Days passed, then weeks, and then months as the expedition toiled ever onwards. Every mile carved into that hellish place was done so through the sweat and strain of the thirteen. But the people of the land were tough, and once they knew that the elder evil’s hunger wasn’t going to be able to claim them they drove themselves forward in a pace that even the Old Masters found surprising.
“Why?” William asked.
“Huh?” Gerard stopped speaking and looked at the quizzically.
“If the Old Masters knew so much, how could the thirteen surprise them?”
Gerard paused, considering the question. Many of the William’s questions were rote, a practiced part of telling the story between the two of them. But this was the first time that William had asked him this particular question. His boy was growing up, he reminded himself with a momentary pang of sadness.
“Well I suppose it was because to the Old Masters the elder evil was simply a curiosity, an experiment of theirs that had gone wrong. But to the thirteen it was a part of their life, a threat to their families and to the land they lived on.”
William’s small face scrunched up but he nodded. His father nodded in turn and continued.
Buoyed by the Old Masters’ magic, the thirteen remained alive and healthy. The first days were the hardest for them, for though they were used to working long days growing crops or hunting the beasts of the wilds for sustenance, they were unused to the toil of forging a path through an unyielding land. But soon enough the hard work toughened them physically, shaping them into creatures of hard muscle and strong bone. No matter how hard they drove themselves, the magic of the Old Masters buoyed them back up, healing them and making them that much tougher. In time they strove hard from sunup to sundown, working ceaselessly to bring the Old Masters to their prize.
And just as their bodies became honed by the Old Masters’ magic, the thirteen found their minds being honed by it as well. They watched the Old Masters workings with secret intentions, and though much of it escaped their understanding enough of it got through. It was a slow process, as slow as the forging of their bodies in the Old Masters’ crucible, but after a time the thirteen began to understand the most basic of the Old Masters’ magic and the way that they commanded the very spirits of the land to do their bidding.
This was the beginning of Amran pneumancy, the blighted magic which commands the spirits of the land to do its master’s bidding.
