Chapter 7: Unusual Occurrences
"For God's sake, be careful!"
Flailing about in an almost ridiculous manner, Andrew batted Zachary's hands away from his precious, newly – built microscope for what must have been the fortieth time ever since he had first made it.
"Oh, lighten – "
"No, these lenses took forever!"
Rolling his eyes, Zachary quickly slung his worn leather bag, heavily weighted with numerous textbooks in various conditions, over his shoulder – he couldn't be late to class, not today.
Given that he was not exactly the most organized person, especially compared to his lifelong musketeer friend, it was rather frustrating for the frizzy – haired witchdoctor as he stumbled around their mess (much to Andrew's displeasure) of a house, trying to gather up his staff, the standard vials of potions, and other such needed materials as Andrew cautiously stepped out of the way.
This was quite uncharacteristic behavior indeed.
"What's all the rush about...?"
He had not been displaying such actions five minutes ago, even – but then again, Zachary Zest was likely one of the most spontaneous beings in the entire spiral.
"Can't talk right now – I'm going be late for demonstration exams!"
And with that, he rushed out of the already – open front door, leaving Andrew rather baffled and confused.
Demonstration exams?
It had taken slightly longer for the musketeer to recall – given that hoodoo was a magic that came from within an individual, there was much more variation in the standards taught in the witchdoctor classes as compared to his own musketeer training sessions.
Therefore, rather than working through a standard routine as a final examination of sorts, as Andrew had done to pass his own advanced sessions, Zachary would have to demonstrate his own mastery using any method of his choosing.
Carefully stepping back around his worktable, taking care as not to accidentally tip any one of his precious contraptions over, Andrew considered following his friend – after all, it was not as if he had any sessions to go to himself, given that he had chosen not to attend the master sessions in order to better focus on his own work.
After all, if anything, it would be an observational experience, and the musketeer would at least gain some amount of knowledge as to how the most advanced witchdoctors trained.
It was only then that Andrew realized that by now, Zachary was far ahead of him – and quickly dashed out of the door, sprinting through the winding alleyways and streets to catch up to him, colliding with and nearly knocking over the shorter witchdoctor in the process.
"Oof - !"
"Sorry!"
"Watch it – oh, it's you."
Zachary quickly lowered his staff, which he had raised upon instinct, as the musketeer dusted off his impossibly thick – lensed glasses and thanked whatever higher being was watching over him that they had not broken – for he was almost quite literally blind without them.
"Hey – wait!"
Much to Andrew's dismay, Zachary had not slowed his own frantic speedwalking pace in the slightest, and he was once again forced to run to catch up and keep up with him, earning him a rather confused look from the witchdoctor.
"Wait a minute…why're you following me?"
Still struggling to keep from showing just how tired (and out of shape) he truly was by suppressing the shallow gasps that his body urged him to take, Andrew quickly explained his own curiosity in as few words as possible with as little awkwardness as possible –
"Sure, that's fine – " Zachary had replied, much to Andrew's relief (and humiliation, as the witchdoctor was not short of breath in the slightest) – "but make sure to stay out of sight. It's not against the rules or anything, it's just that Madame Vadima's been on edge and all, with…"
That's right, Andrew remembered – Dangler's dead.
Even thinking these words sent a sort of chill down his spine as he recalled the circumstances of her death as they had been relayed to him via Zachary –
Underhill stabbed her.
Underhill –
Sydney Underhill, privateer of the Resistance, Captain of the Grand Fife.
It seemed unthinkable, for her – Underhill – to have gone defective – but indeed she had, the unimaginable had occurred.
Even knowing this created a sort of apocalyptic sensation of doom within the pit of the musketeer's stomach, and it had taken a great deal of his effort to force it to retreat, to slither away and coil up within the back corners of his mind.
Such was only a temporary solution, of course, but there were other things to think about – such as his best friend's exam demonstration.
If he passes this, he'll be considered a master witchdoctor – one of the few!
They had arrived at the sanctum shortly after, and just as Zachary had instructed him to, Andrew hid himself behind one of the bushes at the very entrance, ensuring that he would not be seen by either the instructors or any of the trainees – even while giving him a decent view of any activity within the sanctum.
As Zachary continued through the entrance and onwards, Andrew's eyes followed him as he walked through the sanctum and seated himself amongst the many cushions upon the floor, as all of the other trainees had done –
He was not late, it did appear – rather, he had made it just on time.
Good.
Madame Vadima now rose from where she had been seated off within one of the darker corners, walking to the center of the room as she briefly talked the few trainees present – it was a master class, after all – through the procedure of the final demonstrations.
