telling me that ol’ owl face from the cave was a Wolfman once?”

Velkan shrugged and did a poor job disguising his irritation at hearing Auntie Owl spoken of in such a way. “It seems as unlikely to me as it is to you, but that is what the elder Shamans say behind closed doors.”

“But the Marketplace is different,” Sam offered an educated guess.

“Indeed.” Velkan huffed, ears twitching. “Still old, understand, but much younger than the totems found in the Training Grounds. There was a shaman of great renown called simply ‘The Bakkuo’ by those who knew him. About three hundred years ago this was.”

“Wait, three hundred years ago?” Bill suddenly sounded uncertain.

“Indeed. Very odd by our standards. The Bakkuo dedicated his life to understanding the magic of the totems—even going so far as to journey to the human capital to search the great stacks of the Mage’s College. This was before the Arch Mage rose to prominence. He was determined to figure out how to reproduce the Totems and apparently he succeeded.” Velkan waved around at the Marketplace. “It is said that the Bakkuo stumbled upon the secret of the ancient ones, but he has never shared the knowledge with another. Perhaps you will be the first.”

He snuffed and dipped his head toward a dimly lit tent nestled all the way in the back most corner of the marketplace. Velkan sniffed at the air before finally nodding for them to proceed inside. His posture spoke of… not quite fear, but wariness. The tent ceiling was claustrophobically low, and the whole place smelled vaguely of wet dog mixed with a fragrant scent Sam couldn’t quite place. Sandalwood maybe? Cedar?

A colorful rug was spread out across the ground and arrayed around the floor were a variety of pillows. That was a red flag in Sam’s mind. The Wolfmen abhorred creature comforts, even small ones such as pillows—they made the body and mind soft—yet the owner of this tent didn’t seem to care about conformity. The tent was gloomy, lit only by a single candle carefully positioned on a low wooden table in the center of the tent. Sam blinked a few times, waiting for his eyes to adjust. While he stood there, temporarily blinded, the skin prickled along the back of his arms.

Something was watching him from the shadows.

<This place has the creepiest vibes,> Bill whispered inside Sam’s head, even though he didn’t need to. <Not necessarily bad mojo, but powerful. Wild. I don’t think I’ve ever felt anything quite like it before.>

“Welcome,” creaked a weathered voice, emanating from a pile of blankets in the corner. As Sam blinked to adjust his eyes, he realized there was a Wolfman buried in that pile of blankets. He was a wizened creature with rheumy eyes, his coppery red fur mangy and interrupted by leathery bald patches sprinkled across his muzzle, head, and neck.

“Well, don’t be strangers,” the voice creaked at them. “It has been an age, and an age again, since I’ve had a proper visitor. So few come to me these days. Sit. Let us talk.”

Velkan moved first. He dropped down onto a cushion across from the old creature, shifting uncomfortably. Likely not because the pillow was uncomfortable, but because he was uncomfortable using such luxury. Sam didn’t have any such reservations, but he also wasn’t sure what the right thing to do here was. Were the pillows a test? A way to see if he was worthy or up to the unspoken Wolfman code? That was more in line with what he knew about the Wolfman, yet his gut was telling him no. Everything about this situation was unconventional, and the old wolf on the other side of the flickering candle was nearly teetering on a pile of pillows and engulfed in warm, comfortable blankets.

Sam decided to listen to his gut. He dropped onto a pillow near Velkan and leaned back on his hands.

“Good, good.” The old Wolfman smiled, bearing his teeth, though there didn’t seem to be any malice in the act. “It is so nice to see a young man not entirely beholden to the ways of The People. The fact that you are a human is a bit surprising, true, but perhaps that is a good thing.”

“Why is that a good thing?” Sam felt oddly free to speak, and wondered if this Wolfman had an incredibly high charisma.

