159. To Tame a Mount I (Patreon)

AN:  Chapter 1/3

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The giant gray ram jumped and kicked, its back arching in trying to throw Tercius off. Attached by invisible forces of his telekinetic skill, Tercius wasn't going anywhere, no matter how much his stomach and the beast wished he did. Frantic bleats accompanied each unsuccessful jump, disturbing more than just Tercius' center of gravity.

“Easy there. Easy, boy.” Tercius tried using a calm and soothing voice, as was recommended. As he spoke he tried to reestablish the mental link lost only moments ago.

All the jolting around made it more difficult and he was pretty sure that his lunch was slowly making its way to his throat. His stomach had been upset, to begin with. Training a beast that had just a few hours ago had been minding its own business was not an easy thing to digest. Without him and Mistress Kalina butting their needs into its life, the beast would have lived, had its offspring with a giant lady ewe, then probably died to some predator that it couldn't outrun. The way of the world, really. What change, if any, would his meddling bring to the beast?

“Easy there, easy boy,”

“Tercius, is something the matter?” the voice of his Mentor came from behind him.

"I lost the link, Mistress!" Tercius burped and clamped his mouth shut.

“Oh,”

A wave of coldness tingled Tercius' neck and the beast settled in mid-jump. Knowing what was coming Tercius released his telekinetic hold on the ram. He allowed himself to be dragged off into the air and deposited near his Mentor's tent like a little doll. Sitting in a chair, with one hand pointed towards the awkwardly hovering ram and the other holding a book, Mistress Kalina was frowning. The pointing hand slowly came down and the beast's massive frame followed the movement. The ram, suddenly finding itself free again, immediately bolted across the meadow, heading for the cliffside, but neither Mistress Kalina nor Tercius seemed worried about that.

“Maybe you need to be more firm with it? The chapter on proper commands is highlighted as important, see?” Mistress Kalina said.

She waved a book his way. Tercius swallowed the bitter sensation that had reached his mouth as he took the book. The guide was written millennia ago by a Magos Master who had been born into a tribe that had used these same mountain rams as mounts, and the book detailed everything from the way to rear the beasts, keep them healthy, break them in for riding, and more, delving deep into the tools, methods, potions, and skills which would help and make things easier for a tamer with each step of the way. The book proved to be of invaluable help in the past few hours.

Although the guide was mostly made in mind for training newborns of the species, it also had a section delving deeply into taming older wild specimens, which mostly boiled down to repeatedly exploiting two quirks that were especially present with the males of the species in abundance.

“I don’t have the skill that that Master had, Mistress. Besides, this was more about… I felt… It’s…” Tercius closed his eyes and reached towards those last moments of the link. His experience with Familiar Bond helped him to recall and parse through what it was like for the beast and strangely enough, Tercius had a feeling that Language Acquisition was helping him along. “It’s… there’s fear there. A deep, deep… primal one. It was… as if he expected to die and… He had never felt anything like it before but he knew deep down… that he had to shake me off of himself to live…”

Tercius opened his eyes and looked at his Mentor. “I suppose that there could be predators in these mountains that attack by jumping on them. The beasts might be conditioned to act that way.”

One dark eyebrow went up. “You understood that from a simple Teaching bond?”

“There’s nothing simple about it, Mistress. It’s… complex. Difficult to untangle and even recall, but… Let’s just say that I might be good at reading it.”

Mistress Kalina smiled. “Yes, let’s do that,”

Tercius looked away. The woman could smell his evasion as easily as she could mana and her knowing smiles might as well put him under a massive spotlight and a banner that said “He’s hiding something!”. The worst part of it was that he couldn’t deny it, not without lying to her and he wouldn’t do that. Keeping his secrets from his Mentor was one thing, telling a lie to her another.

Adding Quick Learning to Teaching had made the skill a two-way street, with him now being able to get a sense of what exactly his student was struggling with. Furthermore, he could get glimpses of particularly strong emotions, and those of his current student, the ram, were very simple and rampant. The most important result of adding Quick Learning to Teaching was that his students would now have an easier time learning things taught under the influence of the Teaching bond.