There truly had not been much to say: from what Andrew could hear, they would, one by one, stand, perform all spells in increasing order of difficulty, and then perform their final spell of choosing – which could be anything, whether it had been covered in Vadima's sessions or not.
This had all been relatively easy to absorb, and therefore, Andrew did not pay much attention to it – rather, he had been watching the other aspects of the witchdoctor trainer.
Her pattern of speech, her unfocused eyes, the way that her body almost seemed to sag in posture, indicating the loss of that proud air that she most usually carried –
It was as if one of her own spells had been turned on her, draining her of any and all energy, and really, it did make sense.
She was mourning Dangler, Andrew knew – her own legendary prodigy who was, more or less, a daughter to her, and it was understandable – it was quite a pitiful sight, in fact, as Vadima was so known throughout the island for being proud.
Andrew had found himself paying much more attention to this, pondering much harder about this than he should have – for the first few demonstrations had gone by in what felt like mere seconds to the musketeer, even though he did not feel too bad for having been distracted – they had been nothing stellar, and their one final spell had merely been a repeat of the most advanced – Wyvern's Spell it was, if the musketeer's memory had been as infallible as before.
Naturally, Zachary would be last, Andrew knew – for his last name, Zest, placed him at the ultimate disadvantage when it came to doing things by alphabetical order – and given that the other trainees were nothing special, from what the musketeer could observe, he felt no guilt in simply zoning out, as most would put it, for the time being.
Even Vadima herself did not seem to be focused – and he truly could not blame her. How could he, when it was more than certain that in every spell, in every demonstration of power, she saw Dangler?
Luckily for the both of them, perhaps, these demonstrations had seemed to pass by extremely quickly, from then on out – and before long, Zachary was standing, lifting his staff and walking to the center of the sanctum, just as all others had done before him.
Perhaps it was due to the fact that Zachary was Andrew's lifelong friend, close enough to perhaps be considered his brother, but the moment that he had started casting even the simplest spell, Andrew had sensed something different.
Was it his demeanor, Andrew wondered?
That was certainly a possibility – but perhaps it was that distinctly green glow within his golden eyes that had most definitely not been there before.
And Vadima had most definitely noticed this as well, it did seem – for she had suddenly straightened her posture in her sitting position and focused her own gaze upon him, paying Zachary and his demonstration routine more attention than she had given the rest of her trainees combined.
He had powered through the standard spells as quickly as he could, and yet, he had managed to maintain quality and precision the entire time – ghostwail, jobu's breath, soulreaver –
All performed to maximum potential.
The trainees before had just gone through the motions, yes, but Zachary had gone beyond that –
He had completed the routine of spells in no time, or so it seemed – and now, his final spell.
Andrew had half expected him to perform Wyvern's spell again, for even if he had, it still would have impressed him – but he had not.
Rather, Zachary had done something that Andrew had never seen before.
Extinguishing any green flames left over from his previous spell with a single wave of his hand, Zachary now yanked the dagger that he always carried free from the sheath upon his belt, pushing back his sleeve before making a long, vertical cut on the very back of his forearm.
Dammit, what are you doing?!
At the sight of the blood dripping from his friend's arm, Andrew felt the color abruptly drain from his face – carnage or gore of even the slightest degree had never truly been his forte – and he struggled to defy his instincts and not to rush out and shake the witchdoctor to his senses.
Zachary had never done anything without a purpose, as spontaneous as he truly was – and judging by the complete lack of response that he had received from the other trainees, this was something that they had seen before, and thus, Andrew let him be.
Strangely, Zachary had remained almost perfectly calm, even with his own left forearm quickly becoming drenched in his own blood. The knife was then returned to its sheath, and the witchdoctor now trained his eyes upon the large wound as this strange, surreal glow within his usually – golden eyes had grown ever brighter, only to give rise to green flames, green flames which had come from his hands to wrap and coil up his arms and his shoulders, somehow refraining from burning him even though they came in direct contact with his flesh.
He had not even spoken – Zachary had merely concentrated his gaze upon the weeping wound – and right before Andrew's ever – observant eyes, the cut had then sealed.
Andrew's eyes had grown wide with shock, and he was quite fortunate indeed that the rest of the trainees had been so intently focused upon Zachary's demonstration, otherwise they would have heard him gasp as well –
What is this?!
It was green magic, yes, but there was no way that this was hoodoo – for he had simply healed the wound without drawing energy from anything else, almost like the privateers did – but Zachary was not trained in the way of the privateers –
And even though it was certainly similar to the healing of the privateers (or at least some of them), it was not identical.