“Humans, they are agents of change. Of all the races, they are the least set in their ways. Some of the other races tend to have fairly monolithic cultures. Not so humans. They are chaos and order, precariously balanced on the edge of a knife. It is both their strength and weakness. There is danger in that, but also glorious freedom. My People, not so. But, I am older than any other living Wolfman, and I remember a time before we were this way. So austere. Rigid. Some of my best friends in a far bygone age were human, you know.” He frowned, creases running across his forehead.

“This is what two hundred years of war has done to us.” He shrugged narrow shoulders. “This utter denial of self and comfort was a philosophy started by a long dead contemporary of mine. Zhidkov Lukyan, he was called. He was an ascetic who formed the Order of Abstemious. Zhidkov eventually ascended to the role of O’Baba, and it was under his leadership that we became what we are today. But listen to me ramble.”

He waved a hand through the air. “You young pups don’t care about such ancient history. What has brought you to my tent, hmm?”

“Forgiveness Grand Bakkuo,” Velkan hunched forward until his muzzle was nearly pressed against the floor, “but The O’Baba sent us here.”

“Don’t beat around the bush,” Bill interjected cheerily, “we want to know about the Totem Training Grounds. Before you get any ideas, you should know that I’ve been around even longer than you, so all the smoke and mirror ain’t going to impress me.”

The old wolfman’s face lit up with something that might be mirth. “It has been far too long, Sir William the Bravi. Not in all my years did I ever suspect I would see the likes of you again.”

That stopped the book cold. Only a handful of people knew his true name, and this old, blind Wolfman wasn’t one of them. “How do you know that name? You better start talking, because me and the kid can sling some serious spells if we don’t like your answers.”

The old wolf cackled madly, rocking back and forth. “I am not surprised you don’t recognize me. Time has not been kind to these old bones, though you have changed quite a lot yourself. The last time I saw you, you were certainly taller. If memory holds true, you had a few more limbs, and a few less pages.”

“Gengi?” Bill was incredulous. “No. Can’t be. Wolfmen live a long time, but not that long.”

The old wolf cackled even more loudly. “I’ve unlocked a few secrets since the last time we spoke. But even with my magics, I have become rather long in the tooth, as they say.”

“You two know each other?” Sam remembered Bill talking about Wolfmen he had met long ago, but it was still surprising to think they’d be around. Velkan looked equally thunderstruck at the revelation. The Wolfman glanced between the elder Shaman and Bill as though seeing the floating book for the first time. Velkan had always had a healthy respect for Bill and his abilities—all of the Wolfmen did—but now Velkan looked at the book as though he might be partly divine. Easy to understand considering that this Bakkuo guy seemed to be the Shaman equivalent of the Pope.

“Eh, it’s a long story,” Bill grumbled an answer, clearly confused himself, “but the short side of it is that ol’ Gengi here was a Shamanic Scholar back when I was still kicking around on a pair of functional legs. Those were the golden days, before the Arch-Mage rose to power and instituted The Accords. Of course, Mage folk and Wolf folk have never been on the greatest of terms, not even then-”

“But we weren’t at war,” the old wolf finished. “There were a handful of us that worked together on a few odd projects. Sort of a student exchange program.”

“Yep, the interspatial libraries was one of those projects. Gengi was trying to figure out how to make one, and so was I. He never told me about the Totems, but we spent more than a few nights together flipping through old tomes looking for an answer.”

“I was the one who helped him forge his Soul Space, you know,” the wolf bragged with a wink. “A poor excuse for the proper Interspatial Library. We were wrong about so many things… but such is the way of youth. It was at least a small step in the right direction.”

“Yeah, but then everything changed,” Bill released a sigh. “King Henry won the war, and the Arch Mage rode his coat tails right into power.”

“With the Civil War officially settled,” the Wolfman continued, “your human Nobles decided they needed a new enemy to unite the common folk again—certainly couldn’t have them turning their eyes on the nobility. My people were easy candidates.”

“Eh, you guys always were pretty standoffish,” Bill agreed easily. “Look pretty sary as well.”

