The winds swirled up the sides of the tower, smoothly traversing the crystalline structure with its uneven and angular protrusions. Even magically carved crystal is rather difficult to get perfectly smooth and the tower, standing just over seven stories tall was a sight to behold and a feat of magic to behold. The gust politely rushed past the penultimate window rattling the open frame softly, like an expected knock at a door.
“Well Byrach how’s this current batch of students turning out?”
The words floated through the room, a bit of a prodding hello to the formerly sole occupant of the space. Soft finger tips dusted the wearers outfit, a high necked jumpsuit cut to hug the owner’s narrow waist and wide hips before becoming a pair of billowing legs with open slits along the sides. The fabric, fine silk the color of the night sky, which, as the dust puffed off with each pat, caught the sunlight coming through the window and caused it to appear as if it was stardust scattered across the void of space.
As the words landed, and, before allowing a response the new arrival added “you really must clean your windowsill more often. Look at all the dust it got on me.”
“You know you could always come in the door instead of the window?”
“Well, yes, but old habits die hard or never. If the students back in my day knew I was here there’d be a line down the stairwell at least 3 stories. I’m more surprised you haven’t felt the need to hide your comings and goings in all this time..”
“Tajret,” the original occupant pondered allowed “is it, by any chance, possible that maybe your lessons were a bit challenging, lacking in clear direction, or just a bit hand wavy at times?”
“Well, Byrach, you turned out fine and didn’t pester me too much along the way.”
The two looked at one another. Each raising an eyebrow skeptically before bursting into laughter. Byrach, with her full throated “hehehe”, leaning back in her chair while Tajret giggled, hand over her mouth, emitting a high and heady “teheehee”. If any stranger had been present in this moment it would have looked like two old friends telling an inside joke.
“Well, what exactly does bring you here” Byrach questioned, standing and adjusting her long brown skirt and tucked in white blouse. “I would have assumed mother had you busy looking into whatever trouble Xyxis was looking to cook up. Especially after what’s been happening lately.”
“The lady of luck has been busy and mother is well aware but she also determined we have no place to interfere yet.” Tajret moved to embrace her sister and pupil whispering into Byrach’s ear “The horrors are moving but their plans still remain beyond sight for even Denor.” Pulling back Tajret placed her hands on Byrach’s face, a gentle action of a mother holder her daughter, and, locking eyes said with a sorrowful note “what can we witches do if the god of fate themselves hasn’t the cloudiest idea what those from beyond the stars are up to.”
“That’s it? Sit back, wait, see what happens?” The quiet pleasantries of friendship were no longer present as Byrach below and tore away from Tajret’s golden ring adorned fingers. “Have you lost all your empathy or have you simply forgotten your mortal time? I know it’s been almost 300 years for me but I still hold that time close. They have no idea what might be coming! We have to help them Tajret.”
“No, my child” her voice tightening, “no, my pupil.” The title wrapped around Byrach like a snake constricting around its pray. “You are still to young. This is far from the first time that this has happened and it will not be the last. It is not our place for many reasons not the least of which that our mother has said as much and that Ballate is responsible for maintaining the protection of this world from those beyond.”
Byrach’s furry boiled turning her cheeks to a rosy tone. She felt the passion of Oreanyx welled within her but before she could consider the right means of channeling it Tajret had acted. The elegant golden rapped hands had already lifted through the air, tracing intricate patterns. Tajret snapped her fingers and the room reverberated,the door and windows slamming shut and magically sealing. Byrach recognized the working instantly, it was one of the spells she’d learned from Tajret, who, with a twist of her wrist chilled the room coating it in frost. Byrach exhaled her shoulders falling.
“Child, calm yourself. Learn the lesson of your mother who has served her role for a millennia before you even breathed your first breath. You are the witch of knowledge. Your duty to all of us is simple. Teach. Learn. We may not be able to meaningfully take a step yet you may yet have impact. One your students is already woven into the events that shall transpire. Give her, and each of them, what tools you can to rise to the challenge. Denor has chosen those who are meant to play the role of fated actor. Nyxis will grant them the chance to succeed. You shall arm those who will help them for that is our place as outsiders.”
The words hung heavy as the air began to warm and the frost started to evaporate from each horizontal surface in the room. Tajrets yellow-brown eyes, infused with the yellow of their mother’s own, were piercing as they bore down on Byrach.
When was the last time those eyes glared so intensely at Byrach? When last did they make her question herself so completely?
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
A knock resounded on the 6th story of Akkelare’s great tower. “Mother” a soft elderly voice called out, muffled by the wood, “I just noticed Resha flying away. Has something happened.”