The unfortunate side, however, was that Quick Learning was lost to him for a while. That would impact his daily life in many small and large ways. He had gotten used to the skill’s powerful memory retention and recollection capability…

“Here it comes again,” Mistress Kalina pointed at the distance.

Far in the grassy distance a gray blimp had turned around and was now moving towards them.  Tercius smiled, showing all his teeth. Here he comes again indeed.

Tercius gave his Mentor her book back and then he sprang from his spot. A refreshing sensation ran up his legs, torso, and into his lungs as Running enhanced him. Keeping his breathing regular, Tercius' legs ate up the distance, and opposite to him the mound of lean muscles grew with each passing second, small clumps of green and brown spraying behind it. Both of them were going for a head-on collision and seemed eager for it.

As the charging ram came straight at him, Tercius reached for Spring of Crystal Thoughts. His mana fell slowly as he collected an invisible mass of telekinetic force around and behind himself. Then the beast was upon him and Tercius pulled at the force with all he had. The telekinetic force he collected was forced into the shape of a plate, a thick, glowing barrier of white appearing right between the curled horns of the massive beast. A deep thud and a crack of glass were heard, as a spray of earth and grass showered around Tercius. He squinted as a sharp sensation cut across his mind and the physical impact shook his bones.

A jagged crater appeared on the glass-like barrier but his mana flowed away and the damage repaired itself rapidly, the sharp headache disappearing along with the cracks. The massive ram shook his head and snorted repeatedly, its large soulful eyes blinking as its rectangular irises narrowed and expanded.

“Want to try again?” Tercius asked.

The ram bleated weakly his way and Tercius smiled. He knew what that weak bleat meant. The connection of Teaching extended itself towards the beast and Tercius could feel that the beast was calm again.

According to the guide, butting heads was the recommended way of asserting dominance and getting the beast to consider him as an… equal of sorts. Well, equal might not be the right word.

What butting heads did was that it activated some kind of conditioned response of a competitive part of the beast and constantly winning that competition showed the beast who was on top and that, well, it made things easier for Tercius. The most important part for Tercius was winning the exchange in a rather decisive manner, which in turn made the beast think of him as some kind of a mentor figure rather than competition, or at least the guide's writer thought so. In any case, the giant ram was willing to test himself over and over again and in turn, Tercius got to spend more time with it as a result.

Already Tercius had spent hours with the beast, letting the gray mountain of lean muscles get used to his smell and so on, and things had gone so smoothly that he had been willing to try climbing upon its back.

True, instead of smashing his own skull and brain into a pulp to achieve the results, Tercius had used other abilities he had but the ram did not need to know something like that.

“Did you choose a name?” Mistress Kalina suddenly appeared near him. “It says in the book that naming should be done as soon as possible and then keeping the name consistent through training, and even after training ends, always gives good results… Here, I brought you these,”

Tercius hid a small tremor as he took the large sack from her. How did she always manage to sneak up on him? With one hand he rooted around the bag and took out a branch full of tiny green leaves and strange yellow berries, extending it to the beast. Slowly the ram approached and lowered its head to start munching away at its favorite treat.

“I am oscillating between two,” Tercius said. “One of the first ones I had in mind was Horny. Horny the Ram? It has a nice sound to it…”

Mistress Kalina snorted and gave him a tight smile.

Tercius chuckled as he took out another branch and extended it upwards. “Lucky, it is then. Well, Lucky, you and I shall just have to come to an agreement… or we’ll just bash our heads together and find out whose will crack first…”

Time flew by and Tercius spent the hours simply trying to make the beast more familiar with the sensation of carrying a rider. His first attempts went especially poorly. He had little riding experience himself, so not only was this a learning experience for the beast but it was one for him as well. He had ridden a horse once or twice before, and he had been atop a plowing bull or two when he had been a kid of five or six if that can even be counted, and that was about it.

So, while he gave lessons to Lucky, it was Mistress Kalina who gave lessons on riding to Tercius. He quickly picked up her lessons, her Teaching providing him the knowledge of Mistress Kalina’s own experience on the matter.