“Yes, but less so than we are now,” Gengi offered with a snort. “But listen to us, babbling on while the world teeters on the edge of oblivion. You have not come to chitchat about the old days. You are here to finally learn the secrets that have so long evaded you. Though to be honest, I am a bit shocked. I’d always assumed you’d given up the pursuit of carving a Library.”

“Not my choice,” Bill flapped his pages in explanation. “Honestly, I was hoping my new partner here would choose the path of the Biblioblade, but no~o~o~o. Not this kid. Always has to do things the hard way. Decided he wants to be an Archivist Summoner. I tried to talk him out of it, but when he gets an idea stuck in his head, you just can’t shake it. He’s like a dog chewing on a bone.”

“There is wisdom in this,” the wolf chuckled, fixing his rheumy eyes on Sam.  “I have heard about you, young pup. Many a tongue waggles about the wolf-hearted human who is raising so many hackles. But I never thought to meet you for myself. Few of my own people ever earn the right to visit my tent. To do so as an outsider? There must be something special in you.”

“Hey, hey, hey,” Bill interjected. “Credit where credit’s due. He’s okay, but if we’re being honest, I’m the real brains behind the operation.”

The wolf wheezed a dry laugh. “You may have changed in appearance, but you are still the Bill I always remembered.”

“So, level with me,” Bill bulled onward. “Are you going to tell us the secret or what?”

The wolf seesawed his head from side to side for a moment. “Many shamans have come through those flaps looking to learn the secret, yet I have never let it leave my lips. Not once in two hundred and six years.”

“Were they unworthy?” Velkan nodded his understanding. “Was it a weakness of the mind, or one of the flesh?”

The aged Wolfman chuffed. “Not weakness, but strength. I told you, our people are so very rigid. So unbending and unyielding. There is a certain strength in that, but also a fatal weakness. Like the oak, they stand strong against the blowing wind… until they don’t. They snap under enough pressure because they are unable to bend and change. To learn the secret of the Totems requires suppleness. Flexibility. To learn this skill requires that you give up some of what you are. No Wolfman alive can give up being a Wolfman, but you… you have already given up a portion of your humanity.

“You have become a creature of two natures. Man and wolf. Three, really, since you have created a Soul Bond with Sir William. In that lies the secret.” He reached up and tapped conspiratorially on his nose with one long finger. “Beast Core Cultivation. Becoming something both more and less than you are—that is the first step. I started my journey as a Shamanic Druid, and my base specialization was as a Soul Familiar. A relatively common affinity among Shamans. Those with a Soul Familiar share a strong bond with an animal companion. They can call on them for aid, and even communicate telepathically.”

“So you basically become besties with a pet bear or something,” Bill dryly grumped. “Got it.”

The wolf elder chuckled. “Something like that. After studying through reams of ancient Shamanic texts, I knew the secret to creating an Interspatial Nexus was such a bond. More than one text alluded to it, but none passed on the specifics of it. The how. I reached out to the College, hoping the secret might be found there. I didn’t uncover the whole answer, but our time together led me to another clue. A technique unknown to my people called the Path of the Tattered Soul. Most Shamans specialized as Soul Familiars make it a point to find the biggest, most powerful creatures. Binding with large sentient creatures is difficult, and trying to manage a dragon or a phoenix is a full-time job. Not so… a rat.”

The Druid snapped his fingers and a rat scampered out from the blankets and perched on his gnarled finger. His blankets shifted and moved. There was something roiling beneath those covers. A moment later he pulled them back to reveal hundreds of rats, all surrounding him like body armor.

“Oftentimes, small, innocuous things are often far more powerful in their way—assuming there are enough of them. Using the Path of the Tattered Soul I learned to fracture my core into ten thousand pieces. Through time and great patience, I have bonded each sliver of my core with a rat or a crow or a spider. Small, weak things that go without notice. Their power lies not in the damage they can deal, but in the secrets they can steal. After things devolved with the College, I could no longer pursue the College’s Library. So I used my spies to infiltrate the highest level of the College’s Library. The Vaunted Sage’s Level, where the most powerful secrets are kept.”