Tajret opened the door and looked at her pupil, Byrach. The woman’s white hair was in a bun leaving her soft, wrinkled, questioning face fully visible. “Yes. Come in. Sit.”
Byrach walked slowly taking the chair offered to her as Tajret collected a tome from a shelf across the room and took a seat on the desk next to her student. “How old are you now Byrach? It must be somewhere around 80?” “Yes mother. 82 tomorrow actually. It’s been, just about 71 years since you took me in.”
“Indeed” Tajret flipped through the pages “pulled you out of that nasty storm in the kingdom of Eldeseen” she stopped and looked up in thought, “or should I say former. Did you ever get that research finishes on the source?” “No mother. Though I have been calling it a necro-storm. It seems that something created an imbalance that resulted in a huge influx of necrotic energy. Due to some atmospheric effect I believe the energy became infused with the intense rain that traditionally falls between Lista and Para.” Tajret raised an eyebrow “You’ve made some break throughs it seems?” “Yes mother. It took about 50 years but the experiment to cause necrotic magic to appear in reaction to life granting magic was successful. It does seem that indeed at least these magic energies attempt to maintain a balance.” Byrach smiled at her teacher and said with a forlorn tone “I do hope someone will be able to complete this work one day.”
“Come now daughter, why now you?”
“I… I don’t believe I have the time left for such efforts” Byrach stammered in surprise.
“Well, what if it isn’t?” Tajret stood and held Byrach’s face in her hands for a moment before turning and beginning to pace. “Coming back to your question at the door. Resha has decide her time is over” continuing over her student’s audible gasp she announced “and she came to inform me that, in addition, she has selected me to bear her mantle. A request I have accepted.”
“That is such wonderful news! I’m so glad I will be alive to celebrate this moment.” “Oh Byrach, thank you. You are too kind. It is why I also must ask something of you.” The implication was clear and Byrach straighten up, nodding for Tajret who had given her daughter a moment to compose herself. “Your trial as a child granted to you access to magic at a young age few ever achieve. You have studied under me for your mortal life and shown fine skill like no student ever has in my 700 years teaching. Byrach, as my greatest pupil will you become my eternal daughter and bear my mantle as the witch of knowledge?”
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
The door creaked open and the young woman entered surveying the room. “The top tower of Akkelare, appropriate” she thought to herself. Her yellow eyes paused on each of the seven women standing across from her. “Daughters.” The word rang out simple and commanding. A hello from someone truly superior and especially odd from the form of a girl barely twenty years old. She walked towards them, the lacy train of her black dress barely audible as it dragged across the floor. Her white hair, falling to her mid-back, stood out against the black dress cut to knee length in the front with it’s tight sleeves that billowed just before the hands, and showed collar bone and shoulders. All seven woman bowed but one didn’t respond with “mother” as the other’s did. “Ah, that must be Byrach” Baba Yaga thought to herself approaching Resha, Tajret, and her soon-to-be daughter. “Shall we begin?”
“Resha, come forward.” The woman dressed in a deep blue like the coldest parts of the ocean stepped forward. “You have served well and far longer than was necessary. I thank you for all you have done my daughter. Your work has earned Denor’s respect. The millennia of effort has shown him we are partners worthy of trust, an outcome that will likely have impacts for a millennia or more to come.” Baba Yaga leaned in and kissed Resha’s forehead before embracing her and whispering “you have my blessing, my love, and my thanks. You may rest.”
With a smile and a nod Resha began to weave the sacred spell that Baba Yaga had granted her. A spell that wove a mantle of magic, a fragment of Baba Yaga’s own power, and, in doing so would unravel Resha. A sacrifice, a freeing, a creation. All this and move tied together in the elegant spell Baba Yaga and her remaining daughters, and grand-daughter, beheld. When complete Baba Yaga dried her eye on her lace sleeves before announcing “Tajret.” As her daughter stepped forward the pale hand with its sleeves chasing after them scooped the mantle, a glowing orb of power from the air. “Tajret, as the daughter of Resha and her selection to bear her mantle. Tell me what you desire.”
Baba Yaga already knew. Tajret would accept the mantle of secrets. In doing so she would no longer hold the mantle of knowledge. The only real question, would Byrach accept it. It wouldn’t be the first time a mortal fled after seeing this ritual. It was rather striking after all. Watching someone unweave their soul was unheard of in this world after all. At least not elegantly. Those liches do some atrocious version but it’s so badly executed and the results are disguising undeath with a barely tethered soul. If they were competent they’d be free to travel the stars themselves at Resha was likely already doing. Her mind wandered through all this as she finished Tajret’s ceremony and, having come to grasp the mantle of knowledge, given a physical form in this moment, she gestured towards Byrach with her free hand. “Come forward.”