To make things even easier on himself, he started using Spring of Crystal Thoughts to make a comfortable saddle. Being close to him, the telekinetic shape was relatively low in mana cost.

He fed Lucky often with his favorite foods and he saw just how much greenery the massive beast could eat. He indulged Lucky’s occasional need to butt heads, which likely served to level up Lucky’s skills or something like that. What made a real difference was Mistress Kalina. His Mentor had made an alchemical ointment that he then used to massage the velvety fur around the base of Lucky’s massive horns. A single ointment-enhanced touch and the massive beast would literally melt into a sleepy puddle. Then, as soon as Tercius was done, Lucky demanded more by lowering its massive head and horns towards Tercius and pushing him.

With some help from the Teaching bond, Tercius had to make it clear to Lucky that the ointment massage was only a reward for work well done, and afterward the beast was even more pliable.

Mistress Kalina also used those berries that Lucky and his kin liked and infused them into salt. Whenever Lucky wanted to take a nap or sleep, Tercius just gave it a little of that salt to lick. That brought him back quickly.

As the evening approached, Tercius had what he counted as his first true success. The ride didn’t last long but it was progress. Then he and Lucky did it once more and again after that. Even though failure remained prevalent, success became more and more common.

Days were long this time of year, the summer just past its peak, and the sun was struggling to completely set behind the western mountains. There was not a single cloud on a sky of pink and red. The lightly forested grassland that they used for training was devastated— the grass trampled, holes dug and stones uncovered, dark brown earth sprayed everywhere.

But they did it.

Tercius slowly patted Lucky’s broad back, praising the fellow for the new record. Ten minutes might seem like nothing, but it was a result of a single day of work. Less even. They had started at midday. Tercius could only shake his head in wonder at it. How much progress would another day bring? What about two days?

Thinking about the passage of days brought with it other questions and worries that he kept only for himself. Tercius sighed. Going to the Temple of Balance of Spheros might have been a mistake. He had learned what he sought, but that knowledge had ended up costing him valuable days. Mistress Kalina's plan might ultimately give him a reasonable explanation for his movement speed across the mountains, and he was grateful to her for it, but… Well, Mistress Kalina seemed perfectly willing to have him spend his days training, and Tercius suspected that she wouldn't say a single contrary word should he choose to forgo this insane path he was on.

Tercius shook his head. No point in spending time dwelling on that now. Focusing on improving himself and Lucky should instead be his primary and only drive in the next few days. The sooner both got into shape, the sooner he would be on his way.

He turned towards the link he had with Lucky, trying to emulate the way he used Familiar Bond with Amber, his faraway familiar. His hands massaged Lucky’s back. The hairs of the ram’s strong back were fine and soft below his palms, and Tercius could feel a rhythmic pulse at the tips of his fingers. The lean muscles and bones of the body on which he sat was steady as a mountain and alive with the constant expansion and contraction of Lucky’s massive ribcage. Tercius’ eyes slowly closed. He reached to develop the connection to a more firm and deeper one, a bond similar to the one he had with—

A yowl pierced the heavens and Tercius felt Lucky’s back tense under his hands. Tercius’ eyes went wide open. Like a wildfire on a windy summer’s day, the Teaching bond that linked him to Lucky grew frantic. Suddenly, Tercius saw the world at a strange angle. Tercius’ eyes widened further as he realized what was going on and what would happen at any moment. What to do? His hands were gripped on the telekinetic saddle below him and Tercius saw a glimmer of salvation there. With a frantic thought, Spring of Crystal Thoughts launched the saddle and him off the beast.

A dull thud and a sharp pain came from the back of his head and then his entire torso suddenly screamed with pain. Then, all pain became about his left foot. Painful darkness consumed him, but then his eyes opened. Nothing seemed right. Blurry greens, yellows, and reds were everywhere he looked, with tiny dark spots swimming across his vision. Half grunting, half whimpering from the pain in his leg, Tercius had no idea what to do now. He was quite sure that it would be advisable not to try moving.