Sam remembered that area well—it was where Bill had been locked away in.

“I found a tome on Spatial Architecture, penned by none other than the Rituarchitect, Sage Cognitionis. The brilliant mind behind the folding College. I learned that the Spatial Corridors are powered by artifact generators, which fold space. Those generators are created using powerful Beast Cores, attached to fixed spatial anchors. Which was when everything clicked. The answer was under my snout the whole while. The Totem Poles weren’t the fixed spatial anchors, the Totem Guardians were.”

“Slow down. You’re hurting my brain,” Bill demanded with a slight whine to his voice. “How can a person become a fixed spatial anchor?”

“Why, by transforming their own core into an artifact generator, of course. They were once Soul Familiars like me, but instead of merely forming a bond with a monstrous companion, they merged their core with their companions. The Totem Guardian became both more, and less, than they were. Part Wolfman, part monster. A living artifact. With such a generator, they could create a spatial pocket capable of holding a building, or a library, or even this.” He waved his hand around to indicate more than the tent they were in. “A marketplace. All fixed to themselves as the temporal anchor.”

“So, what you’re saying is that I need to be a Soul Familiar to be able to do this?” Sam suddenly crestfallen. Was it possible that he’d come so far, only to learn that what he wanted wasn’t even possible?

“Yes,” the Wolfman stated gravely… but then he cracked a thin, wolfy smile. “Good thing you already are one. You have already forged a Soul Bond with Sir William. He is an artifact—the College saw to that when they transformed him into a book. When you picture your core, do you not see two cores spinning within you? A larger and a smaller?”

Sam nodded.

“That is what a Soul Familiar looks like. Two cores, separate, yet connected. In order to become a Beast Core cultivator, you must merge the two.” He raised two fingers then intertwined them as one. “This will give you the power to create a spatial pocket large enough to accommodate your library. It will grow as your common core grows.”

“Well this sounds like all upside,” Bill perked up at once. “Sign us up.”

“There is a complication,” the wolf held up a hand as though to physically stop them. “You have a Soul Bond, but unfortunately Bill’s core is too weak to accomplish the task before you.” He narrowed his eyes and Sam felt a shiver dance along his spine. “As I thought. When they transformed your corporal form, they also stripped your core down to its foundation. Although you are a powerful artifact, your core is only rated at ‘Rare’.”

“Well that is insultingly low,” Bill huffed his displeasure. “Just one more kick in the shins from the College, I guess.”

The Wolfman shrugged narrow shoulders. “It is about raw power. You are still getting yours back. To merge and become a proper Beast Core Cultivator, your core must be rated at Artifact or above. You will get there in time, as you increase in level.”

“How high do we need to be in order for this to work?” Sam let out the question to stop Bill throwing a fit.

“Level twenty-five. Perhaps even as high as thirty?” The Wolfman wiggled his nose in thought. Once again it felt like the air had just been knocked from Sam’s lungs. Level thirty? He’d never manage to make it that high before his summer was done—especially not without specializing. “But, there is another way.”

“I too had the same trouble. Finding an individual rat with an Artifact-level core was no easy thing—by which I mean it was an impossible thing. Instead, I had to bond with ten-thousand souls, each one a tiny core, constantly cultivating and feeding me energy. There is no master greater in the Path of the Tattered Soul. With enough core nodes to draw on, you can jump-start the Beast Core Cultivation process and merge your cores. For an old friend, I am willing to share the secret—though you will have to find a sufficient number of suitable creatures to bond with.”

A lightbulb clicked on inside Sam’s head. “I’m not too concerned about that. If you’re willing to teach us, then I am ready to learn.”

“Very well,” the ancient Wolfman lifted a hand. “It all starts with the breath. Do as I do.”