The elderly figure approached Baba Yaga who hid her horror as Byrach took to her knees, struggling in the process before responding “Yes grandmother. I head your call.”
“What a good girl” Baba Yaga thought, resisting the urge to break her serious composure. “Byrach, daughter of my daughter. You stand before your aunts and mother and before your grandmother on this day. You have studied for your natural life, you have proven your strength of heart and mind and overcome great hardship to become worthy. So much so that your mother, Tajret, once of knowledge, now of secrets, would select you to stand as her daughter eternal. I seek your consent to take this power, to name yourself a great witch, a daughter of Baba Yaga, an eternal force to maintain the order set forth by the Baba Yaga, three as one, to bear the mantle of knowledge as your mother has.”
The kneeing form responded, raising her bowed head, strong green eyes connecting with Baba Yaga’s own, “great mother of Witches, Baba Yaga, it honors me be considered Tajret’s child would honor me in kind to call myself your own. For however long. A decade, millennia, or longer. I shall honor you, her, my aunts, and all those who have come before and after me in bearing the title of a daughter of Baba Yaga.” Baba Yaga stepped forward and placing a hand gently under Byrach’s chin smiled down at her. “By my right I name you Byrach of Knowledge” and, lowering to a knee and leaning in Baba Yaga whispered “this may be a lot.”
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
The two woman sat on the crystalline roof of Akkelare Academy’s tower reminiscing and passing a bottle of fine bottle of Jorum back and forth, the distilled sea serpent poison had a phenomenal floral note to it though it put most mortals on their asses at the slightest taste. “Byrach you were out for a week when mother gave you my old mantle. You were such a mess when you woke up” Tajret cried out gesticulating and taking the bottle from Byrach. “You couldn’t have been much better off when you first took it on.” “You’ll never know!”
“Maybe I should visit Aunty Vivot and ask.”
“You wouldn’t dare!”
The two laughed and drank late into the evening. The clear, cloudless night sky slowly brightening as the pale light of the moon rose over the horizon. Stars on one end of the sky and moon on the other.
“Tajret. When will we act.”
“I don’t know Byrach. Mother is incomprehensible even after all these centuries. Before Resha left us she told me she couldn’t even begin to understand the true nature of our mother even after her millennia and the millennia of those that came before her. The essence of her soul and those before from the mantle tell me nothing the true nature of Baba Yaga.”
Byrach, standing and taking the last dregs of the liquor, couldn’t resist “I won’t stand by forever. Here me mother of mothers!” “Stop it, you’ll wake your students Byrach.”
“No, I’m serious. I won’t break out coven but I’ll do everything in my power. If my student isn’t enough maybe it’s time for the ways of Akkelare to change.” Tajret looked up at her daughter, survivor of the necrostorm, last of the people of the lost kingdom of Eldeseen, and Witch of Knowledge. She was a great sorceress long before she became a witch. She had process even as Tajret attempted to keep magic from her. Maybe, just maybe, Byrach was right. Tajret rolled onto her back and watched the stars as they faded and whispered to them, just quiet enough for Byrach to not hear, “I wonder what Denor and mother will have to say about that.”
v1
“You’ll have to try harder next session if you hope to ever hope to by Mother Tajret” Byrach stated as she scrutinized the notes on her desk and their subject, the young woman in front of her. “Yes Mother.”
Wagging a finger Byrach continued “the task was to create a novel potion. While you did succeed at improving upon this lightning resistance recipe it wasn’t quite enough for you to pass.” She attempts to make eye contact with the student, Genevieve Awserti, but only gets to eye the top of her head, brown pony tail dropping to one side. “My daughter, raise your head. Be proud. You’ve done very good work. I don’t mean to discourage you. For after all, you are one of the select few to be taught in the central tower of Akkelare.” Genevieve met her Mother’s eyes and Byrach smiled back. “The only one to pass this time was Reita with that strange ‘crystal anti-venom’ she produced. Go find her and speak with her on the work! Continue learning and maybe one day you could even be one of the witches.”
“Yes Mother!” Genevieve’s ponytail whips forward and back as she bows deeply and turns to scurry from the room the soft click behind her leaving Byrach alone to consider the girl’s future. There was always the option to ask Preta to peer into her orb or flip a few cards over and see if Genevieve’s success would ever be more than just that of a court magician “but what fun would that be” Byrach announces to herself placing her hands on her hips and looking down the hall after her young student. Note: who is Byrach? The witch of knowledge. A human by birth given near immortality through her claiming the mantle of the witch of knowledge.