It was different, yes, this green magic – and Andrew certainly could not explain it, therefore being forced to remain just as baffled as before.
Having finally finished his demonstration, Zachary snapped his fingers once, causing the tendrils of these different green flames to vanish as he offered a short bow of his head to Madame Vadima, who stood once again to give a short closing speech about how they were now masters and such, about how their power must be wielded with caution.
They were supposed to be encouraging words, Andrew could tell, perhaps they had been written to be encouraging within Vadima's mind while she watched the final demonstrations – but they seemed to be anything but, with how drained her posture was, with how hoarse her voice seemed to be – she could not even bring herself to make eye contact with any of the now – masters seated before her.
She had dismissed them with a final bow of her own, and they had all filed out one by one – Andrew had made sure to hide himself further in the shrubbery so that he would not be seen – except for Zachary, who had remained within at the silent request of the witchdoctor trainer.
Did something go wrong?
Andrew could not help but feel concerned – as usually, when it came to training sessions, no news was good news. The instructors gave compliments very rarely, and it was wise to learn not to expect them to at any point in time.
However, when he once again leaned towards the entrance to catch exactly what was being said, the hidden musketeer was quite surprised –
"I must commend you, young man – never before have I seen this particular branch of magic within these parts of the Spiral, and yet, you seem to have quite a good grasp upon it…"
"Thank you, Madame – "
Vadima had sighed heavily then, the coins sewn to the many sashes tied around her waist clinking against each other as she turned and began to pace.
"You are so…similar…you do remind me so much of her, now more than ever…"
"Her – I do…?"
Dangler.
Considering how powerful she truly had been, it certainly could be considered a rather high honor to be compared to her – and although Andrew had always thought of Zachary as exceptionally talented in hoodoo, he had never dared to compare him – or any witchdoctor, for that matter – to her.
"You do indeed, you do indeed…she had this…strange magic as well – it was dark magic, yes, almost the…opposite of yours…"
And Vadima had continued to speak as she paced, and her words grew almost heavy, they grew rushed and slurred together, her articulation slowly diminishing, now speaking more to herself than she was to Zachary.
"She would have been so delighted to see you…"
Vadima's voice had grown more frantic by the second, and the volume had increased as well – before long, she was literally shouting, shouting at the walls, the ceiling, Zachary himself, perhaps – anyone, or anything, that would listen.
"And I can't even remember the last time I spoke to her! My own daughter, she was, I found her with – "
"Thank you, Madame," Zachary had then said hurriedly (of course, this had been completely disregarded by the witchdoctor trainer), and he had lifted his staff from the ground and all but dashed out of the sanctum, directly past Andrew's hiding spot and forcing the musketeer to finally emerge and follow him.
"What was that all about?"
Zachary shrugged –
"I can't really blame her, I guess…she's been in a state of shock ever since they told her – the whole situation was just rather awkward."
Well, Andrew thought, he wasn't wrong – Andrew himself did not exactly perform well in such situations either.
However, perhaps it would be wise to drop the matter now, especially given that they could not gather any more information upon it now that they had left the sanctum –
"So, you're a master now, huh?"
Their conversation had been light as the two of them had walked back in the direction of their house at a rather leisurely pace, with Andrew making comments on the demonstrations that he had witnessed and with Zachary offering his own (slightly more informed) input.
As one would have expected, the atmosphere was much more relaxed as compared to when they had initially walked – or more accurately, ran – to the sanctum, with Andrew having finished his own sessions long ago and Zachary now basking in that rather dizzying relief that was the absence of the pressure of these examinations.
Does it feel good, being a master?
I don't think that anything's changed, Zachary had replied, although I guess I could say so.
And all was well.
They had continued on – and were just passing the docking area when out of the blue, a boy had torn up the stairways from the docks, tripping over his own feet as he staggered forwards, collapsing in the sand, screaming incomprehensibly as a small crowd quickly began to gather –
"What's happened?"
"Look at his leg, he needs help now - !"
Exchanging alarmed glances with one another, Andrew and Zachary quickly became one with the crowd, pushing and shoving the other pirates aside in order to get a better view of the fallen boy in the center –
It had been quite difficult to actually be able to see what was going on in the first place, and it was only after several minutes that Andrew had finally been able to shove his way into the innermost ring within the ever – growing sea of people.
He was a swashbuckler, the screaming boy, as he carried seven or eight daggers in his belt alone, and likely had many more hidden within his clothing as well – in the back of his rather vivid memory, Andrew could recall the boy's name – Brandon Eastwick, a swashbuckler of seventeen years of age – but the musketeer's mind had not lingered on this.
