Tale of Four

Tristan fell backwards onto his bed. He had been spending the last few days rarely leaving his room, studying the book Elder Maxwell had provided, trying to uncover anything that may have been hidden inside its pages. Although there were no hidden things he could find, he was glad he had spent so much time dissecting the text; the book explained the basic rules of Arcane power, the risks, limitations and theory behind it. Following that, there were a few crafts a Magi could begin to study once having learnt the very basics, such as Alchemy and Artifacing.

’I don’t need to spend time on such things myself. I don’t even know how to get the materials to do any of it.’ Shaking his head, Tristan pushed himself up and sat on the edge of his bed. Annabell flew down, seeing Tristan finally move, and crashed into his lap, pecking at him in annoyance for having hardly left the room.

”Sorry. I know you’re bored, but it was really interesting, even if I didn’t wish to learn the arcane.” Annabell huffed and turned her head. Seeing what she wanted, Tristan began to rub her favourite spots as he stared ahead at the wall.

’Although I know the basic theory and mechanism behind using Arcne power, I still have no clue how to actually use it. Books are only so helpful. Maybe I need to give him more blood.’ Sighing, he held his hand up and pointed his palm to the wall.

”One must call upon the Arcane and channel it. With that, they must conjure the correct desire to call forth upon it. How one does so differs in practice but is the same in principle.” Tristan clenched his fist and lowered his hand. ”Saying what you wish makes it easier, but skilled Magi do not need to do such a thing.” Sighing, he rubbed the back of his head and looked down at Annabell. For a moment, he stared at her with a strange expression before an idea formed. ”Annabell. When you use your power, is it Arcane power or soemthing else?”

Annabell opened her eyes, snapping out of the comfort of Tristan’s strokes and met his gaze. ”Yes, but not in the way you want. When I use my power to protect you, its source is arcane, but I am not channelling the same way you would. It’s like my wings. You will never be able to fly without using soemthing to allow yourself, whereas I was born with the ability. My power is the same. I was created with it; it isn’t soemthing I must learn or train.”

”I see. A shame, I would have loved you to teach me.” Annabell’s wings twitched at the thought of being his teacher. Lifitng her head proudly, she let out a small, cute chuckle.

”I can still teach you, Tristan.” Her eyes widened. ”Actually, this is perfect.” Flying up, she madly flew around in a circle, delighted with herself at the thought she just had. Tristan couldn’t help but laugh, seeing her, always finding the stark difference between the ancient wisdom she held and the childish joy she lived with to be endearing. ”You carry a small, almost obsolete part of myself in your soul, that doesn’t just include my personality but also a fragment of my power, or at least the means to call upon it.”

Grabbing his head, Tristan didn’t even sigh. ”How is it you always fail to tell me these things when we are on the topic?”

”I forgot.” Annabell snapped back, continuing to fly, changing the pattern she did, now flying in a symbol of an eight. ”Anyway, the knowledge of how to use my powers will exist in you. It is one of the reasons why continuous merges will allow you to learn more forbidden knowledge with less risk. My power etched into your soul is a protection for it. But now that I think about it, doesn’t that mean you can just learn how to use my power without merging? It’s brilliant. We don’t need to merge, but we can still be one.”

Tristan smiled, ”You never explained what you can actually do to me. I know the things about truth and seeing what can’t be seen; I mean, I experienced it, but what else can you? Like when that warmth washes over me, when every time you protect me, what is that?”

”I am far more brilliant than you think, Tristan.” Annabell finally came to a stop, landing on the cupboard opposite Tristan. ”Although the problem is, my powers are not like that phoenix. I can’t hurt people.” Annabell said embaressed and scared. Watching Tristan, he shook his head, realising she was waiting for him to be mad.

”I don’t care, Annabell. I don’t want you to hurt people.” Annabell sighed in relief and carried on.

”How should I put it?” Tilting her head, she closed her eyes and thought for a moment, reopening after thirty seconds. ”What I can do is split it into three separate categories, all derived from the same source, that being purity. First, it’s what you experienced: the ability to see what can’t be seen, the inability to lie, as well as when we did our deeper merge, when you glimpsed at the power of the world. I like to call it Soul power, the ability to see the true nature of things and interact with it; the problem being it also affects myself.”