Like a phantom, a murky gray figure appeared above Tercius. “{Numb Pain}! {Paralysis}!” a female voice commanded, Rurds of Magik rolling off her tongue with ease and spilling around her in an invisible wave.

Tercius' body went still like rock and he lost control of himself, the pain fading away.

“Don’t worry, Tercius. I’m here,”

A blurry shadow went over his eyes, a cold sensation following it.

“Tercius… I will need to pull the spells back for a little while. I need you to keep still while I check for a concussion… Are you ready?”

“Ready… Ow.” Tercius’ his entire body was inflamed with a wave of sudden pain, a throbbing headache lodging itself in his skull, one of those that made him squint his eyes and cover his temples with his palms. Mistress Kalina’s cold hands held fast onto the side of his head. His vision started improving and he saw how concerned Mistress Kalina was, the glowing green lanterns that were her eyes unblinkingly looking at his own.

"Your head is bleeding and you have a minor concussion. Your ankle is broken and everything around it is… Well, we'll mend that in half an hour…" Mistress Kalina said. "There will be bruising around your chest, most surely, and some pain as well, but I can deal with all of that with a single potion… I have to say… that was an excellent reaction and well-timed too. A moment later, and I might have had to… Well, it didn't happen so let's not go there,"

“You might say that I got lucky,” he croaked and suddenly chuckled. “Then again, Lucky was the one who almost—”

The aches and pains vanished abruptly and he stopped talking.

“You can joke. That’s good. In any case, this is it for you for today. Come,” Mistress Kalina waved a hand and Tercius found himself floating beside her like some piece of luggage.

From the corner of his eye, he saw that Lucky was still and on the ground. The beast had tried to roll over to its sides, almost squishing Tercius under its considerable bulk, but now there it was, four long legs pointing to the side, one horn stuck in the earth, mouth half-open. The spells had likely hit it too. It was so strange seeing a mountain of lean muscles fall paralyzed from a single word, but then he remembered that his Mentor was a centuries-old Magos, a Mistress Alchemist, and Warder and who knows what else, and beyond that, she was also an Enforcer of the Laws of the Magi, among other Titles. A single word or a gentle wave of a dainty hand from her could form a perfect spell of neutralization such as paralysis or forced sleep, spells which were second nature to her and all her colleagues. After all, Magi who broke the Laws had to be brought back to the Repository and interrogated inside The Chamber of Truth, where even erased memories supposedly came back and spilled all their secrets as easily as turning over a hand.

Mistress Kalina nodded. “You’ll be fine, but I hope you’ve finally seen how fragile you truly are.”

Tercius looked away. “I just… I didn’t expect… that,”

“Tercius, you need to expect far worse than that with where you’re going,” she said. “And I suppose that it’s up to me to make sure that you do.”

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Forbidden from straining himself in any way until the morning, Tercius was first forced to drink an assortment of potions, ending with a sweet one that vaguely tasted of strawberries. Contrary to the vile ones before it, that one made him smack his lips and ask for another. For some reason, Mistress Kalina smiled then refused.

He had to make himself comfortable on a spacious cot inside the massive tent that his Mentor apparently carried in the storage of her Amulet. The tent was enchanted even, the fine gray cloth embroidered with massive, faintly lit runes of red, the carefully arranged arcs, straight lines, and dots of the dozens of pictograms all strange and unreadable, different from the standard runic.

With narrow eyes and a headache behind his temples, Tercius tried to figure out the key that hid the functions of the runes. After a while, he snorted. He might as well have tried searching for a needle in a primeval forest. Key-coding of runes was never done with simple keys even for the most ordinary of enchantments, let alone for a portable tent that an Enforcer of the Laws carried in a little triangular piece of metal worn around her neck. While the key breaking of coded runes was never nor will it ever be a crime– in fact, Magi always needed more people in this branch of magic– the difficulty and time consumed on breaking the key made sure that it was simply much, much easier to earn some currency and buy the blueprints from the Repository.

The world was strange with a concussion. His head, for one, seemed lighter than usual. Slowly, keeping watch of his mended foot, he turned to the side in his cot, looking straight into the gray canvas of the tent.

He closed his eyes and then reached for Meditation to take him away.