Rather, it had been drawn to the numerous bloody wounds that were peeking out from underneath the torn flaps of his clothing – and once again, Andrew had to fight to stay conscious.
What in the Spiral could have caused these – and so many of them…?
Some of the other pirates standing within the circle surrounding Brandon attempted to reach out to him, placing their hands on his shoulders from where he was curled in on himself upon the ground, trying to lift him up, and the blood – soaked swashbuckler had only responded by swatting them away, by beating them away, his screams a mix of terrified shrieks and jumbled words.
"We just want to help you – "
"Who did this?!"
And still, even as they stood him up, a buccaneer girl and a privateer who appeared to be her brother balancing Brandon's bloody form between them, the terrified swashbuckler's cries remained incomprehensible, with Andrew only able to decipher a few disconnected words amongst his hysterical, terrified screaming –
"Help – "
"She's still - !"
Still what, help from what, Andrew had silently urged him on, and as Zachary finally was able to return to his side, having fought through the crowd as well, it had seemed that these answers would not be given, that they would go unknowing and wondering and fearing.
However, it was then that Brandon had started to fight against the two pirates holding him up, and they struggled to keep him from completely twisting out of their grasp altogether as he just barely managed to turn his head back around, only to scream once –
"The Fife!"
Andrew's heart had nearly stopped – there was no way, he had told himself, there was no way that what he meant was –
"God help us, the Grand Fife…!"
"Wasn't that Underhill's ship?" Zachary cocked a single eyebrow in question, turning his head towards Andrew in anticipation for a response that he never received, as Andrew was dumbstruck.
Sydney Underhill's ship…?!
And had either of them looked around at the faces of the pirates on either side of them, in front of them and behind them, it would have been blatantly obvious that each and every one of them were thinking the exact same thing.
Underhill's ship.
"It still sails!"
Quickly exchanging a series of hushed, panicked words with each other, the privateer and buccaneer supporting Brandon had decided that it would be best to quiet him, yes, before he caused any more of this panic – and they began to drag him away.
"It still sails, God help us all, the Fife still sails…!"
"Stop this nonsense, you're hysterical!"
The buccaneer had then yanked the red scarf from around her neck, tying it around Brandon's mouth; his dark brown eyes still wide open with fear even as he was effectively silenced –
But it was far too late now – the full impact of his words had sunken into each and every one of these witnesses, including Andrew and Zachary themselves, and as the crowd had slowly but steadily dissipated, the uneasy air had remained.
"That – "
"That's Underhill's ship…"
The words had fallen from Andrew's mouth numbly, as they had done nothing to sway his disbelief – "But didn't she – "
"Abandon her ship, as well as kill her crew…? That's what I've been told."
A shiver ran down the musketeer's spine, and at this point, he did not even bother to attempt to suppress it – the thought of the Captain of the Grand Fife, who had considered her crewmates to be her sisters, brutally murdering those very same women was beyond horrifying –
It meant that this very same sense of betrayal could be nesting anywhere, in anyone, if it had hidden within Sydney Underhill for so very long, a dormant serpent sleeping within the depths of the mind –
Zachary waved a hand in front of Andrew's face, as he had noticed the stupor that he had fallen into.
And perhaps, by the time that it had taken over and committed such horrible acts of this such nature, the host would not have had the chance to notice –
God save us, that was what the swashbuckler had said – and perhaps this call to the heavens had been appropriate indeed for this situation.
Zachary reached out and shook Andrew's shoulder harshly, jerking the musketeer back into reality and then being forced to almost catch him as he swayed dangerously, his brown eyes wide with fear, with shock, with disbelief, a mixture of all of them, perhaps, as the witchdoctor now led him through the door of their house and sat him down in the chair directly next to the window – it had been rather fortunate that they had been so close to their house already.
"It's so strange – the Grand Fife was abandoned, but he says he saw it…?"
Maybe he really was delusional –
But how – and with all the wounds…!
His thick brown eyebrows furrowing in thought, the witchdoctor now paced to and fro as Andrew continued to stare on, blankly, as if he was a reanimated corpse rather than a living being.
"And do you know what the weirdest part was, Andrew…?"
Of course, he knew full well that his words were likely going directly over Andrew's head, and they were more for himself – but on the off – chance that he was indeed listening…
"All of those giant cuts on his arms and legs…? They were bite marks."
I hope you enjoyed, and be sure to leave a review!
- Severina