Byrach was an orphan due to a magically enhanced natural disaster that swept across the north-eastern edge of Centrium, the necro-storm. The necrotic energy infused storm, the source of which is still unexplained, stole the lives of a large swath of the regions inhabitants including most of Byrach’s family and fellow villagers from her farming village. She hid as those who survived the initial event attempted to flee. Only a few surviving the attempt.
Byrach, on the verge of death was rescued by the former Witch of Knowledge and current Witch of Secrets Tajret. Tajret took Byrach in at her outpost, the now quietly famous Akkelarre Academy, where Byrach spent the rest of her childhood studying. While Tajret kept her away from magic at first Byrach’s exposure to the storm had infused her with necrotic magic giving her a strong affinity with the school of magic and the magical arts in general. Byrach would grow up, coming to teach at the academy while forever studying under her adoptive mother Tajret.
When Byrach was turning 70 Tajret’s mother Retsha visited Tajret to inform her of her decision to pass the mantle of Mother of Secrets on to Tajret. In kind Tajret selected Byrach to take her mantle. Shortly after the ritual was held in the presence of all the great witches and the grandmother witch herself, Baba Yaga, Retsha committed the ritual, igniting her soul and separating it from the divine power given to her by Baba Yaga. Baba Yaga would bid her child Retsha goodbye, releasing her soul from the vow, long sworn, to wander the stars. Turning to Tajret, Baba Yaga conducted the ritual swapping the mantle of secrets for that of knowledge before turning to Byrach and asking
“Byrach, daughter of my daughter. You stand before your aunts and mother and before your grandmother on this day. You have studied for your natural life, you have proven your strength of heart and mind and overcome great hardship to become worthy. So much so that your mother, Tajret, once of knowledge, now of secrets, would select you to stand as her daughter eternal. I seek your consent to take this power, to name yourself a great witch, a daughter of Baba Yaga, an eternal force to maintain the order set forth by the Baba Yaga, three as one, to bear the mantle of knowledge as your mother has.
With a solemn nod Byrach announced “great mother of Witches, Baba Yaga, it would honor me to stand as Tajret’s child and your grand child in kind. For however long. A decade, millennia, or longer. I shall honor you, her, my aunts, and all those who have come before and after.”
With a smile, Baba Yaga steps to Byrach. Gliding elegantly across the floor and raising free hand, gently raising Byrach’s head to look her in the eyes.
“By Æ, she’s beautiful.” Byrach thought as she took in Baba Yaga’s visage up close, the shadow cast by her cloak no longer obscuring her face.
With a start Byrach jolted awakened and struggled to lift herself from her bed. “Now take your time daughter” Tajret called from a chair across the room. “Becoming a true witch takes a lot out of you. Still feeling it myself though it’s much easier to become a grandmother for what it’s worth.”
“What happened?”
“Simple. Your grandmother took my old power and infused your soul with it. As I said, it takes a lot out of you. So you passed out.”
Byrach blinked at Tajret paused and thought hard for a moment. “So, what exactly do I call you now anyways?”
With a bellowing laugh and a smile Tajret says mother, master, either is just fine. Our relationship is different now. You are no longer a pupil learning from thousands of years of experience I’ve accumulated and the thousands of years of the witches before me. You now contain all of it as I contain all of Retsha’s and her predecessors. I may still rank above you, a grandmother witch vs you, a mother witch, but to put it simply the gap between us is now infinitesimal relative to what it was before. You’ll see soon though. For now just rest.
Byrach turned over and, wiping the sweat from her face, began to recount the dream in a note book. “The twentieth this evening along. When will it cease. Alright, this time it was a meadow in bloom, on the side of a mountain’s base. Snow and ice above but below an absolutely beautiful oasis
———————— Baba Yaga - young adult in appearance. Maybe 19 at most. Dressed in a sleek dress that falls just below the knees, with an open neckline showing partial shoulders and collar bone, and long sleeves. A polite hour glass shape she would only be likely to draw attention in a crowd from her piercing yellow eyes. Those able to detect magic would discover a huge aura on the form of a towering figure draped in uncountable ragged layers of cloth. Charms of various materials and in various forms including bone, flesh, crystal, spirit and on necklaces, bracelets, earrings, and more hang from the figure and the clothing. Their hands and fingers appearing too long to be quite human and aged beyond mortal life’s limits.
While looking like a child baba yaga is an origin of a lost reality who came Æ’s world during the era of Origination. Upon arrival her form fractured and created the Baba Yaga three. As Baba Yaga the witch her focus is primarily on order and she naturally found the shadowfell a natural place to draw on. Her wisdom is near endless and her power on the order of an origin but as a guest in this world she tends ———————————————