Tristan nodded, ”Next is protection. There are many ways to do it, but that’s the warmth you experience whenever I shield you. Unmerged, it is weak and, quite frankly, is only truly possible when we merge. It is why, when you were a child and learnt the thing you shouldn’t have, you didn’t die, Tristan.” Annabell paused and lowered her head. ”Remember that month when you couldn’t summon me after it happened.” Tristan nodded. ”I had burnt myself and had to rest in the immaterial. I had used all my power to protect your mind and seal that knowledge so you couldn’t see it until you were able to withstand it yourself. Even now it’s inside of you, but you don’t know.”

”Annabell.” Tristan softly siad her name and chuckled, ”You never said.”

”I wasn’t sure if I could without risking the seal, so I held back. When I realised it would be fine, so much time had passed that there was no reason to tell you.” Although her face didn’t change, Tristan could tell she was smiling.

”I don’t need you to thank me again for it.”

”It wouldn’t hurt,” Annabell said, looking away. For a second they were silent before giggling. After it died down, she carried on, ”The final part is sealing. I don’t harm people, Tristan. I can’t bring myself to do it. But I am your summon, and I need to be able to protect you. It was why I was created; every summon has some form of way to protect their summoner by stopping the one who wished harm. For me, it is to seal things. As I said, I protected you when I sealed the knowledge you shouldn’t have learned. Unlike the protection part of myself, this one I have much more freedom to use in the real world.”

Annabell paused and looked at Tristan’s desk. Seeing the blade he used to shave with, she swooped down, picked it with her beak and dropped it on his lap. ”This is because I don’t use my power alone, but the power of the world to assist it. I can show you. Try and harm yourself.”

Tristan was shocked and tilted his head. ”I didn’t know you could ask me to do such things?”

”Of course I can. It’s a simple request free of malice. If I earnestly wanted you to hurt yourself, I wouldn’t be able to, but this is an experiment, one I can control.” Tristan thought for a moment and shrugged.

”How do you want me to. Try and stab my hand or just give myself a cut?”

”Cut. It is impossible for a person to purposefully wish to stab themself without absolute certainty to do so.” Tristan nodded and picked the knife up. Pulling his sleeve, he met Annabell’s eyes as the dove flew down and landed on his shoulder.

Pushing the sharp blade into his arm, he waited for a second and took a deep breath before trying to pull it back and press deeper. Unlike what he expected, nothing happened. His arm didn’t move. His hand shook, trying to fight what overcame him, but it failed to break the invisible power around him. Annabell stared at the blade before speaking.

”Pull your other arm away.” Tristan did as told and removed his arm from the blade. The moment he did, his arm jerked back, throwing him backwards. ”Just now I did two things. I sealed the muscles in your arms so they couldn’t move until the power was released. Then, for extra safety, I sealed the world’s power around your arm to lock it in place. That was why your hand shook. It isn’t perfect unmerged, and therefore, you still had some control over your hand.”

”Interesting.” Tristan put the blade to the side and stared at his arm. It was a strange feeling. He had definitely intended to cut himself; there was no doubt about it. It wasn’t like he was frozen; rather, it felt as if his arm was trapped between a wall, with no room to move. ”I had never known you could do this.”

”I’ve done it for you many times; you just never noticed.”

”Really?” Tristan looked at her, getting a nod in reply.

”You were a very clumsy child for a while, Tristan. But I tried not to do it much. After all, I didn’t want you to become reliant on it and think yourself invincible. I can only do it so much before I need to rest myself as well.” Tristan nodded, thankful that she did so.

”In that case, the seal on that knowlegde must constantly sap at your strength.”

”No. Because it’s a seal on your soul. The soul is connected to the immaterial; therefore, it is constantly reinforced by the power within it.” Annabell paused for a moment, finally deciding to say what she wanted. ”If we merged, and I mean a very deep merge, we could likely seal a building in the material world permanently. Make it so no one could enter or leave. Of course it would sap at mine and your power if we alone fueled it, but in such a merge, we would be able to command the power of the world to constantly supply the seal.”

”Wow.” Tristan chuckled, ”That is... what my ancestor was. Could he do all this?” Annabell nodded but stayed silent. Looking ahead, Tristan took a deep breath before lying back down.